cc: Leopold Haimberger <leopold.haimberger@univie.ac.at>, Karl Taylor <taylor13@llnl.gov>, Tom Wigley <wigley@cgd.ucar.edu>, John Lanzante <John.Lanzante@noaa.gov>, Susan.Solomon@noaa.gov, Melissa Free <melissa.free@noaa.gov>, peter gleckler <gleckler1@llnl.gov>, Phil Jones <p.jones@uea.ac.uk>, Thomas R Karl <Thomas.R.Karl@noaa.gov>, Steve Klein <klein21@mail.llnl.gov>, Carl Mears <mears@remss.com>, Doug Nychka <nychka@ucar.edu>, Gavin Schmidt <gschmidt@giss.nasa.gov>, Steve Sherwood <Steven.Sherwood@yale.edu>, Frank Wentz <frank.wentz@remss.com>, "David C. Bader" <bader2@llnl.gov>
date: Thu, 04 Dec 2008 17:51:56 -0800
from: Ben Santer <santer1@llnl.gov>
subject: Many thanks!
to: Peter Thorne <peter.thorne@metoffice.gov.uk>

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Dear folks,

Thank you for your support and advice. Both are greatly appreciated.

The Director of PCMDI (Dave Bader) has responded by email to the U.S. 
DOE official who accused me of tarnishing Lawrence Livermore National 
Laboratory's scientific reputation. LLNL's Associate Director of 
Physical and Life Sciences (Bill Goldstein) has also responded to the 
DOE official in question. While I am not privy to the full content of 
these communications, I believe their general tenor is that:

1) Steven McIntyre's blog should not be considered a source of reliable 
information on climate science issues;

2) The primary model and observational used in our International Journal 
of Climatology (IJoC) paper are freely available to any researcher, 
including Mr. McIntyre. If Mr. McIntyre is truly interested in 
replicating the calculations performed in our IJoC paper, and 
determining whether our conclusions were justified, he has all of the 
information necessary to do so.

Given the Lab's response, and after careful consideration of your 
advice, I have decided that I will NOT seek to publish a letter in 
Nature or Science, outlining my position on Mr. McIntyre's requests for 
"climate model time series". Anything I write would be viewed by some as 
a self-serving attempt to "promote" our IJoC paper. As several of you 
have pointed out, there is also the real danger that focusing further 
public attention on this issue would exacerbate an already difficult 
situation.

The irony here is that I do not seek or enjoy public attention. I am 
happiest when I'm in my office, simply doing science. I had hoped that, 
after expending a lot of time and energy on the response to Douglass et 
al., our IJoC paper would be published, and I could simply continue with 
my life and scientific career.

That was an incredibly naive expectation. You would think that I'd be a 
bit smarter by now. The MSU issue has assumed iconic status for those 
who deny the reality of human effects on climate. No scientific evidence 
that we could provide - no matter how compelling - will ever alter the 
views of S. Fred Singer, Steven McIntyre, David Douglass, and John 
Christy. They need to preserve the icon.

I still think that there is a need for some public airing of the issues 
raised by Steven McIntyre's Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. 
We are seeing a pattern of behavior here - a pattern that began with Mr. 
McIntyre's "auditing" of Mike Mann, and then continued with 
investigations of Phil Jones, Jim Hansen, and Gavin Schmidt. Yesterday 
it Mr. McIntyre audited the hockey stick; today it's the GISS and CRU 
temperature datasets, and our comparison of modeled and observed 
temperature trends. Mr. McIntyre is not using FOIA requests as a vehicle 
for true scientific discovery. He does not seek to understand what we 
did, and why we did it. He has no interest in rational scientific 
debate. His intent is purely destructive - to suck us into a 
never-ending stream of requests for data, programs, explanations, 
emails, and even more data.

I fully endorse the idea of writing a commentary on this matter in 
Nature or Science. That commentary should be written by someone outside 
the main circle of protagonists; by someone who can look at these issues 
a lot more dispassionately than I can. The commentary should cover the 
issue of what is - and what is not - legitimate game for FOIA requests.

The commentary should also address the issue of how one determines the 
"reproducibility" of a scientist's results. Is it reasonable for 
Scientist B (or Citizen C) to request all of Scientist A's data, 
programs, experimental apparatus, etc., in order to replicate Scientist 
A's results? Should the "auditing" of Scientist A be done on Scientist 
B's publicly-accessible blog, in the 21st century equivalent of a public 
hanging? Who audits the auditor, and determines whether Scientist B or 
Citizen C has the expertise necessary to conduct a fair and impartial 
investigation of Scientist A's data, methods, and findings?

I'm very angry about the events that have unfolded after publication of 
our paper, but have to find some way to "move on". I'm hopeful that I'll 
now be able to return to my research. That's all I want to do.

Once again, many thanks for all your support and wise counsel. They mean 
a lot to me.

With best regards,

Ben
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Benjamin D. Santer
Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
P.O. Box 808, Mail Stop L-103
Livermore, CA 94550, U.S.A.
Tel:   (925) 422-3840
FAX:   (925) 422-7675
email: santer1@llnl.gov
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