date: Tue, 13 Jan 2009 08:16:50 +1300
from: "Glenn McGregor" <g.mcgregor@auckland.ac.nz>
subject: Re: JOC-08-0245 - Decision on Manuscript
to: <P.Jones@uea.ac.uk>

   Phil
   Thanks for your response and willingness for me to get a third opinion.
   I will get onto this straight away as soon as I am back from walking the dog
   Best for the remaining period of work on UKCIP and your travels
   Glenn
   ----- Original Message -----
   From: P.Jones@uea.ac.uk <P.Jones@uea.ac.uk>
   To: Glenn McGregor
   Sent: Tue Jan 13 08:10:25 2009
   Subject: RE: JOC-08-0245 - Decision on Manuscript
    Glenn,
      At home now. I won't be able to do anything for a
    few weeks, as we have to get the UKCP09 stuff done
    and some travel, so it can't do any harm. So go ahead.
     I do realize you can't read everything.
     I suspect one of the reviewers may have been Semenov.
    If so he is potentially biased, as his group didn't
    win the tender for the work!
      I don't think either reviewer realized the context of the work -
    this may be my fault.
    Cheers
    Phil
   > Dear Phil
   >
   > Thanks for your response to the decision on the WG paper.
   >
   > I am willing to admit that I may have got it wrong as far as the decision
   > goes but you must understand my position. As I am not able to read every
   > paper in detail I have to resort to taking a decision based on the
   > reviews. In this case both were rather negative, hence my decision.
   >
   > Based on your response what I would like to do, with your permission, is
   > to send the paper to a 3rd reviewer and request an opinion within 3 weeks.
   > If you would not like me to pursue this option then please let me know.
   >
   > Needless to say I am very conscious of the fact that you personally have
   > given wonderful service to IJoC and I would hope that this incident does
   > not damage the long term relationship you have with the journal.
   >
   > Best
   > Glenn
   >
   > ________________________________
   >
   > From: Phil Jones [[1]mailto:p.jones@uea.ac.uk]
   > Sent: Tue 13/01/2009 01:25
   > To: Glenn McGregor
   > Cc: C G Kilsby
   > Subject: Re: JOC-08-0245 - Decision on Manuscript
   >
   >
   >
   >   Glenn,
   >      I'm afraid these two reviews will definitely
   > discourage me from submitting more papers
   >   to IJC!  The two reviewers have not realized
   > the novelty of this paper. The WG
   >   is fairly new and we are certainly not
   > re-inventing the wheel! We didn't do an
   >   in-depth literature review because of space. If you were still
   >   in the UK, you'd see this whole UKCIP08 package (now to be called
   > UKCP09)
   >   including this WG coming out in the spring time (April/May).
   >      To give you one example - all the papers referred to by the reviewers
   > only
   >   work at sites with data. The WG in the paper works anywhere in the UK.
   >      We've had the WG Report which will form part of the UKCP09 package
   >   formally reviewed very favourably by three experts in the field.
   >       You've missed a good paper for IJC here! Your reviewers have not
   > read it
   >   carefully enough - nor understood what it was about. Maybe the latter is
   > my
   >   fault, attempting to explain too much in a
   > single paper, but I would have hoped
   >   for something more constructive.
   >
   >      You can ignore this email if you want. I won't be submitting this
   > paper
   >   to IJC again.
   >
   >      On the other paper of mine you rejected a couple of months ago, I'm
   >   going to re-submit that somewhere else now. These reviews were
   > constructive,
   >   especially the positive one - that you chose to
   > ignore. At least the reviewers
   >   understood what the paper was about.
   >
   >   Cheers
   >   Phil
   >
   >
   > At 10:51 12/01/2009, you wrote:
   >>12-Jan-2009
   >>
   >>Dear Prof. Jones
   >>
   >>Manuscript # JOC-08-0245 entitled "Perturbing a
   >>Weather Generator using factors developed from
   >>Regional Climate Model simulations" which you
   >>submitted to the International Journal of
   >>Climatology, has been reviewed.  The comments of
   >>the referee(s), all of whom are leading
   >>international experts in this field, are
   >>included at the bottom of this letter. If the
   >>reviewer submitted comments as an attachment
   >>this will only be visible via your Author
   >>Centre. It will not be attached to this email.
   >>Log in to Manuscript Central, go to your Author
   >>Centre, find your manuscript in the "Manuscripts
   >>with Decisions" queue. Click on the Decision
   >>Letter link. Within the Decision letter is a
   >>further link to the reviewer attachment.
   >>
   >>In view of the comments of the referee(s) your
   >>manuscript has been denied publication in the
   >>International Journal of Climatology.
   >>
   >>Thank you for considering the International
   >>Journal of Climatology for the publication of
   >>your research.  I hope the outcome of this
   >>specific submission will not discourage you from submitting future
   >> manuscripts.
   >>
   >>Sincerely,
   >>
   >>Prof. Glenn McGregor
   >>Editor, International Journal of Climatology
   >>g.mcgregor@auckland.ac.nz
   >>
   >>NOTE FROM EDITOR
   >>I have taken the above decision as there appears
   >>to be a number of problems with the paper
   >>including a deficient review of the literature,
   >>few innovative aspects and a lack of analysis
   >>rigour. Sorry I could not be more positive.
   >>===========================
   >>
   >>Referee(s)' Comments to Author:
   >>
   >>Referee: 1
   >>Comments to the Author
   >>The paper describes how to link a weather
   >>generator, which was developed and published by
   >>the authors, with predictions from the regional
   >>climate model to provide end-users with daily
   >>climate scenarios for impact assessments as a
   >>part of the UKCIP08 project. This manuscript has major flaws.
   >>1. The problem of linking WG with the output of
   >>global or regional climate models (GCM/RegCM) to
   >>generate daily climate scenarios required by
   >>process-based impact models is not new. Wilks
   >>(1992) described the method of linking the WGEN
   >>weather generator based on a Markov chain model
   >>for precipitation with climate predictions
   >>derived from GCM. In Barrow et al (1996), a
   >>methodology of linking the LARS-WG weather
   >>generator based on series approach with HadCM2
   >>was described and used in the European project
   >>on the assessment of climate change on
   >>agriculture in Europe. From 2002, high
   >>resolution daily site-specific climate scenarios
   >>based on LARS-WG and HadRM3 (UKCIP02)
   >>predictions were available for the academic
   >>community to study impact of climate change in
   >>the UK (Semenov, 2007). A similar work has been
   >>done for the Met&Rol generator in Check Republic
   >>(Dubrovsky et al, 2004). None of this works has
   >>been cited, and their manuscript authors are trying to "rediscoverEthe
   >> wheel.
   >>
   >>2. The methodology of assessing the performance
   >>of WG is well established. Statistical tests are
   >>used to compare probability distributions of
   >>observed and simulated weather variables (e.g.
   >>the K-S test), the t-test and f-test are used to
   >>compare observed and simulated means and
   >>variances, the extreme values theory is used to
   >>assess how well WG reproduces weather extreme
   >>events (Semenov et al, 1998, Qian et al 2004,
   >>2008; Kesley et al, 2005; Semenov, 2008). In
   >>this paper, authors used a "visualEcomparison
   >>to compare observed and simulated means by
   >>plotting data points on a graph. This is
   >>unacceptable, because no objective conclusions
   >>can be derived from such comparison. Proper
   >>statistical tests must be used instead.
   >>I recommend to reject this manuscript, it is
   >>well below the standard acceptable in IJC or any
   >>other refereed journals. The manuscript did not
   >>contribute to the area of research, and the
   >>methodology used for comparison is "naiveEand
   >>unaccepted in scientific publications.
   >>==============================
   >>
   >>Referee: 2
   >>Comments to the Author
   >>All comments to the Author are found in the attached file.
   >
   > Prof. Phil Jones
   > Climatic Research Unit        Telephone +44 (0) 1603 592090
   > School of Environmental Sciences    Fax +44 (0) 1603 507784
   > University of East Anglia
   > Norwich                          Email    p.jones@uea.ac.uk
   > NR4 7TJ
   > UK
   > ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
   >
   >
   >
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