cc: Leopold Haimberger , Karl Taylor , Tom Wigley , John Lanzante , Susan.Solomon@noaa.gov, Melissa Free , peter gleckler , Phil Jones , Thomas R Karl , Steve Klein , Carl Mears , Doug Nychka , Gavin Schmidt , Steve Sherwood , Frank Wentz , "David C. Bader" date: Thu, 04 Dec 2008 17:51:56 -0800 from: Ben Santer subject: Many thanks! to: Peter Thorne 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 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------