- Bishop Hill blog

In email number 1092418712, we see Phil Jones invited to review a paper by sceptics McKitrick and Michaels. The email is from the editor of the International Journal of Climatology, Andrew Comrie.

===== Original Message From "Andrew Comrie" <comrie@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
=====
Dear Prof. Jones,

IJOC040512 "A Socioeconomic Fingerprint on the Spatial Distribution of
Surface Air Temperature Trends"
Authors: RR McKitrick & PJ Michaels
Target review date: July 5, 2004

I know you are very busy, but do you have the time to review the above manuscript for the International Journal of Climatology? If yes, can you complete the review within about five to six weeks, say by the target review date listed above? I will send the manuscript electronically...

Jones replies that he will do it. Some time passes and we gather that with the review complete, Jones is now sending the paper to Mann. Mann replies as follows:

At 08:11 13/08/2004 -0400, you wrote:

Thanks a bunch Phil,

Along lines as my other email, would it be (?) for me to forward this to the chair of our commitee confidentially, and for his internal purposes only, to help bolster the case against MM??

let me know...

thanks,

mike

So if I'm understanding this correctly, there is a formally convened committee of some kind for making the case against sceptics. This sounds a bit like a conspiracy theory, but I'm struggling to put another interpretation on these words. (As an aside, that question mark in the first line is strange too.)

Jones replies:

Mike,
I'd rather you didn't. I think it should be sufficient to forward the para from Andrew Conrie's email that says the paper has been rejected by all 3 reviewers. You can say that the paper was an extended and updated version of that which appeared in CR. Obviously, under no circumstances should any of this get back to Pielke.

Cheers

Phil

This is all very odd. What has Pielke got to do with it? Was he one of the other reviewers? It's anyone's guess.

But above all who are "our committee".