From: "Burgess Jacquelin Prof \(ENV\)" <Jacquie.Burgess@uea.ac.uk>
To: "Jones Philip Prof \(ENV\)" <P.Jones@uea.ac.uk>
Subject: RE: Possible problem looming
Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2007 14:40:59 +0100

Thanks Phil, 
I will keep your email and hope we don't have to mobilise.  This is very
close to harassment, isn't it. 
Jacquie

-----Original Message-----
From: Phil Jones [mailto:p.jones@uea.ac.uk] 
Sent: 11 September 2007 14:06
To: Burgess Jacquelin Prof (ENV)
Cc: Mcgarvie Michael Mr (ACAD)
Subject: Possible problem looming


  Jacquie,
      I've been in discussion with Michael over the past several months
about a
  number of Freedom of Information (FOI) requests for CRU data. I've 
responded to
  one and will be responding to another in the next few days. Michael
  suggested I bring you up to speed on the issue. To cut a very long
  story short, I'm attaching 3 things that relate to what's happened
since
  responding to the first request.

  1. A paper from 1990 by me and others in Nature. The request was for
  the station data from the rural station networks in the three 
regions studied.

  This led to a person in London (Douglas Keenan) putting some 
material on his website
  claiming fraud against one of the co-authors on the paper (Wei-Chyung
  Wang of the State University of Albany, SUNY, in NY, USA).  He then
  put an allegation of fraud into SUNY against Wang. SUNY are dealing
  with this - not quickly, but I have seen Wang's response.

  2. Keenan then submitted a paper (attached) to the world's worst
journal,
  Energy and Environment. According to Wang this is in breach of an
agreement
  with SUNY not to do anything whilst the allegation is being dealt
with.
  According to Wang, SUNY have told Keenan this.

  I was sent the paper to comment on the factual allegations in the 
paper. After
  discussing this with Wang (who informed SUNY) I sent 9 comments.

  3. My comments - with Keenan's responses embedded within (this is 
the new bit for you Michael).
  I have subsequently told the E&E guest editor that Keenan's 
response to my point
  # 5 is wrong. I sent him Tao et al. (1991) so he can see 
this.  Keenan's response to my point 7
  illustrates his arrogance.

  I have loads more background to all this, and it has taken some time
over the
  last few weeks and months in responding.

    You are now partly up to speed on the issue. I'm away next week.
  I don't know when E&E might publish, nor when the SUNY review
  process (which is being dealt with by their Director of Research) will
  conclude. Wang and I both know that the allegations are groundless,
  but it is likely it will not look good when it first comes out.  This
is just
  another of the attempts by climate skeptics to get the public and the
  media thinking that there is disagreement amongst scientists and that
  we shouldn't be doing anything about global warming.  I will be
discussing
  this with some IPCC people when I meet them in early October.

  Cheers
  Phil




Phil,

Thanks for forwarding this. I am shocked about this - if a formal review
is underway at the University of Albany it is surely improper to publish
a paper in a journal about the matter!

I suggest that you alert Jacquie Burgess to this, as the new Head of
School.

I would like to suggest that we ask Dave Palmer to comment on the events
on the FOIA request - I don't think I fully agree with the story
presented here. Do you agree?

I also think we should alert the Press Office in due course.

Regards

Michael

Michael McGarvie
Senior Faculty Manager
Faculty of Science
Room 0.22C
University of East Anglia
Norwich NR4 7TJ
tel: 01603 593229
fax: 01603 593045
m.mcgarvie@uea.ac.uk


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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