From: Steve McIntyre

Sent: March 4, 2004 12:19 PM

To: Langenberg, Heike

Cc: Ross McKitrick; Ziemelis, Karl

Subject: Re: Your materials complaint regarding MBH98

Thank you very much for your email of last week concerning various issues in respect to Mann et al. (1998). While we believe that the proposed corrections/revisions are important steps, we do not agree with many comments made in Professor Mann's response and intend to reply to them. We also have a few procedural questions:

(1) Do you have any planned date for publication of the correction?

(2) Will the correction include an acknowledgment by Nature that it is in response to our work? While we recognize that Nature's policies do not mandate such acknowledgement, neither do they preclude it. Some acknowledgment of our work would be nice, as otherwise there is not much incentive to engage in this sort of service to the scientific community.

(3) We are concerned that Professor Mann may use the occasion of a printed response to engage in controversy with our previous criticism of MBH98, as he has done in his response to you. Obviously, such controversy is distinguishable from corrections of inaccuracies in MBH98. We would like an opportunity to reply to any such controversy.

(4) Is there any confidentiality attached to your decision? Do you have any objections to our telling others of this decision?

(5) Will we be given a chance to inspect the new SI prior to its publication to verify that the existing discrepancies and problems have been resolved?

(6) Do you have any schedule for when the new SI is expected to be ready?

Thanks for your attention to this matter.

Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick