CORRESPONDENCE WITH U.S. NSF     

December 2, 2003         

Dear Dr. Verardo,

Thank you for your reply.   Since my earlier email, I've examined data archiving matters more closely and can make a somewhat more specific inquiry.  It seems self-evident that the data and algorithms under pertinent National Science Awards are at a minimum subject to the 1991 USGCRP policy statement and subsequent guidelines, all of which support public access to data and algorithms developed under N.S.F. grants.

I have a particular interest in the data, algorithms and supporting materials developed under National Science Award #:9626833 to Raymond Bradley et al.  The resulting publication was the well-known paper by Mann, Bradley and Hughes in Nature 1998, which stated that 112 proxy series were used in a temperature reconstruction. Ross McKitrick and I recently published an examination of the data used in this paper.  Mann et al. published a response in which they reported that 159 series were used. They also stated that the reconstruction methodology implemented by  McKitrick and myself did not correctly implement the methodology of MBH98. Accordingly, we requested identification of the 159 series now stated to have been used in MBH98 and a copy of the computer program used to collate input data and produce the temperature index in order to effect a reconciliation.  This information has been refused. I am accordingly writing to you.

I note that there was no contemporaneous archiving of the proxy series and programs actually used and Professor Mann's current FTP site now stated to be the data archive only dates from mid-2002. The information at this FTP site does not contain sufficient information to identify the 159 series now said to have been used and does not contain the computer programs sued to generate the temperature index, although it contains several computer programs used to calculate principal components of various tree ring series. Also, after the publication of our paper, some pertinent information was deleted from this FTP site.

Our concern is first and foremost that this and similar data be properly archived in a public location such as the excellent World Data Center for Paleoclimatology and secondly that we be provided access to this information under any applicable authority (e.g. FOI).

Thank you for any assistance which you can provide in this matter.

Yours truly,

Stephen McIntyre