2005: IPCC reviewer Peter Thorne writes a comment that strikes at the very heart of the worst scientific fraud in history; Phil Jones complains; Met Office's Chris Folland apologizes

Email 1516

Dear Phil I am sorry that Peter was so aggressive rather than just sharp. Not really like that as you know. I think he got overenthusiastic because of the nature of some of the CCSP exchanges on vertical temperature trends between other scientists which have not helped the cause of gentlemanly conduct or clear thinking for that matter. Not a good example! The job of an IPCC reviewer at the ZOD stage is to make positive suggestions to help the Strawman along and not to be too critical. In the IPCC TAR at the ZOD stage we were fortunate that this was realised, though we did try and create this atmosphere in covering emails. I will have a look at the chapter soon. Cheers Chris Professor Chris Folland
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[Peter Thorne] There is little effective communication in the main text of the uncertainty that is inherent in these measures due to the poor quality of the underlying data and metadata and to the choices made - "structural uncertainty". It seems that a decision has been made that RSS and the Fu et al. method are "right" or at least "most right" and this is what we will put forward as gospel truth almost. Other datasets are given a cursory once over almost. This completely ignores legitimate concerns that "structural uncertainty" is large aloft - seemingly reasonable choices made as to how you homogenise and then analyse the data can have very large effects. This is not at all clearly communicated in the current draft.