Phil Jones again mentions his "gut feeling" a couple of times, also says "What the temperature was or wasn't over the millennium doesn't influence politicians" and "No natural archives ensure an accurate reconstruction"

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The German Nature correspondent who called yesterday (he said he would send back any quotes he'll use today or tomorrow) wanted to make a big thing of IPCC and MBH, but I kept on saying to him that this isn't the point. IPCC isn't the issue here and you seem to have been taken in by the skeptic media hype on this. What the temperature was or wasn't over the millennium doesn't influence politicians and has nothing whatsoever to do with Kyoto, which was written before MBH98 came out. I also feel that you've gone overboard about tree-ring standardization. Problems exist with all other proxies, it is just that dendro types are more open about these. No natural archives ensure an accurate reconstruction - this is your phrase (accurate reconstruction) but for all measures I know trees are the most widespread proxy and the second best (behind documentary) with all these measures. I believe that the dating errors in some of the low-frequency series you've used are too intolerable to be used. It is also virtually impossible to show whether they do respond to past temperature variations. As with all Nature figures, the plots are so small it is difficult to make the series out. Ch 6 of the current IPCC AR4 draft has plots of all the possible series (proxy on one series of plots and model simulations on another). Tim Osborn here has produced the plot. In the next month or so, it would be good if you could send your series to Tim (and also to me) and he can add it to the plot for the next draft. I reckon your plot would look very like Esper's series, but would go back to AD 1. Over the period from 1 to AD 900 your plot, MJ and Keith's series from QSJ in 2000 would be at much the same level. The whole issue is about the amplitude over the last 1000 years. Maybe your series will be in the supplementary information ? By the way on the model simulation plot, it is the ECHO-G model that is at odds with all the other models, especially with the new NCAR GCM simulation. I would be careful about ECHO-G. DMI have run the same model with slightly different forcing from 1500 and get quite a different NH series. Finally, the other thing that I know is wrong with your series is that is just has to be too low in the 1500-1750 period. I need to do lots more work to prove this, but this is my gut feeling. ...Your level in the period 900-1100 is much closer to what my gut feeling is to as where it should be[Phil Jones]