Hi Mike. I am sure you will get some comments direct from Mike Rae in WWF Australia, but I wanted to pass on the gist of what they have said to me so far. They are worried that this might present a slightly more conservative approach to the risks than they are hearing from CSIRO. In particular, they would like to see the section on variability and extreme events beefed up if possible.

The other paper by MM is just garbage—as you know. De Freitas again. Pielke is also losing credibility as well by replying to the mad Finn as well—frequently as I see it. I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow—even if we have to redefine what peer review literature is!

One approach is to go direct to the publishers and point out the fact that the journal is perceived as being a medium for disseminating misinformation under the guise of refereed work. I would use the word ‘perceived’ here, since whether it is true or not is what the publishers care about.

The fact is, we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we cannot. The series data publishing in the August BAMS 09 supplement 2008 shows that there should be even more warming: but the data is surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate.

So once again there is a blip in temperature that they don’t find convenient. If we could reduce the ocean blip by, say, 0.15 degrees Celsius, then this would be significant for the global mean—but we’d still have to explain the land blip.