Steve, set the Wayback Machine to October 29, 2003

UPDATE: N3xus6 says it in pictures. Ear tip to Deltoid

As some of you may know Steve Mc has thrown a hissy fit about how Gavin Schmidt didn't stay up Christmas Eve to allow Steve's comments through on Real Climate post haste. Eli was involved in this because he had noted in a discussion about comments in journals that

FWIW, journal editors have the role of bringing the maximum information to the readers not acting as judges between the parties with the sole and vital exception that they must make an editorial decision that the the correction is worthy of consideration. It is all to easy in a controversy to try and cut it off (which is the mistake that the editor here made), but I see nothing wrong with showing the information to the original authors for their comments. There is no “deadline to meet” and the process takes as long as it takes. That does not mean that when one of the parties starts sprouting nonsense the editor cannot rule the nonsense offsides, or cut off the process when no new information is being added.

I have been on both sides of this, and consider myself fortunate in the editors that handled the situations. I have, through the guidance of those editors, learned a lot about these situations. A word of advice to those submitting comments - keep it short, only comment on things you definitely can prove.

There was a bit more, but RC cut a paragraph because Steve was whining (UPDATE #2)

In the same RC thread, NASA employee and spokesman Gavin Schmidt published a defamatory statement by Eli Rabett, in which Rabett simply invented an account of the original submission by M&M to Nature and then censored my reply to the defamatory statement, which stated: adding in a paragraph that was edited

The Mc’s submitted a garbage can full of issues and the editors at Nature worked to define what was an error, what was a controversy, and what was just silly, all requiring a voluminous correspondence. I guess that the editors told the Mcs that some of their issues were better dealt with in a submitted paper.

Steve claims that

All these statements are untrue.

We submitted a short and clearly written article to Nature, online here which did not require a “voluminous” or even any correspondence to review.

Well you can go read climate audit for more of this at the UPDATE #2 link, but Steve, start the Wayback Machine and let us go to your Climate2003 site where we read

The Audit and Audit Issues

The errors in the data base is here at the audit page. The following audit questions [to the authors of MBH98] summarize the findings and a response to these questions is what is required to resolve the audit issues. Further questions may arise from the responses to these questions.

1. Does the database contain truncations of series 10, 11 and 100? (and of the version of series 65 used by MBH98)?

2. Are the 1980 values of series #73 through #80 identical to 7 decimal places? Similarly for the 1980 values of series #81-83? And for the 1980 values of series #84 and #90-92? What is the reason for this?

3. Where are the calculations of principal components for series in the range #73-92 that would show that these have been collated into the correct year? Do you have any working papers that show these, and if so, would you make them FTP or otherwise publicly available?

4. Do the following series contain "fills": #3, #6, #45, #46, #50-#52, #54-#56, #58, #93-#99?

5. How did you deal with missing closing data in the following series: #11, #102, #103, #104, #106 and #112?

6. What is the source for your data for series #37 (precipitation in grid-box 42.5N, 72.5W)? Did you use the data from Jones-Bradley Paris, France and if so, in which series? More generally, please provide, identifications of the exact Jones-Bradley locations for each of the series #21-42. Where are the original source data?

7. Did you use summer (JJA) data for series #10 and #11 rather than annual data. If so, why?

8. Does your dataset contain obsolete data for the following series: #1, #2, #3, #6, #7, #8, #9, #21, #23, #27, #28, #30, #35, #37, #43, #51, #52, #54, #55, #56, #58, #65, #105 and #112?

9. Do you use the following listed proxies: fran003, ital015, ital015x, spai026 and spai047? If so, where?

10. Did you commence your calculation of principal components after the period in which all dataset members were available for the following series: #69-71, #91-92, #93-95, #96-99?

11. What is the basis for inclusion of some tree ring sites within a region in regional principal component calculations and others as individual dataset components?

12. Did you commence your calculation of principal components before the period in which all dataset members were available for the following series: #72-80, #84-90? If so, please describe your methodology for carrying out these calculations in the presence of missing data and your justification for doing so?

13. What is the explained variance under your principal component calculation for the period of availability of all members of your selected dataset? Would you please make your working papers that show this FTP or otherwise publicly available?

which is a lot more than what made it into the manuscript that M&M submitted to Nature in Fall 04. Many of these are multiple issues. In addition to the manuscript M&M also made a Materials Complaint to Nature (UPDATE: found it. The link now points there. The whole bowl of spaghetti) the text of which Eli does not have. All of these issues were, at a minimum raised by McIntyre and McKitrick in the Energy and Environment 03 paper. We now will have a back and forth about how much of this the editors at Nature were confronted with. Of course they could not possibly have known about any of the E&E stuff and those claims.

Our experience with complaints to the editor is that they take some time and involve multiple discussions, Emails, etc. McMMV but probably not

Eli submits this is a garbage can full of issues and Steve Mc is a drama queen