Below are Peter Gallagher’s thoughts on the reviews of the submission to AMM. Contrast this with ac’s impressions that “To my reading the reviewer’s criticisms are reasonable and pertinent.” It goes to show, that reasonable and unrelated people can see things in different ways. Where is the resolvability of fact in the review process? Consensus?

Hi David,

Thanks for sending me these papers.

Reading the reviews, it seems to me that your submission has been poorly understood by the reviewers (or not properly characterized by the editor). The reviewers have treated it as though it were an academic journal review rather than as a ‘note’ or ‘commentary’.

Also, consciously or not, they have ignored a crucial dimension of the DECR report: its role in the policy dialog (or ‘fit up’) on Exceptional Circumstances drought relief.

This is a categorical mistake: like reading the Christian gospels as a biography.

In the full context of the DECR, the narrowness of your focus is entirely justified and the nature of your references and footnotes irrelevant. What matters is the accuracy of your criticisms of the conclusions that have been picked up and magnified by the Prime Minister.

Your paper seems to me to demonstrate your points:

(a) The models on which the DECR relies have no ‘skill’ in reproducing rainfall records and therefore are completely inadequate as the basis for projections.

(b) The melding of observations and projections in the DECR report has been obscured ( a ‘Harry-Gill’ error?)

(c) The reliance only on the 10th percentile scenario (and it’s re-labeling as the ‘high’ scenario) in the summary seems actually misleading in view of the mean results across all scenarios.

(I’m amused by the self-satisfaction in one review: We don’t need external reviews because our own are top notch in our view).

Kind regards,

Peter Gallagher