Two days ago I posted on this story in this blog related to APS opening up debate on climate change. It appears Lord Monckton did in fact have his paper, Climate Sensitivity Reconsidered, reviewed by APS, and he drafted revisions per that review, after which the paper was accepted by APS for publication. Yesterday, APS put this disclaimer in red over the paper on their website:
The following article has not undergone any scientific peer review. Its conclusions are in disagreement with the overwhelming opinion of the world scientific community. The Council of the American Physical Society disagrees with this article’s conclusions.
Monckton writes:
This seems discourteous. I had been invited to submit the paper; I had submitted it; an eminent Professor of Physics had then scientifically reviewed it in meticulous detail; I had revised it at all points requested, and in the manner requested; the editors had accepted and published the reviewed and revised draft (some 3000 words longer than the original) and I had expended considerable labor, without having been offered or having requested any honorarium.
(h/t: David L. Hagen)
More excerpts from the blog Uncommon Descent are below:
PeerGate review scandal at American Physical Society
The American Physical Society alleged that Lord Monckton’s paper Climate Sensitivity Reconsidered was not peer reviewed when Monckton in fact thoroughly revised his paper in response to APS peer review. Monckton immediately demanded retraction, accountability and an apology.
The Editor of the American Physical Society’s Forum on Physics and Society launched a debate on global warming, inviting Lord Monckton to submit a paper for the opposition. After news that a major scientific organization was holding a debate on IPCC’s global warming, someone at the APS posted an indirect front page disclamation plus two very bold red disclamations in the Forum’s contents, and into the paper itself:
————————-
Climate Sensitivity Reconsidered
The following article has not undergone any scientific peer review. Its conclusions are in disagreement with the overwhelming opinion of the world scientific community. The Council of the American Physical Society disagrees with this article’s conclusions.
By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley . . .”
————————-
Alleging that a Peer of the Realm violated scientific peer review – when in fact Lord Monckton had spent substantial effort responding to the APS’s peer review – is just not done! As circulated by Dr. Benny Peiser to CCNet, and as noted by Dennis T. Avery at ICECAP,Lord Monckton responded immediately, emphatically demanding redress and an apology as follows:
—————————
Lord Monckton’s letter in response to APS web page statement:
19 July 2008
The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley
Carie, Rannoch, PH17 2QJ, UK
Arthur Bienenstock, Esq., Ph.D.,
President, American Physical Society,
Wallenberg Hall,
450 Serra Mall, Bldg 160,
Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA 94305.
By email to artieb@slac.stanford.edu
Dear Dr. Bienenstock,
Physics and Society
The editors of Physics and Society, a newsletter of the American Physical Society, invited me to submit a paper for their July 2008 edition explaining why I considered that the warming that might be expected from anthropogenic enrichment of the atmosphere with carbon dioxide might be significantly less than the IPCC imagines.
I very much appreciated this courteous offer, and submitted a paper. The commissioning editor referred it to his colleague, who subjected it to a thorough and competent scientific review. I was delighted to accede to all of the reviewer’s requests for revision (see the attached reconciliation sheet). Most revisions were intended to clarify for physicists who were not climatologists the method by which the IPCC evaluates climate sensitivity – a method which the IPCC does not itself clearly or fully explain. The paper was duly published, immediately after a paper by other authors setting out the IPCC’s viewpoint. Some days later, however, without my knowledge or consent, the following appeared, in red, above the text of my paper as published on the website of Physics and Society:
“The following article has not undergone any scientific peer review. Its conclusions are in disagreement with the overwhelming opinion of the world scientific community. The Council of the American Physical Society disagrees with this article’s conclusions.”
This seems discourteous. I had been invited to submit the paper; I had submitted it; an eminent Professor of Physics had then scientifically reviewed it in meticulous detail; I had revised it at all points requested, and in the manner requested; the editors had accepted and published the reviewed and revised draft (some 3000 words longer than the original) and I had expended considerable labor, without having been offered or having requested any honorarium.
Please either remove the offending red-flag text at once or let me have the name and qualifications of the member of the Council or advisor to it who considered my paper before the Council ordered the offending text to be posted above my paper; a copy of this rapporteur’s findings and ratio decidendi; the date of the Council meeting at which the findings were presented; a copy of the minutes of the discussion; and a copy of the text of the Council’s decision, together with the names of those
present at the meeting. If the Council has not scientifically evaluated or formally considered my paper, may I ask with what credible scientific justification, and on whose authority, the offending text asserts primo, that the paper had not been scientifically reviewed when it had; secundo, that its conclusions disagree with what is said (on no evidence) to be the “overwhelming opinion of the world scientific community”; and, tertio, that “The Council of the American Physical Society disagrees with this article’s conclusions”? Which of my conclusions does the Council disagree with, and on what scientific grounds (if any)?
Having regard to the circumstances, surely the Council owes me an apology?
Yours truly,
THE VISCOUNT MONCKTON OF BRENCHLEY
———————————–
Monckton’s demand for redress and an apology from the APS is being picked up on the internet.
How will the American Physical Society respond to Lord Monckton’s procedural and scientific gauntlets?
As of noon on Saturday July 20, 2008, the offending paragraph in the table of contents had been removed. However, this offending paragraph was still very much evident in Monckton’s paper Climate Sensitivity Revisited. It was also evident in the Forum’s full PDF of its July, 2008 newsletter Physics and Society Vol 37, No 3, p 6.
The APS’s PeerGate scandal may well prove to provide much greater publicity and serious examination of Monckton’s thesis than if the disclaimers had never been posted. It also exposes the superficiality of statements by executives of the American Physical Society and other scientific organizations supporting the IPCC’s global warming. Those statements were typically not submitted to the rank and file for scientific peer review, nor were they typically voted on by the rank and file. Whatever will come out of this PeerGate Scandal?
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As a member of the APS for over 20 years, this is about as low as I’ve seen this once great organization sink. I’ve been noticing the smell of PC-ness over the last few years in the APS Bulletin and some have commented on the political nature of some of the articles, but they keep coming.
I just sent off an email to APS expressing my disgust with this cute little red paragraph, but I’m not one of the big guns, so I assume it will be ignored. Ijust hope some of the bigger names in APS who also happen to be signers of the petitionproject, http://www.petitionproject.org chime in.
I once thought my profession was immune as we are ultimately accountable to Nature in our work, but I guess I was wrong.
It is very difficult to prove a negative. I believe the onus should be on the APS to prove that there HAS been any “global warming” over the past 10 years. I have seen no data that suggests that there has been.
If one paper needs a red notice that it was not peer reviewed, shouldn’t the other paper also have the same notice? Shouldn’t all the APS papers which had similar treatment be given red notices?
Shouldn’t all APS papers also have notices whether the APS agrees with the paper?
Reply: BINGO~Charles the moderator
Even if the paper gets “torn to shreds” the debate will be on. It should provoke more creative insight into the climate process and reveal areas requiring more concerted study and better data. Kudos to Lord Moncton.
Thank you Monckton of Brenchley. The skeptic community deeply appreciates your efforts.
Monckton of Brenchley —thank you so much for all you do as well. You fight the good fight much as Winston.
In the past when I wanted to complement somebody for an unusual act of kindness, or friendliness, I would say semi seriously: ” Thank you. You are truly a Gentleman and a Scholar” Never have I come across anybody, who personifies these virtues better than Lord Monckton
On the other hand, Monckton has released papers making this argument before which have been pulled apart on RC and described as “Bafflingly bad physics” by Moinbot.
Monckton seems to have a poor track record which might be why it’s being treated like this.
Sam Vilain, so does that make Lord Monckton’s papers any worse than Mann’s with bafflingly bad statistics? Is Monbiot a scientist?
I’ll accept the label “Skeptic” as sort of a badge of honor, but what I am is a Realist. I used to believe. I checked out the science and evidence, examined the credibility and motives of the major players ON MY OWN (without someone telling me where to look), and now absolutely disbelieve.
At 44 I’m old enough to remember the cooling scare of the 70s, barely, and young enough to not be part of that generation’s apparent obsession with “revolution” (at any cost).
This APS action is reprehensible and shameful.
If there is any justice in the world, though, this should be a major step toward “forcing” the debate out into the open. The myth of the “consensus” has to be shattered.
Re: Sam Vilain’s citation attacking Monckton “poor track record”.
That blog and its various posters seemed to think that the Southern Hemisphere wasn’t cooling in the winter of 2007. Reason? I think it was because their AGW guru’s were sitting on the data in the sense of continuing to thump the drums that the earth was on fire. I started talking to AGW proponents online about SH cooling contemporaneously and was accused of lying, fabricating, at the time. Now we all know that Monckton was correct. That part is left out in the citation.
Jeff: You’re right, Monbiot is not a scientist, he’s a writer – much like Monckton! Writes Monckton to Monbiot, “You say I’m not qualified to discuss climate physics. With all respect, no more are you.”
But look, in addition to the rebuttal from NASA climate modeler Gavin Schmidt above, I found another via his Wikipedia entry where Senior Lecturer in Physical Geography at the University of Exeter Dr Stephan Harrison briefly points out a key flaw.
Lord Monckton, given you’re commenting here, perhaps you can say how your latest paper takes into account the flaw raised by Dr Harrison?
ps by “writer” I meant “journalist”. But let’s not dwell on qualifications and take the points raised seriously!
I can address that “key flaw” in less than 25 words.
There is no way to know outside of unproven computer models if the positive feedbacks postulated really exist, or may in fact be negative.
“Lord Monckton, given you’re commenting here, perhaps you can say how your latest paper takes into account the flaw raised by Dr Harrison?”
Don’t you even read your own references, Villan?
I did, and it is quite an overstatement to say characterize that article as “briefly pointing out a flaw”. Most of it is ad hom. Are you he in disguise?
Sam Vilain I am shocked that you would put forth a Senior Lecturer as an expert. Correct me if I am wrong but aren’t senior lecturers academics with no scholarship? I fail to see how a senior lecturer has more scientific status than Monckton of Brencley.
By coincidence Obama was only a senior lecturer though he claims he was a professor. One of a large number of exaggerations from the selected one.
As for Gavin Schmidt, when he stops censoring blog posts that are inconveinient I will start taking him seriously. Correction: As long as Fenton Communication operates Real Climate I will not take it seriously.
Reid, Dr Stephan Harrison appears to be well published even if his “key flaw” is meaningless.
Sam Vilain,
An old litigation strategy appears to apply here. If you are weak on the law, attack the facts. If you are weak on the facts, attack the law. If you weak on both the facts and the law, attack the person. In AGW terms the law may be substituted as theory and facts as observation. It is telling that skeptics are invariably attacked, rather than their theory, or observations. I hear no rebutting of the fundamental points raised by Monckton.
1., The IPC model predict a positive feedback mechanism. Such a positive feedback – if it exists – would result in an unstable climate which is contrary to millions of years of climate history.
2. While the atmospheric concentration of Carbon Dioxide went up every year since Hansen made his predictions 20 years ago, today’s temperature is slightly lower that 20 years ago. This does not indicate that carbon dioxide is the main driver of the climate.
I think these are the real debating points and not whether Monckton has a degree in literature, or what somebody said about him.
Sam Vilain (17:09:23)
You will find Lord Monckton’s reply further down on Dr. Harrison’s blog. Harrison’s “critique” is superficial and does not stand up under Monckton’s response. Furthermore, Monckton goes into much greater detail on the three major parameters of Climate Sensitivity in his APS paper Climate Sensitivity Reviewed
For much greater detail on climate modeling and the energy conservation assumptions and local thermal equilibrium that Global Warming Models do not make or satisfy see:
* Ferene M. Miskolczi, Greenhouse effect in semi-transparent planetary atmospheres” IDŐJÁRÁS, Quarterly Journal of the Hungarian Meteorological Service, Vol. 111, No. 1, January-March 2007, pp. 1-40
* Ferene M. Miskolczi, Physics of the Planetary Greenhouse Effect, 2008 International Conference on Global Warming, New York March 2-4, 2008, <a href=”http://www.heartland.org/newyork08/audio/Tuesday/miskolczi.mp3 Audio or <a href=”http://www.heartland.org/newyork08/PowerPoint/Tuesday/miskolczi.pdf Powerpoint
* Miklós Zágoni, Some paleoclimatic consequences of Dr. Miskolczi’s new greenhouse theory, (2008), 2008 International Conference on Global Warming, New York March 2-4, 2008 <a href=”http://www.heartland.org/newyork08/audio/Tuesday/zagoni.mp3 Audio & PowerPoint presentation (PDF format)
* Miklós Zágoni Developments in greenhouse theory 2008
While there are questions on some of Miskolczi’s steps, his work challenges the very foundations of climate modeling, going into greater detail than Monckton.
You know, when I studied Physics all those years ago, I do not remember any of my university professors saying degrees or qualifications were a requirement to be able to produce scientifically valid results. I have always thought that was what experimentation was for. Don’t know, maybe American Physics are done differently or things have changed a lot since then…
jeez says “Reid, Dr Stephan Harrison appears to be well published even if his “key flaw” is meaningless.”
In that case disregard my comment. I admit my error which is something the believers are incapable of.
The skeptic horde will decimate the consensus. Resistance is futile. Science always wins.
You’ve got to wonder, if Monckton is a mere “writer” or “journalist” with no qualifications and a “poor track record”, why was he invited by the APS to write a technical paper on the subject in the first place? Maybe, just maybe, some in the APS think that what he says has substance.
Or maybe it was a setup.
I sense warring factions in the APS.
Mr. Vilain regrettably cites Dr. Stephen Harrison’s unfortunate mischaracterization of my use of the Stefan-Boltzmann radiative-transfer equation and invites me to reply, without revealing to readers of this blog that my full reply is posted in the same place as Harrison’s error. He regrettably cites one Monbiot, a zoologist, as though he were an authority on the climate: but Monbiot made 12 elementary mistakes in an article attacking me, and his newspaper was compelled to print a letter by me correcting some of the worst. Next, Mr. Vilain regrettably cites one Schmidt, author of a serially-inaccurate blog where it is impossible for other contributors to correct his numerous errors. A detailed rebuttal of Schmidt by me is at http://www.scienceandpublicpolicy.org. Finally, Mr. Vilain regrettably provides a link to yet another blog, this one paid for by a convicted fraudster with a vested interest in “global warming”, in that he owns a solar-energy corporation. Mr. Vilain should have made this explicit before providing a link to such a notoriously unreliable source.
Science is not well served by appealing ad verecundiam to the authority of those who, even if (per impossibile) they are authorities on something else, are not authorities on the climate. In my own papers, some of which are in the peer-reviewed literature, I explain my calculations and arguments fully, supported by numerous references to previously-published papers in the learned journals. That, with respect, is the correct approach. Mr. Vilain, by descending to less than well-researched ad-hominem attacks rather than addressing the science ad rem, is discourteous, and contributes little of value to what should be a scientific debate.
I will agree with the skeptics that science has a lot to do with consensus. But I will add that a consensus in science can easily overthrown and replaced by a NEW consensus.
Sometimes a consensus can stick around for centuries. Sometimes a consensus even seem permanent. Sometimes a consensus comes crashing down in no time flat.
heck, anything is falsifiable–theoretically.
When they discover the ancient temple (spaceship or whatever) which includes detailed texts about how to create fake dinosaur fossils and elaborate methods of creating facsimiles that fool carbon dating techniques, and how to “antique” your planet for fun and profit by painting on lovely false sediment layers . . . all bound in a tome entitled “How to fool your pets into thinking their planet is 4.5 billion years old instead of 6000 years old”, and all the techniques work and then the temple carbon dates to 6,000 years old, well, at that point I may even be forced to consider evolution to have been be falsified . . .
I wonder if Copernicus had this much trouble with settled science and their consensus.
P.S.
I find it laughable to be comparing the response of Venus’s atmosphere with ours on earth. How meaningless! CO2 is THE gas in the Venutian atmoshpere, in ours it is 0.04% and water dominates the scene through feedbacks (some positive like absolute humidity and some negative like clouds). What a Venusian joke, LOL.