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The American Physical Society alleged that Lord Monckton’s paper Climate Sensitivity Reconsidered was not peer reviewed when Monckton in fact thoroughly revised his paper in response to APS peer review.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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Ed Darrell (14:46:22) :
That’s called academic fraud. In the UK, it may not be a big deal. Among deniers of warming, it may be cute. Under U.S. law, were it federally funded, it would be a crime.
So when is Al Gore and James Hansen going to get prosecuted? As I understand it, being a VP and NASA are both Federally funded.
I’m not a Denier of Warming, I use my observation skills to see perfectly that we are definately not warming. I’m not a scientist, but ovservation is one of the key skills a scientist should portray, no?
Kudos to the moderation work done on this site.
There’s nothing so distracting or debilitating to a focus on the science than ad hominem diatribes. The hard work at moderating that is done here shows in the high degree of civility that usually prevails, unlike on other unmoderated blogs where the comments can often turn quite hateful.
Again, great job in moderating. Many thanks.
Reply: Thanks, Anthony does most of the heavy lifting, but I’m standing in today~charles the moderator
Water vapor on the other hand is very transient, can move geographically, can convert into precipitation, or clouds and could become a factor for negative rather than positive feedback.
Yes, I agree. The Aqua Satellite seems to indicate this.
And not even the earth seems to be able to make up its mid about the primary trigger of whatever causes ice ages–inclination or eccentricity.
RE: Reid of America (17:39:38) :
“Correction: As long as Fenton Communication operates Real Climate I will not take it seriously.”
If the connection between RC and Fenton is true (no reason to not believe that’s so), then the connectinos from FC to others are very interesting (especially in light of various RC types claims “BIG (U S) OIL” is behind skeptics looks like projection.
See:
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/Thinkmap%20SDK%202.5%20Standard%20Edition/webapp/TM-1VER/index.asp?keyword=Fenton%20Communications%20(FC)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_Media_Services
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Sponsoring Registrar:eNom, Inc. (R39-LROR)
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202-822-5200 fax: 202-822-4787
Ed Darrell
“If his is case is so good against global warming, why does he make stuff up?”
What stuff did he make up?
The Viscount is correct in that his ‘paper’ will certainly be ‘torn to shreds’, and deservedly so. Indeed the process has already begun in the blogoshpere. In a cursory reading I spotted that he has repeated an earlier error – assuming one can derive climate sensitivity by considering forcings and delta-t over a fixed period, forgetting that climate sensitivity is an equilibrium concept, and you must also consider the delta-t ‘in the pipeline’ due to slow-acting feedbacks – estimated at c0.5C. Monckton shrugs this off thus: ‘We assume that Chylek (2008) is right to find transient and equilibrium climate sensitivity near-identical’
So a single paper has overturned all the textbooks? The paper cited does not support Monckton’s assumption and in fact flatly contradicts his conclusion of climate sensitivity < 1C. From Chylek’s conclusion: ‘All these results together with our work presented in this paper support the lower end of the climate sensitivity range of 2 to 4.5 K suggested by the IPCC 2007 report ‘
Also, he halves the delta-t based on Mckitrick (2007), but this paper, not exactly uncontroversial itself, only asserted the anthropogenic warming should be reduced by 50% over land, whereas the delta-t under consideration is, of course, global.
I endorse the Viscounts call to confine the argument to the scientific substance, so I look forward to his defence of these apparent flaws, perhaps he could also deal with the points raised here…
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2008/07/moncktons_triple_counting.php
and here
http://duoquartuncia.blogspot.com/2008/07/aps-and-global-warming-what-were-they.html
and just possibly explain the value of a review by an academic who by his own admission does not understand the difference between a forcing and a feedback ?
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/monckton/monkton_letter_pys.pdf (Page 2).
kind regards.
CyC
Sorry all, no more personal attacks from me. Thank you all, I really enjoy the collegiality on this blog. There is no excuse for attacking the messenger. If I can’t dispassionately weigh both sides I should not be contributing. I look forward to the time, in the near future, when the APS has a similar change of heart.
Joel Shore writes:
sunsettommy says: “I would think reasonable counterpoints is a better idea than ad homeniums and personal attacks with name calling.”
True…but it gets a little tiresome to respond to all of the garbage that appears on the internet or in a non-peer-reviewed newsletter or whatever. Scientists already have their hands full responding to the garbage that actually gets through the peer review process without trying to focus on this other stuff.
But scientists does not have to answer the average public joe at all!
Instead of whining about alleged “garbage”.Why not influence those who deliberately distort the science to stop it and get back to being a science researcher.
Plus if the few scientists such as NASA’s James Hansen and Gavin Schmidt stop politicising the science.Right along with the dishonest Media and the Environmentalsist who keep posting one sided science research and news.
It would be a lot quieter on the net and forums such as mine would not exist.
I am really dissappointed with the whole mess.Dissappointed with the scientists who should have known better to keep out of the media and political propaganda drives.
I wish James Hansen who is relentlessly political and calling for criminal investigations and trying to stop coal power plant construction based on what he believes as the Director of GISS.Among other political activities that ties in with his capacity as Director. The very same man who has been exposed of poor statistical analysis…… Several times.
He is a compromised scientist and that is sad.
His behavior is disgracefull.
In the end my statement:
“I would think reasonable counterpoints is a better idea than ad homeniums and personal attacks with name calling.”
Is still valid.Garbage claims or not.The relentless use of namecalling and ad homeniums on Monkton and anyone else is useless.
The words starting with “But scientists does not have to answer the average public joe at all!” on down are all mine.
Joel,
I looked in your link and was turned off by the overt hostility.Especially in the comment section.
I will pass on Deltoid’s explanation since I do not have confidence that they will provide a reasonable counterpoint to Viscount Monkton.
Not with the overtly implied mocking of Monkton’s writings.
Just as with RealClimate.I do not like the underlying ugly undertone that is obviously all over in the two BLOGS.
Look,
I have been reading over climate issues since the late 1970’s.I even read the interesting book written by Lowell Ponte.The Cooling.
I loved the fascination over the cooling 1970’s and the media’s speculative musings on a possible ice age.It was a time where little rancorous debate was evident despite the obvious caution many scientists had at the time.It was more the media who were going crazy over a minor cooling trend.
But gosh today I see blogs out there ready to pour on the hostility on anyone who dares to have a different opinion.Is Viscount Monkton wrong? Say so with a clear reasoned counterpoint.Leaving out the unwarranted slurs and other childish comments.That have no bearing on the persons writing.
Same with Dr. Glassman and his interesting paper: The Aquittal of Carbon Dioxide.Gavin Schmidt reacted with a few pointed putdowns on Dr. Glassman himself.
Dr. Glassman then replied with a very civil counterpoint to all of Gavins remarks of the paper.That I wish is a common attitude to be found in many blogs I will not name.
I see a stark difference between what Climate Audit and Watts Up With That? blogs that reasonably civil comments are commonly posted and those of RealClimate and Deltoid.That are too often unpleasant.
Gee I wonder why Climate Audit and Watt Up With That? are so much better behaved? Could it be because the owner of the blogs expect through moderation that we remain reasonably civil? Or could it be because the skeptics are more commonly civil and openminded than the AGW believers?
The reason why I posted Monktons earlier paper and that of Dr. Glassmans at a forum that has HUNDREDS of AGW belivers in it.Was to see what reasonable counterpoint they could come up with.
LOL,
Well you saw if you looked at my link.That they were more interested in personal attacks and name calling with slurs thrown in.Than to produce a credible rebuttal.I was not impressed when 2 scientists refused to go beyond slurs against it.
I am not impressed.
Chrome (16:32:36)
“forgetting that climate sensitivity is an equilibrium concept,”
What is the reason for why the equilibrium concept being needed in the formula?
Being torn apart on RC is hardly unusual. It’s what usually happens when one side is allowed to make any outrageous claim, while the other side is blocked from responding.
randomengineer,
If indeed the climate is balanced on the knife’s edge, as you seem to believe, why is that the many pertubations of the past have not led us to ruin?
CO2 has, in the past, been way, way higher than even the worst case scenario put into the many models (3000-5000ppm, not the puny 300-500ppm that is causing such vapors today), yet disaster did not descend.
Just for the record, I am not the “Glenn” posting on
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2008/07/moncktons_triple_counting.php
although he does not appear to be an alarmist.
I said of Monckton’s noted exaggerations and fantasies:
If you have evidence of academic fraud in either case, bring it forward. In Gore’s case, he’s privately funded — assumptions of what is not in evidence is a problem of deniers, I find — and in Hansen’s case, his work undergoes serious reviews constantly. The GAO investigations of Hansen’s work found it solid. GAO has a very long record of hard non-partisanship and great accuracy.
Paul Clark, the closest I could come to sourcing that $50 billion claim was a blog out of Sen. James Inhofe’s office, citing the Heartland Institute. Inhofe is a bit of a crank on science issues, a bitter partisan at the least, and he offers no serious documentation. Heartland Institute’s figures suggest no serious research or methodology. It’s a SWAG figure, and in this case, very wild, I think.
Looking conspiratorally at what has occurred at the FP&S newsletter, it almost makes me wonder if this idea for a debate might have been a put up job. The Board of APS decides “Let’s show up all those AGW deniers. We’ll set up a mock debate in one of our newsletters. We’ll get that unlettered loudmouth Monckton to do the denier piece, you know he’ll snap up the shot at publicity. We’ll get two solid Ph.D’s to write up the truth, and we’ll be able to demonstrate that the anti-Gore crowd is a bunch of insignificant twaddle and end all this worthless froo-fraw.”
Unfortunately, Hafemeister and Scwartz failed to deliver a knock out, and Lord Monckton got in some good shots that bloodied up the face of AGW in an open, public, respected, credentialed forum.
Frankly, it seems like people here are good at coming up with excuses not to read scientifically-based critiques of Monckton’s paper.
Regarding the responses to randomengineer’s comment about climate sensitivity and the stability of the climate over time, here is a recent paper summarizing what paleoclimate evidence suggests to us about the climate sensitivity: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/sci;306/5697/821
I’ll quote from the summary: “Climate models and efforts to explain global temperature changes over the past century suggest that the average global temperature will rise by between 1.5º and 4.5ºC if the atmospheric CO2 concentration doubles. In their Perspective, Schrag and Alley look at records of past climate change, from the last ice age to millions of years ago, to determine whether this climate sensitivity is realistic. They conclude that the climate system is very sensitive to small perturbations and that the climate sensitivity may be even higher than suggested by models.”
The P&S published both Pro and Con AGW papers, the conclusion of the Pro paper is :
Conclusion: Earth is getting warmer. Basic atmospheric models clearly predict that additional greenhouse gasses will raise the temperature of Earth. To argue otherwise, one must prove a physical mechanism that gives a reasonable alternative cause of warming. This has not been done. Sunspot and temperature correlations do not prove causality.
Watts up with that? (assuming) it’s getting warmer, if you can’t prove it’s being caused by something else, that’s proof it’s AGW? Apparently this is the position that the Council of the American Physical Society agrees with.
Meanwhile Monchton’s conclusion (rightly) questions the IPCCs stance, then each of logical steps that flows from there to the drastic actions being demanded. If you compare each of the papers then, at least as far as this issue of P&S is concerned, it’s GAME, SET, MATCH to Monchton.
The critical issue behind the PeerGate review scandal at American Physical Society is the apparent lack of integrity. As Lord Monckton’s queries make clear, the APC disclamation is likely false on in each of its three assertions. Following is a post giving the basis for ethical conduct in the House of Lords and from the American Physical Society’s policies. The challenge now is to maintain those standards and to hold the APS accountable to their own ethical standards and to the highest ethical standards for scientific and public organizations:
—————–
Lord Monckton is a hereditary peer and thus a member of the Upper House by succession (though his father’s automatic right to sit and vote was terminated by the House of Lords Act 1999).
While he has not been elected by fellow hereditary peers to the right to speak or vote in the Chamber, he remains a member of the Upper House by succession in good standing and is entitled to use its facilities. Accordingly I would expect Lord Monckton to abide by the “Code of Conduct” of the House of Lords, ParliamentUK.
Among these is:
The American Physical Society has a policy statement on:
Ethics & Values
02.2 APS GUIDELINES FOR PROFESSIONAL CONDUCT (Adopted by Council on November 10, 2002)
Will the executive of the APS live up to their stated policy on ethics? Will they rise to the higher standard that they “should act always on their personal honour”?
Re: Joel Shore
I think that the Viscount’s paper points out pretty well that the high sensitivity figures result is run away warming, which would have occured based on the known paleoclimate data (CO2 much higher in the last 600 million years). Didn’t happen.
Meanwhile I have read some of the responses to the paper. I read about things like changes in the pipeline not accounted for, disagreements in how Monchton gets to his assessment of sensitivity. But Monchton is saying that none of these things is really measureable, however the conclusions based on high sensitivity aren’t being born out in the real world. That’s the bottom line, the real world is falsifying the IPCC projections, therefore the climate must be not as sensitive as thought. If you want to defend the IPCC’s sensitivity, you’ll have to convince us it’s quite a bit warmer than it is.
Meanwhile, suggested followup reading for you. Dr. Roy Spencer has recently written a paper called “the holy grail of climate sensitivity”. It dovetails very nicely with Monchtons paper. In it, he explains the actual source of the errors that have resulted in high estimates, I think that he may be on to something, check it out.
The reasoning that, if other mechanisms cannot be found to explain global warming, then it must be CO2 is completely bogus.
Talk about begging the question.
CO2 has not been demonstrated as the cause of global warming but investigation into the complex realities of climate, and thus other possible causes, is not allowed: all effort is put into buttressing the CO2 claim.
Good heavens! Further tracking takes the $50 billion figure to Fox News and — can you write a script like this? — Steven Milloy!
I don’t trust Milloy. I’ve spent a good portion of the past year tracking down the man’s footnotes on one project. More than 100 notes, not one has checked out so far. Milloy’s a lobbyist. I don’t trust him, I don’t think he has a methodology.