As we’ve seen previously this week:
Enviro and Media Agenda on Extreme Weather – State Climatologist Invited, then Uninvited to Rally …”disinvitation” seems to be the latest tool for stifling debate.
From Dr. Roger Pielke Sr. Invited Letter Now Rejected By Nature Magazine
UPDATE: September 27 2010 – see the post “You Are Invited To Waste Your Time”
I was invited by Nature magazine to write a Letter in response to the September Exeter meeting http://www.surfacetemperatures.org/home, and have been working with a member of their staff on edits over the past two weeks. This morning, I received the startling e-mail below from Nature’s Chief Commissioning Editor. Quite frankly, the only way I can interpret this behavior is as an example of the continued bias in Nature’s reporting of climate issues. Their statement that “We have now reflected on the matter, and on some information from attendees at the meeting in question” is a remarkable admission.
Dear Professor Pielke, Thank you very much for taking the time to write to Nature, upon request. And for the revisions you’ve made, again at our request. We have now reflected on the matter, and on some information from attendees at the meeting in question. We have, I’m afraid concluded that we cannot offer publication on this occasion. We feel that there are too many nuances to this situation to be properly communicated by a short item (or items) on our letters page. We will however continue to track the evolving story for news or leaders, as appropriate. We apologise for having taken up your time in this way. Sincerely, Sara Abdulla Chief Commissioning Editor Opinion [incl Correspondence and Books & Arts] Nature
Here is what was rejected: Temperature dataset effort vulnerable to problems by Roger A. Pielke Sr. Peter Stott and Peter Thorne recently conducted a meeting in Exeter to improve the quality control and archival procedures for global surface temperature data, at which I was not present. I applaud the aim of this meeting (doi:10.1038/4661040d) — to solicit multiple views from the climate community on how to create confidence in raw data and metadata, and to provide a set of blind benchmarking tools for the assessment of data adjustment algorithms. But I worry that the group seemingly has yet to tackle some valid concerns about that data. I was glad to see in the meeting notes several candid admissions of the shortcomings of existing surface temperature data assessments. The group acknowledged the problem of undocumented changes to temperature records and a lack of international exchange of detailed stations histories, as well as the recognition that non-traditional climate scientists are now playing a significant role in constructing a better climate dataset. They recognized that there may be important, unresolved systematic biases and uncertainties in the current data, and acknowledged the value of efforts such as www.surfacestations.org, which has prodded the US National Climatic Data Center and others to examine their analyses more rigorously. The group’s commitment to quantifying and reporting statistical uncertainties and data adjustments is to be commended. But the meeting notes suggest that the group did not sufficiently address other valid concerns about data collection [Pielke et al 2007]. These include the need to improve the improve the documentation of humidity at temperature stations [e.g. Davey et al 2006; Fall et al 2010], the height of the observations [Klotzbach et al 2009, Lin et al 2007] and to pay more attention to the siting of surface stations. Many stations still have not been documented with photographs, for example – this is a simple problem that should be addressed immediately. I would like to see the Exeter group address these issues explicitly, and, importantly, make a commitment to having all analyses and findings from these data sets assessed by independent scientists [Mahmood et al 2010]. All too often in the past, results have been assessed by scientists associated with the agencies that performed the analyses. This should not continue. References Pielke Sr., R.A., C. Davey, D. Niyogi, S. Fall, J. Steinweg-Woods, K. Hubbard, X. Lin, M. Cai, Y.-K. Lim, H. Li, J. Nielsen-Gammon, K. Gallo, R. Hale, R. Mahmood, S. Foster, R.T. McNider, and P. Blanken, 2007: Unresolved issues with the assessment of multi-decadal global land surface temperature trends. J. Geophys. Res., 112, D24S08, doi:10.1029/2006JD008229. Davey, C.A., R.A. Pielke Sr., and K.P. Gallo, 2006: Differences between near-surface equivalent temperature and temperature trends for the eastern United States – Equivalent temperature as an alternative measure of heat content. Global and Planetary Change, 54, 19–32. Fall, S., N. Diffenbaugh, D. Niyogi, R.A. Pielke Sr., and G. Rochon, 2010: Temperature and equivalent temperature over the United States (1979 – 2005). Int. J. Climatol., DOI: 10.1002/joc.2094. Klotzbach, P.J., R.A. Pielke Sr., R.A. Pielke Jr., J.R. Christy, and R.T. McNider, 2009: An alternative explanation for differential temperature trends at the surface and in the lower troposphere. J. Geophys. Res., 114, D21102, doi:10.1029/2009JD011841. Lin, X., R.A. Pielke Sr., K.G. Hubbard, K.C. Crawford, M. A. Shafer, and T. Matsui, 2007: An examination of 1997-2007 surface layer temperature trends at two heights in Oklahoma. Geophys. Res. Letts., 34, L24705, doi:10.1029/2007GL031652. Mahmood, R., R.A. Pielke Sr., K.G. Hubbard, D. Niyogi, G. Bonan, P. Lawrence, B. Baker, R. McNider, C. McAlpine, A. Etter, S. Gameda, B. Qian, A. Carleton, A. Beltran-Przekurat, T. Chase, A.I. Quintanar, J.O. Adegoke, S. Vezhapparambu, G. Conner, S. Asefi, E. Sertel, D.R. Legates, Y. Wu, R. Hale, O.W. Frauenfeld, A. Watts, M. Shepherd, C. Mitra, V.G. Anantharaj, S. Fall,R. Lund, A. Nordfelt, P. Blanken, J. Du, H.-I. Chang, R. Leeper, U.S. Nair, S. Dobler, R. Deo, and J. Syktus, 2010: Impacts of land use land cover change on climate and future research priorities. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 91, 37–46, DOI: 10.1175/2009BAMS2769.1
Nature is unnatural. Surely they have adopted the same unnatural ideology niceties as: stem cells research, non-reproductive behaviors, abortion, etc.,etc.
Shades of the James Cameron invitation to debate and then not to debate.
This shows how silly the article in the Economist was when it criticized sceptics for not wanting to get involved on worthwhile project.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/newsbook/2010/08/climate_science
Hopefully the Republicans will start an investigation of “climate science” ethics in 2013, and include EPA, universities and science journals.
What next? they would deny Galileo’s right to speak due to
the Copernican heresy and his support of it?
I see human nature hasn’t changed all that much…
Yep, glossy magazine, trash journal. Like tallbloke says, (5:15):
“Hey Nature Editors! How does it feel to be exposed as puppets.”
What happens when the puppeteers fall from grace and find their ability to fund this nonsense has disappeared — carbon credits, anyone? Perhaps they will be found drowned in tea.
mpaul says:
September 28, 2010 at 6:30 am
I suspect that Nature is grappling with a more pedestrian problem — their business model. Peer review is an invention of the publishing industry. The value proposition of a relatively narrowly distributed publication like Nature is that they are the gatekeepers of “knowledge you can trust”. Peer review has been the mechanism by which they distinguish their content from (what they would claim) is the less trustworthy content of “grey literature”.
Non-traditional publication methods like WUWT are a disruptive threat to their business model. They simply can not endorse, in any way, work done through a non-peer reviewed channel without putting their business model at risk. Nature is probably in a full blown panic right now as blogs are routinely uncovering serious errors in peer-review work.
=====
mpaul, you are right on the money!!
The blogosphere is disrupting the publication of science much like music downloads disrupted the sale of CDs (which are now plunging). Business models all over are exploding.
WUWT is very much a peer-reviewing exercise, where the sausage-making process of peer review is on display for all to see….heated discussions, no-holds-barred debate etc. In contrast, the peer review discussions & tussles at Science, Nature, etc. go on behind closed doors.
No wonder the CAGW crowd hates WUWT, Climateaudit and a few others! Keep it up!
Sara’s Panda, out of control.
Chris B says:
“True, not everyone is convinced that climate change is man- made. There is room for argument. The scientific consensus has been wrong before, and may have gotten this one tangled up as well. And yet, given the catastrophic consequences if the consensus is right, why take the risk?”
Since we know with some certainty that impacts have wiped our planet clean (just about) many times in the past why are we not using the above logic and redirecting the resouces being wasted on attempting to control the uncontrollable, climate, and setting up some provision for saving our species from what is most probably coming…. some day? Answer-The politics of control and the challenge of doing real science and innovation. Present technology could save us from the smaller impacts right now if properly deployed. The larger ones require the innovation.
Eric Gisin says:
September 28, 2010 at 7:53 am
At least the tea-partiers…
Isn’t it about time we found out who is interpreting this “nuance”? Perhaps they could post a paper on the interpretation thereof in this particular field, so we can all be better informed as to how the process of censorship in scientific publications actually works.
I’m sorry, I don’t mean censorship, I mean editorial judgement. A subtle but important difference.
In the old days of the controlled, contrived media, this would be the end of.
In the new days, where the leftist’s parrot media is dead, it’s sadly has died as a tool for leftists to control debate. I bet WUWT is read by more people than Nature ever will be.
The best solution, ignore them, they will go the way of the Whigs of the 1850s and just fade away.
It is always the same . . . those who benefit from hysteria and fear mongering are so afraid of the truth that they feel justified in suppressing it.
As their house of cards shakes and tilts, as the truth about their data “adjustments” is revealed, as their political hijacking of real science and the easy cooperation of fellow travelers in the science community is revealed, they simply dig their own graves deeper & faster.
They can obfuscate, disinvite, “adjust” . . . whatever.
Their time in the limelight is over.
Now just to calculate the damage done by over a $trillion dollars of faulty global policy decisions based on climate scientology.
For an editor to decline publication of a contribution to a scholarly journal because “there are too many nuances to this situation” is astonishing. As a publisher of scholarly journals for more than twenty years, I recall not a single instance of a contribution being rejected in such a cavalier fashion. If an item is rejected, an author expects, deserves and in my experience normally receives an explicit justification.
I wonder how the readerships of Nature and Watts Up With That compare? And I wonder how those readerships are changing with time?
Someone (Macmillan) makes a fortune from Nature – and that money comes directly from Universities and Researchers. Nature’s profits are simply siphoned from taxes.
I suspect that the cunning monopolistic scam of selling academics papers back to other academics won’t survive forever.
Nuances? NUANCES???
The entire AGW premise is BASED on nuances.
“Jim G says:
September 28, 2010 at 8:13 am
Chris B says:
“True, not everyone is convinced that climate change is man- made. There is room for argument. The scientific consensus has been wrong before, and may have gotten this one tangled up as well. And yet, given the catastrophic consequences if the consensus is right, why take the risk?”
Since we know with some certainty that impacts have wiped our planet clean (just about) many times in the past why are we not using the above logic and redirecting the resouces being wasted on attempting to control the uncontrollable, climate, and setting up some provision for saving our species from what is most probably coming…. some day? Answer-The politics of control and the challenge of doing real science and innovation. Present technology could save us from the smaller impacts right now if properly deployed. The larger ones require the innovation.”
Jim,
It was actually Matthew Lynn who made the statement that you attributed to me. It was in his Bloomberg article supporting the idea of putting a ban on oil exploration in the Arctic because we are already making sufficient progress in alternate energy sources.
I disagree with almost everything stated in his article.
Chris
Looks like Sarah is one of those lefty, liberal, touchy feely, empowered, neo-marxist wimmin! Obviously does not have the balls for the job – a real editor would have put up a fight and not caved in!
Like many visiting this site, I am not going to renew my Sci Am or New Scientist subscriptions. Science magazines they are not! I gave up on Nature some time ago.
Sara Abdulla says: “There are too many nuances to this situation.”
Anyone who has read Montford’s The Hockey Stick Illusion, and read the Climategate emails knows that the most likely ‘nuance’ was Michael Mann working furiously behind the scenes, threatening ethics-challenged, weak-willed Nature employees like Sara.
Mann has done exactly the same thing before, emailing and organizing supporters to blackball journals that don’t toe the CAGW line, getting skeptical scientists fired, forcing editorial board members to resign, etc.
Caving in to the bullying tactics of an IPCC child star is not an admirable quality. Worse was the shameful way that Abdulla gave in to the climate charlatan, reneging on the Nature invitation on specious and vague grounds.
Will Sara name the individual(s) who brought pressure to bear on her? Don’t hold your breath.
Mommy tells me to dis invite ugly guys like you, because we nice guys must not be mixed up with nasty guys like you!
there are too many nuances
I find that my “bs detector” now uses the word “nuance” (and nuanced, nuances, etc.) as red flags meaning “I need to politely tell a whopper”.
It takes little “nuance” to tell the truth, even less to say “this is good” or “that fails to account for this point”. Or even “that is wrong”. What takes “nuance” is telling the polite social lie in such a way that it does not stand out. “Love what that dress does for your figure” instead of “For a pudgette, you can do OK with a tent”… You hear it all the time in congress where “My esteemed colleague” means “That SOB over there”…
So my translation of their rejection reason is this: “There are just too many things needing a butt cover, that you would highlight, for us to plaster over them all”.
Congratulations on being a clear and honest person. Rejection like that ought to be framed and prominently displayed!
Dear Philip F,
Careful man, the DNR thought police are watching. Stay safe; use a pseudonym.
But presumably these Nuances are OK?
Not
Usually
Accurate
Numbers of
Climate
Extremist
Scientists
Those of you who think this Exeter business is just child’s play or the last gasps of CAGW gravy-trainers be aware that the other new fad like disinvitation is whitewashing. Oh, there will be a few adjustments and some recommendations but…. wait for it… “Our statistical evaluation of the existing data shows that while improvements can be and should be made, it will not materially change the trend toward CAGW.” They will get a lot of money to re-re-homogenize the data, replace a few thermometers and will likely find the temp rise is even steeper than we thought. Remember, they were charged with this re-evaluation of the record by the US government (Senate committee members?) or some such – it wasn’t of their own initiative. Surely you don’t expect a turn about…Gee I guess we were wrong and Dr. Pielke Snr and Anthony Watts were right. This won’t happen and we will now be stuck with a renewed flim flam now acceptable to elected representatives.
The warmer’s mantra goes something like this: “Don’t bother me with reality; what I’m looking for is a good fantasy!” (Especially if they can make money or gain political control in the process.)