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
“Nuance” is a word popularized by John F. Kerry, who was subsequently spanked by G.W. Bush.
In Ms Abdulla’s case, ‘nuance’ means, “You wouldn’t understand.”
But we do understand. Pressure was brought to bear, and Nature caved.
Chris B says:
“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”
Sorry, Chris, I did not catch the attribution for your quote but now I see the quote marks. My mistake. But then, I am married, and according to my wife I am always wrong anyway.
Jim
HOW CLIMATE IS CHANGING ?
Massive Arctic ice island drifting toward shipping lanes The biggest Arctic “ice island” to form in
nearly 50 years — a 250-square-kilometer behemoth described as four times the size of Manhattan —
has been discovered after a Canadian scientist scanning satellite images of northwest Greenland spotted
a giant break in the famed Petermann Glacier.Canada.com – Aug 07 10:16am
In another research, using Autosub, an autonomous underwater vehicle, researchers led by the British Antarctic
Survey have captured ocean and sea-floor measurements, which revealed a 300 meter high
ridge on the sea floor. Pine Island Glacier was once sitting atop this underwater ridge,
which slowed its flow into the sea. The warm water, trapped under the ice, is causing the
bottom of the ice shelf to thaw, resulting in continuousthinning and acceleration of glacial
melt. Lead author Adrian Jenkins said, “The discovery of the ridge has raised new questions
about whether the current loss of ice from Pine Island Glacier is caused by recent climate
change or is a continution of a longer-term process that began when the glacier disconnect
from the ridge”. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/06/100620200810.htm
Not only warm water, but also concentrated Magnesium Chloride =7,100 p.p.m & Sodium
Chloride= 31,000 p.p.m. (de-icing agents) trapped under the ice, is causing the bottom of the
ice shelf to thaw, resulting in continuous thinning and acceleration of glacial melt
(under water glacier cutting).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fGHlEBvKYw&sns=fb
Last Winter, Australian Glaciologist, Neal Young, declared that more than 300 icebergs are
floating in the East Antarctica.
DISINTEGRATED ICE SHELVES DISINTEGRATION DATES
Worde Ice shelf March 1986
Larsen A Ice shelf January 1995
Larsen B Ice shelf February 2002
Jones Ice Shelf 2008
Wilkins Ice shelf March 2008
If the Ice shelves are disintegrating during WINTER, it is not SUN or CO2.
U.N. Secretary General, BAN KI-MOON recently declared that ” Let me be clear, the thread of
Climate Change is real “.
“The Climate is changing” said JAY LAWRIMORE, Chief of Climate Analysing at the National
Climate Data Center in Asheville, N.C. “Extreme events are occuring with greater frequency and
in many cases with greater intensity”.
The current Climate Change is due to the following:-
1. Mushrooming of Sea water desalination systems in the Middle East: Discharging of desalination
& Cleaning chemicals & Concentrated brine into Oceans & Seas.
2. Artificial Island developments in the Arabian Gulf since 1985: dredging, drilling, dynamiting &
excavation of sea floor shifted Magnesium Chloride, Sulfur & Sodium Chloride.
The geographic position of the Arabian Gulf, Ocean circulations bringing it to Arctic & Antarctic Oceans
during Monsoon seasons along with hot water of the Middle East.
Those who are having the Oceans water Analysis since 1980 will WIN the Climate WAR. Concentrated
7,100 p.p.m. of Magnesium Chloride & 31,000 p.p.m. of Sodium Chloride are detected in the Arabian Gulf.
These are De-icing agents which are helping to disintegrates the Arctic & Antarctic Ice shelves. Now
International Desalination Association (IDA) formed a committee to investigate about it.
If we enforce strict Environmental regulations, recover MgCl3 and NaCl3 at Straight of Hormosa and
Straight of Gibraltar and recover those at closed eddies of Baffin Bay & Green Land Sea. Sea ice & Ice
shelfs in Arctic & Antarctic are Natural Air Conditioners of the Planet EARTH. When more ice in both
Poles, the third Pole, as Scientists described, Himalayas will have abundance of ice and Snow & Bolivi
will have more Glaciers & water.
Book releasing soon in USA ” Environmental Rapes & H. R. abuses Lead to Climate Change Control”.
(Full color 450 pages) by Raveendran Narayanan also visit:
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The phrase that I find chilling is “We have now reflected on the matter, and on some information from attendees at the meeting in question“.
In other words, it sounds like someone from the meeting found out about Pielke’s letter, and bullied Nature into withdrawing it.
“Groupthink is a type of thought within a deeply cohesive in-group whose members try to minimize conflict and reach consensus without critically testing, analyzing, and evaluating ideas. ”
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupthink
“To make groupthink testable, Irving Janis devised eight symptoms indicative of groupthink (1977).
1. Illusions of invulnerability creating excessive optimism and encouraging risk taking.
2. Rationalizing warnings that might challenge the group’s assumptions.
3. Unquestioned belief in the morality of the group, causing members to ignore the consequences of their actions.
4. Stereotyping those who are opposed to the group as weak, evil, biased, spiteful, disfigured, impotent, or stupid.
5. Direct pressure to conform placed on any member who questions the group, couched in terms of “disloyalty”.
6. Self censorship of ideas that deviate from the apparent group consensus.
7. Illusions of unanimity among group members, silence is viewed as agreement.
8. Mind guards — self-appointed members who shield the group from dissenting information.
Groupthink, resulting from the symptoms listed above, results in defective decision making. That is, consensus-driven decisions are the result of the following practices of groupthinking[
1. Incomplete survey of alternatives
2. Incomplete survey of objectives
3. Failure to examine risks of preferred choice
4. Failure to reevaluate previously rejected alternatives
5. Poor information search
6. Selection bias in collecting information
7. Failure to work out contingency plans.”
AGWistas score all 15 points.
There certainly is a bias. In June Naomi Oreskes and Tom Connally had an opinion piece “Defeating the Merchants of Doubt” in Nature which in effect was a two-page illustrated ad for their book. In it they said: “We believe that the preponderance of evidence is such that scientists should now clearly label anthropogenic warming as a fact.” I objected to that and sent a “Brief Communications Arising” to NATURE. I was told you can’t do that to an opinion piece, send it in as a letter. I did and was promptly rejected. I don’t know of any more blatant advocacy of global warming than allowing that statement to stand unchallenged.
Gee I wonder how Sara’s e-mails read.
Nature a Science Journal, who are we kidding, Science Fiction maybe.
Ah it’s all gone quiet on global warming or whatever they call it nowadays, well except for the sound of shovels as so called scientists dig themselves out of the big hole they got themselves in…
The 1960’s and 1970’s hippies who bought the left wing agenda and were the skeptics and protestors of their day are now in charge and much more resistant to skepticism and protest than those who were in charge back then. Perhaps we need to get our skeptics of today to begin to have protests featuring rock bands (rappers?), sex and drugs to attract more involvement from young people. Have not seen much of that in the Tea Party yet. Remarkable, that now that all the burned out hippie lefties are in charge they seem much more fanatical in their defense of the status quo than those whom they once opposed and are the first to censor dissent.
Gotta tell ya’ …that gasted my flabber!
I have a strong feeling that Dr. Pielke will be able to get lots of testimony time in front of either Rep. Issa’s or Rep. Sensenbrenner’s committee. (that’ll be worked out in January)
And unlike Ms. Abdullah’s nonsense meetings, these hearings are going to be for real.
this is gonna be fun.
Since this article does bring up control of temperature datasets let me tell you guys where to look. James Hansen testified to the Senate in 1988 that warming had started and that carbon dioxide we were putting into the air was its cause. If you look at the global temperature curve from NOAA you see indeed a big red triangle of rising temperatures that begins in the late seventies. That is supposed to be the late twentieth century warming that carries on into the twenty-first. But here is the problem: when you look at satellite temperature measurements that warming simply isn’t there. What there is is temperature oscillation, up and down by half a degree for twenty years, but no rise until 1998 when a super El Nino arrives. That is ten years after Hansen proclaimed his warming. The oscillations satellites see are real and belong to alternating El Nino and La Nina periods in the Pacific. There are five El Nino peaks in a twenty year period. If you compare this satellite curve with NASA or Hadley’s HadCRUT3 you notice that the El Nino peaks coincide, at least the first four. What is different is that they have lifted up the La Nina valley bottoms to make them shallow. And this simple device changes a horizontal curve into a rising temperature curve they call the late twentieth century warming. The peaks themselves give them that rise but in the real world deep valleys in between balance that out. If any temperature datasets are to be investigated the strange case of warming in the eighties and nineties should be the first one to be tackled.
Dear Professor Pielke. 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. Sara Abdulla Chief Commissioning Editor Opinion [incl Correspondence and Books & Arts] Nature.
———————————————————————————–
Professor Pielke. The picture of Ms Abdulla with her panda says more about her than her response to you or that I could possibly write.
It seems to me though, that what you wrote was perfectly clear and to the point and would have opened up many opportunities for an editor of a magazine who had any idea of what the job was about. For information from attendees read “my minders”.
Mic
It seems that Nature is not the only science publication with a puppet editor:
Joan Cranmer’s Fateful Decisions and the Suppression of Autism Science
Suppression By Mark Blaxill
On February 12, 2010 the journal Neurotoxicology made a quiet change on its web-site to an “in-press” article that had previously been available as an “epub ahead of print.” There was no press release or public announcement, simply an entry change. The entry for the article, “Delayed acquisition of neonatal reflexes in newborn primates receiving a thimerosal-containing Hepatitis B vaccine: Influence of gestational age and birth weight”, was first modified to read “Withdrawn” and has since been removed altogether from the Neurotoxicology web-site. The only remaining official trace of the paper is now the following listing on the National Library of Medicine’s “PubMed” site.
Neurotoxicology. 2009 Oct 2. [Epub ahead of print]
WITHDRAWN: Delayed acquisition of neonatal reflexes in newborn primates receiving a thimerosal-containing Hepatitis B vaccine: Influence of gestational age and birth weight.
Hewitson L, Houser LA, Stott C, Sackett G, Tomko JL, Atwood D, Blue L, White ER, Wakefield AJ.
Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, United States; Thoughtful House Center for Children, Austin, TX 78746, United States.
This article has been withdrawn at the request of the editor. The Publisher apologizes for any inconvenience this may cause.
How can a scientific study simply vanish? This paper had cleared every hurdle for entry into the public scientific record: it had passed peer review at a prestigious journal, received the editor’s approval for publication, been disseminated in electronic publication format (a common practice to ensure timely dissemination of new scientific information), and received the designation “in press” as it stood in line awaiting future publication in a print version of the journal. Now, and inexplicably, it has been erased from the official record. For practical scientific purposes it no longer exists.
continues at:
http://www.ageofautism.com/2010/03/joan-cranmers-fateful-decisions-and-the-suppression-of-autism-science.html
Jim G says:
September 28, 2010 at 8:13 am
I’m more interested in research into how to tell a ‘little ice age’ from ‘the big one’ when you’re at the start of it.
hunter says:
September 28, 2010 at 5:14 am
Its high time that AGW was studied from the viewpoint of philosophy.
The end is nigh!
It seems obvious that the precept of human induced impending catastrophe unless we change our ways, is taken directly from the bible, and satisfies a wish fulfilment thereof. We are sinners and we are doomed unless we redeem ourselves. This is the precept of AGW in a nutshell.
None of the apocalypses from the bible, or other religious sources have any veracity regarding our fate
hunter says:
September 28, 2010 at 5:14 am
addendum : I meant to title the response to your illuminating post:
Theologicum odium
I’ll bet London to a brick that this was the sentence whut done it..
“They recognized that there may be important, unresolved systematic biases and uncertainties in the current data, and acknowledged the value of efforts such as http://www.surfacestations.org, which has prodded the US National Climatic Data Center and others to examine their analyses more rigorously.
If only the good doctor hadn’t mentioned the surfacestations project.
You got a lot to answer for Watts. /sarc off
Welcome to Nature’s way of nurturing.
Jim G says:
September 28, 2010 at 8:13 am
Chris B says:
“…And yet, given the catastrophic consequences if the consensus is right, why take the risk?…”
—
Due to the fact that we don’t know enough about what drives climate change, and the chaotic climate system as a whole, to do anything meaningful. Hence, we should not do anything yet, thereby avoiding making things worse. This is especially true given the mountains of amassing observational data currently pointing towards natural variability and pointing away from CO2. See above: Arno Arrak says:
September 28, 2010 at 11:00 am
Past attempts: Kyoto, taxation, wind farms, etc, should give poignant examples of how good intentions, when based on incomplete data and poorly understood processes (I’d be remiss not to mention bogus GCM’s also), can go horribly awry. By acting on information generated by a political/market agenda (as opposed to actual data) they run the risk of making matters worse, on top of making no improvement to the so-called “crises situation” (CAGW).
The marketing and propaganda tactics being blatantly employed by these people: those controlling the purse strings of publications such as Nature and Science, will not subside any time soon, there’s too much money at stake. Keep in mind that many of these puppetmasters are also convinced that the planet can only sustain, and the numbers vary wildly here, 500 million to 3 billion people.
Make no mistake, as many others have already said: strings are being pulled and pressure is being brought to bear in an attempt to prop up a now thin facade. We will continue the fight to restore some semblance of credibility to science, by bringing our own pressure to bear: cancelled subscriptions, letters to the editors, senators, etc.
Thanks to Dr. Pielke, and many others, for their attempts to right these wrongs and to expose the true colors of these once venerated, now degenerated institutions.
And thanks to Anthony et al for the few forums we have for expression.
Are those punctuation and syntax errors copied directly from Sarah Abdulla’s original email? If so, I have to wonder why someone so unfamiliar with correct written English is working as Chief Commissioning Editor for a leading publication like Nature. Yes, it’s only an email — but even writing informally, anybody who works with words for a living ought to be able to do better than that.
Billy Liar says:
September 28, 2010 at 11:28 am
Jim G says:
September 28, 2010 at 8:13 am
“I’m more interested in research into how to tell a ‘little ice age’ from ‘the big one’ when you’re at the start of it.”
We could survive a little, or even big, ice age, there just would not be as many of us. An impact event could wipe us out as a species since this is presently our only home planet.
” 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.”
In other words,
” We have decided that, because some people disagree with your opinion, we are going to siffle your voice, in an attempt to quell any use of ‘intelligent debate.’
Please refer to James Hansen and the CRU for any thoughts on Climate Science. Thank you.”
First they ignore you then they attack you and half your science then they plagiarize your icons and steal half your science while suppressing the other half and suppressing all acknowledgements.
Gallery of rogues.
Andrew P. says: September 28, 2010 at 11:13 am
Andrew, the key there is “thimerosal”. THIMEROSAL. Known in the UK as thio-mersal. A mercury compound, used as a preservative for vaccines. It is a huge tragedy that it was used for so long despite warnings and obvious unsuitability. What do people think Mad Hatter’s disease was? And giving it to neonatals is the worst possible action. It is unfortunate that the doctor who suspected MMR simply didn’t go far enough. It wasn’t the combination of MMR, it was the preservative. It is the cause of the recent epidemic of autism. Could have triggered my own Asperger’s, years ago.