The row over the issue of Antarctica warming continues. After a number of articles appeared at the Air Vent, Lucia’s, and Climate Audit, Dr. Steig responds at RealClimate with some accusations of his own. I offered Dr. Steig a guest post here, with no caveats, so that he could get maximum exposure, twice. He didn’t bother to respond.
This whole incident illustrates exactly why authors of competing scientific papers should not be reviewers of other papers critical of their own. This failure of peer review falls squarely into the lap of the Journal of Climate for allowing such nonsense in the first place.
But IMHO, Dr. Steig bears responsibility too, he should have said “no”, realizing what a conflict of interest this was.
He confirms in the latest RealClimate essay that he was in fact “Reviewer A”. He also complains that he wasn’t allowed to see the final draft. This is due to the fact that JoC had to bring in another reviewer to break the 88 page log jam created by “Reviewer A”.
The analysis of the difference between the 3rd and 4th (final) drafts at Climate Audit reveal this:
MrPete
Posted Feb 9, 2011 at 10:06 PM | PermalinkHere is a comparison of Rev 3 and Rev 4. All text changes are marked up — including totally minor changes. I hope this works for the reader. (Personally, I would primarily trust this to provide pointers to areas of change as it is not obvious how to reliably discern exactly what the old/new text was.)
To my admittedly inexperienced eyes, the changes appear relatively minor.
Perhaps one of the authors can speak authoritatively on a) whether Wm C’s question (about round 4 reviews) has any standing, and b) whether Eric Steig’s disclaimer (based on not having seen these changes) is appropriate.
So it seems Dr. Steig’s complaint is empty, and the situation mostly a result of his own doings. Still it points back to the failure of peer review at JoC. They should not have invited Dr. Steig to be a reviewer in the first place. had they not, this whole ugly row would be non-existent.
At CA, this commenter sums it up pretty well:
movielib
Posted Feb 9, 2011 at 5:03 PM | PermalinkEric Steig has replied to Ryan:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2011/02/odonnellgate/
There seems to be a lot of arm waving about O’Donnell being wrong about… well, everything.
There is what I’d call a personal attack against “O’Donnell, Condon, and McIntyre,” comparing them unfavorably with such “legitimate, honest commenters” as “Susan Solomon or J. Michael Wallace, or, for that matter, Gavin Schmidt or Mike Mann or myself [i.e. Steig].” You see, he thinks people like O’Donnell and McIntyre are not legitimate honest commenters. The compulsory word “deniers” is also thrown in.
Steig claims O’Donnell is going to “retract [his] allegations” against Steig. It’s very vague and I sure don’t know what he’s talking about.
He says he was a reviewer for the first three drafts of the O’Donnell et al. paper but not for the “markedly different” fourth draft so he hadn’t seen it before publication.
Curiously, Steig does not address the point that is the subject of this thread.
I’ll carry ODonnell’s statement here when he completes it, including making whatever changes/retractions he sees fit.
In the meantime, the Journal of Climate editors should probably be made aware of the mess they created by allowing this conflict of interest to occur in the first place.
The bottom line that has been lost in the fog of this war is that Antarctica isn’t warming as much as is claimed, and most of the statistically significant warming is confined to the peninsula.
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@Phil Clarke says:
@February 10, 2011 at 4:56 pm
“Both incorrect. You haven’t actually read the documents you are describing have you?”
Well, if you define ‘read’ as looking at pictures – you might have a point. If you define ‘read’ as something that you can do with written text, then you’ll find that the O’Donnell pdf that you link to is considerably shorter that ‘Reviewer A’s initial comments. The linked O’Donnell pdf is double spaced text, about 25 pages or so, ‘Reviewer A’s comments are 14 pages single spaced.
But, then what are simple facts to those of a climatological inclination(?)
One of the most botherson things about this whole Steig episode is the fact that Eric Steig is one of the least dishonest of the alarmist clique. At least he has written articles for WUWT, and he has tried to explain his point of view.
But it’s all downhill from there. The Schmidts, the Manns, the Trenberths, the Briffas, the Gores, the Wahls, the Ammans, the Famigliettis, the Houghtons, etc., are all more devious and dishonest than Eric Steig. That is why they absolutely refuse to allow open discussion, and why they tuck their tails between their hind legs and run from every proposal that they explain themselves in a neutral media venue. Because if they did, they would be exposed as clones of Elmer Gantry — without any of Gantry’s redeeming qualities. The recent thread on RealClimate’s censorship of differing views opened a lot of folks’ eyes to their smarmy tactics.
This is not to excuse Steig, who clearly used his anonymous position to trash someone critical of his inept statistics. That was sneaky and underhanded. But it is depressing to know that Steig is the least dishonest of the lot.
Mann and Schmidt are especially odious, as can be seen in the Climategate emails. And the fact that climate journals, which compete for the big names, cave in to the threats and intimidation of charlatans like Mann, shows that the climate peer review system has been thoroughly corrupted.
That’s what happens when several billion dollars are in play every year. The honest folks get crowded out or quit in disgust, leaving only the dishonest self-serving reprobates in charge. And the taxpayers are fleeced by those gaming the system.
Phil Clarke says:
February 10, 2011 at 4:56 pm
Part of it was written by Steig. He began with a review of an 8 page essay that was 24 pages long.
“Both incorrect. You haven’t actually read the documents you are describing have you?”
I do not have to read it. I am corresponding with good old Real Climate Pit Bulls. I know you well. You will sit on the computer endlessly throwing up every possible detail to keep from discussing the actual issue. I explained that issue to sharper00 in great detail. He cannot find the strength to address it. Can you? Here it is:
sharper00, why do you quote me and fail to respond to the quote? Do you not understand the concept of “conflict of interest?” Let me explain. Being a reviewer means being an impartial judge. Being an impartial judge means having no personal interest in the fate of the essay that you are judging. However, the essay of O’Donnell’s that Steig judged was a criticism of Steig’s work. Given that fact, Steig should have said to the editor that I have a conflict of interest. If the editor replied that it does not matter, then Steig had a responsibility to ask if O’Donnell agreed. These questions were not answered because O’Donnell did not know that Steig was a reviewer. Therefore Steig had a conflict of interest. So, do you understand now that Steig had a conflict of interest and was morally wrong not to reveal it to all other interested parties? If this practice is common among climate scientists, then all of them are morally wrong, should admit their malfeasance, and accept the punishment. You do not engage in this practice, do you?
You have obviously either not read or not understood the import of the elder Dr. P’s post. His point was not that Menne etc was criticizing a paper of Watts’, but rather that Menne was using Watts’ data before Watts had had the opportunity to publish at all, which is quite different.
Good grief.
Correct me if I am wrong, but (except for the south pole) isn’t the peninsula where all the western scientists are? Leading me to. . .
…a legitimate question: Any chance this is UHI of some sort? Has anyone considered this possibility, if for no other reason than to rule it out?
smokey says:
Or…perhaps more likely…this is an example of the losers in a scientific debate coming up with complaints as to why the entire scientific system has been corrupted and rigged against them. You can find the same sorts of complaints in this movie: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expelled:_No_Intelligence_Allowed
It’s the oldest trick in the book: When your team loses, blame it all on the referees!
Actually that’s not correct, as I understand it. The O’Donnell et al paper simply points out that the Steig et al paper’s methods are wrong/misleading. They make no claim as to the correctness of what the climate down there is actually doing.
Smokey says:
February 10, 2011 at 6:27 pm
“One of the most botherson things about this whole Steig episode is the fact that Eric Steig is one of the least dishonest of the alarmist clique. At least he has written articles for WUWT, and he has tried to explain his point of view.”
I am impressed by your very great sympathy for your fellow man. I would like to tell you about a cartoon that appeared in 1979. In the first panel, there is a young George Washington who is holding an axe and saying to his father “I cannot tell a lie.” In the second panel, there is Richard Nixon saying “I cannot tell the truth.” In the third and last panel, there is a toothy, grinning Jimmy Carter saying “I cannot tell the difference.” The moral of the story is that there is a very fine line between those who cannot tell the difference and those who choose the crime.
Theo Goodwin says “this exchange goes on for 88 pages”.
Come on people – this on its own sounds the alarm bells. Do all global warming papers create such nonsense?
If I was responsible for the review process I would quickly go to plan b because plan a sucked.
Oh I got a comment deleted from the Bore Hole. I pointed out that the sections of the other comment of mine they edited were innocuous compared to what they kept and that I’d changed my answer from before.
He asked me if I thought O’Donnell was an ethical player and in my original answer I said I had no idea if either of them were. After he deleted sections of my comment and made his own suggestions to imply those sections were insulting I told him I changed my answer and now considered him an unethical player.
The Real Climate method of debating is to yell “Shut up!” when they’ve been shown up. Do they think that sort of behavior demonstrates great mental acumen?
I guess I’ll go back to just screwing with them since an honest debate isn’t possible.
Joel Shore sez:
“When your team loses, blame it all on the referees!”
The team which is losing is the one which:
A) Fraudulently invented The Laughable Hockey Stick
B) Has been thoroughly discredited
C) Has utterly failed to get the public to fall for their ruse
D) Does NOT have the science on their side
So, Joel — I get it…
I guess all you have left is to blame the referees — we, the unpaid volunteer scientists who participate in open and honest forums such as WUWT (as opposed to the — of necessity — heavily censored forums such as the laughable joke known as RealClimate.org).
But, you see, Joel, it’s too late…
Your totalitarian political religious cult is already dead and buried — you just don’t know it yet. But, you’re sorta blind that way.
Joel Shore sez:
“When your team loses, blame it all on the referees!”
Click here and tell me which team — despite the self-described propaganda from so-called “journalists” — is losing (because they do not have the science on their side).
racookpe1978
I agree completely with you.
May I quote you?
There is a much larger issue at stake here and that is – “how should articles submitted for publication be handled?”
I am not a scientist but nevertheless am attempting to draft some rules for journal of record.
I intend to publish these on the web for critism and improvement.
I nievely hope that in this way the situation can be materially improved.
My blog is called most imaginatively – wait for it – “ausiedan.com”
My tentative launch date is 1st March, but I confidently predict that the actual date will be later.
Jeff Alberts says:
February 10, 2011 at 7:25 pm
1 The bottom line that has been lost in the fog of this war is that Antarctica isn’t warming as much as is claimed, and most of the statistically significant warming is confined to the peninsula.
2 Actually that’s not correct, ………
=======================================================
Jeff, I think the commentator was speaking towards reality as opposed to our theoreticians. Reality often gets lost in these discussions. I find, that more often than not, reality negates most studies. O’Donnell et. al. being an exception ………..sort of. O’Donnell addresses an alternate reality. One that Steig et al live in. It isn’t real, because it doesn’t address reality.
I applaud the people who are willing to undertake such efforts, but the fact is, after an entire generation of wailing and gnashing of the teeth, we’re better off than we were in the 70s or 80s. There’s really no need to go through the trouble. All is required is to remember what was stated back then. The alarmists were wrong. They continue to be wrong. They have always been wrong. History validates my assertions. It is time to simply make fun of, and ridicule these preposterous assertions.
“If man continues to progress, we will all die!!!!!!”…………………….. They are people to make fun of. They are not to be taken seriously. To spend such effort lends them credibility in which they have none to claim. History has falsified them.
James
Eric Steig has totally lost it, mentally and emotionally. I really hope he recovers…I’m sure some of his peers are appalled and concerned by his erratic behavior.
Meanwhile, as congress looks to cut back the federal budget by $100 billion, I can see the climate ca$h beginning to evaporate. Unfortunately, the politically-connected “scientists” at place like NOAA and NASA-GISS will still manage to get their funding to carry on their wasteful and redundant projects…How much are we paying for the IPCC AR5 work, for example??
From Response to Third Review A, page 8:
From http://climateaudit.org/2011/02/07/eric-steigs-trick/#comment-254159:
It seems to me that Dr. Steig should not have launched into a public criticism of O’Donnell et al., when he, admittedly, was not a statistician and apparently did not understand a subtle, but key, statistical distinction.
Futhermore, it should be emphasized that Steig, et al. have not been completely transparent with regard to Steig 2009. They initially promised to electronically publish “all” of their data, but, subsequently, they have withheld and are continuing to withhold the raw satellite data as well as the details of the cloud masking. I don’t think that this data will ever be disclosed, because, if they do disclose it, IMO any remaining credibility would vanish. However, I could be wrong. Here is why I think that Steig et al. may need to be withdrawn:
1. Steig et al. claim that their study is based on the satellite data (NATURE| Vol 457|22 January 2009, pg 462):
They reference: Comiso, J. C. Variability and trends in Antarctic surface temperatures from in situ and satellite infrared measurements. J. Clim. 13, 1674–1696 (2000) (Comiso 2000) and state as the only explicit change to Comiso 2000:
2. Comiso 2000 states:
References to seasonal trends are made in O’Donnell 2010, Steig’s first review (Review A) and its response, in Review C and its response and in Review D. In no way should this comment be taken as a criticism of O’Donnell 2010 as the processed AVHRR data was provided by Dr. Steig without further clarification and without any gaps (Steig et al Antarctica ant_recon.txt is what I had downloaded – it may have a different name now). The reader should be cautioned that Steig et al may have processed the infrared data for all months of the year and for each year, instead of what Comiso 2000 states, but, given the reference to Comiso 2000 and the refusal to disclose the raw satellite data, this question is not frivolous.
3. Steig 2009 makes no mention of how much AVHRR data is lost due to cloud masking. Kato et al. 2006 (S. Kato, N. G. Loeb, P. Minnis, J. A. Francis, T. P. Charlock, D. A. Rutan, E. E. Clothiaux, and S. Sun-Mack, Seasonal and interannual variations of top-of-atmosphere irradiance and cloud cover over polar regions derived from the CERES data set, GRL, VOL. 33, L19804, doi:10.1029/2006GL026685, 2006) states (pg 3):
Thus, it can be assumed that only 25% to 38% of the AVHRR data is retained after cloud masking. Furthermore, Comiso 2000 states as one of their conclusions:
Thus, each datum of the satellite data matrix provided by Dr. Steig should have an individual uncertainty probably greater than 3°C, but certainly in whole degrees C, yet Steig 2009 asserts that there is statistically significant warming by calculating trends in tenths of degrees C with confidence intervals expressed in hundredths of degrees C. I would submit that such an assertion is highly questionable and should be believed only upon rigorous demonstration. (Once again, this is no reflection on O’Donnell 2010 as they specifically state in the response to Reviewer D that:
)
Given all of the above, I respectfully submit that Steig 2009 should be withdrawn in its totality as the claimed warming trends appear to be a fantasy, given the cloud masking data losses of about two thirds and the uncertainty for each remaining datum of at least 3°C according to Comiso 2000 (Dr. Comiso is a co-author of Steig 2009). I remain open to withdrawing this comment if Steig et al. can rigorously demonstrate that the total uncertainty of the satellite data doesn’t swamp the small warming trends that they claim (I would likewise say that any claim that there is a small cooling trend would also be a fantasy on the same grounds). Withdrawal of Steig 2009, however, IMO should not impact O’Donnell 2010 as they have conclusively demonstrated that the statistical methodology employed in Steig 2009 is erroneous and that result would survive in any event. In closing, I would like to congratulate the O’Donnell 2010 authors for their fine scholarship.
My only comment on O’Donnell 2010 is that they should have included somewhere the response to Reviewer D’s comment on pages 1-3 of said response that the O’Donnell trend was not statistically different than the Steig 2009 trend, as this may be a common misunderstanding when comparing two different trends. I thought the explanation by O’Donnell et al. was very instructive and it shouldn’t be buried in a review response.
The fact that the Team at Real Climate now feels compelled to engage with the far larger, more educated and better informed WUWT community, says to me that the forces of enlightenment are beginning to win the war. The pernicious AGW movement is dying…but let’s not underestimate the amount or the toxicity of the venom left in this viper.
Jack
Roy Spencer has had the same trouble with his paper “On the diagnosis in the presence of unknown radiative forcing”.
A direct quote here:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2010/08/our-jgr-paper-on-feedbacks-is-published/
‘After years of re-submissions and re-writes — always to accommodate a single hostile reviewer — our latest paper on feedbacks has finally been published by Journal of Geophysical Research (JGR).’
So who was the hostile reviewer in this case? Maybe it was someone else within the team!
To a non-scientist but with many years of involvement in various professional and community organisations, I find the attitude and actions of ‘The Team’ and those who administer the ‘Real Climate’ blog to be both utterly and stunningly self-serving and dishonest. It takes very little research among the many easily-available sources of information about the topic of conflicted interests to realise that the rules are very simple and easily understanable. The first rule is that if you merely even suspect that you may have a conflict of interest in any proceedings, you walk away from that conflict while stating clearly why you are walking away.
The Team and its apologists have a continuing history of behaving disgracefully – no amount of verbal sleight-of-hand can excuse inexcusable behaviour.
Joel Shore says:
February 10, 2011 at 7:04 pm
Well, Joel, I don’t know who is “winning” the scientific debate, but I know who is winning the policy debate, and it certainly isn’t your side.
Anyone who would cast this particular issue in terms of “the losing side” of a debate complaining about referees is just a loser himself.
I presume that when Steig’s response is drafted and submitted, Ryan O’ or Jeff Id etc. will be invited to take up that Reviewer A spot.
N0, you don’t think so?
The delicious irony in all this is the petard was first thrust by Eric Steig as he stood victorious having had a golden insiders run to get his paper published – featured on the front cover, written up by the MSM, a fully fledged member of “The Team”, so who could blame him for telling the “little boys” not to bother a “high Priest of Science (him) by asking inconvenient questions – go away and publish their own paper in a Peer Reviewed Journal…. cue music.
Damn they did, what to do. Easy accept an “anonomous” review role, what better way for an insider to hold up the paper, or perhaps… cue martial music.. prevent publication (and was he helped by the team) Damn wish I hadn’t challenged them to publish, how come they add two and two and get four, that’s not climate, they have got to learn where they are in the grand scheme of our Climate science.
Damn they got it published o.k. the Team will deny it is any good – bad, bad climate paper go away…that should do it. Cue evil music.. What the authors are defending their paper, we’ll fix their wagon – bad bad climate paper go away. cue thinking music…Hey why not attack the very things I/We? asked them to use, that will fix their wagon and it will sound so scientific, credible, to show bad, bad science and statistical method.
Yerk!! I overstepped the mark and they have revealed I was the reviewer that held up the paper.. cue panic music.. Team Team come to my rescue… No I never lied, just tweaked the truth as all Real Climate scientists do. Now lets stick together and deny our way out of this.
Glad we dug the borehole, on with the tin helmets and retreat to attack! cue funeral march music.. Alas poor Eric I knew him well… as he hangs hoist on his own petard.!
Officer: Sir, I saw you run the stop sign and kill the pedestrian whose body lies beneath your car.
Steig (Mann, Jones, Hansen, Schmidt, any of ’em): Officer, you say that like it is a bad thing.
SBVOR: February 10, 2011 at 10:18 am
Your ‘research rants’ is a brilliant typo, like my other favourite ‘Monibot’ for Monbiot, an excellent one word summary of what’s really going on.
KenB: February 11, 2011 at 4:00 am
Excuse the pedantry but a petard is a small bomb used for blowing in doors and similar applications by engineers or sappers so no thrusting involved.
‘For ’tis the sport to have the engineer
Hoist with his own petard: and ‘t shall go hard
But I will delve one yard below their mines,
And blow them at the moon:…’