From Climate Audit, more on the ongoing Antarctic kerfluffle.
By Ryan O’Donnell
Subsequent to my post on Feb 7, 2010 here, Eric Steig informed me by email that he had not seen our Response to his Third Review, as I had previously assumed. I apologize for my misunderstanding on this point, which was, however, incidental to the major concerns expressed in my post. A more detailed response on matters raised in Steig’s most recent RC post and other issues will be forthcoming.
My misunderstanding over whether Steig received the Response to the Third Review does not alter the fact that Steig acting as Reviewer A, in his Second Review, had asked the editor to “insist” that we present the “most likely” West Antarctica trends, specifically proposing iridge, although, in an email yesterday, Steig expressed “total surprise” that we had complied with his iridge proposal and, in his Feb 1 RC post, even criticized us for complying with his proposal. We will have more to say on this near the future, as his explanations remain insufficient.
Nor do I agree that the criticisms in his RC posts of the methodology have any merit. In his Third Review, Steig had raised similar points against iridge, notwithstanding his Second Review proposal of the approach and his Third Review comment that “use of the ‘iridge’ procedure makes sense to me, and I suspect it really does give the best results”. We responded fully to these concerns in our Response to his Third Review, although we were unaware until Feb 8, 2011 that Steig had not received a copy of our Response.
In any event, Steig knew or ought to have known that our response must have satisfied the editor of Journal of Climate and should have familiarized himself with our response before condemning the method that he had previously encouraged. Had Steig informed me that he had not seen a copy of our Response to his Third Review, I would have been delighted to send it to him. Instead, he chose to publicly disparage our paper using arguments that were both irrelevant and satisfactorily addressed – which was, unfortunately, no different than the tactic he used during review.
Steig’s recent outbursts are merely his most recent effort to obfuscate the underlying point of our critique: that whatever was original in Steig et al 2009 was based on faulty mathematics; and that whatever was correct in Steig et al 2009 was already known.
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I see Eric has closed comments over at Real Climate. Gutless.
Gutless indeed. I note that he made no attempt to defend his (science).
So, for all his vaunted fairness, it seems that Andrew Revkin exaggerated greatly when he said O’Donnell was planning to issue an apology on the “worst of his accusations.” I don’t want to make too much of this as I obviously know no details, but he did say he was copied in on relevant emails and thus implied first hand knowledge…
“bushy says:
February 11, 2011 at 8:40 am
Gutless indeed. I note that he made no attempt to defend his (science).”
No, not science, math. Math is what keeps tripping people up on RC. It isn’t the science of statistics that seems to be the problem for team members. They seem to understand the concept, it’s the faulty mathematics used. In many cases you can say people “torture the data” to get what they want in statistics, this isn’t a case like this. This is a case of they screwed up the math to get their results.
This is the best from RyanO’s response:
“Steig’s recent outbursts are merely his most recent effort to obfuscate the underlying point of our critique: that whatever was original in Steig et al 2009 was based on faulty mathematics; and that whatever was correct in Steig et al 2009 was already known.”
Any further comment can’t better that statement!
Never ceases to amaze, does it? My mathematics teacher once told me that you cannot argue over mathematics, as it’s pure, unlike science, politics, history etc. I bet he’s turning in his grave now. But I never thought I’d see science tortured, and now mathematics!
Whilst I have no doubt that some of the criticism of Steig’s original work is well founded, I would like to remind all that open/public criticism is generally not considered to be good form amongst actual scientists. With this in mind, I don’t feel that scientists should stay behind the parapet (so to speak) but also I don’t feel that bloggers (of either/any AGW stance) should be actively derogatory or trying to encourage hasty discussion – this simply introduces more errors and misunderstandings.
The peer review process should be able to take its course (albeit rather slowly!) and I am not in favour of such open ‘review’ as in this case, whereby ‘he said this’ and ‘he did that’ type of discussion/response takes place. Again, in my view, this tends to introduce unnecessary malice/distrust/resentment, etc – partly due to the hurried nature that responses are, or have to be made, to the ‘baying public’. I think it is fairly obvious various comments and replies to such comments have been made slightly in haste and this is not typical between scientists IMO. I am reminded of sounds of ‘fight, fight, fight’ in the school playground – but you get the gist.
That said, any scientist willing to peep over the wall or stand his ground (or explain himself) should be encouraged and not hounded – even if they are in error.
Just my twopenneth as this ‘event’ seems to be hellish dragging on!
Steig got the answer he wanted even though the statistics were beyond his competence.
Is that how climate science is done these days.
Samuel Johnson is alleged to have said:
“that whatever was original in Steig et al 2009 was based on faulty mathematics; and that whatever was correct in Steig et al 2009 was already known.”
OUCH! . . . that is going to leave mark.
Steig at al have tried to deflect the fact that their paper was flawed (fraud) by bringing in all this slanging match. Ignore the slanging match and remember Steig has admitted he is no statistician:
whatever was original in Steig et al 2009 was based on faulty mathematics; and that whatever was correct in Steig et al 2009 was already known.
@roger “Your manuscript is both good and original. But the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good.”
Brilliant. When it comes to the complex system of climate and the simple Hansenisan CO2-explanation I always think of the following H.L. Mencken quote: “for every complex problem there is a simple solution – and it’s wrong”.
Have a good weekend.
Even if Steig was a part of the group that became reviewer A it is more likely that he was not aware of all the comments made by reviewer A! The responses from him show that reviewer A was a “Team Effort” with no one individual actually knowing what all was said in the process! Sort of like all the rest of the Team Works that have been produced!
Why bother with a climate journal. I agree with Delingpole that you should stick to WUWT or SPPI. You won’t get any stupid scientists criticising you, and you get really good peer-by-peer review here.
I think your article is brilliant and you explain things really clearly. You wouldn’t expect scientists to understand, they know nothing. They’d even probably try to say the ice is melting in Antarctica when everyone knows it’s cooling.
Regards, Denny.
Mac – Spot on! And quite generally applicable ..
The exact wording of Mencken’s quote makes it better:
Let’s not forget that, in addition to the incompetent and (strangely?) tendentious use of statistics, there are major problems with much of the data used.
See several WUWT and CA postings soon after Steig’s paper first appeared.
So far as I am aware, these dodgy, spliced, abused station data sets have never been corrected by Steig.
Kev-in-Uk
I am a layman trying to have a better understanding of Climate Science. That said I have also spent 71 years of my life separating the “Wheat from the Chaff” on my own reading as much as I can on both sides..
So my understanding of this dust up is That O is the Wheat since he has a Math back ground. Steig is the Chaff since he has said ” I am not a Statistician ” when the dustup is about a statistical outcome.
I may be wrong but that makes Steig wrong and his Science questionable.
Kev-in-Uk,
So who are you lecturing? Steig? Because he was the one who recommended a particular method (iridge) and then publicly criticized O’Donnell for using the method he recommended. Can you not see how that would get an author particularly hacked off?
O’Donnell was not the one who made this personal. O’Donnell did the right thing and showed in the peer-reviewed literature that Steig was wrong. There was nothing personal about it. It was Steig who made false claims about O’Donnell’s results and who publicly criticized O’Donnell for following his recommendations. Don’t you think the public has a right to know that Steig would stoop to such actions? I certainly do.
My conclusion is that Eric Steig has been hanging around Michael Mann too much.
I have four relevant questions that have probably been already covered in previous articles (forgive me). I tried to post them at RealClimate before the thread was closed, but my attempts were denied. Ryan, would you mind recapping by giving concise straightforward answers to these questions?
1) Were Steig’s data and methods (algorithms, statistical methods, code, etc.) freely available so others could replicate his results?
2) After all was said and done, did you and Steig end up processing the same data using the same methods (algorithms, statistical methods, code, etc.)?
3) If not, why not? (rhetorical question). As ‘Reviewer A’, Stieg made 88 pages of comments about O’Donnell’s paper. There’s no excuse whatsoever for mis-communication between the author and peer ‘Reviewer A’.
4) Is it possible (legal) to post Steig’s data and methods on WUWT so anyone who wishes could reprocess the same data, using the same methods?
Thanks
I bet Eric Steig wishes he had a time machine and could go back and remove the RC thread about Ryan’s paper.
That has to be one of the biggest own goals the ‘Team’ has ever made.
Just consider, Ryan et al paper comes out and RC and the ‘Team’ spin it as further confirmation of Steig et al. This new paper had just made some further improvements to the statistical analysis that’s all!!
Now some people on here and other blogs realised that this interpretation was completely wrong. The paper made no great claims as to what the actual trend in Antarctica was, just that it showed that Steig et al was absolutely flawed and in effect should be disregarded in the scientific literature.
However, this view had no great traction with the public and the media and the ‘Team’ could chalk up another win for their RC censorship and PR.
Unfortunately, due to their arrogance and ego, they could not leave it there. Nooo, they had to have the last word, not even the slightest blemish, inflicted by a non-believer, could be allowed to remain. Oh the hubris!
So we can see what has happened now.
It is now all over the internet about the dodgy dealing by Eric.
His paper can now be clearly be seen by everyone to be virtually worthless.
He has been forced to admit that he is ‘no statistician’. I think he has done this to ward the Indians off at the pass! Because if he tried to claim competence in the subject, with such obvious flaws in the analysis, then he would open himself up to the charge that he knew this all along and went with it, deliberately, because it could be made to back up his claims in other areas. This would be scientific misconduct and perhaps Eric would rather be known as incompetent rather than something altogether more nasty!
It also reopens the issue of misconduct in the peer review process by the ‘Team’ that was highlighted in the ‘Climategate’ scandal. Here it is again in full view of the world.
It begs the question of who were the Reviewers of Steig’s original paper? How could it have passed through this process if it had been reviewed by an objective expert statistician? Was it ‘Pal’ review rather than Peer review? Will we ever know?
Well done Ryan, for your dogged determination in the face of such obstruction by the ‘Team’ and now your efforts have born fruit in spectacular fashion!
Alan
[snip off topic, we aren’t discussing the sun on this thread]
Kev-in-Uk says:
February 11, 2011 at 9:13 am
“….I would like to remind all that open/public criticism is generally not considered to be good form amongst actual scientists. With this in mind, I don’t feel that scientists should stay behind the parapet (so to speak) but also I don’t feel that bloggers (of either/any AGW stance) should be actively derogatory or trying to encourage hasty discussion – this simply introduces more errors and misunderstandings….”
========================================================
Well, I don’t disagree with the thoughts expressed, but perhaps this would be a good time to remind people of the events relative to this affair.
ES was a reviewer(supposedly anonymous) for the O’Donnell paper. He insisted, requested, or suggested (depending on how one wants to characterize the exchanges) a change in the study. The change was made. ES then goes to RC and posts a critique of the paper specifically criticizing the change he insisted, requested or suggested. Further, he mischaracterizes the process of which the change to paper occurred. O’Donnell, rightly, calls ES on the bs, and correctly characterizes ES’ actions as duplicitous. ES then goes on RC and blathers about “Personal Responsibility”.
By the way, the scientists should know that once a paper has been published, as you say it is no longer questionable. So why it is being questioned I have no idea. I think you are right to be miffed that anyone would question your excellent work even after it was accepted. I bet they never question the work of a real scientist. They should have stopped the review as soon as they said: ” …are a substantive contribution to the literature and represent real improvements to the methods used in earlier work.”
That was all that was needed and proves that the paper is good and all earlier work is rubbish. I hope you didn’t take any notice of any questions about your paper or any comments made by reviewers. That would have been just pandering to the ignorant scientists.
When will you go back to Antarctica? Your research is really valuable.
Mike Davis says:
February 11, 2011 at 9:55 am
Well, then. If it turns out that someone other than Steig (Mann, Schmidt?) suggested/demanded that iridge be used, it would add an interesting turn to this scandal.