UPDATE: Sept 6th Hot off the press: Dessler’s record turnaround time GRL rebuttal paper to Spencer and Braswell
(September 4) Dr. Roger Pielke Sr. continues his discussion at his blog: Hatchet Job on John Christy and Roy Spencer By Kevin Trenberth, John Abraham and Peter Gleick. And I’ve added my own rebuttal here: The science is scuttled: Abraham, Gleick, and Trenberth resort to libeling Spencer and Christy
Dr. Judith Curry has two threads on the issue Update on Spencer & Braswell Part1 and Part2 and… Josh weighs in with a new cartoon.
UPDATE: Dr. Roger Pielke Sr. weighs in with his opinions on this debacle here, additional updates are below from Dr. Spencer.
UPDATE: Dr. Spencer has written an essay to help understand the issue: A Primer on Our Claim that Clouds Cause Temperature Change and an additional update Sept 5th: More Thoughts on the War Being Waged Against Us
September 2nd, 2011 by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.
SCORE:
IPCC :1
Scientific Progress: 0
It has been brought to my attention that as a result of all the hoopla over our paper published in Remote Sensing recently, that the Editor-in-Chief, Wolfgang Wagner, has resigned. His editorial explaining his decision appears here.
First, I want to state that I firmly stand behind everything that was written in that paper.
But let’s look at the core reason for the Editor-in-Chief’s resignation, in his own words, because I want to strenuously object to it:
…In other words, the problem I see with the paper by Spencer and Braswell is not that it declared a minority view (which was later unfortunately much exaggerated by the public media) but that it essentially ignored the scientific arguments of its opponents. This latter point was missed in the review process, explaining why I perceive this paper to be fundamentally flawed and therefore wrongly accepted by the journal
But the paper WAS precisely addressing the scientific arguments made by our opponents, and showing why they are wrong! That was the paper’s starting point! We dealt with specifics, numbers, calculations…while our critics only use generalities and talking points. There is no contest, as far as I can see, in this debate. If you have some physics or radiative transfer background, read the evidence we present, the paper we were responding to, and decide for yourself.
If some scientists would like do demonstrate in their own peer-reviewed paper where *anything* we wrote was incorrect, they should submit a paper for publication. Instead, it appears the IPCC gatekeepers have once again put pressure on a journal for daring to publish anything that might hurt the IPCC’s politically immovable position that climate change is almost entirely human-caused. I can see no other explanation for an editor resigning in such a situation.
People who are not involved in scientific research need to understand that the vast majority of scientific opinions spread by the media recently as a result of the fallout over our paper were not even the result of other scientists reading our paper. It was obvious from the statements made to the press.
Kudos to Kerry Emanuel at MIT, and a couple other climate scientists, who actually read the paper before passing judgment.
I’m also told that RetractionWatch has a new post on the subject. Their reporter told me this morning that this was highly unusual, to have an editor-in-chief resign over a paper that was not retracted.
Apparently, peer review is now carried out by reporters calling scientists on the phone and asking their opinion on something most of them do not even do research on. A sad day for science.
(At the request of Dr. Spencer, this post has been updated with the highlighted words above about 15 minutes after first publication.- Anthony)
UPDATE #1: Since I have been asked this question….the editor never contacted me to get my side of the issue. He apparently only sought out the opinions of those who probably could not coherently state what our paper claimed, and why.
UPDATE #2: This ad hominem-esque Guardian article about the resignation quotes an engineer (engineer??) who claims we have a history of publishing results which later turn out to be “wrong”. Oh, really? Well, in 20 years of working in this business, the only indisputable mistake we ever made (which we immediately corrected, and even published our gratitude in Science to those who found it) was in our satellite global temperature monitoring, which ended up being a small error in our diurnal drift adjustment — and even that ended up being within our stated error bars anyway. Instead, it has been our recent papers have been pointing out the continuing mistakes OTHERS have been making, which is why our article was entitled. “On the Misdiagnosis of….”. Everything else has been in the realm of other scientists improving upon what we have done, which is how science works.
UPDATE #3: At the end of the Guardian article, it says Andy Dessler has a paper coming out in GRL next week, supposedly refuting our recent paper. This has GOT to be a record turnaround for writing a paper and getting it peer reviewed. And, as usual, we NEVER get to see papers that criticize our work before they get published.
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I find it very interesting that Mr. Wagner never says that the paper is wrong, or untrue. He implies it many times, but never says it.
reply to: Matt says: September 2, 2011 at 4:36 pm
Well, I’ve just gotta say that if a ‘bad paper’ happening to ‘slip through’ were any sort of justification for an editor in chief to take responsibility by resigning, there’d be a whole lotta turnover, a massive amount of The Peter Priciple at work, and very very rapidly few if any remaining candidates for editor in chief. Or worse – no one would be willing to retract even the rottenest of papers anymore. So I’m not buyin’ the ‘my bad, let me take reasonable responsibility by promptly resigning with a very public justification letter’ rational. Especially when one considers that problems with this paper didn’t even rise to the level of being retracted before the resignation.
See these recent articles on the escalating number of retracted science papers. An Aug 2011 Wall Street Journal article, http://tinyurl.com/3z5gthr notes:
The following article http://tinyurl.com/3okrdm6 mentions several different studies of scientific paper retraction. Consider the very disconcerting statistic in one of those studies:
Meanwhile, a Wired article speculates about whether fraud has increased, or if perhaps other factors might be contributing [emphasis added]: http://tinyurl.com/3qmt2de
This is getting ridiculous,
Editor-in-Chief of Remote Sensing agrees that Spencer and Braswell (2011) should not have been published; resigns (Tim Lambert, Deltoid, September 2, 2011)
Paper Disputing Basic Science of Climate Change is “Fundamentally Flawed,” Editor Resigns, Apologizes (Peter Gleick, Forbes, September 2, 2011)
Editor who published controversial climate paper resigns, blasts media (John Timmer, Ars Technica, September 2, 2011)
Journal editor resigns over ‘problematic’ climate paper (Richard Black, BBC, September 2, 2011)
Journal editor resigns over ‘flawed’ paper co-authored by climate sceptic (Leo Hickman, The Guardian, September 2, 2011)
Cool climate paper sinks journal editor (Richard Monastersky, Nature News Blog, September 2, 2011)
Journal Editor Resigns Over Contrarian Climate Paper (Richard A. Kerr, Science Insider, September 2, 2011)
Science Stunner: Editor of Journal that Published Flawed Denier Bunk Apologizes, Resigns, Slams Spencer for Exaggerations (Joe Romm, Climate Progress, September 2, 2011)
CloudGate: Denialism Gets Dirty, Reputations Are At Stake (Greg Laden, ScienceBlogs, September 2, 2011)
Davidmhoffer says
“What does the readership of Remore Sensing have to say?…….”
* *
Excellent point David!
Obviously Remote Sensing has a readership ( or at least a few members) who have digested Spencer&Braswell’s paper. Whether or not they agree with it, ( or even Trernberth’s and Schmidts strawman objections to it) would be extremely interesting to read.
So, if I can make an assessment:
Dr. Spencer publishes a paper. People don’t like this paper. They post about it on the internet, maybe send emails and letters to the editor. The editor resigns on the grounds of… the internet? Where is the refutation? Still in print. Still, allegedly, being peer reviewed. Were the errors that fundamental? If so, why did it get past the peer review process? And what keeps the rest of the peer review process from being tainted in this manner? I suspect my questions will fall unanswered, but I will see.
The busted climate gate science says it all , they did delete the data ,they did fake the figures , and its impossible to predict chaotic theory with models or anything else for that matter ,the climate has been changing for billions of yrs with or without people , its the scam of the century , after all liquid c02 is dry ice they use it to keep water ice frozen longer , without it every living thing in the world would die .
The models say the system response to more CO2 is a positive feedback which is likely to lead to catastrophic consequences requiring a complete reordering of global civilisation to avoid those consequences.
Lots of evidence is accumulating to suggest that in reality it is heavily negative.
Roy’s paper gently points out that natural variations in cloudiness and ocean behaviour (not currently taken into account in the models) would frustrate attempts to establish the sign of any feedback process anyway.
Thus the entire AGW theory is flawed.
I think there should be a lot more resignations
SCORE:
Copenhagen: 0
Fossil fuel industry: 10
By the way please note that BBC World News is living up to its warmist reputation here http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14768574 – (‘Dr Spencer is a committed Christian as well as a professional scientist’)
Very appropriately, the village of Ockham, in Surrey, near where I was brought up, has a pub called the Black Swan.
On another topic entirely, surely the secret star of the piece is actually the Managing Editor, Elvis Wang. If he is from the People’s Republic of China, I would guess that he is more or less untouchable, politically speaking.
“SCORE:
Copenhagen: 0
Fossil fuel industry: 10”
Given that we could only move out of caves and avoid nasty brutish short lives with the aid of fossil fuels I think that should be:
IPCC: 0
Mankind: 100
Could it be that Wagner just found an excuse to abandon the AGW bandwagon, seeing that te edifice is crumbling following all the predictions that never happened and now the CLOUD confirmation that climate is driven by natural forces and not anthropogenic?
There are many ways to jump ship.
Pr Wagner will be reminded and acclaimed as one of the first climate martyr committing professional suicide in the name of Consensus.
It now has all the attributes of a religious war.
“Wolfgang Wagner” – Nobel laughingstock?
(Where does he go to get his male anatomy back again?)
SCORE:
Copenhagen: 0
Non-renewable fossil fuel industry: 10
SCORE:
Earth: 1
Population: 7 billion
SCORE:
Population – 1951: 3 billion
Population – 2011: 7 billion
Population – 2071: ?
Since no one else has taken umbrage at the insults directed at engineers by Dr. Spencer, let me be the first.
If I tally it correctly, engineers, geologists and meteoroligists are the three groups that most consistently call BS on global warming. It is the PhD class (and politicians) that is most determined in claiming that it is real. I suspect that the reason engineers so consistently mock global warming is because they are in general, the most practical of the scientifically minded.
So before you throw your indignation towards engineers Dr. Spencer, perhaps you should consider that they see through the AGW propaganda more clearly than your beloved class of scientists. It is exactly PhD scientists that created this entire mess in the first place.
As usual, it is up to the engineers to clean to clean up after you. Fortunately, we have lots of experience at it.
I thought AGW was settled science. Yet an editor resigns over a single article critical of an element of AGW?
Why not simply show where Spencer was wrong? Why can’t we see the data refuting Spencer?
True science is dispassionate and logical. Climate “science” based on AGW is neither.
Here is one explanation why Wagner resigned but the S&B paper was not retracted.
As a piece of science considered out of any context the paper is simplistic and its conclusions mundane, but not wrong. I posted when it first appeared and after quick skim –
“izen says: July 29, 2011 at 3:52 am Shorter Spencer and Braswell.
We could not match ten years of real world data with significant ENSO events with model data that makes the assumption that over longer timescales the ENSO effect is neutral.
Over a ten year period ENSO variations were larger than AGW forcings so it was impossible to measure the positive feedback effects that might amplify the radiative forcing from higher CO2.”
Undoubtedly it is a summary that could be improved, but I still think it stands as a defensible version of the extent of the claims made in the published PAPER.
The problem for Wagner as editor of Remote Sensing was that while the paper was relatively innocuous, subsequent publicity made it looked like Wagner and RS were credulous fools who had been scammed.
They had accepted a paper somewhat off-topic for their journal which did not appear to make any dramatic claims, but then found that publicity, the unkind might call it hype, and commentary about the paper went FAR further in its claims than is justified by the contents or conclusions of the paper.
It is this massive discrepancy between the content of the published paper and the claims made for it that resulted in Wagner concluding that the RS journal had damaged its reputation because of his decision to publish a paper that was then exploited to make claims beyond its range or remit. Either the journal and editor are complicit in this campaign of misrepresentation, or by resigning and directly referring to this campaign the editor can make clear his and the journals lack of involvement in this episode.
The fault he identifies that caused this error is that when ‘peer reviewing’ this paper that attacked the accuracy of models, little effort was made to see what the modelers might respond to the comparisons made between some satellite data and some models.
And whether the subject ALREADY had a literature – a scientific context – in which the S&B paper could be judged.
In a way this matches Dr Roy Spencer’s speculations about the IPCC/Team pressure, how many phone calls and emails would it take from the leading names in the field telling Wagner he had been made to look like an idiot by accepting a superficially mundane paper from known skeptics that was then used to make outlandish claims for the overthrow of a century of science on the climate ?
As Mr Trenberth’s paper is the only one referenced by Wagner as a pre-rebuttel to Dr Spencers paper, should we not ask the FBI/Scotland Yard or someone to compare the footprint on Wagners arse with the tread pattern of Trenberth’s trainers?
In 1920s Soviet Russia, in the middle of the jockeying for power following Lenin’s death, Stalin emerges to address an expectant crowd. “Comrades!,” he says. “I have in my hand a telegram from Comrade Trotsky, which I think will resolve our current differences of opinion. Let me read it to you: ‘You were right and I was wrong. You are the true heir of Lenin. I should apologize. Signed, Leon Trotsky.’”
The crowd goes wild! But wait, there’s one man in the crowd signaling to get Stalin’s attention. “Yes, comrade?,” Stalin asks. “Comrade Stalin, I think you know Comrade Trotsky is Jewish.” “Yes, I do.” “Well, I’m Jewish, too, and I thought I might have an extra insight on what Comrade Trotsky was trying to say. May I read the telegram myself?” “Of course, comrade!,” Stalin asks.
The man gets up and starts reading: “You were right and I was wrong? You are the true heir of Lenin? I should apologize? Signed, Leon Trotsky.”
So often it is the cover up that brings the scandal to the fore. This is great evidence useful for the political fightback against the corrupt forces of CAGW.
Frightening to see the power the alarmists have over someone who is – now obviously – one of their own people. It should be used as a warning to the world of what will happen much more widely if these agenda-driven power freaks are allowed to gain control over the rest of us.
For my part, I find it a little surprising that, out of all those 56000 downloads, not one seems to have been downloaded by a competent scientist who could find any obvious error. That’s less than two per hundred thousand. And before some troll jumps on the upcoming “Sceptical Science” “refutation”, may I suggest that you consider the difference between:
[a] a refutation (a logically sound derivation, from proven premisses, of a conclusion which is impossible to reconcile with that which has been refuted – including, in science, a demonstration of the resulting, incompatible observations)
and [b] a rebuttal (basically, repetition of “No, it’s not!”, a technique usually referred to by its practitioners as a “refutation”, notwithstanding its lack of either logic or evidence).
I’m guessing that all we’ll see on “Sceptical Science” will be the latter (as usual), doubtless referring to any number of papers about the outputs of the alarmists’ partial and inaccurate models. Much more informative will be the warning telegraphed by the reappearance of Wagner in some other post, now that his own bias has become so transparently obvious.