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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Quote:
But it should not be done in isolation by the remote sensing scientists. Interdisciplinary cooperation with modelers is required in order to develop a joint understanding of where and why models deviate from satellite data. Only through this close cooperation the complex aspects involved in the satellite retrievals and the modeling processes can be properly taken into account.
************
Nonsense !
The paper stands or falls on it’s own merits. How it conforms to observations is important.
How it conforms or fails to conform to the model is immaterial.
There are so many contradictions in Wagner’s statement that one wonders what dark forces are at work. The very fast reaction by the Guardian and BBC look like they had been prewarned about what was about to happen and had their stories largely pre-written.
Is Wagner known to a Warmist? I am having trouble working out whose side Wagner is on and why he resigned in this messy way. Has he another job to go to?
I’m in no way religious, but the reference by the BBC to Spencer being a ‘committed Christian’ is absolutely disgraceful. It can only be to throw doubt on his science. I thought the science stood by itself? No wonder we are sceptics.
The peer review group fought Plate Tectonics for 80 years. Only when we had advanced measurements, did they finally relent (repent??). Now it is obvious, given the Mid-Atlantic RIF, that sea floor spreading moves the continents.
In the case of Global Warming, yes, we have had Global Warming due to the increased activity of the Sun (since 1650). The Sun has been quiet for only 6 years (2005 on); it will take another 10 years for the true effects to be realized. In 10 years, the new measurement techniques will be verified.
The fight for funding, sponsored by the APG group (new world order control of EPA), will only die when funding dies. Until then, I say good riddance to an arrogant, egotistical, Editor-in-Chief.
****
John Kehr says:
September 3, 2011 at 1:32 am
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.
****
As an old engineer, I too find that comment by Dr Spencer a bit surprising. But I’ll give him a pass & chalk it up to frustration.
Still, maybe he needs to spend a couple of days w/engineers at a power plant while scrambling to get back online at the end of a major outage. Sleep is not an option….
It will be most interesting to see where and when he takes his next job. This may have been his jump-off fanfare for a new job that was already arranged for, trying to discredit the paper that so threatens the validity of the precious crap-in-crap-out models that are at the heart of the AGW machine in the process.
Has anybody called up Remote Sensing and asked them what their policy is on retracting papers? It would seem that this policy would be crucial to any understanding of why the paper is not retracted.
I very much doubt that anyone who writes for the Guardian let alone reads it has ever met an engineer. They just don’t move in those circles……
As an engineer, I can confirm that PHD’s and career for life academics are hardly reliable. We have plenty of these propeller heads in my company and many of them are geniuses and they are often honored and respected for this, but that does not mean they can be trusted to be more right. In my experience, they LACK field experience to know that the REAL world does not always confirm precisely to models and equations. Us engineers have to straddle the sometimes grand canyon like divide between the equations and field results. This is why engineers use PHYSICAL models (experiments) to test theoretical models and even then we ADD a huge SAFETY FACTOR for what we don’t know we don’t know. Experienced engineers, like Burt Rutan, are knowledgeable in BOTH the real world and mathematical pursuits and tend to be humble in their convictions, whereas pure academics often overate the predictive power of models and theory.
All is moot until someone shows how the paper is wrong. If claims of “fundamentally flawed” cannot be shown, …….
Also,
Help the facts expand to use up all the CO2.
Please don’t berate people for speculating, and then profusely speculate yourself.
As an atheist, I agree. If anyone believes that Spencer’s paper is biased by his religious views, it should be very easy to show how.
I’ll wait…
This seems to say it all: “screw you guys, I’m going home!”
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5Jh3PpvBk0&w=420&h=345%5D
I think that Mr Wagner is being a bit hard on himself. But he did the right thing. If an editor allows a paper to be published explaining why the earth is flat – a paper that totally ignores (not refutes, just ignores) widely accepted scientific theory, then that editor should resign just as Wagner did – for wasting his readers’ time and tainting the reputation of his journal.
It’s good to see junk science exposed for what it is once in awhile.
For the future, I would suggest that the journal “Remote Sensing” stick to articles that pertain mainly to “Remote Sensing” and stay out of the climate change debate until their editors and reviewers gain more competence.
REPLY: “I would suggest that the journal “Remote Sensing” stick to articles that pertain mainly to “Remote Sensing””
Oh please, this has to be one of the stupidest comments ever made here. What do you think satellite measurement of the earth temperature is, in situ? Stick to commenting on things you know something about. Start with this definition. Then learn about the CERES (Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System) radiative budget instruments on
NASA’s Terra satellite, the remote sensing tool used in the paper. – Anthony
It would seem that my original post inferring that Mr Wagner had honourable motives was entirely mistaken for which I apologise. Bishop Hill and Retraction watch note that Remote Sensing stands by its decision to publish and will not retract the paper but allow it to be subject to the normal process of scientific debate. How solid that information is, I cannot confirm. However it does highlight three points:
1. Asian publications are going their own way and do not permit Team influence of any sort.
2. The Chinese, Japanese and Koreans are quite confident in their ability to pursue the climate debate on its merits.
Bye bye American and European control of Science!
3. Wagner is a typical European figure head for an Asian publication and has buckled under team pressure. He needs an “out” to avoid being blackballed by the politically motivated “Climate” establishment otherwise it is the road sweepers brush for him, but the magazine would not allow him to criticise its Editorial process so all he could come up with was that blogs,opinions and press statements were his motivation. The man is an a***. (British spelling)
Whenever I see the word “consensus” among scientists in a politically and ideologically charged topic I read it as “bandwagon”. Science isn’t about consensus. It’s about explanations for natural phenomena that are demonstrably right or wrong. AGW climate science is rife with just-so stories and lacking in demonstration.
The CO2 bogeyman is an argument from ignorance based entirely upon circulation models that cannot backcast with any accuracy without introducing CO2 forcing and a mythical water vapor amplication thereof. Every skeptic I have any respect for questions the water vapor amplification and little else.
The argument from ignorance is “if it isn’t CO2 forcing we don’t know what else it could be [ergo CO2]“. Any mention in scientific circles of what else it could be is quashed by the bandwagon. It took 15 years for Svensmark’s hypothesis about GCR modulation of cloud cover to get further experment done that would either falsify or lend further support to it. When CLOUD experiment yielded data recenty it lent further support. In the meantime AGW alarmists tell us we don’t have 15 years to wait before taking draconian measures to prevent catastrophe. Isn’t that just precious? I read that as “hurry up and restructure the global economy before it’s discovered that anthropogenic CO2 warming is no danger”.
The unfortunate editor of Remote Sensing had to be severely punished to set an example for any other editors who dare to publish anything which disagrees with any elements of the bandwagon just-so story. This will have a chilling effect that you should, if you value the integrity of scientific investigation, find very alarming.
By threat or bribe or both this editor was coerced into resignation to send a clear warning to others what happens if they make waves that rock the CAGW boat.
And they wonder why they can’t convince enough of the public that CAGW is something to worry about. The public may not understand the science but they can smell a rat with an agenda from miles away. Something’s rotten in the state of Denmark and it isn’t Svensmark. Neither is it Roy Spencer or the editor of Remote Sensing.
I guess that I don’t understand why he would resign over this. It doesn’t make sense. If Wagner had identified a flaw in the peer review process at his journal, whether it be technical, systemic or ethical, why not remain as Editor-in-Chief and work from the inside to fix it? Instead he resigns over, supposedly, one paper? Weird.
And to state that he objects because the paper ignored other previous “refuting” work totally misses the point that scientific debate constantly questions and jostles the prevailing consensus. My God, the entire Mannian smoothed-out MWP debate is a case iin point. Herr Wagner’s decision smells opportunistic and political.
I fear that this journal has now been thrown to the CAGW wolves, and anything contrary that is published will be ignored and derided in the future. Weren’t there some comments in the Climategate emails about redefining the definition of peer review? I don’t think Herr Wagner was involved in those emails, but he sure seems to be part of the meme.
Tim Clark: “I predict that the CERN group will not be publishing the results of their research in this toilet fodder rag.”
************************************************************************************************************************
No doubt. I’m sure Roy Spencer is an honest man, and would freely admit he specifically sought to publish his paper in a relatively obscure on-line journal that did not have a record, or specific expertise in climate change science. A journal that did not have the expertise, or reviewing network, contacts, and clout on climate change that one of the more prestigious, international journals that routinely deal with climate change have. Being an honest man, I’m sure Mr. Spencer would openly admit he sought out “Remote Sensing” as an easier way of getting his material into the scientific press.
The CERN researchers no doubt, have the capability and confidence to publish in relevant, prestigious, and internationally recognized science journals, aka their paper in “Nature”.
As for the claims that Roy Spencer is the victim of a vast, global cabal of scientists who are out to get him, this assertion does not pass the laugh test. Its an excuse that is the rhetorical equivalent of “the dog ate my homework”.
As for the media report of Spenser being a devout christian, one might say that is not an appropriate journalistic fact. But, the fact is Roy Spenser is a self-professed devout christian. And he has written in favor of “intelligent design” nonsense. A “scientist” who promotes “intelligent design” and downplays the fundamental, well-established scientific tenets of evolutionary biology is perhaps a journalist fact worth noting. “Intelligent design” proponents in the scientific community are pretty much considered a laughing stock. Roy Spencer”s advocacy of intelligent design is relevant with respect to his collective scientific credibility.
otter17 says:
September 3, 2011 at 6:08 am
“Why not publish to an established journal that deals directly with climate science like the Journal of Geophysical Research?”
Because their gatekeepers filter out all papers that even hint at contradicting the ‘consensus’.
There’s literally no hope of publication there.
Sad, isn’t it?
David Ball says:
September 3, 2011 at 8:50 am
“All is moot until someone shows how the paper is wrong. If claims of “fundamentally flawed” cannot be shown, …….”
Exactly, David.
Lots of intelligent folks have read the Spencer Braswell paper, yet we see only bloviating and irrelevant allegation from the AGW brethren in the extensive responses above, not critical analysis demonstrating the ‘fundamental flaws’ that are repeatedly asserted. Time to ‘Put Up’ or ‘Shut Up’, Y’All ! Show us the ‘fundamental flaws’ and demonstrate empirically where they erred…… Please.
I’m afraid that his given reasons don’t seem to quite ring true with me in that they are probably incomplete.
OK, the review process may just possibly have been flawed.
OK, it was outwith the usual run of publications for that journal
But the paper itself has not been shown to be flawed
So why the resignation? Why jump if not pushed?
No reason for seppuku
Conclusion = was pushed and the reasons given are trumped up to preserve some face
Shaking Head in Disbelief says:
September 3, 2011 at 9:06 am
“I think that Mr Wagner is being a bit hard on himself. But he did the right thing. If an editor allows a paper to be published explaining why the earth is flat – a paper that totally ignores (not refutes, just ignores) widely accepted scientific theory, then that editor should resign just as Wagner did –
for wasting his readers’ time and tainting the reputation of his journal.
It’s good to see junk science exposed for what it is once in awhile.”
Shaking my head in disbelief at the stunning arrogance and ignorance of your post. Who is publishing anything about the world being flat? Do I have to explain basic scientific method to you? If scientists of the last two hundred years had bowed to the consensus because the consensus was the majority view then we would be exactly 200yrs behind our current level of scientific understanding.
Does it take me to point out that it has been individual scientists bravely challenging the consensus of the time that has progressed science in every field. The most outrageous slur on a scientist I have ever heard on this blog comes from you, a breathtaking level of ignorance. Throughout the history of science the consensus has been proven wrong again and again and it was usually just one or two scientists fighting against the entrenched ignorance of the time that pushed the boundaries of knowledge forward.
Junk science represents the consensus ignorance of the time, flat earthers were the consensus majority of their time and you have the nerve to insult a real scientist as a defender of the consensus, that is what flat earther actually means, if you look if up you will see with your own eyes the proper definition. To be a flat earther is to defend a traditional ignorance in the face of new knowledge, describes you and your fake consensus friends perfectly.
Really shaking my head in utter disbelief.
How is it possible that the Abraham paper could be written, reviewed (?), and accepted for publication so quickly? Is it going to be some sort of editorial note versus a paper?
Bernard J- another idiot who doesn’t realize that a scientist’s chief duty is to try to falsify his or her own work. ‘That don’t make it junk’, if they succeed at that or not, Numbskull, it’s the scientific process, or used to be!