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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Richard M says:
September 3, 2011 at 6:52 pm
“If I remember right Dr. Spencer spent a couple of years reviewing the state of evolutionary
theory before making any claims. I wonder how much time Peter Stone has spent. I also suspect Mr. Stone is unaware of the problems with macro-evolution.”
There’s not really a problem with macro-evolution IMO. Not when it’s just rearrangements in genomic information across all life that ever was. I have a problem with where that genomic information came from in the first place. Information is neither created nor destroyed, it only changes form. Thus the information containted in the arrangement of matter that makes up everything from protozoa to primates has been in the universe since its birth. I can accept the possibility that all the matter and energy in the universe just poofed into existance like magic some 14 billion years ago but it’s very difficult to accept that the ordering of it was just accidental and it cooled and expanded it produced molecular machines of mind boggling complexity and some of those machines the filled the library of congress. It actually seems absurd to me to believe it could happen by accident.
I believe this should be added to the updates if it has not already been mentioned.
Friday that truth became apparent. Kevin Trenberth received a personal note of apology from both the editor-in-chief and the publisher of Remote Sensing. Wagner took this unusual and admirable step after becoming aware of the paper’s serious flaws. By resigning publicly in an editorial posted online, Wagner hopes that at least some of this damage can be undone.
http://wwwp.dailyclimate.org/tdc-newsroom/2011/09/spencer-faulty-science
Strange behavior indeed, Climate Science is redefining what peer review is and how it is conducted every day.
peter stone says:
September 4, 2011 at 9:38 am
“You may have a “gut feeling” that he was coerced, but extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Please feel to provide substantive evidence and proof that a global conspiracy of scientists coerced the Editor, and also please provide substantive evidence that there is a vast conspiracy by climate scientists to fake data and perpetrate a hoax on the world public regarding climate change.”
So you don’t think people like Al Gore and James Hansen and organizations like Greenpeace coordinate their efforts and encourage people who share their beliefs to write letters to politicians and whatnot in an effort to sway policies?
OOOOOOOOOOOkay. Duly noted.
My take is that Wagner and Remote Sensing Journal in general got flooded with complaints and threats from all the usual suspects with vested emotional and professional interest in the CAGW narrative and it was decided by the owners of the journal that the only way to quench the flames was for Wagner to resign.
I wonder if Wagner got any death threats.
Or mabye Ben Santer is threatening to beat people up again.
“Next time I see Pat Michaels at a scientific meeting, I’ll be tempted to beat the crap out of him. Very tempted.” – Ben Santer, Lead Author IPCC (1995)
peter stone says:
September 3, 2011 at 4:39 pm
Hi Solomon,
Roy is a “scientist” who believes in creationism and intelligent design “theory, and has discounted the basic tenets of evolutionary biology. I am not at all surprised that he is one of the very few PhDs with training in climate who still doesn’t accept the widely-held scientific consensus on recent global warming. His contrarian (and even biblical) views on evolution and climate science I think speak directly to his credibility as a competent scientist.
————————-
Peter, What you say is absolute poppycock. You are just using ad hominem attacks against Dr Roy Spencer. You are as bad as BBC’s Richard Black. I would like to remind you that Einstein said that “God does not play dice” – does that speak to Einstein’s credibility as a scientist and regarding his Theory Of Relativity? No, of course not!
From the Guardian article “This latest paper is only one in a decade-long track record of errors that have forced Spencer to revise his work as the errors are brought to light. ”
As distinct from ignoreing errors when they are brought to light and refuseing to revise their work, which appears to be to modus operandi of the alarmists!!!!
To peter stone:
I see Smokey is ahead of me here. You claim as extraordinary the speculation by some that CAGW proponents have conspired to be journal gatekeepers, and you want extraordinary proof. The Climategate emails might not be the smoking gun, but they are extraordinary, and they clearly show some climate scientists conspiring to keep papers out and to control specific journals. What is also true is that this behaviour among climate scientists is not that extraordinary. All you have to do is follow the dialogue in any of your favorite blogs to see how the empowered climate elite constantly deride, marginalize and denigrate any and all who disagree.
An extraordinary claim, as pointed out by Smokey, is that rising CO2 will destroy us. As well, an extraordinary claim is that wind and solar will replace hydrocarbons. An extraordinary claim is that computer models, or some average of these models, represents truth. An extraordinary claim is that the IPCC is somehow the cream of the climatic intelligentsia. An extraordinary claim is that 350 ppm, or 400 ppm or 580 ppm or whatever is the tipping point past which armageddon is inevitable. You, sir, appear to have accepted Trenberth’s assertion that the null hypothesis has been turned on its head.
“Science is probabalistic, and the scientific method is not intended to proved 100% bullet-proof guarantees.” Very true. How does someone like you reconcile the late Schneider’s hyperbolic statement that the message needs to be stark and uncertainties downplayed? Do you believe that the scientific method is being properly followed in the multi-billion dollar climate alarmist industry? Are your favorite climate scientists being scientific? Or are they advocates?
The reasons given for Wolfgang’s resignation simply do not make sense – at least not in the real world, they don’t. In my mind, there are only two possibilities:
1. He was pushed by the magazine’s bosses. Action by the IPCC gatekeepers were making his position as editor untenable – there is already abundant evidence (especially in government departments and universities) that if you don’t heartily endorse the twin mantras of the AGW cult “carbon dioxide is evil and we must cleanse it from our atmosphere” and “natural climate cycles are either irrelevant or a myth and definitely not happening now”, then your job security is next to non-existent, or
2. Maybe he found a better job and used this as an excuse to leave early, so he could take up his new post.
I see we have some new alarmists seeking to smear Roy Spencer’s name, while simultaneously justifing dodgy commissions and pal reviews of scientific papers, The Stasi would be proud of you guys trying to stifle all alternative views which did not follow the party line. The trouble you guys face is that far too many real scientists and engineers – especially if they don’t work in government – know that the concept of: ‘science is settled’ is complete and utter BS.
The extensive and ongoing media exposure of the resignation of W. Wagner from Remote Sensing appears to be good news on all truly scientific fronts.
Congratulations to Remote Sensing.
I say congratulations because, to me, it appears that there was a successful active argument at Remote Sensing by both the Managing Editor and the “the editorial team” against the presumed disruption attempted by Editor-in-Chief Wolfgang Wagner.
That, if true, represents a very public Remote Sensing victory over of any attempt by presumed outside influences through Wagner to disrupt the Spencer and Braswell paper. The outside influences, if they exist and whoever they might be, can be easily be thought of as having the same manipulative nature as we saw exhibited by the Team in the climategate emails.
This is a win for independent thinking in climate science as it relates to the so-called consensus IPCC assessments and its so-called settled science.
John
Jeff Norris says: September 4, 2011 at 9:42 am
I just followed your link. The statement about the letter of apology was penned by Trenberth himself. Very curious indeed. One gets the impression that Dr. Trenberth is a major player in this somehow and is feeling very threatened by SB11. Hmmmm.
davidmhoffer says: September 3, 2011 at 9:10 pm
Nice analysis, Dave. It inspired me to take a bit of a closer look myself. Dr. Wagner is a very prolific author – an analysis of the network of his coauthors might be very illuminating…. but I digress.
To get an idea of the sort of pressure that might be applied, I urge readers to take a quick look at one of Dr. Wagner’s listed publications A New International Network for in Situ Soil Moisture Data (available here: https://www.ipf.tuwien.ac.at/wd/download/journal/dorigo2011_EOS_92_17_ISMN.pdf) , a two page article requiring seven co-authors. The article makes the observation:
The importance of soil moisture in the global climate system has recently been underlined by the Global Climate Observing System (a joint undertaking of the World Meteorological Organization, the United Nations, and the International Council for Science), which in 2010 endorsed soil moisture as an “essential climate variable.”
It is basically announcing a new data management network for soil moisture observations and is based at Dr. Wagner’s university. It is funded by the European Space Agency and is responsible for the data management of space-platform devices that were conceived through the Global Energy and Water Cycle Experiment (GEWEX) of the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP). It sounds a bit like the arrangement and mandate Dr. Spencer and UAH has with NASA.
The GEWEX website is located here: http://www.gewex.org/. You will note that the header describes GEWEX as: ”a core project of the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP), is an integrated program of research, observations, and science activities ultimately leading to the prediction of global and regional climate change.”
The article concludes with “The success of these efforts will depend upon long-term financial commitment. Fortunately, the positive contributions from international organizations such as WCRP/ GEWEX, the support of space agencies, and voluntary contributions from numerous individual networks are widespread, raising confidence in the scientific community’s willingness to realize an integrated soil moisture observing system.”.
A quick skim of the web sites and publications suggests that SB11 is a direct threat to the organizations and projects Dr. Wagner is associated with.
Well, good to take a bit of time with old friends.
David Hoffer has outed Wagner’s reasons for resignation IMHO. Wagner’s a modeller, he failed to get the Spencer and Braswell paper retracted that doesn’t even (thank goodness) consult modellers, he needs to resign to ensure his future employment as a modeller. A bit of a fortunate coincidence for climate skeptics. I thought there had to be a logical reason somewhere. And I guess that the modelling community will be the very last to realize that AGW is dead.
Roger Knights has outed Peter Stone as a troll, by putting Peter’s quote from Roy’s blog into context.
peter stone says:
“The so-called ‘climate gate’ controversy was investigated by numerous agencies, commissions, panels, and the British parliament. It doesn’t pass the laugh test to speculate that all these panels and commissions are in on a vast, global plot to fake scientific data perpetrate a scientific hoax.”
IMHO, you are incurably naive and credulous. Big, big money is involved, reputations are at stake, and careers are on the line, therefore there has not been one “investigation” in which any adversarial party has been permitted to ask questions. Michael Mann even had a hand in crafting which questions he was asked!
Every one of your “numerous agencies, commissions, panels” and yes, even Parliament have whitewashed the blatant scientific misconduct exposed in Climategate. None of them were willing to engage in any real investigation; they didn’t want to hear the truth. Rather, they all scrambled to close every ‘investigation’ as fast as possible, and without asking any critical questions. Those ‘investigations’ were deliberate coverups by people and institutions with too much to lose.
“John Ritson says:
September 3, 2011 at 4:30 am”
Thumbs up!
Peer Review by a few peers used by a journal was never intended to ensure the “given truth” of an article then published. Nor is the standard of “consensus” anywhere to be found in the application of the principles and practices of real ‘scientific method’ science – according to which the “CO2 = CAGW” Mantra has miserably failed, as has just been highlighted once again by Wagner’s own anti-scientific “logic” and histrionic antics!
This kind of acting-out, along with the utilization of other propaganda tactics such as repeating meaningless memes and the use of Saul Alinsky’s “Rules For Radicals” involving subrationally personalizing and demonzing a mere author or publisher – or indeed any speaker – analyzing an issue as a substitute or ‘proxy’ for dealing with the issue [see poor “peter stone’s” above standards for radical-cultist ‘credibility’] and Gramsci’s hegemonic infiltration of a society’s institutions with ideological controllists and assorted money grubbers, are what actually comprise ipcc Climate Science’s ‘method’.
Moreover, as indeed one very minimal sceptical scientific standard which certainly would have applied to the publication of S&B back in the pre-postmodern days before the reality of the Enlightenment was refuted by Stripbark Mann and the Warming Models, and when real scientific norms were rightfully holding sway, everyone knew that a journal would sometimes publish an article precisely because it was “controversial”!
Totalitarian thought controllists, a.k.a. ipcc “Climate Scientists” and “Progressives”, just get sooo upset when anyone doesn’t say exactly what they want them to say…snif.
Good to see you back, Lucy.☺
The fact that he considers resigning as an appropriate response to a “controversial” paper being published in his journal is prima facie evidence that he was in way over his head to begin with. How childish can one get?
———————————-
Robert E. Phelan,
Interesting you should point out Wagner’s work on soil moisture.
Professor Murray Salby’s upcoming paper on Earth’s carbon system dynamics will contain significant focus on soil moisture, based on the podcast of his talk on ‘Global Emission of Carbon Dioxide: The Contribution from Natural Sources’ given at the Sydney Institute on 2 Aug 2011.
We can expect to hear from Wagner again when Salby’s paper comes out.
John
Peter Stone:
Is this you?
http://globalchange.mit.edu/people/faculty.php?id=42
If so — why not just address the points in the S&B 2011 paper — it would make more sense. Your posts are becoming somewhat repetitive. Thanks for reading this.
Drew: “I have been a skeptic for about 10 years. However, I wasn’t against the IPCC, UEA, NASA et. al because of the science, it was always the sensationalized media reports which drove me mad. ….It was because of these reasons that when reading how the editor-in-chief of Remote Sensing quit, I at first was dutifully regarding his leaving as suspicious. His letter, in it’s entirety, is quite appropriate to my mind and was perfectly acceptable for his reasons to be seen as an act of decency given what he believes…..
So, as is sometimes the case, I went to real climate to read their summary of this debacle. The summary by the moderators and the interaction especially between RW, Simon Abington and Gavin clarified for me, some major flaws I always felt existed in CAGW theory. I don’t have time to work out all the details so I know at some point I have to trust someone is not lying to me — otherwise I’ll be searching forever for my shadow.
I need to read and understand the Spencer & Braswell because from what I’m reading, I have severe misapprehension that being skeptical is not right anymore.”
*****************************************************************************************************************
Hello Drew,
I agree that journalists – who are generally not trained in science – can craft headlines an articles that don’t faithfully render the science. That’s not the fault of scientists, and historically, scientists are too busy to make time to blab to journalists about the level of accuracy in their articles.
Keep in mind, media inaccuracy runs both ways. The alleged “Climate Gate” scandal was presented by some media as smoking gun proof that anthropogenic climate change was an elaborate hoax, perpetrated by a global conspiracy of climate scientists who faked data and with the devious collaboration of the world’s governments and most respected scientific organizations.
Evidently, this thread has similarly devolved into guesses and speculations about devious plots to keep Roy S. from publishing. I think my work here is done, when a thread devolves into unsubstantiated claims and guesses about global plots, we have clearly left the realm of science and rational inquiry.
I also agree that the public should be educated that science is probabilistic, and always involves inherent uncertainties. Even the theory of gravity or the theory of evolution, after hundreds of years, are still active areas of research to further probe the exact mechanics that drive gravity and evolution, even if the broad outlines of gravity and evolution are firmly established as settled scientific facts.
Personally, instead of reading media accounts of science, I like to actually go to the websites of highly reputable and prestigious scientific organizations to read about the state of climate science. Surprisingly, those are where one can find the most accurate characterizations of climate science, and remaining uncertainties.
For example, I always liked this simple explanation from the U.S. National Academy of Sciences….
************************************************************************************************
“Science has made enormous progress toward understanding climate change. As a result, there is a strong, credible body of evidence, based on multiple lines of research, documenting that Earth is warming. Strong evidence also indicates that recent warming is largely caused by human activities, especially the release of greenhouse gases through the burning of fossil fuels. While much remains to be learned, the core phenomenon, scientific questions, and hypotheses have been examined thoroughly and have stood firm in the face of serious scientific debate and careful evaluation of alternative explanations.”
Source:
-U.S. National Academy of Sciences
-U.S. National Academy of Engineering
-U.S. National Research Council
http://dels.nas.edu/resources/static-assets/materials-based-on-reports/reports-in-brief/Science-Report-Brief-final.pdf
reply to: peter stone says: September 4, 2011 at 9:38 am
Peter borrows the well worn phrase:
Please provide substantive evidence and proof that (h/t peter stone) the AGW hypothesis is even the equivalent, let alone better than the null hypothesis. Please provide substantive evidence and proof that temperatures the last 60 years have risen more, and/or faster, than they have previously during the Holocene (60 years of course being the time period when human CO2 emissions became significant).
To be fair, its not the job of parliament to protect and promote the scientific process. It’s the job of parliament to speak for the electorate, and if they want religion, so be it. If they want fascism, communism, animalism or greenism, so be it. I guess the same is true in the US.
So whose job is it to hold science to account ? who is the judge ?
I wonder what the philosophers have to say on the subject
Eternal Optimist,
The problem is not the electorate, which generally makes good decisions when all the facts are presented. The problem is the endless gatekeeping and whitewashes resulting in a deliberate lack of transparency. With only one side’s ‘facts’ spoon-fed to the electorate, the outcome is predictable. Thank goodness for the internet.
Quite right. We all saw what happened in the late 80s with the ozone hole scare. The so-called science was perfectly gate-kept by the scientists and the media. As a young university student at the time, I believed it was a real problem, as that was the only line being peddled — spoon fed to me.
Now, however, I know that the ozone science actually had substantial holes in it. At the time, though, no such questioning appeared in the popular media.
With AGW, I thank the stars for the internet, allowing good folks like Anthony Watts to provide a forum for skeptical science. Without the `net, AGW would have been ozone hole redux. I can only imagine how much further public policy would be had AGW been fully gate-kept like the ozone matter was.
Peter Stone,
“As for your doubts about evolution, evolution is one of the most well established scientific facts in the history of science.”
Perfectly true.
“Climate science, while not reaching the threshold of proof that evolution has, is widely and almost universally accepted by climate scientists worldwide, and is supported my multiple lines of evidence and decades of research.”
Here you fall down. I suspect you are conflating different theses into a single conclusion. The “fact” that climate science is almost universally accepted by climate scientists worldwide does not make it a robust theory like evolution. Even worse, your assertion that climate science is almost universally accepted is easily refuted. Out of the fifty or so scientists who actually investigate the effects of GHG’s and their feedbacks on global climate, the number of sceptics is not insignificant. I could name in addition to Spencer – Lindzen, Choi, Akasofu, Baliunus, Pielke sr, Scaffeta, Christy, Cazanave, Loehle, Tisdale, Svalgaard, Svensmark, Ball, Michaels, Singer. The only way you can get an “overwhelming majority” is by including scientists who aren’t actually climate scientists but nevertheless profess that AGW is the only true position – people like Paul Nurse (microbiologist and head of the Royal Society) and Martin Reese (former head of Royal Society). These people are no better than the soothsayers of old. They are likely the vicitms of groupthink.
Your last point was that climate science is “supported by multiple lines of evidence”. I presume by climate science you mean the AGW version, but what the multiple lines of evidence are, I am unsure. It certainly pales beside the multiple lines of CONSISTENT evidence that underpins evolution. IMO, I don’t regard issues such as “missing heat,” “missing tropical mid troposphere hotspots” and “lack of warming” and the research of Lindzen and Choi in radiation budgets, to be supporting evidence. Then there is the dendro divergence problem, and the satellite/thermometer divergence problem which elicited a paper by Parker which attempted to use wind as a proxy for temperature. Still in your mind, these are multiple lines of supporting evidence. What can I say? Some people never can be persuaded.
Peter Stone, you need to remember that most people here actually read the climategate documents themself. It does not matter what the “investigations” said when you have read the mails.