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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“But trying to refute all scientific insights into the global warming phenomenon just based on the comparison of one particular observational satellite data set with model predictions is strictly impossible.”
For my money, the use of the definitive “the” before the words “global warming phenomenon” says all that we need to know about Mr. Wagner’s prejudices.
Sounds like he needed to resign. There is only one question that matters: Did the paper meet the necessary criteria for being included in the journal? Is his letter, he answered that question as “yes”. It shouldn’t matter if Fox News and Forbes did stories on the paper. So why does he mention it?
It really sounds like he got mad that this paper got through, started trying to get some changes made to the submission criteria (which contained phrases like “the right people” and “think of the children”), got shot down, got madder, and resigned.
Translation:
The problem brought to my attention by the “team” is that the paper didn’t meet their majority view. It kicked against the pricks of consensus. It offered a scientific observation that did not agree with their models and that really angered them. Then the media really rubbed it under nose. Boy did the excrement hit the fan for letting this paper see the light of day! Of course, I was reminded that models trump observation in all cases where climate grant funding is involved. Silly me to forget, leaving that point to be missed in our review process. Just as Pharoah Horemheb struck the name of Akhenaten from obelisks and records of history for insulting the gods, I too face a similar fate, relatively speaking. This regrettably brought me to the decision to quit before they have me fired. Perhaps in doing so, I shall redeem my career somehow but obviously not as a journal editor. Everybody took this so seriously.
“Keith says, September 2, 2011 at 11:02 am:
You just watch the new EIC, Franny Armstrong, get the paper retracted so that the AR5 team can pretend it never existed.
…….”
I’ll not be the only one who will be extremely interested in how this unfolds.
As for this paper making it into AR5 – no chance. ‘The Team’ has form …
Bernard J,
“Wagner resigned because it became apparent to him that the review process was flawed by letting through work that had previously been shown to be crap. He probably sees his primary responsibility as giving up his position as editor, and that it is either Spencer’s & Braswell’s responsibility to retract their own paper, or for it to be scientifically refuted by peer review, as will happen next week in Geophysical Research Letters, in a paer by John Abraham.”
If the paper refuting Spencer and Bradwell will not be published until next week, on what basis is Wagner concluding that the paper is crap? Or is that merely a reflection of your own wishes?
He blames the reviewers???
Why would any scientist ever review an article for this journal again?
From the letter –
“But, as the case presents itself now, the editorial team unintentionally selected three reviewers who probably share some climate sceptic notions of the authors.”
Probably?? He resigns over a “probably”? Sounds like he is taking his ball and going home cause he does’nt like the score of the game.
HE needs to grow a pair, and stand behind his words – especially if he is calling someone out. He should take a lesson in his conviction of his own analysis from Dr. Spencer.
The whole thing is farcical, a sick joke. “Climate Science” has become an oxymoron.
A pox on all their houses.
Did the editor get a redundancy payment? Did he sign a compromise agreement? Is there a scientific paper debunking the Spencer paper?
How does a person become editor and chief of an English print magazine….
…and not be able to read and comprehend English
Bernard J:
Do you even know what Occam’s razor is? Or is “Ockahms razor” some exotic idea that I hadn’t heard of?
“This paper is wrong, and thanks for all the fish.” 🙂
I think FOIAs would be in order, but I am sure the TEAM has learned their lesson. Of course GMail, etc. are within the reach of discovery.
Maybe I am missing something, but it seems that the paper was flawed because it did not incorporate opposing views. If that is the criteria to be used, every paper written, submitted and reviewed by warmsist is flawed as they do not incorporate the views of the skeptics.
Maybe the hidden message in the resignation was that skeptics need to use the rejection and resignation as the new standard for ALL papers, including those of the warmists. A pretty big drum to beat, and crafted by someone who lost his job by violating it, no matter how idiotic the result.
This act of resignation will bring more MSM light to shine on the Spencer & Braswell paper. His resignation will show how corrupt cAWG is and the MSM will carry it hahhh hahhh hahhhh.
Bernard J. says:
September 2, 2011 at 10:08 am
“Here’s an idea – Spencer & Braswell 2011 was and remains crap, and Wagner is calling it.
Ockahms razor gentleman. It just happens to cut you the wrong way.”
If I were a warmist I would be VERY careful with the name William Of Occam. Ferenc Miskolczi says
“If the system energetically could increase its surface temperature, it need not wait for our anthropogenic CO2 emissions, since another GHG, water vapor, is available in a practically infinite reservoir, in the surface of the oceans.”
The system dynamics can already be described with the water vapor GHG effect. CO2 only displaces some of the water vapor but can’t change the dynamics.
Well, the consensus gets harder to manage every day …
Seriously, this whole things keeps getting curiouser and curiouser.
AndyW says:
September 2, 2011 at 9:55 am
You knew where you stood 500 years ago with science and the catholic church .. no longer it seems
Andy
_______________________
In my view, there has been a role- reversal. The AGW community in support of the IPCC position has assumed the role of the Church vis a vis Galileo’s troubles. Anyone with viewpoint not aligned with the orthodoxy is subject to the fury of the new church of AGW.
So when papers supported AGW are submitted for peer reviewer, will the reviewers to screened so none will have any bias towards that position?
One thing I was right about.. as the Sept 14 Gore-a-thon approaches, the agw army is stepping up their campaign to isolate, demonize and destroy any idea that runs contrary to their drumbeat of bologna that their lemmings march to. Fortunately, the truth shall win out in the end.
The Warmists seem to be one-trick ponies. They need to consult Mafia types or possibly Mexican gangs if they want to step up their intimidation game. The “science” they practice is not the one I signed up for.
So now they can’t afford to lose Remote Sensing?
17th Century headline:
Geocentric epicyclist resigns the presidency of the Astrologers Guild,
in protest of Kepler publishing heliocentric ellipticalism:
‘Our astrolabe models of the heavens require close cooperation by properly filtered naked-eye observations. Galileo’s newfangled telescope has no place in proper astrology.
We protest the unlicenced publication of Kepler’s anti-scientific rants. For two-thousand years the smartest scientists in the world have established the skilled prediction capability of epicycle models. The consensus is against Kepler’s ugly ellipses.’
Joe Bastardi says, September 2, 2011 at 12:20 pm:
One thing I was right about.. as the Sept 14 Gore-a-thon approaches, the agw army is stepping up their campaign to isolate, demonize and destroy any idea that runs contrary to their drumbeat of bologna that their lemmings march to. Fortunately, the truth shall win out in the end.”
(My bold)
Alinsky rules used by AGWers – now there’s a surprise!
Theo Goodwin says:
September 2, 2011 at 11:11 am
Bernard J. says:
September 2, 2011 at 10:08 am
“Here’s an idea – Spencer & Braswell 2011 was and remains crap, and Wagner is calling it.”
Totally irrelevant. After a lifetime of peer review, I can assure you that 80% of what is published is crap.
======================================================
I’m beginning to think most of our warmista friends don’t actually read any peer-reviewed papers. Do they not follow the myriad of contradictory papers published in the journals? Do they not recall that our floating polar bears was a peer-reviewed paper? Or the constant blathering about the Amazon was derived from peer-reviewed papers? Or that Antarctic temps debacle was from peer-reviewed papers? Aliens, mental disease, plankton, algae……. all are from peer-reviewed sources. How anyone ascribes any sort of validity to a paper simply because it was peer-reviewed is beyond me.
Bernard, you can’t say Spencer&Braswell is crap. You’ve hitched your wagon to the peer review process. It is really an all or nothing prospect. Either peer-review is a euphemism for accepted science or it isn’t. I think it has become obvious that the warmista believe peer-review is accepted science only when it agrees with their world view. Me? I find the peer-review as a laughable bastardization of the scientific process. Its magnificent, but it isn’t science.