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 think the score IPCC 1, Scientific Progress 0 was the score at halftime. I think the final score is more likely to be IPPC 1, Scientific Progress 2. The more interest this story generates the better it is for the skeptical side.
I wonder if Ben threatened to ‘beat the crap out of him’ if he didn’t resign?
“There is no such thing as bad publicity except your own obituary.”
Brendan Behan
Well, nobody died not even the paper. But the resignation has lifted the issue to a far greater level.
Get the feeling that this “has legs”, if you really want to bring to peoples attention that there is an issue to be resolve then this is one sure way to go.
A bit odd how Richard Black of the BBC finds it necessary to highlight Dr Spencer’s faith so much in his article. Also odd how he likes the term ‘mainstream scientists’ now if that’s not evidence of ‘his’ bias what is?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14768574
Pity really, the BBC used to pride itself on its impartiality.
Apparently there’s people like Bernard J unaware of the fact that papers are usually retracted without any editor losing its job. A chance to learn something new, uh?
And what will you do for a living when the truth finally overwhelms the real bologna, Joe? Full-time Arctic ice forecasting?
REPLY: Always with the snark, Jack Greer’s signature trademark for lack of substance – Anthony
Seems that Wagner feels that he let his journal and the peer review process be misappropriated for political ends.
It’s a wedge tactic. An attempt to be able to say ‘published in a peer reviewed journal’ when the material was only marginally related to the area where the journal and review panel had expertise and familiarity with established knowledge – ie not really peer review at all.
Sniff, sniff. Sniff, sniff, sniff. Salmon are running.
In my own small way I have been an outspoken skeptic IRT the speculative hypothesis of Man-Made Global Warming. I have always been shocked at the vehemence of the alarmists. Early on this excessive emotionalism on what has been characterized as science betrayed it as a religion camouflaged with science. As any new wave fanatic religion it has core militants (defenders of the faith) that believe because they have faith and rationalize from there on. Anyone that opposes their set of beliefs are blasphemous and are denying god. This appears to be a central human inclination amongst certain types of people.
I use to use my real name in AOL environmental blog posts. However AOL apparently received enough threats that my name was banned from posting. I was forced to use a pseudonym of forever be banned from AOL blogs.
I once thought we lived in a world of enlightnment. I now realize nothing has changed from the days of the Middle Ages of intellectual intolerance.
glacierman beat me to it. I’d like to know who he got phone calls and emails from since publishing this paper. But this is probably not FOIA’able. Too bad.
From this story, the BBC and the CAGW community have re-framed the issue surrounding the reason for this resignation: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14768574
“Mr Ward described the tactic of publishing in off-topic journals as a “classic tactic” of scientists dismissive of man-made climate change. “Those who recognise that their ideas are weak but seek to get them into the literature by finding weaknesses in the peer review system are taking a thoroughly disreputable approach,” he said.”
Warmophiles have wrestled complete control of the process from the hands of anybody skeptical of CAGW. There is no place left but the blogs. They have gamed the peer-review process and when lapses occur they will now use the ‘off-topic journal’ dismissal.
Keith says:
September 2, 2011 at 11:02 am
Unbelievable. Still, it’s a massive own-goal. If EVER anybody wanted proof of the central pillar of Climategate, that the peer-review process has been completely subverted by the Team and their acolytes, here it is in fluorescent 20-foot-high lettering.
***************
Agreed. Hopefully the media will also stumble on the fact that since 97% of scientists are supposed to agree with the consensus, that gives a 0.0027% chance of finding 3 out of 3 peer reviewers who do not share their views.
********************
dfbaskwill says:
September 2, 2011 at 12:25 pm
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.
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Be careful what you wish for. The Warmists know that the game is up, and that intimidation and suppression of dissent are their only hope. Anything is possible.
Bullying and censorship. Very ugly. Fight on.
Anything is possible says:
September 2, 2011 at 11:52 am
I sarcastically call it “climsci”–why waste any more breath on it than it deserves?
Staggering!!!
Nort only has the good ship CAGW been torpedoed below the waterline, but now the crew are busy burning the lifeboats and jumping into the shark infested waters.
Things just aren’t the same since Climategate revealed the IPCC “good ol’ boy” peer review network… LOL
dfbaskwill says:
September 2, 2011 at 12:25 pm
“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.”
Clearly, they operate as a mafia, just a highly incompetent mafia. Like their science.
If the reality is that as a result of having published a poor paper , taken this for granted , the editor feels he need to resign . If this was the norm there would be no one working on any journal for long as its not at all unusual . Indeed you could say the ‘Teams’ favorite journals should have the personnel turn over of a call center if this was the case . That he should cite the problem is the coverage other areas have given this paper, with these having nothing to do with this journal and making no claims to be peer reviewed but news organization, seems odder still.
What may get interesting is if the paper reviewers get involved, if one or all of them call Wagner out over this and demand to be told what was wrong with their review or in what way they where not suitable to review the paper , it could get very nasty . Whose hopping that will be the case ?
@Joe Kirklin Bastardi:
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.
——-
True. But I relish the fact that the agw army will climb out of the their trenches and go over the top (in every sense of the phrase) because they will be easy targets on open ground. And now as General Obama starts to waver on his green plan, this is likely their last real push—I see it akin to the Spring Offensive of 1918 that led to the collapse of Germany. Bayonet fixed.
Follow the money – the journal is published in Basel, Switzerland. The University of Basel isn’t exactly an bastion of anti-warmist sentiments. Check out how much money the Swiss Chemical industry contributes to “green” causes, and the path is pretty clear.
I don’t know how a person could reach any of these conclusions. Spencer and Braswell’s paper(s) (not just the last one) clearly spells out what is wrong with other methods and why other researchers reach erroneous conclusions. This was the PURPOSE of the paper! I admit I had to read it more than twice, but once you get your arms around what they are describing, it is quite clear to me that they are using a good approach at analyzing the data, and it is a very convincing argument that the other (mainstream) researchers conclusions are grossly exaggerating feedbacks to the + side.
I agree with Spencer on this one. If you have an argument, bring it on!
It’s a good thing this guy resigned, he’s chained to the rails of the Titanic.
I think skeptics should be grateful that the thorough corruption of the peer review process is so open and easy to see in climate science today; just be advised, it is not limited to climate science, and it is indeed a fundamental problem, pointing to an across-the-board failure of modern physical science, particularly the earth and life sciences. I remember Dr. Spencer specifically announced some time ago he was only going to be using the peer-review system, and not blog sites, to press and defend his work; now all can see what it has gotten him, and no one at this late date should be surprised. No one, even skeptics (even Dr. Spencer), is listening to anyone they don’t want to listen to — there is no scientific debate on climate science, it is all a lot of on/off switching of attention, according to one’s biases and pet theories. The result is a complete lack of focus upon the definitive evidence, which I have brought forward, and which no one on either side of the debate wants to admit. So it is not just a fraudulent gang in climate science; it is the prevalence of dogmatic bias on both sides of every debate today, against a background of general incompetence rampant among all scientists. The reigning scientific paradigm is failing, apparently inexorably. And I know most of you don’t want to hear that, but it is the unvarnished truth.
The former-editor sounds kind of wussy. Resigning because of a little heat? If he thinks that the final answer everybody agrees with is all that’s worthy enough to be published, he was not editing a journal. My guess is that the Journal will now go so plain-vanilla worrying about reactions that it loses readership.
I detect the stench of a culture decomposing,
Wow – vicious street fight underway !!
HankH says:
September 2, 2011 at 11:43 am
“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.”
Hank has this right. The journal editor, Wolfgang, is giving the world information to use against the CAGW-thugs who used the immoral and unprofessional techniques described by Wolfgang. The thugs succeeded in pressuring Wolfgang and he is resigning rather than retracting the article. Wolfgang has given the world wonderful ammunition to use against the CAGW-thugs. I believe that he is advertising his willingness to testify before Congress. Surely, this matter must cause a Congressional investigation. If you happen to live in the district of a Congressman who has expressed a criticism of CAGW then call him, tell him about Wolfgang’s letter, and tell him to act.