Hot off the press: Dessler's record turnaround time GRL rebuttal paper to Spencer and Braswell

Now that Wagner has seen Dessler’s paper, I bet he asks for reinstatement to his (honorary) editor’s job. I hope he does it with real panache, the way he resigned.

dp says:
September 6, 2011 at 8:54 am
“It would appear the Climate Rapid Response Team has jumped the WUWT fence shark”
Fixed that for ya!

izen says:
September 6, 2011 at 8:20 am
I have stated before that IF the next decade is cooler than 2000-2010 then I would at least doubt AGW theory, or be looking for negative factors impacting the extra thermal energy retained by the additional CO2.
What pattern of global temperature change would cause ypou to doubt your position ???
My position is that the world has been coming out of a Little Ice Age and is following a cooling pattern as the ice core records of the holocene show . Actually the whole series of plots are sobering, showing that the world has been hotter and cooler many times than our small time interval in our small lifetimes would let us think.
My position on anthropogenic warming is that it is hyped beyond recognition of the real physics behind it . Btw I am a physicist, and have really delved into the physics of the IPCC AR4 claims, and know that physics has been abused in a cavalier fashion by the GCModels used to predict catastrophic heating. In addition since the past ten years the temperature is in stasis while CO2 is merrily growing apace, the naive correlation=causation of the IPCC climatologists has been refuted by the data, as have another six or seven projections of their model. Even one wrong prediction sends an analysis back to the drawing board. Instead climatologists torture the data to try and fit their models willy nilly, which is another ridiculous use of “science”.
I cannot see my position changing on this, as I have spent enough time thinking about it and checking the claims.

Here is the two-year NSF grant Dessler has also exploited for this research:
http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=1012665
Check the number, AGS-1012665, that it agrees with the acknowledgements in the paper. Aside from those $150,000 for less than two years (bad luck, dear U.S. taxpayer: you were not carefully watching your wallet!), he is probably getting a similarly large extra salary from Texas A&M University, too.

izen says:
September 6, 2011 at 11:34 am
@- Theo Goodwin says:
September 6, 2011 at 8:39 am
“So, why did the Warmista give up incrementalism? And please do not trot out that tired old menagerie of excuses about climate being chaotic, holistic, or enlightened.”
“For the same reason we don’t expect incrementalism in the seasonal changes. The solar energy arriving at the surface may be changing incrementally as axial tilt and orbital position cause seasonal change, but the actual temperature does NOT change incrementally. It can be warmer in April than in May, or colder in October than November. Only by taking the average over 10 days or so can you find the incremental seasonal change buried in the daily variation.”
Aha, you have been totally and successfully trapped. You responded by creating an analogy that tells the story of the seasons, some physical facts on Earth. Notice that you cannot do the same thing by reference to CO2 concentration and temperature alone. You cannot because there is no consistent interpretation of Warmista claims about CO2 concentrations and temperature in terms of actual observable events on Earth. In sum, Warmista claims about CO2 concentration and temperature have no connection to observable reality whatsoever.

I’m reminded of Monty Python’s succinct demonstration of this topic. It is known as the argument sketch. (No, it isn’t!)

Anthony,
Les Johnson did us all a great service by summarizing the sequence of events (to that point in time) which you then posted as the “Journal Deliverance” thread. I’d like to see that approach continue. This thread for example has plenty of good information in it, but unless one has followed ALL the details from beginning to end, much of it is out of context. Some readers have the big picture, but I suspect many are drowining in details and losing site of it. I haven’t them time to give credit where credit is due, nor research the exact dates of each event (perhaps Les would continue his yeoman’s work in that regard?) but here is my summary:
Some of the following is conjecture based on circumstancial evidence, but in my mind, no other logical explanation has arisen:
o Spencer and Braswell published a paper (SB11) which looked at satellite measurements of the earth’s radiative balance and concluded that the climate models were under estimating, to a significant degree, the amount of heat energy being lost to space.
o The paper was properly peer reviewed, flaws discovered in the peer review process which were corrected, and the paper was published in Remote Sensing.
o A few weeks later, the Editor-In-Chief of Remote Sensing, one Wolfgang Wagner, resigned, citing his objections to SB11 as the reason. Upon review, the reasons detailed in his resignation article on the Remote Sensing web site made little or no sense. Not one single fact presented in the SB11 paper was refuted, Wagner confirmed that the reviewers were qualified and from prestigious universities, speculating only that they “may” have held skeptical positions. The wording of the resignation, and the surrounding circumstances, suggest that Wagner attempted to have the SB11 paper retracted, failed to do so, and being unable to impose his will on Remote Sensing, resigned his position as Editor-In-Chief.
o The only portion of Wagner’s resignation that appears to be genuine is his claim that SB11 was not credible because the modeling community was not consulted about the results. While this appears to be a genuine statement on his part, the logic suggested is a fallacy. SB11 was the result of actual measurements. Models are beholden to actual measurements, not the other way around. Models are simulations of the real world, and when measurements of the real world are made, they stand on their own, because they are, in fact, measurments of the real world, not computer simulations of how some scientists think the world really works.
o Upon further investigation, it became apparent that Wagner’s position at Remote Sensing was largely that of figure head. His full time employment and day to day job is with the Vienna University of Technology, where he holds a position that stands at the cross roads of two important disciplines. These are listed on the VUoT web site as “remote sensing” and “environmental modeling and 3D modeling”. Wagner is listed as “physical modeling” and is depicted as the centre piece by which the three disciplines are integrated with each other.
o This makes the following logic chain plausible, and in the absence of any other logical explanation, likely. The SB11 paper presents actual measured data showing that the models are over estimating global warming, discrediting much of the CAGW propoganda in the process. Beholden to the modeling “camp” upon which cooperation with for his day to day job depends, Wagner was pressured into attempting to have the SB11 paper blocked or retracted. Having failed to do so, Wagner resigned, and his resignation article reads far more as an apology to the climate modeling community than as a professional resignation, and is clearly meant as an attempt to appease the climate modeling community which SB11 so clearly destroys the credibility of.
o Not long after Wagner’s resignation, Kevin Trenberth, a leading light in the climate modeling community, initiated a smear campaign against Dr Roy Spencer. The smear campaign included any number of criticisms of Spencer, Braswell, and (for some unknwon reason as he was not involved in SB11) Dr Christie. But astoundingly, not a single word about the science itself in SB11. More astoundingly still, Trenberth was not content to simply smear Spencer, Braswell, and Christie. He went on to brag about having recieved a personal apology from the Editor-In-Chief and the Publisher of Remote Sensing.
o Kevin Trenberth is, amongst other things, the chair (by acclamation, which shows his clout in the modeling community) of the prestigious GEWEX intitiative which seeks to model moisture levels on a global basis. Wagner in turn heads the soil moisture global modeling initiative at VUoT, which is directly beholden to GEWEX for day to day cooperation and integration of data with modeling, and without GEWEX support, Wagner’s soil moisture database would be in jeapourdy from a credibility stand point, if not from a fudning stand point.
o Logic dictates that this chain of events supports still more conclusions for which there is no alternative explanation that reasonably fits the facts and sequence of events. For starters, the wording of Trenberth’s smear campaign suggests that the Editor-In-Chief and the Publisher are two different people, when in fact, they are one and the same. Only a single apology was recieved, and it was from Wagner and only Wagner. The editorial board of Remote Sensing has clearly decided to stand behind their publication in general, and SB11 in particular. TRenberth in the meanwhile gloats that he has recieved and apology from Wagner, implies that it is from more than just Wagner when it clearly isn’t, and through his various comments, seems to be taking pride in destroying both SB11 and Wagner without raising a single solitary scientific fact in the process. Wagner’s resignation and apology are both panic stricken attempts to appease someone with more power than himself and regain that person’s favour.
o Trenberth’s one and only sop to actual science is to claim that the forthcoming paper from Dresller would eviscerate SB11. So now, here in this thread, we have excerpts from the paper, and the weight of many extremely qualified researchers to rely upon for analysis. The short version? Dressler’s paper makes a mockery of science, the scientific process, and flies in the face of the facts themselves.
o The Dressler paper is founded upon criticism of statements and claims never made by SB11. In some places it actually refutes itself. The analysis is restricted to a time period in which almost no measurable change in temperature has occurred, and concludes that SB11 is wrong as a result, and the models right. the simplest of persons should be able to see straight through this concoction of misrepresented facts and logic. The models have all predicted massive temperature increases over that exact time period, and have ALL BEEN WRONG. To suggest that measurements showing WHY they are wrong can be negated by the fact that the time period in question exhibted no significant change IN DIRECT OPPOSITION TO WHAT THE MODELS PREDICTED is repugnant beyond words. They may as well have told a man dying of thirst in the middle of the Sahara that it is pouring rain, and when he gasps that he sees no rain, just blue sky and sand, respond back that his perception of the real world must be wrong, and had he bothered to consult with the models, he would be able to understand, silly fool that he is, that it is in fact pouring rain.
o WaterGate was a cover up which lent its name to many cover ups since then, possibly the most notable being the ClimateGate emails. But this entire affair goes well beyond a cover up. Wagner’s resignation and his apology to Trenberth are clearly the results of a cowardly attempt to appease the climate modeling community in general, and Trenberth in particular. In doing so, Wagner has destroyed his own credibility as a scientist, and exposed the power that Trenberth and his allies are prepared to wield in order that their climate models be accepted as reality, while reality itself is discredited. In neither WaterGate nor ClimateGate however, did the authors of the dirty deeds gloat, in fact brag, publicly, about what they did. Trenberth’s smear campaign, and Dressler’s idiotic attack on things that SB11 never said, while strictly avoiding what SB11 DID say, are not a cover up. They are a demand that the man dying of thirst in the Sahara believe that it is raining because their computer models say it is, and that he should apologise to them for both dying and being thirsty.
o Trenberth has publicly admitted that his models cannot account for “the missing heat”, a matter which he dubbed a “travesty”. Faced with clear measurements of exactly where the missing heat is going, the one option that Trenberth refuses to consider, that the heat is escaping to space instead of being retained as his models claim, Trenberth has stooped low enough to scratch the belly of a snake. He, along with Dressler, have proclaimed the very lack of warming that disproves their dearly beloved models is at the same time proof that their models are right in the face of actual measurements showing not only that they are wrong, but where the “missing heat” they themselves admit has gone. Nixon had the guts to proclaim on national television that he wasn’t a crook. Not even Nixon would have had the guts to proclaim himself a crook, and innocent as a consequence of being a crook.
o This is no “gate” nor “travesty”. Stronger words than that are needed.

We live on a street corner in San Diego. In order to save water, the border between the sidewalk and curb on one of the streets is not irrigated. We had a very rainy winter, and grass/weeds grew long, lush and green in the border. One short stretch along the border is shaded by a huge ficus all the way to the curb. At this point, all the border vegetation is dead (and mowed) except for that in the shaded area, which is still somewhat green, and growing.
I’m curious as to the role atmospheric CO2 plays in the varying states of vegetation vitality in my border.
Dessler?
Dessler??!

Re the below, I suspect izen has never gotten past calculus to elementary differential equations:
“–izen says:
September 6, 2011 at 11:34 am
I know causation can become a slightly problematical concept in QM, but unless you are going to invoke temporal loops around singularities there is no logical possibility that if A causes B then B also causes A. It would require a causal influence to travel BACK in time.”
nope! consider your classic introductory diffi-Q predator-prey model.
The predator population affects the rate of predation which affects the prey population which in turn affects growth rate of the predator population.
So over time (going forward only, no sigularities needed!) the predator population affects the prey population and vice versa. Though not a climate scientist (obviously, or I would be denial of this effect… hehe), I believe that this predator/prey model is likely not a bad analogue (grossly simplified) to the interaction between clouds and climate.

What exactly is the Warmist advantage of publishing the Dessler paper in GRL, as opposed to a direct reply/comment etc to SB11 in Remote Sensing?