NOTE: This post is important, so I’m going to sticky it at the top for quite a while. I’ve created a page for all Spencer and Braswell/Dessler related posts, since they are becoming numerous and popular to free up the top post sections of WUWT.
UPDATE: Dr. Spencer writes: I have been contacted by Andy Dessler, who is now examining my calculations, and we are working to resolve a remaining difference there. Also, apparently his paper has not been officially published, and so he says he will change the galley proofs as a result of my blog post; here is his message:
“I’m happy to change the introductory paragraph of my paper when I get the galley proofs to better represent your views. My apologies for any misunderstanding. Also, I’ll be changing the sentence “over the decades or centuries relevant for long-term climate change, on the other hand, clouds can indeed cause significant warming” to make it clear that I’m talking about cloud feedbacks doing the action here, not cloud forcing.”
[Dessler may need to make other changes, it appears Steve McIntyre has found some flaws related to how the CERES data was combined: http://climateaudit.org/2011/09/08/more-on-dessler-2010/
As I said before in my first post on Dessler’s paper, it remains to be seen if “haste makes waste”. It appears it does. -Anthony]
Update #2 (Sept. 8, 2011): Spencer adds: I have made several updates as a result of correspondence with Dessler, which will appear underlined, below. I will leave it to the reader to decide whether it was our Remote Sensing paper that should not have passed peer review (as Trenberth has alleged), or Dessler’s paper meant to refute our paper.
by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.
While we have had only one day to examine Andy Dessler’s new paper in GRL, I do have some initial reaction and calculations to share. At this point, it looks quite likely we will be responding to it with our own journal submission… although I doubt we will get the fast-track, red carpet treatment he got.
There are a few positive things in this new paper which make me feel like we are at least beginning to talk the same language in this debate (part of The Good). But, I believe I can already demonstrate some of The Bad, for example, showing Dessler is off by about a factor of 10 in one of his central calculations.
Finally, Dessler must be called out on The Ugly things he put in the paper.
(which he has now agreed to change).
1. THE GOOD
Estimating the Errors in Climate Feedback Diagnosis from Satellite Data
We are pleased that Dessler now accepts that there is at least the *potential* of a problem in diagnosing radiative feedbacks in the climate system *if* non-feedback cloud variations were to cause temperature variations. It looks like he understands the simple-forcing-feedback equation we used to address the issue (some quibbles over the equation terms aside), as well as the ratio we introduced to estimate the level of contamination of feedback estimates. This is indeed progress.
He adds a new way to estimate that ratio, and gets a number which — if accurate — would indeed suggest little contamination of feedback estimates from satellite data. This is very useful, because we can now talk about numbers and how good various estimates are, rather than responding to hand waving arguments over whether “clouds cause El Nino” or other red herrings. I have what I believe to be good evidence that his calculation, though, is off by a factor of 10 or so. More on that under THE BAD, below.
Comparisons of Satellite Measurements to Climate Models
Figure 2 in his paper, we believe, helps make our point for us: there is a substantial difference between the satellite measurements and the climate models. He tries to minimize the discrepancy by putting 2-sigma error bounds on the plots and claiming the satellite data are not necessarily inconsistent with the models.
But this is NOT the same as saying the satellite data SUPPORT the models. After all, the IPCC’s best estimate projections of future warming from a doubling of CO2 (3 deg. C) is almost exactly the average of all of the models sensitivities! So, when the satellite observations do depart substantially from the average behavior of the models, this raises an obvious red flag.
Massive changes in the global economy based upon energy policy are not going to happen, if the best the modelers can do is claim that our observations of the climate system are not necessarily inconsistent with the models.
(BTW, a plot of all of the models, which so many people have been clamoring for, will be provided in The Ugly, below.)
2. THE BAD
The Energy Budget Estimate of How Much Clouds Cause Temperature Change
While I believe he gets a “bad” number, this is the most interesting and most useful part of Dessler’s paper. He basically uses the terms in the forcing-feedback equation we use (which is based upon basic energy budget considerations) to claim that the energy required to cause changes in the global-average ocean mixed layer temperature are far too large to be caused by variations in the radiative input into the ocean brought about by cloud variations (my wording).
He gets a ratio of about 20:1 for non-radiatively forced (i.e. non-cloud) temperature changes versus radiatively (mostly cloud) forced variations. If that 20:1 number is indeed good, then we would have to agree this is strong evidence against our view that a significant part of temperature variations are radiatively forced. (It looks like Andy will be revising this downward, although it’s not clear by how much because his paper is ambiguous about how he computed and then combined the radiative terms in the equation, below.)
But the numbers he uses to do this, however, are quite suspect. Dessler uses NONE of the 3 most direct estimates that most researchers would use for the various terms. (A clarification on this appears below) Why? I know we won’t be so crass as to claim in our next peer-reviewed publication (as he did in his, see The Ugly, below) that he picked certain datasets because they best supported his hypothesis.
The following graphic shows the relevant equation, and the numbers he should have used since they are the best and most direct observational estimates we have of the pertinent quantities. I invite the more technically inclined to examine this. For those geeks with calculators following along at home, you can run the numbers yourself:
Here I went ahead and used Dessler’s assumed 100 meter depth for the ocean mixed layer, rather than the 25 meter depth we used in our last paper. (It now appears that Dessler will be using a 700 m depth, a number which was not mentioned in his preprint. I invite you to read his preprint and decide whether he is now changing from 100 m to 700 m as a result of issues I have raised here. It really is not obvious from his paper what he used).
Using the above equation, if I assumed a feedback parameter λ=3 Watts per sq. meter per degree, that 20:1 ratio Dessler gets becomes 2.2:1. If I use a feedback parameter of λ=6, then the ratio becomes 1.7:1. This is basically an order of magnitude difference from his calculation.
Again I ask: why did Dessler choose to NOT use the 3 most obvious and best sources of data to evaluate the terms in the above equation?:
(1) Levitus for observed changes in the ocean mixed layer temperature; (it now appears he will be using a number consistent with the Levitus 0-700 m layer).
(2) CERES Net radiative flux for the total of the 2 radiative terms in the above equation, and (this looks like it could be a minor source of difference, except it appears he put all of his Rcld variability in the radiative forcing term, which he claims helps our position, but running the numbers will reveal the opposite is true since his Rcld actually contains both forcing and feedback components which partially offset each other.)
(3): HadSST for sea surface temperature variations. (this will likely be the smallest source of difference)
The Use of AMIP Models to Claim our Lag Correlations Were Spurious
I will admit, this was pretty clever…but at this early stage I believe it is a red herring.
Dessler’s Fig. 1 shows lag correlation coefficients that, I admit, do look kind of like the ones we got from satellite (and CMIP climate model) data. The claim is that since the AMIP model runs do not allow clouds to cause surface temperature changes, this means the lag correlation structures we published are not evidence of clouds causing temperature change.
Following are the first two objections which immediately come to my mind:
1) Imagine (I’m again talking mostly to you geeks out there) a time series of temperature represented by a sine wave, and then a lagged feedback response represented by another sine wave. If you then calculate regression coefficients between those 2 time series at different time leads and lags (try this in Excel if you want), you will indeed get a lag correlation structure we see in the satellite data.
But look at what Dessler has done: he has used models which DO NOT ALLOW cloud changes to affect temperature, in order to support his case that cloud changes do not affect temperature! While I will have to think about this some more, it smacks of circular reasoning. He could have more easily demonstrated it with my 2 sine waves example.
Assuming there is causation in only one direction to produce evidence there is causation in only one direction seems, at best, a little weak.
2) In the process, though, what does his Fig. 1 show that is significant to feedback diagnosis, if we accept that all of the radiative variations are, as Dessler claims, feedback-induced? Exactly what the new paper by Lindzen and Choi (2011) explores: that there is some evidence of a lagged response of radiative feedback to a temperature change.
And, if this is the case, then why isn’t Dr. Dessler doing his regression-based estimates of feedback at the time lag or maximum response? Steve McIntyre, who I have provided the data to for him to explore, is also examining this as one of several statistical issues. So, Dessler’s Fig. 1 actually raises a critical issue in feedback diagnosis he has yet to address.
3. THE UGLY
(MOST, IF NOT ALL, OF THESE OBJECTIONS WILL BE ADDRESSED IN DESSLER’S UPDATE OF HIS PAPER BEFORE PUBLICATION)
The new paper contains a few statements which the reviewers should not have allowed to be published because they either completely misrepresent our position, or accuse us of cherry picking (which is easy to disprove).
Misrepresentation of Our Position
Quoting Dessler’s paper, from the Introduction:
“Introduction
The usual way to think about clouds in the climate system is that they are a feedback… …In recent papers, Lindzen and Choi [2011] and Spencer and Braswell [2011] have argued that reality is reversed: clouds are the cause of, and not a feedback on, changes in surface temperature. If this claim is correct, then significant revisions to climate science may be required.”
But we have never claimed anything like “clouds are the cause of, and not a feedback on, changes in surface temperature”! We claim causation works in BOTH directions, not just one direction (feedback) as he claims. Dr. Dessler knows this very well, and I would like to know
1) what he was trying to accomplish by such a blatant misrepresentation of our position, and
2) how did all of the peer reviewers of the paper, who (if they are competent) should be familiar with our work, allow such a statement to stand?
Cherry picking of the Climate Models We Used for Comparison
This claim has been floating around the blogosphere ever since our paper was published. To quote Dessler:
“SB11 analyzed 14 models, but they plotted only six models and the particular observational data set that provided maximum support for their hypothesis. “
How is picking the 3 most sensitive models AND the 3 least sensitive models going to “provide maximum support for (our) hypothesis”? If I had picked ONLY the 3 most sensitive, or ONLY the 3 least sensitive, that might be cherry picking…depending upon what was being demonstrated. And where is the evidence those 6 models produce the best support for our hypothesis?
I would have had to run hundreds of combinations of the 14 models to accomplish that. Is that what Dr. Dessler is accusing us of?
Instead, the point was to show that the full range of climate sensitivities represented by the least and most sensitive of the 14 models show average behavior that is inconsistent with the observations. Remember, the IPCC’s best estimate of 3 deg. C warming is almost exactly the warming produced by averaging the full range of its models’ sensitivities together. The satellite data depart substantially from that. I think inspection of Dessler’s Fig. 2 supports my point.
But, since so many people are wondering about the 8 models I left out, here are all 14 of the models’ separate results, in their full, individual glory:
I STILL claim there is a large discrepancy between the satellite observations and the behavior of the models.
CONCLUSION
These are my comments and views after having only 1 day since we received the new paper. It will take weeks, at a minimum, to further explore all of the issues raised by Dessler (2011).
Based upon the evidence above, I would say we are indeed going to respond with a journal submission to answer Dessler’s claims. I hope that GRL will offer us as rapid a turnaround as Dessler got in the peer review process. Feel free to take bets on that. 
And, to end on a little lighter note, we were quite surprised to see this statement in Dessler’s paper in the Conclusions (italics are mine):
“These calculations show that clouds did not cause significant climate change over the last decade (over the decades or centuries relevant for long-term climate change, on the other hand, clouds can indeed cause significant warming).”
Long term climate change can be caused by clouds??! Well, maybe Andy is finally seeing the light! 
(Nope. It turns out he meant ” *RADIATIVE FEEDBACK DUE TO* clouds can indeed cause significant warming”. An obvious, minor typo. My bad.)
Shelama – your comments are very immature. Two first class scientists Dessler and Spencer, who happen to take fundamentally opposed positions on a crucial causality, are squaring up to one another in the scientific literature. This is how science progresses. Their religious or other beliefs are quite irrelevant. My advice: watch and learn..
WTF? Ladies! Do you not realize what just happened?
“..UPDATE: Dr. Spencer writes: I have been contacted by Andy Dessler, who is now ….”
We are there! Dressler didn’t concede these points because Dr. Spencer disagreed! Dressrler didn’t concede because McIntyre disagreed. Or anyone else in particular. Mac and Spencer disagreeing with mainstream climatology is old hat! They never cared before. But today, we’ve corrected science…… before it got officially published…….. after stringent peer-review.
Dressler, GRL, and the reviewers of the paper, by proxy, conceded because the light of truth……. and thousands of people across the world saw and corrected accepted science.
TomRude says: Note to Steve McIntyre and Roy Spencer: if you guys continue to help Dessler write his paper, perhaps you should request co-authorship or at least be included in the acknowledgement section with regards to specific points! Really as much as it is making science progress, it is naive at best to kindly serve people who have done everything in their own power to demean and attack you! in the end it also shows how peer review sceintific journals are obsolete means of doing science since blogosphere is doing it much faster and with more agility.”
Remember, so far, we’re discussing how many correlation coefficients of ~0 can dance on the head of a pin, here. Let’s just keep our side of the street clean. Any improvement in Dessler’s paper is a step forward for all. That’s how Science is supposed to work.
Shelama says:
September 8, 2011 at 5:34 pm
In any case, just because a scientist has a world view that includes the Earth being created by God for man to subdue, and there being enough and to spare, and Jesus coming back to the rescue, doesn’t disqualify him from being a self-proclaimed political advocate with his science.
In any case, an internet poster that holds a world view where others who believe differently are all idiots deserving of back-handed sarcasm, condescension, and ridicule are not disqualified from being a dime a dozen. Nor will I challenge your authority on how to make oneself look bad in public without being drunk (grammar isn’t sloppy enough), how to alienate a massive group of people, how to proudly display and/or possess bigotry, and how to come off as an all around general douchebag. Please, fornicate yourself with an iron stick used in railroad construction.
Brian
If the Arctic is ugly, just how beautiful is global sea level ? Or the no-show of the predicted el Nino?
Kudos to Dessler for working with people who he disagrees with.
Kudos to Spencer for working with people he disagrees with.
If you want to see more of it, encourage it. put the knives down and encourage it.
Steven Mosher: absolutely and wouldn’t it be rather special once Dessler and Spencer have identified their areas of agreement/disagreement that their responses could go back to back in the same issue of GRL. Indeed, if they come to substantial consensus a joint paper on their common ground. Now that would require enormous courage and be a salutary reminder to the ideologues on both sides that science is a joint enterprise between those who disagree.
James Sexton says:
September 8, 2011 at 4:11 pm
“It seems there is a new review process(sheriff) in town. (To steal from a quote) I’ve seen the reviewers, and it is us! We (the skeptic blogosphere) just smoked the reviewers of GRL before it even got printed! I’m presuming all of the official reviewers held PhDs, and were climatologists.”
Very well said and the time is right.
David: “Sorry, but I just don’t buy Dessler’s outreach.”
It doesn’t really matter if Dessler is sincere or not. Talking directly will mean that the science will be explored quickly. It’s better than waiting 6 weeks for a Dessler publication followed by waiting 2 years for a Spencer publication. If we can get clarifications in a couple of days that will mean we can get real results in a couple of months. I’m no Dessler fan, but in this instance, it’s a good thing that he did. I doubt that Dessler thinks that he can slip things past Roy in a one on one situation. I believe that the minimum that we can expect from this is better ENSO modeling. Getting a better climate sensitivity number means that Roy will have to show that his differences with the models are not just differences due to models reproducing ENSO badly.
It would be nice if this were a three way exchange that included Lindzen. Trenberth, on the other hand, would add nothing but personal attacks.
Steven Mosher: “If you want to see more of it, encourage it. put the knives down and encourage it.”
Okay, we are on the same page for a change.
Steven Mosher says:
September 8, 2011 at 9:47 pm
Kudos to Dessler for working with people who he disagrees with.
Kudos to Spencer for working with people he disagrees with.
If you want to see more of it, encourage it. put the knives down and encourage it.
============================================================
Steve, do you want to see people working and compromising with people such as Dessler? Recall his description of Dr. Spencer’s position regarding forcing and feedbacks. That wasn’t accidental. It wasn’t a mistake, even if he apologized. Which, would be to his credit. But, let’s not pretend. The views of both are not equal and opposite. Steve, your perspective is different than many here. Moderation at this point isn’t warranted. Here is the victory. Here is where, it wasn’t Spencer’s or McIntyre’s opinion that mattered. It was the skeptical blogosphere’s opinion that mattered. I’m not discounting from either one. In fact, it was to both of their credits that this was possible. However, McIntyre and Spencer are renowned for disagreeing. They’ve never changed a paper for them before. We shouldn’t try to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
If we chose so, peer review, as it is known to the cabal, dies today.
Don’t put the knives down. Pick them up! It isn’t for us to have science defined by someone else. This has been a long fought battle. Science is another name for knowledge. There should no longer be any question as to who reveres science more. It is obvious. I’ve long stated: One of the beautiful things about skepticism is that it brings together a confluence of people. All of different creed. Atheist, Jew and Gentile. Communist, socialist and capitalist. We’ve all been here. And many of us have been here for a long time. And we were all here for this!
The facts are, the climate science has been manipulated. It is beyond redemption. It is time to start anew. The peer review process has failed us for several years. Today shows us how much. And, it show us it has failed us for a very long time. We’ve known this. It is that, today, we can show this even the most simplest of people. The moment is to be seized. Clutch it! Grab it! Embrace it. Don’t say the people such as Theo, DC, David, UK, Doc, Steve, Lat, Mike, Amino….. (and the list goes on beyond my recollection..) are to rise for only one moment. We are here. And we’ll continue to be here. And we’ve shown where we’re better than the peer-reviewers. No, there is no compromise on this. To do else, would be to walk backwards.
I meant to add……humility is a virtue, timidity is not.
Frankly folks, this is surreal.
Less than a week ago, Trenberth tried and failed to get SB11 withdrawn by putting behind the scenes political pressure on the Editor-In-Chief of Remote Sensing. When Wagner failed, Wagner resigned in clear obeiscance to Trenberth, and mounted a criticism of SB11 that was barely above name calling. Trenberth broke into the picture proudling proclaiming (nay! BRAGGING) of a victory by having had Wagner apologise to him personsaly, and made it clear that an upcoming paper by Desller, would not only eviscerate the creibility of SB11, but would be published in a timeframe near instantaneous by academic standards. The paper appeared in record time as promised, laced with ad hominym attacks, critical of arguments SB11 never made and light weight at best. By who? Dessler of course, a second stronger on the The Team who serves as nothing more than attack dog for The Team.
Up until that point, The Team had been shooting each other, scoring goals into their own net, lighting themsleves on fire and proudly screaming their guilt as they race aroundf the field in flames. Keep in mind, this whole sequence of sordid affairs, personal attacks, and clear attempts to suppress original and credible science has unfolded over a period of just six days?
Now suddenly Dessler, a “B Team” attack dog, is singing a different tune than he was just 48 hours ago? He;s withdrawing the ad hominim attacks? The paper wasn’t actually publsihed after all, it was only part way through the process, so it can still be changed. Odd how that nuance didn’t surface before? So let’s get this straight.
Wagner’s resignation didn’t stand up to the smell test. It fell apart in a hurry as the real gacts emerged and the power that Trenberth wielded became evident. Wagner now stands on the world stage looking both empty of integrity and a fool played by Trenberth for Trenberth’s own purposes. Into the fra suddenly steps Dessler a known attack dog who goes right to work attacking. Pesonal innuendo, phlipant rermarks about things SB11 never said, badly done math. But one could hardly expect better from a B Team attack dog.
\Suddenly though, the The Team has their game back. They’ve gotten slaughtered on the field, and they had better come back with some real strategy, or even the most mesmerized with their story in the MSM will stand back and ask WTF? When you are getting your butt kicked, you need a time out to regroup. Desller reaching out to Spencer is asking for the time out. Consider what this buys them.
1. They get to delay any stories in the MSM because they’ve got a reconciliation process going that will produce a cooperative result. The MSM should just stay tuned until it is complete. Good idea for The Team. The rank, disgusting, and downright evil tactics of Trenberth to prevent the publication of SB11 will long been since forgotten by the time this process completes.
2. The Team will focus the MSM on “the results of their outreach to Spencer” as if they were the good guys going out of the way to mend the fences in the first place.
3. The final publication will still have areas of diasagreement, and now they will be spun by the Team as them having done their level best to engage, but the Spencer team turned out to be uncooperative, or unable to participate at the lofty intellectual levesl required by the subject matter.
Does anyone believe that a leapor so suddenly and so completely changes his spots? From attack dog make personal attacks to cooperative scientist trying to do what is right for sceince? Does anyone believe that Trenberth destroyed the credibility of a major figure like Wolfgang Wagner, bragged about it, and then bragged further that Dessler, his personal attack dog, would eviscorate SB11, and now will sit idley by doing nothing while Dessler makes nice with Spencer?
Really? From rapid attack dog acting on orders from Trenberth to a nice guy willing to put the knives down and work together? Give me a break. The enemy only signals for a truce when they are faced with utter defeat, and so a truce is a way to delay while tempers calm down, everyone shows how nice they really are, and behind the seens smuggling tunnels are buind built to bring in new arms and fresh soldiers so that the truce can be ended by a surprise attack on people who genuinely wanted peace and are stiing around with quilled feathers in their hands, waiting to sign all those nice, but meaningless , peace treaties.
History repeates itself. Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it.
Yet it is being repeated right before ourt eyes. Backed intoa corner from which they cannot escape, they’ve contrived to wave a white flag so they don’t have to escape. We’ve set down our weapons and applaud them for seeking the path of peace.
Sorry, but I just, do, not, buy, it.
I guess we need a new word now for how to advance true science:
blogospeer review
blogoshpeere review
Or maybe WUWTing or wuwted like:
After the peer review process Dessler’s paper got wuwted and is now ready for print.
… more ideas?
should have been blogospheere review of course
KR @ur momisugly September 8, 2011 at 12:12 pm
* Those three best matching models, which are known to model the ENSO well, are as close to the single observational data (HadCRUT3) as other temperature records such as GISTEMP. In fact, HadCRUT3 deviates the most from the models – another outlier.
Known by whom, particularly in the intra-decadial variability?
Steven Mosher says:
September 8, 2011 at 9:47 pm
Kudos to Dessler for working with people who he disagrees with.
Kudos to Spencer for working with people he disagrees with.
If you want to see more of it, encourage it. put the knives down and encourage it.
Spencer and Dessler communicating to sort things out in a businesslike, dispassionate, scientific way is making Trenberth look really, really bad right now.
What a shame. 🙂
I’m all for Dessler ‘coming over the wall’ and I’m happy to see Spencer holding out a steadying hand to him.
Velvet revolutions begin in this way.
The Team members are looking at each other right now and wondering who gets to be Ceaucescu.
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2011/09/09/entente-cordiale-spencer-and-dessler-are-working-together/
James Sexton:
At September 8, 2011 at 11:05 am you ask ‘KR’;
“KR, it doesn’t matter how often you mention this, it doesn’t change the fact that no one has been able to refute his conclusions. KR, is it that you believe so much in the models that you’re angry reality has shown them to be insufficient? Or is it that Dr. Spencer’s is questioning the orthodoxy that’s got your knickers in a wad? Or is it something else?”
With respect, I think you are misunderstanding KR’s position.
KR fails to recognise that Spencer’s recent paper is a scientific publication and KR thinks it is climsci of similar kind to Dessler’s recent paper. The two are very different.
A scientific paper is subjected to peer review with the intention of correcting any blatant errors prior to publication. This is time-consuming, and Spencer’s paper took two years to reach publication.
A climsci paper is approved for publication by pals who accept it ‘on the nod’. This takes very little time and, for example, Dessler’s paper was approved in days.
And a scientific paper reports work that is novel and/or an assessment of similar work. Spencer’s recent paper does both: it makes a novel assessment of cloud behaviour as indicated by data obtained using orbital satellites, and it determines the implications of that assessment for consideration of existing climate models.
A climsci paper confirms findings of the Team and/or dismisses work of scientists. Dessler’s recent paper attempts to do both and fails in both attempts. Such failure does not matter because the merit of a climsci paper is that it can be referenced in IPCC Reports and not whether its contents are factual and/or correct.
The contents of a scientific paper often include illustrations – commonly in the form of graphs – intended to present the findings of the work in a clear manner. Sometimes the illustrations present all the data but they may only present specified selections of the data to demonstrate a finding. Spencer’s recent paper selects two extreme ranges as illustration of a paper and it can be assumed that peer review confirmed the illustration was correct: subsequently, when queried about it, Spencer provided a graph that used all the data which proves his illustration was correct.
A climscie paper often includes graphs with the purpose of telling a ‘story’. The most extreme example of this are the climsci papers which used “Mike’s Nature trick” as a ploy to pretend an analysis method worked when the data indicated that it did not.
KR thinks Spencer’s recent paper is climsci. Hence, he looks at illustrations in that paper with a view to discerning what those illustrations misrepresent.
But Spencer’s recent paper is a scientific report and, therefore, its illustrations present the reported work in a clear manner.
Richard
Dessler states he will change sentences of his paper. However, he is not allowed to do that at this stage. Scientific statements cannot be changed without another roud by reviewers…
Tallbloke: I’m all for people coming over the wall
Yes, this really feels like a Berlin Wall Coming Down moment. I remember how I watched the signs in those days, and could see the likelihood of this approaching, even before Gorbachev and glasnost, as attitides while “in captivity” matured… yet when it actually happened, it was still a miracle.
James Sexton, keep a razor-sharp MIND by all means, use Occam’s Razor, keep the pressure on for upholding fair practice, and watch for double-dealing… but please be gracious to welcome as far as possible.
In telling this story someone said to be at the foundation of our civilisation seems to have made the very same mistake as Spencer.
Dressler working with Spencer? It could be that Dressler is acting like a man of honour and working together on this, but I have a suspicion that Dressler realises that Spencer would soon reply to the Dressler paper with a new paper of his own that would trash much of what Dressler had to say in his rushed, unreviewed paper. If Dressler had read Spencer’s response to this later paper he would be forced to concede that Spencer had some good points, so Dressler really doesn’t have much choice but to respond in some sort of positive manner. I suspect that Dressler will eventually release a new paper but take a long time doing so, it will still be strongly supportive of AGW and he won’t retract his original paper. Team AGW will, in the interim, continue to attempt to trash Spencer’s reputation.
The only people that will realise that Spencer was right and Dressler was wrong would be the skeptics. We can now be sure that the Dressler paper was nothing more than desparate, hurried propaganda with Team AGW in full support. If we didn’t know exactly what we were up against before, we do now. The scientists in Team AGW are really comfortable with telling atrocious lies and trashing the reputations of others to further their own ends. I have nothing but utter contempt for them. Those following the AGW bandwagon will not be convinced to change their opinions however. They are disciples of a new religion that don’t want to know that their new gods are made of clay.
@KR:
I must take issue with your claim that Spencer “cherry picked” the models he used in his paper. Spencer makes it quite clear that effectively he was interested in disputing those models that showed high senstivity of global temperature to CO2. So he picked the three highest. However, to show balance he felt compelled to include the three models with the weakest sensitivity. I don’t see that as “cherry picking”. He was focussed on showing that the climate is not very sensitive to CO2 and so he focussed on attacking those models that show high sensitivity. Seems like a reasonable approach to me.
The models he missed out that model ENSO better are actually not “better” at all. They still don’t model ENSO very well – the phasing is wrong and maybe the amplitude? Well we don’t know because the amplitude could be spot on or the amplitude could be way out – we just know there is a big discrepancy between the models and the satellite measurements. As a result of this huge discrepancy (which really only serves to demonstrate that even over the short period of satellite measurements we have the models that aren’t able to be tuned to reality) we can’t use the models as predictors of future climate in any reasonable way at all. You are assuming that because the ENSO models look more like the satellite data that they are “better”. Well they aren’t because we are not interewsted in ENSO at all in this case – we are looking at what is left after ENSO is taken into account, and in that case the models still differ substantially. Dessler has tried to “tune” the models to fit the data by introducing a 4month lag – but this is just an exercise in numerology. If it was that easy to account for the phasing difference in models and data, why didn’t the models include it in the first place? It doesn’t help much anyway because the ENSO models are virtually sinusoidal whereas the satellite data is more of a sawtooth.
fido says:
September 9, 2011 at 1:29 am (Edit)
Dessler states he will change sentences of his paper. However, he is not allowed to do that at this stage. Scientific statements cannot be changed without another roud by reviewers…
Fido,
my reflex on Roy’s blog was to agree with you, and you are technically correct. But I think there’s another way to look at this.
You just saw Dessler appoint Roy Spencer as a pre-publication reviewer, and the whole thing played out in front of your eyes in the sceptical part of the blogosphere! 🙂
This is an unconventional but exciting development in the way climate science is conducted. A real breath of fresh air. You might say that since it was Spencer Dessler was rebutting, then if Roy is happy for Dessler to publish the paper he helped revise, then all is well.
That’s not to say they don’t still have disagreements over which is the best data, and what are the correct parameters and equations, but it does get some of the trivia out of the way and allow for faster progress.
If Roy doesn’t insist on the paper going back to the reviewers, that fact will not be lost on GRL’s editors, and they would have to expedite publication of any paper Roy now submits to them in respect of Dessler 2011, or look really, really bad, along with travesty Trenberth.
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2011/09/09/entente-cordiale-spencer-and-dessler-are-working-together/
davidmhoffer says:
September 8, 2011 at 11:52 pm
Frankly folks, this is surreal.
The important thing is that Roy has stayed true to his own good nature.
The quality shines through and the Trenberth slurs slide as muddy water off a duck’s back.
By accepting Roy’s equanimity, and effectively inviting him to be a pre-publication reviewer, Andy Dessler is changed for the better by the experience. Richard Black might call it the ‘committed Christian effect’. 😉
He also becomes an unwitting party to a tableaux which makes Trenberth look very bad indeed.