Turbo Peer Review is the new normal it seems. Steve McIntyre at Climate Audit writes:
Bishop Hill draws attention to the publication of Trenberth’s comment on Spencer and Braswell 2011 in Remote Sensing. Unlike Trenberth’s presentation to the American Meteorological Society earlier this year (see here here here), Trenberth et al 2011 was not plagiarized.
The review process for Trenberth was, shall we say, totally different than the review process for O’Donnell et al 2010 or the comment by Ross and me on Santer et al 2008. The Trenberth article was accepted on the day that it was submitted:
Received: 8 September 2011 / Accepted: 8 September 2011 / Published: 16 September 2011
CA readers are well aware of long-term obstruction by the Team not simply regarding details of methodology, but even data. Trenberth objects to incompleteness of methodological description in Spencer and Braswell 2011 as follows:
Moreover, the description of their method was incomplete, making it impossible to fully reproduce their analysis. Such reproducibility and openness should be a benchmark of any serious study.
Obviously these are principles that have been advocated at Climate Audit for years. I’ve urged the archiving of both data and code for articles at the time of publication to avoid such problems. However, these suggestions have, all too often, been resolutely opposed by the Team. Even supporting data, all to often, remains unavailable. I haven’t had time to fully parse Spencer and Braswell as to reproducibility but note that Spencer promptly provided supporting data to me when requested (as did Dessler.) In my opinion, Spencer and Braswell should have archived data as used and source code concurrent with publication, as I’ve urged others to do. However, their failure to do so is hardly unique within the field. That Trenberth was able to carry out a sensitivity study as quickly as he did suggests to me that their methodology was substantially reproducibile, but, as I noted above, I haven’t parsed the article.
Trenberth observes that “minor changes” in assumptions yielded “major changes” in results, concluding that the claims in Lindzen and Choi 2009 were not robust:
read the rest here: More Hypocrisy from the Team
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That’s not peer review, that’s peer pressure in action…
Can you demonstrate that?
Or is that the talking point you’ve been assigned to assert across the ‘interwebs’ today?
.
@Barry Foster belleville
Umm..please explain how ‘the scientific community’ would have been ‘undermined’ by this paper – flawed or not. I can see that one or two prominent alarmist climatologists might have ben embarrassed to the point of being personally peeved and pis..d off.
But that is a very different thing from ‘the scientific community (chemists?, biologists? mathematicians? archaeologists?) being ;’undermined’ . Please justify your remark.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh !!
The Team invents “Warp Speed” !!!
Buzz, I assume you’ve read what Wagner actually wrote in his resignation letter? If you’re reading it as the actions of a man embarrassed to have published such a paper, why didn’t he stay to see it retracted? If it wasn’t worthy of retraction but merely response, why resign? That sort of thing happens all the time in proper science, without anybody feeling the need to commit ritual suicide.
Climate ‘science’ doesn’t seem so amenable to an open exchange of ideas, data and knowledge. Why could that be? Because the whole thing is back to front. The results have been politically pre-determined, and the published science needs to provide the justification. There’s a few emails floating around, as well as overt actions, that provide no shortage of evidence of this.
To be fair, if it’s a comment to SB11, it’s reasonable enough to pop it in and invite the reply from Spencer and Braswell in due course. Assuming that this is Remote Sensing’s usual MO.
Wade
I think you meant :I am now convinced that {climate} science is now more corrupt than politics and some religions.
whatever says:
September 16, 2011 at 10:19 am
so does anyone have any comments on the actual content of the Trenberth comment, or just allegations of conspiracy?
==============================================================
I’m on my second read, work keeps interrupting…..but, there appears to be very little content in the work. It basically says “is not!” That ENSO is key rather than worrying about what causes ENSO to behave in the manner it does. And that models seem to be preferred to observation.
It speaks of “major errors”, but then rambles about uncertainties. It makes what is probably legitimate criticisms of SB11, but it is gob-smacking hypocrisy coming from a team member. ie….SB11’s error analysis could probably be improved, correlation isn’t causation. (OMG!!! I can’t believe Trenberth wrote that!!!) But, this is my fav…… “Moreover, the description of their method was incomplete, making it impossible to fully reproduce their analysis. Such reproducibility and openness should be a benchmark of any serious study.” This is hilarious on so many levels. It is true that SB11’s SI was lacking, but it is well known that they’ve freely and openly given their supporting data when asked. (See climate audit) One can only assume Trenberth didn’t bother to ask. Contrast this with the behavior of other climatologists in which hide behind loopholes in FOI laws to ensure their data doesn’t get disseminated.
Trenberth also seems confused about which paper he’s responding to is it Lindzen’s or Spencer’s?
There just really isn’t much in it. It just a mean spirited letter lashing out against people who understand clouds play a major role in our climate.
That’s my take on it, anyway. It is a typical content free rant by a warmista.
James
Buzz Belleville says:
September 16, 2011 at 12:27 pm
Why can’t it just be as simple as the fact that the Spencer, Braswell paper was fatally flawed, and the scientific community would have been undermined if it was left hanging out there unrebutted. That seems to be the truth, as expressed by the resigning editor.
===========================================================
Ok Buzz, you’ve copies of SB11, and Dessler’s and Trenberth’s responses. Please point to these “fatal” flaws expose by the team.
KR says (September 16, 2011 at 9:22 am): “Those are some of the same conclusions Dessler came to. Hmm…”
One of the advantages of the “model ensemble” approach is cherry-picking, e.g.
Skeptic: “IPCC models don’t model precipitation distribution well.”
IPCC: “Oh yeah? Models Q & X do a pretty good job at that.”
Skeptic: “IPCC models don’t get regional temperature variations right.”
IPCC: “Oh yeah? Models D, E, & Z-13LS/MFT do a decent job at that.”
Skeptic: “IPCC models don’t match radiative loss during ENSO events.”
IPCC: “Oh yeah? Models C, R, A, & P replicate ENSO events pretty well.”
Skeptic: “So you’re saying that all your models get most climate parameters wrong?”
IPCC: “Uh… Denier! Oil company shill! Gaia-raper!”
BTW, the “best” ENSO-emulating models may not be all that good at simulating ENSO events:
http://judithcurry.com/2011/09/06/spencer-braswell-part-iii/#comment-109890
Matthew W says (September 16, 2011 at 12:51 pm): “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh !!
The Team invents “Warp Speed” !!!”
More like Ludicrous Speed:
Just be patient folks. As time passes and the thermometer refuses to rise, the ice-caps refuse to melt and the oceans refuse to rise the warmist charlatans contortions will become the subject of increasing ridicule by the taxpayer.
They are on the retreat. Just be wary about what they fix on next.
JS
A turnaround time of 0 days means the peer review process is dead and the journal taken over by non scientists.
I see the desperation in all this charged innuendo and anger by the Glowball Warming team. It will get worse as Gullible Warming attenuates.
I like here where Trenberth states the biggest unknown is;
“In addition, as many cloud variations on monthly time scales result from internal atmospheric variability, such as the Madden-Julian Oscillation, cloud variability is not a deterministic response to surface temperatures.
The recent work suggests that 20 years or longer is needed to begin to resolve a significant global warming signal in the context of natural variations. Given these basic facts, the interpretation of causality between clouds and temperature is often a major challenge.
Accordingly, in any analysis, it is essential to perform a careful assessment of (1) uncertainty in any
data set or method and (2) causal interpretations in the fields observed; while (3) accounting for the
natural variability inherent in any observed record. Several recent instances in which these basic tenets mare violated have led to erroneous conclusions and widespread distortion of the science in the mainstream media. For instance, SB11 [8] fail to provide any meaningful error analysis in their
recent paper and fail to explore even rudimentary questions regarding the robustness of their derived ENSO-regression in the context of natural variability.”
Yet there is NO available funding for exploring the interest in patterns of the “Natural Variability” that are repeatable and predictable, that so overwhelms the CO2 signal that it hampers any modeling attempts to forecast past 5 to 10 days. The study of these natural drivers of the weather and climate has been suppressed since they decided to go with numerical models and peer review to gate keep and enforce their decisions since the 1950’s, when all funds were removed from cyclic weather pattern studies, and shifted to the computer models.
http://research.aerology.com/natural-processes/solar-system-dynamics/
http://research.aerology.com/aerology-analog-weather-forecasting-method/
Others have found the dynamics with out identifying the mechanism of the driven forces of solar/lunar tides into the weather systems.
http://research.aerology.com/supporting-research/leroux-marcel-lunar-declinational-tides/
http://research.aerology.com/natural-processes/sea-ice-thermostat/
@ur momisugly Buzz Belleville says:
September 16, 2011 at 12:27 pm
Before you paint with such a broad brush…might I suggest this link [ Including the numerous links given within it ]
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/09/05/journal-deliverance-the-true-story-of-the-climate-hillbillies/
AND
http://omniclimate.wordpress.com/2011/09/05/the-dismantling-of-prof-dr-wolfgang-wagner/comment-page-1/#comment-9191
Were any of the reviewers amicable to Trenberth’s positions? Was one of the reviewers at least somewhat skeptical?
Seriously, when you’re reviewing a paper and you already know what it says, how long do you need to take to go over it?
Am I wrong or did Mr Trenberth just move the goal post AGAIN?
“The recent work suggests that [b]20 years [/b]or longer is needed to begin to resolve a significant global warming signal in the context of natural variations. Given these basic facts, the interpretation of causality between clouds and temperature is often a major challenge.”
Wasn’t the last claim 17 years?
Mike says:
September 16, 2011 at 10:30 am
“It is clearly labelled ‘Commentary.’ Thus it is not regarded as a peer viewed article.”/ thus = “it doesn’t qualify” and T says he doesn’t yet possess S&B’s SI to boot = “Fatal squared”!
The jaw-dropping hypocrisy of Trenberth demanding public archiving of data sets is a core issue here. Combined with the Pal Wave-Thru-Review, it amounts to a perfectly acted-out demonstration of Climate Science Duplicity.
Trenberth should be asked for the name of one, just one, paper he’s authored with publicly archived data sets co-incident with publication. Or even later. I doubt he could respond.
Trenberth et al assert: Our results suggest . . . that [S&B’s result] is merely an indicator of a model’s ability to replicate the global-scale TOA response to ENSO by finding one model (ECHAM5) that purportedly replicated the observations well, coupled with an unreferenced and controversial in the literature claim that ECHAM5 is a good at modelling ENSO.
It is all proof by example and assertion.
How does Trenberth have any credibility ?
I dont know whether this is a coincidence or not, but Trenberth’s paper was sent to Remote Sensing on 8th September 2011. On Roy Spencer’s blog, his update #2
of his critique of the upcoming Dessler paper in GRL is also dated 8th September 2011. Maybe The Team realize that Dessler’s new paper is not going to be able to withstand Roy’s criticism, so Trenberth rushed a paper to Remote Sensing, so that the IPCC for AR5 can ignore SB11, because it has been “refuted”. Just a thought with nothing to support this idea.
Is it just me or does Trenberth saying “correlation does not mean causation” and “what is driving all of the changes are the associations with ENSO” seem odd?
A short walk down memory lane:
Spencer: “As Joe D’Aleo, Don Easterbrook, and others have pointed out for years, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) has experienced phase shifts that have coincidently been associated with the major periods of warming and cooling in the 20th Century.”
http://www.drroyspencer.com/research-articles/global-warming-as-a-natural-response/
And who amongst the skeptics hasn’t had to repeatedly point out that “correlation does not mean causation” to no avail, they just kept pointing to CO2 going up and temperature going up as if that’s all there was to it. Now that the temperatures aren’t cooperating, oh yes, NOW, they finally understand “correlation does not mean causation”. (Or do they? Will they apply the same skepticism to their own pet theory that they’ve venomously unleashed against a competing theory?)
No, they don’t even see the hypocrisy in “Moreover, the description of their method was incomplete, making it impossible to fully reproduce their analysis. Such reproducibility and openness should be a benchmark of any serious study.”
It is a travesty!