Getting GRLed

Dr. Roger Pielke Jr. recently submitted this paper to Geophysical Research Letters (GRL):

A homogeneous database of global landfalling tropical cyclones

Jessica Weinkle* and Roger Pielke, Jr.

Center for Science and Technology Policy Research, University of Colorado, 1333 Grandview Ave, Campus Box 488, Boulder, Colorado 80309

Abstract

In recent decades, economic damage from tropical cyclones (TCs) around the world has increased dramatically. Scientific literature published to date is strongly suggestive that the increase in losses can be explained entirely by increasing wealth in locations prone to tropical cyclone landfalls. However, no homogenized dataset of tropical cyclone landfalls has been created. We have constructed such a homogenized global landfall TC database. We find no long-term global trends in the frequency or intensity of landfalling TCs for the period with reliable data, providing very strong support for the conclusion that increasing damage around the world over the period(s) of record can be explained entirely by increasing wealth in locations prone to TC landfalls, and adding confidence in the fidelity of economic normalization analyses.

Seems straightforward enough. It came back with two reviews, both with some corrections, one reviewer suggesting publication without major caveats, the other grudgingly suggesting publication to the editor, Noah Diffenbaugh, and asking for revisions. So far so good (you’d think). But it starts getting weird from here. Pielke Jr. asks this set of questions:

As the editor what would you do?

A) Provisionally accept the paper pending a revision that meets the editor’s judgment of responsiveness

B) Provisionally accept the paper pending re-review by the two reviewers

C) Reject the paper

D) Reject the paper and tell the authors that any reconsideration of the paper would have to be accompanied by a detailed response to the two reviewers followed by selection of new reviewers and a restart of the review process

If you picked (D) then you too can be an editor at GRL.

Read the whole bizarre peer review story here.

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October 7, 2011 11:07 am

Smokey says:
October 7, 2011 at 11:02 am
Accepted ≠ published.

When publishing in a quick turn around journal which publishes ‘letters’ it is
But the lopsided comparison is apt, and indisputable.
Yes one complied with the reviewers’ recommendations and was published, the other didn’t and wasn’t!

October 7, 2011 8:12 pm

The blond guy here is obviously CBH, the [snicker] “ecologist”.
And Phil, there are many more examples of the disparity between toe-sucking journals that give blatant preferential treatment to alarmists. Want some more examples? Just ask.

October 7, 2011 8:26 pm

You have clueless, mendacious heroes who don’t know what they’re doing. Their science is at the level of Bill Nye.

I disagree, Smokey. They know exactly what they’re doing, they just refuse to acknowledge the obvious.

October 7, 2011 8:34 pm

Jeff Alberts,
I suspect you’re right. And if that is the case, then it follows that they are in a conspiracy because they know exactly what they’re doing, and why.

October 7, 2011 11:11 pm

Christoffer Bugge Harder says:
You have to decide: Is E&E a science journal or a social “science” journal? You cannot have it both ways. If it´s a science journal, then it requires some kind of serious editors and reviewers competent in this field, which Böhmer-Christiansen undeniably is not – and the reviewers letting through papers like Achibald´s or Becks certainly were not either. If it is not a science journal, and if it is not cited in the science part of IPCC report (WGI), then don´t try to put forward something from E&E when discussing scientific stuff.

I already said it is an interdisciplinary journal that covers both the natural and social sciences. Since it covers social science it is categorized by Thompson Reuters in their Social Sciences.Citation Index. This does not mean that on topic (Energy & Environment related) natural science papers cannot be peer-reviewed and published in E&E. There is no way for an editor to have the relevant credentials with a journal that covers a diverse amount of topics like E&E, this is why they have an extensive advisory board. Which is all irrelevant to the fact that Dr. Boehmer-Christiansen has the relevant credentials to select appropriate credentialed reviewers for the papers. The reviewers for E&E are both credentialed and competent as has been stated to you ad nauseum which is all that matters.
Whether something was cited by the IPCC in WG1 has no bearing on whether a papers from E&E can be discussed or not. Various climate related papers published in much more well known natural science journals were not cited by the IPCC in WG1.

Once again: Beck´s paper is ludicrous on its own right…

Yes you don’t like Beck’s paper, others don’t either. Mr. Beck is not around to defend his paper so the discussion on it is pointless. None of which changes the fact that it was peer-reviewed by credentialed scientists. I have no interest in discussing the validity of the paper. People are free to read it, the comment from Meijer and Keeling then Mr. Beck’s rebuttal to make up their own minds. You are obviously obsessed with discussing it, I am not. Everything you have stated I have heard before as it has been discussed ad nauseum online.

If you fail to see this, then you are merely ignorant of these basics.

If you have noticed, I have not given my opinion on the paper. What has been established is you are ignorant about many things relating to E&E and each time one gets shot down you move the goal posts or create a new strawman argument.

That E&E let this paper through – and failed to retract it or apologise for it – tells everything about the seriousness of the “review process” at E&E.

They published a comment on the paper, http://multi-science.metapress.com/content/c332k41405021514/
You act like that does not exist. In many journals this is all that ever happens.
You never answered my earlier question so I will rephrase it,
Should a journal not be taken seriously for publishing a paper that is criticized?

BTW, E&E had a mission statement from 2006 also cited in the exchange between Beck and Keeling stating that is was intended as a forum for “skeptical analyses of global warming” – and as I stated, Böhmer-Christiansen is following this line faithfully.

E&E’s mission statement says no such thing,
http://www.multi-science.co.uk/ee-mission.htm

Thus E&E simply is not a peer-reviewed science journal to be taken seriously by anyone in the natural science

You have failed to demonstrate this.

October 7, 2011 11:29 pm

Christoffer Bugge Harder says:
Smokey: It has indeed been explained by a “Poptech” both that a) E&E is a science journal, b) that E&E is not a science journal, and c) that it covers both social and natural sciences. You cannot have it all these ways.

Lies. Quote where I made any such statement. I have never claimed that E&E is a pure natural science journal. All I have stated is it is an interdisciplinary journal and since it publishes social science papers will be categorized as such in journal indexes.
Here is a better question, Can a journal publish both natural science and social science papers?

The editor herself has made clear that [s]he has no background in judging scientific content, it is not listed as science/technology in Web of Science, and it regularly publishes articles full of basic schoolboy howlers. This should nail it for anybody remotely aqquainted with the scientific process. Heck, It is not even taken seriously by Roger Pielke jr.

This is why the reviewers and various advisory board members do have the relevant background. No one but you keeps repeating the strawman argument of it being a natural science journal. It is indexed in the Thompson Reuters Social Sciences Citation Index (which BTW was one of Roger’s complaints – though I am sure he will not retract it),
http://science.thomsonreuters.com/cgi-bin/jrnlst/jlresults.cgi?PC=MASTER&ISSN=0958-305X
Roger Pielke Jr. is not natural scientist either so why are you using his opinion? His credentials are equivalent to Dr. Boehmer-Christiansens’. He has an M.A. in Publich Policy and a Ph.D. in Political Science. Oh wait did you not know that? My apologies.
E&E does not regularly publish any such papers, ” full of basic schoolboy howlers”.

I am well aware that Böhmer-Christiansen makes lots of claims about her journals scientific reliability, but no serious journal with qualified peer-reviewers publishes the sort of rubbish written by Beck, Archibald etc. we have discussed here. Hint: That somebody claims something on a webpage is not always reliable. Maybe E&E does have a peer review process where somebody with a degree in whatever field looks at the title and sees whether it conforms to the journal scope to propagate “skeptical analyses of global warming”? 🙂

These are all nice lies but as Dr. Tol will attest to the E&E peer-review process follows a scholarly peer-review process,
I have published a few papers in E&E. All were peer-reviewed as usual. I have reviewed a few more for the journal.” – Dr. Richard Tol
CBH, you are so desperate to smear a journal you know nothing about except ignorantly using Google to search for any smear you can dig up. It is rather pathetic.

October 8, 2011 12:26 am

Smokey – no need of a conspiracy for people who think alike to act alike

October 8, 2011 4:10 am

omnologos,
It is a conspiracy. Some of it is organized, some is just done with a wink and a nod. But as Adam Smith wrote in The Wealth Of Nations, “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.”
They know exactly what they’re doing, and why.

November 7, 2011 3:20 pm

My apologies, I somehow missed your reply,

Christoffer Bugge Harder says:
Poptech: This is getting rather tedious/silly. You stated:
E&E […] certainly is not a “politics journal”, it is an interdisciplinary journal that covers both the natural and social sciences.
Once again: This statement cannot be interpreted as saying anything else than E&E as a scientific journal publishing papers in the natural sciences (and the social sciences, too).

No it can be interpreted explicitly how I stated it, that E&E is an interdisciplinary journal that covers both the natural and social sciences. No claim is made anywhere that it is a pure natural science journal. You keep stating this strawman. Due to E&E extensively covering the socio-economic aspect of energy and environmental issues it will be categorized as a social-science journal by certain indexes. This has no bearing on the fact that legitimate natural science papers appear in the journal and are scholarly peer-reviewed.

Are E&E´s papers to be taken seriously as peer-reviewed contribution to the natural sciences, or aren´t they? You cannot have it both ways, for the umpteenth time.

Of course they are to be taken seriously as peer-reviewed. Only the papers that deal with natural science in E&E can be taken seriously as a contribution to natural sciences. No one is having anything both ways.

If not, then it´s easy: Stop pushing anything E&E says about the natural sciences, including climate, as if it were to be taken seriously.

That is just absurd no such qualification exists for what should be “taken seriously”.

If you think it is, then all I can say is this: Beck´s “paper” is just one egregious example of a paper that clearly has not been seen by anyone remotely qualified to review it. Here´s another by Archibald (2006), which attempts to refute global warming with data from 5 Southeastern US land stations. Really!

They are just examples of papers you dislike, they were still peer-reviewed. Beck’s paper especially has been discusses ad nauseum.

And another by Craig Loehle, messing up basic dating issues in multiproxies:

A correction was published as is standard practice in other journals,
Correction to: A 2000-Year Global Temperature Reconstruction Based on Non-Tree Ring Proxies
http://multi-science.metapress.com/content/82l462p2v37h7881/
(Energy & Environment, Volume 19, Number 1, pp. 93-100, January 2008)
– Craig Loehle, J. Huston McCulloch

Or Soon, Baliunas + The Idsos, repeating and expanding the howlers that had already lead to the resignation of von Storch et al at Climate Research before:

No correcting and expanding on their overwhelming evidence of the existence of the medieval warming period,
Reconstructing Climatic and Environmental Changes of the Past 1000 Years: A Reappraisal
http://multi-science.metapress.com/content/w071jx861073j544/
(Energy & Environment, Volume 14, Numbers 2-3, pp. 233-296, May 2003)
– Willie H. Soon, Sallie L. Baliunas, Sherwood B. Idso, Craig Idso, David R. Legates

Yes, a journal can publish serious papers on interdisciplinary issues, but only if they are careful to select sufficiently competent reviewers from a wide range of fields. Whatever one´s opinion may be, this just is not the case is these E&E “papers”…

Competent reviewers are always selected. I have heard all of your other nonsense before and it is getting old.
Everyone knows Pielke Jr. Ph.D. in Political Science does not like E&E, so? No one cares except desperate critics of E&E.
Everything you have “dug up” is from desperate Google searches. You need something original that has not been extensively refuted. I suggest getting an education on E&E,
http://www.populartechnology.net/2010/04/correcting-misinformation-about-journal.html

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