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.
KnR says:
Richard Tol, GRL claim this paper need ‘major revisions’ but simply cannot explain what they are beyond a word change , which is hardly ‘major’ in anyone’s language . If there major in nature why are they so hard to describe in practice? And that is not the reviewers opinions but the editors who has refused to give feedback , instead his boss as made this claim.
So the paper is blocked on grounds that are unclear, by a person that refuses to say why, buts its not based the reviewers . You can see why people amuse there has been been some ‘Team’ work at play given the lack of clarity especial after the nonsensical resigning of Wagner .
They explain it here: ” claims of a new homogeneous database (based on JTWC outside of the US) are grossly over-stated as there is much work needed before that can be genuinely claimed. This is especially so in regard to intensity, which the authors treat fairly simplistically in any case. ”
They suggest that “I would like to see that aspect down-played and perhaps the title adjusted to read “Towards a homogeneous database …” or some such.” you’ll notice the use of the word and which doesn’t normally mean changing the title is the only requirement to down-play the over-stated claim. Roger Pielke, either needed to write back to justify how this paper did indeed support the claim of a “new homogeneous database” or change the paper to make it clearer it was a piece of work towards a homogeneous database. Given the reviews the 2nd option looks like it would have then been accepted, why he chose not to do that and instead that the action he has is of rather more interesting than the review process seen here.
Im sorry but it is clear to me that, while the wording of the comments relating to the ‘rejection’ of this article are bizarre, Roger here has seen a conspiracy when there was none. I understand the frustration and even the mindset when trust has been so fundamentally undermined across the peer review process, but people should be wary not to start throwing toys from prams at various journals when they ask for revisions to be made. The paper should have been resubmitted – if continual problems occurred down the line Roger may have more grounds to complain. As it stands,all this means is that another journals editorial team now who thinks a little less of the behaviours of skeptical sceintists and sees us all as conspipracy kooks. People on this side of the argument have calm rationality on our side, it is our main weapon and this type of behaviour undermines this premise. In my view, unhelpful to the cause.
In my view it looks like somebody at GRL made a poor decision, and then Roger backed them into a corner… in response they decided to get a bit snotty. I would have just made ‘some’ of the changes suggested by the 2nd reviewer and resubmitted to GRL to ‘play the game’. Roger seems to have chosen an alternative resolution and gone elsewhere… Neither Roger or GRL seem willing to climb down from their positions…
If you submit a paper, say, “Crop production trends” to the “US agriculture journal”, but one reviewer points out, while the paper is otherwise sound, a more precise title could be “Crop production trends in southwest Madagascar”, and the editor might judge that this isn’t something for his journal after all, even though the reviewer thinks it’s quite publishable with this minor change in its title.
My point is that I suspect that the paper was rejected not because it was anything very wrong in it per se, but because its contents weren’t exactly as originally advertised (according to one reviewer). I’m not saying that the reviewer is absolutely right. I’m just trying to find a plausible explanation which doesn’t involve conspiracy theories.
@richard Tol, If you think that a paper that needs ‘Major Revision’ ie a one word title change should be rejected, what is your opinion on the hockey stick shaped temp. record? Just wondering on your standards towards pro and con CAGW papers?
I assume that you agree with the suppression shown towards papers that do not agree with the IPCC?
A simple search shows two papers on climate economics by a Richard S J Tol:
Estimates of the Damage Costs of Climate Change. Part 1: Benchmark Estimates
http://www.springerlink.com/content/maxtvyqm2yr5yax0/
The marginal damage costs of carbon dioxide emissions: an assessment of the uncertainties
http://puc.sd.gov/commission/dockets/civil/2006/civ06-399/7930-7940.pdf
He appears to be the same Richard Tol who last year (with Roger Pielke and Hans von Storch) called for IPCC reform and for Pachauri to resign…
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,673944,00.html
… and (with Bjorn Lomborg) has been attacked by desmogblog …
http://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/660
… and Deltoid
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2011/01/tolgate.php
Richard Tol’s comments are puzzling at best. He has not seen our paper, nor does he know anything about tropical cyclone data. Further, he apparently is unaware that GRL defines “major revisions” in terms of the time needed to do them, rather than the definition that he invented:
“[M]anuscripts are routinely declined if the reviews point to a need for additional analyses, simulations, or other significant changes to support purported high-impact results or implications. However, for those submissions that show promise of reaching GRL’s criteria, authors are encouraged to resubmit following necessary revisions. While “resetting the clock” on manuscripts that require major revisions reduces the time-to-publication dates, the policy is motivated not by a desire to make the GRL editorial process appear as rapid as possible but rather by a desire to
make the process be as rapid as possible.”
http://www.agu.org/pubs/pdf/Editorial_GRL.pdf
I also find his comments curious about picking a fight, as anyone can see from my exchange with GRL, it was professional at all times. I simply lost trust in a process in which our editor refused to reply to very simply questions of clarification and the chief editor was unable or unwilling to point our what “major revisions” were needed. Thus, I’ll take my business elsewhere.
One might think that as an economist, Tol would perfectly well understand such a response.
I still don’t understand why the scientific process became so corrupted in so many areas outside of Climatism and related faiths. What’s in it for the GRL editor? Money? A job? How is it that Climatists have gained so much power in the formerly-scientific community? However their success has occurred, I can only hope Creationists don’t figure out how to do it.
Ken Hall
You are quite right to add those additional flooding elements to my original post. They are the end result of deliberate policy-in the case of farmers ditches we had a vogue of discouraging silt extraction in order to encourage wildlife.
The end result is that costs rise due to our actions or inactions and no amount of flood defence work can get away from the basic causes-more people living in areas often unsuited to human habotation but exprecting increased protection.
The net effect is that claims will escalate irrespective of whether ‘climate change’ is a cause. I’m not sure that warrants a paper, let alone it being rejected-the truth should be self eviident.
tonyb
Tol, the tease. C’mon, man, cut & paste.
==========
@Baa Humbug
I’m a CLA in WG2, chapter on economic impacts.
Richard Tol are a Nobel price winner according to his twitter signature link
http://www.ae-info.org/ae/User/Tol_Richard
How come I am not surprised?
🙂
Richard Tol (@RichardTol) says:
September 27, 2011 at 12:24 am
> See my comments on Pielke’s blog.
For those disappointed by their unavailability, they are now available. It appears the moderation team at WUWT is more responsive than Roger (but we could infer that given it was 0121 in Colorado):
Note that Roger found “major revisions” means:
Why not submit it to a journal that deals with economics? They are the people that need the data.
The revision needed is pretty clear to me.. Add “As the world continues to warm due to increasing CO2 levels..”. It will fly through resubmittal!
One way of dealing with such a situation is to request another referee. I recently published a paper in GRL where the reviews were diverging. The decision letter read:
“Thank you for submitting the manuscript “Geomagnetic Semiannual Variation Is Not Overestimated and Is Not an Artifact of Systematic Solar Hemispheric Asymmetry” (2011GL048161) to Geophysical Research Letters. Based on the reviews, I believe that your article requires a major revision, and therefore I cannot accept this version of your manuscript for publication (please see Editorial Policies for major revisions at http://www.agu.org/pubs/pdf/Editorial_GRL.pdf).
You will see that reviewer #2 (reviews enclosed below) found promise in your study…”
Compare that with the letter to Pielke:
“Thank you for submitting the manuscript “A homogeneous database of global landfalling tropical cyclones” (2011GL049419) to Geophysical Research Letters. Based on the review, I believe that the article requires a major revision, and therefore I cannot accept this version of the manuscript for publication (please see Editorial Policies for major revisions at http://www.agu.org/pubs/pdf/Editorial_GRL.pdf).
You will see that the review (comments enclosed below) found promise in the manuscript…
It is clear that the decision letter was just boilerplate.
Here is how I dealt with it:
“Letter to Editor: 22 June, 2011
Dear Editor,
With a spread in evaluation from 1A to 4C it is clear that the review process has failed. Either reviewer #2 [1A] displays gross error in judgment or reviewer #1 [4C] has not understood (or is biased) the paper in spite of the A rating from #2. As reviewer #2 has presented a thoughtful and useful review, I respond in specific details to reviewer #2.
Reviewer #1 has given the paper a 4C rating, where the C means that “The manuscript cannot readily be revised into Category A”. I therefore confine myself to general remarks [as the review is not specific at all], and in keeping with the C-rating shall not attempt [unjustified] major revision.
I therefore request a third referee for arbitration, unless Reviewer #1 could provide a meaningful and specific review.”
The response on the 2nd round was
“My recommendation is for the author to make minor changes and for the editor to disregard the comments of the first referee.”
And the paper was duly published. So it sometimes does help to complain.
Do not feed the tool, or troll.. whatever
I miss the chart like this one:
http://www.climate-movie.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/tornadotrend.jpg
or
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_0ZFCv_xbfPo/TTb_Y-ib1cI/AAAAAAAAAxc/KdijENb0xHc/s1600/pielke2009.landfall.jpg
@ur momisugly Richard Tol,
“MAJOR REVISION”……..add the word “toward” into the title (as per the reviewer).
No wonder you climate guys need so much money, every time you wanna add a word you have to get approval from major Revision, whereas us lesser mortals can suffice with letting corporal Revision know…
Re-Consider the publication – “Geophysical Research Letters”.
Re-Consider the Editor’s Memo – “Paper Rejected! 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.”
Ready?
Publish the paper on-line at your own website and any others willing to take it without editing. Work with other scientists facing similar editing of their papers. Start your own collective website for publication of such papers.
Result?
You’re published and such narrow “periodicals” perish.
Say “Good Bye ‘Geophysical Research Letters’.” (et al)
In my post at Pielke, Jr’s blog (about #32 – it is still in moderation), I link the rejecting editor, Noah Diffenbaugh, to last month’s Stephen H. Schneider Symposium at NCAR down the road from CU-Boulder where Roger is posted.
Although the participant list is now forbidden, (SEE https://woods.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/wp/), is was not only a couple weeks ago. I believe Kevin Trenberth was among them. As for Diffenbaugh, I don’t recall and cannot check.
But one of the two primary aims of the symposium were announced as, “To identify key challenges for the future – in climate science, climate science and policy, and climate science communication – and possible ways to address these challenges.” And in this, Diffenbaugh iw indeed a leading “gatekeeper.”
We read on the home page of the Woods Institute for The Environment at Stanford, where Schneider was based, this: “Center Fellow Noah Diffenbaugh appeared on The [Al Gore led] Climate Reality Project on September 14, where he discussed his climate modelling research. (Noah Appears at 42-min mark).” https://woods.stanford.edu/
I think a close surmise is that Diffenbaugh is allied with the CAGW-alarmist – if late – Professor Schneider, and both with Kevin Trenberth. But I would like to see Diffenbaugh’s attendence at the Symposium confirmed, or else another colleague of his.
Science IS being sacrificed to Pagan Political Gods.
Not surprisingly, Roger Pielke, Jr appears to be much quicker at approving comments now that it’s daytime in Colorado.
Per precedent, “See my comments on Pielke’s blog.”
Oh. And Trenberth is, of course, at NCAR, where the Symposium was held. This is the same Trenberth implicated in the climategate emails for rallying the CAGW wagons.
Wil Sappenfield says: @ur momisugly September 27, 2011 at 5:45 am
“The revision needed is pretty clear to me.. Add “As the world continues to warm due to increasing CO2 levels..”. It will fly through resubmittal!”
AH yes the “Get out of Jail Free Card” for peer-reviewed Journals.
It is amazing how often that or a similar phrase is tacked on to otherwise good science and often on papers that have little or nothing to do with CO2 or climate.
Leif (September 27, 2011 at 5:51 am), The process that you describe is much easier to engage in when your editor actually responds to your emails 😉 Note that in our boilerplate letter the editor refers to a single review when in fact we had two, sloppy at best.
At what point in history was GRL run by a group of virgins dedicated to the advancement of science? And can someone point me in the direction of a journal that does not have it’s own internal mandate?