Editorial board member pissed off over a paper on “the pause”
Story submitted by WUWT reader Duane Oldsen
WUWT readers may remember Dr. Syun Akasofu as the source of a graph tracking the Pacific Multidecadal Oscillation with sine wave shifts in global temperature up and down. 
Dr. Akasofu’s recent submission to the first issue of the new journal “Climate,” a submission in this same vein of analysis, provoked one of the journal’s editorial board to resign in protest.
Dr. Asasofu’s submission was entitled “On the present halting of global warming,” and Dr. Chris Brierley of University College London declared the work to be of such insufficient quality for publication that his resignation in protest was requisite.
Dr. Brierley cites computer models and insufficient evidence in the paper as his reason for rejecting Dr. Akasofu’s submission to ‘Climate’ and thus provoking his resignation from the journal’s editorial board, despite crediting Dr. Akasofu’s hypothesis as valid and reputation as “deserved.”
Dr. Brierley specifically cites a lack of testing of Dr. Akasofu’s assertions in the submitted paper, which Dr. Brierley presents as an extreme abuse of the scientific method.
Dr. Brierley lists extensive critiques of the quality (i.e. lack thereof) of Dr. Akasofu’s work in the submitted paper. If accurate, this would be an effective indictment of Dr. Akasofu’s previous work as well. So both Dr. Akasofu’s source article and Dr. Brierley’s critique deserve attention.
===============================================================
Here is the paper:
On the Present Halting of Global Warming
Syun-Ichi Akasofu
International Arctic Research Center, University of Alaska Fairbanks, USA
Received: 28 January 2013; in revised form: 15 April 2013 / Accepted: 15 April 2013 / Published: 3 May 2013
Download PDF Full-Text [810 KB, uploaded 3 May 2013 14:45 CEST]
Abstract:
The rise in global average temperature over the last century has halted since roughly the year 2000, despite the fact that the release of CO2 into the atmosphere is still increasing. It is suggested here that this interruption has been caused by the suspension of the near linear (+ 0.5 °C/100 years or 0.05 °C/10 years) temperature increase over the last two centuries, due to recovery from the Little Ice Age, by a superposed multi-decadal oscillation of a 0.2 °C amplitude and a 50~60 year period, which reached its positive peak in about the year 2000—a halting similar to those that occurred around 1880 and 1940. Because both the near linear change and the multi-decadal oscillation are likely to be natural changes (the recovery from the Little Ice Age (LIA) and an oscillation related to the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), respectively), they must be carefully subtracted from temperature data before estimating the effects of CO2
Opening paragraph. Should, “up and down”‘ read, “upside down” ?
Heresy – burn him at the stake!
Dr Chris ran all the way to Skeptical Science…. to explain why he resigned.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/brierly-resignation-climate-akasofu.html
I see Brierley has chosen the Junior SS Treehouse Gang as the platform for his flounce.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/brierly-resignation-climate-akasofu.html#commenthead
Hmmm
Science is not about belief systems, it’s about evidence. One of them is being unscientific…
If a warmist flounces off in a huff in a forest, and no one is listening, does he make a sound?
“..Dr. Brierley presents as an extreme abuse of the scientific method…”
Uh, so he goes to a website that is an extreme abuse of what they attempt to pass as “science”!?
“Nobody expects the East Anglian Inquisition!
Our three weapons are fear, surprise, ruthless efficiency and an almost fanatical devotion to the IPCC.”
I’ll get my coat…
So, he’s protesting reality. Sounds about right.
I’m waiting for Hansen to be seen picketing the White House with a sign that says “Nature! Stop Proving Us Wrong!”
While Akasofu’s work has been some of my favorite, I’ve also considered it fairly simplistic. This paper doesn’t seem to off anything new other than an update in the observations and comparison with the IPCC data.
I haven’t hunted down Brierley’s full critique, is it online? “Dr. Brierley cites computer models and insufficient evidence” can be interpreted in a couple ways. Akasofu doesn’t refer to computer models in his paper, but he does refer to observations, which trump model output anyway unless you’re critiquing models. Perhaps Brierley thinks Akasofu should be presenting a model that supports his interpretation. That might be nice, that could be a project far beyond the scope of this paper or even the papers the IPCC reports are drawn from.
The usefulness of this paper is that it’s an update to Akasofu’s hypothesis and comparison to IPCC’s past work. A lot of papers do something similar, it’s just they conclude with a call for more funding to better understand why the climate is warming and we’re all gonna die.
Instead, Akasofu says:
Which indeed is nothing new, but it’s not something worth resigning about.
I guess it all depends on whether you are swayed a model that seems to fit the observed data or one that one that scrapes into the 2% confidence level.
Rather than Akasofu’s model not being very convincing, I suspect it is the observed data that Brierley doesn’t find convincing. Seems its acceptable scientific method to discount observed data, in favour of computer models.
Sounds like Brierley fell on his sword to take responsibility for his failure to man the gates and keep out the heresy—or maybe to protect his funding by proving his loyalty to the cause.
I like Akasofu’s theory, because it’s a simple theory.
Nice and simple.
Well luckily, he can chat with Cook about his paper, which I’m sure he agrees is great science.
At SkS, Brierley says:
This seems to represent the ideal for ground breaking work that changes people’s mindsets and opens new avenues of research for decades to come. The Watson and Crick double helix paper was one of that class. However, Akasofu’s paper is merely an update of a process that moves so slowly it takes decades to see if the claims stand up. In the long run scientists do a lot more of this sort of work, I doubt few scientists wake up in the morning thinking “Today, I change the world,” and those who do suffer disappointment very well.
Brierley certainly sounds right at home with the SkS folks, and that alone makes his resignation a Good Thing.
Have not read the paper yet so I can not say whether it is mediocre or not. And I don’t know if this new journal is supposed to be a top tier journal. If so, perhaps his resignation makes more sense.
But what I do like about the figure above is that it makes clear predictions one way or the other and afterword one can say definitely which one the actual temperatures are following more closely. The low sunspot cycle may play a role here, not sure if that is included in this analysis.
It would be interesting to hear what Dr Brierley thinks about inventing one’s own statistic so that the data can be interpreted as supporting the desired proposition when actually it fails all conventional statistical tests. I’m thinking here, of course, of Wahl & Amman’s ludicrous Calibration/Verification RE Ratio – supposedly validating Mann’s hokey stick – a statistic unknown to statisticians and never elsewhere spotted in any single one of the planet’s entire collection of scientific papers and essays. Would this be a resigning matter if it came your way, Dr Brierley?
It’s good to see what a ‘not a scientist’ looks like. I was curious.
It is not clear to me why a “submission” should be cause for resignation. Is Brierley saying the paper should have been rejected but other editorial board members disagreed?
Either way, it is not sufficient cause for me to take the trouble of visiting the-website-that-cannot-be-named. They already get far too many clicks.
:I’m waiting for Hansen to be seen picketing the White House ”
I am afraid he would have better luck picketing at the golf course.
According to Dr. Brierley’s page:
http://www.geog.ucl.ac.uk/about-the-department/people/academics/chris-brierley
Dr Chris Brierley wrote this:
http://www.nerc.ac.uk/about/consult/debate/climatechange/summary.asp?cookieConsent=A#newiceage
And participated in this:
http://www.pocketissue.com/book.aspx?Name=Global+Warming
But what appears to upset him IMO is that he is “in charge of both the MSc in Climate Change and the MSc in Environmental Modelling” at University College London, and Dr. Syun Akasofu’s work either threatens what he’s teaching, or introduces a doubt.
Where are Dr. Brierley’s specific objections to Dr. Syun Akasofu’s work?
Dr. Brierley specifically cites a lack of testing of Dr. Akasofu’s assertions in the submitted paper, which Dr. Brierley presents as an extreme abuse of the scientific method.
Ha! Coming from a crimatologist, specifically a climate modeler, that’s rich!
I guess his interpretation of the scientific method is to test his theories against The Models, and then they would be found Wanting.
“Nobody expects the East Anglian Inquisition!
Our three weapons are fear, surprise, ruthless efficiency and an almost fanatical devotion to the IPCC.”
And these nice green uniforms, oh damn. Hey SkS, I’m laughing at the superior intellect.
-Frank
The cause that represses.
Maybe the paper is bad – I’ll trust other able scrutineers to deal with that knowing that no one gets a free pass here- but Dr. Brierley’s rationale presented in sks (of all places to be ranting on the scientific method) goes on about the scientific method, testing of hypotheses and falsification, critical thinking, etc. In the post above he apparently cites computer models and lack of evidence and testing. Gee whiz, skeptics have been deconstructing self-fulfilling models, lack of evidence, cooked evidence, cherry-picked evidence, omission of evidence that doesn’t support the meme, destroyed evidence, out and out fabrications of evidence….They have demonstrated that the “consensus” theory is busy falsifying itself, diverging off below the lowest level of warming predicted. And will they let go? No.
Much of what is wrong with mainstream climate science itself has been hinted at by Brierley, but the irony is lost for sure on someone who heads up the “Climate Change” MSc program at U London. Talk about bias before one utters a word. If one were to head up the Dangerous Population Growth program you can imagine where his jumping off point is. This man is hurting bad. He’s the one most likely with the papers that are going to fade away (remarks on correction of science in sks) before he finishes his tenure (looking at his youthfulness in the pic). Moreover, he is heading a program that will be sending out in volume unemployable, inappropriately trained climate scientists into a rapidly shrinking market. His own PhD may well be at risk of being asterisked if he’s too steeped in the Kool Aid.
He mentions a similar principled resignation of another editor in connection with the Spencer Braswell paper which presented good evidence that climate sensitivity is much less than the IPCC authors put out and they question the sign of cloud forcing. This was two years ago and the work since then has vindicated their work – even the IPCC has been chopping down sensitivity and questioning clouds positive feedback. Now I think we have a trend: the doctrinaire climate change guys stuffed onto editorial boards will soon all be resigning while they think their way through to safety after it is all over and Climate Change U departments and government agencies will, through a few steps, morph into just Climate. As one WUWT wag (was it you Gunga Din?) said with the start of the crumbling of the climate change edifice, “I feel sorry for the wives and small pets of these guys” (badly paraphrased).
Regarding double-helix: I don’t think there was a prevailing hegemonic consensus on structure of DNA to be overturned.
I hope Dr Brierley’s students find their way to this page, and learn to examine real date rather than computer models, and from that learn think for themselves. It’s scary that so many third-rate academics with no understanding of the scientific method are teaching (and examining) in our universities.
I haven’t read the paper yet, but if he’d just label the linear increase “AGW” then he’d at least qualify as a luke warmer.
One overview remark about the paper: Akasofu’s thesis is eminently and imminently falsifiable which appears not to be a feature of the CAGW theory. Let’s watch. We’ll remind Brierley about this later.
I’m disappointed by Dr Brierley. He’s from my own Unversity ( UNiversity College London) which has always had a reputation for integrity right back to it’s Founder -Jeremy Bentham. The founder must be turning in his box right now. ( Jemery Bentham was embalmed and the body is kept in a glass fronted box it The Quad). The College Beadles will always open the box doors and show the corpse……. Dressed but with a wax head now because the original was too gruesome to remain on display
Tony Berry
Base Rate Fallacy
Akasofu eloquently summarizes the null hypothesis of natural changes with linear warming from the Little Ice Age with superimposed 50-60 year cycle. That sets the baseline against which anthropogenic warming from CO2 must be tested. It is a classic example of applying Einstein’s Razor to the null hypothesis: “Make things as simple as possible, but not simpler.”
Since the evidence is against him, Brierley resorts to logical fallacies.
E.g. see the Base Rate Fallacy
Brierley is making judgements based on complex AGW global climate models with the IPCC warming presuppositions, while rejecting the generic information provided by Akasofus, under the guise of insufficient statistical analysis. Yet the AGW models have a greater lack of statistical validation. See:
Green & Armstrong 2007 Evidence based forecasting for climate change.
Green, Armstrong & Soon, 2009, Validity of Climate Change Forecasting for Public Policy Decision Making, Intl. J. Forecasting, 25:826-832.
Green, Armstrong 2007 Global warming: forecasts by scientists versus scientific forecasts, Energy & Environment 18, 7+8, 995-1019.
Even Armstrong’s naïve no change model is better than Al Gore’s alarmist warming. See:
The Global Warming Challenge aka the Climate Bet.
In popular terminology, see: Legal Advice: Pound the Facts, Pound the Law, Pound the Table
e.g., from 1925:
I have read the paper. In all honesty, I can’t see anything wrong with it except that it is stating the obvious and well known plausible ‘explanation’ of the historical temp data and the pause in rising temps thereof?
Orthodox Climate Alarmist.
http://www.pocketissue.com/book.aspx?Name=Global+Warming
http://www.nerc.ac.uk/about/consult/debate/climatechange/summary.asp?cookieConsent=A
Will not be missed
policycritic says:
September 9, 2013 at 6:20 am
Dr Chris Brierley wrote this:
http://www.nerc.ac.uk/about/consult/debate/climatechange/summary.asp?cookieConsent=A#newiceage
That whole NERC document is shallow, riddled with contradiction and naïve – looks like they got the format from SkS.
Rearrange this well known expression: black kettle pot calling the”
I have read Syun-Ichi Akasofu’s paper, and it is indeed making a simple point, but one should not think that a simple point is simplistic. He has spotted, as have I and many others who have studied the global temperature records, that there is a very long-running very near-linear warming trend overlain by a ~60-year periodicity in phase with, and perhaps caused by, the naturally-occurring up and down phases of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. He has pointed out that, accordingly, there is nothing in the observed record to lead us to believe that CO2 has proven to be the dominant force warming the planet.
The unspeakable Brierley resigned not because the paper was not complicated enough but because it spoke inconvenient truth, and did so with the simplicity and clarity that are characteristic of Professor Akasofu, whom I had the pleasure of meeting in New York some years ago. Simplicity and clarity should not be taken as naivete.
The two editors of Physics and Society were given the push when I published a paper in Physics and Society – at their request, and reviewed in detail by one of them – in 2008. My paper committed the same sin as Professor Akasofu’s – it dared to question the New Religion. I suggested that climate sensitivity might prove to be low: perhaps less than 1 Kelvin per CO2 doubling. And which way has the literature been moving ever since then?
If anyone ever bothers to write the history of what – for science as a whole – is its most abject failure to date, the silly editors who resigned because they did not like the results they had published will not merit so much as a footnote. Of course, those of us who will have been proven right all along will not merit a footnote either, for future generations will wonder how anyone could have been so silly as to believe the nonsense that we have had to work quite hard to expose.
The race is now on between the onset of the next el Nino, which will cause a transient resumption of the mild warming trend since 1750, and the Paris climate conference at which a supposedly “binding” international commitment to wreck the economies of the West in the name of Saving The Planet is to be entered into. But, since the temporary delegate from the Republic of Myanmar first broke the news in December last year that there had been no global warming for 16 years, the world has begun to notice The Pause. We should not let our guard down for an instant, but, as Professor Will Happer likes to put it, perhaps this is the beginning of the end of the beginning.
“Dr. Brierley cites computer models and insufficient evidence in the paper as his reason for rejecting Dr. Akasofu’s submission to ‘Climate’…”
But…but…but…the computer models are also built on insufficient evidence. In the area of positive feedback loops, the core area of the entire controversy, they are built on NO evidence!
Dr. Brieley apparently believes that good science should be built from physical evidence AND computer models designed with no supporting evidence. If that is the case, the man should have left science a long time ago.
Can’t do “climate science” without a model.
/sarc
Dr. Brierley will now be with the in crowd. He will receive cash awards, get invited to winter climate meetings in warm places and will receive a new appointment as chair of something.
At least that is what the history of this science says.
This paper matches very well part of my own cooling forecast.see latest post at
http://climatesense-norpag .blogspot.com.
Howevr I go one step further and suggest that the high at about 2003 represents a peak in both the 60 year cycle and a solar millennial cycle ie that the long term climb from the little ice age is over and that we may well repeat the temperature trends from 1000 -2003. here are the conclusions of my post.
To summarise- Using the 60 and 1000 year quasi repetitive patterns in conjunction with the solar data leads straightforwardly to the following reasonable predictions for Global SSTs
1 Continued modest cooling until a more significant temperature drop at about 2016-17
2 Possible unusual cold snap 2021-22
3 Built in cooling trend until at least 2024
4 Temperature Hadsst3 moving average anomaly 2035 – 0.15
5Temperature Hadsst3 moving average anomaly 2100 – 0.5
6 General Conclusion – by 2100 all the 20th century temperature rise will have been reversed,
7 By 2650 earth could possibly be back to the depths of the little ice age.
8 The effect of increasing CO2 emissions will be minor but beneficial – they may slightly ameliorate the forecast cooling and more CO2 would help maintain crop yields .
9 Warning !!
The Solar Cycles 2,3,4 correlation with cycles 21,22,23 would suggest that a Dalton minimum could be imminent. The Livingston and Penn Solar data indicate that a faster drop to the Maunder Minimum Little Ice Age temperatures might even be on the horizon.If either of these actually occur there would be a much more rapid and economically disruptive cooling than that forecast above which may turn out to be a best case scenario.
How confident should one be in these above predictions? The pattern method doesn’t lend itself easily to statistical measures. However statistical calculations only provide an apparent rigour for the uninitiated and in relation to the IPCC climate models are entirely misleading because they make no allowance for the structural uncertainties in the model set up.This is where scientific judgement comes in – some people are better at pattern recognition and meaningful correlation than others.A past record of successful forecasting such as indicated above is a useful but not infallible measure. In this case I am reasonably sure – say 65/35 for about 20 years ahead. Beyond that certainty drops rapidly.I am sure,however, that it will prove closer to reality than anything put out by the IPCC, Met Office or the NASA group. In any case this is a Bayesian type forecast- in that it can easily be amended on an ongoing basis as the Temperature and Solar data accumulate.
“Manniac:
“Nobody expects the East Anglian Inquisition!
Our three weapons are fear, surprise, ruthless efficiency and an almost fanatical devotion to the IPCC.”
Brilliant. That’s a keeper :thumbsup:
at one time the party faithful were seeking to force skeptical editors to resign to prevent skeptical articles from being published. now they resigning in protest that skeptical articles are being published.
this is a positive development for science.
Go Home says:
September 9, 2013 at 6:19 am
:I’m waiting for Hansen to be seen picketing the White House ”
I am afraid he would have better luck picketing at the golf course.
Wish I had said that ! Brilliant !
Friends:
It is worth comparing the execrable behaviour Chris Brierly with the courageous behaviour of Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen.
Brierly has resigned from an Editorial Board because he objects to a paper being accepted for consideration for publication. Note, it is consideration for publication of the paper which has prompted his resignation. If the paper were lacking in quality or otherwise flawed then peer review (i.e. consideration for publication) would have revealed the flaw(s) and, therefore, the consideration would have rejected the paper for publication.
By his resignation prior to consideration of the paper, Brierly has demonstrated that it is NOT the quality of the paper which he dislikes. Therefore, his dislike can only be of the author of the paper, Syun Akasofu, or of the information provided in the paper. Neither reason is a proper objection to the paper.
Thus, Brierly’s resignation can only be an attempt to harm the scientific process which requires the full exchange and questioning of information.
Compare that to the behaviour of Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen who is the Editor of Energy & Environment (E&E). For some years she has wanted to retire but an appropriate successor has been hard to find, and this is not surprising. The so-called ‘Hockey Team’ has attacked and reviled her and her reputation. In attempt to stop E&E publishing one paper they tried to get her sacked from her university position.
The reason for these attacks on Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen are clear. With her as Editor E&E publishes both pro and anti AGW papers. The anti papers included the initial papers of McIntyre and McKitrick which disproved the statistical methods used to create Mann’s ‘hockey stick’. And included a paper reporting the misdemeanors of Wei-Chyung Wang in compiling data from China to supposedly disprove UHI effects. And included etc..
When the history of the AGW-scare is written then Brierly will not merit a footnote. He is merely a coward who runs from the truth. But – at the other end of the scale – there is at least one courageous journal Editor who publishes papers on their merit so science can winnow for the truth.
Richard
PS I declare an interest in that I am on the Editorial Board of E&E, but my comment is about proper behaviour by journal Editors and is not about journals.
From Dr Chris Brierley’s page it is one can see just where he stands on the debate
http://www.geog.ucl.ac.uk/about-the-department/people/academics/chris-brierley
He notes at the end
“I recommend that you look at the results of the NERC climate change challenge and the summary that I compiled about it.”
http://www.nerc.ac.uk/about/consult/debate/climatechange/summary.asp?cookieConsent=A
Reading this summary one can see his actions are not really surprising.
Does anybody here believe warming from the LIA with or without warming from anthropogenic CO2 can continue indefinitely?
I don’t–and for obvious reasons: sometime in the future, both will plateau at a peak and that will be the end of warming. Perhaps this current suspension of increase we’re calling The Pause is exactly that, or we could see a bit more warming in future cycles. Either way, temperature can’t (due to physical laws) continue to increase forever.
And if catastrophic consequences aren’t achieved before the maximum temperature plateau is reached, the Warmistas will have nothing to harp on about.
(Wait until their spawn runs into the next Ice Age if you want to hear extraordinary wailing; but then, we all will!)
When Brierly cited “a lack of testing of Dr. Akasofu’s assertions” did he have a straight face?
Dr. Brierley appears confused over how you test a hypothesis. Models are not a test. To test a prediction about future climate you need to wait for the future.
Whether Dr. Akasofu’s hypothesis is correct or not will become evident over the next 10-20 years. If observed temperatures continue to diverge from model predictions, the hypothesis will replace CO2 as the explanation for global warming.
The link in my 7:11 comment should be
http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com
At SkS, Brierley says:
There are no agreed criteria to judge the worth of peer-reviewed papers. Instead I will use a lower standard against which to judge the paper – the marking guidelines for our MSc dissertations at University College London. These state that an “outstanding dissertation (90-100%) should approach professional standards of research and could be publishable virtually without revision as a journal paper”. It is so rare that any work falls into that category that the guidelines only explain the criteria for a distinction (a grade above 70%, with my emphasis):
=====
Let’s run that again. There’s no standard so I’ll use a “lower” one. Err, lower than the one that does not exist? Hmm.
And that “lower” std is: “These state that an “outstanding dissertation (90-100%) should approach professional standards of research and could be publishable virtually without revision as a journal paper”
ie it should approach the standards which do not exist.
So not only is his “lower” than nothing standard meaningless , the “lower” standard refers us back to the first non-existent one. Nice circular logic Dr. Brierley .
And this guy was in a position of assessing whether submitted papers were of the required standard to be published, even though he says he does not know what that is and refers to a “lower” which is to aim to be nearly as good and the non-existent one .
I can only congratulate him on doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. He was by his own account totally ill-equipped to be a journal editor.
Judge them by their actions…
Nuff said.
Dr. Syun Akasofu’s paper is basically a summation of existing data. The combine existing dots into a recognizable trail/image and consider the implications. His graphics look rational and his statements don’t leave one floundering with “Where the $ell did he get proof for that concept from” questions. I was half expecting to see the chart extended back to the last maximum ice extent of glacier advance, but that is dreaming as the data Dr. Akasofu presents is not sourced the same as estimated data from paleo and geological sources. Splicing disparate data sources would not be appropriate.
Brierley? Whatever his rational for ‘resigning’ it bodes ill for the CAGW cause as his rant indicates insult to faith, not failure to perform science. As the AGW false rhetoric is spurned by ever greater legions of the public, there will fewer and fewer chances for such an anti science attitude to block not only genuine research papers from being published, but also from blocking or flunking students with open minds, solid intellect and scientific insight.
It does leave one wondering if B’s picture is part of the photo shop merged sks self abuse pics. If so this would identify Brierley as a confirmed sks member. Brierley’s inclusion in climategate emails would indicate similar membership with the acolytes of AGW doom and climate model worship.
As usual, the most interesting learning is done within the comments section. Being a skeptic is lucrative ?
RockyRoad says:
September 9, 2013 at 7:21 am
Does anybody here believe warming from the LIA with or without warming from anthropogenic CO2 can continue indefinitely?
===========
no, but it is possible it is part of a Bond cycle or similar, with a cycle length of 1-2 thousand years. The modern warming being similar to the medieval warming, the roman warming, the minoan warming, etc.
As such, the warming from the LIA is unlikely to continue indefinitely, but on the scale of human lifetimes it will appear to continue indefinitely.
human arrogance and ignorance tends to see all natural events as being caused by human activities. somehow we must have upset the gods and they are seeking to punish us through storms, flood, plagues, etc.
AGW is no different than the human sacrifices of old. Rather than the high priest, it is the taxman that wields the blade.
I think he stepped out of science with his childish behaviour.
He should also leave University College and make space for a real scientist.
The editors of ‘Climate Research’ resign over the Soon and Baliunas paper.
The editor-in-Chief of ‘Remote Sensing’ resigns over the Spencer and Braswell paper.
Now the editor of ‘Climate’ resigns over this paper by Syun Akasofu.
To refresh memories of the climategate emails: “In response to an article challenging global warming published in the journal Climate Research, CRU head Phil Jones complains that the journal needs to “rid themselves of this troublesome editor – hopefully not through the same means used by Henry II’s knights”.
To which, Michael Mann replies: “I think we have to stop considering ‘Climate Research’ as a legitimate peer-reviewed journal. Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal.” (from Real Clear Politics article published 11/24/2009)
Phil Jones email to Michael Mann: “I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report…Kevin and I will keep them out somehow — even if we have to redefine what the peer review literature is”
The first two papers have withstood the test of time (and I suspect this one likely will as well).
“Redefine the peer review literature” has come to mean ‘reject good research at all costs and publish only the garbage’.
There is nothing wrong with using a simple explanation that posits the opposite of consensus. If elegantly done, it holds weight. However, this was not elegantly done and detracts greatly from the reasonable hypothesis.
Had I been on the committee I would have sent him back to his room for more work on a paper that rode on the back of somebody else’s work just so he could make his own pretty graph. Actually I would have denied publication period. Horrible paper and as far as I can tell, there was no research done at all. I could go on and on about how bad this paper really is folks. I will be more specific as I read it more closely. But it won’t be pretty.
Let me get this straight here. The paper has not been reviewed yet, nor accepted for publication, but only accepted for review? And still this guy has very publicly resigned?
I don’t usually resort to this kind of insult in blog posts, but this guy is a jerk!
This is worse than most of the stuff in the Climategate emails about keeping things out publication. It is just appalling that a supposed academic would make such a public demonstration of their closed mind. I have reviewed crappy papers in the past (and given them a crappy review), but to jump out and do this prior to any review has to be the most crass behaviour I have witnessed in a supposed academic.
First the abstract.
1. He uses the term “suggested”. Weasel word. Is it or is it not a hypothesis? Use the word “posited” instead.
2. So what did you do [crickets chirping..slight breeze…rustle of leaves….more crickets…..a few bird sounds…………more crickets…………………..]?
3. Finally if you refer to a cause in the abstract, explain it thoroughly in your paper [crickets chirping..slight breeze…rustle of leaves….more crickets…..a few bird sounds…………more crickets…………………..].
Yuck and gag
In the ageless tradition of the samurai, Dr. Brierly has committed seppuku on his own career, choosing to die with honor now rather than wait until his Warlord has been defeated and be taken prisoner, to be executed in shame.
I did a calculation a few weeks ago that averaged HadSST3 for 5 years at the beginning of the last 60 PDO cycle and the end. The difference was .30C. When this is averaged over those 60 years you get a trend of .05C/decade. Yup, exactly what this paper shows.
It is almost the same as Dr. Curry’s computation of .28C for the full 60 year cycle.
Now, what has caused this trend and whether it will continue are debatable. However, The trend itself is a very simple calculation. Since my own personal belief is the likely cause is a simple regression to the mean based on solar energy content over the last 300+ years, it is unlikely this will continue in the straight line presented. Especially if the predictions of another Maunder Minimum come to pass.
It appears to have been published. I would have resigned as well.
From Brierley’s research page:
“I then performed a climate change experiment with CO2 increasing by 1% per year with the ensemble.”
Very telling that he refers to fiddling with a computer model as an EXPERIMENT. What is wrong with these people that they canot understand the difference between GIGO and an actual experiment and then go calling other people out for being unscientific? Brutal projection. Self Snip.
see more of his research here:
http://www.geog.ucl.ac.uk/about-the-department/people/academics/chris-brierley/dr-chris-brierley/#Hurricanes
Pamela Gray:
re your post at September 9, 2013 at 7:41 am
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/09/09/syun-akasofus-work-provokes-journal-resignation/#comment-1412236
With respect, you have completely missed the point.
It is not relevant whether or not the paper is any good. Brierly resigned in complaint before it was considered.
As Rob Potter says at September 9, 2013 at 7:47 am
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/09/09/syun-akasofus-work-provokes-journal-resignation/#comment-1412243
And for an explanation of why this matters please see my post at September 9, 2013 at 7:18 am
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/09/09/syun-akasofus-work-provokes-journal-resignation/#comment-1412211
Richard
Tea cup, storm and an editor who goes directly to Cook’s kitchen… That’s not a good sign for the good doctor Brierly. As for the paper, not much either way.
Here is a very good paper that includes actual research on the Little Ice Age. Note the well developed sections. My critique stands. The current paper is a poor representation of peer reviewed work. There is scant evidence of research in this paper compared to most published work. Maybe a letter would have been better suited for what is essentially an improved graph published in a previous article.
http://nldr.library.ucar.edu/repository/assets/osgc/OSGC-000-000-010-465.pdf
Richard, it appears to have been published. I am thinking the resignation occurred because the journal board voted to accept and review for the purpose of publishing it. I see why this editorial board member quit, who had obviously voted no. Yes one must read submitted work, but then decide if it is worth reviewing. I would have said it is not worth reviewing and would have been shocked that a journal board voted to go ahead anyway with such a weakly argued piece of work. I would sit on a board with higher standards. Obviously this board does not have very high standards.
Note that the University guidelines for a 90% research paper, which Brierly ostensibly reveres, i.e. “Excellent presentation with impeccable referencing and bibliography” appear to have been met by Asasofu; nowhere in his critique http://www.skepticalscience.com/brierly-resignation-climate-akasofu.html#commenthead does Brierly fault them. So much cannot be said for the numerous keystone works of the science he endorses, which have never provided their data or algorithms.
Well today I really like the contributions of Gary Pearse, Robert of Ottawa and C Monckton. Pamela Gray writes it for me: There is nothing wrong with using a simple explanation of something.
I had a (late) friend who taught mathematics to technical college students who did not know their Times Tables. He did so in such a manner that they were able to pass and get their diplomas to fix cars or whatever. It was an extreme teaching challenge. He had the ability to make simple explanations of things that had theretofore been opaque and impossible for those students.
I found Monckton’s tabletop experiment looking at for the Hot Spot to be similarly simple, brilliantly conceived and very effective in communicating the discovery of a ‘null’ as we call them in HAM radio. My mother VE3HUG called them ‘nothings’ and wondered why we spent time looking for them, delighted when they clearly manifested, as it were.
Sometimes when there is nothing to report other scientists get quite angry. Strange. In the case of this paper (above) there is ‘something’ to report and the Party Line has been ‘nothing’ to date, i.e. natural variation was ‘nothing’ to CO2’s ‘something’ so kicking the chair out from under CO2 means doing the same to alarmist AGW theory. How inconvenient.
Editors of journals who are not interested in the role of evidence (data) should not be there in the first place. Thankfully some understand and depart gracefully. Well, somewhat gracefully. That he is welcomed at SkS is further evidence (data) about birds of a feather.
“Despite my suspecting the paper’s conclusion about natural variability contributing to the hiatus to be true, I do not feel the evidence provided in the paper comes close to justifying it.” If that’s how he feels then he acted appropriately for himself. I have no problems with that.
“”””””……LastDemocrat says:
September 9, 2013 at 6:30 am
Regarding double-helix: I don’t think there was a prevailing hegemonic consensus on structure of DNA to be overturned…….””””””
Nor did they deem it necessary to give any credit to the woman whose X-ray crystallography showed it to be double helix; either in the paper or at the time of their Nobel..
I have read the current paper as well as the author’s previous one. I have also read Dr. Brierley’s critique. I agree entirely with it with the understanding that I lean towards natural variability intrinsic to our planet’s highly variable weather system parameters. This paper should have never seen the light of day. If the author truly is a respected researcher in polar auroras, he should be ashamed of this tangent into researching the causes of large scale weather pattern variation.
Which they more than likely stole from her. In this day and age, a criminal offense.
Bill you have got to be kidding. It does not meet the Phd 90% criteria. Not even close.
Pamela Gray:
Thankyou for your post at September 9, 2013 at 8:22 am
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/09/09/syun-akasofus-work-provokes-journal-resignation/#comment-1412281
which replies to my post at September 9, 2013 at 8:06 am
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/09/09/syun-akasofus-work-provokes-journal-resignation/#comment-1412272
that said to you and explained
I quote your response to that in full so others can know what I am answering without need to find it.
Sorry, but I do not agree.
If such a decision were reached then I would acknowledge that my judgement may be in error in this case (please note that I am a member of the Editorial Board of a journal). I would ask that my disagreement with the other Board Members should be recorded and then leave it at that.
Any other decision would be a demand that I had a right of veto on what could be published in the journal. Only the Editor has that right.
However, if my judgement were to tend to be ‘better than the average’ over time then my views on a submitted paper would gain credibility with other members of the Editorial Board so would be likely to affect their ‘votes’. And I can gain knowledge of my perceived judgement because Special Editions may be published when members of the Editorial Board may be appointed as Guest Editors for conduct of their publication. A person whose judgement is questionable would not be trusted to be a Guest Editor. (I have been appointed as a Guest Editor for two Special Editions.)
Brierly resigned upon suggestion that the paper be considered. That act demonstrates his arrogant belief in his own judgement makes him unfit to be a member of an Editorial Board. And the opinions of you, me or anybody else about the worth of that paper do not – and cannot affect that.
Richard
Here is an alternative to the Syun Akasofu’s graph applied to the much longer CET data records
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET-NVa.htm
Ya Pamela.
i would have resigned as well. The paper actually doesnt do any calculations. It assembles a series a charts from various sources and makes vague remarks about similarity.. “its generally perceived that we’ve warmed by 1C.” and other vague notions. there isnt a single test performed defending the choice of a linear model.
there is no trend in the data. no linear trend. data dont have trends. The data is the data. It doesnt “have” a trend. We dont observe trends. What we do is we HYPOTHESIZE that the underlying process is Linear. ( for example)
And then we fit this MODEL to the data and if the fit is good we say.. Assuming we are right about the underlying process being linear, the trend is X. We cant ever get away from this assumption about the underlying data generating process. But we do need to test our assumptions. This paper doesnt.
However, we do know one thing. We know the underlying process for the evolution of the climate cannot be linear, plugging in extreme values for x ( time) should show most folks why it cant be linear.
Untangling how much of the warming since the LIA is due to natural forcing ( changes in TSI, GCR) and how much is due to Anthropogenic forcing ( C02, methane, black carbon, land use changes, CFCs ) and how much is due to internal variations ( PDO, AMO, etc) and how much is due to random shocks (volcanoes ) and how much is due to changes in observation techniques ( UHI etc ) would be an extremely complex problem If you had MULTIPLE identical earths
where each of these variables were varied in a controlled manner. But we dont have that.
We dont have the data which would make this an extremely complicated problem.
We have one earth. We have one time series. And we have a giant parameter space, a giant list of factors that can drive the temperature one way for the other. in short, an empirical approach– just look at the data– is going to be vastly underdetermined. That means given a single short time series, given a plethora of possible causes, some only vaguely measured, an empirical approach–deduce the data generating process from the outputs- is guarranteed to give multiple conflicting answers. Many theories will explain the data because there is little data and a huge parameter space. put another way an empirical approach is bound to give us answers we like, depending on our ‘likes”. An empirical approach is an invitation to confirmation bias.
A controlled experiment approach is also out of the question. we cant vary the parameters in a controlled fashion– hey you, hold the sun constant while I vary land use so we can untangle them.. or you, you hold black carbon constant while I vary C02. we are doing an uncontrolled experiment on the planet.
That leaves one path for understanding the time series: build a physics model. Not pretty, and as the pause has shown, not entirely accurate.
Folks, gain a little perspective.
There is still a vigorous open marketplace for scientific ideas (inspite of the IPCC centric CG1 & CG2 ‘team’s’ effort to disable it). So, in that context, we get journal editors in hissy fit huffs of indignity resigning because they think some noble scientific ideal has been defiled. That is just an example of the normal process of freedom that everyone exercises every year of our lives.
So it is just another resignation.
What is the meaning in the Brierley resignation? It is only this. He wants to take his marbles and go home because the other kids don’t agree with his rules. And he thinks his marbles and rules should be allowed to restrict what gets presented in the open marketplace for scientific ideas. Yawn.
Even if you agree with Brierley, it doesn’t make those disagreeing with him any less meritorious participants in the open marketplace for scientific ideas .
Syun Akasofu, congratulations on your uniquely styled paper. Please keep contributing to the wonderfully vigorous and open marketplace for scientific ideas.
John
What is that magic “recovery from the Little Ice Age”? Is that a given and needs no explanation?
Pamela Gray says:
September 9, 2013 at 8:16 am
It may be that volcanic spasms always precede cold periods in the paleoclimate record, but I don’t think that observation is in evidence. What then accounts for the other cold periods in the Holocene before the LIA? The 8200 event is pretty well explained, IMO, but subsequent ones look at least quasi-cyclical to me:
http://c3headlines.typepad.com/.a/6a010536b58035970c01287656565a970c-pi
Chris Schoneveld says:
September 9, 2013 at 9:17 am
The recovery isn’t magic. It’s an observation.
Scientific journals are not arbiters of science.
It does not matter what their editor’s assessments are.
It does not take a journal to have the open marketplace of scientific ideas.
Just like it does not take MSM outlets to achieve a free marketplace of speech.
John
george e. smith says:
September 9, 2013 at 8:42 am
Franklin might well have been awarded the 1962 Physiology or Medicine Nobel instead of Wilkins, but tragically she died young in 1958. The Nobel doesn’t allow posthumous Prizes, & three recipients is the limit, in this case, Crick, Watson & Wilkins. That said, Watson did slight her contribution in his memoir.
Rob Potter says:
September 9, 2013 at 7:47 am
Yeah. My guess is that he got into a dispute with a reviewer or another member of the editorial board and it became heated or he is trying to rally the AGW troops. The latter is really unlikely for an academic.
There is nothing here worth fighting over. But the Alarmists might pick up Brierley’s fight and charge the cannons.
@ Barry Woods 9th Sept 2013.
Thanks for the link. Read it. Full of the usual SkS straw men.
I agree with Mosh’s take on the paper (waits for lightning to strike me down! sry Mosh!) But to resign over his stated criticism and then write a letter at Cook’s site is such a massive disconnect!
Does Brierley not know anything about Cook and his “abuse of the scientific method?” It’s impossible to ascribe motives, but ignoring Cook’s academic shenanigans while talking about a poor paper published by his journal seems like crybaby showboating of the highest order.
Why the selective outrage Dr Brierley?
Following Richard Courtneys remarks about Sonja B-C, while the warmists have whined about their inability to communicate, in one area their communicating has had excellent results for them , in trashing the reputation of Sonja and E&E. Still, every moment of ‘the pause’ vindicates her and every other sceptic. Her reputation will recover as time passes, and her stand will be seen to have been not far short of heroic
Barry Woods says: “Dr Chris ran all the way to Skeptical Science…. to explain why he resigned…”
Maybe he can be on their editorial staff–among kindred spirits.
Mosher writes:
“Untangling how much of the warming since the LIA is due to natural forcing ( changes in TSI, GCR) and how much is due to Anthropogenic forcing ( C02, methane, black carbon, land use changes, CFCs ) and how much is due to internal variations ( PDO, AMO, etc) and how much is due to random shocks (volcanoes ) and how much is due to changes in observation techniques ( UHI etc ) would be an extremely complex problem…”
Is an “internal variation” such as the AMO treated differently than a “natural forcing” such as TSI or GCR? Why is that? My guess at your reasoning is that TSI and GCR fall within the “radiation-only” theory so beloved of Alarmists and the AMO, PDO, ENSO, and similar natural regularities do not.
“If you had MULTIPLE identical earths
where each of these variables were varied in a controlled manner. But we dont have that.”
If you must believe this atrocious fallacy, please do not advertise that fact. You do not have to have a second Earth to do climate change experiments. Svensmark does not have a second Cosmos yet he is doing cosmic ray experiments that could be the poster child for Scientific Method.
“We dont have the data which would make this an extremely complicated problem.
We have one earth. We have one time series.”
There has never been a genuine science that rests on time series analysis and there never will be. You might be doing something valuable in the realm of “Decision Making Under Uncertainty” but you are not doing science.
“And we have a giant parameter space, a giant list of factors that can drive the temperature one way for the other. in short, an empirical approach– just look at the data– is going to be vastly underdetermined.”
Again, if you are committed to this view of Empiricism, do not advertise it. David Hume, the best theorist of Empiricism, addressed the question “Can we make valid inferences from experience?” Notice that his topic includes the data and inferences from the data to physical hypotheses. Since his time, no serious thinker has held that Empiricism is restricted to the data alone. What makes Empiricism distinctive, and this is true of Scientific Method too, is that all hypotheses and theories must answer to the data through their predictions. David Hume cut metaphysics out of science. Metaphysics does not have to answer to the data, just like climate models.
Again: “And we have a giant parameter space, a giant list of factors that can drive the temperature one way for the other.”
Your science is not focused by a set of rigorously formulated hypotheses. Use Svensmark as your guide. Break down this giant list of factors into sublists that can be handled by more focused hypotheses. First thing is create a science of cloud behavior. Second thing is create a science of natural regularities in the ocean, a science of the AMO and similar natural regularities. That’s enough for now.
Thanks, Dr. Akasofu.
I have published the abstract from your paper in my climate pages (English and Spanish).
Theo Goodwin says:
September 9, 2013 at 9:50 am
There was never any rational basis for jumping to the CACA conclusion, & the situation has only gotten worse since 1988.
Warmunistas have never falsified the null hypothesis, ie that warming since c. 1945 (to the extent that it has genuinely been observed) cannot be explained by natural variation. Mann’s Hockey Stick was a blatantly bogus attempt belatedly to do so.
milodonharlani says:
September 9, 2013 at 9:19 am
“The recovery isn’t magic. It’s an observation.”
The “magic’ doesn’t question the observation, it refers to the fact that it needs an explanation. If Akasofu has an explanation for the small wiggles (the multidecadal oscillations) that are superposed on the linear warming trend – which is the more prominent feature- wouldn’t you at least expect him to explain the cause of the “recovery. A solar effect (which Leif will be strongly denied by Leif) or what?
Further, he projects the linear trend to continue until the end of this century. If you have no model for explaining the linear “recovery” what is his justification for assuming the trend will continue. He could just as well assume that the “recovery” has come to an end, for he has no clue what drives that magic recovery. The word recovery also implies that there is a preferred state in climate to which it will go back to. This is all to fuzzy for me.
Pamela Gray says:
September 9, 2013 at 7:41 am
There is nothing wrong with using a simple explanation that posits the opposite of consensus. If elegantly done, it holds weight. However, this was not elegantly done and detracts greatly from the reasonable hypothesis.
I agree that there is not much meat on Akasofu’s paper [but he is hardly unique is that respect – e.g. think Scafetta]. The Journal is free to publish what it sees fit. If too many bad or bland papers are published, the journal is hurt, so the process is self-limiting to an extent. Akasofu is a respected and good space/auroral physicist [full disclosure: I know him well, both personally and professionally – he rejected as a referee the very first paper I was trying to publish, but has since apologized].
Chris Schoneveld says:
September 9, 2013 at 10:03 am
A solar effect (which Leif will be strongly denied by Leif)
You have this wrong. I do not ‘deny’ anything, just comment that I’m not impressed by the meager ‘evidence’ presented as Gospel truth. Big difference.
reminds me of this little ditty (again).
I would love to see the warmers continue to resign in protest…..
I am a little confused as to Pamela Gray’s indignation at the ‘quality’ of this paper, and further by Mosher’s explanation at how bad it is with lack of calculation (paraphrasing).
I think, and of course, this is just speculation – that because the paper merely states the bleedin’ obvious – i.e. an explanation based on human brain analysis, and further is given in a fairly easy graphical manner (that most layfolk could grasp), – this is anachronistic to the normal climate science presentation!
The LIA is an accepted ‘event’ and it is also accepted that this period was an anomalously cool period. Therefore, logically, we have to accept that global temps must ‘rise’ as a recovery (back to normal) from this event….anyone who cannot grasp that is simply not worth talking too.
The paper merely illustrates that the underlying trend for this ‘recovery’ can be drawn and seen in the observed temperature data, and can also be seen even with/under the overlying of the ocean cycles. What is wrong with that?
What is worse, for the warmista, is that this also realistically confirms that the temp rise is unrelated to CO2 !!
Frankly, I think it is because it is so simple – that is perhaps considered by Brierley to be too dangerous to the ‘movement’, LOL (recall the Monty Python – worlds funniest joke sketch!)
No, I agree this is NOT new work per se, but it is a good description and presentation of an easy to grasp concept.
I( missed Lord Monckton’s comment above where he said: “The race is now on between the onset of the next el Nino, which will cause a transient resumption of the mild warming trend since 1750”.
He apparently assumes that the “warming trend since 1750” (i.e. not the multidecadal oscillations but Akasofu’s magic linear trend) is an El Nino effect and that is not what Akasofu is saying.
Ok Leif, I should have not used that charged word “deny”, but you know what I mean. You don’t see the evidence hence you don’t buy it as yet.
Other WUWT posts involving Akasofu:
This refers to Akasofu’s work the current paper is updating:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/03/20/dr-syun-akasofu-on-ipccs-forecast-accuracy/
From Roger Pielke, Sr, this is a bit OT and a bit dated, but it includes a bit of his distaste for models:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/09/01/dr-syun-akasofu-20-points-of-context-on-global-warming-politics-and-the-economy-of-the-world/
The first post links to http://people.iarc.uaf.edu/~sakasofu/pdf/two_natural_components_recent_climate_change.pdf which is still a large 50 MB .pdf.
This is a much more comprehensive paper than the current one and should be read first.
Well, I read the paper, Its not very good, even if the conclusion is correct. Frankly, it looks to be about advanced high school level work. Should he have resigned over it? Clearly not, much worse work has been published on Warmist side of this debate, but it really isnt a good paper.
What was there in the Akafasu paper to make it publishable? Hasn’t that been published several times before, as in the Akafasu 2010 paper cited by Akafasu? Is it that he here uses the HADCRUT4 data? {from the text: Figure 5 shows the above findings in graphic form and represents an improved version of Figure 9 of Akasofu [8]. } Akafasu’s approach is suggestive, not rigorous: he does not present a non-linear least squares fit (for example), with an exact sine for the fluctuation, or incorporate a specific functional form relating the PDO to the fluctuations in the data, or assess standard errors of the parameter estimates or predicted values, or incorporate the auto-correlation of the estimated residuals. Brierly’s remark that the paper would not satisfy a Masters degree requirement is probably correct. Overall, I’d rank it way below Vaughan Pratt’s “99.99%” paper and way below Nicola Scafetta’s work.
Chris Schoneveld says:
September 9, 2013 at 10:37 am
Not at all – given the relatively short cycle of the PDO, its effect will average zero since 1750. Given the relatively long cycle (or whatever it is) that drove the LIA, it is still making a positive contribution.
If there is a surge in global temps in the next while, that’s what the warmists will focus on and point to as proof that their prayer for a resumption in warming has been answered.
Once again, I must caution everyone against jumping on “final answers”. Especially so, as my Venus/Earth temperatures comparison precisely confirms the Standard Atmosphere as the true–and most importantly, stable, against all but changing solar intensity–equilibrium state of the troposphere (and the easiest way to understand my analysis is in this response to a doubter). Given the stable Standard Atmosphere–implying the global mean surface temperature is also stable, hence basically unchanging–it is best to keep in the forefront of the debates the fact that the “global temperature” records are suspect: Steven Goddard has done much to show the US temperatures have been fraudulently adjusted (and I too have shown plain proof that US temperatures have been falsely adjusted according to the level of CO2 in the atmosphere), and others have shown similar fraudulent adjustments in HADCRUT data, here, for example.
I have referred to this situation–calling Akasofu’s work “the multidecadal ocean oscillations theory”–here, where in the end I take to task not only the alarmists but the lukewarmers as well.
Matthew R Marler says:
September 9, 2013 at 10:52 am
> What was there in the Akafasu paper to make it publishable?
It updates his 2009 paper.
Andrew Kerber says:
September 9, 2013 at 10:48 am
”…about advanced high school level..”
Ah, so a bit above many climate scientists scientific abilitiy levels then? LOL
Well, quite possibly, I am still mystified how Mann was awarded a PhD. But I link to think real scientists produce better work than that..
Chris Schoneveld:
At September 9, 2013 at 9:17 am
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/09/09/syun-akasofus-work-provokes-journal-resignation/#comment-1412341
you ask
The Little Ice Age (LIA) was a fall in global temperature and the temperature has been recovering from it at near constant rate since at least the start of the twentieth century with ~30 year periods of temporary halt or cooling separated by ~30 year periods. Akasofu extrapolates that observed trend.
It seems you don’t understand this thing called ‘science’.
The first stage of a scientific investigation is to admit you don’t understand an observed effect (e.g. the LIA).
After that you can start the process of determining what you don’t understand.
And that process is prevented by pretending that
(a) the effect doesn’t exist because it is not understood
or
(b) that you understand the effect when you don’t.
I wonder where you obtained your mistaken and anti-science idea that an observed effect should be ignored unless its mechanism is understood. Perhaps from climastrologists?
Richard
Chris Schoneveld says:
September 9, 2013 at 10:03 am
milodonharlani says:
September 9, 2013 at 9:19 am
“The recovery isn’t magic. It’s an observation.”
The “magic’ doesn’t question the observation, it refers to the fact that it needs an explanation. If Akasofu has an explanation for the small wiggles (the multidecadal oscillations) that are superposed on the linear warming trend – which is the more prominent feature- wouldn’t you at least expect him to explain the cause of the “recovery. A solar effect (which Leif will be strongly denied by Leif) or what?
—————————————
Why does a scientist necessarily have to propose an explanation for his observations? Any hypothesis would be speculation at this point.
Kepler couldn’t explain why planetary orbits are elliptical rather than circular, yet his (actually Tycho’s) observations & curve fitting to that effect were helpful in discovering an explanatory model.
I don’t know why you put recovery in quotation marks, since it is an observable fact. Do you object to the word “recovery” itself to name the observed phenomenon? Viewed another way, the LIA was a recovery from the Medieval Warming Period, a return to & overshoot of the dominant cooling trend since the Minoan Warm Period.
Its not just the recovery from the LIA that requires a plausible, testable hypothesis, but the prior larger, centennial-millennial cycles around which Dr. Akasofu finds smaller, multidecadal oscillations.
Other scientists have offered hypotheses to explain these observed variations.
Monckton of Brenchley says:
September 9, 2013 at 7:07 am
Thank goodness for the Burmese, you can always depend on their temporary delegates …
w.
Steven Mosher,
“we are doing an uncontrolled experiment on the planet.”
Waking up in the morning and getting out of bed is doing an uncontrolled experiment on the planet. Get over it.
“That leaves one path for understanding the time series: build a physics model. Not pretty, and as the pause has shown, not entirely accurate.”
Completely useless, would be another way of putting it.
Matthew R Marler
journals are full of ‘repeat papers’ , the Mann’s stick as been ‘repeated ‘ time and again , so that is nothing new at all. So hardly a reason not to have this one, is it .
Chris Schoneveld says:
September 9, 2013 at 10:39 am
Ok Leif, I should have not used that charged word “deny”, but you know what I mean. You don’t see the evidence hence you don’t buy it as yet.
Even the use of ‘as yet’ is too strong as you imply the effect is there but that I just haven’t seen the light yet.
Monckton of Brenchley: I have read Syun-Ichi Akasofu’s paper, and it is indeed making a simple point, but one should not think that a simple point is simplistic. He has spotted, as have I and many others who have studied the global temperature records, that there is a very long-running very near-linear warming trend overlain by a ~60-year periodicity in phase with, and perhaps caused by, the naturally-occurring up and down phases of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. He has pointed out that, accordingly, there is nothing in the observed record to lead us to believe that CO2 has proven to be the dominant force warming the planet.
Most of the time, a rehash of what has been already frequently published is not publishable. To be publishable, except as a labeled “review”, the paper has to add something: a model that can be used to derive novel predictions, for example; a formal representation and incorporation of autocorrelation in the residuals; a clear external criterion for delimiting the start and stop (or continuation) of a process, in this case it would be the “recovery from the LIA”. This paper has none of those contributions.
Brierly’s explanation for his resignation has problems, but if the journal does not raise its standards higher than this it’ll be ignored.
KNR: the Mann’s stick as been ‘repeated ‘ time and again
To the best of my knowledge, each new publication in peer-reviewed journals has included new data series or alternate statistical techniques for improved estimation and testing.
Steven Mosher says: September 9, 2013 at 9:04 am.
“That leaves one path for understanding the time series: build a physics model. Not pretty, and as the pause has shown, not entirely accurate.”
Not entirely accurate?
The models are entirely inaccurate.
Dr. Brierley … has decided to spend more time in “the environment” (the scientific name for wilderness)
oops. I have been misspelling “Akasofu” — I apologize.
Bob Tisdale work in this area would make a better contribution but running off to cry at SS is about as stupid as stupid does.
Having read both the paper and Brierly’s explanation, I find myself unimpressed by both.
Dr. Akasufo’s work is long on ideas and woefully short on math.
Dr. Brierly’s work is a childish winge about bad science, published on a site renowned for bad science.
The most hilarious part was Dr. Brierly saying that Dr. Akasufo’s paper wouldn’t pass muster as an MSc thesis in his world because:
While I agree that in an ideal world an auto-critique should be a part of any scientific paper, if that were actually among the criteria used in the real world, 97% of the papers published in the climate journals would be ineligible for publication.
And that, of course, means the good Dr. Brierly is just ginning up BS to match his MS and PhD …
w.
Perhaps mediocrity and changing the world should be measured against MBH98?
Richard and milodonharlani
I maintain that the word “recovery” needs an explanation when it forms an integral part of Akasofu’s projection until the end of this century? If the recovery, for instance, was due to a more active sun then we might expect a flattening of the linear trend during this century if (!) the sun returns to a Maunder-like minimum.
@Kev-in-UK
There is another aspect to this which might not be immediately apparent. It is clear from the CET record and many others when they are long enough that there is a 60 year cycle on an upward trend. So good so far.
Now, when talking about it, have you ever been told, “Give me a citation in a peer reviewed journal supporting such a [expletive] claim”? If this source is missing, something so simple and obvious, then putting it there is very soft pitch. Some things are so obvious that there is no need to put any effort into it so no one does. Then it remains obvious but unpublished.
Peer review (as Cook and so many others have repeatedly shown) does not guarantee good quality content. However stating the obvious should not be a reason to reject a publication, particularly if the assertions and conclusions is not already there in print.
Think of it another way – if it is so bleeding obvious that writing a paper saying there is a natural LIA recovery with a rather obvious ≈60 year natural cycle on top of it does not constitute something ‘new’, and therefore the paper contains nothing of value, then it implies that other works should also have properly taken natural variation into consideration, being so bleeding obvious and all.
There being so many papers out there which do not properly consider the magnitude of natural variation, this paper might cause apoplexy in certain quarters. Tough buns. Facts are facts. In an environment of hysteria where natural variation of temperature is being attributed to anthropogenic CO2, it is not those who in simple terms state the obvious who have a lot of explaining to do.
“I believe much trouble and blood would be saved if we opened our hearts more. I will tell you in my way how the Indians see things. The white man has more words to tell you how they look to him, but it does not require many words to speak the truth.”
– Chief Joseph – Nez Perce, in Washington DC,1879
Chris Schoneveld says:
September 9, 2013 at 10:03 am
Do not make the Alarmists most ridiculous assumption, namely, that all causes are known. We don’t know diddly about Earth’s climate. We don’t know what causes AMO. We don’t know what AMO is. Some Alarmists argue that it is nothing physical, nothing in the real world.
I have followed Syun’s work for decades and have been quite impressed. However, I am surprised to learn that Syun has become a weapon of mass destruction causing the evaporation of warmists using only the printed word. I have not seen the internal correspondence on this matter so I do not know why Brierly ran so fast instead of following the usual response of mudslinging and obfuscation. Please keep up your contributions Syun.
Matthew R Marler says:
September 9, 2013 at 11:11 am
The problem is not that they haven’t included new data.
The problem is that they are all junkies addicted to the stripbark pines data … oh, not to mention the upside-down Tiljander data. Despite being notified about that, Mann continues to re-use both of them over and over, as do the many Mann-alikes.
Matthew, you desperately need to go over to Climate Audit when you have a long afternoon, and do your homework on this question. You may not have noticed, but you’re embarrassing yourself with this public display of lack of knowledge about the subject. Or at a minimum, take a look at my post here about the ridiculous Mann 2008 paper attempting to do the Lazarus act on his Hockeystick …
w.
Willis Eschenbach says:
September 9, 2013 at 11:24 am
I find Brierleys explanation seriously wanting too. Akasufo’s paper is, IMHO, simply a review of previous work, rather than a new paper. But just because it isn’t ‘new’, or high on ‘math’, the points it makes are still valid – why is that a problem? Perhaps Brierley is objecting because of a logjam of important NEW work currently awaiting review/publication? (If that were the case, I could understand his frustration!) or perhaps he was trying to ensure the new journal would be very pro-warmist??
Crispin in Waterloo says:
September 9, 2013 at 11:29 am
I agree – that’s kind of my point – the ‘team’ like to brush this underlying simple/obvious stuff under the table (becasue it doesn’t fit their agenda). All this paper does (and his previous more detailed one) is remind us that there is a highly visible natural component(s) within the data.
I don’t understand all the fuss!
Theo Goodwin says:
“Do not make the Alarmists most ridiculous assumption, namely, that all causes are known. We don’t know diddly about Earth’s climate. We don’t know what causes AMO. We don’t know what AMO is. Some Alarmists argue that it is nothing physical, nothing in the real world.”
The point I try to make that no one seems to get, is that there is no justification for extending a trend to 2100 when the cause of the trend is unknown. Why the not extending the trend to the year 2200 or 2300 or 2400?
Chris Schoneveld says:
September 9, 2013 at 11:29 am
Richard and milodonharlani
I maintain that the word “recovery” needs an explanation when it forms an integral part of Akasofu’s projection until the end of this century? If the recovery, for instance, was due to a more active sun then we might expect a flattening of the linear trend during this century if (!) the sun returns to a Maunder-like minimum.
———————-
Recovery refers to the fact that global T, in so far as it can be measured, has rebounded since the depths of the LIA c. 1700. Whether that trend will continue or not doesn’t affect Dr. Akasofu’s observation of superimposed cycles, hence the dotted line in his graph.
No explanation is necessary. A similar trend line down from the peak of the Medieval Warm Period to the trough of the LIA could be drawn, just as one could be drawn from the depths of the Dark Ages Cold Period to the top of the Medieval Warm Period.
An explanation that could be tested & not found false would certainly be welcome, but nevertheless, Dr. A’s contribution is IMO useful, regardless of what the future may hold.
While respecting his decision to resign he has lost all credibility by posting his reasons on the childish SS (Skeptical Science) site. Or perhaps he would like a photoshopped picture of himself on the head of a Nazi?
Unfortunately for most skeptics, posting his reasons on a site whose members waste taxpayers money designing “research” to show that skeptics are delusional would only demonstrate the posters own bias toward the global warming religion.
Willis Eschenbach says:
September 9, 2013 at 11:24 am
Spot on. Journal hype has it that Watson’s and Crick’s “Double Helix” article is too wordy to be published by them. The reality, which every editor knows, is that 80% of what is published in journals is crap that serves authors who are fighting for tenure, promotion, whatever.
Chris Schoneveld:
Your post at September 9, 2013 at 11:29 am says in total
I maintain that you are guessing because you have a pet hypothesis which Akasofu’s extrapolation does not confirm.
Akasofu extrapolates what is observed to have happened since at least the start of the twentieth century. That extrapolation could differ from what eventuates in the future because any extrapolation may be misleading and usually does break down when distant from the extrapolated data set. But Akasofu’s extrapolation makes only one assumption; viz.
what has been happening will continue to happen.
The extrapolation needs no definition and no “explanation” of “recovery”. It only needs identification of the rate of the observed recovery, and Akasofu does that (anybody could do it by use of a ruler and a pencil).
You are guessing causes which are not known and interpreting that those causes will induce a change. OK. Publish your guess and see how it ‘stands up’ after a few more years of observations. That is what Akasofu is doing in his paper which has resulted in this thread: he published his extrapolation a few years ago and his recent paper reports that the extrapolation still agrees with that extrapolation. Hence, it may be inferred that whatever generated the data set used to create his extrapolation has not (yet) altered discernibly.
Richard
Willis Eschenbach: The problem is not that they haven’t included new data.
On that we agree. Although each new paper does indeed introduce either new data or new statistical analysis (e.g. M & W), which is what I said, the appearance of the famous hockey stick shape depends heavily on the inclusion of a few influential cases. The publication of the new papers made that clear once all the data were provided, one of the reasons that the newer papers were publishable.
How that supports the publication of this paper by Akasofu you have not made clear.
Another point of agreement is that reading Real Climate is generally a waste of time.
Willis Eschenbach: Having read both the paper and Brierly’s explanation, I find myself unimpressed by both.
We agree again!
Oh, happy day! 🙂
Theo Goodwin says:
September 9, 2013 at 11:48 am
Willis Eschenbach says:
September 9, 2013 at 11:24 am
Spot on. Journal hype has it that Watson’s and Crick’s “Double Helix” article is too wordy to be published by them. The reality, which every editor knows, is that 80% of what is published in journals is crap that serves authors who are fighting for tenure, promotion, whatever.
————————————–
The scientific publishing corollary to Gresham’s Law is that bad papers drive out good:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn7915-most-scientific-papers-are-probably-wrong.html#.Ui4ZZH-BU_g
Other, subsequent studies have found that close to your guess of 80% is the right wrong figure, but the most recent found only 14%.
Richard,
I have no pet hypothesis. I just played devil’s advocate and used one of the common explanations for the warming of the last few centuries to make my point. I have yet to see a convincing explanation for The Roman Warm Period or the MWP or LIA and the “recovery”. So any projection, especially 90 years ahead, is guess work and lacks any scientific basis .
Chris Schoneveld says:
September 9, 2013 at 12:00 pm
How about forecasting, predicting or projecting catastrophic global warming by 2100, based upon warming in 1977-1996?
If the CAGW fans were held to this standard they wouldn’t publish anything at all would they?
milodonharlani says:
“How about forecasting, predicting or projecting catastrophic global warming by 2100, based upon warming in 1977-1996?”
You seem to think I am in the alarmist camp because I criticize Akasofu, nothing can be further from the truth.
Akasofu has laid out concisely a stark contrast to the IPCC’s assessment.
To me, his work indicates an AGW induced temp residual that is an insufficient basis for even moderate climate concern.
I would like to see expansion of Akasofu’s work into the more detailed study of the physical phenomena of natural climate behavior.
John
Chris Schoneveld:
Your post at September 9, 2013 at 12:00 pm you says in tital
Well, if you don’t have a “pet hypothesis” then you were being misleading by stating one.
The extrapolation does not need “a convincing explanation for The Roman Warm Period or the MWP or LIA and the “recovery” ” or anything else. It only needs identification of form of the change in the data set and extension of that change beyond the range of the data set.
As I explained, extrapolation of that change has a completely “scientific basis” in that it provides a falsifiable hypothesis; viz.
what has been happening will continue to happen.
However, it is certain that the hypothesis will fail given sufficient passage of time. And, as I also said, that provides additional information; i.e.
there is reason to infer that whatever is causing the observed behaviour of the climate system has not changed until the extrapolation fails, and when that failure occurs it will be a suggestion of a change.
I remind you of my post at September 9, 2013 at 10:56 am
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/09/09/syun-akasofus-work-provokes-journal-resignation/#comment-1412442
Richard
Sincere thanks to all here for the kind (and accurate) words about the courage of Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen.
Sonja has taken a strong stand for her scientific and ethical principles, and has stood firm against unethical attacks by global warming extremists.
I published the following article in E&E in early 2005. The thuggish bullying by the pro-Kyoto camp was evident years before the Climategate emails provided incontrovertible proof of their unethical and even criminal behaviour.
This bullying by global warming extremists continues to this day, but it will not continue much longer. Their attack has faltered, and some of their company are starting to retreat.
One already sees papers published by global warming alarmists that acknowledge the significant role of natural climate variation. The significance of these papers is not that they say anything scientifically new – many if not most skeptics believed decades ago that natural climate variation was highly significant – the significance of these recent warmist apologia is that they are primarily political – I suggest that these authors are gradually retreating from their extremist views as the credibility of their warmist alarmism becomes scientifically and politically untenable.
Natural climate variability trumps global warming extremism.
Regards, Allan
Drive-by shootings in Kyotoville
The global warming debate heats up
Allan M.R. MacRae
[Excerpt]
But such bullying is not unique, as other researchers who challenged the scientific basis of Kyoto have learned.
Of particular sensitivity to the pro-Kyoto gang is the “hockey stick” temperature curve of 1000 to 2000 AD, as proposed by Michael Mann of University of Virginia and co-authors in Nature. Mann’s hockey stick indicates that temperatures fell only slightly from 1000 to 1900 AD, after which temperatures increased sharply as a result of humanmade increases in atmospheric CO2. Mann concluded: “Our results suggest that the latter 20th century is anomalous in the context of at least the past millennium. The 1990s was the warmest decade, and 1998 the warmest year, at moderately high levels of confidence.”
Mann’s conclusion is the cornerstone of the scientific case supporting Kyoto. However, Mann is incorrect.
Mann eliminated from the climate record both the Medieval Warm Period, a period from about 900 to 1500 AD when global temperatures were generally warmer than today, and also the Little Ice Age from about 1500 to 1800 AD, when temperatures were colder. Mann’s conclusion contradicted hundreds of previous studies on this subject, but was adopted without question by Kyoto advocates.
In the April 2003 issue of Energy and Environment, Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and co-authors wrote a review of over 250 research papers that concluded that the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age were true climatic anomalies with world-wide imprints – contradicting Mann’s hockey stick and undermining the basis of Kyoto. Soon et al were then attacked in EOS, the journal of the American Geophysical Union.
In the July 2003 issue of GSA Today, University of Ottawa geology professor Jan Veizer and Israeli astrophysicist Nir Shaviv concluded that temperatures over the past 500 million years correlate with changes in cosmic ray intensity as Earth moves in and out of the spiral arms of the Milky Way. The geologic record showed no correlation between atmospheric CO2 concentrations and temperatures, even though prehistoric CO2 levels were often many times today’s levels. Veizer and Shaviv also received “special attention” from EOS.
In both cases, the attacks were unprofessional – first, these critiques should have been launched in the journals that published the original papers, not in EOS. Also, the victims of these attacks were not given advanced notice, nor were they were given the opportunity to respond in the same issue. In both cases the victims had to wait months for their rebuttals to be published, while the specious attacks were circulated by the pro-Kyoto camp.
*************
This whole thread is outstanding with some very thoughtful and provocative comments. A brain stretcher. Thanks to all.
I doubt that statement. When one is in a position to provide ongoing influence for better science, better writing, adherence to standards; going ballistic and committing career seppuku over a snit is not professional. Protest, withhold approval, insist on independent research; all are possibilities, but do it professionally with dignity.
Steven:
I also don’t think you would’ve resigned either for the exact same reasons I stated for Pamela. And as for Pamela, the professional dignity stuff is what I would expect from both of you, without prompting by us peanuts in the gallery; it is how we would see your records after the fact, i.e. for the good of science and with dignity, honor and all that.
Now, considering your lark about a “controlled CO2 AGW experiment”; surely you jest? I would think there are observations that could be made, beginning with CO2 activity in the atmosphere. Haven’t you thought about experiments to verify component explicit contributions towards atmospheric temperatures? Perhaps infrared readings?
To me it comes across as incredible hubris that the CAGW crowd not only expect to easily build a reliable and accurate computer model of earth’s atmosphere and then to push the models as proof of disaster.
Remember, the thread is about a lightweight throwing a hissyfit and resigning. The paper discussed is also a lightweight and remember, journals publish light informational articles as well as genuine heavyweight research. Resigning over a light article is all the more puzzling.
If only the big publications demonstrate a hundredth of scientific rigor expected in this case.
Chris Schoneveld says:
September 9, 2013 at 12:10 pm
milodonharlani says:
“How about forecasting, predicting or projecting catastrophic global warming by 2100, based upon warming in 1977-1996?”
You seem to think I am in the alarmist camp because I criticize Akasofu, nothing can be further from the truth.
—————————
When & if global T, however measured, departs from the trend line he has identified & the oscillations around it, a quest for explanations could start with whatever possible forcings diverge coincidentally at that time. The projection is not written it stone. It’s there to be further observed.
I don’t know what you think about CACA predictions or lack thereof. My point is that reams of papers have been published touting man-made climate change doom based upon a repeatedly falsified GHG hypothesis, without ballyhooed journal resignations. Dr. A’s work can be readily tested in coming years & will be instructive when & if his projections fail.
@Kev-in-Uk
“… I don’t understand all the fuss!”
Of course you do! As John Whitman points out above, he lays it our pretty starkly: What has been undeniably natural will probably continue to be natural and locating an AG signature in it – well it has not been done, yet.
Not saying it can’t be, not saying it won’t be, just saying it will be difficult given all the natural cycles to be subtracted, knowingly, first.
The better guess above for the motivation / fuss about resigning is that a Journal with that name would be a plum target for thematic dominance by the Team. Right up their alley. Maybe he was expecting more respect and throwing all the toys out of the cot was supposed to communicate to the quivering Board How Displeased They Are. Threats of oblivion and all that. The paper will generate a lot of citations. One of the questions put to reviewers is how likely is the paper to be cited. If I think it is likely I always put in a reason or two to justify it. A paper does not have to be great to be cited, for example it may fit into a chain of related interesting work.
Well, Akasofu is a big shot in ionospheric plasma physics.
Unfortunately, he is too old now…
richardscourtney says:
September 9, 2013 at 12:14 pm
“As I explained, extrapolation of that change has a completely “scientific basis” in that it provides a falsifiable hypothesis; viz.
what has been happening will continue to happen.”
You really made a fool of yourself by thinking that if a hypothesis is falsifiable it has therefore a “scientific basis”. That’s like: Because a football is round every round object is a football. And then conclude with a laughable “what has been happening will continue to happen”. Are you really an editor for E&E, the magazine for which I reviewed two papers in the last special (July) issue?
Chris Schoneveld:
re your post at September 9, 2013 at 12:33 pm.
Merely because you have been shown to be wrong is no reason to be offensive.
Look on the inside cover of E&E to see a complete list of its Editorial Board.
A falsifiable hypothesis is a scientific statement. Live with it.
Richard
Crispin in Waterloo says:
September 9, 2013 at 12:27 pm
Oh yes I understand THAT fuss ! – but I don’t understand the fuss on here, and certainly not in the context of trying to call the paper as rubbish just because of it’s simplicity and lack of math!
Quite often the best explanations are extremely simple – the earlier detailed paper of 2009 is also really just a collection of observations, plausibly explained by simple ‘analysis’. However, it seems that some just cannot grasp it?
It may not be correct in the end, and I know many people do not like simple curve fitting exercises – but sometimes they do provide the best indicators?
As a geologist, who started just as Plate tectonics was being more widely bandied around, I was taught by academics of the (even) old(er) school, and there were those that liked its simplicity, and those who felt it was too complex! I often wondered why there was such a divide over such a simple explanation, but of course, it is all accepted stuff now!
In my experience, a good indication of an upcoming cold winter is when squirrels start fighting among themselves. After scanning this collection of comments, I conclude this next winter will be a hummer.
richardscourtney says:
September 9, 2013 at 12:46 pm
“A falsifiable hypothesis is a scientific statement. Live with it.”
A scientific hypothesis should be falsifiable. Your statement is the inverse. You claim that anything that is falsifiable has a scientific basis. So if I make a ridiculous statement that is falsifiable it has by (your own) definition a “scientific basis”. Sorry, I am not being offensive by saying it is laughable.
If the new paper by Dr. Akasofu is simply an update to the previous paper’s predictions then there is no need for repeating the arguments of the previous paper. How many of those complaining about the new paper went back and read the original? If you didn’t, then you are misguided to say the least.
Anyone willing to apologize?
Chris Schoneveld says:
September 9, 2013 at 9:17 am
What is that magic “recovery from the Little Ice Age”? Is that a given and needs no explanation?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
NASA: Heinrich and Dansgaard/Oeschger Events
During an interglacial like the Holocene they are called Bond Events. Dr. Gerald Bond found similar cycles during the Holocene interglacial. NASA used to have that information too but I can not find a link so I will use this instead.
Hope that information clears up what is meant by warming from the ‘Little Ice Age” Bond event beginning around 1250 when Atlantic pack ice began to grow. If the climate follows the documented Bond, Heinrich and Dansgaard-Oeschger events then the warming trend should last “….close to 1,470 years (plus or minus 500 years)” Both the Vostok and the Greenland Ice Cores show that the climate is not stable but bounces between boundaries even during an interglacial. If anything the Holocene has been remarkably stable in temperature and climate.
The question of course is what actually causes these cycles. The newest SWAG by warmists is A new international study has pinned the trigger of the Little Ice Age to a series of major volcanic eruptions between 1275-1300 AD. Of course you then have to come up with why the pack ice was growing before that and how volcanoes have been periodically triggered and why there have been cyclical warmings of ~ 8-10C during glaciation.
Another guess is the 1,000 plus year north/south lunar tides link and The influence of the lunar nodal cycle on Arctic climate, ICES Journal of Marine Science and over at Jo Nova’s Ian Wilson and Nikolay Sidorenkov have published a provocative paper, Long-Term Lunar Atmospheric Tides in the Southern Hemisphere.
Chris Schoneveld:
re your post at September 9, 2013 at 1:06 pm.
This is not the place for you to gain an understanding of the scientific method. But you say your lack of understanding is extreme.
It is simply true that a falsifiable hypothesis is a scientific statement.
Contrary to your superstitious belief, a falsifiable hypothesis does not need any explicable mechanism for it to be a valid scientific statement.
For example, a scientist sees an animal – say a zebra – and he sees it runs whenever lions approach. He posits the hypothesis that zebras run when approached by lions .
That hypothesis is scientific. It does not need any knowledge and/or understanding of the central nervous system of zebras for it to be valid. However, if the hypothesis is not falsified by further observations then that hypothesis is a spur to research to determine how and why the hypothesis seems to be true.
This is called ‘science’ and – contrary to your claim – it is not “laughable”. In fact it has been very successful in provision of greater knowledge with resulting immense benefits to human kind.
Richard
Willis Eschenbach says:
September 9, 2013 at 11:00 am
Monckton of Brenchley says:
September 9, 2013 at 7:07 am
>> … But, since the temporary delegate from the Republic of Myanmar first broke the news in December last year that there had been no global warming for 16 years, the world has begun to notice The Pause.
>Thank goodness for the Burmese, you can always depend on their temporary delegates …
They only had one who said anything, but he said it well!
I am not a scientist, nor do I ever comment, but I do love science and I follow the discussion closely, especially on this site.
I thought the purpose of publishing work was to expose hypothesis, theory and evidence to the scientific scrutiny of one’s peers. Isn’t this what peer review is all about in the first place? If Dr Brierly objects to the assertions in Dr Akasofu’s work, perhaps Dr Brierly should present his scientific objections, rather than running away from the process.
Does someone have the complete list of papers that sparked resignations?
There is this, then Spencer & Braswell in Remote Sensing, Soon &Baliunas, any more?
Now Brierly went over to complain at the site with the guys responsible for that terrible 97% paper, which should have never been published in the first place.
With such double standards he took the right decision to step down as an editor.
Yes, there seems to have been a long term near linear trend overlain by a 60 years wobble.
One must however be very careful about assuming..
a) that the long term linear trend is actually linear and not the upward run of a long term oscillation..
b) that the long term linear trend can be extrapolated into the future for any given length of time.
Birdieshooter says: “This whole thread is outstanding with some very thoughtful and provocative comments. A brain stretcher. Thanks to all.”
Yes. I was particularly impressed with certain witty comments, including:
Monckton of Brenchley: “…the temporary delegate from the Republic of Myanmar first broke the news in December last year…”
Manniac: “Nobody expects the East Anglian Inquisition!”
Potter Eaton: When Brierly cited “a lack of testing of Dr. Akasofu’s assertions” did he have a straight face?
Greg Goodman: Let’s run that again. ‘There’s no standard so I’ll use a “lower” one.’ Err, lower than the one that does not exist? Hmm. And that “lower” std is: “…an “outstanding dissertation (90-100%) should approach professional standards…and… be publishable…as a journal paper” ie it should approach the standards which do not exist. So not only is his “lower” than nothing standard meaningless, the “lower” standard refers us back to the first non-existent one. Nice circular logic Dr. Brierley.
Leif Svalgaard: [various polite and perceptive input]
Kev-in-Uk: Ah, so a bit above many climate scientists scientific abilitiy levels then? LOL
Steven Mosher says: September 9, 2013 at 9:04 am.
“That leaves one path for understanding the time series: build a physics model. Not pretty, and as the pause has shown, not entirely accurate.”
Mosh, their major problem is that their models are NOT physics models.
Yes there is some physics in them, but they also contain a large amount of ideology.
The two DO NOT MIX WELL !!
Looks like Chris Brierley went through the traumatic moment every baby experiences when he stops being breast fed. And cries.
The world is no longer as he expected it to be.
That’s a first, if small, step toward adulthood.
J. Scott Armstrong has done quite a bit of reseach on the ins and outs of publishing peer reviewed papers. Here is what he has found.
Darn it I thought I put in the block quote off!
Gail:
I’ve done that, and worse. Anthony helped me a couple of times by deleting my goofs.
Kind of a neat vertical read though.
Here in Oz we have a highly scientific term for Dr. Brierley’s action: an epic dummy-spit.
Dr. Brierley has spat the dummy and gone WAAAHHHHH!.
It is obvious to anyone with eyes that the ~60 year cycle has a trough to peak temperature change of about 0.25-0.3 C, or about 2/3rds of the temperature rise since 1970.
And it is persistent. This was shown in a paper Knight et al 2005 written by five authors including a certain Dr Michael E. Mann. I bet he wishes he could withdraw that paper now.
AndyG55 says:
September 9, 2013 at 2:50 pm
correct – but the difficulty here is trying to compare lower resolution palaeo proxy data to modern observational data as we are dealing with significantly different timescales (I’ll ignore the accuracy issues!).
It is right to advise that any currently observed ‘linear’ trend may just be a small segment of a larger non linear change, but in practise, there is not much we can do about that. (on the other hand if Mann can do it…..)
For my money, the cyclical climate variation has been adequately demonstrated in the various proxies. Moreover, we know where we ‘are’ within the context of past cycles, i.e. coming towards the end of an interglacial. What we still do not know is how much of the observed changes are potentially anthropogenic – I personally think it is the square root of bugger all – and conversely, how much is natural? (I reckon 99%!) – and the warmista/scaremongers and governments will continue to use this lack of knowledge as long as possible!
What I feel Akasofu is doing, is reminding us of the LIKELY underlying natural trends. Anyone who cannot see those graphs as a pretty good first approximation of an explanation for the observed warming is, to my mind, blinkered in the extreme.
One last thing, before I retire to my bunk:
I notice nobody has mentioned the fact that if we assume there IS an underlying natural trend, of the order of magnitude indicated in this paper’s analysis – then ALL and ANY CO2 mitigation would be completely POINTLESS……..maybe this is what the establishment are so keen to ‘hide’?
Kev-in-Uk:
You conclude your post at September 9, 2013 at 3:15 pm saying
Quite so.
Now to take things back to the subject of this thread,
why would anybody resign from an Editorial Board because a journal considered publishing such a reminder especially when the paper reports that the observed warming trend has yet to change from when it was previously published?
And for those who complain that the paper should not be considered for publication because it contains little maths., I add that important papers sometimes don’t; for example, this one
Darwin C, ‘On the Origin of Species’, (1859)
Richard
Kev-in-Uk:
I see you answered my question while I was typing it. Thankyou.
Richard
richardscourtney says:
September 9, 2013 at 3:26 pm
Excellent example re. math in science.
Darwin does use elementary arithmetic in his Malthusian Chapter 3, but doesn’t invent a new math as did Newton nor even the statistics that arose from the modern Darwinian-Mendelian synthesis, ie population genetics (owing in part to the earlier work of his cousin Galton).
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/origin/chapter3.html
Regarding the bafflegab, it sounds to be a reiteration of,
Experts hate to admit they’ve reached a point where they fail to understand a topic under discussion by an assumed expert, and rather than admit to magic they fall for bafflegab. If the presenter is known to be junior in any respect, the grilling about the topic would’ve been arduous. An event many doctorate presenters can attest to.
Over massage of data of questionable value be it paleolithic debris or tree rings, surface temperatures from poorly sited and/or poorly maintained equipment, questionable satellite data or what have you which is then averaged, smoothed, normalized and “anomilized”, then subjected to sophisticated statistical techniques seems to be quite common in the world of climate “science” be it by warmists or skeptics alike. Massacre the data enough and you can obtain whatever answer you desire.
My hunch is that there is a back story about the board and the decisions they have made. That back story may flesh out the entire reason for a resignation.
I have resigned from positions due to ethical issues. It is never done lightly. But that is the way of public institutions. And if employed by such an entity on a voluntary or paid basis, professional ethics requires that a stand for principles must be made when a line is crossed or else we lead the world back into the dark ages.
I will say again that this current paper should have been in the form of a letter to the journal, not touted as research. The author will likely regret this particular piece of published opinion (sorry, just can’t bring myself to call it research) much like actors regret some roles they have played in the public arena of entertainment.
After reading both of Dr. Akasofu’s papers, I see the current one as a short update to the rather longer previous paper. Some folks complain about the lack of math but I believe that Dr. Akasofu is merely positing a falsifiable hypothesis, which is good science. It has been 4 years since he published the first paper which looked to be started several years before that. So an update would be appropriate. Observation and time trump models and math any day of the week; besides he is a Geophysicist and physics is not math but a mental discipline for explaining how the world works.
v/r,
David Riser
<blockquote<
Pamela Gray on September 9, 2013 at 4:21 pm
My hunch is that there is a back story about the board and the decisions they have made. That back story may flesh out the entire reason for a resignation.
I have resigned from positions due to ethical issues. It is never done lightly. But that is the way of public institutions. And if employed by such an entity on a voluntary or paid basis, professional ethics requires that a stand for principles must be made when a line is crossed or else we lead the world back into the dark ages.
I will say again that this current paper should have been in the form of a letter to the journal, not touted as research. The author will likely regret this particular piece of published opinion (sorry, just can’t bring myself to call it research) much like actors regret some roles they have played in the public arena of entertainment.
– – – – – – –
Pamela Gray,
Why the backhanded pejorative about Akasofu?
Simply address him directly. Personally, I suggest that would fit better with my long term image of Pamela Gray that I have of had here at WUWT.
It is in intellectual success that we are most challenged intellectually . . . and you have been successful.
John
I’ve never visited “Skeptical Science” before, and they list these “Most Used Climate Myths” on the left of the blog….
Climate’s changed before
It’s the sun
It’s not bad
There is no consensus
It’s cooling
Models are unreliable
Temp record is unreliable
Animals and plants can adapt
It hasn’t warmed since 1998
Antarctica is gaining ice
======
From where I’m sitting, most of them seem to be true and verifiable. What are these folks smoking?
John Whitman says:
September 9, 2013 at 4:44 pm
Pamela Gray on September 9, 2013 at 4:21 pm said
My hunch is that there is a back story
Since this is new journal [volume 1, issue 1, page 4] I have a feeling that the Journal solicited the Akasofu paper. I often get such solicitations form new journals [I mostly turn them down as the journals are just fishing and the particular fish I might provide usual does not fit with the area the journal seeks to cover]. The paper was Received: 28 January 2012; in revised form: 15 April 2013. How would Akasofu back in Jan. 2012 even know about this new journal? And why the long time until April 2013? It looks to me, the journal was collecting solicited papers for a while.
ATheoK says:
September 9, 2013 at 12:19 pm
“To me it comes across as incredible hubris that the CAGW crowd not only expect to easily build a reliable and accurate computer model of earth’s atmosphere and then to push the models as proof of disaster.”
Yes. This is the root problem for someone like Mosher who is not an enviro-scammer and has not fallen ill from Noble Cause disease. His imagination always runs to the One Great Model of Earth’s Atmosphere. He cannot get his mind around the difficulties along the way.
I see nothing wrong with the paper. Basically the author rehashed something he wrote 4 or 5 years ago, and updated it to show that the prediction still matches observations.
without having to adjust the past.
– – – – – – –
CRS, DrPH,
They are on mind altering ‘a priori’ instead of mind altering chemicals.
John
Maybe Dr. Akasofu could submit his paper to a bunch of other journals. If enough climate priests step down, the journals might gain a better reputation.
– – – – – – –
Leif,
I see no reason to think this Akasofu paper is inconsistent with the scientific merits of his previous previous work.
So again I wonder at the pejorative implication by Pamela. I wonder at many things. : )
John
John Whitman says:
September 9, 2013 at 5:32 pm
I see no reason to think this Akasofu paper is inconsistent with the scientific merits of his previous work.
Neither do I, but I will agree with Pamela that the paper is a bit ‘thin’, but then, not much has happened since the last paper. It would have been nice if Akasofu had actually predicted the ‘pause’ in his previous paper. Did he? I don’t remember off hand.
Gail Combs says: September 9, 2013 at 3:10 pm
…
🙂 You have inadvertently made a very strong point !
Pamela Gray said:
“Yes one must read submitted work, but then decide if it is worth reviewing. I would have said it is not worth reviewing and would have been shocked that a journal board voted to go ahead anyway with such a weakly argued piece of work. I would sit on a board with higher standards.”
But see, that’s why they call it a “board”. It is a committee, and the majority rules. Leaving in a huff because the majority disagrees defeats the purpose of having a board in the first place.
Besides, what did he lose? Not much, if you ask me. He will be in with the ‘in crowd’; their petty hero du jour. He will probably generate a net gain out of his tantrum.
Now, if Brierly quit his paying job over his principles, I would be suitably impressed…
…but let’s get real.
I pity Brierley’s students. Any MSc theses that don’t toe the dogmatic line can expect harsh treatment and failing grades. A rational student who has not yet drunk the kool aid would be best advised to RUN and not walk from the program that he heads.
– – – – – – – –
Leif,
It seems to me a fat body of scientific work that is updated to a modern situation is just that, not ‘thin’. : )
John
There was talk about natural variation and the forbidden, yet real, 60 year cycle. Blasphemy! Of course he resigned.
On a serious note, I think there is another longer cycle as well, likely induced by the Sun. I wonder what he would have done if the Sun’s natural variation were included as well. He’d likely need counseling. Could you imagine the trauma?
John Whitman says:
“It would have been nice if Akasofu had actually predicted the ‘pause’ in his previous paper. Did he? I don’t remember off hand.”
It looks like he did, John. Check out the graph in the article.
John Whitman says:
September 9, 2013 at 6:27 pm
It seems to me a fat body of scientific work that is updated to a modern situation is just that, not ‘thin’. : )
I can only judge from my own standard. If I had written an update of previous work, I would not have been satisfied by just adding some numbers at the end. Rather, I would have used the opportunity to do further science, to do something with the extra data. A good example are the following two papers:
http://www.leif.org/research/The%20IDV%20index%20-%20its%20derivation%20and%20use.pdf
http://www.leif.org/research/2009JA015069.pdf
where the latter is the update of the former. The update discusses the new data in the context of work by other scientists, points out some discrepancies that have to be resolved, and suggests further research.
But, as Willis says, ‘that is just me’ 🙂
dbstealey says:
September 9, 2013 at 6:31 pm
It looks like he did, Leif [was my remark]. Check out the graph in the article.
A graph is one thing [leaving the interpretation to the eye of the beholder]. Much better would have been a statement like: ‘based on my whatever I predict a distinct pause or hiatus of the warming’. Did he?
He predicted a continuation of the pause. The pause was already showing up when he wrote his first paper. I did not say his premise lacks merit (rebound from the LIA with a natural oceanic/atmospheric oscillation weaving through it). It does. He just presented it very poorly in this work and provided no new research to expand on his initial paper. All he did folks was to re-configure his graph. Not worth a research article. In addition, Leif’s comment about timing may explain why he fails to mention recent research on the LIA in terms of causes.
wrote. Jeez Pam
[Fixed. -w.]
“Dr. Brierley cites computer models and insufficient evidence in the paper as his reason for rejecting Dr. Akasofu’s submission…”
That’s great in practice, but it’ll never work in theory!
Leif Svalgaard says:
September 9, 2013 at 6:42 pm
Much better would have been a statement like: ‘based on my whatever I predict a distinct pause or hiatus of the warming’. Did he?
Yes, he did [in 2010]: “it is predicted that the temperature change will be flat or in a slightly declining trend during the next 30 years or so”
Good for him.
Common theme here.
— If the climate doesn’t meet my personal expectations, then the climate is wrong.
— If the ballot results don’t meet my personal expectations, then democracy is wrong.
If only climate scientists could quit the climate in protest.
Ric Werme says, “Perhaps Brierley thinks Akasofu should be presenting a model that supports his interpretation. That might be nice, that could be a project far beyond the scope of this paper or even the papers the IPCC reports are drawn from.”
Actually, Akasofu does have a model. It’s T2 = T1 +/- 0.2 degrees per 50-60 years + 0.5 degrees per 100 years. Just because it’s not formalized in a computer output format doesn’t mean it’s not a model. Of course, just because the CAGW crowd has a model formalized into computer output format that doesn’t mean that their model has any validity or usefulness.
In keeping with the predictions of Dr. Syun Akasofu the latest RSS data has come in at .167 for August, down from .222. The pause marches on …
Maybe Brierley could do the British taxpayers a favour and go the whole hog – resign his bullsh!t academic position and get a real job (if there are any).
Revenge is a dish best served cold. I have heard that many times. I believe the PDO will serve cold over the next several years. Will Dr. Chris Brierly view future with cool dispassionate logic or see his resignation as a really really bad decision. Will his beliefs be modelled by true believers or science.
Who can predict the weather?
Manniac says 5:24 am
“Nobody expects the East Anglian Inquisition”
Got to love it. And the three weapons of which four are named — love that Monty Python skit.
Eugene WR Gallun
Hmmmm, I read a version of this paper several years ago. Its nice to see it updated with some more recent references and see that the model is performing exactly as predicted several years ago.
By contrast the fingerprinting of global warming put on the world stage in 2000 has not been updated. Instead there are those who would prefer to consider it as the established science and instead while away time criticizing all challengers. That ignores the fact that the strongest response would be updating the fingerprinting exercise. But we know thats not going to work as observations are supporting the old assumptions. The supporters of the statistical fingerprinting exercise are in disarray searching for answers for model failure.
Yep that’s something to resign over for sure, when you dare not answer the bell for the next round.
Instead just grab your crotch and scream foul.
Leif,
Right as usual. That’s why I never argue with you.
~ D.B.S.
Tony the Bastard says:
September 9, 2013 at 5:09 am
Heresy – burn him at the stake!
😀
As you will. My interest is honest science, regardless of factional allegiance. If Akasofu’s work is deserving of indictment, that deserves to be explored as much so as the Team’s misdeeds.
Tho I didn’t quite expect the initial text I submitted to be accepted as final product. It was accurate a descriptive, but briefer and more clipped than a for-publication article should be.
Oops. Like many, you have it b-ackwards. That would be the falsification; the Null is that the warming can be explained by natural variation, and is the “default” hypothesis, to which one falls back when none other can do a better job.
typo falsification
[Fixed. -w.]
Pamela Gray says:
September 9, 2013 at 6:46 pm
That sounds like a slight backtrack to me? Do you still feel you would have to resign over such relatively minor considerations?
I certainly don’t think such reasoning is a valid ’cause’ for resignation ! On the contrary, it suggests that a responsible board member would want to stay around to try to improve the future situation?
just my view
Brian H says:
September 10, 2013 at 12:11 am
That’s what I meant.
Let’s face it, Dr Brierley probably resigned as a statement because he couldn’t be seen on the board of a journal that allows heretical dissenting views, the ‘scientific brotherhood’ and his SkS mates wouldn’t like it.
No, who can blame him not wanting to face the “East Anglian Inquisition” as @Manniac aptly called it!
In ‘Brethren Brother and sister’ parlance it’s called “taking one for the team”.
I read Dr. Chris Brierly’s explanations and am familiar with the workings of editorial boards. Dr. Chris Brierly makes unsubstantiated scientific claims and states as facts a number of hypotheses in order to support his case. In short, Dr. Chris Brierly behaves as if the “rules” he claims to uphold apply to others but not to him. Thus he demonstrates he isn’t qualified to do the work and, to his credit, he has quit. Good riddance. The journal, prospective authors, and the readership have benefited immensely from Dr. Chris Brierly actions.
So I went to Brierly’s page at the UCL … it contains links to his work on various things, listed as “(more)” below:
The hilarious part is that not one of the links goes anywhere, they just leave you on the same page. However, there is an active link to Dr. Brierly’s summary of the NERC Challenge. It’s even funnier. Check out this inanity:
Ummm … Dr. B. … that’s actually NOT what is called the “Hockey Stick”, and if you don’t know that, go sit in the back of the class.
I gotta say, the fact that this clueless clown was specifically selected to review climate papers explains a lot to me about how ludicrously bad papers pass through the peer review filter …
Here’s more of his pathetic prose:
There is no “established set of climate monitoring principles”, that’s one of the problems in the field. And the blather continues:
Right … no uncertainty at all regarding whether GHGs are the secret control knob for the climate. And then there’s this howler:
The politically-driven conclusions of the IPCC are the “best evidence” of the consensus? Umm … Dr. Brierly, if that’s your “best evidence”, there’s bad news … let me close with this inane claim from the good Doctor:
Man, that’s precious. IPCC reports reflect the controversy? What planet is this joker inhabiting where that has ever been true? The ruthless suppression of contrary views is one of the IPCC’s greatest failings, and this dweeb claims that it is one of their good points?
And he wants to bust Dr. Akasufo for bad science?
Thank goodness he resigned, is all I can say … now he just has one more post from which to resign, and the job is done.
w.
Tsk, tsk, even Brierley’s grammar needs upgrading. Quoted by: Willis Eschenbach says:
September 10, 2013 at 3:36 am:
“…The lack of complete understanding about some aspects of the climate system does not mean that there is uncertainty in whether there will be increase in global temperature caused by greenhouse gases.”
This should properly read: The complete lack of understanding about some aspects…..
Honestly, the problem here is that someone who resigns over their scientific integrity shouldn’t then go to a blog that’s responsible for the 97% lie (yes, lie) and the medicalization of dissent paper from Lew.
Brierly is clearly a hypocrite.
As such he is of feeble persuasiveness – of course he was ignored on the editorial board. They will know he as he has not bothered to be subtle about his inconsistency even when he is resigning.
He is clearly inept.
But good… I refer to what ferd berple says at September 9, 2013 at 7:14 am
As Queen sang, “duh, duh, duh. Another on bites the dust.”
And I an inept also. Spot where the missing “is” should be in my last post.
I miss the preview function.
Willis Eschenbach says:
September 10, 2013 at 3:36 am
Sigh, once upon a time I thought one of the most important parts of the hockey stick was that it showed no Medieval Warm Period. Apparently I didn’t read the X-axis closely enough. 🙂
(I eventually figured out I was right about the MWP, it’s one of the simpler signs that the Hockey Stick Graph is wrong.)
Okay, I wasn’t going to bother reading the paper being content to comment on Brierley’s resignation and his unwitting list of things actually wrong with CAGW science. Akasofu’s ‘work’ was a little too light a reading for a scientific paper that purports to negate the 30 year hype science of CAGW. Even rationalizing that it is an update. I believe he missed an opportunity to make the update compelling with updated analysis and increased probability of the supremacy of natural variation – it is the big thing weighing on the despairing hearts of the CAGW crowd and is the motive for all the new hysterical pronouncements of high certainty of man-made blah blah blah from IPCC and supporters. The mediocrity of this dusted off and half-hearted repeat just offers grist for the wounded warriors to vent and, yes, resign – the resignation essentially eclipsing Akasofu’s show. This is no time for laziness and complacence. If you have something compelling to say, say it forcefully. If not, wait until you do have. Maybe another year or two if the red dot continued on its downward path would have been timely for an update.
I also see that UAH is out with their August numbers at .158. ‘The pause’ that refreshes …
Willis Eschenbach says:
September 10, 2013 at 3:36 am
Thanks for doing the homework that I should have done. You are correct, Sir. This fellow painted himself into an Alarmist corner and is quite happy there.
Gary Pearse:
Your post at September 10, 2013 at 6:31 am
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/09/09/syun-akasofus-work-provokes-journal-resignation/#comment-1413238
provides a novel take on this affair.
You say
Of course the paper was too “light” to “negate the 30 year hype science of CAGW” but nobody claims it “purports” to do that. Your suggestion is a ‘straw man’.
And you say
But if the papers “mediocrity” is so clear then there is no reason for anyone to do anything that is “essentially eclipsing Akasofu’s show”. If the paper is merely a mediocre ” dusted off and half-hearted repeat” then it could not make a “show” to be eclipsed.
Then you conclude saying
So, according to you, scientific work needs to be said “forcefully” and certainly not reported now.
I offer some advice.
When attempting damage limitation it is best not to make yourself look stupid.
Richard
Richard, are you saying the paper is a worthy review of research conducted by the author? Or are you saying that it wasn’t worth resigning over due to it being accepting for publication?
http://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperInformation.aspx?paperID=3217
With respect to Syun Akasofu’s work as an auroral scientist and founding director of the International Arctic Research Center, I have issues with his original paper as well.
In reply to:
“..Dr. Brierley presents as an extreme abuse of the scientific method…”
William:
Abuse of the ‘scientific method’? This statement must be climate speak. In climate speak words have a different meaning.
There has been 16 years of no warming. There is observational evidence of the start of cooling, certainly no evidence to support the start of warming.
Brierley’s paper correctly notes the planet cooled for some reason to cause the Little Ice Age and then warmed for some reason. The Little Ice Age cooling and the initial Little Ice Age warming were not due to a change in atmospheric CO2 levels. A unknown significant forcing mechanism caused the LIA cooling and initial warming.
Brierley’s paper considers the obvious alternative hypothesis (as opposed to the warmists’ mantra which is that any warming and all extreme weather events are due to the increase in atmospheric CO2) which is that the majority of the warming in the last 100 years was due to something else besides the increase in atmospheric CO2.
Climate science is the only field of science where people resign in moral outrage on the pretense of defending the scientific method to stop the scientific method. As we have read the climategate emails it is obvious that there is a hard core group of warmists activists poising as climate scientists
.http://www.climatechangefacts.info/ClimateChangeDocuments/LandseaResignationLetterFromIPCC.htm
After some prolonged deliberation, I have decided to withdraw from participating in the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). I am withdrawing because I have come to view the part of the IPCC to which my expertise is relevant as having become
politicized. In addition, when I have raised my concerns to the IPCC leadership, their response was simply to dismiss my concerns….
Shortly after Dr. Trenberth requested that I draft the Atlantic hurricane section for the AR4’s Observations chapter, Dr. Trenberth participated in a press conference organized by scientists at Harvard on the topic “Experts to warn global warming likely to continue spurring more outbreaks of intense hurricane activity” along with other media interviews on the topic. The result of this media interaction was widespread coverage that directly connected the very busy 2004 Atlantic hurricane season as being caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gas warming occurring today. Listening to and
reading transcripts of this press conference and media interviews, it is apparent that Dr. Trenberth was being accurately quoted and summarized in such statements and was not being misrepresented in the media. These media sessions have potential to result in a widespread perception that global warming has made recent hurricane activity much more severe.
Moreover, the evidence is quite strong and supported by the most recent credible studies that any impact in the future from global warming upon hurricane will likely be quite small. The latest results from the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (Knutson and Tuleya, Journal of
Climate, 2004) suggest that by around 2080, hurricanes may have winds and rainfall about 5% more intense than today. It has been proposed that even this tiny change may be an exaggeration as to what may happen by the end of the 21st Century (Michaels, Knappenberger, and Landsea, Journal of Climate, 2005, submitted).
My thoughts on the first paper
1. His first paper was an attempt to, “…synthesize results from a great variety of subjects for the purpose of examining the recent climate change.” It was not original research. At best it is a reasoned opinion of climate change based on the work of others, but nothing more. And I find the reasons wholly lacking in mechanism, not that they don’t exist.
2. He clearly posits a solar connection and states that variable irradiance is a possible driver without quantifying its potential to drive Earth’s temperature up or down in measurable ways, thus calling into question whether or not it is plausible.
Likewise:
3. His multidecadal calculation is unexamined in terms of hind casting and therefore calls into question its validity as well as reliability in terms of predictive power. Besides, given all the variables around the multi-decadal oscillation and its short term data base, the hypothesis does not meet the substantial f factor in terms of research error in such a proposal.
Willis Eschenbach says:….
ROTFLMAO Brierly would die of an apoplectic fit if he ever read that.
Gary Pearse says: @ September 10, 2013 at 6:31 am
…..Maybe another year or two if the red dot continued on its downward path would have been timely for an update.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I think he wanted it out now because the IPCC report is due shortly and The 19th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC and the 9th session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol will take place from 11 to 22 November. The conference will be held at the National Stadium in Warsaw, Poland.
Pamela Gray:
At September 10, 2013 at 7:53 am you ask me
I am not saying, implying or suggesting – and I have not said, implied, or suggested – either of the statements in your questions.
At September 9, 2013 at 8:50 am
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/09/09/syun-akasofus-work-provokes-journal-resignation/#comment-1412319
I said and explained to you
I STAND BY THAT.
I have also objected to spurious assertions about the paper. They deflect from the subject of the thread.
Whether or not the was worthy of publication is a matter of judgement. Personally, if I had been asked to peer review it then I would have suggested it be rejected for publication unless additional information were included. But so what? My (or your) opinion of the paper is not relevant to this discussion.
Richard
I am still in agreement with Dr. Brierly. This paper should not have appeared in its current form. At best it belongs in a letter. I wouldn’t even include it in a book on climate change as it is opinion without demonstrated plausibility. I wonder if this work appears because of this author’s obvious expertise and respected research ability in other areas. If that is the case, it is a warning to others who would also seek to rest on their own laurels. If you attempt to speak publicly and implicitly show yourself as an expert on matters outside your recognized area of expertise, tread very, very carefully.
A critique of the papers is entirely germane to this thread. It illuminates the reasons why a board member might resign. And I will say again that my experience of resignations does not usually come with one incident but comes as a result of a pattern of behavior that is in substantial disagreement between the two parties. Could it be that this is just the straw that broke the camel’s back? What other papers were included in this issue and what are they like?
And Richard I am being quite unemotionally reasonable in this debate. Please do likewise. I do have my moments, but this is not one of them.
Pamela Gray:
re your post at September 10, 2013 at 9:05 am
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/09/09/syun-akasofus-work-provokes-journal-resignation/#comment-1413367
It is clear you do not ‘get it’.
The subject of this thread is NOT your opinion and/or the opinion of Brierly about Akasofu’s paper.
This thread is about Brierly going off in a ‘hissy fit’ because he was not allowed to veto consideration of a paper for publication. By that act he demonstrated his unfitness as a member of an Editorial Board.
Indeed, it may be suspected that Brierly’s resignation encouraged the remaining members of the Board to publish the paper. They had decided it be considered and they would be averse to implying their decision lacked merit following Brierly’s ‘taking his ball home’.
Also, and contrary to your implication, the only beneficiary of this is Akasofu. Few would have heard of his paper if Brierly had not resigned.
Richard
Just read the other article (there were only two plus the editorial in this first issue).
http://www.mdpi.com/2225-1154/1/1/12
I would have resigned based on the accepted design of the other article!
Rigorous this journal is not!
Richard, I question that bringing attention to his paper is beneficial to him. And I question whether or not a “hissy fit” was engaged in. I find Dr. Brierly’s post well reasoned and unemotional.
As was mentioned by Richard M, RSS went down to 0.167 last month. As a result, the pause on RSS is now 202 months from November 1996. Furthermore, there is a rise to 2005 and a drop since then so his sine curve is still holding up and we are on the down slope now as shown here:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1996.8/plot/rss/from:1996.8/to:2005/trend/plot/rss/from:2005/trend
Pamela Gray:
In your post at September 10, 2013 at 9:44 am
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/09/09/syun-akasofus-work-provokes-journal-resignation/#comment-1413409
you say to me
Clearly, we disagree on the meaning of “well reasoned”.
Greg Goodman quotes Brierly’s post and provides a cogent demolition of that “well reasoned and unemotional” nonsense. His quotation and analysis are at September 9, 2013 at 7:30 am and this is a link to it to aid anybody who wants to read it
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/09/09/syun-akasofus-work-provokes-journal-resignation/#comment-1412226
Richard
Reading Mr. Goodman’s comment is a good idea. I will leave it up to the readers here to determine whether or not it is a cogent demolition. It would not be my opinion. It is certainly a negative opinion but I don’t think it rises to a cogent demolition of Dr. Brierly’s critique of the paper which forms at least part of his reason for resigning. Indeed, I find that Dr. Brierly’s list of concerns are very close to those types of concerns we all need to bring to bare when reading published research.
I would love to read his critique of the other paper in this first volume, especially the methods section. And whether or not the results of this particular piece of social science research can be independently verified.
Pamela Gray says:
September 10, 2013 at 9:44 am
Richard, I question that bringing attention to his paper is beneficial to him. And I question whether or not a “hissy fit” was engaged in. I find Dr. Brierly’s post well reasoned and unemotional.
——————————————————–
I find it very much the pot calling the kettle black considering what regularly gets published in climate science.. Indeed the paper in my thought process, being mainly based on observations, is light years ahead of the many model based papers in climate science, (which continue despite those models being spectacularly far from observations). both those related to attribution affects, and those related to primary climate cause. I see this paper as not trying to point out deep advances in climate understanding, but as a general support of the null. As such, why nothing special, it points to a growing disconnect between the many CAGW papers claiming CO2 as the primary driver. .
It is useful to this thread to include here the postdoctoral dissertation standards quoted by Dr. Brierly, standards I am quite familiar with as well.
“Originality displayed in construction of main research aims and questions and interpretation of evidence presented. Impressive critical ability and deep understanding of subject area. Substantial original fieldwork or other independent research. High ability in the application of appropriate research techniques and critical commentary on research design and methodology. Extensive reading and thorough understanding of literature consulted. Logical, coherent structure and clear, cogent and persuasive writing style. Excellent presentation with impeccable referencing and bibliography. No or only very minor errors of spelling, punctuation or grammar.”
These are the standards used in his critique. A broadly accepted set of standards (in one form or another) used by a doctoral committee when presenting your dissertation, which I did at the Masters level (I did not reach the greater than 90% standard, but I did reach the greater than 80% standard). He goes on to present his critique within each standard. A well-reasoned, cogent, critique.
Pamela Gray says:
September 10, 2013 at 10:42 am
Thanks, Pamela. Those standards may indeed be applied at the PhD level. However, you and Dr. Brierly are claiming that they are also the relevant standards used by the journals … and if you truly believe that, you’re not reading the same journals that the rest of us read.
If we were to fail the journal papers that didn’t pass that standard, we’d see maybe two papers on climate science per year.
So while you may be right about those standards regarding PhD work (although inter alia Michael Mann’s PhD makes that seem highly unlikely), calling on them only when it suits Dr. Brierly’s fancy, and ignoring them completely for most climate science papers, is something you need to discuss as well. Without including that gaping hole, your objection is woefully incomplete.
It also makes Brierly’s critique neither “well-reasoned” nor “cogent”, but that’s another question. In any case, the guy thinks that the climate of the last 100 years is called “the Hockey Stick” … cogent? I don’t think so, regarding the climate he’s barely conscious.
w.
My dear wandering, wondering Willis, I also would place the other paper included in the first issue of a new on-line journal in the rejected bin. Though not targeted on climate trend cause/effect, it was equally ill defined in terms of the standards Brierly used. Which is why I read it and briefly commented above on it. I am color blind when it comes to good research. I don’t care which side of the fence it is on. And yes, I agree with you that much of what passes through to publication is …awful.
Good question about the standards.
The editorial included in the opening issue states that
“…quantifying uncertainty and separating the anthropogenic and natural climate signals are important. The challenges of climate impacts and the large range of climate scales require the development of new methods to use unconventional data (e.g. satellite remote sensing) for climate-model evaluation and/or improvement or climate analysis, as well as new statistical methods for analysis of climatology. Climate will publish special issues dedicated to various aspects of the climate. Several special issues are already planned that will help define Climate. The breadth of the expertise of the members serving on the editorial board guarantees the assignment of expert reviewers and hence high quality articles. All articles are subject to a rigorous peer-review process before published online. The editorial board and production office strive to achieve the shortest possible turnaround. This pledge, and the fact that Climate is an open access journal, allow quick access to the newest findings in climate sciences to a wide readership and will help humankind to face the challenges of, and adapt to, climate changes. The editorial board, production office and I foresee that Climate will become a first-class, go-to journal for multidisciplinary climate research worldwide that advances the understanding of climate and helps facing climate challenges for the better of the world. We are looking forward to receiving your contributions.”
I am assuming, from the overall characterization of how they want to build a reputation, they are looking for “first-class, go-to” volumes to build such a “first-class, go-to” journal. Okay fine. What is already out there that attempts to quantify “first-class” research presentations. Brierly used just such a well-known standard, as he should have done. His critique appears to be based on a valid and reliable scale. Which begs the question, what did the other reviewers use? A few lower standards come to mind.