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.
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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
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?
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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.