UPDATE: 1/19/14 2;30 PM PST
There is an update to this post here:
Comments on this thread are now closed, continue there. – Anthony
While a journal is forced to self destruct by external pressure from “team climate science”, history and a new paper show us why due process would have been the right way to approach the issue. The phrase “using a sledgehammer to crack a nut” comes to mind.
This story by Jo Nova is making the rounds today:
Science paper doubts IPCC, so whole journal gets terminated!
While the shutdown of the journal Pattern Recognition in Physics that published a special edition on planetary tidal influence on climate is likely a bit of overkill, rebuttals would have been the right way to handle it rather than the Climategate style strong-arm gang tactics exhibited against journal editors as seen here from James Annan:
Kudos to Copernicus for the rapid and decisive way in which they dealt with this problem. The problems at the journal were was first brought to my attention by ThingsBreak just last night, I emailed various people to express my concerns and the journal (which was already under close scrutiny by the publisher) was closed down within 24h.
…I will say that some of the papers in that special journal edition really aren’t any better than curve fitting exercises. That said, I think they are entitled to the due process afforded any peer reviewed science publication. Certainly, we’ve seen some ridiculous examples of “team science” that should have never been published, such as RealClimate co-founder Eric Steig’s overhyped claim to a warming Antarctica that was dealt with effectively via the rebuttal process.
As many WUWT readers know, while years ago I expressed some interest in planetary tidal force effects on climate, I have long since been convinced that there’s zero planetary effect on climate for two reasons: 1) The gravitational effects at distance are simply too small to exert the forces neccessary, and 2) The methodology employed often results in hindcast curve fitting a theory to data, where the maxim “correlation is not causation” should have been considered before publishing the paper.
While the journal Pattern Recognition in Physics self-destructed rather than deal with rebuttal process (apparently at the direction of higher-ups), this paper just published in the journal Solar Physics shows that journal does in fact take the rebuttal process seriously.
Critical Analysis of a Hypothesis of the Planetary Tidal Influence on Solar Activity
DOI 10.1007/s11207-014-0475-0
S. Poluianov, I. Usoskin
Abstract
The present work is a critical revision of the hypothesis of the planetary tidal influence on solar activity published by Abreu et al. (Astron. Astro- phys. 548, A88, 2012; called A12 here). A12 describes the hypothesis that planets can have an impact on the solar tachocline and therefore on solar activity. We checked the procedure and results of A12, namely the algorithm of planetary tidal torque calculation and the wavelet coherence between torque and heliospheric modulation potential. We found that the claimed peaks in long-period range of the torque spectrum are artefacts caused by the calculation algorithm. Also the statistical significance of the results of the wavelet coherence is found to be overestimated by an incorrect choice of the background assumption of red noise. Using a more conservative non-parametric random-phase method, we found that the long-period coherence between planetary torque and heliospheric modulation potential becomes insignificant. Thus we conclude that the considered hypothesis of planetary tidal influence on solar activity is not based on a solid ground.
…
Conclusions
We analysed the procedure of planetary torque calculations from the paper by Abreu et al. (2012) and found that their results can be be affected by an effect of the aliasing distortion of the torque spectrum. We provided torque calculations with different sampling frequencies and found that the spectral peaks claimed by A12 are likely artefacts of the spectral distortion and do not have physical meaning. Then we repeated the analysis by A12 of the relation between heliospheric modulation potential and the planetary torque. We showed that the results of Abreu et al. (2012) are not statistically significant. Thus, the proposed hypothesis of planetary influence on solar activity is not based on solid empirical evidence.
The final draft of the paper can be read in entirety here: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1401.3547.pdf
(h/t to Dr. Leif Svalgaard for the link)
================================================================
A rebuttal was also published in Solar Physics simultaneously, but it is entirely behind a paywall, so I can’t elaborate any further than providing a link to it: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11207-014-0473-2
But, unlike Copernicus, that decided to pull the entire journal rather than allow the rebuttal process of science occur, Solar Physics saw no need to self-terminate for having published the rebuttal by Abreu et al. authors, and the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics. continues to exist despite publishing the questionable and now shown to be flawed Abreu et al. paper http://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/abs/2012/12/aa19997-12/aa19997-12.html
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Nicola Scafetta says:
January 17, 2014 at 7:45 pm
this is frontier science
============
like the pioneers of old, many will be found face down with arrows in the back.
ferdberple says:January 18, 2014 at 9:37 am
One of the simplest examples of a very small force applied over time is the rotation of Venus. Surprisingly, Venus always present the same face to earth at the point of closest approach.
******
Dear ferdberple , did you get this from my paper?
The complex planetary synchronization structure of the solar system
http://www.pattern-recogn-phys.net/2/1/2014/prp-2-1-2014.pdf
Pierre Gosselin posted this interesting comment,
http://notrickszone.com/2014/01/18/from-jewish-science-to-denier-science-copernicus-charade-is-latest-example-of-german-intolerance-to-alternative-climate-science-explanations/
Then your path is straight and narrow, merely rebut those papers.
History will determine who is a giant and who is not… as always. It will not consult you or myself on such determination.
Your reply brought NO relief. Respectfully GK
Richardscoutney
Before you make further comment, can I suggest that do so with all the facts in
hand. You miss a number of very key points:
As far as I know:
Each manuscript had a reviewer (or reviewers) who were not participating authors. These authors were anonymously selected by the editors. I assume this selection was done to match the reviewers expertise to the content of the submitted manuscript. This is standard practice at
any reputable Journal including the ones on which you have served as an editor.
All reviewers were anonymous unless they indicated that they should be identified e.g. some chose to be identified because they believed that there was a possible conflict of interest.
Copernicus’s advice to referees is that:
“4. A referee should be sensitive even to the appearance of a conflict of interest when the manuscript under review is closely related to the referee’s work in progress or published. – I WAS!!
5. A referee should not evaluate a manuscript authored or co-authored by a person with whom the referee has a personal or professional connection if the relationship would bias judgment of the manuscript.” – I DID NOT!!!
All of the published manuscripts that I chose to review were by people whose work was totally unknown to,me and with whom I had no prior collaboration of any sort.
Without wishing to be off topic, the historical evidence suggests that Galileo and Copernicus did not discover the Heliocentric solar-system model de novo. Rather they based their ideas and explanations on previous knowledge.
Take a look at this Jewish zodiac from an ancient synagogue on the Sea of Galilee, from either the 1st or the 4th century AD. It clearly shows Helios (the Sun), holding a blue spherical earth in his hand. In other words, the fact that the Earth was blue, circular (spherical), and subservient to Helios (the Sun) – who held the Earth in his (gravitational) grip – was well known in this early era.
http://i45.tinypic.com/2zf6783.jpg
And this is not an isolated image. If you look at Roman coins bearing the image of Sol Invicta, Sol (the Sun) is invariable holding a ball (the Earth).
Silver ralph
G. Karst says:
January 18, 2014 at 9:54 am
Then your path is straight and narrow, merely rebut those papers.
A paper has to have merit in order to earn a rebuttal. The papers in question do not.
That should have read:
Each manuscript had a reviewer (or reviewers) who were not participating authors. These REVIEWERS were anonymously selected by the editors. I assume this…
Ian Wilson:
Your post at January 18, 2014 at 9:54 am says to me
That is a strange request considering that on the basis of the information in the above article my first post to this thread opposed the actions against the journal
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/17/the-planetary-tidal-influence-on-climate-fiasco-strong-armed-science-tactics-are-overkill-due-process-would-work-better/#comment-1539900
Subsequently, and in light of information provided in the thread, I wrote to withdraw that opposition
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/17/the-planetary-tidal-influence-on-climate-fiasco-strong-armed-science-tactics-are-overkill-due-process-would-work-better/#comment-1540295
Your response to my withdrawal of the opposition is to say I should not comment without “all the facts in hand”.
Perhaps you would care to explain how to determine when one has obtained “all the facts”. I and others who may wish to comment would like to know.
And the “key points” in your post do not alter my stated reason for the withdrawal of my opposition.
Richard
Quoting Nicky Scaffetta,
“Before questioning the review process you need to find errors in the papers.”
Buzzzzz…. wrong. Wrong, Wrong, Wrong.
A tainted editing and review process precedes any interest in the content of the papers. A manager who hires a relative against company policy is still fired, even if the relative is a good employee.
If a witness lies on the stand, all testimony is suspect even the true parts.
Give it up Nicky, your attempt to game this publisher backfired and left you hanging out to dry.
Nicola Scafetta, while I agree that reviewers should not be adversarial to the author of the paper, they should also be as unbiased as possible to the outcome of the theory being presented.
According to the publishing rules of this journal (which is a widely accepted practice), the reviewers cannot hold a conflict of interest or have a personal or professional connection to the author. The conflict of interest does not have to be malicious as I do not believe it was here. Yes, I believe you that their reviews were helpful and with the best intentions. Nor do not believe they wanted to allow errors through but that is not the point,
You are not going to win the argument of the perception that they may have and it completely takes away from the focus on the science which is your intention.
In these situations, it is better to have colleagues pre-review your papers and then acknowledge these contributions as was done in some instances here but the reviewers need to have no affiliation to prevent charges of “pal-review”.
The editors created unnecessary controversy for themselves and all the authors who published in this journal.
lsvalgaard said:
January 18, 2014 at 8:37 am
It is in question whether the proxies show just solar activity and how much is actually due to climate influence on the deposition rate.
My response:
At one of the debate you have Abreu et al. 2012 claiming that the Be10 and C14 proxies are a faithful representation of variations in the level of solar activity, and at the other end of the debate we have people (like yourself) who claim that the proxy record is affected by the influence of climate on deposition rates.
What if you are both right?
http://astroclimateconnection.blogspot.com.au/2013/04/could-this-bay-be-climate-smoking-gun.html
Charles the Moderator,
I have given you the chance to remove your libelous statements.
The publisher’s rules require that reviewers who have a conflict of interest should NOT review papers,
http://publications.copernicus.org/for_reviewers/obligations_for_referees.html
4. A referee should be sensitive even to the appearance of a conflict of interest when the manuscript under review is closely related to the referee’s work in progress or published. If in doubt, the referee should return the manuscript promptly without review, advising the editor of the conflict of interest or bias.
This is in violation of the review policy laid out by the journal.
I agree that if the anonymous reviewer had no such conflict of interest it does give you some ground for an argument and it is not being debated if the reviewers were qualified or not, as I believe they were.
If this review policy was followed you would have a clear cut case of censorship. Instead your papers are going to be relentlessly attacked as “pal-reviewed”.
From the Web:
Energy and Environment
Editorial advisory board
Richard S Courtney
RSC Environmental Services,
Cornwall, UK,
formerly Senior Materials Scientist, UK Coal Research
No conflict of interest here!
Ian Wilson says:
January 18, 2014 at 10:15 am
At one of the debate you have Abreu et al. 2012 claiming that the Be10 and C14 proxies are a faithful representation of variations in the level of solar activity, and at the other end of the debate we have people (like yourself) who claim that the proxy record is affected by the influence of climate on deposition rates.
What if you are both right?
We are both right. The problem is that we can’t tell for sure what the split between the two are or how much it varies. Check out http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1003/1003.4989.pdf http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1004/1004.2675.pdf and
Ian Wilson says:
January 18, 2014 at 10:23 am
” … No conflict of interest here! ”
—-l
Sarcasm and ad hominem in one go? With a bonus big oil/coal connection thrown in? Methinks his hand is empty. I thank Ian Wilson and Nicola Scafetta for a wonderful show. Any remaining questions in my mind regarding their professionalism and integrity have been answered.
Yes… reviewing peer reviewed published papers it would appear that any paper contradicting consensus climate science has no merit. How do we know – if they have never been published AND successfully rebutted?
I understand your skepticism, it is the dismissive quality, I have trouble with.
All climate science needs fresh air, as things haven’t been going so well for their science nor reputations. Consensus being poor evidence of causation. A window in the lab must be opened. GK
lsvalgaard said:
January 18, 2014 at 10:31 am
You miss my point!
What if the physical mechanism that is driving the long-term [millennial] variations in climate is the same as the physical mechanism that is driving the long-term changes in solar activity?
Please look at the Be10 and C14 proxy frequencies and compare them to the tree-ring frequencies.
Ian Wilson:
re your post at January 18, 2014 at 10:23 am.
NO! I do NOT have a conflict of interest.
I always state when I have one, most recently earlier this week on WUWT.
And I have previously stated on WUWT that I am on the Editorial Board of E&E when discussing publications.
You did not suggest I had a conflict of interest when I opposed the closure of the journal in this thread
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/17/the-planetary-tidal-influence-on-climate-fiasco-strong-armed-science-tactics-are-overkill-due-process-would-work-better/#comment-1539900
But you now claim I have a conflict of interest because I withdrew that opposition in light of additional evidence
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/17/the-planetary-tidal-influence-on-climate-fiasco-strong-armed-science-tactics-are-overkill-due-process-would-work-better/#comment-1540295
And in your post to me at January 18, 2014 at 9:54 am you wrote
Indeed, and (as I have also stated on WUWT) I have served as Guest Editor for Special Editions of E&E, so I think my understanding of editorial propriety for such Special Editions which is sufficient for me to provide informed comment.
As I said in my post which withdrew my support
I stand by that.
Richard
negrum said:
January 18, 2014 at 10:36 am
Please read what was said about us first –
With regards to integrity and professionalism – I didn’t know that you
had appointed yourself as the final arbiter…
He who is without sin caste the first stone.
Ian Wilson says:
January 18, 2014 at 10:37 am
What if the physical mechanism that is driving the long-term [millennial] variations in climate is the same as the physical mechanism that is driving the long-term changes in solar activity?
You are suggesting that the planets drive the climate and that the planets drive the sun. It seems hardly credible that the magnetic dynamo process deep in the solar convection zone is the same as that in the Earth’s atmosphere.
Please look at the Be10 and C14 proxy frequencies and compare them to the tree-ring frequencies.
Please look at the links I gave you.
How bad did this blow up? This bad,
http://news.sciencemag.org/physics/2014/01/alleging-malpractice-climate-skeptic-papers-publisher-kills-journal
http://retractionwatch.com/2014/01/17/climate-skeptic-journal-shuttered-following-malpractice-in-nepotistic-reviewer-selections/#comment-73288
http://rabett.blogspot.com/2014/01/for-festivities-of-our-choice-ms.html
http://julesandjames.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/recognising-pattern.html
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2014/01/17/malpractice/
http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2014/01/18/science-denialists-make-fake-journal-get-shut-down/
http://bigcitylib.blogspot.com/2014/01/on-pattern-recognition-in-physics.html
http://wottsupwiththat.com/tag/copernicus-publications/
…With more likely to follow.
Richard,
It is your right to stand by whatever view you want. That does not by itself give it validity.
I have published in E & E and other Climate Journals. The first thing that the editor does is request from the author a list of at least five potential referees. The author usually gives a list of people that they know who are working in the field. It is not hard to imagine how restricted an author is in suggesting names, particularly if there are only a hand-full of people who are qualified in their subject. This often means that the Editor at Journals like E & E gets the opinions of a restricted mixture “favorable” and “non-favorable” referees. They then form their final opinion.
As a guest Editor at E & E, you must be aware of how difficult it is to get people to review papers. I am sure that if the details of this selection process where completely transparent it would go a long way towards eroding the “moral high ground” that you so firmly believe in.
When did peer review become any measure of whether a paper is correct or not? The last time I looked, the only meaningful measure of a paper is replication.
Peer review exists to catch mistakes. It doesn’t check whether your results are valid, because that relies on factors unknown to the reviewer. Reviewers can check the spelling and the math. They can’t check what went on behind the scenes.
You can a fantastic peer reviewed paper, published with great publicity and fan fare, and still have complete garbage as a result. If recent trends in replication are correct, as much as 90% of all peer reviewed papers are wrong. The conclusions are false and cannot be replicated.
Every peer reviewed scientific paper should come with a large red warming at the top. THE FINDINGS IN THIS PAPER HAVE NOT BEEN INDEPENDENTLY REPLICATED AND ARE LIKELY FALSE.