By Dr. S. Fred Singer
An essay in the current issue [Oct 2017] of Eos [house-organ & newsletter of the American Geophysical Union (AGU)] is titled “Red, Blue – and Peer-Review PR].”
The essay asserts that p-r is superior to a debate between a [red] team of climate skeptics and a [blue] team of alarmists. I disagree strongly, and will point to prominent cases where PR is misused to keep contrary opinions and facts from being published, thereby trying to enforce a “consensus.” A classic case is described by Douglass and Christy at
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2009/12/a_climatology_conspiracy.html
D&C are my coauthors; we published a research paper in the International Journal of Climatology [IJC] in 2007, showing a vast difference between climate models and actual observations. Based on leaked emails, Based on available Climategate emails, D&C recount the conspiracy of nearly 20 members of an alarmist “team,” led by Dr Ben Santer, trying to nullify our paper – with the shameful cooperation of the IJC editor.
I can cite many more examples — assuming that IPCC [UN-Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] represents a kind of PR – as constantly claimed by alarmist IPCC proponents.
I have shown, and convinced many others, that the “evidential facts” in support of anthropogenic global warming [AGW], cited by the first three Assessment Reports [AR] of 1990, 1996 and 2001 are based on spurious analyses and data.
Recently, I discovered that the evidence used by AR4 [2007] and AR5 [2013] does not really exist; it is fake, an artifact of incomplete data analyses. I refer here to the reported surface warming of 1978-1997 [for details, see http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2017/05/a_global_warming_surprise.html].
There I show that during the 1980s and 1990s, data-gathering instruments underwent drastic changes: ocean temperatures from floating buoys went from zero to 60%; land temperatures from stations at airports went from 30 to 85%; both of these changes coincided by chance—and both produced a fictitious warming.
But publication of such a result is very difficult. It involves finding a sympathetic and courageous journal editor who will not send the manuscript to unfriendly, biased reviewers.
Obviously, a red-blue debate might rapidly settle any controversies – or at least, bring them to light. Thus one understands why consensus enforcers try to keep out inconvenient facts, avoid debates, and prefer Peer-Review.
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The writer is professor emeritus at the University of Virginia. He earlier served as the founding director of the US Weather Satellite Service, now in NOAA.
“land temperatures from stations at airports went from 30 to 85%; ”
sorry wrong. Man, he used ghcn version 2!!!! jesus.
The first thing you need to realize is that the station metadata is not the best source of indicating whether a station is at an airport or not. Especially not GHCN monthly metadata, and never version 2!!!. OMG that’s so out of date. His chart shows less than 500 stations. CLUE BIRD !! there are nearly 20000 GHCN DAILY stations that he should have looked at. You can do a whole series of Non airport stations around the world,
Instead of simply TRUSTING the ghcn v2 metadata, like fred did, You can actually CHECK IT !
Imagine that!
There is a huge open source database compiled by actual pilots who record the position of runways with incredible accuracy. landing you know. Further they record whether the airport is small ( often dirt) medium, or large.
In addition you can use 30 meter land surface type to actually tell how much is runway and how much is grass, if you want to check the acuracy of their description. And the database tells if the airport is opened or closed.
Its simple to write a program to check the closed ones. You use R and google earth and spit out google earth views of all the airports. takes a while to page through hundreds and thousands of pictures, but hey its fun.
Anyway, what you will find is that you should not trust the metadata that comes with temperature files. You gotta check. Also, before there used to be a detailed FAA database of airports and locations, but that got taken down.. terror threat. Either way, if yiu were lucky enough to have that FAA dataset or the open source one, you can compare.
If you do that then you can really compare these two series
A) only airport stations
B) no airport stations.
What will you find?
no difference.
why is simple.
Can you actually illustrate A) and B) instead of simply waving your arms?
Your lemon has no wheels and a rusty hole in the floor , Mosh..
Its not going to sell to anyone, so just keep sucking on it.
Since the atmosphere drives the surface temperature, according to AGW physics, how come the atmosphere is not responding to the “physics,” Mr. Mosher. Is that a Weed Patch in which you don’t want to Wander aimlessly?
Could it be that the surface temperature estimates are fatally flawed and not fit for fundamentally altering our society, economy and energy systems? Could historical temperature gathering, adjusting and combining into averages be flawed? They don’t comport with more accurate radiosonde and satellite estimates.
Ah, the great SM who got his darling BEST eviscerated by Tony Heller’s research. Sad.
Mosh,
No difference in trend? In anomaly? In value? Be specific for once. For example, rural stations are generally cooler in absolute terms than urban stations. If you want an exercise, try infilling urban areas with high quality corresponding rural stations and then infilling rural areas with urban stations. Which approach shows the most warming over the last 100 years?
The manic focus on CO2 is a huge waste of time and resources. This pittance of a gas [0.06% of the weight of the atmosphere] just goes along for the ride on convection currents that involve or relate to the other 99.64% of the atmospheric mass.
Typo? or bad maths?
The existence of such a debate would be proof in itself that the “climate science” is not settled. I can see then why those supporting AGW/CAGW would not want the Red team/Blue team process to continue.
Further, the idea also highlights the problems with “climate science” peer review, again something the AGW/CAGW folks would like to see suppressed.
JohnWho
Expect Obama to have his grubby digits buried deep in the Red/Blue debate. After all it was that idiot who stood up in front of the world and proclaimed the science settled.
He won’t want that contradicted.
“…land temperatures from stations at airports went from 30 to 85%…”
Actually, according to the article cited as the source of this statistic, it went from 35% to 80%. Always check original sources!
The end of global warming is going to change the conversations.
We are on the wrong path and have been on the incorrect path for roughly 50 years.
Obviously if we are on the wrong path new and novel mathematical models cannot possibly fix the path error.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0465094252?tag=lubosmotlsref-20&camp=213761&creative=393545&linkCode=bpl&creativeASIN=0465094252&adid=059YW2Q6SYAPMS98E34D&
where is the quality control in P-R? how can one be sure that two different papers were given the same level of scrutiny?
the process itself is flawed by secrecy and lack of accountability. in those sciences that cannot be confirmed by replication Peer Review is little more than Political Correctness wearing a lab coat.
Try and publish a study that contradicts Political Correctness. It cannot be done in the modern Academic environment. your results will be greeted by a lynch mob.
even r-b debate is held hostage. self censorship is inevitable when certain truths are held to be true without proof. science quickly descends to the level of religious intolerance.
ferdberple
There was a paper questioning the vilification of colonialisation written in 2017.
It was peer reviewed and destined for publication before the editor received death threats.
The author withdrew the paper so the editor and his family remained safe.
It seems trying to publish any controversial study these days is fraught with peril.
Coincidentally, I happened to be debating the case for colonialisation some weeks before with my daughters boyfriend before I knew of the paper.
The paper is here if it’s of any interest. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2017.1369037
The reason it is flawed, is Reward, either by money , or Power, or both. Many of the Warmists are already rich beyond their current or future needs, so what is left is Power and Perception of Power (Obama, Gore, Steyer, Mann, Mueller, etc.) Notice how they first get into the Universities, funded by unlimited amounts of vague Tax Payer dollars, then use that influence to funnel State and Federal dollars (It’s a State, or National Emergency) into Grants and the like, pile thousands of paid “Research Associates” onto the “Dole”, to do the leg work (Guess which way they are going..do as I say, or no pay, and we take out the wrungs of your Scholastic/ future Degree ladder). I remember doing Marine Biology research and finding out the only reward was getting a mention, along with a hundred others, at the back of the paper, which was “AUTHORED by…” ….., who was often away on far flung conferences, data collecting expeditions, and the like. If the final research aligned with the purported purpose of his current and future funding, then it was good, if not, went into growing mushrooms. Damn the Science..
The Red-Blue debate needs to be at least tried. Egos may doom the particular format, but in starting somewhere and pushing forward, the process may lead to other/better revelations in presenting the data. In the meantime, I believe alarmist will have an improved opportunity to review the other-side science and who exactly backs it (non-fossil fuel or political sources); especially laymen who tend to be led around by their noses. Certainly science will benefit from this effort to take back the industry that has been corrupted beyond belief.
The graphs of CO2 & temperature and CO2 & wind given by Richard Verney (and used by Ferdinand Engelbeen) do not come from Giessen (Germany) but from meteoLCD, our meteorological station in Diekirch, Luxembourg (of which I am the manager). This is a semi-rural station located in a valley at about 218m asl. The CO2 pattern given are the raw measured data (for standard conditions, 25°C and 1013 hPa), and clearly show the effect of mixing: usually a considerable peak in the morning when ground air has not yet been heated by the sun (or even when an inversion happens), and much lower reading in the afternoon when the convection uplifts and dilutes ground air.
The live measurement data are here:
http://meteo.lcd.lu/today_01.html
You may read this older 2007 paper which contains the above mentioned graphs:
http://meteo.lcd.lu/papers/co2_patterns/co2_patterns.pdf.
Francis,
Nice to hear from you!
Just put the same remark as yours under Richard’s contribution.
The second graph is from Giessen, Mauna Loa, Barrow and South Pole at the same days as the graph from Diekirch…
That shows that you need stations far away from contaminants to give the right CO2 concentrations and trends…
I don’t know how many times Lucy needs to pull the climate football out from in front of those scientists who actually believe that a red-blue debate or peer review will ever go anywhere. The mantra of the alarmists is the ends justify the means. Facts are incidental to the discussion and, if inconvenient, are ignored. To compromise is not an option. Period. The game is hard ball. The CAGW movement can only be dismantled by legislation, by fiat, by massive efforts to inform the public, by changing regulations, by redirecting research funding, by litigation and by stimulating the development of oil and gas resources. The time for discourse is over. Gore and other opportunists have run out the string on their global warming fantasy.
I hate using these political, emotional and cultural colors!
Of course the skeptics get red. I’m sure it wasn’t a drawing of lots.
Of course the greenies get blue, I’m sure it wasn’t a drawing of lots.
Can’t use green either. Allegations of pandering and slandering!
Yellow means danger, orange you glad, purple means dinosaur.
Brown is cultural appropriation, because one can’t be too careful.
Black has been appropriated by a race of odd color-blind brown people.
Featureless white is taken too, it’s the universal color of Javascript.turned off.
I PROPOSE THAT THESE DEBATING TEAMS BE
GRAY vs. GREY
And don’t ever dare say Blue vs Grey.
What commonly goes by the name of “peer review” is actually a form of gate keeping that insures the publishers that they don’t lose their reputations (and ability to charge high subscription fees) from publishing material that is of no scientific value. It doesn’t really provide a thorough vetting of the content. The real peer review takes place after research is published and the peers of the research team get a chance to look it over carefully and comment on it publicly, in the same journal. Ideally, replication should be attempted and reported on. In that vein, WUWT provides a more thorough evaluation than an anonymous gate keeper pressed for time. Similarly, any kind of red/blue team review would be more thorough than simple gate keeping. For something as important (and with such a politically high profile) as climate change, public vetting is very much needed! That is exactly why alarmists are not in favor of the public laundering of their reputations. If they were as confident of their claims as they try to appear to be, they would welcome verification.