Essay by Eric Worrall
Dr. Willie Soon emailed me the curious case of an editor of the journal Climate apparently being investigated by NASA GISS director Gavin Schmidt, for publishing Soon’s study.
The trigger for this request may have been recent studies covered by WUWT, which highlights the possibility much reported global warming may be urban heat island effect.
There have been some rather intense exchanges of ideas since the papers were published. Dr. Gavin Schmidt wrote a critique on real climate, in which Gavin accused Dr. Willie Soon of being a “crowd pleaser”, and of using outdated Solar data.
Soon responded to this critique, by accusing Schmidt of raising straw man objections, and suggested Schmidt is taking too narrow and simplistic a view of solar TSI reconstructions.
In the midst of this rather heated debate, Schmidt launched a FOIA action to research whether any employees of the Federal Government used government time or resources to correspond with Dr. Willie Soon, and other authors of the controversial studies. It is notable that Dr. Schmidt used his university account, and sent the FOIA request on Sunday – “Federal employees may not use government time or equipment when requesting information under the FOIA.”. Schmidt may have learned from last time his hat juggling, switching between acting as a powerful government official and a private person, got a little messy.
The last line of Schmidt’s FOIA request is an eye opener:
“Since I am pursuing this request to better understand and publicise the actions of federal officials working in their official capacity, and since I will publicise any relevant findings on my longstanding and award-winning web blog (realclimate.org), I request a waiver of any fees associated with this request.”
It would be a tragedy if this FOIA request, and the stated intention to “publicise the actions of federal officials” signals that Dr. Gavin Schmidt is following the footsteps of the worst alleged abusers in the Climategate emails, by putting pressure on journal editors and federal employees who cooperate with the production of studies he doesn’t like.
I’m not saying this is what is happening, but I think given the ugly history of alleged bullying in the field of climate science which was revealed by Climategate, a complete explanation of Dr Gavin Schmidt’s intentions is in order.
Gavin was recently on the YouTube channel of Tim Ventura, who interviews all sorts of people. I’ve just started watching it. If I see anything of interest I’ll get back here.
Gavin Schmidt – The Silurian Hypothesis
It’s at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OooIb-vlo_U&t=48s
The video description:
“The Silurian Hypothesis”
Poor little muppet has been watching too much Dr Who !
Developed the FAKE models…
… then FAKED the surface data in a childish attempt to match his model.
“A thought experiment…” lol !!
An experiment to see if he can think… nah… bound to be an utter failure.
Fantasize.. most certainly…
… if he has read enough Grimm Bros, and Mills and Boone.
But there is big difference between thinking, and dreaming up fantasies.
—-
Nobel Peace Prize… that’s the one that has been awarded to some of the greatest tyrants in history, isn’t it !
I’m only in to the video a few minutes and I now see what Schmidt et. al. came up with the fantasy- because they found a warming period 55M years ago and couldn’t understand why that happened so he/they speculated it might have been due to a civilization at the time. Obviously, it couldn’t happen if not driven by ignorant civilizations. 🙂
More on the Silurian fantasy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silurian_hypothesis
“Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies”.
Isn’t the “Goddard Institute for Space Studies” located above a corner restaurant somewhere?
Maybe they’ve moved since then.
From the article: “I will publicise any relevant findings on my longstanding and award-winning web blog (realclimate.org)”
Somebody gave realclimate.org an award? They give awards for lying to the public?
He also doesn’t know that “blog” is a contraction (of sorts) of “web log”. Not too bright.
They probably gave it to themselves. !
Isn’t it the job of U.S.Federal Government employees to respond for requests for information from citizens including scientists involved in research? I know I have emailed back and forth with government employees at NOAA and NASA.
I do fear that the ClimateGate Gang (Version 2) is again ramping up — this is the second recent incident that I am aware of.
If Schmidt doesnt like the paper, he should write a rebuttal or a Comment to the journal, not waste tax-payers money to have the USDA dig through email servers so he can read the mail of other scientists.
Wasn’t Schmidt once found to be working on the RealClimate blog on government time?
There is nothing in Schmidt’s request that says they shouldn’t have been writing emails. He’s just asking to see what they said.
“not waste tax-payers money to have the USDA dig through email servers so he can read the mail of other scientists.”
Makes me laugh.
Schmidt is like you, an immoral, twisted, underhanded, deceitful piece of human empty space, with zero redeeming qualities..
If you don’t realise he is hunting for some reason to get the paper he is incapable of arguing against retracted…
… then you are either incredibly dumb, totally naive.. or both.
MDPI does not retract papers. If you’ve paid your money, you’re in.
“If you’ve paid your money, you’re in.”
Sort of like the climate scammers , but in reverse,… hey nick. !
Take the money and play the cult-game.
Gavin is hunting for something to discredit the authors, because he KNOWS he cannot argue the science.
Just like you, incapable. !
Nick ==> Yes, but WHY? Why is he asking, why does a “professor” at Columbia (who is also a blogger and himself a government employee) want to read the emails between other climate scientists?
Why is he concerned that they may have replied to or corresponded with a non-government-employed climate scientist(s) about data that might be incorporated into a paper, or that they might be co-authors on.
It is the norm of science that co-authors correspond with one another. Schmidt himself has done so. See the listing of his papers with their co-authors on Google Scholar.
Should we demand of all their institutions to see their emails as well?
this whole willy soon story is just another chapter in how tallbloke and the sun nuts out foxed WUWT again .
Moosh is already a past story.
Now a mindless deranged non-entity, incapable of science or english.
Mosher ==> It takes doing science to create new knowledge. Simple rubbishing the work of others, with nonsense antagonism, because you have an alternate opinion, is not constructive and is anti-science.
It is not nutty to investigate the effects of the Sun and its variations on the climate of Earth.
Willie Soon is not just a very diligent and productive scientist, but he is a wonderful guy as a person.
“publicise the actions of federal officials”
That’s the scary part. Sounds like he’s out get rid of anyone that treated data request from “Climate Heretics” as they would anyone else that requested data.
When every climate sceptic is a witch, the only thing Gavin can do is go on a witch hunt
+1,000,000,000
A while back on a different site I posted a comment and link about something climate related to Gavin Schmidt and one of the usual trolls immediately posted that the person at the other end of the link I gave was “not a climate scientist”, they were a physicist.
I responded the Gavin Schmidt is a mathematician and therefore by the rules they establish, “not a climate scientist”.
Then followed bloviating arm waving as to Schmidt’s qualifications, which of course was not applied to the person I linked to.
“Not a climate scientist” is the usual insult thrown at Lomborg as well to which he nods vigorously in the affirmative as he’s an economist point out who bad an economic deal alarmism is.
His specialty.
Stephan Rahmstorf is a “climate scientist” and co-founder of RealClimate.
His first degree was in Oceanography at Bangor University, North Wales. He went on to study oceans, through a PhD and academic career and ended up a “climate scientist”
I studied Oceanography at Bangor University, North Wales about 2 years behind him. I went on to practice as a geophysicist and subsequently geostatistician. I have spent 40 years learning, training on and analysing geoscience datasets. I am an expert in forward and inverse modelling. I have privately been looking at “climate” datasets (temps, sea level, glacial retreat data) for the last 15 years and have taken a particular interest in a new way of modelling temperature from glacial retreat data, including coding up some forward//inverse modelling starting from published papers.
Am I a “climate scientist”?
Climate scientists are just “special” geoscientists. Climate scientists are like the philosophers Majikthise and Vroomfindel dealing with “Deep Thought” in the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.
““we demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!”
“Majikthise and Vroomfondel are a lot like Benjy mouse and Frankie mouse: they look like serious thinkers, but really they are just funny, absurd, or—depending on how you feel when you’re reading—sad. They may come on to the scene sounding important, but by the time they leave, they’re just interested in what they can get out of the situation. When the narrator reminds us that “they turned on their heels and walked out of the door and into a lifestyle beyond their wildest dreams”, we understand that it’s not about truth and exploration. It’s just about money.”
Majikthise and Vroomfondel in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy | Shmoop
Should have added this little gem from the philosophers, but edit not working:
“I’ll tell you what the problem is mate,” said Majikthise, “demarcation, that’s the problem!”
That’s what a climate scientist is all about – job demarcation. Douglas Adams pretty much nailed it.
“We’ll go on strike!” yelled Vroomfondel.
“That’s right!” agreed Majikthise. “You’ll have a national Philosopher’s strike on your hands!”
I pray for the day that we have a climate scientist strike.