(Via Watts Up With That) It turns out that the papers Richard Mueller has been pushing with his New York Times publicity blitz (aided by, among others, Joe Romm at Think Progress) were actually rejected for publication — with some misstatements so egregious that Ross McKittrick has published his reviews, saying that the publicity blitz can’t go unanswered. Here’s what he had to say (I can’t find a way to get a permalink to the statement, so scroll down if you need to):
BERKELEY EARTH STUDY REFEREE REPORTS: On September 8 2011 I was asked by Journal of Geophysical Research to be a reviewer for a paper by Charlotte Wickham et al. presenting the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (“BEST”) analysis of the effect of urbanization on land surface temperatures. This work is mainly associated with Richard Muller and his various coauthors. I submitted my review just before the end of September 2011, outlining what I saw were serious shortcomings in their methods and arguing that their analysis does not establish valid grounds for the conclusions they assert. I suggested the authors be asked to undertake a major revision.
In October 2011, despite the papers not being accepted, Richard Muller launched a major international publicity blitz announcing the results of the “BEST” project. I wrote to him and his coauthor Judy Curry objecting to the promotional initiative since the critical comments of people like me were locked up under confidentiality rules, and the papers had not been accepted for publication. Richard stated that he felt there was no alternative since the studies would be picked up by the press anyway. Later, when the journal turned the paper down and asked for major revisions, I sought permission from Richard to release my review. He requested that I post it without indicating I was a reviewer for JGR. Since that was not feasible I simply kept it confidential.
On March 8 2012 I was asked by JGR to review a revised version of the Wickham et al. paper. I submitted my review at the end of March. The authors had made very few changes and had not addressed any of the methodological problems, so I recommended the paper not be published. I do not know what the journal’s decision was, but it is 4 months later and I can find no evidence on the BEST website that this or any other BEST project paper has been accepted for publication.
On July 29 2012 Richard Muller launched another publicity blitz (e.g. here and here) claiming, among other things, that “In our papers we demonstrate that none of these potentially troublesome effects [including those related to urbanization and land surface changes] unduly biased our conclusions.” Their failure to provide a proper demonstration of this point had led me to recommend against publishing their paper. This places me in an awkward position since I made an undertaking to JGR to respect the confidentiality of the peer review process, but I have reason to believe Muller et al.’s analysis does not support the conclusions he is now asserting in the press.
I take the journal peer review process seriously and I dislike being placed in the position of having to break a commitment I made to JGR, but the “BEST” team’s decision to launch another publicity blitz effectively nullifies any right they might have had to confidentiality in this matter. So I am herewith releasing my referee reports. The first, from September 2011, is here and the second, from March 2012 is here.
The quote I like best is:
“…their method is, in principle, unable to support the conclusions they draw, since their findings are consistent both with the absence or the presence of a significant urban warming bias. Nothing in their response or their revised paper addresses this problem. Instead, they seem to rule out one interpretation by assumption and then claim to have proven the other interpretation… “
How about this for a top quote, from the first PDF: “The material relegated to an unpublished source [Rhode et al., 2010] would appear to include just about everything that readers need to know about the new data set to decide on its validity.”
That is the HARRY_READ_ME concept. And there is a lot more along the same line in McKitrick’s review reports. Looks shaky.
So what’s different–the authors didn’t like the results of the peer-review process, so they simply elect to ignore them and do an end run.
Sounds like the Obama administration’s approach to those pesky laws that they don’t like or can’t get passed.
When the nation is run by a lawless administration, you can expect that society in general will follow that lead.
I suppose arguing how many angels will fit on the head of an AGW pin is useful. More important, remember the warmnicks are serial liars. They are deluding themselves and us at a crippling cost to ourselves and our children.
The point of the AGW thesis is to attack capitalism at it’s weakest point, the enormous flows of energy required to maintain a modern economy. If they can impede the flow of hydrocarbon (and nuclear) energy that powers our world they can bring capitalism to it’s knees.
Bingo! And, don’t forget, they seek power, money, and prestige, and are quite willing to go to any lengths to get them. Another demonstration of the enviro/eco-religion at its worst…probably best from their viewpoint.
Why is it that conservatives always hate facts or couldn’t recognize a fact unless some of their leaders said it was acceptable? Charlie are you telling me that you don’t think the earth is getting hotter and man hasn’t contributed to this?
There are ten main lines of evidence to be considered:
1 – The start of the growth in CO2 concentration coincides with the start of the industrial revolution, hence anthropogenic;
2 – Increase in CO2 concentration over the long term almost exactly correlates with cumulative anthropogenic emissions, hence anthropogenic;
3 – Annual CO2 concentration growth is less than Annual CO2 emissions, hence anthropogenic;
4 – Declining C14 ratio indicates the source is very old, hence fossil fuel or volcanic (ie, not oceanic outgassing or a recent biological source);
5 – Declining C13 ratio indicates a biological source, hence not volcanic;
6 – Declining O2 concentration indicate combustion, hence not volcanic;
7 – Partial pressure of CO2 in the ocean is increasing, hence not oceanic outgassing;
8 – Measured CO2 emissions from all (surface and beneath the sea) volcanoes are one-hundredth of anthropogenic CO2 emissions; hence not volcanic;
9 – Known changes in biomass too small by a factor of 10, hence not deforestation; and
10 – Known changes of CO2 concentration with temperature are too small by a factor of 10, hence not ocean outgassing.
This article is much longer with pretty pictures that conservatives like to see
http://www.skepticalscience.com/anthrocarbon-brief.html
Posting a link from that website about AGW is like posting a link form Stormfront about civil rights.
Try again, Boston pseudointellectual.
Oh that’s right they use science and believe in evolution and are educated. They certainly don’t listen to people like Watts who is a weatherman and probably wouldn’t know how to spell Physics.
Because you’re just better and smaaaaaahtah than the rest of us, aren’t you, little one.
Insecurity is icky. Worn upon the sleeve it’s pathetic. I’m sure you’re good at something, this thread isn’t it.
BTW, I’ve been in the hard sciences for over 30 years. Real science. Physics, engineering, and (oh, the dread of it) math and statistics. Not funded by government grants, either. My expertise and experience all lead to only one logical conclusion.
Watts is closer to the truth than it is physically possible for a creature like yourself to be.
Strike two.
If you think Watts is closer to the truth then I pity you as your education has not trained you to recognize bull crap when you see it. But then we are on a conservative web-site where science and facts are not taken seriously. Like Watts and apparently you.
So you admit you have counterargument.
If you had one, you’d have made it.
So you can’t actually refute the argument, and have to (once more) resort to ad hominem, BostonLib?
Are you capable of thought beyond “my tribe good, noble, smart; your tribe evil, crazy, stupid”?
I just wish my “no” had made it into the reply
A Great Grandmother wants to know … am I correct in understanding that a lot of the warming data came from the study of tree rings? Am I correct in understanding that the size and number of the tree rings relates more to the water supply than the temperature? You can have a drought with moderate temps., as we are having in Northern CA this year.
BTW … Anthony Watts is a respected scientist and celebrity in our little city. He did an amazing study on the placement of the weather recording stations all across the USA and how it changes the accuracy of the data. Come on, folks … who’d trust the readings from a temp. recording station placed on asphalt right next to the discharge vent of an air conditioner? GGSuzie
And I do wish folks would stop the ad hominem attacks and calling one another’s credentials into question. Boston Lib has NO idea what Anthony’s credentials are or how many degrees he has in what sciences. Shame on Boston Lib.
Curious that you’re attacking Watts for being a “weatherman”. How does this change the work he’s done?
The quality of science does not depend on the credentials of the person, but on the process they follow. The catastrophic anthropogenic warming clique has been HORRIBLE on the process; their work is “science” only if you believe everything done by someone holding a PhD is “science”.
The use science by doing science via press conference?
Get a clue yourself, dolt!
Why is it that you can’t read a strong negative report?
You do realize that if the Watts et al paper holds up, the correlation to CO2 content breaks down?
You do realize that this is a rejection of a paper making some of your same point?
Me or anyone else worrying about if the weatherman’s paper holds up is kinda like worrying about if he wrote a paper saying Santa Claus is real. Both papers would be touted by conservatives as “must reads” with startling conclusions and both would be equally delusional.
Charlie you are smarter than that.
Everyone — keep in mind that Boston”Lib” is in fact a totalitarian. He has stated that he wants to force EVERYONE to live according to his desires, leaving no options for disagreement.
And, no, he won’t stop to consider if he wrong.
…Im waiting for boston libiot to call us “racists”
What is most interesting Boston is your inability to respond Watt’s arguments. Instead you engage in ad-hominem attacks highlighting your intellectual limits.
Boston, Dear, Please enlighten us. Exactly what are YOUR credentials … how many degrees and in what sciences? While we’re at it, let us remember that some of the strangest folks have Masters and PhDs. I give you the guy with the guns in Colorado.
Strike three. Not fully human.
Next batter.
The start of the growth in CO2 concentration coincides with the start of the industrial revolution, hence anthropogenic;
Sorry Boston Lib. This is false. The industrial revolution at its inception was mostly water and windpower plus the early primitive steam engines. Also, the entire “industrial revolution was confined only to the temperate band of ONE quadrant of the Northern Hemisphere that straddled the N. Atlantic, and for the entire 19th century. There is simply no way that the early emmissions output of the industrial revolution could have affected climate in any significant way. Remember that even the level of output towards the end of the 19th century, while exponentially much higher than the beginning, was confined to 1 50th of the Earth’s surface, with the N. Atlantic taking up HALF the surface area of that region. The ocean is a giant carbon and heat sink. So the notion that “warming” started at the very beginning of “industrial” activity is utter and complete nonsense. The cause of the warming at that time was a natural cycle. After all, the world was still crawling out of the so-called Little Ice Age.
Also, his attempt to establish the connection ignores previous warm periods and previous periods of higher CO2 — which were not always the same times.
You do realize that research shows that CO2 levels historically lag temperature, not lead it, right? Correlation does not necessarily imply causation.
And getting snarky doesn’t help matters; precisely showing where arguments are wrong (ALL of them, not just the ones that you can handle) is helpful.
Outside the small cadre of ignorant “it’s all a hoax” pinheads there is not and has never been a dispute re the back of the envelope correctness of Arrhenius nor that of the Tyndall gas effect.
What *is* disputable is the notion that recovery from the LIA is precipitated solely by anthropogenic emission. In fact that argument is silly on the face of it; the world population and adoption of CO2 emitting technology and how/when can be plotted and it doesn’t match the recovery curve. If natural then the curve ought to look as it does. If anthropogenic then there ought to be peaks and valleys corresponding to emission threshold events. There is not; i.e. there ought to be a massive uptick in 1920 when internal combustion engines were adopted en masse for automobiles. None such exists. Furthermore the “anthropogenic uber alles” argument holds that human emission *necessarily* overrides the natural signal (hence why the call to action even exists) and yet plots do not show this. Plots are consistent with that one would expect to see if natural LIA recovery.
Does anthropogenic emission contribute? Obviously. Only an idiot could dispute this. But the notion that the anthropogenic contribution is the deciding factor is purely religion, relying on unproven suppositions such as the invented feedback notion, i.e. “we can’t prove anything but by imagining a feedback mechanism we can assert anything we like.”
People like you live by “proof by repeated assertion” and as a result aren’t any higher up the thinking ladder than the tautological rope a dope religious conservatives you despise. Must suck to figure out you can’t think any better than those not worshipping what you seem to think science is.
To sum up, you’re little more than a brain addled parrot regurgitating alarmist talking points and not contributing anything useful; you’re merely another troll.
Have a good day.
What form of cultural gradualism will ever eradicate the endless aggressive lies of the Lords of Environment? And do we and our kids and capitalism and western civ really have the survivability to wait out this hoped-for overturning? And if not — pop quiz: What do you do? What do we do?
Bring back the House UnAmerican Activities Committee.
I’ll just put it into political jargon since an election draws nigh.
It’s the sun stupid.
It’s the sun.
Actually it’s not the sun stupid but then if you knew what you were talking about you would realize that for the past 30 odd years the sun has been in a cooling phase (don’t worry it’ll get hotter).
Um. No.
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2006/10may_longrange/
I don’t think you understand the article as you are talking about sunspots which has a cycle and I’m talking about the hotness of the sun the last 30 years. I see you can’t differentiate this topic in your mind
Boston Lib. You demonstrate so well the lack of civility of the modern generations. For heaven’s sake … don’t you see that you are being vicious in your attacks of others … just because they don’t happen to subscribe to the THEORIES that you champion? I say again … shame on you!
You lie. Five years ago, most solar researchers agreed we were about to have the most energetic cycle seen in a century. Then came plumettiing sunspot counts, a decline their popular theories couldn’t explain.
But not soon enough to explain the decline Jones needed to hide.
Here is my scientific backup to the claim that it’s not the sun doofus. What is your claim about “most solar researchers?” Are you confusing the 11 years cycle that the sun goes through and the sun’s cooling?
http://www.skepticalscience.com/solar-activity-sunspots-global-warming-advanced.htm
There are also basic and intermediate levels for a shorter read.
Reading comprehension doesn’t seem to be your strong suit. Read from here in the incredibly biased SS article.
“As you can see, over the past 32 years, TSI has remained unchanged on average. In the early 20th century, from about 1900 to 1950 there was an increase in TSI from about 1365.5 to 1366 W-m-2.”
Now talking about reading comprehension here ya go if you only read further you might have been able to comprehend what you posted:
Therefore, the solar forcing combined with the anthropogenic CO2 forcing and other minor forcings (such as decreased volcanic activity) can account for the 0.4°C warming in the early 20th century, with the solar forcing accounting for about 40% of the total warming. Over the past century, this increase in TSI is responsible for about 15-20% of global warming (Meehl 2004). But since TSI hasn’t increased in at least the past 32 years (and more like 60 years, based on reconstructions), the Sun is not directly responsible for the warming over that period.
Skeptical science is laughable. The argument re the sun has never been rooted in the notion of TSI, but this site whips out the TSI stuff as “proof” every time the sun is mentioned. An answer to a notion that wasn’t proferred is irrelevant.
To see the *actual* argument re the sun, visit the work of Svensmark.
On the plus side, BostonLib hasn’t called for nuking Japan.
Yet.
BostonLib wrote: \\Me or anyone else worrying about if the weatherman’s paper holds up is kinda like worrying about if he wrote a paper saying Santa Claus is real. Both papers would be touted by conservatives as “must reads” with startling conclusions and both would be equally delusional.//
You want to talk about Santa Claus? How about “the World’s Most Influential Tree,” courtesy of Briffa et al?
But we understand. The paper is on your “don’t read” list because you don’t want to see a possible alternative truth to the ubiquitous and contrived “Hockey Stick.”
It’s going to be reviewed with a warmist microscope. We’ll see how those reviews stand up. If there is a major flaw in the paper, it will come out. I suggest you read it.
If you think the hockey stick has been debunked you’re as self deceptive as most conservatives when it comes to science and comprehension.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/mann-fights-back.html
What has happened is there is even better methodology and information that proves the hockey stick.
The Hoakey Stick has be debunked and re-debunked several times. If it holds up to review, this new paper is– to quote the over-used cliche (which doesn’t make it any less true–another “nail in the coffin.”
The warmists call us “denialists,” even as they adopt “deny, deny, deny” as their motto.
Michael Mann is no longer a scientist in the true sense of the word. He is a Mann condemned to spend the rest of his life defending a fraudulent theory. (In that sense, he’s nothing more than a scientific Alger Hiss.) It may not have been fraudulent in the conception, they may have actually self-victimized themselves unintentionally with confirmation bias, but it’s use as a political stick to drive the herd of policy in several nations has been fraudulent.
I just wanted to thank BostonLib for putting up the good fight! Although you are outnumbered in this forum, your desire to call out disinformation is admirable. Good luck!
Oh no,they invented more facts that the planet is heating up.
It’s never done that before,we are all going to die miserable ,horrible deaths unless we pay the UN taxes and back more fraudulent Obama green companies .
Because they can’t actually solve anything but it’s nice for them to live extravagantly and get paid for their superior minds .
The UN must build more abortion clinics and control birth/death rates to reduce the population. Only the rich, muslims ,liberals ,afrocentrists and self determined geniuses have the right to exist anyway.
Funny how liberals ram the doomsday ideology down everyone’s throat but they do absolutely nothing personally or publicly to make changes.
I wonder how much environmental damage has been caused by the muslim terrorist regimes wars and suicide bombers Hitlary Clinton has put into power while flying 1 million miles.
I thought that after Obama was elected the seas would stop rising and all this talk would stop.
I’ve been a scientist for 20 years. A theory such as AGW cannot be proven unless the actuation mechanism is also proven to be capable of the feat attributed to it. I have yet to see one paper that conclusively proves CO2 is even capable of warming the planet. Both low concentration and poor IR absorption works against CO2 even being considered as a ‘greenhouse gas’. These so-called scientific papers (which are little more than experiments in applied statistics) are only begging the question through the assumption that CO2 is the cause. CO2 provides no energy and can only retain a fraction of the needed wattage. ‘Forcing’ is an invented term with neither mechanism nor units, and is therefore irrelevant.
BostonLib, Too much of the AGW argument it beaten down pretty effectively by the obvious thumb on the scale problems that the ClimateGate emails demonstrated. Then the frantic and obvious coverups in England, then the absolutely absurd legal argument that the Commonwealth of Virgina has no right to Dr. Mann’s emails written or recieved on computers owned by the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Your remaining argument is “You be stupid. Shut up or I’ll have my friends in the goberment throw you into jail.”
This is not how science works. This is not how government works in the US, though there are those trying to change it. May they ever fail.
The essence of the schtick is that the present is warmer than the MWP, which historians know is nonsense. This is a pity since, if CO2 were an effective GHG, it might save us from the next LIA. And yes, the LIA was undoubtedly brought about by the Maunder Minimum: a long stretch with a dearth of sun spots. These cooling periods are comparatively disastrous. Warm is better. Warming alarmists are idiots–all of them. The contrast between the likes of Muller and Watts shows it regularly. –AGF
Maybe there is something to anthropogenic climate change; maybe it’s the biggest scientific fraud since Piltdown Man.
The problems are twofold. (1) The data are crap. (2) Statistical manipulation can’t turn bad data into good data.
I work in pharmaceutical R&D. If a pharma company tried to get approval of a new medication by utilizing the same data integrity standards that climate reviewers utilize, the FDA would laugh them out of the hearing room. And, rightly so.
There’s certainly nothing here, at this stage, which would justify reorganization of the global economy on a massive scale, as some climate reviewers propose.
(Note: I just can’t use the term ‘climate scientist’. Science involves reproducible experimentation utilizing robust laboratory models – something which climate reviewers have, thus far, been unable to produce.)
“the “BEST” team’s decision to launch another publicity blitz…”
Sorry.
These people think they are saving the earth. Everyone will just have to placidly go along with The Plan.