Bishop Hill More on the Soon review
Jan 14, 2012 Climate: MWP The food fight at Wikipedia over whether there were four rejections of the Soon and Baliunas paper or none appears to have died down, and a decision - a wise one in my view - has been taken to drop the allegation that de Freitas accepted the Soon paper over the objections of all four peer reviewers.
Here's a wrinkle in the story though. Email 1719 is from Jim Salinger, the New Zealander who was possibly the most militant member of the Hockey Team at the time, promoting the disgraceful idea of complaining to the head of de Freitas's university. The email is addressed to many of the usual suspects: Mann, Jones, Hulme and so on.
I have just heard from a member of the department that the Editor who handled the Soon and Baliunas paper that Otto Kinne asked for an explanation of the criticisms. The Editor has given these. Apparently Otto Kinne has accepted these and plans to take no further action.
It is interesting to note that my informant also received the Soon and Baliunas manuscript for review, and strongly recommended rejection.
I may be in position to learn more this evening.
The identity of the informant in Salinger's department at NIWA is not clear. The reviewers of the Soon and Baliunas paper were apparently selected by a paleoclimatologist on de Freitas's behalf. Phil Jones believed that this was a New Zealander named Anthony Fowler (see #3265).
Reader Comments (86)
They aren't a nice bunch are they, I have never in my life seen emails like these, usually when plotting the downfall of colleagues or enemies people use the telephone, or face to face meetings, simultaneously making their treachery hard to find and utterly deniable. These guys claim to be the best brains on the planet in climate science. Makes you ponder on what the worst are? (I actually know this, it's those who believe they can make models of the climate and said models will give accurate projected scenarios of future weather).
Bishop, I'm appalled that you're using illegally obtained emails to point the finger of innuendo at a couple of Kiwi climate researchers who, at worst, were getting on with the onerous but necessary job of stabbing a colleague in the back for the very best of reasons. Shining a light on such highly technical practices can only rob impressionable people of the heartfelt respect for climate science in all its forms that is its due. Without question there will be a man from the IPCC who will be asking you to take down this post, and any others like it, in the not-too-distant future.
"It is interesting to note that my informant also received the Soon and Baliunas manuscript for review".
Officially?
@geronimo Jan 14, 2012 at 10:34 AM
Oh, how could you say such a thing, geronimo?! They were merely doing their duty for the "cause" - as articulated by Hulme [in his plainer speaking days!], as de Freitas noted in his lengthy response, found in 3265 (which, for the record, is actually a duplicate of 1057944829, included in CG2):
Perhaps Hulme had "forgotten" his rather central role in all this, as he appears to have "forgotten" his role in the 1997 crafting and drafting of the pre-Kyoto "Statement". Then, again, perhaps he thought that by choosing not to respond to de Freitas (this something else the CRU crew seem to have in common: non-responsiveness!) he could wash his hands of his involvement.
Certainly during the course of his Dec. 22/11 "Research narrative" he did not think it worth mentioning. Although one does wonder if, like Hulme (who in 2003 ensconced in "management responsibilities of the Tyndall Centre and the need to satisfy major government and research council sponsors", poor Phil was:
Everything from Leftists is always for the good of the cause. They have all drunk Lenin's milk. Lie, lie, and lie again if necessary. Truth is a bourgeois conceit. Bit like Jesuits come to think of it. In the anti-Clerical heyday of Europe in the 19th C, many universities were set up by the State precisely in order for learning to be free of clerical influence. Perhaps our universities could take a leaf out of their book, and the appointment board's first question could be "Are you, or have you ever been, a member of the Labour Party (or any similar 'progressive organisation')", on the simple grounds that Leftists can't be trusted to teach or research dispassionately, for them everything is subordinate to the 'Cause'. What better example is climate 'science' where the data is fiddled, the lying is endless, all in order to create a more just world. What could be wrong with that? But socialist justice is very different to my idea of justice, there's the rub. Its time to get rid of the academic Pol-Pottys.
What will be interesting is if wiki now decides that this email is enough to modify the article and say that at least one reviewer rejected it.
It must be killing them to have to leave the "none of whom had recommended rejection" quote uncontested.
Hilary: "They aren't a nice bunch are they
Oh, how could you say such a thing, geronimo?!"
The other way of saying it would have had me snipped.
Can anybody tell me if the s&b paper was in fact a bad paper or was their reaction due to its challenge to the Hockey stick Graph? Help please
Are we talking about this Chris de Freitas?
I think a little more background might help establish perspective here. It's really quite fascinating.
pesadia -
I don't think that the options are mutually exclusive. I think both statements are true.
Many (IMO) equally bad papers are not challenged. One sees in the CG2 emails that personal assessments of "on-side" papers were sometimes quite scathing, yet no published rebuttal was attempted. The reaction to Soon's papers was so vigourous because of the (correct) appraisal that they would be cited as a peer-reviewed rebuttal to the Mann et al. millennial reconstruction. The flaws in both approaches leave me as cold as most political debate: the sides are in disagreement, but if both propound invalid arguments, can I consider either of them correct?
HaroldW
Thanks for that.
pesadia
A bit of both, really. S&B claimed that:
But they did not demonstrate this in the paper itself. What they did do was apparently show that there was a more significant and widespread MWP than other researchers (Mann among them) then believed.
Thanks BBD for the helpful link to the unbiased and entirely factual DeepClimate blog. Now that we know that, like the CRU, Chris deFreitas had financial links to big oil, we know that it is perfectly all right to lie about him in print and on Wikipedia and to resist all attempts to correct the record. See comments about truth above, which I had prematurely dismissed as OTT but now look eminently reasonable.
Mr Salinger is still at it. Despie being sacked by NIWA, he has found another niche and puts out articles like these:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/comment/6229217/Extreme-is-the-new-normal
conflating weather to climate and not contradicting the statistics of the Australian Bureau of Meteorology.
For the record, the floods is Brisbane weren't as big as 1893, they were bad because the city allowed building on the floodplain and the dam operators released floodwaters at the wrong time, making the flood bigger. The bushfires were because the Councils don't allow routine undergrowth burning (they even put out the ones nature starts) and won't let property owners clear trees from near their properties.
Why rely on facts when you have a rightful cause?
Ah, the big oil meme! Funny how it's evil organisations, funded by evil big oil, who are the problem here yet none of these Mann made global warming (tm) cultists are worried one bit when organisations like Green Peace spend as much in a year as the GWFP has spent in over TEN years!
BBD, your link adds absolutely nothing to the debate , apart from showing everyone once again how intolerant climate science is to having their religion questioned.
Mailman
David S; mailman
How... predictable. You are presented with evidence that CdF is deeply compromised - and you deny it and have a pop at me. This is not going to lead you to the truth.
Re: BBD
Does that mean we can discard anything from CRU since they have also been funded by "Big Oil"?
Or do they have a magic talisman that protects them from the corruption emanating from Big Oil's funding?
What evidence? Even your link says its circumstantial.
Even so reality is Big Oil/Big Energy stands to make BILLIONS from Mann Made Global Warming (tm) but by all means cling to the fantasy as that's pretty much all the cultists have left these days.
Regards
Mailman
"I think a little more background might help establish perspective here. It's really quite fascinating."
Yes I see what you mean now, it's a grand conspiracy between big oil and corrupt scientists. While the "scientists" we read in the climategate emails are as white as the driven snow, and the emails fail to show even the merest hint of corruption. Got it now.
Did you also notice something else re the comments? Probably not, so I'll point it out to you. There wasn't one dissenting comment. It seems that the well organised and funded deniers' misinformation campaign failed to notice an article attacking one of their own, and worse yet failed to inundate the site with posts supporting CdF. Or, dissenters were simply erased.
Speaking of evidence BBD;
http://climateaudit.org/2012/01/12/stockers-earmarks/
Have a read about the games being played to keep them dirty sceptics out of the way.
Mailman
BBD
If you are going to slag off at peple, you could at least do them the courtesy of getting your info right. Here is Dr de Freitas's biography from a little less hysterical source, his employer:
http://web.env.auckland.ac.nz/people_profiles/defreitas_c/
The stuff BBD presented isn't background. It is unsubstanciated slime. Most of the "info" is for things that happened long after 1992 and de Freitas's involvement. There is no evidence that he has taken big oil's money. I could give links to websites showing the moon landings happed in the Arizona desert. That doesn't mean it's real.
I think most people would agree he is a climate scientist with post graduate qualifications, ongoing work and 40 years of publications in the relevant field. Though he might not be one of the 97%, he is better qualified than his detractors.
To murky the plot even more, here is Mr Fowler's CV
http://web.env.auckland.ac.nz/people_profiles/fowler_a/
He knows more about treerings than the experts on the Hockey Team like Dr Mann. Note how he co-authored quite a few papers with Mr Salinger. As this both predated and postdated Soon and Baliunas, I wonder if there are things we don't know about.
""Are you, or have you ever been, a member of the Labour Party (or any similar 'progressive organisation')", on the simple grounds that Leftists can't be trusted to teach or research dispassionately, for them everything is subordinate to the 'Cause'."
@Jan 14, 2012 at 12:16 PM | bill
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Yeah, right Bill. That would be in sharp contrast to the Conservative Party's policies on Climate. Or perhaps you were thinking of the Limp Dims? Or the Greens? Maybe the SNP? Or Plaid? (Orn for that matter, any of the above Parties policies on the EU or a raft of other issues.
Whilst I take the point you make about the Khlima Rouge greenies, they certainly aren't concentrated in the Labour Party.
Jan 14, 2012 at 6:58 PM | BBD writes:
"How... predictable. You are presented with evidence that CdF is deeply compromised - and you deny it and have a pop at me. This is not going to lead you to the truth."
Why is it that funding from Big Oil invalidates any and all research from a scientist? Do you call for a ban on all such research? Why?
What really happened: The paper became toxic enough, that nobody could admit they recommend it be published and retain any funding in climate science.
I didn't take a pop at you, BBD, you walked into it. I even accepted your premiss, disputed by others here with better sources than yours, to try to show you how toxic your argument was. But you just don't want to understand, which shows how utterly tribal you are.
@ChrisM "I wonder if there are things we don't know about."
Duh. Finally some self-awareness!
Jan 14, 2012 at 3:29 PM | pesadia
"Can anybody tell me if the s&b paper was in fact a bad paper or was their reaction due to its challenge to the Hockey stick Graph? Help please."
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It is completely unfair to smear S&B as being about as bad as Mann's Hockey Stick Paper.
MBH was a disaster. A single proxy - the one you should not use - is weighted by a factor 390. Everything else doesn't matter.
The EXTREMELY bad science and other EXTREMELY DISTURBING cricumstances have been addressed and exposed very clearly in the Wegmann report and confirmed unter oath by the North commission.
http://climateaudit.org/2007/11/06/the-wegman-and-north-reports-for-newbies/
S&B was a meta study of 240 published papers. You just couldn't do such basic mistakes in that type of study.
You may perhaps put some of the later Hockey Stick reconstructions into one league with MBH, or Rahmstorf et al 2007, where "et al" included many of the most prominent climate scientists.
S&B is completely different. Additionally, it has the merit to have been the first of many to help restoring our knowledge about the climate of the past..
The Big Oil funding accusation is a total red herring, with currency of value only on Guardian CIF blog columns.
I would take it as a compliment that he received research support from Talisman. Canadian oil independents are not in the habit of wasting money or suffering fools gladly. The technical ability and astute managerial skill of that company in particular has bucked odds and made a remarkable success of coming in late to the North Sea and beating the majors at their own game. .
And lets not forget that until politically focussed funding for climatic related Earth Sciences was conceived on the back of the green global warming agenda, the primary research access for academics to hard subsurface data was through proprietary industry well records and seismic profiles. Furthermore, financial assistance to the academic institutions and their researchers was usually purely philanthropic, for blue sky research. There never were any tobacco agenda like strings. And I can honestly say this because I had authority to release some of this data to PhD researchers in a former incarnation.
So far, much bluster. But no substantive point-by-point critique of the information at DC.
Let's say this wasn't about climate. Pretend it's investments or some such. Have an introspective moment. Would you 'buy' CdF as an unbiased player? Really?
The whole email from De Freitas is worth a read.
"...All are reputable paleoclimatologists, respected for their expertise in reconstruction of past climates. None (none at all) were from what Hans and Clare have referred to as "the other side" or what Hulme refers to as people well known for their opposition to the notion that humans are significantly altering global climate." One of the five referees turned down the request to review explaining he was busy and would not have the time. The remaining four referees sent their detailed comments to me. None suggested the manuscript should be rejected. S&B were asked to respond to referees comments and make extensive alterations accordingly. This was done..."
"... Using a much larger number of "proxy" indicators than Mann did, S&B inquired whether there was a globally detectable 50-year period of unusual cold in the LIA and a similarly warm era in the MWP. Further, they asked if these indicators, in general, would indicate that any similar period in the 20th century was warmer than any other era. S&B did not purport to do independent interpretation of climate time series, either through 50-year filters or otherwise. They merely adopt the conclusions of the cited authors and make a scorecard...."
http://di2.nu/foia/foia2011/mail/3265.txt
Note how none of the team respond directly to de Freitas points in 3265. All they can do is huff. They also basically admit to "adjusted" data to get the answer they want. That would be an interesting forensic examination.
BBD - No one would bother answering a troll like you if the best evidence you have is from a patisan site like DeepClimate. Find real proof that de Freitas has taken more oil money than say, UEA, and then you might have a case. Otherwise, go back to the echo chamber.
Oh and by the way, your investment decision criteria is another own goal. As Steve McIntyre has shown numerous times, none of the CAGW seminal papers would be allowed in the mining industry. Though no doubt you are an expert on financial documentation, thanks to some article on DC, or was it Wikipedia?.
There is more in 3265 and all points to impeccable conduct of de Freitas, but disturbing conduct of his assaulters:
Phil Jones thinks about the 5 reviewers,"...that the reviewer who said they were too busy was Ray..."
This could have well been Ray Bradley, a Team member and Hockey Stick author.
And Anthony Fowler may be a reputable scientist, but his background is certainly not of "people well known for their opposition to the notion that humans are significantly altering global climate".
Fowler has co-authored several papers with Jim Salinger and is employed at the University of Auckland School of Environment.
http://web.env.auckland.ac.nz/people_profiles/fowler_a/
The director of this school, Glenn McGregor is also chief editor of the International Journal of Climatology and known for the anomalous review of the highly disputed Santer et al 2008 paper. The Journal also twice dismissed McIntyre/McKitrick's reply in which they showed that Santer et al did not hold with updated data - a very important reply, later published elsewhere, which supports the assumption that ALL IPCC climate models are seriously wrong.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/12/a_climatology_conspiracy.html
http://klimazwiebel.blogspot.com/2010/01/question-to-international-journal-fo.html
2003 appears to have been a tipping point in climate "science", with the assaults on S&B, Shaviv/Veizer and McIntyre/McKitrick.
Markus
But they didn't even demonstrate that the MWP was as warm as the late C20th. Their conclusion is both provocative and unsubstantiated:
Which is why Otto Kiner, publisher of Climate Research, issued a statement singling out the core problem with S&B (2003). It is a simple one (emphasis mine):
And this
from Hans von Storch:
While these statements may be true, the critics point out that they cannot be concluded convincingly from the evidence provided in the paper.
This is why I hate the warmists.
Rather than worry about whether the factual basis of S&B is correct, they launch into issues of methodology. In the real world we would actual prefer our scientists to be right about the facts than correct in procedure.
The problem is not whether the Medieval Warm Period was warmer than the 20th century, or if Mann's hockey stick is realistic; the problem is that the methodological basis for such a conclusion was simply not given.
Except that the actual problem is whether the MWP is warmer or not. The slight irregularities of S&B is their conclusion are totally trivial compared to the actual issue.
The warmists don't want to fight S&B on the facts, because they fear that they will lose. Actually, in their hearts they know that they will lose. Hence the righteous fury over things that are actually irrelevant to truth, such as the review process
Not tired of peddling your wares, BBD?
You must get paid for this., i.e., paid to copy-paste the same thing over and over again. 'Believe this! Don't go looking any further!'. Heh.
And it is Otto Kinne, not Otto Kiner.
And his statement doesn't end with that paragraph he quoted.
BBD has demonstrated his own irrationality and his warmist views beyond doubt with the link that he suggests condemns CdeF. The legend of Big Oil, indeed!
To me, S&B seems a thorough and extensive overview of a large number of papers on a particular topic and the effort to denigrate it speaks volumes about the group who set out to discredit the paper and CdeF's editorship.
Chris de F still gets a fair bit of stick in NZ. He was recently criticised by the NZ Herald for not teaching "consensus" climate science.
On the Big Oil note, a press report today said that the east coast of NZ North Island was literally "leaking" oil, with potential for millions of barrels a day of onshore oil deposits available.
I wouldn't fight too hard to correct Wikipedia here. If errors are allowed to stand in the article it will just highlight the dishonesty and bias of those who edited it. Let the real story be told elsewhere and on the discussion page. Good luck to Wikipedia with their donation appeal.
SBD writes to Markus:
"But they didn't even demonstrate that the MWP was as warm as the late C20th. Their conclusion is both provocative and unsubstantiated:"
You must be ever so busy. How do you get the time to visit here? You overlooked the following sentence in the quotation provided by Markus:
'S&B did not purport to do independent interpretation of climate time series, either through 50-year filters or otherwise. They merely adopt the conclusions of the cited authors and make a scorecard...."'
Contrary to your assertion, S&B did not write about the relative warmth of the 20th century climate but wrote about articles in which assertions about the warmth of 20th century climate were made. There is a difference, you see. I can write about an article which claims that "up is down" and choose not to argue against the position nor offer evidence against it.
Do you assert that S&B did construct arguments and offer the evidence of their own original research supporting the claim that the 20th century is not the warmest for which there is evidence?
BBD,
I wouldn't go about trying to make that comparison because, unlike climate science, people who act fraudulently in the financial sector do end up in prison.
Mailman
@ Mailman
I wouldn't go about trying to make that comparison because, unlike climate science, people who act fraudulently in the financial sector do end up in prison.
Unless they are British bankers!
Even British bankers get punished, granted not as severe as some would like or as iften as it should, but loosing ones licence to operate in the financial sector for life as the former Head of GBM (the investment bank at RBS) is still significantly more severe that any warmest climate scientist has EVER had imposed on them.
In fact it seems in climate science you get gongs and awards.
Mailman
BBD if you going to right of views becasue of possible Oil Company funded , they you are going to have right off the views of the IPCC and the CRU both of which proudly state the funding support they get from Oil Companies. Or is that 'different ' as so very much is when its done in the name of 'the cause '?
Think about this:
BBD slams S&B for their paper's conclusions that there was a substantive medieval warming period because it is "provocative". (as though that were a crime).
Yet his own theory of high climate sensitivity is apparently supported by Soon and Baliunas' proof for a widespread and strong MWP.
So he should be thanking the fossil fuel companies for making his point. But he wont, because, at this juncture it is all about supporting the actions of his consensus scientists for defending a conclusion he doesn't believe in himself.
And then tomorrow he will turn around and vilify sceptics for not believing in a high sensitivity, one that is substantiated by SB2003.
Apparently Mann's defenders ought to have criticized Michael Mann and not Soon and Baliunas for producing a paper that is supportive of a low climate sensitivity, and BBD realized this only a few days back. So his views are pretty much the complete opposite of the entire paleoclimatology community, which to this date has insisted that their suite of evidence all supports the Mann hockey stick.
Standing thus outside of mainstream scientific consensus however, BBD will bang on your head if your express any opinion he determines to be outside of 'mainstream scientific consensus'.
I am reminded of how the scrupulous honesty of theological Christianity led to its own dissolution.
Re: KnR
I'm not sure about the IPCC directly receiving contributions from Oil companies although they do say that part of their income comes from:
so it is possible.
On the other hand the CRU quite happily takes money from Big Oil and since they are heavily involved with the IPCC you have the guilt be association.
as usual, zed denies the plausibly deniable and leaves the elephant happily defecating on her carpet...CRU...oil money...no connection at all guv...our Phil does not know what oil is...he's a luv
Mooloo
This is a question of facts. S&B claim - as a matter of fact - that:
They do not demonstrate this as a matter of fact in their paper. The criticisms were and are valid.
Shub
Of course I cut and paste - I have to. The same old distortions come up over and over again and I'm not typing fresh responses every time. Sadly, the work is done pro bono publica. An unpleasant slur all the same, and the second time you've done it.
And indeed, 'Kinne' it is. Thanks for the correction.
No Shub. That was not their conclusion. See above. What they did was calculatingly dishonest. And they were bought. That's off the scale of reprehensibility when we consider the stakes involved. I know you deny the actual science, but everyone else is horrified by this kind of behaviour. And rightly so.
ChrisM
Thank you for providing unambiguous evidence that you have not read the DC link. And for a splendid example of what actually happens in an echo chamber.