Would you reject Spencer's Paper, and why?

[a_unique_person]

http://www.weatherquestions.com/Glob...atural-PDO.htm

Roy Spencer is crying foul because GRL rejected his paper for publication. Would anyone here have a problem with it?

[Highly Selassie]

I haven't finished reading this yet, but one of the first things I noticed is the use of unscientific language. Also, there are many remarks that should be cited, but aren't (e.g. his reference to D'Aleo, "Others have noted" without saying who).

[a_unique_person]

He makes a note that it is a briefer version of what he submitted to the GRL, since they won't publish anything that has already been published. I would presume he has left out some of the details. The arguments he states are the same, however.

[shadron]

Well, the paper (as presented in he link) is supposed to be just a summary. I don't think "Others have noted..." is a problem; to name who would be picking a fight, and everyone in he field knows who they are anyway; besides, their identities are not germaine to the discussion, except poliically. It is intended, apparently, to influence upcoming legislation:

Quote:

I am posting this information in advance of publication because of its potential importance to pending EPA regulations or congressional legislation which assume that carbon dioxide is a major driver of climate change. Since the mainstream news media now refuse to report on peer-reviewed scientific articles which contradict the views of the IPCC, Al Gore, and James Hansen, I am forced to bypass them entirely.

(He could also have mentioned that the administration and congress have gutted science reporting, but again that's not science.) That's highly prejudicial language for a scientific paper, but again, this isn't meant to be the formal submittal. In order to make a judgment about the paper itself, I'd have to see it (and, of course, be a subject matter expert, which I am not).

[Highly Selassie]

Originally Posted by shadron

I don't think "Others have noted..." is a problem; to name who would be picking a fight, and everyone in he field knows who they are anyway; besides, their identities are not germaine to the discussion, except poliically. It is intended, apparently, to influence upcoming legislation:

The inclusion of that paragraph, as well as the unscientific language and missing citations makes me wonder if Spencer really did submit an article to the GRU, or just cobbled a bunch of graphs together to rally up his cadre of deniers in advance of the US election. I realize it's a "simplified" version, but it would have taken quite a bit of editing to turn a scientific paper into something that reads like a failed first-year undergrad essay. Also, the "Others have noted" part that I took exception to was referring to supposed observations that would have boosted his argument; he wouldn't have been picking a fight at all.

Spencer has been caught being disingenuous with his models in the past. He doesn't give the details of his model in this "simplified" article, so I can't really criticize this specific model with just this information. Personally, I'm rather doubtful that he's cleaned up his act.

a_unique_person, where is Spencer's reaction to the rejection of this article?

[a_unique_person]

The news is just doing the rounds of the blogosphere now. It's all a part of a conspiracy, but the details are hard to find at the moment. Did you know that Amazon deleted all the reviews of his book on the same day? Now, there's something to contemplate.

http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/200...?cp=1#comments

[Highly Selassie]

I'm sure there's a perfectly logical explanation for the missing reviews. Two possibilities I can think of are that Amazon deleted the reviews because they discovered people submitting many reviews on the book intending to swing the score one way or the other, or they didn't actually delete any reviews and it's just a technical glitch. It wouldn't make sense for Amazon to be part of some conspiracy against Roy Spencer when there are other climate change "skeptic" books still available on the site with reviews intact.

[tusenfem]

Unless we get the submitted version of the paper we cannot decide whether or not it was justified that it was rejected. Questions are:

1. Was the paper rejected by the editor or by the referees. The editor scans the GRL submitted papers first, to see if they are appropriate or not. E.g. too many papers on the same topic by one author will cause a rejection. GRL is trying to become a journal with mainly hot new stuff, to try and increase impact factor.

2. If the paper was rejected by referees, then we should take a look at what the referees have commented on. I am not a specialist in this field, so I cannot really judge, but the "summary" linked to in the OP does not seem to be GRL quality, but then, it is not the original paper.

Concerning Amazon, I could not care less, Amazon is known to e.g. only show positive reviews and delete negative reviews.

So. unless we get more info from Spencer, there is nothing we can say.

[Highly Selassie]

Originally Posted by tusenfem

Concerning Amazon, I could not care less, Amazon is known to e.g. only show positive reviews and delete negative reviews.

I'm guessing the reviews were mostly positive, otherwise they wouldn't be whining about it.

Quote:

So. unless we get more info from Spencer, there is nothing we can say.

If the paper was rejected because it's bad science, do you really expect Spencer to admit it?

[mhaze]

Originally Posted by tusenfem

Unless we get the submitted version of the paper we cannot decide whether or not it was justified that it was rejected. Questions are:

1. Was the paper rejected by the editor or by the referees. The editor scans the GRL submitted papers first, to see if they are appropriate or not. E.g. too many papers on the same topic by one author will cause a rejection. GRL is trying to become a journal with mainly hot new stuff, to try and increase impact factor.

2. If the paper was rejected by referees, then we should take a look at what the referees have commented on. I am not a specialist in this field, so I cannot really judge, but the "summary" linked to in the OP does not seem to be GRL quality, but then, it is not the original paper.
....

From the biblio:

Spencer, R.W., W. D. Braswell, J. R. Christy, and J. Hnilo (2007), Cloud and radiation budget changes associated with tropical intraseasonal oscillations, Geophys. Res. Lett., 34, L15707, doi:10.1029/2007GL029698.

Spencer, R.W., and W.D. Braswell (2008a), Satellite measurements reveal a climate system less sensitive than in models, Geophys. Res. Lett., submitted.

Could well be subject matter overlap, or have been thouqht to be.

However, including clouds and PDO in the simple energy balance model is very interesting.

[TellyKNeasuss]

His statement "The recovery of Arctic sea ice now underway might be an early sign that this is indeed happening." in the 3rd paragraph of 4. Discussion & Conclusions is not supported by any evidence either presented in or cited in the paper.

His final paragraph, "We need to consider the very real possibility that carbon dioxide - which is necessary for life on Earth and of which there is precious little in the atmosphere - might well be like the innocent bystander who has been unjustly accused of a crime based upon little more than circumstantial evidence.", is not supported by the paper, and arguably directly contradicts the data presented in the paper.

[a_unique_person]

My basic problem with the paper his how is a cycle, which by definition oscillates around a fixed point, going to act as a forcing?

[EliRabett]

Turns out the Amazon thing was because someone was hitting a link to an old, out of print version of the book. in the words of Roseann Roseannadanna, Never Mind. The whole sad story is at marohasy's blog

These guys are whiners.

[mhaze]

Originally Posted by a_unique_person

http://www.weatherquestions.com/Glob...atural-PDO.htm

Roy Spencer is crying foul because GRL rejected his paper for publication. Would anyone here have a problem with it?

Where exactly did "Roy Spencer cry foul"?

Please provide a link that shows you did not just make this up. Then we can address ad hominems such as "these guys (skeptics) are whiners" because some one has actually shown there to be some whining.

[mhaze]

Originally Posted by mhaze

Where exactly did "Roy Spencer cry foul"?

Please provide a link that shows you did not just make this up. Then we can address ad hominems such as "these guys (skeptics) are whiners" because some one has actually shown there to be some whining.

No reply?

Lack of evidence then indicates that the initial false accusation by A_Unique _Person was springboarded by Highly_Selassie and EliRabbit as a basis for smearing the distinguished scientist, Dr. Roy Spencer.

[Ocelot]

You know what, this was the first result returned for this rather obvious search phrase

I'm just saying.. what if somebody denied the existance of something just because they meade no effort of their own to find any evidence. What would you call that sort of person - a skeptic or a denialist?

If a denialist then surely the next step would be to claim that the following quote doesn't constitute whining, but a legitimate complaint against the eebil gubbermental conspirasay!

Quote:

"Since our previous publications have been basically censored by the news media, and I have now experienced scientific censorship (which I suppose was long overdue), I have decided to take my message to the people in a second book."

[fuelair]

Originally Posted by tusenfem

Unless we get the submitted version of the paper we cannot decide whether or not it was justified that it was rejected. Questions are:

1. Was the paper rejected by the editor or by the referees. The editor scans the GRL submitted papers first, to see if they are appropriate or not. E.g. too many papers on the same topic by one author will cause a rejection. GRL is trying to become a journal with mainly hot new stuff, to try and increase impact factor.

2. If the paper was rejected by referees, then we should take a look at what the referees have commented on. I am not a specialist in this field, so I cannot really judge, but the "summary" linked to in the OP does not seem to be GRL quality, but then, it is not the original paper.

Concerning Amazon, I could not care less, Amazon is known to e.g. only show positive reviews and delete negative reviews.

So. unless we get more info from Spencer, there is nothing we can say.

Though I would have to limit this to DVD''s (I usually already know about the books I order so the Amazon reviews have no effect either way) : I have seen large number of negative reviews on DVD's in Amazon and have used those for purchase decisions. (Note, because of my interests, certain types of negative review trigger purchase rather than non-purchase).

[mhaze]

Originally Posted by Ocelot

You know what, this was the first result returned for this rather obvious search phrase

I'm just saying.. what if somebody denied the existance of something just because they meade no effort of their own to find any evidence.....

You've proved an assertion made on 11-3 with a website text change dated 11-9. What would you call the sort of sort of person who would do that?

In any case, it really isn't my job to disprove or prove the unsubstantiated assertion of the OP. Hence my question, which seems completely legitimate. As such your attitude is not called for, is it?

I'm just saying.. what if somebody denied the existance of something just because they meade no effort of their own to find any evidence. What would you call that sort of person - a skeptic or a denialist?

If a denialist then surely the next step would be to claim that the following quote doesn't constitute whining, but a legitimate complaint against the eebil gubbermental conspirasay!

While my objection to the smearing of the eminent scientist, Dr. Roy Spencer, appears validated. But that I asked the question indicates I am willing to be proven wrong.

[TrueSceptic]

Originally Posted by EliRabett

Turns out the Amazon thing was because someone was hitting a link to an old, out of print version of the book. in the words of Roseann Roseannadanna, Never Mind. The whole sad story is at marohasy's blog

These guys are whiners.

Hi Eli,

Welcome to the JREF Forum, where the moderators take no sides.

You'll always find a few GW threads on the go here. I hope you can stick around.

[TrueSceptic]

Originally Posted by mhaze

No reply?

Lack of evidence then indicates that the initial false accusation by A_Unique _Person was springboarded by Highly_Selassie and EliRabbit as a basis for smearing the distinguished scientist, Dr. Roy Spencer.

So, you are using lack of response to prove a negative?

Anyway, Marohasy's crowd are doing enough whining for the whole deniosphere.

[TrueSceptic]

Originally Posted by Ocelot

You know what, this was the first result returned for this rather obvious search phrase

I'm just saying.. what if somebody denied the existance of something just because they meade no effort of their own to find any evidence. What would you call that sort of person - a skeptic or a denialist?

Neither. This is dishonesty.

[Ocelot]

Originally Posted by mhaze

You've proved an assertion made on 11-3 with a website text change dated 11-9. What would you call the sort of sort of person who would do that?

Certainly not Ocelot as I did no such thing! I disproved an assertion implied by you yesterday and made explicit earlier today, with a google search yielding 137 results. The first of which was available to you both times you tried to imply that Roy Spencer hadn't been whining. Did you read any of the others. Had you performed any search for yourself before suggesting that "a unique person" was making it up? It seems not.

What this demonstrates is that you deny something exists because you are not aware of it after making exactly zero effort to discover it. Classic denialism.

Of course you needn't have even bothered with Google. "a unique person" substantiated his claim with a link in post 6 of this very thread to Jennifer Marohasy's blog. Check out this comment by Jennifer herself reporting a direct quote from discussion with Roy Spencer.

Quote:

“Regarding the two papers, the one where we compared five years of satellite data to ALL five year periods from 18 climate models and found none that had the negative feedback the satellite data showed…that paper had 2 reviewers. One said publish after changes, the other was more hostile in response to us saying anything bad about climate models.
The second paper, which showed that the PDO can explain most of the warming during the 20th Century, had only one reviewer, and was turned around in record time. The reviewer obviously just skimmed the paper, since half of his questions would have been answered if he had read more carefully. Also, he claimed that the PDO history should be highly correlated with the temperature history for the PDO to have caused the temperatures. This is a gross misunderstanding of how radiative forcing causes temperature changes (radiative forcing is proportional to the change in temperature with time, not the temperature itself, which causes them to always be out of phase), which should have disqualified him as a reviewer to begin with.
I am convinced that if these two papers showed new evidence in support of the models and manmade global warming, they would have sailed through the peer review process.”

Frankly I don't know or care where "a unique person" got his information from on the 3rd. Validating it on the 17th, when you first made a veiled denial, would have been a trivial exercise as I demonstrated today 37 minutes after you repeated your pathetic attempt. Is there really any doubt, I wondered, not wanting to jump to conclusions based upon what I already know of your character (or lack of it). 30 seconds later, first search I tried, first result returned, confirmed that there was no doubt at all that AUP was basing his description of "whining" on Spencer's own actions.

You didn't search for validation, You didn't even read the material AUP had already provided right here.

Oh and give the passive agressive bull a rest. You're a decietful person. Yes I do have an attitude towards deceitful people. That attitude is most definitely called for, and I'm not going to stop for fear that such an attitude might hurt your tender feelings. In fact I rather hope that it does as that might modify your disreputable behaviour.

[Spud1k]

Having been asked to review GRL papers in the past, my first reaction would be that this is a rehash of the same, worn stuff he's been going on about for a while and as GRL only publishes novel, ground-breaking stuff, it wouldn't get a look in. However, the version posted on the web can't possibly be what he submitted; the average editor wouldn't look at something using that style of language twice, regardless of content. That is just the preaching-to-the-denier-choir blog version, that I would hazard a guess (based on Spencer's track record) stretches the facts beyond what can typically make it through peer-review.

The scientific argument itself is a bit limp anyway. He's basically pummelling the old adage that if slapped around right, you can make the data match up in such a way as to make CO2 look like a small factor. This in itself isn't a big deal; there are plenty of ways of handling the data to make it look like CO2 is a huge factor. What he has never done is provide anything that even resembles any mechanistic closure on the issue, something that all the real GCMs did decades ago.

[luchog]

[quote=tusenfem;4176626]Concerning Amazon, I could not care less, Amazon is known to e.g. only show positive reviews and delete negative reviews. /QUOTE]
Have to post a correction to this. I used to work for Amazon, and at one time, my duties included vetting user reviews.

Amazon does not delete negative reviews. They only delete reviews that are off-topic, posted by the author (or other content originator), contain prohibited content (profanity, personal information, links to sales outside Amazon, advertisements, etc.), or it's clear that the reviewer simply is not personally familiar with the product, and is posting simply as part of an agenda (such as a campaign for or against a particular product) or a joke.

[mhaze]

Originally Posted by Spud1k

Having been asked to review GRL papers in the past, my first reaction would be that this is a rehash of the same, worn stuff he's been going on about for a while and as GRL only publishes novel, ground-breaking stuff, it wouldn't get a look in. However, the version posted on the web can't possibly be what he submitted; the average editor wouldn't look at something using that style of language twice, regardless of content. That is just the preaching-to-the-denier-choir blog version....

Yes, it is almost as mind-numbing brainless as the dumbed-down-and-no-math-Realclimate-choir approach. Well, maybe we can get a copy of the real thing.

Of course (contrary to your diatribe) GRL published his 2007 paper.

[Spud1k]

Originally Posted by mhaze

Of course (contrary to your diatribe) GRL published his 2007 paper.

That's not contrary at all to what I just said, in fact it just reinforces my point. The GRL publication policy is that they don't deal in 'incremental advances' so they never publish the same science by the same author twice. Therefore, a continuation of Spencer's satellite-data-shows-clouds-affect-climate-more-than-humans argument could have got flushed for that reason alone.

[TrueSceptic]

[quote=luchog;4213698]

Originally Posted by tusenfem

Concerning Amazon, I could not care less, Amazon is known to e.g. only show positive reviews and delete negative reviews. /QUOTE]
Have to post a correction to this. I used to work for Amazon, and at one time, my duties included vetting user reviews.

Amazon does not delete negative reviews. They only delete reviews that are off-topic, posted by the author (or other content originator), contain prohibited content (profanity, personal information, links to sales outside Amazon, advertisements, etc.), or it's clear that the reviewer simply is not personally familiar with the product, and is posting simply as part of an agenda (such as a campaign for or against a particular product) or a joke.

So, IYO, what did happen here? I suspect a simple glitch but of course there will always be those who claim a conspiracy. From Amazon

Quote:

IT IS VERY TROUBLING TO DISCOVER THAT 78 REVIEWS HAVE VANISHED. ACCESS TO INFORMATION SEEMS TO BE "MANAGED" AND THIS RAISES QUESTIONS ABOUT WHO IS DOING IT AND WHY? AT THIS POINT ALL I CAN DO IS TO RE-POST MY REVIEW OF MARCH 31, 2008 AND PROTEST THE ACTIONS OF CENSORSHIP OF AN INDIVIDUAL OR SOME ORGANIZATION.

Quote:

This review is being written for the second time because an unknown administrator erased all 78 reviews, mostly excellent reviews, yesterday. The book only has 150 pages but there is a lot to learn here.

Quote:

e the 78 missing reviews: I hope this was part of the normal process for clearing old stuff on the site and not some worker (with green flunkey tendencies) exceeding his/her authority. But even more so, I hope this was not some editorial type exercising company (green flunkey) policy.

Quote:

I understand this book formerly had 78 reviews. If so, and they were deliberately deleted in a bid to discourage readership, I say shame on you, Amazon.

All dated 3-4 Nov.

[mhaze]

Originally Posted by Spud1k

.... a continuation of Spencer's satellite-data-shows-clouds-affect-climate-more-than-humans argument could have got flushed for that reason alone.

My exact comment earlier in this thread.