Journal Editor Resigns Over Flawed Global Warming Paper

Layzej writes "Remote Sensing Editor-in-Chief Wolfgang Wagner resigned earlier today (PDF) over a global warming study published in his journal that was said to cast doubt on global warming models but was later found to be flawed. Wagner stated that the paper most likely contained fundamental methodological errors and false claims. He further expressed dismay over how 'the authors and like-minded climate skeptics have much exaggerated the paper's conclusions in public statements.' The author of the paper, Dr. Roy Spencer, has responded to the resignation."

Comments

Re:Most likely?

[very1silent]

He is pretty sure:

The problem is that comparable studies published by other authors have already been refuted in open discussions and to some extend also in the literature (cf. [7]), a fact which was ignored by Spencer and Braswell in their paper and, unfortunately, not picked up by the reviewers.

Re:How is this different?

[UnknowingFool]

Well if I remember correctly Dr. Spencer's conclusions at best would have questioned whether some satellite imagery could detect the effects of global climate change; however his one paper was heralded by many to be the penultimate refutation of climate change supposedly negating the research of many, many scientists.

As an analogy in paleontology, scientists have assembled early hominids in terms of lineage based on techniques like carbon dating and skeleton features. They have made slight errors in the past on dates and relationships between hominids. An exaggeration would happen if a scientist with an Intelligent Design agenda questioned the dating on one of the hominids and then the ID community would proclaim that evolution has been disproven.

Re:Most likely?

[MightyMartian]

Let's take the mitts off here. Spencer is a posterboy for the Heartland Institute, and so basically an oil company shill.

Re:Most likely?

[Sponge Bath]

FTA: "...research was not properly peer-reviewed and wrongly accepted"

The core of the matter is the paper was given credence by its publication, which is supposed to be backed by a review process. It never received that, the reputation of the publication was harmed and the person responsible is resigning.

ID

[microbox]

He is also an intelligent designer.

Re:ID

[mbkennel]

The main problem is that Spencer and Christie have been wrong and made serious mistakes before about climate, not just biology. They previously published results from spacecraft data which purportedly showed much less warming than the ground stations, implying that the ground stations were contaminated by 'heat island' effects, etc etc.

Turned out that they were just plain wrong; they didn't apply the proper calibration for the satellite orbit. When this was done (not by the original authors unfortunately), the revised satellite data and ground station data showed consistent behavior and with results in agreement with mainstream climate change results (i.e. it's happening).

So it appears that Spencer now likes making intentional and difficuilt-to-find mistakes in order to push his anti global-warming position. The mainstream results have had far more cross-checks and internal consistency and external consistency. That's why they're correct.

There are a very small number of contrary scientists (the same ones, nearly always, Spencer, Christie, Lindzen) as opposed to thousands of others whose names you don't know.

Re:Most likely?

[MightyMartian]

As his critics have pointed out, Spencer has basically just created a model that confirms his own claims. More to the point, he avoided going to a mainstream journal with this paper, obviously knowing that he'd get laughed out of the room. Where someone is going to try to publish pseudoscientific bullshit, this is the preferred method is to do so via some obscure journal, thus proclaiming "We are published!"

See the Synthese debacle for a similar ID stunt.

Re:How is this different?

[ninetyninebottles]

"have much exaggerated the paper's conclusions in public statements"

You mean in much the same way climate change promoters exaggerate claims from other papers?

Actually, several recent studies have indicated the consensus in academic journals over the last 15 years has understated the actual effects both in terms of overall temperature change and cloud trends. I suppose you could argue there is no difference between a supposed scientist and author of a study on global warming and the press, but for those of us that pay more attention to scholarly journals than mainstream media sound bites, the difference is stark.