Climate Journal Publishes Referees' Report In Response To "Witch-Hunt" Claims

Sockatume (732728) writes "The resignation of Prof. Lennart Bengtsson from an anti-global-warming think tank has triggered widespread outrage in the British tabloids, with the University of Bristol Professor blaming his departure on a 'witch-hunt' environment amongst climate scientists and the rejection of one of his papers. The UK's Times quotes a passage from the reviewer comments in support of this, in which it is claimed that the paper was rejected for being 'unhelpful to their cause.' In response, that journal's publisher has taken the rare step of publishing the referees' report in full. The report describes Bengtsson's paper as a 'simplistic comparison of ranges from AR4, AR5, and Otto et al [data sets], combined with the statement they they are inconsistent,' 'where no consistency was to be expected in the first place' and therefore is not publishable research. The referee adds a number of possible areas of discussion which would allow Bengtsson to make the same data into a publishable paper, but warns that publishing it in its current state 'opens the door for oversimplified claims of errors and worse from the climate sceptics media.'"

Comments

Re:Witch-Hunt. Right.

[Shatrat]

I think his implication is that they would be more comfortable in the employ of the Stasi, which had a pretty good grip on censorship and thought policing. Not that I agree with him, but I think you've misunderstood the statement.

Re:The Science is settled!

[Kozar_The_Malignant]

The arctic is not yet ice-free, but it's getting there. If you would like to look at the raw data, I suggest Arctic Sea Ice News from the National Snow and Ice Data Center.