The biter bit

Arthur Smith has had quite the correspondence with the Discount Viscount. His detailed review of Monckton's article can be found on alteenergyaction. Here is Arthur Smith's chronology. More in the comments.
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Hmm, any suggestions for doing this more publicly? :-) By the way, despite the fact that they did indeed take down the "rebuttal" page (the PDF file still seems to be accessible though), I received yet another letter from M. this afternoon. Here's a summary of our correspondence thus far:

1. Wednesday July 23, 6:06 pm EDT - My "response" manuscript sent to Physics and Society, with a cc to Hafemeister and Monckton and to the Forum's current president (Zwicker). This was after a week's worth of collecting notes and a couple of days of discussion with a colleague in preparing my response.

2. Wednesday, July 23, 8:55 PM: Hafemeister responds, strongly objecting to being lumped in with Monckton in my comments (I didn't lump much, but really, Hafemeister and Schwartz could have done a better job).

3. Thursday, July 24, 10:49 AM: Monckton responds with the "rebuttal" article, as he posted to his website and Eli linked to above, with my article included in full, and a prefatory statement that it was from "Dr. Arthur Smith, American Physical Society", which was not in the original.

4. Thursday, July 24, 1:07 PM: I respond to Monckton and all the original recipients of my article, suggesting he read my comments a bit more carefully and addressing the following points and stating clearly at the end that I was *not* writing as a representative of the American Physical Society... :

* the definition of equilibrium climate sensitivity used by the IPCC is the "equilibrium global mean surface temperature change following a doubling of atmospheric CO2 concentration" (8.6.1), or "equilibrium globally averaged surface air temperature change for a doubling of CO2 for the atmosphere coupled to a non-dynamic slab ocean," (10.3) - this says nothing about whether the emissions are anthropogenic or natural, and also nothing about changes in any other atmospheric constituents; only CO2 is doubled (and then held fixed, allowing for no CO2 feedback) in these definitions. If you want to reproduce the IPCC analysis, you need to follow their definitions.

* the probability distribution function of estimates for this sensitivity is not normal (see IPCC AR4 WG1 Box 10.2), and the "central tendency" or midpoint of the IPCC range is different from the IPCC's "best estimate". Because of the inverse nature of the feedback relationship, using central estimates for the feedback parameters will mathematically give a lower "best estimate" than the "central tendency" of the full range. But this is a minor point anyway.

* I was not advocating for a larger value of the no-feedback response; I was merely wondering why you hadn't included an obvious instance of yet another (larger) value in your table 2, obtainable by much simpler analysis than you apply to the others. Bony's 0.31 is fine with me.

* If "we may divide any one of the three factors by 3" and obtain the same result, then do a little more work to find out precisely where the IPCC was wrong by a factor of 3. Your original article attributed this to the forcing, but evidently you now have second thoughts. Be precise. Is it the no-feedback response? Feedbacks? Where is this mysterious factor of 3?

* If you want to quote private communications with Lindzen, McKitrick and Michaels, I suggest you invite them as co-authors of your "rebuttal", so that we know they explicitly sanction your representations of their views. Otherwise the claims are essentially meaningless.

* Urban heat island effects are adjusted for in the GISS and CRU temperature records; this has been studied and documented in peer reviewed papers such as: Parker, David E. (2004), “Large-scale warming is not urban”, Nature 432 (7015): 290 and David E. Parker (2006). "A demonstration that large-scale warming is not urban". Journal of Climate 19: 2882–2895. Furthermore, satellite measurements which should have no UHI effect show temperature trends that track very closely with the land-ocean measurements, since the start of the satellite
record in the late 1970s. As to McKitrick not getting a response - I am in fact not sure what McKitrick paper you are talking about - the citation in your article matches the title of a paper by McKitrick and Michaels, not just by McKitrick, but your article states it is "in press". If it is the McKitrick/Michaels paper (J. Geophys. Res., 112, D24S09) it appears to indeed have been ignored so far. Stating that all temperature records are off by a factor of 2 is an extraordinary claim that in the normal course of science would require substantial additional evidence beyond their statistical correlation argument, before being accepted.

Also, please note that I write completely in my personal capacity as a long-time member of the Forum and I am not authorized nor do I speak in any way as a representative of the American Physical Society, where I happen to work (this email was prepared over lunch).

5. Thursday, July 24, 6:21 PM, Monckton responds with a letter claiming that all my points are minor (while acknowledging them one way or another), and ending with the slightly pathetic:
"On the whole, since I am not well and can only expend limited energy on these things, I am inclined to let my original draft stand."

6. Friday, July 25, roughly 4:00 PM. The inevitable happened - somebody notified one of the executive officers of the society that I had written a critique of Monckton. I was visited, and informed that I needed to be very clear that I was not authorized to represent APS in my comments. I explained that I had attempted not to make that claim, but had, as was my custom, used my aps.org email address to send the article. I was told to switch to an non-APS address for future correspondence on the matter, so that it was clear this was completely unrelated to my employment or association with APS. This I have done.

7. Wednesday, July 30 at 6:11 PM I received a note from a colleague that Monckton had posted his rebuttal on his SPPI website. I visited the site, and sure enough found highlighted an article titled "Chuck it Smith" with the above link to the text of Monckton's rebuttal, including the complete text of my comments, and with Monckton's prefatory claim of my relationship with APS added. He had additionally, in the post, falsely claimed I was a "paid official" of the society, and implied some sort of conspiracy against him.

8. Wednesday, July 30, 9:15 PM I sent the above letter concerning the copyright violation, copying again the Physics and Society editors and Forum president.

9. Thursday, July 31, 12:57 AM I received a letter from Monckton demanding that I persuade the APS to remove the "offensive disclaimer" from above his paper. He also attacked me as a "political campaigner and paid official" and claimed I had widely circulated my draft (I had not, sending a copy only to the people listed above). On the other hand, he appears to have widely circulated his response, his false claims about my status with the society, and my original text, to an even wider degree than I was aware last night, having done some google searching on it today. Needless to say, he refused to remove his posting.

(10) Thursday, July 31, 7:01 AM - I responded to Monckton and again copied all the others, but this time included Bob Ferguson of Monckton's SPPI in the email, and I specifically threatened legal action for his violation of copyright and his repeated knowing false statements about my relationship with the American Physical Society.

(11) Thursday July 31, 8:03 AM. Ferguson wrote asking me to call. I did, and we agreed that if his web person completely removed the offending article from the SPPI website I would find that acceptable. I'm not sure they've completely followed through (the PDF is still there), but at least the html page "Chuck it, Smith" is gone.

(12) Thursday, July 31, 1:12 PM. Monckton writes again with a 12-point list of claims, mostly gripes against the APS that have no bearing on my article, and then accuses me of "entrapment". He apparently plans the following:

"My patience with the American Physical Society and its myrmidons is at an end. I am proposing to arrange, therefore, that your letter of purported rebuttal and my letter "compellingly" refuting your rebuttal will be read into the record of proceedings of the US Senate, which - for the avoidance of doubt - are covered by absolute privilige. I shall then be free to arrange for websites all round the world to report the relevant extract from the proceedings of the US Senate in full. In this manner, as it seems to me, what appears to have been an attempt at deliberate entrapment of me on the part of the American Physical Society will have been thwarted."

Hmm, perhaps I have been guilty of entrapment - that sounds like an excellent way to proceed :-)
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To which we can add Round 2

One addition - Bob Ferguson of SPPI just called me at my house (where I had called him this morning). He accused me of lying to him. I had said almost nothing in our verbal conversation this morning, and he admitted that, but then said I had made false statements in the email I had cc'ed him on. I told him if he thought so, he should email me back pointing out what he thought was false. He said "you have really disappointed me". I replied, "you too".

Beyond copyright violation, they're building a case against themselves for defamation - this has gone beyond amusement to a degree of mental agitation...

Eli would only point out that as long as the Adobe Acrobat file remains on the SPPI web site the copyright violation remains. Although not a lawyer, the bunny seems to recall that at least for trademarks you have notify people when you know of a violation lest you lose your rights. Methinks also that Monckton had let loose on Mssr. Ferguson.