Recycling Fraud

Recycling fraud is publishing the same thing in multiple places without disclosure. Since journals require that authors certify work submitted is original and has not appeared elsewhere, publishing the same paper in multiple journals is arguably simple fraud. A typical policy can be found in the Instructions to Authors of the journal Environmental Geology

Copyright

The author(s) guarantee(s) that the manuscript will not be published elsewhere in any language without the consent of the copyright holders, that the rights of third parties will not be violated, and that the publisher will not be held legally responsible should there be any claims for compensation. Authors wishing to include figures or text passages that have already been published elsewhere are required to obtain permission from the copyright holder(s) and to include evidence that such permission has been granted when submitting their papers. Any material received without such evidence will be assumed to originate from the authors. When submitting, the author(s) also guarantee(s) that the manuscript or any substantial portion of a manuscript submitted for publication in Environmental Geology has not been simultaneously submitted for review to any other publisher. Accepted manuscripts must be accompanied by a completed and signed Copyright Transfer Statement.

Or, here is another one from the Instructions to Authors of the journal Energy Sources Part A

Submission of Manuscripts

Manuscripts should be submitted to Dr. James Speight, 2476 Overland Road, Laramie, WY 82070, USA. Authors are strongly encouraged to submit manuscripts on disk or CD. All papers should be submitted in English. The disk should be prepared using MS Word or WordPerfect and should be clearly labeled with the authors' names, file name, and software program. The disk should be checked for viruses; please do not submit any disk that contains a virus. A hardcopy printout that exactly matches the disk must be supplied. Each manuscript must be accompanied by a statement that it has not been published elsewhere and that it has not been submitted simultaneously for publication elsewhere. Authors are responsible for obtaining permission to reproduce copyrighted material from other sources and are required to sign an agreement for the transfer of copyright to the publisher. All accepted manuscripts, artwork, and photographs become the property of the publisher.

If the copyright to the material has been transferred to another journal, then the issue of copyright violation rears its ugly head. With publish and perish loose in the land, the temptation to publish the same work multiple times is strong, but it is done by including new material, and changing the wording and emphasis. A small fragment is made a larger fragment ad infinitum. The motivation is to establish precedence (the first small article) and build a list of publications for the granting agency or APT committee.

A long, tedious introduction to a perplexing case.

Eli has been looking at a paper that appeared in Energy Sources Part A 30 (2008) 1-9 published January 1 2008 by G.V. Chilingar, L.F. Khilyuk and O.G. Sorokhtin entitled "Cooling of Atmosphere Due to CO2 Emission". The Rabett has taken part in a discussion of this paper on the Climate Audit Bulletin Board (read down). More about that later but if you want a starting point Tim Lambert would be a good place to go. However, this is neither the time or place for such.

Eli thought a lot of the argument was familiar. He recalled Pliny's comment

I think Miskolczi's paper could have been written in two sentences:

"The greenhouse gas theory that has been used for the last century is TOTALLY WRONG! The proof is left as an exercise for the reader."

Seriously, if you are making a claim like this, you need a good argument, put with some clarity. You would usually write down a model with some unknowns, state some physical principles with their resulting equations, and derive relations which characterise the unknowns. M does this, but at least three of his basic equations appear to be totally wrong. They actually look like elementary errors. Or if they are right, it seems no-one can explain them.

So this is Black Knight stuff.

Indeed, the whole house of cards is based on a paper which appeared (supposedly) in the Herald of the Russian Academy of Sciences by Sorokhtin which does not appear to be where it is referenced. Not finding that, Eli went looking for more by the same authors. Indeed, back in late 2006 he had had a few choice words about these folk as had others (links at link) and it all seemed so familiar. It should have.

Werner Aeschbach-Hertig had published a rebuttal of the original article by Khilyuk and Chilingar and Chilingar, Sorokhtin and Khilyuk submitted a reply paper May 17, 2008 and it was published August 24, 2008. It is the same paper that appeared in Energy Sources A January 1 2008. Judge for yourself. The Introduction to the Energy Sources A paper is

Traditional anthropogenic theory of currently observed global warming states that release of carbon dioxide into atmosphere (partially as a result of utilization of fossil fuels) leads to an increase in atmospheric temperature because the molecules of CO2 (and other greenhouse gases) absorb the infrared radiation from the Earth’s surface. This statement is based on the Arrhenius hypothesis, which was never verified (Arrhenius, 1896). The proponents of this theory take into consideration only one component of heat transfer in atmosphere, i.e., radiation. Yet, in the dense Earth’s troposphere with the pressure pa > 0:2 atm, the heat from the Earth’s surface is mostly transferred by convection (Sorokhtin, 2001a). According to our estimates, convection accounts for 67%, water vapor condensation in troposphere accounts for 25%, and radiation accounts for about 8% of the total heat transfer from the Earth’s surface to troposphere. Thus, convection is the dominant process of heat transfer in troposphere, and all the theories of Earth’s atmospheric heating (or cooling) first of all must consider this process of heat (energy)–mass redistribution in atmosphere (Sorokhtin, 2001a, 2001b; Khilyuk and Chilingar, 2003, 2004).

The Introduction to the Environ. Geol. paper starts

Traditional anthropogenic theory of currently observed global warming states that release of carbon dioxide into atmosphere (partially as a result of utilization of fossil fuels) leads to an increase in atmospheric temperature because the molecules of CO2 (and other greenhouse gases) absorb the infrared radiation from the Earth’s surface. This statement is based solely on the Arrhenius hypothesis which was not verified (Arrhenius 1896). A hypothetical ‘‘enhancement of the greenhouse effect’’ due to additional emission of anthropogenic carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, which is a sacred tenet of Dr. Aeschbach-Hertig climatic belief, was neither shown experimentally nor proven theoretically. In our response to Dr. Aeschbach-Hertig, who admittedly is not familiar with Russian literature and some modern theories, we will focus on the effect of CO2 emission on the temperature of atmosphere which is the central issue of debate on currently observed global warming. Computations based on the adiabatic theory of greenhouse effect (derived from the basic laws of physics and verifiedby experimental data) show that increasing concentration of CO2 in air should result in cooling rather than warming of the atmosphere.

The proponents of the anthropogenic theory take into consideration only one component of heat transfer in the atmosphere, i.e., radiation. Yet, in the dense Earth’s troposphere with the pressure qa > 0.2 atm the heat from the Earth’s surface is mostly transferred by convection (Sorokhtin 2001a, b). According to our estimates, convection accounts for 67%, water vapor condensation in troposphere accounts for 25%, and radiation accounts for about 8% of the total heat transfer from the Earth’s surface to troposphere. Thus, convection is the dominant process of heat transfer in troposphere and all of the theories of Earth’s atmospheric heating (or cooling) first of all must consider this process of heat (energy)-mass redistribution in atmosphere (Sorokhtin 2001a, b; Khilyuk and Chilingar 2003, 2004).

The italicized sentences and one further sentence about half way through the paper with one additional equation (a strange rewriting of an equation immediately above which claims to be a simplification?) are the only differences.

The Energy Sources Part A paper which appeared first is not referenced in the Environmental Geology paper.

But what is the point of this stupidic move? And where is the Sorokhtin paper in the Herald? Does it exist at all?