Friday, August 09, 2013

Heads Are Round For Rolling

Ugo Bardi from the Frog That Jumped Out draws Eli's attention (very short span) to an astounding editorial comment in Climate by the publishers.  Climate is a new MDPI open access journal whose Editor in Chief, Nicole Moelders is a professor at University of Alaska Fairbanks.  Of perhaps more relevance she is closely associated with Syun-Ichi Akasofu, perhaps the best known faculty member there for his work on the upper atmosphere, the Aurora and the Magnetosphere.  Moelders, of perhaps equal relevance to this post is married to Gerhard Kramm, a close friend of both Eli and the cyanobacteria's press agent

Anyhoo, Moelders is the chief editor, big into the uncertainty and natural variation club, and right out of the box, she published a rant by SI Akasofu, On the Present Halting of Global Warming

The rise in global average temperature over the last century has halted since roughly the year 2000, despite the fact that the release of CO2 into the atmosphere is still increasing. It is suggested here that this interruption has been caused by the suspension of the near linear (+0.5 °C/100 years or 0.05 °C/10 years) temperature increase over the last two centuries, due to recovery from the Little Ice Age, by a superposed multi-decadal oscillation of a 0.2 °C amplitude and a 50~60 year period, which reached its positive peak in about the year 2000—a halting similar to those that occurred around 1880 and 1940. Because both the near linear change and the multi-decadal oscillation are likely to be natural changes (the recovery from the Little Ice Age (LIA) and an oscillation related to the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), respectively), they must be carefully subtracted from temperature data before estimating the effects of CO2.
In other words, what you can read everyday over at Willard Tony's, the usual confusion between increase in CO2 mixing ratio and increase in CO2 forcing, a bunch of mathturbation on rates, etc.

However, there have been some consequences.  Two of the editorial board said sayonara, and the publisher is a bit perturbed
It has recently been brought to our attention by members of the scientific community that a paper published in Climate (ISSN 2225-1154, http://www.mdpi.com/journal/climate) has raised some controversy regarding its originality, overall quality, and the scientific validity of the data presented. Moreover, two members have resigned from the Editorial Board, stating they are not willing to be associated with a journal where such articles are published. The paper they referred to was “Akasofu, S.-I. On the Present Halting of Global Warming. Climate 2013, 1, 4–11”, published in the first issue of Climate in May 2013 [1].
These appear to be Nathaniel Brunsell of the University of Kansas and Jason Evans of the University of New South Wales, who join the Hans v. Storch Chapter of Editors Emeritus 

But wait, other heads also are being cued up for rolling
The Publisher endeavors to ensure the scientific standard of all the papers published in this journal and will seek a closer involvement of the Editorial Board in the editorial process.
and comments are invited
We are now inviting comments for publication on the Akasofu paper. We also want to point out that comments on any articles published in Climate are always welcome. We hope that this opportunity for debate will be taken up by members of the scientific community, and that Climate can facilitate vibrant discussion around environmental climate topics that can often polarize opinion, but are of vital importance for stimulating cutting edge research.
Eli, of course, teaches the controversy.

17 comments:

ob said...

That's good for the Journal and maybe even the publisher. However, is there a source for the announcement by MDPI? Or was that one of those typical publisher-spam-mails?

Gator said...

The paper looks like typical WUWT-level analysis. I.e., temperature should linearly track CO2, we're in a natural "recovery" from the "Little Ice Age", the IPCC prediction ties off the high of the curve etc.

Did Akasofu miss anything?

THE CLIMATE WARS said...

Ugo does not appear to have read Sedgewick's original John's Hopkins' study of frog saltation

Anonymous said...

I see you guys leaned absolutely nothing from Climategate. Nah, Nah, you publish what I say is fit or I quit.

exusian said...

"Squawk..., climate gate..., squawk!"

That all you got, cupcake?

Hank Roberts said...

The spambots got even cleverer.

Hank Roberts said...

Hm, where have they posted this invitation for comments? I don't see it looking at the paper online:

http://www.mdpi.com/2225-1154/1/1/4

The article download statistics look like it's having a hockey stick:
click to see the chart over time.

Anonymous said...

But I thought the "skeptics" said it wasn't warming, that the thermometers were all wrong, that the ice caps and glaciers were not melting, that sea levels were not rising.

But now they says it's a mysterious linear forcing the likes of which have only been felt in reecent times, which began for no apparent reason and will continue until no one knows.

Anonymous said...

Nope, anonymous (cupcake). Something was learned from "climategate." The human capacity for willful ignorance in the interest of preserving one's comfortable understanding of the world is limitless.

You are a fool for buying into "climategate." You are a fool for trusting the science of Soon & Baliunas while being unable to defend it. You are a fool for thinking that Mann and Jones control climate science (is the theory of AGW based on MBH98 and/or CRUTem? Fools say "yes!"). You are a fool for thinking that every surface temp record is the product of careful manipulation.

Most of all, you're a fool for opening your mouth in public to display your foolishness. Fashion yourself as an anonymous troll. "Ha ha! I'll just raz these guys! It'll be funny!" In reality, it's action that you (whoever you are) took, and it's a expressed belief that you can't possibly not share, because no one who doesn't share it would anonymously troll as you've done. I don't care who you are, but unless you can defend yourself, you're walking away from this with a big fat "FOOL" stamped on the inside of your eyelids. I'm walking away from this with more evidence to support my initial claim.

So tell me, cupcake, what does "climategate" mean to you -- and why?

DFrag

dhogaza said...

DFrag:

"So tell me, cupcake, what does "climategate" mean to you -- and why?"

Please don't feed the troll by inviting the troll to derail the thread with climategate.

Hank Roberts said...

> feed the troll by inviting
> the troll to derail the thread

Tag team?

Anonymous said...

I've recently run into claims that Hans Van Storch is calling other climatologists alarmist, for example in a Der Spiegel interview. What predictions exactly is he calling "alarmist", by whom, and why?

Anonymous said...

bah - there's nothing wrong with killing a few trolls now and then. Was there something else going on with the thread? If so, I certainly wouldn't be offended if my comments and cupcake's comments were deleted for being off-topic and, in the case of cupcake, utterly without substance (but plenty of frosting).

DFrag

Anonymous said...

Anonymous @11:32 PM:

Good question, try asking him. Just so you know, I tried in the past, and he won't name names. However, occasionally it is clear he really, really dislikes the PIK people, and Rahmstorf in particular.

Marco

EliRabett said...

v. storch has a lot of Pielke in him, wanting to control the dialog. Strumming him is blood sport for Eli.

Leif said...

Not any job, only Green Jobs can start to move the economies of the world out of the morass. As long as capitalism has the ability to profit, handily I would add, from polluting the commons, every “Black” job just digs the hole deeper. Only green jobs ADD VALUE to the economy and start to rejuvenate Earth’s life support systems as well as the economy via energy from the renewable sector.
Corporations are “People” now for better or worse. Speaking as a “Real People”, if I throw a paper cup out the car window, bingo, ~$100 fine. ($1,000 in Alaska.) Corpro/People can pollute the air, water, dirt, and oceans with Toxins and the dirtiest Corpro/People have become richest Corpro/People in the world and the foundation of Western Capitalism. Still Corpro/People get rich and even subsidized with YOURS & MY TAX MONEY. I cannot stop it but "We the People can!. GOP don’t fund abortion. Fine. A precedent. How come I must fund the Ecocide of Earth’s life support systems? Go figure. Please help! Stop profits from the pollution of the commons…. PLEASE…

Mal Adapted said...

DFrag: "bah - there's nothing wrong with killing a few trolls now and then."

I'd agree in the general case, but cupcake is here not to contribute but to derail. Attempts to "kill" it will only encourage it. Ideally, everyone here would simply ignore its provocations, but there's really no way to enforce a DNFTT resolution alas.

ReCAPTCHA is delphic: "36 pootog"