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.