Sunday
Nov292009
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill McKitrick on Saiers
Nov 29, 2009 Climate To summarise: in 2004, James Saiers was replaced as the GRL editor in charge of the McIntyre/McKitrick paper by Jay Famiglietti. Saiers says that his departure from GRL was nothing to do with any plot to oust him. Famiglietti won't talk about it on the record.
As I mentioned in my previous post, this doesn't quite stack up, so I emailed Ross McKitrick on the subject. Here's his reply.
Famiglietti said that GRL had received 4 comments on our paper, an unusually high number. He decided to take over handling of the file, and his first plan was to publish all the comments. I didn't check if Saiers was no longer an editor at that point. We were focused on making him follow the GRL procedures with respect to the Ritson and WA comments, which had already been rejected under Saiers' editing. The thing to check would be when Saiers stepped down as editor. By his description it was long after the excitement about our paper had passed, which suggests that he was still an editor when Famiglietti took over the file. If that is the case then he was not "ousted" as GRL editor, but he was obviously ousted from handling our file, which is just as bad. And the fact that he was allowed to serve out his editorship under quarantine does not diminish the seriousness of Wigley's proposed witch hunt.
Reader Comments (4)
Anyone have URLs/DOIs to the paper and replies?
Google Scholar is your friend here.
McIntyre & McKitrick 2005 Geophysical Research Letters. Replies from Huybers, von Storch, Ammann, Ritson.
Ritson was never published. Ammann was also rejected but the paper was eventually published by Climatic Change. Search this site for "Caspar and the Jesus Paper" which is likely to go down as one of the most scandalous scientific stories in recent decades.
Saiers left GRL in 2006 according to his online resume:
http://environment.yale.edu/uploads/profiles/docs/saiers-cv.pdf
The coup occurred in Sept 2005
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=388
Saiers story is plausible
Raven
It wasn't that I thought his story wasn't plausible, it was just that the insinuation of the emails, namely that he was ousted, didn't quite stack with Roger's story, that his departure from GRL was unrelated to the plot. It seems reasonably clear that he was shunted as editor in charge of the file but not removed from his editing duties.