Monday
Sep262011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill GatesRLocked
Sep 26, 2011 Climate: other Geophysical Research Letters (GRL) seems not to be bothered about its reputation. Just read Roger Pielke Jnr's latest correspondence with the journal.
Reader Comments (54)
For some reason I do not get via email the Bishop's comments alongside the others. Is that expected?
I think Tol and Pielke Jr are both right. Maybe there was 'oversell' in the paper. Maybe RPJr just 'picked a fight'. But then, what else is he to do? If the editor did not assign reasons for 'rejection', he should have just gone with the reviewers' opinions.
I would rather, in such instances, that he pick a fight for one of his students.
The hole at GRL was very well plugged.
What skeptics should do is prepare their papers, then do some digging and deliberately put an error in their paper that causes an alarmist conclusion. After publication, present a corrigendum that puts the correct result in.
The reviewers did not ask for major revisions. Their comments and gradings in the review are clear and both considered it publishable. The only revision suggested by reviewer two was the title. The editor was the one who specified "major revisions " but did not have the courtesy of saying what are the major revisions he saw which were not required by the reviewers. And he stopped answering to Pielke Jr.'s which were politely requesting the information. This suggests unethical behaviour by the editor, consistent with the " Team " approach. And when one sees the editor's affiliations with Trenberth etc., it becomes more clearer that what happened was a team style hole plugging and had nothing to do with science, ethics or fairness.