Bishop Hill Not the BEST
Jul 30, 2012 Climate: Surface Commenters on the climate debate have a tendency to see things in terms of black and white or of goodies and baddies. Typical of this kind of thing is the desperate attempts by MSM upholders of the IPCC consensus to portray Richard Muller as a former sceptic who has now seen the light. This idea only gains any credence at all because of Muller's role as an early supporter of McIntyre's work on the Hockey Stick. However, as has now been documented elsewhere, his characterisation as a sceptic is hard to square with most of his other comments on the climate issue and also with his flat denial that he has ever been a sceptic. It is probably safe to say that he is a firm upholder of the IPCC consensus who is honest enough to state clearly that the Hockey Stick was flawed.
It is probably also not stretching the truth to suggest that Muller enjoys being in the public eye, and today Ross McKitrick has revealed a rather sorry tale about the trouble Muller's publicity hunger has got him into. The story concerns the peer review of the last batch of Muller et al papers last year. As Ross explains, he was a peer reviewer of one of the papers:
I submitted my review just before the end of September 2011, outlining what I saw were serious shortcomings in their methods and arguing that their analysis does not establish valid grounds for the conclusions they assert. I suggested the authors be asked to undertake a major revision.
In October 2011, despite the papers not being accepted, Richard Muller launched a major international publicity blitz announcing the results of the "BEST" project. I wrote to him and his coauthor Judy Curry objecting to the promotional initiative since the critical comments of people like me were locked up under confidentiality rules, and the papers had not been accepted for publication. Richard stated that he felt there was no alternative since the studies would be picked up by the press anyway. Later, when the journal turned the paper down and asked for major revisions, I sought permission from Richard to release my review. He requested that I post it without indicating I was a reviewer for JGR. Since that was not feasible I simply kept it confidential.
Since then, there has been another round of peer review, in which McKitrick recommended rejection of the paper, since few of his earlier objections had been addressed. Now, in the face of the latest Muller publicity blitz, McKitrick has decided to reveal all. You can read his article here.
Bishop Hill
Roger Pielke Sr's latest article, covering the paper by Anthony Watts and the op-ed by Richard Muller, is well worth a read. Watts' work is described as "seminal", while Muller's claims are said to be "an embarrassment" and "easily refuted".
Ouch.
Reader Comments (57)
@TerryS
Thanks Terry, I knew they had pulled a fast one
I sent a complaint straight away and it seems they responded immediately. Now I'm not sure if I'm impressed with their response or dismayed that they omitted the final paragraph in the first place!
For anyone interested in some of the background to the whole "surface stations" project and why Watts et al. thought the quality of surface date needed close examination, this report of May 2009 has many of the photos and site descriptions which show how widely the quality of the sites do vary in the USA:
Surface Stations Report May 2009
The bigger surprise might have been if the surface temps records actually were satisfactory despite so many haphazard sites and changes over time.
Interesting dust-up in the NY Times -- Revkin dot.earth blog, where he discusses both Muller and Watts, and gets some some remarks from NOAA-NCDC (Thorne) and response by Anthony Watts:
Revkin --"A Closer Look at Climate Studies Promoted Before Publication"
Watts comments on Thorne NOAA-NCDC response
p.s. I have only now been looking at some of the surface station issues discussed in the Watts 2009 report linked in my previous comment. There is quite a series of threads on WUWT for anyone else who, like me, is relatively new to these matters.... NOAA-NCDC seems to have been highly deceptive over the past 3 years as they both scramble to address problems pointed out by WUWT and also to pretend that they are doing it on their own, for their own reasons, with little reference to Watts and WUWT.
NOAA is run by an activist: http://www.c3headlines.com/2011/12/science-by-lubchencos-noaa-fake-global-warming-by-changing-historical-temperature-data.html
'As can be seen, literally, Jane Lubchenco and her team are changing historical temperature records each and every month (note how they have "warmed" May 2008 since the NOAA report of December 2008) - even changing the historical record back to the very beginning, the January 1880 temperature record.'
Adolf's take on Watts v BEST: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYup_vNcoEs
With these activities the sceptics have their own 'Team.'
Liz Goodwin at Yahoo news has an article where she uncritically repeats Muller's claim to be a "converted skeptic".
I emailed her goodwin@yahoo.com and sent her the link to Popular Technology that has the evidence that Muller has always been a warmist. Let's see what happens.