From: Tom Wigley <wigley@ucar.edu>
To: André Berger <berger@astr.ucl.ac.be>
Subject: Re: FW: Shaviv & Veizer in GSA Today
Date: Tue, 19 Aug 2003 09:00:33 -0600
Cc: Mike MacCracken <mmaccrac@comcast.net>, Martin Hoffert <marty.hoffert@nyu.edu>, Karl Taylor <taylor13@llnl.gov>, Ken Caldiera <kenc@llnl.gov>, Curt Covey <covey1@llnl.gov>, Stefan Rahmstorf <rahmstorf@pik-potsdam.de>, "Michael E. Mann" <mann@virginia.edu>, Raymond Bradley <rbradley@geo.umass.edu>, Malcolm Hughes <mhughes@ltrr.arizona.edu>, Phil Jones <p.jones@uea.ac.uk>, Kevin Trenberth <trenbert@ucar.edu>, Tom Crowley <tcrowley@duke.edu>, Scott Rutherford <srutherford@gso.uri.edu>, Caspar Ammann <ammann@ucar.edu>, Keith Briffa <k.briffa@uea.ac.uk>, Tim Osborn <t.osborn@uea.ac.uk>, Michael Oppenheimer <omichael@princeton.edu>, Steve Schneider <shs@stanford.edu>, Gabi Hegerl <hegerl@duke.edu>, Ellen Mosley-Thompson <thompson.4@osu.edu>, Eric Steig <steig@ess.washington.edu>, jmahlman@ucar.edu, wuebbles@atmos.uiuc.edu, jto@u.arizona.edu, stocker@climate.unibe.ch, Urs Neu <urs.neu@sanw.unibe.ch>, Jürg Beer <beer@hermes.emp-eaw.ch>

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Andre,

I have been closely involved in the CR fiasco. I have had papers that I 
refereed (and soundly rejected), under De Freitas's editorship, appear 
later in the journal -- without me seeing any response from the authors. 
As I have said before to others, his strategy is first to use mainly 
referees that are in the anti-greenhouse community, and second, if a 
paper is rejected, to ignore that review and seek another more 
'sympathic' reviewer. In the second case he can then (with enough 
reviews) claim that the honest review was an outlier.

I agree that an ethics committee is needed and I would be happy to serve 
on such a committee. It would have to have endorsement by international 
societies, like Roy. Soc., US Nat. Acad., Acad. Europ., plus RMS, AMS, 
AGU, etc.

Jim Titus mentioned to me that in the legal profession here people are 
disbarred for behavior like that of De Freitas (and even John Christy -- 
although this is a more subtle case). We cannot do that of course, but 
we can alert the community of honest scientists to such behavior and 
formally discredit these people.

The Danish Acad. did something like this recently, but were not entirely 
successful.

In the meantime, I urge people to dissociate themselves from Climate 
Research. The residual 'editorial' (a word I use almost tongue in cheek) 
board is looking like a rogues' gallery of skeptics. Those remaining who 
are credible scientists should resign.

Tom.
+++++++++++++++++

André Berger wrote:
> Dear Stefan,
> Dear Mike,
> Dear Collegues,
> 
> I admire the courage of Stefan and of all other colleagues who are 
> willing to answer these highly controversed papers (garbage as Marty 
> said). I am personally tired of analysing these papers, having quit 
> doing this for the Ministry and European Commission some 5 years ago.
> 
> Nevertheless, I am also sad when I see these papers, mostly because they 
> succeeded to be published. So not only we have to teach their authors 
> the Science of climate but also the reviewers and/or the 
> editors/publishers who have accepted them. This is a huge effort. I, 
> personally, would like to see an International Committee of Ethics (or 
> something like this) in Geo-Sciences be created as it is the case for 
> Medical Sciences and Biotechnology.
> 
> I have been told that AMS has such a Committee who is a kind of super 
> peer-review telling what is wrong in some declarations, papers, books 
> ....  Is anybody willing to participate in an attempt to create such a 
> Committee within AGU-EGU-IUGG ... ?
> 
> In the meantime, I am please to send you here attached an email by R.L. 
> Park on Soon, Baliunas, Seitz and others.
> 
> Best Wishes and Regards,
> 
> André BERGER
> 
> -------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 8 Aug 03 Washington, DC
> 2. POLITICAL CLIMATE: WHAT'S RIGHT FOR THE AMERICAN PEOPLE?
> One of the purported abuses cited in the minority staff report
> involved the insertion into an EPA report of a reference to a
> paper by Soon and Baliunas that denies globl warming (WN 1 Aug
> 03). To appreciate its significance, we need to go back to March
> of 1998. We all got a petition card in the mail urging the
> government to reject the Kyoto accord(WN 13 Mar 98). The cover
> letter was signed by "Frederick Seitz, Past President, National
> Academy of Sciences." Enclosed was what seemed to be a reprint
> of a journal article, in the style and font of Proceedings of the
> NAS. But it had not been published in PNAS, or anywhere else. The
> reprint was a fake. Two of the four authors of this non-article
> were Soon and Baliunas. The other authors, both named Robinson,
> were from the tiny Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine in
> Cave Junction, OR. The article claimed that the environmental
> effects of increased CO2 are all beneficial. There was also a
> copy of Wall Street Journal op-ed by the Robinsons (father and
> son) that described increased levels of CO2 in the atmosphere as
> "a wonderful and unexpected gift of the industrial revolution."
> There was no indication of who had paid for the mailing. It was
> a dark episode in the annals of scientific discourse.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> At 10:59 4/08/2003 -0400, Mike MacCracken wrote:
> 
>> You all might want to get in on response to this paper.
>>
>> Mike
>>
>> ----------
>> From: Stefan Rahmstorf <rahmstorf@pik-potsdam.de>
>> Date: Mon, 04 Aug 2003 16:02:36 +0200
>> To: "Michael E. Mann" <mann@virginia.edu>
>> Cc: Raymond Bradley <rbradley@geo.umass.edu>, Malcolm Hughes
>> <mhughes@ltrr.arizona.edu>, Phil Jones <p.jones@uea.ac.uk>, Kevin 
>> Trenberth
>> <trenbert@ucar.edu>, Tom Crowley <tcrowley@duke.edu>, Tom Wigley
>> <wigley@ucar.edu>, Scott Rutherford <srutherford@gso.uri.edu>, Caspar 
>> Ammann
>> <ammann@ucar.edu>, Keith Briffa <k.briffa@uea.ac.uk>, Tim Osborn
>> <t.osborn@uea.ac.uk>, Michael Oppenheimer <omichael@princeton.edu>, Steve
>> Schneider <shs@stanford.edu>, Gabi Hegerl <hegerl@duke.edu>, Mike 
>> MacCracken
>> <mmaccrac@comcast.net>, Ellen Mosley-Thompson <thompson.4@osu.edu>, Eric
>> Steig <steig@ess.washington.edu>, jmahlman@ucar.edu,
>> wuebbles@atmos.uiuc.edu, jto@u.arizona.edu, stocker@climate.unibe.ch, Urs
>> Neu <urs.neu@sanw.unibe.ch>, Jürg Beer <beer@hermes.emp-eaw.ch>
>> Subject: Shaviv & Veizer in GSA Today
>>
>> Dear colleagues,
>>
>> the Soon&Baliunas paper has given political lobbyists a field day in
>> their attempts to confuse the public and decision-makers about the state
>> of global warming science. It is quite interesting how a lobby
>> organisation like the Marshall Institute manages to get a paper like
>> that into the peer-reviewed literature with the help of a sympathetic
>> editor, against reviewer concerns, and then capitalise on that right
>> away in Senate hearings and the media. There clearly is a wider and
>> well-funded strategy behind such activities, which has something to do
>> with why the US has backed out of the Kyoto protocol. These same US
>> organisations are also active here in Europe trying to influence policy,
>> albeit so far with less success.
>>
>> In the face of such sophisticated lobbying we scientists should not be
>> too naive. Although simply doing good science remains our main job, I
>> think at some points we need to intervene in the public debate and try
>> to clarify what is science and what is just political lobbying. In
>> particular, I feel that it is important to not let bad, politically
>> motivated science stand unchallenged in the peer-reviewed literature -
>> it is too easy to just shrug and ignore an obviously bad paper. Hence I
>> greatly appreciate that Mike and his co-authors responded in Eos to the
>> errors in the Soon&Baliunas paper.
>>
>> I feel another recent paper may require a similar scientific response,
>> the one by Shaviv&Veizer (attached). It derives a supposed upper limit
>> for the CO2-effect on climate (i.e., 0.5 C warming for CO2 doubling),
>> based on paleoclimatic data on the multi-million-year time scale. This
>> paper got big media coverage here in Germany and I guess it is set to
>> become a climate skeptics classic: the spin is that GCMs show a large
>> CO2 sensitivity, but climate history proves it is really very small.
>> Talking to various colleagues, everyone seems to agree that most of this
>> paper is wrong, starting from the data themselves down to the
>> methodology of extracting the CO2 effect.
>>
>> I think it would be a good idea to get a group of people together to
>> respond to this paper (in GSA today). My expertise is good for part of
>> this and I'd be willing to contribute. My questions to you are:
>> 1. Does anyone know of any other plans to respond to this paper?
>> 2. Would anyone like to be part of writing a response?
>> 3. Do you know people who may have the right expertise? Then please
>> forward them this mail.
>>
>> Best regards, Stefan
>>
>> -- 
>> Prof. Stefan Rahmstorf
>> Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK)
>> For contact details, reprints, movies & general infos see:
>> http://www.pik-potsdam.de/~stefan
>>
>>
> *************************************************************************
> Prof. A. BERGER
> Université catholique de Louvain
> Institut d'Astronomie et de Géophysique G. Lemaître
> 2 Chemin du Cyclotron
> B-1348  LOUVAIN-LA-NEUVE
> BELGIUM
> Tel. +32-10-47 33 03
> Fax +32-10-47 47 22
> E_mail: berger@astr.ucl.ac.be
> http://www.astr.ucl.ac.be <http://www.astr.ucl.ac.be/>
> *************************************************************************
> 


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