New NASA Data

[AtticaFanatica]

I am sure that this isn't the first peer-reviewed paper that has methodology issues. If this one snuck through the peer review process (you are suggesting maybe it shouldn't have?), who knows how many other faulty research papers have been published and accepted by the scientific community?

In the AMS journals, about 1/3 of papers get rejected, 1/3 are accepted with significant revisions, and 1/3 are accepted mostly as is with only minor content changes. I'm not sure if that info is available for the journal in question, but it would certainly help a lot.

[chris87]

Which is why we have the peer review process to ensure that only truly scientific papers get published to scientific journals.

This is the mantra that has been oft-repeated in these climate threads. I am sure that this isn't the first peer-reviewed paper that has methodology issues. If this one snuck through the peer review process (you are suggesting maybe it shouldn't have?), who knows how many other faulty research papers have been published and accepted by the scientific community?

You are exactly correct, lots of papers are published with methodology issues or analysis errors, some from lack of sufficient research and some because they had an error in a piece of code used in the analysis, and it was an honest mistake.

Once the paper is published, anyone in the community can author a response/comment to the paper addressing deficiencies or arguing that the analysis/conclusions are incorrect, and a lot of times there is a peer-reviewed back and forth between author and detractor.

You also have the case where someone made a mistake and must withdrawal a paper, an big paper by John Christy has to be withdrawal and he had to admit there was an error in the analysis, and it was an honest mistake. I work a lot in remote sensing of drought and evapotranspiration, several years ago a group wrote a paper that claimed the rainforest "greened up" during the South American drought of 2006, that has set up a number of papers disputing and defending this finding, even 4 years later there isn't a consensus on this topic.

Peer review isn't perfect (how many times can we say this?), most of the time 4 people make a decision on a paper, an editor and three anonymous reviewers, sometimes you pick the wrong reviewers, sometimes you pick 3 overworked faculty members during the school year who don't put the same amount of rigor into their review that they would expect of theirs papers. 4 people isn't a strong sample in any field, I think we can agree on that.

I'm a big fan of journal review system employed the European Geophysical Union (EGU), they have a hybrid (guess you could call it that) system, where a paper in review is published in a discussion form and sent to three anonymous reviewers, while the paper is in review (in discussion form), anyone in the community (assuming you have the necessary background/expertise) can issue a comment or review that the editor may take into account on how to proceed on a paper. Not to mention anyone can read the anonymous reviewers statement on the paper. The 3 reviewers hold a lot of weight, but the process is much more transparent than most other journals. Honestly, I'd like to see more journals adopt such a review system.

[LocoAko]

Chris87 is too AGW biased to have a rational conversation with on this forum, no matter what he brings to the table.

He's actually a really valuable resource for those of us here who care about science and the research component of atmospheric science, something that is often neglected on this forum. What do you bring to the table?

[skierinvermont]

It would be nice if I didn't have to always point out your inconsistencies. That is what's tiresome.

Don't try to tell me you had this planned all along..."now it's time for Step 3 of Educating the Ignorant On Peer Review: journal shopping!"

Your smug and condescending attitude does little to further your points.

Before explaining to the likes of Bethesda the varying rigor of the peer-review of various journals and their respective influence and importance, I think it is essential to first grasp what peer-review actually is and why it is necessary don't you think?

When someone comes along and cites un-reviewed papers like Knox and Douglas, I'm not going to go into an in depth explanation of the differences between the peer-review process of various journals. I'm simply going to point out that Knox and Douglas is not peer-reviewed and explain why peer-review is important.

As usual, there is no inconsistency, only nuance which you fail to grasp.

[tacoman25]

You are exactly correct, lots of papers are published with methodology issues or analysis errors, some from lack of sufficient research and some because they had an error in a piece of code used in the analysis, and it was an honest mistake.

Once the paper is published, anyone in the community can author a response/comment to the paper addressing deficiencies or arguing that the analysis/conclusions are incorrect, and a lot of times there is a peer-reviewed back and forth between author and detractor.

You also have the case where someone made a mistake and must withdrawal a paper, an big paper by John Christy has to be withdrawal and he had to admit there was an error in the analysis, and it was an honest mistake. I work a lot in remote sensing of drought and evapotranspiration, several years ago a group wrote a paper that claimed the rainforest "greened up" during the South American drought of 2006, that has set up a number of papers disputing and defending this finding, even 4 years later there isn't a consensus on this topic.

Peer review isn't perfect (how many times can we say this?), most of the time 4 people make a decision on a paper, an editor and three anonymous reviewers, sometimes you pick the wrong reviewers, sometimes you pick 3 overworked faculty members during the school year who don't put the same amount of rigor into their review that they would expect of theirs papers. 4 people isn't a strong sample in any field, I think we can agree on that.

I'm a big fan of journal review system employed the European Geophysical Union (EGU), they have a hybrid (guess you could call it that) system, where a paper in review is published in a discussion form and sent to three anonymous reviewers, while the paper is in review (in discussion form), anyone in the community (assuming you have the necessary background/expertise) can issue a comment or review that the editor may take into account on how to proceed on a paper. Not to mention anyone can read the anonymous reviewers statement on the paper. The 3 reviewers hold a lot of weight, but the process is much more transparent than most other journals. Honestly, I'd like to see more journals adopt such a review system.

I don't know how often you frequent this forum, but this was something I have repeated often on here. Too often the attitude seemed to be: "It's peer-reviewed, that means it's right" or "He has peer-reviewed research, how could he be biased?", which I found overly simplistic and naive. Peer-review is obviously a good thing to have, but it is easily susceptible to human error and doesn't guarantee anything.

[skierinvermont]

I don't know how often you frequent this forum, but this was something I have repeated often on here. Too often the attitude seemed to be: "It's peer-reviewed, that means it's right" or "He has peer-reviewed research, how could he be biased?", which I found overly simplistic and naive. Peer-review is obviously a good thing to have, but it is easily susceptible to human error and doesn't guarantee anything.

Find me one instance in which the attitude 'peer-review = it's right" has been used on this forum. Otherwise I call BS. I have seen nobody present such an attitude on this forum. I know for a fact that Rusty and I have both stated that peer-review can be mistaken.

What I and others have insisted is that peer-review is the best representation of the current state of human knowledge. In other words, peer-review > no peer review.

[tacoman25]

Before explaining to the likes of Bethesda the varying rigor of the peer-review of various journals and their respective influence and importance, I think it is essential to first grasp what peer-review actually is and why it is necessary don't you think?

When someone comes along and cites un-reviewed papers like Knox and Douglas, I'm not going to go into an in depth explanation of the differences between the peer-review process of various journals. I'm simply going to point out that Knox and Douglas is not peer-reviewed and explain why peer-review is important.

As usual, there is no inconsistency, only nuance which you fail to grasp.

Why does it matter so much if "almost anyone can get peer-reviewed if they journal shop", as you claimed earlier in this thread? What value does the peer review process have then, and why didn't you make mention of this important point earlier? It doesn't add up.

[tacoman25]

Find me one instance in which the attitude 'peer-review = it's right" has been used on this forum. Otherwise I call BS. I have seen nobody present such an attitude on this forum. I know for a fact that Rusty and I have both stated that peer-review can be mistaken.

What I and others have insisted is that peer-review is the best representation of the current state of human knowledge. In other words, peer-review > no peer review.

See the Hansen thread and the one where wxtrixie went off...for starters.

[chris87]

I don't know how often you frequent this forum, but this was something I have repeated often on here. Too often the attitude seemed to be: "It's peer-reviewed, that means it's right" or "He has peer-reviewed research, how could he be biased?", which I found overly simplistic and naive. Peer-review is obviously a good thing to have, but it is easily susceptible to human error and doesn't guarantee anything.

I have never posted in this forum before this topic, but I believe you. I have "facepalmed" several papers from both sides of the debate.

That being said, it's kinda disheartening to begin posting on a forum and automatically have people called you biased because the first paper you comment on is from Roy Spencer. As I said before, I have far more concern for issues not related to the warming component of climate change. Maybe I have a broader definition of climate change, ...but it means a lot more to me than AGW.

[skierinvermont]

Why does it matter so much if "almost anyone can get peer-reviewed if they journal shop", as you claimed earlier in this thread? What value does the peer review process have then, and why didn't you make mention of this important point earlier? It doesn't add up.

Anyone can get peer-reviewed in an obscure journal if they journal shop. Not anybody can get peer-reviewed in a reputable rigorous journal. Peer-review has some value, and rigorous peer-review has even greater value. Do you need me to draw you a diagram?

[tacoman25]

I have never posted in this forum before this topic, but I believe you. I have "facepalmed" several papers from both sides of the debate.

That being said, it's kinda disheartening to begin posting on a forum and automatically have people called you biased because the first paper you comment on is from Roy Spencer. As I said before, I have far more concern for issues not related to the warming component of climate change. Maybe I have a broader definition of climate change, ...but it means a lot more to me than AGW.

Yeah, that is unfortunate. Thank you for taking the time to post here. Unfortunately, this issue is so politicized and polarized from both sides that it is hard to see the actual scientific issues sometimes.

[tacoman25]

Anyone can get peer-reviewed in an obscure journal if they journal shop. Not anybody can get peer-reviewed in a reputable rigorous journal. Peer-review has some value, and rigorous peer-review has even greater value. Do you need me to draw you a diagram?

I just find it odd that you wait until this thread to make such obvious observations. With all the emphasis placed on peer review in earlier discussions, not once did you mention that it actually was quite easy to get "peer-reviewed" and published, just not rigorously peer-reviewed and published.

All of the sudden you are full of new insight into the fine nuances of peer review.

[skierinvermont]

I just find it odd that you wait until this thread to make such obvious observations. With all the emphasis placed on peer review in earlier discussions, not once did you mention that it actually was quite easy to get "peer-reviewed" and published, just not rigorously peer-reviewed and published.

All of the sudden you are full of new insight into the fine nuances of peer review.

Incorrect. I have pointed this out in the past. True, most of the emphasis has been on getting certain posters to post something that is at least reviewed in some fashion, as opposed to completely un-reviewed nonsense from blogs written by amateurs. In the past, there was no need to go into any detail on the review process because certain posters were posting complete nonsense from blogs.

[tacoman25]

Incorrect. Actually I have in the past stated that not all peer-review is equally rigorous.

In the past I have spent the majority of my energy explaining why non-peer reviewed work is of little or no value. This does not imply that all peer-review work is correct, or that all peer-review is equal, only that it is of greater value than no review.

I certainly don't recall that. I also don't remember you ever dismissing a peer-reviewed research paper because of those reasons as you have in this thread.

[skierinvermont]

I certainly don't recall that. I also don't remember you ever dismissing a peer-reviewed research paper because of those reasons as you have in this thread.

Well I have. I also am not completely dismissing the Spencer paper, only calling into question the rigor with which it was reviewed, especially considering Spencer's history of publishing and blogging low quality material full of errors. To dismiss it entirely I would have to actually read it and/or a refutation of it.

[tacoman25]

Well I have. I also am not completely dismissing the Spencer paper, only calling into question the rigor with which it was reviewed, especially considering Spencer's history of publishing and blogging low quality material full of errors. To dismiss it entirely I would have to actually read it and/or a refutation of it.

Um, haven't you made a very clear distinction between certain scientists peer-reviewed work and their non-peer reviewed work? Do you not remember saying that only Hansen as a scientist should only be judged on his peer-reviewed work, despite some of the other things he has written/said?

But I'm glad you would wait to "dismiss entirely" Spencer's paper until after you actually read it. Sounds almost open-minded of you.

[chris87]

I will concede the following points: NOTE: line breaks got messed up in formatting if you see somewhere a space should be, don't assume I'm an idiot.

1) The Heartland Institute receiving oil funding is completely irrelevant to discussion of the methodology of the Spencer paper. That being said even Spencer agreed that the title of the Forbes op-ed was a bit sensational and not entirely grounded in truth. When dealing with the media, we can assume he didn't have editorial control of that title and I'll assume that wouldn't have been his first choice.

2) The blog posting from Real Climate is invalid until Trenberth and Fasullo publish a peer reviewed response to the Spencer paper; we can revisit their opinion when that is surely to occur.

3) You are correct, we have no idea who reviewed this paper and it's unfair to assume,would it had been my first choice of journals, no, but maybe it will become a more widely used journal for remote sensing-based climate studies. Spencer sent it there and they published it, case closed.

I’ll be the first to admit; I initially wasn’t being an objective scientist, with regards to my first impression of the paper.

So here is my review of the science, now that I conceded the three points you continue to harp on (which I agree have little to do with the actual paper at this time), we can move on to discussion of the methodology/conclusions:

Now, just some background, I printed off the paper yesterday, went to a coffee shopand pretended as though I was reviewing it, no Real Climate Blog or Roy Spencer Blog to reference. Just me and my feeble mind.

Finally,a full disclaimer, I'm not an expert in climate change, I'm an expert in remote sensing, but I deal more with the land surface than the climate system.However, as someone who publishes and reviews other papers regularly, I felt as though I could at least ascertain if this paper presents a scientifically sound methodology, states its conclusions with the necessary evidence, and identifies any possible shortcomings of the analysis.

Review:

As I said before, the Spencer paper found a problem, observations from CERES did not agree with the climate models.

I’m not as adverse to the “toy model” in theory, but I do have significant issues with how it was applied, it’s a highly tunable model which can give the user a result to their liking. I have a general rule in science (sorta an inside joke from grad school), if you can code up your mode'in Excel, it’s probably too simple. Spencer provides little transparency for this model and uses it to validate that the satellite observations are right and the climate models are wrong.

Why not address of the uncertainty of both the CERES data and the climate models? Spencer himself addressed this on his blog (no bodyget mad, it’s just a quote, but as a scientist a very telling one).

"Regarding uncertainties, it is another lame excuse. The reviewers did not feel like that was needed."

This quote was in response to someone asking Spencer why he provided no tests for significance for the difference he found in the CERES and climate models. Now as an objective scientist, I have to go into my review with an open mind and let the evidence speak for itself. I look at his results (see Fig. 3) and say, yes I agree those differences are pretty large, but you’re killing me, give me some errors bars, at least say in the text that you tested for significance. It’s such an easy test, basic statistics would have made this analysis untouchable to my review. I can only assume that the lack of a rigorous statistical analysis was omitted on purpose, therefore, I can’t honestly tell you if those differences are significant or are happening by chance.

Spencer shows the “most sensitive IPCC models” and “least sensitive IPCC models”, what was the spread of those two sets, when you don’t show error bars, how am I suppose to know if one outlier is skewing the mean away from the CERES data. Most scientists go out of their way to prove significance because they know if they don’t they’ll likely get hammered during review. Spencer says the reviewers told him he didn’t need this aspect, so I’ll take him on his word, but as a scientist he should had included it.

DISCLAIMER**MY OPINION** - I have to wonder if Spencer omitted the statistical analysis as bait to pro-AGW community so that they could attack his paper in the press,thus giving him more press. Maybe I’m a cynic at times, but I just can’t wrap my head around why if Spencer would choose to not include such an analysis. I’ll concede to Spencer that this is a problem with climate models, but I would have also liked for him to at least address the uncertainty of CERES observations and how he accounted for them in the analysis (another point which would hadbeen completely disregarded if he would had included error bars). Does this blow a hole in AGW? Not that I can see, is it an issue that needs further addressing? I believe so, we need to find ways to exploit satellite observations in climate studies, and we are finally getting to the point where we have satellite climatologies long enough to start to do some analysis.

In general, my review would have been accepted contingent on revisions, giving Spencer the opportunity to address, in my opinion, the necessary statistic alanalysis which provides the evidence for his claims. I would suggest downplaying the role of the simple “toy model” because I feel if he had included the statistical analysis; the “toy model” isn’t needed. If he chose to ignore my requests, mainly in the case of the statistical analysis, I would suggest rejection.

My response to BethesdaWx:

I feel compelled as an educator to at least address some the inaccuracies in your response. Let’s just call it a review, I’ll keep if civil, so don’t worry. Finally,I’ll only address the scientific inaccuracies in your response.

You say

“the model was “tuned” to the TERRA satellite data, hardly a problem unless you feel the TERRA satellite is off its [corrected for grammer] rocker.”

“In this case drift is not a major issue, and while there [corrected for grammar]are error bars on the TERRA satellite, they are not large enough to affect the conclusion of the analysis”

For some reason, you boldly state that Spencer’s toy model was “tuned” to the satellite data, you do understand what you just said, you are basically accusing Spencer of fabricating the results of the “toy model” to show that the satellite data is correct. I claimed I had problems with the simplicity and the ability to “tune” the toy model, but I won’t outright accuse Spencer of a large breach of scientific ethics. I’m going to assume you misspoke, the ability of the model to be “tuned” to match the satellite results was one of the large issues I had with the methodology, but only in the case where Spencer decided to omit a statistical analysis of the differences between CERES and the IPCC models. I do not believe that Spencer “tuned” his model to match CERES but on the other hand I don’t believe that in the absence of the necessary statistical analysis that this model does not bear the burden of proof that the differences in CERES and the IPCC model did not occur by chance.

If he had "tuned" his model to match the CERES data, this paper would had been outright rejected by any reviewer or editor.

TERRA is a satellite platform which hosts a number of sensors (these include MODIS,CERES, ASTER, MISR, and MOPITT), the sensor used in this analysis is CERES. So I assume you meant CERES, and not TERRA.

Therefore,TERRA doesn’t have any errors bars, that would be like saying the scaffolding of a flux tower holding a thermometer and an anemometer exhibited uncertainty. Your lack of even a basic understanding of the differences between TERRA and CERES does convince me that you have no idea of the relative uncertainty of the CERES dataset that is used in this paper. However, you do recognize that it does exhibit uncertainty; an uncertainty that should had been presented and addressed in the paper.

Finally you say,

“And I’ll say that the mainpoint of the paper is deciphering feedback mechanisms through changes within the climate system, rather than trying to disprove the IPCC models long term”

And to that I would agree withyour general statement. However, I would add that the Spencer found a difference in the CERES and IPCC models but as a reviewer I cannot say with full confidence that the results are statistically significant at any prescribed confidence level. I’m sure if he’s presented with a peer-reviewed response from someone that he may include it, because research like this is needed to improve the performance of the IPCC models, and satellite data is an important tool to consider in climate change research.

[skierinvermont]

Um, haven't you made a very clear distinction between certain scientists peer-reviewed work and their non-peer reviewed work? Do you not remember saying that only Hansen as a scientist should only be judged on his peer-reviewed work, despite some of the other things he has written/said?

But I'm glad you would wait to "dismiss entirely" Spencer's paper until after you actually read it. Sounds almost open-minded of you.

No I have never said that Hansen himself should be judged only on his peer-reviewed work. Hansen himself should be judged by the total of all his work. I have often said that some of his unscientific writings reflect poorly on him personally. Somehow you manage to skip right over such comments no matter how large or bold I make the type. What I've said is that his peer-reviewed science should be judged on its merits.

I would give Spencer the same standard. In the end, his peer-reviewed work (even if it is in an obscure journal) should be judged on the merits. I'm just saying, that without having read it I have my doubts given the obscurity of the journal and the low quality of some of Spencer's other work. I would probably hold a Hansen paper published in an obscure journal with the same apprehension as well prior to reading it.

[WeatherRusty]

If one looks only at the published paper, without reference to 3rd party interpretation, or even Dr. Spencer's discussions purportedly based on the paper, it is difficult to find the basis for the dispute surrounding this paper. The conclusions presented in the abstract and the paper's conclusion section clearly define the mission of this work to be an attempt to distinguish between the radiative flux resulting from feedback to the original external radiative forcing from radiative flux produced by internal variation likely due to ENSO induced cloud cover changes.

The conclusion of the paper is simply this, and I quote: "that the presence of time varying radiative

forcing in satellite radiative flux measurements corrupts the diagnosis of radiative feedback".

Since radiative feedback would be a measure of how sensitive the climate system is to perturbation, isolating this factor is of great importance. They simply arrive at the conclusion that determining this is not yet possible by means of OLR satellite observation. Climate models utilizing differing sensitivity values found by other means will arrive at disparate conclussions based on a range of suspected sensitivities.

"It is concluded that atmospheric feedback diagnosis of the climate system remains an unsolved problem, due

primarily to the inability to distinguish between radiative forcing and radiative feedback in

satellite radiative budget observations".

Now, none of this speaks to their methodology or other factors which may be subject to peer-review critique. Their conclusion is well founded based on their analysis. Whether or not the analysis was properly conducted is for others to decide.

[BethesdaWX]

1) The Heartland Institute receiving oil funding is completely irrelevant to discussion of the methodology of the Spencer paper. That being said even Spencer agreed that the title of the Forbes op-ed was a bit sensational and not entirely grounded in truth. When dealing with the media, we can assume he didn't have editorial control of that title and I'll assume that wouldn't have been his first choice.

thankyou. Yes Dr. Spencer stated on his blog that the Article was overblown.

2) The blog posting from Real Climate is invalid until Trenberth and Fasullo publish a peer reviewed response to the Spencer paper; we can revisit their opinion when that is surely to occur.

thankyou, and I look forward to reading their peer reviewed response, if they choose to do so.

You are correct, we have no idea who reviewed this paper and it's unfair to assume,would it had been my first choice of journals, no, but maybe it will become a more widely used journal for remote sensing-based climate studies. Spencer sent it there and they published it, case closed.

Thankyou. And I will say too I would have preferred to see the paper published maybe somewhere with a lengthier reputation.

I’ll be the first to admit; I initially wasn’t being an objective scientist, with regards to my first impression of the paper.

So here is my review of the science, now that I conceded the three points you continue to harp on (which I agree have little to do with the actual paper at this time), we can move on to discussion of the methodology/conclusions.

Review:

As I said before, the Spencer paper found a problem, observations from CERES did not agree with the climate models.

I’m not as adverse to the “toy model” in theory, but I do have significant issues with how it was applied, it’s a highly tunable model which can give the user a result to their liking. I have a general rule in science (sorta an inside joke from grad school), if you can code up your mode'in Excel, it’s probably too simple. Spencer provides little transparency for this model and uses it to validate that the satellite observations are right and the climate models are wrong.

Why not address of the uncertainty of both the CERES data and the climate models? Spencer himself addressed this on his blog (no bodyget mad, it’s just a quote, but as a scientist a very telling one).

"Regarding uncertainties, it is another lame excuse. The reviewers did not feel like that was needed."

This quote was in response to someone asking Spencer why he provided no tests for significance for the difference he found in the CERES and climate models. Now as an objective scientist, I have to go into my review with an open mind and let the evidence speak for itself. I look at his results (see Fig. 3) and say, yes I agree those differences are pretty large, but you’re killing me, give me some errors bars, at least say in the text that you tested for significance. It’s such an easy test, basic statistics would have made this analysis untouchable to my review. I can only assume that the lack of a rigorous statistical analysis was omitted on purpose, therefore, I can’t honestly tell you if those differences are significant or are happening by chance.

Spencer shows the “most sensitive IPCC models” and “least sensitive IPCC models”, what was the spread of those two sets, when you don’t show error bars, how am I suppose to know if one outlier is skewing the mean away from the CERES data. Most scientists go out of their way to prove significance because they know if they don’t they’ll likely get hammered during review. Spencer says the reviewers told him he didn’t need this aspect, so I’ll take him on his word, but as a scientist he should had included it.

DISCLAIMER**MY OPINION** - I have to wonder if Spencer omitted the statistical analysis as bait to pro-AGW community so that they could attack his paper in the press,thus giving him more press. Maybe I’m a cynic at times, but I just can’t wrap my head around why if Spencer would choose to not include such an analysis. I’ll concede to Spencer that this is a problem with climate models, but I would have also liked for him to at least address the uncertainty of CERES observations and how he accounted for them in the analysis (another point which would hadbeen completely disregarded if he would had included error bars). Does this blow a hole in AGW? Not that I can see, is it an issue that needs further addressing? I believe so, we need to find ways to exploit satellite observations in climate studies, and we are finally getting to the point where we have satellite climatologies long enough to start to do some analysis.

In general, my review would have been accepted contingent on revisions, giving Spencer the opportunity to address, in my opinion, the necessary statistic alanalysis which provides the evidence for his claims. I would suggest downplaying the role of the simple “toy model” because I feel if he had included the statistical analysis; the “toy model” isn’t needed. If he chose to ignore my requests, mainly in the case of the statistical analysis, I would suggest rejection.

Well you can actual email Dr. Spencer, he listed his email on the paper for any questions/problems. I for one can agree even if a statistical analysis is not absolutely necessary, when one is publishing a paper, it'd be very wise to include one more for validational purposed to persquade the contrarians/unconvinvced, and obviously it'd better the odds of publication in a higher end journal. I do not think based the differences at hand (models vs obs) that a statistical analysis was absolutely necessary, but It would have been better to include one.

My response to BethesdaWx:

I feel compelled as an educator to at least address some the inaccuracies in your response. Let’s just call it a review, I’ll keep if civil, so don’t worry. Finally,I’ll only address the scientific inaccuracies in your response.

You say

“the model was “tuned” to the TERRA satellite data, hardly a problem unless you feel the TERRA satellite is off its [corrected for grammer] rocker.”

“In this case drift is not a major issue, and while there [corrected for grammar]are error bars on the TERRA satellite, they are not large enough to affect the conclusion of the analysis”

For some reason, you boldly state that Spencer’s toy model was “tuned” to the satellite data, you do understand what you just said, you are basically accusing Spencer of fabricating the results of the “toy model” to show that the satellite data is correct. I claimed I had problems with the simplicity and the ability to “tune” the toy model, but I won’t outright accuse Spencer of a large breach of scientific ethics. I’m going to assume you misspoke, the ability of the model to be “tuned” to match the satellite results was one of the large issues I had with the methodology, but only in the case where Spencer decided to omit a statistical analysis of the differences between CERES and the IPCC models. I do not believe that Spencer “tuned” his model to match CERES but on the other hand I don’t believe that in the absence of the necessary statistical analysis that this model does not bear the burden of proof that the differences in CERES and the IPCC model did not occur by chance.

Thankyou for correcting me there actually I did mispeak in the model being "tuned to match observations", I was intending to convey that what Spencer's simple Forcing/Feedback model was displaying was (1) The IPCC's most sensitive/least sensitive models, and (2) Observations from the TERRA satellite in radiative release...not that any physics/methodologies used were "changed" to support what Observations show.

TERRA is a satellite platform which hosts a number of sensors (these include MODIS,CERES, ASTER, MISR, and MOPITT), the sensor used in this analysis is CERES. So I assume you meant CERES, and not TERRA.

The CERES sensor on the TERRA satellite/cluster, yes.

Therefore,TERRA doesn’t have any errors bars, that would be like saying the scaffolding of a flux tower holding a thermometer and an anemometer exhibited uncertainty. Your lack of even a basic understanding of the differences between TERRA and CERES does convince me that you have no idea of the relative uncertainty of the CERES dataset that is used in this paper.

The TERRA satellite includes the CERES beam...right? If CERES was being used, wouldn't you infer that is what I was speaking of?

However, you do recognize that it does exhibit uncertainty; an uncertainty that should had been presented and addressed in the paper.

Yes. When I read the paper I checked back to see if I had missed it. Obviously what the Observations show differential wise is very large...just look at the differences between the least/most sensitive IPCC models vs the Observations. Yes it should have been included but that doesn't change the fact that it very likely will not change the conclusion of the paper, it seems somewhat obvious.

I believe that is why the reviewers said "It is unecessary", simply because it is kind of eye-popping how significantly the deviations from the models actually are. And although I disagree with the "reviewers" in a scientically ideological sense, they are probably right.

[tacoman25]

No I have never said that Hansen himself should be judged only on his peer-reviewed work. Hansen himself should be judged by the total of all his work. I have often said that some of his unscientific writings reflect poorly on him personally. Somehow you manage to skip right over such comments no matter how large or bold I make the type. What I've said is that his peer-reviewed science should be judged on its merits.

I would give Spencer the same standard. In the end, his peer-reviewed work (even if it is in an obscure journal) should be judged on the merits. I'm just saying, that without having read it I have my doubts given the obscurity of the journal and the low quality of some of Spencer's other work. I would probably hold a Hansen paper published in an obscure journal with the same apprehension as well prior to reading it.

I said "Hansen as a scientist". Somehow you managed to skip right over that.

Do you not think it's possible that a scientist like Hansen who is considered the "father of AGW" might have an easier time getting peer-reviewed published than a relative outsider like Spencer? Or do you think science is completely above that?

[skierinvermont]

I said "Hansen as a scientist". Somehow you managed to skip right over that.

Do you not think it's possible that a scientist like Hansen who is considered the "father of AGW" might have an easier time getting peer-reviewed published than a relative outsider like Spencer? Or do you think science is completely above that?

Hansen can probably have his say in some less influential journals which might accept something from him rather than a nobody. I've seen some sub-standard work from him in less rigorous journals. But in terms of the major rigorous journals, they're not going to lower their standards for somebody like Hansen. Perhaps why Hansen's publishing in major journals has trailed off recently. Find me a paper by Hansen in a reputable journal which is sub-standard.

[ORH_wxman]

Hansen can probably have his say in some less influential journals which might accept something from him rather than a nobody. But in terms of the major rigorous journals, they're not going to lower their standards for somebody like Hansen. Perhaps why Hansen's publishing in major journals has trailed off recently. Find me a paper by Hansen in a reputable journal which is sub-standard.

Agreed...Hansen hasn't published any big papers in a long time (he's done a couple minor ones in the last few years in journals). He's written larger papers that he has posted but they were not peer reviewed...that has seemed to be his M.O. in recent years. He's getting older so its not a huge surprise anyway. His influence will fade more and more as we go along the next few years unless he changes course and writes something big that is peer reviewed that is also big news...but that is highly doubtful as much of what he says these days is far from anything that would pass the peer review process.