The paper that we wrote about in this Skeptical Science post, which I reposted here, has now been retracted. In case people don’t remember, the paper was [a] critical assessment of extreme events trends in times of global warming, and it review[ed] recent … time series of some extreme weather events and related response indicators in order to understand whether an increase in intensity and/or frequency is detectable. Based on their analysis, they concluded that the climate crisis that, according to many sources, we are experiencing today, is not evident yet.
As we point out in this post, it was a very poor paper that essentially cherry-picked some indicators that suited their narrative, and ignored lots of other evidence that challenges it. Also, whether or not we’re in a climate crisis is really a judgement that scientific evidence alone cannot determine. It really is a paper that probably shouldn’t have been published in the first place, especially not in a journal that doesn’t, as far as I’m aware, typically cover this topic.
Of course, this retraction has got the usual suspects up in arms, with claims that this is an abuse of the peer-review process and that climate science is as deeply politicized as ever. This seems to be because some climate scientists and journalists were publicly critical of the paper and called for it to be withdrawn. Whether you agree with them, or not, people are perfectly entitled to express their views. They certainly didn’t somehow force one of the world’s leading scientific publishers to meekly obey.
To be honest, I do find myself somewhat conflicted here. It seems clear that the paper was horribly flawed and probably shouldn’t have been published in the first place. However, having been published, I’m not sure that the correct thing to do is retract it. It might be better to leave it and elicit responses. However, these responses never seem to have much effect, so maybe it is better to simply retract it and move on.
That might encourage journal editors to be a little more careful when publishing papers with potentially controversial anlyses and conclusions. This isn’t to say that they shouldn’t be published, just that it’s worth making sure that they’re thoroughly, and carefully, reviewed before doing so. Of course, whether we should retract these kind of papers, or leave them and encourage responses, these kind of occurrences will always be exploited by (dis)honest brokers.
...and Then There's Physics 
You wonder “It might be better to leave it and elicit responses.” but I see it still is accessible, just with a notice at the top that it’s been retracted. I skimmed it and it does look like “let’s pick some things, present them and then simply state our take” rather than a rigorous review.
So I jumped to the Conclusions section and it appears they’ve achieved a synthesis of the Lomborg and the Curry go-to statements (Bjorn’s weighted to-do list always somehow skipping climate change, and Judy’s pet uncertainty monster), and laid on top the new “you’re scaring the children”, that’s popular now.
Funny how some people seem to think it’s the change that upsets the kids, but they don’t seem to consider that the kids are upset because they are watching so many adults actively try to make things worse. Yet the anti-action groups ignore that young people are upset by the deception, the foot-dragging and strenuous effort to protect the source of harm rather than protect those at risk.
I’d seen one anti-climate-science groups’ Wikipedia profile suddenly turned into a glowing myth of scientific integrity and good news, but Stoat fixed that, and noted the angry response that came back seemed to essentially blame realistic assessment of climate change as scaring kids, implying that lying to them about it is the responsible fix.
Another part of the approach in this paper is the way techno-optimism is applied so unevenly. Happy optimism that we’ll keep our streak of feeding most people going, because technology. Ditto with keeping our infrastructure intact, keeping too many people dying in disasters. But never allow that optimism to apply to rapid decarbonization using our existing, and rapidly improving, technology. That has to be labeled, in advance, and somehow with full (incorrect) certainty, as “costly and ineffective solutions”. And never mind that the goals of energy, agriculture and health will all benefit from replacing fire as our source of energy.
Indeed. There do seem to be people who think we can deal with any challenge apart from the challenge of rapidly decarbonising energy systems.
Note that retracting this has not made it disappear – it has just removed the publisher’s and Journal’s endorsement and replaced it with a caveat emptor. Basically, Springer is saying “you can read this if you want, but we realize now that it is most likely crap”.
As one who strongly believes that technology will enable decarbonization as well as improvements in living conditions in almost every area, I can only justify my Cornucopian optimism by quoting Macauley: “On what principle is it that with nothing but improvement behind us, we are to expect nothing but deterioration before us?’
I quibble that we are forcing the pace of change, increasing the costs of decarbonization and perhaps committing ourselves too soon to solutions that are not the best, but those really are quibbles.
Pielke wrote in his Substack article asking for comments, forgetting that only PAID subscribers can comment. Grift. Suggest commenting over at PubPeer, where someone is doing post-mortem resuscitation using Pielke’s article suggesting “corruption of the peer review process”
https://pubpeer.com/publications/516C947FCF110B57BBFEFE4D57AAD8
I also believe this is possible. I just don’t think it’s going to happen by accident. That’s not to say that we shouldn’t be cautious of policy-makers trying to influence the direction too much. However, there are serious risks associated with continuing to emit GHGs into the atmosphere and there are strong arguments (IMO) for trying to actively incentivise alternatives.
It was interesting to read suggestions that the authors should have been contacted re problems before public critique.
I remember asking Nic why he didn’t follow that procedure and he answered that contacting the authors first would be embarrassing for them. Seemed like odd logic to me. And I don’t recall “skeptics” objecting to Nic starting with public critiques.
Joshua, The way PubPeer.com works is that the post-peer-reviewed authors are emailed automatically if any critique of their publication shows up on a PubPeer page. And any published article with a DOI code will have an automatically-generated unique entry so all reviews will be in one place. I don’t think there is a concept of private commenting intended only for the author. Email would suuffice for that.
So, Curry appears to be one of the reviewers of this paper. Makes one wonder about the peer review process of this atypical (for climate science) journal. At least for this paper. Crappy paper by non-experts gets published due to positive reviews by questionable reviewers in a non-climate science journal. Journal editors then take due notice and review their peer review process and find out that that review process was not optimal.
I also think a reasonably good paper could be written on non-trends to date as shown in the IPCC AR6.
I also question the basic how bad is it going to be argument based on what we know transpired between the LGM and PI, which appears to be a non-critical rise in temperatures and subsequent SLR. Rinse and repeat.
So, Curry appears to be one of the reviewers of this paper
Curry seems to be on a mission to support literally anything that challenges established climate science, regardless of quality or even basic credibility. It’s pretty embarrassing.
The same seems to be the case for RPJ. Contrarians unite, I guess.
Hmmm. You have to wonder how the original reviewers were selected.
The following page gives indications of how Springer deals with the peer-review process:
https://www.springer.com/gp/editorial-policies/peer-review-policy-process
Two portions of that document are interesting:
and
I have not dug deeply into the specific journal to see if it has specific policies, but there is at least the potential that the authors suggested friendly reviewers. If the editor was unfamiliar with the field, (s)he may have accepted reviewers suggested by the authors without knowing the biases.
Look. It’s not like contrarians want good science. They do.
Even then, we know at least since 1994 that it may fail to provide ‘usable information’ on which policy decisions relating to global change can be based.
But suppose that it would provide usable information. That does not mean it gives us short term benefits. And we know since at least 2006 that we need those short term benefits. Adaptation is the keyword here, and the question is whether we can organize our intellectual infrastructure to invent and bring forward policy and technological options that will satisfy both the short-term and long-term facets of this incredibly complex issue, whatever we might mean by that.
But suppose we adapt. What good will it be when scientific INTEGRITY ™ is dropping day after day? Et cetera.
And round and round we go.
Is that confirmed? If true, there’s the blame as the opinion section (Conclusion) should have been flagged by a reviewer following the guidelines.
Maybe I missed something above – what is it that indicates Judith was a reviewer?
Sorry Paul, for some reason I missed your earlier comment.
She doubtless did it for a friend.
There’s no way Judith would engage in pal review
Judy would never:
> Listen: Climatologist Dr. Judith Curry on The Marc Morano Show – 26 August 2023 | TNT Radio
Source: https://twitter.com/ClimateDepot/status/1695790307915202888
For those who are new here:
https://www.desmog.com/marc-morano/
Junior’s substack in the comments. For clarification, as a reviewer of the addendum as far as I know. In other words, after this paper came under the editorial review process. Sorry for any confusion of, by or for me.
But the question remains who exactly brought Curry into the editorial discussion and why?
I don’t consider Curry or Junior climate scientists per se (very biased observers to be sure and that should be enough of a red flag to get them excluded from so-called apolitical discussions of this nature) and on extreme events I would seek out IPCC authors or other subject matter experts on extreme events to begin with in the first place.
Willand,
They made her do it in 2016:
I’m sure people will criticize me for participating in this, but then these are the people that have pretty much already sent me to Coventry, so . . . so what
I expect they still are now.
I don’t consider Curry or Junior climate scientists per se
oh please, lets not start stupid credentialism.
My sense is the real question is “how did this get published.
and then
who reviewed it ?
It would be great if reviewers had a public Key they could sign reviews with
that gave us security and anonymity.
reviewer ec4ff76342e11be2592cc5e5689eb03ca4c995af6c17245318725f221008f677
is me.
other readers could then judge my reviewing
and you basically earn a reputation. like an uber driver or air bnb tenet.
lets start with the basic premise that scintific publishing is broken.
ATTP wrote
“Before addressing what was presented in this paper, it’s worth making some general comments. Not only is there overwhelming agreement that humans are causing global warming (Cook et al. 2013; Cook et al. 2016), the latest IPCC report went so far as to say that it is now unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land since pre-industrial times (Eyring et al. 2021). However, whether or not this implies a climate crisis, or a climate emergency, is a judgement that cannot be decided by a scientific analysis alone.”
This is all well and good.
especially “climate emergency, is a judgement that cannot be decided by a scientific analysis alone.”
we might then ask ourselves how the terms crisis and emergency came to appear in scietific literature, if at all.
Said the person with no cred! 😀
Steven,
I don’t really have a problem with it being in the scientific literature. I do think, though, that it’s worth being clear that it depends on a judgement that could be based on the scientific evidence, but it can’t be determined by the scientific evidence alone.
We might also ask ourselves how “But CAGW” became the central square of the Climateball Bingo. Which reminds me:
Source: https://climateaudit.org/2006/10/30/stern-review/#comment-68571
Almost 17 years ago. Time flies like an arrow, and flying monkeys like to go bananas.
[i]thomaswfuller2 says:
As one who strongly believes that technology will enable decarbonization as well as improvements in living conditions in almost every area, . . .[/i]
Greenhouse gases are fundamentally an economic (negative) externality, that is, the cost of emissions is broadly borne by persons who are not directly benefitting from the emissions. As such there is market failure resulting from this externality in that there is no inherent market force driving a shift in technology absent societal intervention of some sort.
I expect there’s no one here who doesn’t believe “technology will enable decarbonization”, but that isn’t the issue. The issue is what mechanism drives that change.
Anders –
> I don’t really have a problem with it being in the scientific literature. I do think, though, that it’s worth being clear that it depends on a judgement that could be based on the scientific evidence, but it can’t be determined by the scientific evidence alone.
+1
I don’t think it’s inherently unscientific to label something as a crisis.
For example, I’d imagine that relatively few who object to scientists talking of a climate crisis object to researchers talking of a “replicatjon crisis.”
I happen to often object to the latter term being used; not because it’s inherently objectionable to do so, it because it’s often used without any quantification or definition of how “crisis m” is being used. Seems to me the same criteria should be in play for the use of “climate crisis.”. It’s an inherently subjective assessment. Scientists are allowed to be subjective (how could you prevent it?). What’s critical is how they contextualize subjective assessments, imo.
Said the person with no cred!
sorry but I see nothing to be gained in arguments about credentials.
saying that Judith isnt a climate scientist merely because she holds some wrong positions or whatever criteria you use is ultimately self defeating.
its like the stupid arguments that Mann isnt a statistician.
now of course if Mann told me 2+2 =4 I wouldnt ask for his credentials
and if judith told me rain was wet I wouldnt ask to see her bonifides.
sadly I cant read the paper or her review so I cant judge the adequacy of her review
or the responses to the review.
evidence? we dont need evidence just a copy of your CV will do.
In any case I had to go on WUWT to correct them. they saw ghosts of climategate in this episode, messing up key facts.
will somebody please castigate Junior so the ritual can end. burn the witch and stone Junior.
=
To be fair, I’m not a fan of playing credentialism either. I think someone’s credentials do provide some info, but there are clearly people with extremely impressive credentials who promote utter nonsense, and people with weak credentials who are very well-informed.
will somebody please castigate Junior so the ritual can end. burn the witch and stone Junior.
Yeah, they’re definitely the victims here.
On a slightly more serious note, there’s a very long and (occasionally ig-)noble tradition of academic feuds and contrarianism. No field is complete without those who continually snipe from the sidelines, often driven by personal animosity but also by a restless refusal to accept a settled narrative.
In general this is no bad thing, keeping the mainstream on their toes and gossip in the Senior Common Room interesting. The only difference in climate science is that the contrarian snipers get to testify to congress; not an opportunity open to those who propose a Marxist dialctic as the best analysis for the Schleswig-Holstein question.
I respect those that publish in the peer reviewed literature for the most part. Espically those that choose to become domain or subject matter experts who publish in the peer reviewed literature. Everyone else are just jokers including myself. Kind of what it was like before the Internet and social media.
But I guess Internet sleuthing is a thingie now.
Did someone say Twitter citizen scientists …
Hmmmm. The “link” to the retracted paper at the top of the OP gives me the correct pop-up link at the bottom of my browser, but clinking on the link takes me to some go.skimresources.com “page not found” location. I hope that’s not me…
The link used to work, and the Springer page still exists.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1140/epjp/s13360-021-02243-9
…but the point I want to make (again, I made it earlier) is that the paper has not been “disappeared”. It’s still there, just with a new label on it. (“Retracted”.)
Anyone that is screaming “censorship!” is frankly, full of $#!^. Nobody is stopping anyone from reading the material in the paper. Just like labeling a cigarette package “may cause cancer” is not preventing anyone from smoking. Springer has changed their opinion on the quality of the paper, and is letting the world know via Springer’s own web page. Free speech, and all that.
….and, well, when certain individuals turn this into a cause celebre about how hard done by these poor scientists that turn out crappy papers are, then they lose any “cred” they might have deserved.
Judith has blogged about the issue of “climate crankology ” for years:
https://vvattsupwiththat.blogspot.com/2021/12/the-slow-emergence-of-crank-consensus.html
And , like ATTP, made it clear that she has no objection to the publication of of controversial results in the geophysics literature:
https://vvattsupwiththat.blogspot.com/2018/04/well-at-least-its-not-flat.html
Another manual pingback:
https://pubpeer.com/publications/516C947FCF110B57BBFEFE4D57AAD8#14
I left a comment:
I expect it will be desk rejected, but then I’m sure our “concerned” puppet can read this comment.
So it was. I changed it to:
Readers might notice that Junior’s fan uses the “Just” stance. Not expressing a point of view. Just pointing out “some interesting information” that “suggests” nothing less than corruption.
Oh, and FVTEO (VT being Very Tall):
Source: https://judithcurry.com/2023/09/01/geophysical-consequences-of-celestial-mechanics/
Astrology to the rescue of the Contrarian Matrix!
JC has made clear her view of the Tao of chaotic atmospheric and celestial mechanics:
“Tai Chi & Qigong… don’t entirely repulse the monkey, but manage the monkey while nourishing the tortoise… ”
https://vvattsupwiththat.blogspot.com/2022/12/if-ipcc-is-yin-are-galactic-cosmic-rays.html
re: https://judithcurry.com/2023/09/01/geophysical-consequences-of-celestial-mechanics/
The 3 authors of that Curry blog post are indeed associated with the Paris Observatory and the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service
https://hpiers.obspm.fr/
which is a goto place for that kind of information — LOD, Chandler wobble, leap second tracking, etc. Somewhat equivalent to NASA JPL, which handles ephemeris for solar system dynamics and lots of geophysics data. The center that they work from IPGP (Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris) may be distinct from IERS though, which may be important.
There’s some history of rogue scientists with Paris IERS and NASA JPL connections publishing bleeding-edge ideas. One of the most infamous is the LOD connection to climate which first emerged from U of Paris in 197 with the paper “Long Term Variations in the Length of Day and Climatic Change”. I find regular citations to this work, from JPL scientists to Curry’s “stadium wave” post.
What I do find strange however in that Curry post is that the authors are quick to attach planetary (ie, celestial in the title) influence to the Earth’s geophysics, yet nothing is mentioned about the 1st-order impact of lunisolar forces which is much stronger by at least 2-orders of magnitude than the planets have (just look at tidal tables for evidence of the weak celestial forcing). So not sure what is going on, but will be interesting to track their findings.
That’s interesting Paul. I had come across the name of that institute (Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris) as a source of data when I reviewed a rather poor paper by Ziskin and Shaviv that claimed to have found an indirect solar effect. They claimed it explained much of the recent (past century) warming. Ziskin and Shaviv used an index of geomagnetic activity (the AA index) as a proxy for their Previously Undiscovered Indirect Solar Effect. The way they used the index was pretty bogus, though.
My full review is available here:
https://skepticalscience.com/from-email-bag-ziskin-shaviv.html
I would not blame the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris for the way that Ziskin and Shaviv used their data, but the connection popped into my mind reading your comment.
For what it’s worth, Fernando says he’s at the MNHN, but for some reason I can’t find him over there.
I had a Twitter exchange with Nir Shaviv recently but he eventually blocked me. He’s dogmatic in the extreme for a cosmic ray (CR) connection to climate change.
Paul and Bob, thoughts on the new “important” work actually affecting our climate beyond a noise factor? If Jovian planets are supposed to have an impact, the very close conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn on Dec. 21, 2020 might have left a signal. Or is this more likely to be similar to the Zharkova paper – taking a solar-system work and extrapolating it to Earth without also including GHGs?
A note on that one, Valentina Zharkova published an editorial in some physiology journal, Temperature, in August 2020, “Modern Grand Solar Minimum will lead to terrestrial cooling”. This was after the retraction of the “Oscillations of the baseline of solar magnetic field and solar irradiance on a millennial timescale” paper, but instead references her 2015 solar-dynamo paper.
I wonder how the physiology experts took it, among all the articles that are in their field of work. Last line:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23328940.2020.1796243
It turns out she’d been invited to comment (without troublesome peer review, I suppose) by the journal’s editor-in-chief, Andrej A. Romanovsky. In his remarks, he mantions this:
Of course there are other approaches… I wonder at his reaction if Nature Climate Change invited an editorial by someone proposing human thermoregulation in high temperatures is driven by thinking about Pluto, not by evaporation of sweat?
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23328940.2020.1818914
On 23 August, Judy did some serious denying on Marc Morano’s radio show :
https://tntradiolive.podbean.com/e/dr-judith-curry-on-the-marc-morano-show-26-august-2023/
b:
A Jupiter-Saturn conjunction has minimal impact on the Earth compared to the Moon and Sun’s impact via conventional tidal forces. The argument then is that the planets has an effect on the Sun’s magneto-hydrodynamics and the number of sunspots due to that has an effect on the Earth’s climate. Yet, it’s not a purely energy argument, but one of differential output of wavelengths, with an excess of cosmic rays that then seed clouds differently, which is the Shaviv, Svensmark model. They need this to amplify the effects because radiated energy alone is too minor a variation.
The LOD finding is completely separate from this. You can find more recent descriptions from rogue NASA JPL scientists such as Marcus, here
“Does an Intrinsic Source Generate a Shared Low-Frequency Signature in Earth’s Climate and Rotation Rate?”
https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/eint/20/4/ei-d-15-0014.1.xml, but this is a radically different interpretation than given by Curry’s U of Paris authors.
> A Jupiter-Saturn conjunction has minimal impact on the Earth
C’mon, Web:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_conjunction
A great conjunction is powerful stuff.
Please don’t make me quote astrology dot com.
As Reviewer B, I am in agreement with Willard on this one, this Curry Fruitcakes stuff only serves as a deflection.
Oh and Alimonti too for that matter.
Oh and two, “They took our jobs.” is now “AI took our jobs.” turns out that AI’s are better humorists too! 😀
Thanks Paul. So effects come via the sun’s response to the big planets, and since all the pieces have been in place for a very long time, I’m guessing that it’s unlikely that any research would turn up any powerful influence on our climate system that hasn’t been cycling through for a very long time.
With length of day, that’s already being affected by redistribution of ice mass and groundwater into the oceans, so it would be multiple dueling effects. LOD in the news lately, though, I still haven’t read the July 5th one in ScienceAdvances about Earth day being 19.5 hours for a very long time as a warmer atmosphere gave the sun something to spin:
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.add2499
Willard – the triple conjunctivitis is to be feared, too!
The LOD data shows the Earth being jerked about wildly by the fortnightly lunar cycle, a faster delta LOD sinusoidally alternating with a slower delta LOD. Yet when the rapid change is integrated over time, +/- drift is observed that is accommodated by known long-period tidal factors, such as the 18.6 year nodal cycle, but also some uncharacterized LOD movements that some think is attributed to mantle or glacial ice changes changing the Earth’s angular moment of inertia I.
That’s the thing about LOD drift, in that the forces do not have to be large, just persistent as a gradual trend or modulation. For example, Marcus showed how it matches the AMO multidecadal swings. That’s why long-term trends in LOD are looked at closely, as CO2 certainly adds a long-term trend.
Pingback: È fondamentale non dare più spazio ai negazionisti climatici: la nostra risposta a un lettore di Valigia Blu sull’articolo dei quattro fisici italiani ritirato dalla casa editrice – Red Viper News
Since we’re on to planets (what fun!), I’ll skip apologizing for going OT (though on topic for revealing the devastating and dangerous truth, with pith and verve):
Well-known Wittemberg astrologer Doctor Faustus reportedly remarked :
What chariots, what horses
Against us dare ride.
When the stars in their courses
Abide on our side?
Well well well:
I suppose we’ll have a new post soon 🙂
Otherwise I’m working on one called Scientific Shenanigans.
Stay tuned.
Much better still:
As ChrisV wrote on the Bluesky:
“it’s almost as if this essay omitted much of the story to stick to a narrative the editors [i.e. Bari] would like”
Source: https://bsky.app/profile/verm.me/post/3k6qmfcmbpm2t
OK, one more:
It may be relevant that Brown began writing the paper at UCal San Jose , but segued into the Breakthrough Institute, an establishment of fairly opposite policy bias in the year and a half from its submission to the present.
Paul, I can see how LOD changes the daytime/nighttime temperature balance, but surely warming the Earth by tens of degrees C just by changing the rate the top spins violates the second law of thermodynamics? Energy in hasn’t changed, and energy out depends on temperature at the top of the IR-opaque zone. And the gradient from that hot surface to there remains limited by the lapse rate. Their model Earth would be convecting like crazy and radiating like an infrared lamp. It would cool back down in next to no time, geologically.
Methinks there’s a bait and switch, or just a schoolboy error, hiding somewhere in the equations.
How long before the ABC crowd shoehorn it into their bullshit?
It’s an oops day all right. First Law.
Pingback: Scientific Shenanigans | …and Then There's Physics