David M Hoffer's comment

[Sunsettommy]

From HERE

Quote:davidmhoffer says:
September 6, 2011 at 12:52 pm

Anthony,

Les Johnson did us all a great service by summarizing the sequence of events (to that point in time) which you then posted as the “Journal Deliverance” thread. I’d like to see that approach continue. This thread for example has plenty of good information in it, but unless one has followed ALL the details from beginning to end, much of it is out of context. Some readers have the big picture, but I suspect many are drowining in details and losing site of it. I haven’t them time to give credit where credit is due, nor research the exact dates of each event (perhaps Les would continue his yeoman’s work in that regard?) but here is my summary:

Some of the following is conjecture based on circumstancial evidence, but in my mind, no other logical explanation has arisen:

o Spencer and Braswell published a paper (SB11) which looked at satellite measurements of the earth’s radiative balance and concluded that the climate models were under estimating, to a significant degree, the amount of heat energy being lost to space.
o The paper was properly peer reviewed, flaws discovered in the peer review process which were corrected, and the paper was published in Remote Sensing.

o A few weeks later, the Editor-In-Chief of Remote Sensing, one Wolfgang Wagner, resigned, citing his objections to SB11 as the reason. Upon review, the reasons detailed in his resignation article on the Remote Sensing web site made little or no sense. Not one single fact presented in the SB11 paper was refuted, Wagner confirmed that the reviewers were qualified and from prestigious universities, speculating only that they “may” have held skeptical positions. The wording of the resignation, and the surrounding circumstances, suggest that Wagner attempted to have the SB11 paper retracted, failed to do so, and being unable to impose his will on Remote Sensing, resigned his position as Editor-In-Chief.

o The only portion of Wagner’s resignation that appears to be genuine is his claim that SB11 was not credible because the modeling community was not consulted about the results. While this appears to be a genuine statement on his part, the logic suggested is a fallacy. SB11 was the result of actual measurements. Models are beholden to actual measurements, not the other way around. Models are simulations of the real world, and when measurements of the real world are made, they stand on their own, because they are, in fact, measurments of the real world, not computer simulations of how some scientists think the world really works.

o Upon further investigation, it became apparent that Wagner’s position at Remote Sensing was largely that of figure head. His full time employment and day to day job is with the Vienna University of Technology, where he holds a position that stands at the cross roads of two important disciplines. These are listed on the VUoT web site as “remote sensing” and “environmental modeling and 3D modeling”. Wagner is listed as “physical modeling” and is depicted as the centre piece by which the three disciplines are integrated with each other.

o This makes the following logic chain plausible, and in the absence of any other logical explanation, likely. The SB11 paper presents actual measured data showing that the models are over estimating global warming, discrediting much of the CAGW propoganda in the process. Beholden to the modeling “camp” upon which cooperation with for his day to day job depends, Wagner was pressured into attempting to have the SB11 paper blocked or retracted. Having failed to do so, Wagner resigned, and his resignation article reads far more as an apology to the climate modeling community than as a professional resignation, and is clearly meant as an attempt to appease the climate modeling community which SB11 so clearly destroys the credibility of.

o Not long after Wagner’s resignation, Kevin Trenberth, a leading light in the climate modeling community, initiated a smear campaign against Dr Roy Spencer. The smear campaign included any number of criticisms of Spencer, Braswell, and (for some unknwon reason as he was not involved in SB11) Dr Christie. But astoundingly, not a single word about the science itself in SB11. More astoundingly still, Trenberth was not content to simply smear Spencer, Braswell, and Christie. He went on to brag about having recieved a personal apology from the Editor-In-Chief and the Publisher of Remote Sensing.

o Kevin Trenberth is, amongst other things, the chair (by acclamation, which shows his clout in the modeling community) of the prestigious GEWEX intitiative which seeks to model moisture levels on a global basis. Wagner in turn heads the soil moisture global modeling initiative at VUoT, which is directly beholden to GEWEX for day to day cooperation and integration of data with modeling, and without GEWEX support, Wagner’s soil moisture database would be in jeapourdy from a credibility stand point, if not from a fudning stand point.

o Logic dictates that this chain of events supports still more conclusions for which there is no alternative explanation that reasonably fits the facts and sequence of events. For starters, the wording of Trenberth’s smear campaign suggests that the Editor-In-Chief and the Publisher are two different people, when in fact, they are one and the same. Only a single apology was recieved, and it was from Wagner and only Wagner. The editorial board of Remote Sensing has clearly decided to stand behind their publication in general, and SB11 in particular. TRenberth in the meanwhile gloats that he has recieved and apology from Wagner, implies that it is from more than just Wagner when it clearly isn’t, and through his various comments, seems to be taking pride in destroying both SB11 and Wagner without raising a single solitary scientific fact in the process. Wagner’s resignation and apology are both panic stricken attempts to appease someone with more power than himself and regain that person’s favour.

o Trenberth’s one and only sop to actual science is to claim that the forthcoming paper from Dresller would eviscerate SB11. So now, here in this thread, we have excerpts from the paper, and the weight of many extremely qualified researchers to rely upon for analysis. The short version? Dressler’s paper makes a mockery of science, the scientific process, and flies in the face of the facts themselves.

o The Dressler paper is founded upon criticism of statements and claims never made by SB11. In some places it actually refutes itself. The analysis is restricted to a time period in which almost no measurable change in temperature has occurred, and concludes that SB11 is wrong as a result, and the models right. the simplest of persons should be able to see straight through this concoction of misrepresented facts and logic. The models have all predicted massive temperature increases over that exact time period, and have ALL BEEN WRONG. To suggest that measurements showing WHY they are wrong can be negated by the fact that the time period in question exhibted no significant change IN DIRECT OPPOSITION TO WHAT THE MODELS PREDICTED is repugnant beyond words. They may as well have told a man dying of thirst in the middle of the Sahara that it is pouring rain, and when he gasps that he sees no rain, just blue sky and sand, respond back that his perception of the real world must be wrong, and had he bothered to consult with the models, he would be able to understand, silly fool that he is, that it is in fact pouring rain.

o WaterGate was a cover up which lent its name to many cover ups since then, possibly the most notable being the ClimateGate emails. But this entire affair goes well beyond a cover up. Wagner’s resignation and his apology to Trenberth are clearly the results of a cowardly attempt to appease the climate modeling community in general, and Trenberth in particular. In doing so, Wagner has destroyed his own credibility as a scientist, and exposed the power that Trenberth and his allies are prepared to wield in order that their climate models be accepted as reality, while reality itself is discredited. In neither WaterGate nor ClimateGate however, did the authors of the dirty deeds gloat, in fact brag, publicly, about what they did. Trenberth’s smear campaign, and Dressler’s idiotic attack on things that SB11 never said, while strictly avoiding what SB11 DID say, are not a cover up. They are a demand that the man dying of thirst in the Sahara believe that it is raining because their computer models say it is, and that he should apologise to them for both dying and being thirsty.

o Trenberth has publicly admitted that his models cannot account for “the missing heat”, a matter which he dubbed a “travesty”. Faced with clear measurements of exactly where the missing heat is going, the one option that Trenberth refuses to consider, that the heat is escaping to space instead of being retained as his models claim, Trenberth has stooped low enough to scratch the belly of a snake. He, along with Dressler, have proclaimed the very lack of warming that disproves their dearly beloved models is at the same time proof that their models are right in the face of actual measurements showing not only that they are wrong, but where the “missing heat” they themselves admit has gone. Nixon had the guts to proclaim on national television that he wasn’t a crook. Not even Nixon would have had the guts to proclaim himself a crook, and innocent as a consequence of being a crook.

o This is no “gate” nor “travesty”. Stronger words than that are needed.

[Scpg02.]

wonderful piece!