Earlier in the week I received a note from Jan Pompe suggesting I might be interested in the editorial of the most recent issue of the journal of the American Physical Society. It included comment that:
“There is a considerable presence within the scientific community of people who do not agree with the IPCC conclusion that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are very probably likely to be primarily responsible for the global warming that has occurred since the Industrial Revolution. Since the correctness or fallacy of that conclusion has immense implications for public policy and for the future of the biosphere, we thought it appropriate to present a debate within the pages of P&S concerning that conclusion.”
A first contribution was by well known climate change skeptic Christopher Monckton. A link and some comment was posted at this blog to the article entiled Climate Sensitivity Reconsidered.
I was hopeful that at last maybe there would now be some opportunity for real debate and discussion amongst a mainstream community with some understanding of the relevant science. But just tonight I was copied the following letter from Christopher Monckton to the President of the society at Stanford University complaining that his paper is now prefaced with a warning …
“The editors of Physics and Society, a newsletter of the American Physical Society, invited me to submit a paper for their July 2008 edition explaining why I considered that the warming that might be expected from anthropogenic enrichment of the atmosphere with carbon dioxide might be significantly less than the IPCC imagines.
I very much appreciated this courteous offer, and submitted a paper. The commissioning editor referred it to his colleague, who subjected it to a thorough and competent scientific review. I was delighted to accede to
all of the reviewer’s requests for revision (see the attached reconciliation sheet). Most revisions were intended to clarify for physicists who were not climatologists the method by which the IPCC evaluates climate sensitivity – a method which the IPCC does not itself clearly or fully explain. The paper was duly published, immediately
after a paper by other authors setting out the IPCC’s viewpoint. Some days later, however, without my knowledge or consent, the following appeared, in red, above the text of my paper as published on the website of Physics and Society:
“The following article has not undergone any scientific peer review. Its conclusions are in disagreement with the overwhelming opinion of the world scientific community. The Council of the American Physical Society
disagrees with this article’s conclusions.”
This seems discourteous. I had been invited to submit the paper; I had submitted it; an eminent Professor of Physics had then scientifically reviewed it in meticulous detail; I had revised it at all points requested, and in the manner requested; the editors had accepted and published the reviewed and revised draft (some 3000 words longer than
the original) and I had expended considerable labor, without having been offered or having requested any honorarium.
Please either remove the offending red-flag text at once or let me have the name and qualifications of the member of the Council or advisor to it who considered my paper before the Council ordered the offending text to be posted above my paper; a copy of this rapporteur’s findings and ratio decidendi; the date of the Council meeting at which the findings were presented; a copy of the minutes of the discussion; and a copy of the text of the Council’s decision, together with the names of those present at the meeting. If the Council has not scientifically evaluated or formally considered my paper, may I ask with what credible scientific justification, and on whose authority, the offending text asserts primo, that the paper had not been scientifically reviewed when it had; secundo, that its conclusions disagree with what is said (on no evidence) to be the “overwhelming opinion of the world scientific community”; and, tertio, that “The Council of the American Physical Society disagrees with this article’s conclusions”? Which of my conclusions does the Council disagree with, and on what scientific grounds (if any)?
Having regard to the circumstances, surely the Council owes me an apology?
Yours truly,
THE VISCOUNT MONCKTON OF BRENCHLEY.”
The Society should not only apologize to Christopher Monckton, it should remove the “warning” and reread its editorial.
SJT says
“VISCOUNT”? Yeah. So take that.
Sorry
“THE VISCOUNT”.
Louis Hissink says
The scientific mafia at its best.
David Stove opined also on this elsewhere.
Jan Pompe says
Louis: “The scientific mafia at its best.”
I thought it a bit cheeky too. It’s interesting that it was reviewed by at least one person which is more than could be said for the other paper it’s quite rough. Even Arthur Smith has commented on that at CA.
CoRev says
The Scientific Mafia are a strong bunch. I note that Joe Romm author of Climate Progress (I refuse to put its URL here) is mounting a letter writing campaign to the several layers of private sector bosses of the P&S editor. You know, that poor (no brave) soul who started this wrestling match.
How can this be science if no open discussion/debate can be tolerated?
CoRev, editor
http://globalwarmingclearinghouse.blogspot.com
Jan Pompe says
CoRev joe who?
“How can this be science if no open discussion/debate can be tolerated?”
it can’t be and it isn’t.
jetstream says
“”VISCOUNT”? Yeah. So take that.
Sorry
“THE VISCOUNT”.
+++++++
What’s your point, sjt?
“The Viscount” is the correct way of using the title when signing documents.
James Mayeau says
So you mean to say that after they solicit a scientific article, it isn’t standard operating procedure for the editors of Physics and Society to trash the invited participant?
I must say that’s a relief. For a minute there I though we were dealing with low down, unscrupulous, stab you in the back, bushwackers.
Their disclaimer would carry a bit more weight if it wasn’t a regurgitation of every appeal to authority I ever read in the local paper the last 20 or so years.
Eyrie says
Jetstream, SJT doesn’t have a point. He’s just a resident troll, drooling. Unfortunately he doesn’t do it quietly.
James Mayeau says
Here let me make the point for STJ. The Viscount’s paper looks to me much like the amalgam of topics I would expect if I visited Coyoteblog and typed in “global warming” as search criteria. Monckton could have used an editor – a minimalist editor.
After reading through it I found myself thinking “Christopher – pick a topic then stick with it”
But on the other hand there is a touch of genius to the notion of giving a stodgy old socialist boys club for men a dose of what they have been giving the world – via the IPCC. Throwing everything and the kitchen sink at the physicists of the world – when the physicists have been basicly asleep at the wheel letting the UN and Al Gore make a mockery of this topic – does have a certain charm.
SJT says
“”The Viscount” is the correct way of using the title when signing documents.”
See, you got it wrong, it’s “THE VISCOUNT”. CAPS PLEASE.
SJT says
“But on the other hand there is a touch of genius to the notion of giving a stodgy old socialist boys club for men ”
I thought I was supposed to be the troll.
Neville says
The best bits are yet to come.
Grain by grain the people are gradually waking up to this fraud, but let’s look at some of the facts that anyone with a modicom of commonsense can understand.
The little ice age that had endured for hundreds of years ended around 1850. Get it ENDED so obviously the temperature starts to rise DUH.
The twentieth century had a solar activity not seen in the previous 11,000 years and most experts would say that this had to have some effect on the earth’s rising temperature.
Yes after the war a lot more co2 was finding its way into the atmosphere but remember the temperature dropped from 1945 to 1978 so it took another 30+ years before the temperature started to climb again.
From 1978 to 1998 the temperature and co2 increased again but has since levelled off and has dropped for the last year and a half.
If as Hadley seems to expect we have a run of 5 or more years of lower temperatures it won’t take long before some of the gutless wonders in the media start to ask some really hard questions.
Let’s hope that these hard questions are asked before the 50B spent globally becomes many trillions.
James Mayeau says
Helping you out 3PO.
John Hollenberg says
Perhaps people are upset because Monckton has already been debunked previously:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/11/cuckoo-science/
Why would anyone pay attention to his “scientific” theories at this point?
Jan Pompe says
SJT “I thought I was supposed to be the troll.”
I’m sure you’d be welcome to the title if you so desire.
How does SJ Troll sound to you?
Nexus 6 says
Tim Lambert spotted the glaring hole(s) in Monckton’s diatribe.
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2008/07/moncktons_triple_counting.php
I wonder who the ’eminent Professor of Physics who then scientifically reviewed it in meticulous detail’ was.
Louis Hissink says
Nexus6
I append the text of the Viscount Monckton’s letter below. I extract part of it:
“The commissioning editor referred it to his colleague, who subjected it to a thorough and competent scientific review. I was delighted to accede to all of the reviewer’s requests for revision (see the attached reconciliation sheet)”.
The American Physical Society appointed the eminent Professor of Physics to review the article.
Lord Monckton of Brenchley’s letter:
THE VISCOUNT MONCKTON OF BRENCHLEY: LETTER TO THE AMERICAN PHYSICAL SOCIETY
19 July 2008
The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley
Carie, Rannoch, PH17 2QJ, UK
monckton@mail.com
Arthur Bienenstock, Esq., Ph.D.,
President, American Physical Society,
Wallenberg Hall, 450 Serra Mall, Bldg 160,
Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA 94305.
By email to artieb@slac.stanford.edu
Dear Dr. Bienenstock,
Physics and Society
The editors of Physics and Society, a newsletter of the American Physical Society, invited me to submit a paper for their July 2008 edition explaining why I considered that the warming that might be expected from anthropogenic enrichment of the atmosphere with carbon dioxide might be significantly less than the IPCC imagines.
I very much appreciated this courteous offer, and submitted a paper. The commissioning editor referred it to his colleague, who subjected it to a thorough and competent cientific review. I was delighted to accede to all of the reviewer’s requests for revision (see the attached
reconciliation sheet). Most revisions were intended to clarify for physicists who were not climatologists the method by which the IPCC
evaluates climate sensitivity – a method which the IPCC does not itself clearly or fully explain. The paper was duly published, immediately
after a paper by other authors setting out the IPCC’s viewpoint. Some days later, however, without my knowledge or consent, the following
appeared, in red, above the text of my paper as published on the website of Physics and Society:
“The following article has not undergone any scientific peer review. Its conclusions are in disagreement with the overwhelming opinion of the
world scientific community. The Council of the American Physical Society disagrees with this article’s conclusions.”
This seems discourteous. I had been invited to submit the paper; I had submitted it; an eminent Professor of Physics had then scientifically
reviewed it in meticulous detail; I had revised it at all points requested, and in the manner requested; the editors had accepted and
published the reviewed and revised draft (some 3000 words longer than the original) and I had expended considerable labor, without having been
offered or having requested any honorarium.
Please either remove the offending red-flag text at once or let me have the name and qualifications of the member of the Council or advisor to it who considered my paper before the Council ordered the offending text to be posted above my paper; a copy of this rapporteur’s findings and ratio decidendi; the date of the Council meeting at which the findings were presented; a copy of the minutes of the discussion; and a copy of the text of the Council’s decision, together with the names of those present at the meeting. If the Council has not scientifically evaluated or formally considered my paper, may I ask with what credible scientific justification, and on whose authority, the offending text asserts primo, that the paper had not been scientifically reviewed when it had;
secundo, that its conclusions disagree with what is said (on no evidence) to be the “overwhelming opinion of the world scientific community”; and, tertio, that “The Council of the American Physical
Society disagrees with this article’s conclusions”? Which of my conclusions does the Council disagree with, and on what scientific
grounds (if any)?
Having regard to the circumstances, surely the Council owes me an apology?
Yours truly,
THE VISCOUNT MONCKTON OF BRENCHLEY
Paul Biggs says
Since when has anything Labert or Nexus 6 had to say been of interest or objective?
I look forward to seeing Lambert’s or Nexus 6’s climte sensitivity calculations in print in a Physics journal.
Bernard J. says
Louis Hissink.
Can you address the serious deficiencies in Monckton’s piece, dissected in detail at the link above that Nexus 6 posted on July 20, 2008 05:11pm?
Unless you have a solid rebuttal to the manifold errors with which Monckton embarrassed himself, all of the denialist ra-ra above is just so much not-even-warm air…
I think that the APS was actually rather measured in their response to the lack of quality in Monckton’s piece. And note, it is a letter to an on-line newsletter (one of 39 ‘units’, see http://www.aps.org). It is not a paper, and the newletter is not a journal, and the newsletter is not peer-reviewed as journals are.
I suspect that the only substantial ‘peer-review’ was conducted by Monckton himself, who is, as all should know, not a physicist in any way, shape or form.
Of course, if you or any of your colleagues here disagree with me, you merely have to address and rebutt the content of the many critiques of Monckton on the Deltoid link. I, and many others I’m sure, wait with anticipation.
Nexus 6 says
That’s Lambert rebutted then, isn’t it? Are Monckton’s calculations correct or aren’t they, Paul?
Getting something that is incorrect on a basic level published in a physics newsletter isn’t exactly something to be crowing about.
SJT says
Drongo already has a reply on Deltoid better than I could do.
“spangled drongo: You seem to have left out the part where an organization that Monckton served as “chief policy advisor” for issued a press release (http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/press/provednoclimate_crisis.html) whose first sentence says: “Mathematical proof that there is no ‘climate crisis’ appears today in a major, peer-reviewed paper in Physics and Society, a learned journal of the 10,000-strong American Physical Society, SPPI reports”. That’s a lot of lies to pack into one sentence!
I think this is the point where the APS, probably even the editors of that newsletter, realized that they were being used by Monckton and his goal was not to convince physicists of his position but to try to use the APS’s prestige, along with lots of lies about his paper and the circumstances under which it appeared in something sponsored by APS, as part of a propaganda campaign.
Frankly, I think the editors of the APS’s Forum on Physics and Society (which I am a member of, by the way) were a bit naive and probably never imagined what Monckton would do once the article appeared in their newsletter.”
If you want to see a debate, Jennifer, I would suggest you tell people like Monckton to make it an honest debate. That he is obviously only in the game for his own vanity and glory is clearly obvious, and that he would use such a low trick to garner credibility only serves to undermine him. The pity is, it’s probably worked. He is now a martyr, and his peer reviewed paper, published by the APS, will now be internet folklore.
However, Jennifer, I would expect you to know better.
Louis Hissink says
Bernard J.
Please enrol yourself in a remedial English class.
I have no intention of rebutting Tim Lambert’s criticisms of Monckton’s article – (why did you not state this exclicity in your post above, rather then weasel it in by referecence to a url).
Secondly the checking of the scientific facts in Monckton’s article was done by a physicist assigned to the task by the editors of the newsletter themselves, hence my sincere suggestion that your seek further counselling in remedial English language.
Louis Hissink says
Nexus 6
You seem not to understand that it the editor of the Physics Newsletter had Monckton’s article reviewed.
Don’t you understand plain English?
Louis Hissink says
SJT
As the Viscount Monckton explicity stated, he was approached by the editors of the American Physical Society Newsletter – so they might be construed as using the Viscount, rather than he, them.
SJT says
“I look forward to seeing Lambert’s or Nexus 6’s climte sensitivity calculations in print in a Physics journal”
I think they are quite happy to let the science speak for them, it’s all there in published papers, which are used as the basis for the IPCC reports. They are, however, quite entitled to hack apart a piece of arrant nonsense such as Monckton has produced. It is not science, and anyone with a little talent in the area is more than capable of pointing out the errors.
Jan Pompe says
SJT “”realized that they were being used by Monckton”
You make it sound as if Monckton approached them.
“This editor (JJM) invited several people to contribute articles that were either pro or con. Christopher Monckton responded with this issue’s article that argues against the correctness of the IPCC conclusion, and a pair from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, David Hafemeister and Peter Schwartz, responded with this issue’s article in favor of the IPCC conclusion.”
SJT says
“As the Viscount Monckton explicity stated, he was approached by the editors of the American Physical Society Newsletter – so they might be construed as using the Viscount, rather than he, them.”
He was approached by an editor, of one of many appendages of the society.
http://climateprogress.org/2008/07/18/american-physical-society-reaffirms-it-is-incontrovertible-human-emissions-are-warming-the-globe-and-must-be-cut-beginning-now/
What did he think he was doing inviting Monckton? He may as well have invited me.
Jan Pompe says
SJT: ” He may as well have invited me.”
Apparently he didn’t.
SJT says
“Apparently he didn’t.”
That’s right, he didn’t.
Huh.
Didn’t I already say that?
Meanwhile.
“APS Climate Change Statement
APS Position Remains Unchanged
The American Physical Society reaffirms the following position on climate change, adopted by its governing body, the APS Council, on November 18, 2007:
“Emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are changing the atmosphere in ways that affect the Earth’s climate.”
An article at odds with this statement recently appeared in an online newsletter of the APS Forum on Physics and Society, one of 39 units of APS. The header of this newsletter carries the statement that “Opinions expressed are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the APS or of the Forum.” This newsletter is not a journal of the APS and it is not peer reviewed.”
From the home page.
SJT says
“American Physical Society Retreats to the Consensus on Global Warming”
So there was no retreat, just an ‘advance’ by one member who happened to be an editor of one of it’s internet forums.
Jan Pompe says
Ender: Did you actually read the heading carefully?
Let me retype it with a little emphasis.
“American Physical Society Retreats *TO* the Consensus on Global Warming”
CoRev says
Today I’ve seen Luke refer to Deltoid, and SJT refer to Joe Romm’s Climate Progress. I am still waiting for a reference to Hansen’s Bulldog, Tamino, to set us all straight.
If those are your sources for material then y’all are seriously deluded.
Lucia has demolished the latest Gavin Schmidt attempt at misinformation. She has been trying to prove the model predictions and can not. Falsified! But, a theory based upon those very same model outputs, is the core of our AGW science.
Sheesh! What I think I am detecting is the results of cognitive dissonance over AGW.
Catastrophes? Pshaw!
CoRev, editor
http://globalwarmingclearinghouse.blogspot.com
Jan Pompe says
Ender: Did you actually read the heading carefully
Ooops I meant SJT not Ender.
Bernard J. says
Louis Hissink sprayed:
“Please enrol yourself in a remedial English class.”
and followed immediately with:
“I have no intention of rebutting Tim Lambert’s criticisms of Monckton’s article – (why did you not state this exclicity [sic] in your post above, rather then [sic] weasel it in by referecence [sic] to a url).
Lovely self-parody, Louis, but don’t think that we didn’t notice that you and others here refuse to point out where Monckton is correct, and the refuters of the physics in his piece have it wrong.
Be brave. Tell us why Monckton is not triple dipping, and why he is not ignoring error bars. Tell us why he is not reading incorrect temperature differences from graphs. Tell us why he IS correct in using outdated graphs. Tell us why he can compare AR4 data with ‘substantially different data’, as Steve Bloom notes. Tell us why the (trained, expert) physicists who participate on Deltoid are wrong, where all the non-physicists here are correct.
Please.
Oh, and Louis. If it is not clear that I was referring to Deltoid in my earlier post, you obviously do not have much capacity for making inferences with data such as
1) “at the link above that Nexus 6 posted on July 20, 2008 05:11pm”, where Nexus 6 explicitly mentions Deltoid (why do I need to repeat the source when it’s in my easily found reference?), and
2)”you merely have to address and rebutt the content of the many critiques of Monckton on the Deltoid link” (um, I think that I explicitly mention Deltoid there).
For heaven’s sake Louis, if you can’t handle references of this kindergarten level then you certainly can’t handle the inferences required for handling data pertaining to the physics of climate change.
If you were just being nit-picky because your poster-boy Monckton’s naughty bits are showing in all their inelegant glory, and you need to divert attention away from his embarrasment, then you were being petulant indeed.
Or maybe you’re just a conspiracy theorist, and you imagine that everyone with whom you disagree has a sly agenda to mislead you.
How about you forget the fluff, Louis, and tell us why Monckton is right and the trained physicists are wrong?
The APS certainly doesn’t seem to agree with the Viscantcount.
SJT says
“Ender: Did you actually read the heading carefully
Ooops I meant SJT not Ender.”
And I pointed out that they have actually not changed anything in their stance. All that happened was one editor thought to ask an amateur his opinion, which was then spread around the world as an endorsment of the APS of a non peer reviewed paper. All they did was clarify that their stance has not changed and they don’t like getting used like that.
Jan Pompe says
SJT: “All that happened was one editor thought to ask an amateur his opinion, ”
They also asked for pro piece from Hafemeister and Schwartz which they got so as to publish POV from both sides in one issue. This paper is a bit of a mess too. The important thing is they weren’t being used at all.
Perhaps you’d like to see APS employee comment on it at CA
http://www.climateaudit.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=421#p8390
SJT says
I don’t know what your problem is. Monckton’s paper is still there, people are free to debate it. All the APS has done is respond to the usual denialist storm of publicity that swept the blogosphere, in which an article by an amateur that was posted for debate was suddenly completely misrepresented as an official represenation of the views of the APS members, and as a peer reviewed publication in one of the APS official scientific journals. Monckton and the denialists have only themselves to blame for that, because that was a complete lie and misrepresentation of what really was going on. That the denialists and Monckton have been called out for doing their usual schtick has shocked them for some reason. Wake up people, it might be good enough for back slapping self congratulatory web sites where where everyone agrees with everyone else, it’s not good enough for science by a long way.
Louis Hissink says
Bernard J,
I have not read the Monckton article so I cannot comment.
James Mayeau says
SJT says: I don’t know what your problem is. Monckton’s paper is still there, people are free to debate it.
James says: I’m your huckleberry.
I think some of you should go over there and deconstruct Altoids deconstruction of Viscount Monckton’s deconstruction of the IPCC.
Because the lack of the willingness to engage is the main reason we are in the fix we are in today – with climate changers running for office from all parties and directions.
Laimberts refutation of Monckton is precarious. He rests it on the premise that radiosonde measurements of the troposphere are faulty when they don’t show the GW fngerprint. He wedges it steady with a paper that claims the missing hotspot has been erased by upper level windshear and that by studying the deltaT of those wind shear and converting that to heat the hotspot re emerges just as the IPCC predicts.
What I’m getting at is it isn’t that hard to knock Lambheart down. Just a flick of finger will do it.
Spam says
From here:
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/monckton/monkton_letter_pys.pdf
Appears that the reviewer was:
Professor Alvin Saperstein, Professor of Physics, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan
I have read a claim that is was an “editorial review” rather than a “peer review”, as Alvin Saperstein is a co-editor.
Bernard J. says
James Mayeau.
I think that you will find that the deficiencies in Monckton’s piece are rather more egregious than the radiosonde matter that you allude to, and I would welcome all who read this thread to hop on over to Lambert’s thread and address the details of Monckton’s transgressions, listed in all their glory by a number of qualified folk.
And there are a lot of said transgressions.
Or you could just mill about here and slap each other on your respective backs and note sagely how pernicious the ‘warmers’ really are.
Oh, and if anyone is still labouring under any misapprehension about the background to the Monckton/APS affair, it would be worth a visit to read someone who’s worked for the APS:
http://twistedphysics.typepad.com/cocktail_party_physics/2008/07/klimate-kerfuff.html
Throws a whole different slant to the sordid mewlings of our sour lord…
Bernard J. says
Louis.
In all earnestness, I would invite you to read Monckton’s piece, and also the rebuttals to its content that are listed on Lambert’s thread, and give the material some careful consideration.
In contradiction to James Mayeau’s flick-of-the-finger stance, there really are some serious deficiencies in Monckton’s thesis. It does true scepticism no service to hitch its star to this particular wagon.
It’s a lemon.
SJT says
Moncktons reference to four solar bodies warming as proof of global warming driven by solar output fails spectacularly. There are about,IIRC, 50 such bodies. If only 10% are warming, I don’t see where he gets the idea it’s proof from.
James Mayeau says
3PO, the Earth isn’t warming either at this particular moment. The term is Planets – “solar bodies” refers to stars (seriously how geocentric of you to discriminate against the other suns of our universe like that).
Bernard if there are serious rebuttals of Monckton then why are you directing us to the APS’s cocktail waitress?
There were no rebuttals there, just ernest endorcement of the climate change, a bit of abuse tossed at Matt Drudge (and the blogisphere in general), and an unsupported attack on Lord Monckton’s credibility.
Sort of like what you’re doing here.
Altoid is still fair game.
James Mayeau says
Oh I forgot to mention, the cocktail waitress generously demured that it might be excessive to give Jeff Marque, the “current editor” of FPS, the axe.
Jennifer says
I’m just filing this here: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/21/monckton_aps/
But within a few days, Monckton’s piece carried a health warning: in bright red ink…
Not so much Medusa, then, as Nanny telling the children what not to think.
“The first sentence is nothing more or less than a deliberate lie,” writes Professor John Brignell on his Numberwatch blog. “The second is, to say the least, contentious; while the third is an outrageous example of ultra vires interference by a committee in the proper conduct of scientific debate.”
proteus says
“I think they are quite happy to let the science speak for them, it’s all there in published papers, which are used as the basis for the IPCC reports.”
This old canard will never die; it is the skirt all AGWers hide behind. ‘The science’ does not have a single voice because the published papers do not have a single voice themselves, no matter how hard the IPCC and its fellow-travellers would have us think that it does.
Bernard J. says
James Mayeau.
Can you even read the fundamental gist of a post, or are your eyes so crossed that you can’t discern apples from oranges?
I directed anyone who has the capacity for rational analysis to the ‘Cocktail Party Physics’ physics site in order to provide an insider’s insight into the machinations of the Monckton/APS relationship. The scientific meat (or rather, the lack thereof) is discussed at Deltoid and other sites.
The author of Cocktail Party Physics is a science writer of physics articles and books, and who aims to make physics accessible to lay folk. Her partner is a cosmologist, and between them I am sure they have rather more understanding of physics than the Viscantcount Monckton. What is important in this discussion though, and reflecting my point in linking to CPP, is that Jennifer Ouellette is intimately acquainted with the workings of the American Physics Society, having worked for them for years.
Ouellette pours very effective water on the fires of hysteria surrounding the distortions and out-right lies Monckton threw at the APS. In this way she is still an effective serious rebuttal of Monckton’s antics, but for a dissection of his kindergarten science Deltoid is a good place to start.
And if Deltoid doesn’t sit well in your belly, there are any number of other sites that carve Monckton up beyond the point of tearful embarrassment. To start with, Realclimate has quite a few detailed comments on this thread
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/07/aerosols-chemistry-and-climate/#more-581
and
http://duoquartuncia.blogspot.com/2008/07/aps-and-global-warming-what-were-they.html
has a thorough deconstruction.
Forget your prejudices, and your claims of conspiracy, and just address the refutation of Monckton. If he’s right, you should be able to show exactly where the nefarious AGW proponents are in error in their criticisms of the Monckey. And if, perchance, you agree with the science, well, perhaps you’ll drop Monckton from the team and find more credible science to support a true sceptical examination of climate change.
SJT says
“But within a few days, Monckton’s piece carried a health warning: in bright red ink…
Not so much Medusa, then, as Nanny telling the children what not to think.”
The ‘warning’ was clearly a response to headlines and storm around the blogs, (this one as well) claiming that because Monckton’s article was evidence the APS backed his article and no longer supported AGW, or that he had had a paper published in an APS journal. The debate is still there, the article is still there, but any claims that ’50’000′ scientists now doubt AGW have been firmly laid to rest, or that Moncktons article was a scientific paper published in an official APS scientific journal.
I don’t know why you have misunderstood the obvious so badly.
Louis Hissink says
The APS has further backtracked it’s disclaimer on the Viscount Monckton’s submitted article:
“A correspondent reports:
I noticed that the American Physical Society changed the statement that preceded the paper by Christopher Monckton to:
“The following article has not undergone any scientific peer review, since that is not normal procedure for American Physical Society newsletters. The American Physical Society reaffirms the following position on climate change, adopted by its governing body, the APS Council, on November 18, 2007: “Emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are changing the atmosphere in ways that affect the Earth’s climate.”
From:
“The following article has not undergone any scientific peer review. Its conclusions are in disagreement with the overwhelming opinion of the world scientific community. The Council of the American Physical Society disagrees with this article’s conclusions.””
Source: http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/2008%20July.htm#spit
And so AGW continues to quietly implode………
SJW, You should watch the movie Titanic – you might find some similarities with the dead horse called AGW you are flogging – heavens sake – the poor animal is dead, and still you keep flogging it.
Bernard J. says
Please, I ask again: if Monckton is not wrong, show how this is so.
And a hint: it might pay to read what the people who have a clue have to say…
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/07/once-more-unto-the-bray/
Bernard J. says
After a bit more of a ramble about how the dastardly APS stepped in to correct what was really just the mess of a wayward editor, Louis comes to the conclusion:
“And so AGW continues to quietly implode………”
Louis, Jennifer – everyone – seriously, read the link I posted a few minutes ago above.
And then repeat to the world your support for the miracle of Monckey’s ‘insight’.
Be careful though – AGW has emerged from the Viscantcount’s scrutiny unscathed.
Simple as that.
Louis Hissink says
Bernard J.
That you use the adhominem “Monckey’s insight” forces us to dismiss you as a stupid messenger shooter. Argue the point not the messenger.
AGW is not a scientific theory but a technically dressed up belief system.
I do not read anything realclimate posts as it is an overt AGW propoganda website that censors readers comments.
You have backed the wrong horse Bernard J.
SJT says
“That you use the adhominem “Monckey’s insight” forces us to dismiss you as a stupid messenger shooter. Argue the point not the messenger.”
Whenever it’s a dull day, Louis knows how to brighten it up with a good laugh.
Matty says
Monitoring this debate, someone could be forgiven for thinking that the earth was still warming. How can AGW be “unscathed” as claimed by Bernard J. Look at the scoreboard(temp trend) if you want to know who is winning. A cooling pacific, a cooling planet, but AGW is unscathed? How very very odd. Matty
Bernard J. says
Time to let the dogs out.
http://altenergyaction.org/Monckton.html