I’ll second that request. Has the Global Warming Crusade sunk to fraudulently co-opting well-known opposition figures in order to add legitimacy to their work? Until this summer’s farcical trial in G.B., with Hansen jetting in to testify on behalf of a bunch of vandals, I could not have believed it; but it seems anything goes these days.

Santer et al., 2005. Amplification of Surface Temperature Trends and Variability in the Tropical Atmosphere. Science Vol. 309, No 5740, pp. 1551-1556, September 2, 2005, online http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/reference/bibliography/2005/bds0501.pdf

I wrote to a vast body of climate community:

“Subject: Validation of Santer et al, Part I: Formal Considerations

This Part I consists of the following Formal Considerations and Suggestions:

1. The authors
2. Theories tested
3. Data used
4. Model scrutiny
5. Replication

The Chapters are as follows:

1. The authors

In this study the list of authors is impressive:

Benjamin D. Santer, Tom M. L. Wigley, Carl Mears, Frank J. Wentz, Stephen A. Klein, Dian J. Seidel, Karl E. Taylor, Peter W. Thorne, Michael F. Wehner, Peter J. Gleckler, Jim S. Boyle, W. D. Collins, Keith W. Dixon, Charles Doutriaux, Melissa Free, Qiang Fu, Jim E. Hansen, Gareth. S. Jones, Reto Ruedy, T. R. Karl, John R. Lanzante, Gerald A. Meehl, V. Ramaswamy, Gary Russell, and Gavin A. Schmidt.

I had understood that when scientists begin their shared research they have a lead author, and co-authors make the agreed part of the research. They usually make a joint application for funding, too. When the field research is finished the authors compile drafts of the paper due to publication. They may distribute the draft for comments to other colleagues, and in the final paper they address their acknowledges to those ones.

When none in the climate science community masters everything, it’s necessary to call special experts to the team. For example, dendrochronologists study tree-rings, and a statistician is needed to make the math. when math and statistical skills do not belong to the strengths among most of the dendrochronologists and they have to rely on statisticians. Dear Michael E. Mann is one scientist dendrochronologists use, but the results are mixed. Better statisticians are needed.

Further, it is not customary to present the division of labor in the final paper, e.g. as follows:

“Author contributions: I.Y.F., S.C.D., K.L., and J.J. designed research; I.Y.F., S.C.D., K.L., and J.J. performed research; I.Y.F., S.C.D., K.L., and J.J. analyzed data; and I.Y.F. and S.C.D. wrote the paper.”

In: Fung, Inez Y., Scott C. Doney, Keith Lindsay, and Jasmin John, 2005. Evolution of carbon sinks in a changing climate. PNAS published before print August 1, 2005, online

Now, it was some kind of a news to me when Ben Santer Aug 11 explained:

“The first draft of the Santer et al. paper was circulated to a limited distribution of potential co-authors on April 20th, 2005.”

The paper was then revisited with Carl Mears and Frank Wentz April 26 – May 13.

As far as I can see, this circulation of the draft April 20th, 2005 means that any actual field research or replication of the results or a proper review by the potential co-authors, besides Carl Mears and Frank Wentz, and any mutual communication about possible discrepancies between all the authors were practically impossible when the paper was submitted to Science May 13, 2005.

It seems evident that those other co-authors could have had only certain additions and corrections to the text, if any. These invited co-authors have done at best the job which normally belongs to the acknowledged colleagues, and after submission to editors and peer-reviewers.

Those invited co-authors should rather be called co-signers only. I do admit that the line between actual research workers and commentators is sometimes flickering, but in this case not.

The IPCC community uses similar method, and these actual authors have adopted it to this scientific paper. Editors, peer-reviewers, and readers are left uninformed about the division of labor. No good.

My question: the procedure by Ben and other actual authors with this paper, how common it is?

Dear scientists, editors and peer-reviewers, it seems to me that information about author contributions should be the praxis in every scientific journal.”

…..

End of extract.

Well, quite a mess emerged, but no clarification about the roles of co-authors.

What does ln(CO2 Constant) mean?

Perhaps this is not described properly but it just a constant which matches the log formula for CO2 warming.

A couple of charts to demonstrate this (which is a view of global warming that I believe many have not seen before.)

http://img511.imageshack.us/img511/1994/logwarmingillustratedeo8.png

http://img152.imageshack.us/img152/6972/zoominco2logwarmingwp3.png

Steve: Please find another thread for this as this has nothing to do with Santer. These formulas have been discussed oin other threads.

That may be a very profound statement.

Superficially, you’d think they’d want to get into a position in which they think they can win — if they are confident they’re right.

You say you approach your interpretation of their behavior sociologically. The Team is getting jeered at for its behavior (and not just at CA), and one reasonable response would be to tell the jeerers to put up or shut up. A very simple way of doing that would be to submit bullet-proof data and leave Steve twisting in the wind.

If this were, say, a long series of research papers on the distribution of butterflies in the Amazon, I’d say, sure, what have they got to gain from practicing the manly art of self-defense? But it isn’t about butterflies.

Not in cetacean research. I have seen co-authors whose contribution was providing housing or a boat for the researchers.

Not in a peer-reviewed paper, but the ‘co-authors’ then show up as ‘researchers’ in other forums.

Climate science isn’t the only pseudo-science where these hijinks are common.

- the science of proxy temperature studies
- the flaws in the hockey stick analysis
- the scandalous reaction of the hockey team

My fear is that you will lose the argument because not enough people (other climate scientists, policy makers … ) can easily understand the issues and because you don’t have the academic credibility and financial support that the hockey team has. It’s also a great story about what can happen when science goes wrong and it needs to be told.