[Chewbacca]

Debunker Debunked.

http://arstechnica.com/science/news/...m_campaign=rss

Excerpts:

Last month, we described how a paper that compared climate models to satellite readings had been blown out of proportion by a hype machine that was soon claiming the paper would "blow a gaping hole in global warming alarmism." However, even a cursory glance at the paper revealed that its claims were far more modest; other scientists who discussed the work indicated that problems with its analysis were already widely recognized. Now, the editor-in-chief of the journal that published the paper has considered these criticisms—and chosen to resign. The paper in question, by noted contrarian Roy Spencer, uses an extremely simple model in an attempt to separate the factors that force the climate from those that act as feedback to changes in the climate. A number of climate scientists, however, wrote about how the model had been simplified to the point of being useless (one of the more detailed examples comes from BYU geochemist Barry Bickmore). These criticisms, however, haven't generally made it into the peer reviewed literature, the lone exception cited in the resignation being a paper that's not a direct critique of Spencer's work. Those same criticisms were reiterated once Spencer published his most recent paper.

The issue here wasn't the controversy; it was that the paper was most probably wrong. "The problem I see with the paper by Spencer and Braswell is not that it declared a minority view..." Wagner argues, "but that it essentially ignored the scientific arguments of its opponents." And, in Wagner's opinion, papers that contain methodological errors or erroneous conclusions are supposed to be caught by peer review and shouldn't be published. Since one was published on his watch, he's resigning. But not before taking a parting shot at the media. Writing that he would "like to personally protest against how the authors and like-minded climate skeptics have much exaggerated the paper’s conclusions in public statements," he specifically cites the University of Alabama, Huntsville press release and Spencer's writings on his website as part of the exaggeration; the Forbes article that triggered our own coverage, along with a follow-up from Fox News, also get singled out. No one result created our current understanding of the climate system or provided evidence that it's being forced by greenhouse gasses; as a result, Wagner argues, no single result is likely to tear it down.