{"id":275863,"date":"2023-08-27T15:59:00","date_gmt":"2023-08-27T13:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=275863"},"modified":"2023-08-27T15:59:03","modified_gmt":"2023-08-27T13:59:03","slug":"shock-retraction-of-climate-science-paper-showing-no-climate-emergency-draws-comparisons-with-climategate-scandal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=275863","title":{"rendered":"Shock Retraction of Climate Science Paper Showing No Climate Emergency Draws Comparisons with Climategate Scandal"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Daily Sceptic<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By\u00a0CHRIS MORRISON<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Shocking details of corruption and suppression in the world of peer-reviewed climate science have come to light with a recent leak of emails. They show how a determined group of activist scientists and journalists combined to secure the retraction of a paper that said a climate emergency was not supported by the available data. Science writer and economist Dr. Roger Pielke Jr. has\u00a0published the startling emails<\/a>\u00a0and concludes: \u201cShenanigans continue in climate science, with influential scientists teaming up with journalists to corrupt peer review.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The offending paper was published in January 2022 in a\u00a0Springer Nature<\/em>\u00a0journal and at first attracted little attention. But on September 14th the\u00a0Daily Sceptic<\/em>\u00a0covered its main conclusions and as a result it went viral on social media with around\u00a09,000 Twitter retweets<\/a>. The story was then covered by both the\u00a0Australian<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Sky News Australia<\/em>. The\u00a0Guardian<\/em>\u00a0activist Graham Readfearn, along with state-owned\u00a0Agence France-Presse (AFP)<\/em>, then launched\u00a0counterattacks<\/a>.\u00a0AFP<\/em>\u00a0\u2018Herald of the Anthropocene\u2019 Marlowe Hood said the data were \u201cgrossly manipulated\u201d and \u201cfundamentally flawed\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After nearly a year of lobbying,\u00a0Springer Nature<\/em>\u00a0has\u00a0retracted the popular article<\/a>. In the light of concerns, the Editor-in-Chief is said to no longer have confidence in the results and conclusion reported in the paper. The authors were invited to submit an addendum but this was \u201cnot considered suitable for publication\u201d. The leaked emails show that the addendum was sent for review to four people, and only one objected to publication.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is shocking about this censorship is that the paper was produced by four distinguished scientists, including three professors of physics, and was heavily based on data used by the UN\u2019s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The lead author was Professor Gianluca Alimonti of Milan University and senior researcher of Italy\u2019s National Institute of Nuclear Physics. Their paper reviewed the available data, but refused to be drawn into the usual mainstream narrative that catastrophises cherry-picked weather trends. During the course of their work, the scientists found that rainfall intensity and frequency was stationary in many parts of the world, and the same was true of U.S. tornadoes. Other meteorological categories including natural disasters, floods, droughts and ecosystem productivity showed no \u201cclear positive trend of extreme events\u201d. In addition, the scientists noted considerable growth of global plant biomass in recent decades caused by higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact this scandal has started to attract comparison with the\u00a0Climategate leaks<\/a>\u00a0of 2009 that also displayed considerable contempt for the peer-review process. One of the co-compilers of the Met Office\u2019s HadCRUT global temperature database Dr. Phil Jones emailed Michael Mann, author of the infamous temperature \u2018hockey stick\u2019, stating: \u201cI can\u2019t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow \u2013 even if we have to redefine what the peer-reviewed literature is!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Interestingly, Professor Michael Mann of the University of Pennsylvania, has a part to play in this latest de-platforming exercise. In the\u00a0Guardian<\/em>\u00a0attack article he said it was another example of scientists from \u201ctotally unrelated fields\u201d coming in and na\u00efvely applying inappropriate methods to data they don\u2019t understand. \u201cEither the consensus of the world\u2019s climate experts that climate change is causing\u00a0a very clear increase in many types of weather extremes is wrong, or a couple of nuclear physics dudes in Italy are wrong,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was an AFP \u2018fact-check<\/a>\u2019 attack, published soon after the\u00a0Daily Sceptic<\/em>\u00a0article, that brought other activist scientists into the campaign to retract the offending science paper. It was part-written by Marlowe Hood, whom regular readers will recall was recently\u00a0given about \u00a388,000<\/a>\u00a0by the Foundation arm of a large Spanish bank heavily involved in financing green technologies. One of the experts quoted by AFP was Dr. Freiderike Otto, who works in the pseudoscience field trying to \u2018attribute\u2019 single weather events to long-term changes in the climate\u00a0using computer models<\/a>. She is helped in this work by funding from the green billionaire investor Jeremy Grantham. Otto said the authors of the report were \u201cof course\u201d not writing their paper in good faith. \u201cIf the journal cares about science they should withdraw it loudly and publicly, saying that it should never have been published.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another scientist calling for the work to be cancelled was Stefan Rahmstorf, head of Earth Systems at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. He told AFP that he did not know of the Springer journal, \u201cbut if it is a self-respecting one it should withdraw the article\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The leaked Pielke emails provide a fascinating insight into the way\u00a0Springer Nature<\/em>\u00a0dealt with the issue over the last year. At first there was concern that\u00a0Alimonti\u00a0<\/em>et al. only referenced the work of the IPCC\u2019s fifth assessment report, although it was pointed out that when the paper was originally submitted the IPCC sixth assessment had not been published. It was suggested an \u2018erratum\u2019 should be compiled. Professor Alimonti\u00a0took the understandable view that an \u2018addendum\u2019 was more appropriate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The addenda were prepared and then sent out for review to four people and an adjudicator. Three reviewers recommended publication and one was against. The adjudicator was then reported to have sided with the minority view. One of the reviewers recommended acceptance by noting: \u201cThe statements made by the authors are generally in agreement with the assessment produced by the working group 1 of the IPCC on their Sixth Assessment Report.\u201d Another reviewer wrote: \u201cThe original article is a straightforward recitation of credible, key data about several types of extreme weather events. I find nothing selective, biased or misleading in what they present. While there\u2019s hardly anything written that isn\u2019t well known to experts, it\u2019s useful for non-experts to see the underlying data, which are most often obscure in the IPCC reports.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But all to no avail. The adjudicator agreed with the one dissenting voice that the addendum did not meet the \u201cscientific standards\u201d that would allow for publication. \u201cFurthermore, I recommend retraction of the original manuscript.\u201d The article was subsequently retracted, although a new version has been\u00a0republished here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Pielke\u2019s conclusions are damning. \u201cThe abuse of the peer-reviewed process documented here is remarkable, and stands as a warning that climate science is as deeply politicised as ever with scientists willing to exert influence on the publication process both out in the open, and behind the scenes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chris Morrison is<\/em>\u00a0the\u00a0<\/em>Daily Sceptic\u2018s<\/em>\u00a0Environment Editor.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Shocking details of corruption and suppression in the world of peer-reviewed climate science have come to light with a recent leak of emails. They show how a determined group of activist scientists and journalists combined to secure the retraction of a paper that said a climate emergency was not supported by the available data. Science writer and economist Dr. Roger Pielke Jr. has\u00a0published the startling emails\u00a0and concludes: \u201cShenanigans continue in climate science, with influential scientists teaming up with journalists to corrupt peer review.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":254941,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691818951,691819134,691819265,691818215,691822122,691820151],"class_list":["post-275863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-censorship","tag-climate-alarmism","tag-climategate","tag-michael-mann","tag-nature","tag-the-science","fallback-thumbnail"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/0Models-v-reality-2.jpg?fit=2571%2C2000&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-19Lp","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":274213,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=274213","url_meta":{"origin":275863,"position":0},"title":"Team 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