Bob Irvine at WUWT rejects ocean warming because - foil and clingwrap!

Update: As reported by Kevin O'Neill in the comments, As a result of a "peer evaluation carried out urgently yesterday", WIT Press has removed Bob Irvine's article from it's elibrary (see here, archived here).

Sou 12:53 am 16 October 2014.

Update 2: Now at Retraction Watch. (Sou 22 October 2014)

---

WUWT is getting worse by the day. Today there's an article by someone called Bob Irvine (archived here). It's Anthony Watts throwing a bone to the greenhouse effect deniers. Or perhaps it's just Wondering Willis' opinion being demonstrated - if Anthony had a year to read the article, he wouldn't be able to tell if it would stand the harsh light of public exposure.

Bob Irvine has written a "guest article" about an article he wrote for some obscure engineering publication. The article is listed as "open access" but you have to register to read it. (Let's hope it's as easy to unregister.)

The weird thing is that usually when Anthony Watts posts utter nutter articles like this one, a lot of his regulars with half a brain complain how dumb it is. It doesn't seem to have happened this time, suggesting that WUWT is sloughing off all but the nuttier fruitcakes.

Bob Irvine is explaining why he thinks that climate sensitivity to greenhouse warming is less than climate sensitivity to changes in solar radiation. He invokes an "experiment" by what looks to be a sky dragon slayer and regular commenter at WUWT, who goes by the name of Konrad. You may recall Konrad whose comments have featured here from time to time. Bob also acknowledges the work of Roger Tattersal, who blogs as "Tallboke". I guess that Anthony Watts is now rethinking his decision to label Tallbloke's blog as "Transcendent Rant and way out there theory".

Twisting Patterns of Peer Review

Sheesh, it's no wonder I can't keep up with Anthony Watts today.  So far he's posted eight ten articles.  His normal daily quota is three.

Tamino alerted me to the fact that the defunct "journal" Pattern Recognition In Physics could be about to go beyond defunct.  (Not to be confused with Pattern Recognition or the International Journal of Pattern Recognition and Artificial Intelligence.) Christopher Monckton has announced he's written to Copernicus Publications offering to take it over.

I can't see Copernicus Publications accepting Monckton's offer, but it's a grand gesture on Christopher's part.  His magnanimous gesture, even if it doesn't eventuate, will help "prominent scientists" like Nicola Scafetta and Nils Axel Morner and Tallbloke achieve their rightful place in the history of science.

Another plus is that no-one will be able to accuse the editors of not having peer review any longer, if they can get a genuine peer like Christopher Monckton on board.

The fake sceptics' "publishing house" that Monckton graces the door of from time to time, SPPI, has been around for a while but I don't think anyone except fake sceptics (and we few who see what they get up to) would have heard of it.  By now lots of people will have heard of Pattern Recognition in Physics.  It even rated write-ups in Science and Nature!

Hilariously Monckton admits he couldn't get Energy and Environment, the fake sceptics "journal" to publish an article listing him as an author.  He wrote:

When I recently co-authored a paper with professor Fred Singer on the consequences of chaos theory for the predictability of global warming, the editor of Energy & Environment, one of the few journals to allow skeptical science an airing, ordered my name to be taken off the paper on the ground that it would annoy The Borg. Besides, she said, she did not like my politics (of which there was nothing whatsoever in the paper).

To put that into perspective, the "editorial advisory board" of Energy and Environment includes such non-entities as Benny Peiser of the GWPF and Richard S Courtney, a shouty playground monitor at WUWT,

According to Anthony Watts:

In an emotional commentary written for the WorldNetDaily (aka WND) Christopher Monckton has said that he’ll take over the journal and publish a first issue in March 2014. 

Well the article Christopher wrote said nothing about the first issue being published in March 2014, so whether Christopher conveyed that privately to Anthony or whether Anthony got it wrong is anyone's guess.  If he does, and since March is less than six weeks away, as DikranMarsupial points out in the WUWT comments:

dikranmarsupial says:
January 23, 2014 at 9:37 am
If Monckton suggests that he will start with a March 2014 issue. I hope he realises that recruiting action editors, attracting papers, sending them out for review, performing round or two of satisfactory peer review and getting the papers typeset in that timeframe is, errr… somwhat ambitious!

I've got another choice comment from Roger Tallbloke (archived here).  For those who don't know, he is a climate science denying blogger of no repute, and one of the people who authored four papers in the Pattern Recognition journal.  Roger was the second most prolific author after Nicola Scafetta, equal with Nils Axel Morner and JE Solheim.  Roger got very stroppy when people at WUWT got stuck into him for pal review not peer review.  Roger reckons he's going to use Christopher's mighty shoulder to heave the stone of ignorance off the path of knowledge and straighten the road, writing:

Rog Tallbloke • 6 hours ago
Bravo Christopher Monckton. As one of the authors of the PRP special issue: 'Patterns in solar variability, their planetary origin and terrestrial impacts', I am delighted you have come alongside us to put your mighty shoulder to the stone of ignorance. Together we will heave it off the path of knowledge and straighten the road.

Maybe it will win the next literary award.  (Is there an award for worst metaphors?)


I wonder if Anthony is about to throw Christopher to the dogs?  I doubt it.  Christopher has a bit of a fan club of forelock pulling serfs at WUWT.  Still, Anthony did finish his article with this sarcastic remark:

Judging from the comments in the WND article, it looks like Joseph A Olson (aka FauxScienceSlayer of the Slayers/PSI fame) is queuing up to submit some of his writings. I’m sure other like minded individuals will follow in seeking to publish there.

We live in interesting times.

You can read more about Pattern Recognition in Physics in this blog article by librarian Jeffrey Beall from July last year, and in recent articles at ScienceNews, in NatureNews, in a broader context at ClimateProgress, at BigCityLib and at various climate blogs, like Rabett Run and James' Empty Blog.  (There's more than one Pattern Recognition journal that has problems.)