date: Mon, 29 Sep 2003 09:29:00 +0100 from: "Mark New" subject: RE: letter to PiPG to: "'Mike Hulme'" Mike, Thanks. I wrote to the Editor some time ago, saying... Mark ------------------- I was alarmed to see the 'Global Warming' review by W. Soon and S. Baliunas in the latest issue of Progress in Physical Geography (PiPG). You may be aware that these authors have been the subject of heated debate in the climate science community, and in the public media (for example, Appell 2003). The recent publication of an article in Climate Research (Soon and Baliunas 2003) where the authors claimed that 20^th century warming is not the largest climate anomaly in the last ~1200 years prompted (i) the resignation of several editors from Climate Research because they felt the publication of the article had violated the peer-review process, and (ii) a strong condemnation by leading scientists in EOS (Mann et al. 2003) who were concerned that the flawed conclusions in Soon and Baliunas (2003) had entered the public record in the US Senate as peer-reviewed science. There is ample scope for criticism of the extent to which of Soon and Baliunas's review accurately and fairly 'documents the quality' of General Circulation Models (GCMs) in PiPG, and the article may well stimulate comments from experts in the field. However, I am more concerned about the wider implications of appointing scientists who have consistently received criticism for the methodology and conclusions of their peer-reviewed work (see for example, Risbey 2002; Karoly et al. 2003; Mann et al. 2003) to publish review articles that are not subject to peer review. PiPG has a wide audience, most of whom are not specialists in climate science, and therefore unable to make critical judgements about the accuracy of a review such as this. Moreover, many of your readers are likely unaware that subject updates/reviews in PiPG are not subject to peer-review. Similarly, such articles can easily be portrayed to the uninformed as being a publication in a "peer-reviewed journal", which is substantially different to the article itself being peer-reviewed. Without prior knowledge of where Soon and Baliunas sit on the Global Warming issue, their PiPG review has the potential to seriously mislead a reader about the current capabilities and limitations of GCMs: their 'review' is a catalogue of real and perceived limitations in GCMs rather than a balanced review of achievements as well as problems in GCM modelling. I have no objection to minority and non-consensus views being published: healthy debate is to be encouraged and forces those involved to think more critically about their science. However, reviews should be balanced and reflect the full range of opinions, and Soon and Baliunas's article does not satisfy these requirements. For future reviews (and this may be appropriate for all subjects), I would suggest that at the very least you include a note from the editor stating that (i) the article is not peer-reviewed, and (ii) the article reflects the opinions of the authors rather than consensus in the discipline. A more rigorous approach would be to subject these articles to the normal peer-review process. Sincerely, Dr Mark New Climatology Research Group School of Geography and the Environment University of Oxford References Appell, D. (2003). "Hot words - A claim of nonhuman-induced global warming sparks debate." Scientific American 289(2): 20-22. Karoly, D., et al. (2003). "Comment on Soon et al. (2001) 'Modeling climatic effects of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions: unknowns and uncertainties'." Climate Research 24: 91-92. Mann, M., et al. (2003). "On past temperatures and late-20th century warmth." EOS 84(27): 256-258. Risbey, J. (2002). "Comment on Soon et al. (2001) 'Modeling climatic effects of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions: unknowns and uncertainties'." Climate Research 22(2): 185-186. Soon, W. and S. Baliunas (2003). "Proxy climatic and environmental changes of the past 1000 years." Climate Research 23(2): 89-110. -----Original Message----- From: Mike Hulme [mailto:m.hulme@uea.ac.uk] Sent: Friday, September 26, 2003 6:13 PM To: p.jones@uea.ac.uk; mark.new@geog.ox.ac.uk Subject: letter to PiPG Phil, Mark, For your interest, this is the letter I am sending to PiPG on Monday. Phil - which issue of EOS was Mike Mann's article in? Thanks, Mike ____________________________________________ 29 September 2003 Professor B.W.Atkinson Department of ??????????? Queen Mary College University of London London ???????????????? Dear Bruce, I am writing to resign from my position as Editorial Adviser for the journal Progress in Physical Geography. I do this reluctantly since I believe the journal continues to fulfil a useful and important niche in the geographical sciences I remember my relying heavily upon the journal as an undergraduate geographer more than 20 years ago. I reached this decision after seeing the September 2003 issue of the journal in which I noticed that Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas have been asked to provide the annual progress reports for "global warming" for the journal and after reading their first contribution. This choice of authorship truly baffles me. Both authors are in a department of astrophysics. Neither author is a geographer or climatologist by training. Neither author has published extensively in the field of human-induced climate change. And one of the relatively few scientific peer-reviewed articles they have published in the field of climate change - Soon, W., and S.Baliunas, "Proxy climatic and environmental changes of the past 1000 years", Climate Research, 23, 89-110, 2003 seriously questions their credentials to provide accurate and authoritative reviews in the area of "global warming" (see article published a few weeks ago in the AGU weekly EOS: "On past temperatures and anomalous late-20th century warmth" by Mann,M.E., Ammann,C.M., Bradley,R.S., Briffa,K.R., Crowley,T.J., Jones,P.D., Oppenheimer,M., Osborn,T.J., Overpeck,J.T., Rutherford,S., Trenberth,K.E., Wigley,T.M.L.; and also the editorial from the publisher in the journal Climate Research by Otto Kinne "Climate Research: an article unleashed worldwide storms", vol. 24:197-198; I attach copies of these articles for your interest). You will gather that I strongly disagree with your choice of author(s) for this annual review. Given that my views as an Editorial Adviser to the journal presumably invited into that capacity to cover the general area of climate change, although maybe I presume too much were not even sought, let alone listened to, I utterly fail to see the point of my continuing in this role or my name being associated with the journal. I would of course be interested to hear of your selection criteria and of your process that led to these two authors being invited to provide the "global warming" review for the journal. Might I ask that you copy my letter to the member of Arnold publishing staff who is responsible for PiPG. Yours sincerely, Professor Mike Hulme