Category: environmental science

Paper claiming hottest 60-year-span in 1,000 years put on hold after being published online

The authors of a study of Australasian temperatures over the past millennium have put the print publication of an online-first study on hold after errors were identified in the records they used.

Here’s how RealClimate.org summarized the findings of the original paper, which was published in mid-May:

The conclusion reached is that summer temperatures in the post-1950 period were warmer than anything else in the last 1000 years at high confidence, and in the last ~400 years at very high confidence.

The page at the American Metereological Society site where the paper used to be now reads: Continue reading Paper claiming hottest 60-year-span in 1,000 years put on hold after being published online

Climate science critic Wegman reprimanded by one university committee while another finds no misconduct

The author of a controversial and now-retracted paper questioning the science of climate change has been reprimanded by his university for plagiarism. According to USA Today’s Dan Vergano, who broke the news:

[Edward] Wegman was the senior author of a 2006 report to Congress that criticized climate scientists as excessively collaborative, and found fault with a statistical technique used in two climate studies. Portions of the report analysis were published in the journal, Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, in a 2008 study.

University of Massachusetts professor Raymond Bradley filed a complaint against Wegman in 2010, noting that portions of the report and the CSDA study appeared lifted from one of his textbooks and from other sources, including Wikipedia. CSDA later retracted the study, noting the plagiarism, last year.

Here’s the explicit retraction notice: Continue reading Climate science critic Wegman reprimanded by one university committee while another finds no misconduct

Controversial paper critiquing climate change science set to be retracted because of plagiarism

A controversial study of how relationships between climate change scientists may affect the field, and that has been dogged by charges of plagiarism, will be retracted, USA Today reports.

The abstract of the 2008 paper in Computational Statistics and Data Analysis, by Edward Wegman and colleagues, concluded:

We conjecture that certain styles of co-authorship lead to the possibility of group-think, reduced creativity, and the possibility of less rigorous reviewing processes.

According to USA Today: Continue reading Controversial paper critiquing climate change science set to be retracted because of plagiarism

EurekAlert retracts press release, and a Guardian reporter sanctioned by EurekAlert reports on it

Cross-posted from Embargo Watch

EurekAlert has withdrawn a press release after realizing that it contained unsupported statements about climate change. As Suzanne Goldenberg of The Guardian reports:

An online news service sponsored by the world’s premier scientific association unwittingly promoted a study making the false claim that catastrophic global warming would occur within nine years, the Guardian has learned.

The study, by an NGO based in Argentina, claimed the planet would warm by 2.4C by 2020 and projected dire consequences for global food supply. A press release for the Food Gap study was carried by EurekAlert!, the news service operated by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) , and the story was picked up by a number of international news organisations on Tuesday.

Read the rest of Goldenberg’s story. It’s quite illuminating.

EurekAlert posted a statement that reads, in part: Continue reading EurekAlert retracts press release, and a Guardian reporter sanctioned by EurekAlert reports on it

Did a NOAA scientist “retract” an overoptimistic oil spill report?

Photo by Mindful Walker http://www.flickr.com/photos/27530874@N03/ via flickr

Yesterday, on a story about a Congressional hearing on the progress of oil spill cleanup in the Gulf of Mexico, the Guardian ran the following headline:

BP oil spill: US scientist retracts assurances over success of cleanup

NOAA’s Bill Lehr says three-quarters of the oil that gushed from the Deepwater Horizon rig is still in the Gulf environment while scientists identify 22-mile plume in ocean depths

The story, as do those in the Los Angeles Times, The Hill, and the New Orleans Times-Picayune, among others, point out that Lehr’s testimony seemed at odds with the almost celebratory atmosphere surrounding the release of a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) report two weeks ago, “BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Budget: What Happened To the Oil?”

The coverage yesterday also noted that other scientists have criticized the report, and that a study in Science this week suggests there’s still an underwater plume of oil in the Gulf.

But did Lehr actually “retract” assurances over the cleanup’s success, or the report itself? Continue reading Did a NOAA scientist “retract” an overoptimistic oil spill report?