Soon and Baliunas controversy
Encyclopedia
The Soon and Baliunas controversy involved the publication of a paper written by Willie Soon
and Sallie Baliunas
in the journal Climate Research
, which prompted concerns about the peer review process of the paper and resulted in the resignation of several other editors and the eventual repudiation of the paper by the publisher.
On January 31, 2003, a paper, Proxy climatic and environmental changes of the past 1000 years, written by Willie Soon
and Sallie Baliunas
of the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, was published in Climate Research
after being accepted by Chris de Freitas
, an editor at the journal who is known as a skeptic of anthropogenic global warming. The article reviewed 240 previously published papers and tried to find evidence for temperature anomalies in the last thousand years such as the Medieval warm period
and the Little Ice Age
. It concluded that "Across the world, many records reveal that the 20th century is probably not the warmest or a uniquely extreme climatic period of the last millennium".
On March 31, 2003, Soon and Baliunas, with three additional co-authors, published a longer version of the paper in Energy and Environment
. The three additional co-authors were Craig Idso, Sherwood Idso, and David Legates
.
In the paper, Soon, Baliunas, and their co-authors investigated the correlation between solar variation
and temperatures of the Earth's atmosphere. When there are more sunspot
s, the total solar output increases, and when there are fewer sunspots, it decreases. Soon and Baliunas attribute the Medieval warm period to such an increase in solar output, and believe that decreases in solar output led to the Little Ice Age
, a period of cooling lasting until the mid-19th Century. In a statement to The Chronicle of Higher Education
, Soon stated that, "When you compare the 20th century to the previous nine centuries, you do not see the change in the 20th century as anything unusual or unprecedented."
commented that "the fact that [the paper] has received any attention at all is a result, again in my view, of its utility to those groups who want the global warming issue to just go away". Malcolm K. Hughes
of the University of Arizona
, whose work on dendrochronology
was discussed in the paper, called it "so fundamentally misconceived and contain[ing] so many egregious errors that it would take weeks to list and explain them all."
Paleoclimatologist Michael E. Mann was especially critical of Soon and Baliunas' paper, calling its conclusions, "absurd, almost laughable." Mann said that the paper made no attempt to find if the past warm temperatures it reported were contemporaneous or merely one-off scattered events.
In July 2003, the journal Eos
published a paper authored by 13 climate scientists, most of whom had been cited in the Soon and Baliunas 2003 paper (SB03). The key criticisms noted in the Eos paper were that SB03 had conflated precipitation proxies and temperature proxies and that regional temperature changes were taken as global changes. Other objections included the allegation that SB03 reconstructed past temperatures from proxy evidence not capable of resolving decadal trends.
More recently, Osborn and Briffa repeated the Baliunas and Soon study but restricted themselves to records that were validated as temperature proxies, and came to a different result. The Soon and Baliunas paper had been sent to four reviewers during publication, all of whom recommended rejecting it.
Questions have also been raised about connections between the paper's authors and oil industry groups: five percent of the study, or $53,000, was funded by the American Petroleum Institute
. Soon and Baliunas were at the time paid consultants of the George C. Marshall Institute
. Soon has also received multiple grants from the American Petroleum Institute
between 2001 and 2007 totalled $274,000, and grants from Exxon Mobil totalled $335,000 between 2005 and 2010. Other contributers to Soon's research career include the Charles G. Koch Foundation
, which gave Soon two grants totaling $175,000 in 2005/6 and again in 2010, and coal and oil industry sources such as Mobil Foundation, the Texaco Foundation and the Electric Power Research Institute
. Soon has stated that he has "never been motivated by financial reward in any of my scientific research."
In defending the paper, Soon stated that the critics had mischaracterized the research in the paper. He explained that he had used precipitation data because too many scientists had concentrated on temperature records which, in Soon's opinion, are not the only measures of climate. Added Soon, "Some of the proxy information doesn't contain directly the temperature information, but it fits the general description of the medieval warm climatic anomaly. This is a first-order study to try to collect as much data as possible and try not to make the pretension that we know how to separate the information in the proxy."
sought to make changes to its review process. However, when other editors at the journal refused, von Storch decided to resign. He condemned the journal's review process in his resignation letter: "The review process had utterly failed; important questions have not been asked ... the methodological basis for such a conclusion (that the 20th century is probably not the warmest nor a uniquely extreme climate period of the last millennium) was simply not given." Eventually half of the journal's editorial board resigned along with von Storch. Von Storch later stated that climate change sceptics "had identified Climate Research as a journal where some editors were not as rigorous in the review process as is otherwise common" and complained that he had been pressured to publish the paper and had not been allowed to publish a rebuttal contesting the authors' conclusions.
In a later editorial Otto Kinne
, president of the organization that publishes Climate Research, stated that "While these statements [the conclusion of the paper] may be true, the critics point out that they cannot be concluded convincingly from the evidence provided in the paper. CR should have requested appropriate revisions of the manuscript prior to publication." Kinne told the New York Times that "I have not stood behind the paper by Soon and Baliunas. Indeed: the reviewers failed to detect methodological flaws."
The Soon and Baliunas paper had a significant political impact and has been widely promoted by opponents of regulatory action to tackle greenhouse gases. Republican Senator James Inhofe devoted half of a Senate hearing on climate change to a discussion of the article, asserting that its authors had refuted the scientific consensus on climate change
; Soon was among those whom Inhofe invited to give testimony at the hearing. The Bush administration also attempted to cite the paper in an Environmental Protection Agency report on the state of the environment.
(CRU) and other scientists, including Michael E. Mann. Several of the emails revealed conversations about Soon and Baliunas' paper as the controversy was ongoing in 2003 and 2004.
In one of the emails in early March 2003, Mann proposes to other scientists that they publicly ignore Soon and Baliunas' paper. Phil Jones, a CRU scientist, however, responds on 11 March that he thought the paper would be used by sceptics to further their agenda and therefore the paper's conclusions should be challenged. Mann's email responses to Jones the same day criticized de Freitas and von Storch and stated that, "I think we have to stop considering Climate Research as a legitimate peer-reviewed journal. Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues... to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal. We would also need to consider what we tell or request of our more reasonable colleagues who currently sit on the editorial board." In a 24 April 2003 email, Tom Wigley
suggests that pressure be put on Climate Research's board members to remove von Storch.
In a 18 December 2009 column in the Wall Street Journal, Pat Michaels alleged that pressure from Jones and Mann was responsible for the resignations at Climate Research. Mann, Jones, and Trenberth, however, have stated that they did not carry out the threat against the journal or keep the papers out of the IPCC
report. Von Storch has stated that his resignation as editor of Climate Research had nothing to do with any pressure from Jones, Mann, or anyone else, but was instead "because of insufficient quality control on a bad paper"
Willie Soon
Willie Wei-Hock Soon is an astrophysicist at the Solar and Stellar Physics Division of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Soon has testified before Congress on the issue of climate change He is known for his views that most global warming is caused by solar variation...
and Sallie Baliunas
Sallie Baliunas
Sallie Baliunas is an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in the Solar, Stellar, and Planetary Sciences Division and formerly Deputy Director of the Mount Wilson Observatory. She serves as Senior Scientist at the George C. Marshall Institute in Washington, DC, and...
in the journal Climate Research
Climate Research (journal)
Climate Research is a peer-reviewed scientific journal published by the Inter-Research Science Center that was established in 1990. Its founder was Otto Kinne. Three volumes are published each year...
, which prompted concerns about the peer review process of the paper and resulted in the resignation of several other editors and the eventual repudiation of the paper by the publisher.
Publication
Willie Soon
Willie Wei-Hock Soon is an astrophysicist at the Solar and Stellar Physics Division of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Soon has testified before Congress on the issue of climate change He is known for his views that most global warming is caused by solar variation...
and Sallie Baliunas
Sallie Baliunas
Sallie Baliunas is an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in the Solar, Stellar, and Planetary Sciences Division and formerly Deputy Director of the Mount Wilson Observatory. She serves as Senior Scientist at the George C. Marshall Institute in Washington, DC, and...
of the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, was published in Climate Research
Climate Research (journal)
Climate Research is a peer-reviewed scientific journal published by the Inter-Research Science Center that was established in 1990. Its founder was Otto Kinne. Three volumes are published each year...
after being accepted by Chris de Freitas
Chris de Freitas
Chris de Freitas is an Associate Professor in the School of Environment at the University of Auckland in New Zealand.-Education and professional career:...
, an editor at the journal who is known as a skeptic of anthropogenic global warming. The article reviewed 240 previously published papers and tried to find evidence for temperature anomalies in the last thousand years such as the Medieval warm period
Medieval Warm Period
The Medieval Warm Period , Medieval Climate Optimum, or Medieval Climatic Anomaly was a time of warm climate in the North Atlantic region, that may also have been related to other climate events around the world during that time, including in China, New Zealand, and other countries lasting from...
and the Little Ice Age
Little Ice Age
The Little Ice Age was a period of cooling that occurred after the Medieval Warm Period . While not a true ice age, the term was introduced into the scientific literature by François E. Matthes in 1939...
. It concluded that "Across the world, many records reveal that the 20th century is probably not the warmest or a uniquely extreme climatic period of the last millennium".
On March 31, 2003, Soon and Baliunas, with three additional co-authors, published a longer version of the paper in Energy and Environment
Energy and Environment
Energy & Environment is a peer-reviewed academic journal aimed at natural scientists, technologists, and the international social science and policy communities covering the direct and indirect environmental impacts of energy acquisition, transport, production and use. Its editor-in-chief since...
. The three additional co-authors were Craig Idso, Sherwood Idso, and David Legates
David Legates
David Russell Legates is a Professor of Geography at the University of Delaware. He is the former Director of the Center for Climatic Research at the same university, and a former Delaware State Climatologist....
.
In the paper, Soon, Baliunas, and their co-authors investigated the correlation between solar variation
Solar variation
Solar variation is the change in the amount of radiation emitted by the Sun and in its spectral distribution over years to millennia. These variations have periodic components, the main one being the approximately 11-year solar cycle . The changes also have aperiodic fluctuations...
and temperatures of the Earth's atmosphere. When there are more sunspot
Sunspot
Sunspots are temporary phenomena on the photosphere of the Sun that appear visibly as dark spots compared to surrounding regions. They are caused by intense magnetic activity, which inhibits convection by an effect comparable to the eddy current brake, forming areas of reduced surface temperature....
s, the total solar output increases, and when there are fewer sunspots, it decreases. Soon and Baliunas attribute the Medieval warm period to such an increase in solar output, and believe that decreases in solar output led to the Little Ice Age
Little Ice Age
The Little Ice Age was a period of cooling that occurred after the Medieval Warm Period . While not a true ice age, the term was introduced into the scientific literature by François E. Matthes in 1939...
, a period of cooling lasting until the mid-19th Century. In a statement to The Chronicle of Higher Education
The Chronicle of Higher Education
The Chronicle of Higher Education is a newspaper and website that presents news, information, and jobs for college and university faculty, staff members and administrators....
, Soon stated that, "When you compare the 20th century to the previous nine centuries, you do not see the change in the 20th century as anything unusual or unprecedented."
Responses
Following the paper's publication, other scientists criticized the study's methods and argued that the authors had misrepresented or misinterpreted their data. Some of those whose work was referenced by Soon and Baliunas were particularly critical. Tim Barnett of the Scripps Institution of OceanographyScripps Institution of Oceanography
Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, is one of the oldest and largest centers for ocean and earth science research, graduate training, and public service in the world...
commented that "the fact that [the paper] has received any attention at all is a result, again in my view, of its utility to those groups who want the global warming issue to just go away". Malcolm K. Hughes
Malcolm K. Hughes
Malcolm K. Hughes is a meso-climatologist and Regents' Professor of Dendrochronology in the Laboratory for Tree-Ring Research at the University of Arizona. He was born in Matlock, Derbyshire, England, and earned a Ph.D in ecology from the University of Durham. Since 1998, he is a fellow of the...
of the University of Arizona
University of Arizona
The University of Arizona is a land-grant and space-grant public institution of higher education and research located in Tucson, Arizona, United States. The University of Arizona was the first university in the state of Arizona, founded in 1885...
, whose work on dendrochronology
Dendrochronology
Dendrochronology or tree-ring dating is the scientific method of dating based on the analysis of patterns of tree-rings. Dendrochronology can date the time at which tree rings were formed, in many types of wood, to the exact calendar year...
was discussed in the paper, called it "so fundamentally misconceived and contain[ing] so many egregious errors that it would take weeks to list and explain them all."
Paleoclimatologist Michael E. Mann was especially critical of Soon and Baliunas' paper, calling its conclusions, "absurd, almost laughable." Mann said that the paper made no attempt to find if the past warm temperatures it reported were contemporaneous or merely one-off scattered events.
Eos (journal)
Eos, Transactions, American Geophysical Union, a publication of the American Geophysical Union, is a weekly newspaper of geophysics that carries refereed articles on current research and on the relationship of geophysics to social and political questions, news, book reviews, AGU journal and meeting...
published a paper authored by 13 climate scientists, most of whom had been cited in the Soon and Baliunas 2003 paper (SB03). The key criticisms noted in the Eos paper were that SB03 had conflated precipitation proxies and temperature proxies and that regional temperature changes were taken as global changes. Other objections included the allegation that SB03 reconstructed past temperatures from proxy evidence not capable of resolving decadal trends.
More recently, Osborn and Briffa repeated the Baliunas and Soon study but restricted themselves to records that were validated as temperature proxies, and came to a different result. The Soon and Baliunas paper had been sent to four reviewers during publication, all of whom recommended rejecting it.
Questions have also been raised about connections between the paper's authors and oil industry groups: five percent of the study, or $53,000, was funded by the American Petroleum Institute
American Petroleum Institute
The American Petroleum Institute, commonly referred to as API, is the largest U.S trade association for the oil and natural gas industry...
. Soon and Baliunas were at the time paid consultants of the George C. Marshall Institute
George C. Marshall Institute
The George C. Marshall Institute is a politically conservative think tank established in 1984 in Washington, D.C. with a focus on scientific issues and public policy. In the 1980s, the Institute was engaged primarily in lobbying in support of the Strategic Defense Initiative...
. Soon has also received multiple grants from the American Petroleum Institute
American Petroleum Institute
The American Petroleum Institute, commonly referred to as API, is the largest U.S trade association for the oil and natural gas industry...
between 2001 and 2007 totalled $274,000, and grants from Exxon Mobil totalled $335,000 between 2005 and 2010. Other contributers to Soon's research career include the Charles G. Koch Foundation
Koch Family Foundations
Koch Family Foundations is the informal name for a group of charities in the United States of America associated with the family of Fred C. Koch. The most prominent of these are the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation and the David H. Koch Charitable Foundation, created by two of Fred C...
, which gave Soon two grants totaling $175,000 in 2005/6 and again in 2010, and coal and oil industry sources such as Mobil Foundation, the Texaco Foundation and the Electric Power Research Institute
Electric Power Research Institute
The Electric Power Research Institute conducts research on issues related to the electric power industry in USA. EPRI is a nonprofit organization funded by the electric utility industry. EPRI is primarily a US based organization, receives international participation...
. Soon has stated that he has "never been motivated by financial reward in any of my scientific research."
In defending the paper, Soon stated that the critics had mischaracterized the research in the paper. He explained that he had used precipitation data because too many scientists had concentrated on temperature records which, in Soon's opinion, are not the only measures of climate. Added Soon, "Some of the proxy information doesn't contain directly the temperature information, but it fits the general description of the medieval warm climatic anomaly. This is a first-order study to try to collect as much data as possible and try not to make the pretension that we know how to separate the information in the proxy."
Impact of the criticisms
After seeing the critiques of the paper, Climate Research's chief editor Hans von StorchHans von Storch
Hans von Storch is a German climate scientist. He is Professor at the Meteorological Institute of the University of Hamburg, and Director of the Institute for Coastal Research at the Helmholtz Research Centre in Geesthacht, Germany...
sought to make changes to its review process. However, when other editors at the journal refused, von Storch decided to resign. He condemned the journal's review process in his resignation letter: "The review process had utterly failed; important questions have not been asked ... the methodological basis for such a conclusion (that the 20th century is probably not the warmest nor a uniquely extreme climate period of the last millennium) was simply not given." Eventually half of the journal's editorial board resigned along with von Storch. Von Storch later stated that climate change sceptics "had identified Climate Research as a journal where some editors were not as rigorous in the review process as is otherwise common" and complained that he had been pressured to publish the paper and had not been allowed to publish a rebuttal contesting the authors' conclusions.
In a later editorial Otto Kinne
Otto Kinne
Otto Kinne is a German marine biologist. He was director of Germany's Biologische Anstalt Helgoland from 1962 to 1984. Since 1967 he has been a Professor at the University of Kiel. He established the Inter-Research Science Center and the International Ecology Institute in 1984, becoming the...
, president of the organization that publishes Climate Research, stated that "While these statements [the conclusion of the paper] may be true, the critics point out that they cannot be concluded convincingly from the evidence provided in the paper. CR should have requested appropriate revisions of the manuscript prior to publication." Kinne told the New York Times that "I have not stood behind the paper by Soon and Baliunas. Indeed: the reviewers failed to detect methodological flaws."
The Soon and Baliunas paper had a significant political impact and has been widely promoted by opponents of regulatory action to tackle greenhouse gases. Republican Senator James Inhofe devoted half of a Senate hearing on climate change to a discussion of the article, asserting that its authors had refuted the scientific consensus on climate change
Scientific opinion on climate change
The predominant scientific opinion on climate change is that the Earth is in an ongoing phase of global warming primarily caused by an enhanced greenhouse effect due to the anthropogenic release of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases...
; Soon was among those whom Inhofe invited to give testimony at the hearing. The Bush administration also attempted to cite the paper in an Environmental Protection Agency report on the state of the environment.
Email controversy
In November 2009, a database of emails and documents were hacked from a server belonging to East Anglia University. Many of the emails included communication between the climatologists in East Anglia's Climatic Research UnitClimatic Research Unit
The Climatic Research Unit is a component of the University of East Anglia and is one of the leading institutions concerned with the study of natural and anthropogenic climate change....
(CRU) and other scientists, including Michael E. Mann. Several of the emails revealed conversations about Soon and Baliunas' paper as the controversy was ongoing in 2003 and 2004.
In one of the emails in early March 2003, Mann proposes to other scientists that they publicly ignore Soon and Baliunas' paper. Phil Jones, a CRU scientist, however, responds on 11 March that he thought the paper would be used by sceptics to further their agenda and therefore the paper's conclusions should be challenged. Mann's email responses to Jones the same day criticized de Freitas and von Storch and stated that, "I think we have to stop considering Climate Research as a legitimate peer-reviewed journal. Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues... to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal. We would also need to consider what we tell or request of our more reasonable colleagues who currently sit on the editorial board." In a 24 April 2003 email, Tom Wigley
Tom Wigley
Tom Wigley is a climate scientist at the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research . He was named a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science for his major contributions to climate and carbon-cycle modeling and to climate data analysis, and because he is "one of the...
suggests that pressure be put on Climate Research's board members to remove von Storch.
In a 18 December 2009 column in the Wall Street Journal, Pat Michaels alleged that pressure from Jones and Mann was responsible for the resignations at Climate Research. Mann, Jones, and Trenberth, however, have stated that they did not carry out the threat against the journal or keep the papers out of the IPCC
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a scientific intergovernmental body which provides comprehensive assessments of current scientific, technical and socio-economic information worldwide about the risk of climate change caused by human activity, its potential environmental and...
report. Von Storch has stated that his resignation as editor of Climate Research had nothing to do with any pressure from Jones, Mann, or anyone else, but was instead "because of insufficient quality control on a bad paper"
External links
- "Reconstructing Climatic and Environmental Changes of the Past 1000 Years: A Reappraisal" (abstract), by Soon W.; Baliunas S.; Idso C.; Idso S.; Legates D.R: Energy & Environment, Volume 14, Numbers 2-3, 1 May 2003. Full text. The companion paper to the controversial Climate Research paper discussed here.