A Weblog Post By Ross McKitrick That Is Worth Reading

Ross McKitrick has shared with us a post on his experiences with peer reviewed publication. Since I have had similar experiences (including last year with the International Journal of Climatology -IJOC), I feel it is useful to alert readers of my weblog to his post

Ross McKitrick – Annotated Index to my Publications and Papers NEW ITEMS (March 25 2010 update)

Here is what Ross writes about his experience with the IJOC

“SURFACE TEMPERATURES: In 2007 I published a paper with Pat Michaels showing evidence that CRU global surface temperature data used by the IPCC are likely contaminated due to socioeconomic development and variations in data quality. In 2008 Gavin Schmidt published a paper in the International Journal of Climatology claiming our results, as well as those of de Laat and Maurellis who independently found the same things we did, were spurious. My rebuttal, coauthored with Nicolas Nierenberg, was submitted to the IJOC in April 2009.

McKitrick, Ross R. and Nicolas Nierenberg (2009). Correlations between Surface Temperature Trends and Socioeconomic Activity: Toward a Causal Interpretation.

We found out in February that it has been rejected. Interestingly, it turns out that the IJOC had sent Schmidt’s paper, which focuses on defending Phil Jones’ CRU data against its various critics, to be reviewed by none other than Phil Jones of the CRU. As you can imagine the review was rather enthusiastic and uncritical. The IJOC didn’t ask deLaat or me to supply a review, nor did they invite us to contribute a response. And they have rejected the response we did submit, on the basis of some loopy referee reports to which Nico and I were not given a chance to reply (though we did anyway). Nice way they run a journal over at IJOC. The paper is being upgraded and submitted elsewhere.”

When I was Chief Editor of the Monthly Weather Review, and later, Co-Chief Editor of the Journal of Atmospheric Sciences, we never would have permitted his Comment to be rejected. Such a rejection is a subversion of the peer review process by the IJOC, and the other journals who have this practice.