Rebuttal to "Poptech's list of Confusion" #2

Rebutal to "Poptech's list of Confusion" #2:

An alarmist spammer who comments at Jo Nova's site by the screen name "Blimey" and around the Internet as "itsnotnova" continues doubling down on his insanity. After having his original blog post completely refuted he decided to add new lies, misinformation and strawman arguments to it. He is so incompetent that he did not even read the list correctly (Lie #4) or understands that "Letters" is a term used to describe a type of peer-reviewed scientific document format in certain scholarly journals such as Nature (Lie #13).

This is a lie: Joanna Nova does not "hate" those who who never received a proper education and thus do not know the correct terminology to use when referring to ACC/AGW skeptics. ACC/AGW skeptics believe the climate changes and the holocaust happened. Thus, calling them "deniers" is incorrect and used as an ad hominem.

This is a strawman argument: Denial of these papers existing is one of the reasons for the creation of the list and confirmed by this comment at RealClimate,

"I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been told by AGW voices that there are NO qualified skeptics or peer reviewed/published work by them. Including right here by RC regulars. In truth there is serious work and questions raised by significant work by very qualified skeptics which has been peer reviewed and published. It should be at least a bit disturbing for this type of denial to have been perpetrated with such a chorus. It’s one thing to engage and refute. But it’s not right to misrepresent as not even existing the counter viewpoints. I fully recognize the adversarial environment between the two opposing camps which RC and CA/WUWT represent, but the the perpetual declaration that there is no legitimate rejection of AGW is out of line." - John H., Comment at RealClimate.org

Whether they "destroy" AGW or not is purely subjective and irrelevant to the purpose of the list.

This is a strawman argument: Papers can be listed if they support skeptic arguments against ACC/AGW or ACC/AGW Alarm. This is explicitly stated on the list,

Peer-Reviewed Papers Supporting Skeptic Arguments Against ACC/AGW Alarm

"The following papers support skeptic arguments against Anthropogenic Climate Change (ACC), Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) or ACC/AGW Alarm.

ACC/AGW Alarm (defined) - "concern relating to a negative environmental or socio-economic effect of ACC/AGW, usually exaggerated as catastrophic."

This is a lie: The categorization of the list is explicitly clear,

"The following papers support skeptic arguments against Anthropogenic Climate Change (ACC), Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) or ACC/AGW Alarm."

I have no control over anyone who misreads the list.

This is a lie: Papers are listed if they support a skeptic argument against ACC/AGW or ACC/AGW Alarm. Many papers were listed not because I decided they rebut something but because a skeptic had already cited them in an argument elsewhere. Alarmist claims can come from anywhere in the media, including but not limited to the Internet. In the cases of the "someone" on the Internet they are not random people but well-known activists, environmentalists or journalists.

This is a strawman argument: What is considered "mainstream" is subjective. No where is it stated that a paper must dispute the IPCC report to be included on the list. There is a specific "IPCC" section on the list making it impossible for this to be a list wide requirement. The list was created to be a resource not a report. An 868 page report challenging the IPCC's conclusions is freely available,



Climate Change Reconsidered (868 pgs) (NIPCC Report)

This is a lie: There was never any mistake, just a clarification made to the title. This was added in later versions of the list to make it more clear to it's intent and purpose by adding the words "ACC/AGW" and "Alarm" - "Peer-Reviewed Papers Supporting Skeptic Arguments Against ACC/AGW Alarm"

The list had originally stated in the notes following it, "The papers support skepticism of "man-made" global warming or the environmental or economic effects of." - as explicitly archived on Watts Up With That?. This was later moved to the top of the list and changed to,

"The following papers support skeptic arguments against Anthropogenic Climate Change (ACC), Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) or ACC/AGW Alarm defined as - concern relating to a perceived negative environmental or socio-economic effect of ACC/AGW, usually exaggerated as catastrophic."

Thus clearly implying papers were always listed that support skeptic arguments against ACC/AGW Alarm.

He now idiotically cites multiple sources for the original title as if this was ever up for debate. The clarification to the original title has never been denied. What is vehemently rejected is his lie as to the reason for the clarification.

This is a strawman argument: All of his "numerous blogger sites" are from years ago and have the old title of the list! No claim has ever been made that the original title was not posted on the Internet or later clarified with the word "Alarm". Why is he arguing against clarifications to the list that are years old?

This is misinformation: Both politicians have represented very large constituencies and thus can have a significant influence on the debate. Their views are widely held by those who have voted for them.

"You realize that there are something like two or three thousand studies all of which concur which have been peer reviewed, and not one of the studies dissenting has been peer reviewed?" - John Kerry, U.S. Senator and Failed 2004 U.S. Presidential Candidate

John Kerry received 59 Million votes for President of the United States in 2004 and has been a U.S. Senator representing 6.5 Million people from the state of Massachusetts for over 25 years.

"There was a massive study of every scientific article in a peer reviewed article written on global warming in the last ten years. They took a big sample of 10 percent, 928 articles. And you know the number of those that disagreed with the scientific consensus that we’re causing global warming and that is a serious problem out of the 928: Zero." - Al Gore, Former U.S. Vice President and Failed 2000 U.S. Presidential Candidate

Al Gore was Vice President of the United States (population: 250 Million+) for eight years and received 50 Million votes for President of the United States in 2000. His documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" is the sixth highest grossing documentary film to date, made $50 Million worldwide and is being shown in schools around the world,

So how did An Inconvenient Truth become required classroom viewing? (National Post, Canada, May 20, 2007)
Schools must warn of Gore climate film bias (Daily Mail, UK, October 3, 2007)
Climate change film An Inconvenient Truth for Australian schools (The Daily Telegraph, Australia, October 27, 2010)

This is a strawman argument: No such argument is made anywhere on the list. The reason for listing the comment from RealClimate.org is to demonstrate that alarmists had been implying the false notion that these papers do not exist.

This is misinformation: Wikipedia is simply "truth based on who edits last" and should never be cited as a source since nothing that appears on it can be trusted without further verification. Unfortunately most computer illiterates like him do not know this. Most of the papers on the Popular Technology.net list are intentionally ignored or unjustly dismissed by those few pushing the false notion of "consensus". These papers are not "casualties".

This is a strawman argument: No claim is made anywhere on the list that it is a theory of any kind, while it is explicitly stated that it is a resource,

"Purpose: To provide a resource for peer-reviewed papers that support skeptic arguments against ACC/AGW or ACC/AGW Alarm and to prove that these papers exist contrary to widely held beliefs,

This is misinformation: The criteria for inclusion is explicitly stated on the list,

"Criteria for Inclusion: All counted papers must be peer-reviewed, published in a peer-reviewed journal and support a skeptic argument against ACC/AGW or ACC/AGW Alarm."

This is a strawman argument: Obviously, a paper that supports a skeptic argument against AGW Alarm will likely acknowledge AGW (in some form). This does not necessarily mean they "support" AGW theory.

This is misinformation: He provides no evidence that the papers include poor science or are irrelevant. Since the list is a resource and not a unified theory then it can include papers that are mutually exclusive. This is explicitly stated on the list, "Various papers are mutually exclusive and should be considered independently". Skeptics accept that there exists independent, mutually exclusive theories on certain aspects of climate change, while collectivists such as himself have a hard time grasping the existence of independent thought and debate existing on climate change.

He updated his previous 7 Spammed lies to 14:


Lie 1. The author may disagree with having his paper on Poptech’s list.

The list has nothing to do with an author's personal opinion but whether a paper supports a skeptic argument against ACC/AGW Alarm. This is explicitly stated in the disclaimer on the list,

"Disclaimer: The inclusion of a paper in this list does not imply a specific personal position to any of the authors. While certain authors on the list cannot be labeled skeptics (e.g. Harold Brooks, Roger Pielke Jr., Roger Pielke Sr.) their paper(s) or results from their paper(s) can still support skeptic's arguments against ACC/AGW alarm."

Roger Pielke Jr's "criticism" has been refuted,

Rebuttal to "Better Recheck That List"

His papers were not listed because they support his "Hypothethis 1" but because they support skeptic arguments against ACC/AGW Alarm,

Nine Fallacies of Floods (PDF)
(Climatic Change, Volume 42, Number 2, June 1999)
- Roger A. Pielke Jr.

"Fallacy 2: Damaging flooding in recent years is unprecedented because of global warming" - Roger Pielke Jr.

Hurricanes and Global Warming (PDF)
(Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Volume 86, Issue 11, November 2005)
- Roger A. Pielke Jr., Christopher W. Landsea, M. Mayfield, J. Laver, R. Pasch

"The paper concludes that with no trend identified in various metrics of hurricane damage over the twentieth century, it is exceedingly unlikely that scientists will identify large changes in historical storm behavior that have significant societal implications" - Roger Pielke Jr.

Normalized Hurricane Damage in the United States: 1900–2005 (PDF)
(Natural Hazards Review, Volume 9, Issue 1, pp. 29-42, February 2008)
- Roger A. Pielke Jr., Joel Gratz, Christopher W. Landsea, Douglas Collins, Mark A. Saunders, Rade Musulin

"Across both normalization methods, there is no remaining trend of increasing absolute damage in the data set, which follows the lack of trends in landfall frequency or intensity observed over the twentieth century." - Roger Pielke Jr.

- Are there trends in hurricane destruction? (PDF)
(Nature, Volume 438, Number 7071, pp. E11, December 2005)
- Roger A. Pielke Jr.

"My analysis of a long-term data set of hurricane losses in the United States shows no upward trend" - Roger Pielke Jr.

Harold Brook's "criticism" is a strawman argument. His papers were not listed because they support skepticism of AGW but rather they support a skeptic argument against ACC/AGW Alarm. In this case the environmental and economic effects of ACC/AGW in relation to tornado activity.

Does Global Warming Influence Tornado Activity? (PDF)
(Eos, Transactions American Geophysical Union, Volume 89, Issue 53, pp. 553-554, December 2008)
- Noah S. Diffenbaugh, Robert J. Trapp, Harold Brooks

"The number of tornadoes classified as the most damaging (rated F2–F5 on the Fujita scale) actually appears to have decreased over the past five decades." - Harold Brooks

Normalized Damage from Major Tornadoes in the United States: 1890–1999
(Weather and Forecasting, Volume 16, Issue 1, pp. 168-176, February 2001)
- Harold E. Brooks, Charles A. Doswell III

"Using wealth and inflation adjustment, it seems clear that the most damaging tornado in U.S. history was the 1896 Saint Louis–East Saint Louis tornado, which produced damage equivalent to $2.9 billion in modern terms. ...We find nothing to suggest that damage from individual tornadoes has increased through time." - Harold Brooks

Neither author has been able to show that their paper(s) cannot be used to support a skeptic argument against ACC/AGW Alarm.


Lie 2. The paper can agree with the IPCC and mainstream climate science but disagree, even if only slightly, with some aspect of CAGW as defined by anyone, even a newspaper or internet article.

The IPCC is irrelevant to the purpose of the list. While some papers directly criticize it, the IPCC has nothing to do with whether a paper appears on the list or not. Papers are listed if they support a skeptic argument against ACC/AGW or ACC/AGW Alarm. Alarmist claims can come from anywhere in the media, including but not limited to the Internet. In the cases of the "someone" on the Internet they are not random people but well-known activists, environmentalists or journalists.

Climate Progress was mentioned as an example of where you can find alarmist claims that are not in the IPCC report. Romm's Knorr diatribe was not what I was referring to.

The title and content of the University Press Release makes it very clear why it was listed,

Controversial new climate change results (University of Bristol, UK, November 9, 2009)

"This suggests that terrestrial ecosystems and the oceans have a much greater capacity to absorb CO2 than had been previously expected. The results run contrary to a significant body of recent research which expects that the capacity of terrestrial ecosystems and the oceans to absorb CO2 should start to diminish as CO2 emissions increase, letting greenhouse gas levels skyrocket."

Romm's diatribe has to do with misinterpreted reports of this paper. However Romm has presented alarmist claims in relation to this subject in the past,

Big news: The ocean carbon sink is saturating (Climate Progress, October 22, 2007)

"The long-feared saturation of one the world’s primary carbon sinks has apparently started. ...If the oceans stop taking up CO2, the atmosphere will inevitably take up more, accelerating global warming." - Joe Romm

Something else for the deniers to deny: The ocean is absorbing less carbon dioxide (Climate Progress, January 15, 2009)

"Among the greatest concerns is the growing evidence that the major carbon sinks are saturating, that a greater and greater fraction of human emissions will end up in the atmosphere." - Joe Romm


Lie 3. The paper may confirm fundamental properties of AGW.

None of the papers "confirm" fundamental properties of AGW. A paper that supports a skeptic argument against AGW Alarm will likely acknowledge AGW (in some form). This does not necessarily mean they "support" AGW theory.

He then goes on to lie about and cherry pick out of context statements from one of Dr. Scafetta's papers,

None of the listed papers in the Solar section "rebut" a solar theory on climate change. Instead they support various skeptic arguments for a solar theory. These arguments vary between simply an increased solar forcing with a reduced anthropogenic factor not supported by the IPCC to a complete solar theory of climate change.

This is an out of context quote that is simply the author laying out the other side of the argument so he can offer an explanation. Which he does later in the paper,

Phenomenological solar signature in 400 years of reconstructed Northern Hemisphere temperature record (PDF)
(Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 33, Issue 17, September 2006)
- Nicola Scafetta, Bruce J. West

"Since 1975 global warming has occurred much faster than could be reasonably expected from the sun alone. Minor disagreements between the patterns can be due to possible imprecision in the proxy reconstructions of temperature and/or solar irradiance records and to indetermination of the time-lag, which is also frequency/amplitude dependent. For example, the temperature record peaks around 1950 while the solar temperature signature shown in Figure 2 peaks around 1960, however, by adopting a different TSI proxy reconstruction [e.g., Hoyt and Schatten, 1997], the two peaks would almost coincide. [...] The difference since 1975 might also decrease if part of the observed NH warming comes from spurious non-climatic contamination of the surface observations such as heat-island and land-use effects [Pielke et al., 2002; Kalnay and Cai, 2003]. Some authors [Christy and Norris, 2006; Douglass et al., 2004] suggest that the recent surface warming is overestimated because temperature reconstructions for the lower troposphere obtained with MSU satellites since 1978 present a significant lower warming than the surface record,"

They don't "confirm" anything, they simply suggest how an increased solar forcing could affect the climate while noting,

"Most of the sun-climate coupling mechanisms are probably still unknown."

Again, the list has nothing to do with the IPCC report or any one theory. While various papers on the list are mutually exclusive, that has nothing to do with any disagreeing with each other as they do not refer to each other in this manner. Skeptics accept that there exists independent, mutually exclusive theories on certain aspects of climate change, while collectivists such as himself have a hard time grasping the existence of independent thought and debate existing on climate change. Again, a paper that supports a skeptic argument against AGW Alarm will likely acknowledge AGW (in some form).

His "point" is a strawman argument.


Lie 4. The paper may be alarming, but will somehow still make the list.

To fully confirm his illiteracy, he goes to the, "Rebuttals to Published Alarmist Papers" section and selects a paper that is being argued against! That section "lists" (does not count or include) the alarmist paper followed by papers that support skeptic arguments against it.

Update: These papers have now been linked off the main list to prevent those who cannot read from making similar illiterate arguments.


Lie 5. The papers on the list can hold completely opposing views with each other.

As explicitly state in the disclaimer, "Various papers are mutually exclusive and should be considered independently." This is not hard to understand as skeptics accept that there exists independent, mutually exclusive theories on certain aspects of climate change. Collectivists have a hard time grasping the existence of independent thought and debate existing on climate change.

Again, this is still a strawman argument. No claim is made anywhere that the list "constitute a scientific theory that debunks AGW". It is a resource of peer-reviewed papers that support skeptic arguments against ACC/AGW or ACC/AGW Alarm.

What is "significant" or not is purely subjective. I believe the list to be significant as well as many of the papers on it. So do many skeptics and highly credentialed skeptical scientists.


Lie 6. The paper can be seriously flawed.

No paper is listed where the author has conceded their paper to be "seriously flawed". A few papers have had corrections made to them and published but this is standard practice in scholarly journals. Published corrections are included on the list following the original paper. All other criticisms have been rebutted by the authors and the published rebuttals are also included on the list following the original paper. Just because a critic claims a paper is "flawed" does not make it so.

This is a pathetic excuse for the lack of any published rebuttal to most of these peer-reviewed papers and is a nice exercise in hand-waving but nothing more.

Citations are a measure of popularity not scientific validity.

This is a lie as Idso rebutted those criticisms in this published correspondence,

A clarification of my position on the CO2/climate connection
(Climatic Change, Volume 10, Number 1, pp. 81-86, February 1987)
- Sherwood B. Idso

Climate Research is a peer-reviewed scholarly journal (ISSN: 0936-577X)
- EBSCO lists Climate Research as a peer-reviewed scholarly journal (PDF)
- "Manuscripts are critically evaluated by at least 3 reviewers"

The Climategate emails brought to light that the paper in question was properly peer-reviewed,

Climategate Email 1057944829

"I have spent a considerable amount of my time on this matter and had my integrity attacked in the process. I want to emphasize that the people leading this attack are hardly impartial observers. Mike himself refers to "politics" and political incitement involved. Both Hulme and Goodess are from the Climate Research Unit of UEA that is not particularly well known for impartial views on the climate change debate. The CRU has a large stake in climate change research funding as I understand it pays the salaries of most of its staff. I understand too the journalist David Appell was leaked information to fuel a public attack. I do not know the source Mike Hulme refers to the number of papers I have processed for CR that "have been authored by scientists who are well known for their opposition to the notion that humans are significantly altering global climate." How many can he say he has processed? I suspect the answer is nil. Does this mean he is biased towards scientists "who are well known for their support for the notion that humans are significantly altering global climate?

Mike Hulme quite clearly has an axe or two to grind, and, it seems, a political agenda. But attacks on me of this sort challenge my professional integrity, not only as a CR editor, but also as an academic and scientist. Mike Hulme should know that I have never accepted any research money for climate change research, none from any "side" or lobby or interest group or government or industry. So I have no pipers to pay. [...]

The criticisms of Soon and Baliunas (2003) CR article raised by Mike Hume in his 16 June 2003 email to you was not raised by the any of the four referees I used (but is curiously similar to points raided by David Appell!). Keep in mind that referees used were selected in consultation with a paleoclimatologist. Five referees were selected based on the guidance I received. All are reputable paleoclimatologists, respected for their expertise in reconstruction of past climates. None (none at all) were from what Hans [von Storch] and Clare have referred to as "the other side" or what Hulme refers to as people well known for their opposition to the notion that humans are significantly altering global climate." One of the five referees turned down the request to review explaining he was busy and would not have the time. The remaining four referees sent their detailed comments to me. None suggested the manuscript should be rejected. S&B were asked to respond to referees comments and make extensive alterations accordingly. This was done." - Chris de Freitas

Then from the infamous Dr. Jones himself,

"I have learned one thing. This is that the reviewer who said they were too busy was Ray [presumably Bradley, a known hockey team member]. [...]

I believe his paleoclimatologist is likely to be Anthony Fowler [not a skeptic]" - Phil Jones

I stated no such thing. I had read Idso's correspondence some time ago when I had free access to that database. I do not anymore and the paper is not freely available online so I have no way to quote from it.

This entire post has been rebutted,

Rebuttal to "Anti-AGW papers debunked"


Lie 7. Peer-reviewing yourself is acceptable.

This is just abject idiocy. No author's paper is listed that was peer-reviewed by themselves as no scholarly journal has any such policy.

That’s right folks, you don’t need other scientists to confirm your research is correct, you can just ignore what other people say and self-critique!!"

He is obviously incredibly confused about how comments on papers work in scholarly journals.

Idso 1987 was a comment on Cess & Potter 1984. The most common journal policy is to include any comment followed by a rebuttal from the original author(s) in the same journal issue. Thus, the "last word" will always appear to be the original author(s) in these cases. This is why Idso 1987 and Cess & Potter 1987 appeared in the same journal issue and Idso 1987 did not cite Cess & Potter 1987 because Idso was commenting on Cess & Potter 1984! Journals rarely continue debates past the original comment and rebuttal. Idso felt their complaints were addressed in his original criticism, Cess and Potter did not. As evidence that Idso felt he addressed their criticisms, I simply showed that Idso continued to cite his older papers in later work,

CO2-induced global warming: a skeptic's view of potential climate change (PDF)
(Climate Research, Volume 10, Number 1, pp. 69–82, April 1998)
- Sherwood B. Idso

Cess & Potter have never directly commented on any of Idso's papers because they are well aware that this would give Idso the last word. Alarmist scientists intentionally do not directly comment on skeptic papers for this reason. This had nothing to do with "peer-reviewing yourself".


Lie 8. Old incorrect research is okay.

The list does not discriminate against minority skeptical viewpoints as this paper (Slocum 1955) is still cited by skeptics (Beck 2007). I trust skeptics to make up their own minds about the strength or weakness of any of the papers. All I am doing is providing the resource for them to locate these papers and to demonstrate that these papers exist.

Update: A Historic section was added to the list to put older (pre-1970) papers in their proper context.


Lie 9. The author of the paper may have subsequently admitted the science was flawed, but Poptech will continue to list the paper.

No paper is listed were the author admits their entire paper or science was flawed. Even where errors were found, they were corrected but the author did not dismiss the entire paper. Any published correction is included on the list following the original paper.

These papers are still useful as he explicitly states,

"I have subsequently gone on to show how they can be used in concert with still other non-equilibrium natural experiments to ultimately evaluate that most elusive parameter." - Sherwood Idso

To irrefutably show that Dr. Idso still believed these papers to be useful he continued to cite these papers later on (Idso 1987), (Idso 1998).


Lie 10. The paper doesn’t have to be from a climate scientist, political views are ok.

This is another strawman argument as it is not claimed that all the papers are natural science papers only that they are all peer-reviewed. Just like the WGII and WGIII sections of the IPCC report, peer-reviewed papers from social scientists and policy analysts are included in the list. These papers appear in the appropriate socio-economic sections separate from the natural science sections on the list.

Alarmist Challenge: Provide the objective criteria for determining who is a "climate scientist".


Lie 11. Dozens of the papers support high climate sensitivity.

This is nonsense, the list includes various papers that support Low climate sensitivity such as,

On the Observational Determination of Climate Sensitivity and Its Implications (PDF)
(Asia-Pacific Journal of Atmospheric Sciences, Volume 47, Number 4, pp. 377-390, August 2011)
- Richard S. Lindzen, Yong-Sang Choi

All of the papers listed for the MWP support skeptic arguments that the the MWP was both real and global. This supports skeptic arguments that the current climate conditions are not outside natural variability. If skeptic arguments for natural variability are correct then there is no cause for alarm as skeptics do not use alarmist interpretations of forcings.


Lie 12. The paper may not be peer-reviewed.

No paper is listed without first confirming the Journal is peer-reviewed. With all Journals that are challenged as to their peer-review status further confirmation is done using academic databases by EBSCO, Elsevier, Proquest and Thompson Reuters. This detailed information is provided in the notes following the list. Every time a journal is challenged, I have provided this information.

All of this misinformation is corrected here, including the misinterpreted quote,

Correcting misinformation about the journal Energy & Environment

Energy & Environment is a peer-reviewed interdisciplinary scholarly journal (ISSN: 0958-305X)
- Thompson Reuters Social Sciences Citation Index (ISI) lists Energy & Environment as a peer-reviewed scholarly journal
- EBSCO lists Energy & Environment as a peer-reviewed scholarly journal (PDF)
- Scopus lists Energy & Environment as a peer-reviewed scholarly journal
- Elsevier lists Energy & Environment as a scholarly peer-reviewed journal on their internal master list. (Source: Email Correspondence)
- The IPCC cites Energy & Environment multiple times
- "E&E, by the way, is peer reviewed" - Tom Wigley, Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
- "I have published a few papers in E&E. All were peer-reviewed as usual. I have reviewed a few more for the journal." - Richard Tol Ph.D. Professor of the Economics of Climate Change, Vrije Universiteit, Netherlands
- "All Multi-Sciences primary journals are fully refereed" - Multi-Science Publishing
- "Regular issues include submitted and invited papers that are rigorously peer reviewed" - E&E Mission Statement

E&E is a interdisciplinary journal that also covers social science and policy areas so it is not surprising it is listed as such by the ISI. All of which is irrelevant to the fact that it is peer-reviewed.


Lie 13. The paper does not even have to be a paper.

Engraving in stone his ignorance of everything relating to peer-review, he fails to understand that "Letters" is a term used to describe a type of peer-reviewed scientific document format in certain scholarly journals such as Nature,

Nature: Manuscript Formatting Guide - 1. Formats for Nature contributions

"Nature's main formats for original research are Articles and Letters."

Nature: Manuscript Formatting Guide - 1.2 Letters

"Letters are short reports of original research focused on an outstanding finding whose importance means that it will be of interest to scientists in other fields"

Nature: Peer-Review Policy - General information

"The following types of contribution to Nature journals are peer-reviewed: Articles, Letters, Brief Communications, Communications Arising, Technical Reports, Analysis, Reviews, Perspectives, Progress articles and Insight articles."

These should not be confused with "Letters to the Editor".


Lie 14. Poptech, doesn’t have to agree with the findings of the paper.

This is a strawman argument as I made no claim I agree with the findings of each paper. The list is a resource for skeptics not my personal theory.

Formal training in "climate science" is not needed to compile my list. My formal education in the physical sciences and extensive writing of research papers during my University education as well as my extensive experience as a computer analyst are more than sufficient for this task.

Again he states the perpetual strawman argument of the papers on the list being "against AGW". It is explicitly stated that papers can be listed if they support skeptic arguments against Anthropogenic Climate Change (ACC), Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) or ACC/AGW Alarm.

The authors claim of misusing their work is based on the same strawman arguments he is using. They base these claims on false reasons for why their papers were listed. This is rebutted here,

Rebuttal to "Using our paper to support skepticism of anthropogenic global warming is misleading." Part II of our analysis of the 900+ climate skeptic papers

This propaganda is completely refuted here,

Are Skeptical Scientists funded by ExxonMobil?

His ignorant conclusion:

To conclude his ignorance he cites the computer illiterate post from Skeptical Science that has been completely refuted,

Google Scholar Illiteracy at Skeptical Science

"In a desperate attempt to diminish the value of the list of peer-reviewed papers supporting skeptic's arguments, Rob Honeycutt from Skeptical Science not only lies but puts on a surprising display of his Google Scholar Illiteracy. It is clear that not only does he not understand how to properly use Google Scholar, he has no idea of the relevance of any of the results he gets.

Update: Rob was forced to concede I was correct (though never owns up to blatantly lying) and has desperately made a flawed updated "analysis". His original inaccurate number of 954,000 results went down to 189,553 results (which he fails to mention in his update) of which 160,130 (84%) CANNOT BE VERIFIED due to the 1000 result limit imposed by Google Scholar. The remaining results are irrefutably filled with erroneous nonsense that has to be individually removed before any sort of accurate count can be taken (see the updates for more information). None of which was done leaving his post to be worthless and those who cite it computer illiterate."

There is nothing strange about the classification method as it has been stated to him many time and appears explicitly on the list,

"The following papers support skeptic arguments against Anthropogenic Climate Change (ACC), Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) or ACC/AGW Alarm."

None of the papers have been "debunked" and I am at a loss for how many times he has repeated the same strawman argument about all the papers not disputing AGW. In the cases of the "someone" on the Internet they are not random people but well-known activists, environmentalists or journalists.

Alarmist Challenge: Prove that any of the papers on the list were not peer-reviewed.