I am mentioned in passing at Judy Curry's blog, where Andrew Lacis has written a post about one of his papers (H/T Shub).
If you were to go and read the acknowledgment that is at the end of the Science paper, you would see the very standard “thank you” for helpful comments from numerous GISS colleagues, and a “thank you” for funding support from NASA program managers.
But, you would not see there any mention of Bishop Hill. Why so? And, would the Science editors have really let that happen?
It started with the following (February 9, 2010) posting on the Bishop Hill blog that stated:
While perusing some of the review comments to the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report, I came across the contributions of Andrew Lacis, a colleague of James Hansen’s at GISS... Remember, this guy is mainstream, not a skeptic, and you may need to remind yourself of that fact several times as you read through his comment on the executive summary of the chapter:
He goes on to explain what happened that made him write those review comments.
Back in 2005, having uploaded countless review suggestions for the IPCC AR4 Report, toward the end, I did make some intemperate remarks that were directed at the Executive Summary of Chapter 9.
I was irked by the persistent use of wishy-washy terminology such as ‘likely’ and ‘very likely’ that was totally uncalled for. One example:
“It is likely that there has been a substantial anthropogenic contribution to surface temperature increases in every continent except Antarctica since the middle of the 20th century...
As he goes on to explain, these expressions of doubt were unwarranted:
...the relevant physics is inescapably clear that the increase in atmospheric CO2 is indeed enhancing the strength of the terrestrial greenhouse effect, and thus causing global warming to happen – all directly attributable to human industrial activity. To characterize this fully documented global warming only as being ‘likely’ a ’substantial’ anthropogenic contribution is clearly resorting to unscientific understatement that does nothing to clarify or accurately portray our understanding of global climate change.
Hmm...This is the comment that I highlighted at the time:
There is no scientific merit to be found in the Executive Summary. The presentation sounds like something put together by Greenpeace activists and their legal department. The points being made are made arbitrarily with legal sounding caveats without having established any foundation or basis in fact. The Executive Summary seems to be a political statement that is only designed to annoy greenhouse skeptics. Wasn't the IPCC Assessment Report intended to be a scientific document that would merit solid backing from the climate science community - instead of forcing many climate scientists into having to agree with greenhouse skeptic criticisms that this is indeed a report with a clear and obvious political agenda. Attribution can not happen until understanding has been clearly demonstrated. Once the facts of climate change have been established and understood, attribution will become self-evident to all. The Executive Summary as it stands is beyond redemption and should simply be deleted.
I must say I'm struggling with the idea that sceptics would be annoyed that someone would use words expressing doubt about AGW, rather than certainty.
Am I missing something here?