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The Soon and Baliunas controversy involved the publication in 2003 of a review study written by the aerospace engineer
Willie Soon Willie Wei-Hock Soon (born September 30, 1965) is a Malaysian astrophysicist and aerospace engineer who was long employed as a part-time externally funded researcher at the Solar and Stellar Physics (SSP) Division of the Center for Astrophysics ...
and astronomer
Sallie Baliunas Sallie Louise Baliunas (born February 23, 1953) is a retired astrophysicist. She formerly worked at the Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian and was the Deputy Director of the Mount Wilson Observatory from 1991 to 2003. Early life an ...
in the journal ''Climate Research'', which was quickly taken up by the
George W. Bush administration George W. Bush's tenure as the 43rd president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 2001, and ended on January 20, 2009. Bush, a Republican from Texas, took office following a narrow victory over Democratic i ...
as a basis for amending the first
Environmental Protection Agency A biophysical environment is a biotic and abiotic surrounding of an organism or population, and consequently includes the factors that have an influence in their survival, development, and evolution. A biophysical environment can vary in scale f ...
's ''Report on the Environment''. The paper was strongly criticized by numerous scientists for its methodology and for its misuse of data from previously published studies, which prompted concerns about the
peer review Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work ( peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer revie ...
process of the paper. The controversy resulted in the resignation of half of the editors of the journal and in the admission by its publisher,
Otto Kinne Otto Kinne (30 August 1923 – 3 March 2015) was a German marine biologist. He was director of Germany's Biologische Anstalt Helgoland from 1962 to 1984. From 1967 he was a professor at the University of Kiel. He established the Inter-Research ...
, that the paper should not have been published as it was.


Context: IPCC and the Kyoto protocol

By the late 1980s scientific findings indicated that
greenhouse gas A greenhouse gas (GHG or GhG) is a gas that absorbs and emits radiant energy within the thermal infrared range, causing the greenhouse effect. The primary greenhouse gases in Earth's atmosphere are water vapor (), carbon dioxide (), met ...
es including emissions were leading to
global warming In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate variability and change, Climate change in a broader sense also includes ...
. There was increasing public and political interest, and in 1987 the
World Meteorological Organization The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for promoting international cooperation on atmospheric science, climatology, hydrology and geophysics. The WMO originated from the Intern ...
pressed for an international scientific panel to assess the topic. The United States
Reagan administration Ronald Reagan's tenure as the 40th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 1981, and ended on January 20, 1989. Reagan, a Republican from California, took office following a landslide victory over ...
, worried about political influence of scientists, successfully lobbied for the 1988 formation of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is an intergovernmental body of the United Nations. Its job is to advance scientific knowledge about climate change caused by human activities. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) a ...
to provide reports subject to detailed approval by government delegates. The
IPCC First Assessment Report The First Assessment Report (FAR) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was completed in 1990. It served as the basis of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). This report had effects not only on t ...
included a "schematic diagram" of global temperature variations over the last thousand years which has been traced to a graph based loosely on
Hubert Lamb Hubert Horace Lamb (22 September 1913 in Bedford – 28 June 1997 in Holt, Norfolk) was an English climatologist who founded the Climatic Research Unit in 1972 in the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia. Career ...
's 1965 paper. pp. 34, 36 The
IPCC Second Assessment Report The Second Assessment Report (SAR) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), published in 1995, is an assessment of the then available scientific and socio-economic information on climate change. The report was split into four parts ...
(SAR) of 1996 featured a graph of an early northern hemisphere reconstruction by
Raymond S. Bradley Raymond S. Bradley is a climatologist and University Distinguished Professor in the Department of Geosciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he is also research director of the Climate System Research Center. Bradley's work indic ...
and Phil Jones, and noted the 1994 reconstruction by
Hughes Hughes may refer to: People * Hughes (surname) * Hughes (given name) Places Antarctica * Hughes Range (Antarctica), Ross Dependency * Mount Hughes, Oates Land * Hughes Basin, Oates Land * Hughes Bay, Graham Land * Hughes Bluff, Victoria ...
and Henry F. Diaz questioning how widespread the
Medieval Warm Period The Medieval Warm Period (MWP), also known as the Medieval Climate Optimum or the Medieval Climatic Anomaly, was a time of warm climate in the North Atlantic region that lasted from to . Climate proxy records show peak warmth occurred at diffe ...
had been at any one time. pp. 173–176, fig 3.20
Efforts to reduce emissions were resisted by industrial interests, and political pressures increased as the international
Kyoto Protocol The Kyoto Protocol was an international treaty which extended the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that commits state parties to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, based on the scientific consensus that (par ...
was opposed by lobbyists such as the
American Petroleum Institute The American Petroleum Institute (API) is the largest U.S. trade association for the oil and natural gas industry. It claims to represent nearly 600 corporations involved in production, refinement, distribution, and many other aspects of the ...
who sought climatologists to dissent and undermine its scientific credibility. In 1998,
Mann Mann may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media * Mann (chess), a variant chess piece which moves as a king * Mann (film), ''Mann'' (film), a 1999 Bollywood motion picture * Mann (magazine), ''Mann'' (magazine), a Norwegian magazine * Mann Th ...
, Bradley and Hughes published a multiproxy study (MBH98) which used a new statistical approach to find patterns of
climate change In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to ...
in both time and global distribution, over the past six centuries In 1999 they extended their approach to 1,000 years in a study (MBH99) summarised in a graph which showed relatively little change until a sharp rise in the 20th century, earning it the nickname of the hockey stick graph. In 2001 the
IPCC Third Assessment Report The IPCC Third Assessment Report (TAR), ''Climate Change 2001'', is an assessment of available scientific and socio-economic information on climate change by the IPCC. Statements of the IPCC or information from the TAR are often used as a referen ...
(TAR) included a version of this graph which was frequently featured in literature publicising the findings of the IPCC report that the 1990s were likely to have been the warmest decade, and 1998 the warmest year, of the past millennium in the Northern Hemisphere.


Soon and Baliunas

After the publicity the MBH99 study had been given by the
IPCC Third Assessment Report The IPCC Third Assessment Report (TAR), ''Climate Change 2001'', is an assessment of available scientific and socio-economic information on climate change by the IPCC. Statements of the IPCC or information from the TAR are often used as a referen ...
(TAR), the "hockey stick controversy" developed in which the graph was targeted by those opposing ratification of the
Kyoto Protocol The Kyoto Protocol was an international treaty which extended the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that commits state parties to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, based on the scientific consensus that (par ...
on global warming, including
Willie Soon Willie Wei-Hock Soon (born September 30, 1965) is a Malaysian astrophysicist and aerospace engineer who was long employed as a part-time externally funded researcher at the Solar and Stellar Physics (SSP) Division of the Center for Astrophysics ...
and
Sallie Baliunas Sallie Louise Baliunas (born February 23, 1953) is a retired astrophysicist. She formerly worked at the Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian and was the Deputy Director of the Mount Wilson Observatory from 1991 to 2003. Early life an ...
. Both were astrophysicists at the Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian: Soon had for a long time said that climate change was primarily due to
solar variation The solar cycle, also known as the solar magnetic activity cycle, sunspot cycle, or Schwabe cycle, is a nearly periodic 11-year change in the Sun's activity measured in terms of variations in the number of observed sunspots on the Sun's surfa ...
, while Baliunas had previously been noted for disputing that man-made chemicals (
halocarbon Halocarbon compounds are chemicals in which one or more carbon atoms are linked by covalent bonds with one or more halogen atoms ( fluorine, chlorine, bromine or iodine – ) resulting in the formation of organofluorine compounds, organochl ...
refrigerants such as
CFC CFC, cfc, or Cfc may stand for: Science and technology * Chlorofluorocarbon, a class of chemical compounds * Cardiofaciocutaneous Syndrome, a rare and serious genetic disorder * Subpolar oceanic climate (''Cfc'' in the Köppen climate classific ...
s) were causing ozone depletion. They prepared a
literature review A literature review is an overview of the previously published works on a topic. The term can refer to a full scholarly paper or a section of a scholarly work such as a book, or an article. Either way, a literature review is supposed to provid ...
which used data from previous papers to argue that the Medieval Warm Period had been warmer than the 20th century, and that recent warming was not unusual. They sent their paper to one of the editors of ''Climate Research'',
Chris de Freitas Christopher Rhodes de Freitas (1948 – 5 July 2017) was a New Zealand climate scientist. He was an associate professor in the School of Environment at the University of Auckland. Education and professional career De Freitas, born in Trinidad, ...
, an opponent of action to curb carbon dioxide emissions who has been characterized by
Fred Pearce Fred Pearce (born 30 December 1951) is an English science writer and public speaker based in London. He reports on the environment, popular science and development issues. He specialises in global environmental issues, including water and clim ...
as a "climate contrarian". Unusually for a
peer review Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work ( peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer revie ...
ed journal, ''Climate Research'' at the time did not have one
editor in chief An editor-in-chief (EIC), also known as lead editor or chief editor, is a publication's editorial leader who has final responsibility for its operations and policies. The highest-ranking editor of a publication may also be titled editor, managing ...
that would distribute submitted papers amongst its editors, leaving its authors free to "shop around" for one that would be friendly to their views.


Publication

Chris de Freitas Christopher Rhodes de Freitas (1948 – 5 July 2017) was a New Zealand climate scientist. He was an associate professor in the School of Environment at the University of Auckland. Education and professional career De Freitas, born in Trinidad, ...
, as an editor at ''
Climate Research Climatology (from Greek , ''klima'', "place, zone"; and , ''-logia'') or climate science is the scientific study of Earth's climate, typically defined as weather conditions averaged over a period of at least 30 years. This modern field of study ...
,'' accepted the paper written by Soon and Baliunas and it was published in the small refereed journal on 31 January 2003 under the title ''Proxy climatic and environmental changes of the past 1000 years''. 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 The Medieval Warm Period (MWP), also known as the Medieval Climate Optimum or the Medieval Climatic Anomaly, was a time of warm climate in the North Atlantic region that lasted from to . Climate proxy records show peak warmth occurred at diffe ...
(MWP) and the
Little Ice Age The Little Ice Age (LIA) was a period of regional cooling, particularly pronounced in the North Atlantic region. It was not a true ice age of global extent. The term was introduced into scientific literature by François E. Matthes in 1939. Ma ...
(LIA). The authors pointed out their disagreement with the Mann, Bradley, and Hughes hockey stick studies; "Our results suggest a different interpretation of the multiproxy climates compared to recent conclusions of Mann et al. (1998, 1999, 2000)." Their abstract 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". The paper acknowledged funding support from the
American Petroleum Institute The American Petroleum Institute (API) is the largest U.S. trade association for the oil and natural gas industry. It claims to represent nearly 600 corporations involved in production, refinement, distribution, and many other aspects of the ...
, the
Air Force Office of Scientific Research The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) is a scientific research organization operated by the United States Air Force Materiel Command dedicated to leading the discovery, development, and integration of aerospace warfighting technologies, pl ...
and
NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeedi ...
, while stating that the views were those of the authors and were independent of the sponsoring agencies. In the Spring of 2003, Soon and Baliunas, with three additional co-authors, published a longer version of the paper in ''
Energy and Environment ''Energy & Environment'' is an academic journal "covering the direct and indirect environmental impacts of energy acquisition, transport, production and use".
''. The three additional co-authors were
Craig Idso Craig D. Idso is the founder, president and current chairman of the board of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, a group which receives funding from ExxonMobil and Peabody Energy and which promotes climate change denial. ...
,
Sherwood Idso Sherwood B. Idso (born June 12, 1942) is the president of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, which rejects the scientific consensus on climate change. Previously he was a Research Physicist with the U.S. Department of ...
, and
David Legates David Russell Legates is a former 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 September 2020, the Trump ...
. A press release dated 31 March 2003 headed "20th Century Climate Not So Hot" announced the paper with a statement lacking the caveats of the original paper; "Soon and his colleagues concluded that the 20th century is neither the warmest century over the last 1000 years, nor is it the most extreme." In the paper, Soon, Baliunas, and their co-authors investigated the correlation between
solar variation The solar cycle, also known as the solar magnetic activity cycle, sunspot cycle, or Schwabe cycle, is a nearly periodic 11-year change in the Sun's activity measured in terms of variations in the number of observed sunspots on the Sun's surfa ...
and temperatures of the
Earth's atmosphere The atmosphere of Earth is the layer of gases, known collectively as air, retained by Earth's gravity that surrounds the planet and forms its planetary atmosphere. The atmosphere of Earth protects life on Earth by creating pressure allowing f ...
. When there are more sunspots, the total solar output increases, and when there are fewer sunspots, it decreases. Soon and Baliunas attributed 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 ''The Chronicle of Higher Education'' is a newspaper and website that presents news, information, and jobs for college and university faculty and student affairs professionals (staff members and administrators). A subscription is required to r ...
'', Soon said 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." Rather than showing quantitative data, they primarily categorized research by others into those supporting, and those not supporting, the MWP and the LIA as defined by themselves. Soon said "I was stating outright that I'm not able to give too many quantitative details, especially in terms of aggregating all the results". They used a very loose definition of ''climate anomaly'', including any period of 50 years or more that was wet, dry, warm or cold. Though "mindful" that the MWP and LIA are both defined by temperature, "we emphasize that great bias would result if those thermal anomalies were to be dissociated" from climatic conditions such as wetness and dryness, but wetness and dryness were undefined and only "referred to the standard usage in English." Their selection of a 50-year plus period excluded recent warming, which had occurred in two periods of 30 years in the 20th century, with the greatest warming in the late 20th century.


Responses from other scientists, political intervention

Initially, the scientists whose work was being disputed by Soon and Baliunas felt it was one of a series of
sceptical Skepticism, also spelled scepticism, is a questioning attitude or doubt toward knowledge claims that are seen as mere belief or dogma. For example, if a person is skeptical about claims made by their government about an ongoing war then the pe ...
papers that, in
Mann Mann may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media * Mann (chess), a variant chess piece which moves as a king * Mann (film), ''Mann'' (film), a 1999 Bollywood motion picture * Mann (magazine), ''Mann'' (magazine), a Norwegian magazine * Mann Th ...
's words, "couldn't get published in a reputable journal". In March he wrote to Phil Jones that "I believed our only choice was to ignore this paper. They've already achieved what they wanted, the claim of a peer-reviewed paper. There is nothing we can do about that now, but the last thing we want is to bring attention to the paper." Jones replied "I think the sceptics will use this paper to their own ends and it will set
paleo __NOTOC__ ''Paleo'' may refer to: Prehistoric Era, Age, or Period * Paleolithic, a prehistoric Era, Age, or Period of human history People * David Strackany, aka "Paleo", an American folk singer-songwriter Art, entertainment, and media * ''Pal ...
back a number of years if it goes unchallenged. I will be emailing the journal to tell them I'm having nothing more to do with it until they rid themselves of this troublesome editor", referring to de Freitas. At the time the second Soon et al. paper was publicised, Mann emailed
Fred Pearce Fred Pearce (born 30 December 1951) is an English science writer and public speaker based in London. He reports on the environment, popular science and development issues. He specialises in global environmental issues, including water and clim ...
to say that it "was absurd, almost laughable (if it wasn't, as is transparently evident, being used as a policy–and politics–driven publicity stunt to support the dubious positions on climate change of some prominent American politicians)", and added that the paper made no attempt to find if the past warm temperatures it reported were contemporaneous or merely one-off scattered events. The Bush administration was involved in editing the first
Environmental Protection Agency A biophysical environment is a biotic and abiotic surrounding of an organism or population, and consequently includes the factors that have an influence in their survival, development, and evolution. A biophysical environment can vary in scale f ...
''Report on the Environment'' prior to the draft being made public. The administration's
Council on Environmental Quality The Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) is a division of the Executive Office of the President that coordinates federal environmental efforts in the United States and works closely with agencies and other White House offices on the developmen ...
chief of staff
Philip Cooney Philip A. Cooney (born July 16, 1959) is a former member of the administration of United States President George W. Bush. Before being appointed to chair the Council on Environmental Quality, he was a lawyer and lobbyist for the American Petro ...
deleted all references to surface temperature reconstructions showing world temperatures rising over the last 1,000 years, and on 21 April 2003 sent a memo to Kevin O'Donovan in the Office of the Vice President stating "The recent paper of Soon-Baliunas contradicts a dogmatic view held by many in the climate science community that the past century was the warmest in the past millennium and signals human induced “global warming.” ... We plan to begin to refer to this study in Administration communications on the science of global climate change; in fact, CEQ just inserted a reference to it in the final draft chapter on global climate change contained in EPA's first “State of the Environment” report. ... With both the National Academy and IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) holding that the 20th Century is the warmest of the past thousand years (see below), this recent study begins to provide a counterbalance on the point to those two authorities. It represents an opening to potentially invigorate debate on the actual climate history of the past 1000 years and whether that history reinforces or detracts from our level of confidence regarding the potential human influence on global climate change."Report pp. 21–25
By May the journal's editors
Hans von Storch Hans von Storch (born 13 August 1949) is a German climate scientist. He is a professor at the Meteorological Institute of the University of Hamburg, and (since 2001) Director of the Institute for Coastal Research at the Helmholtz Research Centre ...
and Clare Goodess were receiving numerous complaints and critiques of the paper from other scientists, to such an extent that they raised the issues with de Freitas and the journal's publisher
Otto Kinne Otto Kinne (30 August 1923 – 3 March 2015) was a German marine biologist. He was director of Germany's Biologische Anstalt Helgoland from 1962 to 1984. From 1967 he was a professor at the University of Kiel. He established the Inter-Research ...
. In reply, de Freitas said they were "a mix of a witch-hunt and the Spanish Inquisition". Other scientists also 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 Oceanography The Scripps Institution of Oceanography (sometimes referred to as SIO, Scripps Oceanography, or Scripps) in San Diego, California, US founded in 1903, is one of the oldest and largest centers for ocean and Earth science research, public servi ...
commented that "the fact that
he paper He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...
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 is a meso- climatologist and Regents' Professor of Dendrochronology in the Laboratory for Tree-Ring Research at the University of Arizona. Education and early life Hughes was born in Matlock, Derbyshire, England, and earned ...
of the
University of Arizona The University of Arizona (Arizona, U of A, UArizona, or UA) is a public land-grant research university in Tucson, Arizona. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, it was the first university in the Arizona Territory. ...
, whose work on dendrochronology was discussed in the paper, said the paper was "so fundamentally misconceived and contains so many egregious errors that it would take weeks to list and explain them all." Peter Stott, a climatologist at the
Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research The Met Office Hadley Centre — named in honour of George Hadley — is one of the United Kingdom's leading centres for the study of scientific issues associated with climate change. It is part of, and based at the headquarters of the Met Of ...
, said "Their analysis doesn't consider whether the warm/cold periods occurred at the same time". The paper would count warm or wet conditions in one region from 800 to 850 and dry conditions in a separate region from 1200 to 1250 as both demonstrating the Medieval Warm period. He noted that regional periods of warmth or cooling do not always occur at the same time as the global average warms or cools. The media requested opinions from climate scientists and paleoclimatologists familiar with the issues underlying the Soon and Baliunas papers, and to help with information Mann and
Michael Oppenheimer Michael Oppenheimer (born February 28, 1946) is the Albert G. Milbank Professor of Geosciences and International Affairs in the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, the Department of Geosciences, and the Princeton Environmental Ins ...
drafted and circulated privately a memorandum providing detailed guidance on the topic. They stated "Nothing in the paper undermines in any way the conclusion of earlier studies that the average temperature of the late twentieth century in the Northern Hemisphere was anomalous against the background of the past millennium". Colleagues receiving these requests from the media included
Tom Wigley Tom Michael Lampe Wigley is a climate scientist at the University of Adelaide. He is also affiliated with the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR). He was named a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Scienc ...
,
Philip Jones Philip, Phillip, Phil or Phill Jones may refer to: Sports *Phil Jones (American football) (born 1946), American football coach * Phil Jones (footballer, born 1961), English footballer who played for Sheffield United in the Football League * Phil J ...
and
Raymond S. Bradley Raymond S. Bradley is a climatologist and University Distinguished Professor in the Department of Geosciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he is also research director of the Climate System Research Center. Bradley's work indic ...
. The memorandum developed into a more general position paper jointly authored by 13 climate scientists, which was published on 8 July 2003 in the journal ''
Eos In ancient Greek mythology and religion, Eos (; Ionic and Homeric Greek ''Ēṓs'', Attic ''Héōs'', "dawn", or ; Aeolic ''Aúōs'', Doric ''Āṓs'') is the goddess and personification of the dawn, who rose each morning from her home at ...
'' as an article "On Past Temperatures and Anomalous Late-20th Century Warmth". Most of the paper's authors had been cited in the Soon and Baliunas 2003 paper (SB03). The ''Eos'' paper made three key points: the SB03 and Soon et al. papers had misused precipitation and drought proxies without assessing their sensitivity to temperature, they had taken regional temperature changes as global changes without any attempt to show that they had occurred at the same time across the world, and they had taken as their base period for comparison mean temperatures over the whole of the 20th century, reconstructing past temperatures from proxy evidence not capable of resolving decadal trends, thus failing to show whether or not late 20th century warming was anomalous. The IPCC TAR had concluded that late 20th century northern hemisphere warmth was likely to have exceeded warmth of any time in the past 1,000 years on the basis of studies that compared temperatures for recent decades with reconstructions of earlier periods while allowing for uncertainties in the reconstructions. Soon, Baliunas and Legates published a response to this paper in the same journal.


Response of journal editors

On 20 June 2003 the publisher of ''Climate Research'',
Otto Kinne Otto Kinne (30 August 1923 – 3 March 2015) was a German marine biologist. He was director of Germany's Biologische Anstalt Helgoland from 1962 to 1984. From 1967 he was a professor at the University of Kiel. He established the Inter-Research ...
, agreed to ask de Freitas for copies of the reviewer's evaluations: after studying the response, he advised the editors of his "Conclusions: 1) The reviewers consulted (4 for each ms) by the editor presented detailed, critical and helpful evaluations. 2) The editor properly analyzed the evaluations and requested appropriate revisions. 3) The authors revised their manuscripts accordingly. Summary: Chris de Freitas has done a good and correct job as editor." pp. 48–51, 64–65, 73–76 The journal had 10 editors, who at that time each independently received and accepted manuscripts from authors. One of the editors, Clare Goodess, recalled that many of them were "somewhat confused and still very concerned about what had happened". The paper "had apparently gone to four reviewers none of whom had recommended rejection", and "The review process had apparently been correct, but a fundamentally flawed paper had been published." She and fellow editor
Hans von Storch Hans von Storch (born 13 August 1949) is a German climate scientist. He is a professor at the Meteorological Institute of the University of Hamburg, and (since 2001) Director of the Institute for Coastal Research at the Helmholtz Research Centre ...
knew of three earlier papers edited by de Freitas where concerns had been raised about the review process. To meet the concerns, Kinne proposed to adopt the more common system where instead of editors acting fully independently, an editor in chief would have overall responsibility, and that Hans von Storch would be upgraded from editor to editor in chief as of 1 August 2003. At first von Storch thought the objections to the Soon and Balunas paper should be presented in a comment which they could consider for publication, but when he saw a preprint of the ''
Eos In ancient Greek mythology and religion, Eos (; Ionic and Homeric Greek ''Ēṓs'', Attic ''Héōs'', "dawn", or ; Aeolic ''Aúōs'', Doric ''Āṓs'') is the goddess and personification of the dawn, who rose each morning from her home at ...
'' rebuttal of the paper he decided that "We should say that we have a problem here, that the manuscript was flawed, that the manuscript should not have been published in this way. The problem is that the conclusions are not supported by the evidence presented in the paper." On 28 July von Storch drafted an editorial stating that "the review process of CR failed to confront the authors with necessary and legitimate methodological questions which should have been addressed in the finally printed paper", and proposing a new system in which all new papers were to be sent to the editor in chief rather than directly to individual editors as previously. While Kinne agreed that the Soon and Baliunas paper should not have been published as it was, he did not accept von Storch's proposal and wanted prior agreement from all the other editors before von Storch's editorial was published. When von Storch found that some of the other editors thought the Soon and Baliunas paper was acceptable, he "concluded that we have different standards", and suspected that "some of the skeptics had identified Climate Research as a journal where some editors were not as rigorous in the review process as is otherwise common.". He felt that "editors used different scales for judging the validity of an article. Some editors considered the problem of the Soon & Baliunas paper as merely a problem of 'opinion', while it was really a problem of severe methodological flaws. Thus, I decided that I had to disconnect from that journal, which I had served proudly for about 10 years." Hans von Storch resigned on the same day, 28 July, and 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." Clare Goodess also resigned later that day.


Senate hearing

When the
McCain-Lieberman bill The Climate Stewardship Acts are a series of three acts introduced to the United States Senate by Senator John McCain ( R- AZ) and Senator Joseph Lieberman ( ID- CT), with a number of other co-sponsors. Their aim was to introduce a mandatory cap a ...
proposing restrictions on greenhouse gases was being debated in the Senate on 28 July 2003, Republican Oklahoma Senator
James M. Inhofe James Mountain Inhofe ( ; born November 17, 1934) is an American politician serving as the senior United States senator from Oklahoma, a seat he was first elected to in 1994. A member of the Republican Party, he chaired the U.S. Senate Committee ...
made a two-hour speech in opposition. He cited a study by the Center for Energy and Economic Development and the Soon and Baliunas paper in supporting his conclusion: "With all of the hysteria, all of the fear, all of the phony science, could it be that man-made global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people? It sure sounds like it." Inhofe convened a hearing of the
United States Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works The United States Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works is responsible for legislation and oversight of the natural and built environment and for studying matters concerning environmental protection and resource conservation and util ...
held on 29 July 2003, examining work by the small group of researchers saying there was no evidence of significant human-caused global warming. Three scientists were invited, Mann giving testimony supporting the consensus position, opposed by long term
global warming deniers Climate change denial, or global warming denial, is denial, dismissal, or doubt that contradicts the scientific consensus on climate change, including the extent to which it is caused by humans, its effects on nature and human society, or the ...
Willie Soon and
David Legates David Russell Legates is a former 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 September 2020, the Trump ...
. The Soon and Baliunas paper was discussed. Senator
Jim Jeffords James Merrill Jeffords (May 11, 1934 – August 18, 2014) was an American lawyer and politician who served as a U.S. senator from Vermont. Sworn into the Senate in 1989, he served as a Republican until 2001, when he left the party to become ...
read out an email dated 28 July. In it, von Storch announced his resignation, and stated "that the review of the Soon et al. paper failed to detect significant methodological flaws in the paper. The critique published in the Eos journal by Mann et al. is valid." In reply, Mann testified about the Soon et al. paper, "I believe it is the mainstream view of just about every scientist in my field that I have talked to that there is little that is valid in that paper. They got just about everything wrong." He later recalled that he "left that meeting having demonstrated what the mainstream views on climate science are."


Subsequent resignations

In a ''
Climate Research Climatology (from Greek , ''klima'', "place, zone"; and , ''-logia'') or climate science is the scientific study of Earth's climate, typically defined as weather conditions averaged over a period of at least 30 years. This modern field of study ...
'' editorial pre-published on 5 August 2003, its publisher
Otto Kinne Otto Kinne (30 August 1923 – 3 March 2015) was a German marine biologist. He was director of Germany's Biologische Anstalt Helgoland from 1962 to 1984. From 1967 he was a professor at the University of Kiel. He established the Inter-Research ...
expressed regrets about the resignations of von Storch, Goodess, and a third editor, Mitsuru Ando. Kinne described the main conclusions of the Soon and Baliunas paper; that the late 20th century was probably not the warmest period nor uniquely extreme in the last 2,000 years, and most of the proxy records had warmer anomalies at earlier times. He wrote "While these statements 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." On 19 August 2003,
Tom Wigley Tom Michael Lampe Wigley is a climate scientist at the University of Adelaide. He is also affiliated with the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR). He was named a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Scienc ...
wrote to a colleague that "I have had papers that I refereed (and soundly rejected), under De Freitas’s editorship, appear later in the journal -- without me seeing any response from the authors. As I have said before to others, his strategy is first to use mainly referees that are in the anti-greenhouse community, and second, if a paper is rejected, to ignore that review and seek another more ‘sympathic’ reviewer. In the second case he can then (with enough reviews) claim that the honest review was an outlier." Wigley supported the suggestion of an ethics committee, which he would be willing to serve on. Until then, he urged others to "dissociate themselves from Climate Research". The editors who had not resigned appeared to him to be mostly "a rogues’ gallery of skeptics", and he thought any reputable scientists still listed as editors should resign. By this time four editors had left the journal: von Storch, Clare Goodess, Mitsuru Ando and Shardul Argawala. In mid September Andrew Comrie also withdrew, so five editors had resigned; half of the journal's editorial board. The five remaining editors included de Freitas.


Later investigations

In September 2003 Soon told ''
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 and student affairs professionals (staff members and administrators). A subscription is required to r ...
'' that the critics had mischaracterized the research in the paper. He said 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. He added that "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." In 2006, Osborn and Briffa published a paper on "The Spatial Extent of 20th-Century Warmth in the Context of the Past 1200 Years", and concluded that "comparison with instrumental temperatures shows the spatial extent of recent warmth to be of greater significance than that during the medieval period." They reexamined the questions raised in the Baliunas and Soon study, but used different statistical methodology, restricted themselves to records that were validated as temperature proxies, and considered the timing of temperature anomalies in different regions to examine whether they had happened at the same time, or were from different periods reflecting local rather than global changes. They found that by far the most widespread warming had occurred after the mid 20th century.


Funding controversy

Questions have also been raised about funding for the paper. Soon and Baliunas "was in part underwritten by $53,000 from the
American Petroleum Institute The American Petroleum Institute (API) is the largest U.S. trade association for the oil and natural gas industry. It claims to represent nearly 600 corporations involved in production, refinement, distribution, and many other aspects of the ...
, the voice of the oil industry". Also, the additional sources of funding mentioned in the papers were apparently unrelated to the research presented in Soon and Baliunas 2003 and in Soon et al. 2003: both the
Air Force Office of Scientific Research The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) is a scientific research organization operated by the United States Air Force Materiel Command dedicated to leading the discovery, development, and integration of aerospace warfighting technologies, pl ...
and
NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeedi ...
stated that they had provided funds for work on solar variability, not for work related to proxy climate records as discussed in the papers, while the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (abbreviated as NOAA ) is an United States scientific and regulatory agency within the United States Department of Commerce that forecasts weather, monitors oceanic and atmospheric conditi ...
said it had not provided funds for the research. Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Grant AF49620-02-1-0194, deals with Theory and Observation of Stellar Magnetic Activity, and NASA grant NAG5-7635 studies variability of stars. When questioned during the 29 July 2003 Senate hearing, Soon said that the NOAA grant for Soon et al. was awarded to
David Legates David Russell Legates is a former 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 September 2020, the Trump ...
, and the papers, showing research into detailed patterns of local and regional climate variability, were directly relevant to his main goal of research on physical mechanisms of the sun-climate relationship. When asked if he had been "hired by or employed by or received grants from organizations that have taken advocacy positions with respect to the Kyoto Protocol, the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, or legislation before the U.S. Congress that would affect greenhouse gas emissions", he responded "I have not knowingly been hired by, nor employed by, nor received grants from any such organizations described in this question." Connections between the paper's authors and oil industry groups have been well documented. Soon and Baliunas were at the time paid consultants of the
George C. Marshall Institute The George C. Marshall Institute (GMI) was a nonprofit conservative think tank in the United States. It was established in 1984 with a focus on science and public policy issues and had an initial focus in defense policy. Starting in the late 19 ...
. Soon has also received multiple grants from the
American Petroleum Institute The American Petroleum Institute (API) is the largest U.S. trade association for the oil and natural gas industry. It claims to represent nearly 600 corporations involved in production, refinement, distribution, and many other aspects of the ...
between 2001 and 2007 totalled $274,000, and grants from
Exxon Mobil ExxonMobil Corporation (commonly shortened to Exxon) is an American multinational oil and gas corporation headquartered in Irving, Texas. It is the largest direct descendant of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil, and was formed on November 30 ...
totalled $335,000 between 2005 and 2010. Other contributors to Soon's research career include the
Charles G. Koch Foundation The Koch family foundations are a group of charitable foundations in the United States associated with the family of Fred C. Koch. The most prominent of these are the Charles Koch Foundation and the David H. Koch Charitable Foundation, created ...
, 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 EPRI, is an American independent, nonprofit organization that conducts research and development related to the generation, delivery, and use of electricity to help address challenges in the energy industry, including reliability, efficiency, affo ...
. Soon has stated that he has "never been motivated by financial reward in any of my scientific research." Soon's co-authors
Craig D. Idso Craig D. Idso is the founder, president and current chairman of the board of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, a group which receives funding from ExxonMobil and Peabody Energy and which promotes climate change denial. ...
and
Sherwood B. Idso Sherwood B. Idso (born June 12, 1942) is the president of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, which rejects the scientific consensus on climate change. Previously he was a Research Physicist with the U.S. Department of A ...
have also received industry funding. They have been linked to Western coal interests, and the ExxonMobil Foundation provided a grant of $15,000 to their
Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change The Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization based in Tempe, Arizona. It is seen as a front group for the fossil fuel industry, and as promoting climate change denial. The Center produces a ...
in 2000.


Climatic Research Unit emails

In November 2009, emails and documents which had been hacked from a server belonging to the
University of East Anglia The University of East Anglia (UEA) is a public research university in Norwich, England. Established in 1963 on a campus west of the city centre, the university has four faculties and 26 schools of study. The annual income of the institution f ...
were distributed on the internet. Many of the emails included communication between climatologists in East Anglia's
Climatic Research Unit The Climatic Research Unit (CRU) 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. With a staff of some thirty research scientists and s ...
(CRU) and other scientists, including Michael E. Mann. Several of the emails included conversations about Soon and Baliunas' paper as the controversy was ongoing in 2003 and 2004. Pearce, Fred,
Emails reveal strenuous efforts by climate scientists to 'censor' their critics
, ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide ...
'', 9 February 2010.
In an 18 December 2009 column in ''
The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...
'',
Pat Michaels Patrick J. Michaels (February 15, 1950 – July 15, 2022) was an American agricultural climatologist. Michaels was a senior fellow in environmental studies at the Cato Institute until 2019. Until 2007, he was research professor of environmental ...
alleged that pressure from Jones and Mann was responsible for the resignations at ''Climate Research''. On 22 December 2009 von Storch responded in the ''Wall Street Journal'' that his resignation as editor of ''Climate Research'' had nothing to do with any pressure from Jones, Mann, or anyone else, but instead he "left this post on my own, with no outside pressure, because of insufficient quality control on a bad paper—a skeptic's paper, at that." The Independent Climate Change Email Review, an independent review funded by the University of East Anglia and chaired by
Sir Muir Russell Sir Alastair Muir Russell (born 9 January 1949) is a Scottish retired civil servant and former Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Glasgow, and Chairman of the Judicial Appointments Board for Scotland. Early life Russell was bo ...
, examined allegations that the emails showed attempts to undermine normal procedures of publication. Phil Jones gave evidence that he believed the paper showed self-evident errors and the reaction was both proper and proportionate: the review noted that the publisher
Otto Kinne Otto Kinne (30 August 1923 – 3 March 2015) was a German marine biologist. He was director of Germany's Biologische Anstalt Helgoland from 1962 to 1984. From 1967 he was a professor at the University of Kiel. He established the Inter-Research ...
had admitted that the paper had problems, and considered that Jones could not reasonably be criticised for his reaction. A paper prepared for the review by Richard Horton, editor of ''
The Lancet ''The Lancet'' is a weekly peer-reviewed general medical journal and one of the oldest of its kind. It is also the world's highest-impact academic journal. It was founded in England in 1823. The journal publishes original research articles, ...
'', showed that strong responses were not uncommon in the
peer review Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work ( peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer revie ...
process. The review concluded that the strong reaction to the Soon and Baliunas paper "was understandable, and did not amount to undue pressure on ''Climate Research''.The Independent Climate Change Email Review
an independent review funded by the UEA, chaired by
Sir Muir Russell Sir Alastair Muir Russell (born 9 January 1949) is a Scottish retired civil servant and former Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Glasgow, and Chairman of the Judicial Appointments Board for Scotland. Early life Russell was bo ...
In petitions to the
United States Environmental Protection Agency The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is an independent executive agency of the United States federal government tasked with environmental protection matters. President Richard Nixon proposed the establishment of EPA on July 9, 1970; it ...
(EPA), the
Coalition for Responsible Regulation A coalition is a group formed when two or more people or groups temporarily work together to achieve a common goal. The term is most frequently used to denote a formation of power in political or economical spaces. Formation According to ''A Gui ...
, the
Ohio Coal Association Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The ...
,
Peabody Energy Peabody Energy is a coal mining and energy company headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri. Its primary business consists of the mining, sale, and distribution of coal, which is purchased for use in electricity generation and steelmaking. Peabod ...
, the
Southeastern Legal Foundation The Southeastern Legal Foundation is a conservative non-profit constitutional public interest law firm and policy center in the United States. It was founded in 1976 and has its headquarters in Roswell, Georgia. Organization The Southeastern Leg ...
, and the
State of Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...
argued that emails from March and April 2003 showed scientists discussing a boycott of the journal ''Climate Research'' and trying to get de Freitas removed, leading to the resignations of editors. They quoted Phil Jones writing that "I will be e-mailing the journal to tell them I’m having nothing more to do with it until they rid themselves of this troublesome editor", and Mann's email response that "I think we have to stop considering ‘Climate Research’ as a legitimate peer-reviewed journal. We would also need to consider what we tell or request of our more reasonable colleagues who currently sit on the editorial board. Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal."
Tom Wigley Tom Michael Lampe Wigley is a climate scientist at the University of Adelaide. He is also affiliated with the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR). He was named a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Scienc ...
wrote that von Storch "is partly to blame -- he encourages the publication of crap science ‘in order to stimulate debate’. One approach is to go direct to the publishers and point out the fact that their journal is perceived as being a medium for disseminating misinformation under the guise of refereed work." The EPA noted that the publisher Kinne had later agreed that the peer review process was flawed, and editors had then resigned as they could not get him to agree corrective action. The emails expressed displeasure but did not show that any action was in fact taken, and it is "expected and appropriate that researchers choose in which journals to publish, as well as recommend to their peers journals in which to publish or not publish. In this case, the bottom line is that the underlying science at issue has been shown to be flawed. The scientists’ actions were focused on this lack of scientific merit and the process that lead to it, and not an attempt to distort the science or the scientific literature." The EPA considered that "If anything, their actions aimed to police the peer review process and rectify a problem that threatened its scientific integrity."


See also

* Global warming controversy


References

*


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 ''Energy & Environment'' is an academic journal "covering the direct and indirect environmental impacts of energy acquisition, transport, production and use".
, Volume 14, Numbers 2–3, 1 May 2003
Full text.
The companion paper to the controversial ''Climate Research'' paper discussed here. {{DEFAULTSORT:Soon And Baliunas Controversy Hockey stick controversy Climate change controversies Historical climatology 2003 controversies