Guardian Article Flays "Skeptic" Article By Roy Spencer, Shows Why Dwindling Few Don't Get Published

It’s hard to find a reputable scientist who denies that human emissions of greenhouse gases are warming the planet and that there will be consequences for human society and the biological health of the planet. There are a few holdouts who, for various reasons, either think humans are not causing warming or that the warming will not have much consequence. Some members of this vocal minority spend a lot of time trying to convince the public that they are right. They write letters to newspapers, appear in slick movies, give press conferences, promote their views to Congress, and so on. Their high profile gives the public a false sense that there are two relatively equal-sized bodies of experts that cannot agree on climate change; this is not true.

An even smaller subset also tries to publish their views in the scientific literature – the dueling ground for experts. Sometimes these contributions have been useful, adding some nuance to the discussion, but all too often they have proven to be of very poor quality when other scientists have had a chance to dissect them.

A few months ago, I co-authored an article which charted the different quality in scientific output from the Dwindling Few contrarians compared to the majority of experts. My colleague, Dana Nuccitelli, summarized the article here. What we show is that the Dwindling Few have had a very poor track record – having papers rebutted time after time after time because of errors they have made. The low quality of their research has caused journal editors resign, and they have wasted the time of their colleagues who have had to publish the rebuttals to their work. Well, again this year, I’ve wasted my time (and my colleagues’ time) by rebutting a 2014 paper published by the darling of the Dwindling Few, Roy Spencer. Dr. Spencer wrote a paper earlier this year that used a very simple ocean model to suggest that standard climate models overestimate the Earth’s sensitivity to carbon dioxide increases in the atmosphere. You can see his manuscript here although it is behind a paywall so you will have to shell out about $40 to read it.

EDIT

So, what were the errors and poor modeling choices?

1. The model treats the entire Earth as entirely ocean-covered
2. The model assigns an ocean process (El Niño cycle) which covers a limited geographic region in the Pacific Ocean as a global phenomenon
3. The model incorrectly simulates the upper layer of the ocean in the numerical calculation.
4. The model incorrectly insulates the ocean bottom at 2000 meters depth
5. The model leads to diffusivity values that are significantly larger than those reported in the literature
6. The model incorrectly uses an asymmetric diffusivity to calculate heat transfer between adjacent layers
7. The model contains incorrect determination of element interface diffusivity
8. The model neglects advection (water flow) on heat transfer
9. The model neglects latent heat transfer between the atmosphere and the ocean surface.

EDIT

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2014/oct/21/global-warming-contrarian-paper-unrealistic-inaccurate