Peer Review Is Not What It's Cracked Up To Be

Much is made of the peer-review of scientific papers; it is frequently held up as the gold standard that assures the quality of scientific publishing...

But this ideal system is easily misused.: Eos - American Geophysical Union:

Here, I cite the form letter I just received from climate sub-editor ... who also transmitted three unfavorable reports from reviewers, which formed the basis of his decision to reject my submission.

Dear Dr. Singer:

Thank you again for submitting to Eos your Opinion manuscript entitled "Geo-engineering - stopping ice ages."
Based on the recommendation of the 3 reviewers, I am not able to accept it for publication at this time...
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Reviewer #1 (Comments for Author):

This paper should be rejected. It contains unsupported claims and name-calling. And the reference list is missing... but the main problems are two-fold:

**The author claims an ice age is imminent, but has no evidence to back up this claim. What do climate model projections say? As I understand the science, massive global warming is imminent in the next century with business as usual, long before any astronomical forcing takes hold.

**The scheme of spraying soot onto ice will have to be repeated each time it snows again. The paper claims it will be cheap, but has no data or calculations to support this claim. Furthermore, I can think of many risks and negative impacts of such a scheme, but these are not discussed.
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Reviewer #2 (Comments for Author):
Comments on "Geo-Engineering-- stopping ice ages" by F. Singer

Singer argues that humanity's urgent climate business is to prevent another ice age. To do this, he suggests a geo-engineering experiment involving the melting of ice fields by spraying them with soot, thereby decreasing the albedo and warming the planet. Unfortunately, there is already a global scale geo-engineering experiment that has been quite effective at increasing the temperatures and melting polar sea ice: the increase of CO2 via the burning of fossil fuels.
It is therefore hard to see this paper as anything less than a provocation to the scientific community (a bad joke). It should not be published.
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Reviewer #3 (Comments for Author):

... This was an interesting letter to read, primarily because it provides a glimpse into the mind of someone who views the issue of climate change from a truly delusional and twisted perspective.

It is undeniable that over the last several decades the extent of Arctic sea ice has rapidly declined while melting of the Greenland ice sheet has accelerated. In Mr. Singer's view, what should we do? In his opinion, we should sprinkle soot on snow fields, hastening their melting and adding to the observed sea level rise, all in the name of fending off an ice age that may be thousands of years away. It is difficult to determine if this letter is intended as a joke or if it's meant to be a "deliverable" for some cause, because it is so devoid of reason.

I could almost support the publication of this letter because it exposes the warped mindset of those who view anthropogenic greenhouse warming as the product of some UN-based conspiracy. However, the internet has no shortage of posts such as this. Eos owes it to its readership to save them the effort of filtering through nonsense to get to serious information.
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To Reviewer #1: Of course, IPCC climate models cannot predict ice ages -- but many solar experts are looking to a “Little Ice Age” within decades -- or sooner.

And further, the Holocene may have already ended. Since major glaciations develop only gradually, one can judge this possibility only in retrospect.

To the best of my recollection, using soot to melt snow/ice was suggested by NOAA science director Joe Fletcher around 1970 and rediscovered by Jim Hansen.

To Reviewer #2: He talks about melting polar sea ice; I talk about limiting growth of a (currently minor) high-latitude snowfield and learning by experimentation.

To Reviewer #3: I hope he rots in hell -- but freezing may preserve him, alas.

S. Fred Singer is... a Senior Fellow of the Heartland Institute.., he founded and has chaired the NIPCC (Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change), which has released several scientific reports