The American Meteorological Society Published Egregious Half-Truths
Researcher exposes wilful and deceptive misrepresentation by American Meteorological Association (AMS) of much-cited scientific paper. AMS declines to retract. 
Background: In 2000, the Bulletin of the Meteorological Society published “Impacts of Extreme Weather and Climate on Terrestrial Biota” by Camille Parmesan, Terry Root, and Michael Willig.
The paper introduced to the peer-reviewed literature analyses by Parmesan that extreme weather events had caused an extinction event in California’s Sierra Nevada and advocated the extreme weather was the mechanism by which global warming was driving animals northward and upward as Parmesan claimed in her first controversial paper discussed here.
According to Google Scholar, the BAMS paper has been cited by 324 consensus articles. Thomson Reuter’s Essential Science Indicators report that by December 2009, Parmesan went on to be ranked #2 among highly cited authors for papers devoted expressly to global warming and climate change.
Below (see link) is a map of Parmesan’s study site first published in Singer, M., and C. D. Thomas (1996) Evolutionary responses of a butterfly metapopulation to human and climate-caused environmental variation. American Naturalist, vol. 148, p. S9–S39. I have added call out boxes. Notice how surgically “climate change” supposedly killed individuals on the annual plant Collinsia (Xs) in the logged clearing while just a few feet away the same species was originally reported to be thriving on its normal host plant in undisturbed habitat.
The observations of those thriving populations were later “amputated” from Parmesan’s extinction story that she spun in “Impacts of Extreme Weather and Climate on Terrestrial BiotaParmesan et al biased their conclusion by omitting observations that all other individuals in the surrounding natural habitat had survived better than had ever been observed during the same weather events.
Only the butterflies that had recently colonized a novel plant species in a highly disturbed logged area had been extirpated.If all observations were honestly presented, it would have been both an example of nature’s resilience and an example of the effect of landscape changes on microclimates.
By omitting half of the data, their paper manufactured an illusion of extreme climate catastrophe as discussed here. So I requested an official retraction. It was no more honest than Enron officials leaving half the data off their books.
Nonetheless, Parmesan’s illusion was immediately adopted by top climate scientists David R. Easterling, Gerald A. Meehl, Stanley A. Changnon, and Thomas R. Karl who immediately invited Parmesan to co-author the paper Climate Extremes: Observations, Modeling, and Impacts published in the journal Science.
The bulk of that paper showed there was no increase in heat waves, droughts or other catastrophic events, but they then offered Parmesan’s half-truths to suggest just few extreme events related to climate change will cause grave ecological disruptions writing “In wild plants and animals, climate-induced extinctions, distributional and phenological changes, and species’ range shifts are being documented at an increasing rate.”
However that paper’s only example of “climate-induced extinctions” were Parmesan’s butterflies and amphibian extinctions at Monte Verde as discussed in the unsupported story of the Golden Toad discussed here.
This new paper, according to Google Scholar, was then cited by over 1790 consensus articles. In light of the rightful objections that “pal-review” can create a false illusion of a paper’s scientific objectivity (that resulted in Copernicus Publishing terminating the skeptical journal Pattern Recognition in Physics), I encourage climate scientists James Annan, Gavin Schmidt and others who objected to “pal-review” to join me in asking the American Meteorological Society to reprimand and retract papers that knowingly omit data that undermine scientific integrity.
I encourage readers to respectfully email the American Meteorological Society [email protected] or[email protected] and share your opinion about whether or not their reasons for not retracting the paper were valid and in the best interest of science. Dr. Rosenfeld at [email protected] was the editor with whom I was communicating, but he mentioned having some health issues, so to be kind I suggest your opinions be sent to the first two email addresses.
The AMS refused to retract — using very specious justifications. Jim Steele wrote back, noting very serious implications:In “An Information Statement of the American Meteorological Society?(Adopted by AMS Council 20 August 2012)” the society argued, “Evidence for warming is also observed in seasonal changes across many areas, including earlier springs, longer frost-free periods, longer growing seasons, and shifts in natural habitats and in migratory patterns of birds and insects.”
Parmesan papers have been essential in creating the impression that rising CO2 has shifted natural habitat. But as demonstrated in the paper under discussion, if the whole truth was told, a much different story would emerge and fears of ecological climate catastrophe would give way to more rational analyses of landscape change and natural cycles.
The AMS’ climate change statement also argued “Climate is always changing. However, many of the observed changes noted above are beyond what can be explained by the natural variability of the climate.” But in truth the extinction of this local butterfly population was much better explained by natural variability and landscape changes, and that again contradicts the AMS’s claim that natural variations can not explain current events.
The AMS’ climate change statement claims the “AMS Information Statement intended to provide a trustworthy, objective, and scientifically up-to-date explanation of scientific issues of concern to the public at large.”
Perhaps the AMS fears that retracting a faulty paper would call attention to the possibility that there may be more peer reviewed papers that are not so trustworthy, papers that demand more skeptical scrutiny. By not retracting a paper that so blatantly manipulated the data presentation, you bite off your nose to save your face.
The justifications used to avoid retracting the paper suggests the AMS editorial policy strayed from being “objective, nor scientifically up-to-date”. That the AMS would justify publishing half-truths based on technicalities and spurious precedents taints the rest of the scientific community who strive to uphold science’s highest standards.
It undermines the public’s trust in environmental science, making it much more difficult for us to convince others about cases where we truly need better environmental stewardship. Good environmental stewardship demands unadulterated science to guide our policies, not the half-truths the AMS now condones.
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