Slashdot Mirror
Blogger Finds Bug in NASA Global Warming Study?
An anonymous reader writes "According to an article at DailyTech, a blogger has discovered a Y2K bug in a NASA climate study by the same writer who accused the Bush administration of trying to censor him on the issue of global warming. The authors have acknowledged the problem and released corrected data. Now the study shows the warmest year on record for the contiguous 48 states as being 1934, not 1998 as previously reported in the media. In fact, the corrected study shows that half of the 10 warmest years on record occurred before World War II." The article's assertion that there's a propaganda machine working on behalf of global warming theorists is outside the bounds of the data, which I think is interesting to note.
The opinion: A link to the blog entry in question would have been quite on topic.
The pun.
My 0.02 cents
What software were they using that wouldn't be Y2k compliant? Graph generators from the late 70's?
If you post as Anonymous Coward, don't expect a reply.
I looked quickly at the numbers. This impacts U.S. air surface temperatures, not global. It almost seems like the U.S. is experiencing a somewhat lesser global warming effect than the rest of the world. Is this possibly due to the post-industrialized economy and tighter environmental regulations? This would mean we are still being impacted by global warming, but it is being countered by less heat-trapping smog and other pollutants?
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Then again-- maybe not. I strongly suspect this story will receive little to no attention from the mainstream media. (emphasis mine)
Seriously, this data may be very interesting and correct some of our possible misconceptions about the severity of global warming, but come on. The last part of his blog basically makes him sound like a standard zealot conspiracy theorist with an axe to grind. How does that sort of nonsense advance the debate at all?
As if millions of voices suddenly cried out "oops" and were suddenly silenced.
Gamertag: WyleType
Who cares what this data says, don't we already have consensus on this?
9 out of 10 scientists say the hottest decade was the 1990s, how dare anyone suggest otherwise?
Zogby should poll all of the scientists in the world and figure out what is going on.
Now we can drive bigger cars and oil will never run out! :0
You shank my Jengaship!
Obviously, dumping billions of tons of Greenhouse Gases into the atmosphere is not a good idea, period. However, this refined data shows the warming trend in a more accurate light, and that is all to the good.
I see this as (yet another) great victory of the scientific method, and in this case, aided by a sharp-eyed blogger. The beauty and strength of scientific truth lies in its "weakness": its provisionality - things are only true until proven otherwise.
This is very good news.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
In other words, some random blogger claiming that climatologists have been using screwed up figures about global warming due to a "year 2000" bug is pretty miraculous. I find it more believable that there's more to the story here than what's being posted. I read some of the logic chopping in the blog post's comments, but I didn't see any climatologists speaking there. Just some random people who seemed like they were playing detective.
I'd like to see some additional corroboration on this.
RTFA. There is a link to NASA posting the new numbers. Need more corroboration?
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Now really, that's taking it a bit far. I'm strongly opposed to young earth people, and what they claim is far and away more extreme than global warming deniers, who usually suggest something to the tune of natural climate cycles.
Gamertag: WyleType
1934 was also warm in northern Europe.
....both sides have established a religious level of conviction of their position, and no compromise is possible or desired. Certainly intelligent discussion, moderate debate, and consensus are discouraged if not actually torpedoed by zealots of the Left and Right extremes.
Pretty much like every serious issue in American politics.
-Styopa
I've been told in no uncertain terms that I must BELIEVE in global warming and that man has caused it. Many of the Brethren have warned the unbelievers that they face arrest, scorn and treatment as if they were traitors, holocaust deniers and altogether evil less than human creatures that must be silenced at all costs. By presenting the other side of the argument, (which by the way, according to the Brethren there is no other side of the argument) these people are giving comfort to the enemy. If there are facts which cause doubt about the truth of global warming then those facts must be suppressed. It is for the good of all. Oh, and it's all George Bush's fault I've been told. And America's fault.
Enjoy your Karma, after all you earned it. Feel your Karma Joe, feel it burn.
It wasn't a random blogger, it was Steve McIntyre, a statistician whose attention was drawn to an oddity in the data for an official temperature station next to some air conditioners.
Anecdotal evidence is hardly an appropriate substitute for reliable, reproducable scientific analysis.
Unless, that is, you've already made up your mind on the subject, in which case anything that supports your view will suffice as "proof".
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Some skepticism is needed here.
Um... Isn't that what this article is?
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
"but this year has been pretty cool."
Global warming is just that - GLOBAL
You are making the common mistake of confusing weather with climate.
First off, kudos for actually referencing the claims made, this is a critical and often overlooked step when dealing with such a contraversial issue. It won't stop people from arguing the point mind you, but it does give the less lazy among us an opportunity to at least validate the claims made.
Without a doubt, you've made a compelling case.
Now, allow me to make some suggestions:
Try to avoid statements designed to "stir the pot" such as "quietly released". I know it's a tempting expression to use and just about everyone does it. However, it carries with it the implication of NASA being forced to release the data but not wanting it to be noticed. If that was the case, then make the case, don't just make suggestive statements... Speak Plainly . It will give integrity to your report rather than make you look biased, thus giving ammunition to the opposing side. Remember, NASA is not required to make a fanfare, they just need to correct their data.
Also, your data stands on it's own merits, there is no need for you to make assumptions on how it will be received by the "Global Warming Propaganda Machine" or whomever. Again, it makes you look like your just trying to pick a fight and it diminishes the effectiveness of your report.
Now, I'm only taking the time to write this because I think your presentation is one of the better ones I've seen. It does not "debunk" global warming (particularly the "global" part if I understand the data I've looked at so far), but you make a great case for critical evaluation of the data and peer review of conclusions.
Regardless of who's side you're on, that's all any rationale person should want.
A goal is a dream with a deadline
2006 will be a bad year for hurricanes... didnt happen
2007 will be a bad year for hurricanes... hasnt happened
yet they are predicting thet the effects of global warming will start to take effect in 2009?
once they start getting the local weather 2 days out correct on a consistant basis THEN I will start to believe their long term forcasts
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
"Don't confuse me with the facts, my mind is already made up."
I need to know if anyone that had anything to do with collecting the data, writing the software, writing the article, or writing the summary, was ever on an oil company's payroll, ever owned stock in an oil company, or ever owned a car that wasn't a hybrid.
If I don't believe in global warming the article summary was more than enough corroboration, and is the final proof that global warming is a conspiracy run by Al Gore, the IPCC, the media, and anyone else who uses the words "Global Warming" without saying it in a mocking tone.
// MD_Update(&m,buf,j);
It's not a side jab. Real biology predicts actual observed behavior in biological systems. "Intelligent design" does not. People who study the facts and come up with scientific theories that are verifiable via observation are real scientists. People who speculate about an intelligent designer because the detail of the universe in their opinion is arbitrarily too complex to them or arbitrarily too finely tuned for human life are not being scientific. If "intelligent design" were in any way supported by objective facts , you'd find atheist scientists who would be confounded by it. They'd say, "I don't believe in a God but this stuff is clearly designed!!! Who did it, Xenu, the grays, Martians, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, a giant black monolith?" You never ever find such a thing. Where are the "Intelligent design, Whodunit?" books by the nonreligious hard scientists? You'll never find an intelligent design proponent who doesn't have an a priori belief in a particular deity as designer. And since that belief is not founded on scientific principles it completely kicks the legs out from under any claims to scientific validity the "intelligent design" conjecture has. It's called assuming the antecedent.
Exactly. Scientists shouldn't hold firm to any theories of global climate change until they can *repeatedly* test the impact of human-induced CO2 emissions on *several* copies of the earth.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
a rough probability calculation gives that a p less than 0.03
thats supposed to convince me global warming isn't happening?
also the warmest was 1934,
check out a possible related event
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_Bowl
Orson Scott Card, has been stirring things up recently, and makes some damning statements regarding global warming, saying it is time for scientist to abandon the faked data of the "Church of Global Warming".
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
re: "overall socialist agenda to try and deindustrailize western nations..."
n s
Ludicrous troll.
re: "Why else would the first world have to pay the third world for the 'right to pollute.'" (sic)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commo
To put it simply, because the benefits of processes which cause pollution, accrue to the individual or groups of individuals which create the pollution, but the costs of pollution are paid by all. Duh. Basic ethics.
We are going to experience cycles of warming and cooling, especially as water vapor (the most important greenhouse gas) and CO2 fluctuate. CO2 levels are actually very low now compared with normal planetary activity.
While I am concerned about the future of our planet and our species' place upon it, I am growing increasingly sceptical of the wild claims surrounding a looming global warming catastrophe. When a scientist such as Stephen Hawking warns "I am afraid the atmosphere might get hotter and hotter until it will be like Venus with boiling sulfuric acid," any reasonable person begins to fear for the future.
My surprise and shock was learning that past concentrations of carbon dioxide were much higher than they are today (indeed, limits so high as to be unreachable, assuming that we have hit peak oil), as revealed in the interview below:
RES: Professor Robert E. Sloan, Department of Geology, University of MinnesotaJC: Dr Joe Cain, interviewer
I have learned that these past CO2 concentrations have been documented in peer-reviewed research journals:
My interest in past CO2 concentrations began by reading a (somewhat) more partisan summary of this information:
An even more thorough refutation, specifically of An Inconvenient Truth, can be found here.
Take a look at the NASA GISS PLOT of the new data; it's quite informative: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.D_lrg .gif
If I was using those models at my job, I would have been shot in the face and told to find a job that doesn't require thinking.
-- toolie
That's the main point that slashdotters do not seem to be getting right now, it's not like all the global warming theory went bananas.
All you guys, do yourself a favour and plot NASA's corrected data in your favourite plotting program and then compare to other data (be mindful of the Y scale). The years around 1940 were unusually warm in the US, but the year with the highest 5-year average temperature is 2000.
Victims of 9/11: <3000. Traffic in the US: >30,000/y
No, the numbers speak for themselves.
It took ten seconds to create a plot in gnuplot with the corrected data.
I was surprised at the results. They show a random scattering of occasional really warm years, and a massive, unmistakable, consistent warming trend since 1980.
This was not at all what I expected to see after reading TFA. Maybe that's why they don't plot the corrected data.
It's not really a Y2K bug in the conventional sense, and it has nothing to do with Y2K software compliance. It's more like 2000 happened to be the year that the organization collecting the temperature data in the USA changed their procedures for correcting the data for the "time of day" that the temperature reading was taken. This meant a slight difference between the pre-2000 dataset and the 2000-and-later dataset, which is the inconsistency correctly recognized by the guy mentioned in the article.
:-) Two others were in the 1950s (1953, 1954), and the rest were 1990, 1998, 1999, and 2006. Perhaps this is merely indicating that, in the US, lately it's been the hottest it's been since the "dust bowl" years. That's not a pleasant thought.
So, it's merely a coincidence that the change happened to occur in 2000. It could have happened any other year. Referring to this as a result of a "Y2K bug" is misleading. If it is, then anything that changed in 2000 could be called a "Y2K bug".
I don't think demoting 1998 to the 2nd-highest US temperature in a century (barely -- by 0.01 annual average degree) is a big deal either. 1998 is an awfully close second. I also wouldn't ascribe much to the the claim that "half" the top ten years in the US were before WWII (1921, 1931, 1934, 1938). Last I checked, 4 is less than half of ten
The TOP 10 annual temperature years in the US are (celcius degrees from mean):
year annual 5-year mean
1 1934 1.25 0.44
2 1998 1.23 0.51
3 1921 1.15 0.15
4 2006 1.13
5 1931 1.08 0.27
6 1999 0.93 0.69
7 1953 0.90 0.32
8 1990 0.87 0.40
9 1938 0.86 0.36
10 1954 0.85 0.47
If you look at the top ten ranking for the 5-year means, the pattern is pretty clear:
1 2000 0.52 0.79
2 1999 0.93 0.69
3 2004 0.44 0.66
4 2001 0.76 0.65
5 1932 0.00 0.63
6 1933 0.68 0.61
7 2003 0.50 0.58
8 2002 0.53 0.55
9 1998 1.23 0.51
10 1988 0.32 0.51
The 1930s are down at 5th and 6th place. 2005 and 2006 are left out because you can't calculate a 5-year window around them yet.
Finally, the error changes the GLOBAL pattern insignificantly, and the global trend in the last couple of decades is greater than the USA trend.
In all, it's a worthwhile error to catch for the US data, but it doesn't change much about the overall pattern.
This tells us that the temperature during the last years are higher - for Stockholm. Other places may have a different figure. It is important to look not only for a single site but for several sites with different geographical influence.
What really is needed is an analysis of the temperature over a much longer timespan than just a few hundred years - and here the ice cores drilled from Greenland and Antarctica are one key. Another is the growth of really old trees where the thickness of the year rings tells a lot of the climate, but unfortunately not everything. A warm dry summer gives a different result than a warm wet summer.
And even if the climate is shifting - it's the polar regions that are seeing the greatest changes.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
" That's not a pleasant thought."
Yeah, but the CO2 - Temperature correlation is eliminated (at least for the US measurements), since you can't show a consistent upward trend in temperatures associated with the consistent upward trend in CO2 concentrations. So it's more like "gee it's been hot lately, but that's not anything new".
I am much less alarmed to learn that something scary happening now has also happened before and things turned out okay in the end.
... a climate prediction that was EVER correct that was more than 10 years out. The closest to correct predictions that I have found are in the Farmers Almanac. They use records of the climate for the past 100 years. They assume there are long term cylical patterns. What will happen is a repeat of what has happened. They actually have a better than 60% track record. You should look at the track records for your Climatologists. It's nowhere near to 50%.
Here's what I remember having seen in my lifetime from the researchers on the subject.
1970's - Climate Science has advanced in the past few years. It is now possible to make accurate predications based on SCIENTIFIC models. All the predictions of a few years ago are meaningless. A new Ice Age is just around the corner. New York will be under year round Ice by the mid 1980's. It's all caused by Western Technology, mostly America.
1980's - Climate Science has advanced in the past few years. It is now possible to make accurate predications based on SCIENTIFIC models. All the predictions of a few years ago are meaningless. The ice age still comming, it's just delayed. The whole north half of North America and Europe will be frozen by 2000. It's all caused by Western Technology, mostly America.
1990's - Climate Science has advanced in the past few years. It is now possible to make accurate predications based on SCIENTIFIC models. All the predictions of a few years ago are meaningless. There won't be an Ice Age, instead, we are all going to die of heat. The next couple of years will break all records for heat waves. It's all caused by Western Technology, mostly America.
2000's - Climate Science has advanced in the past few years. It is now possible to make accurate predications based on SCIENTIFIC models. All the predictions of a few years ago are meaningless. Global Warming is still the problem, but you won't be able to actually measure the real effects for a couple more years. Sometime in the next 30 years (after the predicter is safely dead!) temperatures will break all records for heat waves. It's all caused by Western Technology, mostly America.
2010 - If the recent past trend continues, we will be hearing more and more about Global Cooling. The introductions, reccomendations and conclusions will continue to be the same. Only the predictions changes.
When it finally becomes obvious that they don't really know more than anybody else, they will trot out a new set of dramatic predictions. Supporters will continue to castigate those who question the latest prophecies of doom, and opponents will continue to reply in the same vein. Meanwhile, the dance of demand for support of new political power structures based on this will continue unabated. Because, for the last 40 years, only the predictions have changed.
For the parent, please consider. You decry those who remind you of past failures for 'mere meterology' while this is glorius 'climatology'. Climatology IS meterology. All that changes is the time frame. If they can't predict the immediate future, how can they have any real basis for believing they can be right about the far future. If you want to dispute that, please give me some facts. References to published data that can be used to corroborate a track record are facts. Models of the future do not cut it They are not facts, only tools. They can be made to say literally anything. The only model that really counts is the Earth. There is really no substitute for a track record of accurate predictions. Do you have any? Those I have seen are all worth less than a flip of the coin for accuracy.
Sorry predictions like 'There will be a storm' don't count. Specificity please.
Everybody knows 3 people with my name.
Hypothesis 1
Proportionally large changes in proportions of climate-involved gases in the atmosphere are having effects on climate. As these changes may threaten the continuation of our advanced civilization, we should closely study all available evidence and model the effects to the best of our abilities.
Hypothesis 2
Massive numbers of scientists who study climate have a secret agenda to bring down industrial civilization, and will fudge any and all data in order to convince the population to end industrial civilization before the sky falls in on us from the shaking of industry's engines.
Note the parallelism
Both hypotheses see a threat to civilization. According to the first, the threat is that the effects on climate from our activities may get away from us. According to the second, the threat is that if we listen to scientists and act prudently, they will concertedly lie to us to achieve the neo-Luddite political result in which we renounce most of our technological and economic means.
Note the absurdity
According to the 2nd hypothesis, scientists - who have been essential in developing our technologies - have now massively subscribed to the sort of anti-technology ideologies that are found in the fringes of some English departments. This is a matter which is easily amenable to sociological research. It would be trivial, really, to go out and, using solid, proven techniques, interview a broad sample of environmental scientists on their personal views of and affections towards technology. It is central to the deniers' case that scientists, as a block, hold anti-technological views. Yet anecdotally, every professional scientist I know (some in climatology) loves technology. Is the only reason that the deniers fail to conduct the basic sociological research to prove their hypothesis that they know from their own anecdotal experience that it would fail to support them?
Are they doing something worse than fudging the data: failing to collect it in an obvious place, because they know it would prove them massively wrong?
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
Look more closely at that (corrected) graph. In particularly, look at the year-on-year variability. The hot years in the 30's did indeed get very hot, but they were interspersed with cold years. No such thing happens in the late 90's and early 2000s - cold years in this latter period are all a lot warmer than almost any other cold years and in fact warmer than most years prior to 1930! This is another way of looking at what another poster was saying about ranking the 5 year running means, and is in fact the reason those running means are higher.
I'm with you, except that in fairness, the trend from 1980-2000 looks pretty much the same as the trend in the 1920-1940 data. The point being that 20 years is too short of a baseline. And in general, given that the climatological history of the planet at macro levels tends to cycle at the fastest at typical intervals of 10k-20k years (interglacials), the debate on this data set seems pretty meaningless to me. With this tiny amount of info, you can make any longterm curve fit.
To me, the clearest issue is the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. There's a lot more for a lot longer than has been the case for probably millions of years, and the amount is growing, and it is pretty much agreed by all that this is due to human activity. It is also agreed generally by all that this is a greenhouse gas. The only real question is exactly how does the global system react to a forcing event like that? It seems clear to me that it is likely going to have some reaction; the simplest extrapolation is that it will raise temperatures, but there are of course myriad non-linearities.
However, to dismiss that possibility on the basis of - essentially - a belief that some cabal is creating this debate for the purpose of selling ad time seems absurd on its face.