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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!
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.
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.
Um, yeah. Hansen from NASA refused to release the algorithms he used, funded by public money.
The blogger reversed engineered them from the data. Hardly the open scientific process you are ascribing to it.
Also, NASA has very quietly updated the numbers, replacing the old ones without reference. No transparency there.
Try again, pollyanna.
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
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);
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.
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.
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.
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.