James Hansen on the Warmest Year Brouhaha

Jamie writes "In response to earlier reports, Dr. James Hansen, top climate scientist with NASA, has issued a statement on the recent global warming data correction. He points out 'the effect on global temperature was of order one-thousandth of a degree, so the corrected and uncorrected curves are indistinguishable.' In a second email he shows maps of U.S. temperatures relative to the world in 1934 and 1998, explains why the error occurred (it was not, as reported, a 'Y2K bug') and, in response to errors by 'Fox, Washington Times, and their like,' attacks the 'deceit' of those who 'are not stupid [but] seek to create a brouhaha and muddy the waters in the climate change story.'"

Comments

The bigger issue

[MyLongNickName]

The bigger issue is the cloak of secrecy around the data and the algorithms used to generate the outputs. I do not understand why all data wouldn't be publicly available. Is there one place to go to see the data used to make the dire predictions I hear all over the place? I generally accept global warming as a fact, but when I see the amount of contortions one person had to go through to figure out there was a problem in the first place, I start to get suspicious.

Re:The bigger issue

[Christianson]

No direct experience with the data in question, or indeed any climatological data at all, but this isn't really an uncommon case in science. People collect and store their own data. The full extent of raw data is often massive, it's often poorly indexed, and there is no such thing as a consistent storage format. Practically speaking, this means that whenever you want to get someone else's data, you have to get in touch with someone who would have collected it, ask them to filter out the part of the data you want, and then send it to you with an explanation of how to make sense of it. It might seem like secrecy, but it's mostly a product of best use of time. Scientists get grant money by analyzing data and publishing the results, not spending the effort to make the raw data publicly available.

Re:The bigger issue

[NickFortune]

Scientists get grant money by analyzing data and publishing the results, not spending the effort to make the raw data publicly available.

mmm... maybe that needs to change. Given the current tendency towards knee jerk FUD in some quarters, the only way we're ever going to be able to settle debates like this one is if the data can be subjected to widespread peer review.

Re:The bigger issue

[Evilest Doer]

Given the current tendency towards knee jerk FUD in some quarters, the only way we're ever going to be able to settle debates like this one is if the data can be subjected to widespread peer review.

I wish I could share your optimism, but widespread peer review won't change anything. The problem is due to people who know nothing or very little (which is often worse than nothing) about the sciences. If the raw data is publicly available, it will give the people who want to deny basic science more ammunition for their inane babblings. They won't in reality know the first thing they are talking about, but it will impress the people who want to believe the world is only 6000 years old, or we never went to the moon, or their is no global warming, and so on.

Re:The bigger issue

[ajs]

they've come to the conclusion with 80% certainty that global climate change is not only real, but is caused by human activities. That's a bit of a mis-statement. The computer models used generate results that conform to that hypothesis with an 80% margin for error. The idea that we're 80% certain that the models are correct is not supported by anything I've read.

As some scientists have pointed out, there's substantial concern about these models and how accurate they can be in the first place. What we know is this: some of the Earth is undergoing substantial climate change (always true, but this is exceptional), and much of the change is in the direction of warming (the arctic and antarctic regions, especially). We also know that CO2 levels have risen. The problem is that correlating those two factors requires that we understand the climate on a macroscopic level, which, sadly, we do not. We have models that predict past activity, but they have so far failed to accurately predict future activity accurately. Dyson suggests a naive model ("no change") would be more accurate that the models we use. That's been hotly debated, and I'm willing to believe that he might have gone a bit overboard there.

Still, the fact of the matter is that we're uncertain about a great many things, and until we are certain, we should be careful about what we insist is "fact".

Re:The bigger issue

[dbrutus]

A professional statistician (which is what McIntyre is) might not be able to check the underlying science but he might be better than the original climate scientist in applying cutting edge statistical analysis because that's *his* expertise.

An awful lot of science is multi-disciplinary that way, with data gathered for one field but bits and pieces of other fields being brought in to make sense of it. And those bits and pieces tend to be outdated. Economists, for example, regularly shake their heads at the economic analysis applied by political scientists. Mathematicians and evelotionary biologists have some similar friction.

So while the problem of analysis of data exists, there are plenty of cases where eyes from outside the specialty would do a lot of good. We should be very happy to see that sort of professional knowledge silo breakdown. Some people are less than happy.

Business as usual

[arivanov]

Fox and Co think that the world consist only of USA, news at 10.

They have looked solely at the USA graphs and completely ignored the world ones which are the ones that look really scary. They have also declared the problem with the USA data analysis to be a flaw in the data for the whole world.

Is anyone surprised? I am not...

Re:Business as usual

[ajs]

Fox and Co think that the world consist only of USA, news at 10. My problem with the debate (and this isn't new... it's at least 2 decades old) is that every time some conservative politician or news outlet waves some piece of information around (usually misunderstanding it badly), we immediately seek to use that to discredit the person or group who produced or publicized the information.

We desperately need to remember that scientists and politicians have an intersection, but the vast majority of them don't have anything to do with each other. A scientist who seeks to prove Einstein wrong isn't some Einstein-hating nutjob (typically). In fact, they're performing the most valuable task that the scientific method sets forth: seeking to disprove. By attempting and failing, we learn more about the value of a theory. By attempting and succeeding, we learn more about the theory's weaknesses, and often improve upon it.

Let's not start marching toward those scientists who seek flaws in global climate change research with pitchforks and torches (or rather, let's stop doing so), and instead seek to pressure the media and politicians into supporting them and their less skeptical peers without confusing the issue by politicizing results too early. We need even more funding than we have for those who seek to assail the consensus, not because we think it will fall, but because that's what the scientific method demands. Anything less is not science, it's just politics in a lab coat.

Honestly...

[Otter]

This had seemed like pretty much a non-issue all along. If anything it's Hansen's "second, more impassioned email" that diminishes his credibility as a sober, objective scientist just reporting his data. At least in my field, scientists don't issue corrections like:

Make no doubt, however, if tipping points are passed, if we, in effect, destroy Creation, passing on to our children, grandchildren, and the unborn a situation out of their control, the contrarians who work to deny and confuse will not be the principal culprits. The contrarians will be remembered as court jesters. There is no point to joust with court jesters. They will always be present. They will continue to entertain even if the Titanic begins to take on water.

A solution to all of this FUD...

[_14k4]

Release the data, all of it, openly. NOAA data is available, for a fee to download I think, and so should all of the other data. I don't mean "should" as in "legislated", I mean "should" as in "should" or, "it would be nice."

If all of the data were released in this fashion, in one central "trusted" place, one could assume that as more and more analysts take a gander - themes will appear and more and more of the graphs could be trusted.

Re:Not global warming. Global climate change.

[Russ Nelson]

I'm sure that the next hundred years will be much less "interesting" than the previous hundred years, which saw the violent deaths of 250,000,000 people.

Re:"Global" Warming

[jamie]

The maps he shows are global. You didn't RTFA.

Re:Cerial

[vidarh]

And you're illustrating exactly why he is outraged: The errors affected the US. The effect on the data for the global temperatures was so small as to be dwarfed by the overall margin of error for the data, but the media completely ignored that, and ignored that it changes nothing with respects to long term trends and overall global warming.

Someone drank the whole pitcher of kool-aid

[benhocking]

Although I love your Church references, the scientists did admit their mistake. They're not blaming the news organizations for reporting their error, they're blaming them for distorting their error. Understand the difference? Some news outlets pretended like this changed the whole "the 9 hottest years on record happened in the last decade" fact, when it did not. Prior to the change 1934 was the second hottest year in the US on record, and after the change it was the hottest year. Prior to the change several of the hottest years in the US on record were during the dust bowl, and after the change this is still true. The changes had no impact on which years were the hottest on a global scale, so the "9 hottest years" fact is still true. Do you understand how the right-wing media that you evidently get your talking points from distorted the truth now?

Re:Someone drank the whole pitcher of kool-aid

[rronda]

The issue of educating the press about how to communicate science works both ways. I wonder if people complain that much about the press coverage when 1998 was presented as the hottest year on record in the US, I wonder if the argument of the small area of the continental US was used in that case to explain the little significance that the US record has for the global temperature. That means that the "9 hottest years"-record that you are referring to is negligibly important for global temperature when the temperatures considered are only the US ones! I believe that a reasonable scientific stance is one of skepticism. No scientist is able to predict what the climate will be under climate change conditions. That would require for someone to know all inner workings of climate, and the magnitude and direction of all the feedbacks that models attempt to simulate. Of course the error in the data processing does not change the science of climate change. But that means that it leaves the state of the science of climate change exactly as it was before, that is one of uncertainty. And this is not what James Hansen is being teaching us for the last few years.

Re:Not global warming. Global climate change.

[rhakka]

Aren't you cute. The population has grown and at some point resources simply won't stretch far enough for all of us.

What exactly do you think is going to happen then? We'll all sit down, sing Kumbaya, and work out a peaceable solution, with the rich folk voluntarily slashing their standard of living so we can all subsist?

I think it would be pretty hard to say that unless we make some serious changes in the way we do things, 250m violent deaths will be the "good old days". Assuming we don't completely destroy ourselves while fighting over water, energy, and food.

I hope you're right, but I don't see the basis for your optimism.

So wait...

[SIIHP]

You're advocating "security through obscurity" for scientific data?

Really?

Because you think the downside of allowing the data to be easily available is worse that making sure it's accurate through peer review?

And that makes sense to you?

What kind of reasoning must one engage in to believe the idea that widespread peer review is not desirable because some nutters will misuse the data? THEY DO THAT ANYWAY.

Meanwhile, situations like this occur because the data is not easily available for review.

I simply don't understand how anything you said makes sense, or is in any way insightful.