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

[morgan_greywolf]

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. Yes. Check out the Publications section of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)'s Web site.

According to this article in Scientific American ($), they've come to the conclusion with 80% certainty that global climate change is not only real, but is caused by human activities. They're new 2007 assessment report isn't on the website yet, but it is discussed in SciAm, so it should be there shortly, I believe. Methodologies are discussed pretty well in the SciAm piece.

Re:The bigger issue

[morgan_greywolf]

Oops.

Link to the SciAm piece.

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

[Coryoth]

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. Well for startes the data is available. Full gridded data can be found here, along with appropriate fortran code to extract individual months of years. Gridded data for individual years can be found here. Original source data for individual stations can be accessed from here. Detailed accounts of the adjustments for urban heat island effects and compilation procedures used can be found in the papers listed in the references here. Most of those papers (i.e. those by GISS staff) are freely available in the GISS publications database. You did actually look to see if the data and detailed accounts of the methods were available, right?

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

[piotrr]

Speed.

Corals are slow, human pollution is fast.

If climate change is slow enough, corals will die off at one end and expand at the other, essentially moving as the niche is displaced. If the change is very fast, say two degrees per 100 years or so, the coral won't be able to catch up with the displacement of its niche.

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.

Re:Business as usual

[faloi]

I know it's hip to hate Fox News... But the actual article describes the people denying global warming is man made as a "fringe group" and includes quotes from British researchers pointing out that it really doesn't matter on a global scale.

Not global warming. Global climate change.

[MMC Monster]

Why do we still call it global warming? It's global climate change. Some areas will get warmer. Some areas will get cooler. Some areas will be under water.

The nice thing about it is that the majority of us will live to see the changes. We are in for some interesting times over the next 30-50 years. :-)

Re:Then will someone explain to me...

[marx]

The temperature in the US has little effect on the global mean value of the temperature (the US is only 2% of the area of the Earth). But the US is one of the top (or the top) polluter of greenhouse gases. That's why there's criticism, the US's share of the pollution is a lot larger than its share of land area or population.

Re:.001 degree?

[squiretalen]

Of course he is trying to save face, but what he said was accurate. The hottest year in the US changed to 1934, from 1998, and the Global Temperature changed only 0.001 (C).

Re:Someone drank the whole pitcher of kool-aid

[dbrutus]

The real problem is that this error had to be found out by reverse engineering because climate scientists have a bad habit of not releasing their code and data. We're told that they use a list of high quality temperature sensing stations and discouraged from actually checking. Then when somebody actually does go out and check, we find a significant fraction of them are just awful, hopelessly compromised by local heat island effects. Fixing those problems will only increase the accuracy of predictions and data quality but instead of welcoming it, we had an abortive attempt to take the station list locations private for "privacy reasons" after being public for decades.

Data quality is a major issue with global warming. If the numbers aren't right, we don't really know what's going on. This is just one more case of obfuscation hiding error and the AGW proponents falling back to the nearest trench line and adopting the same shoddy tactics of delay, deny, and obfuscate on data quality issues.

This is not how real science is done and that's why so many people who know and love the scientific method and its fruits have a growing unease about the whole AGW enterprise. Can you blame them?

The US is reputed to have one of the best temp sensor networks in the world and I believe has the only organized effort to go to original sources and check stations. Yet instead of calling for a review of all the data and figuring out, for real, how bad the problem is, what we get is a political effort to firewall the contamination and an implied "let's not bother" checking the rest. Real science is "trust but verify". Climate science seems to have a strain of something else going on.