Arctic Ice Extent Understated Because of "Sensor Drift"

dtjohnson writes "The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) has been at the forefront of predicting doom in the arctic as ice melts due to global warming. In May, 2008 they went so far as to predict that the North Pole would be ice-free during the 2008 'melt season,' leading to a lively Slashdot discussion. Today, however, they say that they have been the victims of 'sensor drift' that led to an underestimation of Arctic ice extent by as much as 500,000 square kilometers. The problem was discovered after they received emails from puzzled readers, asking why obviously sea-ice-covered regions were showing up as ice-free, open ocean. It turns out that the NSIDC relies on an older, less-reliable method of tracking sea ice extent called SSM/I that does not agree with a newer method called AMSR-E. So why doesn't NSIDC use the newer AMSR-E data? 'We do not use AMSR-E data in our analysis because it is not consistent with our historical data.' Turns out that the AMSR-E data only goes back to 2002, which is probably not long enough for the NSIDC to make sweeping conclusions about melting. The AMSR-E data is updated daily and is available to the public. Thus far, sea ice extent in 2009 is tracking ahead of 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008, so the predictions of an ice-free north pole might be premature."

Comments

Rocket science?

[foobsr]

Obviously not, too cold. The more astonishing the fact they can make such errors.

CC.

Re:Rocket science?

[jellomizer]

Science isn't an exact science, people are involved and people make mistakes. Scientist need to remember that they are human too and they will make mistakes. Data can be off or altered, I remember a local weather channel use to use a point for the local temperature until they built a Dunin Donuts next to it, and heat escaping the building or cars or something (it was a long time ago) raised the temperature 5 or 6 degrees warmer then the actual weather.

Climate Scientists are trying to make very accurate predictions where they don't have the data to do so. We can probably say global warming is real, however that is a very broad statement. But to say The Polar caps will be gone in 2008 or by 2012 NYC will be flooded, is grossly misunderstanding the complexity of the earths environment.

Granted that most of the fear mongering worst case scenarios stuff isn't from the people doing the real science but from activists groups who pick and choose data to make people afraid so they do what they want. But still the Scientists don't like saying to people Hey I could be wrong, but thats OK because with the scientific process being wrong takes us the next step closer to the real answer. They want to in general portrait themselves like the Sci-Fi scientist who know what is going on and is always right.

Re:Rocket science?

[tritonman]

Is it just me or are the global warming doom prophets as bad as the christian doom prophets? The world is going to end next year, it will be 1000 degree. Next year it ends up being colder than ever. Oh well, there was a slight miscalculation, it will be NEXT year now.

Re:Rocket science?

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no question that data analysis and prediction is subject to errors, sometimes quite large ones. The real question is whether these errors are due to researcher bias. Unfortunately climate data and predictions are apparently more motivated by political beliefs and biases than hard facts.
Many people have strong feelings that disaster is about to occur. Perhaps this comes from childhood recollections of maternal warnings about running with scissors or touching hot stoves. These fears can be reinforced by religious beliefs that portend the end of the world. Because this psychological factor is so prevalent we need to be especially skeptical of predictions of future disasters.

Re:Rocket science?

[jellomizer]

My prediction from my data states that Year {X+1} will be the year of the Linux Desktop.

Re:Rocket science?

[MrHanky]

[citation needed]. Oh, wait, you just invented those doom mongers yourself, bravely defeating a horrible strawman.

Re:Rocket science?

[jellomizer]

I think it goes back to the showing the DDT is a harmful chemical (other then the old commercial "DDT its good for you and good for me!") it was widely used and was considered safe and effective a marvel in scientific advancement. Then it was shown to have effect on the eagle population and perhaps humans as well. So we had to stop using the chemical, but that opened peoples minds to think other things will have such problems, and to question every advancement and study the effects of it. In general it is a positive thing but it has lead to fear mongering and a belief that we should stop advancements as every advancement has some cost to it (however in my opinion they usually forget to factor in the benefits). Such as the immunization and the possible link to autism, lets say it creates a 1% increase in autism how ever it saves 25% from death, the benefits out weigh the risks and the parents who avoid this are poor judges on risk assessment.

Re:Rocket science?

[Lord Ender]

If they want to be seen as scifi scientists, they need to offer solutions, not just point out problems. When was the last time a climate scientists suggested rerouting the goo-on particle stream through the deflector dish using just the right frequency to reverse global warming? I WANT ANSWERS, DAMN IT.

Re:Rocket science?

[Cally]

Denialists, stop your engines now...

there was a significant problem with the daily sea ice data images on February 16. The problem arose from a malfunction of the satellite sensor we use for our daily sea ice products. Upon further investigation, we discovered that starting around early January, an error known as sensor drift caused a slowly growing underestimation of Arctic sea ice extent.

So, to be clear, this issue has arisen over the last 4-6 weeks. The records for the last decade, clearly showing a significant trend towards less sea-ice, are unaffected.

Re:Rocket science?

[macxcool]

I think it goes back to the showing the DDT is a harmful chemical ... So we had to stop using the chemical

It's too bad that DDT helped to eradicate Malaria in places where it was used. DDT Needed to Control Malaria Perhaps the answer wasn't to eliminate its use but to manage it to limit the harm it could do. Certain countries in the world could use some mosquito control.

Re:Rocket science?

[Chris Burke]

But to say The Polar caps will be gone in 2008 or by 2012 NYC will be flooded, is grossly misunderstanding the complexity of the earths environment.

Yeah, but climatologists don't suffer from that misunderstanding. They're the ones who have to actually slog through that complexity.

Granted that most of the fear mongering worst case scenarios stuff isn't from the people doing the real science but from activists groups who pick and choose data to make people afraid so they do what they want.

An astute point, and really it was both the activists and the -- well, whatever the opposite of an activist is, someone who wants to do nothing is called -- who with the help of the media took the scientists claims of a chance for a minimum and an ice free north pole (just the pole, btw, not all arctic ice gone entirely) and run with it as if the scientists are saying it's a sure thing. The activists to cry doom and gloom, and the inactivists to pounce on as proof the whole thing is bunk if the results come out on the "wrong" side of the scientist's claimed 60:40 odds.

But still the Scientists don't like saying to people Hey I could be wrong, but thats OK because with the scientific process being wrong takes us the next step closer to the real answer. They want to in general portrait themselves like the Sci-Fi scientist who know what is going on and is always right.

They didn't just say "Hey I could be wrong", they attempted to quantify the chances of them being wrong. Then they voluntarily report on censor errors that briefly screwed up their data, while I'm sure knowing that this would be blown way out of proportion and used to "prove" that they never know what they're talking about at all. In other words, the opposite of trying to appear like they can't be wrong. So I'm not buying it at all.

Just because news headlines omit the qualifiers does not mean they do not exist.

Re:Rocket science?

[Rary]

Because this psychological factor is so prevalent we need to be especially skeptical of predictions of future disasters.

Or, arguably, because the danger is greater if we're wrong, we need to be especially sceptical of attempts to downplay predictions of future disasters.

Re:Rocket science?

[snspdaarf]

If you ever watched a friend with Dengue Fever, you tend to be a DDT controlled use supporter.

Re:Rocket science?

[tick-tock-atona]

Such as the immunization and the possible link to autism, lets say it creates a 1% increase in autism how ever it saves 25% from death, the benefits out weigh the risks and the parents who avoid this are poor judges on risk assessment.

Arrgh!
Speaking of fear mongering, it has been repeatedly shown that there is absolutely no link between autism and vaccines.
Please, can't this FUD just die already? It's already caused deaths in the UK from a loss of herd immunity!

Re:Rocket science?

[burning-toast]

Some of us tend to target the methods and data used as being the weakness in the arguments for climate change. We will point to the fact that they have been using faulty data at all no matter how hard people say "Nothing to see here, move along!". Logic dictates: If their data was wrong under their nose once in a ridiculous manner, it could have been wrong all along or in different ways. We (rightfully) will want a further look at the data used all along regardless.

I don't know of very many people who would openly deny that any climate change has happened over the last millennium in general. However, I know plenty of people who are (rightfully) skeptical of a bunch of "scientists" claiming "end of the world as we know it" apocalyptic scenarios. This is about the sixth major time in 40 years? Humanity has had to deal with everything from disease, insects, plague, war, famine, and politicians/lawyers. We want to know why this requires special attention. Having a major controversy surrounding it just polarizes people and brings into doubt the validity of the claims as stories like this come out.

After all, we have had a lot of these sorts of openly public fears about the end of the world throughout human history. And without concrete and testable data that our fears are founded on fact (as was shown with things like DDT, Mercury, Lead, etc.) there are a lot of people tired of living in an open ended state of panic about shit we don't feel we have too much direct control over let alone shit we have to "believe in" in order to support. Especially if we can't be sure that it is happening as people say it is because the data keeps coming into question in what outwardly appears to be ridiculous oversights.

As a person who is relatively concerned about their own energy usage and relative impact on the Earth in a more basic "because I want to be a good custodian of the earth" sort of way, I want to know really whats going on and really what I can do about it which will really make a lick of difference. I'm tired of the fact that even basic descriptions of localized problems which should be easy to demonstrate are awash in arm waiving and proselytizing instead of actual demonstrations of proof (note I didn't say making up facts). People like me just want confidence that what we are "believing in" is going to be actually functional for a greater good and won't make us part of a hysterical crowd when it's not warranted.

- Toast

P.S. The fact that there are "Denialists", "Believers", "Supporters" and "Followers" makes this area of science look a lot like religion. The fact that it also includes politicians, corporations, lawyers, and lots of appeals to emotion ("Someone think of the cuddly polar bears!") makes it look a lot like pork. Those two things alone removes much of it's potential appeal to me as I heavily devalue things of that nature as a waste of my time.

The phase of scientific research going on now, where the data is still under heavy scrutiny and the methods untested or unverified really should be taking place outside of the mainstream media involving every last person who watches the 6:00 news. The general populace would be much less polarized if the hypothesis was better tested before becoming politicized as it was. At least we would have less of a panic approach and look a bit less like the boy who cried wolf for the umpteenth time.

Re:Rocket science?

[MrHanky]

No, Al Gore didn't claim next year would be 1000 degrees or that the world was going to end soon.

Re:Rocket science?

[Cally]

We (rightfully) will want a further look at the data used all along regardless.

OK, here you go, have fun. All the data in modern climate science is freely available in massive quantities. (The GISS datasets are just one example.) It's certainly true that there's a lot of crap journalism around climate change; please don't confuse the finger pointing at the moon for the moon itself. Go read RealClimate, or Scientific American (hell, even New Scientist if you like comics) or (better yet) search out the specialist journals.

Re:Rocket science?

[Renegade Iconoclast]

The real question is whether these errors are due to researcher bias. Unfortunately climate data and predictions are apparently more motivated by political beliefs and biases than hard facts.

The Earth is getting warmer and our ice is melting, and that's not in dispute. If the warming trend continues, all of the ice will melt eventually, this is dictated by physics.

Your implication of overwhelming political bias in climate science is simply contrary to the facts. The fact that these researchers seem to have been biased is not relevant to the science as a whole.

The "think tanks" who criticize climate science don't do any actual science. They cherry pick data from scientific papers, and attempt to refute CO2 vs warming trends with typical logical fallacies, but they do no research, make no predictions, and advance no falsifiable claims.

Science is about making better predictions from the data. Climate scientists projected a 1-degree rise in temperature, and a 1-foot ocean level rise, many decades ago. Overall, they were pretty close. Anti science people said there was no such thing as global warming until recently when it became too clear to ignore.

These fears can be reinforced by religious beliefs that portend the end of the world. Because this psychological factor is so prevalent we need to be especially skeptical of predictions of future disasters.

So what does your idea of caution boil down to? Doing nothing? How can that be considered erring on the side of caution?

Your argument is nonsensical on its face. Belief in the inevitability of end of the world leads people to sit on their respective asses and do nothing about it, not for them to write specious science papers predicting the end of the world. The very opposite is true, there is a very strong correlation between belief that climate science is a hoax, and being a religious American.

Re:Rocket science?

[ravenshrike]

Shhh, you're upsetting his worldview.

Re:Rocket science?

[AmericanGladiator]

And your argument is nothing more than an ad hominem attack on the poster, which is equally worthless.

Let me argue his point from a logical perspective.

Let's assume that a certain political party makes its hay by promising things to the underclass. They make promises to those who have very little and so the promises don't have to be very big to make them happy.

Now assume that this party wants to stay in power and have a greater number of votes for them in future elections. This party would therefore welcome the idea of a larger underclass. They would potentially do things that would weaken the middle class so that there is a larger lower class and and smaller middle class. If they can put things in place like cap & trade systems for energy emissions, where the wealthy will remain wealthy, but the middle class will suffer, they come out ahead.

It's not so much paranoia in my opinion, but a shrewd understanding of how politicians love power and want to stay in power. In this case, I am referring to democrats as they (to me), seem to want to enact policies that hurt the middle class. Global warming is something they have championed because it helps to further their agenda, not because it necessarily is good for the environment.

Re:Rocket science?

[catchblue22]

To quote TFA:

Sensor drift is a perfect but unfortunate example of the problems encountered in near-real-time analysis. We stress, however, that this error in no way changes the scientific conclusions about the long-term decline of Arctic sea ice, which is based on the the consistent, quality-controlled data archive discussed above.

Re:Rocket science?

[wytcld]

Unfortunately climate data and predictions are apparently more motivated by political beliefs and biases than hard facts.

That's an empty assertion, apparently motivated by the conflict between the conclusions from overwhelming climate data and the writer's ideology.

Where is the sociological data to support it? All these claims about "political beliefs and biases" among climate scientists are working backwards from a desire to reject the conclusions of science to ad hominem attacks on the scientists themselves - attacks which make presumptions about the politics of scientists which are naive in the extreme. A great many - perhaps most - scientists are not political at all. They're too busy with their science to worry about politics outside of their own university departments, and anyway consider most politicians and commentators a bit too stupid to concern themselves with one way or the other.

So where's your data on "political beliefs and biases" among climate scientists? As most of them are funded by governments, can you show an example from any scientific community of a pronounced pattern of biting the hand that feeds it? Consider the scientists funded by drug companies. Do their results cut against their funders?

Re:Rocket science?

[burning-toast]

We (rightfully) will want a further look at the data used all along regardless.

OK, here you go, have fun. All the data in modern climate science is freely available in massive quantities. (The GISS datasets are just one example.)

It's certainly true that there's a lot of crap journalism around climate change; please don't confuse the finger pointing at the moon for the moon itself. Go read RealClimate, or Scientific American (hell, even New Scientist if you like comics) or (better yet) search out the specialist journals.

I used the term "we" in that sentence a bit loosely.

While I appreciate your directing me to an FTP directory full of stuff more fit for someone who actually is working in the field, or can make meaningful use of, you missed the entire perspective from which a person like myself stands. Like much of the public at large, I don't give a shit what sensor 102.WG-72 says. I don't really feel the need to be an individual detective either. It's not a big enough part of the "big picture" and I don't have enough experience to really know if I'm looking at faulty data or not. Hell, the Oxygen sensor in my car has been telling me my engine is messed up since I bought it even though the engine is working fine. What people like myself want is a credible and non-hysterical overview of the problem at hand.

Wanting a factually correct summary of the problem and the possible solutions once the scientific community reaches a relatively common understanding can't be bad. Having an apparently sound method of getting to that summary is better. Pointing me (someone untrained in the use of it) at individual data points is next to useless.

- Toast

P.S. If you want I could go read a whole pile of journals, make my own theories up, and come back in here and start screaming about my own (uneducated) views about how the system works based on information I barely understand, to people I hardly know. Seems to be common practice for people to fail to acknowledge that they, in fact, know shit about what they speak and do not qualify as even remotely knowledgeable experts (this would be the public polarization I'm in reference to).

Re:Rocket science?

[Kell Bengal]

Those would be called 'engineers'.

Re:Rocket science?

[russotto]

The Earth is getting warmer and our ice is melting, and that's not in dispute.

Actually, that last bit is in dispute, if you RTFS.

If the warming trend continues, all of the ice will melt eventually, this is dictated by physics.

If you feel comfortable doing linear extrapolations on a highly nonlinear system, anyway.

Re:Rocket science?

[jellomizer]

Real Environmentalists take actions into a balance. Everything thing you do has a trade off. Should the president take Air Force 1 to North Dakota to sign an environmental bill. To fly to ND he probably used more Carbon then most of use do in a year. However by going there in a backdrop of wilderness his point to the public about the emphasis he put in the bill not just a daily signing that he does during the day. How much Wilderness will we use up for a new Public Transportation Infrastructure, Will Clean energy methods need mining of hazardous materials or making of non-recyclable or non-biodegradable materials. By consuming less will we hurt the economy more, and cause people the unability to afford more efficient methods. Will recycling programs use more energy and different pollution then what you get by not.

It is all about balance and choosing the right trade offs.

Re:Rocket science?

[jadavis]

because the danger is greater if we're wrong

That is far from certain. Our attempts to fix something we don't really understand could cause far more damage.

This is how ideas like blood letting became fashionable in medicine.

  1. Someone is sick.
  2. We only vaguely understand how people work.
  3. We have to "do something".
  4. Conclusion: let's drain their blood.

Then, if they don't die, then the doctor must have saved their life.

This reminds me of the stimulus bill.

Re:Rocket science?

[goodmanj]

to say The Polar caps will be gone in 2008 or by 2012 NYC will be flooded, is grossly misunderstanding the complexity of the earths environment.

We climate scientists try to give a sense of the certainty of our predictions, but our discussions of certainty are almost always deleted when the news is presented to the public. The two predictions you mention are vastly different -- we're pretty sure about ice, but flooding New York has a gigantic pile of "ifs" in front of it.

Scientists don't like saying to people Hey I could be wrong, but thats OK because with the scientific process being wrong takes us the next step closer to the real answer. They want to in general portrait themselves like the Sci-Fi scientist who know what is going on and is always right.

Real scientists *do* say "I could be wrong" all the time, and try to estimate the odds of being wrong. We're happy with greater certainty, but we know that 100% guarantees don't exist.

The confident, absolutely certain authoritarian scientists you see on TV are just talking heads: they may have PhDs, but they're not acting as true scientists.

Re:Rocket science?

[ricree]

The decision not to vaccinate puts more people besides yourself at risk. For one thing, vaccines are not 100% effective. This isn't a problem when there are enough vaccinated people to stop the diseases from spreading enough to infect those whose vaccines aren't fully effective, but when enough people refuse the vaccines it puts even those who have been vaccinated at risk.

Also keep in mind that there are those who cannot get vaccinated for various reasons. Besides obvious examples such as newborns, it is my understanding that certain types of childhood diseases such as some forms of cancer prevent those children from receiving normal vaccines. When people who are able to get the vaccines refuse them, it also puts at risk those who do not have the option to vaccinate themselves.

Re:Rocket science?

[Cally]

RealClimate, and their FAQs as well, are accessible to a motivated person (it's easier if you've got some sort of grasp of science and "how she is spoke", of course.)

Many workers in the field have published books for the general reader; again, RC has some good pointers. Finally, the IPCC assessment reports are reasonably accessible (the summaries in particular.)

Now, you could say that getting into this level of research is a non-trivial thing to do, and you'd be right. There's jargon and shorthands for concepts and acronyms that mean little to the outsider. Climate is also, fundamentally, a very complicated phenomena; work in the field covers a multitude of specialist disciplines, an understanding of statistical methods, chemistry, biology, emergent phenomena, atmospheric physics, paleoclimatology (ice and sediment cores and the like), and so on and so forth. Fair enough, if you don't want to put that amount of effort in, you get to *take their word for it*.

Re:Rocket science?

[Obfuscant]

There is no question that data analysis and prediction is subject to errors, sometimes quite large ones. The real question is whether these errors are due to researcher bias.

At the heart of the issue is usually the measurements themselves. Bias should never be part of a measurement, but failure to completely understand the system being measured often is. Since many measurement systems today are not direct measurements but indirect, and many are "remote sensing", it is often a failure to understand both the system being measured AND the proxy for the desired measurement that causes failure.

For example, several years ago it was determined that the satellite-based sensing of ocean surface temperature was off by several degrees, because the atmospheric effects on the IR radiation being used to measure the temperature weren't being correctly corrected. It is no surprise to hear that any proxy measurement has been found to be off with a biased error.

What? Bias? Well, "biased error" is the technical term for an error in measurement that is wrong in a consistent manner. For example, a thermometer that has been miscalibrated so that it always reads high. But please do not mention this possibility of measurement error to anyone involved in global warming research. They are right, everyone else is wrong.

Don't EVER ask why they assume that CO2, a gas that is soluble in water to a great extent, cannot diffuse out of air bubbles in ice that have been trapped for millenia. It is the measurement of CO2 in those bubbles that global warming scientists use to tell us what the level of CO2 was ten thousand years ago -- even though there is no recorded measurement from then, and only the proxy of "trapped bubbles" to rely on.

Many people have strong feelings that disaster is about to occur. Perhaps this comes from childhood recollections of maternal warnings about running with scissors or touching hot stoves.

Today's strong feelings of disaster are prompted by catastrophe-based science and the scientists who are paid to find solutions to catastrophes. Scientists who warn us that a stray comet could obliterate life on this planet don't get paid to deal with comets that don't come anywhere near us. Scientists who predict gloom and doom from global warming don't get paid if they report that there really isn't a problem. I am repeatedly fascinated by global warming scientists who dismiss studies that contradict their cries of alarm as the product of people who are being paid to say there is no problem. Why would the only scientists who lack ethics be the ones on one side of an issue? (The state of Oregon just created a group to deal with global warming issues. Do you think that the head of this group is someone who doesn't toe the line regarding the causes and results of global warming? He's getting paid, so why aren't his ethics questioned?)

Re:Rocket science?

[Renegade Iconoclast]

Actually, that last bit is in dispute, if you RTFS.

Nonsense. The data from this particular survey are in dispute, and people here are conflating this to all of climate science. That the earth is warming, and that globally, ice is melting at an alarming rate, is not even disputed by the oil industry any more.

If you feel comfortable doing linear extrapolations on a highly nonlinear system, anyway.

If the atmosphere heats up, physics predicts that the ground will heat up as well, and that ice will melt.

You're correct that the system is more complex than that, because, for example, melting ice can trigger other mechanisms that are too complex to model, currently. This doesn't refute the very basic fact that adding global heat to the atmosphere tends to melt ice.

I'd also point out that we know all of this because we've studied it scientifically, just the same way that we know that CO2 tends to heat the atmosphere, and ice tends to melt with warmer air.

Re:Rocket science?

[anonymousJUGGERNAUT]

Wait a sec there, bud. So you seem to be saying "I don't trust these guys" in one breath, and "I can't be bothered to expend the effort to actually understand what's going on" in the next. The sensor error, beginning in January, compromised ONE of several overlapping datasets for a brief period of time. And it has been caught. And the record from non-problematic instruments will be used to provide the data for the archives. No problems. But you will just dismiss an ENTIRE FIELD OF SCIENTIFIC INQUIRY, with a huge number of independent lines of evidence leading to the same conclusions, because "if this data was wrong, it all could be wrong?" That's not just ignorance, and that's not just willful ignorance, that's militant willful ignorance.

Re:Rocket science?

[Tycho]

For example, several years ago it was determined that the satellite-based sensing of ocean surface temperature was off by several degrees, because the atmospheric effects on the IR radiation being used to measure the temperature weren't being correctly corrected. It is no surprise to hear that any proxy measurement has been found to be off with a biased error.

What? Bias? Well, "biased error" is the technical term for an error in measurement that is wrong in a consistent manner. For example, a thermometer that has been miscalibrated so that it always reads high.
But please do not mention this possibility of measurement error to anyone involved in global warming research. They are right, everyone else is wrong.

I am unaware of the experiment and controversy surrounding it, have a link to a peer reviewed journal article?

Really, even if a bias is discovered later in an experiment and if that bias can be estimated, whether the added error is constant or variable, corrections to the old data can be made and the corrected data would be accurate. This assumes the supposed error is actually an error and not some global warming denier's fantasy. One correctable error does not mean that all of the data from the experiment is useless, and the same conclusion from the experiment can still hold.

Even if the data from an experiment has uncorrectable errors and the data is faulty, GW deniers have one experiment discredited, and only have a whole truck load more valid experiments showing Global Warming to discredit. GW deniers still have still shown no credible alternate to explain the trends in the world's climate. Thus, GW deniers are just that, in denial, they are not advocating their own hypothesis by using accepted scientific practices and existing data.

Don't EVER ask why they assume that CO2, a gas that is soluble in water to a great extent, cannot diffuse out of air bubbles in ice that have been trapped for millenia. It is the measurement of CO2 in those bubbles that global warming scientists use to tell us what the level of CO2 was ten thousand years ago -- even though there is no recorded measurement from then, and only the proxy of "trapped bubbles" to rely on.

Water, in its solid crystalline form, ice, has no capability to hold CO2 in solution, only liquid water can hold CO2 in solution. It would seem to follow that when trapped in a gas bubble in ice, CO2 does not diffuse because water ice is not permeable to CO2 at any of the temperatures or pressures that the ice has been at since it formed.

Many people have strong feelings that disaster is about to occur. Perhaps this comes from childhood recollections of maternal warnings about running with scissors or touching hot stoves.

Today's strong feelings of disaster are prompted by catastrophe-based science and the scientists who are paid to find solutions to catastrophes. Scientists who warn us that a stray comet could obliterate life on this planet don't get paid to deal with comets that don't come anywhere near us. Scientists who predict gloom and doom from global warming don't get paid if they report that there really isn't a problem. I am repeatedly fascinated by global warming scientists who dismiss studies that contradict their cries of alarm as the product of people who are being paid to say there is no problem. Why would the only scientists who lack ethics be the ones on one side of an issue? (The state of Oregon just created a group to deal with global warming issues. Do you think that the head of this group is someone who doesn't toe the line regarding the causes and results of global warming? He's getting paid, so why aren't his ethics questioned?)

I'm not sure how to respond, I am nearly certain that over many the years as corporations like Phillip Morris, Exxon, and alike sponsored anti-GW groups, that at least some research was done at least one sound and valid published study should still be available. No

Re:Rocket science?

[jsminch]

The DDT scare is an excellent analogy thanks. A book was written called "Silent Spring" that predicted the end of birdkind if DDT continued to be used. Certain scientists and the press "proved" that DDT was harmful to the environment and others jumped on the bandwagon until it was banned worldwide. People who opposed the ban were considered anti-science and anti-environmental (I remember, I was a schoolkid, they showed us movies in school about it). Recently, more science showed that the original "science" was absolute bunk and DDT is once again being used as a cheap, effective pesticide. Of course, in the interim, millions of people living in third-world countries have been sickened and killed by malaria that could have easily been controlled by the use of DDT. Bad science was used to make bad policy that hurt millions and millions of people.

Not consistent?

[mccalli]

From the summary:'We do not use AMSR-E data in our analysis because it is not consistent with our historical data.'

What's the point of being consistent with a flawed methodology? I would have thought the thing to do would be to collect the new data, base newer model off that and then perform a statistically weighted correction to the older dater. Both data sets can be maintained if required.

Am not sure I see a point in consistency for consistency's sake, when you in the light of newer information you now know the original measurements are flawed.

Cheers,
Ian

Re:Not consistent?

[intheshelter]

When are you "climate change sheep" going to stop using the fact that some ice is melting or the climate has "changed" (it's ALWAYS changed in case you didn't know) as an excuse to peddle crisis hysteria that says the end of the world is coming. I don't think most people who look at this as a fraud disbelieve that the ice caps are changing, they just don't believe the hysterical rantings of scientists who can't predict the weather or a hurricane season with any certainty. There is nothing wrong with some skepticism considering the less than stellar record of scientific declarations in this area.

Re:Not consistent?

[germ!nation]

The problem is that scientific claims are publicised and jumped on by the media, this raises the bar at how loud you have to shout to continue getting your comfortable amount of funding, so then you need to keep shouting.

These people are career 'environmental scientists' and have a vested interest in perpetuating the worst case scenarios so the money keeps rolling in. Once you are out of fashion in science then you might as well not exist.

I'm not saying that the things they are studying aren't happening, but being conservative doesn't put you high on the list when the money is being allocated.

Re:Not consistent?

[Bombula]

It really is frustrating how intensely climate science is doubted and denied. Economics - a far softer science with a (so far) vastly greater impact on human society - gets a staggering amount of leeway by comparison. And when it's practitioners (who outnumber climate scientists 100 to 1) get things catastrophically wrong, as in the case of the recent Wall Street collapse, there is surprisingly little criticism of the theoretical underpinnings, nevermind little details like bad data.

The science of climate change, by contrast, is on very solid theoretical footing; but sometimes every science has to deal with bad data, as in this case. The notion that this somehow discredits the theoretical basis of radiative forcing and the greenhouse effect is sheer lunacy. Simple stock-and-flow box models are enough to understand that anthropogenic climate change is inevitable. If you can understand how a bathtub overfills when you leave the faucet running, you should be able to understand that climate change is real and unavoidable.

The reactions of laymen and the ignorant masses who follow Limbaugh et al can only be explained as propaganda-induced hysteria, to which only the profoundly ignorant and/or fearful are vulnerable. The reactions are similar to those of the North Atlantic fishermen who vehemently asserted that since they'd been fishing the Georges Bank for 250 years it was 'obvious' it could never be depleted. Changes in fish populations, if there were any, were 'natural'. They ignored scientists and continued to produce record catches - right up until the entire fishery collapsed a few years ago.

Any one who is genuinely interested in learning about how and why complex systems change catastrophically should read "Limits to Growth" - the classic by the MIT team headed by Donella Meadows.

Re:Not consistent?

[Anonymous Coward]

"they just don't believe the hysterical rantings of scientists who can't predict the weather or a hurricane season with any certainty"

It's far easier to predict average temperatures will decline through summer, fall, and winter (in the northern hemisphere) than it would be to predict whether the temperature will go up or down on a given day or week.

In other words, not being able to reliably predict the daily weather or hurricane season with great precision says nothing about the reliability of predicting longer-term climate change.

Yes, there's nothing wrong with skepticism, but at least try to compare equivalent problems.

There is no ambiguity about which way arctic sea ice has been headed for the last few decades, and little difficulty predicting the continuation of that trend unless something truly fundamental changes about the climate system. Ask anyone who lives in the arctic or who travels there by sea -- it has changed a lot. Icebreakers in the region have a very different experience now versus 20 years ago. Changes in instrument interpretation/calibration doesn't change the existence of that trend. It's freaking obvious when you do some "ground truthing". Predicting what sea ice will do in a given year or exactly when the trend might reach its ultimate end (total melting) is much harder to predict, but the trend is obvious and the implications of its ultimate conclusion are pretty reliable. Could the multi-decadal trend reverse and the sea ice grow more extensive year after year to attain its past summer extent again? I doubt it. It's going to be ice-free in summer eventually. The debate is about when it will finally happen first, but there's no point in getting hung up on whether it's going to be 2008, 2009, or 2012, because the exact date doesn't matter.

End of the world? No. But it's going to be a pretty radical change nonetheless. Yes, we know that climate change happens (it has changed throughout Earth history). The question is whether this kind of change and this rapid is a good thing for human interests. It doesn't help the debate when climate change deniers make a big deal about an instrument calibration change and start implying we know nothing or that the trend isn't real. There's problems on both sides of this debate, but it is normal to have problems with scientific data. They are worth finding and fixing. But the basic interpretation hasn't been compromised because it affects only a small part of the data.

Re:Not consistent?

[Moryath]

No kidding - in the ruckus of the "waah waah the arctic ice is melting" hysteria, they also missed the fact that we had a brand-new chain of undersea volcanoes on the Gakkel Ridge, spreading heat right in the areas this kook was complaining about.

I don't think most people who look at this as a fraud disbelieve that the ice caps are changing, they just don't believe the hysterical rantings of scientists who can't predict the weather or a hurricane season with any certainty.

I don't disbelieve that the ice caps are changing, or that the climate changes. Climate always changes, we have warm and cool years. Mars is going through cycles that match ours exactly, because it's not just the Earth that does it - increased/decreased solar activity cycles change the amount of energy delivered to every single planet in the solar system.

What I disbelieve is the kookery and crap "science" pushed by the "end of the world is coming" Al Gore-types.

Re:Not consistent?

[Cally]

When are the smart-arses who reckon they've spotted some humoungous flaw in the actual science going to actually publish? Oh, right, it's all a crock of shite by delusional Daily Mail readers, and journals of record don't print papers that arrive for review written in green crayon.

If you're so smart and the world's climatologists are so dumb, for the love of god stop yammering about it on Slashdot, publish, and collect your Nobel Prize.

Re:Not consistent?

[whisper_jeff]

I'm sure my karma will take a hit for this but I feel it must be said.

It scares me when posts like yours get modded Insightful. In my 38 years, I know I've seen a difference in the seasons that is notable and undeniable. Without measurements, I can say with certainty that our climate is changing. Why people feel the need to blanket-dismiss those who warn against the dangers of such continued climate change as "kooks" perpetuating a "fraud" is simply beyond me. You may not agree with the scope and severity of the climate change. Fine. But to deny that it is happening shows a complete inability to observe the world around you over the course of decades. How you got 5 Insightful is a wonder to me. One that scares me. I fear the number of people sticking their head in the sand...

Re:Not consistent?

[MeisterVT]

nobody would pay money to Gore's little scam.

That is, until governments force them to. On an individual basis most people would not, especially now that money is tighter around the industrialized world for most people. It is a lot easier to agree with these things when your standard of living is not under pressure.

You certainly have more faith in the intelligence of governments than I do.

Re:Not consistent?

[NekSnappa]

Parent wasn't saying that the climate isn't changing.
It was saying that it isn't man made change.

Re:Not consistent?

[Duradin]

So what about the "Little Ice Age" that occurred a few hundred years ago?

Or the warm period around the 1000's that led to a major extension of the growing season and area in Europe which provided enough food for a rapid population increase?

Or that the Red River Valley used to be Lake Agassiz?

Or the fact a good chunk of the US used to be under glaciers?

The climate changes. Humanity's influence is what's up for debate. One eruption like Krakatoa and we'll be scrambling to trap heat in the atmosphere to prevent world wide crop failure.

Re:Not consistent?

[Moryath]

It scares me when nitwits like you post garbage like the following:

Without measurements, I can say with certainty that our climate is changing.

Because as we all well know, human memory is fallible.. Not just that, extremely fallible. Not to mention extremely vulnerable to self-delusion, unconsciously-induced Selection Bias and Confirmation Bias, and to false memory planting.

You may not agree with the scope and severity of the climate change. Fine. But to deny that it is happening shows a complete inability to observe the world around you over the course of decades.

"To deny that it is happening" - I didn't see that. I did see an argument over whether it is man-made, and the entire ARTICLE is about the supposed "scientists" who are engaging in poor science because they are engaging in Selection Bias and Confirmation Bias quite deliberately, invalidating all of their supposed "research."

Re:Not consistent?

[Bombula]

If you honestly believe there is no agreement or consensus among climate scientists and that the entire field of scientific discipline is just a sham put-up job, then I can't really help you. There's just no cure for conspiracy loons like yourself who think it's all a plot to make Al Gore and a few crackpot scientists rich.

If, on the other hand, you're actually interested in how the scientific evidence informs the issue of climate change, then you have to honestly review all of the available data - some is good, some is bad. The consensus among the thousands of climate scientists around the world is that the data overwhelmingly point in the direction of anthropogenic climate change. This is in agreement with theory both at a broad level of overarching generalization (read: simplicity), and at the finer level of detail (read: complexity).

You can cherry-pick the bad data and use them to negate the entire findings of the field if you like, but that is a logically flawed strawman argument.

I'm not a proponent of anthropogenic climate change because it's what I believe or because it's something I want to be true. I acknowledge that anthropogenic climate change is likely to be occurring because the overwhelming majority of climate scientists whose job it is to sift through all of the data, good and bad, and critic all of the theory have reached a consensus that it is a real phenomenon. In the same way, I acknowledge that evolution by natural selection seems to be a real phenomenon, despite some bad data here and there and some present uncertainties in small parts of the fossil record; as opposed to, say, asserting that evolution is a giant conspiracy by which Richard Dawkins has made himself and other biologists rich through scaremongering tactics like warning about antibiotic resistance. I don't know if you're an evolution denier also, but it's functionally equivalent.

Re:Not consistent?

[Moryath]

Think about what makes you so angry about climate science; chances are good that it's all about politics. You believe what's politically convenient and then try to justify it.

I didn't believe James Hansen in the 1970s when he was predicting the next ice age, and I don't believe him any more today now that he's completely changed his mind. I have laughed at the various terms thrown about by sensationalist news anchors for decades (in the late '70s-early '80s it was "thermal inversion", in the mid-90s they came up with "ozone action day", etc). Every time this stuff comes around, it's the same old crap: bad science, sensationalism, and hysteria rather than a reasoned, thoughtful "this is what we know and this is what we need to improve based on X checked and re-checked data."

If you calm down and think about it rationally, I think you'll conclude that the science is actually pretty solid.

I've seen the "science." See also: Selection Bias and Confirmation Bias. The so-called "scientists" aren't objectively checking the data, or even checking up on each other, and that's a major problem. No, the "science" is not "solid."

Present me with some solid science, and I'll be happy. On the other hand, don't expect me to believe in something backed up by less reliable "science" than Xenu, E-Meters and L. Ron Hubbard.

Oh, and of course, consider the following question: why, for the past 10 years, have the news reporters been comparing temperatures and atmospheric levels to 1979? It's because 1979 was an unusually harsh cold snap. If you compare to the 1970s average, you get a different answer. Hell, if you compare to 1978 or 1980, you get a different answer - but those don't fit the "OMG the sky is falling global warming will kill us all" mass hysteria bullcrap they're pushing.

Re:Not consistent?

[shutdown -p now]

I did see an argument over whether it is man-made

It's interesting to note that this specific problem with the data descibed in TFA does not touch on the issue of whether the global warming is man-made or not; indeed, it only shows that GW is happening slower than we thought it is.

alternative solutions

[mcfatboy93]

instead of using sensors that move and 2 systems that don't work why not try just taking pictures or using those weather satalite things to look at whats ice and whats not

Re:alternative solutions

[Anonymous Coward]

Both the AMSR_E and SSM/I data are satellite derived products.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/satellite/ssmi/ssmiproducts.html
http://www.aqua.nasa.gov/about/instrument_amsr.php

Multiple Data Sources

[s31523]

FTA, "Some people might ask why we don't simply switch to the EOS AMSR-E sensor. AMSR-E is a newer and more accurate passive microwave sensor. However, we do not use AMSR-E data in our analysis because it is not consistent with our historical data. Thus, while AMSR-E gives us greater accuracy and more confidence on current sea ice conditions

OK, I can see their point, but using the EOS sensor may have given pause to researchers doing a comparison to current conditions using the traditional sensor, i.e. cross-reference current conditions to be more confident that your data is correct. Nothing like screaming "the sky is falling" due to bad data. Any science experiment, especially one that can produce sensationalist news, should not just rely on one piece of data.

Re:Multiple Data Sources

[chr1sb]

From TFA:
<i>"Sensor drift is a perfect but unfortunate example of the problems encountered in near-real-time analysis. We stress, however, that this error in no way changes the scientific conclusions about the long-term decline of Arctic sea ice, which is based on the the consistent, quality-controlled data archive discussed above."</i>

If the media outlets and attention seekers sensationalise the real-time output, then unreasonable conclusions might well be drawn. What's the alternative though? To not make this real-time data available? Scientific hypotheses will be tested against the corrected data, so this sensor drift doesn't affect them. These are preliminary measurements only, not full-blown experiments with scientific conclusions. The polar bears are still going to have to become better swimmers.

It's a little ironic that this data will have been used by one group with an agenda to sensationalise climate change, and now will be used by the (perhaps overly) sceptical amongst us to poo poo it. Some have an agenda to sensationalise both. All serve to cloud the real message.

Re:Multiple Data Sources

[smoker2]

In the end (or even the beginning) the only reasonable thing to do is to keep an eye on the current scientific situation yourself. I have the NASA Earth Observatory in my RSS feeds and if you take the time to read what's going on, you find that they occasionally do find inconsistencies and report them openly. Relying on the mass media for accurate conclusions is stupid at the best of times.

There are many issues at work with climate change, and for any one group to suggest hard conclusions based on the data we already have is disingenuous. Most any sane person accepts climate change. When you take into account historical records, geological records, fossil records, the precession of the equinoxes, the solar cycle, biological fluctuations and many many other factors, to simply state that we are causing global warming is way too simplistic an approach.

Before you get all huffy and call me a denier, of course what mankind does has an effect on the climate. But so does what plankton does. Of course being an intelligent species, we can recognise our part and try to minimise our impact. But that alone will not stop global warming. Why should we assume that because we think we can stop it, we should do so ? Because too many of us live near coastal areas ? That seems a little self important to me. And to risk a flame, that attitude is directly derived from the "earth is ours to do with as we will" notion which religion has ingrained in society. Do we believe everything else that religion demands ?

My suspicions about the climate change lobby were somewhat vindicated a little while ago when the BBC reported on some work by the Institute of Mechanical Engineers which takes as read, that we must stabilise average temperatures. I can't find the original document now, but the European Commission has stated that "The commission aims to limit the world's temperature increase to 2C." This is no longer about limiting CO2, it has become all out climate control. And we certainly do not know enough to experiment with that. Even if we could do it safely, do we really want to live in a world where commercial interests control whether your region gets rain today, this month, this year ? Fuck me, it's bad enough dealing with the MAFIAA !

In short, yes reduce our impact on the planet, but that's it - at least until we have a LOT more data. We can not hope to go back in time. And this has been my position all along, as any /. subscribers can easily check. What are we aiming for, the average 1940's temperatures, earlier, later ?

Just remember that the diversity on this planet has arisen BECAUSE of climate change, not despite.

How can people expect...

[Turzyx]

...the world to take global warming seriously, when these jokers are making such wildly inaccurate predictions based on obsolete technology?

Re:How can people expect...

[Kokuyo]

The biggest problem is that you NEVER know whether any study published is done this way or not.

I am an advocate of scientific methods, and yet I am someone who is in doubt about this whole "The earth is warming up because of us" spiel.

Now why is that? Even though I'm going to get modded troll or flamebait again, I'm going to repeat myself: Without checking procedures and facts that went into a study, you can never be sure about the results.

Face it, people, the time when scientists did their thing to broaden humankind's knowledge is over (or probably has never happened in the first place). Too many 'scientists' have been given deadlines by their institutes (or the fact that they cannot survive on air and sunshine) and must produce results that people will acknowledge one way or another.

I am not saying the earth isn't warming up. I am also not saying that we are innocent if it does. All I'm saying is that most of the 'studies' I've seen floating around the press smell fishy to me. And unless that changes, I'm rather inclined to label this stuff as simple FUD.

I'd rather we follow simple common sense and watch out for our planet because it's the frickin' right thing to do instead of running around like headless chicken being afraid of our children being cooked alive by the sun. Mindless impulsive actionism never helped anybody.

Oh yeah: Modding me down because you don't like my opinion doesn't make your opinion anymore right just as it doesn't make mine any more wrong, okay?

Re:How can people expect...

[oodaloop]

You mean besides the overwhelming majority of the world's climate scientists?

Re:How can people expect...

[mgkimsal2]

They probably melted due to global warming.

Re:How can people expect...

[srussia]

You mean besides the overwhelming majority of the world's climate scientists?

Yes, just like the overwhelming majority of M.D.s oppose "alternative medicine".

Just like the overwhelming majority of "artists" support copyright.

Just like the overwhelming majority of bankers support the bailout.

Re:How can people expect...

[Binty]

While I respect your skepticism of the scientific press, I think this reasoning suffers from two flaws. First

All I'm saying is that most of the 'studies' I've seen floating around the press smell fishy to me.

Relying on the press to get your scientific information is going to be incomplete. The press reports particularly sensationalistic doom & gloom stuff, whereas most science goes out of its way to take a neutral tone. It is too much to ask a non-scientist to pay attention to the leading journals (I'm thinking of Science and Nature here), but we are also at a point in our history where science needs to inform our politics. This is obviously troublesome for democracy, and why I sympathize with your skepticism of science.

Second,

I'd rather we follow simple common sense and watch out for our planet because it's the frickin' right thing to do instead of running around like headless chicken being afraid of our children being cooked alive by the sun

This reasoning is suspect because, aside from global warming effects, green house gas emissions aren't very harmful. It is relatively easy to see the pollutant effects of particulate emissions: they make things dirty and also hard to breathe. GHG emissions, on the other hand, are fairly clean and only have a mediated effect on human health (through climate change). Your strategy would have us fix only the easy to see problems even if there are more important environmental matters that require advanced scientific techniques to understand.

Re:How can people expect...

[bgray54]

The biggest problem is that you NEVER know whether any study published is done this way or not.

Spoken like someone who has never actually read a scientific paper. Any paper I've seen will give you: (1) the historical context for why they are doing a study, (2) the assumptions made in doing the study, (3) details on the observational data and model used in completing the study, and (4) a RANGE of possible results. It is true that the media typically doesn't do a good job of reporting uncertainties, but don't accuse the scientists of sloppiness when you're completely unaware of what goes into a scientific paper.

Re:How can people expect...

[Bombula]

All I'm saying is that most of the 'studies' I've seen floating around the press smell fishy to me

The problem is that you rely on the news media for your information, and what you're going to get is information cherry-picked for its entertainment value, not for its scientific content.

Climate science is just as rigorous a discipline as any other, and the scientists working in the field are just as serious about their work as scientists working in genetics or neuroscience or anything else.

The problem is that the stakes are extremely high and in general the theory and data are converging on a very unpleasant prognosis for the future of our world. People really, really, REALLY don't like the prognosis. And it's understandable. If astronomers saw a swarm of Everest-sized asteroids heading our way that had a good chance of clobbering us in 50 to 100 years, people would react negatively to that too.

I suspect this reaction by the fearful and ignorant members of the public is a consequence of the fact that in the vast majority of the realm of human experience, our perceptions strongly shape reality. What we believe really can end up shaping what we see. Economics is a good example, with it's many self-fulfilling prophecies. But in the case of asteroids or climate change, it matters not one iota what people think or how they feel. What's going to happen is going to happen, and we'd better understand it if we want to stand a chance of coping with it.

Climate change does have the advantage of being theoretically quite simple - simple enough for just about anybody to understand if they're willing to open their eyes just a little bit. Radiative forcing is a simple stock-and-flow box model. If you can understand why the bathtub overflows when you leave the faucet running, even though the drain is open at the same time, then you should be able to understand that anthropogenic climate change is inevitable.

Re:How can people expect...

[dfenstrate]

'Climate Change' is a politically hot topic, and plenty of governments give grants into this kind of research.

"The overwhelming majority* of the world's climate scientists" know what side their bread is buttered on. It's on the side of giving governments more excuses to tax and define their citizens activities ever more closely.

Follow the money. Isn't that what you'd say about the report of any climate scientist who is a global warming 'denier'?

(*I don't know how many climate scientists there are, but hundreds have signed on to papers with adverse positions.)

Re:How can people expect...

[Graff]

You mean besides the overwhelming majority of the world's climate scientists?

You mean the people whose livelihood and considerable private and government grants depend on making waves about the climate and increasing their self-importance?

Not to mention the fact that a lot of them got into climatology because of past climate fear-mongering and "environmental awareness" advocates who beat on the drum that the Earth is doomed. A lot of the current crop of climatologists are the product of the 60's and of the environmental movement spawned back then, a movement which isn't exactly known for its calm, collected analysis and immersion in reality.

This doesn't mean that all climatologists are delusional or that there is no warming occurring. All I'm saying is that there are a whole lot of people, including professionals, that have an overly-emotional connection to the issues. This results in a lot of bad science and bad policy decisions.

Re:How can people expect...

[Virak]

Yes, just like the overwhelming majority of M.D.s oppose "alternative medicine".

And quite reasonably; it's almost exclusively utter bullshit. And not taking *real medicine* when you have a serious condition is a very fucking bad thing. Moreover, some of this 'medicine' is itself harmful.

Just like the overwhelming majority of "artists" support copyright.
Just like the overwhelming majority of bankers support the bailout.

These two 'analogies' are just plain wrong. The relationship between "climate" and "climate scientists" is "thing" and "experts on thing", and same with "medicine" and "doctors". For these two, however, the relationship is "thing" and "people affected by thing". Less nonsensical analogies would instead use "copyright experts" and "economists". Unfortunately, this, while more correct, doesn't induce nearly as much rage (and thus indirectly support for your position) in the average Slashdotter, so I suppose it's reasonable you didn't use them instead. Not that it would've mattered anyway; you don't really have any sort of solid argument, just blatant anti-intellectualism.

Re:How can people expect...

[oodaloop]

Yeah, overall I'd say it's a mixed bag. I was highly skeptical myself until recently when I started reading more about it. I wanted to see the evidence that the Earth was in fact warming. I wanted to see the evidence that said warming was Anthropogenic. And I wanted to see the evidence that this was going to be a bad thing if true. Most of what you see in the mainstream media is how we produce CO2, and how CO2 can heat the planet. But they don't link the two to show that the amount we produce does and has heated the planet and they don't talk specifically about how even a small increase can be disastrous other than a rise in ocean levels. I've read a few books on it, and I'm no longer skeptical and accept that we are causing a rise in temperature on Earth, and that this is generally very very bad.

Despite what this article says, Arctic ice has decreased significantly in recent years. Satellite imagery from as recent as 1979 shows enormously more ice than we see today.

Re:How can people expect...

[Freedryk]

I'm a climate scientist--a modeler, in fact. I know C, C++, Fortran, Python, Java, bits of Perl and PHP. I figure I could get a job at Amazon on Google or Microsoft or some other big software shop and be making over $100k. I could certainly do better than what my salary has been: $25k for 2000-2006 (grad school), and for 2007-8 it was $40k (postdoc). Let's say I got a job for $50k/yr--that would be an extra $170k I would have made over the last 8 years.

Let me tell you buddy, I'm not in this for the money.

And if someone could find compelling evidence that indicated global warming wasn't happening, that would be welcomed by the climate science community. New evidence that overturns an old understanding is the holy grail of science.

Re:How can people expect...

[wytcld]

What side their bread is buttered on? Governments are by-and-large owned by corporations. Those corporations by-and-large benefit by keeping the business models they grew up with in place. Those business models include little regard for externalities like carbon output. Thus we see both the massive spending on public relations efforts to discredit global warming by those organizations, and their lobbying of the governments which fund the scientists. Those scientists know that governments are generally controlled by corporations, and that those corporations would generally like climate change to be ignored.

Those supposed "hundreds" of "climate scientists" who have "signed on to papers with adverse positions" - most are not scientists at all, most who are are not climate scientists, and those "papers" are Web-based petitions and newspapers advertisements - both generally being organized and funded by astroturf organizations funded by the likes of ExxonMobile.

Re:How can people expect...

[Chris Burke]

'Climate Change' is a politically hot topic, and plenty of governments give grants into this kind of research.

"The overwhelming majority* of the world's climate scientists" know what side their bread is buttered on. It's on the side of giving governments more excuses to tax and define their citizens activities ever more closely.

Oh yeah. I can totally see why all those scientists would fraudulently claim that climate change is real to get those fat, wonderful, Bush administration pro-climate-change dollars. Why, I remember when it came out that scientists in the government were forced to change their reports to make stronger claims that anthropogenic climate change was a serious problem. Quite the scandal that was, I don't see how anyone can take global warming seriously anymore. *eyeroll*

Re:How can people expect...

[SoupGuru]

You make it sound like people are getting rich by doing science that reinforces climate change. I'm pretty sure any of these scientists could make a few bucks more if they tweaked their numbers to show climate change isn't a big deal.

The fact is, scientists get grants to research a certain area. They don't get grants for the results of that research. In fact, science is based on trying really really hard to disprove their findings. If the researcher can't disprove his own findings, he opens it up to the rest of the scientific community in hopes that they can find something wrong with it.

Science is open... which on one hand is awesome because it forces scientists to do things right but on the other hand sucks because every idiot can weigh in with their "expert" opinions.

500,000kmÂ

[MadDogX]

Oh, by the way - we overlooked an ice block the size of Spain. Whoopsie!

Historical error

[Potor]

Am I to understand that they will continue to measure (and predict) ice conditions based on less accurate sensors simply because these measurements tally better with older measurements, which themselves are less accurate?

Or have I missed something?

Re:Historical error

[cnettel]

Compare it to a game benchmark or whatever. You keep a standard, even if it's flawed, because that's the only way you get comparable results. You can't take a raw number for MIPS or millions of polygons/second or transactions per second or whatever the metric of choice is in your field (here, one is obviously ice sheath coverage) and use numbers from wildly different methods to even try to devise a historical trend. The value observed might not correlate exactly (or even very well) with old ones, but unless the flaws in the method cause great variability within that framework, the historical trends will still be accurate, or at least more accurate compared to what would happen if you changed your methodology each year and still tried to extract longer trends.

It might not be a good choice, and suggestions to run double series over the (short) timespan where overlapping data is indeed available would of course be better, but you can't just switch to the latest and greatest if you want some kind of consistency in your data.

Re:Historical error

[Mr. Slippery]

After the complete destruction of their credibility, does it really matter whether they do?

After the what?

The problem was only a few weeks old. They found it via their quality control measures. It effects one month out of thirty years of observation.

Their self-correction enhances, not destroys, their credibility.

As usual, ACC deniers are grasping at straws to pretend that there is some significant doubt about the conclusion that human activity is affecting the climate.

Confusing

[Andr T.]

This is _very_ confusing. By the IJIS website, 2002 and 2003 were in average:
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm

But, then, look at this:
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2003/1023esuice.html

The result has direct connections to NASA-funded studies conducted last year that found perennial, or year-round, sea ice in the Arctic is declining at a rate of nine percent per decade and that in 2002 summer sea ice was at record low levels. Early results indicate this persisted in 2003.

Re:Oh gosh.

[Joce640k]

Looking at the new graph it's still pretty obvious that the trend is "downwards", there was about 2 million square kilometers less ice in September 2007 than in September 2003.

http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm

But yeah, the deniers will be all over this.

Because it conflicts with the decision

[Shivetya]

they already made.

Look, they made up their minds and damn it, facts are not going to get in the way.

Just be glad we have doubters and amateur scientists who call out crap for what it is. Maybe, just maybe, more people will come to realize just how bad of a model we are working with because all our facts aren't worth the paper their recorded on. Like any other bureaucracy stuff like this happens because no one wants to step forward to a) upset the status quo, b) take responsibility for a decision, c) work.

Just be glad it was caught. Just like people found temperature sensors in parking lots, readings duplicated across months, and other sorts of fun. The ineptness of some of so called scientific groups when it comes to climate science makes me wonder if we do proper vetting of who is getting the money.

Re:Because it conflicts with the decision

[martas]

Actually, that's not really the fault of scientists in general. There are good scientists, and bad scientists. The good ones would rather die than claim or conclude something that they haven't cross-checked with all available data 100 times. Bad scientists will say anything as long as it gets them attention and money. Conclusion: bad science is the fault of the media, the government, and private organizations that for various reasons fund it.

Re:Because it conflicts with the decision

[cvd6262]

This reminds me of a heated discussion I had with the chair of a department at my uni. He called our work "a waste of time" because our instrument was flawed according to his theory. He asked if I had any data to support our interpretations of the data, so I told him the four analysis I had already completed. He claimed that my data was insufficient to support our continued use of the instrument.

At this point I used a classic line I read in a textbook: "What evidence *would* convince you that this isn't a waste of time?"

He threw up his hands and said, "I don't think this conversation is going to change anyone's mind. Let's move on." Translation: I refuse to even look at the data because it threatens my a priori view, and *I* won't change my mind."

I'm a huge fan of science, so I'm put-out by both sides of the climate debate, but I've seen this human nature operate on much smaller political scales.

Re:Oh gosh.

[Anonymous Coward]

By calling them "deniers" what you're saying is that science should be thrown out the window. You do realise that science is about collecting evidence, forming a theory and then trying to disprove it.

What "alarmists" do which is the kind of science you support is to cherry pick unrelated events from around the world and scare people into agreeing with them for the purposes of making money off such schemes as carbon off setting.

Re:Oh gosh.

[ArcherB]

This is one of those things that grabbed by the neck and whipped around like a dog shaking a dead squirrel by the "It ain't warming up" folks.

Maybe it's because we are tired of people (read: activists and politicians) trying to take away our rights based on bunk data.

Why is it that people who refuse to show ID to board a plane because it "violates their rights" are the same ones that are perfectly happy letting the state of California change the thermostat settings in their home?

Re:We only use data that support our hypothesis

[ArcherB]

"We do not use AMSR-E data in our analysis because it is not consistent with our historical data."

And our historical data shows terrible calamity awaiting us at every turn, and even if reality doesn't bear this out, it makes sense that we should continue to sound the alarm because if we do decide to face reality people may not take us and our hysterical blatherings seriously.

We'd rather just keep on using outdated modes of measurement and forecasting that give incorrect results every year because the results fit our hypothesis better. And what better to support a hypothesis than data that will back it up?

Right! If the data doesn't back our conclusions, use different data!

Re:The story is far over-hyped

[Attila Dimedici]

This error relates to Jan/Feb 2009 only. The problem has been identified quickly. It will be fixed quickly. No big deal.

For the climate change deniers among you, this is how science is supposed to work. Scientist A says something, scientist B says "hang on my experiment gives different results", scientist A checks and says "sorry, yes, we goofed" and it gets fixed.

In this case, Scientist A said "Yes, we knew that, but that data shows that our historical data is flawed, so we decided not to use it."

Re:Oh gosh.

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the point is that no matter which data set you look at, the trend is downwards. "Deniers" are those who completely ignore all of that data and say it's not happening at all. And trust me, they're out there.

Good, but..

[MadMidnightBomber]

still plenty of data from other sources, NASA in this case showing a trend of ice melting... http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/view.php?old=2006101923416

Tosh.

[Anonymous Coward]

"n May, 2008 they went so far as to predict that the North Pole would be ice-free during the 2008 'melt season,' "

No they didn't.

They said it was a remote possibility.

This was taken up by the anti global climate change, altered, and then used to "prove" that global warming wasn't happening when it didn't happen.

The fact it is presented that way by the story submitter shows which way they think, and thus how reliable the overall story is.

Re:Tosh.

[locofungus]

But they strongly implied, if not stated out right, that the amount of ice would be significantly less in 2008. Turned out they were completely wrong.

Are we reading the same article? In my version it says:

Drobot predicts a 59% chance of a new record minimum this year

As it happens, 2008 was the second lowest on record, despite a strong rebound during the winter months.

http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2008/02/brrrr-disappearing-arctic-ice-is-back.html

Tim.

Re:We only use data that support our hypothesis

[aurispector]

Garbage in, garbage out.

This is a core reason why I get very, very nervous whenever people start talking about global geoengineering schemes to fix global warming. The first question is "how good is the data?" Any good science is all about getting good data.

Re:Polar Bears

[Farmer Tim]

No, and Rupert Murdoch will head north and drown them personally if he has to.

Bigotry?

[paulthomas]

I like how you liken "climate change deniers" to religious bigots. "Religious zealots" would be more appropriate, and they exist on both sides.

Yeah, this is the basic idea of how science is supposed to work, but that's not the point that comes across in your post. The parent post is a troll.

Re:The story is far over-hyped

[ArcherB]

This error relates to Jan/Feb 2009 only. The problem has been identified quickly. It will be fixed quickly. No big deal.

Um, didn't they say that there would be NO ICE on the north pole in 2008? It's 2009 and there is still ice on the North Pole.

Now, I understand that scientists can be wrong. That's perfectly acceptable. We are all human, after all. However, based on the fact that scientists can be wrong, and in this case and many like it they are, I'm not willing to give up rights, like the ability to regulate the temperature in my own home or drive myself to work, based on data that can be, and in this case is, flawed.

There is a British "science writer" named Nigel Calder who claims that AGW is a huge fraud by the scientific establishment, and that counter-evidence is always suppressed. This little episode shows that Calder is speaking out of his anus, which means it may serve some useful purpose.

If this revelation were made in 2008, you'd have a point, but to make a prediction as dire as this one and then come out a year later and say "oops, the data was bad" a year after your prediction has been proved false proves Calder's point, not the other way around.

There are ways...

[AliasMarlowe]

When a new sensor is thought to have greater accuracy or reliabilty than an old one, but produces data which are not entirely consistent with the older one, it does NOT prevent use of the new sensor or meaningful use of data from both sensors. One standard technique is to employ both sensors simultaneously for some time - in other words, the two data series would overlap for that time. If both series show a downward trend in ice cover, then the trend probably real, even if they always disagree about the level of ice cover or the rate of decline. Over a sufficiently long time, it should be possible to build a model to quantitatively explain the difference in readings.

Come on, guys. There must be a few PhD theses waiting to be written on how to reconcile these instruments...

Re:Oh gosh.

[hattig]

A lot of them infect techy websites like dailytech for no apparent reason apart from one of "their kind" posts carefully selected anti-global-climate-change stuff. Mostly single data points, rather than overall trends of course. They don't have science on their side.

Of course it is good if they exist to ensure that the science is rigourous. Sadly they go beyond that, to actually trying to recruit believers to their cause - all too easy in a world addicted to cars - like a religion. They come up with alternate theories which the science doesn't support, much like intelligent design, creationism, etc. Considering the eventual outcome of being wrong in all this, it is highly irresponsible of them, and I hope that if things do go tits up in a pear shaped bowl that they are the ones made to pay.

Not that the extremists on the other side help. Doom-mongering damages your cause, all in the name of sensationalism. Just let the science speak for itself.

Interests

[www.drk.com.ar]

There is a lot of people interested in denying climate change whatever it takes. Taking a single error from a single study about climate change as proof of a non-existent climate problem is obtuse. The global warming shows itself in so many ways that no one can tell it isn't happening at all. Of course we can sit to discuss how are we responsible for this change and how much of the change will occur as part of a natural process. But there is no such discussion. Instead you see a bunch of corporations claiming "there is no such climate change, let us keep burning oil".

Re:Interests

[OneSmartFellow]

Please allow me to comment (ignoring all the obvious grammatical mistakes ):

There is a lot of people interested in denying climate change whatever it takes.
I think the word is skepticism, not denial.

Taking a single error from a single study about climate change as proof of a non-existent climate problem is obtuse.
Hmm, that mentality always works fine for the Global Warming camp, why can't skeptics use it too ?

The global warming shows itself in so many ways that no one can tell it isn't happening at all.
Climate change does not equal Anthropomorphic Global Warming, see, we're skeptical

Do you mean climate change Of course we can sit to discuss how are we responsible for this change and how much of the change will occur as part of a natural process. But there is no such discussion.
Not from the Global Warming camp anyway, from where I sit, those who are skeptical keep insisting this is required, but the Global Warming camp insists it's not a question of 'If' any more.

Instead you see a bunch of corporations claiming "there is no such climate change, let us keep burning oil"
Can you name one of these corporations ?.

Re:Interests

[www.drk.com.ar]

(I hope my "obvious grammatical mistakes" are not telling you that I'm wrong) I'm here to comment the event, doing my best about English grammar as it isn't my first language. "When one admits that nothing is certain one must, I think, also admit that some things are much more nearly certain than others. It is much more nearly certain that we are assembled here tonight than it is that this or that political party is in the right. Certainly there are degrees of certainty, and one should be very careful to emphasize that fact, because otherwise one is landed in an utter skepticism, and complete skepticism would, of course, be totally barren and completely useless." - Bertrand Russell (1872 - 1970)

Re:Oh gosh.

[Joce640k]

You think unfettered consumerism is a human right?

Re:We only use data that support our hypothesis

[Anonymous Coward]

Look who's talking. BadAnalogyGuy, the reason why scientists sometimes prefer inaccurate but precise and historically consistent data over data sources which are more accurate but have not been around for long is that they are interested in trends, not absolute values.

Re:Oh gosh.

[Stewie241]

However you feel about this issue, I think it is a bit weak to try and claim a change over 4 years constitutes a 'trend' when it comes to global climate data.

Re:We only use data that support our hypothesis

[BadAnalogyGuy]

they are interested in trends, not absolute values

Climate scientists are the mental equivalent of teenagers and shallow women. Thanks for the clarification.

Re:We only use data that support our hypothesis

[Anonymous Coward]

My father is an environmental engineer. He cleans up some of the stupid crap we have done over the past hundred years. We were having a talk about global warming years ago, before it was a big buzzword. He said to me: "Be careful listening to the global warming experts. If they have devoted their career to global warming and if it turns out not to be true, they don't just lose their job they lose their field of expertise."

Re:The story is far over-hyped

[ErikZ]

"On February 16, 2009, as emails came in from puzzled readers, it became clear that there was a significant problem--sea-ice-covered regions were showing up as open ocean."

So far there is no Scientist A or a Scientist B. There's a data gathering satellite and readers of the data.

I would love there to be a few decades of data gathering and analysis before the world takes steps. But we're being told we have to take action NOW. Damn straight you're going to get Climate Change Deniers.

Politicians grabbing for money and power using non-existent emergencies is a common occurrence throughout history. The earth turning into a desert wasteland is not. Which do you think is happening here?

Re:We only use data that support our hypothesis

[Timothy Brownawell]

Unfortunately that seems to be the way of a lot of science today. Carbon dating is another minefield that comes to mind.

How so?

Re:Oh gosh.

[Sir_Lewk]

Fuck. Yes.

Any other questions?

Re:Oh gosh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Listen to what you're saying. You want to punish those who don't agree with you. You've turned the global warming debate into a religion.

Typical spin job

[itsdapead]

In May, 2008 they went so far as to predict that the North Pole would be ice-free during the 2008 'melt season,'

Er, no, they said it was possible and later quote "a 59% chance of a new record minimum this year". How the media chose to report this is another matter... Oh yes, note the date: May 2008.

Today, however, they say that they have been the victims of 'sensor drift' that led to an underestimation of Arctic ice extent by as much as 500,000 square kilometers.

And if you read TFA, the sensor drift started in January 2009, was spotted within a few weeks and only affected their daily images which are effectively "live" and hence haven't gone through QA.

So how exactly does an error which occurred in Jan/Feb 09, was almost immediately spotted and declared affect a (misreported) prediction made last May?

<irony>Meanwhile, I'm sure the little fairies are hard at work ensuring that the geological era's worth of sequestered CO2 we're in the process of releasing back into the atmosphere magically changes its physical properties. After all, it is made from special carbon that God put there in 4004BC for us to burn, unlike that nasty communist CO2 that exhibits the greenhouse effect in godless laboratories.</irony>

Re:Typical spin job

[__aagmrb7289]

Er, no, they said it was possible and later quote "a 59% chance of a new record minimum this year". How the media chose to report this is another matter... Oh yes, note the date: May 2008.

To be perfectly accurate (unlike the measurements :)), from the article (linked to in the summary):

Taken together, an assessment of the available evidence, detailed below, points to another extreme September sea ice minimum. Could the North Pole be ice free this melt season? Given that this region is currently covered with first-year ice, that seems quite possible.

Re:We only use data that support our hypothesis

[elrous0]

I once worked with an environmental professor who could put the harshest fire-and-brimstone preacher to shame in her millennialist proclamations of doom (her grad students could too). All she was after was grant money, and she wasn't above going to the press and using the Chicken Little routine in order to drum up support for her latest grant proposal. I frequently had to write press releases for her that I was ashamed of (if you even hinted to her that she should tone it down and stick to reasonable statements she would literally freak out like a madwoman). From that moment I met her, I adopted a very skeptical view of the whole global warming "crisis" and its proponents.

Science is nowhere near as "hard" as people think. Too many scientists are way more interested in grant money and in their personal reputations than in the validity of their conclusions.

Re:Not sure what to believe anymore...

[Dunbal]

Not sure what to believe anymore...

      The fun thing about science is you don't have to "believe" anything. Science is all about facts that you can reproduce for yourself. Therefore take a glass of water and put an ice cube in it. Mark the water level on the glass with a felt pen. Then wait for the ice cube to melt. Notice that the water level has not changed...

      Melting ice from the north pole will not alter the sea level at all. Now the south pole is a different matter because there is actual land underneath the ice, so that ice - if it melted, would run off into the sea. However Antarctica contains around 22 million cubic kilometers of water stored in its ice (13.7 M sq km area x 1.6 km avg ice depth). Now considering that the area of the earth's oceans is around 361 M km, this ice is around 22/361 x 100 = 6% of the current volume of water in the oceans. Considering that the average depth of the oceans is around 3800 meters, increasing the water by 6% would add around 234 meters to sea level - assuming the oceans stuck to exactly same shorelines, which they wouldn't - so the sea level increase would actually be much less than 234m.

      Fortunately, the average annual temperature in Antactica is still around -50C, with steamy summers being around -30C. Therefore THAT polar ice is in no danger of melting soon, even if the average temperature on Earth increases by a couple degrees (which is, after all, what the big fuss is about).

      So don't expect to cash in on that "beachfront" desert property in Arizona just yet. Although it's smart and it makes sense for us to pollute as little as possible, the "global warming" preachers are absolutely full of shit - just like anyone else that tells you the world is about to end.

Shennanigans

[slick_shoes]

Clearly some oil company executives have been to the Arctic and moved the sensors, just to discredit the campaigners.

Re:Oh gosh.

[radtea]

Looking at the new graph it's still pretty obvious that the trend is "downwards",

Err... no. What I see looking at the data is two very low years: 2007 and to a lesser extent 2008. Calling that a "pretty obvious trend" nicely reveals your bias, but not much else. I could as easily say it is a "pretty obvious oscillation", as 2008 is "clearly" recovering from the 2007 perturbation.

I can see why the guys doing this aren't using the new data, as there is no way that there is adequate statistical power here to make a judgement about trends. Unfortunately, now that the old data have been shown to be badly flawed, the dire predictions of an imminently ice-free Arctic no longer have any very robust empirical support.

THIS is the way science works: you look at the evidence, squeeze it hard and see if it breaks. There is no doubt that the evidence for a soon-to-be-ice-free Arctic is broken. Ergo, the plausibility of dramatic climate change effects in our near future has gone down, no matter what anyone's politics drives them to prefer.

The only robust signal for global climate change I'm aware of is global ocean heat content, which seems to be increasing. However, given the number of reversals of supposedly robust results in the field of climate science I want to take a much closer look at those data before being convinced by them.

I used to be very concerned about global climate change, and in open-minded arguing with "deniers" I took a hard, critical look at the data and the models, because I wanted to find a compelling, unproblematic argument to convince my opponents, whom I credit with being able to change their minds when faced with the evidence. What I found was that neither the data nor especially the models stood up to professional scrutiny. There is good science being done, but it is not the kind of stuff you'd want to base public policy on.

There are good arguments for environmental policy that do not depend on the risk of global climate change, and the environmental movement is doing itself no good by linking policy and science together they way they have, so that people think "if there is no risk of global climate change then driving my SUV must be ok."

Re:We only use data that support our hypothesis

[Vellmont]

It's always a very good idea to take single quotes from a summary out of context, and make sweeping statements about that. This is especially true for science. Science really isn't one of those topics that require some in-depth knowledge to understand what's going on.

Taking off the sarcasm tag for a moment, this is one of the worst "science" pieces I've seen on slashdot in perhaps the last year. Cobbling together some serious accusations of scientific incompetence from a series of links doesn't really show anything. How the hell do I know how to interpret these statements in context? The links are all taken OUT of context and put into an entirely new argument without any further analysis or explanation. I'm left with what amounts to some hand waving and ranting about "scientific bias". Without a real analysis by someone qualified to make it this "story" is best left ignored.

Re:Oh gosh.

[wisty]

Deniers don't just use a single data point. They use every year since 1998 - and point out that every one of those years is cooler than 1998. That's a lot of data points, right? All those cool years (compared to 1998) can't be outliers, can they?

Re:Oh gosh.

[radtea]

"They"

Yeah, it's "them", "they" are causing the problems!

Listen to yourself. Alternative explanations for climate observations are all testable, and many have been tested. They are NOTHING like creationism or intelligent design, which are anti-scientific nonsense.

Saying things like "variations in cosmic ray flux may result in long-term changes to Earth's albedo which could explain observed climate variations" is not anti-scientific nonsense. It is a perfectly plausible, testable hypothesis of the best scientific kind (I believe, in fact, that it has been tested and found wanting.)

A Modest Proposal

[Solarch]

I have a very simple proposition that might shed some light on the argument about sea ice melting and cities going underwater.

Take a clear plastic disposable cup and fill it to any level you desire with water and any amount of ice cubes (4-5 would be plenty) you desire. Mark the level of the water. Let the cup sit out (covered if you really wish) until the ice melts. Mark the level of the water.

The results should surprise you, if you think that melting sea ice will put Florida and NYC and other low-lying areas underwater.

Re:Oh gosh.

[Stewie241]

No, I've heard lots about Global Warming. As you can see by the threading, I was replying to parent (comment 26915303) - now GGP - which stated 'Looking at the new graph it's still pretty obvious that the trend is "downwards", there was about 2 million square kilometers less ice in September 2007 than in September 2003.'

There is evidence to back up global warming. Of course there is. But saying that there is less ice in 2007 than there was in 2003 constitutes a downward trend is like saying climate has had a downward temperature trend here because we've had a colder winter this year here than in the last five years. It just isn't enough to constitute a 'trend'.

Re:Oh gosh.

[rezalas]

The same could be said for 40 years, or even 140 years. As a species we are very young and still ignorant of most of our planet. The majority of our ocean is unexplored and our records of weather patterns are infantile in comparison to the subject we are studying. We have no "real" answer on the effects of what we do here because frankly, we can't prove this hasn't happened on its own before and won't happen five more times in the future or even if it will reverse itself. While I do agree we need to take better care of our planet, I don't agree with shills who think because they have a lab coat and a piece of paper made by other monkies that they somehow have insight into the universe of undiscovery that is our planet. Perhaps we might some day be able to predict things like this, but as it stands now they just end up using the old "science isn't an exact science" crutch.

Re:We only use data that support our hypothesis

[drsmithy]

How so?

Because it suggests the world is more than 6000 years old.

/duh

Except...

[DG]

...that consistancy with historical data is worthless if that data is wrong.

Using your game analogy, assume that the metric for video card speed was a specific timedemo for Game X. There exists framerate data for Game X going back 10 years, so it is nice for showing historical trends.

Then a bug is discovered in the game rendering engine that causes actual delivered framerate to be understated by somewhere between 20-50%.

Well guess what - your test is WRONG. And all that lovely historical data is worthless, no matter how pretty the graph.

DG

Re:Except...

[0xABADC0DA]

...that consistancy with historical data is worthless if that data is wrong. ... Well guess what - your test is WRONG. And all that lovely historical data is worthless, no matter how pretty the graph.

Data is ALWAYS wrong, the only question is 'how wrong is it'.

If you have a long history of data and discover the measurements were flawed, you replace the data with something else or correct the data as much as possible.

By continuing to collect the more flawed data and comparing it to the more accurate data, models may be created to improve the accuracy of the historical data. It's not like we can go back in time 50 years and take the measurements over again. The new historical data will have the extra dependency on the model, but if this helps make predictions more accurate then this is a good thing and part of the scientific process.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Hey, somebody read beyond the summary!

[MarkusQ]

And if you read TFA, the sensor drift started in January 2009, was spotted within a few weeks and only affected their daily images which are effectively "live" and hence haven't gone through QA.

So how exactly does an error which occurred in Jan/Feb 09, was almost immediately spotted and declared affect a (misreported) prediction made last May?

Congratulations. You appear to have been the first person here to read beyond the flamebait summary and respond to the actual content. On a site full of people conditioned by years of rickrolling (and worse) to never RTFA, you sir, are a member of a rare and vanishing breed.

Keep up the good work.

--MarkusQ

P.S. I used to be skeptical of global warming myself (years ago), until I realized that the best the anti-HCGW crowd could offer as counter case was crap like this--the scientific analog of "Marty look, your shoe's untied."

On the one hand, tons of data, much of which is easily checked, and all of which hangs together to form a consistent picture, and on the other a hodge podge of nonsense that doesn't stand up to a moments scrutiny glued together with this sort of BS. They've gotten as bad as the anti-evolution people.

Coming up next, I fear:

GLOBAL WARMING WEBSITE ISN'T W3C COMPLIANT
How can we trust their climate data when
they can't even get their HTML/CSS right?

Global Warming: The Modern Inquisition

[RobotRunAmok]

The number of similarities between global warming and the older, more traditional religions have been documented numerous times and places: The high priesthood for whom the sins don't apply, the levied guilt, prophets of doom, attack on science by a faithful flock, the purchase of indulgences (carbon credits), concerted attempts to control the secular leadership as a means to bring the general population into line, etc., etc.

The only non-similarity -- and it's a shame, really -- is that the medieval inquisition had those really cool hooded robes. The modern Global Warming Cult has no fashion sense whatsoever, as best as I can make out.

Slashdot Drift?

[TheGuapo]

It's been interesting to track the Global Warming/Climate Change drift over the years on Slashdot. A couple years ago, it seemed prevailing opinion (measured by high moderation scores and # of comments) favored the "consensus" Anthropogenic Global Warming view of the scientific community.

However, looking at the more recent global warming related threads, the posts moderated with 5's seem to be more and more in the "Open-minded but skeptical" camp regarding the "consensus" view.

Is this due to a miscalibration in the sensors, or are we talking about a real opinion shift here?!?

If you bother to read the literature

[Kupfernigk]

You will find that all your points are being addressed. Why do you think there are research stations in Antarctica and Greenland? By the way, if you care to look at the thickness of the ice on the Antarctic or Greenland, you will I think agree that issues of topography and water table are somewhat irrelevant.

the "drift" was only for Jan/Feb 2009

[Chirs]

You might want to read TFA. The sensor drift only started in Jan 2009, and it was spotted within a few weeks.

Re:The story is far over-hyped

[pjabardo]

No, it means that because the new measurement methodology is so new they can't get any accurate trend and they will use continue to use the older method to estimate the trend. Once enough measurements using the new method are available they will certainly switch to it. You have to realize that any measurement has an uncertainty which can be quite high depending on what and how you are measuring. Once you get better measurement method you don't just throw away older measurements. Some conclusions drawn from it are still valid. In this case the method estimates the amount of ice. It might not get accurate results but it might show pretty well how fast the ice is shrinking.

Those guys did the right thing. They acknowledged an error and made an assessment of the quality of previous data and found that it is good enough to estimate trends. Before publication the study was reviewed by peers and found satisfactory. If in the future further evidence based on the new measurement method (or other methods) might confirm or not their assessment. That's how science works and evolves.

Re:Oh gosh.

[Curunir_wolf]

Saying every time "those ignorant buffoons who don't understand squat about climatology but feel like they are entitled to contest world-leading researchers because the latter ones' conclusions threaten the former ones' god-given right to $1/gal. gasoline" is kind of cumbersome. "Deniers" is a good description, which also captures the irrationality of climate-change deniers: you are yourself a good example of that:

I guess you're right. Stereotyping and dismissing your critics is much easier if you can use 1 word instead of a run-on sentence. But you can include multiple assaults on their character and motivations with a long description, as you have clearly demonstrated. Using that many words, though, you should have been able to mention something about SUVs and killing kittens.

the kind of science you support is to cherry pick unrelated events from around the world and scare people into agreeing with them for the purposes of making money off such schemes as carbon off setting.

That's quite some cloak-and-dagger Illuminati conspiracy theory you have there. If climatologists were that greedy, they would:

The OP said the kind of science you support, not that any large group supports. You are the one trying to put everybody into either the "altruistic brilliant scientists and supporters" or the "ignorant greedy superstitious hick" group.

The scientific consensus is that global warming is real and anthropogenic.

Clearly, that's just wrong. There seems to be a consensus that:

• global warming is real (BTW: get on board, dude, it's called "climate change" now)
• carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is a significant source "greenhouse" warming of the earth
• human activity and industry have increased the concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere

The rest is up for debate. In fact, in recent months many studies have demonstrated that it is likely that the largest source of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere is methane from animals (primarily livestock like cows, pigs, sheep). Sure, that's because of human activity, too, but would you advocate cutting back on our food supply to (maybe) slow global warming? Because carbon taxes won't reduce methane.

This whole thing really has gotten too much like a religious debate (or a political debate, or abortion debate, whatever). It's really very frustrating. And it seems the two sides either want to stop burning fossil fuels or just do nothing. Since the prevalent opinion seems to be that warming is happening, maybe we should be thinking about how to prepare for that inevitability. I mean, isn't that a more reasonable approach than to undertake a massive effort to try to change the climate (or stop it from changing). Nobody is even sure if it can be done. But we can prepare. Humans have adjusted to changing climates before, and can again.

Gilligan!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

This reminds me of the Gilliganâ(TM)s Island episode where the professor thought that the island was sinking. It turned out that Gilligan was just moving the marker to deeper water to catch bigger lobsters.

some science not really "science"

[peter303]

Thats when you have a foregone conclusion and cherry-pick the data to support it.

Denialist reasoning

[tgibbs]

If their data was wrong under their nose once in a ridiculous manner, it could have been wrong all along or in different ways.

This is a prime example of the sort of rationalization that passes for denialist reasoning. When confronted with a huge mass of evidence supporting an unpalatable conclusion, they cherry-pick any error, no matter how small or irrelevant to the conclusion, and insist "if this is wrong, then maybe it is all wrong." Since in any human endeavor, there are always errors, it is always possible to rationalize away any conclusion that you prefer not to confront.

This is of course quite typical. The data in question is real-time, raw data. In most scientific enterprises, such data is kept private by the researchers until it can be cross-checked and validated. But in climate research there is a level of openness and public access that is almost unparalleled in science, with even preliminary data publicly available. Of course, the actual scientists know that such data is subject to revision and do not base important conclusions upon it. So the error has no impact on the conclusion that there is a long-term decrease in Arctic ice due to global warming. But that won't stop denialists from talking about it as though it invalidates everything.

Re:Denialist reasoning

[burning-toast]

Hit submit too early. My point earlier was that the data should have been well vetted for and all of this shit done before reaching the public eye where "scientists" will prop it up (for either "camp") in the evidence of the month club.

I'm not denying global climate change. I'm just sick of people who think they have "proved" everything, but then admit they can't point at anything concrete and agreed upon on a large enough scale to really show anything significant.

- Toast

It's not even a religious belief.

[tjstork]

Fearing the end of the world or a great disaster is not a religious belief as nearly as much as it is an externalization of the fear or death and a mental mechanism for realizing how little control you have over the world. It is like, the mind plays out, what is the worst that will happen, as if to remind you that your time is finite and you are not as powerful as you think.

If there was no belief in God, people would still have some show on about the end of the world. Indeed, some of the more popular documentaries now are about comets slamming into the earth, supervolcanos sending us into a snowball earth, giant tsumanis from islands falling into the ocean, mega earthquakes, the reactivation of the siberians traps, a supernova of a nearby star baking the earth with gamma radiataion, or a change in the density of intersteller dust that somehow screws up the solar system as the sun orbits the black hole in the center of the milky way. There's enough genuine geological catastrophe completely outside of our power to control that makes a fear of total disaster a reasonable thing, even if the daily risk is rather low. And against all that, what harm does it really do if some people say: "dear God, please don't slam a comet into the earth today, I have a little boy and love him." It can't hurt anything, if there is no God, and even if it isn't your bag, having someone else hedge humanity's bets on the divine for you isn't too bad of a gambling strategy either.

Re:It's not even a religious belief.

[commodore64_love]

Except global warming is NOT a disaster. The earth has had periods without icecaps in the past, and the animals that lived through that time survived just fine. In fact it wasn't that long ago... our ancestors (homo erectus) lived in a tropical age.

It's not a disaster. It's a warmer climate. Instead of barren cold places, we'll be able to grow crops in Siberia and Northern Canada. We'll have more food than ever before. I don't see the drawback.

Yeah I know: New York City will get flooded.
Like I said: I don't see the drawback. ;-)

Re:Oh gosh.

[afidel]

I think that having the government not interfere in my affairs is a basic human right and so did the founding fathers of the United States of America. The fact that there are so many people who don't think that way disturbs me.

You have a point and I've tested it

[Kupfernigk]

I posted up this thread commenting that the extent of the error had been misrepresented, and deliberately being sharply critical of AGW deniers and Nigel Calder in particular. During the period when it's mainly Europeans who post, this got moderated up to +3. Then the US started to come on line and it's now down to -1 troll. I don't know whether this is a more coordinated campaign by US lobbyists, now they've lost the election, or whether it's something in the US Zeitgeist at the moment, but at least on Slashdot my suspicion is that Europe is diverging from the US. It's really odd, when you consider that it means that some US Slashdot posters now prefer the views of largely unqualified journalists to mostly American scientists. Odd and depressing, given that other threads seem to have people with limitless belief in the capabilities of those scientists and engineers.

The problem..

[tjstork]

The science of climate change, by contrast, is on very solid theoretical footing; but sometimes every science has to deal with bad data, as in this case

The problem with climate science is ironically the same as the problem with economics. Chaos theory says pretty plainly that you will never have enough data to make an accurate prediction and for that reason, you have lost the ability to have a control.

I mean, the whole idea is that you can take a sort of an average of events and call that climate - like, sorta look at lorenz attractor and say "well, the average is this". But the thing is, that average is still pretty unstable and you can jigger it pretty easily, which is really where all the global warming alarm comes from.

In fact, the thing is, that economics cannot make accurate predictions should be the canary in the coal mine for climate science. Economic modelling is based on trying to understand coupled dynamic systems in the same kind of math that climate science is. Economics is just about people, and its continually wrong, so, how could climate ever really be right, when it considers not only the effect of people, but of the planet as a whole, and all the organisms responding to, and influencing climate, plus any number of celestial and geological unknowns.

Re:The story is far over-hyped

[NeutronCowboy]

Um, didn't they say that there would be NO ICE on the north pole in 2008? It's 2009 and there is still ice on the North Pole.

Actually, no. They didn't. It was people like you who said that they said that.
And congratulations on completely misrepresenting the current conclusion by the scientists, as well as the actual facts behind the conclusion. It's stupidity, ignorance and lies like this that demonstrate to me that a) global climate change is happening (otherwise there'd be better counter arguments floating around) and b) we're all doomed (you. duh.)

Re:Oh gosh.

[TFloore]

There are good arguments for environmental policy that do not depend on the risk of global climate change, and the environmental movement is doing itself no good by linking policy and science together they way they have, so that people think "if there is no risk of global climate change then driving my SUV must be ok."

This tends to reflect my feelings on the matter too.

I want more fuel efficient vehicles. There are several reasons for this, and, frankly, global climate change doesn't make the top 10. Reducing my out-of-pocket driving expenses (gas) does. Reducing my country's (USA) exporting of wealth to nations that fund religious extremists does.

I want cleaner production methods, and better enforcement of environmental regulations. I like breathing air that doesn't make my lungs and eyes burn. I like camping and hiking, and not finding industrial sludge on the banks of rivers. I like scuba diving, and not seeing coral reefs covered in red algae from sewage waste disposal pipes (West Palm Beach, I'm looking at you.).

Simple, solid, personal-self-interest reasons to support better efficiency and good environmental stewardship. I don't need doom prophecies to support that. Clear rational open science.

Re:We only use data that support our hypothesis

[drew]

The implicit assumption behind radio and carbon dating is that the mixture of the things being sampled is constant and that time itself moves in some continuous fashion.

That was the original assumption behind Carbon dating, however, we now know that the first assumption, at least, is not completely accurate. We know that the amount of atmospheric carbon has fluctuated throughout history. That is why scientists now use "Calibrated Carbon dates", which take these fluctuations into account. Dates up to about 6000 years ago have been calibrated using tree rings, and there are other techniques that have been used to calibrate dates back as far as 13,000 years. If anything the typical result has been that we have learned things were older than previously thought. It is now believed that an old (uncalibrated) radio carbon date of 9000BC actually corresponds to a "real" (calibrated) date of 11000BC.

As far as your other assumption, well, if that turns out to be false, we have much bigger problems than radio dating.

Of course, there have been other problems with radio carbon dating in the past as well. One big problem historically was that a fairly large sample was needed to get an accurate date, so scientists would measure ages of small things like seeds indirectly by measuring the carbon in e.g. a large piece of charcoal that was found at the same site. Obviously this was prone to problems, because that charcoal could have come from a forest fire thousands of years earlier. However, with "modern" techniques (i.e. as of the 1980's), indirect measurement is no longer really an issue, because scientists can accurately measure the carbon ratios even in very small samples using mass spectrometry.

Not an Exact Science?

[mosb1000]

"Science isn't an exact science"

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but isn't exactness the whole point of science? Doesn't science rely on controlled experimentation to conclusively disprove or fail to disprove a hypothesis? Has "pop science" become the new science? Is it now considered acceptable to reach a conclusion without the support of controlled experimentation, but still call it a scientific conclusion? How is this new breed of science any different than guessing?

I think the true scientists among us need to find a new word to describe what they do.

Re:Oh gosh.

[Duradin]

My karma for some mod points.

People just need to admit to themselves that it is OK to want to make changes to make their environment better for themselves and their fellow members of the species. It's not some selfish, evil desire. You don't have to hide behind the banner of "SAVING THE PLANET!".

Controlling pollution could lead to a better standard of living and lower health care costs.

Slowing the hemorrhaging loss of money to foreign countries that don't have our best interests in mind is a good thing.

Understanding that renewable resources are actually *gasp* renewable allows for more efficient and economical use of those resources. Understanding that there really is no such thing as a free lunch will let us choose which resources to make use of in a more logical and economical manner.

Also that conservation and stewardship (something which most "environmentalists" don't really understand) do not mean locking an environment into a state of stasis. All those brush fires in California? Well, if you don't burn off or clear out the little stuff before it accumulates you're going to get the big fires that have enough fuel to burn hot and long enough that the system can't withstand it and it gets wiped out. Even though you were "protecting" by not allowing anything to change.

Okay, let's say you're right.

[dfenstrate]

And if someone could find compelling evidence that indicated global warming wasn't happening, that would be welcomed by the climate science community. New evidence that overturns an old understanding is the holy grail of science.

I'll grant you for a moment that the climate is warming.

If so, considering that the climate has been both significantly warmer and colder in recorded human history than it is now, why panic? Why the apocolyptic talk?

Past that, what are the upsides of global warming? A longer growing season would certainly be an asset. Rising ocean levels- if they occur- can be managed (ref: Netherlands).

What the true believers of AGW suffer from is a lack of faith in human invention, and an unbridled fear of change. I have seen proposals for trillion dollar projects to 'turn back the clock', when several billion in dikes and relocations would manage the problem.

Now, back to my point...
Even if you are as pure as the driven snow, AGW has been forever tainted by demands for control and taxation by those who think themselves our betters.

I will consider treating it as a crisis when AGWs biggest proponents treat it as a crisis. As long as UN AGW conferences are plagued by a shortage of private jet parking and Al Gore buys carbon credit indulgences from his own companies in order to 'justify' his rich lifestyle*, I'm pretty sure I'm being bullshitted somewhere down the line.

Your science and research, pure as the driven snow as it might be, is represented by these sorts of clowns. It is a stench you will never escape.

*I have no problem with his lifestyle, per se. It's the whole preaching-doom-and-gloom-to-us while-excusing-himself thing I have a problem with.

You must be vying for a....

[deesine]

high-priest position in this new religion...

-

Re:We only use data that support our hypothesis

[goodmanj]

We'd rather just keep on using outdated modes of measurement and forecasting that give incorrect results every year because the results fit our hypothesis better.

It's got nothing to do with political bias. Inaccurate data taken for a long time is often better than accurate data taken for a short time.

Example: Suppose I ask you to measure the temperature of a cup of coffee, and tell me if the coffee is getting colder over time. I give you a thermometer which is inaccurate, it always reads about 5 degrees too low.

You take your data for an hour or so, and make a nice graph. Then I give you a shiny new thermometer, which is much more accurate: it always reads about 1 degree too high.

You start using the new thermometer because it's better. Tell me, did the temperature of the coffee suddenly increase by 6 degrees?

This is a simple example: combining data from different sources without introducing errors is a tricky business. To do it right, you need to compare the data sets over a time period where they overlap (in the coffee experiment, you use *both* thermometers for a while), but in the case of AMSR-E we haven't got enough data to do that reliably yet.

Who's really serious about CO2?

[Mike Van Pelt]

I have a simple metric to determine whether someone pushing "global warming panic" is really serious about CO2 emissions:

Do they favor nuclear power?

It is flatly impossible for someone to be serious about reducing CO2 and oppose nuclear power. They can assert their seriousness all they like, and they can, indeed, be quite convinced they are right, and be quite emotionally attached to the proposition.

Seriousness, however, means that one takes the effort to be informed.

Cranial Explosion Imminent!

[WinPimp2K]

"We stress, however, that this error in no way changes the scientific conclusions about the long-term decline of Arctic sea ice, which is based on the the consistent, quality-controlled data archive discussed above."

Hmm...

Algor: "Global warming is melting the arctic icecap. Our sensors show open Arctic Ocean.
Duhfact: "Al, we have satellite imagery showing icecap where your sensors say there is open ocean"
Algor: "Umm.. we have a little problem with sensor drift"
Duhfact: "So, your statements about the melting of the icecap are incorrect?"
Algor: "No, our 'sensor drift' just proves our point. Those sensors are drifting because of the ice cap melting"
Duhfact: "Actually we have measurements showing increasing icecaps for the past five years"
Algor: "Our drifting sensors have been drifting for at least 20 years so that just proves how much of the icecap has already melted"
Duhfact: (head explodes)
Algor: "And the science on this is in - no one disagrees with the conclusions".

Their conclusion is consistent with a need for increased funding to continue to conclude that the icecaps are really melting. But, their data is anything but consistent and their "quality control" is somewhat more dubious than the "accounting controls" of Bernie Madoff.

Because that's the best way to make public policy

[snowwrestler]

And unless you have kids yourself, you'll never understand why we need to filter porn on the Internet.

Look I agree with you on the limited use of DDT for disease control. And unlike the grandparent post, I know that such use is still allowed.

I'm not a big fan of emotional manipulation though. My wife barely survived a bout with malaria in Madagascar (plus 2 relapses). But I know that doesn't make me informed on all the various aspects of DDT regulation.

We're fucking sick of posting the same links

[snowwrestler]

We're fucking sick of posting the same links over and over, refuting the same tired points over and over, and in general we're sick of people with no scientific training asking the same simplistic questions over and over and over again. Basically we're sick of getting trolled.

People: if you know more about the climate than the scientists do, publish your findings and get rich and famous. Best of luck!