Slashdot Mirror
Scientists Acknowledge Key Errors in Study of How Fast the Oceans Are Warming (washingtonpost.com)
A major study claimed the oceans were warming much faster than previously thought. But researchers now say they can't necessarily make that claim. From a report: Two weeks after the high-profile study was published in the journal Nature, its authors have submitted corrections to the publication. The Scripps Institution of Oceanography, home to several of the researchers involved, also noted the problems in the scientists' work and corrected a news release on its website, which previously had asserted that the study detailed how the Earth's oceans "have absorbed 60 percent more heat than previously thought."
"Unfortunately, we made mistakes here," said Ralph Keeling, a climate scientist at Scripps, who was a co-author of the study. "I think the main lesson is that you work as fast as you can to fix mistakes when you find them." The central problem, according to Keeling, came in how the researchers dealt with the uncertainty in their measurements. As a result, the findings suffer from too much doubt to definitively support the paper's conclusion about how much heat the oceans have absorbed over time.
The central conclusion of the study -- that oceans are retaining ever more energy as more heat is being trapped within Earth's climate system each year -- is in line with other studies that have drawn similar conclusions. And it hasn't changed much despite the errors. But Keeling said the authors' miscalculations mean there is a much larger margin of error in the findings, which means researchers can weigh in with less certainty than they thought.
"Unfortunately, we made mistakes here," said Ralph Keeling, a climate scientist at Scripps, who was a co-author of the study. "I think the main lesson is that you work as fast as you can to fix mistakes when you find them." The central problem, according to Keeling, came in how the researchers dealt with the uncertainty in their measurements. As a result, the findings suffer from too much doubt to definitively support the paper's conclusion about how much heat the oceans have absorbed over time.
The central conclusion of the study -- that oceans are retaining ever more energy as more heat is being trapped within Earth's climate system each year -- is in line with other studies that have drawn similar conclusions. And it hasn't changed much despite the errors. But Keeling said the authors' miscalculations mean there is a much larger margin of error in the findings, which means researchers can weigh in with less certainty than they thought.
Same argument could be made for rushing out findings, perhaps under pressure?
This is how science is supposed to work; although, ideally, the errors are caught prior to publication - the process still worked correctly.
The problem isn't the science per se -- it's how hard it is to unring the bell outside the scientific community. The media, and therefore the public, got whipped into a hot lather over the initial study. Google "oceans warming faster than anticipated" (even in quotes) to see how pervasively it spread in both the press and social media.
I'm quite comfortable the retraction will not be trumpeted a fraction as loudly, and even if it were, that a large percentage of people who read the initial headlines and ran around screaming bloody murder would largely stay silent.
That's how the news cycle works (and it's well understood to work that way), and thus a supposedly reputable journal racing to publication with shoddy work like this is grossly negligent at best.