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.

Comments

It's Called Science

[Bender0x7D1]

This is what science does. People find something and publish the results for everyone to look at. If there is something wrong, other people point it out, and they go back to the drawing board.

This is how science is supposed to work; although, ideally, the errors are caught prior to publication - the process still worked correctly.

Re:It's Called Science

[msauve]

Nature is a peer reviewed publication. So, there were multiple, independent levels of error. That's not how it's supposed to work.

Re:It's Called Science

[Layzej]

Some folks in the previous thread were concerned that that if the paper challenged the consensus then maybe we don't know nuffin'. For example the following can be read with /sarc tags on:

This must have been the last remaining sampling error and from now on the science is settled.

As it turns out there is good reason to reserve judgement on any paper that challenges the consensus. A consensus that is built upon a consilience of evidence cannot be overturned by a single contrary paper.

Re:It's Called Science

[Anonymous Coward]

Peer review isn't about repeating the test or confirming the analysis, it's about checking whether the conclusion matches the groupthink. This did.

Re:It's Called Science

[MrMr]

Peer review is not only the bit the journals do. The real exchange of ideas starts after the publication. In fact if nothing published was ever improved on, science would stop and become something dogmatic and immutable of no particular value.

Re:It's Called Science

[Bender0x7D1]

Nature is a peer reviewed publication. So, there were multiple, independent levels of error. That's not how it's supposed to work.

Ideally it works that way. However, it often fails in one way or another (skipped reviews, for profit models, no one wants to say a leader in a field is wrong, etc.) Which is why publication to a wide audience is, essentially, the final fail safe.

Re: It's Called Science

[Type44Q]

consilience

I just learned a new word that's actually interesting and useful; thanks.

Re: It's Called Science

[brianerst]

Then you'll really like it when you read the book Consilience by E.O. Wilson, who popularized the term. Great book.

Re:It's Called Science

[anegg]

And, unfortunately, the subtle nuances of this correction may get lost in a "they had to withdraw their claims" discussion. If I understand what I read, the errors were in calculating the uncertainty present in their results, with more uncertainty being present than originally reported. This doesn't mean they were wrong and need to go back to the beginning, just that they can't be as certain that they were right. Which should engender more work to reduce the uncertainty. Which could reduce the uncertainty, or identify other factors at work that expand their model and result in a better overall explanation of the observations. That's science.

Re: It's Called Science

[Type44Q]

The only way to deal with it is to completely change our lifestyles. There, I said it... and this is coming from a "small gov't fiscal conservative."

(If this confuses or frustrates the "low information" types that happen to identify as "conservative," it should be noted that it also confuses and upsets those who call themselves liberal when they find that I'm both a thirty-year vegetarian and a vocal advocate of the 2nd Amendment.)

Re:It's Called Science

[Joce640k]

You left out the part about people, including scientists, generating panic from the results while claiming the only way to deal with them is to completely change our lifestyles.

Nope, only the deniers are telling you you have to completely change your lifestyles.

As a scare tactic.

Re:It's Called Science

[SlaveToTheGrind]

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.

Re:It's Called Science

[Joce640k]

This does not compute.

I thought all the "scientists" were in a huge conspiracy to promote their false "global warming" agenda.

Re:It's Called Science

[Geoffrey.landis]

Nature is a peer reviewed publication. So, there were multiple, independent levels of error. That's not how it's supposed to work.

No, this is how science works-- this is the perfect exemplar of science working correctly. The researchers published their results, they found errors, they acknowledged the errors and published the correction.

Kudos to them. Yes, it would be wonderful if scientists never made errors in the first place, but it turns out that science is done by humans, and humans make errors. The way science works is to acknowledge the errors: that is what makes it science.

Re:It's Called Science

[dcw3]

Oh please google peer review problems before genuflecting to it as a be all, end all. There are numerous articles by respected sources available.

For those too lazy to do so, the short answer is that much of what would ideally be peer reviewed just doesn't happen. The basic reason is that there's no money/glory in doing peer review. The people you'd want to be doing the reviewing are too busy doing their own science, and getting that published. Who's going to pay you to double check someone else's work...it's rare.

Re:It's Called Science

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the issue with the "subtle nuances". The authors have acknowledged the error in uncertainty. However, they have not explicitly addressed the other issue Nic found, which that their central estimate is biased high. Those that are interested should really read both posts from Nic.

And for those that are defending peer review, you should understand the method Nic used to find that the paper might contain as error. The claim was that a change of 23.2 over a 25 year period yielded a trend of 1.16 per year, instead of something closer to 0.9.

Re:It's Called Science

[HornWumpus]

The error was _not_ found by a 'climate scientist'.

From TFA.

However, not long after publication, an independent Britain-based researcher named Nicholas Lewis published a lengthy blog post saying he had found a “major problem” with the research.

Lewis added that he tends “to read a large number of papers, and, having a mathematics as well as a physics background, I tend to look at them quite carefully, and see if they make sense. And where they don’t make sense — with this one, it’s fairly obvious it didn’t make sense — I look into them more deeply.”

Alarmists have repeatedly told me that non-climate scientist should shut the fuck up. Kudos to the journal and those of the authors that accept the mistake, but don't pretend that they found it themselves or that they are all accepting that they made an error.

Yes, I RTFA....Hangs head in shame.

Re:It's Called Science

[TuringTest]

it turns out that science is done by humans, and humans make errors

In fact, that's the reason why we need peer-reviewed science. If there were no errors, we could produce science by means oracles right off pronouncing perfectly accurate theorems.

Re:It's Called Science

[HornWumpus]

My current lifestyle involves cars with 24 liter 12 cylinder Merlin engines you insensitive clod.

Re: It's Called Science

[dcw3]

Wait, what!?! I didn't know that we were allowed to have non-party line opinions on individual topics anymore. You know, with all the RINO/DINO namecalling, you have to get in lockstep. Oh, the horror!!!

More seriously, thanks for the laugh. I'm of similar persuasion, except I'm a carnivore.

Re:It's Called Science

[RightwingNutjob]

Good on them for fessing up to an error and not being snobby about the institutional affiliation of the person who pointed it out to them. Bad on them for having a press release at all. The desire for media exposure corrupts science. Here, they let the lie make it several times around the world before the truth even woke up. The first press release got a lot of air time. The correction...well slashdot isn't all it's cracked up to be in terms of publicity.

Re:It's Called Science

[Archtech]

Yep. I don't see the "deniers" adjusting any of their claims.

For a start, the word "denier" is wholly inappropriate and highly prejudicial. It's the kind of word commonly used by religious fanatics to describe those who do not necessarily accept their dogma.

Furthermore, those who do not necessarily accept the dogma of person-made global warming do not need to to make any claims. They are merely accepting the null hypothesis until they see conclusive proof that it is wrong.

Re:It's Called Science

[munch117]

The error was _not_ found by a 'climate scientist'.

He certainly styles himself as such. Nicholas Lewis, an independent Climate Science Researcher, based in the UK. Quoting https://www.nicholaslewis.org/.

Re:It's Called Science

[HornWumpus]

So what? He is exactly the kind of 'unqualified outsider' that is repeatedly told to shut the fuck up by 'real climate scientists'.

Re:It's Called Science

[apoc.famine]

And since that proof is they and they deny it exists, what should we call them?

Re:It's Called Science

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

This is what science does. People find something and publish the results for everyone to look at. If there is something wrong, other people point it out, and they go back to the drawing board.

This is how science is supposed to work; although, ideally, the errors are caught prior to publication - the process still worked correctly.

I assume CNN will have hours about it this evening?

Re:It's Called Science

[hey!]

OK: propose a process that would infallibly prevent errors from ever being published? What would that even look like?

Errors routinely get published in peer reviewed papers, even in prominent journals. How do we know this? Because they get caught by other scientists, usually pretty quickly. Scientists are world champion contrarians, and they're continually finding flaws in each others' work. Peer review is just the preliminary round of the pile-on.

This is why you should not pay too much attention to studies. The gold standard for evidence-based decisions is the systematic review paper.

Re: It's Called Science

[Kyr Arvin]

Did you have anything to contribute to the discussion? I think you mistakenly clicked Submit a little early.

I think his point is that despite this instance of multiple errors, the methodology and model has a better track record than anything else we've tried.

Re: It's Called Science

[Anonymous Coward]

"political agenda"

Calling the drive to save the planet from a complete human-instigated appocalyps a "political agenda" might be a tad, um, short sighted, as it were. The term is technically correct, but not accurate.

It's akin to saying the Allies intervention in Hitler's campaign to take over the work was a "political agenda". When you get down to brass tacks the part in WWII played by the U.S. was just the nation exercising a "political agenda" against the Nazi party of Germany. The Allies at the time did not agree with the Nazi ideals and worked hard to extinguish those principles. In truth, the Allied effort was a fight for survival. Nothing more and nothing less. The same idea holds here. This is a fight for survival. It is a fight against small minds and greed and NIMBY-ism corporate short-sightedness.

Life on the planet is being extinguished. Conditions are worsening. All the name calling and partisan bickering in the universe won't save life.

Re:It's Called Science

[cyberchondriac]

This! This is a phenomenon I've noticed happen quite often in social, and even professional media at times, lately.
I've dubbed it PNP, for "Persistence of Negative Perception". I think it's a very real thing and deserves it's own term.
Sometimes we'll see a news article (a badly biased, or hastily researched one), but more oftentimes, a Tweet, fueled by emotion and bias, which purports some event or claim which turns out ultimately to be false or badly flawed in accuracy. This initial, negative Tweet might get retweeted 3,000 to 5,000 times or more depending on the popularity of the celebrity; or, in the case of prof media, the news article linked to from news aggregators like Yahoo. It goes out and causes distress or outrage among the public.
A day or two later, the retraction/corrected version is posted or tweeted, but it, unlike it's evil twin, it never makes the front page, so to speak. The correcting tweet isn't retweeted half as many times, the news retraction isn't linked to. It's not sensational enough. Therefore the perception of the public still is that of the original, flawed message, it's untruths persisting.
Sadly, I suspect this is done intentionally in some cases as a tactic, where culpability can be negated (I corrected myself, therefore I didn't lie) yet damn full well knowing that the updated version isn't going to get the exposure the original one did. This provides a venue for people to propagate all kinds of crap and absolve themselves of literally fake news while maintaining a clear conscience and self-piety.

Re:It's Called Science

[hey!]

Peer review isn't about repeating the test or confirming the analysis, it's about checking whether the conclusion matches the groupthink. This did.

And your evidence for this view would be... what? That papers get published that disagree with what you've been told is the truth?

I'm not a scientist, but I've worked with scientists and have helped some of them respond to peer review comments. If you've ever actually seen peer review at work, it's the farthest thing from groupthink there is. You have to remember: scientists in a field are competitors.

Each reviewer has a distinctive persona or style. Some reviewers are obviously very nice people. They try really hard to be constructive and helpful, and bend over backwards being diplomatic. Most reviewers are blunt and too the point: they've obviously skimmed through the paper and picked what seems to the low-hanging fruit. And more than a few reviewers are gratuitously nasty, even sarcastic, like middle school mean girls riffing on the wardrobe choices of an unpopular classmate.

Now to me the really fascinating thing about the whole process was how useful the mean girl criticism was. Here's the thing: the mean ones don't phone it in, they really want you to know what a idiot you are compared to them. It turns out, they're the ones most worth listening to.

Re:It's Called Science

[Darinbob]

Peer review is about reviewing the articles, the methodology, etc. It is not fool proof which is why you wait for later papers that help to improve the knowledge. Few papers stand on their own. Many of them just present evidence and are intended to encourage others to use that evidence or add to it.

If you wait until 100% certainty of conclusions before any paper is published then no papers will ever be published.

Re: It's Called Science

[Darinbob]

Ah, but it's a political agenda also to claim that there is a political agenda. If you yank the politics out of it, then there is still science occuring here. Whether or not the conclusions hold up over time has nothing to do with politics except for those intent on creating and inflaming culture wars.

Re:It's Called Science

[Layzej]

I'll take empirical evidence, thank you.

That's good, but for consilience you need agreement between multiple lines of empirical evidence. For example, you may be satisfied that global temps are warming by looking at one of the instrumental record, but for consilience you need to confirm that all instrumental records agree, as well as satellite records. And in fact they do!

But on top of that you would want to confirm that sea level rise and glacial melt due to that warming is in line with expectations. Then you may also look at poleward migrations and extended growing seasons, etc, etc, etc,

If everything agrees then you have consilience. If there is a minority report, then there is an avenue for further research, but it is unlikely that the minority report will overthrow the consensus.

Re:It's Called Science

[Kyr Arvin]

So what? He is exactly the kind of 'unqualified outsider' that is repeatedly told to shut the fuck up by 'real climate scientists'.

"Unqualified outsiders" are not told to shut the fuck up by "real researchers" if they can point out actual specific methodology errors. The STFU comes when people who DON'T know what they're talking about and can't do/understand the science throw bombs because they don't like the results but don't have objections that disprove the research.

Re:It's Called Science

[LynnwoodRooster]

So then, the claimed defense of "it's a peer reviewed report!" means little, and in fact a paper that is published - regardless of peer-review or not - should carry the same weight.

Re:It's Called Science

[Shotgun]

And yet, we have groups trolling the scientific publications with hillariously fake "science" and getting published.

Re: It's Called Science

[Shotgun]

A recent Nobel Prize winner calculated that we would need a 4C rise before it would make economic sense to intervene.

Re: It's Called Science

[Darinbob]

Why do you say this is political? What evidence do you have except that you don't agree with them? Their paper even after correcting still indicates that there is heating, it does not refute the climate change theories, all it means is that their "it's accelerating faster than expected" conclusion is now "it's still accelerating".

Re:It's Called Science

[reboot246]

Correct, but the problem is that when you publish something so sensational that it grabs the public's attention, you better make sure it's right. Now we're left with millions of people who remember the original claim and very few who ever hear the correction. Years from now people will still be quoting the original study and using it as part of their agenda. We don't need that, do we?

Re:It's Called Science

[Layzej]

Some details on how this changes the results are available here:

"...which yields a OHC trend of 1.21 ± 0.72 x 10^22 J/yr (previously 1.33 ± 0.20 x 10^22 J/yr),"

Re: It's Called Science

[LynnwoodRooster]

How much of that heating is man-made? If it's not at least 50% - then it's political, not natural. Do they address that? Does ANY model address natural climate change? The IPPC - by its very charter - ignores any natural impact on climate, assuming that all changes are man-made. If it's not man-made, but natural, then it's effectively out of our control, and thus demands we "must do something!" is simply a way of controlling what people do - because the solution is effectively out of our control.

Re: It's Called Science

[Darinbob]

Natural effects most certainly can be controlled by people. Ie, if there's going to be flooding then it makes sense to plan for flooding, put in flooding control, stuff like that, no matter if it's man-made or natural flooding. The attitude that we don't do anything if climate change is natural is very fatalistic.

Re:It's Called Science

[swillden]

So what? He is exactly the kind of 'unqualified outsider' that is repeatedly told to shut the fuck up by 'real climate scientists'.

No one is telling him to shut up. If you point out real problems, real climate scientists are happy to listen. Which is exactly what happened in this case.

Re:It's Called Science

[LynnwoodRooster]

And peer review did not catch the error, it took and independent, 3rd party individual looking at it, saying "that doesn't make sense", and running through the equations. In other words, it took a skeptic to actually check.

Re:It's Called Science

[LynnwoodRooster]

The issue is that the models do NOT agree with the data, and that becomes problematic because the future catastrophes that are predicted (and used as justification for the latest and greatest round of taxation/regulation) rely upon the models, not the data.

So if the data doesn't show anything scary (in fact, we've had the exact same climate change in 1895 to 1943 as we saw in 1957 to 2005), then why the concern? Because the faulty models say their should be a concern. But since the models don't match reality - which do we believe? Data or models? Like the GP - I'll take the empirical evidence, thank you (and in fact, I'll take the unadulterated data that is tweaked to show a heating trend when there was, per the original data, a cooling trend).

Re: It's Called Science

[LynnwoodRooster]

One trend is from the late 19th century, the other from the late 20th century. Both have the same temperature pattern. One supposedly is caused by man's CO2 output, the other from nature. How do we know the impact of natural heating? We really can't control that level - it's a baseline change that happens and we may add or subtract from it - but we certainly can't control it...

Re:It's Called Science

[Layzej]

Models projected a warming of about 0.2C/decade. (per IPCC). Instrumental record shows between 0.18C/decade(HADCRU) to 0.2C/decade (BEST). Satellite record shows between 0.18C/decade(UAH) and 0.21C/decade (RSS). It's possible for Spencer to use misaligned graphs to fool the credulous, but the trend is exactly in line with projections. You can check for yourself.

So if the data doesn't show...

Everything beyond that line seems to be rendered impotent by the fact that the premise is false (not to mention the conspiracy theory website references XD).

Re:It's Called Science

[hey!]

Right, so if a group happens to think differently from you, that's groupthink?

Stuff that upsets the applecart is what a scientist wants to publish, and a journal wants to be the one that publishes that paper. Everyone wants the apple car to get turned over, but nobody wants it to be turned over for no reason. Just like every baseball fan wants to see a no-hitter, but nobody wants to see a no-hitter because the umpire gives the pitcher a huge strike zone.

Re:It's Called Science

[hey!]

Alright, examples? And I mean real scientific journals like Nature publishing obvious trolls, not predatory journals.

Re: It's Called Science

[Darinbob]

We can control how we deal with the effects even if we can't control the effects. Ie, put in earthquake codes for new buildings even if you can't prevent earthquakes.

But we know that human activity is indeed contributing to the climate, no one with a brain should be denying that, the disagreement should only be over how much we are affecting it. Which means that limiting greenhouse gases is a good idea even if it is only a small contributor to the overall warming.

Re: It's Called Science

[CoolDiscoRex]

Sea-Tac airport is once again breaking travel records, and traffic is a jammed as ever.

Study after study finds that, the more likely one is to believe in climate change, the greater the carbon footprint of the person.

Self-described âoeprogressivesâ take more flights per year, and fly more miles than self-described âoeconservativesâ.

Municipalities fail to highlight climate-change as a thread when it comes to selling their own municipal bonds.

There is an overwhelming amount of evidence which shows that even the most vehement believers in climate change, almost completely disregard its threat when it might incovenience them. This would not be the case, for instance, if an asteroid were hurtling toward the earth.

In the end âoedo as we say, not as we doâ, is simply not an affective stragegy. Climate Change as an issue is little more than a dog whistle for proponents of the current oligarchal rule. Generall people whom the government has served quite well, to the point that they donâ(TM)t understand anyone who doesnâ(TM)t trust the government to do everything for them.

Evidence that people are actually worried about climate change it is scarce to non-existent. Since the more affluent one is, the highe oneâ(TM)s carbon footprint on average, this is simply not the working-classâ(TM)s problem to solve. You guys could go a long way toward solving it all by yourselves, and your dirty little secret, is that you donâ(TM)t need the non-beleivers to believe in order for you to do so. Youâ(TM)re just using them to scapegoat your own continued inaction.

Scapegoating the working-class for the sins of the affluent is usually a successfull ruse, the dead horse has just been beaten one too many times lately.

Youâ(TM)d have better luck waiting a couple years then trying again.

When people arenâ(TM)t sure where their next meal is coming from, they could not care less what the sea-level in Malibu will be in 60 years.

When you have all of your immediate needs met, though, you can afford to suffer one moral panic after another, and even make up threats altogether if you have to. You know, like fretting over whether or not trans people are offended because they have to poop in a closed stall in the menâ(TM)s room.

If youâ(TM)re worried about the climate, explain to mellinials, the most travelled generation ever, that a single flight in coach puts out as much CO2 per person than a private automobile for an entire year.

Then, ask them how they can take that flight back home or the holidays when it means the certain destruction of the planet.

Maybe when everyone else sees you all start to truly sacrifice for the issue, they will to.

Maybe.

Or you can just do the âoedo as we say not as we doâ thing, since it will at least convince the afflient progressive that youâ(TM)re one of them.

And really, isnâ(TM)t that the point? Or do you really think we think that you care how comfortable our deplorable grandchildren will be in 80 years?

Re: It's Called Science

[CoolDiscoRex]

Heys Slashdot, Iâ(TM)m not trying to be a penile implant (it just happens to come naturally), but is there really no way to fix the Apple quote thing? I mean, sure, Apple is a company made up of fuckwads and brainwashed users, but are iOS devices really so rare that you every post made by one should be mangled so mercilessly? Sure, as an Apple user, Iâ(TM)m used to taking up the pooper on a regular basis, but surely in 2018 thereâ(TM)s solution to this problem in the message board software somewhere, no?

Re: It's Called Science

[CoolDiscoRex]

Wait, let me guess, I need to buy a quotation mark conversion dongle for $29, donâ(TM)t I?

Re:It's Called Science

[Archtech]

"November Snow In Texas? Experts Warn Decreased Solar Activity Will Shatter All Global Climate Models"

"Our sun has been behaving very strangely, and this unusual behavior is really starting to affect our weather patterns. There have been virtually no sunspots in 2018 as solar activity has dropped to alarmingly low levels. As a result, our atmosphere has been cooling and shrinking, and experts are warning that we are heading for a bitterly, bitterly cold winter. And even though the official start of winter is well over a month away, winter weather is already sweeping the nation. As you will see below, a giant winter storm is about to slam into the east coast, but what is happening in Texas is even more unnerving. On Wednesday morning, the temperature in San Antonio plummeted to just 23 degrees, and that absolutely shattered the old record"

http://theeconomiccollapseblog...

Re:It's Called Science

[LynnwoodRooster]

We know, conclusively, that GISS data is heavily manipulated to show a slight decrease become a major increase and also the historical, published record is revised to completely change the narrative. How about HADCRUT? And Dr. Spencer conclusion is pretty definitive - everything starting at zero in 1979 (when the satellite and radiosonde data record begins) and the models do NOT agree with reality. So why believe the models?

Re: It's Called Science

[LynnwoodRooster]

We can control how we deal with the effects even if we can't control the effects. Ie, put in earthquake codes for new buildings even if you can't prevent earthquakes.

Fully agree! You can work to mitigate the damage from the event. But if prevailing wisdom was that sacrificing virgins would stop earthquakes, yet we don't know what really causes earthquakes, should be up our sacrifice rate?

But we know that human activity is indeed contributing to the climate, no one with a brain should be denying that, the disagreement should only be over how much we are affecting it. Which means that limiting greenhouse gases is a good idea even if it is only a small contributor to the overall warming.

Yes, how much. Is 2% more going to be catastrophic? Do we know that more CO2 will actually increase the temperature? Because that is what the models assume but the models don't track reality, probably because the IPCC and the models don't have a clue about how to accurately model the effects of clouds. Maybe CO2 doesn't drive the temperature change we're seeing, meaning focusing on it is wasted effort. That would also explain why we see the same temperature changes in the late 1800s and late 1900s, even though the rate of change and magnitude of CO2 in the atmosphere was radically different.

Re:It's Called Science

[Layzej]

More conspiracy theories. Funny how Spencer's own temperature reconstruction agrees with the "manipulated" GISS data. Spencer must be part of the conspiracy!

And Dr. Spencer conclusion is pretty definitive - everything starting at zero in 1979 (when the satellite and radiosonde data record begins)

But he didn't start at 1979. He pins everything at 1983. Not 1979. Any guess why? Because if he didn't, it would have looked more like this. Is there any part of you that is the least bit curious? That asks, "if the temp trend since 1983 is exactly as the models projected then how can we conclude that the models failed?"

Re:It's Called Science

[Gr8Apes]

Anyone building on previous work should be checking said work to be sure their own continuing work is valid. I know I did that when I did my paper. Interestingly enough, the work I built on had the right conclusions but the supporting work it was based on was incorrect, or at the very least based on badly processed data. It just so happened that the errors in the process happened to not manifest too strongly for their limited cases in their presentation. Or maybe they limited their cases to those that fit their empirical observations? Who knows, but the underlying work had major flaws.

Re: It's Called Science

[Gr8Apes]

Sure we can, I mean there's at least 30% of us in the US that aren't members of either major party, nor any party at all.

Re: It's Called Science

[dcw3]

Not disagreeing, but you wouldn't know it by talking to people on either side. And FWIW, tribalism has been on the rise in the US for quite some time now...

https://fivethirtyeight.com/fe...

Re:It's Called Science

[Shotgun]

Oh, Jeez! Really!?

https://www.chronicle.com/arti...

Re:It's Called Science

[Layzej]

The error was _not_ found by a 'climate scientist'.

He certainly styles himself as such. Nicholas Lewis, an independent Climate Science Researcher, based in the UK. Quoting https://www.nicholaslewis.org/.

Not only that, he's referenced in the latest IPCC report as an authority.on climate sensitivity. I'm not sure how much more mainstream you can be? For example.

When the prior distribution fails to taper off for high sensitivities, as is the case for uniform priors (Frame et al., 2005), this leads to long tails (Frame et al., 2005; Annan and Hargreaves, 2011; Lewis, 2013). Uniform priors have been criticized (e.g., Annan and Hargreaves, 2011; Pueyo, 2012; Lewis, 2013) since results assuming a uniform prior in ECS translates instead into a strongly structured prior on climate feedback parameter and vice versa (Frame et al., 2005; Pueyo, 2012). Objective Bayesian analyses attempt to avoid this paradox by using a prior distribution that is invariant to parameter transforms and rescaling, for example, a Jeffreys prior (Lewis, 2013).

Etc...

This just in: science is messy

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

>> Two weeks after the high-profile study was published in the journal Nature, its authors have submitted corrections to the publication.

Quit trying to time your studies around US election dates and we'll all be better off. (E.g. many informed people already mostly ignore employment and GCP numbers because they always expect significant corrections to the just-announced figures just around the corner.)

Re:This just in: science is messy

[houghi]

So if I decide to NOT publish around US election dates, that would be better?

Re:This just in: science is messy

[thegarbz]

Quit trying to time your studies around US election dates and we'll all be better off.

Since this is science we're talking about: Correlation does not imply causation.

Re:This just in: science is messy

[hey!]

Oh, for pete's sake. Nature is a British journal; it's editor is a British biomedical researcher. The study's lead author is a French oceanographer working at an American university.

It's conspiracy theory thinking to believe this paper was somehow timed to coincide with the US election. How is that supposed to work exactly? Somebody who doesn't believe in global warming is going to have his mind changed because of a letter published in Nature?

Scientists do sometimes rush, but what they're worried about isn't undecided voters; they're worried about other scientists publishing first. The first scientist to publish a result gets the credit, the citations, the glory, and in rare cases awards. Publish the same results a month later, and you may get a somewhat smaller share of citations, and that's it, even if your path to the result is more solid.

Read historical accounts of Watson and Crick's discovery of the double helix; they were terrified that Linus Pauling would beat them to the punch, to the point that they did some ethically dubious things. My wife, who is a scientist, and I were binge watching a mystery series that isn't very good from a "fair play" standpoint. One of the cheap tricks it uses is giving the culprit a ridiculously non-credible motivation for killing. In one episode it turned the victim was murdered by her academic adviser so he could steal her discovery. "This one," my wife said, "is totally believable."

Re:This just in: science is messy

[argStyopa]

I've thought for years that US elections would be far more compelling and less open to gaming if each year, people were randomly selected like a draft for "OK you can vote in the next 2 week period" rather than the primitive 'everyone has to vote today' system.

You could even make it reasonably anonymous, like the draft system does, by doing it by birthday. Either you have a 2 week span after your birthday to vote for any candidate up for election the coming November election deadline, or they do a date-randomizing, so for example everyone with birthday of Jan 3 would vote this year on....Aug 28th (or whatever).

Expedited results

[OffTheLip]

main lesson is that you work as fast as you can to fix mistakes

Same argument could be made for rushing out findings, perhaps under pressure?

Re:Expedited results

[fibonacci8]

As though an "invisible hand" shoves people into publishing early and often.

Re:Expedited results

[thegarbz]

Who said anything about rushing? That's an assumption you're making because a mistake has been made. Rushing leads to mistakes, but not all mistakes are caused by rushing.

Arguing scientists?

[Anonymous Coward]

Somebody just threw cold water on someone else's report.

Too damn funny

[Crashmarik]

There's one hell of a lot of slashtards that are wishing comments could be deleted today.

Re:Too damn funny

[Opportunist]

You can still afford this?

Then why are you complaining, things are looking great for you!

Re:Too damn funny

[DigressivePoser]

There's one hell of a lot of slashtards that are wishing comments could be deleted today.

Heh! Here's my favorite comment from PopeRatzo discussing the original study:

We were warned. Scientists told us this shit would happen, but fucking sheeple just had to believe what Republicans told them because they were white and by denying climate change, they could own the libs.

So now, fuck you. I'm living in a place that's going to be one of the last places to suffer with climate change and the rest of you over in Florida, South Carolina, Louisiana, Houston, Texas and all the shitholes that are going to suffer the most can eat shit and die. Your lives were forfeit anyway when you started voting Republican and eating oxycontin and KFC gravy bowls like your flabby disgrace of a president. We will all be better off when you're floating face down in the Gulf of Mexico.

Have a blessed day!

So much emotional capital wasted that could've been spent harassing his ex-wife.

Re:Too damn funny

[thegarbz]

Interesting that you default to people wanting to delete their comments rather than say simply changing their view given new information and standing by their original comment given the information they had at the time.

Re:Too damn funny

[Crashmarik]

Interesting given who it was that started with the name calling.
Thegarbz https://slashdot.org/comments....

Interesting that you default to people wanting to delete their comments

If you are going to stalk me at least get some decent material

Re:Too damn funny

[SlaveToTheGrind]

So much emotional capital wasted that could've been spent harassing his ex-wife.

What, did Sanja finally move on? That could explain why he's been extra cranky lately.

...and this will...

[tmshort]

...be used by Client Change/Science Deniers "to prove" that it's just a big hoax and a big conspiracy...

Re:...and this will...

[fatwilbur]

Perhaps, but it definitely does prove we are all too eager to prove it will be a disaster rather than thoughtful analysis. The climate change zealots (who, if you classify everyone with skepticism as a denier, will simply be the label they likewise adopt for anyone who believes we are all doomed) have a vested interest in more and severe impacts being found, and non-impacts or inconsistencies being buried. I've seen this with plant growth, sea level rise, and even polar bears. While the data might be correct, we have seriously miscalculated almost every impact to date, and thus anyone should approach claims we are approaching disaster with proper skepticism, but instead are labeled "deniers" by yourself.

Re:Mistakes cost billions.

[DogDude]

You're right. Not doing something climate change right away is costing trillions of dollars and lives. The world's citizens and their governments need to get on this problem *yesterday*.

Re:We're running about 20 degrees below avg this m

[DogDude]

Climate is a measure of the sum total of weather in an area over a 30 year average.

Re:We're running about 20 degrees below avg this m

[Crash Dummy Redux]

We have smoke in the air and it's not even Thanksgiving. The air quality of the San Francisco Bay Area from the Butte County fire is worse than Beijing.

Climate change is fake!

[DogDude]

OMG! Scientists are all lairs, trying to make billions of dollars for themselves. They were just caught lying again. Climate change is Fake News!

I think that captures a good portion of the posts we'll see here. The truth is that the IPCC studies are summaries of tens of thousands of studies, and they all point to the same problem and the same cause and the same predictions. Humankind is still largely fucked, whether this one researcher miscalculated uncertainty in this one study or not.

Re:Climate change is fake!

[DogDude]

Try again troll. It's called science.

Always do your error bars properly.

[seeker_1us]

I am shocked that a paper got published in Nature with faulty uncertainty analysis.

Re:We're running about 20 degrees below avg this m

[Opportunist]

We recently had some spring flowers starting to bloom. And it's generally way too warm for the season.

Local weather means jack shit.

Re:A lie can travel halfway around the world...

[Evtim]

"Truth is female, since truth is beauty rather than handsomeness; this, Ridcully reflected as the council grumbled in, would certainly explain the saying that a lie could run around the world before Truth has got its, correction, her boots on, since she would have to choose which pair - the idea that any woman in a position to choose would have just one pair of boots being beyond rational belief.

Indeed, as a goddess she would have lots of shoes, and thus many choices: comfy shoes for home truths, hobnail boots for unpleasant truths, simple clogs for universal truths and possibly some kind of slipper for self-evident truth.

More important right now was what kind of truth he was going to have to impart to his colleagues, and he decided not on the whole truth, but instead on nothing but the truth, which dispensed with the need for honesty.”

Terry Pratchett, Unseen academicals

"Assume a Spherical Cow"

[cirby]

That's the basic type of mistake they made with this one.

Re:"Assume a Spherical Cow"

[dcw3]

See, they didn't do their homework. Cows are better represented by parabolas according to the National Institute of Health...
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

Alarmist climate prediction based on bad science

[reanjr]

I am utterly shocked that an alarmist climate prediction would be made based on bad science. Shocked. What is this world coming to? So crazy. I've never even heard of such a thing. Everyone knows there is scientific consensus on this. It's solved science. I don't even understand why scientists still study climate since the science is so God damned settled.

Shocked...

that's not what peer review does

[goombah99]

If you think Peer review catches mistakes then you need to learn more about peer review because that's not what it does.

Peer review looks to see if the methods are reasonable to the task, if the authors show an awareness of the literature on the topic and by consequence know the pitfalls and problems others have overcome. It looks to see if the finding support the strength of the conclusions. And when possible it looks for gaps or alternative hypotheses that would have been reasonable to rule out given the strength of the conclusions.

it does not check the work in detail that's essentially impossible except for glaring errors. Many peers won't even fully understand the topic but are experience enough to know how to check reasonableness of the approach and support for conclusions.

In this case the retraction is not of the main finding. Their data are still fully consistent with the stated mean energy absorption. What they are retracting is the error bars on that analysis. It's the difference between saying the mean of a set of data is wrong, and the probability the mean of the data is different by 30% than the actual mean. They got the probability wrong. So their findings are less certain in strength.

Re:that's not what peer review does

[msauve]

"If you think Peer review catches mistakes..."

It obviously doesn't always. I said it's supposed to, which is true. Nature's peer review policy specifically calls for reviewers to assess the "Appropriate use of statistics and treatment of uncertainties...Referees are expected to identify flaws..." You should have your posts peer reviewed to try and avoid further mistakes.

Re:that's not what peer review does

[TrekkieGod]

Exactly. The only thing I'd like to add is a slight comment on this one sentence:

If you think Peer review catches mistakes then you need to learn more about peer review because that's not what it does.

To be fair, it does. The problem here is the assumption that peer review refers only to the reviewers who look at unpublished manuscripts before accepting them for publication. That's the first level of it, but it's only going to catch the most obvious issues with methodology, lack of sufficient literature review, conclusions that aren't well supported by provided data, etc. It's what you get when somebody in your basic field spends an hour reading your paper.

The bulk of peer review happens after the fact. The paper is published, it's read by a much larger pool of scientists in the field, many with competing theories that can offer a different viewpoint and analysis. Other research groups attempt to reproduce any experiments and can publish confirmation or inability to reproduce, etc.

It doesn't always go this smoothly: A lot of papers end up not getting published in prestigious journals like Nature, so not enough eyes look at every paper. Journals have a bias against negative results, so it's harder to publish papers that just reproduces somebody else's work and confirms they got the same result (unless it's a hot topic and/or controversial result), so not as much work gets done in that area as there should be done. That said, the basic process is sound, and the thing to take away from stories like these isn't, "climate scientists are wrong." It's, "climate scientists are the ones that point out when they are wrong after further review, because that's what scientists do. They're not protecting an agenda, and they're constantly looking for errors in each others' work."

Re:that's not what peer review does

[Anonymous Coward]

Disclaimer: I have done vast amounts of peer review in my field (physics) but did not review this paper.

You've missed the point of what peer review actually does. It identifies errors of logic, and checks for feasibility. It does NOT redo calculations. In this case, the stats and uncertainties were treated appropriately, but calculated wrong. Peer review is NOT designed to catch that kind of error. If it were, it would take me as long to review a paper as many authors take to write it, or even longer as they'll be better at the calculations than I am.

A mistake is akin to making a slip in some algebra, or adding together thousands of numbers and missing one. We don't catch that. A flaw is saying something like "Apples are red. This item is red. Therefore this item must be an apple". An error of logic, or an infeasible conclusion.

Re:that's not what peer review does

[Darinbob]

Doesn't always find mistakes? This paper is relatively new. Is there a time limit that science puts in place before errors can be found? We have found errors in papers that are a century old. About the only time that mistakes aren't found given enough time is when a paper is ignored and no one looks at it, in which case an unread paper with errors isn't much of a problem.

Re: that's not what peer review does

[Darinbob]

No, they claimed that the evidence they saw could occur with a probability different than what it should have been. They claimed that the apple was was redder than it actually was.

For the standard auto analogy, they handed out a ticket for going 50MPH over the limit when it should have only been for 25MPH over the limit.

"deniers" only real scientists here

[SuperKendall]

This is what science does. People find something and publish the results for everyone to look at. If there is something wrong, other people point it out, and they go back to the drawing board.

(A) You can only do that if you have the data to question, which climate "scientists" are not always forthcoming with, or have run through magical adjustment algorithms you cannot have or question.

(B) Anyone questioning the ocean-scare claims last week on Slashdot was called a denier - when all along it turns out they were the real scientists.

I hope everyone remembers this the next time a fear-mongering study is released with claims that far exceed the actual findings.

Re:"deniers" only real scientists here

[Geoffrey.landis]

This is what science does. People find something and publish the results for everyone to look at. If there is something wrong, other people point it out, and they go back to the drawing board.

(A) You can only do that if you have the data to question, which climate "scientists" are not always forthcoming with

To the contrary. All of the data is made publicaly available, as well as all of the computer codes.

or have run through magical adjustment algorithms you cannot have or question.

And all of the data adjustments are explained in detail, the reasons for data analysis explained, the codes made available, and the raw data available so you can do your own data analysis if you want. And at least five different groups on three continents do exactly that.

Re:"deniers" only real scientists here

[HornWumpus]

Boldly asserted lies.

Show us the link to the raw 'hockey stick data'. The best you will find are attempts to reconstruct it.

Show us the link to the adjusted historical data. The best you will find is records of previous years getting colder as time rolls forward.

Re:"deniers" only real scientists here

[religionofpeas]

Show us the link to the raw 'hockey stick data'.

Which one ? Can you provide a direct link to the paper ?

Re:"deniers" only real scientists here

[Dr_Terminus]

Easy. 'Hockey stick data' is at https://crudata.uea.ac.uk/cru/... You will find raw station data at https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/h...

Like Geoffrey said, all the data is available. Your lack of searching doesn't mean it isn't there.

Re:"deniers" only real scientists here

[HornWumpus]

Those are the proxies. They never show how they got those from the raw data. You post links to both, but nobody can show how they got from 2 to 1.

Outsiders have attempted to redo Mann's work and have posted a reconstruction that produces similar results. Those reconstructions show lots of finagling.

Re:"deniers" only real scientists here

[religionofpeas]

Which one what? The hockey stick data is a long discussed set, which you're not doubt fully aware of.

There have been several 'hockey stick' graphs published, by various people, using different kinds of data sets.

Re:"deniers" only real scientists here

[religionofpeas]

They never show how they got those from the raw data. You post links to both, but nobody can show how they got from 2 to 1.

And you have read all the papers ?

Re:"deniers" only real scientists here

[LynnwoodRooster]

So which dataset do we believe? Because even a single "source" dramatically edits the past. This is 1984 level stuff where data is simply outright changed with no justification, it just is - and a new crisis is manufactured out of whole-cloth that did not exist with the original data covering the exact same years.

Re:"deniers" only real scientists here

[LynnwoodRooster]

The hockey stick that didn't exist unless you cooked your data, and then did everything possible to prevent anyone from looking at your data and examining your methods. In other words, an illusion built to support a preconceived position and distributed in a such a way as to prevent peer review.

Re:"deniers" only real scientists here

[LynnwoodRooster]

That data is a bastardization of many alternate sites cherry-picked and blended to achieve the desired result. Just check the graph at the end of the article to see the "golden CRU data" from 5 cherry-picked trees, versus that of 34 trees from a different researcher. The former has a big upturn - the latter shows a gentle cooling.

Re:"deniers" only real scientists here

[Dr_Terminus]

What does that even have to do with what I posted. Your article is talking about tree ring reconstructions. The links I posted are of temperature station data having nothing to do with tree rings. Please try to keep up...

Re:"deniers" only real scientists here

[Geoffrey.landis]

The data adjustment is discussed in a lot of detail by the Berkeley project: http://berkeleyearth.org/under...
If you want less detail and more of an overview, try the Guardian article: https://www.theguardian.com/en...

Re:"deniers" only real scientists here

[LynnwoodRooster]

So in 1999, less than 20 years ago, we had the 1930s warmer than today. Then in 2012, the data was edited to reverse that position. It was purely statistical manipulation that caused the change. The data is still the data, but the way it's massaged was changed. There is no justification for that - flat out. It's falsifying the past. But that's OK, you can be be happy, the old days of 30 grams of chocolate are gone as we've now seen Big Brother increase our allotments to 25 grams!

Re:"deniers" only real scientists here

[LynnwoodRooster]

The data is not available - only the massaged results are available. The raw data would probably show a different result, much like the raw GISS data shows a different result after it's heavily massaged.

Re:"deniers" only real scientists here

[Dr_Terminus]

Please work on your reading comprehension. I post the raw data that was requested and you keep saying its not available. Then again you provide a link to a completely different dataset that has nothing to do with the raw data I posted. Typical denier misdirection. I guess if the facts aren't on your side, all you can do is attempt misdirection.

Re:"deniers" only real scientists here

[LynnwoodRooster]

No, the data is NOT available. In the top of that page is the massaged results. Further down the page there is link to the HadCrut Met office data - but the link (this one) is dead. You cannot down the raw data, you can only get the data after it's processed. Go check.

I think this proves beyond a shadow of a doubt

[rsilvergun]

that Manbearpig isn't real. I for one am relieved.

(Climate) Science needs to be more careful

[Faizdog]

Given the political and public spotlight on climate science, researchers need to be extra careful and make sure their work is rigorous.

Why was this mistake made? Was there a rush to publish and people worked quickly?

Since this is such a (incorrectly) controversial area, instances like this linger in the zeitgeist.

Years from now, internet trolls and conspiracy theorists will point back to this one instance as an example of how climate science is wrong, benignly mistaken, or at worst, maliciously disingenuous.

It won't matter that this was a mistake, in one study amongst many, and that the error was in the magnitude of ocean warming; the overall conclusion that the oceans are warming is not in question.

Re:(Climate) Science needs to be more careful

[DogDude]

Internet trolls and conspiracy theorists won't stop. Science makes mistakes. It doesn't matter if those groups can't or won't understand that.

Re:(Climate) Science needs to be more careful

[Geoffrey.landis]

Given the political and public spotlight on climate science, researchers need to be extra careful and make sure their work is rigorous.

Yes, it would be nice if all scientists were perfect and nobody made mistakes ever. In the real world, however, the way science works is that scientists are supposed to acknowledge it when they find errors, and correct the error. Which is what they did.

Why was this mistake made? Was there a rush to publish and people worked quickly?

The error was apparently in the uncertainty analysis. Uncertainty analyses turn out to be hard to do.

that's right

[DogDude]

We'll be hearing about the oceans heating faster then expected for decades.

Unfortunately, we will hearing about it for decades, because it's true.

Re:that's right

[forkfail]

Based on... what?

The authors have already admitted that their paper and math lack credibility.

Maybe somebody else will come along and support their conclusions.

If that were to happen, we'd call it "science".

Until then, however, unequivocally embracing the conclusion based on admitted flawed premises is something quite different than science.

Re:that's right

[jbmartin6]

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

Re:that's right

[Geoffrey.landis]

We'll be hearing about the oceans heating faster then expected for decades.

Unfortunately, we will hearing about it for decades, because it's true.

Based on... what?

If you looked at the link given in the summary, you would have seen the statement "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."

So, yes: the post you are replying to is accurate, this is not new; their conclusion was in line with previous studies. The main difference is that they were using a different technique based on different measurements to do their analysis.

The authors have already admitted that their paper and math lack credibility.

Close. The authors have already admitted that their uncertainty analysis was inaccurate, enough that the uncertainty does not support their conclusion.

Good for them. Acknowledging flaws is key to science.

Maybe somebody else will come along and support their conclusions. If that were to happen, we'd call it "science".

Exactly. That is how science is done; different groups analyzing and replicating earlier work.

Re:that's right

[msauve]

"the post you are replying to is accurate, this is not new; their conclusion was in line with previous studies... The authors have already admitted that... the uncertainty does not support their conclusion."

Logic fail.

Re:that's right

[DogDude]

The IPCC consists of tens of thousands of studies that all tend to correlate very strongly with each other. There's plenty of science out there. This isn't the only climate change study in the world, any more than you're the only person in the world.

Re:that's right

[DogDude]

"climategate" was a false narrative created by conspiracy kooks and funded by the oil and gas industries. Benghazi! Big Foot! Leprechauns!

Re:Alarmist climate prediction based on bad scienc

[DogDude]

The science isn't bad. A mathematical calculation is bad. The science on climate change is solid and getting better every day.

Re:A lie can travel halfway around the world...

[HornWumpus]

Truth is beauty and beauty truth.

Henceforth all science will be evaluated as poetry by courts of law.

Para: The Hitchhiker's Guide...

Re: Mistakes cost billions.

[Etcetera]

You don't believe that global warming is a problem? But how exactly does switching to *economically competitive* wind or solar hurt things?

It might very well be a good idea, but the evaluation takes on a different tone when it's "this has many upsides and fewer downsides" rather than "do this or we'll kill you because we're all gonna die".

Many of the climate groups that have been the most effective are the ones that search for things that all parties can agree on rather than try to impose their (debatable) senses of conclusivity and morality upon the others.

Question to /.

[Evtim]

May I ask all those who gleefully go about "stupid scientists that keep on correcting themselves", "climate change conspiracy" and so on...

Do you know of any other system of acquiring knowledge about the world that is willing to disclose all its results and methods and corrects itself in the face of facts? Gazillion times. Until what remains IS the truth or the closest model to reality there can be. Do you know of any other system that has produced anything even remotely as useful as science?

WELL, DO YOU?

Feel free to explain to all of us how the other systems (magic, philosophy and religion) are superior.

Theory and models.

[Geoffrey.landis]

Climate Change, "theory" purports to predict all things.

Climate change "theory" is very straightforward. It "purports" that carbon dioxide has infrared absorption bands that are well known, well measured, and well understood, and we can use this absorption to model radiative transport of heat in the infrared.

Climate change models make predictions. They do not, however, "purport to predict all things". In fact, they predict a relatively small number of things. One thing they do predict global average temperature... but even here, this is with a quoted uncertainty of about ±50%.

They don't predict weather.

As a result, its proponents have set up a situation where their, "theory" cannot be falsified.

to the contrary, it could be easily falsified. Climate scientists compare data to models all the time to check how well the models do.

So far, the models are holding up rather well.

Re:Theory and models.

[HornWumpus]

Nonsense. They have had to throw away all the most alarmist models/datasets.

Some of the early ones were so bad the first gnat exhale of CO2 would have led to inevitable venus like conditions. They just like to pretend they never published those now.

Feeling has no place in Science

[SuperKendall]

if being called a denier hurt your feelings

To be clear here Mr Coward, my feelings are never hurt being called a Denier, because I know what that really means - that I stand for true Science, for the right for anyone to question results even when everyone else claims the results are obviously correct and need no verification. It means the person trying to make someone else "feel bad" is coming from a weak position where they cannot argue on merits.

I am talking about science; I notice you seem to focus a lot on "feelings". Your "feelings" are irrelevant to science and fact.

Re: Alarmist climate prediction based on bad scien

[reanjr]

Math is a critical component of science. It's that whole "measuring" component of science that gets you. The science is bad. Any attempt to argue otherwise is silly. Any attempt to straw man this into something else is illogical.

Not true

[DogDude]

They have had to throw away all the most alarmist models/datasets.

That's a lie.

Re: Alarmist climate prediction based on bad scien

[DogDude]

No, the science is not bad. RTFA.

Re: Alarmist climate prediction based on bad scie

[reanjr]

So you think the science that had faulty analysis and which drew faulty conclusions is good science? That's almost Trumpian. You have the greatest science, dude. Wonder why there's an issue with public trust in science...

Philosophy

[medv4380]

As much as Science has tried to divorce itself from Philosophy, it is still a subset of it as Natural Philosophy. It is a mistake for Science to ignore it as the mistakes it keeps making are very well covered by it. Climate Change is plagued with people utilizing Appeals to Authority, "its right because this expert said so," Ad Populum (consensus), and Ad Hom with Name calling dissenting opinions. All of it well-covered ground by Greek Philosophy. The desire by Scientists for Science to become greater has only lead to them having to relearn the same mistakes, and they are slow at it because of their Hubris.

Re:We're running about 20 degrees below avg this m

[techno-vampire]

Same here where I live. We also had a white Halloween. Alas, that's just local weather and doesn't mean diddly-squat on a global level.

Just to save time

[ilsaloving]

Just to save time and nip the inevitable anti-climate-change nonsense in the bud...

Nobody is disputing that the oceans are heating up. This is an argument over the details.

By comparison, it's like saying that the earth isn't spherical, which is correct. But the reason this is correct is not because the flat-earthers are right. The reason is that the earth is slightly egg-shaped. It is still for all intents and purposes, spherical. It's just a question of how specific you need to be.

Re:Just to save time

[ilsaloving]

And they're wrong on that count too. Yes, there are fluctuations in earth's temperatures, but the only times they've changed this drastically is during a cataclysmic event.

WE are the current cataclysmic event.

Russia is actually more accurate

[Anonymous Coward]

Couple of scientists one just recently a Nobel prize winner who were once on the climate change bandwagon. Say the Russian model does a much better job with its past temperature increases which were far more tepid then US and EU models. If you look at past history of these models the US/EU model is grossly over estimated for decades the increases compared to actually temperature averages. Whereas Russia's was almost spot on in comparison. Why didn't the US and EU include the Russian models to get another set of predictions? Or were the US and EU afraid its conclusions of climate change would be muted?

No surprise...

[bblb]

Folks have been screaming "the science is settled" over climate change for decades now when the reality is it's the furthest thing from it... the climate's changing is about the only accurate thing we can say, the rest is a politicized cash grab meant to drive industry in one direction or another.

No, can't be. The libs called me stupid already

[Oh really now]

... for doubting the report in the first place. Oh so smug in their certainty the report was solid, concrete, proven science!

Re:So what? So the claim was wrong!

[HornWumpus]

No. You're just repeating the claim again.

People with 'physics and math' backgrounds are routinely told to shut up about climate and dismissed by 'climate scientists'.

Also it's _not_ just about error bars, the mean value is also wrong. Read TFA.

In line with previous studies [Re:that's right]

[Geoffrey.landis]

the post you are replying to is accurate, this is not new; their conclusion was in line with previous studies...
The authors have already admitted that [their uncertainty analysis was inaccurate, enough that] the uncertainty does not support their conclusion."

Logic fail.

No. Here it is detailed out

1. Earlier studies concluded the oceans were warming faster than expected.

2. This study attempted to evaluate that using a different technique that relied on different measurements.

3 The study concluded that the oceans were warming than expected.

4. But the reanalysis said that the uncertainty was too high to be able to assert statement (3) with confidence.

No logic fail.
The two statement are both correct. The conclusion of this study was indeed in line with previous studies; and the uncertainty in this result does not support this study's conclusions (but has no bearing on the previous studies, which were done by different methods.)

it's all documented [Re:Theory and models.]

[Geoffrey.landis]

I skipped the third sentence because it is opinion unsupported by facts.

In fact, all the data adjustments are exhaustively documented, the reason for all the data analysis is discussed and justified, and the raw data and each step in analysis is available to the public.

Basically, you don't know anything about the subject, and can't be bothered to actually look up the data sources. But that's about par for the usual anonymous coward.

Models working pretty good [Re:Theory and models.]

[Geoffrey.landis]

it could be easily falsified. Climate scientists compare data to models all the time to check how well the models do.So far, the models are holding up rather well.

Nonsense. They have had to throw away all the most alarmist models/datasets.
Some of the early ones were so bad the first gnat exhale of CO2 would have led to inevitable venus like conditions. They just like to pretend they never published those now.

The earliest of the convective-radiative models using accurate measurements of infrared absorption-- that is to say, the ancestor of today's GCMs-- was Manabe and Wetherald 1967. Over the fifty years of data since the model was published, guess what? the theory is pretty well matching measurements.

  https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2017/03/15/the-first-climate-model-turns-50-and-predicted-global-warming-almost-perfectly/

  https://climategraphs.wordpress.com/2017/11/06/evaluating-the-prediction-of-manabe-and-wetherald-1967/

  https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2014/mar/19/global-warming-accurate-prediction-1972/

Re: Alarmist climate prediction based on bad scie

[DogDude]

The conclusions they drew were fine, they said. It was a difference of a degree of uncertainty. And yes, mistakes happen. That doesn't necessarily invalidate the entire study, no. You might want to learn how science works.

Re:We're running about 20 degrees below avg this m

[rastos1]

Over here (in Central Europe, latitude ~48 degrees) we had yesterday a report from a strawberry farm - they just had a 2nd harvest this year. This was plain outside farm, not a greenhouse. Normally this kind of strawberries is harvested in May. Nobody here remembers harvesting strawberries in November. Another report was about a guy having a second harvest of grapes. It's crazy.

Re:So what? So the claim was wrong!

[LynnwoodRooster]

How about Anthony Watts? He's repeatedly shouted down as "not qualified" even though he's a meteorologist. He's shouted down because he's a skeptic. I don't know how many times I've seen links to scholarly papers AND actual checks (like from Mr. Lewis, here), on his site dismissed because "Watts is a denier and not a climatologist!:

How about Dr. Roy Spencer, an actual NASA climate researcher, who is dismissed because he's also a skeptic and religious (in particular, Christianity). But because he's a "denier" and crazy "sky god" worshiper, he's dismissed - doesn't matter about the factual nature of his data or his research.

And that "slight fault with the error bars" is a shift from +/- 0.18 to +/- 0.72, a full 400% increase in the error (meaning the error window itself is greater than the magnitude of the underlying baseline - meaning it's little more than a guess).

Re:So what? So the claim was wrong!

[cpurdy]

Dr. Roy Spencer (and that other UAH professor whose name slips my mind at present) seeks money and fame from the policy positions that he is paid to take.

Dr. Roy Spencer of the Heartland Institute. Yeah, that Heartland Institute: "In the 1990s, the Heartland Institute worked with the tobacco company Philip Morris to question or deny the health risks of secondhand smoke and to lobby against smoking bans."

You try to frame this as religious persecution, but Dr. Roy Spencer is just a witch-doctor for hire.

Re:So what? So the claim was wrong!

[LynnwoodRooster]

The Dr. himself. NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal winner, and "Dr. Spencer’s research has been entirely supported by U.S. government agencies: NASA, NOAA, and DOE. He has never been asked by any oil company to perform any kind of service. Not even Exxon-Mobil." Or the word of #random guy on /. - I'll take the Good Doctor versus your slander.

PS: you prove my case; you don't like his conclusions, so you slander the man, and ignore his NASA data (not models - DATA) which shows that the IPCC models do not agree with reality. And then you choose the models over reality.

References [Re:"deniers" only real scientists here

[Geoffrey.landis]

As I said: The data adjustment is discussed in great detail by the Berkeley project: http://berkeleyearth.org/understanding-adjustments-temperature-data/

and if that's too much detail, try the Guardian article: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2016/feb/08/no-climate-conspiracy-noaa-temperature-adjustments-bring-data-closer-to-pristine

Or you can to to the GISS site: https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/faq/

Re:We're running about 20 degrees below avg this m

[Crash Dummy Redux]

Nah, just PG&E burning down the state again