Tuesday
Sep202011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Atlas mounting
Sep 20, 2011 Climate: other The brouhaha over the Times atlas seems to be developing legs, with NSIDC denying any involvement in the errors. But it not NSIDC, then who was it that supplied the duff data?
Maurizio Morabito has been examining the amusing possibility that the source was Wikipedia.
Reader Comments (72)
Jeremy -
A second to "All in it together"...The NASA chart to which you linked shows a similar drop of about 0.5 cm in 1998. I'd have to see a significant continuation of the decline before I'd suspect a regime change.
Billy Liar
One of the things that worries climate scientists is that the increase in GAT will accelerate as this century progresses. So not a linear phenomenon. Which is why 'all in it together' is wondering if/why MR assumes a linear melt-rate of the GIS.
Another way or defining just-so stories is the "Nostradamus Explanation", when things happen first and are hindcasted later
Harold, just to make clear: I do not claim that there is a meaningful drop. What I wanted to point out is that sometimes the consensus side seem to come up with unsubstantiated 'stories' to 'explain' every tiny wriggle that goes the 'wrong' way: too much snow is 'climate disruption'; flat-lining temps are Asian sulphate emissions; and now this. Something similar occurs for Arctic ice: 2007 was now, it seems, a natural variation downwards - so the quasi-tie in 2011 represents a new low in terms of the underlying trend. I call most of these stories just-so stories: unverifiable and perhaps even wrong.
Logic and the scientific method are futile in climatology.(As is well known to climatologists). However, the warmists are quite susceptible to the if the Murdoch's believe it, it must be wrong argument.
E.g. James Murdoch said in 2009: 'All of the climate prediction models suggest we're on the worst-case trajectory, and some cases worse than the worst case. That's my depressing take on it.'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/jun/07/james-murdoch
'worse than the worst case' indicates a particularly cataclysmic form of feedback - James is clearly well versed in the details of climate prediction models.
But, if James Murdoch approves of the models, doesn't this make the models wrong?
That wikipedia lead is not worth following. Sorry Mauricio.
The author of the wikipedia map seems to be a competent cartographer and references some of his sources. NSIDC provides ice thickness and surface elevation data, so I went to their web pages where the data is readily available and plot this map: http://img821.imageshack.us/img821/6374/greenland.jpg
If I can do in 15 minutes, I am sure the Times cartographers can do in less time without any help from Wikipedia.
The problem may be related to the 1999 data, what was used then by Times? Comparing it to the NSIDC data may not be appropriate.
By the way, this data from NSIDC is from 2001, and there are 15 papers, full of caveats, explaining the data: http://nsidc.org/cgi-bin/get_metadata.pl?id=nsidc-0092
I should also add that the main author, Bamber, is quite a sober scientist, his recent evaluation of Greenland mass balance is the opposite of alarmism.
Jeremy --
Agreed; I wrote my 6:40 before I saw your 6:37 post. Apologies for the cross-posting.
It seems that the link to the Greenland image was truncated:
http://tinyurl.com/66ysvjw
Paragon - the point is to make them come out clean. They haven't yet. Everybody knows they used thickness data, and badly so. Until they explain it in full, there's no way to know if they bothered going to the original sources, or just used Wikipedia or even Google Images for that matters.
Public stubbornness on the part of erring professionals doesn't just invite ridicule, it mandates it.
Mauricio, and probably they had planned the publicity stunt well, cashing on the alarmist news. They obviously not counting on a few glaciologists sticking to measurable facts.
Patagon -
It's worth noting that Drs Kargel, Betts, Stroeve, Dowdeswell & Mottram -- and perhaps others -- all spoke up quickly and clearly against the mistake. It is good to see such engagement, when they could have let it pass, the atlas being outside the usual scientific domain.
@ BBD
One of the things that worries climate scientists is that the increase in GAT will accelerate
How worried should we about things that worry not especially intelligent people?
'One of the things that worries climate scientists' is ....
the prospect of no future warming.
Hmmm ....... Hickman is clearly the go-to person for a frank and even-handed view on brainwashing kids - after all he was the author of that renowned impartial tome "Will Jellyfish Rule the World":-
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Will-Jellyfish-Rule-World-Climate/dp/0141323345/ref=sr_1_11?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1316548330&sr=1-11
about Wiki edits...why not just ask the central committee (who did ban Connolley) not to allow similarly aggressive editing reactions on a range of articles because of their controverial nature. I speak myself, as one, who edits Wiki articles from time to time, in areas that I can prove knowledge. Their tools fopr detecting malicious and potentially libellous edits are getting quite sophisticated now.
@ Pharos, 8.51pm:
Not at all. You must have missed the brand repositioning. Out with Global Warming (so, y'know, restrictive. In with Climate Change (pity they couldn't have shoehorned 'New' or 'Hope' in there), later refined to Global Climate Disruption.
Believing that the current green agenda is dependent on there being future (ugh) warming is so last season.
BTW: Loved Delingpole's take on this latest (totally isolated and unrepresentative of course), er, error.
Diogenes
I know my limitation and believe that I am not qualified professionally to contribute to WIKI.
In the matter of CG I do believe that human activity has impact, but I remain to be convinced that catastrophy is near.
What bugs me is how much children grew to rely on Wiki. Just a fortnight ago my daughter had to do a piece on global warming as part of her project and was happily munching WIKI. I could not help but had a chat with her. Her reply was food for thought. She said“Dad, I am not arguing with you. Its just for my grades. "
And this is how kids are being educated these days. There is no point arguing with the system,so do whatever it takes to geta good grade and move on. They don't really care about the truth. Or she just did not want to upset her Dad who knew so little, afterall Wiki the new Bible said so.
I've been following the story on quite a few blogs. Amazingly, my Wikipedia Hypothesis cannot yet be refuted (the Times Atlas doesn't seem to have acknowledged or being in the process of acknowledging the data source in print - the "500m thickness" excuse is poor, contradictory and baseless - they could have chosen different NSIDC data sets but went exactly for the one shown by the Wikipedia page I referred to - etc etc)..
I don't think even Michael Chrichton could have ever dreamed of a such a situation...
“The Times Atlas is renowned for its authority"
Perhaps that should now be 'was'? I have a new slogan for them: 'The Times Atlas - as good as Wikipedia'.
Josh - 'money for old Rupe' made me smile, too, but I can't claim originality. It was from a Private Eye cartoon a few months back and, as you may imagine, the phrase was hard to forget!
The story has hit the mainstream media where it matters:
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/environment/atlas-omits-huge-lump-of-arseholes-talking-about-climate-change-201109214333/
This should give pause for thought to anyone who thinks that we’re “winning”
Tom Logan, from Stevenage, added: "While Greenland does seem to be largely intact, if a doctor tells me I've got the flu, I'm more likely to believe him rather than some ponce who did English Lit and reckons my temperature is a left wing conspiracy."
The sad irony of this statement* is that the 'doctor' in the case of Climate Science is far more likely to be a ponce who did English Lit masquerading as a science journo.
The mis-identification of sceptics as moon-landing-denying nutjobs is one of the Team's finest moves.
* and you should never gauge public opinion from the comments section of a news webpage, only the lonely, mentally unstable and mad comment there
Ponce with English Lit? Can't be Mooney can he?
Climate science is in its infancy. Modern medicine started in the XVIII Century. If an XVIII Century doctor gave me a "cure", I'd run to the farthest hill.