Wednesday
Apr182012
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill A strange change in the sea ice data
Apr 18, 2012 Climate: WG2 The post to be reading this morning is Stephen Goddard's article about a strange change in the sea ice data.
Apr 18, 2012 Climate: WG2 
Reader Comments (72)
..........well that's just pathetic!
.......and desperate.
Hiding the incline, as one of the commenters there put it.
Aside from the that, seems there is more sea ice now than in 2007. But I thought it was supposed to be going steadily down ... ?
Also, the NORSEX Nansen ROOS data froze, as it neared the long term median, on April 5th and hasn't moved since.
http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/observation_images/ssmi1_ice_ext.png
A lot of stuff seems to going down the MINITRUTH memory hole at the moment.
Not again! FFS!!! These guys deserve to walk the plank.
Meier from NSIDC has just responded to Anthony Watts:-
"no problem - we just improved our data processing"
Sorry - forgot link
http://www.real-science.com/nsidc-part-2
It seems, to paraphrase Jack Nicholson, they can't handle the truth.
It's been remarked before how mysterious it is that 'improvements' to data invariably go the alarmist way.
Walt wrote this with a straight face! How?
"This change has been implemented in our test environment and we were going to roll it out some time in near future after we tested it for a bit we planned to announce the change. I think that by accident the test code got put into production. I’d need to confirm this, but from the plot differences, this looks like what likely happened."
Another test code case of a c c i d e n t l y shooting oneself in the foot?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2127776/Spanish-King-Juan-Carlos-grandson-Felipe-Juan-Froilan-shoots-foot.html
"This change has been implemented in our test environment and we were going to roll it out some time in near future after we tested it for a bit we planned to announce the change. I think that by accident the test code got put into production. I’d need to confirm this, but from the plot differences, this looks like what likely happened."
This is just like Bank "errors" - always in one direction.
Remind me, why don't we trust bankers?
[Snip - venting]
The link no longer works and it says there is no longer a cached version available?
Ross H
The website probably crashed due to net traffic. The graphical proof of the jiggery-pokery is just devastating, trust me.
For those who can't access the site, the most recent data show an improving ice situation. So they snipped that bit off.
Chris M
Thank you. It's back now and I agree, that's really a poor effort on their part. Tut tut.
Oh. Snipped. I thought you might be happy with my Damascene conversion.
Does anyone know why Anthony Watts isn't running with this?
I know he and Goddard had a falling out in the past...
Your Grace:
About time to upgrade your link Steven Goddard on the right.
You're linking to the old site.
Summarising:-
On April 5th NORSEX Nansen ROOS arctic sea ice extent hit the 30 yr trend line and has been offline ever since -
http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/observation_images
/ssmi1_ice_ext.png
Today NSIDC arctic sea ice extent was about to hit the 30yr trend line - until it was "accidentally" pulled back by a premature data processing change-
http://www.real-science.com/nsidc-part-2
Clearly the message has gone around "keep the plot below the long term trend to deny the sceptics a headline".
These people must think the general public is as dumb as they seem to be.
Is it time for another enviromental satellite to go off air?
Meier's narrow lines shouldn't. Time to ask for a proper display of uncertainty in the measurements.
Everything is being changed an almost a weekly basis. Check this thread for the changes at just one Antarctic station.
http://notrickszone.com/2012/04/13/hansen-shocks-adjusts-antarctica-temperatures-changes-warming-trend-to-cooling/
Paul Homewood has also been tracking temperature record changes in the Arctic, South America, and the US Midwest.
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/
Post modern science, data doesn't fit the models, smash the data in till it fits.
Very modern.
As I said when "CO2 leads temp" paper came out, every inconvenient fact that rebuts AGW is being blatantly wiped out by pure fabrications. No shame at all.
They wouldn't be able to constantly get away with this cr*p if a few decent scientists would call them on it. Why the continual deafening silence? When the whole CAGW farce finally shuffles off into the annals of colossal cockups, it'll be the whole of science that suffers the loss of reputation. Aren't scientists just a tad worried about that?
So we can add Deployment Management to the list of disciplined that aren't required for Science IT? I'm well aware that mistakes happen, but in many establishments that would be a sacking offence.
That should be "disciplines" not "disciplined". Damn you, iPad autocorrect! :-)
The true beleivers are the ones who have been weather chasing for decades now. Rewriting history, claiming any given weather event is *proof* of climate catastrophe, confusing daily fluctuations in Arctic ice pack is significant, ignoring Antarctic ice and ice pack, massaging data, hiding declines (and now increases), cherry picking, etc. etc. etc. etc. are all just their tools. The believers need frequent use of these tools to keep their faith and political power alive.
James Evans that problem why some of them defend the indefensible in the first place , not for any real commitment to 'the cause' For like a poker player that is all in, they either win or lose the lot .
They wouldn't be able to constantly get away with this cr*p if a few decent scientists would call them on it. Why the continual deafening silence? When the whole CAGW farce finally shuffles off into the annals of colossal cockups, it'll be the whole of science that suffers the loss of reputation. Aren't scientists just a tad worried about that?
Two reasons I think;
1) Saying the "correct" thing in climate science keeps the grant money coming in- and there's plenty of it!
2) Proper scientists are, by nature, cautious about venturing into a field different from their own.
Unfortunately this leaves the field open to charlatans like Mann.
Arctic ice death spiral postponed! This statement from 20 Sep 2010 may explain the desperation at NSIDC:
"The Arctic sea ice has reached its four lowest summer extents (area covered) in the last four years," said Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in the U.S. city of Boulder, Colorado.
The volume - extent and thickness - of ice left in the Arctic likely reached the lowest ever level this month, Serreze told IPS.
"I stand by my previous statements that the Arctic summer sea ice cover is in a death spiral. It's not going to recover," he said.
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=52896
Guys - should this indexing-type stuff not be dealt with in he same way as economic indices are handled? The interested bodies should define the metrics they will report and they report in a controlled way - in the same way as they report inflation, unemployment, money supply, balance of trade etc.
Take it out of institutional hands and make it a function of some department of government, subject to rules and controls and transparency.
How would Harryreadme cope with that kind of environment?
a link was posted on Goddard's blog (h/t Richard Treadgold) to a possible attempt at explanation from NSIDC:
NSIDC statement
Others will have to assess whether different ways of computing moving averages are justifiable or not, but I thought that folks here would like to visit this link for the NSIDC statement.
From NSIDC: "so sea ice values will appear lower when ice extent is increasing, but will appear larger when ice is decreasing."
How very convenient.
The change in the NSIDC method makes perfect sense. In the past they used data for d-2,d-1 and d0 extrapolated to predict d+1 and d+2. The value they then plotted on d0 was the average of three real values and two extrapolated ones. A side effect of this was that if d0 is at a maximum or minimum the extrapolated values, and hence the plotted value for d0, was too high or too low. Plotting the value on d0 as the average of d-4 to d0 unsmoothed data values makes sense as it uses only observed data.
Shouldn't the sceptics here be endorsing this update?
I would have thought that using the observed data, rather than extrapolated data, would be right up their street.
Talk about jumping the gun. And all based on Steven Goddard's blog - one of the most deceptive miss-informers on the web. Really should have known better.
The change in basis of calculation the average looks perfectly justified to me. The interesting comment by Walt Meier is that they didn't realise the effect of the change on the long term average line, and that Steve's post alerted them to the fact that that needed changing too.
anevegemin, can you please let us know what this Steve Goddard has been deceptive about?
Yes that's right. Steve just emailed them about an error that might have occurred in their data processing.
He didn't make a series of inflammatory posts on his blog in order to whip up some outrage amongst "sceptics".
Of course not.
Punksta,
Steven Goddard has a history of deception, miss-information and just plain stupidity. Some of it is well documented here -
http://reallysciency.blogspot.co.uk/
So this statement by Mark Serreze is not inflammatory, anivegmin?
"The Arctic sea ice has reached its four lowest summer extents (area covered) in the last four years," said Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in the U.S. city of Boulder, Colorado.
The volume - extent and thickness - of ice left in the Arctic likely reached the lowest ever level this month, Serreze told IPS.
"I stand by my previous statements that the Arctic summer sea ice cover is in a death spiral. It's not going to recover,"
He might as well have added
"And I'll make sure of that by fiddling the data"
Aniveg, if you can bring yourself to read WUWT you will see plenty of sceptics applauding the prompt explanation.
Don Keiller,
If you think this data has been fiddled then you need to take it up with The Polar Science Center -
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/wordpress/research/projects/arctic-sea-ice-volume-anomaly/
See also -
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2011/10/04/arctic-sea-ice-2011-2012/
anivegmin.
I have spent the last 3 years trying to get straight answers from climate "scientists". I have been through all the "correct" procedures and ultimately to Court where it was ruled that the information I had asked for should be released.
Guess what? I am still waiting whilst climate "scientists" continue to evade (through their lawyers) their legal responsibilities.
The short answer is that climate "science" and "scientists" cannot be trusted if they refuse to provide access to the information that underpins what they are telling us.
Mark Serreze has demonstrated by his words that he is an "advocate", not a scientist.
Advocates are not to be trusted and given my previous experience with his peers it would be a waste of time to ask.
I can think of several reasons to kick anivegmin round the room but this isn't one of them.
Goddard was too quick to criticise and the answer to DeadDogBounce's post as to why Watts wasn't running with it is fully answered at WUWT here. He was making sure he got his facts right first. Which, I might add, he usually does in my experience!
The changes make perfect sense as far as I can see. Why apply sophisticated guesswork when you can use the facts?
Having said that, anivegmin, there really is no need to go out of your way to be obnoxious. Like most warmists you appear to have a problem with civilised discussion. It's why I try to avoid discussions with you.
anivegmin
Goddard was clearly correct in detecting this silent change. Given the systemic, unrepentant and unpunished dishonesty and secrecy that characterizes the alarmist 'consensus', I hardly think his suggestion that foul play may be involved is over the top.
There are extremist sceptics and extremist alarmists, you, obviously, belong to the 2nd group, why don't you both establish a blog and go have a trollfest together without bothering us.
Might want to see this one:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/04/18/nsidcs-oops-moment-uncoordinated-changes-make-for-an-interesting-24-hours/
Don Keiller
Sea Ice Volume is calculated using PIOMAS (Pan-Arctic Ice Ocean Modelling and Assimilation System).
By popular request we now make the data used to generate the PIOMAS anomaly figure available -
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/wordpress/research/projects/arctic-sea-ice-volume-anomaly/data/
Source code -
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/wordpress/research/projects/projections-of-an-ice-diminished-arctic-ocean/source-code/
Data sets -
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/wordpress/research/projects/projections-of-an-ice-diminished-arctic-ocean/data-piomas/
PIOMAS has been extensively validated through comparisons with observations from US-Navy submarines, oceanographic moorings, and satellites.
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/wordpress/research/projects/arctic-sea-ice-volume-anomaly/validation/
Then we have the ESA CryoSat program, of which the first complete 2010–11 winter season map of changes in Arctic sea-ice thickness will be unveiled on 24 April at the Royal Society in London.
Of course this is all very hush-hush, so don't tell anyone.