Late last month, there were a spate of breathless reports from all the major press outlets that a new study showed oceans warming faster than anticipated, which would lead to a climate change apocalypse unless billions were spent and regulations were promulgated.
The Los Angeles Times article was just one of many that highlighted this study.
The world’s oceans may be heating up faster than previously thought — meaning the planet could have even less time to avoid catastrophic global warming than predicted just weeks ago by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
According to a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature, ocean temperatures have been warming 60% more than outlined by the IPCC.
“The ocean warmed more than we thought, and that has serious implications for future policy,” said Laure Resplandy, a researcher at Princeton University’s Environmental Institute who coauthored the report. “This is definitely something that should and will be taken into account in the next report.”
However, the scientists behind this analysis have admitted to a serious flaw in their conclusion, which is the result of calculation errors.
In a paper published Oct. 31 in the journal Nature, researchers found that ocean temperatures had warmed 60 percent more than outlined by the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
However, the conclusion came under scrutiny after mathematician Nic Lewis, a critic of the scientific consensus around human-induced warming, posted a critique of the paper on the blog of Judith Curry, another well-known critic.
“The findings of the … paper were peer reviewed and published in the world’s premier scientific journal and were given wide coverage in the English-speaking media,” Lewis wrote. “Despite this, a quick review of the first page of the paper was sufficient to raise doubts as to the accuracy of its results.”
For those of you game for heavy duty math, click HERE for Lewis’ analysis of the ocean warming studies calculations.
To their credit, the scientists behind the paper are being candid about the error.
“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.
…“I accept responsibility for what happened because it’s my role to make sure that those kind of details got conveyed,” Keeling said.
I assert that the most significant lesson from this study is finding that the evaluation process for the science behind “global warming” has been damaged by politics. Nature is a peer-reviewed publication. Such a blatant error should have been discovered much sooner in the study’s review process.
Thus, this incident highlights how unquestioning the scientific proponents of “climate change” have become. It also clearly demonstrates that there is a definite need for “skeptics” to be part of the scientific review process.
I can’t wait until all the publications that projected doom, gloom, and death based on this report to issue a correction quickly . . . and as publicly as they promoted the original study. Sadly, I am sure the time-frame for this occurrence will be on the geologic scale.
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
The scientist wound never have admitted error if he hasn’t been called out publicly.
“Peer Review” has become a joke, saying something is “Peer Reviewed” these days basically comes down to saying that “All his friends argee”.
The Peer Review….
Peer 1: I thought you read it..?
Peer 2: Ah….I thought YOU read it…???
Peer 3: I DID…sort of….I thought you read it…????
Peer 4: Read what….?
Any publication willing to publish an admission that the study was flawed,doubtlessly, will print the correction somewhere in the back between some obnoxious advertisements for hemorrhoid cream and shoelaces.
You, obviously, have never tried to tie your shoes while you are having a hemorrhoid flair up.
Youngster, I could only wish that were true. How do you think I knew were to find the retraction page? LOL
NO accidental miscalculation was involved. The data and the “calculations” were designed to “prove” the conclusions of the report, which had already been arrived at. When they did not, “miscalculations” occurred.
In prior normal practice, NO study, which was to be submitted for peer review, was ever published, until it was extensively reviewed by the authors and selected third parties to make sure that it was accurate. The reason was due to the fact that if a published paper was proven to be inaccurate [read as false] the researcher’s career was essentially dead, within his community. Today, that is no longer true. There are very well heeled individuals and groups who will pay handsomely for “professional” papers which further their ideological and political agenda, regardless of there accuracy. And, of course, there is a rather large faction of the scientific community which is driven by ideology, rather than scientific principles. Trust is in short supply, these days.
They “wanted” the results to be true…They believed the results certified their beliefs. Thus, the result were true.
But the errors are now printed and will be quoted at some future time in all their erroneous glory.
Expectation Bias. They ran their calculations and got numbers they wanted, so they quit checking.
It’s fairly obvious. After all, if they had made their calculations and got numbers that showed a dramatic drop in ocean temperatures, leading to an upcoming ice age, they would have *immediately* checked their figures and found the errors.
Amazing how these ‘errors’ only occur in one direction.
if you look at all the ” mistakes ” made by these people over the years is it any wonder a lot of people are highly suspicious of climate science
Global Warming is not science, it is the religion of the Millennial Democrat. Calculation error or not, it is infallible to their acolytes.
We were taught that having made any number of observations, persons would have discussions about them. They would ask questions and debate. From this, a hypothesis would be formulated. Then, testing would be done.
The testing would either: 1) disprove the hypothesis, or, 2) indicate it needed to be refined, or, 3) establish its validity. If and when it was proved, it would then be submitted to the wider scientific community for its review, experimentation, and possible replication of previous test results. If so, then it becomes the theory of … Few ever become scientific laws.
It appears that, present day, some want to jump right from an untested hypothesis to not just a theory but a law. Considering all the struggles, successes and very many failures, and hard work of those who established the reasonableness and validity of the scientific method, which I hope I’ve accurately described, it’s so disheartening to see it ignored in a rush to conclusion.
I would argue that they don’t have a hypothesis. Even a theory has to have some scientific explanation. CO2 doesn’t heat anything. It has the same permittivity as O2 and N.
The sun heats the Earth. How can they deny that?
PC-ness has led many astray.
Very simple. The Earth is a system.
/s
Also “peer review” can be “peer censorship” as has been shown with squelching papers that did not find global warming.
Add to that the lawfare as seen in Steyn vs Mann.
“Unfortunately, we made mistakes here,” said Ralph Keeling, a climate scientist at Scripps, who was a co-author of the study.
. . .
…“I accept responsibility for what happened because it’s my role to make sure that those kind of details got conveyed,” Keeling said.
He’s not admitting to a screwup here. This is one of those “I’m sorry that you misunderstood my outrageous statement” apologies which aren’t apologies at all. It’s your fault that you aren’t totally bamboozled by his rubbish, but next time he promises to be more convincing, even if not more factual. All a bit too Hillaryesque to be considered “science”.
The screwup was in publishing anything which can be examined. Recall the “Climategate” e-mails, and the discussions of ways to hide the blatant fact that the “data” could only support the predetermined conclusions if it was altered in various creative ways. These discussions were intended to be confidential; it’s not much of a secret plot if everybody can read the details. Here, they messed up; they published too many details, making it too obvious that the emperor isn’t wearing any facts.
“Mistakes” in the modeling are a tactic. The strategy is obvious enough; push a frantic story that total doom is headed our way at breakneck speed, so we can be stampeded into draconian “solutions” without waiting to see if any of it is real. A year or two ago it was something similar, a “tipping point” which was about to be reached—”any day now,” of course—which would trigger irreversible disaster. Of course it didn’t happen. It didn’t happen during the Cretaceous, it didn’t happen during the Pleistocene, and it’s not happening now.
Oh, and a point of order:
Unsettled Science: Scientists reveal serious calculation errors
These people are not scientists. I don’t care what somebody has printed on his business card or what the little plastic plaque screwed to his office door says. They’re con men. “Alleged scientists” perhaps.
Made the mistake of including results for which there was independent sources of the underlying data. Normally your Warmists are careful not to leave traces.
This is all Trump’s fault. These esteemed scientists were so upset at Trump’s attempts to destroy the world’s environment that they simply forgot to do their sums properly. Trump should be ashamed of himself for ruining the scientific method.
Most published research findings are false. Google John Ionnidis. Yes most.
WOW!! The second or third comment of Lewis’ paper revealing the error suggests he submit his response to peer review!!
As the next comment replies, what chutzpah !
“Peer review” by itself is meaningless. Peer review must have a clear purpose. Peer review for a climate “scientist” means ensuring the paper aligns to the political narrative. It was a big mistake to include enough math to get caught in the lie. These con artists won’t make that mistake again. Fog and low levels of light are friends of these frauds. Sunshine is their enemy.
Nah, it’s a peer-rubber-stamped, disinformation campaign spreader.
Nature is not just any peer-reviewed publication. It’s absolutely tops in the fields of most natural sciences along with the journal Science.
I don’t say this to refute your cynicism but to point out how far the flaws have spread through and infected the system. It’s time for the pedestal to be knocked out from under this crap. This is a major blow to the scientific credibility of a highly respected journal.
Michael Mann’s original junk science hockey stick paper was published in Nature 20 years ago (hard to believe it’s been that long). When Steve MacIntyre convincingly pointed out the numerous flaws, Nature was less than helpful in getting the record corrected. They’ve been co-opted by the climate “scientists” for a long time.
I don’t think we disagree.
Who knew that Mathematics itself has succumbed to Climate-denial? What with it also being inherently and functionally characterized by white male privilege, it’s time to replace Mathematics with Black Feminist Holistic Comparisons. The world will be a better place for it.
Climatology has corrupted Science and severely damaged its credibility.
That’s an unforgivable sin.
They are on the run now. Even ordinary people who don’t follow the debate are laughing as the prophecied Doomsdays come and go. What, are we into our 6th or 7th Final Final Warning now?
The only question left that interests my side now is how these charlatans will pull back and pretend they were never part of the Climate Change Cult.
Pointy wraps it up nicely:
https://thepointman.wordpress.com/2014/05/22/the-age-of-unenlightenment/
“As someone who loves science, I regret it won’t be possible to come up with some fig leaf deal of damage limitation for science as a whole, a way of letting them retire discreetly from the field in defeat, and will instead now have to stand and watch climate science becoming a complete laughing-stock, and undoubtedly by implication, science in general. The true believers will ensure this thing is doomed to go down all the way to the equivalent of Berlin, April ’45, the last bullet and complete destruction”
Remember that when they try to tap out. Remember how the turned Science into their whore. Remember how they likened you to Holocaust Deniers for insisting they follow the Scientific Method.
Give them no quarter, show them no mercy.
Math is hard. Fraud is harder – especially with PDJT in office.
Just ask Al Gore.
I keep trying to get the liberals to organize all their climatechange/algore globull warming buddies and every other lunatic to drop their use of fossil fuels immediately.
I tell them at least half the country believes and if that half would go fossil free immediately then within a year we should see huge reductions in CO2 and other greenhouse gases. Which would prove to the us nonbelievers that we need to change our ways (I wouldn’t though).
They always have a reason for not doing so though.
Kind of like asking them why they don’t live in the inner cities to prove they aren’t racists like us conservatives.
Hey Al!! It looks like “An Inconvenient Truth”.
“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.”
Mistake my ass. These people didn’t expect their mistake so easily uncovered. Their manipulation of data an math are their real expertise.
Years ago the peer review process would have caught such an egregious and obvious mistake. One of the primary problems associated with global warming has been the politicization of science that is currently characterized by the mess we call global warming research, “climate gate’, the constant revision of data that uniformly supports the global warming hypothesis (when real errors are found and data are revised to correct them, it is never the case where all the revisions are in the same direction that supports a given hypothesis), the shaming of those labeled “deniers” thus demanding that most sacred tenet of science (open and free discussion in the interpretation of results and experiments) cease, and so forth. The longer lasting issue is how the entire global warming debacle is not going to change reality one iota. Even worse is how this entire sorry spectacle is only going to result in the long term loss of faith in science. The long term result of this can only be negative for science and ultimately us.
The dog ate my homework.