Discouraging Data

Posted by Iain Murray

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In this commendably balanced story by The New York Times’ Andy Revkin about the recent NASA temperature data fiasco, a certain someone at NASA plays a Jedi mind trick:

Dr. Hansen and his team note that they rarely, if ever, discuss individual years, particularly regional findings like those for the United States (the lower 48 are only 2 percent of the planet’s surface). “In general I think that we want to avoid going into more and more detail about ranking of individual years”; he said in an e-mail message. “As far as I remember, we have always discouraged that as being somewhat nonsensical.”

Huh? A few sample feature articles from the NASA web site:

In contrast to what he told Revkin, Jim Hansen and his colleagues serially discuss individual years and rank them. Perhaps it takes a Court Jester to point that out.

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08/27/2007 @ 1:16 pm | Global Warming, Sanctimony | Comments

8 Responses to “Discouraging Data”

  1. Posted by: Andy Revkin - 08/27/2007

    Thanks for the compliment on balance, Iain. I get enough hammering (from both sides) that it’s refreshing.

    One thing to note: Those releases you cite from NASA all (pretty sure) highlight *global* temperature record, not United States regional trend (which was the focus of McIntyre and the focus of my story).

    NOAA folks in my story (the ones given responsibility for this stuffy by Congress) did agree they could do a better job, when releasing their year-to-year summaries etc, at emphasizing the level of uncertainty.

    Unforced climate variability is a heck of a lot more wiggly at local than global level, all seem to agree.

  2. Posted by: Steve McIntyre - 08/27/2007

    Speaking of NOAA, has anyone ever seen a digital version of NOAA’s U.S. temperature history or is this only the stuff of press releases?

  3. Posted by: steven mosher - 08/28/2007

    Well, the 2004 release calls out the US figures and adds
    a line specifically for NYC.

    and my favorite
    http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20070509/

  4. Posted by: Steve McIntyre - 08/28/2007

    A climateaudit reader answered my question: http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cirs/drd964x.tmpst.txt contains the digital information - national has id #110.

  5. Posted by: Ben Lieberman - 08/28/2007

    Given Mr. McIntyre’s fine work in discovering this error, would NASA consider hiring him on a temporary basis to do a larger audit of its temperature records? As a taxpayer, I would consider it to be money well spent.

  6. Posted by: Iain Murray - 08/28/2007

    Thank you for the comment, Andy. I read Hansen’s comment to you as saying that ranking and discussion of individual years should be avoided, especially in the case of US temperatures - and I think it is extremely hard to argue that it actually applies exclusively to US temperatures. That does not square with NASA’s practice, and NASA is where Hansen holds his public office.

    I have to say that I’m not persuaded that, were recent US temperatures clear records, NASA would not be promoting them with league tables as they have done with the global temperatures. The real story of public interest in this, to my mind, is that there is something rotten in the state of NASA and that a mission of advocacy seems to be replacing scrupulous checking of data. I don’t think Richard Feynman would be surprised that it could happen.

  7. Posted by: Dirck the Noorman - 08/28/2007

    1) The article uses the term “statistically meaningless” three times in reference to the correction. Yet the correction reduced the trend of temperature increase from 1930 to 2006 by 42% (from 0.21 degrees C to 0.12) - NASA had overstated the trend by a factor of 1.75x. If the correction is statistically meaningless, isn’t the trend itself similarly irrelevant? Also, if NASA had issued a correction that increased the trend by 1.75x, showing that warming was happening faster than previously thought, would the NYT have waited 2 weeks to report it, and would it be similarly intoning on a “statistically meaningless” correction?

    2) McIntyre is described as “a blogger and retired business executive.” Doesn’t this downplay his credentials somewhat? He is also a mathematician and regular contributor to peer-reviewed, academic articles on climate change including one debunking Michael Mann’s “Hockeystick Graph” work. For the sake of symmetry, why not introduce Hansen as “a Democratic political activist and mid-level bureaucrat most directly responsible for the error.”

    3) Rush Limbaugh is mentioned twice. Why? This seems like an obvious attempt to link McIntyre to Limbaugh in an effort to discredit the former - the only association appears to be that Limbaugh commented on the story, just as the NYT finally has.

    4) The article claims “Mr. McIntyre… traded broadsides on the Web with James E. Hansen, the NASA team’s leader.” I’ve seen how Hansen responded to the correction almost immediately with personal attacks on McIntyre (i.e. calling him a “court jester”). But I haven’t seen anything resembling a “broadside” directed the other way. To the contrary, everything McIntyre has said and written on the subject seems very measured and focused on facts.

    5) Why did it take the NYT two weeks to report this?

    6) Why the obvious contempt for the “blogger” who did some authentic work, when all the NYT reporter seems to be doing is regurgitating the ass-covering comments by some obviously conflicted bureaucrat.

    7) Andrew Revkin, the author, teaches “environmental journalism” at Columbia, wrote a book called “The North Pole Was Here,” and has lead the NYT’s coverage of climate issues since 1995. He regularly performs a song he wrote called “Liberated Carbon” with his band Uncle Wade at college talks on climate change. Selected lyrics:

    We yearned to burn more than dung and sticks.
    Then Satan came along and said, ‘Hey, try lighting this.’

    He opened up the ground and showed us coal and oil.
    He said, ‘Come liberate some carbon. It’ll make your blood boil.’

    Liberated carbon, it’ll spin your wheels.
    Liberated carbon it’ll nuke your meals.
    Liberated carbon, it’ll turn your night to day.
    Come on and liberate some carbon, babe, it’s the American way.

    Is it possible Revkin has a little too much professionally, emotionally, and ideologically invested a particular point of view on climate change to be an objective reporter?

  8. Posted by: steven mosher - 08/28/2007

    The most glaring problem with NASA doing a global estimate of temperature is that they use this data to “validate” their global climate models. The models are judged by their ability to match the past record and thus project the future. But,
    the “past record” is not an independently created record.
    NASA “create” the past record by using NOAA raw data and then adding “corrections.” This “record” is then used to judge
    global climate models. Essentially, it is a process without independent checks and balances. If the models don’t match the “record” NASA can adjust the record or adjust the model.

    So the real issue is the transparency of the adjustments.
    Models often need adjustment. Data often needs reanalysis. But these
    activities need to happen in the aneseptic light of day.

    McIntyre has asked for the data and source code to bring
    the light of day to the process. He was evidentually given the data, but to date has not received the code. Still, he has been able to identify an error in the process.

    OpenScience

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