�Alarming� Study Claiming Global Warming Heating Up Oceans Based on Math Error

[Sparko]

The OP posted by Cow Poke seems to be science working. An independent researcher finds an error in a new report in early circulation, the original team verifies the flaw and retracts the problem.

Am I missing something especially controversial about the report?

That it passed peer review and got published.

[Cow Poke]

That it passed peer review and got published.

That seems to be a symptom of confirmation bias.

[Sparko]

"Scientists look at the big picture, not today's weather, to see the impact of climate change".

https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...arsher-winter/

When the weather supports AGW then it is called 'proof.' When it doesn't, it is called 'weather, not climate'

[Leonhard]

That it passed peer review and got published.

Yes, that happens. Scientists aren't perfect. The peer review process isn't iron proof. I don't know any scientist out there in their right mind who would claim this. An error was pointed out by an independent researcher. Those involved and others verified and the paper was retracted.

Its really just a demonstration of science working as it should.

[Leonhard]

When the weather supports AGW then it is called 'proof.' When it doesn't, it is called 'weather, not climate'

In scientific journals or by journalists?

[Sparko]

Oh please. The recent fires in California are being called proof of global warming. Every hurricane is called proof. Every heatwave is called proof. Every drought is called proof. But every blizzard or cold spell is just 'weather'

[Leonhard]

Here's another thing, Leon.... those who are really promoting AGW in the public theater don't really seem willing to make the personal sacrifices they want to demand of others. It's a legitimate question "ok, you believe this, what are YOU personally doing about it".

With respect to that, I'm personally doing more "green" things myself than the people I personally know who are 'preaching' AGW, and I'm a skeptic!

Well you could also as a conservative start to make climate change an issue conservative politicians should take seriously. Or at least as an individual demand something of an answer out of them. Right now conservatives have led liberals in the US basically run with the narrative, painting the conservatives as staunchly resistant to doing the right thing.

Which sometimes makes me wonder if global challenges are something the ideologies of US conservatives can really deal with.

At any rate I've slowly begun to understand that you can't look at what goes on in Washington to find out what's going on in the US. A lot of individual states, Texas no less, are doing great things to slowly build up a renewable energy system. Solar panels are being put up, battery production is being increased at an exponential rate, wind turbines are being built where its cost effective. Its looking pretty good.

Though I think we can and should be doing more.

As for politicians they're hypocrites, and I can understand your point, and I can see you've been scandalised by their behaviour. Still I don't think that changes the problem we face, or the need for solutions.

[Leonhard]

Oh please. The recent fires in California are being called proof of global warming. Every hurricane is called proof. Every heatwave is called proof. Every drought is called proof. But every blizzard or cold spell is just 'weather'

Do you have any official reports from scientists using weather to support global warming in that sense, using the word 'proof'?

[Sparko]

I have never used heatwaves as arguments for global warming. The main evidence for AGW comes from the temperature records.

Don't mistake what journalists and commentators are writing about for what the scientists are writing about.

it's the politicians and pop-scientists too. Everyone who is in the public eye. I have no idea what the regular scientists in the background do or say, since they don't make public comments, but you can watch any show on climate on the discovery channel or the science channel and see them interviewing scientists and saying how things like heatwaves, hurricanes and wild fires are proof of AGW, etc. Or just watch the news, or read various articles.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/science/...l-13128585.php
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/clim...ry?id=56937704
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/2...records-broken
https://www.climate.gov/news-feature...first-west-and

[Sparko]

Yes, that happens. Scientists aren't perfect. The peer review process isn't iron proof. I don't know any scientist out there in their right mind who would claim this. An error was pointed out by an independent researcher. Those involved and others verified and the paper was retracted.

Its really just a demonstration of science working as it should.

This seems to have been an obvious error on the first page of the report. That it passed peer review is evidence of confirmation bias. They didn't expect to see an error so they didn't bother to check it.

[Leonhard]

it's the politicians and pop-scientists too. Everyone who is in the public eye.

I have no idea what the regular scientists in the background do or say, since they don't make public comments, but you can watch any show on climate on the discovery channel or the science channel and see them interviewing scientists and saying how things like heatwaves, hurricanes and wild fires are proof of AGW, etc.

The scientists are surprisingly balanced. Figuring out how the weather, statistically, is going to be affected by is harder than figuring out whether or not the climate is actually getting warmer, or what mechanisms drive that temperature increase.

I would never use a summer, or a winter, especially not a local one, as indicating whether the Earth is getting warmer. I might use an increase over a period of say thirty years, of frequencies in droughts and floods, as indicating the problems we're going to face more of in the future, and as an underscoring of why climate change is a big deal.

I get your point though. The state of science communication is attrocious.

This seems to have been an obvious error on the first page of the report.

Nic Lewis, the discoverer called it a "serious but surely inadvertent error" and even outlines in his paper what sort of bugs in their computer programs likely had caused the error. It does underscore that scientists need to start engaging in more outright reproduction of other findings. Something which I in particular always advocated for while I was in College.

You just don't get that many citations (a scientists only measure of success), and therefore its hard to get funding for it and there's a culture of shaming studies that are reproductions. They're considered 'lazy'. Whereas I consider them necessary.

Its definitely something we should have more of.

[Sparko]

Do you have any official reports from scientists using weather to support global warming in that sense, using the word 'proof'?

I don't know about the word "proof" - that was just me using it in a generic way.

But yeah scientific journals also use heatwaves and weather as EVIDENCE for AGW being true.

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/332/6026/220

[JonathanL]

Nic Lewis, the discoverer called it a "serious but surely inadvertent error" and even outlines in his paper what sort of bugs in their computer programs likely had caused the error. It does underscore that scientists need to start engaging in more outright reproduction of other findings. Something which I in particular always advocated for while I was in College.

You just don't get that many citations (a scientists only measure of success), and therefore its hard to get funding for it and there's a culture of shaming studies that are reproductions. They're considered 'lazy'. Whereas I consider them necessary.

Its definitely something we should have more of.

[shameless plug]
Allow me to use this as a springboard to shamelessly plug my cousins doctoral thesis which he defended this year titled "Reproducible Data Analysis in Drug Discovery With Scientific Workflows and the Semantic Web" (click the link for the fulltext). Even though it's mainly about using computers to aid in the discovery of new drugs, and how to make this process more reproducible (hence the title), I'm sure there is something there that's more broadly applicable to science as a whole.

The dissertation is composed of several papers that are smaller in scope, and if anyone is interested in just reading one of the papers instead of the whole dissertation here's (<---) a link to the overview of the dissertation, with links to the included papers if you scroll down.


[/shameless plug]

[shunyadragon]

I don't know about the word "proof" - that was just me using it in a generic way.

But yeah scientific journals also use heatwaves and weather as EVIDENCE for AGW being true.

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/332/6026/220

You are reading too much into this article. The article equated the evidence beyond the evidence of the one hot 2010 summer, and did not just use this weather to justify Global Warming. You also need to consider how the records as a whole are considered in science and not a reference to just one article and one year.

[Tassman]

Oh please. The recent fires in California are being called proof of global warming. Every hurricane is called proof. Every heatwave is called proof. Every drought is called proof. But every blizzard or cold spell is just 'weather'

https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/

So, why are you and your supporters hell-bent upon diminishing the importance and concern over global warming given the demonstrable drastic consequences for the planet?