NASA Slaps Down Climate Denier Down Under
NASA chief slaps down climate sceptic senator Malcolm Roberts: ‘You hold a number of misconceptions’, North Queensland Register
“A senior NASA official has taken the extraordinary step of personally rejecting the claims of One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts that the agency had falsified key data to exaggerate warming in the Arctic. Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, told Senator Roberts he was “mistaken” in his assertion that the US agency had “removed” Arctic data to mask warming in the 1940s.”
Letter from Gavin Schmidt (NASA) to Malcolm Roberts (Australian climate denier)
“Thank you for your letter of the 14th November requesting information about the NASA GISTEMP analysis of global surface temperature history. Much of what you ask for is available directly from our website. Links there will lead you to the entirety of the raw data we use, all of which is public domain, along with our analysis code, which is also public. However, you appear to hold a number of misconceptions which I am happy to clarify at this time. Firstly, in the graphs you show the data is quite clearly (and correctly) labelled as originating from GHCN.”
It is nice to see that somebody has the courage, tenacity and ethics to stand up to those who obviously only understand the world through hear-say and prejudice, and don’t understand the processes of science. But will they hear, learn and behave accordingly, I think not.
“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”
“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”
― Benjamin Franklin
“The longer we wait, the costlier it will be”
http://www.climatecentral.o…
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” – ― Margaret Meade
Worth a watch. Roberts claims “NASA has corrupted data”
https://www.youtube.com/wat…
Lovely headline until you actually bother to read Roberts’ letter: Roberts is specifically talking about the difference between actual measured temperatures and adjusted GHCN values for a number of Icelandic stations which are then incorporated into GISTEMP, Gavin’s ‘quality-added’ product. Gavin does not address the specific concerns. I’m surprised to hear Gavin thinks he would be criticized if he published ‘uncorrected’ actual measurements. As an atmospheric physicist, I’d rather see the actual surface temperature measurements widely disseminated each month (together with the AMU satellite troposphere temperature measurements) than these ‘quality-added’ products.
http://www.smh.com.au/cqsta…
My standard, based on archiving planetary data, would it provide both data sets. The “corrections” amount to removing measurement artifacts. If they were instrumental (pixel-to-pixel sensitivity variations or non-linear instrument response), you would expected to remove them before publication. In this case, they are things like changes in the number and location of reporting stations. This does require some sort of correction; if you just average, the results would be very poor quality. But the techniques should be reported (I think they are) and both the raw and corrected data should be available (both to allow others to verify the corrections and to do them differently, should someone come up with a better method.)
Data correction is the soft underbelly of climate research mostly because it is not well understood by the casual critic and because, as climate researchers will point out, variances being studied are quite small.
Data collection is a very messy business for many obvious reasons. Using and interpreting that data requires a deft and experienced hand.
Which is something that those with degrees from google.edu are ill-equipped to do. Fortunately, Dr. Gavin and his colleagues are precisely equipped and in the right spot to do the job.
I admire his ethos as he suffers the slings thrown at him from internet numbskulls.
Roberts appeared on a local news panel show with Brian Cox recently who was visiting at the time. Needless to say Cox demolished him but he refused to lay down – the guy is demented! The constituency that elected Roberts and his fellow group of “one nation” senators is mainly in North Queensland, commonly referred to in Australia as the “Deep North”.
In his letter Gavin answered the question and points to where one can find the raw data as well as the code used in data analysis. Raw data are not always correct data.
G.
Bravo to Gavin and the NASA climate team. It is worth remembering that ideology does not change science. The large amount of fossil carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will continue to drive climate change no matter what the deniers say.
Well, yea, but this isn’t an issue of science. It’s an issue of ignorance (just an adjective, folks, not a pejorative: just means they aren’t informed).
It’s a case of ignorant folks thinking that “it doesn’t make sense”. And it’s related to the “roll up your sleeves” attitude.
We have a similar situation in my little corner of the world: application of fertilizers. Coastal southwest Florida has no soil, just sand, which means that fertilizers are needed to provide nutrients, especially in cultured landscapes.
But the County commission has ruled that fertilizers are to be applied only in winter (plants not actively growing) because the nutrients get into the lakes.
Which doesn’t happen. Which demonstrably by the University of Florida doesn’t happen. Still, the rules stand because, well, it’s just obvious!
I know people get tired of my insistent theme that the commoditization of education in America has resulted in a populace unable to make decisions. But there it is. Again.