Climate scientists admit fresh error over data on rising sea levels | Hacker News Reader

Climate scientists admit fresh error over data on rising sea levels

guardian.co.uk

51 pointscwan17 comments

If this story was actually about an "error over data on rising sea levels", it would be interesting. It's only a minor factual mistake that is easily checked and corrected.

The important story is that the change in sea level rolls up many other effects into a single indicator of the extent of global warming, and that sea level is rising faster than IPCC models predict.

Houghton's "quote" has become one of the most emblematic remarks supposed to have been made by a mainstream scientist about global warming, and appears on almost two million web pages concerned with climate change.

It is interesting that not only is Google used as an authoritative news source, it is considered authoritative enough that it doesn't even need to be mentioned as a news source, even when they are reporting a number which is for all practical purposes flimsier than the flimsiest speculation ever to escape a scientist's lip regarding global warming.

If you put quotation marks around the "quote", the number of results drops from 1.7 million to 16,000.

This is just how science really works; constantly correcting all sorts of silly errors. The odd part here is that one institution is named the authority and is expected to make strong assertions. This just doesn't work in science. Reputation opens a few doors, but it doesn't mean you're right.

  "The sea-level statistic was used for background information only, and the updated 
  information remains consistent with the overall conclusions," the IPCC 
  note states. Nevertheless, the admission is likely to intensify claims by 
  sceptics that the IPCC work is riddled with sloppiness.

I think that quote needs to be highlighted before people start making claims that this doesn't matter. This just shows (again) how political motivations affect science (which isn't to say that science is safe from monetary motivations either).

A better statement would be that political motivations and money affect scientist not science. Science is a procedure for validating theory with observations. The extent to which some claim observations validate their theory is always debatable. People with political or monetary motivations sometimes forget this.

How could the height of the Netherlands possibly have an effect on climate and actual sea levels? The Netherlands are very small.

I guess if you want to be really nitpicky, you could demand quotes for every single word in every scientific publications. They[1] would[2] then[3] become[4] completely[5] unreadable[6], which[7] would[8] hardly[9] be[10] conductive[11].

[1] you

[2] get

[3] the

[4] idea

...

To be fair, shoddy science is probably common in every field. It's just that this is such a politically charged issue that it attracts far more attacks and attention.

> To be fair, shoddy science is probably common in every field. It's just that this is such a politically charged issue that it attracts far more attacks and attention.

You get a pass for making mistakes when:

1. You don't claim there's a "consensus" when anyone disagrees with you.

2. You don't try to paint people who disagree with you as "deniers" and otherwise ignorant and horrible people.

3. You don't try to suppress publication of dissenting views and campaign against people with dissenting views coming into important positions.

4. You're not asking for trillions of dollars of bureaucratic measures to be put into place by claiming there's an imminent catastrophe if we don't.

5. You take it seriously when someone points out an error in your method, instead of calling them "an idiot" or dismissing them in a cavalier fashion.

6. You're more concerned about finding out the truth of the matter than pushing your agenda and trying to fit the facts to your agenda.

Really, the climate science people are reaping what they sowed. They were nasty to people who disagree with them, even boring unemotional scientist types who disagreed with them.

At least 1, 3, 5, and 6 are more common in many fields than you might hope. It's quite hard to get work published that is "outside the mainstream consensus", and how exactly that "consensus" is defined is not always so narrow as to only exclude genuine cranks. It particularly often excludes anything challenging the work of important people in the field who edit its important journals. And there are a ton of shady things that go on around #5/#6. Reviewers don't always honestly review work that shows theirs in a negative light, sometimes steal results from papers they've rejected, etc. It's what happens when lots of money, positions, and reputations ride on these sorts of things, along with the cutthroat professorship/tenure competition. Climate change just magnifies all that by having a lot more money and general politics (as opposed to only academic politics) riding on the result.

Here's one of many recent non-climate-change examples: http://scienceblogs.com/ethicsandscience/2009/08/the_saga_of...

1. There's consensus that evolution is a valid theory. It doesn't mean every scientist is on board. That would be impossible.

2. If you say the world is flat or that evolution doesn't exist -- if you won't accept the result of the scientific process, you're holding us back. I don't approve of names, but you'll get one.

3. I'm sure creationists get surpressed too. Not all views are equal; you have to have superior science. If you do, you'll be listened to.

4. Trillions in beuracracy? Ha! Listen. The oil industry is the biggest industry the world has ever known with revenues of 8.5 million a second. It was 2 million a second just up until 2003. That' a huge jump for the world's biggest commodity. Sure it's partially because we're using more, but it's also because there's only so much oil. We know that. We have to switch. Let's do it now and save ourselves money and possibly help the environment in the process. (I think the pressing effects on such things as water supplies for poorer societies are more important, but I'm guessing your soul won't move you much, and that it's smarter to appeal to your wallet.)

5. Point out a rounding error in evolution. Who gives a fuck. Either prove it or disprove it, but rounding errors are not interesting to anyone but you and your ilk.

6. Watch Bill O'Reilly much? That's just conspiracy nonsense.

Sorry, but how is getting the percentage of the Netherlands below sea level wrong an error about rising sea levels? Sea levels are independent from the height of the Netherlands for practical purposes (I suppose the Netherlands swallowing less water would actually imply higher sea levels, in case the Netherlands were flooded).

This is not an error that affects climate research.

> This is not an error that affects climate research.

If they're wrong about the things that I can check, why should I assume that they're correct about the things that I can't check?

Perhaps you could sample a large number of their statements and perform a statistical analysis to determine if they wrong with high probability? Oh, yes, that would be a lot of work and we have something called the "scientific process" for doing that anyway. It's much easier to form a snap judgement based on a single, self-selected piece of information.

I am pretty sure if you look hard enough, you can find errors in almost every text. Communication requires a minimum of goodwill on part of the listener.

Reminds me of one of my favorite characters, Till Eulenspiegel. His alleged favorite pastime was to misinterpret directions people gave him (because language is ambiguous).

Perhaps science should be written in Lojban? Haven't looked into it, but it seems to be designed to be unambiguous.

"Admit" or "were caught"?

It's a trivial factual error. RTFA before making conspiracist comments.

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