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Blog: Science Blogger Finds Y2K Bug in NASA Climate Data
Michael Asher (Blog) - August 9, 2007 11:49 AM
Print E-mail del.icio.us 155 comment(s) - last by aeroengineer1.. on Sep 3 at 12:34 PM

An example of the Y2K discontinuity in action  (Source: NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies)
Years of bad data corrected; 1998 no longer the warmest year on record

My earlier column this week detailed the work of a volunteer team to assess problems with US temperature data used for climate modeling. One of these people is Steve McIntyre, who operates the site climateaudit.org. While inspecting historical temperature graphs, he noticed a strange discontinuity, or "jump" in many locations, all occurring around the time of January, 2000. 

These graphs were created by NASA's Reto Ruedy and James Hansen (who shot to fame when he accused the administration of trying to censor his views on climate change). Hansen refused to provide McKintyre with the algorithm used to generate graph data, so McKintyre reverse-engineered it. The result appeared to be a Y2K bug in the handling of the raw data.

McKintyre notified the pair of the bug; Ruedy replied and acknowledged the problem as an "oversight" that would be fixed in the next data refresh.

NASA has now silently released corrected figures, and the changes are truly astounding. The warmest year on record is now 1934. 1998 (long trumpeted by the media as record-breaking) moves to second place.  1921 takes third. In fact, 5 of the 10 warmest years on record now all occur before World War II.  Anthony Watts has put the new data in chart form, along with a more detailed summary of the events. 

The effect of the correction on global temperatures is minor (some 1-2% less warming than originally thought), but the effect on the U.S. global warming propaganda machine could be huge.

Then again -- maybe not. I strongly suspect this story will receive little to no attention from the mainstream media.

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what about the rest of the report?
By tabman on 8/10/2007 3:03:14 PM , Rating: 6
Good job of obfuscating the entire report, why not create a link to let everybody on the list see the report? But then it would blow your entire theory out of the water.....

For those interested in the data here are some interesting links to look at:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A.txt
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.B.txt
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.C.txt
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.D.txt
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.E.txt

Critical thought is not blindly following a voice, but analyzing what the voice has to say before following it.




RE: what about the rest of the report?
By byrneit on 8/10/2007 3:13:09 PM , Rating: 3
Thanks for those numbers. Clearly there is a pattern there, but (you knew the "but" was coming didn't you?) I still question the logic of looking for climatological patterns in data starting from the late 1800's.

I am certainly not ruling out the possibility of global climate change, but I would much rather look at the data from last 150 years as being fairly short term and avoid drawing conclusions that have multi-thousand year type implications from that data.


RE: what about the rest of the report?
By tabman on 8/10/2007 4:06:21 PM , Rating: 3
I agree more data would be great, and so would lots of money in my wallet. But as with both cases we have to deal with what we have.

If the data shows a trend that you are spending too much for the past ten minutes do you keep spending at the same rate because you only have data from the past ten minutes?

Expanding the data set may give a more refined answer but at what point do we stop asking for more data and act on what we found?

BTW acting on incomplete data that can save something as big as the overall environment is not fool hardy. It may be premature but never foolish.

Plus did you ever think how much money you could save if you used only compact fluorescent lights?
Average life of a standard light bulb is about 60 hours, a compact fluorescent is 5 years. You pay three times more for a compact Fluorescent, and it uses 1/10th the power. Over the five years of the bulb you have saved how much?

Great way to effect your wallet and possibly save some environmental effects from your local electric supply.

Oh yea I forgot this data is only a few years old, I guess we all might want to study it a bit longer before making a decision. (laugh please, this is not meant to be a flame post)


RE: what about the rest of the report?
By byrneit on 8/10/2007 4:22:58 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
BTW acting on incomplete data that can save something as big as the overall environment is not fool hardy. It may be premature but never foolish.

I disagree.

I don't disagree with concepts of being more responsible citizens of the planet (see my comment below). After all I don't like smog, soot, foul air, foul water, or denuded landscapes any more than anyone else. I do agree that we should tread lightly on a planet that has been here a lot longer than we have.

Now to my point:
If, we as responsible citizens of this planet react (as you suggest) by doing something drastic to try to counteract our bad behavior, we may cause further damage that may be even worse than our original ignorance.

I'm sorry, but your argument of, "Well, gee, this is all the information we have to go on, so let's just use what we've got and to hell with the consequences..." *is* foolhardy.

quote:
Plus did you ever think how much money you could save if you used only compact fluorescent lights?
Average life of a standard light bulb is about 60 hours, a compact fluorescent is 5 years. You pay three times more for a compact Fluorescent, and it uses 1/10th the power. Over the five years of the bulb you have saved how much?

Eh? WTF does this have to do with the price of tea in China?


By tabman on 8/13/2007 12:01:07 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
WTF does this have to do with the price of tea in China?


Great way to make friends on a public list, when you flame someone in public you begin your way down the track of the someone who can't keep to polite conversation or making comments without denigrating others.

By your clear use of the English language I must assume that you mean what does the money saved mean to yourself? Or is it that you do not understand the simple concepts behind personal economics? Or the concept of placing your wallet before the environment?

What the statement was about was one simple way for you to save on a your electric bill, and reduce the impact you may have on the environment. Do you think that is too drastic, or are you only thinking that the only way you can impact the environment is with a nuclear bomb?

As for a foolhardy response to what data we have, the data shows the following trends rising temperatures and rising CO2. The correlation is significant but yes a correlation only shows a likely cause and effect. With that said if there is something that you can do to limit your personal amount of CO2 emission while impacting the overall amount of available cash you have available to yourself would this be a good thing?

Other than plants that use CO2 as part of photosynthesis what other living organism uses CO2 as an essential part of their survival? Do we as a rational species have a way to reduce our CO2 emissions, or will we blindly go on producing more CO2 and wait to see the overall effects. The argument you put forward is the same as what was being said in the 80's when scientists suggested banning CFC emissions to help reduce the hole in the ozone layer. Data was only a few years old and the size of the hole was debated as a cyclic event. So tell me what was the cost to the economy versus the environment? And who was the overall winner in this?

While I agree that the global environment is changing, and there are still some out there who publish differing points of view. The simple economics of what I can do to save some money and possibly help reduce the negative effects that my personal behavior may have on the environment are how I do make many of my purchasing decisions. Yes that does include the fact my house is over insulated. Last week when it was 104 degrees outside my home was a comfortable 72 inside, And my Air Conditioning was not running all the time to keep it cool. My investment of $10,000 to over insulate my home 5 years ago has reaped me a savings of close to $9,000. This is based on my neighbor with a similar size house has 25 to 40% higher utility bills, not very scientific I know but without a grant to study the effects of over insulating a home I will have to keep an eye on his energy consumption.

Now before I get blasted for the lack of return on my money over five years, lets all think about this. That money I have invested in my walls has now matured and will be producing greater dividends every year that I live in my home. By next year I should have recuperated all my investment and it should be showing a greater return on investment as my utilities cost increase.

So in closing the price of tea in China might not directly relate to the price of your utilities on a monthly basis, but if you take some simple steps that may lower your environmental impact you may find that you might find more money in your wallet for some of your favorite beverage.


By mindless1 on 8/19/2007 2:29:43 AM , Rating: 2
Everyone seems so caught up on how great the measurable effect is. IT DOESN'T MATTER.

We do know we have an impact on the planet and whether everyone simultaneously agrees with any particular study (which will never happen, of course) or not, this negative impact needs to be lessened as much as possible. We don't have the ability to morally claim "so long as we dont' kill everyone within 2000 years, it's ok". Leave the planet (or any smaller ecosystem for that matter) in as good or better shape as you found it. We don't need data to do this. Even pollution that eventually dissipates, doesn't do so instantaneously in most cases.


RE: what about the rest of the report?
By masher2 (blog) on 8/10/2007 5:10:04 PM , Rating: 2
> "BTW acting on incomplete data...may be premature but never foolish"

Really? I remember a past case where environmentalists told us we needed to act immediately, act on preliminary, sketchy data, and despite serious scientific doubts. We were told we needed to ban DDT immediately, while we still had any birds left.

So act we did, and the resultant surge in malaria rates resulted in the deaths of millions worldwide. Meanwhile, those few nations who didn't ban DDT continued to use it...and now, three decades later, their bird populations are as healthy as ever.

A similar situation exists now. Research into efficient energy usage is always good. But initiatives like Kyoto will result in trillions of dollars of cost. We have children dying in parts of the world for want of a 50 cent medical treatment...and instead of providing them the means to improve their standard of living, we're telling them to waste billions on windmill farms and biofuel plants? The only feasible method we have to drastically reduce carbon emissions without destroying our economies is nuclear power-- and that's an option no one seems to want to consider.

The fact is, even if we're seeing a real, continuing trend, the amount of warming we'll experience in the next century will likely to be a net positive, not a negative. Look at the warming during the Medieval Climate Optimum for a past example, or recent research indicating that GW will lead to a more mild climate and temperate planet. What few negative effects we're likely to experience can be addressed much more cheaply by other means. There is no looming catastrophe on hand, no matter which side is right.

Yes, many nations "acted" by signing Kyoto. And quickly found it was wholly unworkable. Britain failed to meet all quotas. Germany exempted its entire coal industry from the treaty. Canada signed...but increased its CO2 emissions faster than the US. Finland is on track to meet goals...but only by a massive investment in nuclear power, a move that incurred the horror of environmentalists worldwide.

Meanwhile, we're doing everything in our power to deny the Third World the benefits of cheap energy, forcing them to remain in their substandard, short-lived livestyles, while we squander billions on a problem that may not even exist and, even if it does, will be less costly than the so-called solution.

Do you call that wise? I certainly don't.


RE: what about the rest of the report?
By Suomynona on 8/10/2007 6:09:08 PM , Rating: 1
Gosh. You've gone from science discussion to policy discussion rather quickly. Do you think the latter has a lower evidentiary standard than the former?

quote:
We were told we needed to ban DDT immediately, while we still had any birds left.

So act we did, and the resultant surge in malaria rates resulted in the deaths of millions worldwide.


Oh? I've seen a lot of claims to this effect, all of which apparently originate from Steven Milloy (who famously claimed that asbestos wasn't harmful to anyone and, had it been left in the WTC, the towers would still be standing). The fact of the matter is that DDT was never banned for anti-malarial use; it was simply not used in cases where it was ineffective (it was, as you note, still used some places--because there was no ban). Offhand, http://membracid.wordpress.com/2007/06/07/ddt-junk... appears to be a decent refutation of this claim.

quote:
But initiatives like Kyoto will result in trillions of dollars of cost.


Source? I've seen really wide disagreement on the net cost of Kyoto; some estimates are, in fact, negative (i.e., Kyoto has positive net value--for instance, http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/independent_reviews/... ). The only way I can imagine you arriving at such a value is if you estimate the cost of warming to be minimal or 0.

quote:
We have children dying in parts of the world for want of a 50 cent medical treatment...and instead of providing them the means to improve their standard of living, we're telling them to waste billions on windmill farms and biofuel plants?


Kyoto's emissions targets don't apply to developing nations.

quote:
The only feasible method we have to drastically reduce carbon emissions without destroying our economies is nuclear power-- and that's an option no one seems to want to consider.


I want to consider it. The only people I've seen reject it are radicals like Greenpeace; sound environmental policy is, in fact, based upon nuclear as one of many greener options.

quote:
Look at the warming during the Medieval Climate Optimum for a past example


Odd. You doubt the evidence for the current warming trend, but embrace the theory of the MWP, even though the evidence for it is far weaker (e.g., http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/medie... )... But that's a discussion for another time.

Making policy decisions based upon flimsy evidence such as that, extrapolating broad conclusions from minimal data in a possibly-geographically-localized climate change with a vastly different economy at the time is ridiculous, and I'm sure you know it.

quote:
Meanwhile, we're doing everything in our power to deny the Third World the benefits of cheap energy


Kyoto's emissions targets don't apply to developing nations.


RE: what about the rest of the report?
By masher2 (blog) on 8/10/2007 6:35:42 PM , Rating: 2
> "Oh? I've seen a lot of claims to this effect, all of which apparently originate from Steven Milloy"

The authors of the seminal study linking DDT to eggshell thinning (Hickey/Anderson, 1968) later recanted their conclusions and instead blamed PCBs. Also, I'm referencing the Bitman study (1971) , which linked eggshell thinning to low calcium diets rather than DDT, as well as the Milius study (1998) which found eggshell thinning began in Britain some 50 years before DDT began to be used. There are many other studies which refute the DDT-eggshell thinning link.

> "The fact of the matter is that DDT was never banned for anti-malarial use"

Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) used DDT from the 1940s to 1964. Malarial cases dropped from nearly 3 million/year down less than 20/year. Within 5 years of halting DDT spraying, malarial rates topped 2 million/year. The same pattern occurred in many other nations in Africa and Southeast Asia.

Was Ceylon "banned" from using DDT? No, but the fact remains it was motivated primarily by baseless fears of environmental damage.


RE: what about the rest of the report?
By Suomynona on 8/10/2007 7:04:45 PM , Rating: 3
I take it from your select response to only that one paragraph that you accept that the other flaws I pointed out in your original post are valid. Now we're making progress!

Regarding the eggshell thinning, I couldn't care less. I don't really care about the effects on birds; I care about the effects on people (e.g., http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2001-07/nio... http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn1012 etc.).

More to the point, I never intended to show that DDT was criticized for the right reasons--again, I don't care. My claims were about the supposed impact of this "ban" on malaria deaths.

quote:
Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) used DDT from the 1940s to 1964. Malarial cases dropped from nearly 3 million/year down less than 20/year. Within 5 years of halting DDT spraying, malarial rates topped 2 million/year.

Funny that you should mention Sri Lanka. As we all know, correlations do not prove causation. Read below, please:

quote:
Sri Lanka went back to the spray guns, reducing malaria once more to 150,000 cases in 1972; but there the attack stalled. Anopheles culicifacies, completely susceptible to DDT when the spray stopped in 1964, was now found resistant presumably because of the use of DDT for crop protection in the interim. Within a couple of years, so many culicifacies survived that despite the spraying malaria spread in 1975 to more than 400,000 people.

From http://timlambert.org/2005/02/malaria/ , which contains much more information on DDT resistance in mosquitoes.

In short, Sri Lanka ineffectively halted that resurgance you're talking about not because they refused to use DDT--they did use it--but because it didn't work.


RE: what about the rest of the report?
By masher2 (blog) on 8/10/2007 8:08:24 PM , Rating: 2
> "In short, Sri Lanka ineffectively halted that resurgance you're talking about not because they refused to use DDT--they did use it--but because it didn't work"

You've misread your link. It clearly says DDT spraying stopped in the early 1960s and, only then, malarial rates surged. It also says a new program of spraying was attempted immediately, but delayed by problems in "the purchase of insecticides of which there was no residual stock". Why was there no residual stock? Because the large industrial giants in the West no longer produced DDT. Costs were therefore very high, and supplies low.

Eventually Sri Lanka did begin respraying DDT, several years after they stopped. But the hiatus had allowed the mosquito populations to acquire a limited degree of immunity. The situation is no different than a person who fails to take their entire antibiotic series, and thus winds up generating a bacterial strain resistant to the medication. Had Sri Lanka (and just as importantly, its neighbors) not halted their spraying programs, it is likely they would have fully eradicated the disease. Certainly they would have spared many millions of cases.


RE: what about the rest of the report?
By Suomynona on 8/10/2007 9:03:25 PM , Rating: 2
No, I didn't misread. But I think you did.

quote:
Had Sri Lanka (and just as importantly, its neighbors) not halted their spraying programs, it is likely they would have fully eradicated the disease.


Why did they stop spraying? Was it because of foreign pressure?

If you'd read that link closer (or this one, which summarizes the former: http://timlambert.org/2005/02/ddt3/ ), you'd have realized it was because they believed eradication to be complete. That's it.

I brought up the resurgence to illustrate that resistance was not as "limited" as you claimed (see, for instance, the extended spraying times ordered by the government to cope with that resistance, in the above link) and that DDT would not be nor necessarily have been, had spraying continued (though it didn't halt for the reasons you allege) a panacea.

Incidentally, as I'm sure you're going to make this other claim sooner or later, USAID never refused to fund DDT: http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/global_health/id/mal... .

Finally, I just want to comment on how, each level deeper in this thread, you ignore the points where I've provided factual citation of your mistakes, refusing to either acknowledge those mistakes or provide counterpoints (for instance, your claims about Kyoto and developing nations, your claims about DDT and human effects, etc.).

If you're unable to admit when you're wrong--or provide counterpoints when your initial claims are refuted--I'm not sure why I should continue talking to you.


By Suomynona on 8/10/2007 9:13:03 PM , Rating: 1
I suppose, though, having posted this, that I'd really rather direct the topic back towards the original post, anyway.

You originally made a bunch of claims, of which the DDT thing was but one. I addressed them, and you only responded to the DDT point.

I believe you were originally trying to illustrate that science has sometimes been wrong, no? Why not pick a more uncontroversial example, then, like phrenology (one the creationists love) or the use of radium on watch dials? I have no desire to defend Rachel Carson--I couldn't give a shit, and I doubt she does, either--but I harped on your DDT post because it a) smacks of Steven Milloy, who I'd love to punch in the face and b) appears to be factually wrong.

So let's accept as a given that science--and environmentalists--have in the past been wrong. What does that tell us, logically? Does that tell us they're wrong now? Hmm? Is that your point?

In other words, what's the relevance of this discussion at all?


By KristopherKubicki (blog) on 8/10/2007 7:34:27 PM , Rating: 1
quote:
Kyoto's emissions targets don't apply to developing nations.

Then why have them at all? India and China are very quickly ramping their energy consumption and CO2 output.

I'm certainly no fan of Bush's policies, but I'll give the current administration credit for having some foresight on not signing Kyoto. Kyoto can really only work if everyone is onboard.


RE: what about the rest of the report?
By Suomynona on 8/10/2007 8:47:23 PM , Rating: 2
I wasn't arguing that Kyoto is perfect. It's flawed. But masher's objection to it was stupid and counterfactual--Kyoto would not have imposed the claimed burden on developing nations.


RE: what about the rest of the report?
By crimson117 on 8/11/2007 1:37:03 AM , Rating: 2
When I first read masher's argument, I thought he was talking about whether to spend on fighting global warming, or whether to instead spend those billions on donating malaria vaccines to poor countries.