In the prior thread I raised a question of why there was a large downward jump in sea ice extent on the graph presented by NSIDC’s Artic Sea Ice News page. The image below was the reason, dozens of people called my attention to it in emails and comments overnight because in the space of a weekend, a million-plus square kilometers of Arctic sea ice went missing. Note the blue line.
Click for larger image
When I checked NSIDC’s web site this morning, about 8:30 AM PST (9:30AM MST Mountain time in Boulder where NSIDC is located) the image was still up. A half hour later it remained. I checked all around the NSIDC web site for any notice, including the links they provide for the data issues.
Learn about update delays, which occasionally occur in near-real-time data. Read about the data.
Finding nothing, and knowing that it was now 10AM in Boulder, which should have been plenty of time to post some sort of notice, I decided to write a quick post about it, which was published at 9:10AM PST (10:10MST) and drove to work.
The corrected image (with the million square kilometers of sea ice restored) appeared on the NSIDC web site just shy of 3 hours later, about noon PST or 1 PM MST.
Click for larger image
About the same time this comment was posted on WUWT by NSIDC’s chief research scientist, Dr. Walt Meier:
Anthony,
We’re looking into it. For the moment, we’ve removed the data from the timeseries plot.
You need to remember that this is near real-time data and there can be data dropouts and bad data due to satellite issues. While the processing is automatic, the QC is partly manual. Thus errors do happen from time to time and one shouldn’t draw any dramatic conclusions from recent data.
I’m not sure why you think things like this are worth blogging about. Data is not perfect, especially near real-time data. That’s not news.
Walt Meier
Research Scientist
NSIDC
ps – FYI, the JAXA data is from a different sensor, so it is not consistent with our data, but it provides a good independent check. If the JAXA data does not show a dramatic change while the NSIDC data does (or vice versa), then it’s likely an issue of missing data or bad data.
First let me say that I have quite a bit of respect for Dr. Meier. He has previously been quite accessible and gracious in providing answers, and even a guest post here. But I was a bit puzzled by his statement “I’m not sure why you think things like this are worth blogging about…. That’s not news“
First let us consider a recent event. The BBC ran really badly researched video report just a couple of days ago where the reporter obviously didn’t know the difference between positive and negative feedbacks in the climate. I wrote about it. The video is now gone. Now I ask this question; if nobody speaks up about these things, would the video still be there misinforming everyone? Probably.
The point I’m making here is that in my experience, most reporters know so little about science that they usually can’t tell the difference between real and erroneous science. Most reporters don’t have that background. I say this from experience, because having worked in TV news for 25 years, I was always the “go to guy” for questions about science and engineering that the reporters couldn’t figure out. And, it wasn’t just at my station that this happened, a meteorologist friend of mine reported the same thing happened to him at his station in the San Francisco bay area. I vividly remember one week he was on vacation and I saw a news report about a plane that crashed that had just minutes before been doing a low level run over the airfield as part of a show. The reporter had video taped the plane’s run, and then used that video to proudly demonstrate “as as you can see, just minutes before the crash, the propellers on the plane were turning very slowly”.
The reporter didn’t understand about how a video camera scanning at 30 frames per second can create a beat frequency that give the impression of slowly turning propellers that were actually running about 3000 RPM., and there was nobody there to tell her otherwise. She made an honest mistake, but her training didn’t even raise a question in her mind.
So when I see something obviously wrong, such as a dramatic drop in sea ice on a graph presented for public consumption, I think about a reporter (print, web, or video -take your pick) somewhere in the world who may be assigned to do a story about sea ice today and does an Internet search, landing on NSDIC’s web site and then concluding in the story “and as you can see in this graph, Arctic sea ice has gone through a dramatic drop just in the last few days, losing over a million square kilometers”.
Thinking about Walt’s statement, “ That’s not news” if the NSIDC graph had been picked up by a major media outlet today, would it be news then?
I understand about automation, about data dropouts, and about processing errors. I run 50 servers myself and produce all sorts of automated graphics output, some of which you can see in the right sidebar. These are used by TV stations, cable channels, and radio/newspaper outlets in the USA for web and on-air. While those graphics are there on WUWT for my readers, I also have an ulterior motive in quality control. Because I can keep an eye on the output when I’m blogging. When data is presented for public consumption, in a venue where 24 hour news is the norm, you can’t simply let computers post things for public consumption without regular quality control checking. The more eyes the better.
At the very least, a note next to NSIDC”s Learn about update delays, about how glitches in satellite data or processing might generate an erroneous result in might be in order. And also for consideration, adding a date/time stamp to the image so it can be properly referenced in the context of time. This is standard operating procedure in many places, why not at NSIDC?
NSIDC and other organizations need to realize that the interest in what they produce has been huge as of late. In NSIDC’s case, they have been promoted from relative obscurity to front page news by the recent unfortunate statements of an NSIDC employee, Dr. Mark Serreze, to the media, that have received wide coverage.
As commenter “just want truth” wrote in the previous thread on NSIDC:
Last year Mark Serreze, of the NSIDC (you may know him), said North Pole ice could be gone in the summer of 2008. He said then “The set-up for this summer is disturbing”. This, of course, was broadcast in all news outlets around the world. Everyone on both sides of the global warming debate was watching Arctic ice totals last summer to see what would really happen. You may have noticed hits on the NSIDC web site were high last summer.
Now Mark Serreze is saying North Pole ice is in a “death spiral”.
You can be certain that Arctic ice data will be scrutinized because of Al Gore and Mark Serreze. A line has been drawn by both. Both have placed it clearly on the radar screen. This is why NSIDC data is worth blogging about–especially since Mark Serreze is employed at the NSIDC.
Mark Serreze 2008 North Pole ice free :
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Story?id=4728737&page=1
and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6e3e4VzwJI
Mark Serreze North Pole ice in “death spiral” :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HW9lX8evwIw
and
http://www.nypost.com/seven/08282008/news/worldnews/arctic_ice_in_death_spiral_126443.htm
Given the sort of attention that has been heaped on NSIDC, I think blogging about errors that have gone unnoticed and uncorrected by 10AM on a Monday morning isn’t an unreasonable thing to do.
I also think that reining in loose cannons that can do some terrible damage in the media is a good way to maintain scientific credibility for an organization, especially when predictions like “ice free north pole” don’t come true.
I have no quarrel with Dr. Meier, as I’ve said he’s been the utmost professional in my dealings with him. But I do have quarrel with an organization that allows such claims to be broadcast, all the while producing a data source that is now regularly scrutinized by the public and the media for the slighest changes. It’s a slippery slope.
Well, it’s a mistake and it’s been fixed (or will be) without anyone dying. Mistrakes happen. Dr. Meier is addressing the glitch and has responded in a polite and professional way, based on his complete understanding of the process; let’s not cast aspersions at him. I’m sure he’ll check everyones lunch boxes at NSIDC’s quitting time during the coming week to make sure no more cubic kilofurlongs, or whatever, of ice turn up missing. There are no villains here, only heroes. Well done, Anthony. Thank you, Dr. Meier.
Leon Broznya: “Even with their caveat about the quality of near real time data, a scientifically challenged reporter would miss that note and just see the first thing that would catch his eye — the sudden disappearance of large amounts of ice — and run with it.”
Which is exactly what Anthony did. Which is not to say that Anthony is scientifically challenged, but does suggest that a desire to be first with a story overcame the requirement for a fact-check.
As a matter of record, the NSIDC caveat was first mentioned by Phil at (20:05:05) on the NSIDC Makes a Big Sea Ice etc thread. So who gets the Pulitzer?
REPLY: Better issue a retraction there Brendan, because if you’ll note who I hat-tipped in the original story thread, it was Joe D’Aleo, who runs the blog ICECAP. For the record Joe D’Aleo emailed me and two other people who run climate blogs at 6:14PM PST the night before with his query “any ideas on why NSIDC has this discrepancy” ? and included this PDF: http://icecap.us/images/uploads/Discrepancy_Between_NSIDC_and_Cryosphere_Appears_Again.pdf
Joe had already posted his writeup on it here. Note the date of his posting. But I waited until the next morning, the 16th, which by that time I had dozens of emails.
So the “desire to be first with a story” that you ascribe to me is erroneous and written without benefit of any facts on your part. – Anthony
I’ve been asking the same question, “what happens to all the erroneous reports, when they have been shown to be wrong” over at Richard Blacks blog at the Beeb:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/richardblack/2009/02/fin_words.html
“I did not have sex with that woman”
Priceless quote Antony!! LOL
That quote sums up AGW.
Please, please do not stop educate me/us about science. What you do is not
“only” reporting, it is science of the highest standard!!
Your blog is “THE NEWS” . For me, and many others 🙂
Thank You!!
Anthony, *yes* it is worth reporting startling data inconsistencies on your blog. And I think it is wonderful that Dr. Meier is open-minded enough to read WUWT and post to the comments. Thank you both for striving for clarity.
I would like to think that the competitive pressure for the various climate monitoring organizations to have the most credible, accurate data will eventually become more important than “generating” numbers that will gain more grant money. The more we learn [from WUWT] about what comprises a high quality data set, the better able we are to evaluate the published data and help motivate these organizations (and our lawmakers) to strive for higher quality results.
Keep up the good work, Mr Watts: you have just earned yourself another donation. Have a drink on me tonight.
Anthony: “So the “desire to be first with a story” that you ascribe to me is erroneous and written without benefit of any facts on your part.”
Fair enough. I retract. Even so, there are two important lessons here.
1. In ICECAP, D’Aleo asks the question: “Any answers anyone?” It doesn’t seem to occur to him that the place to go to for answers is the source.
2. The context for the NSIDC figures is the caveats as highlighted by a WUWT poster.
The thrust of the current thread is the matter of topics worth blogging about. Spotting the story is one thing. Reporting about it is another. For anyone with pretensions to be a reporter, checking with the source is a fundamental requirement before the story is run.
If you had held off the story until you received Meier’s explanation, the story would have lost its edge, thus defeating its purpose, which was to stick one up the enemy. I’ve got no problem with that. But don’t confuse advocacy with news.
REPLY:
1. Normally you’d be right. However I suppose we’ve all gotten a bit jaded as of late, since we’ve been exposed to the tactics of Mann, Santer, and Steig, who refuse to divulge source information when asked, and in Steig’s case pretend to have done so, then you discover that he’s only provided an incomplete box of parts. with no instructions, and no bolts or nuts. The climate science community has gotten a reputation for wagon circling due to these scientists. Ask Steve McIntyre.
2. D’Aleo probably would have gotten an answer from Dr. Meier if asked. As would I. The point here is that the error went uncorrected for 18-24 hours or more. By the time I had posted it I figured that surely one of the thousands of people that view the page had dropped an email, as they almost always do. The lesson being taught here is that if you run an automated production system, the very first thing you do in the morning, especially a Monday morning, is to check the output. And check your email. At 10AM MST they still hadn’t done so. In business, an oversight like this would at the least earn a reprimand, possibly even heads would roll if the error cost the company money. In science we got the “this isn’t worthwhile” attitude.
Scientists that produce publicly available data on a production basis should have a care about quality control. If I’m the “bad guy” in pointing out that the quality control is lacking, so be it. But I won’t apologize for doing so after giving them reasonable opportunity to discover and correct on their own. – Anthony
“not worth blogging about”?
I think this was a a huge blooper and casts the integrity of the NSIDC into serious doubt.
“Well yeah the data was off by a million or so sq. km – no big deal!”
It is a big deal. It’s a huge screw up, and people wondering what kind of operation is being run over there.
I strongly differ with Dr. Meier. And it’s a bit disconcerting that he doesn’t take it seriously.
Of course it’s worth putting up on a blog. Why not? Go for it Anthony, every time.
How is news made?
When Dr. Serreze was quoted by news agencies as saying Arctic sea ice is in a death spiral, was that an errant comment to journalist in a bar? Was it during a phone interview initiated by the journalist? Or initiated by Dr. Serreze? Or was it the result of a deliberate notice to wire services issued by NSIDC?
I don’t know the answers to those questions, but I suspect the latter. Perhaps I am just cynical.
In any case, Anthony, you are absolutely correct in your judgment that NSIDC should be media conscious and media savvy. Dr. Meier’s defensiveness is naive, and frankly not believable. He should know better, and I suspect he does.
Kudos to you and Mr. D’Aleo. Keep on keeping them honest.
It is worth blogging about but on balance, I think there should be a “one working day” rule where one might bring an oddity to their attention but allow at least one regular working day for it to be looked into. This being a holiday weekend and a fairly popular winter sport weekend, I am actually surprised it was corrected as quickly as it was.
People have, or should have, lives outside of work. It certainly is worth blogging about but in my opinion and in the interest if fairness, the data providers should have at least one working day to sort it out before any whistles are blown.
I think the problem here is that the media and bloggers want their information immediately and many scientific establishments have satisfied these wishes by offering websites that give the real-time data, usually from automated equipment. In the past this hasn’t been a problem as the vast majority of people accessing the data usually had some scientific training and understand and accept the limitations of this. As more people become interested in popular science then the ratio of people (including the media) that do not understand the limitations of data collection increases.
On this blog the GISS errors were pointed out and these were subsequently corrected, this is how it should be. The next month, as GISS were putting into place the procedures to help ensure it didn’t happen again, there were complaints that the delay in the figures coming out!
The way scientific institutions should do it is well illustrated by the NPEO. Here is a link to their automatically updated data from JAMSTEC http://psc.apl.washington.edu/northpole/POPS_ctd.html
Note the proviso at the bottom “These data are automatically updated and subject to a variety of errors.”
Maybe this should be obligatory on all automatic data sites.
REPLY: Mary, nicely said. – Anthony
jorgekafkazar (23:39:55) :
“Mistrakes happen.”
Thankyou for that freudian slip, made my day. 🙂
Brendan H (23:56:59) :
“Which is exactly what Anthony did. Which is not to say that Anthony is scientifically challenged, but does suggest that a desire to be first with a story overcame the requirement for a fact-check.”
—-
Oopsie. Sir Brendan, you should note that the “fact-check” process, and your “first with a story” accusation are exactly opposite:
That it was the NSIDC that was “pushing” the “story” out on the public without checking THEIR facts.
That the NSIDC did not recall or change ANY of their graphics UNTIL the story was caught from the web (many hours after NSIDC released it) and the NSIDC proved wrong.
They (the NSIDC and AGW extremists) are the ones who – in MANY recent press releases – have been “pushing” propaganda on the public by extremist (non-scientific) exaggerations and bad science – in an effort to get the next Nobel Prize, the next grant, the next TV interview.
I thought Mark Surreze’s comment about a “death spiral” was pretty funny, just because of the absurdity of it. Hopefully that comes back to haunt him, although I now notice he’s moved predictions of an ice-free North Pole from 2008 to 2030…
Anthony,
You are a polite and galant character, but you, anyone, should be very angry by such a remark by a scientist and a representative of a Government Organization.
There web site is up presenting near eal time data.
If something goes wrong there should be an note on the web stating that the current presented data is not correct due….
Arctic Sea Ice is a “hot” topic as many Government world wide are introducing fierce climate legislation.
We can not afford this kind of attitude.
I have downloaded the RSS feed for from the NSIDC site last year and all the links I have received had the alarmist tune, no word about the fast freeze at the beginning of the winter season, no word of the extreme cold this winter, only “bad news”.
Humanity is being screwed these days over a non existing AGW and NSIDC is one of the organizations who are in on the plot.
Yes, I am angry.
Speaking of weird disappearing ice, can somebody explain this one to me?
http://tinyurl.com/cpymd3
It’s the latest entry from the Cryosphere Today map compared to two days ago.
I get how the ice around Nova Zembla could go. That’s just thin ice getting concentrated by wind, right? But what happened to the ice in the Sea of Okhotsk? It all just disappeared. Wind wouldn’t explain that, would it. That’s some massive 2 day melt for this time of year, if that’s what happened? And how does that entire sheet of ice in the Bering Sea just suddenly split in two? Can wind do that?
If they’re errors it would be interesting to know how errors like that happen. In fact fact I’d like to know the mechanics of how errors in ice monitoring happen. That would be an interesting little climate news story, I think.
I think it is an entirely appropriate issue to blog about if only to ensure that publicly funded bodies improve their quality control.
As we saw with the GISS data errors this is not an issue that can be taken lightly in today’s world where the media is apt to seize on an issue and make a headline out of. Should the data later be proved to be in error it is rare to find retractions issued and therefore the story typically stands.
Surely the folks at NSIDC should have been put on notice when 1 million sq Km disappears overnight, yet they still published the data. At the very least this is hugely sloppy.
I think it is incumbent on us all to trust nothing in this field and check it out. There should be no question that issues should be blogged about until the folks who publish the data realise that quality control is really important.
OK,
maybe we should sit back and relax – actually nobody in the mainstream press has been talking about that and I guess they would have asked the NSIDC if the melt was real – and their opinion – before publishing anything.
Anyway, the graph which is now presented is not a “corrected” version, it’s simply the same one but cut at the beginning of Feb. So, we’re basically still waiting for the actual mid-Feb values…
Blogging the error is fine. Did you also email them about it?
AndyW (23:23:36) :
I think even a reporter who doesn’t know what dilithium feedback
It’s logical isn’t it Captain? 🙂
Anthony, I know Mark SErreze’s activities might seem SUrreal… could you correct your misspellings please? – remembering Steig’s “I before E except after C-Ice” brouhaha…
I’ve been continuing to work on a whole page of Polar information with pictures – to help people get the Polar picture into perspective – since the Polar alarmism depends on people’s sheer ignorance of how Polar fluctuations and sea ice normally behave.
Reply: I saw the misspellings when the post first went up earlier this evening and corrected them, and notified Anthony. Somehow the misspellings returned. Anthony, did you cut and paste a revision from a saved version? ~ charles the moderator.
REPLY: Not deliberately, but if we were both working on the piece at the same time, whomever pressed the save button last, that one would be the one presented. That’s probably what happened. Thanks for pointing out the error. – Anthony
This is merely another example of the laxity of many modern practices. If this wasn’t picked up by WUWT & your good self, it may never have been. What concerns me more is that Dr Meier & his co-workers didn’t pick up the error immediately. If these people were on the ball, experienced, & with that good old sense of “feel” for something as right or wrong, then they would have spotted it without the potentially embarrassing situation of an outsider bringing it to their attention. The hand should have gone up straight away followed immediately by an apology.
Well done Sir. Never ever stop!
BTW:-) James,
I read no suggestion, hint, indication, intimation or otherwise regarding bias in Mr Watts’ post!
Anthony. Your justifications are well phrased, thought out and presented. I concur that with your assessment. NSIDC have set themselves up to be scrutinized, thus they must rise to that expectation of them.
Specially as Billions of dollars and a whole paradigm of energy use and society is hanging in the balance….. For that is the reality of the situation.
…. absolutely they can proof read data before 10 O’clock in the morning and make sure it is correct. It is minimum of what is expected of them.
An ongoing point of your “blog” seems to be “data errors”. Thus, to blog about a potential data error is “spot on” in your case. Moreover, your reasoning for doing so is sound.