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.
You were right to flag the error Anthony. The way I saw what you were saying was that it seemed to be just that, an error.
I feel that in posting that, you may have prevented someone from using the erroneous data as alarmist news.
Sven (22:22:48) :
“Further to my on post 22:20:18
And so is Nansen sea ice extent:
http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/ice-area-and-extent-in-arctic”
I am curious as to why a similar dip appeared in the 2008 data.
DaveE.
Would it be an exaggeration to say that one big reason for publishing a doubt about published data (rather than privately contacting the source) is that it often turns out that public analysis/recalculation/investigation/pressure is needed to make a correction?
What I’m talking about is the fact that when you see doomsaying data presented that, viewed at some level of detail, appears to contain errors, it is often difficult to get the publishers of the data interested in a correction, e.g.:
-hard-to-see processing mangling data (e.g. the Steig paper – nobody cared to check for errors until McIntyre’s blogging)
-hard-to-see processing overemphasizing some components of the data in a purpose (e.g. the Steig paper – even with published analysis, and now more evenhanded do-overs by Jeff whatshisname, Steig doesn’t give a rip)
-the crappy surfacestation siting and resulting data
-the dishonest UHI (etc.) adjustment of the data (adjusting older temps downward)
With just a quiet email, none of the “errors” in the above list of published data items, or the loudly made claims based on them, would be addressed. In some cases, only the publishing of questions and the distributed mathematical analysis it causes leads to uncovering of the dodgy-math reasons for the unbelievable published end result.
As experience has shown, if the published data supports the alarmist propaganda, no author will be bovvered to correct anything without some pressure.
So if you’re a part (even a polite one) of the alarmist industry, you’re going to have to endure pointed public scrutiny of the stuff you publish, even when it looks like an obvious error.
I think it was worth blogging about, it highlights for others some of the issues with presentation of real-time data. I hope that such organizations continue to produce accessible real-time data (including the raw data) complete with mistakes, but present it as unverified. Clear legends on the graph that indicate some of the data has not been verified, or having the line segment for unverified data a different colour. Living in CA I check the live earthquake reports after a shake and the initial data is clearly marked as not verified by a geologist.
Additionally a verified version of the data can be presented that may lag the real-time version by days, weeks or months.
With that comment in mind, to my eye there is still a discrepancy of perhaps 200,000 km^2 between the NSIDC trend line with respect to their 2006-2007 dashed reference line, and the current year and comparable 2006-2007 traces in the JAXA data.
This could be due to differences in how they compute their extent values, but the NSIDC data does not to seem to show the same “gain” in ice over the minimum ice cover years of 2006-2007, as shown in the JAXA graphic.
Although the absolute values for the sea ice extent may be different due to calculation methods, it would be reasonable to expect that the difference between the current value and the average for those low ice years years would be similar.
If you look at the 2/15/2009 images on NSIDC you can also still see apparently missing ice in the Hudson bay, north shore of the Canadian land mass, and a large wedge of missing ice that flanks the Siberian end of the Bering Strait near Cape Dezhneva. Given the comments in the other thread about low clouds in the Hudson bay area and the Canadians saying there is no such ice breakup/open water in the Hudson bay, it would be reasonable for the folks at NSIDC to take a look at how their sensors and algorithm handle low clouds or fog perhaps.
As mentioned by many, it would be worthwhile for them to scrub their data to look for sudden large scale drop outs (or increases) of ice that are unlikely due to melting/freezing given the prevailing air temperatures and sea temperatures in the area. They could easily have it set up to flag sudden dropouts (or increases) for human review or set them to blinking on the graphics as subject to review or some other simple means to mark them as unverified raw data.
Larry
Right on Anthony!
The solution to this could be of course to just hire someone to do the QA and delay posting for 3 months to ensure there is enough time for QA.
It just begs two questions:
a) Who’s gonna pay the QA person?
b) Who’s gonna be happy to wait 3 months for “current” data?
There was a lot of speculation, that this glitch would be picked up by “warmers” or the press as another jigsaw piece to prove AGW. Has that actually happened?
I believe this is becoming a lesson in no one dares goes first.
Just imagine the horror amongst all the AGW “stakeholders” as they ponder the aftermath of their being the first to sway from the path of AGW righteousness.
“We’re not leaving first and face the wrath of the consensus disciples”
NISDC has been a front row participant in adopting the certainty of AGW and membership in the AGW concensus.
The only way any of the primary AGW carnival members will ever go first is by way of being forced, against persistent resistence, with efforts such as WUWT demonstrated here.
Only when humiliation reaches a crescendo of unavoidable self condemnation will any stakeholder such as the NISDC turn away from propagating the AGW exhortation.
The only way that will happen is with the internet and blogging right here and few other places.
Well done all.
Keep it up.
Tom: (07:29:29) :
I was going to say the same thing as Tom but he said it better than I could. I think that contacing the data publishers would serve everyone’s purposes better and would create maybe better relationships (if the data providers acknowledge who discovered the errors). Actually premature publication of a supposed error could prove embarrising if indeed there was no error. I do temper my opinion, however, when it comes to RC people, who seem to be beligerent. I always try the cordial approach first; if that does not work then ….
Dr. Meier didn’t read the Atlantic article mentioned in the Wasted Effort item.
This blog monitors the data collection process of various instruments and that is a noble and necessary role. It’s sad that it’s necessary. Others have made the points about why it is necessary.
Why is it news? Because people care about it. Why is anything else news or not? For example, polls and election returns. Add in some doubt or suspicion about vote counting. Or sports results, especially if there is some doubt about the refs’ judgment. Or looking for WMD. If it turns out there really were no WMD will they undo the war? The climate change activists have made a big deal of ice melting, so now it’s news, like it or not.
For the scientists (and everyone else) there needs to be complete and truthful information about the data used in climate change studies. What the collection process is, how the data processed, and public archives of the data itself. Various agencies are going to have to try a lot harder to achieve this. The goal would be to be above suspicion (but somebody somewhere will suspect anyway). Complete transparency is the best defense against suspicion.
“Alas, the climate change stakes are too high for chivalrous sentiment. It is in the hands of those who embarass themselves to ensure that they ‘Get it Right First Time’”
In this case, no person got it wrong. The data are apparently updated in an automated fashion. It is on “auto-pilot”. There was some sort of a data drop-out, the graphs apparently got updated by automated means. Calling their attention to the error is absolutely the right thing to do but had it been me, I would have called their attention to it and given them a day to fix it.
This doesn’t appear to be agenda-driven misinformation. It appears to be simply an error in the data collection of the sort that can be expected to happen from time to time.
yes this is worth blogging about…it points to the sloppiness of an organization that has headlined dire consequences in the past…if you are going to cry wolf, it better be real…this error also begs the question of what else lies underneath that rock?… the way i read the comment from dr. meier is that its no big deal…sure everyone makes mistakes and this may seem trivial to him, but mr meier, if you want tax dollars, we will hold you accountable for your work and we expect it to be accurate the first time…especially, when the ocean is full of agw alarmist sharks that use instantaneous headlines to ponitificate anything that would further their agenda…good work mr watts…have a nice day
John H. (09:17:34) :
…
NISDC has been a front row participant in adopting the certainty of AGW and
…
NSIDC! 🙂
To answer your question- YES. Discrepancies should be noted, publicly. Blogging is one of the best ways to do it.
hotrod (08:46:16) :
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.
With that comment in mind, to my eye there is still a discrepancy of perhaps 200,000 km^2 between the NSIDC trend line with respect to their 2006-2007 dashed reference line, and the current year and comparable 2006-2007 traces in the JAXA data.
This could be due to differences in how they compute their extent values, but the NSIDC data does not to seem to show the same “gain” in ice over the minimum ice cover years of 2006-2007, as shown in the JAXA graphic.
Apart from different algorithms there is a significant difference in the resolution of the two imaging systems and the difference in size of the polar ‘hole’.
Although the absolute values for the sea ice extent may be different due to calculation methods, it would be reasonable to expect that the difference between the current value and the average for those low ice years years would be similar.
Not necessarily with the difference in resolution.
If you look at the 2/15/2009 images on NSIDC you can also still see apparently missing ice in the Hudson bay, north shore of the Canadian land mass, and a large wedge of missing ice that flanks the Siberian end of the Bering Strait near Cape Dezhneva. Given the comments in the other thread about low clouds in the Hudson bay area and the Canadians saying there is no such ice breakup/open water in the Hudson bay, it would be reasonable for the folks at NSIDC to take a look at how their sensors and algorithm handle low clouds or fog perhaps.
I don’t know why you think that the response of the sensors and algorithms to clouds etc. have not been investigated, more of the ‘scientists are idiots meme’, I suppose! More usually such wedges are due to missing swathes such as shown below, they often extend much further towards the pole:
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/data/200902/P1AME20090205IC0.png
http://iup.physik.uni-bremen.de:8084/amsr/arctic_AMSRE_visual.png
Are errors in publicly presented data worth blogging about? Sure they are… Sometimes it is the only way to get something corrected. Anthony let Dr. Chapman know how inappropriate it was to have a reference to Al Gore on CT, and Dr. Chapman agreed and removed it.
I sent Dr. Chapman an e-mail on Dec. 26, 2008, about another item I believe is inappropriate and he has NOT responded. Since Dr. Chapman uses the data from NSIDC, I also sent a note yesterday to Dr. Meier by way of this blog. Again no response. In fairness Dr. Meier may have missed it. I have a feeling, however, that if Anthony did blog on this small issue, things would be straightened out.
“Dr. Meier,
Were you aware that Cryosphere Today has a product that purportedly compares images from your data for any two days in the satellite era? This product is very misleading and I believe it should be corrected or removed. Please see this overlay along with Steve Keohane’s explanation:
“Regarding another popular depiction of NH ice, I spent a little time on Cryosphere the other day and noticed something odd in comparing 12/20/80 to 12/22/08 NH ice extent. Hudson Bay and the outlet of Ob river in Russia, the boot-shaped inlet next to the arctic, appeared larger in the 1980 plat. I took the landmass/shoreline from 1980 and overlaid it on the 2008 plat, and got this: http://i44.tinypic.com/330u63t.jpg
Please note that I retained the star background in all images, and used their pixels for image registration. At full size, I see no perturbation of those pixels from one image to the other, and therefore assume they are correctly registered.There was no rescaling of any image, no change was made to the pixels, with the exception of tinting Greenland and a few islands blue so they would have contrast when overlaid.”
Here is the Comparison Product:
http://igloo.atmos.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/test/print.sh?fm=12&fd=20&fy=1980&sm=12&sd=22&sy=2008
I am sure that you want your images to be used properly so that they convey a proper comparison. I have already E-mailed Dr. Chapman:
Dr William Chapman,Can you please explain a couple of things on the Cryosphere Today “Compare side-by-side images of Northern Hemisphere sea ice extent” product, please? Why does the snow in the more recent dates cover areas that were previously sea inlets, fjords, coastal sea areas, islands and rivers? (Water areas, most easily discernible in the River Ob inlet. Why does the sea ice in the older images cover land areas? (Land areas, most easily discernible in River Ob inlet)See this overlay: http://i44.tinypic.com/330u63t.jpg Looking forward to your answer,
Mike Bryant
I have received no response.
I am sure that you do not condone the use of your images and data in this way. I am looking forward to your response.
Thank You,
Mike Bryant”
In my 21 years as a public school teacher I used state textbooks that were generally accurate, yet contained sporadic errors. (One Social Studies text, the only one state-approved at the time, informed us that the Rio Grande formed the boundary between California and Mexico. A current text wants us to tell the kids that the City of Monterey is at a higher elevation than Fresno.) While I would not recommend salting the texts with errors, I did find that these misstatements could provide teachable moments. (“OK, Guys, get out your maps and find the Rio Grande….”)
To the extent that Andrew’s aim is to correct the data, then Dr. Meier is entirely correct-communicate directly with the source. But I think that the aim is also to educate the public, and an interesting error has provided a teachable moment. As a result of the blog post, I now know what the NSDC is, what kind of data it makes available, and how it is contributing to the public dialogue. As a result of Dr. Meier’s response, I know more about how the data is collected, and the hazards of real-time/near-real-time reporting. I knew none of these things before.
I used to say that if I ever retired from teaching I was gonna go get me an education. I hope this is not a vice. If it is, then Andrew Watts is an enabler.
You should have given him more time to correct or revise. Near real-time data is a godsend. If you embarrass him too much, then say bye-bye to real-time data and hello to “massaged” data that shows up weeks later.
Any comments on the Jan NASA GISS data?
Isn’t the real question why do reports, charts and data series get published that always seem to favor the AGW hoax?
Isn’t this little thing like the Data Quality Act as shown here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Quality_Act
supposed to be followed. I remember back when the Republicans passed this, the intent was to stop this AGW misinformation and a bunch more government junk science, from becoming public.
Off topic sort of but when I looked at the reports you pu for Mark Sereze did about hoe north pole may be ice free in 2008 and the n to say it was the second lowest everwhy don’t they just tell us the truth????? Which is the second RECORDED lowest they have.These reports only go back to 1979 if memory serves me correctly.
Something still stinks in the land of NSIDC. Assuming that the same data is used to generate the graph(http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png) as well as the map (http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_daily_extent_hires.png), then the graph is still showing far less ice extent than it should be. As can be seen (and has been already commented on), there are vast areas on the map that are coloured “ice free” blue that are in reality not (eg. Bering Sea, Hudson Bay, Laptev Sea). Obviously an error. If the above assumption is true, then the graph is also counting the blue areas as anomalously ice free and therefore 2008-2009 line should be well above the 2006-2007 line.
I like to see major errors pointed out promptly for the same reason the agencies making them would prefer they weren’t. It shows errors exist. They’re not infallible. It advises caution in attaching too much importance to something like an Al Gore slide show.
Sylvia (00:28:05)
I have not forgotten the chaos question.
Climate scientists today seem bent and determined to base their predictions of eminent disaster by beginning with questionable data. When someone points out bad data, their reaction is to ‘shoot the messenger’ (Anthony, Steve, etc.) instead of acknowledgment that they are fallible, and so is their data.
All this points out to me is that when you are entrenched in one of those great government/academia jobs, you needn’t worry much about quality, just go with the flow. This is what we have to look forward to when we let government do things that would be better left to private companies and individuals. Guess we’d better get used to it, it’s going to get worse before it gets better.
James (07:58:16) :
“It’s also worth pointing out that yesterday was Presidents Day, a federal holiday.”
While Presidents Day is a Federal Holiday the NSIDC operates under the auspices of the University of Colorado’s Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences. As such, State organizations do not necessarily give their employees the holiday and many not directly employed by Federal Government call it a work day. Further, had this been an issue would not Walt have mentioned that they were unstaffed due to holiday?
The reaction here is more of an outpouring of real dismay at Dr. Meier’s dismissal of the error as un-“newsworthy.” Clearly there is antagonism raised by the steady refusal of institutional science to acknowledge the mountains of data questioning all aspects of global warming. Had skeptics not felt dismissed or belittled by these organizations – the reaction would probably not be so vehement.
It seems loke those arctice ice research centers are on their watch if the data is used faulty, at least when it does contradict AGW.
This is from cryosphere todays mainpage:
February 15, 2009
In an opinion piece by George Will published on February 15, 2009 in the Washington Post, George Will states “According to the University of Illinois’ Arctic Climate Research Center, global sea ice levels now equal those of 1979.”
We do not know where George Will is getting his information, but our data shows that on February 15, 1979, global sea ice area was 16.79 million sq. km and on February 15, 2009, global sea ice area was 15.45 million sq. km. Therefore, global sea ice levels are 1.34 million sq. km less in February 2009 than in February 1979. This decrease in sea ice area is roughly equal to the area of Texas, California, and Oklahoma combined.
It is disturbing that the Washington Post would publish such information without first checking the facts.
My comment:
Why isn’t it disturbing when there are predictions made of a icefree antarcits and northpole within 1-4 years when doing a linear interpolation over 2 years? Isnt that a faulty use of data also?