From the Guardian, finally some refreshing honesty in Science:
Climate scientists withdraw journal claims of rising sea levels
Study claimed in 2009 that sea levels would rise by up to 82cm by the end of century – but the report’s author now says true estimate is still unknown
The Maldives – poster child for bad science Photograph: Reuters
Scientists have been forced to withdraw a study on projected sea level rise due to global warming after finding mistakes that undermined the findings.
The study, published in 2009 in Nature Geoscience, one of the top journals in its field, confirmed the conclusions of the 2007 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It used data over the last 22,000 years to predict that sea level would rise by between 7cm and 82cm by the end of the century.
At the time, Mark Siddall, from the Earth Sciences Department at the University of Bristol, said the study “strengthens the confidence with which one may interpret the IPCC results“. The IPCC said that sea level would probably rise by 18cm-59cm by 2100, though stressed this was based on incomplete information about ice sheet melting and that the true rise could be higher.
Many scientists criticised the IPCC approach as too conservative, and several papers since have suggested that sea level could rise more. Martin Vermeer of the Helsinki University of Technology, Finland and Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany published a study in December that projected a rise of 0.75m to 1.9m by 2100.
Siddall said that he did not know whether the retracted paper’s estimate of sea level rise was an overestimate or an underestimate.
Announcing the formal retraction of the paper from the journal, Siddall said: “It’s one of those things that happens. People make mistakes and mistakes happen in science.” He said there were two separate technical mistakes in the paper, which were pointed out by other scientists after it was published. A formal retraction was required, rather than a correction, because the errors undermined the study’s conclusion.
…
In a statement the authors of the paper said: “Since publication of our paper we have become aware of two mistakes which impact the detailed estimation of future sea level rise. This means that we can no longer draw firm conclusions regarding 21st century sea level rise from this study without further work.
h/t Claude Harvey
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
“Mistakes were made”-the Nuremburg excuse..
2 mistakes? Isn’t peer review supposed to catch mistakes?
Are all of these withdrawals and revelations occurring now because of the strength of the vast fossil fuel funded skeptic industry or is the mainstream media finally smelled enough blood in the water to go after the Climate Industry on it’s own. I do not think we would have seen this 5 months ago.
Thanks
Ed
I congratulate the scientists involved for retracting a flawed study rather than trying to brazen it out or “move on” as has been the habit of others.
Basically any paper that supports the idea of catastrophic global warming should be expected to be withdrawn in the next few weeks.
Alarmism is dead. Next.
Also covered by The Guardian is new from the AAAS conference that the big wigs (inc. Lord Rees of RoySoc) are concerned about the public’s loss of faith in science due to the controversy over climate science:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/feb/21/climate-change-attacks-damaging-science
I agree!
It’s great to see the retraction of a climate paper published in Nature because “we can no longer draw firm conclusions regarding 21st century sea level rise.”
With kind regards,
Oliver K. Manuel
Given the gross incompetence that Rahmstorf has demonstrated in the past, I’m surprised that even a kindergarten journal would take his work.
Humm,
Sorry we made some mistakes, and with all the fuss going on from some…nitwits who don’t believe, well, we now need more study.
Please may we have another grant or three to recheck our data??
Thanks
Uh huh, I think I get it, (reaches to protect his wallet)
Mike Bentley
Alarmism is NOT dead. It is wounded. The would isn’t mortal either.
There is too much money, politics, and pride behind the AGW movement still. Expect them to regroup and come back with a vengeance when summer returns to the northern hemisphere.
The average sea level rise per century for the past 12,000 years (100M) has been 83cm. They need much bigger numbers to get into unprecedented-catastrophic territory.
Good on them for withdrawing once the mistakes were found. If only some others were prepared to do the same. I hope that they can reanalyse their data and republish a corrected version. That is the way science is supposed to make progress.
Slightly off-topic, but it’s interesting that two days previously The Guardian posted this article:
“Climate sceptics are recycled critics of controls on tobacco and acid rain”
by Jeffrey Sachs
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/cif-green/2010/feb/19/climate-change-sceptics-science
This article, in my opinion, is one of the most ludicrous statements to come out of the AGW movement in recent times.
“We are witnessing a predictable process by ideologues and right-wing think tanks and publications to discredit the scientific process. Their arguments have been repeatedly disproved for 30 years”
Haha!
The AGM Emperor’s are down to their thongs in Europe, loin cloths is India & shredded boxers in the USofA… LOL. OMG, forgive me if I have sinned… etc, etc. LOL, again… !
Do you all smell the accelerated pace of the awakening of ‘the little people?’ It seems that more & more Deniers are born everyday, or is that the sacrament of conversion in the air?
I think the global market for tree ring counters is collapsing. Speaking of collapsing, any one know a good “green stock” I can short?
Here’s the paper, for anyone interested:
Constraints on future sea-level rise from past sea-level change
Mark Siddall1*, Thomas F. Stocker2 and Peter U. Clark3
http://geo.oregonstate.edu/files/geo/Siddall-2009-NatureGeo.pdf
Mistakes were made.
Really? Sounds more like things got really sloppy on AR4.
Ok, where the catch? There’s always a catch with these people.
When this paper came out, it was trumpeted by many as debunking the increasingly bizarre sea level prognostications being made by the alarmist fringe, most notably Rahmstorf (of the “hockey team”). It is interesting how some skeptics (for the record, I am a skeptic) are spinning this retraction. Good on them for fessing up to an error (paging Michael Mann, paging Michael Mann), but from a skeptic’s viewpoint that is the only plus to come out of this.
Corey (19:57:24) :
Here’s the paper, for anyone interested:
Constraints on future sea-level rise from past sea-level change
A good exercise would be for all the smart cookies here to spot the two mistakes…
the authors of the paper said: “..we can no longer draw firm conclusions regarding 21st century sea level rise from this study..
Oh dear! This was a study that was supposed to “strengthen the confidence with which one may interpret the IPCC results“.
If we can no longer rely on the “peer reviewed” studies the IPCC relies on, maybe be can rely on Al Gore’s gut feeling instead? After all if he bought a beachside property just after the global drowning alarm, he must be pretty sure that its safe.
New quote of the week: People make mistakes and mistakes happen in science.
That is the point. The debate never happened and the science is not settled.
Remember, we almost got sold out, at COP15, over this type of s**t.
Thanks to Anthony (and too many others to name), we didn’t.
Thanks, to all of you!
The Guardian prints that story,and makes sure to point out what others are saying about sea level rise,by providing a link to a paper.
The paper they link to says that
How much faster? Pfeffer et al. (25) provided an independent
estimate of maximum ice discharge based on geographic constraints
on ice flow; they concluded that sea-level rise in the 21st
century is very unlikely to exceed 200 cm. If this estimate is correct, a nonlinear dynamical ice-sheet response may not
change our estimate upward by very much.
To limit global sea-level rise to a maximum of 1 m in the long
run (i.e., beyond 2100), as proposed recently as a policy goal (26),
deep emissions reductions will be required. Likely they would
have to be deeper than those needed to limit global warming to
2 °C, the policy goal now supported by many countries. Our
analysis further suggests that emissions reductions need to come
early in this century to be effective.
Software code accompanying this article is available (SI
Sea-Level Code).
End
They are shifting the goal post again,now we have to reduce our emissions to limit sea rise beyond 2100.
The more you give,the more they take.
Dr. Robert (19:24:24) ,
“Alarmism is dead. Next.”
Next?
Any Nobel earned with the alarmism of catastrophic global warming should be expected to be withdrawn in the next few weeks.
What are those whisker-like things protruding from the island in that photo? I’m assuming it must be man made since it’s so symmetrical and unnatural looking. It looks like some kind of pontoons.
REPLY: Tourist huts on stilts with a boardwalk connecting them. -a
edward (19:19:53) :
“Are all of these withdrawals and revelations occurring now because of the strength of the vast fossil fuel funded skeptic industry..”
You, like most followers have been kept in the dark about the mission funding. Open your Own Eyes an Look For Yourself, Think For Yourself.
At the bottom of this page:
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/about/history/
From the Climate Research Units own web site you will find a partial list of companies that fund the CRU.
It includes:
British Petroleum, ‘Oil, LNG’
Broom’s Barn Sugar Beet Research Centre, ‘Food to Ethanol’
The United States Department of Energy, ‘Nuclear’
UK Nirex Ltd. ‘Nuclear’
Sultanate of Oman, ‘LNG’
Shell Oil, ‘Oil, LNG’
Tate and Lyle. ‘Food to Ethanol’
Nuclear Installations Inspectorate, ‘Nuclear’
KFA Germany, ‘Nuclear’
World Wildlife Fund, ‘Political Advocates’
Greenpeace International, ‘Political Advocates’
You might what to check out what these and the other funding companies actually do.
So can you climate scientologists please stop with the skeptics in the pockets of Big Oil thing, it’s getting old. These companies have been funding the CRU for years and years. British Petroleum and Royal Dutch Shell were in there right at the start in 1974.