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
Eve
Spot ON!
Steven Oregon,
Best not hold your breath – Nobels used to be something special, now available in the bargan section at your local Walmart.
Mike Bentley
there’s probably a new paper about to be fast-tracked through the peer review process saying the sea rise will actually be 82m by the end of the century!
guardian is spinning as usual, but “true estimate is still unknown” is all we need to know for now.
Who do we have to thank for ‘uncovering’ this error, for performing some sort of due diligence, analyzing the ‘analysis’ or perusing the ‘raw data’ and pesting the poor authors with FOIA requests to get to the ‘bottom’ of this/the ‘paper’:
Robert ? (Troll Robert from Willis’ post, not Dr. Robert above)
Joel Shore?
RC?
NONE of the above?
.
.
From the Guardian, I find this deliciously ironic:
It looks like some of the Real Climate boys realized they need to take credit for finding mistakes before the skeptics do, in order to re-gain eroding public trust. Maybe, and finally, the beginning a good honest trend.
Hockey and sticks
Doping
Gold medals.
Paper withdrawn.
Unprecedented
Leif Svalgaard (20:09:37) :
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…
I’m not one of the resident smarties, but I can spot one issue right off the bat: Not using a large enough data set for fig 3! Even in the Method section they state “for the last century, projected into next century.”
I was actually tipped off by the fact that the Fig 3 graph doesn’t even predict a POSSIBILITY of the sea level going DOWN….every modelled scenario produces a HIGHER value. That got my spidey senses tingling, cuz if they had enough observational data, surely the sea level has been LOWER in the past. (I don’t know for certain…I’m just using instinct here.)
Am I close? Do I pass? I have no clue what the other transgression might be.
Oceanographer James McCarthy, the AAAS’s president-elect, said that after initial successes in tripping up the IPCC, sceptics will redouble their efforts to highlight other errors.
How about finding the errors first and not worrying about the sceptics.
The main point to take from this is that the paper in question had been peer reviewed, which review had failed to spot the errors in question. It was then examined by other scientists AFTER publication, who found the errors. I wonder if these scientists will now be vilified for “reducing the sum of human knowledge”, as Gavin Schmidt has recently accused Steve McIntyre of doing?
This actually is the way science is supposed to work, with papers subject to detailed scrutiny by the wider community after publication. It further illustrates that the adjective “peer reviewed” is of little relevance in establishing the validity or otherwise of research.
Relax guys. The authors retracted the paper potentially because their sea level rise estimates were *lower* than what is modelled.
“In the Nature Geoscience retraction, in which Siddall and his colleagues explain their errors, Vermeer and Rahmstorf are thanked for “bringing these issues to our attention”.
“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.”
But this is important in a different dimension:
This paper now leaves the Vermeer and Rahmstorf paper dangling without support (not that there is any lack of such papers).
It reduces the confidence in the IPCC by the same amount it increased it in, when it was published.
It shows that honesty is possible in climate science. Unlike other ‘scientists’ who believe, the message is more important.
Shub
I think you are jumping the gun here a little bit. First of all these mistakes were pointed out by Stefan Ramsdorf – a guy who claims that sea level rise “will surpass worst case senario”.
Am I the only one smelling a rat here?
Richard K (20:56:35) :
Oceanographer James McCarthy, the AAAS’s president-elect, said that after initial successes in tripping up the IPCC, sceptics will redouble their efforts to highlight other errors.
How about finding the errors first and not worrying about the sceptics.
————-
In my line of work, my biggest worry was the mistakes i missed, not the ones i found.
Oh I forgot the second point. The UK Guardian? Hello?
What do we have more of then the other guys? Truth – at least that’s the way I see it.
What happens if we lose our credibility?
They’re trying to submarine us. Don’t let them do it.
Bruckner8 (20:52:56) :
I’m not one of the resident smarties, but I can spot one issue right off the bat: Not using a large enough data set for fig 3! Even in the Method section they state “for the last century, projected into next century.”
Not knowing your model, I can’t tell. But another thing that struck me was their assumption that the temperatures in the past that they use to ‘tune’ their model [note the use of R^2 !] have no errors. If there are errors in the reconstructions [and they must be] then those will feed into their projections and increase the error in the projection.
edward was just being facetious.
Red:
It seems that more & more Deniers are born everyday, or is that the sacrament of conversion in the air?
Skeptics, not deniers, I find few totally denying. Seems to be the few AGW proponets that have appeared here of late. They are doing more for the awakening than most scientifically minded skeptics could ever do. Visitors can now view their methology up close and personal.
Possible critics from both AGWers and skeptics. The IPCC are running out of corners to sit in.
The peer review process rarely catches errors. Its more like a sniff test which has problems of its own (as has been mentioned on this site and CA).
The real peer review happens when other scientists examine data and methodology via attempted replication. That’s why data sharing and methodological transparency are so important.
It is rare to see a paper withdrawn by its authors but credit to them that they took it on the chin and did the right thing.
We are too cynical sometimes. Climate science is working its way back to normal science.
‘Are all of these withdrawals and revelations occurring now because of the strength of the vast fossil fuel funded skeptic industry..’
How do I apply? So far I worked out how to be a sceptic without any outside help. Just saw the fishy nature of the Warmists claims, and the even dodgier nature of some of them.
But if there’s a slush fund somewhere, I could do with a few bob.
Is there an examination to qualify, and must I provide backup data? Or does self-certification (a la Jones and Mann) count? Do I wait until a ‘shadowy figure’ from the ‘Big Oil complex’ comes knocking on my door?
John A (21:42:55) :
Climate science is working its way back to normal science.
Amen, and science is in the end self-correcting.
Don’t be overly excited about the paper being withdrawn. The mistakes found were found by people who believe sea level rise will be much higher than the mistaken paper had concluded.
Am I the only one who read this as being a retraction based on the supposition that the projected numbers were too small?
I realize everyone here is seeing ‘retracted’ as admission of a too-large error, but that seems to me to be wishful thinking.
“Whoops, we were wrong… the sea’s gonna hit +348 cm by Sept 2013.”
The original (guardian? telegraph?) article reads this way anyway.
Oliver K. Manuel (19:29:25) :
‘ 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.” ‘
Permissable, however, would be a statement like “the only firm conclusion regarding 21st century sea level rise is that it is the interval between low tide and high tide. For predictions beyond that, we now rely on a crystal ball.”
Its………….. watergate! was i first?
I don’t want to sound alarmist, but if my memory serves me correctly,
in terms of the activity noted on the sun, a period of more clouds is now coming or on its way (Svensmark’s theory).
Obviously more cloud cover leads to more precipitation and subsequent (global) cooling.
I think therefore it not so strange to observe that as a result we have:
1) more snow (everywhere in the NH during winter)
2) more rain (now Madeira) also here in South Africa (except for the southern parts)
3) which eventually may lead to a rise in river levels in the areas where we have this excessive precipitation
hence we should check all our river levees???!!!