Readers may recall my story from April 6th where I asked:
What’s delaying UC sea level data from being updated?
As you can see in the graph above, the data has not been updated since mid 2010. I wrote then:
I sent a query from their web page asking why, and hope to hear back soon.
Actually I sent two email queries, one from the web page form, and one to this scientist, listed on the UC sealevel contact page
Dr. R. Steven Nerem
phone: 303.492.6721
fax: 303.492.2825
Over a week passed, hearing nothing. I decided to make a phone call today to Dr. Nerem. Here is what I learned.
First, I give the man points for answering his own phone, a true rarity these days in our voicemailed world.
I explained who I was, why I was calling, and that I had sent emails that had gone unanswered, and asked for an update.
His response was:
“We are updating our web page to a new design, and that is the reason for the delay.”
I replied with: “OK I understand, but the SL data hasn’t been updated since mid 2010, and people are asking questions about it.”
“Well we only update a couple times per year anyway. Sea level changes pretty slowly you know.”
I said: “Yes, but in looking at your previous release schedules, you would have been due for an update in February 2011, and that hasn’t happened. ”
To which he replied:
“This new website design won’t work with our current format, so if you can just be patient and wait a couple of weeks we’ll have it online.”
I thanked him for his time and ended the call.
So there you have it, the reason for a lack of update? Form before function.
Somehow, I don’t think anybody gives rat’s ass about how “prettied up” the web presentation of sea level data is. Just show us the data. I’ll take a table, CSV file, hell even a fax.
So in “couple of weeks” we’ll see if the wait for the new prettier web page was worth it. Somehow, I think it is going to end up looking a lot like this one with more web bling than substance:
Which ironically, has an even longer delayed update of sea level data:
I shall revisit this story in two weeks time, or upon a web page update of http://sealevel.colorado.edu/ whichever comes first.
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Green Sand says: “Bob, being somebody who is just starting on the sea level ‘learning curve’, could you please explain why is this so important to you.”
I wrote a reply earlier, but when I hit send I got an error message (on my end I beieve), so I don’t think it got stuck in the spam filter. That’s the explanation in case the other one pops up.
To answer your question, it would allow independent researchers without data processing capabilities to investigate sea level data on regional and basin-wide bases.
Example, here’s a post that illustrates the effects of ENSO on sea level I wrote a couple of years ago:
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2009/08/29/enso-is-a-major-component-of-sea-level-rise/
And the follow-up post:
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2009/09/12/supplement-to-enso-is-a-major-component-of-sea-level-rise/
Note that the data ends in 2004. That’s the last year for that dataset through the KNMI Climate Explorer, which I use as a source of data for most of my posts (except the monthly SST updates). Link to KNMI Climate Explorer:
http://climexp.knmi.nl/selectfield_obs.cgi?someone@somewhere
“If the update of the webpage will allow users to enter ranges of coordinates, such as 0-70N, 80W-0 for the North Atlantic, instead of picking a single spot, it will be a welcome improvement and well worth the wait.” – Bob Tisdale wisely wrote.
As long as I can set the scale to be what I want, say something that people can relate to, a yard or a meter. That’ll put their graph in perspective.
Oh, it would also be good to be able to plot average, maximum, and minimum wave heights as well.
How detailed is the data? Is it just a summary of global averages or does it have the full (whatever that means) raw data or is the data mannipulated and if so how is it mannipulated? What other processing “tricks” have been used to massage the data with statistics? How much and which of the data is pure data fabrication filling in missing data or just smeared over vast areas where they don’t have sensors? What factors are taken into account? Land subsidence? Earthquakes? Gravity anomalies? Magnetic shift anomalies? Current changes? Land use changes? Continental drift? Other factors? ERRORS in readings by humans? by machines? Data entry errors? What is the error range and will it be shown clearly labeled on all graphs shown to the public (including on the web site) so that there is no misrepresentation by the scientists bias? Is it the best data set possible? (Pun intended, sorry couldn’t resist). What is wrong about their analysis methods (what are their analysis methods)? What is right about them, if anything? (Assume the worst is the normal stance in science).
APACHEWHOKNOWS says:
April 15, 2011 at 2:48 pm
While we all wait some one fetch me a set of left handed vice-grip plyers.
I think Ned Flanders sale’s those mabye he can help them lol ;>)
I have personally spoken to the people at U.Colorado myself, and the true story is that they have acutally hired some new staff to prepare the data for publication.
James Hansen has been hired to adjust the data to correct for anomalies due to changes in measuring equipment – and Michael Mann has been hired to write the new graphing algorithm using his highly respected Hockesque Algorithm.
They are sure eveyrone will be pleased with the results.
Needs:
2 plain text files:
1) data.
2) documentation.
To reiterate:
Plain text is best.
Bob Tisdale, my fear is that ….
http://www.woodfortrees.org/graph/jisao-pdo/from:1900/to:2000/plot/jisao-pdo/trend
nothing
ggm , I like the jh and mm thing if they are on board i’ll go for it ;>)
(sarcoff)
Sea level changes pretty slowly you know.
LOL. Well that’s worth a coffee mug right there. Where’s Josh? 😉
Maintaining data requires effort. Effort will naturally stop if the data turns out not to be directly useful to enhancing the career of the person doing the maintaining. It now seems that sea level isn’t rising catastrophically and in fact may be doing the opposite. This data isn’t therefore useful and may in fact be embarrassing. Being responsible for bringing attention to this data will not enhance and may even damage a scientific career. I am not surprised that the maintenance of this data has gone on the back burner.
Sea level data is falling into the area of neglect where all positive outcomes of climate change are consigned. For example the greening of the globe as measured by satellite is actually one of the very few outcomes of climate change that pass the test of statistical significance. The world really IS greener … especially in places like the Sahara … at greater than the three sigma level of significance. And food production is significantly up too as a result. The fertilizer effect of CO_2 is the obvious explanation. But reporting on or studying this isn’t useful in enhancing a scientific career so it is pretty much ignored while money is poured into studying things like the plight of the polar bear.
You might think that food production is of greater interest that polar bears, but you’d be wrong because polar bears tell the right story while the result in the case of food production is inconvenient and thus not deserving of attention. And when it becomes clear down the track that the polar bears are really not in trouble, study of polar bears will also cease and interest will switch to something else.
The most pernicious effect of political correctness in science doesn’t involve the falsification or manipulation of data. I maintain that this is rare. The most serious issue is this kind of selective focus of interest which ensures that only data which support the story of impending catastrophe receive any attention. Observations which might say the opposite are subject to a kind of willful blindness and lack of interest, and are ignored into oblivion. Scientists have observed that noticing embarrassing data is not a career enhancing move.
Dang I wonder how they can be so accurate on the sea level. When I lived in Fla. I once took my yard stick to the beach and waded out a little way and put the stick in the water vertically with one end in contact with the ocean floor and the other in the air. The durn water wouldn’t stay still long enough to get a reading that had any meaning at all. (this is sarc) I just wonder how they get such mm readings any way. Just average what ever happens that day or month or year or decade or century? This is all bunk anyway. These folks are looking for funding and it just may be a dry year for them judging by the current congress. (about time)
Bill Derryberry
“new website/not compatible”?Huh?
I dont think so, do you? It reeks of desperation, these people are frightened and very uncomfortable, it is my guess that they have data they wish they hadn’t, they are in possession of evidence and its like a hot potato, its also my guess they have been trying increasingly desperate measures to ‘adjust’ the data and ‘add value'(tm).
Maybe the fish have been drinking too much water due to global warming and thats why sea levels are falling so the team are just working out an algorerythm(tm) with which they will prove sea levels are in fact rising(sarc off).
Translation:
“We are updating our web page to a new design, and that is the reason for the delay.”
The data we hold is so dangerous to the CAGW orthodoxy that we cannot release it until we have had the opportunity to attempt an adjustment.
“Well we only update a couple times per year anyway. Sea level changes pretty slowly you know.”
Oh dear, caught out and not knowing what to say, he lets the cat out of the bag in an unconscious slip. He has effectively and unconsciously let slip the latest agreed excuse just as anyone with something to hide invariably does, ask any professional interrogator and they will confirm this.
All quite sad really isnt it? They have evidence they really wish they hadn’t got, they have data that they really really do not want and they dont quite know or haven’t quite agreed what to do with it, they sound like they have been trying to hold onto to the data in the vain hope that a little more data would enable them to present a more acceptable end product?
The main problem with the current graph and it’s sensitive scale is that it emphasises the reduction in the rate of increase over the past 5-10 years. This apparant slow down in sea level rise is not helping the AGW cause.
I would put money on the new graph being set up to “hide the decline”
Latitude says:
April 15, 2011 at 1:39 pm
Who would have thought that falling sea levels….
….would have messed up their website
It’s worse than we thought……………………..
Or they cleverly put all their data storage in the Kingdom of Tonga? Aren’t those islands supposed to be under water by now? (snide comment from my sister, actually)
“Which ironically, has an even longer delayed update of sea level data”
How is it ironic that a website with more bling than substance has older data?
Hmmm. Sea levels not rising as expected? It must be a “travesty” that they aren’t cooperating with the desired narrative. This delay in the publication of our data (we taxpayers funded it) makes me think that the latest data must be decidedly un-alarming, which is happy news. If the good Dr. Narem is indeed a good, he’ll publish the data asap with no bodging, enhancement or obfuscation. Any such attempts would only end up being loudly exposed, attracting even more attention to the real data. With the increased attention this delay has already brought it would be prudent to change nothing about the how the data is processed or presented for this release.
If the sea level continues its flattening, I wonder when the average trend will shift from “3.1” to “3.0” mm/yr – which would obviously be a bad advertising for models predicting an acceleration ….
“Dang I wonder how they can be so accurate on the sea level.” Bill in Vigo
That’s a reasonable thing to wonder about. Measuring sea level with a tidal gauge turns out to be be fiendishly difficult. You need to allow for wind direction, local water temperature and a lot of other stuff. Not to mention the fact that you have to know whether the tidal gauge itself is rising or sinking and how fast. None the less, “they” have been measuring sea level rise for 130 years (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Recent_Sea_Level_Rise.png). And, for a wonder, the measurements are quite similar to those observed directly from satellites for the last 20 years.
It’s fairly obvious that the data is fairly noisy and that sea level is rising at a very modest rate — roughly a foot a century. It seems likely that rate has not been constant since Roman times. If it were, every ancient seaport would be under 6 meters of water. It’s also obvious that sea level rise is NOT tracking to atmospheric CO2.
It should be, but probably is not, obvious, that short term numbers such as those from the University of Colorado are almost certainly not meaningful on their own. At least not for predicting future sea levels. That’s because of poorly understood short term (random?) variations (“noise”). The values need to be averaged with many years worth of similar data before any meaningful pattern in long term rise could possibly emerge. If the next value makes a significant difference in the results, that would probably indicate bad data or faulty analysis, not some sort of suddenly revealed truth about sea level.
Anyone betting the new web-site helps them “hide the decline”?
I did a wget -m http://sealevel.colorado.edu/ just in case.
FINISHED –2011-04-16 08:18:29 UTC–
Downloaded: 152 files, 65M in 53s (1.23 MB/s)
“This new website design won’t work with our current format, so if you can just be patient and wait a couple of weeks we’ll have it online.”
Anyway, what kind of eerie website design they are planning which would not work with a simple text file format like this!?
kwik says:
April 15, 2011 at 2:30 pm
… who apparently also are unaware of the mountains of this country.
Bob Tisdale says:
April 15, 2011 at 6:34 pm
Green Sand says: “Bob, being somebody who is just starting on the sea level ‘learning curve’, could you please explain why is this so important to you.”
Bob, many thanks for the reply, will read and digest.
Regards
I give you That link if usable
http://www.aviso.oceanobs.com/fileadmin/images/news/indic/msl/MSL_DiffSLA_TG_Ajust_Filtre2m.png.
Thank you for the blog.
I live at a confluence of climate change indicators. The ocean to my west, the worlds second largest tidal lake to my north east and the river that flows from it to my east, and sometimes to it when the tide comes in. And a Glacier whose northwest side I can see from many vantage points near my home. I have lived here for almost 45 years, and I can not detect visually any sign of the many climate change indicators that are supposedly to exist. From sea level rise to disappearing glaciers and increasing drought.
Funny that the glacier chosen as poster boy for global warming locally is Coquitlam glacier well hidden in the water shed inaccessible to the general public, when we have a perfectly good glacier to reference that every one can see in plain view, Mount Baker in Washington State.
Just the other day a nearby city, Vancouver, celebrating its 125th birthday this year had a high for the day that was a record cold for this time of year. No other day in its history had a high that was colder on that day despite records going back all those decades. And last summer, when records where being broken around south western B.C. , Vancouver, one of the oldest cities, didn’t break its record. The other cities just where not around during the hotter periods in the past.
Today big in the MSM in Holland . Antarctic ice melt will make sealevels rise with 120 cms and Arctic ice melt with only 40 cms . Of course this announced as official scientific research , whilst from my pint of view these are innocuous students playing with models , from which they do not have any understanding of the parameters-setting and showing a total neglect for circulation-patterns within the atmosphere .
Anyway this resembles sophisticated betting , where contrary to a normal pokergame all the odds are against mankind and serving only a new class of so-called climate con-scious high priests . What a waste of talent , time and money .