Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
I always love seeing what Science magazine thinks is important. In their June 10th edition, in their “BY THE NUMBERS” section, they quote Nature Climate Change magazine, viz:
1,211,287 Square kilometers of ice road-accessible Arctic lands that will be unreachable by 2050, a 14% decrease, according to a report online 29 May in Nature Climate Change.
I busted out laughing. Sometimes the AGW supporters’ attempts to re-inflate the climate alarmism balloon are an absurd burlesque of the scientific method.
Truly, you couldn’t make this stuff up. I love it that they claim to know, to an accuracy of one square kilometre, both a) the current amount of Arctic lands reachable by ice roads around the globe and b) how that amount will change over the next forty years.
People continue to be perplexed that what they like to call the “scientific message of the dangers of climate change” is not reaching the US public. Over and over it is said to be a communications problem … which I suppose could be true, but only if “communications” is shorthand for “trying to get us to swallow yet another incredible claim”.
The idea that a hyper-accurate claim like that would not only get published in a peer-reviewed journal, but would be cited by another peer-reviewed journal, reveals just how low the climate science bar is these days. Mrs. Henniger, my high school science teacher, would have laughed such a claim out of the classroom. “Significant digits!” she would thunder. “What did your books say about significant digits”.
“The output of a mathematical operation can’t have more significant digits than the smallest number of significant digits in any of the inputs,” someone would say, and the class would grind on.
This waving of spurious accuracy is useful in one way, however. When someone does that, it is a valuable reminder to check your wallet—you can be pretty sure that they are trying to sell you something.
Because scientific studies have shown that when someone comes up with hyper-accurate numbers for their results, in 94.716% of the reported cases, what they are selling is as bogus as their claimed accuracy.
w.
Thank you from one who was schooled in the use of a slide rule and significant digits …
GIGO
Willis,
That’s probably the number their Dollar Store calculator spit out when they did their calculation.
The way Science magazine has gone reminds me of an Omni that a friend used to buy regularly. For those who don’t remember, Omni aimed itself at tthose who were above-average in intelligence…..or considered themselves to be. In the Omni that I remember so well, they were discussing how a satellite could be used to deliver goods anywhere in the world. Once it had reached the destination, it would simply lower the parcel by a long cable to the ground…..
Ian
I like how they used a very precise number for the square kilometers but chose 14% rather then 14.xxxxxxxxxxxx%
Spurious accuracy, or precision, is a new logical fallacy to be added to the classic ones. It enables us to determine the average temperature of the planet in 1855 to 3 decimal places, although the original measurements may have been accurate, at best, to +/- 1.0 degrees.
It gives the appearance of accuracy, which suggests the rightness of the argument that the number is supporting.
“Over and over it is said to be a communications problem … which I suppose could be true, but only if “communications” is shorthand for “trying to get us to swallow yet another incredible claim”.”
Andrew Revkin has a post over at DotEarth which explores the need for better communications on climate science. I posted this over there-
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/28/online-climate-explored-at-google/
I have a 12-step program to help guide the communication of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Change to the public. Here goes:
Step 1- Stop lying, lying by omission, exaggerating and emoting.
Let us know if step 1 is ever achieved.
Bring back slide rules… 😉
Research shows that 73% of all people who use the term “research shows”, are just making stuff up.
“By 2045–2059, a broad pattern of declining winter road accessibility potential on land and rising ship accessibility potential in the Arctic Ocean is observed in all ATAM simulations (Fig. 1). Most of the Arctic Ocean basin becomes newly accessible to Type A class (below Polar Class icebreakers, but capable of limited icebreaking) vessels for eight months of the year (July–February, in green). Losses in winter road potential occur from October to May (in red). Little change is projected between July and September as these months are already too warm to support winter roads today.”
Aren’t ships more energy efficient?
Math: 1 + 1 = 2
New Math. 1 mod n + 1 mod n = 2 mod n when n>2
AGW Math 1 + 1 = 8 (+/- 6)
Bingo, Willis!! However, since all of this late-season spring snow is apparently due to climate change, maybe they are a bit confused?
Somehow the case has to be made that model projections like this, the amount of arctic ice decline, temperature increase, etc., need error bands and the certainty around them.
Here’s a math challenge, then.
If the AGW scare were a corporation — say, Globwarm Inc. — which encompassed not just all the academic research but the government departments (even your local city Climate Change official is on secondment from the corporation), what would Globwarm’s revenues be, and how many employees would it have?
The idea that a hyper-accurate claim like that…
——
Not to be nit-picky, but that is a “hyper-precise” number. Only time will tell if it is “hyper-accurate”.
precision != accuracy
Number of square kilometers of Arctic lands that already have become unaccessible by ice roads in Winter, in company with the “unprecedented” decrease in Arctic sea ice extent = 0?
Quoting statistical and systematic errors in so-called climate science, unlike the rest of science, seems to be optional.
Publishing in Nature and Science is, in general, difficult and often considered a high point of a scientist’s career. Again the exception is climate science which appears to get a free pass. Probably the result of replacing peer review with pal review in this specific field.
to all sceptics in sydney australia a rally will be held at martin place at 12.00 mid day on the 1st of july friday to stop labour from brining a carbon tax
Typhoon: trouble is the bad stuff is spread to the whole journal. If I was a biologist worth my salt I probably would not even consider submitting any major findings to Science or Nature any longer.
The claim itself is bogus, regardless of decimal point.
Still, it’s a fine example of the typical hypocrisy from those who regularly oppose Arctic access for any useful purpose.
…in 94.716% of the reported cases…
We need humorous posts now and again, thanks Willis!
(Not that almost everything the alarmists do these days isn’t laughable.)
“The output of a mathematical operation can’t have more significant digits than the smallest number of significant digits in any of the inputs,”
I agree with the spirit of your post…but this is a bad representation of the rules. I have taught this for over 20 years and I am well aware that there is a common error between rules for addition/subtraction and rules for multiplication/division. Mult/div relies on sig digs – least sig digs determines sig digs for the result. Add/sub relies on precision – least precise determines position of last significant digit.
Example: 9.8 (2 sig digs) and 0.9 (1 sig dig), both are precise to nearest 1/10.
9.8 + 0.9 = 10.7 (3 sig digs).
Both numbers are precise to 1/10 and the answer is also precise to 1/10 but the number of significant digits has increased to 3.
I predict that 100.00% of all ice roads in the arctic will have vanished by the end of July 2011.
Mrs. Singer was my first science mentor – 8th grade.
I’d bet lessons for significant figures were taught, but I don’t remember specifically her teaching it, but at 50, I still try to follow the rule.
What I DO remember of Mrs. Singer, and will always, was how she nurtured my talents. I got to set up the experiments for class, and she gave me lots of leeway to explore my interests in science.
Thank you Mrs. Henniger and Mrs. Singer – your are in our hearts forever. (I assume Willis you have a similar fondness for Mrs. H as I do for Mrs. S.)
Sad as always, but I find the non-peer reviewed The Economist to have far better science, information and research than ANY of the “science” mags and journals of today. Truly pathetic.
Robert of Ottawa says:
June 28, 2011 at 5:49 pm
Spurious accuracy, or precision, is a new logical fallacy to be added to the classic ones. It enables us to determine the average temperature of the planet in 1855 to 3 decimal places, although the original measurements may have been accurate, at best, to +/- 1.0 degrees.
It gives the appearance of accuracy, which suggests the rightness of the argument that the number is supporting.
_______________________________________________________________________
Even worse they add the high and low for the day and divide by 2 to get the average temperature for the day when in fact the true average temperature is somewhere between those two figures but not likely exactly half way. That makes the error bars rather large and likely well outside + or – 1 degree. For some reason 52.345 degrees F + or – 10 degrees doesn’t really mean a whole lot.
Oh PLEASE no …
That also means the use of trig tables … oh wait, those can be found on the S, T, and ST scales …
Never mind (but I DID love my TI SR-50 when it came out; still have it too!)
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