UPDATE: problem solved, see below.
I wonder if NSIDC actually looks at their own output from day to day? I know that sounds harsh, but the reality is that bloggers keep finding their errors and pointing them out to them, while at the same time the head of NSIDC Dr. Mark Serreze refuses to apologize for his comment “I have yet to lose any sleep over what is talked about in WattsUpWithThat or any other similar blog that insists on arguing from a viewpoint of breathtaking ignorance.“
Last night I published NSIDC’s April Sea Ice Update along with an NWS report about record Bering Sea Ice. Simon F. was first to spot it within minutes.
Simon F. says:
There appears to be another glaring error on the NSIDC page about arctic sea ice. Look at these two images: http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_stddev_timeseries.png & http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/files/2012/05/Figure2.png – How come one practically touches the mean and the other never gets close?
I figured I’d wait until morning to see if NSIDC fixed the issue themselves. Nope. Let’s look at those graphs.
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_stddev_timeseries.png
OK, nothing wrong with this one. Note how the sea ice kisses the normal line. NSIDC alludes to this in their April Summary saying: Arctic sea ice reaches near-average extent in April
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/files/2012/05/Figure2.png
Hmmm….the blue line no longer kisses the normal line.
Since these graphs have the same scale, doing an overlay is easy.
It seems the average line has shifted. WUWT?
Why do bloggers keep having to point out NSIDC’s errors in their public presentations to their scientists? This is the second time in a month such errors have been spotted by bloggers, prompting NSIDC to do a correction last month.
NSIDC fixes their Arctic Sea Ice graphing problem
NSIDC’s oops moment – uncoordinated changes make for an interesting 24 hours
And of course the first time we pointed out a glaring error, that the satellite sensor failed, I was told it wasn’t worth blogging about.
Errors in publicly presented data – Worth blogging about?
NSIDC pulls the plug on Arctic Sea Ice Graphs
No good deed goes unpunished I suppose.
UPDATE: 9:15AM PST
I’ve heard from Dr. Walt Meier at NSIDC, and they are working to fix the problem. He sends his thanks for spotting the problem. – Anthony
UPDATE2: 2:30PM PST.
This came in earlier today at 12:32, but I was busy with other issues. The problem has been solved. Walt Meir writes:
We’ve corrected the image.
Thank you again for bringing it to our attention. It’s always good to have multiple eyes on things like this since we’re not an operational center and don’t always catch things, especially when we’re busy with other responsibilities.
Here is the corrected Figure 2 image:
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drobin9999 says: May 4, 2012 at 8:13 am
“Do we really have to have the WUWT snotty meter pegged at 10 on every post? Relax folks, this isn’t an evil plot to pull the wool over anybody’s eyes.”
If there is a meter being pegged it is at the NSIDC for incompetence, not conspiracy.
If I were to produce work that is as laden with mistakes, especially in so short of a time period, I would most certainly be called into someone’s office and reamed a new one.
Do you work at the NSIDC?
This might explain your reluctance to castigate when castigation is due. This is public domain information…..it is important….they need to own the responsibility.
I’m curious what all those other busy responsibilities are… seems like a pretty easy job if you can get it…
I was willing to give them the benefit of doubt last time. Not now. They’ve just blown it as far as I’m concerned. The excuse they give will be interesting nevertheless. Is it possible that Dr. Walt Meier doesn’t know what’s going on with these graphs or who’s fiddling with the data? Maybe it’s time for him to get angry about that and start demanding some answers from his own team.
Conspiracy is always less probable than C*ck up. There are more stupid people than intricate deceivers.
And this isn’t the act of one person. Many people combine to look at this; saying yep is simple while interrogating decisions is time-consuming.
Yet still the leader sets the tone. And Serrize with his gloomy death spirals does seem to be spinning his fellows through ever decreasing circles, ascending their own profundiment.
Oh, my prediction is falsified! Good.
Latitude says:
May 4, 2012 at 12:26 pm
So your claim is that you’ve never let an error slip by, even on something important?
You are assuming that they are all assiduously doing their job, and keeping their eye on the ball (or the little blue line) … so tell me, Latitude, how often do you come across that kind of dedication and attention to detail among people who work for Government-funded organizations? Is that common in your experience, that they are assiduously examining their output for errors?
Because my experience is that people working on the government dime USUALLY are not paying that much attention to the end product, because they don’t have any skin in the game. They don’t lose money if they screw up, they won’t get fired, so why should they care if there’s a little error every once in a while?
w.
PS—The alternate explanation, that they have deliberately altered the records and are hoping against hope that not one of the WUWT readers will spot it, would mean that the explanation of idiocy is even more likely …
PPS—You say “that little blue line is all they do” … really? NSIDC, with a couple dozen scientists and a budget of $9.9 million, and that little blue line is all that they do? I don’t think so. I think that maintaining that online graph is a job given to someone well down the food chain, and they’re not paying attention …
Mmm … I would sure like to have been given some understanding of HOW the problem happened … Anthony, any clues on that one?
w.
Willis Eschenbach says:
May 4, 2012 at 2:58 pm
I think that maintaining that online graph is a job given to someone well down the food chain, and they’re not paying attention …
========================
Total horse manure……
No one is taking turns doing it…..there’s someone/group/division/etc responsible for producing the graph, it’s one of their products…………
Latitude says:
May 4, 2012 at 3:24 pm
Willis Eschenbach says:
May 4, 2012 at 2:58 pm
I think that maintaining that online graph is a job given to someone well down the food chain, and they’re not paying attention …
========================
Total horse manure……
No one is taking turns doing it…..there’s someone/group/division/etc responsible for producing the graph, it’s one of their products…………
Yes, and once you have made one or two errors, and you know third parties are going over it with a fine tooth comb, you damn well check it internally three times before putting it out – at least you do if you are competent.
There is a very simple test as to whether errors are accidental or not. Accidental errors are random and thus go more or less equally in both directions. If about half the errors favour warmists, and the other half sceptics, they are probably random. If all the errors go one way they are either deliberate or at least indicate bias.
People make mistakes — but there is a concept in contract law: Errors so egregious as to constitute deliberate fraud. At what point do we start ascribing deliberate fraud to all these errors. Dr. Meir seems to be an up front type of person but I’d call his boss a total (self sniped). Unfortunately, it’s the boss who sets the tone of the office.
Puckster says:
May 4, 2012 at 2:20 pm
Don’t be so harsh on them. Their work and the work of dozens of other institutes only forms the basis of the gold standard of climate science, the IPCC report. So what do they need quality checks for. Don’t know what goes into that box? Hey, make it up. Nobody notices, nobody cares. All’s good when there’s concern. And climate change. There’s no objective reality anyway, the methodology of post normal science says so. The past is cooling. The blue line is shifting. Envisat shows dropping sea level? Well, shut it down and make up new values. Nobody notices, nobody cares. The MSM will keep silent.
Of course in a just world they’d all be waiting tables.
I wonder of there is “pressure” from the other quarter.
Do people call them up and say ” Why is the blue line touching the grey line, how can that be , the ice is MELTING !” ?
The way to avoid such errors is to appoint an “in house sceptic” to keep a critical eye on things. Such errors slip through because of confirmation bias. You need to add a sceptic to the team to guard against this.
Can someone tell this layman why the “average” sits way above the lines for each of the years? Surely the average would be in the middle?
Interns, summer help, co-op students, grad and under-grad students earning some ‘grub’ money, maybe doing a brother-in-law a favor for his kid … who can say where the issues crop up. Surely not with the ‘professional’ degreed staff eh?
Kudos to Dr. Walt Meier for being so upfront and honest; one never knows with what kind of system and personnel issues he may have to work with in the ‘back office’ though …
.
Haydenlee says:
May 4, 2012 at 4:20 pm
Can someone tell this layman why the “average” sits way above the lines for each of the years? Surely the average would be in the middle?
It’s because it is an average for the years 1979-2000. All the colored lines are years post-2000.
Years before 1979 do not count. Its like they never happened. Yes it is pretty thin for an average.
The simplest explanation is confirmation bias. Amazing how they manage to catch all the mistakes that go the other way, in favor of CAGW.
The coming years may be a little harsh on those that believe in the death spiral. The approximate lag in the climate of 16 years is over for the last large solar maximums.
The extra heat pumped into the oceans has almost depleted itself in its perambulations north and south. The coming solar cycles may be a little less than ideal for melting ice.
When your claim to fame is an Arctic ice death spiral and the adoration of your faithful believers, and it does not happen, ego bruising may cause anger management problems. Thus I fear this Dr Mark may not be happy with results.
It is an error and the timing is horrible, that sparks a bit of interest in the timing, don’t you think? maybe this goes on all the time? maybe it doesn’t, fue would notice these errors usually and especially nowadays with all the wild claims of complete and utter bull being indiscriminately dispensed in and by the mainstream, people are having a critical look at the detail and debating it, I’m not sure if science and engineering is properly funded, tho I do still think it is under funded, maybe this could be where the nature of this overlying problem began?
Funding management? who and where does that responsibility fall?
drobin9999 says:
May 4, 2012 at 8:13 am
Relax folks, this isn’t an evil plot to pull the wool over anybody’s eyes.
============
What you have failed to recognize is cognitive bias. The person keeping and reporting the data isn’t likely to catch errors when the data matches their expectations, even when it is wrong.
The problem is that the data isn’t maintained by someone with a neutral point of view, so they never catch one sided errors. In any other branch of science this would have long been recognized and a process (double blind) put in place to prevent such errors.
However this is climate science which is about as mickey mouse an imitation of science as one would ever hope to find. Zero concept of data quality. For this they get paid money. Hard earned taxpayer money to a bunch of nincompoops with titles.
The organization has forgotten who pays for its work. NSIDC would be more responsive to the public if their funding was cut from the tens of millions annually today. The organization cannot even produce a timely annual report. Their last annual report was 2010 with the bulk of the funding stream coming from NASA and the rest from NSF and NOAA.
http://nsidc.org/pubs/documents/annual/NSIDC_Annual_Report_2010.pdf
Cut the funding until NSIDC can provide accurate data, account for its activities, and respond in a timely and appropriate fashion to the taxpayers who pay for its activities.
“I have a dream” that one day there will be a serious and honest high level enquiry which will add up all the “errors” and determine the proportion which went in favour of the warmists and proportion which went against. And that if there is a sufficiently significant difference, courts across the land will conclude in many class actions that fraud was more likely than not the cause. (I may be a lawyer but not from the US so I do not stand to benefit)
This just reinforces my view that climate science is still a few decades behind medical science in methodological rigor.
Willis has wisely invoked the maxim, “Never ascribe to…” Some have responded that if it is incompetence, shouldn’t the mistakes go both ways equally? No, they should not. This is why writers need editors. This is why people measuring the sizes of tumors need to be blinded to the treatments the patients are getting. Everyone has their own bias, and everyone has a harder time catching errors that go with that bias than go against it. No malice required. This is the real danger of “pal review” replacing peer review. If your data and methods are never checked by someone who is predisposed to doubt your conclusions, you are likely to publish something regrettable (like the “hockey stick” for example.).
When was the last time a skeptic at WUWT caught an error that weakened the alarmist case? In your heart of hearts, do you think you are just as quick to catch an error in your favor as you are to catch one against it?
Great work to find errors in the science and point them out! This is positive advancement of climate science. It is why I read WUWT and return here every day.
The other stuff which plays the man so to speak and then hammers people who say they dont like it in the comments is not why I come here. I think rating comments might be a good idea. It gives people feedback.