Note: This is a follow up post to this one: Claim: Antartica record high sea ice partially an artifact of an algorithm I’d actually planned to write a rebuttal like this, but a wonky T-1 data line took all my time today, so the honor goes to Pat and Chip – Anthony
Molehill of Antarctic Ice Becomes a Mountain
By Patrick J. Michaels and Paul C. “Chip” Knappenberger
In science,…novelty emerges only with difficulty, manifested by resistance, against a background provided by expectation. Initially, only the anticipated and usual are experienced even under circumstances where the anomaly is later to be observed. –Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962)
One of global warming’s “novelties” is that satellite measurements show the extent of ice surrounding Antarctica is growing significantly, something not anticipated by our vaunted climate models.
Thomas Kuhn would predict “resistance”, and today we see yet another verification of how stubborn science can be in the face of results don’t comport with the reigning paradigm. The paradigm, in this case, is that our climate models are always right and any counterfactuals are because something is wrong with the data, rather than with the predictions.
“Resistance” means that peer-reviewers aren’t likely to find much wrong with papers that support the paradigm (and that they will find a lot wrong with ones that don’t). Further, the editors of scientific journals will behave the same, curiously avoiding obvious questions.
Perhaps as fine an example as there is of this process appeared June 21 in the journal The Cryosphere, which is published by the European Geosciences Union. It is a paper called “A spurious jump in the satellite record: has Antarctic sea ice expansion been overestimated?”, by Ian Eisenman (Scripps Institution) and two coauthors.
As shown in our figure, the increase in Antarctic ice extent has been quite impressive, especially since approximately 2000.
Antarctic ice extent from Cryosphere Today (http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.antarctic.png)Not so fast. Eisenman et al. write that “much of the expansion [of Antarctic ice] may be a spurious artifact of an error in the processing of satellite observations” [emphasis added].
Wow, that would be really something, knocking down one of the glaring anomalies in global climate, and adding credence to the models. Eisenman et al. note
In recent years there has been substantial interest in the trend in Antarctic sea ice extent…primarly due to the observed asymmetry between increasing ice extent in the Antarctic and rapidly diminishing ice extent in the Arctic (e.g. Cavalieri et al., 1997) and the inability of current models to capture this (e.g. Eisenman et al, 2011).
No doubt working from the premise that the observed increase in Antarctic ice just can’t be right, Eisenman et al. would appear to have finally verified that hypothesis.
Until you look at the numbers.
Then you are left questioning the review process—at all levels—relating to this work.
The key finding is that there was a processing error in the data. Microwave sensors that are used to estimate ice extent (and also lower atmospheric temperature) wear out in the harsh environment of space, and new satellites are launched with fresh equipment. But each one doesn’t send data with the exact same statistical properties, so a succeeding sensor is “calibrated” by comparison with an existing one.
Eisenman et al. found that there was a change in the intercalibration between instruments in December, 1991 when the data were reprocessed in 2007. Apparently this wasn’t immediately obvious because there is so much “noise” in the data.
Indeed, Eisenman et al have located the needle in this haystack, showing the step-change between the two data sets:
Please take a look at the y-axis. You will see that the value of the “step” change is about 0.2 times 106 square kilometers, or 200,000 square kilometers.
Wow, that’s a lot! After all, Eisenman et al. tell us that this shift explains “much” of the increase in Antarctic sea ice.
Hopefully readers caught on before going this far. If the reason that the shift was undetected is because the data is so noisy, how important can it be? Now, have a look at the overall ice extent, shown in our first figure.
The y-axis is in millions of square kilometers. The change since the turn of the century is about 1.3 million square kilometers, a mountain of ice The step change is about 200,000, a molehill. That doesn’t sound like “much” to us.
But, hey, if you don’t look too close—and we are sure are greener friends (or the reviewers) won’t (or didn’t)—you might believe that everything is ok with the reigning, model-based paradigm. In fact there’s “much” that is wrong with it.
As Kuhn wrote, “Only the anticipated and usual are experienced even under circumstances where the anomaly is later to be observed.”
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OK. If he’s right, the 2014 difference would be +0.85 million of square kilometers instead. Big whoop! Why does this garbage get published? (Oh……..never mind.)
“But, hey, if you don’t look too close—and we are sure are greener friends…”
“…and we are sure OUR greener friends…”
FTFY. Good write up otherwise. Thanks guys.
Bingo! Obfuscation, half truths, and scare mongering work well when opposing voices are silenced. The problem isn’t the facts, it’s the well known control of the message. The good news is it’s hard to hide the truth over time.
Wouldn’t this then appear as a step around 1991? My eyes aren’t as good as they used to be, but I just don’t see it.
WOW!
Are you sure Michael Mann didn’t fudge the data for that 1st Figure? ‘Cause it sure looks like a full blown hockey stick comin’ on! };>)
Also look at the time of the step change. December 1991, so that’s about the beginning of 1992. Now look at the first figure, the anomaly plot. This step change doesn’t seem to explain much at all. After all, this would not change the ramp we see starting about 2011, only the vertical position will be slightly adjusted. There is still a ramp, and the models still can’t explain it!
Furthermore, for the anomaly plot, since the step change occurs in the data from which the mean is calculated, the mean will change. So the actual change to the anomaly plot for the period since the step change will be less than 0.2 million sq.mi.
Why is the second graph only plotted through 2005?
I dare you to find the step change in the data.
http://s10.postimg.org/rnx95q0ll/Antarctic_SEI_1990_1993.png
Are we calibrating pixel level imagery at the base of this issue?
The devil is in the details.
What are those sensors referenced anyhow?
One might be surprised to know…
One can’t help but feel that the purpose of this paper is to create a talking point: “There has been no recent sea ice extent records set”. No matter there appears to be no observable discontinuity. No matter that the bulk of the increase in sea ice has occurred long after the discontinuity was identified. No matter that the claimed discontinuity is small.
Dang those annoying satellites… 🙂
They believe the satellites when they measure the arctic, but then they don’t believe them when they measure the antarctic? Religious zealots.
There is bias here. There is corruption. There is dillusion. But not a Scientific paradigm. Don’t use Kuln. It only excuses them.
What about depth? Is Antarctic depth increasing with extent?
After the Kaya identity nonsense, I really can’t be bothered to get in to another discussion here.
MIchaels and Knappenberger speculate about what the referees said and speculate about what their biases might have been.
But The Cryosphere publishes reviewer’s comments, so we can check whether the speculation is correct:
http://www.the-cryosphere-discuss.net/8/273/2014/tcd-8-273-2014-discussion.html
I’m sure that regulars at WUWT that will see some names they will have fun with.
Here are some extracts from what the reviewers said:
‘While the resulting trend will clearly be reduced in magnitude in comparison to v2, it may be that the trend is still statistically significant.’
‘I agree that you have made a compelling case for a discontinuity across the Decem- ber 1991 sensor transition. But I disagree that there is reason to suggest “the actual Antarctic sea ice cover may not be expanding at all.” … It seems to me that it is not unlikely the real trend is much less than believed at present, but even after adjustment the upward trend is still robust.’
‘This paper contains solid and important science and I congratulate the authors on their vigilance. It is certainly important to know that the uncertainties in the ice area/extent timeseries might be larger than thought … However, doesn’t Figure S5 in the supplementary material show that whatever the source of the Bootstrap issue, there is no doubt that Antarctic sea ice is increasing in both area and extent? … The clearly significant increases in all 3 datasets are not accurately reflected by the paper text, abstract, or title. … With the eyes of the climate change lobbies (on both sides) watching this debate, it is very important that papers’ titles, abstract, and conclusions accurately convey the facts. Very few journalists will check the content of the paper before reporting its title, and no-one should be expected to examine the supplementary figures of a paper.’
‘I would strongly advise sticking to robust statistical arguments, not arguments about what “should” be happening.’
‘This paper should be published and brought to the attention of the data-processing community so the problem can be properly addressed. The scientific community also needs to know about the discrepancy in Antarctic sea-ice trends revealed by this work.
In addition to the paper and the supplementary material, I have read four posted com- ments and one posted review of this paper. I agree with the central theme that runs through all five commentaries: the authors need to apply the v2-v1 offset (correction) to the v2 time series and calculate whether the resulting trend (1979-2013) is significant or not. Then they can decide whether the title of the paper is appropriate or not.’
I won’t be back to participate in this thread. The level of the comments so far indicates to me I wouldn’t get much out of it.
But have fun with Cowtan, Foster, Steig et al.!
So lets say the ice extent was x in 2007 but should have been x – 200,000.
And in 2014 the extent was y but should have been y – 200,000.
The increase is still y – x.
These whackos really do think we are all stupid.
I skimmed the paper. I don’t think their claim is that there’s just a one time step change. If you read the paper, section 3 Results and discussion says:
…Version 2 has slightly lower values before 199 and slightly higher values afterward. This is associated with a substantial difference in the 1979-2004 trend
In other words, the step change identifies when the change took place, but also implies that it affects the entire record. In other words, the error (if there is one) shows as both a one time step change and ALSO as a change in trend across the record as a whole.
On the other hand, they also say they don’t know which one is correct. I note also that they only looked at 1979 to 2004. Given the time and effort that went into this paper, you’d think that they could have gone up until the current time? I mean, why drop the last decade’s worth of data?
Once you have the algorithm written to do this type of comparison, crunching the numbers right up until the end of 2013 is a few extra key strokes and a few seconds of super computer time. On that basis, while they may have identified an issue that suggests returning to a calibration exercise of some sort may be prudent, at the same time, I smell a rat.
See Figure 1A in the paper. Quite clear that they are claiming a change in trend across the entire data set. BUT:
They’ve run Bootstrap v2 out to 2013 while they cut Bootstrap V1 off at 2004. Why wouldn’t they run Bootstrap v1 to the same point in time as v2?
Not only do a I smell a rat, I’m starting to think it is a really big rat.
Thanks, JK. It sounds like the reviewers and commentators, aside from cheering the authors for their magnificent contribution to science, said much the same thing as Patrick and Paul: “It looks like the ice is still expanding and your headline and verbiage convey a different message that isn’t factual. You should actual be accurate when you report this.”
But the authors and the publisher ignored this sound advice and published the paper with its inaccurate message anyway! So what is the point of peer review? It seems like every scientist on both sides of the climate change issue is completely aware of the insignificance of this ‘finding’, but the authors ignore that fact, willfully misleading the general public and the MSM, building another climate change myth in the process.
Is there anything in the CAGW camp that is not built on a myth? We have the myth of constant relative humidity, the myth of the tropical hot spot, the myth of the hockey stick, the myth of the 97% consensus, the great myth of “…there is no other way to explain the warming of the late 20th Century…”, the myth of the highly tweaked (or is that twerked) global surface temperature record, the myth of heat hiding in the deep oceans, and so on. Now they are trying to build the myth of “It’s not ice…its an algorithm.”
Even a lousy theory will have a few facts that appear to support it, but the CAGW theory appears to be standing on myths ‘all the way down’!
JK says:
July 22, 2014 at 8:50 pm
_______________
Nice flounce.
OK, now I am looking at Figure 1B….
In this one, v1 is actually run out to 2013 just like v2. Now I see why they didn’t run the numbers all the way out to 2013 in Figure 1A. If you look at Figure 1B, it is clear that the trend of v2 is higher than v1. But, it also looks to me like v1 is accelerating faster than v2. Curiouser and curiouser…
So they are claiming a significant step change at the end of 1991, but looking at the CT anomaly graph 1992 and 1993 seem to be mostly in seriously negative range (-1Mkm2 to -.75Mkm2) then moving just as strongly into positive anomaly in ’94 and ’95. I don’t have the ambition at moment to check to see if the calibration error they claim is legit, but if it is true, it will just add to the crescendo of other recent stories which indicate that the oh so “settled” science of the climate is grounded in baseline datasets that no one should be betting the rent check on, let alone the entire world economy. It would seem that everything we supposedly “know” about temperatures, ice, sea levels, weather “extremes”, and virtually everything else significant is based on data that is made up, estimated, adjusted, homogenized, fiddled, or just basically F’d up. It seems to me that before we sell the world down the river to save itself from the climate we ought have something a little closer to actual facts to hang our hats on.
JK–
There is a reason I wrote that there were problems in the reviewing process “at all levels”. The authors who let this thing go had to have had one last look at it. But they signed off. They did this despite indications that running everything after 2004 would invalidate the result. The editor had to have had one last look at it, after seeing the peer reviews. But he signed off.
If I were Eisenman’s Department Chair, I would have him in the office tomorrow, to explain how he could publish such a misleading paper. I would also advise that this wasn’t a good idea for an Assistant Professor at a tier-one research university. I would have the coauthors subject to inquiry, also. If I were Copernicus, the publisher, I would have the editor in the office to explain.
And then I would seriously consider retracting the paper.
The obvious question arising from this paper is – Why havn’t you done the same “correction” to the arctic sea-ice area, which may then be larger than previously thought ??