Another Inconvenient Truth

Don

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Climate scientists withdraw journal claims of rising sea levels
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.
...
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.
Oops.
 

Zoombie

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It is good that they have found something wrong. It means our next prediction will be better, cha.
 

blacbird

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Science is often more about eliminating the incorrect, rather than finding the absolutely correct. In this case, that process has thrown out an incorrect methodology of study.

Whatever happened to that monolithic cabal of conspiratorial scientists aiming to destroy our way of life, anyway?

caw
 

Zoombie

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I was never worried about the scientists. I'm more worried about politicians taking the scary bits of science and running with it to get themselves votes.
 

ColoradoGuy

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In my doing-basic-science days there were several such incidents in my field. Of course they were over regulation of growth factor genes in vascular endothelial cells, so no Fox coverage. But the combat was every bit as bitter. As folks have said, the truth will out, which is why the combat should take place in the scientific literature, not cable news.
 

StephanieFox

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Speaking of politicians scaring people, how's that terrorism stuff from the GOP goin' for ya?
 

blacbird

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I was never worried about the scientists. I'm more worried about politicians taking the scary bits of science and running with it to get themselves votes.

Ya think? Or maybe politicians finding it electorally useful to denigrate pointy-headed scientist poopyheads for the entertainment of their voting supporters?

caw
 

dmytryp

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Don, you start scaring me. There was once a poster called Joe here, who went nuts over the GW threads. For once, this is an example of how the scientific process should work. Not to mention the fact that the mistake could be either way (either higer predicted rise or less rise). Were IPCC to become more open to criticism and to the possibility that they might be wrong at times, we'd all be better off.
 

Don

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Don, you start scaring me. There was once a poster called Joe here, who went nuts over the GW threads. For once, this is an example of how the scientific process should work. Not to mention the fact that the mistake could be either way (either higer predicted rise or less rise). Were IPCC to become more open to criticism and to the possibility that they might be wrong at times, we'd all be better off.
I'm not arguing that the peer review process hasn't worked. I'm simply pointing out that the massive wall of overwhelming evidence supporting AGW has lost yet another brick. It's starting to look more like latticework than a wall, what with all the pieces of AR4 that have lost their support.

Somebody needs to call either a stonemason or a wrecking ball.
 

blacbird

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Don, you start scaring me. There was once a poster called Joe here, who went nuts over the GW threads.

Just a clarification: The poster to whom you refer got permanently banned, not because of his views on GW, but because he instantly took every disagreement with anything he said into a vitriolic personal attack response mode. He'd already had a couple of short-term bannings for the same behavior, and finally Mac got fed up enough to deep-six him.

caw
 

blacbird

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Peer review should have picked up the errors before publication

Probably, but that can be tricky. Generally manuscripts get sent out to a handful (often only two or three) reviewers before passing muster for publication. In a paper dealing with a complexity of data, it's pretty easy for things to slide past. Once the thing is out in the public eye, lots of people get to examine it. Few scientists are interested in having an error of their making found after the thing hits the libraries, and many take significant glee in doing just that with the work of others.

caw
 

Gregg

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How many times did we hear "the science of man-made global warming is settled" or some such thing.

Sounds far from settled to me.
 

SPMiller

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CS researchers regularly publish fake papers just to prove they can. It's more of a game than anything else. Yet we see nothing about it in the mainstream news.
 

dmytryp

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Probably, but that can be tricky. Generally manuscripts get sent out to a handful (often only two or three) reviewers before passing muster for publication. In a paper dealing with a complexity of data, it's pretty easy for things to slide past. Once the thing is out in the public eye, lots of people get to examine it. Few scientists are interested in having an error of their making found after the thing hits the libraries, and many take significant glee in doing just that with the work of others.

caw
Well, usually the problems are pointed out and a correction is issued. A comlpete retraction is relatively rare and points to some major problem that could not be easily corrected
 

dmytryp

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Just a clarification: The poster to whom you refer got permanently banned, not because of his views on GW, but because he instantly took every disagreement with anything he said into a vitriolic personal attack response mode. He'd already had a couple of short-term bannings for the same behavior, and finally Mac got fed up enough to deep-six him.

caw
As a point of clarification, I was not implying he was banned for his views, just that he wen nuts over this issue which in turn resulted in the things you desrcibed (that and other stuff, too)
 

blacbird

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As a point of clarification, I was not implying he was banned for his views, just that he wen nuts over this issue which in turn resulted in the things you desrcibed (that and other stuff, too)

I know that. It wasn't a comment aimed at anything you said. I just could see how the implication might be there for anyone unfamiliar with the situation.

caw
 

Cranky

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Guys, the posts of a member who isn't here anymore are not terribly relevant to this thread. Let's not go there, thanks.
 

waylander

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Probably, but that can be tricky. Generally manuscripts get sent out to a handful (often only two or three) reviewers before passing muster for publication. In a paper dealing with a complexity of data, it's pretty easy for things to slide past. Once the thing is out in the public eye, lots of people get to examine it. Few scientists are interested in having an error of their making found after the thing hits the libraries, and many take significant glee in doing just that with the work of others.

caw

Doesn't speak well of the reviewers they sent it to (and yes, I have reviewed for major scientific journals)
 

dmytryp

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I'm not arguing that the peer review process hasn't worked. I'm simply pointing out that the massive wall of overwhelming evidence supporting AGW has lost yet another brick. It's starting to look more like latticework than a wall, what with all the pieces of AR4 that have lost their support.

Somebody needs to call either a stonemason or a wrecking ball.

Well, not in this case. First, it isn't clear if the correction will be up or down. Second, there isn't really a question whether the sea levels rising (there is some debate as to local phenomena in places such as Mediterranian or the Maldives, but generally, the rise is agreed upon). The question is how much? The range in the IPCC's findings (which is based on several studies, models etc) is already pretty wide, so it is open for criticism in this respect (similarly to their temperature predictions). Most people who argue about the issue (not scientists) greatly overstate this range (the real range from memory is between something like 13 to 89 cm over the next 100 years).
So, this specific issue is not a big deal at all.