Correction Issued for Alarming Ocean Temperature Paper
JANUARY 2, 2019
By H. Sterling Burnett
A significant error led researchers to issue a correction to estimates of global ocean warming published in the journal Nature.
Researchers with the University of California at San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography and Princeton University issued a correction to their widely publicized study which had raised fears of a rapid increase in the Earth’s temperature.
The study published in Nature on October 31 claimed ocean temperatures have risen roughly 60 percent more than the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has estimated.
Independent climate researcher Nicholas Lewis discovered significant methodological flaws in the paper. The authors admitted their error after Lewis and others publicized his findings.
After correcting their mistake, Keeling and Resplandy found their margin of error was between 10 and 70 percent, making their ocean temperature estimates virtually worthless.
“Our error margins are too big now to really weigh in on the precise amount of warming that’s going on in the ocean,” Keeling told the media. “We really muffed the error margins.”
“Why didn’t they get an independent statistician to examine the work, as the Wegman Report [requested by the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Energy and Commerce following the hockey stick controversy] recommended?” Ball asked. “The reality is, in both cases they got the result they wanted, they got the headlines they sought, which is all the media and the public remember, so they didn’t question the findings.”
JANUARY 2, 2019
By H. Sterling Burnett
A significant error led researchers to issue a correction to estimates of global ocean warming published in the journal Nature.
Researchers with the University of California at San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography and Princeton University issued a correction to their widely publicized study which had raised fears of a rapid increase in the Earth’s temperature.
The study published in Nature on October 31 claimed ocean temperatures have risen roughly 60 percent more than the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has estimated.
Independent climate researcher Nicholas Lewis discovered significant methodological flaws in the paper. The authors admitted their error after Lewis and others publicized his findings.
After correcting their mistake, Keeling and Resplandy found their margin of error was between 10 and 70 percent, making their ocean temperature estimates virtually worthless.
“Our error margins are too big now to really weigh in on the precise amount of warming that’s going on in the ocean,” Keeling told the media. “We really muffed the error margins.”
“Why didn’t they get an independent statistician to examine the work, as the Wegman Report [requested by the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Energy and Commerce following the hockey stick controversy] recommended?” Ball asked. “The reality is, in both cases they got the result they wanted, they got the headlines they sought, which is all the media and the public remember, so they didn’t question the findings.”