Is this a blow to the global warming theory?

Steve McIntyre recently discovered that NASA's data for temperature trends in the US has a rather serious error - caused by a y2k bug of all things.

Unfortunately, http://www.climateaudit.org/, a website operated by McIntyre is currently offline (I imagine it's getting pummelled after the recent mentions in the blogosphere). Thus I cannot really comment on the data itself.

Several other blogs have picked up the new findings and run with them. Tim Blair, Watts Up With That?, and Michael Asher at DailyTech have all commented on the new data, which has caused some notable changes in the top ten hottest years on record (in the US).

The most obvious change is that 1998 has now been bumped down a rank by 1934. The three sites go on to make a point of the fact that five of the top ten years now date from before World War II.

That certainly sounds like a compelling piece of data. Except that the old top ten list saw four pre-WWII years, so really the change is only minimal. I haven't yet had the opportunity to find out how much the overall order of, say, the top 100 years has changed. There is some talk at Watts Up With That? about overall changes in the order.

All three sites note that this only makes a change in US temperature records, not world-wide temperature records. They then go on to attack global warming theory, suggesting that this change in the data invalidates the theory (it should be noted that Asher only attacks through implication and I could well be misinterpreting him).

Now, I am somewhat dubious about anthropogenic global warming. The more I read, the more I am uncertain as to the credibility of the IPCC, and the more I question the hype and fanatacism that seems to follow the doomsday theories of global warming. I have previously questioned the validity of the term 'consensus' and I still hold to that position.

However, I must ask, how does a change in one set of US temperature data make any sort of appreciable impact on global warming theories?

If the error were in global records then I could perhaps see the reasoning.
If these records were the only source of temperature data that were used I could perhaps see the reasoning.
If the attack included any sort of mention as to how widespread the use of these data are then I could perhaps see the reasoning.

As it is, none of these seem to be the case (I freely admit I have done only a cursory search on the topic of how frequently various temperature records are used in scientific research). I must ask why these particular opponents of global warming are clutching at straws when there are far more legitimate targets around.

Between attacks like this, A Western Heart's assault on the British Met Office, and the never-ending supply of comments about cold or wet days, months, or seasons disproving global warming it comes as little wonder to me that the proponents of global warming have been so disparaged as to instantly deride anyone who dares voice dissent from the 'scientific consensus'.

I do wonder, though, when did 'sceptic' become a dirty word? Is it not true that all scientists are meant to be sceptics? To critically and thoroughly question all findings and beliefs?

I would have thought that even the prevailing 'laws' of the day should be treated with some scepticism. Whilst it is right to treat them as a solid and likely approximation of reality, is it not also right to consider the possibility that they are incomplete or mistaken. Even Newton's Laws didn't prove infalliable.


On the topic of 'scientific consensus', here is a quote from Michael Crichton, which I feel nicely sums up my opinion: "Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus."

Howard Sensible? Rann Scary?

Prime Minister John Howard released a YouTube video today to announce the Defence Gap Year program. The video itself is fairly bland and boring - Mr. Howard would do well to avail himself of a better speech writer and some public speaking ability. The idea behind it seems fairly sound to me though. I would have given some serious consideration to spending a year between high school and medical school in the army. As it was, I seriously considered joining ADFA through their students program. The only thing that stopped me was that I wasn't sure that I wanted to commit myself to something for the ten or so years. A year in between high school and uni would have been a brilliant way to find out whether I wanted to joing the defence force or not.

That said, economics has proven itself significantly superior to medicine, so maybe I should be grateful I didn't enlist.

The topic has also been mentioned at Blogocracy, and discussed as a process story at Larvatus Prodeo.

In unrelated news, South Australian Premier Mike Rann and Attorney-General Michael Atkinson have announced that they are "preparing to overturn the ancient legal principle of ‘double jeopardy' ".

Later on in the announcement they talk about when you will be able to retry cases.

* When there is fresh and compelling evidence - I'm all for this one. It makes sense. I would like to see how they define 'fresh' and 'compelling' though. Especially 'compelling'.
* When the acquittal is tainted - now, this one scares me quite a lot. 'Tainted'? What exactly do they mean by 'tainted'? Part of me fears that this is merely code for 'whenever the government so desires'.

There are also some other relatively minor changes. I haven't yet had the time to look around for a copy of the bill, but will hopefully post some comments after I have a thorough read of the legislation.

There doesn't seem to be any sort of comment from the South Australian law community yet (at least not that I could find in the ten minutes I spent googling the topic), but there are some comments on similar law reforms in New South Wales and Queensland.

Daniel O'Brien.

Minor Updates

Hey All,

As one or two of you have previously noted, my blogroll has been woefully incomplete in the past. That particular oversight has now been, mostly, rectified. Take a look at the new Political, General, and Friend's Blogrolls.

I must make special mention of a few of the blogs.

Freakonomics is an amazing blog by one of the preeminent economists of our time. Jointly maintained by Steven D. Levitt (a professor of economics at the University of Chicago) and Stephen J. Dubner (a professional journalist), the blog never ceases to provide new, interesting, and topical insight into the world around us. Most importantly, Levitt has a masterful understanding of the difference between correlation and causation. I would give my left arm to be half as good as he is, and I'd give my right arm to write as well as Dubner.

John Quiggin has written some pieces that I find truly impressive. The professionalism of his arguments is difficult to deny. It doesn't hurt that he's an economist and seems to take a similar stance to me on many things.

Andrew Norton is sometimes a bit hit-and-miss. Sometimes thoroughly mediocre (though this could be a function of his choice of topic and my interest level) and frequently insightful, eye-opening, and brilliant. Read it.

If anyone knows of any blogs that I haven't listed that I should be reading, drop a comment and let me know.

Daniel.