A friend pointed out a blogger article that critiqued a scientific Web site for having what clearly appeared to be either an error in their data, or a major disappearance of sea ice. Here is the beginning of that blog article:
I also looked at the actual NSIDC site, which currently appears to be quite clear in presenting their information, but they have actually disabled the real-time chart while working on their sensors:
If you look over both sites, beyond the story of the sea ice and the blogger and the scientist, a bigger issue stands out: civility and constructive public discussion. The ability to work together to improve understanding is constantly being challenged due to polarization. And, to avoid being naive or allowing the reader to be naive, I must point out that a good deal of that is due to commercial considerations. Whether we are talking about climate change or political maneuvering, there seems to be only minor concern for the public good except as it affects the principals' commercial income or political power.
While some people believe businesses are the grease and the gasoline that run the pickup truck of societal progress (excuse the metaphor), in my experience those honors belong to the sincere, informed, and public discussion of conflicting ideas and goals.
As a result of carefully reading the above two Web pages, I wrote these two comments on the blogger's site. The first was written after reading only the blogger site:
The reason I am simply quoting my comments is that they were spontaneous and came from the heart, and I can probably not improve on them. It saddens me to see our own USA government still engaged in political positioning while, possibly, our twin economic and environmental Titanics are in the process of sinking into the ocean.
Does the lack of intelligent, honest, and public discussion concern you? Does the name calling, the ignorance of science, and the disregard for the reputation of others, concern you? Does the tossing of trillions of dollars at an unclear target and the lack of progress on energy and environment issues, concern you?
Fossil Fuel
PT
Wavehunter (William Coffin)
I was pleased in reading this article to see that there is not a noticeable contamination with planting doubt in readers' minds, and that Anthony Watts was raising a sincerely-held concern over accuracy in presentation of information, although I also commend NSIDC for doing the daily work of gathering meaningful data to improve our modeling and projections.
Mr. Watts raised a slightly subtle point about refining the presentation of data so as to raise the level of accuracy of all kinds of discussion, including in the news media. Trained in science myself, I do feel that the chart shown here should include a statement (or a link to a full statement) indicating that these were near-real-time data and that occasional equipment or data "noise" could lead to outliers (aberrant data points) in this publicly-visible data. In fact, a short article about why there is such noise would also be useful in raising public understanding.
As I see it, anticipating and documenting surprising details that may not mislead other scientists but that could confuse reporters or the non-professional public, is an active way to improve one's services, and is preferable to defending what is clearly a good service at gathering data in this important matter of climate change. The blogger, Watts, for his part hopefully showed restraint and respect while suggesting that NSIDC should pay more attention to the public perception of their data, and should be clear as reasonably possible.
After looking at the NSIDC page shown above, I wrote this second comment on the blogger page:
I looked at the NSIDC page, and they do currently have a generous amount of information about sensor drift and the nature of real-time data. I am not sure whether or how much of that was posted prior to the Watts blog entry. It does support the point of keeping discussion civil – it seems that Walt Meier and Anthony Watts have been having a cordial relationship. I would not call the NSIDC graph a true error, as they pointed out that this was raw data and the data goes through additional checks before being used in articles or being archived.
In other words, this dialogue should not be sensationalized, and any animosity between the principals should be minimal. This civility is one aspect of discussion that seems to have been lost to a large extent, for reasons of commercial attention; that loss is truly harmful to informed, societally-beneficial discussion of important issues.