Crap Whale Report, only 8 months late

ABC report on a study that suggests Sperm whale poo soaks up more CO2 than the whales emit...only 8 months after it was covered by Science News on October 17, 2009.

We'd comment on the actual study if it were available, but as of 4 pm 16 June the journal in question, Proceedings of the Royal Society B (for biology) has no mention of it. Perhaps the press release was a little premature?

UPDATE 19:42  16 June 2010: the article is now available HERE . A sperm whale could swim through the logic holes in this paper based on calculations, that don't add up, and should have remained on the back of the envelope. Now if someone actually got their hands dirty on this one it might be a little more robust. Kleenex anyone?

ABC NEWS apparently doing less with more ...later.

Butterflies 'fly early as planet warms...then again probably not

ABC provided extensive coverage (see HERE) of a Biology Letters paper titled "Early emergence in a butterfly causally linked to anthropogenic warming" in March. A comment challenging the claims of the paper has now been published online by Biology Letters. Will ABC now update their coverage?

The comment includes the following statements:

"I have obtained the same data used in this study as Kearney et al. and am unable to confirm the results for the historical observation data. I count 239 observations made in Oct-Dec from 1942 to 2009. The annual data show a wide range of earliest observation dates (Figure 1), and at face value the use of 5 year or 10 year averages appears to be a convenient statistical method that hides the very wide spread of observation dates."

"Using this "opportunistic" data to establish emergence is like dating a volcanic eruption based on collection dates of samples housed in a museum. The historical trends identified simply reflect variation in the time collectors have ventured out to observe and collect butterflies. "

"There remains considerable temporal bias in the data, with over 50% of total observations post dating 1990. There is also a considerable bias in observation locations, with the vast majority collected in Melbourne's east and none in the vicinity of Laverton, the weather station that was used to characterise temperature change over the whole of the study area (Figure 2)."

"The paper does not mention well documented Urban Heat Island effects over Melbourne that encompasses Laverton that have clearly affected temperature at this station over the period of study (see Morri and Simmonds, 2000 and Torok et al., 2001). Close examination of other stations in the study area shows a wide variety of temperature trends (Figure 2). It seems the authors have chosen one station that favours their theory without adequately explaining why others should be rejected. "

"Based on these points, I believe that the authors' conclusions remain unsupported by the data presented."

Copies of figures that accompany the Biology Letters comment appear below. 

Figure 2 below. Location of H.Merope observations (black dots)-note concentration east of Melbourne CBD and absence of observations near Laverton. Extent of urban development around Melbourne indicated by pink shading. Creeks and rivers shown as blue lines. Topographic contours at 50 m intervals (brown lines) provide an indication of topographic variability over study area, marked by the black outline. Selected  weather stations shown as red squares with corresponding historical April-October mean temperature  readings obtained from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology shown around the outside-note variation in temperature trends across the study area, including some negative.

More missing news: No depth to ABC coverage of Oxburgh Report

Steve McIntyre continues to investigate the Oxburgh Report with this post: British Due Diligence – Royal Society Style.

In the meantime, happy  whitewashing the whitewash  ABC News continue doing less with more sitting on their hands with their heads in the sand.

From the vault - deep sea coral! WTF?

News Online – 6 October 2007
The complaint
An online news reader pointed out that a report about deep-sea mining on the Papua New
Guinea sea floor was accompanied by an image of a coral reef, which had clearly been taken
in relatively shallow water. However, the news report indicated that the mining would be at a
depth of nearly 2 kilometres under water.
Findings
The ABC accepted that the photo was misleading and it was removed from the story.
"From the Vault" - digging up past corrections and clarifications from the ABC archives.

Update: whitewashing the whitewash-stains left to fester

ABC provide a reply to our complaint about their reporting of the results of the Oxburgh Inquiry into the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia. The outcome of the inquiry has been discussed extensively on the internet. Climate Audit has provided in-depth coverage in a number of posts including the following:

Lord Oxburgh of Globe International to Report

Oxburgh’s Trick to Hide the Trick

Hand “Praised” McIntyre of Climate Audit

Oxburgh on Proxy Reconstructions

A “Fair Sample”?

Laundering Oxburgh’s Interview

Curry on the “Inquiries”

Beddington and the Oxburgh Inquiry

Oxburgh Refuses to Answer

Muir Russell and the Oxburgh Embarrassment

Oxburgh versus Emanuel

Comments by Climate scientist Dr Judith Curry are particularly damning:

"When I first read the report, I thought I was reading the executive summary and proceeded to look for the details; well, there weren’t any."

"And I was concerned that the report explicitly did not address the key issues that had been raised by the skeptics. … I recall reading this statement from one of the blogs, which seems especially apt: the fire department receives report of a fire in the kitchen; upon investigating the living room, they declare that there is no fire in the house."

In its reply ABC states: "

ABC News does acknowledge that the story could have provided some details about the credentials of those appointed to the panel, and the range of reports and publications considered by the inquiry. However, they do not consider that, in the context of a story that focussed on the report’s findings, this was absolutely necessary or constituted a serious omission. Instead, ABC News believe the story presented a fair account of the panel’s findings, as outlined in its report dated 12 April, and some of the criticisms of the inquiry made by others."

Something must be seriously wrong with ABC's nose for news when the backgrounds of those appointed to the panel are somehow not considered relevant or a serious omission to the story. ABC have form on this having missed important political connections between a Climate policy unit and the Australian Labour Party. A point brought to ABC's attention by this blog (Climateworks for ALP).

ABC has an annual budget close to 1 billion dollars. It has over 900 staff in its news division yet it is trumped by a humble Canadian Blogger when it comes to providing news coverage. Sadly 

ABC continues to do less with more.

Here is ABC's response in full (received 9 June 2010). It's a pity they didn't spend similar time on investigating and reporting the actual story. 

Thank you for your email of 15 April concerning the ABC News Online story “Second inquiry clears Climategate scientists”, published that day. Please accept my apologies for the delay in responding.

In keeping with ABC complaint handling procedures, your concerns have been considered by Audience and Consumer Affairs, a unit separate to and independent from ABC program areas. In light of your concerns, we have assessed the story against provision 5.2.2(f) of the ABC’s Editorial Policies, which requires staff be questioning in news and current affairs content and serve the public interest by investigating issues affecting society and individuals. In the interests of procedural fairness, we have also sought and considered material from ABC News.

The story in question highlighted the fact that the inquiry set up by University of East Anglia to investigate the methods used by the Climatic Research Unit had cleared the Unit of wrongdoing, finding no evidence of any deliberate scientific malpractice. The story also reported that the inquiry had been critical of the way the Unit had handled statistics and recommended that it work with professional statisticians in future. Criticism of the inquiry was also cited, with the inclusion of comments from the Director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, Dr Benny Peiser, who described the inquiry as “rushed and superficial” and suggested the panel had not done a proper job.

ABC News have advised that they considered the focus of the story, which was from wire agency partner Reuters, to be newsworthy and in the public interest. They note that one of the main allegations made against the Climatic Research Unit was the dishonest use of scientific data; accordingly, ABC News consider it was reasonable for this aspect to be highlighted in a story that focussed on the inquiry panel’s findings. This matter was itself highlighted in both the introduction and conclusion of the panel’s report: http://www.uea.ac.uk/mac/comm/media/press/CRUstatements/SAP.

ABC News does acknowledge that the story could have provided some details about the credentials of those appointed to the panel, and the range of reports and publications considered by the inquiry. However, they do not consider that, in the context of a story that focussed on the report’s findings, this was absolutely necessary or constituted a serious omission. Instead, ABC News believe the story presented a fair account of the panel’s findings, as outlined in its report dated 12 April, and some of the criticisms of the inquiry made by others.

In respect to the other coverage of the story to which you refer, ABC News acknowledges that the UK’s Telegraph newspaper chose to highlight a different aspect of the story, concentrating on the panel’s criticism of the Unit’s use of statistical tools and methods. ABC News appreciate that this is also a legitimate line of coverage, and believes this demonstrates that different journalists will focus on different news points in the same story. As noted above, the panel’s criticisms of the Unit’s statistical methodology was mentioned in the story published by the ABC.

You also refer to articles published online by the Telegraph newspaper and New Scientist magazine that reported on criticisms expressed by Professor David Hand about papers by other parties, including a 1998 paper by Professor Mann of Pennsylvania State University that included the “hockey stick” graph. This was not part of the inquiry or panel report about the Climatic Research Unit to which the ABC story pertained. Accordingly, ABC News do not consider it was necessary or relevant to mention in the story.

The other articles to which you refer, by Telegraph commentator Gerald Warner and the Global Warming Policy Foundation’s Stephen McIntyre, were online blog entries providing commentary and opinion on the story rather than news reportage. Again, we note that the ABC’s online news story in question included comments critical of the inquiry, including those of the Global Warming Policy Foundation’s Director, Dr Peiser.

On review, Audience and Consumer Affairs are satisfied that the ABC News Online story, “Second inquiry clears Climategate scientists”, was in keeping with the relevant ABC editorial standards. We believe the story was newsworthy and provided a fair and accurate account of the inquiry panel’s findings, which was the focus of the story. While we note you believe other aspects of the story, or related matters covered by other media outlets, should have been included, we cannot agree that their omission constituted a breach of provision 5.2.2(f) of the ABC’s Editorial Policies. Nonetheless, please be assured that your comments have been noted by ABC News.

Finally, it is worth noting that ABC News Online is not a dedicated climate change journal, but a general news services. While ABC News Online endeavours to provide coverage of climate change on a newsworthy basis, this does not mean, nor require, that all stories or perspectives will be reported. As you may appreciate, coverage and publications presented by other outlets and organisations, particularly those with specialist interests and audiences such as New Scientist and the Global Warming Policy Foundation, would no doubt reflect their editorial scope and focus.

Thank you again for taking the time to write. For your reference, copies of the ABC’s Code of Practice and Editorial Policies are available at: http://www.abc.net.au/corp/pubs/charter.htm.

Yours sincerely

Audience & Consumer Affairs

From the vault - who says Australian manufactures can't compete.

The World Today-Local Radio News – 23 July and 24 July 2007
The complaint
A listener complained that two reports inaccurately claimed that the Camry engine factory at Altona in Victoria produces one hundred million Camry engines a year.
Findings
The ABC agreed with the listener. The online transcript of the The World Today story was corrected to read 100 thousand engines per year and an Editor’s Note added to explain the change.

http://www.abc.net.au/corp/pubs/documents/public_report_july-sept_2007.pdf

"From the Vault" - digging up past corrections and clarifications from the ABC archives

Update: Facts toasted in Rio Roast

ABC have replied to a follow up inquiry we made in April about its toasted Rio Roast story. We asked ABC if they would be running AFP's amended story. ABC replied in the negative, noting the story had been removed from its website.
AFP did indeed end up providing a correction with the following editor's note added to its story...
Editor's note (April 12 2010): The headline of the article was changed from "32 killed as heatwave roasts Rio", also a sentence was removed in which an incorrect temperature for Rio de Janeiro was recorded.

A copy of AFP's amended article can be found HERE.


Here's ABCs reply, received 2 June 2010:
Thank you for your email of 13 April. Please accept my sincere apologies for the delay in responding.
In respect to your question, ABC News have advised that they will not be running the AFP amended story about the heatwave in Rio given that the original story was published a considerable time ago. As noted in my previous response, the original story has been removed from the ABC's website.
Yours sincerely
Audience & Consumer Affairs