Before the ABC: Ice islands

THE ARGUS Wednesday 8 February 1911

VILLAGE ON ICE FLOE STRANDED NEAR ISLAND
HELSINGFORS, Feb. 7.
The ice floe upon which an entire fishing village has been carried from the neighbourhood of Bjorko Sound has become stranded near the island of Seibkar.
There are 253 men and a number of horses on the floe. Despite the fact that the temperature is 18deg. below zero, the fishermen refuse to abandon their huts and horses and an extraordinary fine catch of fish which they had secured. Their position is not dangerous at the present time.

Inspired by: Giant ice island breaks away from Greenland

Before the ABC: an occasional snapshot of news in the days BABC

From the vault - That history thing again

Mary MacKillop

Tuesday, September 8 2009, Behind the News

On August 11, 2009, in a story about the possibility of Mary MacKillop becoming a saint, the ABC showed footage of vehicles when outlining what life was like at the time of her birth in 1842. The ABC agrees that this footage was inappropriate and it has been removed from the story.


http://www.abc.net.au/news/corrections/archive/months/2009%20Archive%20Month_September2009.htm


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

Side stepping peer review

We read with some interest ABC Lateline's story of the 11/8/2010 titled Survey shows politicians still confused on climate and were interested in details of the survey. According to Lateline's MARGOT O'NEILL: Only 18 per cent of federal politicians responded. Of the entire survey group, 97 were Labor, 73 Liberal-National, 41 were Greens and the remaining 97 described themselves as non-aligned. 
If true there would be major issues with sampling bias and the results would have little bearing on the opinions of Federal politicians.
We contacted the author of the study Kelly Fielding of the University of Queensland's Institute for social science research for further details about the methodology and results only to be told the following:
"We are currently in the process of writing this research up for publication. In the meantime we plan to put a summary of the results on the Global Change Institute (UQ) Website - although we haven't yet done that. When that it is done I will email you the link."


To which we replied: It concerns me that you would release preliminary results to the media prior to their peer review and publication. Do you have any comment on the timing of your release given the research has not yet gone through the normal peer review process? It could be argued that the release of the preliminary results was designed to score a political point during the election.

I look forward to seeing the methodology and the results. It is a pity they are not available for scrutiny at the time of the media interest.

No wonder there is confusion among politicians when the people they rely on to provide scientific advice appear to be so confused about the scientific method and due process in releasing the results of academic research.

From the vault - Shock horror Libs brought the troops home

774 ABC Melbourne – Drive – 15 October 2007
The complaint
During a discussion about the 2007 Federal Election, the presenter commented that Gough Whitlam had “brought the troops home from Vietnam in 1972”. A listener wrote to complain that it had been the Gorton and McMahon governments which had brought Australian troops home from Vietnam.
Findings
The ABC agreed that a factual error had been made. An acknowledgement was sent to the listener.
"From the Vault" - digging up past corrections and clarifications from the ABC archives.

Update 2: Mt Everest melting! But who says it's so?

COMMENT: ABC's use IPCC AR4 WGII report Table 10.2 to back up claims made in a brief report on Mt Everest that stated "Studies show temperatures are rising faster at Mount Everest than in the rest of South Asia"  has thrown up some interesting issues. Most of these are covered at the Watts Up With That post: Himalayan warming – pulling another thread from IPCC’s fragile tapestry. Here's a summary:
1. Table 10.2 indicates that warming in the Himalaya is 0.09º C.yr-1 however warming citing for Si Lanka is 2°C increase per year in central highlands. Clearly ABC's claim doesn't add up. 
2. IPCC provide the incorrect reference to back their figure for the Himalayas. They cite two conference papers and one peer reviewed paper that related to precipitation, not temperature. The correct reference is found to be: Shrestha, Arun B.; Wake, Cameron P.; Mayewski, Paul A.; Dibb, Jack E., 1999. Maximum Temperature Trends in the Himalaya and Its Vicinity: An Analysis Based on Temperature Records from Nepal for the Period 1971–94. Journal of Climate, 9/1/99, Vol. 12 Issue 9 pp:2775-2786.
3. The references for the Sri Lankan Temperatures are not from peer reviewed journals, they relate to precipitation, not temperature.
4. The figure quoted for the Himalaya is the winter trend, not the annual trend. The annual trend is 0.057 º C.yr-1.
5. The highest annual trend for Nepal cited in Shrestha et al., 1999 is 0.09º C.yr-1 for the Trans-Himalaya (an area that excludes Mt Everest).
5. The basis of the Himalayan trends (Shrestha et al 1999) is just 6 weather stations,. The average trend of 5 of these stations dating back to the 1960s is (Max/Min) 0.013º C.yr-1, much less than the 0.057º C.yr-1. All five of these stations are located in the eastern Himalaya. There are problems with use of Kriging method to obtain regional trends.
6. The trend cited for Sri Lankan was brought up in the review of IPCC AR4 WGII:
WUWT reader Justcherrypicked finds:
Timeline:First Order Draft, 10.2.2 Observed climate trends and variability, Table 10.2 does not have a “change in temperature” entry for Sri Lanka, but does have entries for “Change in Precipitation”, and “References”. Which contain, “Increase trend in February and decrease trend in June” and “Chandrapala and Fernando, 1995; Chandrapala, 1996″ respectfully. Clearly, the two references relate to changes in precipitation, not temperature.

The missing entry is noted by Dr. Basnayake in FOD Expert Review Comments. He states:

“”Table 10.2″ under Sri Lanka -change in temperature “minimum and maximum temperatures have been increasing during tthe last centurary. 0.016 C increase per year during 1961-90 period over the entire country. 2.0 C increase per century over the central highlands.” under the references “Basnayake, B.R.S.B. et al 2002″”

. Note he said 2.0 C per century.

Dr. Basnayake’s comments are accepted by the lead authors and is then included in the Second Order Draft (SOD) as

“0.016°C increase per year between 1961-90over entire country, 2°C increase per year in central highlands”

Note they changed century to year, and left out the reference as well.

The error is picked up by Xiuqi Fang during the SOD expert review comments ,

“table 10.2. Check the temperature increasing rate in Sri Lanka. 2C increase per year is too high
(Xiuqi Fang, Beijing Normal University)”

, to which the LA responds “Table entries corrected”. Clearly they are not.

Sadly, Dr. Basnayake does not seem to be involved with the SOD as no reviewer comments for him exist.

Clearly, the IPCC statement “2.0 C increase per year” is an error that was pointed out and ultimately ignored. Additionally, the claim is without a citation.

Both ABC and IPCC have some explaining to do. We have passed this on to the IPCC for comment. 

Himalayan warming

Readers may be interested in this post currently featured on Watts Up With That:

Himalayan warming – pulling another thread from IPCC’s fragile tapestry.

The case for dangerous man made global warming hangs on the wall like a frayed medieval tapestry. By pulling just one loose thread the whole thing starts to unravel. We pulled on of those threads recently…

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) was recently caught making a mistake in areport on melting ice on Mount Everest. The ABC claimed that ”Studies show temperatures are rising faster at Mount Everest than in the rest of South Asia.” When ABC were requested to provide details of the “Studies” they cited Table 10.2 from  IPCC’s AR4 Working Group 2 report. However, contrary to ABC’s claims this table showed that the area of fastest rising temperature in South Asia was Sri Lanka, not the Himalaya (and hence not Mt Everest). ABC’s gaff however served to highlight a few errors made by the IPCC. 

Read the rest at WUWT.

ABC-polar bear whisperers

ABC HEADLINE: "Polar bears face melting chemical cocktail" by Mark Tamhane ABC science news posted online 6 August 2010.
ABC REPORTED: ABC reported on a research paper published in the journal Science of The Total Environment that suggests the retreat of sea-ice in the Arctic could increase the exposure of species such as polar bears to persistent organic pollutants, which include flame-retardants and substances used to harden plastics.
ABC accompany the report with a picture of a polar bear. the caption reads "Polar bears are particularly at risk, because they are at the very top of the Arctic food chain." However passing a mouse over the image produces the caption "A male polar bear waits for an ice sheet to form". See screen shot above. Update-the mouse over cation now is the main caption-see screen shot below.
THE COMPLAINT: Are ABC reporters so deluded they now think they can talk to the animals. Is ABC reporter Mark Tamhane a Polar bear Whisperer? We look forward to an interview with the Polar Bear in the near future.
Can ABC explain how it knows that the Polar Bear in the photo is "waiting for an ice sheet to form"? and not say waiting for a meal? Placing this fanciful caption on a science article is demeaning to science. Please remove the mouse over caption.
OUTCOME: Pending 
COMMENT: Given the next ice age isn't too far away I guess the polar bear may not have to wait too long. For another example of ABC's efforts reporting on polar bears see our report from February.
Update 16:46: things gets worse as the main caption gets replaced by the mouse over-see screen shot below.