Steig et al refuted-ABC miss the scoop

ABC were quick to cover a story that found warming in Antarctica extended beyond the Antarctic Peninsula early last year. The story "Scientists find evidence Antarctica is warming" included the claim:
"On average the entire continent is warming and especially it is warming in winter and spring. Finally, west Antarctica, just like the Antarctic peninsula, is warming in all seasons."

The West Antarctic claims of Steig et al have now been refuted by an article accepted by Journal of Climate. The paper: Improved methods for PCA-based reconstructions: case study using the Steig et al. 2009 Antarctic temperature reconstruction by Ryan O'Donnell, Nicholas Lewis, Steve McIntyre, Jeff Condon is in press as an early online release - available here.  

We asked ABC why they hadn't corrected their earlier reports, here's their reply:
Received 23 December:
Thank you for your email of December 3 concerning the story “Scientists find evidence Antarctica is warming”
Your correspondence was referred to Audience and Consumer Affairs for consideration and response. The unit is separate and independent from ABC program areas and is responsible for investigating complaints alleging a broadcast or publication was in contravention of the ABC's editorial standards.

ABC News advises that when the paper is published, its newsworthiness and credibility will be assessed and a decision will be made as to whether it warrants a new story, a change in the existing story or no action.
In our view that is the appropriate course to take.

Thank you for taking the time to write; your feedback is appreciated. For your reference, a copy of the ABC Code of Practice is available at: http://www.abc.net.au/corp/pubs/documents/200806_codeofpractice-revised_2008.pdf.
Yours sincerely
Audience and Consumer Affairs

The paper is available at the Journal of Climate! Why are we waiting? Perhaps ABC News misunderstands what "in press" means in the peer reviewed literature? Here's how the Journal of Climate describe their early online releases:
EARLY ONLINE RELEASE
This is a preliminary PDF of the author-produced manuscript that has been peer-reviewed and accepted for publication. Since it is being posted so soon after acceptance, it has not yet been copyedited, formatted, or processed by AMS Publications. This preliminary version of the manuscript may be downloaded, distributed, and cited, but please be aware that there will be visual differences and possibly some content differences between this version and the final published version.

What sort of news organisation deliberately avoids a scoop?

Missing News: Climate data contaminated by UHI

McKitrick and Nierenberg 2010 "Socioeconomic Patterns in Climate Data", is in press at the Journal of Economic and Social Measurement.

"Overall we find that the evidence for contamination of climatic data is robust across numerous data sets, it is not undermined by controlling for spatial autocorrelation, and the patterns are not explained by climate models. Consequently we conclude that important data products used for the analysis of climate change over global land surfaces may be contaminated with socioeconomic patterns related to urbanization and other socioeconomic processes. "

"We have  shown that a coefficient pattern connecting 

temperature trends to indicators of industrialization is robust across a wide range of data configurations  

in the surface and lower troposphere, but is absent in climate model-generated data. The failure to  

reproduce this pattern in models indicates that it  is not a natural feature of the climate system nor  a  

response to greenhouse gas-induced forcing."

Even NASA agrees! See Satellites Pinpoint Drivers of Urban Heat Islands in the Northeast

Summer land surface temperature of cities in the Northeast were an average of 7 °C to 9 °C (13°F to 16 °F) warmer than surrounding rural areas over a three year period, the new research shows. The complex phenomenon that drives up temperatures is called the urban heat island effect. 

You won't read about it at the ABC as its decade long Groupthink silly season continues.

We return now to our WEB.

Silly Season Begins

We wish all readers a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Given ABC has commenced its sillier season for 2010 we will be taking our "well earned break" see you next year.

Marc

Missing News: Flood damage muted

This paper finds no relation between climate and flood damage in Africa. If you'd like ABC to cover it, please tell them HERE. 


Di Baldassarre, G., A. Montanari, H. Lins, D. Koutsoyiannis, L. Brandimarte, and G. Blöschl (2010), Flood fatalities in Africa: From diagnosis to mitigation, Geophys. Res. Lett., 37, L22402, doi:10.1029/2010GL045467. 

Based on the results of both continental and at‐site analyses, we find that the magnitude of African floods has not significantly increased during the Twentieth Century (Figures 2 and 3), and that climate has not been a consequential factor in the observed increase in flood damage. This is consistent with the results previously obtained [Kundzewicz et al., 2005; Bates et al., 2008; Petrow and Merz, 2009; Lins and Slack, 1999; Mudelsee et al., 2003] in different areas, such as North America, Europe, and Australia.

Missing News: Climate models disputed

ABC yet to cover another important paper. This ones shows Climate models can't hindcast reliably. This  doesn't leave much confidence in their forecasting capacity.

A comparison of local and aggregated climate model outputs with observed data Anagnostopoulos, G. G. , Koutsoyiannis, D. , Christofides, A. , Efstratiadis, A. and Mamassis, N. ‘A comparison of local and aggregated climate model outputs with observed data’,Hydrological Sciences Journal, 55:7, 1094 – 1110

Abstract

We compare the output of various climate models to temperature and precipitation observations at 55 points around the globe. We also spatially aggregate model output and observations over the contiguous USA using data from 70 stations, and we perform comparison at several temporal scales, including a climatic (30-year) scale. Besides confirming the findings of a previous assessment study that model projections at point scale are poor, results show that the spatially integrated projections are also poor.

Citation Anagnostopoulos, G. G., Koutsoyiannis, D., Christofides, A., Efstratiadis, A. & Mamassis, N. (2010) A comparison of local and aggregated climate model outputs with observed data. Hydrol. Sci. J. 55(7), 1094-1110.

Missing news: Steig et al refuted

ABC were quick to cover a story that found warming in Antarctica extended beyond the Antarctic Peninsula early last year. The story "Scientists find evidence Antarctica is warming" included the claim:
"On average the entire continent is warming and especially it is warming in winter and spring. Finally, west Antarctica, just like the Antarctic peninsula, is warming in all seasons."

The West Antarctic claims of Steig et al have now been refuted by an article accepted by Journal of Climate by O’Donnell, Lewis, McIntyre and Condon (see image below).

See
O’Donnell et al 2010 Refutes Steig et al 2009
Doing it ourselves

ABC yet to provide coverage. We asked ABC Science why-no response as yet.

Bull dust?

A Great Dust Storm

In late September ABC reported that an Australian dust storm could be weeks away.  Let's re-visit the forecast made in the original article:
"Professor De Deckker says he expects another major storm will develop after the flooded inland of Australia dries during spring.
"You had major floods in Central Australia and I think in the near future, when the material that covers the landscape - especially the lake floors and river banks - when that dries up, the wind will pick it up and lift some of the material to our eastern seashores," he said.

"So it is likely to be this spring, but more likely in early autumn."

It's now Summer and there has yet to be a large dust storm covered by ABC news, seems there was little skill in this forecast. Will ABC report on its failure? 

We'll re-examine the forecast next Autumn.