Marcott: Another Gergis moment

Search for "Gergis" on the ABC site through Google provides 2 pages of results. The first story is:
"Last 50 years were Australia's hottest: study". It's not until the very end of the article that the following editorial note appears in a smaller font:
Editor's note (June 21): Since this story was originally broadcast, errors have been identified in aspects of the data processing which may affect the results of this study. As a result, publication has been delayed and the research has been withdrawn from online publication. Professor Karoly says the data will be recalculated, peer reviewed and published in due course.

The world is still waiting for this deeply flawed study to be published. ABC ignored reporting on the manner in which the paper was found to be flawed. Those interested might like to re-visit relevant posts at Climate Audit. 

In the meantime in early March ABC uncritically re-published an AFP article that reported on a new study proclaiming:

"We already knew that on a global scale, Earth is warmer today than it was over much of the past 2,000 years," said Shaun Marcott, the lead author of the study, which was published in Science.
"Now we know that it is warmer than most of the past 11,300 years."

Through the tireless efforts of Steve McIntyre we now know that the specular uptick at the end of Marcott's temperature graph that lead to the alarming claims, is an artefact of an inappropriate statistical methodology, It seems the dates of sediments from cores used in the study were shifted in time up to 1000 years. This effectively shifted warming of the Medieval Warm Period into the modern period. Results that showed cooling were truncated from the period of the uptick. Anyone smell the cherries?

How long now to wait for the ABC to comprehensively report on the issue? 

Perhaps this time around rather than adding a footnote, ABC's "journalists" might take the time to fully investigate and report on the matter. However with activists in charge, we won't be holding our breath.

Gergis Update

ABC is yet to formally cover news that a paper it widely reported on and promoted was flawed and withdrawn from publication by its authors. The only mention that the paper was withdrawn is in editorial notes posted discretely at the end of articles such as this one: EDITOR'S NOTE: Since this story was originally broadcast, errors have been identified in aspects of the data processing which may affect the results of this study. As a result, publication has been delayed and the research has been withdrawn from online publication. Professor Karoly says the data will be recalculated, peer reviewed and published in due course.

They provide the following response to a query we made regarding missing editorial notes from a number of ABC reports, including one on its ITunes site.

Thank you for your email of 21 June. I apologise for the delay in responding; it took a little longer to sort out iTunes than it should have. The segment on the Radio National website now has a prominent editor’s note and the podcast is no longer available on iTunes.

At this stage, neither Radio nor News propose to do any further broadcasts or stories on the subject. If or when the scientists re-release their research, the story will be reassessed in the normal way taking account of editorial priorities at the time.

Thank you for taking the time to write; your feedback is appreciated.

Audience & Consumer Affairs

Received 19/7/2012

Score +1

Missing News: 2000 years of climatic cooling in Europe

Given the ABC's apparent interest in news about past climate reconstructions it was odd to see that they missed the publication of a paper from a team of researchers from the Johannes Gutenberg University in Germany.

The reconstruction provides a high-resolution representation of temperature patterns in the Roman and Medieval warm periods, but also shows the cold phases that occurred during the Migration Period and the later Little Ice Age.

According to the press release the paper, published in Nature Climate Change titled Orbital forcing of tree-ring data:
An international team including scientists from Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) has published a reconstruction of the climate in northern Europe over the last 2,000 years based on the information provided by tree-rings. Professor Dr. Jan Esper's group at the Institute of Geography at JGU used tree-ring density measurements from sub-fossil pine trees originating from Finnish Lapland to produce a reconstruction reaching back to 138 BC. In so doing, the researchers have been able for the first time to precisely demonstrate that the long-term trend over the past two millennia has been towards climatic cooling. "We found that previous estimates of historical temperatures during the Roman era and the Middle Ages were too low," says Esper. "Such findings are also significant with regard to climate policy, as they will influence the way today's climate changes are seen in context of historical warm periods." 

The PR Concludes
In addition to the cold and warm phases, the new climate curve also exhibits a phenomenon that was not expected in this form. For the first time, researchers have now been able to use the data derived from tree-rings to precisely calculate a much longer-term cooling trend that has been playing out over the past 2,000 years. Their findings demonstrate that this trend involves a cooling of -0.3°C per millennium due to gradual changes to the position of the sun and an increase in the distance between the Earth and the sun.

"This figure we calculated may not seem particularly significant," says Esper. "However, it is also not negligible when compared to global warming, which up to now has been less than 1°C. Our results suggest that the large-scale climate reconstruction shown by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) likely underestimate this long-term cooling trend over the past few millennia."

Here's a link to New Scientist's coverage: Tree rings suggest Roman world was warmer than thought.
We assume the recent kerfuffle about the flawed Gergis Reconstruction has spoiled the water somewhat for reporting on similar work.

ABC's Gergis update - a poor excuse for journalism

It seems ABC's total coverage of important news of the withdrawal of a scientific paper following the discovery of errors in its methodology uncovered by Climate Audit is as follows:

Editor's Note: Since this story was originally broadcast, errors have been identified in aspects of the data processing which may affect the results of this study. As a result, publication has been delayed and the research has been withdrawn from online publication. Professor Karoly says the data will be recalculated, peer reviewed and published in due course.


If not for our request of an update even this meagre offering would not have been undertaken. However mainstream, actual coverage of this important news by the ABC remains MISSING. One wonders if it plans to use editorial notes as a reporting tool for other important stories. Perhaps the following is an example of what we can expect from ABC news in the near future (you'll have to read the fine print). Perhaps this would save on costs?

Coverage of the withdrawal of the paper in other news outlets included the following:
Sydney Morning Herald/ The Age: Climate warming study put on hold
The Australian: Climate paper flawed, Blog scrutiny forces reappraisal
New York Times Dot Earth: Australian Warming, Hockey Sticks and Open Review

In contrast here are the ABC reports that announced the publication of the erroneous study back in May. Something does not appear to add up. But who are we to expect balance from the ABC?
5 major reports
AM 1000 years of climate data points to a warming Australia
The Science Show RISING TEMPERATURES ACROSS AUSTRALIA

AM Last 50 years were Australia's hottest study

Radio Australia Climate study shows Australia hotter

Radio National Breakfast 1,000 YEARS OF AUSTRALIAN CLIMATE DATA CONFIRMS 'UNPRECEDENTED' WARMING (this one yet to contain the update)
Not to mention an appearances on ABC News 24 and ABC Local radio

SCORE +1

Gergis Updates MIA

The Australian provide more detail on the withdrawal of the paper by Gergis et al trumpeted so loudly by the ABC.

Blog scrutiny forces reappraisal

... Mr McIntyre said: "If public policy is to be based on academic articles, the academics cannot claim intellectual property rights over their data but must permit close examination of their data." 

Link for more (sub required)

Meanwhile, the only indication we can find thus far on the ABC (after the story broke almost two weeks ago) is a brief mention buried in a transcript on The Science Show that fails to credit the work done by Climate Audit in exposing the errors. You will need to click the transcript link to read the following:

Editor's Note: Since this story was originally broadcast, errors have been identified in aspects of the data processing which may affect the results of this study. As a result, publication has been delayed and the research has been withdrawn from online publication. Professor David Karoly of the research team says the data will be recalculated, peer reviewed and published in due course.

This is simply not good enough! The ABC should be ashamed of the low standard of its coverage on this issue.

Blog review beats peer review

A few weeks ago ABC breathlessly reported on a new paper...
AM 1000 years of climate data points to a warming Australia
The Science Show RISING TEMPERATURES ACROSS AUSTRALIA

AM Last 50 years were Australia's hottest: study

Radio Australia Climate study shows Australia hotter

Seems the authors of that study are now wearing some egg on their faces as the paper is withdrawn from publication following the identification of errors by Steve McInyre and others.  See Climate Audit for more details.

Bloggers: 1 Peer reviewers: NIL

Print publication of scientific study put on hold

An issue has been identified in the processing of the data used in the study, “Evidence of unusual late 20th century warming from an Australasian temperature reconstruction spanning the last millennium” by Joelle Gergis, Raphael Neukom, Stephen Phipps, Ailie Gallant and David Karoly, accepted for publication in the Journal of Climate.

We are currently reviewing the data and results.

We have requested ABC update their news.

UPDATE: ABC reply: Wed, Jun 13, 2012 at 9:17 AM
Thanks for bringing this to my attention.


Clearly, given that we have reported on the study, we would want to be across any material changes to it. I have brought this to the attention of the reporters who filed the original pieces, so that we can track the process and take account of any updated or changed information.



Alan Sunderland