Y2K rears its head again...

[kickaha]

http://www.dailytech.com/Blogger+finds+Y2K+bug+in+NASA+Climate+Data/article8383.htm

Summary: The NASA study that had 1998 as the warmest year on record, and a sharp upturn in US temps in '99/'00? Bad software doing the analysis. At fault? A Y2K bug. Ouch.

Authors of study have conceded the bug, and released new results.

Warmest year was actually 1934, and 5 of the 10 warmest years are now *before WWII*.

I would hope that this would get the same sort of mainstream coverage as the original study, since it's a valid correction by the original authors, but my bet is that those sites that *do* cover it are screamed into submission as oil industry apologists. Fox News is going to be all over this like white on rice, of course, which isn't going to help any sort of rational discourse.

Regardless of one's position in the climate change sectarian violence of words, bad data is bad data is bad data. Trend is still upwards, but I'll be shocked to see if "1998 warmest year on record" stops getting used in the mainstream press as gospel. No one wants to admit they were wrong - kudos to the study authors on fessing up and modifying their results. That's good science in action. Too bad the general public gestalt can't work a bit more like that. :P

Comments

[georgmi.livejournal.com]

Oh, hey--I found this report done for the DEFRA, the UK's Dept for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs:

http://www.defra.gov.uk/foodrin/milk/pdf/agraceasreport.pdf

It lists demand elasticities for dairy products in various countries, broken down by income range. I know dairy isn't anything like the whole picture, but it calls out an interesting data point: The US is by a huge margin an outlier, with a price elasticity of demand for dairy products of -0.095, where most high-income countries range from about -0.25 to -0.45. The poorer countries top out at around -0.75.

[ssandv.livejournal.com]

Cool. There's an obvious problem, of course, that the elasticity of overall food demand would be different than just dairy, because I can choose dairy vs say, soy milk (well, if I could stand the stuff) while still choosing food. Also dairy is one of the worst for price supports in this country. Still interesting stuff.

[georgmi.livejournal.com]

Blech. No, I can't say I'd consider soy more than a partial substitute for dairy. :) I drink it in my mochas because I'm lactose-intolerant, but noplace else do the rest of the ingredients adequately mask the taste.

But adequate substitutes would make the demand elasticity of dairy greater than that of food overall, not less. Which means that -0.095 has to be the result of significant market manipulation, as you point out.

Yeah, I plan to spend some more time poking around the DEFRA site--it's crazy what my brain decides is shiny at any particular moment.