Another leg of global warming exposed as garbage

Suppose some PhD--funded by a government grant, of course--claimed to have solid data--scientific proof!--that Disaster was certain unless we did...something really painful and expensive.  Suppose further that a grad student noticed that the PhD's paper just used data since 1988 and ignored the same measurements going back a century.

Finally, suppose that when the grad student asked the PhD "Can you explain why you truncated your data?" the PhD suddenly got *very* defensive and replied with things like "it is wrong of you to try to impugn the motives of our research" and "if you continue in this manner you will not last long in your career."

Would you think the PhD knew he'd just been called out for committing scientific fraud?  And would you believe whatever theory he was pushing?

Well, that's pretty much what's happened with the heavily-screeched claim by the global warming crowd that the oceans are becoming more acidic (as a result of man-made CO2).

One of the main papers cited as helping to prove this claim is by PhDs Richard Feely and Christopher Sabine, who claim that a) the oceans are becoming more acidic; b) at a frighteningly rapid rate.

For the benefit of reporters--most of whom presumably aren't familiar with pH but needed a dramatic "hook" for the expected news stories, Feely added that this

...could negatively affect marine food webs, and, when combined with other climatic changes, could substantially alter the number, variety, and health of ocean wildlife. As humans continue to send more and more carbon dioxide into the oceans, the impacts on marine ecosystems will be direct and profound.

Very scary stuff.  But a hydrologist named Mike Wallace, with 30 years of experience and now working on his own PhD, saw something troubling about the Feely paper:  The data on ocean acidity (measured by pH) only went back to 1988.  This struck Wallace as odd because he knew scientists had been measuring ocean pH for at least a century, and in fact had amassed over 1.5 million measurements.  So why would Feely and Sabine truncate their data?

Here's Feely's graph.  His data are the blue and green plots:

Wow!  If pH actually dropped from 8.12 to 8.08 in just 18 years, and that trend continued, and we'd never seen that before, that really would be scary!  But if we include pH measurements before 1988, the picture changes radically.  When Wallace plotted ocean acidity data going back to 1905 instead of starting with 1988 the picture changed completely.  Wallace's curve is blue, Feely's in red:

For those unfamiliar with how acidity is defined and measured, pure water has a pH of 7 and is considered neutral.  A pH below 7 is acidic.  So at 8.1 or so, seawater is actually less acidic than pure distilled water.  In fact since pH is a log scale, pure water has ten times more hydrogen ions--the things that make acids acidic--than seawater with a pH of 8.  Even blood is about five times more acidic than sea water.

Of course the average person doesn't know any of this.  One suspects most people hear "the oceans are becoming more acidic" and envision battery acid or some such.  And of course that's exactly the effect editors and scammers want--twist, warp, shade and lie if it gets more people to believe that global warming is going to kill life on the planet, and that it's caused mainly by humans.

Now, I don't know whether the pH of the ocean is higher or lower than it's been over the last thousand years or so.  Nor do I know how fast pH is changing.  What I do know is that cleverly omitting over 1.5 million known, public pH measurements that don't support your claim isn't science but bullshit.  Any scientist who ignores data that cuts against his theory isn't doing science but is pushing an agenda.

One of the core lessons taught in statistics--as every scientist certainly knows--is that truncating data can appear to show "trends" that aren't really there.  So if you want honest results, you don't truncate data.

Oh, and I also know--as you do--that any so-called scientist who gets defensive when asked why they made a decision to do something a certain way is trying to hide something.  Because honest science needs no defense:  The truth will out.  But people who know they've done something shady will always be defensive about it, and will try to discourage questions by attacking the questioner.

As an aside, Feely isn't just some small cog.  In 2010 he received a $100,000 cash prize from the Heinz Family Foundation. The award touts Feely’s work: “Ocean acidity is now considered global warming’s ‘evil twin,’ thanks in large measure to Dr. Feely’s seminal research on the changing ocean chemistry and its impact on marine ecosystems.”  The powers that be won't let this key pillar of the scam be refuted by mere data. 

Here's a hint at how the PTB will protect the Narrative: Wallace met with staffers for both of his senators, Martin Heinrich and Tom Udall (both Democrats) and shared his findings with them — but got no response.  Both Democrats are firmly on board with the global warming (now "climate change") narrative.

Congratulations to Mike Wallace in exposing Feely's data truncation.  One more in a long and growing list of shady or shaky papers pushing man-made global warming.