John Timmer at Ars Technica reports on a recent paper in Nature that revisits old data from XBT ‘float system’ ocean probes and matches it with more recent data from the advanced Argo system:
“Even though we can’t go back and improve the data we have from the years prior to this, the study demonstrates that it is possible to at least get a better handle on what the uncertainties are, and calculate what’s likely to be the best estimate of trends, given the data. But doing so required several research groups to provide complete access to their data and methods, something that’s not always easy to arrange, given science’s often competitive nature.”
The outcome is a more accurate description of how fast the world’s oceans are warming. (hat tip: Andrew Treloar, who notes that this sort of thing is why librarians and others are so keen to ensure that research datasets are curated well and made available over long periods of time)
Tags: oceanography, research data, climate change, e-research