Some of you are talking about this press release about research that hasn’t been published yet as an example of good science. How could you possibly know whether this research is good science based off a press release?
Don’t get me wrong, this research sounds very interesting and I look forward to the paper when it’s released. But there is absolutely no possible way for me (or anyone) to honestly comment on the content of the research when we haven’t seen the research.
So this then begs the question, why post it? If you honestly just wanted to post about a paper that found something that violated the researcher’s original hypothesis than certainly you could find a better example. You know, one that is actually published so that you could go through and confirm it was an example of good science.
Your reason for posting it wouldn’t be because you (mistakenly) believe the implications of the research work against the current understanding of climate science, would it? No! You’re on a “pause” from that conversation until 2016.
..but that certainly seems to be what tinfoil took from it. I actually wanted to avoid this discussion but tinfoil’s comment (and the implied message of zda04’s original post) is completely unsupported and speaks to a lack of understanding of the science that needs correcting.
The first thing to realize is that paleoclimatology is based off a number of different, independent proxies. Study of forams and diatoms is only one such proxy. Even if this research determines that all paleoclimatology based off forams is flawed (which is highly unlikely, see below) than it is still not a magic bullet against paleoclimate.
The second thing to realize is how forams are used to reconstruct past climate states and past temperatures. Forams are used for two main things:
1) The oxygen isotope composition of the shells
2) The changing in particular species that result from environmental factors
Composition of Shells
Scientists use the shells of foram to study the isotopes and element ratios. The ratios can then be used to infer the temperature and date of the environment. The key here being that it is the composition of the shells that is used for as a temperature proxy, not their relative density or kind of species. Discovering that a certain species of foram can live in environment with low levels of dissolved oxygen would not appear to impact the current practice of using shell composition as a temperature proxy.
Change/Abundance of a Specific Species
Certain species do well in cold water, others in warm water. Certain species do well in low oxygen environment, other in high oxygen environments. As climate shifts, so does the concentration of various species of foram. This paper appears to make no comment on an anomaly related to the temperature dependency of the species. It does finds that a certain species, thought to only exist in high oxygen environments, has been discovered in low oxygen environments as well. This could be extrapolated to mean that estimates of the oxygen content at different stages in the Earth’s past could be put into question but that requires more investigation. Even if true, what impact on paleoclimatology would that have? Furthermore, would that completely change climate science as we know it? Would it invalidate the findings of the IPCC? Almost certainly not.
“But…but…the press release made it sound like an upcoming paper was a game changer for all of climate science!” Yes. That’s the job of a press release. And that’s why using a press release for a yet to be published paper as an example of good science is bad logic.
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