Climate Data from BEST

Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) has released a significant study documenting the rise in the Earth's surface temperature from 1753 to 2011. The study includes a detailed discussion of statistical methodology and locations for  the MATLAB code and data. MATLAB is a commercial mathematical, statistical, and presentation software used by many academics and scientists.  A movie of land temperature anomalies can be found here.  The conclusions from this study represent the collation of exhaustive amounts of temperature data to create conclusions about a land surface temperature anomalies over time  Some presentations on the complexity of their statistical methodology can be found here and here.  Correlating historical climate data to understand evidence of global climate change has proven to be a complex and controversial challenge. The BEST sponsor NOVIM hopes to promote scientific studies without political bias concerning significant world resource issues.

Questions for Students:

(1) What does the BEST statistical methodology suggest about the complexity and nature of the analysis of data from historical records?  Do you think the study helps us understand how complete our understanding of statistical reasoning needs to be for very large data sets?

(2) Read the NOVIM website highlighted articles:

• Advocacy
• Confirmation Bias
• Science versus Policy

How do the sciences of mathematics and statistics help us come to unbiased conclusions? 

(3) Read the Wikipedia articles on Scientific Method and List of Biases in Judgement and Decision Making . How important do you think the study of data science is to the future of humankind?  How does improving the scientific method by learning how to remove bias from our scientific methodology improve our chance to prosper and survive on this Earth?