Ocean pH Accuracy Arguments Challenged with 80 Years of Instrumental Data

Testimony before Congress was based on model hindcast, actual data ignored

Guest essay by Michael Wallace, Hydrologist

Members of the global science and lay communities have begun to learn of the confirmed omission of 80 years of instrumental data from contemporary ocean acidification (OA) scientific products. The missing ~2 million data points comprise a majority of the world’s historical ocean pH measurements. The data was replaced without disclosure, by a model hind cast. The substituted history, known as the FEEL2899 report (1) was itself used as the technical basis for testimony to the US Congress (2). In turn, OA mitigation research funding was augmented, and the regulation of anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions was strengthened and deepened.

This occurrence of a model-replacing-data-without-disclosure has few publicized precedents of this scale. Already some in media have chosen to headline this as a case of “pHraud” (3). Whatever it is called, a fundamental question remains whether or not this omission will ever be corrected. Currently the major obstacle to rapid correction appears to be a consensus among those in power, that ocean pH cannot (and could never) be instrumentally measured using any conceivable means for any conceivable ocean purpose by any conceivable scientist. Therefore those in power effectively assert that the world must put aside expectations of data accessibility and transparency, and accept the PMEL authors’ formerly undisclosed SeaCarb model hindcast replacement as the entire truth of past ocean pH.

I came into awareness of the ocean pH data omission myself, purely through research activities, which led to personal communications with the authors of the omission (4). I learned through two of those authors some facts concerning the origins, pervasiveness, and structure of the omissions....Click this link to see complete article: