A huge problem with this bias calculation goes back to the stakes and the lack of trust on both sides.
As to trust, its hard to trust parties who claim that science is settled (on almost any complex subject area, much less climate) and that anyone who claims otherwise is a flat-earther or corrupted denier (see various recent public statements from the President and the White House staff). It is also hard to trust when the ultimate stakes include the sacrifice of a wide swath of freedoms and huge quantities of wealth for all posterity.
With that in mind, and given the importance of the bias calculation, I have some concerns with a few omissions in K15 when the process is described, most pointedly this one:
““A database of nearly coincident ship and buoy observations for the period 1998-2007 was created in which ship-buoy pairs were selected that lay within 50km of one another and on the same day. To avoid complications from diurnal heating, only observations taken close to local dawn were used.”
Note that the authors did not say that ALL coincidental observations taken near dawn were used. Is that true? How was the database generated,… the actual queries? Is there original data for ALL coincidental observations. ALL taken near dawn? The final data set which was used? Could a third party replicate the culling process? Remember, taxpayers paid for the information and will have to make decisions based on the results, so unless claims of national security are made, then taxpayers are entitled to an open book. Anything less and trust simply descends yet another notch.
