Evaluating data journeys: Climategate, synthetic data and the benchmarking of methods for climate data processing

Abstract

This chapter concerns the benchmarking of methods used to process data in climate science. It explores the nature and value of benchmarking in this context by examining an ongoing initiative - the International Surface Temperature Initiative (ISTI) - that is developing a public databank of temperature observations as well as a system for benchmarking the methods that databank users employ to further process the data. Interestingly, the benchmarking system will make use of “synthetic data” generated with the help of computer simulation models. It is argued here that the benchmarking system has crucial scientific and gatekeeping roles to play in the context of ISTI. It is further suggested that, once we appreciate how synthetic data are to be produced and used by ISTI, we uncover yet another variety of what Paul Edwards (A vast machine: computer models, climate data, and the politics of global warming. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2010) has described as “model-data symbiosis” in the practice of climate science.