Forecasting
One of the defenses often used by climate modelers against charges that climate is simple to complex to model accurately is that “they do it all the time in finance and economics.” This comes today from Megan McArdle on economic forecasting:
I find this pretty underwhelming, since private forecasters also unanimously think they can make forecasts, a belief which turns out to be not very well supported. More than one analysis of these sorts of forecasts has found them not much better than random chance, and especially prone to miss major structural changes in the economy. Just because toggling a given variable in their model means that you produce a given outcome, does not mean you can assume that these results will be replicated in the real world. The poor history of forecasting definitionally means that these models are missing a lot of information, and poorly understood feedback effects.
Sounds familiar, huh? I echoed these sentiments in a comparison of economic and climate forecasting here.
Jeff:
Ever seen the disclaimers that come with a Wall Street forecast ?
August 23, 2010, 9:16 amIf the climate modelers put out equivalent disclaimers we’d all be better served …
why don’t they ? well, you can’t get sued for falsifying climate data … Wall Street analysts on the other hand live in fear of it … or having the SEC come after them …
Wally:
I’ve long made the economic/climate forecasting analogy as well. As far as creating and testing these mathematical model are concerned, they might as well be the same thing.
Which is to say you can never test them, or in model speak, validate them. This of course gives those that use these models an opportunity to play with them until they get what ever they want. Like when you hear someone from the CBO saying the Bush tax cut cost the government $2T, or the White House saying the stimulus “created or saved” 1M jobs, or what ever. Both kinds of statements come from mathematical models with a laundry list of assumptions, which may or may not be true, and of course you can never test them. So they get a cute head line and because you can never actually test it, you can also not prove them wrong. All you can do is point out why their methodology is flawed. At which point 70% of the American populace rolls their eyes and changes the channel to “Lost” or some such thing.
Which is essentially the same thing that happened with “climate change” up until almost a year ago. At which point the “scandal” factor brought all the eyes back on it.
August 23, 2010, 7:30 pmhunter:
People take to over valuing models like ducks to water.
August 24, 2010, 2:43 pmAlan D McIntire:
During the recent brouhaha over the recent statistical destruction of the Mann hockey stick, I learned a little regarding “stationary” versus “non-stationary” processes.
I found figure 4 on page 9 of the McShane-Wyner paper to be astonishing. What it’s saying is, the apparent correlation between two random walks can be spurriously high.
I wanted to check this out for myself, so first I generated 5 runs of 25 Heads and Tails by flipping a coin, and got 5 series going
HTTTH TTHTH—- etc for 25 in each series, and 5 series.
I first converted H to 1, T to 0 and got 5 runs of 25 going
10001 00101
Then changed them to a non-stationary walk starting at a graph origin, counting H as +1, T as -1, and got
1 0 -1 -2 -1 -2 -3 -2 -3 -2 …… etc for each of the runs and series.
I then went to the Vassar site
http://statpages.org/#Regression
clicked on linear correlation and regression, punched in 25, the number in
each run, and got
http://faculty.vassar.edu/lowry/corr_stats.html
I then did correlations between pairs of runs from the 5 series.
When I ran pairs of stationary runs, I got correlations of 0.107, 0.221, etc
and got 2 tailed p tests of 0.1724 and 0.6274, meaning that I would get chance runs that close or better 17.24% of the time or 62.74 % of the time respectively-to be expected in coin flip data.
I then applied the non-stationary random walk series to check the correlation of
1 0 -1 -2 -1 etc with another random walk run, and got figures like
correlation of -0.617 and a 2 tailed p test 0f 0.1% for the same data!!
Keep the non-stationary effect of those temperature anomalies next time you
August 25, 2010, 6:32 amread about the “incredibly small probability” of one of those runs happening by
chance alone.
Truth seeker:
I love the old joke the definition of an economist is someone that can predict the past with 50% accuracy . With a 20 year lag the AGW scientists can predict the current trend and give a new cause other than the ozone layer of ten odd years ago . Excuse themselves of all the scientific errors over the last twenty years and have all manor of computer models to excuse them for the next twenty years yet they accuse skeptics of disrupting science via the payroll of oil companies. Given the ridiculous amounts of money funding the suspect babble of AGW .Why do self proclaimed experts arguments consist of “says me” and “your stupid”
August 25, 2010, 7:23 amWarren Meyer:
“One of the defenses often used by climate modelers against charges that climate is simple to complex to model accurately is that “they do it all the time in finance and economics.””
The observant folks among you might notice that I just completely made that up. No climate scientist has ever said anything remotely resembling this. To claim that climate modellers say this “often” is literally insane. But you’d have to be a genuine sceptic to challenge these statements, and you’re all just simple, mindless, droning deniers.
August 25, 2010, 9:55 amRichard A.:
Actually the observant folks will notice that climate modelers claim accuracy over and above financial models for reasons as stated here: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/10/climate-models/
Of course what they’re papering over is that ALL models in chaotic systems inevitably have assumptions built in: presumed cause and effect and sensitivity, and in the case of climate models, feedbacks. The problem with economic models is that usbjective value can’t be quantified and people have free will. Climate models have one leg up in that we can quantify certain aspects of the climate, but it’s a long way from proving CO2 traps heat to showing just what the effects of that will be in the overall system. To do that, in come the assumptions. Shitloads of them. And until genuine cause and effect relations between individual variables are determined, all the models are basically just working on presumed causation based on assumed correlations that may or may not hold in the long term. So in the end, what isn’t known about the climate system has the same overall effect as the subjective nature of people’s valuations and the unpredictable nature of their choices. It renders the models useless. Unless fo course validation gets dropped for functionality testing as is done with financial models. In which case the question is: what function are the modelers asking the model to perform? My guess would be: validate my pet theory despite the evidence.
August 25, 2010, 2:07 pmTed Rado:
I started following the AGW thing back when the hocky stick and the ice core data seemed to support the AGW idea. Since then, the hocky stick has been debunked and further study if ice core data shows that temp increased 800 years BEFORE CO2 increased. In the last dozen years, the temp has not increased at predicted by the models. The only thing left in support of AGW is the computer models, which do not follow reality.
For the last ten years before I retired, I developed computer models of complex chemical plant systems. These were rigorous models, based on first principles. They were definitly NOT empirical models. They were validated by comparing model output to actual plant data.
I could write a program proving that all men will become mothers next week. I am sure everyone would not rush off to his OB/GYN. Bottom line: computer programs are nonsense until validated. GI/GO!! Basing important decisions on unvalidated models is rediculous.
August 25, 2010, 4:56 pmhunter:
Will the faux Warren please show us that no AGW fear monger has ever used the argument of complexity?
August 26, 2010, 9:57 amWarren Meyer:
The idiot “hunter” wants me to show that a group of people have never said something. His child-mind apparently is so poorly developed that he doesn’t realise this is an absurd request. If he seriously thinks that any climate scientist has ever used the argument that I claimed they had, he can surely find us a link to just a single example.
Unfortunately, neither he nor anyone else will find even one, because my original claim was absurdly, ridiculously, obviously false, and that anyone who believed it for a second is an idiot.
August 26, 2010, 11:07 amShills:
Hunter says:
‘Will the faux Warren please show us that no AGW fear monger has ever used the argument of complexity?’
How is anyone supposed to take your opinions seriously when you say incredibly stupid stuff like this?
August 26, 2010, 2:46 pmhunter:
Thanks to the two trolls for making my point.
August 27, 2010, 11:06 amWarren Meyer:
Thanks to “hunter” for understanding that my original claim was absurdly, ridiculously, obviously false, and that anyone who believed it for a second is an idiot
August 27, 2010, 11:50 amShills:
Hunter.
The burden of proof is on Meyer’s claim; that ‘One of the defenses often used by climate modelers….’
Meyer has not backed up this claim.
What exactly is your point?
August 27, 2010, 5:18 pmWaldonomics:
I’m trying to remember how many posts on Climate Skeptic purport to show that climate models are demonstrably incorrect by talking about anything but climate science. Seems most of them if memory serves.
And take it easy on hunter. I suspect he writes in a flurry, and he has poor written expression to begin with, so when he gets agitated he tends to produce gibberish as above. Perhaps a course in composition 101 at a community college would be in order?
August 27, 2010, 8:04 pmhunter:
scientist/faux warren/pathetic twit,
August 27, 2010, 8:53 pmOf course I would never believe anything you say write or promote. Do not worry yourself. And your nursie, I am cerain, has that nice 1000mg of thorazine wating for you, and a nice shock tomorrow as well.
Shills,
Stop while you are not so pathetic.
The whole point of AGW is that gullible fools like you bought into a pile of crap and now defend it like a relic of the true cross. Stop with the ‘you prove it’ crap. You abandoned that decades ago.
Shills:
Hunter,
Lol. Do you deniers still think the rest of the world are ‘gullible fools’ and that you are the only sane ones? Maybe instead of just squealing appeal to pop. or authority fallacy, you should meditate on that idea for a second.
Besides, Hunter. Even if AGW is unsupported crap, two wrongs don’t make a right.
August 28, 2010, 1:58 amRuss R.:
It’s comical how quickly any discussions related to climate turns into political excrement-slinging.
Going back to Fake Warren’s initial point (and I should probably point out that it’s remarkably poor form to post under someone else’s handle, but that bridge has long been crossed here). He correctly pointed out that if Real Warren was going to make a statement about climate modelers claiming in their defense “they do it all the time in finance and economics”, he should back it up with evidence, and anyone who purports to maintain a position of healthy skepticism, shouldn’t just accept the statement without seeing some supporting proof. Apologies for paraphrasing, but minus the inappropriate language (and false identity), Fake Warren had a legitimate point.
To answer Fake Warren’s point, with a few hours, Richard A. posted an excellent link to a 2008 Wired article featuring the following:
1. A quote from New Scientist defending the accuracy of climate models: “The claim is sometimes made that if computer models were any good, people would be using them to predict the stock market. Well, they are!”; and
2 A quote from Gavin Schmidt (of GISS) claiming that climate models are even better than economic models because the latter deal with human emotion while the former are based on observed physics (I paraphrased again here).
That would seem to settle the issue. Real Warren’s claim looks pretty well substantiated. End of story. Right?
Wrong… the thread continues for 3 more days with each side ignoring the evidence, and resorting to name-calling: “idiot”, “stupid”, “pathetic”, “troll”, “fear mongers”, “deniers”, “gullible fools”, etc.
Would a little civility be too much to ask here?
August 28, 2010, 5:43 amWally:
Great post Richard A.
August 28, 2010, 9:50 amWaldosteria:
****”That would seem to settle the issue. Real Warren’s claim looks pretty well substantiated. End of story. Right?”
I’m sorry Russ, but I didn’t quite follow how points one and two in your comment equate to an “end of the story” or how they substantiate real Warren’s initial post.
As always, I followed Warren’s primary source and found a single brief comment, essentially what Mr. Myer quoted above, and nothing more. It is only a single blog post with hardly any more information than is represented here.
In other words, neither the primary source nor Mr. Meyer’s post do anything to demonstrait that economic or climate forcasts are inaccurate – they simply state that such models are inaccurate. You can see the problem with this, right?
I hate to differ on such a civil blogsite, but it does appear that the climate models, while not perfect, are more or less accurate. I only find statements such as the above in the blogosphere, and I hope you understand why people like Shills and myself have a hard time swallowing them. Likewise, has anyone looked objectively to see if economic models (which have nothing to do with the climate) are generally accurate?
And then there is another question: are the comments from New Scientist and Schmidt viable? Frankly, in all honesty, you have not shown that they are inaccurate. Rather, you seem to make the case that they are not viable by simply paraphrasing them – it would appear you are relying on the a priori belief in model inaccuracy, something which certainly exists among some commentators but not among others. Again, this is not the most convincing approach.
August 28, 2010, 12:24 pmRuss R.:
Waldo,
“I’m sorry Russ, but I didn’t quite follow how points one and two in your comment equate to an “end of the story” or how they substantiate real Warren’s initial post.”
you seem to have misunderstood my simple argument. I’ll summarize the key points here:
#1. Warren leads off his post with a statement “One of the defenses often used by climate modelers against charges that climate is simple to complex to model accurately is that “they do it all the time in finance and economics.”
#2. Fake Warren quotes Real Warren’s statement (#1) and disputes it writing: “No climate scientist has ever said anything remotely resembling this.”
#3. Richard A. responds to Fake Warren’s assertion (#2) by linking to an article featuring climate scientists saying a) computer models are good because people use them to predict the stock market, and b) climate models are even better than economic models.
Those 2 examples (in #3) are sufficient evidence to refute Fake Warren’s assertion (#2), and in doing so, they support Real Warren’s initial statement (#1) . That was all I referred to when I wrote “end of story”. You seemed to read a lot more into it. I made no comment at all on the accuracy of any models (climate or economic).
But since you brought up the question of accuracy (and managed to refrain from name-calling), I’ll respond.
“In other words, neither the primary source nor Mr. Meyer’s post do anything to demonstrait that economic or climate forcasts are inaccurate – they simply state that such models are inaccurate. You can see the problem with this, right?”
I agree. I don’t rely on people’s statements (bloggers or otherwise) or interpretations to evaluate the accuracy of models. I compare the models’ predictions to reality. The data are readily available to anyone willing to look. I’ve looked back at the predictions from Hansen and from all 4 IPCC reports, and I’ve found that reality (as measured by any of the 4 primary data sets available here.) hasn’t kept pace with the temperature increases the models have predicted. So if the models predicted one thing, and something else happened, then there’s a problem.
The problem could lie with our measurements of reality (which I doubt, since all 4 data sets generally agree, though some, notably GISS, show more warming than others), or the problem could be with the models. This could relate to data, assumptions (explicit or implicit), or calculations. Since the data are widely available, and the calculations can be easily verified, I suspect the problem is with the assumptions.
I have no argument with the models’ assumption relating to the direct impact of CO2 on temperature (approximately 1.2 deg C for a doubling of CO2 concentrations). Where I have doubts is on the modeling of feedbacks, especially relating to water vapor and clouds. That could take us into a very long discussion, but you have one other point for me to address.
“are the comments from New Scientist and Schmidt viable? Frankly, in all honesty, you have not shown that they are inaccurate. Rather, you seem to make the case that they are not viable by simply paraphrasing them – it would appear you are relying on the a priori belief in model inaccuracy, something which certainly exists among some commentators but not among others. Again, this is not the most convincing approach.”
You seem to have misunderstood my point here. Apologies if I wasn’t sufficiently clear. My point was that the statements were MADE… (which is exactly what was claimed in the first sentence of this post.) I was not disputing their validity. (Also, I would not paraphrase something I was disputing.)
But since you bring up the subject of accuracy of financial models, I’ll reveal a bit about what I do for a living. I’m a financial analyst, and until recently I worked at an investment firm that managed north of $100 billion. Every investment decision was supported by an elaborate model, based on historical market and financial data, and built upon dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of assumptions about the future. Feed in all the data and assumptions, and the model spits out forecasts for various scenarios, which are used to guide investment decisions. In my experience, spanning the past decade, reality has routinely delivered results well outside the expected range predicted by the ‘best’ models and analysts. Don’t take my word for it. Take a look at Wall Street research reports and compare analysts earnings forecasts to companies’ subsequent earnings releases. The analysts consistently overestimate profitability. (See this McKinsey report for evidence.) The divergence is obvious, and I suspect the problem is the inherent optimistic bias of sell-side analysts which color the assumptions they feed into their models.
So, to summarize… I didn’t bring up the issue of any model’s accuracy, but since it seems to be a concern, I’d suggest you compare the model’s predictions to reality and objectively judge for yourself whether they agree. And if predictions and reality don’t agree, you might want to investigate the reasons why.
August 28, 2010, 4:09 pmRuss R.:
Sorry, I just realized that the report I cited above requires registration to view.
A non-gated copy can be viewed here.
August 28, 2010, 5:22 pmShills:
Russ R,
How does Gavin Schmidt’s little quote support Meyer’s claim?
And the New Scientist author is not a climate scientist.
Plus, none of this supports the ‘defences often used’ part of Meyer’s claim.
August 28, 2010, 6:07 pmRuss R.:
Shills,
“How does Gavin Schmidt’s little quote support Meyer’s claim?”
Maybe I’m misunderstanding something here. In the article, Gavin Schmidt is quoted defending the use of computer models in climate science by comparing them (favorably) to the computer models used in economic forecasting. The quote revolves entirely around the issue of simple vs. complex systems, which is what Warren wrote about in his first sentence. Could you clarify for me how this would not be an example of what Warren described?
“And the New Scientist author is not a climate scientist.”
Fair point. I read quickly through the article, but didn’t check the author’s background. Fred Pearce is a science journalist, so you’re correct… since he’s not a climate modeler, this is not an example that would support Warren’s statement.
August 28, 2010, 11:33 pmTed Rado:
I don’t agree that one must be a climate expert to comment on the pro/con AGW argument. A math model of ANYTHING is in the form y=f(a,b,c,…). The question is, given a set of data, how well does it agree with the model? If the subject being discussed was hidden from the person evaluating the correlation, and only y and f(a,b,c,..) data provided, one could quickly determine how well the math described the data.
Conversely, a climate “expert” with no understanding of math can promote any hypothesis and argue that his qualifications alone entitle him to be blindly followed. This sort of nonsense occurs in every field of study. If one has a sound hypothesis, one does not have to shout down the doubters, but merely clearly explain the work that was done and the results obtained. The facts speak for themselves. A plague on all the zealots and shouters! Up with competent and objective investigation and discussion!
August 29, 2010, 9:50 amWaldoweed:
****”Up with competent and objective investigation and discussion!”
Ted, what are you doing here then?
This blogsight is extremely limited, biased, and tends to use prejudicial rhetoric. Look at the previous post (“Two Sides Debate”) for an example of a university/community project which voluntarily pulls its satellite data; in this scenario a university staff is mislabeled an “NOAA official” and accused of “whitewash” for simply admitting that an electronic component on a satellite malfunctioned. Look at the top of this page for a non-researched, non-substantiated claim made by the bloghost to which the denialists have yet to question. Look at any of the posts here or on WUWT or virtually any of the denialist blogsites for multiple examples of just this sort of rhetoric—which is the reason a AGW agnostic like myself comes to a blogsite like CS.
And Russ, despite your financial background, I believe you have misrepresented the gist of the WIRED article. The opening hook should make it apparent what the author was writing about:
“With Wall Street’s vaunted financial models looking shaky, could other models of complex systems — say, the climate models that underpin our understanding of global warming — have similar faults?
“In two words, say scientists and financial engineers: not really. It turns out that it’s much harder to model human sentiment, the basis of value, than particle interaction.
“‘It’s the physics. The issue is that economic models aren’t based on any underlying physically observed facts. They’re based on people’s feelings,’” said Gavin Schmidt, a climate modeler at Goddard Institute for Space Studies. ‘We’re not having a climate crisis because there’s a lack of confidence in water vapor.’”
In other words, climate models are based on known physical laws and chemical interactions, even given what we do not know, while computer models cannot account for the emotional, mercurial, unpredictable temperament of human beings. Seems like a valid argument.
No offense, but I believe, Russ, you have fallen back on the typical denialist tactic of excerpting a small part of the whole, taking it out of context, misrepresenting and then misinterpreting what it says.
Which brings me back to the accuracy of climate models—a topic that was rather tender last time we posted, Russ.
The models are accurate.
What is most ironic is that you would’ve given your financial background, I assume, because that gives you some credibility in the realm of judging economic models. (Yes, I know, “judge for yourself”–but then why post that you are an analyst?) But you would not extend the same to climate scientists to understand the interaction of water vapor and cloud formation. In fact, here is some commentary on water vapor:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/04/water-vapour-feedback-or-forcing/
And so, Ted, when you write “I don’t agree that one must be a climate expert to comment on the pro/con AGW argument” that’s fine—but that simply because you do not “agree” does not make your argument valid.
If you are an equal to the NOAA, IPCC, NASA crowd, write an article, have it peer-reviewed, put it out there for the world to see. You might do the same, Russ. If you have the requisite knowledge, then prove it. If you think you understand climate science better than the scientific world, prove it. And while you are at it, tell your doctor that you will be examining your own prostate in the future, and that’ll show’em.
August 29, 2010, 4:36 pmJohn C. Randolph:
I’ve worked on Wall Street, and I can state from first-hand observation that econometric models are about as useful as Oija boards.
August 29, 2010, 4:55 pmnetdr:
So Waldo it all boils down to ” trust us we are professionals”. No one else can read a graph can they ?
.
Even when the professionals models fail to predict the future and only predict the past because they are adjusted until they do.
.
Arguably, the most famous model prediction is Dr Hansen’s 1988 graph of expected warming which isn’t doing very well as of 2009. [We don't know about 2010 yet.]
.
You don’t have to be a climatologist to see that reality didn’t match the prediction. Oh I forgot you DO have to be a trained climatologist.
.
Here is a graph from Dr Hansen’s 2005 defense of his model.
.
http://cstpr.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/hansenscenarios.png
.
Here is the prediction itself. See page 7.
.
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/1988/1988_Hansen_etal.pdf
.
As of 2005 he was doing pretty well, but the value of the anomaly as of 2009 is .57 ° C which puts it below scenario “C”.
.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.txt
.
Even using the UHI polluted data of GISS which is obviously too high he didn’t do well. My OUIJA board could do better !
.
Scenario “C” was what would be expected if massive carbon restrictions were put in place in 1988 which didn’t happen did it ?
.
Did any model predict the lack of warming from 1998 to 2009 ?
.
If it did it was hushed up and hidden from the public because it didn’t fit the agenda of the climate alarmists. The scientists whispered his results into a closet when no one was listening.
.
This one was used to extort huge amounts of funds from congress !
.
I believe the manipulation of the surface temperature data is to rescue this and other such models from utter disgrace. Who put the fox in charge of the hen house ?
.
Comparing climate alarmists to a doctor is insulting to the doctor. If the doctor is wrong he buries his mistake and if he is wrong often enough he is forced out of the profession. If a climatologist is wrong no one knows for 30 to 50 years. In the meantime he is lauded as a rock star by the other climate alarmists. [Dr Hansen comes to mind.]
Plot this
August 29, 2010, 8:37 pmnetdr1:
So Waldo it all boils down to ” trust us we are professionals”. No one else can read a graph can they ?
Don’t trust your own analysis because you can’t possibly interpret a graph.
.
Even when the professionals models fail to predict the future and only predict the past because they are adjusted until they do.
.
August 29, 2010, 8:46 pmArguably, the most famous model prediction is Dr Hansen’s 1988 graph of expected warming which isn’t doing very well as of 2009. [We don't know about 2010 yet.]
.
You don’t have to be a climatologist to see that reality didn’t match the prediction. Oh I forgot you DO have to be a trained climatologist to read a graph.
.
Here is a graph from Dr Hansen’s 2005 defense of his model.
.
http://cstpr.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/hansenscenarios.png
.
Here is the prediction itself. See page 7.
.
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/1988/1988_Hansen_etal.pdf
.
As of 2005 he was doing pretty well, but the value of the anomaly as of 2009 is .57 ° C which puts it below scenario “C”.
.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.txt
.
Even using the UHI polluted data of GISS which is obviously too high he didn’t do well. My OUIJA board could do better !
.
Scenario “C” was what would be expected if massive carbon restrictions were put in place in 1988 which didn’t happen did it ?
.
Did any model predict the lack of warming from 1998 to 2009 ?
.
If it did it was hushed up and hidden from the public because it didn’t fit the agenda of the climate alarmists. The scientists whispered his results into a closet when no one was listening.
.
This one was used to extort huge amounts of funds from congress !
.
I believe the manipulation of the surface temperature data is to rescue this and other such models from utter disgrace. Who put the fox in charge of the hen house ?
.
Comparing a climate alarmist scientist to a doctor is insulting to the doctor. If a doctor is wrong he buries his mistake and if he is wrong long often enough he is forced out of the profession. A climate alarmist can be wrong for 30 to 50 years and be hailed as a near rock star. Someday one will be given a Nobel prize like Al Gore.
netdr2:
So Waldo it all boils down to ” trust us we are professionals”. No one else can read a graph can they ?
Don’t trust your own analysis because you can’t possibly interpret a graph.
.
Even when the professionals models fail to predict the future and only predict the past because they are adjusted until they do.
.
August 29, 2010, 8:51 pmArguably, the most famous model prediction is Dr Hansen’s 1988 graph of expected warming which isn’t doing very well as of 2009. [We don't know about 2010 yet.]
.
You don’t have to be a climatologist to see that reality didn’t match the prediction. Oh I forgot you DO have to be a trained climatologist to read a graph.
.
Here is a graph from Dr Hansen’s 2005 defense of his model.
.
http://cstpr.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/hansenscenarios.png
.
Here is the prediction itself. See page 7.
.
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/1988/1988_Hansen_etal.pdf
.
As of 2005 he was doing pretty well, but the value of the anomaly as of 2009 is .57 ° C which puts it below scenario “C”.
.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.txt
.
Even using the UHI polluted data of GISS which is obviously too high he didn’t do well. My OUIJA board could do better !
.
Scenario “C” was what would be expected if massive carbon restrictions were put in place in 1988 which didn’t happen did it ?
.
Did any model predict the lack of warming from 1998 to 2009 ?
.
If it did it was hushed up and hidden from the public because it didn’t fit the agenda of the climate alarmists. The scientists whispered his results into a closet when no one was listening.
.
This one was used to extort huge amounts of funds from congress !
.
I believe the manipulation of the surface temperature data is to rescue this and other such models from utter disgrace. Who put the fox in charge of the hen house ?
.
Comparing a climate alarmist scientist to a doctor is insulting to the doctor. If a doctor is wrong he buries his mistake and if he is wrong long often enough he is forced out of the profession. A climate alarmist can be wrong for 30 to 50 years and be hailed as a near rock star. Someday one will be given a Nobel prize like Al Gore.
Warren Meyer:
Ha ha ha. Some idiots really thought that New Scientist article was an example of climate scientists saying “they do it all the time in finance and economics” – my original preposterous claim being that such a phrase is “often” used by climate scientists. You can’t even fucking read properly. “Russ R” even goes so far as to say that in the article someone claims that “computer models are good because people use them to predict the stock market”. No, Russ R, that is absolutely not what was said. Go back, try again, and if you still think it says that, then fuck off back to primary school and come back when you’ve learned some basic comprehension.
No climate scientist ever “defends” the use of computer models. There is nothing to defend. If you don’t like computer models, you don’t like science.
August 30, 2010, 5:05 amRuss R.:
Waldo,
I read the WIRED article, and I understand what it’s point is. Yes, financial and econometric models ARE shaky. For a number of reasons with which I’m far too familiar.
The article goes on to argue that economic models are complex because they attempt to predict human behavior, whereas climate models merely predict observable physics. The author includes a quote from climate modeler Gavin Schmidt to help make that point.
Close to the end of the article, there’s an important point made… “Functionally, the ability to generate returns determines how useful a financial model is.”
The same is true for a climate model; the ability to predict future climactic conditions determines how useful a GCM is.
There are 5 “on-the-record” climate predictions of significance… Hansen (1988), and the 4 IPCC reports (1990, 1995, 2001, and 2007). I’d say it’s fair to verify the first two against subsequent climate observations, since 22 and 20 years have passed since they were published. The 1995 predictions are on the borderline with 15 years of observations for comparison. It’s too soon to fairly judge the 2001 and 2007 predictions.
I’ve previously given you the Hansen 1988 prediction graphs and the subsequent observation data to assess them. Actual warming has turned out to be less than his “Drastic emissions reductions Scenario C”, despite emissions that outpaced his “Business as usual Scenario A”. Fact is, Hansen (1988) overpredicted warming. Your unwillingness to accept this doesn’t change the fact.
Regarding IPCC (1990), it predicted: “An average rate of increase of global mean temperature during the next century of about 0.3°C per decade (with an uncertainty range of 0.2—0.5°C per decade) assuming the IPCC Scenario A (Business-as-Usual) emissions of greenhouse gases;…”
In the 20 years since then, the world has gone about “business as usual” regarding emissions, but actual warming has been only 0.184°C per decade (UAH) or 0.192°C per decade (GISS). (Supporting data here). Both observations are below the lower bound of uncertainty given by the prediction. My conclusion is that IPCC (1990) also overpredicted warming. You’re welcome to interpret the data in whatever way you like.
Moving on to IPCC (1995), they reduced their warming prediction by approximately a third compared to their 1990 estimate: “Temperature projections assuming the “best estimate” value of climate sensitivity, 2.5°C, (see Section D.2) are shown for the full set of IS92 scenarios in Figure 18. For IS92a the temperature increase by 2100 is about 2°C. Taking account of the range in the estimate of climate sensitivity (1.5 to 4.5°C) and the full set of IS92 emission scenarios, the models project an increase in global mean temperature of between 0.9 and 3.5°C”
Evidence to from 1995 to date: emissions have been business as usual, but actual warming has been only 0.137°C per decade (UAH) or 0.168°C per decade (GISS). (Data here.) Because emissions have remained on track with the “high” scenario, this implies that climate sensitivity is lower than even the low estimate of 1.5°C used by IPCC. I acknowledge that 15 years of data are insufficient to draw firm conclusions, but would argue that a climate sensitivity value of 1.0 to 1.2°C would be more plausible given the combination of emissions and warming we’ve observed to date.
When reality doesn’t match predictions, an objective individual will reconsider the projections. You seem to prefer to ignore reality.
August 30, 2010, 6:03 amWally:
Waldo,
“‘It’s the physics. The issue is that economic models aren’t based on any underlying physically observed facts. They’re based on people’s feelings,’” said Gavin Schmidt, a climate modeler at Goddard Institute for Space Studies. ‘We’re not having a climate crisis because there’s a lack of confidence in water vapor.’”
Ah, water vapor. Can any scientist give me model for cloud formation from water vapor that is anything like as certain as the fundimental laws of physics? The answer is of course no. So while climate models don’t have to take into account people’s behavior (well they do because they need to predict CO2 levels coming from human activity, but lets give you this one), they do have to attempt to model physical interactions that are very poorly understood. Maybe that’s better, but it isn’t that much better and far from confidence inspiring.
Then of course we have issues with having to model human behavoir. If we stop cutting down the rain forsts, would that not effect the models? What if we decided to build 20 nuclear plants in the next 20 years? What if we all wanted to start driving rebuilt 1966 Pontiac GTOs?
So in reality we have models made up of some well understood physics, some poorly understood physics, human behavior and of course are missing god knows what. Then the models that have been around long enough to compare to actual tempuratures are just not correlating as Russ describes.
August 30, 2010, 11:10 amShills:
Russ R.,
You say: ‘In the article, Gavin Schmidt is quoted defending the use of computer models in climate science by comparing them (favorably) to the computer models used in economic forecasting.’
Umm, no. Yes, he is making a comparison; He is showing a distinction between climate vs finance models. But he is not using the fact that finance modelling is done to justify using models for climate.
Wally,
Yet again, as the months role by, you express your opinion on an aspect of climate science that is not supported by the mainstream, which is fine. But, yet again, we have another indi report that supports the mainstream view:
http://reviewipcc.interacademycouncil.net/report/Executive%20Summary%20and%20Front%20Matter.pdf
Where is it that all the hard-working deniers send their theories? Because they just don’t seem to be making it though.
August 31, 2010, 8:54 pmRuss R.:
Shills,
I see your point, and yes, Schmidt’s quote does make a slightly different argument than what was stated initially by Meyer at the beginning of this post.
I stand corrected.
Now please do me a favor and stop using the term “denier” or its derivatives, unless you’re going to provide supporting data as to exactly what indisputable evidence is allegedly being “denied” and by whom.
August 31, 2010, 11:17 pmShills:
Russ R,
Hmm. You would prefer I used the word skeptic? You don’t think climate denialism exists?
I think this article, from an actual skeptic organisation’s magazine, might help:
http://www.davidbrin.com/climate3.htm
September 1, 2010, 4:51 amRuss R.:
Shills,
Yes, there are actual climate deniers out there. Probably lots of them… I’ve seen a more than few, and I don’t waste my time with them.
However, when you’re going to generalize about the entire population who don’t accept the narrative that AGW is a looming catastrophe requiring immediate government intervention, term skeptic is more appropriate. If you’re going to call someone a denier (much like if you’re going to call someone a liar or a thief) you should be expected to back it up with some supporting facts.
I’ve read through Brin’s article, and while the core point he makes is valid (i.e. the distinction between skeptic and denier is important), unfortunately his own biases still show through strongly, and many of his supporting arguments are either poorly thought out, or are strawmen. I’ll give just one glaring example (there are many more):
Brin writes, “James McCarthy, former co-chair of the IPCC, was asked how many of the world’s top 1000 climate experts would disagree with the basic scientific consensus that the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations over the last 50 years to levels not seen in 650,000 years is primarily anthropogenic and is the cause of an increase in global temperatures. He replied, “Five.”
I consider myself a skeptic, but would generally agree with the 99.5% in the majority on this question. However, this is only the first in a long series of necessary questions. The subsequent questions should be:
What would be the effectiveness and costs of those measures?
2) How much have global temperatures actually increased?
3) How much of the warming is due to man-made causes?
4) How much warming will those man-made causes create in the future?
5) What would be the effects of that warming (both positive and negative)?
6) What would be the net cost (positive or negative) of those effects?
7) What possible measures could be taken to reduce or mitigate the costs (preventative or adaptive measures)?
9) After comparing the expected effectiveness and costs of taking action, with the expected net costs of inaction, which measures (if any) should be taken?
10) And lastly, if any preventative measures should be taken, how should they be structured, managed and enforced?
Consensus on Question 1 doesn’t say anything about Questions 2 through 10. So anyone claiming any sort of “consensus” at Copenhagen is really getting ahead of oneself.
So, in light of the above, do you agree with Brin when he writes “Are we to believe that 99% of the experts are so discredited that there is less than a one-percent chance that continuing to pump anthropogenic carbon dioxide into the atmosphere would cause catastrophic climate change? Clearly, the Climate Skeptic accepts that some things ought to be done, urgently and with full force of national and public will, even-though and even-while he nurses doubts about the likelihood of the full Global Warming scenario. She does not arm wave vaguely against “rash actions,” but actively engages in negotiation over which urgent efficiency measures to promote. Even if only as a precaution.”
Note the bait and switch he employs… he starts by showing you a scientific consensus that man-made GHGs cause warming, but ends up selling you an argument that good, honest skeptics must accept that “catastrophic climate change” requires “that some things ought to be done, urgently and with full force of national and public will”.
September 1, 2010, 7:58 amJusta Joe:
Some AGW whack job has broken into the offices of The Discovery Channel and is holding hostages. The whack job’s manifesto sounds similar to the Malthusian nonsense of some of the trolls on this forum.
http://www.thecypresstimes.com/article/News/National_News/GUNMAN_TAKES_HOSTAGES_AT_DISCOVERY_CHANNEL_MANIFESTO_REVEALED/32950
September 1, 2010, 12:20 pmWally:
Russ,
I have to disagree.
The term “denier” is rarely appropriate of anyone on the opposing the (C)AGW argument in general. For that term to be appropriate, you have to first have some sort of facts or truth to be denied. Exceedingly few “skeptics” or what Shills and Waldo might call “deniers” will deny things like the increasing CO2 levels, that CO2 is a green house gas and in a controlled microscale experiment CO2 gives warming, or that temps have been rising for the last 150 years. The true facts of this science are rarely “denied” by anyone and when they are they are at least equally as likely to be “denied” by those on the CAGW side as the skeptic side.
What the vast majority of the debate centers around is some combination of the climate model validity and their accuracy in predicting future climate, the effects of various levels of warming, and what should be done given the relative confidence in the answers to each of those issues and costs of various “solutions”. Its completely inappropriate, disingenuous and nothing more than an ad hominem to call someone a denier that, for example, doesn’t believe we have the required confidence in a catastrophic outcome to drastically change our lives. Particularly when developing nations that will increasingly take up more and more, and eventually a majority of CO2 output in the decades to come are unlikely to do the same. This is because it simply is not fact that we can either A) do anything about it, or B) what ever marginal effect do achieve will be worth the cost. These are unknowns or matters of our personal cost/benefit analysis that have no objectively correct answer. Thus, those that throw around this term “denier” so loosely are first, likely actually deniers themselves because they cast aside the fact that many of aspect this argument deals with are not facts themselves, which is implied in their very use of the word denier (the hypocrasy and irony is quite comical at times). Second, they are also doing nothing by attempting to use insults in place of logical arguments. Shills is particular quick to fall back to shouting “denier,” after attempting to have rational conversations with him several times, I suggest you ignore him. If you are to ignore true climate deniers, we might as well ignore the blind CAGW believers (and I mean that term in the religous sense) as well.
September 1, 2010, 1:03 pmhunter:
@Justa Joe,
Where’s Waldo? Where is the name stealer?
;^)
@Russ R,
September 1, 2010, 1:33 pmYou are wasting time trying to speak about nuance to a true believing AGW fundamentalist. There mental choices leave no room for nuance and distinction. You are either believing there is a looming climate apocalypse or you are a paid shill of big oil, and want to destroy the Earth.
Waldohome:
***”I’ve previously given you the Hansen 1988 prediction graphs and the subsequent observation data to assess them. Actual warming has turned out to be less than his “Drastic emissions reductions Scenario C”, despite emissions that outpaced his “Business as usual Scenario A”. Fact is, Hansen (1988) overpredicted warming. Your unwillingness to accept this doesn’t change the fact.”
What about “Scenario B”?
Your unwillingness to accept this doesn’t change the fact.
And what of the data that is not Hansen’s per se?
September 1, 2010, 2:05 pmEd:
Ptolemy’s geocentric model of the solar system we a pretty good predictor of celestial motion at the time.
The current climate and economic models are probably almost as good:)
September 1, 2010, 2:07 pmShills:
Russ R,
Do you really wanna argue about the distinctions between denier and skeptic?
Suffice to say, you give a distinction: that a denier is one who simply opposes proven fact. Now however simple and ideal that distinction might be, you try applying it practically to much of what is deemed consensually scientific.
If you are offended by the term denier, toughen up. Peeps on my general viewpoint a called trolls or fundamentalists, or alarmists, all the time. It’s called informal discourse. For example, Wally would like you to know that: ‘Shills is particular quick to fall back to shouting “denier,” after attempting to have rational conversations with him several times, I suggest you ignore him.’
I might contest this claim, but really, who gives a shit.
you might not be what I might class as a denier, I dunno, and I don’t think I’ve called you one, yet.
September 1, 2010, 9:22 pmWaldonier:
How about this: a “denialist” is someone who ‘denies’ that the actual trained climate scientists who make their living in the science industry understand climate science better then they do.
My favorite is when denialists accuse those of us who are skeptical of the motivation and objectivity of the denialist camp with being irrational and un-willing to deal with the facts all the while ignoring primary documents in favor of clearly biased blogsites.
September 1, 2010, 11:15 pmWaldo??:
I like Russ’ questions @ 7:58am.
But I would suggest that these should probably be left to the climate scientists.
September 1, 2010, 11:28 pmWaldoAbashed:
And upon preview I should have written “better THAN they do” and not “better then they do.” Very embarrassing. I apologize.
September 1, 2010, 11:31 pmAlex:
Great posts from both Russ and Wally.
The responses from Shills and Waldo are a good illustration as to why it is pointless to argue with them. They are clowns, nothing more.
September 2, 2010, 4:02 amRuss R.:
Sorry, been away for a bit and have some catching up to do.
@ Wally – You and I seem to be saying the same thing. Yes, there are extremists on both sides of the debate. And yes, I will ignore the ones who can’t engage in civil discourse.
@ hunter – labeling people “fundamentalists” and questioning their mental abilities isn’t very constructive.
@ Waldo – I’m more than happy to look at Hansen (1988) Scenario B. It was based on a lower rate of emissions growth than Scenario A and as such forecast less warming. (It also included a hypothetical volcanic even, which did actually occur.) In reality, emissions growth exceeded that described in Scenario A, yet warming was less than Scenario C. Assuming 22 years is sufficient to start evaluating these predictions and treat the data as being more signal than noise, the only reasonable conclusion I can reach is that Hansen’s model was too aggressive in its assumed value for climate sensitivity to CO2 emissions. What do you conclude? Do you still believe “the models are accurate”?
No need to apologize for typos, but I take issue with your contention that the list of questions I compiled (which I admit is non-exhaustive) “should probably be left to the climate scientists”. While climate scientists absolutely are the experts on the science-related issues (meteorology, physics, chemistry, geology, biology, etc…) to answer the entire set of questions, a much broader range of expertise is required (unless climate scientists are also experts on transportation, agriculture, civil engineering, technology, economics, markets, tax policy, governance, international relations, etc…)
And if you really want to define the word “denialist”, what do you call someone who has been shown in explicit detail the various predictions made by Hansen (1988), IPCC (1990) and IPCC (1995), along with all the subsequent global temperature data from two separate sources (GISS and UAH), and had the material divergence pointed out to him, but still continues to believe the models are accurate?
@ Shills – I’ll repeat my main point for you. “If you’re going to call someone a denier (much like if you’re going to call someone a liar or a thief) you should be expected to back it up with some supporting facts.” As in exactly what indisputable fact(s) you allege they are “denying” (like I did for Waldo in the paragraph above). If you read back through my posts, you’ll note I take equal issue with labeling people “trolls”, “fundamentalists”, etc… All of the above are ad-hominems, used to evade the substance of people’s arguments.
September 2, 2010, 6:59 amRichard A.:
“In other words, neither the primary source nor Mr. Meyer’s post do anything to demonstrait that economic or climate forcasts are inaccurate – they simply state that such models are inaccurate. You can see the problem with this, right?” – Waldosteria
Technically correct, however having been somewhat ‘in the field’ of economics for some time, asking someone to demonstrate the inaccurate nature of economic models is like asking someone to demonstrate gravity as if it hasn’t been conclusively proven yet. Economic models are crap, and for evidence look at the recent economic collapse.
Do some research and get familiar how much of the securitization market was influenced by economic models put together by ‘qants’, models that somehow came to the conclusion that if you took a bunch of risky mortgages given to people with shitty credit, mixed in a couple decent ones, hacked them up and restructured them, that they’d magically become an AAA rated investment. Or put more simply, if you want a demonstration of the inaccurance of economic modeling for forecasts, look at the US economy for the last three years.
Know onw of he main reasons people thought housing prices would never drop? Because they hadn’t dropped since the Great Depression. No one modelled it because the modellers assumed they knew the behavior patterns of a critical part of the system that they were DEAD WRONG about. But hey, it was a damn near fifty year trend so it HAD to indicate some fundamental thing about markets, RIGHT?! Well, no. Housing prices can fall just like any other prices.
Now, I’m not aware of any specific evidence of climate models failing, other than the fact that our current ‘warming’ seems to be inline with the lowest assumed sensitivity at best which WOULD indicate assumptions of higher sensitivities are wrong. However, given the nature of the climate system and all the variables at play and our current understanding of how they interact, would you honestly be betting agains such wrong headed assumptions showing up in those models as well? I’m not talking science, I admit I am not an expert. I’m talking about a lifetime’s worth of experience that lets me smell a line of crap when that’s what someone is laying out for me. And that’s what climate models suspiciously smell like.
September 2, 2010, 10:30 amRichard A.:
“In other words, climate models are based on known physical laws and chemical interactions, even given what we do not know, while computer models cannot account for the emotional, mercurial, unpredictable temperament of human beings. Seems like a valid argument.” – Waldoweed
The problem with this is it’s the classic settled science vs unsettled science switch alarmists always pull. We know the properties of CO2, how much energy it will retain, the range of the spectrum it absorbs, etc. This is settled science and not arguable. This is not the sole component of these models. These models are much, much more complex and, as outlined above with the issue of clouds, we in fact DO NOT know how all the pieces fit together on a causal level. That’s the issue with modeling a complex chaotic system. The claim Schmidt makes is that because the physical world is a deterministic system, the models are much better. Robust comes to mind as a term for some reason. The fundamental point is correct, the underlying and unstated issue is that we DO NOT understand the system well enough to model it. And if we do, prove it. Release all the code, all the notes, all the programming and version control operations records, and sum it up for everyone from the layman to the educated nonexpert. The irony is that while critics here are correct in that the burden of proof is on Warren to supply statements from climate modelers to support his claim, the burden of proof is on the modellers to prove their models are accurate. And so far they don’t seem to be.
September 2, 2010, 10:44 amWally:
Russ,
It would be fairly easy to test how good the various model predictions match actual temps by doing a simple students T-test between the two regressions or average increase in temps predicted and actual. You could do this a couple of ways, but the best way would probably be to just see if the slope of the prediction is significantly different from the slope of the actual temps. Basically in this case, we’d throw out the model if it was significantly different. Given that we should probably adjust the model to match actual CO2 levels to fairly judge the model, which as you state were higher than scenario A, I honestly don’t even think finding the raw data (meaning all yearly data points from the models and the recorded temps) is worth the trouble. When the slopes are 2-3x different, the likelihood that they aren’t significantly different is pretty small.
This is something people that model the economy or financial data of various kinds do all the time in an attempt to validate and improve their models (not to mention the traditional sciences and engereers that do this constantly). As far as I’m aware, there are exactly zero climate articles that attempt to do this with any of the major GCMs. I would guess this is because they are ignorant of these kinds of statistical tests and why they are required in these situations, or they already know what they will find and choose to not publish how bad their models actually are.
If they do exist, maybe Shills and/or Waldo can point me towards them?
September 2, 2010, 11:42 amRuss R.:
Wally,
I’ve fed the UAH and GISS data into excel and done a little basic statistical analysis.
Based on IPCC (1990), we are testing whether the 1990-2010 data support a predicted temperature rise of 0.3 degrees per decade or 0.03 degrees per year.
UAH data (1990 – 2010)
Observations = 247
Slope = 0.01840195
Standard Error = 0.001953884
Ho: slope ≠ 0.03
T Stat = 5.935894464
GISS data (1990 – 2010)
Observations = 247
Slope = .019243
Standard Error = 0.001579303
Ho: slope ≠ 0.03
T Stat = 6.811077087
Turning to IPCC (1995), we are testing whether the 1995-2010 data support a predicted temperature rise of 2.5 degrees per century or 0.025 degrees per year.
UAH data (1995 – 2010)
Observations = 187
Slope = 0.013700253
Standard Error = 0.002937661
Ho: slope ≠ 0.025
T Stat = 3.84651187
GISS data (1990 – 2010)
Observations = 187
Slope = 0.016804263
Standard Error = 0.002198422
Ho: slope ≠ 0.025
T Stat = 3.728008917
If I recall correctly, a t-stat greater than 1.96 indicated a significant difference at the 95% confidence level. But I’ll leave the interpretation of the above t-stats to Waldo.
The raw data are here, for anyone who’d like to check my work.
September 2, 2010, 12:48 pmWally:
Russ, very nice. I wasn’t even going to do this given how completely obvious it was, but that really clinches it. A T-stat of 3-6 given the number of observations is just ridiculously significant, well less than .001.
September 2, 2010, 1:36 pmRuss R.:
“…that really clinches it. A T-stat of 3-6 given the number of observations is just ridiculously significant, well less than .001.”
But will it be enough to convince our friend Waldo?
September 2, 2010, 5:17 pmShills:
Russ R,
you say: ‘@ Shills – I’ll repeat my main point for you….’
Um, Too bad if the peeps on this forum (both sides) don’t care to bring their discourse to the level of accountability of your individual liking. But I’ll give you this much: the denier type I was referring to above were the ones who refuse to believe that the climategate/cru/IPCC-errors issue of a while back did not reveal a cover-up/conspiracy. This they deny, after multiple investigations showing no evidence of serious misdemeanours.
You say:
‘I would guess this is because they are ignorant of these kinds of statistical tests and why they are required in these situations…,’
LOL. You really think a bunch of working scientific researchers wouldn’t have thought about such a basic test??? Maybe you should ask ‘em about that.
you say:
‘…or they already know what they will find and choose to not publish how bad their models actually are.’
LOL, sorry, but this kinda smells like those stupid denier (as above) conspiracy theories. Again, go ask ‘em at your local university maybe. If you think you have found a serious error or what ever, then go publish something in the literature.
You say:
‘If they do exist, maybe Shills and/or Waldo can point me towards them?’
Not me, I dunno. But why not go ask a climate scientist??
September 2, 2010, 8:24 pmShills:
Yep, Woops Russ. That last quote wasn’t yours.
But on the subject of models. Russ’s results show that the IPCC’s estimates seem to overstate warming when compared to observation data. But, from what I’ve heard, the IPCC estimates usually understate the warming trend.
Hmm, what does all this mean… What is missing here?…
September 2, 2010, 9:23 pmWaldoUnConvinced:
****”But will it be enough to convince our friend Waldo?”
Perhaps Russ, if I state my own position (which I have held over my long tenure as a commentator on CS), it will make my commentary clearer.
I am a layman and I am an AGW agnostic. I do not know if there is such a thing as global climate change or not. My own personal experiences would seem to suggest that the climate is pretty much the same as when I was a child—long enough ago that the changes might be observable. Then again, the old timers in the state I currently live in like to talk about how brutal the winters used to be and how comparatively mild they are now. So I don’t know. Probably these anecdotal observations mean nothing at all.
So as a layperson I must make some determination about who I trust enough to believe. Your point above that “to answer the entire set of questions, a much broader range of expertise is required” is well taken, but this is also somewhat problematic since you are a financial analyst who is currently commenting on climate science. Why not use your expertise to comment upon the financial implications of climate science and leave those who are admittedly the absolute “experts on the science-related issues”? Because, Russ, the people who disagree with your evaluations above are actually these self-same experts, and that is the reason I am not particularly convinced of what you has posted above. (Besides, we have already discussed the matter that Hansen was making ‘predictions,’ which by their very nature means they will probably not be perfectly accurate.)
And forgive me for my primitive approach, but if I follow the land-ocean and the station-data lines, it would appear that Hansen’s predictions are, in fact, actually fairly accurate. Do you challenge this?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hansen_2006_temperature_comparison.jpg
Why do you use a blog (http://www.woodfortrees.org) for your information above?
Which actually brings me to Shills comment Re statistical tests:
****”You really think a bunch of working scientific researchers wouldn’t have thought about such a basic test??? Maybe you should ask ‘em about that.”
Tell you what, since you and Wally are very convinced you have figured out something the climate science community has not, here are the submission guidelines for Science:
http://www.sciencemag.org/about/authors/prep/gen_info.dtl
Peer-review the above data.
Certainly you are mature enough not to fall back upon the ‘they’re all friends’ rational or the ‘I’m too busy’ (most of your work seems to be done, after all). Let’s see what the experts think of your work.
September 2, 2010, 10:25 pmWaldoUnConvinced:
****”But will it be enough to convince our friend Waldo?”
Perhaps Russ, if I state my own position (which I have held over my long tenure as a commentator on CS), it will make my commentary clearer.
I am a layman and I am an AGW agnostic. I do not know if there is such a thing as global climate change or not. My own personal experiences would seem to suggest that the climate is pretty much the same as when I was a child—long enough ago that the changes might be observable. Then again, the old timers in the state I currently live in like to talk about how brutal the winters used to be and how comparatively mild they are now. So I don’t know. Probably these anecdotal observations mean nothing at all.
So as a layperson I must make some determination about who I trust enough to believe. Your point above that “to answer the entire set of questions, a much broader range of expertise is required” is well taken, but this is also somewhat problematic since you are a financial analyst who is currently commenting on climate science. Why not use your expertise to comment upon the financial implications of climate science and leave those who are admittedly the absolute “experts on the science-related issues”? Because, Russ, the people who disagree with your evaluations above are actually these self-same experts, and that is the reason I am not particularly convinced of what you has posted above. (Besides, we have already discussed the matter that Hansen was making ‘predictions,’ which by their very nature means they will probably not be perfectly accurate.)
And forgive me for my primitive approach, but if I follow the land-ocean and the station-data lines, it would appear that Hansen’s predictions are, in fact, actually fairly accurate. Do you challenge this?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hansen_2006_temperature_comparison.jpg
Why do you use a blog (http://www.woodfortrees.org) for your information above?
Which actually brings me to Shills comment Re statistical tests:
****”You really think a bunch of working scientific researchers wouldn’t have thought about such a basic test??? Maybe you should ask ‘em about that.”
Tell you what, since you and Wally are very convinced you have figured out something the climate science community has not, here are the submission guidelines for Science:
http://www.sciencemag.org/about/authors/prep/gen_info.dtl
Peer-review the above data.
Certainly you are mature enough not to fall back upon the ‘they’re all friends’ rational or the ‘I’m too busy’ (most of your work seems to be done, after all). Let’s see what the experts think of your work.
September 2, 2010, 10:59 pmMiriam:
“But, from what I’ve heard, the IPCC estimates usually understate the warming trend.”
Where are the numbers?
September 2, 2010, 11:12 pmShills:
Miriam,
For now:
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2007/2007_Rahmstorf_etal.pdf
September 3, 2010, 12:14 amMiriam:
Thanks. We are talking about the middle graph of the three.
If I understand Russ, the 1990 prediction from IPCC was 0.3 degrees per decade. The dotted lines on the graph corresponding to predictions have a significantly lower slope (about half). Thus, if Russ quotes the right numbers, the predictions cited in your 2007 paper are significantly different from what they were in 1990. What gives?
September 3, 2010, 2:55 amRuss R.:
Shills & Miriam,
The source of the discrepancy is that the projections being evaluated in Ramstorf et al (2007) are NOT from IPCC (1990), they’re the IPCC (2001) projections, displayed with a 1990 start year.
In their own words: “We compiled the most recent observed climate trends for carbon dioxide
concentration, global mean air temperature, and global sea level, and we compare these
trends to previous model projections as summarized in the 2001 assessment report of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (1). The IPCC scenarios and projections
start in the year 1990, which is also the base year of the Kyoto protocol… (emphasis mine).
So, they’re actually comparing 16 years of data, against a prediction which was made after 11 of those years were already “in the books”. That’s like predicting the outcome of a hockey game after the third period is underway.
Their justification for this is:
“Although published in 2001, these model projections are essentially independent
from the observed climate data since 1990: Climate models are physics-based models developed
over many years that are not “tuned” to reproduce the most recent temperatures…
The models may not be “tuned”, but the warming prediction itself was revised in IPCC (1995) from 0.3 degrees per decade down to 0.2 degrees per decade, the latter of which is the slope of the solid lines in the graph in Fig 1 (middle).
September 3, 2010, 5:28 amMiriam:
Thanks a lot, Russ. Shills, are you going to object or do you have another paper showing that “the IPCC estimates usually understate the warming trend”?
September 3, 2010, 5:37 amRuss R.:
And after typing that last comment, I just caught one of my own mistakes.
In my statistical analysis for the IPCC (1995) predictions, I accidentally used a prediction of 2.5 degrees per century when I should have used 2.0 degrees per century for the null hypothesis. This was a misreading on my part and it changes the T-stats substantially. (This mistake did not impact the 1990 analysis.)
Correction follows for IPCC (1995):
UAH data (1995 – 2010)
Observations = 187
Slope = 0.013700253
Standard Error = 0.002937661
Ho: slope ≠ 0.020
T Stat = 2.144477
GISS data (1990 – 2010)
Observations = 187
Slope = 0.016804263
Standard Error = 0.002198422
Ho: slope ≠ 0.020
T Stat = 1.45365
Using the corrected T-stats, the P-values (two-tailed) are 0.03199 (UAH) and 0.14605 (GISS). Therefore, the UAH data would allow us to reject the IPCC (1995) predictions with more than 95% confidence. The GISS data show a difference with only ~85% confidence.
Apologies for the error.
September 3, 2010, 5:53 amRuss R.:
One more typo correction… the comment above should read “GISS data (1995 – 2010)”. I need to hire a proof-reader.
September 3, 2010, 6:31 amWaldoUnConvinced:
****”But will it be enough to convince our friend Waldo?”
Perhaps Russ, if I state my own position (which I have held over my long tenure as a commentator on CS), it will make my commentary clearer.
I am a layman and I am an AGW agnostic. I do not know if there is such a thing as global climate change or not. My own personal experiences would seem to suggest that the climate is pretty much the same as when I was a child—long enough ago that the changes might be observable. Then again, the old timers in the state I currently live in like to talk about how brutal the winters used to be and how comparatively mild they are now. So I don’t know. Probably these anecdotal observations mean nothing at all.
So as a layperson I must make some determination about who I trust enough to believe. Your point above that “to answer the entire set of questions, a much broader range of expertise is required” is well taken, but this is also somewhat problematic since you are a financial analyst who is currently commenting on climate science. Why not use your expertise to comment upon the financial implications of climate science and leave those who are admittedly the absolute “experts on the science-related issues”? Because, Russ, the people who disagree with your evaluations above are actually these self-same experts, and that is the reason I am not particularly convinced of what you has posted above. (Besides, we have already discussed the matter that Hansen was making ‘predictions,’ which by their very nature means they will probably not be perfectly accurate.)
And forgive me for my primitive approach, but if I follow the land-ocean and the station-data lines, it would appear that Hansen’s predictions are, in fact, actually fairly accurate. Do you challenge this?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hansen_2006_temperature_comparison.jpg
Why do you use a blog (http://www.woodfortrees.org) for your information above?
Which actually brings me to Shills comment Re statistical tests:
****”You really think a bunch of working scientific researchers wouldn’t have thought about such a basic test??? Maybe you should ask ‘em about that.”
Tell you what, since you and Wally are very confident about your calculations and convinced you have figured out and exposed something the climate science community has not, here are the submission guidelines for Science:
http://www.sciencemag.org/about/authors/prep/gen_info.dtl
Peer-review the above data.
Certainly you are mature enough not to fall back upon the ‘they’re all friends’ rational or the ‘I’m too busy’ (most of your work seems to be done, after all). Let’s see what the experts think of your work.
September 3, 2010, 9:11 amWaldoUnConvinced:
****”But will it be enough to convince our friend Waldo?”
Perhaps Russ, if I state my own position (which I have held over my long tenure as a commentator on CS), it will make my commentary clearer.
I am a layman and I am an AGW agnostic. I do not know if there is such a thing as global climate change or not. My own personal experiences would seem to suggest that the climate is pretty much the same as when I was a child—long enough ago that the changes might be observable. Then again, the old timers in the state I currently live in like to talk about how brutal the winters used to be and how comparatively mild they are now. So I don’t know. Probably these anecdotal observations mean nothing at all.
September 3, 2010, 9:12 amWally:
Russ, thanks for the update. That makes some sense that the 1995 confidence is not so high, given the shorter time period and the drop in slope. Though at ~85% I’d say their model is still not that good. The downward revision made it better, but its still quite a ways off. The .05 cut off, while generally accepted, is in the end completely arbitrary. And especially for something like this, lower is always better. We don’t really just want to accept or reject a model, we want to regular refine and repeatedly test each model to get the best one.
September 3, 2010, 9:12 amWaldoUnConvinced:
So as a layperson I must make some determination about who I trust enough to believe. Your point above that “to answer the entire set of questions, a much broader range of expertise is required” is well taken, but this is also somewhat problematic since you are a financial analyst who is currently commenting on climate science. Why not use your expertise to comment upon the financial implications of climate science and leave those who are admittedly the absolute “experts on the science-related issues”? Because, Russ, the people who disagree with your evaluations above are actually these self-same experts, and that is the reason I am not particularly convinced of what you has posted above. (Besides, we have already discussed the matter that Hansen was making ‘predictions,’ which by their very nature means they will probably not be perfectly accurate.)
And forgive me for my primitive approach, but if I follow the land-ocean and the station-data lines, it would appear that Hansen’s predictions are, in fact, actually fairly accurate. Do you challenge this?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hansen_2006_temperature_comparison.jpg
September 3, 2010, 9:13 amWaldoUnConvincedFinally:
Why do you use a blog (http://www.woodfortrees.org) for your information above?
Which actually brings me to Shills comment Re statistical tests:
****”You really think a bunch of working scientific researchers wouldn’t have thought about such a basic test??? Maybe you should ask ‘em about that.”
Tell you what, since you and Wally are very confident about your calculations and convinced you have figured out and exposed something the climate science community has not, here are the submission guidelines for Science:
http://www.sciencemag.org/about/authors/prep/gen_info.dtl
Peer-review the above data.
Certainly you are mature enough not to fall back upon the ‘they’re all friends’ rational or the ‘I’m too busy’ (most of your work seems to be done, after all). Let’s see what the experts think of your work.
And sorry for the multiple postings, the system would not accept one long post.
September 3, 2010, 9:14 amWally:
Waldo,
“I am a layman and I am an AGW agnostic.”
I call bull shit. If you were truly agnostic, which here we should be using this definition, “a person who denies or doubts the possibility of ultimate knowledge in some area of study” you wouldn’t be running around call those of us that are obviously more knowledgeable of the scientific process and methods of statistical analysis than you are, and who are simply trying to objectively evaluate the current data and what it means for the greater policy decisions being made, deniers and other similar terms.
Either you’re ignorant of what the true meaning of what you just said is, or you’re a complete and total liar.
September 3, 2010, 9:20 amWaldonostic:
Quit playing the pedant, Wally, you’ve got an article to write.
September 3, 2010, 9:27 amKreo:
Russ / Wally: 2+2=4
September 3, 2010, 9:39 amWaldo: I am unconvinced, you are not math experts
Waldeo:
Actually it’s not math, Kreo, but objectivity, arrogance, dubious primary sources (if your initial information is skewed nothing from that point on will be correct–a point the denialists are well aware of), and the unwillingness to admit that climate scientists may know their jobs which causes me to doubt the Russ / Wally dynamic duo. Math is only an insignificant part of it.
September 3, 2010, 10:09 amRuss R.:
Waldo,
“I am a layman and I am an AGW agnostic.” – Fair enough. For what it’s worth, I’m actually an AGW believer (i.e. the globe is definitely warming, and some part of it is likely man made). It’s CAGW that I find difficult to believe, because the numbers just don’t add up to the disaster scenarios being predicted.
“So as a layperson I must make some determination about who I trust enough to believe.” I’m certainly not asking you to trust me. In fact, I’m saying the opposite… you should be putting your trust in facts, not people.
“And forgive me for my primitive approach, but if I follow the land-ocean and the station-data lines, it would appear that Hansen’s predictions are, in fact, actually fairly accurate. Do you challenge this?” Yes, I do. First, the graph you linked to only shows data up to 2005, stopping right at the point where Scenario A & B projections ramp upwards, and the real world temperatures fail to follow them. Second, you have to understand the differences between Hansen’s Scenarios A, B & C. You can’t treat them as interchangeable, as they were based on very different assumptions. It’s most appropriate to compare the real world against Scenario A with a couple of caveats (methane emissions, which didn’t rise as much as Scenario A described, and a volcanic event which occured, but was not included in Scenario A). Scenario B was based on lower emissions growth and did include a volcanic event. So it represents a ‘low range’ estimate. In reality, warming didn’t come close to either prediction, falling short of Scenario C which assumed “drastic emissions cuts”. But I’ve written all of this many times before. Conclusion… Hansen (1988) got it wrong. You still haven’t shown me where he admitted to making a mistake.
“Why do you use a blog (http://www.woodfortrees.org) for your information above?” Because that particular website site presents all 4 major data sets (GISTEMP, HADCRUT, UAH & RSS) in a standardized format, along with a graphing and analysis toolkit. In contrast, GISS’ website presents their data in a table format (shown here) that is difficult to import into spreadsheets for analysis. UAH’s data are relatively easy to work with as presented (shown here).
“you are a financial analyst who is currently commenting on climate science.” Actually, I’m doing something that is done routinely by all sorts of analysts… using statistics to test model predictions against real-world data. I’m certainly qualified to do so. But I’ll say it again… don’t take my word for it… look at the data and calculations yourself, and draw your own conclusions. And if either my data or calculations are incorrect, please let me know.
September 3, 2010, 11:15 amWally:
Waldo,
“Math is only an insignificant part of it.”
Completely ignorant statement. The MATHEMATICAL models are a huge part of this, as are the methods statistical analysis used or omitted.
After reading climate papers for the better part of 5 years, I’m convinced that I know statistical analysis and mathematical modeling better than most of these “experts.” I’m sure they know the surrounding background better than I do, but the math/stat tools don’t change between the sciences (or engineering or econ or politics even) and they quite obviously don’t know how to use them correctly and/or they use them in a disingenuous manor. You can attack me personally all you’d like, or tell me to write this paper that I no desire to write, but that doesn’t change the facts and analysis brought up by Russ.
The models suck. If you are truly “agnostic” to climate science, you would be able to see that. Or maybe, you’re just a little too much of a layman to understand, and if you’d like to debate us further, you have a bit of knowledge to catch up on first.
But I guess I can’t stop you from shouting DENIER or ARROGANCE in a pathetic attempt at making an argument. So carry on if you like, but you’re not going to convince many people hurling nothing but ad hominem attacks.
September 3, 2010, 11:59 amWaldoKnewIt:
****”I’m convinced that I know statistical analysis and mathematical modeling better than most of these ‘experts.’”
That’s pretty brave talk, Wally, can you put your money where your mouth is? Last time Wally copped out, are you copping out too, Russ?
Peer-review, boys, show your cards.
Actually…I know you won’t (Russ somehow managed to ignore that challenge in my emails and the same challenge in Shills’ posts).
You know damn well once you step out of the safety of an unmonitored, denialist blogsite you’d be handed your hats.
This is why you are unconvincing.
I’m off for several days but I’m sure I’ll have something to say when I come back.
Keep the faith.
September 3, 2010, 12:51 pmKreo:
I can’t help but laugh at Waldo’s pretense that he is somehow winning this debate. All that talk about someone ignoring your “challenge” and “copping out”… whom are you kidding, boy?
It’s kind of tough to win anything when your only argument is “such and such is true because the expert said so”.
September 3, 2010, 1:30 pmRuss R.:
Yes Waldo, I’m copping out because I’m not jumping at your challenge of getting a bit of basic statistical analysis published in a peer-reviewed science journal.
Thank you for providing us all with a good laugh.
Good bye.
September 3, 2010, 3:18 pmShills:
Russ R, says:
‘Yes Waldo, I’m copping out because I’m not jumping at your challenge of getting a bit of basic statistical analysis published in a peer-reviewed science journal.’
Yep. Those stats based on outdated models might be a little late to the show to be of interest.
So, (for Miriam), I guess the issue is which models do we care about? Old ones or the new?
Russ says: ‘That’s like predicting the outcome of a hockey game after the third period is underway.’
But then you cite their justification for it. So… what do you think? are you happy with the justification or do you think it is a bit of a cheat?? How else would we test and improve models of we don’t have a time machine?
And if you have nothing worth publishing, then at least go share your various ideas with a working climate scientist. Could you get any better commentary than that? Def. not here.
Wally says:
‘The .05 cut off, while generally accepted, is in the end completely arbitrary.’
LOL. While that is true. I do wonder where you were, Wally, when the deniers were shouting “insignificant!” regarding that interview with Jones a while back. Double-standards much??
September 3, 2010, 7:15 pmShills:
Kreo says:
‘It’s kind of tough to win anything when your only argument is “such and such is true because the expert said so”.’
LOL. Umm, so since when was using expert opinion such a tough way to win an argument? Last I checked in the real word, expert evidence was much more reliable than blog posts. But then again, you might not live in the real world ay Kreo??
September 3, 2010, 8:53 pmMiriam:
“Those stats based on outdated models might be a little late to the show to be of interest.”
So, new models can’t yet be verified, because it’s too early. And old models are uninteresting. I see.
September 3, 2010, 11:09 pmAlex:
As I said before, Shills and Waldo are clowns.
September 3, 2010, 11:14 pmShills:
Miriam says:
‘So, new models can’t yet be verified, because it’s too early. And old models are uninteresting. I see.’
No. Old models are outdated, but also interesting because they can be compared to the observations, and this knowledge informs (I guess) the new models. New models can be verified. New models are trialled against past observations and near future. There is no devious tuning going on because the observations used to develop the models are different from the observations used to evaluate them. additions or the like are only used if they have a priori reasons for being there, not merely to get a ‘closer fit’.
Alex,
Hey Bra! What’s up? you wanna elaborate on your opinions there or just stick with a plain old insult?
September 4, 2010, 3:37 amMiriam:
Thanks, Shills. Let me correct my point.
While it might be possible to check new models against past observations and near future, these checks are of limited use. I recall it being stressed on RC that global temperature trends taken over the period of 7 or 8 years are not very useful as they fluctuate too much. Consequently, even if the trend in the output of a model predicting global temperatures significantly differs from what really happens, it does not matter until after at least these 7 or 8 years. I think I once heard someone mentioning 20 years as a more useful delay prior to checking the model.
This is the first part of my corrected point – new models can’t yet be verified.
Turning to the old models we see that their predictions made in 1990 and 1995 haven’t been confirmed.
This is the second part of my corrected point – old models are wrong.
Now, with the old models being wrong and the new models being of unknown quality (if anyone would like to venture a point that the new models might miss, but they will “likely” not be “too wrong”, you are welcome to quantify “likely” and “too wrong”), it really seems strange to be reciting predictions from the new models and advocating to take actions based on these predictions, as if they have been truly validated, no? Yet, this is exactly what is being done by people in the catastrophic global warming camp.
September 4, 2010, 5:04 amShills:
Miriam,
But, as I said, the newer models can be tested against the past, and or with climate change events like pinatubo. That is how they get evaluated.
You say: ‘ it really seems strange to be reciting predictions from the new models and advocating to take actions based on these predictions, as if they have been truly validated, no? Yet, this is exactly what is being done by people in the catastrophic global warming camp.’
Yes, that would be kinda strange if the models actually were our only source of evidence, but you are wrong. Even if the models did not exist, we would still have a ‘catastrophic warming camp’. There is a lot more evidence besides the models.
September 4, 2010, 5:38 amRuss R.:
Shills,
“So… what do you think? are you happy with the justification or do you think it is a bit of a cheat??”
How about this, I’ll bet you $1000 that the NHL hockey model I’ve been working on can predict with better than 80% accuracy which team will win the Stanley Cup each year (from 1990 to 2015).
All kidding aside, I think the paper is very misleading. Admit it… you were fooled into thinking the paper was an evaluation and confirmation of the IPCC (1990) predictions (otherwise you wouldn’t have brought it to our attention). I was fooled at first as well, until I read the text closely.
Worse still, while arguing that global temperatures since 1990 have been rising faster than predicted, the authors make no mention that the IPCC predictions were revised downward in the 1995 report (to which they add the ambiguous claim that the models were not “tuned” since 1990… despite the 1995 change in predictions).
Am I’m misunderstanding something here? I’m hoping there’s a reasonable explanation to be had somewhere. Otherwise, I’d have to call shenanigans.
September 4, 2010, 5:38 amRuss R.:
“Even if the models did not exist, we would still have a ‘catastrophic warming camp’. There is a lot more evidence besides the models.”
Do elaborate…
September 4, 2010, 5:41 amMiriam:
“Even if the models did not exist, we would still have a ‘catastrophic warming camp’. There is a lot more evidence besides the models.”
I am also keen to hear.
September 4, 2010, 5:48 ampaulD:
“But, as I said, the newer models can be tested against the past, and or with climate change events like pinatubo. That is how they get evaluated.”
Climate scientists who develop models have obscured uncertainty involved in testing models against the past. Dr. Richard Lindzen describe the little game they play:
“So how do models with high sensitivity manage to simulate the currently small response to a forcing that is almost as large as a doubling of CO2? Jeff Kiehl notes in a 2007 article from the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the models use another quantity that the IPCC lists as poorly known (namely aerosols) to arbitrarily cancel as much greenhouse warming as needed to match the data, with each model choosing a different degree of cancellation according to the sensitivity of that model.” http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703939404574567423917025400.html
Here is the link to primary peer-reviewed article by Jeff Kiehl to which Dr. Lindzen refers. Jeffrey T. Kiehl, Twentieth Century Climate Model Response and Climate Sensitivity, 34 Geo. Res. Lett. L22710 (2007) Copy can be found at http://www.atmos.washington.edu/twiki/pub/Main/ClimateModelingClass/kiehl_2007GL031383.pdf.
Here is another peer-reviewed article that is essential reading on this topic. Stephen E. Schwartz, Robert J. Charlson and Henning Rodhe, Quantifying Climate Change – Too Rosy a Picture?, 2 Nature Reports: Climate Change 23 (2007). copy can be found at http://www.ecd.bnl.gov/pubs/BNL-78121-2007-JA.pdf
It is worth noting that these are articles by mainstream climate scientists appearing in mainstream journals. Please do not make the argument that climate models accurately replicate the past temperatures until you have read both of the peer-reviewed articles cited above.
September 5, 2010, 3:08 amShills:
Russ,
You say:
‘How about this, I’ll bet you $1000 that the NHL hockey model I’ve been working on can predict with better than 80% accuracy which team will win the Stanley Cup each year (from 1990 to 2015).’
Sounds like you suspect the models are some how inappropriately informed by the observations. I’d like to see you show that.
You say:
‘Admit it… you were fooled into thinking the paper was an evaluation and confirmation of the IPCC (1990) predictions.
Yeah, an evaluation. Thats cool with me.
You say:
‘Am I’m misunderstanding something here? I’m hoping there’s a reasonable explanation to be had somewhere. Otherwise, I’d have to call shenanigans.’
Not sure what the big issue here is. Tuning is a specific term (from what little I know of climate models) and you can make additions to models with out tuning it.
And why so quick to suggest shenanigans? What bemuses me a lot with your side is the quick levelling of accusations. ‘A reasonable explanation’ is far more likely. Maybe the fault lies with your understanding?
You say:
Do elaborate…
For example: Measurements of longwave radiation don’t need models and show signs consistent with greenhouse warming, evidence that shows the increase of co2 is linked to the increase of carbon in the atmosphere, temperature trends that indicate greenhouse warming.
Granted, the story is made much more solid with modelling, but I think there would definitely be an AGW theory out there.
September 5, 2010, 4:40 ampauld:
Shills wrote:
“For example: Measurements of longwave radiation don’t need models and show signs consistent with greenhouse warming, evidence that shows the increase of co2 is linked to the increase of carbon in the atmosphere, temperature trends that indicate greenhouse warming.
Granted, the story is made much more solid with modelling, but I think there would definitely be an AGW theory out there.”
Nice try at bait and switch. Your original statement was, “Even if the models did not exist, we would still have a ‘catastrophic warming camp’. There is a lot more evidence besides the models.”
Now, you are saying, “Granted, the story is made much more solid with modeling, but I think there would definitely be an AGW theory out there.”
The backpedaling is significant. Nearly all informed skeptics agree with basic parts of AGW theory: i.e. that there has been some global warming and that part of that global warming can be attributed to CO2 emissions. Where the dispute comes in is whether the future warming will be largely inconsequential or catastrophic. I am not aware how the case for catastrophic AGW can without the models. So I, along with several others in the forum, am looking forward to your further elaboration.
September 5, 2010, 5:49 amMiriam:
Thanks, pauld. Shills, you were asked to show other evidence of catastrophic AGW besides models, which you claim there was “a lot” of. What is it? No need to play games.
September 5, 2010, 6:45 amRuss R.:
Shills:
“Sounds like you suspect the models are some how inappropriately informed by the observations. I’d like to see you show that.”
I think it’s entirely appropriate for models to be informed by observations… that’s exactly how models should be developed and improved over time. What I’m objecting to is the way the Rahmstorf paper is presented. If the authors of a paper entitled “Recent Climate Observations Compared to Projections” are going to show observations going back to 1990, they should be comparing the observations to the 1990 projections (or at least showing the 1990 projections and their subsequent refinements.) If they’re going to show warming against the 2001 projections, they should give some visual indication that the relevant time period is from 2001-06. The way the paper is presented gives a false sense of confidence in the predictive power and conservatism of the models, neither of which can be supported. And please don’t try to tell me the presentation is not misleading… it managed to fool you.
“And why so quick to suggest shenanigans? What bemuses me a lot with your side is the quick levelling of accusations. ‘A reasonable explanation’ is far more likely. Maybe the fault lies with your understanding?”
Shills… smarten up. Go back and read my statement again. No seriously… do it. I clearly said 1) I might be the one be misunderstanding something, and 2) there may be a reasonable explanation, OTHERWISE, shenanigans. Don’t go spouting off that I’m leveling accusations without being open to reasons the paper might be sound. You’re welcome to help clarify my understanding, or help find any reasonable explanations, but otherwise… what else should an objective individual conclude?
“For example: Measurements of longwave radiation don’t need models and show signs consistent with greenhouse warming, evidence that shows the increase of co2 is linked to the increase of carbon in the atmosphere, temperature trends that indicate greenhouse warming.
Granted, the story is made much more solid with modelling, but I think there would definitely be an AGW theory out there.”
Ah… just what I expected. Your initial statement was “Even if the models did not exist, we would still have a ‘catastrophic warming camp’. There is a lot more evidence besides the models.”, but when pressed for such evidence you suddenly forget the “catastrophic” part and the best you can offer is “there would definitely be an AGW theory out there.”.
A quick review for those who might not have been paying attention: AGW ≠ CAGW. If you were observant, you would have noticed that I wrote earlier that I’m already an AGW believer… so all of the examples you’ve provided here are merely preaching to the choir. Would you like to make another attempt at providing evidence outside of the models to support the “catastrophic” argument? I’ll be waiting.
September 5, 2010, 7:03 amWaldoFu:
****”I can’t help but laugh at Waldo’s pretense that he is somehow winning this debate.”
No one is “winning” anything. It’s not even a proper debate we’ve got here. May I respectfully suggest, Kreo, that you learn to read with a tad more complexity?
What we have here is a failure to communicate. But beyond that, we have the essential problem of people making big claims without backing them up. Why are you so willing to believe Wally and Russ? I can’t help but think about the Kung Fu masters on YouTube who claim they can beat any MMA fighter but stay safely away from the octagon.
And yes, my friend, I am much more willing to believe the experts (those people who admittedly know the most on a given subject) than I am the blog commentators without any real background who stay safely away from expert peer-review. Why shouldn’t I? It is pretty easy to post here and then plant a flag in your pet theory; it is entirely another thing to have that theory vetted by the people who know a thing or two. Russ, Wally, and Mr. Meyer are armchair quarterbacking.
Would you go to Russ and Wally if you developed cancer, or would you go to an oncologist? What if they had a bridge to sell?
Miriam,
****”other evidence of catastrophic AGW besides models, which you claim there was ‘a lot’ of”
Certainly you realize that there is evidence from satellite, land, and sea temp measurements, radiosondes, ice core samples, global glacier and permafrost melt, Yamal tree reconstructions, and worldwide scientific consensus?
September 5, 2010, 9:54 pmMiriam:
Waldo. You could essentially read everything you said in your response to Kreo to yourself, looking in the mirror.
Shills ventured that there is ample evidence for catastrophic AGW besides models. His exact wording:
“Even if the models did not exist, we would still have a ‘catastrophic warming camp’. There is a lot more evidence besides the models.”
Me and others wanted to see this evidence. Can you offer anything in this respect? Please be exact. For example, don’t say that there is “evidence from satellite, land, and sea temp measurements”. Instead, show a paper which would use these measurements to make a case – without using models – for catastrophic global warming. That is, conclude that based on temp measurements that we see now we should expect temperatures to raise enough to lead to catastrophic conditions in the future.
Thanks.
September 5, 2010, 11:48 pmshills:
Russ says:
‘If they’re going to show warming against the 2001 projections, they should give some visual indication that the relevant time period is from 2001-06′
But they back-caste the models too so they can be compared to past observations.
‘And please don’t try to tell me the presentation is not misleading… it managed to fool you.’
Sure, but it was good enough to be published in Science, and so maybe our perspective is lacking somewhat. Anyway, apart from the paper, you are pretty happy with the models no?
‘Don’t go spouting off that I’m leveling accusations without being open to reasons the paper might be sound’
LOL. Easy Russ. Maybe you should read my post more carefully. I did not say you were levelling any accusations, just your side. I merely asked why you would ‘suggest’ shenanigans–my point is that you have no need to. The problem is far more likely to be with your understanding, or something else again, so why even bother saying that? How would you like it if you were proposing some findings and the listener said ‘either there’s an error here or you’re being shifty’. There is no need to be suspicious.
‘Ah… just what I expected.’
Lol. You are a little cynical, Russ.
Would you believe that I mostly use AGW and CAGW interchangeably, or never say CAGW?. Sorry for the confusion but It wasn’t so long ago that the so called CAGW skeptics were merely AGW skeptics (baby steps i guess), and I still harbour some habits from back then.
So you wan’t model-less evidence that AGW is catastrophic? Well, take the evidence that our emissions are indeed the carbon that is accumulating in the atmosphere (and elsewhere), and the evidence that carbon sinks have been saturated. Doesn’t that sound very worrying? And the ensuing warming is linked to various changes in the bio-sphere, rate of sea level rise and other changes including extreme whether trends (have a look in the IPCC wg2). Now, for a world that is built on the status quo, too much change is pretty catastrophic. So I think there would def. be room for a CAGW crowd without models. And without the models, we have less of an idea of what is around the corner.
September 6, 2010, 12:34 amMiriam:
“Well, take the evidence that our emissions are indeed the carbon that is accumulating in the atmosphere (and elsewhere), and the evidence that carbon sinks have been saturated. Doesn’t that sound very worrying?”
Without numbers quantifying the effect of that on the climate, no.
“Now, for a world that is built on the status quo, too much change is pretty catastrophic.”
That’s too vague.
So, any papers and actual numbers?
September 6, 2010, 2:09 amKreo:
A quick recap of the last couple of arguments so that nobody loses track, camp Pro vs camp Contra:
Pro (Waldo): The models are accurate.
Contra (Russ): Predictions of models which we can now validate turned out to be false. IPCC, numbers, test.
Pro (Waldo): Hansen 1998, scenario B, graph.
Contra (Russ): Yep, a misprediction, the graph handily ends in 2005 masking the gap between scenarios and reality, we should compare against scenario A the match against which is much worse.
Pro (Shills): Rahmstorf 2007.
Contra (Russ): That prediction was made in 2001 so it’s too early to check it. Since it was done in 2001, we can’t make much from how it behaves from 1990 to 2001.
Pro (Shills): Stats based on outdated models might be a little late to the show to be of interest.
Contra (Miriam): So, new models can’t yet be verified, because it’s too early, and old models are uninteresting?
Pro (Shills): No, no… anyway, even if the models did not exist, we would still have a ‘catastrophic warming camp’. There is a lot more evidence besides the models.
Contra (several): What is this evidence?
Pro (Shills): We have evidence that shows the increase of co2 is linked to the increase of carbon in the atmosphere.
Contra (several): So? Where’s evidence of catastrophic warming?
Pro (Waldo): We have evidence from satellite, land, and sea temp measurements, radiosondes, ice core samples, global glacier and permafrost melt, Yamal tree reconstructions, and worldwide scientific consensus.
Contra (Miriam): And? Please be specific. How that shows catastrophic warming?
Pro (Shills): We emit carbon and carbon sinks have been saturated. Doesn’t that sound very worrying?
Contra (Miriam): Where are the numbers?
That’s where we are now. Thanks.
September 6, 2010, 3:39 amTed Rado:
The vigorous debate over AGW is illuminating. It confirms what is obvious: Nobody knows for sure.
It is proposed to destroy the world economy based on this uncertain science. If one assumes that the AGW thing is correct, then we need two additional things to happen. First, there must be a viable alternative energy source. As of now, there are none, other than nuclear power. Biofuels, solar, and wind power are only viable on a small scale and then only if heavily subsidized by government. Second, everyone has to get on board, otherwise we will simply move US Steel and Krupp to China or India, in the process impoverishing the developed countries and not reducing CO2 emissions at all.
It has been pointed out that to meet the AGW-ites limits on CO2, we will need to go back to 1875 per capita energy consumption. How will we feed the world’s population with 1875 agricultural methods? There are endless similar problems to be dealt with. The proponents of CO2 caps owe it to the world to have a complete plan to deal with the consequences, not just a messianic message.
September 6, 2010, 11:24 amWaldohuh?:
Whenever someone asks for “evidence” or “info” on subjects such as AGW I am always tempted to respond with a “huh?” because most of it is so readily available.
Is this what you are looking for Miriam?
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/
http://www.ipcc-data.org/obs/ar4_obs.html
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/publications_and_data.htm
Here are Hansen’s papers:
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/publications.shtml
Here is Briffa’s abstract with a link to a pdf.
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/people/briffa/qsr1999/
Or, Miriam, go to any EbscoHost or Academic Premier database and click the box on “peer-review” and key in global warming or climate change; go to LexusNexus for the journalism database.
Otherwise I am not sure what you want–are you seriously unaware of the mass of stuff out there? Granted, this is thick stuff and would take a good deal of time to go through, but I am pretty sure that the good people here, as smart as they are, do not actually read or evaluate this stuff. Even Russ R prefers a blogsite (Woodfortrees.org) over the actual scientific data.
Perhaps after you read through the primary evidence you will be unconvinced, but it is silly to suggest it is not there. A typical denialist tactic is to demand evidence but refuse to read it once it is posted.
September 6, 2010, 11:47 amWaldohuh?:
Whenever someone asks for “evidence” or “info” on subjects such as AGW I am always tempted to respond with a “huh?” because most of it is so readily available.
Is this what you are looking for Miriam?
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/
http://www.ipcc-data.org/obs/ar4_obs.html
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/publications_and_data.htm
September 6, 2010, 11:48 amWaldoHuh?:
Well, Miriam, I am always a little flummoxed when people come on here in the midst of the internet age of information and demand someone supply them with “data” or “evidence.”
But okay, here’s the IPCC data distribution center:
http://www.ipcc-data.org/
Here are their climate observations with multiple links to other datasets:
http://www.ipcc-data.org/obs/index.html
Here is NASA’s climate page:
http://climate.nasa.gov/
Here is NASA’s “evidence” page:
http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/
Here are Hansen’s papers:
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/publications.shtml
Here is Briffa’s abstract with a link to a pdf on the Yamal trees.
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/people/briffa/qsr1999/
Or, Miriam, go to any EbscoHost or Academic Premier database and click the box on “peer-review” and key in global warming or climate change; go to LexusNexus for the journalism database.
If you want more than that you’ll have to go fishing yourself. It really only takes a couple of minutes.
Otherwise I am not sure what you want–are you seriously unaware of the mass of stuff out there? I mean, I know that we are rhetorically jousting here, but do you seriously think that we’ve come this far only because of computer science? Granted, this is thick stuff and would take a good deal of time to go through, but I am pretty sure that the good people here, as smart as they are, do not as a rule actually read or evaluate this stuff. Even Russ R with his statistical modeling prefers a blogsite (Woodfortrees.org) over the actual scientific data.
Perhaps after you read through the primary evidence you will be unconvinced, but it is silly to suggest it is not there. A typical denialist tactic is to demand evidence but refuse to read it once it is posted.
September 6, 2010, 6:00 pmWaldohuh?:
Well, Miriam, I am always a little flummoxed when people come on here in the midst of the internet age of information and demand someone supply them with “data” or “evidence.”
But okay, here’s the IPCC data distribution center:
http://www.ipcc-data.org/
Here are their climate observations with multiple links to other datasets:
http://www.ipcc-data.org/obs/index.html
Here is NASA’s climate page:
http://climate.nasa.gov/
Here is NASA’s “evidence” page:
http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/
September 6, 2010, 6:01 pmWaldoHuh?:
Well, Miriam, I am always a little flummoxed when people come on here in the midst of the internet age of information and demand someone supply them with “data” or “evidence.”
But okay, here’s the IPCC data distribution center:
http://www.ipcc-data.org/
September 6, 2010, 6:02 pmStillWaldoHuh?:
Here are their climate observations with multiple links to other datasets:
http://www.ipcc-data.org/obs/index.html
Here is NASA’s climate page:
http://climate.nasa.gov/
Here is NASA’s “evidence” page:
http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/
September 6, 2010, 6:02 pmWalowd:
Here are their climate observations with multiple links to other datasets:
http://www.ipcc-data.org/obs/index.html
September 6, 2010, 6:03 pmDolawh:
Here is NASA’s climate page:
http://climate.nasa.gov/
Here is NASA’s “evidence” page:
http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/
September 6, 2010, 6:04 pmHawlod:
Here are Hansen’s papers:
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/publications.shtml
Here is Briffa’s abstract with a link to a pdf on the Yamal trees.
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/people/briffa/qsr1999/
September 6, 2010, 6:04 pmWaldoFinal:
Or, Miriam, go to any EbscoHost or Academic Premier database and click the box on “peer-review” and key in global warming or climate change; go to LexusNexus for the journalism database.
If you want more than that you’ll have to go fishing yourself. It really only takes a couple of minutes.
Otherwise I am not sure what you want–are you seriously unaware of the mass of stuff out there? I mean, I know that we are rhetorically jousting here, but do you seriously think that we’ve come this far only because of computer science? If you have the requisite knowledge to challenge these papers, then fine, but I would suggest you do it where the big kids play and take it to the scientific journals, peer-review your ideas, instead of playing here in the shallow end.
Granted, this is thick stuff and would take a good deal of time to go through, but I am pretty sure that the good people here, as smart as they are, do not actually read or evaluate this stuff. Even Russ R with his statistical modeling prefers a blogsite (Woodfortrees.org) over the actual scientific data.
Perhaps after you read through the primary evidence you will be unconvinced, but it is silly to suggest it is not there. A typical denialist tactic is to demand evidence but refuse to read it once it is posted.
September 6, 2010, 6:07 pmWaldoCoda:
Sorry for the multiple posts, too many webpages for a single long post I think.
September 6, 2010, 6:08 pmWaldomuse:
And I like Ted’s post, but this is more of the typical hyperbole– “It is proposed to destroy the world economy based on this uncertain science”–that seems to define the conversation. Destroy the world’s economy? Do you believe that for real? A “messianic message”? Is that a bit of an overstatement?
And thanks, Kreo, for the paraphrase. You left out a few things, but you’re not getting paid so I guess that’s okay. But you didn’t answer an honest question: why would you believe Wally and Russ with their outdated statistical model over, say, NASA and its with its vast resources, experts, and cutting edge technology?
September 6, 2010, 6:25 pmRuss R.:
Thanks for the links Waldo. They’ll come in handy for future reference.
Unfortunately, exactly none of them constitute evidence of looming catastrophe without being reliant on models. (The type of models which I’ve already shown you have significantly overstated their predictions of warming).
So, thanks for trying… and failing. Again. Good to see that repeated failure doesn’t get you down. Keep reaching for that rainbow.
” Even Russ R with his statistical modeling prefers a blogsite (Woodfortrees.org) over the actual scientific data.”
Is your reading comprehension really that weak, or are you just being ignorant? I already explained that WFT simply compiles data from GISS, HADCRUT, UAH & RSS, and presents them in a standardized format.
I provided you the original data from both GISS and UAH. So your attempt to discredit the analysis by attacking the data source is really weak… like the rest of your arguments.
So, do you still believe that “the models are accurate”? Do you still believe that without the models, there is any evidence for catastrophic AGW?
September 6, 2010, 8:03 pmMiriam:
Waldo, really. I asked you to be exact. As I said, please, don’t, for example, say that there is ‘evidence from satellite, land, and sea temp measurements’. Instead, show a paper which would use these measurements to make a case for catastrophic global warming, without using models.
All you managed in response is more vague pointers with no specifics, and in the end you are asking me to search for information backing your side by myself. “It’s out there on the Internet. It really only takes a couple of minutes to find it.” Yeah, right, we’ve all heard that line of argument before. If it only takes a couple of minutes, why don’t you point me to one specific paper and say how exactly it makes the case for catastrophic warming without using models (or just say that it does and we’ll try to figure out how from the paper)? Maybe because you can’t?
September 6, 2010, 9:46 pmShills:
Miriam Says:
‘Without numbers quantifying the effect of that on the climate, no.’
Well, I thought it was obvious: practically all the warming of the climate.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/how-do-we-know-that-recent-cosub2sub-increases-are-due-to-human-activities-updated/
This one supports how unnatural the levels are:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1178296
And this one supports the idea that the Co2 is man-derived:
http://www.bgc.mpg.de/service/iso_gas_lab/publications/PG_WB_IJMS.pdf
This one is a review of lit. on ocean acidification which is catastrophic at current rates. Not all the papers are non-model ones I think:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VJ1-4YRBW6C-1&_user=10&_coverDate=06%2F30%2F2010&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_origin=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=d547111bb974aa3564538de9411e6d72&searchtype=a
Some papers on the risk to biodiversity and the like:
http://www.cell.com/trends/ecology-evolution/abstract/S0169-5347(08)00195-X
http://www.pnas.org/content/102/42/15144.full?ck=nck
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v452/n7190/full/nature06777.html
This one is non-model support of the models on sea level rise:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/sci;321/5894/1340
Health risks:
http://www.decvar.org/documents/epstein.pdf
But I think the best source would be the IPCC WG2 stuff. My articles could be a biased sample after all.
September 6, 2010, 10:17 pmAlex:
Of course, he can’t. Waldo’d love it if Kreo answered his “honest question” framed as believing X over Y so that he could go back to discussing who is more worthy of believing. It’s rather obvious.
September 6, 2010, 11:12 pmAlex:
…But that derails it already.
OK, now, Waldo and Shills, please say aloud and clear – do you have any papers which make the case for catastrophic global warming without using models?
Links or GTFO.
September 6, 2010, 11:17 pmShills:
Kreo,
You little summary implied that new models cannot be verified but that is not true. Hindcasting is used for that.
Miriam Says:
‘Without numbers quantifying the effect of that on the climate, no.’
Well, I thought it was obvious: practically all the warming of the climate.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/how-do-we-know-that-recent-cosub2sub-increases-are-due-to-human-activities-updated/
September 7, 2010, 12:00 amShills:
This one supports how unnatural the levels are:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1178296
September 7, 2010, 12:01 amShills:
And this one supports the idea that the Co2 is man-derived:
http://www.bgc.mpg.de/service/iso_gas_lab/publications/PG_WB_IJMS.pdf
September 7, 2010, 12:01 amShills:
This one supports the projected amount of warming we could experience:
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2008/2007GL032759.shtml?ref=SexŞhop.Com
September 7, 2010, 12:02 amShills:
This one is a review of lit. on ocean acidification which is fairly catastrophic at current rates. Not all the papers are non-model ones I think:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VJ1-4YRBW6C-1&_user=10&_coverDate=06%2F30%2F2010&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_origin=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=d547111bb974aa3564538de9411e6d72&searchtype=a
September 7, 2010, 12:03 amShills:
Some papers on the risk to biodiversity and the like:
http://www.cell.com/trends/ecology-evolution/abstract/S0169-5347(08)00195-X
September 7, 2010, 12:03 amShills:
http://www.pnas.org/content/102/42/15144.full?ck=nck
September 7, 2010, 12:04 amShills:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v452/n7190/full/nature06777.html
September 7, 2010, 12:05 amShills:
This one is non-model support of the models on sea level rise:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/sci;321/5894/1340
September 7, 2010, 12:05 amShills:
Health risks:
http://www.decvar.org/documents/epstein.pdf
Some stuff in wg2 i think.
September 7, 2010, 12:06 amShills:
Due to the limitations of this blog site, that amount will do. Besides, according to Russ’s standards, this amount is ample to call it ‘pretty well substantiated’. Other than that, I think the best source would be the IPCC WG2 stuff on observations. My articles could be a biased sample after all.
And just to clarify. There is nothing seriously wrong with the models. I am not saying ‘there is non-model evidence’ to steer away from model frailties. I’m only showing that the modellers aren’t alone in their findings.
September 7, 2010, 12:07 amPaulD:
“You little summary implied that new models cannot be verified but that is not true. Hindcasting is used for that.”
I can say with confidence that anyone who believes that hindcasting can verify a model has never worked with models and knows little about them.
How is it that all the IPCC models can hindcast reasonable well, but show climate sensitivities for a doubling of CO2 that range from 1.5Cto 4.5 C? For the answer, see this peer-reviewed article by a mainstream climate modeler: Jeffrey T. Kiehl, 2007. Twentieth century climate model response and climate sensitivity. GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 34, L22710, doi:10.1029/2007GL031383, 2007 The article’s text can be found on google. It is discussed here: http://climateaudit.org/2007/12/01/tuning-gcms/
September 7, 2010, 4:12 ampauld:
Shill it is going to take us awhile to sort through your links, but I can get things started:
1) “This one is a review of lit. on ocean acidification which is fairly catastrophic at current rates. Not all the papers are non-model ones I think” Ocean acidification is not related to catastrophic warming. The concern about ocean acidification exists whether or not CO2 contributes significantly to warming. It is an interesting topic in itself, but it is a different subject that can be discussed another day on another thread.
2) “This one is non-model support of the models on sea level rise”. From the first sentence of the linked abstract : “On the basis of climate modeling and analogies with past conditions, the potential for multimeter increases in sea level by the end of the 21st century has been proposed.”
September 7, 2010, 4:39 amRuss R.:
Thanks Shills for contributing something substantive. I sincerely mean that. Specific citations are much better than general, unsubstantiated assertions. The onus is now on us to go through the materials you’ve provided and objectively evaluate whether they support your claim that even without models there’s evidence for catastrophic predictions.
I’ll also thank pauld for getting the ball rolling on this, and I’ll continue from where (s)he left off.
First, a couple of question for Shills, who wrote: “You little summary implied that new models cannot be verified but that is not true. Hindcasting is used for that.” How is ‘hindcasting’ any different from ‘tuning’? You can play around with any of the models’ inputs to find some combination that will reproduce the past data, but that doesn’t mean you’ve found the correct combination.
Also “And just to clarify. There is nothing seriously wrong with the models.” If you judge models by the accuracy of their predictions, you have to absolutely dismiss Hansen (1988) and IPCC (1990) as shown above. You could dismiss IPCC (1995) with 85% to 98% confidence depending on which data set you test it against. You probably haven’t got enough real world data to test IPCC (2001) or (2007). So, how do you conclude “there is nothing seriously wrong with the models”? Because the people who build the models say so? Investment banks said there was nothing wrong with their risk models. Oil companies said there was nothing wrong with their safety practices. Tobacco companies said there was nothing wrong with their products. Real world evidence showed otherwise. I’ll believe the models when I see evidence that they can successfully predict future warming. Both your attempts and mine to find such evidence have been unsuccessful.
Back to the papers/links:
3) “And this one supports the idea that the Co2 is man-derived:
http://www.bgc.mpg.de/service/iso_gas_lab/publications/PG_WB_IJMS.pdf “
and
4) http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/how-do-we-know-that-recent-cosub2sub-increases-are-due-to-human-activities-updated/
I’ve grouped these two together because they’re making the same point, recent high CO2 concentrations are man-made, which is entirely valid but of little relevance.
I’m already familiar with carbon isotope concentrations and have long ago concluded that the increase in atmospheric CO2 concentrations is largely man-made. I wouldn’t say “entirely” man-made because ocean warming (which was underway before any significant fossil fuel use) also increases atmospheric CO2 concentrations as gas solubility decreases. This is likely the same mechanism that caused CO2 fluctuations recorded in ice cores, long before “man-made” amounted to anything beyond stone tools.
So, out of C+A+GW, these two references only support the “A”, and by extension from other well-established science, the GW (with certainty in direction, but not in magnitude). However, we’re not asking for evidence of AGW, we asked you to focus on the “C”. If there is any evidence of looming catastrophe to be found in these references please do point it out.
September 7, 2010, 5:56 amMiriam:
One more:
3) http://www.pnas.org/content/102/42/15144.full?ck=nck
The article is named “Regional vegetation die-off in response to global-change-type drought”. The operative phrase connecting the article to global warming is: “if temperatures continue to warm, vegetation die-off in response to future drought may be further amplified”. In other words, if it gets warmer, more trees will die.
Excuse me, Shills, but we were asking about the case for catastrophic global warming. Where exactly does the article predict that it will get warmer? If you want to say that more dead trees means more carbon in the atmosphere, please go ahead, but unless you supplement your argument with actual numbers you aren’t making the case for catastrophic global warming. This article does not even attempt to make this case, so please stop pretending that it does.
September 7, 2010, 6:15 amPauD:
Shill:
Most of the papers you cite deal with potential effects of significant global warming, not with whether significant, let alone catastrophic, warming is likely to occur. We’re are not looking to speculations about what might occur if significant warming occurs. We are looking for evidence apart from the models that significant warming is likely to occur.
Take a look at the titles of most of your articles:
Synergies among extinction drivers under global change
Regional vegetation die-off in response to global-change-type drought
Mountain pine beetle and forest carbon feedback to climate change
Biological and Physical Signs
of Climate Change: Focus on
Mosquito-borne Diseases
As far as I can see, only one article is on point: “Aerosol radiative forcing and climate sensitivity deduced from the Last Glacial Maximum to Holocene transition” The article is on point in that it attempts to estimate climate sensitivity independently from the global climate computer models. The abstract indicates that based on evidence from paleoclimatology studies, the authors suggests “a 95% likelihood of warming between 1.3 and 2.3 K due to doubling of atmospheric concentration of CO2.”
September 7, 2010, 6:30 amIt will take awhile to read the article, although I would note: 1) the range of climate sensitivities estimated by the authors would be at the low end of the estimates of the IPCC. Some people argue that a climate sensitivity above 2 degrees would be difficult to manage so the high-end of the estimated range might be consistent with catastrophic AGW. 2) that the low-end of the estimated range is certainly consistent with the “luke warm” position I think is advocated by most people here.
Russ R.:
I find the paper by Breshears et al “Regional vegetation die-off in response to global-change-type drought”, very interesting, but probably for a different reason than the authors intended.
Summary: The paper assesses mortality in a specific type of tree, in the western US, during a period of drought that was relatively warm. The die-off was principally due to infestation of a particular type of beetle, which is said to have a propensity to proliferate during dry periods. The paper concludes that “if temperatures continue to warm, vegetation die-off in response to future drought may be further amplified”.
What I find fascinating is that, while the author’s conclusion is a bit of a stretch of reasoning, it arrives at exactly the opposite of one of the premises that climate scientists expect us to accept as gospel, namely warmer temperatures are a positive factor for vegetation resulting in wider annual tree rings.
September 7, 2010, 7:24 amMiriam:
Nice catch, Russ.
I’d like to elaborate on notes made by PaulD in regards to “Aerosol radiative forcing and climate sensitivity deduced from the Last Glacial Maximum to Holocene transition”.
As it has been said, the paper arrives at an estimate of climate sensitivity in the range of 1.3 to 2.3. The estimate of climate sensitivity characterizing catastrophic global warming used by IPCC is much higher, 2.0 to 4.5. Saying that the range of 1.3 to 2.3 also suggests catastrophic global warming is a bit disingenuous, the argument that warming with a climate sensitivity in that range will be catastrophic has not been made.
September 7, 2010, 7:54 amhunter:
At eh start of the reformation when Catholic mysticism and superstition was challenged, Catholics would convene boards of priests and clerics to discuss the reformation challenges and quesitons.
September 7, 2010, 8:18 amNot suprisingly they found that the relics really did have miraculous powers, and that everything they believed was true.
Sort of like the studies done by AGW true believers that conlude that by golly AGW is really true.
Kreo:
So, a summary of Shills’ links:
1. [realclimate] How do we know that recent CO2 increases are due to human activities?
“Most of increase in CO2 is man-made” – OK. Where’s the case for catastrophic global warming?
2. [sciencemag] Coupling of CO2 and Ice Sheet Stability Over Major Climate Transitions of the Last 20 Million Years
“There was a time during last 20 million years when CO2 was as high as now, and it was 3 to 6 degrees warmer then.” – So? There has been plenty of time when CO2 levels were higher than now, sometimes it was colder and sometimes warmer. Where’s the case?
3. [bgc] Stable isotope ratio mass spectrometry in global climate change research
“Did we say already that most of increase in CO2 is man-made?” – Yep. So, where’s the case, Shills?
4. [agu] Aerosol radiative forcing and climate sensitivity deduced from the Last Glacial Maximum to Holocene transition
“Climate sensitivity is between 1.3 and 2.3″ – Good. IPCC’s case for catastrophic global warming uses much higher values. Where’s the case with these values?
5. [sciencedirect] Paleo-perspectives on ocean acidification
“CO2 leads to ocean acidification, which is bad” – OK. Shills, we were talking about global warming, remember?
6. [cell] Synergies among extinction drivers under global change
“Global warming can make some species go extinct” – All right. Where’s the case for catastrophic global warming?
7. [pnas] Regional vegetation die-off in response to global-change-type drought
“Warming might cause more plants to die” – Uh, OK. Shills? You promised us papers showing that there will be warming in the first place. Where are these papers?
8. [nature] Mountain pine beetle and forest carbon feedback to climate change
“Climate change contributed to the unprecedented extent and severity of this …” – Shills! Where’s the case for catastrophic global warming??!
9. [sciencemag] Kinematic Constraints on Glacier Contributions to 21st-Century Sea-Level Rise
“On the basis of climate modeling …” – Argh! You said there was plenty of evidence to make the case for catastrophic global warming *without the use of models*. This papers *does use* models. Where’re papers that don’t use models and still make the case, which you said there were plenty of?
10. [decvar] Biological and Physical Signs of Climate Change: Focus on Mosquito-borne Diseases
“Climate change has biological implications” – All right. Still no case for catastrophic global warming.
Rolling on…
September 7, 2010, 8:41 amMiriam:
Bravo, Kreo. I was on my 6th link and was going to post the same summary. This saves me the effort.
The only links that were at all relevant to the question posed to Shills are #4 and maybe #9, but all graphs and estimates demo’ed for catastrophic global warming use numbers much higher than those derived in #4 (and it is not at all apparent that numbers in #4 could produce catastrophic predictions) and #9 is spoiled by use of models.
September 7, 2010, 9:08 ampaulD:
Sometimes it is helpful in debate to clarify areas of agreement so that time can be focused on areas of dispute. I don’t want to put words in other people’s mouths, but I suspect that nearly everyone on this forum could agree with the following propositions:
September 7, 2010, 9:52 am1) During the period in which instrument records exisit, there has been an observed increase in average global temperatures. The extent of that increase is subject to debate due to the effects of land-use changes, urban heat island effects, and a variety of issues with siting of temperature stations and their number.
2) There has been a significant increase in the concentration of Co2 in the atmosphere and human-caused CO2 emissions play a significant role in the increase.
3) CO2, along with other gases such as methane, are greenhouse gases. Increased concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have likely contributed to the global warming that has been observed.
4) Changes in temperatures and CO2 concentrations have a wide variety of effects on eco-systems and the environment. Some of those effects are negative and some are positive.
Here is an additional proposition that I think are well-established by the scientific literature, but may be disputed by some people here:
1) Climate scientists have attempted to estimate the climate’s sensitivity to a doubling of CO2 concentrations. Despite a rather intense effort using a computer models, estimates from paleoclimatology and estimates from current observations, scientists have not reached any meaningful consensus on the issue and are not likely to reach such a consensus in the foreseeable future. There remains a wide range climate sensitivity estimates that cannot be ruled out. The possible range suggests anything from inconsequential warming to catastrophic warming.
Russ R.:
I wouldn’t dismiss #9 (Pfeffer et al, “Kinematic Constraints on Glacier Contributions to 21st-Century Sea-Level Rise”) for being model-based… the abstract is ambiguous in that regard. By my reading, the authors are refuting predictions of “multimeter” SLR by 2100:
The abstract states: “On the basis of climate modeling and analogies with past conditions, the potential for multimeter increases in sea level by the end of the 21st century has been proposed. We consider glaciological conditions required for large sea-level rise to occur by 2100 and conclude that increases in excess of 2 meters are physically untenable. We find that a total sea-level rise of about 2 meters by 2100 could occur under physically possible glaciological conditions but only if all variables are quickly accelerated to extremely high limits. More plausible but still accelerated conditions lead to total sea-level rise by 2100 of about 0.8 meter.”
A very insightful discussion (including a response from the authors) can be found here: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/09/on-straw-men-and-greenland-tad-pfeffer-responds/
Conclusion (from both sides of the discussion): You can safely disregard anyone who claims multi-meter increases in sea-level by 2100. Centimeters is the more appropriate unit of measure.
September 7, 2010, 9:55 amRuss R.:
PaulD:
Good call on clarifying points of agreement.
I’d completely agree with all four of your propositions, and I imagine that the others here will agree as well.
As for your 1 additional proposition, I’d accept the first half as true “limate scientists have attempted to estimate the climate’s sensitivity to a doubling of CO2 concentrations. Despite a rather intense effort using a computer models, estimates from paleoclimatology and estimates from current observations, scientists have not reached any meaningful consensus on the issue”. The last bit I have a problem with, specifically “…and are not likely to reach such a consensus in the foreseeable future. There remains a wide range climate sensitivity estimates that cannot be ruled out. The possible range suggests anything from inconsequential warming to catastrophic warming.”
There does remain a wide range of estimates, but those at the high end (>2.5 deg C per doubling of CO2) CAN be ruled out, in two ways. First, through observing the CO2 / temperature relationship in the past (as shown in #4 above by Chylek and Lohmann), and second, by the repeated failure of models that assume high values of climate sensitivity to predict real-world temperature increases (as statistically tested above).
So, when the possible range for climate sensitivity estimates is reduced from 2.0-4.5 to a range of 1.0-2.5, the case for catastrophic warming becomes substantially weaker.
September 7, 2010, 10:30 ampauld:
Just a note to clarify my position on my last proposition. I am quite sqarely in the “luke warming” camp (i.e. I think range of climate sensitivities is in the low range rather than the high range).
I may, however, have a view different from your view of the evidence required to rule out the high climate sensitivities estimates. There are climate models with high sensitivities that are able to model the relatively low increase in observed global average temperatures. How this can be is hinted at in my ealier post where I wrote:
“How is it that all the IPCC models can hindcast reasonable well, but show climate sensitivities for a doubling of CO2 that range from 1.5Cto 4.5 C? For the answer, see this peer-reviewed article by a mainstream climate modeler: Jeffrey T. Kiehl, 2007. Twentieth century climate model response and climate sensitivity. GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 34, L22710, doi:10.1029/2007GL031383, 2007 The article’s text can be found on google. It is discussed here: http://climateaudit.org/2007/12/01/tuning-gcms/”
The answer as explained in the article by Mr. Kiehl is that the amount and effect of aerosols is not well understood. Models with high climate sensitivities assume that there are high levels of aerosols in the atmosphere that are exerting a significant dampering effect on current temperatures. Because the amount of aeresols and their effect are poorly understood and poorly documented, I don’t think this dampering effect of aerosols in the high sensitivity models can be ruled out as completely implausible.
September 7, 2010, 12:04 pmI agree that the high sensitivity models have not made good predictions and their ability to hindcast is a reflection of “tuning” so I don’t put much stock in them. I am not, however, certain at the point that I can say the assumptions they incorporate have been empirically ruled out.
As to paleoclimatology estimates of climate sensitivities, my recollection is that there are some that would support high climate sensitivities. For a variety of reasons, I don’t find them very convincing. Among other things, they require assumptions about past climates that cannot be empirically verified. Nevertheless, the high climate senstivities exist in the paleoclimatology literature and I don’t feel qualified to outright dismiss them.
Ted Rado:
Waldomuse: I assume from your disdainful comment about destroying the world economy that you know of viable alternative energy schemes to replace transportation fuels on a large scale. I would be interested to hear about them. I have not found anything that is viable on a large scale. Small scale wind and solar are only OK as long as the huge existing thermal power system backs it up. If large scale wind/solar are carried out, dedicated backup must be built and kept on standby, rendering the whole idea economically absurd.
Biofuels are limited by land area and the fuel consumption of growing and converting the material to fuel. Note the corn ethanol fiasco. Deisel from palm oil, ethanol from cellulose, algae, etc. all have serious problems similar to corn ethanol. Most consume more energy than they produce. There are serious technical and enviro problems as well.
Similarly, if you run the numbers, hydrogen is a joke. If the natural gas used to make H2 was simply burned in an engine in the first place, you would be better off.
Electric cars are also very questionable. Are you willing to pay $40,000 for a car that saves 0.8 gallons of gasoline at the start of each trip? It uses about $1.50 worth of electricity to do this.
I can go on and on, but you get the idea.
Perhaps you or someone else has a scheme that will pass engineering and economic examination. In the meantime, it is reckless to push ahead with any cap of fossil fuel production and wreck the economy.
Also, do you have some idea on how to convince the Indians and Chinese to get on board the carbon cap idea?
I am serious with these questions, and not just trying to be argumentive.
September 7, 2010, 12:45 pmWaldohuh?:
Great Gravy! Look at the thread go! We have certainly reinvigorated Mr. Meyer’s waning blog. Forgive me if I miss your response to something–there’s a lot here to go over.
****”I assume from your disdainful comment about destroying the world economy that you know of viable alternative energy schemes to replace transportation fuels on a large scale.”
Huh? Never said anything of the sort. But it does seem to me that you have exaggerated just a wee bit there, Ted. If you, like many, feel that the cost of fighting climate change is better spent elsewhere (on AIDS or famine or Mew Orleans or alternate fuels or whatever), then fine–I might actually be on board. But “destroying the world economy”? Your serious questions are excellent and ones which I have no answer for and which probably no one does.
We do not need to tip off the deep end however, which seems to be a tenet of this kind of commentary.
September 7, 2010, 7:23 pmWaldoreo:
@ Kreo Sept 7, 8:41am
Mass man-made CO2, ocean acidification, some species go extinct, warming might cause more plants to die, Mountain pine beetle and forest carbon feedback contribute to the unprecedented extent and severity of this, Climate change has biological implications
And there’s no evidence of catastrophic global warming here?
How catastrophic does it need to be to make a denialist happy these days?
September 7, 2010, 7:31 pmWaldiam:
Miriam, what is not “exact” in the links I posted? You asked for evidence that is not the product of modeling and there it is. Even if modeling is a mainstay of climate science, which it is (probably because no one has invented a crystal ball to determine what will happen in the future, so one must model), I fail to see what the problem with models is…oh wait, Russ R proved unequivocally that models cannot be trusted.
Interestingly, I re-posted his equations above on Real Climate and they were not as impressed with Russ’ T Stats as the good people here are.
Interesting.
September 7, 2010, 7:52 pmShills:
Re. Ocean acidification. Wow, I didn’t know we were being so literal. ocean acidification is generally clumped in with the whole climate change thing. That is why the IPCC includes it.
You still doubt that we are the ones warming the planet, Kreo?
We know that Co2 is a greenhouse gas. We know that the energy is being absorbed at the wavelength of our emissions. We know the radiation from these sources are warming the earth.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/empirical-evidence-for-global-warming.htm
September 7, 2010, 9:50 pmShills:
Where in the paper on sea-level rises do they use climate models of any sought? Sure, it uses topographic models but that doesn’t count. And besides that, we have already seen that sea levels are rising at faster rates empirically:
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2006/2005GL024826.shtml
or for a better idea, look at the IPCC chapter on observations of sea level.
September 7, 2010, 9:50 pmShills:
Miriam. So an estimate of 2. or more degrees constitute ‘catastrophic’? Fine. For some other non-model papers that support climate sensitivity over the 2 degrees mark:
http://www.amath.washington.edu/research/articles/Tung/journals/solar-jgr.pdf
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/1993/1993_Hansen_etal_1.pdf
You guys don’t think extinction, mosquito/health threats and are catastrophic? What exactly do you mean by catastrophic?
Now, I know Russ only needs 2 examples to call something substantiated so I think that is available for him, but if I haven’t addressed all your issues you can remind me later.
And again, you guys have not shown how hindcasting is flawed, you just say it is. Tuning of the sought you guys imply does not happen because it is blatantly unscientific. Any additions to models are made on the basis of the physics understood, not whether it might simply make the fit closer.
September 7, 2010, 9:51 pmShills:
Here is one one the loveable snow teddy:
September 7, 2010, 9:52 pmPolar bears: http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/special/polar_bears/
Miriam:
“Miriam, what is not ‘exact’ in the links I posted? You asked for evidence that is not the product of modeling and there it is.”
I and others asked for non-model evidence that the Earth is going to warm to catastrophic levels. Where is it?
You keep pretending that you don’t understand what is being asked of you. Perhaps it is not apparent to you that anybody who cares to read what is written in this thread can easily see through that pretense.
September 7, 2010, 9:59 pmMiriam:
“Miriam. So an estimate of 2. or more degrees constitute ‘catastrophic’? Fine.”
No. Not fine. This is the exact opposite of what I said. I said that nobody made the case for catastrophic global warming using the estimates of climate sensitivity that are as low as in the paper you brought. Predictions from IPCC use much higher values. If you think that IPCC or someone else could have made the case for catastrophic global warming (eg, paint all those scary graphs) using low values cited in the paper, be my guest, but please point me to a paper which does it.
Stop playing games and putting words into my mouth.
September 7, 2010, 10:07 pmMiriam:
I know this was aimed at Kreo, but that’s just too amusing to pass up.
Waldo:
“@Kreo Sept 7, 8:41am
Mass man-made CO2, ocean acidification, some species go extinct, warming might cause more plants to die, Mountain pine beetle and forest carbon feedback contribute to the unprecedented extent and severity of this, Climate change has biological implications
And there’s no evidence of catastrophic global warming here?”
Where? I was asking you to be specific for more than a day now. Which of the papers you mention above provides evidence that we are going to have catastrophic global warming? The one that tells us that if it warms, some species might go extinct? Or the one that tells us that if it warms, the outbreaks of mountain pine beetles will get more severe?
To borrow a phrase from Shills, LOL.
September 7, 2010, 10:13 pmAlex:
I will mention once again that Shills and Waldo are here not to have a meaningful debate, but to mince words. They will say that there is a lot of evidence that the climate is going to warm to unprecedented levels without models, then cite papers describing how bad such warming would be as evidence that this warming is going to occur, all with a straight face. The next hundred posts will be on how Shills and Waldo offered a plethora of links in favor of their argument but the people in the “deniers” camp just couldn’t decipher these papers and made their flawed conclusions, and how this all is really unsurprising because the “deniers” are not experts. Shills and Waldo are a waste of time, plain and simple.
September 7, 2010, 10:28 pmRuss R.:
Waldo,
Thanks for posting the statistical results as Real Climate. I had been seriously considering doing exactly that, but wasn’t sure how introduce ‘off-topic’ material it into a post.
I’ll respond to any critical comments over there.
September 7, 2010, 11:52 pmMiriam:
Waldo:
“Interestingly, I re-posted his equations above on Real Climate and they were not as impressed with Russ’ T Stats as the good people here are.”
What are the URLs for that thread and comment and what was the specific critique? Or are we again playing those games where the vagueness creates an appearance of something substantial out of nothing?
September 8, 2010, 2:50 amMiriam:
Found the thread. Of course, Waldo colored the entire topic as “a rather big brewhaha” and of course the first two reactions which Waldo asked to cross-post are knee-jerks instead of substantial critique, but still, my apologies to Waldo. He did indeed post the thread.
For those interested:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/08/doing-it-yourselves/comment-page-5/#comments
Waldo’s repost is #209.
September 8, 2010, 3:11 amRuss R.:
Shills:
“And again, you guys have not shown how hindcasting is flawed, you just say it is. Tuning of the sought you guys imply does not happen because it is blatantly unscientific. Any additions to models are made on the basis of the physics understood, not whether it might simply make the fit closer.”
I’m honestly having a hard time seeing a distinction between hindcasting (which you say is good) and tuning (which you say is bad). I apologize if this should be elementary, but could you clarify what you mean, or point me to a good explanation.
Illustrative example: What’s the “physics understood” value for cloud feedback? Last I checked scientists couldn’t confidently determine the sign of this feedback, let alone the magnitude.
When selecting an suitable value for this input variable, what’s the difference between hindcasting and tuning?
September 8, 2010, 5:08 amRuss R.:
Miriam et al,
I’ve followed up on the Real Climate thread with the original context of our discussion, provided all my data and methods for anybody who wishes to dissect them, and have replied to a few early comments.
There have been a number of weak/knee-jerk retorts: (“Nothing of significance can be learned from a mere decade of data… He made a mistake with a number, so he’s an idiot and we should ignore him… He is attacking 1990 and 1995 predictions rather than the 2007 predictions… He is only going back to 1990 and 1995 when there are data to 1980… He didn’t consider the margin of error…)
However, there has been one concern raised that I consider valid (see Brian Dodge, comment #215).
He writes: “Over the period of his analysis – 1995-2010 – CO2 only increased by ~30ppm, from ~360 to 390+ ppmv, at current fossil C emissions of ~7-8 GT/yr. By 2100, under scenario IS92a anthropogenic C emissions will be ~20 GT/yr (see fig 2, p10 of the IPCC report). His extrapolation fails to account for this, and he’s making the same sort of inept (intentional?) mistakes as Monckton, demonstrating the statistical irrelevance of bad analyses.”
If I’m understanding him correctly, I think he’s making a very good point (which I’ve acknowledged over there). The details of Scenario IS92a called for an accelerating increase in CO2 emissions from 1990 to 2100 (and therefore predicted a non-linear increase in temperature, with more of the warming being back-end loaded). As such, it’s inappropriate to test the early years warming against the full-period average prediction.
The simple solution to this would be to find year-by-year warming predictions that can be tested against recent observations, instead of hundred year average. I’m going to dig through IPCC (1990) and (1995) again to see if they provide more detailed warming forecasts that can be appropriately tested. If you are aware of any, please let me know where to find them.
September 8, 2010, 5:37 amWaldiam:
****”I and others asked for non-model evidence that the Earth is going to warm to catastrophic levels. Where is it?”
The. Evidence. Is. In. The. Links. I. Posted.
If you are asking for a non-predictive science, which one cannot do without prediction(which would by its nature need some form of modeling) you will have to find Gandolf or Cthulhu or someone who can look into future magically. Otherwise you will need to do your own homework. Sorry.
September 8, 2010, 6:17 amMiriam:
Russ, you are touching on a famous debate from two and a half years ago – be sure to read the comments:
http://cstpr.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/climate_change/001319verification_of_ipcc.html
I am not aware of year-to-year predictions. Gavin Schmidt, in particular, says that long-term predictions “for FAR/SAR/TAR … is all you have”, and it surely sounds from the debate that by “long-term predictions” he really means “long-term trends”.
The central point in the debate, as I see it, are reasons for non-linearity. It can, of course, be argued that the increases in year-to-year CO2 output will grow in the future as that’s how economies normally evolve. But it would also take exponentially more CO2 to double the concentration every time as well. It is not at all clear how it could be argued with such certainty that the first factor will win over the second one, so unless there are other reasons for non-linearity I wouldn’t be so fast to accept it. Right now this looks like an excuse to avoid comparing models to anything prior to 2100 or where this all should end.
It is no doubt very convenient to say that you predict something 100 years forward and then thwart any attempts at fact-checking first on the basis of it being too early, then on the basis of the prediction being non-linear. After some time, you can say that the old prediction is outdated and make a new one, restarting the process (well, it’s too early again).
September 8, 2010, 6:31 amMiriam:
”I and others asked for non-model evidence that the Earth is going to warm to catastrophic levels. Where is it?”
“The. Evidence. Is. In. The. Links. I. Posted.”
Please cite one of these links and include a paragraph from that link that makes the case.
Otherwise, stop wasting our time and shut up.
September 8, 2010, 6:33 amWaldomymy:
****”Please cite one of these links and include a paragraph from that link that makes the case.”
Pick any paragraph you like, Miriam, you obviously can read. I’ll say it one last time: it’s all there. I was helpful and provided the links. The rest is up to you.
****”shut up”
My, my, what would your mother say? No, I don’t think I’ll shut up anytime soon. Again, sorry.
September 8, 2010, 7:12 amMiriam:
“Pick any paragraph you like, Miriam, you obviously can read.”
Pick any paragraph? OK. I pick this:
“It’s unreasonable to assume that climate science in its current state can predict future temperatures with the level of certainty required for making decisions which might have serious economic ramifications for the entire world.”
It is in the links. Look it up, boy.
September 8, 2010, 7:45 amAlex:
Thanks for the link to the debate on Pielke’s site, Miriam. Here is one prediction from there that I am going to believe:
–
September 8, 2010, 7:52 amIn the next IPCC, if temperatures from 2005 to the next report fall below the 2007 IPCC prediction, then the next IPCC will lower its predictions. Similarly, if values fall above that level, then the IPCC will increase its predictions.
Waldonomics:
****”It is in the links. Look it up, boy.”
Nah, I believe you, girl.
September 8, 2010, 9:43 amWaldophobic:
Are the models accurate?
Don’t tell me, argue with this guy.
http://bartonpaullevenson.com/ModelsReliable.html
Thanks to Russ R, Wally, and Real Climate
September 8, 2010, 2:29 pmWally:
Russ,
“I’m honestly having a hard time seeing a distinction between hindcasting (which you say is good) and tuning (which you say is bad). I apologize if this should be elementary, but could you clarify what you mean, or point me to a good explanation.”
I don’t know about what waldo means, but there is a very fine line between these two things. I generally see “hindcasting” as a only mildly useful way to test models that can not be tested through experimentation. So for example, in economics, you could create a model based on a few theories of what you think is going on. Then since you only have past data to work with you need to figure out a way to test this model, while not just fitting it to the past data. So one way to do this is to divide up your past data into two groups that should be randomly selected. This would mean instead of having semi-continuous data on a quarter by quarter basis, pool A has data for some random set of time and pool B has the other half. Then you can use one pool to “tune” your model, since even the best theories are going to need to be scaled. And finally you can test your tuned model against the other pool of data.
Now, there are problems with this. One problem would be data sampling and nonindependent data. So for example, if one quarter of GDP can effect the second quarter GDP, then breaking those into two different pools means your two pools are not independent of one another. Thus when you “fit” to one pool, you’re also basically fitting it to the second, meaning your test is not a true test. Also, even though you may think your theories have been arrived at independent of the data being used to “fit” or “tune” the model as well as test the model, that is in the real world highly unlikely, as with all theories, they usually just start with a basic observation of primary, unanalyzed data (which is being used to test/fit your model), then you move on to experimental tests in sciences where this is posible (like say, you observe CO2 concentrations going up with temps, then you do an experiment in the lab to see if it causes warming). Thus, your data has actually been used to create the theory as well. So you’ve gone circular in your hypothesis generation and testing, which results in a model being tested on the data that was used to form it, at least in part.
So, this is a nice little trick, that if extremely well thought out and carefully done, can be useful, but its far, FAR cry from actually being tested on future data, and even further from being test using a controlled experiment.
Thus, “tuning” isn’t really bad or good, its just model creation, not validation. Then hindcasting can run the whole spectrum. It can be a clever way to get around practical limitations, but its very limited itself, and when improperly used it will lead to false confermation of a model’s usefulness. In the end, there really is just no substitute for a controlled experiment. And without controlled experiments, what we know about global climate is going to advance at a snail’s pace compared to the traditional sciences. If in climate science you can only create and test a model or theory every 20 years at minimum, while in my field of basically network genetics, we can create a model and test it often times in under a week, then that would seem to support a 1/1000 relative knowledge advancement pace. And yet despite this CAGW supporters want me to believe that “the science is settled” while my field is basically as old as Mendel or Darwin and many of the most basic issues are still not resolved. For example in evolution, did Birds split from reptiles after reptiles split from mammals, or how about turtles? There is little doubt evolution is true, much like AGW is not greatly debated, but how exactly has evolution progressed is very much an open question and is still being extensively researched 150 years after Darwin’s On the Origin of Species.
September 8, 2010, 2:55 pmWaldonope:
****”I don’t know about what waldo means”
Wasn’t me.
September 8, 2010, 3:07 pmRuss R.:
Waldo,
“Are the models accurate? Don’t tell me, argue with this guy. http://bartonpaullevenson.com/ModelsReliable.html”
Are you now referencing blog pages? Is Barton Paul Levenson a climate scientist? Was this guy’s work peer reviewed?
Just kidding. If the guy has a valid point and his facts check out, I don’t care about his credentials. Facts are facts.
I’ve looked quickly through his page, and it’s an excellent compilation of research relating to many of the characteristics of AGW which have been modeled by scientists, and observed reality has confirmed (And I should note, I have no argument with). Examples include more warming at the poles vs. tropics, nights vs. days, winters vs. summers, northern vs. southern hemisphere, etc…
It’ll take me a while to go through all of it, but I’ll be focusing on specific global warming predictions vs. the observed temperature record, (and from my first quick skim through his page, I didn’t see any predictions more recent than 1975. Hansen (1988) didn’t make his list.)
September 8, 2010, 3:58 pmRuss R.:
Waldo,
One more thing. I’ve been asking you for a while to show me where Hansen admitted his 1988 estimates were too high.
I’ve found it for you. The following quote is from Hansen et al (2006) pg 2:
“Close agreement of observed temperature change with simulations
for the most realistic climate forcing (scenario B) is accidental,
given the large unforced variability in both model and real world.
Indeed, moderate overestimate of global warming is likely because
the sensitivity of the model used (12), 4.2°C for doubled CO2, is
larger than our current estimate for actual climate sensitivity, which
is 3 +/- 1°C for doubled CO2, based mainly on paleoclimate data.”
Since 2006, Hansen’s Scenario A and B predictions have ramped higher, but observed temperatures have not kept pace, turning his “moderate overestimate” into something… well, what’s a word for “bigger than moderate”.
And fortunately, Real Climate has a record of Hansen’s 1988 Scenario A, B & C predictions in data table format, instead of squiggly lines on a chart.
So, for the sake of completeness, I’m going to run those through excel against both GISS and UAH observations since 1988. I’ll post the results for you shortly.
September 8, 2010, 4:35 pmWaldoquery:
****”I’ll post the results for you shortly.”
Actually, don’t bother for my sake, Russ. I’m sorry, my friend, but (while you have dealt with it with a good deal of humor and some dignity) the response at Real Climate to your earlier work has made me actually even more dubious. Wally is over there now being his usual frustrated, obstreperous self.
Post it if you like and perhaps we will see it on Real Climate also, but don’t try convincing me.
It would appear there was a good deal you didn’t know or take into account. Why, my good buddy, should I listen to you? Don’t post it here anyway–peer-review it. Post it at Real Climate, itself a kind of review.
And I never said Hansen admitted his estimates were too high, but that he said we have a lot to learn yet–I thought it was an op-ed piece. Perhaps I was wrong and it was someone else. What difference does that make anyway?
September 8, 2010, 5:02 pmAlan D McIntire:
In reply to Russ R:
I went to this site, and ran your UAH data:
http://www.fon.hum.uva.nl/Service/Statistics/Correlation_coefficient.html
It gave the same 0.184 slope as you got, gave an R of 0.5156, and a t of 9.418
I’m not too impressed by those figures, however. See my reference above to figure 4 in the McShane-Wymer paper.
Those anomalies, -0.003, -0.146, 0.101, 0.011… etc are NON-stationary figures, using them gives bogus high correlations.
Change the series to DELTA changes in temperature, the first term is set to 0.000, the second would be a -.143 drop in temperature,
September 8, 2010, 5:11 pmthe third would be a + 0.45 incrase in temp, the fourth a -0.090 drop in temperature, and the significance drops substatially.
Russ R.:
Alan,
Sorry, I’m confused. For what two data sets are you calculating a correlation coefficient?
I’ve been comparing slope coefficients to predictions, since I care about the long term trend, and not whether specific year-on-year changes match or not.
September 8, 2010, 9:24 pmRuss R.:
Cross posted from Real Climate (I’m not trying to convince Waldo of anything).
——————————-
So, to test Hansen (1988), I’m using the model output data from here: http://www.realclimate.org/data/scen_ABC_temp.data
If anyone can point me to uncertainty values, it would be appreciated.
I’ve seen plenty of back and forth debate over whether Scenario A or B is more appropriate. I’m in no position to choose one over the other, so I’ll test them both (I’ll throw Scenario C in as well, since the data are already in the table).
Using a start year of 1988 and an end year of 2010, I get the following best fit linear regression slope coefficients (deg C / year):
Scenario_A Scenario_B Scenario_C
Slope 0.029844862 0.027396245 0.019274704
I’ll test those against the following GISTEMP and UAH observations from 1988 to present (up to July 2010) available here: http://woodfortrees.org/data/uah/from:1988/to:2010.58/plot/gistemp/from:1988/to:2010.58
I’ve noticed that some evaluations of Hansen (1988) use 1984 as a start date. I’m choosing not to follow that approach, instead only testing predictions against future observations.
Here are the results:
SUMMARY OUTPUT (UAH)
Observations 271
Slope 0.017105791
Standard Error 0.001694254
Scenario_A Scenario_B Scenario_C
Ho: 0.029844862 0.027396245 0.019274704
T Stat 7.518986439 6.073738521 1.280157957
P value 5.52891E-14 1.24966E-09 0.200489589
SUMMARY OUTPUT (GISTEMP)
Observations 271
Slope 0.018145974
Standard Error 0.00137222
Scenario_A Scenario_B Scenario_C
Ho: 0.029844862 0.027396245 0.019274704
T Stat 8.525519713 6.741099703 0.822557306
P value 0 1.57192E-11 0.410759786
Would appreciate any thoughts, guidance, etc.
September 8, 2010, 9:42 pmKreo:
So, one more summary.
The Pro camp weakly tried to venture that “it is all in the links”, then went home defeated. Cross-posting the thread to RC has taken all their energy.
The Contra camp accepted the dubious “challenge” of discussing the topic of model correctness on enemy’s soil, despite it being heavily censored. The argument from their opponents is quickly transforming into a well-known position that the models either can’t be verified or can’t be said to be wrong because their prediction uncertainty (magic words: internal variation) allows for the Earth to warm, not warm or cool.
September 8, 2010, 10:44 pmShills:
LOL at Kreo’s summary. It is funny how the minority on this blog get called ‘trolls’ all the time but I don’t see anyone worse than Kreo these days.
Anyhoo.
Alex said:
I will mention once again that Shills and Waldo are here not to have a meaningful debate, but to mince words. They will say that there is a lot of evidence that the climate is going to warm to unprecedented levels without models,
And I gave model-less evidence for that. Did you not follow the links?
Russ says:
‘I’m honestly having a hard time seeing a distinction between hindcasting (which you say is good) and tuning (which you say is bad).’
So why are you passing judgement on models when you don’t understand them? Most people educate themselves before doing so, no?
Miriam Says:
‘No. Not fine. This is the exact opposite of what I said.’
This is what you said (somehow this is the exact opposite???):
‘As it has been said, the paper arrives at an estimate of climate sensitivity in the range of 1.3 to 2.3. The estimate of climate sensitivity characterizing catastrophic global warming used by IPCC is much higher, 2.0 to 4.5. Saying that the range of 1.3 to 2.3 also suggests…’
And the papers I gave you predicted warming within the IPCC range.
Again, Where in the paper on sea-level rises do they use climate models of any sought? Sure, it uses topographic models but that doesn’t count.
Again, So you guys gonna give us a clear explanation of what CAGW is to you??
September 9, 2010, 12:00 amShills:
@ Waldo,
refreshing move, getting the attention you did from RC. I wonder what it would be like if some of the RC regulars came to this blog site.
September 9, 2010, 12:41 amMiriam:
@Shills:
“This is what you said (somehow this is the exact opposite???):
‘As it has been said, the paper arrives at an estimate of climate sensitivity in the range of 1.3 to 2.3. The estimate of climate sensitivity characterizing catastrophic global warming used by IPCC is much higher, 2.0 to 4.5. Saying that the range of 1.3 to 2.3 also suggests…’”
Breaking my sentence in the middle is all you can do these days, Shills, it seems. A complete version of the sentence:
“Saying that the range of 1.3 to 2.3 also suggests catastrophic global warming is a bit disingenuous, the argument that warming with a climate sensitivity in that range will be catastrophic has not been made.”
Yes, this is exactly the opposite of your idea and your previous misquote.
You are getting desperate.
September 9, 2010, 2:24 amKreo:
You look tired, Shills.
Here is something new for you to ponder:
“Climate: New study slashes estimate of icecap loss”
September 9, 2010, 2:56 amhttp://sg.news.yahoo.com/afp/20100908/tts-climate-warming-science-ice-c1b2fc3.html
Shills:
Miriam,
What are you on about?
You say that the range of climate sensitivity that characterises catastrophic GW is 2. to 4.5. And so I gave you papers that support that range. Perhaps the confusion lies with whether the figure 2. is a mean or a lower limit. Of course, in the context of your argument (that the IPCC uses a range of 2. to 4.5) I meant 2. as a lower limit, not a mean.
I do wonder why you couldn’t have figured this out considering the subsequent papers I gave you used 2. as no more than a lower limit, and because the first paper could fit 2. as a mean nicely enough, and that’s why you didn’t like it.
I cut off the second sentence because it added nothing to your quote that 2. to 4.5 was the catastrophic range. Do you honestly think I would be stupid enough to cut a quote disingenuously when the full text is just a flick above it?
I hope I have figured you out here, but if not, throw me some clues. And don’t be afraid to answer some of my questions…
Kreo,
Pondered. So, if true, this factor helps explain some of the differences between projections and observations that exist in this area. This is a good thing for climate science and a hopeful sign. So yeah… is that it? You don’t think I want the ice to melt do you???
September 9, 2010, 3:58 amMiriam:
Exactly, the range of climate sensitivity that characterizes catastrophic GW is 2 to 4.5. The central best-guess value used by IPCC is 3. Now please look at how many of the predictions from IPCC use values of climate sensitivity of 2 and 4.5 as opposite to 3.
2.3 does fall into the range of 2 to 4.5. This does not mean you can take predictions made by IPCC and say that if climate sensitivity ends up being 2.3, the future will resemble those predictions with the uncertainty levels assigned to them in IPCC reports.
To tackle this from a slightly different angle, the paper that cites the range of climate sensitivity of 1.3 to 2.3 with 95% certainty would assign the range of 2 to 2.3 (the intersection with the same-certainty range from IPCC) a certainty in the vicinity of no more than 30%, likely around 18-20%. That means that the paper thinks that the lowest estimates made by IPCC (which don’t participate in predictions that you’d call catastrophic, if we delve into the reports) are likely to be still too catastrophic to be real. That’s not a very strong argument in favor of catastrophic global warming.
We’d have a proper argument if this or another study presented its own predictions for temperatures based on these low estimates of climate sensitivity, and these predictions would have been made without the use of models (which is how it all started here), and they would also turn out to be catastrophic. The study does not do that and you haven’t supplied a link to the one that does.
I hope I made myself clear.
September 9, 2010, 4:40 amMiriam:
By the way, on the paper linked by Kreo, I think he meant to show one more model that had to be scaled down dramatically after touching the reality.
September 9, 2010, 4:43 amAlan D McIntire:
In reply to Russ R:
The 0.184 slope and the 0.5651 correlation was just your UAH table, correlating temperature increase with year. The t number gives an
outrageously high probability that this was not due to chance. The 0.184 IS the long term trend, but my point is, it’s not as
significant as the t number indicates.
From the McShane Wymer paper, plugging in stationary probability figures for non-stationary processes gives nonsense correlations.
If temperature is a random drunkard’s walk, the standard deviation in distance from the 0 axis after N unit steps is the square root of N.
That means, starting from 0, after 100 + or – unit length steps, the average drunk will be 10 steps away from the origin, after 400 steps, the average drunk will be 20 steps away. Also plug in your 1.96 1% factor, and you’ll get 1% of drunks close to 20 steps away after 100 steps,
40 steps away after 400 steps. Take an average drunkard’s walk, run a correlation with time, as you and I did with the UAH data,
and ridiculously high correlations will come up.
Detrend the data, counting only + or – changes from the prior point, and you’ll get a much more realistic probability of the SIGNIFICANCE of the trend.
September 9, 2010, 6:27 amMiriam:
Just noted this from Waldo:
“Are the models accurate? Don’t tell me, argue with this guy.
http://bartonpaullevenson.com/ModelsReliable.html”
As it was already mentioned, the site does not list models used by Hansen or IPCC and the section on global warming does not list any models after 1975.
But there is a more general pojnt.
If you are going to make an argument that we can believe the output of models used by IPCC, because there have been models whose predictions turned out to be true, you should also count models whose predictions turned out to be false. I bet you any sum of money that the number of models in the latter camp exceeds the number of models in the former camp at least by a factor of 100.
September 9, 2010, 9:19 amRuss R.:
Thanks for clarifying Alan,
I understand the problem now. I will either “stationarize” the data or apply a different regression tool better suited to time-series data.
Appreciate your taking the time to explain it.
September 9, 2010, 10:09 amWaldoslink:
As I said, Miriam, argue with him. Or you could concede what I have all along–you don’t know what you are talking about. None of us do.
The debate (such as it is) is best left to the climate scientists, those who actually know what they are talking about. No one here, myself included, sounds particularly knowledgeable or informed. This could be because as a whole we are not knowledgeable or informed, including Mr. Meyer and his parks system.
Wally is over on Real Climate as we speak getting defense as usual (accusing other peeps of ad hominem and belittlement all the while being predictably tone deaf to his own voice and persona), and Russ R is asking for feedback and being given lessons in statistical methodology.
His T-stats, which the peeps here were rather enthusiastic about, are not as solid or as informed as Russ first thought [no Kreo, Wally and Russ were not "math experts" after all]. In fact, it would appear that Russ and Wally did not know as much about climate science and statistical evaluation as they first thought.
If you think there is a “factor of 100″ in the fail rate of computer models, go for it, Miriam. But why post it here? Publish it. CS is a fairly safe bet for denialists–you don’t actively challenge each other much. Don’t you want to know how your evaluation measures up?
And by the way, Kreo, I have not slunk anywhere. My heart truly belongs to Climate Skeptic, but, alas, I have other, lesser responsibilities to tend to.
September 9, 2010, 10:11 amAlex:
Man, you are dumb. That’s all.
September 9, 2010, 12:34 pmRuss R.:
Thank you Alex, for your insightful contribution.
And yes, Waldo, the lessons in time-series statistics are helpful.
September 9, 2010, 12:40 pmpauld:
Waldoslink: says
“The debate (such as it is) is best left to the climate scientists, those who actually know what they are talking about. No one here, myself included, sounds particularly knowledgeable or informed.”
Realclimate.com is cetainly the site for you. There you can soak up the party line, listen to their chorus of fans and not worry a bit that too many thoughtful contrary comments will get through moderation. They will even warn you about sites that may be too dangerous for you
September 9, 2010, 12:52 pmWaldex:
****”Here is one prediction from there that I am going to believe”
You know, Alex, this is undoubtedly an unintentional revelation on your part, but this little statement speaks volumes about your own scope of intellect and critical thinking skills. I’m glad you can decide what you believe based on what you want to believe — fairly typical for the average denialist I suspect.
And I’m glad you are getting some help, Russ. I thought Real Climate might be able to set you straight.
September 9, 2010, 12:52 pmTed Rado:
Apparently, many people do not understand that the “cap and trade” deal is just a starter. The idea is to turn back the clock on fossil fuel consumption by a couple of decades. This represents a fairly modest decrease on fossil fuel use. However, the cap and trade people fail to point out that the models (if they are right) require an 80% reduction in CO2 to stop global warming, thus virtually shutting down modern industry and transportation. The “cap and trade” thing is thus a first step that in itself may be feasible, but the total program of an 80% reduction is not. Hence my earlier comment re destroying our modern industrial economy. If worrying about the affects of an 80% reduction is “over the top”, then I guess I am WAY over the top. Simply criticizing without offering an explanation or solution is way “under the top”.
September 9, 2010, 12:54 pmWaldod:
****”(Here)you can soak up the party line, listen to their chorus of fans and not worry a bit that too many thoughtful contrary comments”
Paul, you do realize that, even if this were true, this likewise describes Climate Skeptic. And you do realize that Wally and Russ have been over there posting “thoughtful comments” for at least 24 hours, right?
Not to mention that Real Climate has people who know what they are talking about.
September 9, 2010, 12:56 pmpauld:
Waldod says:
“Paul, you do realize that, even if this were true, this likewise describes Climate Skeptic. And you do realize that Wally and Russ have been over there posting “thoughtful comments” for at least 24 hours, right?”
So Waldod, are you telling me that you have attempted to post comments on this blog, only to have them never appear because they were deleted by a moderator? That has been my experience over at Realclimate. About one-half the comments I have attempted to post never appear at Realclimate. Roger Pielke, Jr. has noted that his posts haven’t passed moderation even when the topic being discussed is his own published paper. Steven McIntyre is outright banned from comments from Realclimate. Jeffid from the Airvent blog tells of an experiment he did where he post three dumb critical comments, which immediately appeared in the comments on Realclimate, and then tried posting a serious critical comment, which never passed moderation. Over time, I have read dozens and dozens of accounts by skeptics regarding comments that do not make it through Realclimate’s moderation. If they are so smart and can answer their critics, why do they do they exercise such heavy handed moderation?
As to the comment, “do realize that Wally and Russ have been over there posting “thoughtful comments” for at least 24 hours, right?”, I never said they deleted everything. Perhaps, the moderator thinks their comments have some “mistakes” that can be refuted to the satisfaction of the realclimate groupies?
September 9, 2010, 2:32 pmpauld:
Just re-read my previous post and realized it might come across as putting down Wally and Russ’s efforts over at realclimate. I just read the thread and I think they are doing a great job. I got a kick out of reading one of the realclimate posts suggest by one of their groupies. The realclimate boys compare projections from AR4, published in 2007 and are impressed that the real trend falls within the 95% confidence band that encompasses significant cooling and significant warming.
September 9, 2010, 3:15 pmShills:
Miriam says:
‘I hope I made myself clear.’
Let’s see. You are basically saying that that the 1.3 to 2.3 paper is not a catastrophic prediction because the percentiles that would fit into the IPCC’s range for catastrophic GW amounts to no more than 30%. I know. I get that. That is why I gave you two other papers that had ranges of sense. at 2.3 to 4.1, and 2. to 4. And both are model-independant. Have you seen them?
Miriam says:
‘I think he meant to show one more model that had to be scaled down dramatically after touching the reality.’
No. The models have not been scaled down. If anything the measurements of ‘reality’ have been shown erroneous. And so reality now fits the models better. But, this is just one paper and we are yet to see how it is received.
Again, Where in the paper on sea-level rises do they use climate models of any sought? Sure, it uses topographic models but that doesn’t count.
September 9, 2010, 5:06 pmAgain, So you guys gonna give us a clear explanation of what CAGW is to you??
WalDo:
Paul, Mr. Meyers does not read the comments, he does not have time; he has admitted as much–that is why there is no moderation here.
And you missed the point anyway, so I’ll make it even clearer. The tenor of dialogue here is, for many, every bit as irrational, dogmatic, uninformed, cultish, and plain old nutso as anywhere on the web outside of, perhaps, an MMA-vs-Kung-Fu forum. Please don’t pretend that somehow you and the Jo Novas and the Anthony Watts of the world are the fair and balanced commentators (both of whom, by the way, banish people with irreverent abandon).
Are you, like Kreo, one of those people who think in terms of “enemy’s soil” when discussing a matter of science which you clearly know very little about?
And Wally and Russ’ “efforts” on RC consist mainly of being schooled in statistical methods (Russ) and being asked to read the actual science involved (Wally).
September 9, 2010, 6:33 pmwAldO:
Ted, where did this paranoia come from? Why do you think “cap and trade” (which looks like a disastrous and doomed bureaucracy to begin with) is only the tip of some Orwellian plan for economic self-destruction? Perhaps you will disagree with him, but since I’ve been checking with RC lately I ran into this commentary by Bob Sphaerica regarding GW and the world economy.
“First, everything I’ve read says that professional economists estimate the cost at between 1% and 3% of GDP, which is pretty minor. No skyrocketing costs. Just retooling, and jobs/economy involved in the process.”
“No free market democracy, no matter what is done, is going to implement policies that strangle the economy and cause the sort of damage you’re describing. In the worst of cases, politicians that try to do so would be voted out of office. That sort of behavior could not come about until climate change itself was so damaging and indisputable that the populace was panicking, which will be too late.”
Perhaps you disagree but these seem like a reasonable analysis.
September 9, 2010, 6:47 pmRuss R.:
For what it’s worth,
I haven’t had any problem posting anything to Real Climate. Yes there’s often a few hours delay while my posts have been reviewed by a moderator, but all of them have made it through uncensored.
Now, that could be because I’m sticking to being civil, and sincerely seeking guidance on how to best test model predications against data.
And yes, a few of the folks at Real Climate have been outright rude to anyone with a contrary opinion. However, their rudeness isn’t much different from the way we’ve enjoyed beating up on Waldo and Shills.
A couple of commentators there have been genuinely helpful, pointing out problems with testing a straight-line warming trend for IPCC (1995), and with using OLS regression on time-series data (as was also pointed out by Alan over here). I’ll repost test results as soon as I get settled on the correct tools. It looks like I’ll only be able to test Hansen (1988) and IPCC (1990), since I’m not having any luck finding model output data for IPCC (1995).
September 9, 2010, 7:19 pmpauld:
Waldo says : “And you missed the point anyway, so I’ll make it even clearer. The tenor of dialogue here is, for many, every bit as irrational, dogmatic, uninformed, cultish, and plain old nutso as anywhere on the web outside of, perhaps, an MMA-vs-Kung-Fu forum.”
That is an interesting perspective. Could you give me a specific example from this thread of a post you would view as “irrational, dogmatic, uniformed, cultish and plain old nutso”
“Are you, like Kreo, one of those people who think in terms of “enemy’s soil” No and did Kreo say something about “enemy soil”?
“when discussing a matter of science which you clearly know very little about?” I see you are picking up the arrogant, condescending tone of the Realclimate groupies that is intended to dismiss skeptics without providing any real content.
“And Wally and Russ’ “efforts” on RC consist mainly of being schooled in statistical methods (Russ) and being asked to read the actual science involved (Wally).” Wally and Russ are doing just fine. There have been many reasonable comments from realclimate and reasonable responses from Wally and Russ, and, as always, many attempts by the groupies to dismiss and intimidate with condescending comments that are devoid of content.
September 9, 2010, 7:22 pmAlan D McIntire:
I went through the hassle of changing those tempeperatures to delta temperatures. The the result gave a “t” value of 0.05616, implying that there’s a 46% chance that there might be a “negative” trend. I don’t know how to interpret the slope it gave, so I didn’t bother to write it down. As you said, the actual temperatures were increasing by about 0.184 per decade, but the slope must indicate rate of
September 9, 2010, 8:22 pmtemperature change per decade.
Russ R.:
Alan,
Thanks for pitching in on this pet project of mine.
I have my doubts about anything more than a trivial probability of a “negative trend” for temperatures over the last couple of decades. The warming was abundantly evident.
Would you mind emailing me your spreadsheet? I’ll send you the version I’ve been working with. My email address is: s21519(at)hotmail(dot)com
September 9, 2010, 9:21 pmWaldosoil:
“Could you give me a specific example from this thread of a post you would view as ‘irrational, dogmatic, uniformed, cultish and plain old nutso’”
How about–
“condescending tone of the Realclimate groupies that is intended to dismiss skeptics without providing any real content.”
Or perhaps you think you’ve given Real Climate a fair evaluation and the content of their website and its commentary, which is actually filled with a good deal of science-based observations, facts, computer codes, etc. Really, do you consider RC people “groupies” and the CS people…what? model thinkers?
But no matter what, my favorite has always been hunter, who has unfortunately been driven away of late by all the “trolls”:
****”There mental choices leave no room for nuance and distinction. You are either believing there is a looming climate apocalypse or you are a paid shill of big oil, and want to destroy the Earth.”
****”Kreo say something about ‘enemy soil’?”
Yup. Kreo is a rather more articulate and I suspect younger version of hunter.
September 9, 2010, 9:41 pmWaldobeatenup:
****”we’ve enjoyed beating up on Waldo and Shills.”
Let’s not get silly here, Russ. Your T-stats were an attempt to shut me down (you’re not the first either) and I outmaneuvered you, essentially proving you wrong by putting you someplace you couldn’t just post an incomplete, uninformed series of equations as an attempt to “convince our friend Waldo” (your words, not mine) to back-down (or whatever you thought would happen).
For whatever it’s worth, I admire your stick-to-it-ivness in this matter, and you are clearly a man of some intellect and articulateness. You will not come up with anything of any real substance, of course, and I have to wonder why you have embarked in this direction when you could use your expertise in finance to actually accomplish something? Why not do an evaluation of the financial burden of fighting GW? Lomborg seems to have (somewhat) reversed direction, perhaps you could explain why to the world, or contradict him? I’d listen to you there and you wouldn’t have to convince me of anything (assuming you are what you post you are)–not that you care of course (although you clearly do). Oh well–
Anyway, I think this thread is dying a lingering death.
Perhaps we shall all meet again. Cheers
September 9, 2010, 9:59 pmMiriam:
@Shills:
“That is why I gave you two other papers that had ranges of sense. at 2.3 to 4.1, and 2. to 4. And both are model-independant. Have you seen them?”
Yes, I have seen them as I read them a few years earlier. Not all numbers in these papers are model-independent (eg, Tung and Camp have only been able to avoid using models for establishing their lower bound and are borrowing a model-independent upper bound from another study), but together with other papers there is enough to say that there are model-independent estimates for climate sensitivity of the scale used in IPCC reports.
Now we come to the gist of the argument. You said that even if the models did not exist, we would still have a ‘catastrophic warming camp’ as there is a lot more evidence besides the models. The thing is, yes, there is some understanding of some of the processes, and there are model-independent estimates for some of the key parameters, like climate sensitivity, but we are still asked to take action based on predictions, and these predictions *are* based on models. It has been the argument of IPCC that there’s just no escaping models when you want to say that 30 years from now it will be warmer. So, no, if the models did not exist, we would not have a ‘catastrophic warming camp’.
I admit it would have been more fair to state the above right when the debate started to save you the time spent looking for references. The argument, however, has a point. Since there’s no escaping models, the quality of these models play a central role in deciding whether or not the climate is going to change in catastrophic proportions. If predictions made by these models do not hold, we don’t know whether the climate is going to change in catastrophic proportions. If predictions can’t (yet) be verified, we don’t know that either. If predictions hold, but are too vague (eg, they would have held even if the Earth was not warming, to take the extreme), it was silly to have such a model in the first place and we still don’t know ™. In my view, all models that we currently have fall into one of these three camps. Which is sad.
I hope this clears it a bit and you can better see why people like me, Wally and Russ participate in these debates, even those where the hopes of having a sensible discussion are limited.
September 9, 2010, 11:43 pmShills:
Miriam,
The model-less estimates of climate sensitivity together with emissions scenarios and the already observed effects of warming on ice, biology, ocean acidity, and drought (the now famous RC comment page has some stuff relevant here) would be evidence enough for many scientists to conclude that very bad things could happen if warming were to continue. The uncertainty is huge sure, but if, hypothetically, all we had (so no models) was the knowledge that the present warming was causing minor damage now, the idea that more warming later would cause worse problems is not irrational. So, instead of this so called catastrophic camp being the mainstream view, it might be a more contentious view, but it would still exist.
You say:
‘In my view, all models that we currently have fall into one of these three camps. Which is sad.’
Well in my view, if you have such condemning criticisms of something then you must surely have some credibility on the subject, thus can discuss it in the scientific arena, which would be great because than you can correct all the scientists. But unfortunately you probably haven’t because they are all still going around, blindly unawares, using these apparently dodgy models, which is sad.
September 10, 2010, 3:34 ampauld:
Shills says: “The uncertainty is huge sure, but if, hypothetically, all we had (so no models) was the knowledge that the present warming was causing minor damage now, the idea that more warming later would cause worse problems is not irrational.”
Unfortunately, efforts to stabalize CO2 concentrations are enormously difficult. Roger Pielke, Jr. has written a book on the topic and posts regularly at his blog on this issue. A recent post is illustrative of the problem. http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2010/09/twenty-five-wedges-or-more.html#links
September 10, 2010, 6:34 amMiriam:
@Shills:
“But unfortunately you probably haven’t because they are all still going around, blindly unawares, using these apparently dodgy models, which is sad.”
And this is where we ultimately differ.
I might be mistaken, and if so, I apologize in advance, but you seem to have decided for yourself that you won’t ever be able to decipher what is it that the experts are talking about, or maybe you decided that you don’t care enough. Thus you take the fact that they are “still talking” about catastrophic global warming to be sufficient evidence that the models are OK and do predict enough to take action.
My position is different. I did care enough to read papers and studies for a few recent years, as well as educate myself on the subject. My math degree helped. I feel I can at least tell something real from a fluke (your opinion might be different, but, well, the proof is in the pudding, bring some real points and we’ll talk) and so I see messing around with dodgy models for what it is – messing around with what you have for lack of something better.
As to the inevitable advice to go ahead and have it with the experts, thanks, I am doing what I can in my spare time, but climate science is not the only thing that interests me and I am unlikely to change careers.
September 10, 2010, 6:46 amPaulD:
Russ and Wally:
Lucia at the Blackboard, http://rankexploits.com/musings/
September 10, 2010, 6:52 amregularly posts on issues involved in comparing model projections to actual temperatures. She has a search feature on her blog that will generate a long list of entries on this topic. I believe she is an engineering professor who has taken an interest in climate issues. She describes herself as a “lukewarmer” Her posts are informative and contain much analysis of the issues involved, along with extensive discussions in the comments from a variety of perspectives.
Kreo:
Shills, dear…
“The model-less estimates of climate sensitivity together with emissions scenarios and the already observed effects of warming on ice, biology, ocean acidity, and drought (the now famous RC comment page has some stuff relevant here) would be evidence enough for many scientists to conclude that very bad things could happen if warming were to continue. The uncertainty is huge sure, …”
Models happen between the first and second sentence. No models, no predictions, no uncertainties, no camp.
September 10, 2010, 7:01 amWally:
Paul, thanks for the link, I’ll check it out.
September 10, 2010, 8:03 amKreo:
By the way, I love the thread on RC.
#276 (camp Pro): 10 paragraphs of talk about GDP, its growth and federal spending. A-OK.
#277 (camp Contra, Wally): 4 paragraphs of talk on the same matters in response. A note from the admin of the forum – “Completely OT, no more please. Jim”
#280 (camp Pro): 2 paragraphs of more economy talk in response to Wally. OK.
#281 (camp Pro): 2 more paragraphs on economy. OK.
#282 (camp Pro): 3 more paragraphs on economy. OK.
#283 (camp Pro): 8 paragraphs on nuclear ban, malnutrition in India and futility of efforts to educate Wally on anything because he just won’t listen. OK, of course.
#284 (camp Pro): another reply to Wally’s post, 6 paragraphs, economy and pointing where Wally should go. OK. Why wouldn’t it be OK, right?
Pure fun.
I bet at least one of Wally’s posts have already been stopped. Any takers? Don’t mess with settled science, guys.
September 10, 2010, 8:06 amWally:
Alan, after thinking through your idea of detrending the data, I’m still wondering why we’re doing that if we want to compare a model’s predictions to actual results. I understand the autocorrelation issue. That being that temperature at time 1, T(1) heavily influences temperature at time T(2), thus your data points are not fully independent of one another. However, what you purpose does not get around that problem any better than a least squares method, both methods are finding the first direvative, just through a different process.
What you’re having us do is get the delta value for each data point, then use those data points as independent samples, and run a T-test as normal right? But that is little different from what the regression analysis will end up doing anyway. The mean of what you’re going to get is the average slope. But the regression is going to give you a least squares estimate of the same thing. Which as you probably know just means the weighting of each data point is different, and the least squares method effectively weights things farther away greater than a simple average.
So when you go to test the confidence in the line generated by the regression, you’re using the sum of the squared residuals from the line. Then in your method you doing the same thing but from the mean delta. They are quite similar, and I don’t think you get around auto correlation is either case, as even your delta is reduced thanks to it.
Secondly, what we’re ultimately trying to do is test the actual data against slope of the model projections, which at realclimate I believe someone correctly brought up we should make sure to test the slope for the right time periods, as the predictions are not linearly for the whole 100+ years. So, the test we’re doing is T = beta(found)-beta(predicted)/SEbeta(found).
So, I suppose what you’re suggesting is that we instead use T=ave.delta(found)-ave.delta(predicted)/SEave.delta(found). Is that right? And I may be wrong, but I’d guess ave.delta(predicted) and beta(predicted) are going to be the same thing.
I honestly don’t think you’re going to find substancially different results with either method, nor do I think one method gets around this autocorrelation problem any better than the other. I’m interested to see this issue discussed further however, do you have a good link for a more indepth analysis? Basically, I’m not finding the reasoning for using a simple mean over a least squares method.
September 10, 2010, 8:42 amTed Rado:
Waldo: You describe everything I say as paranoia. I did not dream up the 80% reduction in CO2 required to stop global warming (according to the models). The other stuff you quote (1-3% reduction in GDP) for the first cap and trade step is not the point. This is certainly doable. The 80% thing has been published repeatedly. Why start on the first cap and trade part if we abe not prepared to continue to 80% reduction? The Obama administration and all the other AGW believers talk about an 80% reduction by 2050. Are you saying that such a reduction is feasible without wrecking the economy? If you have some explanation, I would be delighted to hear it.
I am not an anti AGW zealot. I don’t know if CO2 is as bad as the AGW enthusiasts say. Until we are sure, have alternative energy schemes in hand, and have the Chinese and Indians on board, it is premature to embark on the first step in reducing CO2 by 80%. Also, what are the alternatives? Rather than wreck the economy, maybe everyone could move a couple of hundred miles north. Many people moved south with the advent of A/C.
The cap and trade blogs are at least honest (some of them). They point out that there is no viable alternative energy scheme, but the CO2 cap will force people to find such schemes. Thus, we should jump out of the airplane and hope somebody invents an earth softener before we hit the ground. Wouldn’t it be better to do it the other way around?
September 10, 2010, 8:58 amRuss R.:
RE: Hansen (1988) – Autocorrelation issue.
Wally et al,
I spent a few hours last night reading up on the various approaches for identifying and correcting autocorrelation in time series data.
Here are a handful of good references:
http://www.statsoft.com/textbook/time-series-analysis/?button=3
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/27442875/Autocorrelation-in-Regression-Analysis
http://www.itl.nist.gov/div898/handbook/pmc/section4/pmc44.htm
http://userweb.port.ac.uk/~judgeg/INEMET/e255_l13.pdf
http://www-stat.stanford.edu/~jtaylo/courses/stats203/notes/time.series.regression.pdf
Since I don’t have access to professional statistics software with GLS tools, I’m limited to excel-based OLS methods. I’ve settled on the AutoRegressive (AR) approach, which basically runs a standard OLS regression twice – first regressing the data against 1-period lagged observations to identify and strip out auto-correlation, and second to regress the residuals against the date to identify trend and significance.
Here’s a summary of the preliminary results:
Hansen’s temperature projections (1988-2010)
Scenario: Scenario_A Scenario_B Scenario_C
Slope: β = 0.029844862 0.027396245 0.019274704
(Source: http://www.realclimate.org/data/scen_ABC_temp.data )
UAH data set (1988 – 2010.58)
Observations: n = 271
Slope: β = 0.017105791
Autocorrelation: ρ = 0.834750724
(Source: http://woodfortrees.org/data/uah/from:1988/to:2010.58/plot/gistemp/from:1988/to:2010.58 )
GISTEMP data set (1988 – 2010.58)
Observations: n = 271
Slope: β = 0.017105791
Autocorrelation: ρ = 0.760693177
(Note the higher autocorrelation coefficient for the UAH data.)
UAH AR(1) autoregression
Observations: n = 270
Intercept: α = 0.022953044
Lag-1: β = 0.838341028
GISTEMP AR(1) autoregression
Observations: n = 270
Intercept: α = 0.097138485
Lag-1: β = 0.76108575
Both data sets were stripped of autocorrelation as modeled above, and the residuals used for the next stage of regression.
UAH Residuals regression
Observations 270
Slope 0.019506406
Standard Error 0.006566299
Scenario: Scenario_A Scenario_B Scenario_C
Ho: Slope ≠ 0.029844862 0.027396245 0.019274704
TStat = 1.574472273 1.2015656 -0.035286678
Pvalue (2 tail) 0.115378307 0.229531876 0.971851146
GISTEMP Residuals regression
Observations 270
Slope 0.01920112
Standard Error 0.004669017
Scenario Scenario_A Scenario_B Scenario_C
Ho: Slope ≠ 0.029844862 0.027396245 0.019274704
TStat = 2.279653399 1.755214024 0.015759938
Pvalue (2 tail) 0.022628253 0.079222706 0.987425909
Conclusions: As expected, the T-stats are lower than before. Due to the higher degree of autocorrelation in the UAH data, they only give us 77% & 88% confidence that we can reject the predictions for Scenarios A & B respectively. The GISTEMP data show a significant difference between predictions and observations with 98% and 92% confidence.
As always, please let me know if you have any concerns with the method, and I’m happy to email the spreadsheet I used to anyone who’d like it.
If the above checks out, I’ll repeat with IPCC (1990).
September 10, 2010, 11:04 amRuss R.:
RE: Hansen (1988) – Autocorrelation issue.
Wally et al,
I spent a few hours last night reading up on the various approaches for identifying and correcting autocorrelation in time series data.
Here are a handful of good references:
http://www.statsoft.com/textbook/time-series-analysis/?button=3
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/27442875/Autocorrelation-in-Regression-Analysis
http://www.itl.nist.gov/div898/handbook/pmc/section4/pmc44.htm
http://userweb.port.ac.uk/~judgeg/INEMET/e255_l13.pdf
http://www-stat.stanford.edu/~jtaylo/courses/stats203/notes/time.series.regression.pdf
Since I don’t have access to professional statistics software with GLS tools, I’m limited to excel-based OLS methods. I’ve settled on the AutoRegressive (AR) approach, which basically runs a standard OLS regression twice – first regressing the data against 1-period lagged observations to identify and strip out auto-correlation, and second to regress the residuals against the date to identify trend and significance.
Here’s a summary of the preliminary results:
Hansen’s temperature projections (1988-2010)
Scenario: Scenario_A Scenario_B Scenario_C
Slope: β = 0.029844862 0.027396245 0.019274704
(Source: http://www.realclimate.org/data/scen_ABC_temp.data )
UAH data set (1988 – 2010.58)
Observations: n = 271
Slope: β = 0.017105791
Autocorrelation: ρ = 0.834750724
(Source: http://woodfortrees.org/data/uah/from:1988/to:2010.58/plot/gistemp/from:1988/to:2010.58 )
GISTEMP data set (1988 – 2010.58)
Observations: n = 271
Slope: β = 0.017105791
Autocorrelation: ρ = 0.760693177
(Note the higher autocorrelation coefficient for the UAH data.)
UAH AR(1) autoregression
Observations: n = 270
Intercept: α = 0.022953044
Lag-1: β = 0.838341028
GISTEMP AR(1) autoregression
Observations: n = 270
Intercept: α = 0.097138485
Lag-1: β = 0.76108575
Both data sets were stripped of autocorrelation as modeled above, and the residuals used for the next stage of regression.
UAH Residuals regression
Observations 270
Slope 0.019506406
Standard Error 0.006566299
Scenario: Scenario_A Scenario_B Scenario_C
Ho: Slope ≠ 0.029844862 0.027396245 0.019274704
TStat = 1.574472273 1.2015656 -0.035286678
Pvalue (2 tail) 0.115378307 0.229531876 0.971851146
GISTEMP Residuals regression
Observations 270
Slope 0.01920112
Standard Error 0.004669017
Scenario Scenario_A Scenario_B Scenario_C
Ho: Slope ≠ 0.029844862 0.027396245 0.019274704
TStat = 2.279653399 1.755214024 0.015759938
Pvalue (2 tail) 0.022628253 0.079222706 0.987425909
Conclusions: As expected, the T-stats are lower than before. Due to the higher degree of autocorrelation in the UAH data, they only give us 77% & 88% confidence that we can reject the predictions for Scenarios A & B respectively. The GISTEMP data show a significant difference between predictions and observations with 98% and 92% confidence.
As always, please let me know if you have any concerns with the method, and I’m happy to email the spreadsheet I used to anyone who’d like it.
If the above work checks out, I’ll repeat with IPCC (1990).
September 10, 2010, 12:58 pmRuss R.:
RE: Hansen (1988) – Autocorrelation issue.
Wally et al,
I spent a few hours last night reading up on the various approaches for identifying and correcting autocorrelation in time series data.
Here are a couple of good references:
http://www.statsoft.com/textbook/time-series-analysis/?button=3
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/27442875/Autocorrelation-in-Regression-Analysis
http://www-stat.stanford.edu/~jtaylo/courses/stats203/notes/time.series.regression.pdf
Since I don’t have access to professional statistics software with GLS tools, I’m limited to excel-based OLS methods. I’ve settled on the AutoRegressive (AR) approach, which basically runs a standard OLS regression twice – first regressing the data against 1-period lagged observations to identify and strip out auto-correlation, and second to regress the residuals against the date to identify trend and significance.
Here’s a summary of the preliminary results:
Hansen’s temperature projections (1988-2010)
Scenario: Scenario_A Scenario_B Scenario_C
Slope: β = 0.029844862 0.027396245 0.019274704
(Source: http://www.realclimate.org/data/scen_ABC_temp.data )
UAH data set (1988 – 2010.58)
Observations: n = 271
Slope: β = 0.017105791
Autocorrelation: ρ = 0.834750724
(Source: http://woodfortrees.org/data/uah/from:1988/to:2010.58/plot/gistemp/from:1988/to:2010.58 )
GISTEMP data set (1988 – 2010.58)
Observations: n = 271
Slope: β = 0.017105791
Autocorrelation: ρ = 0.760693177
(Note the higher autocorrelation coefficient for the UAH data.)
UAH AR(1) autoregression
Observations: n = 270
Intercept: α = 0.022953044
Lag-1: β = 0.838341028
GISTEMP AR(1) autoregression
Observations: n = 270
Intercept: α = 0.097138485
Lag-1: β = 0.76108575
Both data sets were stripped of autocorrelation as modeled above, and the residuals used for the next stage of regression.
UAH Residuals regression
Observations 270
Slope 0.019506406
Standard Error 0.006566299
Scenario: Scenario_A Scenario_B Scenario_C
Ho: Slope ≠ 0.029844862 0.027396245 0.019274704
TStat = 1.574472273 1.2015656 -0.035286678
Pvalue (2 tail) 0.115378307 0.229531876 0.971851146
GISTEMP Residuals regression
Observations 270
Slope 0.01920112
Standard Error 0.004669017
Scenario Scenario_A Scenario_B Scenario_C
Ho: Slope ≠ 0.029844862 0.027396245 0.019274704
TStat = 2.279653399 1.755214024 0.015759938
Pvalue (2 tail) 0.022628253 0.079222706 0.987425909
Conclusions: As expected, the T-stats are lower than before. Due to the higher degree of autocorrelation in the UAH data, they only give us 77% & 88% confidence that we can reject the predictions for Scenarios A & B respectively. The GISTEMP data show a significant difference between predictions and observations with 98% and 92% confidence.
As always, please let me know if you have any concerns with the method, and I’m happy to email the spreadsheet I used to anyone who’d like it.
If the above checks out, I’ll repeat with IPCC (1990).
September 10, 2010, 12:59 pmRuss R.:
RE: Hansen (1988) – Autocorrelation issue.
Wally et al,
I spent a few hours last night reading up on the various approaches for identifying and correcting autocorrelation in time series data.
Since I don’t have access to professional statistics software with GLS tools, I’m limited to excel-based OLS methods. I’ve settled on the AutoRegressive (AR) approach, which basically runs a standard OLS regression twice – first regressing the data against 1-period lagged observations to identify and strip out auto-correlation, and second to regress the residuals against the date to identify trend and significance.
Here’s a summary of the preliminary results:
Hansen’s temperature projections (1988-2010)
Scenario: Scenario_A Scenario_B Scenario_C
Slope: β = 0.029844862 0.027396245 0.019274704
(Source: http://www.realclimate.org/data/scen_ABC_temp.data )
UAH data set (1988 – 2010.58)
Observations: n = 271
Slope: β = 0.017105791
Autocorrelation: ρ = 0.834750724
(Source: http://woodfortrees.org/data/uah/from:1988/to:2010.58/plot/gistemp/from:1988/to:2010.58 )
GISTEMP data set (1988 – 2010.58)
Observations: n = 271
Slope: β = 0.017105791
Autocorrelation: ρ = 0.760693177
(Note the higher autocorrelation coefficient for the UAH data.)
UAH AR(1) autoregression
Observations: n = 270
Intercept: α = 0.022953044
Lag-1: β = 0.838341028
GISTEMP AR(1) autoregression
Observations: n = 270
Intercept: α = 0.097138485
Lag-1: β = 0.76108575
Both data sets were stripped of autocorrelation as modeled above, and the residuals used for the next stage of regression.
UAH Residuals regression
Observations 270
Slope 0.019506406
Standard Error 0.006566299
Scenario: Scenario_A Scenario_B Scenario_C
Ho: Slope ≠ 0.029844862 0.027396245 0.019274704
TStat = 1.574472273 1.2015656 -0.035286678
Pvalue (2 tail) 0.115378307 0.229531876 0.971851146
GISTEMP Residuals regression
Observations 270
Slope 0.01920112
Standard Error 0.004669017
Scenario Scenario_A Scenario_B Scenario_C
Ho: Slope ≠ 0.029844862 0.027396245 0.019274704
TStat = 2.279653399 1.755214024 0.015759938
Pvalue (2 tail) 0.022628253 0.079222706 0.987425909
Conclusions: As expected, the T-stats are lower than before. Due to the higher degree of autocorrelation in the UAH data, they only give us 77% & 88% confidence that we can reject the predictions for Scenarios A & B respectively. The GISTEMP data show a significant difference between predictions and observations with 98% and 92% confidence.
As always, please let me know if you have any concerns with the method, and I’m happy to email the spreadsheet I used to anyone who’d like it.
If the above work checks out, I’ll repeat with IPCC (1990).
September 10, 2010, 3:21 pmShills:
Kreo says:
‘Models happen between the first and second sentence. No models, no predictions, no uncertainties, no camp.’
The emissions scenarios? They are not climate models. Besides, we don’t even need the scenarios to predict that society would likely pump out heaps more Co2 in the future.
Kreo says:
‘I bet at least one of Wally’s posts have already been stopped.’
Lame anomaly hunting. both sides have received warnings.
Miriam says:
‘My position is different. I did care enough to read papers and studies for a few recent years, as well as educate myself on the subject. My math degree helped. I feel I can at least tell something real from a fluke (your opinion might be different, but, well, the proof is in the pudding, bring some real points and we’ll talk)…’
Precisely and, in science, where is the most delicious pudding of em all? peer-reviewed lit. Anything you write is practically fiction until you take that step. And you are the one criticising the established opinion, you need to bring the points to the table.
September 10, 2010, 6:47 pmpauld:
Shills: “Precisely and, in science, where is the most delicious pudding of em all? peer-reviewed lit. Anything you write is practically fiction until you take that step. And you are the one criticising the established opinion, you need to bring the points to the table.”
This is B.S. There is plenty of peer-reviewed lit. that is of poor quality and plenty of non-peer reviewed lit. that is helpful for laymen to gain an understanding of climate issues.
There are many insights that can be presented on blogs that are helpful to evaluating climate science, but which do not warrant publication in the journals.
There are many people without credentials outside of the field of climatology who have interesting things to say about climate science. It is a bit much to ask them to put aside their own professional endeavors and personal time to publish in journals that will not pay them or advance their careers.
Shills, if you want to make peer-review the gatekeeper for everything worth reading on climate science that is your choice. Why do you then spend time reading blog comments?
September 11, 2010, 5:11 ampauld:
opps, that should be in the fourth paragraph in my post above, “there are many people with credential outside of the field of climatology who have interesting things to say about climate science.”
September 11, 2010, 9:23 amWally:
You know, this “you have to be climate scientist, or pass peer review to have anything important to say about climate science” argument is getting quite tiring. For the population as a whole to act, especially in a way that will impede their lifestyle, these climate scientists need to be able to put forth a rational and convincing argument that can be understood by lay people, or at the very least, even especially, the well educated in other fields. Often times its those well educated in other fields, that can provide the most inciteful criticisms, at least that’s what I’ve found to be true. Those in one particular field can often end up getting somewhat myopic and burried in the details or minutia of their very small niche, while the outside observer can bring a new perspective from a different angle and provide a bit of a refreshment to the field. This is why, I believe, that many of the biggest break throughs in science come from young scientists or from those moving between fields. Its that influx of new ideas and perspectives that helps the science evolve. So, in no way do we need to already be experts to have somethign valuable to say about a given field. As, at one point in time, every current expert would not have been considered expert, yet through some valuable contribution to the field, they became known as an experts. And if you just repeatedly shout down criticisms because those leavying the criticsms are not experts, you’re just impeeding the progress of knowledge.
We owe it to climate science to have this discussion between the “skeptics” and “believers,” because in doing so, we’ll likely reveal issues not thought up by either side. Ulitmately science does not care if you’re an expert or if you passed peer review. It cares about the quality of the data, analysis and logic contained in the argument. It doesn’t matter if it comes from a Jr. High student, a Ph.D. student, a established researcher with 200 peer review publications to his name, or a similar researcher but with those publications in a different field.
September 11, 2010, 1:23 pmAlan D McIntire:
Speaking of business models, you should all be familiar with the “black swan” effect, where events with supposedly 1 in a million or 1 in a billion chance of happening occur more often than one might calculate.
Here are some papers showing how these correlations are miscalculated:
http://www2.owen.vanderbilt.edu/bobwhaley/Research/Publications/jf97.pdf
http://www.class.uidaho.edu/psy586/Course%20Readings/Babyak_04.pdf
http://management.uta.edu/Casper/MultiStat/Bobko%20-%20Multivariate%20-%20Handbook%20Chapter.pdf
September 11, 2010, 2:55 pmShills:
Sure, I agree with what you guys are saying. There is nothing wrong with sincere and honest criticism of climate science. I’m sure the climate scientists welcome that. And if that is what you guys see yourselves as doing, well, unfortunately everyone else sees it (so far) as stale denialist ranting. Now, who is to say that you guys aren’t sincere and that the Climate scientists are actually in the wrong?
Well, ask yourself this: Just like how scientists in other fields would welcome new perspectives, why wouldn’t climate scientists?
Also ask yourself: how quick was I to convict those in the climategate scandal and with what evidence?
And until we find a better way to sift the wheat from the chaff, peer-review is the hurdle anyone with a scientific claim needs to jump if you want to be taken seriously. Of course published non-fiction could have an impact but how often does that happen?
September 11, 2010, 5:05 pmpauld:
“unfortunately everyone else sees it (so far) as stale denialist ranting.”
I am curious who you would classify as a “denialist”. It is my impression that nearly everyone on this forum would agree with these propositions: 1) the average global temperature is increasing; 2) c02 is a greenhouse gas and adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere will cause warming; and 3)human emissions of CO2 have contributed to the increase in global average temperatures.
Where people here might disagree with some climate scientists concerns the climate’s sensitivity to a doubling of CO2 concentrations. Most people here would believe that the likely climate sensitivity is in the low end of the range proposed by the IPCC. The consensus opinion as expressed in the IPCC is that there is great uncertainty is the estimation of climate sensitivity.
So I am curious as to what specific beliefs one must hold to be classified by you as a “denier”?
Shill also says: “Also ask yourself: how quick was I to convict those in the climategate scandal and with what evidence?” Well, it depends on what you think climate scientists were convicted of. For anyone paying attention, there wasn’t anything particularly surprising in the climategate emails.
September 11, 2010, 5:51 pmWally:
Its not just creating new scientific knowledge that is the issue however, its also accepting what has been done to be true by the “learned” community at large, and what to do about it. Both those aspects fall well outside of peer review. And besides that, something passing peer review does not make it gospel. I’ve seen plenty of crap published in my field, even in some of the top journals. We need to think of peer review journals as a way to communicate more than a way to absolutely prove something true.
September 11, 2010, 7:12 pmShills:
True pauld, I don’t know anything about you in particular. But I’m pretty sure most peeps here think the the ipcc range is still to high. That is Meyer’s arg. anyway. And, if you think the clim. sens. is close to 2., aren’t you worried about that? After all, it is the level seen by the IPCC as the 50/50 mark of avoiding CAGW, I’m pretty sure.
And if you were not sold on the climategate incident, I assure you, you don’t speak for the rest of em here.
September 11, 2010, 8:41 pmpauld:
“And if you were not sold on the climategate incident, I assure you, you don’t speak for the rest of em here.”
The notion of being “sold” on the climategate incident is such a vague statement that I have no idea what it means. Much of what was said in the popular media and internet was wrong. On the other hand, michael mann’s “trick” and the “hide the decline” graph had already been identified and discussed at climateaudit.org long before the emails were released. The difficulties that climate scientists who did not towe the party line had long before been noted by Dr. John Christy, Dr. Roy Spencer, Dr. Roger Pielke, Sr. and Dr. Richard Lindzen, among others. So to the extent that the climategate emails discuss keeping skeptical articles out of the science journals, the only thing surprising was to see it in writing.
September 12, 2010, 4:33 amTed Rado:
Most of the comments on this blog discuss the validity of the AGW theories and models. However, there is very little discussion re practical implementation of a major CO2 reduction and dealing with its consequences.
Let’s assume that EVERYBODY agrees that the AGW theory and models are correct. Then what? The models indicate that an 80% reduction in CO2 emmissions is needed. How do we do this? Until there is a method to reduce CO2 by 80%, including dealing with everything involved (alternative energy, political and economic issues, poverty, etc.) we have nothing useful. All of the schemes for CO2 sequestering, alternative energy, etc. that have been suggested or investigated are impractical, wildly uneconomical, or plain nonsense. Furthermore, Indian government officials have made it clear that a country where 80% of the people earn less than $2 per day is not going to give up their industrialization program.
We need a completely thought out program, not just verifying or debunking the AGW theories.
If anyone has seen such a comprehensive program laid out, I would be interested in seeing it.
September 12, 2010, 3:19 pmWally:
As would I Ted. And you’ll surely find people that would give you their plans, especially at a place like realclimate, but not many of them would qualify as “completely thought out.”
September 12, 2010, 3:28 pmWaldoWonders:
Wally, be truthful, are you really a scientist?
September 12, 2010, 10:20 pmPauld:
I don’t mind discussing policy, but that is not often the subject of the main post on this blog. If you want to talk policy, you should check out these blogs.
1) http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/ Pielke, Jr. writes extensively on the policy implications of climate science and posts often of the subject. His comment section is lively, and has participants with a wide diversity of views.
2. http://www.masterresource.org/ . This blog addresses policy issues frequently and critiques current alternative energy technology. There is an interesting series of posts right now on wind power. Although the blog has great articles, and appears to receive alot of traffic, there is seldom much discussion in the comments.
September 13, 2010, 5:52 amTed Rado:
Pauld: I agree. However, if the science must be followed by a practical program, then it is incumbant on the scientists to have a viable implementation program in mind.
The points I raised are not policy questions, but engineering questions. As a retired chemical engineer, I have been following the AGW arguments with interest from the point of view of practical implementation. Nothing I have seen re alternative energy, C sequestering, etc. is remotely feasible on a large scale. If there is no workable way to deal with the consequences of an 80% reduction in CO2 emmissions, then who cares whether AGW theories are true or not? We cannot do anything about them other than move north.
Policy decisions would come in when there is more that one feasible way to deal with CO2 reduction, one of which must be selected. At present, there are none.
You mention wind power. This is only viable when the amount of wind power is small relative to the large thermal power system, which can act as backup. If a large part of the power was generated with wind (or solar), dedicated standby power facilities would have to be be provided. Even without this need, with wind power getting “freebees” re standby costs, large subsidies are required to get wind farms built. There is a study (in Australia) which works out all the details of a wind/standby system, with alternatives and costs.
One thing that disturbs me about the Feds getting involved in this: Professors are seeking government research grants for all sorts of crazy schemes, which any engineer could debunk in an afternoon’s investigation. No study of the research proposal seems to be made by the Feds. They just push money out the door as an indication of progress. The object of the professors is to get grant money which endears them to the university administration. Without this distortion, I am sure research effort would be much more intelligently directed. Research has gone on for centuries without government intervention. Other than military stuff, I am sure it is a better way.
September 13, 2010, 8:06 amPaulD:
Ted Rado: I think we are on the same page and I cannot say I disagree with anything you have written above.
September 13, 2010, 8:36 amThe posts at MasterResource regarding wind power make a strong case that wind power is not now nor ever likely to be a viable alternative source of powergrid energy and, in fact, will not substantially reduce CO2 emissions. I think you will find an ally at that website.
I think that Roger Pielke, Jr. would also agree with your conclusion that there are now no feasible technologies to rapidly reduce CO2 emissions. Although he believes that we need to reduce our reliance on carbon-based fuels, he would agree that many of the proposed policies to acheive this goal are based on unrealistic “magical” thinking. He has written an entire book soon to be released on what policies are politically feasible and will move things in what he perceives to be the “right” direction. I, as a “luke warmer”, disagree with much of what Pielke writes on the state of climate science, but I do think he is a serious thinker whose ideas are worth considering. Ultimately, I think he argues that decarbonization of the economy is a good idea independent from global warming concerns.
If you are interested in issues regarding decarbonization, his site is good place to engage in a discussion on this issue.
Wally:
Waldo, what would be my motivation for such a lie? To help convince some annonymous DB in the comments section of a blog of something that is probably impossible to convince him of anyway?
Also the mear fact that you feel the need to ask such questions in evidence of your homerism.
September 13, 2010, 11:55 amWaldoWondersStill:
I’m sorry, Wally, I would not impugn you personally, but there have been several people who have made claims about their scientific pedigrees on this very blog which evaporated upon closer inspection (An Inquirer and netdr, for instance) and so I’ve become suspicious. Why these people make spurious claims is beyond me. You clearly have some scientific background…but I’ve just been checking over at Real Climate from time to time and noticed that one of the commentators had some doubts…I guess that is between you and them.
I suppose you’d be much more convincing if you could peer-review your opinions. They’re not doing so well over at RC but maybe a panel of scientists would find your insights about which experiments climate scientists should conduct very interesting.
I do totally dig that you used the word “homerism,” however–that is very cool.
September 13, 2010, 1:36 pmTed Rado:
Pauld: Thanks for your comments. I have, among lots of other things related to the AGW thing, studied up on CO2 removal. At one time, I was involved in a commercial plant to recover CO2 from flue gas for use in an industrial process. This recovery is very energy intensive. You reduce power plant electrical output by about 30% due to steam used in the process rather than in the turbine. To generate the same amount of power, you use approx. 40% more fuel, which means coal will be depleted that much faster, and you will have more CO2 to recover. Also, what do you do with the 900 psi. liquid CO2? There are proposals to inject it into deep wells, and various other schemes, which create even more problems as well as huge cost.
Having voiced my concern about how to implement a CO2 reduction plan, there is non-the-less a long term need to completely revise out energy production and use system (all aside from our fear of depending on foreign oil). In a very few hundred years, we will be out of low cost fossil fuels, so CO2 will disappear of its own accord. Electrity can be generated in nuclear plants, but what about transportation fuels, ag chemicals, farming, etc? I have done some conceptual studies of cities built around nuclear power plants, using low pressure extraction steam for heat and A/C. Small electric cars could be used for neighborhood travel. Lots of questions remain about fuel for farming, air travel, production of chemicals, etc. I guess we could go back to plowing with a mule, and electric train travel. Those who say we have plenty of natural gas are speaking in terms of 120 years or so. To me (82 years old) that is not a long time. Where are the studies of this long term problem? I have seen none, yet it in 100 plus years, it will be a real issue, regardless of AGW.
Perhaps some of the current studies to do away with fossil fuels will suggest ways of dealing with the long term fossil fuel depletion problem. I am a bit astonished that people seem to think we have plenty of gas and coal. Unless man dies out before the fossil fuel does, we are in deep trouble. The lay people keep saying “science will come up with something”. Unfortunately, the laws of thermodynamics are hard to circumvent.
On this latter subject, I was astonished that some scientists are seriously proposing to react CO2 with nuclear-produced H2 to make hydrocarbons. I ran some calcs, and found that the overall energy efficiency is about 1% vs 35+ % for a nuclear energy plant. You would have to build 35 nuclear plants to get the same usable energy as you get from one!!! And people put out this stuff seriously. Does anybody do a few engineering calcs before running off with this kind of nonsense?
September 13, 2010, 2:29 pmpauld:
Waldo: “I suppose you’d be much more convincing if you could peer-review your opinions.”
Why do you spend time reading blog comments, if the only things you find convincing is peer-reviewed articles?
September 13, 2010, 7:13 pmWally:
Waldo,
But what does it mean for my comments to not be received well in an obviously hostile environment, like that of realclimate?
From my very first comment I’ve had multiple post attack me and my arguments with pretty much the full gamate of ad hominems. I’ll admit that at times I may resort to such things, but those that post to realclimate seem to have an addiction to such behavior.
Also, someone asked a while back if my comments had been censored. Thus far they have not. However, when it takes all day for your posts to show up, while comments critical of your posts show up almost instantly, it makes for a pretty good deterrent to a fair debate. I’ve had posts that I made in the morning, still awaiting moderation in the late evening, while the conversation has continued, not to see my posts up for everyone to see until the following morning. So, they are quite obviously flagging posts for further review, which in “blog-time” is taking forever. Eventually I will give up in frustration, which I’m sure is by design, and the realclimate moderators will have “won.”
Which leaves us with the natural question: Why does realclimate, which so adamantly believes they have the truth on their side, feel the need censor posters such as myself?
September 13, 2010, 8:09 pmMiriam:
Wally, I just want you to know that I – and I believe many others here – greatly appreciate your efforts on RC. You really have the patience of a saint.
September 13, 2010, 9:53 pmWaldorism:
****”Why do you spend time reading blog comments, if the only things you find convincing is peer-reviewed articles?”
I find the denialist mentality fascinating.
****”I’ve had multiple post attack me and my arguments with pretty much the full gamate of ad hominems”
Not from what I’ve read, Wally. They take you to task for your lack of knowledge, your math, and your methodologies. They have provided you with multiple links and references to things you either do not know or did not think about. My favorite is when you suggested greenhouse experiments to judge rice yields based on temperature only to be reminded that such experiments have gone on for a hundred years or so. Comments like that make me wonder if you are trying to fool us about who and what you are. You have also gotten in the habit of accusing everybody who disagrees with your scientific opinions of ad hom.
****”Thus far they have not. However, when it takes all day for your posts to show up, while comments critical of your posts show up almost instantly, it makes for a pretty good deterrent to a fair debate.”
Seems a little unlikely to me. I’ve had to wait several hours the couple of times I posted things — once my post waited almost an entire day. There is in you, Wally, the need to see some sort of systematic, institutionalized inequity in the conversation — and this is a very one-sided observation on your part.
****”Eventually I will give up in frustration, which I’m sure is by design, and the realclimate moderators will have ‘won.’”
Would you feel the same way if, for instance, Anthony Watts bans or holds comments? Again, Wally, this is akin to paranoia and rationalization. You are talking to an erudite, scientific crowd over there, and they are not impressed. Perhaps you think that’s ad hom.
****”Wally, I just want you to know that I – and I believe many others here – greatly appreciate your efforts on RC.”
Homerism. What a great word.
September 13, 2010, 10:18 pmWaldonation:
****”One thing that disturbs me about the Feds getting involved in this: Professors are seeking government research grants for all sorts of crazy schemes, which any engineer could debunk in an afternoon’s investigation.”
Could you debunk one of these for us?
****”No study of the research proposal seems to be made by the Feds.”
Really? Who do you think these “feds” are?
****”They just push money out the door as an indication of progress. The object of the professors is to get grant money which endears them to the university administration.”
Which professors?
September 13, 2010, 10:23 pmAlex:
”I’ve had multiple post attack me and my arguments with pretty much the full gamate of ad hominems” – “Not from what I’ve read, Wally.”
Who cares about what *you* think, Waldo? You are a troll. All you are doing is trying to “own” the discussion. Nobody tries to convince you of anything.
September 13, 2010, 10:57 pmpauld:
Wally:
I think you have done a great job at RC, but I do question whether it is worth the effort. Although you have been fortunate not to have any posts deleted in moderation, having long delays in your post, while posts critical of your position go through right away, makes it impossible to have a reasonable discussion.
What is especially frustrating for me with the delays on posts I have written, is that the delayed posts are inserted back where they would have been had they been posted immediately. Thus anyone who is trying to follow the discussion needs to re-read the entire series of posts every time to see whether something new has been added. Of course, most readers either won’t do that or are not aware of the need to do that. This is particularly frustrating on very active threads where there may be several hundred new posts between the time my comment is submitted and the time it appears.
I personally don’t bother to post at RC because of the moderation policy. I also take everything they write with a huge grain of salt because 1) on topics with which I have personal knowledge, they frequently provide a slanted and unbalanced perspective; 2) one topics with which I don’t have personal knowledge, I don’t trust that they will allow their critics an opportunity to respond.
There was a great series of posts one time at the Air Vent blog where he asked people about their backgrounds and how they came to be skeptical of CAGW. A large number of people responded who had engineering and advanced science degrees. A surprisingly large percentage of people got started questioning CAGW because of the experience they had over at Real Climate.
September 14, 2010, 3:03 ampaulD:
Ted Redo:
I thought this recent post at Pielke, Jr’s blog would be of interest to you. http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2010/09/miniscule-effects-of-european-ets-on.html#links
A summary paragraph:
“In The Climate Fix, I present data suggesting that Europe’s rate of decarbonization was essentially unchanged before and after implementation of the Kyoto Protocol, up to the period covered by the Sandbag analysis. The Sandbag analysis suggests that this finding holds to the present. The strong implication is the that EU ETS has not accelerated BAU decarbonization in Europe.”
September 14, 2010, 3:16 amWaldex:
****”Who cares about what *you* think, Waldo?”
Strangely, a surprising number do. Like you.
September 14, 2010, 7:58 ampauld:
Here is an interesting report on the climategate inquiries that I picked up from the link at wattsupwiththat. The full report is here: http://www.thegwpf.org/images/stories/gwpf-reports/Climategate-Inquiries.pdf
I’ve taken a quick look at it and it looks good. Although much of what was written in the popular press and in some blogs was incorrect, this report outlines the issues and their implications correctly. It does a good job of putting “hide the decline” in its proper context and shows why the attempts of the various inquiries to paper over the flap are disingeneous. I am, of course, looking forward to reading the reply from realclimate.org
September 14, 2010, 10:00 amTed Rado:
Pauld: Thanks for the heads up on Pielke. I read his stuff regularly. Apparently, many industries in Europe have obtained a reprieve from their governents on CO2 as they would be driven out of business or forced to move to India. There is endless, very interesting, commentary on this subject. The Australians have dumped the idea of cap and trade (aka move to India or China). Even many of the lay politicians are beginning to get real (see Copenhagen). Many countries, such as Canada, have not come anywhere near meeting their Kyoto pomises.
Bottom line: Nobody has figured out how to reduce CO2 without reducing industry as well (as per our previous exchanges).
September 14, 2010, 10:45 amTed Rado:
Waldonation: You asked me to debunk a couple of statements:
1) No study of the research proposals seems to be made by the Feds.
Most of the money passed out by the Feds is through the DOE as reaearch grants. In industry, an idea for a new process is passed throuth the engineering department. The idea is first assumed to be absolutely workable. A flow sheet, heat and material balance, and capital and operating cost estimates are made (again without questioning the validity of the idea). In 99% of the cases, the idea is found to be flawed for various reasons, such as the product being worth less than the raw materials, the fuel value of the product is less than the energy input to the process, costs far exceed the value of the product, etc. In this way, research is only done on those ideas that, if they are found to really work, are doable on a large scale. The idea is not to waste money that could be spent on potentially useful R&D. The DOE should do this, or require those seeking grants to submit such a study with their research proposal.
2) Which professors?
One professor has a grant to study use of calcined eggshells to make lime, which is then used in a process to absorb CO2 out of the process. Obvious questions: Eggshells are calcium carbonate, which is the same as limestone. Rather than collect 90 billion eggshells per year from around the country, why not just mine a few thousand tons of limestone, at abviously a tiny fraction of the cost? Also, when you calcine the eggshells (or limestone) you drive off the same amount of CO2 that you will absorb later, plus the CO2 from the duel you use. Where does this go?
I won’t give you the name of the prof because I have no desire to make him look rediculous.
The Feds themselves are a wonderful source of kooky schemes. Two researchers at Los Alamos are working on a scheme to remove CO2 from the air (rather that from flue gas) by setting up lime absorbers all over tho country. They state that with a million of these, they could remove a billion tons/yr of CO2. Obvious question (see eggshells above): To make the lime, you have to calcine limestone and drive off CO2, then ship the lime to the many absorbers, change out the spent lime, etc. How much CO2 is generated by the trucks carrying lime? Where does the CO2 from the lime calcination go?
Honest, I am not making this crap up. If you want to have a really hilarious time, go to the DOE website and read up on their sponsored R&D.
Any chemical engineer I know could quickly put a stop to this nonsense by requiring the DOE to use well established engineering practise in approving research proposals. The current DOE head is a scientist, not an engineer. The DOE head in the Bush era was a finance man, who bragged about how much money they were pushing out the door. Go figure!
September 14, 2010, 11:15 amWalDOE:
The professor(s) (their are several working on this problem, including a dissertation) are all at Ohio State University, no? My question to you, my friend, since you understand this problem better than the good professors, why don’t you let them know what they are doing wrong?
Likewise, it appears that there are three scientists at the Los Alamos National Laboratory working on the problem described above.
Everyone’s email and contact information is readily available online. I found them within a minute or less.
Shoot them a line. Explain what they are doing wrong.
Likewise, since “Any chemical engineer I know could quickly put a stop to this nonsense by requiring the DOE to use well established engineering practise in approving research proposals. The current DOE head is a scientist, not an engineer.”
You will undoubtedly also want to explain this to Dr. Steven Chu.
I did notice that these “feds” had some pretty stellar credentials.
You have not debunked anyone yet.
September 14, 2010, 12:30 pmWally:
Waldo,
“Not from what I’ve read, Wally. They take you to task for your lack of knowledge, your math, and your methodologies.”
Lets take a look at what some people have said:
Ray: “The fact Russ is declaring the models dead without having even done a 5 minute search suggests he isn’t really serious. This isn’t that hard.”
This is just hugely ridiculing. First, Russ never even declared the models dead, just that they came in high. Why does Ray feel the need to create a hyperbole in a ridiculing manner to make a case? Second, Ray has no idea how much time Russ may have been “searching.” Its should have been pretty obvious that Russ put a decent amount of time into those regression analyses he did. Further, he’s casting an appeal to motive with this “isn’t really serious” claim. Russ only has his hyperbolic statement to fall back on as evidence for Russ’s “seriousness.” Then of course he casts that ridicule that “this isn’t that hard.” These are the kinds of things people say when they don’t have anything of real merit to bring up.
Next from Ray: “Do you have any idea how tiring it is to have neophytes/trolls (one cannot tell the difference) come on here every 2 months or so claiming to disprove climate change based on a very simple, WRONG statistical analysis? And the mistakes are always the same.”
Here he’s obviously suggesting Russ and/or I are neophytes/trolls. If he wants to claim Russ’s statistical analysis is WRONG(!) why doesn’t he just show why? Instead I’m supposed to be convinced because Ray is tired? Yawn.
Ray in a post to Russ: “I really think that your time would be better spent learning the science rather than trying to assess predictions you don’t understand. ”
More ridicule and the rest of the post has little to nothing of substance.
From CM to me: “Feel free to suggest a better way to test the projection that does not involve time travel, psychic powers, or substituting a straight line of your own fancy for the model projection.”
More hyperbole constructed as a ridicule…
Then there’s lots of stuff like this from Hank floating around:
“The science assumes some statistics; if you don’t have that background or, like me, learned it a third of a century ago, it’s helpful to read at least something like Grumbine on trends for the basic idea.
A lot of resources on using Excel for climate point to old topics at Tamino’s blog that are currently unavailable, for example this page:
http://processtrends.com/toc_trend_analysis_with_excel.htm (which is still worth a look; I just found it this minute, not a recommendation yet).
I see some readers at Tamino’s have found and maybe archived some of the missing material. That will help.”
So a poster starts by suggesting someone go take stat 101 as an obvious ad hominem. Now Hank wants to somehow defend such idiotic arguments, by tell someone to go look at some general regression analysis toolkit, without actually pointing out what’s wrong or what specific someone might want to actually brush up on. This is quite common at realclimate. They tell you you’re wrong because of some vague reason in one or two sentences, then give you several links that are supposed to illuminate why. That’s not how arguments go. You need to point out what specifically is wrong and where specifically to look for further answers. Don’t just tell people to go read a stat book. In the end those kinds of arguments just function as, you guessed it, ad hominems.
Another example from Didactylos: “If your “null hypothesis” is a constant warming (which is a really stupid thing to do, which is why the scientists didn’t use that as a null) – but assuming you are that stupid, then do you understand that this means that you have just assumed that the world is constantly warming, and that you have no explanation for why?….Looking through your rambling post, I’m struggling to find any position of yours that isn’t based on a misconception. Get the facts straight, then the conclusion follows easily.”
What facts? The strawman that we’re testing against constant warming? Did Didactylos not read Russ’s posts?
That only takes us through about half the conversation thus far, but if you are a nonbiased reader, I think you have probably gotten the point. The abuse has been on full bore since your first copy/paste of Russ’s post. Its come in a variaty of forms, from constructing hyperbolic strawmen and using it as a tool to ridicule the author, or out right insults such as didactylos shows above.
I won’t put myself up as being perfect in avoiding ad hominems, but the abuse thrown at respectful, even if flawed, counter arguments over at realclimate is shocking.
September 14, 2010, 1:21 pmWally:
Oh and Waldo, I rarely read Watts up with that, please don’t attribute my thoughts to someone else, even if they had the same thought, without knowing damn well that’s where it came from.
September 14, 2010, 1:44 pmTed Rado:
Waldoe: As regards the Ohio State professors working on the eggshell thing, I am embarassed to say that I am an OSU alumnus. A friend of mine (also an old Chem. E.) who is an Illinois grad, and I shake our heads at this stuff. The eggshell thing simply reinforces a point I made before: much of the seeking of research grants is to get money from the Feds. It completely corrupts the intellectual process. If you can get a million dollars from the government to study how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, why do research that is not encouraged by the government for free? I have personally been in a meeting where the chairman stated that we all knew that the process to be studied was nonsense, but the government had set aside 300 million for grants, so let’s get our share. It was hard to keep my lunch down! Which raises the obvious question: In what way are politicians, none of whom are engineers as far as I know, qualified to determine what areas of R&D to support? Their advisors are all lobbyists or political hacks. Note also that by diverting R&D effort to nonsense, the resources for working on really useful things is deminished. Thus, the Feds get the opposite effect of what they are presumably seeking: solutions to scientific/technical problems.
As to Dr. Chu, I am sure that he is a fine scientist. In industry, scientists and engineers have seperate roles. They work closely together for the reasons I have already explained. Together, they develop processes that are not only scientifically sound, but are amenable to practical implementation. Very few scientists I have encountered are capable of determining the practical feasibility of a scientific idea on their own. Ideas from the scientists are sent to the engineers for evaluation as to their feasibility, as I described earlier. If the idea is sound, the scientists and engineers work in harmony to perfect it.
As to contacting anybody re my misgivings, that is a waste of time. In the case of scientists/engineers, it will simply result in an argument (look at this blog, for example). In my 66 years since I started studying chemical engineering, I have found relatively few people with whom a professional and useful discussion is possible. Most people have a strong opinion, and refuse to discuss the subject with an open mind (also see this blog). The person with whom one can have a productive discussion is a pearl beyond price. Fortunately, in industry someone is put in charge (project manager), thus ending arguments. If this person is wrong and the comany loses money, he gets fired. Thus the system works and is self-correcting, albeit sometimes painfully.
As to the politicians, have you tried to get anything listened to by your congressman or senator? You either get no reply or a handout describing their own views.
September 14, 2010, 2:26 pmPaulD:
Wally:
September 14, 2010, 7:22 pmThe point of the ad homien arguments and condescending attitudes over at Real Climate is two-fold: 1) It convinces people like Waldo, who don’t know better, that their critics can be easily dismissed without actually responding to their arguments; and 2) it eventually discourages critics from posting at all since it is rather pointless.
If a critic keeps going in spite of the hostile environment, the moderator starts deleting their posts in moderation or delays posting them for an inordinate time. Eventually, people give up after they have the experience of devoting substantial time to carefully write a post, only to have it deleted in moderation. Or when they are subjected to cheap shots and have their responses deleted.
While these tactics protect people like Waldo from being exposed to dangerous ideas, they alienate a substantial number of people who have the background and take the time to actually understand what is being discussed, thus adding to the skeptic’s camp daily.
Waldaqurie:
****”I rarely read Watts up with that, please don’t attribute my thoughts to someone else, even if they had the same thought, without knowing damn well that’s where it came from.”
I believe I said you probably read the commentary on rich yields on CS, which was cross-posted from Watts Up. So in essence, if your primary source was CS, you were reading Watts Up. Forgive me if I was incorrect.
Where did you read about rich yields?
September 14, 2010, 9:38 pmWaldative:
“rich yields” should, of course, be “rice yields.” Don’t know that to make of that Freudian slip.
And don’t forget commentary such as this, Wally, in which Gavin Schmidt is being corrective and instructive:
“Why do you think that GCMs are like random low order differental equations? They are nothing like it. The vast majority of the code is tied very strongly to very well known physics (conservation of energy, radiative transfer, equations of motion etc.) which can’t be changed in any significant aspect at all. The number of variable parameters that can be used for the tuning exercises you seem to want to do are tiny (a handful or so), and even they can’t be changed radically because you’ll lose radiative balance, or reasonable climatology. I strongly suggest you actually look at some GCM code, and read a couple of papers on the subject – GCMs are far more ‘stiff’ than you imagine.”
When, by the way, did you become so sensitive?
September 14, 2010, 9:43 pmWaldo Rado:
Well put, Ted, and very reasonable. But I have to wonder –
****”As to contacting anybody re my misgivings, that is a waste of time. In the case of scientists/engineers, it will simply result in an argument (look at this blog, for example).”
So I take it you know these people personally well enough to predict how they will react? Perhaps one of these people is reasonable? Maybe if you just explained your reasoning to one of them — prove to them that you have figured out something they have not — they would reverse their theories. Or maybe not.
Okay, another rout is to peer-review your opinion and findings. They are wasting out tax dollars and embarrassing your alma mater, after all. Certainly you’d like to put an end to that if you could. And you realize your well-thought-out concerns will do absolutely no good if you leave them here on CS. These people will continue to waste your and my money.
****”Most people have a strong opinion, and refuse to discuss the subject with an open mind (also see this blog).”
Certainly you are not one of these people. And, since you are not one of these people, have you thoroughly read the work of the OSU professors? Have you read the dissertation on the process of using limestone to leach CO2 out of the air?
September 14, 2010, 9:51 pmWaldod:
****”actually responding to their arguments”
Paul, the commentators at Real Climate did respond very specifically to Wally’s posts; Wally is simply pretending that everything was a personal affront, when in reality a good deal of the ripostes contained links, citations, arguments, etc. I’ve given you one small example above from Schmidt.
Did you actually read any of the thread? Or are you simply going to stick to the ridiculous plaint?
I can believe people doubt the science — although most of these people seem pretty ill-informed and seem to have some weird personal, emotional agenda involved — but I cannot believe how many smart people here react so simply and irrationally. Read the thread, Paul.
September 14, 2010, 9:58 pmMiriam:
All due respect, Waldo, that quote from Gavin is typical condescending “you don’t know enough to argue with me” which throws big things without saying much. It is more useful than a simple “go study”, but only barely so.
The assertion that the number of variable parameters that can be tuned is tiny is only defensible because it is caveated with “for the tuninng exercises you seem to want to do”. Models have lots and lots of variable parameters. Yes, I looked into the source code. The caveat above, however, makes it nearly pointless to argue this point with Gavin, since the talk is easily curved around the specific exercises that someone allegedly wanted to do.
The “even they can’t be changed radically” and “GCMs are far more ‘stiff’ than you imagine” bits are the same kind of nonsense. Both operate with soft stuff like “radically” and “stiff” which are not defined quantitatively nor qualitatively, and the defense of both can readily bring the argument to the realm of what the opponent thought about them. How useful is it to argue against the point that GCMs are far more ‘stiff’ *than someone imagines*? How is this appropriate on the supposedly scientific blog?
And if you strip all that, what’s left? Not a lot. Actually, nothing.
September 14, 2010, 10:09 pmMiriam:
And, yes, the topic on RC has seen some on-topic responses to Wally’s points, eg, someone brought up a list of links as evidence for some argument and all but one of these links turned out to be newspaper publications, and Wally did respond to most if not all of them. If you feel he skipped something, bring it up, and I am sure he will respond.
Before you ask why I am not in the RC thread: I queued a comment more than a day ago and it is yet to get through the filter. It might be too early to say if it got shot, but, frankly, even if it hasn’t, I don’t see much sense in talking through a filter which is that slow.
September 14, 2010, 10:18 pmMiriam:
By the way, the “even they can’t be changed radically” line has another obvious problem in that you absolutely don’t need radical changes to model parameters in order to have radical changes to the result.
As another “by the way”, my comment still isn’t there.
September 15, 2010, 4:26 ampauld:
Miriam: If Gavin is arguing that climate models are not “tuned” to historical data, I think he is being pretty misleading.
I have posted it before on this thread, but take a look at this article by a mainstream climate modeler that appears in the peer-reviewed literature: Jeffrey T. Kiehl, 2007. Twentieth century climate model response and climate sensitivity. GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 34, L22710, doi:10.1029/2007GL031383, 2007 The article’s text can be found on google. It is discussed here: http://climateaudit.org/2007/12/01/tuning-gcms/
Kehl demonstrates that climate models with high CO2 sensitivities use historical estimates of aerosol emissions pulled from the high-range of the historical estimates. Since aerosols reduce global warming, they offset the high levels of global warming that would otherwise be predicted by the high sensitivity models and bring them in line with the historical temperature record. On the other hand, climate models with low CO2 climate sensitivites use estimates of aerosal emissions pulled from the low-range of historical estimates. In essence, the low-sensitivity models need fewer aerosals to bring them in line with historical temperatures.
This seems to me to be “fingerprint” evidence that the models are tuned to the historical record. Maybe some modeling process other than “tuning” can account for this remarkable coincidence. If so, I suspect that it is “tuning” by another name.
I did by the way once ask Gavin about this. Here is my question and his response:
Me: “The article makes the following statement:
“So how do models with high sensitivity manage to simulate the currently small response to a forcing that is almost as large as a doubling of CO2? Jeff Kiehl notes in a 2007 article from the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the models use another quantity that the IPCC lists as poorly known (namely aerosols) to arbitrarily cancel as much greenhouse warming as needed to match the data, with each model choosing a different degree of cancellation according to the sensitivity of that model.”
I wonder if one of the modelers here could comment on this assertion?
[Response: There is uncertainty in both climate sensitivity and the degree of aerosol forcing (see figure 2.20). No model simulation can 'prove' that it has exactly the right sensitivity and aerosol forcing, but each of the simulations that match the 20th Century trends are plausible estimates of what might have happened. Projections going forward are obviously going to be a little different depending on that balance, but that is a real part of the uncertainty in those projections and shouldn't be swept under the rug. - gavin]
September 15, 2010, 6:14 amMiriam:
Brilliant, PaulD. So, basically, you asked what is the logic behind models getting to mix and match wildly different estimates of unknown factors that nonetheless have huge impact on the results, and Gavin responded that, well, the combinations are still plausible. Based on that, it is also plausible to have models with low [climate] sensitivity, but with high estimates for effects attributed to aerosols, and have predictions of global cooling.
September 15, 2010, 6:38 ampauld:
I wanted to add one additional comment to my post immediately above. Gavin states: “Projections going forward are obviously going to be a little different depending on that balance, but that is a real part of the uncertainty in those projections and shouldn’t be swept under the rug.”
September 15, 2010, 6:42 amIt is nice that Gavin acknowledges this uncertainy in an obscure blog post and suggests that it should not be swept under the rug. However, in fact, this area of uncertainty is indeed “swept under the rug” in the IPCC. For a discussion of this read the section, “Obscuring Fundamental Disagreement Across Climate Models in both Explanations of Past Climate and Predictions of Future Climate” in the following article: http://www.probeinternational.org/UPennCross.pdf
Ted Rado:
Waldo: This conversation could go on and on. However my point is this: If R&D proposals were given the most rudimentary screening by engineers (that any young Ch.E. knows how to do), we would not waste piles of money and R&D resources. I am all for listening to ANY research proposal, no matter how kooky it may sound. You do not want to stifle innovation. The ideas should then be evaluated as described earlier before big bucks and lots of effort are devoted to it.
An example is the corn ethanol business. In a couple of hours, I was able to find out (Dept of Ag, etc) how much corn is grown in the US, how much ethanol this can produce, and how much energy is required to grow and convert the corn to ethanol. The result was that if all the corn was converted to ethanol, the NET energy produced was equivalent to 250,000 bbl/d gasoline. Thus, we use up all the corn to reduce gasoline production by a relatively tiny amount. As everyone is aware, the result of the existing corn/ethanol program is high corn prices, food shortages, etc. Meanwhile, the self inflicted increase in corn prices has driven many ethanol producers into bankruptcy, despite government subsidies, and driven up other ag commodity prices as well.
The Feds have sponsored all sorts of demonstration plants related to energy without doing feasibility studies first. I could go on and on about these programs, but you get the idea. My question is, why don’t we do things in a way that is well accepted and proven in industry and avoid huge waste? Politics is probably the answer. All the senators from corn growing states push ethanol subsidies.
September 15, 2010, 6:59 amWaldo Rado:
I agree, Ted, the conversation can go on and on.
But have you read the materials relating to the use of lime to leach CO2 out of the air?
And, why post your reservations here? Why don’t you first approach the professors and scientists involved? And if this doesn’t work, why not either peer-review an article on why it will not work, allowing your ideas to be tested and reviewed, and allowing your ideas to gain access to a wider audience?
You seem very certain of yourself.
September 15, 2010, 10:37 amWaldod:
Paul, why don’t you post your commentary on Real Climate where Gavin could respond? Or perhaps you have and are waiting?
September 15, 2010, 10:38 amWaldiam:
Miriam, with all due respect, what difference does it make if Gavin is “condescending” or not? Personally I think the particular comment I cross-posted above is simply concise and straightforward. Gavin disagrees with Wally and, in fact, means to correct a misconception on Wally’s part — how is that condescending.
But even if it is “condescending,” at issue is not Gavin’s online persona, but whether or not Wally had a valid critique of GCMs, which Gavin believes he does not.
Is this a personal issue for you?
And how to you judge Wally’s online persona on Real Climate or here, for that matter? Do you think Wally is a particularly polite and non-aggressive poster?
September 15, 2010, 10:44 ampauld:
“Paul, why don’t you post your commentary on Real Climate where Gavin could respond? Or perhaps you have and are waiting?”
No, I am waiting for a response to Kiehl in the peer-reviewed literature:). But if any of the real climate folks want to come over here where comments are not moderated, I’ll be happy to engage in a discussion.
September 15, 2010, 10:51 amMiriam:
“… what difference does it make if Gavin is “condescending” or not?”
You aren’t listening. Please, re-read what I wrote. The issue is not that Gavin is condescending. The issue is that his reply is nothing, but hot air.
September 15, 2010, 11:02 amKreo:
Another summary? Nah, no need… The thread at the scientific web forefront of the Pro camp is a trainwreck, as expected. The posting system there is an even larger trainwreck, as forewarned. Waldo… as I note, nah, no need to say anything.
September 15, 2010, 11:26 amPaulD:
Waldo:
On second thought, I think I’ll take up your challenge to post at Realclimate.
This just posted at Realclimate:
“Gavin, you write: “The number of variable parameters that can be used for the tuning exercises you seem to want to do are tiny (a handful or so), and even they can’t be changed radically because you’ll lose radiative balance, or reasonable climatology.”
I am interested to know your reaction to Jeffrey T. Kiehl, 2007. Twentieth century climate model response and climate sensitivity. GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 34, L22710, doi:10.1029/2007GL031383, 2007
My reading of Kiehl is that there is a great deal of uncertainty in historical estimate of aerosol forcings and that these uncertainties are one of the primary sources of the uncertainty in the climate sensitivities generated by the climate models. Although I am not familiar with all the ins and outs of creating climate models, it seems to me that Kiehl’s observations at least create an appearance that climate models are “tuned” to historical data with choices of historical aerosol forcing from a plausible range of historical estimates.
September 15, 2010, 11:44 amWaldair:
*****”The issue is that his reply is nothing, but hot air.”
So why are you telling me? Tell him.
September 15, 2010, 12:06 pmWally:
Waldo,
“I believe I said you probably read the commentary on rich yields on CS, which was cross-posted from Watts Up. So in essence, if your primary source was CS, you were reading Watts Up. Forgive me if I was incorrect.
Where did you read about rich yields?”
I actually didn’t even know of this post on this site. I don’t always have time to read these pages. I actually read about this paper first as some news brief then looked up the paper.
September 15, 2010, 12:12 pmMiriam:
Sure, Waldo, sure. As I said before, my previous post on RC, now made two days ago, is still awaiting moderation. Isn’t life beautiful?
September 15, 2010, 12:13 pmAlex:
“Tell Gavin…” ROFL
September 15, 2010, 12:28 pmTed Rado:
Waldo: Yes, I have read everything I can find on alternative fuels, carbon sequestration, AGW, etc. for many years. The points I have made have nothing to do with my personal opinion. They are plain vanilla chemical engineering. I and every ch.e. I know are appalled at the way this is being handled by the government, and the fact that it brings out the worst from the academics and others seeking research grants or subsidies. If we ever end up with a sensible energy policy, I will believe in Divine intervention.
I have no qualifications re global warming, although I read all I can with interest. The work of Svensmark looks interesting. If it turns out to be valid, there will be a reasonable explanation of all the past and current climate phenomena. If he’s wrong, we will have to wait for many years until either we are sweating or, if the AGW thing is invalid, Al Gore gives back his Nobel prize.
September 15, 2010, 2:31 pmWaldo Walking on Eggshells:
So Ted, may I assume that you have read Vonder Haar’s, Iyer’s and Fan’s actual publications on the subject and know their work well enough from this to debunk them?
Where are the other chemical engineers? Certainly you are not the only ch.e. to notice this misuse of public funds? (I did not know that chemical engineers were that much smarter than the rest of the scientific community.)
And, if you are so appalled, why don’t you either contact the professors and let them know what you know, or why not let the world know through any of a number of routes? If you could debunk this with an afternoon’s work, what’s stopping you?
September 15, 2010, 10:19 pmWaldiam:
****”my previous post on RC, now made two days ago, is still awaiting moderation.”
Strange, Miriam, since RC has posted numerous posts from Russ R, Wally, Pauld, even yours truly — but you are singled out?
September 15, 2010, 10:22 pmWaldy:
****”I actually didn’t even know of this post on this site. I don’t always have time to read these pages. I actually read about this paper first as some news brief then looked up the paper.”
Sorry Wally, my bad. What paper? I do find a very brief news release from the Heartland Institute, but I’m not sure I trust them. I did find this
http://www.pnas.org/content/107/33/14562
but it uses a model, so I guess we must disregard.
September 15, 2010, 10:30 pmMiriam:
“Strange, Miriam, since RC has posted numerous posts from Russ R, Wally, Pauld, even yours truly — but you are singled out?”
Singled out? No, I don’t think so…
http://climateaudit.org/2009/08/15/rejected-by-rc/
September 15, 2010, 11:46 pmhttp://climateaudit.org/2005/10/02/389/
http://climateaudit.org/2005/10/29/is-gavin-schmidt-honest/
http://cstpr.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/climate_change/001180a_little_testy_at_re.html
http://climateaudit.org/2007/04/20/unthreaded-9/
Miriam:
“Strange, Miriam, since RC has posted numerous posts from Russ R, Wally, Pauld, even yours truly — but you are singled out?”
Singled out? No, I don’t think so…
http://climateaudit.org/2009/08/15/rejected-by-rc/
September 15, 2010, 11:49 pmMiriam:
And…
http://climateaudit.org/2005/10/02/389/
September 15, 2010, 11:49 pmhttp://climateaudit.org/2005/10/29/is-gavin-schmidt-honest/
Miriam:
And…
http://cstpr.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/climate_change/001180a_little_testy_at_re.html
September 15, 2010, 11:50 pmMiriam:
And…
http://climateaudit.org/2007/04/20/unthreaded-9/
September 15, 2010, 11:50 pmMiriam:
And a lot of other links. Google is your friend.
September 15, 2010, 11:50 pmMiriam:
And, I have just re-checked and my post still isn’t seen on RC. I am on a trip the next several days, so maybe it will appear after I return, but I am not holding my breath… and frankly, my interest in it appearing is at this point purely academic. Have fun, boys.
September 16, 2010, 12:15 amTed Rado:
Waldo: Chemical engineers are no smarter than any other profession. They just know more chemical engineering. I And yes, I have read up on Dr. Fan’s work.
September 16, 2010, 8:39 amWaldiam:
Ah yes, Climate Audit and a Pielke. A couple of unbiased, trustworthy sources for sure. It’s not that I don’t believe you, Miriam, but I do have to wonder why your post wasn’t posted, particularly when people as obnoxious as Wally and Pauld get through. A little testy yourself?
September 16, 2010, 8:42 amAlex:
“It’s not that I don’t believe you, Miriam, but I do have to wonder why your post wasn’t posted, particularly when people as obnoxious as Wally and Pauld get through.”
Ask folks at RC?
September 16, 2010, 9:40 amPaulD:
Waldo says: “It’s not that I don’t believe you, Miriam, but I do have to wonder why your post wasn’t posted, particularly when people as obnoxious as Wally and Pauld get through.”
I guess when I play with a troll, I should expect this type of comment.
My follow up to Gavin’s reply is now stuck in moderation, but it is too early to determine whether it has been deleted.
I actually thought Gavin’s reply was quite revealing. Wally, if you are interested in topic of “tuning” and why hindcasts tell us little about model reliability, I would suggest the following articles:
1. Jeffrey T. Kiehl, 2007. Twentieth century climate model response and climate sensitivity. GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 34, L22710, doi:10.1029/2007GL031383, 2007
2. Stephen E. Schwartz, Robert J. Charlson and Henning Rodhe, Quantifying Climate Change – Too
Rosy a Picture?, 2 Nature Reports: Climate Change 23 (2007)
3. Reto Knutti, Why are climate models reproducing the observed global surface warming so well?, 35 Geo. Res. Lett. L18704 (2008).
4. Johnson, “Global Warming Advocacy Science: a Cross Examination” University of Pennsylvania Law School, ILE INSTITUTE FOR LAW AND ECONOMICS, see section: “Obscuring Fundamental Disagreement Across Climate Models in both Explanations of Past Climate and Predictions of Future”
You can obtain the full text of each article by googling them. I would have provided you with the links, by Mr. Meyers seems to have a filter here that prevents too many links in one comment.
The first three articles are peer-reviewed articles by mainstream climatologists. The last is written by a law professor. I include it because it does a good job of reviewing and explaining implications of the peer-reviewed literature.
September 17, 2010, 7:02 amWally:
Thanks Paul, I’ll start looking through them.
September 17, 2010, 12:07 pmWaldoFlame:
Ted, does “read up on” Fan’s work mean you’ve read and evaluated the actual scientific data or simply the news reports and DOE website? If the latter is the case, then I am “read up on” Dr. Fan’s work too. And what about the others working on the team — have you “read up on” them also?
If it is the former, and you really have read the scientific papers, and you are convinced you know something the good professors do not, why not prove them wrong?
“Debunk” them, Ted, if you can.
************************************************
Paul, fair enough. You are a civil poster and I only lumped you with Wally, who is not always so civil, simply to make a point. My apologies. You are, however, typical of the denialists I’ve run into — you are obviously smart and articulate, but you have a smattering of knowledge, a good deal of it appears cherry picked (like the papers above) rather than broadly defined, and yet you would argue with the professional scientists who seem somewhat convinced you are not reading the scientific literature correctly. Likewise, you will cite an attorney over a climate scientist.
To suggest that a poster is not objective is generally tantamount to firing the proverbial flame-thrower and igniting a flame war — but do you consider yourself knowledgeable enough and objective enough to evaluate the issues at hand?
September 17, 2010, 10:28 pmTed Rado:
Pauld: Waldo seems to believe that only climate scientists should be heard, and everyone else is an incompetent or a nut case (himself excepted, of course). I earlier mentioned that a person with whom one can have a professional, civil, and productive discussion is a pearl beyond price. Waldo is clearly not calcium carbonate grown in an oyster.
I enjoyed our previous exchanges, which were civil and constructive. Thanks.
September 18, 2010, 9:46 amRuss R.:
Why I can no longer trust climate scientists:
Phil Jones:
- “We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?”
- “If anything, I would like to see the climate change happen, so the science could be proved right, regardless of the consequences. This isn’t being political, it is being selfish.”
- “I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.”
- “The two MMs [McIntyre and McKitrick] have been after the CRU station data for years. If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I’ll delete the file rather than send it to anyone”
- “I did get an email from the FOI person here early yesterday to tell me I shouldn’t be deleting emails…”
- “Mike, Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4? Keith will do likewise. He’s not in at the moment – minor family crisis. Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same? I don’t have his new email address. We will be getting Caspar to do likewise.”
- “I don’t think we should be taking much notice of what’s on blogs because they seem to be hijacking the peer-review process.”
- “I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow – even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!”
Michael Mann:
- “Dear Phil and Gabi,
I’ve attached a cleaned-up and commented version of the matlab code that I wrote for doing the Mann and Jones (2003) composites. I did this knowing that Phil and I are likely to have to respond to more crap criticisms from the idiots in the near future, so best to clean up the code and provide to some of my close colleagues in case they want to test it, etc. Please feel free to use this code for your own internal purposes, but don’t pass it along where it may get into the hands of the wrong people.”
- “As we all know, this isn’t about truth at all, its about plausibly deniable accusations.”
- “Anyway, I wanted you guys to know that you’re free to use RC any way you think would be helpful. Gavin and I are going to be careful about what comments we screen through, and we’ll be very careful to answer any questions that come up to any extent we can. On the other hand, you might want to visit the thread and post replies yourself. We can hold comments up in the queue and contact you about whether or not you think they should be screened through or not, and if so, any comments you’d like us to include.”
Tom Wigley:
- “Phil, Here are some speculations on correcting SSTs to partly explain the 1940s warming blip. If you look at the attached plot you will see that the land also shows the 1940s blip (as I’m sure you know). So, if we could reduce the ocean blip by, say, 0.15 degC, then this would be significant for the global mean — but we’d still have to explain the land blip. I’ve chosen 0.15 here deliberately. This still leaves an ocean blip, and i think one needs to have some form of ocean blip to explain the land blip (via either some common forcing, or ocean forcing land, or vice versa, or all of these).”
- “We probably need to say more about this. Land warming since 1980 has been twice the ocean warming — and skeptics might claim that this proves that urban warming is real and important.”
- “Mike’s idea to get editorial board members to resign will probably not work — must get rid of von Storch too, otherwise holes will eventually fill up with people like Legates, Balling, Lindzen, Michaels, Singer, etc.”
Tim Osborne:
- “Keith has asked me to send you a timeseries for the IPCC multi-proxy reconstruction figure, to replace the one you currently have. The data are attached to this e-mail. They go from 1402 to 1995, although we usually stop the series in 1960 because of the recent non-temperature signal that is superimposed on the tree-ring data that we use.”
Kevin Trenberth:
- “The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate.”
Stephen Schneider:
- “we need to get some broad based support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, means getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have.”
Edward Cook:
- “I got a paper to review (submitted to the Journal of Agricultural, Biological, and Environmental Sciences), written by a Korean guy and someone from Berkeley, that claims that the method of reconstruction that we use in dendroclimatology (reverse regression) is wrong, biased, lousy, horrible, etc. … If published as is, this paper could really do some damage … It won’t be easy to dismiss out of hand as the math appears to be correct theoretically (…) I am really sorry but I have to nag about that review — Confidentially I now need a hard and if required extensive case for rejecting.”
Keith Briffa:
- “I know there is pressure to present a nice tidy story as regards ‘apparent unprecedented warming in a thousand years or more in the proxy data’ but in reality the situation is not quite so simple. We don’t have a lot of proxies that come right up to date and those that do (at least a significant number of tree proxies ) some unexpected changes in response that do not match the recent warming.”
David Frame:
- “Rather than seeing models as describing literal truth, we ought to see them as convenient fictions which try to provide something useful.”
Chris Folland:
- “The data don’t matter. We’re not basing our recommendations [for reductions in carbon dioxide emissions] upon the data. We’re basing them upon the climate models”
Monika Kopacz:
September 18, 2010, 10:31 pm- “It is no secret that a lot of climate-change research is subject to opinion, that climate models sometimes disagree even on the signs of the future changes (e.g. drier vs. wetter future climate). The problem is, only sensational exaggeration makes the kind of story that will get politicians’ — and readers’ — attention. So, yes, climate scientists might exaggerate, but in today’s world, this is the only way to assure any political action and thus more federal financing to reduce the scientific uncertainty”
Waldo A Pearl Beyond Price:
****”Waldo seems to believe that only climate scientists should be heard”
Never said that. But if you are going to challenge climate scientists, you should probably at least have done the requisite work to challenge the climate scientists and be willing to back up your work with those that can evaluate it – otherwise how do you know if you’re an incompetent or not?
I’m sure, Ted, if someone came on here challenging your expertise in chemical engineering, you would not respond with pearly complextion yourself. You see how you react when I simply ask you if you’ve actually done your homework.
I think Ted has just admitted he is not well-read in the subject he feels so strongly about and that he cannot, with any certainty, “debunk” the good professors in question with only an afternoon’s work.
Why is it that denialists become so defensive and angry when a) asked to prove themselves to the scientific community, b) asked if they actually know what they are talking about, and c) asked where they get their information from?
No one here knows what they are posting about, Ted, including you. That is now obvious. Don’t kid yourself that you are walking away, dignity in place, my friend. Your bluff was simply called.
September 18, 2010, 11:30 pmAlex:
Very true, Russ. And the answer from the CAGW camp? “EVERYBODY says things like that.” Ridiculous.
September 18, 2010, 11:31 pmWaldo R:
****”Why I can no longer trust climate scientists”
Because once they got ahold of my math they tore it to shreds and now I’m resorting to posting quotes out of context in typical denialist fashion?
Oh yeah, I’m objective too.
September 18, 2010, 11:33 pmRuss R.:
Waldo.
1. Math… Unlike certain climate scientists, I actually appreciate it when people poke holes in my work, and at every step of the way I have happily shown you my data and methods for exactly that purpose. You might not have noticed, but I made and posted corrections over a week ago (September 10, 3:21pm).
2. Quotes… I compiled a list of more than a few prominent scientists saying or writing more than a few questionable things that would, to any objective reader, call their honesty, integrity, motives and methods into question. You simply assert that all of them are being taken “out of context” and dismiss all 22 of them outright. If I’m in error, I’d be more than pleased to hear exactly what context I should be considering when interpreting their comments. (Yes, I’m aware that “hide the decline” refers not to temperatures, but to tree-ring proxy data. So you can skip that one.) Your burden of proof awaits you sir.
I should also note that I’m not saying “the scientists are wrong”. Rather, because of a few ‘bad apples’ who have revealed a willingness to fudge, exaggerate, obstruct, mislead, or deceive, I can no longer trust them without further verification. As I wrote earlier: “put your trust in facts, not people”.
September 19, 2010, 4:51 amEli:
You know what? Seeing climate change is a scam, Seeing the Oil Spill, huge swaths of rainforests disappearing, and the lack of good drinking water around the world and also the mercury that gets into everything including our fish no thanks to the coal power industry, it might be about time to realize that there are other environmental problems that need to be addressed so would anyone be willing to join the team in that? Also, want a lot simpler way to measure the world’s average climate? Take a look at the ice in the north pole and tell me whether the ice there has been getting thicker or thinner over the last 40 years. Also go to Greenland and tell me what’s going on over there as far as the ice is concerned. Ask any Greenlander and they will give you the answer to what’s happening to their climate very quickly that is whether it’s staying the same, getting cooler, or getting warmer. What’s causing it? good question.
September 19, 2010, 11:43 amEli:
Take a look at this link the Millennium Economic Assessment http://www.millenniumassessment.org/en/index.aspx
September 19, 2010, 11:45 amWaldo Contextualizing:
Okay, let’s start at the bottom and move up. The context of the last quote, from Monica Kopacz, a graduate student, is here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/12/magazine/12letters-t-THECIVILHERE_LETTERS.html?ref=magazine
It’s a letter to the editor and nothing more substantial than that. And it is not an admission of guilt, but an opinion from a young woman (who has yet to prove herself as a scientist) commenting on Freeman Dyson’s “The Civil Heretic.”
Let me say that again, Russ, this is not an admission of guilt, simply an unsubstanciated opinion in a letter to the editor. It is not conclusive or revelatory of anything. This is where context becomes important, my droogy.
She agrees that the science is correct but, in her view, exaggerated. You neglected to quote the entirety of her very short letter and the other letters, also from scientists, who disagree with Dyson’s conclusions.
This will obviously take some time, but let’s go through them, shall we?
September 19, 2010, 2:08 pmRuss R.:
Waldo,
RE: Monica Kopacz quote
So you’re dismissing Ms. Kopacz’s opinion because she’s “yet to prove herself as a scientist” yet somehow her opinion carried enough weight to be printed in the New York Times. But to you she’s a nobody.
She has a PhD from Harvard in Applied Mathematics and Atmospheric Chemistry (which was granted in July 2009, 3 months after the quote was published) and she’s now post-doc research associate at Princeton. I guess those two institutions don’t meet your high academic standards.
Since her CV lists 11 published climate papers (3 as lead author), she therefore has some experience with what does and does not attract attention and grant money, which was clearly the substance of her statement: “The problem is, only sensational exaggeration makes the kind of story that will get politicians’ — and readers’ — attention. So, yes, climate scientists might exaggerate, but in today’s world, this is the only way to assure any political action and thus more federal financing to reduce the scientific uncertainty”.
My conclusion… some scientists feel pressure to exaggerate in order achieve their objectives. I’d be happy to entertain any evidence you have to the contrary.
September 19, 2010, 3:43 pmRuss R.:
Waldo,
Sorry, I neglected to answer your question. Yes, I’d be happy to go through all 22 quotes to better understand their context.
I will, in good faith, acknowledge any instance where you can show that being taken out of context has distorted the substance of the quote, and I hope you’ll acknowledge the occasions where the scientists’ words should be taken at face value.
I fully expect that you will have a valid case on some of them, but so far, you’re 0-for-1.
September 19, 2010, 4:27 pmWaldocz:
It’s pretty funny you are now thinking this way, Russ. And yes, if one looks at Dr. Kopacz’s CV, she was actually a graduate student at the time she wrote the above letter – but perhaps I am splitting hairs and that is not really important.
What is important, Russ, is that this is only an unsubstantiated letter to the editor, albeit the NY Times, which states an opinion, and is only one of five letters printed on this subject. Four of the NYT letters – including a UC Berkeley climate scientist, a Columbia U climate scientist (in other words, scientists who have risen to the top of their fields), and an arctic photo journalist, – disagree substantially with Dr. Kopacz.
But you choose to excerpt Dr. Kopacz and not the other opinions on the page.
This is why context is important, Russ. You choose to excerpt less than the fifth of the opinions offered on a particular subject as evidence. You cite one voice that you cherry picked.
You cite the critic of AGW but not the proponents of AGW, even though the proponents are objectively more credentialed, no matter how brilliant Dr. Kopacz may or may not be.
At one point in time didn’t you get very agitated when I suggested you were not particularly objective. Do you still feel you are an objective observer of the climate science phenomenon?
I’m going to have to disagree with your 0-1 reading here, my friend. And what is it you think you’ll accomplish with the above set of quotations anyway?
September 19, 2010, 11:49 pmAlex:
I am sorry, why do you think the quoted words belong to Monika Kopacz, allegedly, a student at the time of publication, and not to James Balog, the Director of Extreme Ice Survey? Could it be you have been puzzled by the second letter which have been signed by two people?
September 20, 2010, 1:42 amAlex:
Please disregard. I can’t read.
September 20, 2010, 1:45 amRuss R.:
Waldo,
It’s not like I’m assembling a review of Freeman Dyson’s book. If I was, then yes, a number of opinions would have been appropriate.
But my subject isn’t a book review. I’m looking at the credibility of scientists. Why this is relevant is that a climate scientist from Harvard writing in the New York Times voiced her opinion on the subject of scientists in her field needing to exaggerate for the sake of getting attention and financing. That’s the point here… not Dyson’s book, so I don’t care if other reviewers didn’t like his work.
You’re welcome to argue against her opinion, but on what grounds? That she’s unqualified? I’ll listen to a coherent argument against her, but dismissing her as “only a letter to the editor” doesn’t address her point.
“Do you still feel you are an objective observer of the climate science phenomenon?” Yes. Do I bother to get agitated every time you call my objectivity into question? No. If you were to point out any specific failings in my objectivity, I’d definitely consider your opinion… albeit objectively, since I’m now quite familiar with your bias and tendency to be argumentative for argument’s sake (a.k.a. trolling).
“What is it you think you’ll accomplish with the above set of quotations anyway?” Nothing… they’re just a sampling of quotes from scientists themselves that explain why I can no longer trust them outright.
I’ll back up a bit here. Prior to watching Al Gore’s film “An Inconvenient Truth” sometime in 2007, I never paid much attention to the climate. I was too busy getting an MBA and working as a management consultant. I figured with the Kyoto Protocol and all, the problem was been looked after at the highest levels, and I went about my business, generally making some effort to reduce my ‘carbon footprint’ where convenient (though mostly because it’s economical to do so).
My opinion on the science wasn’t very informed. I’d seen the headlines in the news on both sides of the issue, and as a shortcut I figured (like most issues) the truth probably was found somewhere between the views of the NYT and WSJ.
Then I watched Gore’s film, at the insistence of a girl I was dating. It was pretty shocking. As far as Powerpoint presentations go, it was the best I’d ever seen (and as a consultant I’d seen a whole lot of Powerpoint). But looking past the pretty slides and graphics, the substance of Gore’s message seemed well outside the mainstream. I was confused at how things could possibly be as bad as he claimed but the mainstream media wasn’t reporting it. So I decided to look into it more closely. Fortunately, the IPCC AR4 SPM was released shortly after I saw the film, and it revealed that Gore was exaggerating tremendously and frequently getting the science wrong. (20 feet of sea level rise is just one glaring example), So, conclusion… politicians will say whatever they feel they need to, and you probably shouldn’t ever believe them on any subject, but especially not climate science.
But when I compared the media’s reporting to the IPCC’s projections, I noticed another phenomenon, not of outright exaggeration, but of reporting only the high end of any range. Hypothetical example: If IPCC AR4 reported something like “Various scenarios show potential sea levels rising by 7 to 65 centimeters by 2100, with a most likely expectation of 24 cm.”, the news headline would be “Scientists say sea level could rise more than 2 feet”. While the headline is factually correct, it leaves a distinctly different impression and makes absolutely no mention of the low or mid range estimates. And I saw this type of reporting happening frequently as the AR4 SPM was digested and reported in the media. Conclusion… you can’t just read the news media… you’ve got to look to the scientists if you want to get the real story.
So I took the time to familiarize myself with AR4, and for the next couple of years, whenever I found myself in a debate on the subject of climate, my trump car was “Well, I don’t know where you get your facts, but the IPCC says [x]“. In other words, I trusted “the scientists”.
It was only last year, 2009, with the leak of the UAE CRU emails, that my trust in the scientists was shaken. The emails showed that a small number of scientists (albeit highly influential individuals) had not been completely above board in their dealings. I was disappointed to see that they had resorted to some of the tactics that I’d seen in some of the weaker financial analysts I’d worked with. (Not releasing data, hiding ambiguities, overstating confidence in findings, fudging results to make them easier to present, etc.) Worse still, I read things that would make even the most unethical finance professional blush (instructions to delete emails in contravention of FOI requests).
So, my conclusion now is… I can no longer trust climate scientists to be honest and unbiased in their reporting, and I’ll have to look to the facts themselves to inform my views.
That’s what I call being objective.
September 20, 2010, 5:33 amThe Scorekeeper:
Poll open to all readers (except Russ R. and Waldo)
Monika Kopacz full quote:
“The Civil Heretic” was a perfect example of what Freeman Dyson disagrees with: blatant and unfounded exaggeration. Dyson is not a “global-warming heretic”; he does not dispute the science. He simply says, and rightfully so, that the science is both uncertain and very much exaggerated. It is no secret that a lot of climate-change research is subject to opinion, that climate models sometimes disagree even on the signs of the future changes (e.g. drier vs. wetter future climate). The problem is, only sensational exaggeration makes the kind of story that will get politicians’ — and readers’ — attention. So, yes, climate scientists might exaggerate, but in today’s world, this is the only way to assure any political action and thus more federal financing to reduce the scientific uncertainty.
MONIKA KOPACZ
Applied Mathematics and Atmospheric Sciences
Harvard University
Cambridge, Mass.
(http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/12/magazine/12letters-t-THECIVILHERE_LETTERS.html?ref=magazine)
Context: Appeared April 9, 2009 in the New York Times Magazine, Letters to the Editor, along with 4 other reviews of Freeman Dyson’s book, offering different viewpoints. At the time of publication, Kopacz was a Harvard Graduate Research Assistant and had not yet been awarded her PhD.
Poll question: Does the context of the Kopacz quote meaningfully change its substance? (Y/N)
September 20, 2010, 6:33 amWaldo in the UK:
I was unable to find the original Folland comment. So I emailed the Met inqueries office. This is the response I received.
“Dear Waldo
“This is a slight distortion of my observation nearly 20 years ago of the fact that when interest by the nations of the world in the problem of greenhouse gases and climate change started in a big way around 1988, projections for future warming by models were the main driver of nation’s concerns. At the time of the 1990 IPCC report this was still largely true. I think the quote comes from that period or just after.
“Of course things have changed dramatically since then. Firstly, climate change detection and attribution, which means comparing observed data to the simulations of the models, has been at the forefront of the 1996, 2001 and 2007 IPCC reports and many other documents, and doubtless will be a high profile concern of the 2014 report. So the observed data have since 1996 have come to take a centre stage in climate change debates and in policy responses. Secondly observations have become crucial in their own right (independent of models) since many different kinds of data sets (different climatic variables) have been created and have provided a multivariate proof of global warming. This concordance of many types of observations in showing climate change consistent with global warming has become crucially i mportant to the policy debate. Indeed there has been, and continues to be, much pressure internationally to extend this kind of multivariate observational work.
“So times have (very) long since changed – dramatically! I notice climate change sceptics are very fond of quoting out of date results as if nothing had changed in climate science in 20 years of international effort.
“Regards
“Chris”
Context. Context. Context.
September 20, 2010, 9:51 amWaldoKeeper:
Scorekeeper, you have an interesting idea.
But the good peeps here will agree with Russ R’s interpretation of events. So the score will largely be meaningless here.
September 20, 2010, 9:57 amRuss R.:
Waldo,
Re: Chris Folland quote.
I’ll happily grant you that this quote is now out of date, and may no longer be relevant today.
I’d say you’re now 1-for-2. In baseball terms, .500 is a stellar batting average, but the season is still young. You’ve still got 20 more quotes to go.
September 20, 2010, 1:07 pmThe Scorekeeper:
Since Russ R. has conceded that the Chris Folland quote was improperly taken out of context, no audience poll is necessary.
Waldo is awarded one point.
September 20, 2010, 5:10 pmShills:
Russ R,
Kevin T quote explained:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Kevin-Trenberth-travesty-cant-account-for-the-lack-of-warming.htm
September 20, 2010, 5:12 pmShills:
The schneider quote:
http://climatesight.org/2009/04/12/the-schneider-quote/
September 20, 2010, 5:23 pmShills:
this covers a few I think:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/11/the-cru-hack-context/
Most of russ’s quotes are from the climategate emails, which is months old and lead to no serious repercussions.
Some have been debunked ages ago. When scientists say they are sick of endless rehashing of old debunked material, Russ, your little list is what they are talking about.
And you say that you are objective but then why did you put up the ‘hide the decline’ quote when you knew it was debunked??
September 20, 2010, 6:01 pmRuss R.:
Shills,
Re: Kevin Trenberth “travesty” quote.
Thank you, but I’ve already seen the page you linked to, and I’m fully aware that Trenberth was referring to an energy budget/heat imbalance, and not absolute warming. So, yes, I have been reading his quote in the correct context.
In fact, I greatly respect Trenberth for his willingness to stand up to both Tom Wigley and Michael Mann, and argue that “we are no where close to knowing where energy is going or whether clouds are changing to make the planet brighter. We are not close to balancing the energy budget.”
You can see the full email chain here: http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=1052
What concerns me is not the existence of the discrepancy in heat balance/temperature calculations, or the uncertainty around measurements… that’s a normal part of research in any complex subject.
This leaked email troubles me because it reveals a level of disagreement between the world’s leading climate scientists that is entirely at odds with what is often reported to the public… that “the science is settled”. Admitting doubts in private but concealing them from the public to portray confidence doesn’t meet my bar for trustworthiness.
If climate scientists were to honestly acknowledge to the public, in plain language, the degree of uncertainty in their research, I’d have much greater respect for them… but they don’t.
Show me one public example of a prominent climate scientist making an admission of doubt, of magnitude comparable to: “we are no where close to knowing where energy is going or whether clouds are changing to make the planet brighter. We are not close to balancing the energy budget.” or “we can’t account for the lack of warming”, and I’ll change my view on scientists being duplicitous.
September 20, 2010, 7:27 pmRuss R.:
Shills,
Re: Schneider quote
I had not read the full quote (pasted below), so this was helpful.
“On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but – which means that we must include all doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we’d like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climate change. To do that we need to get some broad based support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, means getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This “double ethical bind” we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both.”
I read this as Schneider lamenting the current state of “sound bite” media coverage, and not as some nefarious plan to advance an agenda.
However, this only strengthens the argument I was making earlier to Waldo that scientists feel pressure to exaggerate in order to get attention and funding.
So while the full context of the quote does clear up some potential misunderstandings, it still doesn’t exactly bolster my trust in climate scientists, who still have to “decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest”. While Schneider, recently deceased, might well have tried to be both, it appears that some of his peers strike a rather different balance.
September 20, 2010, 7:58 pmRuss R.:
Shills (again),
Re: “Climategate” emails.
“months old and lead to no serious repercussions.” Most of them are actually a lot older than “months”, dating back as far the 90′s. But their release has indeed lead to serious repercussions, namely the public’s loss of trust in climate scientists.
The best case would be that scientists acknowledge this, and make a concerted effort to be as transparent and open as possible, to win back the public’s trust.
The worst case would be that the public’s trust is not restored and some very legitimate work that climate scientists do ends up being ignored, possibly to the world’s great peril. This is the danger of crying wolf…
“And you say that you are objective but then why did you put up the ‘hide the decline’ quote when you knew it was debunked??”
I hardly consider the “hide the decline” quote to be “debunked”. As I said, I’m aware that “the decline” doesn’t refer to temperatures (which have been rising). Jones was referring to replacing the later tree-ring proxy data with actual temperature measurements rather than showing the “divergence problem”… an inexplicable decline in tree-ring proxy data coincident with rising temperatures. This divergence calls the accuracy of the entire dendroclimatology record into question (as 50 years of the 150 year measured temperature records do not agree with the tree-ring proxies), so they chose to hide it rather than admit that trees are lousy thermometers.
I assume you can see the problem with this sort of behavior.
September 20, 2010, 8:22 pmShills:
Russ,
the ‘hiding of the decline’ is what the actual authors of the original paper suggest be done in a published paper in Nature. There was no attempts at deception.
And how do you know that ‘This divergence calls the accuracy of the entire dendroclimatology record into question’??
September 20, 2010, 8:49 pmAlex:
Regarding this:
“On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we’d like to see the world a better place, …”
Where this starts, science ends. There is a reason people care about projections of global temperatures made by “scientists” a lot more than they care about projections of global temperatures made by “humans”. When someone starts behaving like a “human” (imposing his or her views on what’s good and what’s bad, what’s risky and what’s safe onto the rest of us), while still pretending to be a “scientist”, he stops being a person people can trust.
September 20, 2010, 11:13 pmAlex:
By the way, I don’t see how Chris Folland’s quote is irrelevant to the question of whether or not we can trust climate scientists. It has been made years ago, fine, so what? “Things have changed”? Are we supposed to just take someone’s words for this? While discussing the topic of trust itself? There are other quotes and things besides quotes that don’t exactly confirm the view that the CAGW camp was playing clean in the recent five years or is playing clean right now.
In fact, that’s a clear point to Russ, since Chris admitted making the quote and confirmed that the sense of that quote is exactly how it was relayed.
September 20, 2010, 11:26 pmAlex:
Also, speaking of honesty of climate scientists…
Please read this:
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2010/9/18/george-monbiot-scrubbing-the-record-clean.html
The charity of Dr Pachauri, that stood to benefit from the erroneous predictions of doom coming to glaciers (I am sure everyone remembers the story) has apparently been reporting only 15% of its income for the last three years. As if that wasn’t enough, most of the unreported money apparently went to the other charity of Dr Pachauri as a consultation fee. Most of charity’s income has been spent on Dr Pachauri for the services of him consulting with himself.
September 21, 2010, 12:41 amRuss R.:
Shills,
“…the ‘hiding of the decline’ is what the actual authors of the original paper suggest be done in a published paper in Nature. There was no attempts at deception.”
In that case, why didn’t they bother to mention on their graph that some of the proxy data wasn’t exclusively proxy data? Even an asterisk with a footnote would have been a good start.
Sorry Shills, your defense doesn’t cut it. If they’re going to make the argument that proxy data is an acceptable substitute for actual measurements, then there’s one critical thing a reader will look for… Do the proxies match the actual temperatures for the period where both are available? If they don’t, then it becomes a matter of integrity when the scientists choose to hide the proxy data as they begin to diverge, and make no mention that the reader is looking at grafting-on real measurements instead.
“And how do you know that ‘This divergence calls the accuracy of the entire dendroclimatology record into question’??”
There’s a fundamental problem. The existence of a divergence in the known record means raises concern there may exist other divergences in the unknown record. Nobody knows, or can know, if tree growth rates may have exhibited similar anomalies in the past… but by concealing the recent divergence, it gives the reader a false sense of confidence that there is no reason to believe that the proxy might not accurately reflect the real data.
September 21, 2010, 4:18 amRuss R.:
Funny:
http://xkcd.com/793/
September 21, 2010, 5:56 amhunter:
The deception in hide the decline was that Jones & gang new that any reasonable person would question the efficacy of the tree rings as temperature proxies if they were honest. So they chose to not be honest.
September 21, 2010, 8:47 amTed Rado:
Much of the above commentary deals with the qualifications of the author to make comments on the AGW thing. Some suggest that unless one is a climate scientist, they have no business commenting. Others state that unless you have checked every calculation, experiment, etc. done by the researcher, you have no right to raise questions.
In a R&D or engineering setting, when a person completes a study, a presentation to the management and other members of the staff usually takes place. The author of the work explains what he did, the results obtained, and the conclusions reached. Questions and comments are then received from the floor, to be answered or explained by the author. This includes such things as the data source, how it was obtained, what is the theoretical basis for the work, what alternative schemes were investigated, etc. In the case of a computer model, how was the model validated? The range of questions and comments can be quite extensive. The idea is to be sure that there is no flaw or blunder in the work, especially if major expenditure is involved, or if there is a serious safety issue. The participants have read the report and done whatever further investigation they believe is warranted ahead of the meeting. The person whose work is being reviewed is invariably delighted to explain his work and answer questions. If one feels that they have done good piece of work, they do not fear such a discussion. Only those who are unsure, or who know they have done poor work will shun such a presentation. On a personal note, if I felt I had done good piece of work, I was always happy to explain it to my colleages. If it was flawed, I wanted to find that out as well before much money and effort was spent.
Obviously, each member of the staff cannot review every calculation, experiment, and investigation done by the author. Otherwise, everyone would spend all their time reviewing each other’s work, with no time for their own. The group members rely on the general competence of their peers to detect any flaws in the work.
Most of the people commenting in this blog are of course interested in the subject, but obviously have not been able to study in detail every piece of work that everyone in the world has done. To suggest that they are therefore disqualified from raising questions or making comments is absurd.
September 21, 2010, 9:01 amhunter:
Ted Rado,
September 21, 2010, 9:50 amYet the trolls who have high jacked this blog utterly rely on that tactic.
And I note the same tactic being very populr with trolls in general.
Of course the irony that the troll him/her self not being an expert never really seems to be important in their defense.
Ted Rado:
Hunter: I have no expertise in climate science. Although I follow the AGW thing with interest, my main interest is in the implementation of the idea.
What I find fascinating is the reluctance of many AGW researchers and proponents to have their work questioned and discussed. If the AGW theory turns out to be wrong, there will be a whole army of people that will go down in history with terrible professional reputations. Also, the reputation of the scientific community as a whole will be in shreds. No lay person will have confidence in science or scientists. I would think they would want to avoid all that by finding any flaws that may exist. Who wants to look like a fool? Instead, the more questions that are raised, the more they try to shout down or demonize their questioners.
Being wrong is not a sin. Hawking had the idea that the expansion of the universe was slowing down, and eventually would reverse and implode. The Hubble telescope proved him wrong. He was the first to acknowledge that fact. Everyone’s respect for him as an honorable person and objective scientist grew immensely as a result. No body knocks you for a faulty hypothesis. That’s part of science. Refusing to discuss one’s work for fear of being wrong is the bad thing.
I am sure that most “skeptics” are honestly trying to find the truth, not just trying to torpedo the work of the AGW people. Why not have a calm and professional exchange of views?
As stated earlier, my concern is that even if the AGW models are correct, if we charge off and sharply curtail fossil fuel use before we have viable alternative energy sources and have the Indians and Chinese on board, we will have destroyed the world economy for no purpose. Back in the Carter years, 80 billion was spent on oil shale R&D, to no avail. We can afford to fritter away that much, but not what the AGW people want to spend.
Thanks for your previous note.
September 21, 2010, 3:25 pmShills:
Russ says: ‘then there’s one critical thing a reader will look for…’
Yep. Now just think back to who that reader would be?? The target audience is not you or me, it is other climate scientists and related fields who would be more knowledgeable on the general implications of various data including that from dendroclim. Now they did not seem too worried about this particular email did they? Wonder why…. Maybe it is just common knowledge? Maybe it is written about in this textbook: Paleoclimates: Understanding Climate Change Past and Present, by Thomas M. Cronin.
Russ says: ‘Nobody knows, or can know, if tree growth rates may have exhibited similar anomalies in the past…’
Thats why you compare them with other proxies? But again you are making damning assertions about a particular field you have nothing to do with.
September 21, 2010, 5:33 pmRuss R.:
Shills,
“Now just think back to who that reader would be?? The target audience is not you or me, it is other climate scientists and related fields who would be more knowledgeable on the general implications of various data including that from dendroclim.”
No, you’ve got it quite wrong… the IPCC’s target audience is certainly not other climate scientists. Let me give you a clue… there’s some large print on the cover of their most recent report that reads “Summary for Policymakers”.
“Thats why you compare them with other proxies?”
You’ll need to explain this further. What does comparing them with other proxies achieve?
September 21, 2010, 8:07 pmShills:
Russ,
says: ‘the IPCC’s target audience is certainly not other climate scientists’.
Oh, so you mean the public stuff? Of course it gets blurred over in statements for the public and pollies, but not every little uncontroversial detail is gonna be explained for them because most people don’t believe in conspiracy theories. That’s why folks such as yourself, should just go to the original research, if you have trust issues.
says: ‘You’ll need to explain this further. What does comparing them with other proxies achieve?’
The only one here who needs to do anything is you. You are the one making condemning remarks about a field you know nothing about. You are the one amateur casting doubt on a field of expert research done by hundreds of scientists. You show why your statement is an informed opinion of their work.
September 21, 2010, 9:55 pmAlex:
No, Shills. Russ articulated his point of view. A proxy that diverges from real values of what it is trying to be proxy of is not very useful. Hiding this divergence is questionable to say the least. That’s not rocket science. If you don’t know any of this, don’t argue. No need to say that you have to believe, because you don’t know better over and over and over again.
September 21, 2010, 10:42 pmShills:
Wow. this divergence thing is such a non-issue. It is clearly and uncontroversialy known within the field. And it doesn’t come up in every public releases because none of that kind of detail does.
No one is telling Russ what to believe. But if he wants to base his beliefs in facts then he should understand the field before passing judgement. Otherwise his beliefs are just simple uninformed opinion.
September 22, 2010, 12:27 ampauld:
Shills says: “Wow. this divergence thing is such a non-issue. It is clearly and uncontroversialy known within the field. And it doesn’t come up in every public releases because none of that kind of detail does.”
Wow, Shills. You are indeed a useful idiot for Mann, et.al.
September 22, 2010, 3:19 amShills:
Gee Pauld, you sure showed me.
September 22, 2010, 3:34 amRuss R.:
Shills,
Your unwillingness to back up your own arguments (i.e. “compare them with other proxies”), leads me to believe one of three things:
1) You’re making stuff up as you go and don’t really believe it or can’t back it up. (aka “trolling”).
2) You’re too busy, (or too lazy) and can’t (or won’t) put in the time to construct a solid argument, resorting to lobbing unsupported one-liners and acting like you’ve made an argument.
3) You’re unable to critically read and rationally evaluate an argument, so you resort to accepting any “argument from authority” at face value, never questioning whether you’re actually getting the whole story, and whether it actually makes any logical sense.
So, do me (and your credibility) a favour… make an actual case to support your own statements.
I made a simple, logical argument. If there exists a divergence between proxy data and actual measurements in the known record, then there could similarly exist other such divergences for periods before measurements were recorded. Absent actual measurements, nobody can know if similar anomalies occurred in the past, which makes the reliability of the proxy data questionable.
You wrote in response: “Thats why you compare them with other proxies”.
Explain or GTFO.
September 22, 2010, 5:40 amhunter:
Just because many climate scientists believe tree rings make good proxy thermometers does not make it so.
September 22, 2010, 6:00 amTed Rado:
There has been much written about tree rings. It has been pointed out that factors other than temp affect tree ring growth, such as rainfall. Also, one of the papers I saw dealt with bristlecone pine, which are quite gnarled and twisted and has a very irregular cross section. The investigator took a sample just a few inches from where the original sample had been taken and got a completely different profile due to the irregular shape. I have seen photos of Michael Mann with a tree section that looked like a phonograph record. How many tree sections really look like that, especially bristlecone pine?
Does anyone know if the debate over tree rings as a temp proxy has gone anywhere, or is it still controversial?
What is interesting is that there is so much debate over actual temperature measurements (heat islands, faulty measuring station layout, temp stations added or abandoned, etc.). The sensors in space seemingly are sometimes at variance with surface measurements. Ocean measurements are also debated. If actual temperature measurements are in dispute, how can we be so sure of tree rings and other proxies?
Even ocean levels are in dispute. A man who is supposedly one of the leading experts on ocean levels (a Swedish professor, I believe) says there is no unusual change in ocean level, yet the press is full of horror stories of islands disappearing, etc.
September 22, 2010, 10:36 amWaldo Rado:
****”Some suggest that unless one is a climate scientist, they have no business commenting. Others state that unless you have checked every calculation, experiment, etc. done by the researcher, you have no right to raise questions.”
The point, Ted, is do you know what the hell you are talking about? You do not. This is a typical plaint of denialists when their uninformed opinions are challenged. But not everyone’s opinion is equal. Oncologists understand cancer better. Mechanical engineers understand mechanics better. Physicists understand physics better. And chemical engineers understand chemical engineering better.
And we have established that you have not actually done your homework to understand climate science or the work on lime as a filtering agent to make a comment.
So you are guaranteed a right to your opinion. But we can ask you to validate your opinion too. Which makes you and the typical denialist angry. Ironic that.
****”What I find fascinating is the reluctance of many AGW researchers and proponents to have their work questioned and discussed.”
Bullshit. It’s all out there Ted. Peeps cling to the CRU thing and ignore the multiple, free downloads and computer codes only a Google search away. Denialists would like to
September 22, 2010, 11:15 amWaldo completed:
Sorry, incomplete sentence
Denialists would like to believe that they are being denied the right to examine the evidence while refusing to adequately read up or understand the evidence freely available to them
September 22, 2010, 11:17 amWaldo Frame:
David Frame quotes:
““Rather than seeing models as describing literal truth, we ought to see them as convenient fictions which try to provide something useful.”
And from the exact same essay:
“Climate change detection and attribution studies allow us to claim, with more than 95% confidence [...] Moreover, we can say that the climate evolved in just the way we would have expected [...]So such evidence, as there is, seems to suggest that we in the mainstream climate community have been right so far.”
In summary, there is no universally agreed way of approaching the problem of quantifying uncertainty in climate forecasts. Owing to the problems outlined in this paper, especially that of induction, there will never be a single ‘right way’ of dealing with uncertainty in climate research. The decisions we make regarding (i) the comparison of data to ensembles, (ii) the appropriateness of different ‘prior’ distributions or families of distributions, and (iii) the adequacy of the model families themselves will always materially affect the results we obtain. Given this situation, the best we can do is to make our methodologies and assumptions as open and transparent as possible. This may sound like a homily to some and dangerously social constructivist to others, but at least this allows simple and direct comparisons between different studies: if everyone followed Forest et al. (2002, 2006) in showing the effects of a uniform and expert prior (or the likelihoods as well as the posterior), then we can at least compare the effects of the prior.
September 22, 2010, 11:29 amWaldo Frame II:
Now, clearly I have elided parts of the 2nd excerpt and excerpted a very specific part of a very complicated essay. But it is exactly the same essay that the excerpt you posted comes from.
If you read the entire essay, you will see that neither excerpt gives one the sum total of what Frame was going for, which is an epistemological examination of the problems of computer modeling.
The point, Russ, is that, yes, the context of the essay is considerably different than either of the brief excerpts above indicate. One can excerpt anything you like and make it say almost anything you like. Which is what you did, whether or not you meant to. Did you read Frame’s essay? – it’s actually a bit of philosophy about climate science and not actual climate science. The excerpt you posted is essentially poetic rather than literal diction.
I have also given you the conclusion to the essay to give you a better idea about what he is talking about.
One can read the entire essay here:
http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/365/1857/1971.full
The abstract is here:
“The development of ensemble-based ‘probabilistic’ climate forecasts is often seen as a promising avenue for climate scientists. Ensemble-based methods allow scientists to produce more informative, nuanced forecasts of climate variables by reflecting uncertainty from various sources, such as similarity to observation and model uncertainty. However, these developments present challenges as well as opportunities, particularly surrounding issues of experimental design and interpretation of forecast results. This paper discusses different approaches and attempts to set out what climateprediction.net and other large ensemble, complex model experiments might contribute to this research programme.
Russ, did you look up anything you posted? Shame on you if you did not.
And, by the way, I have no intention of looking up all 22 quotes above, particularly since many of the CRU email excerpts have been dealt with in detail already, many by myself.
I do think it might make an interesting article, however, and I will give you full credit, Russ. (yes, despite what you read here, I am a frequently published writer)
September 22, 2010, 11:38 amAlex:
“The point, Ted, is do you know what the hell you are talking about? You do not.”
Let me turn this back to you: and you know this, how, exactly?
“Bullshit. It’s all out there Ted.”
Oh, really? Please provide a link for the exact list of stations participating in HadCRUT3. Or, you guessed it, GTFO.
September 22, 2010, 11:41 amAlex:
On your reply to Russ, Waldo, you waste so many words to say, basically, this:
“If you read the entire essay, you will see that neither excerpt gives one the sum total of what Frame was going for, which is an epistemological examination of the problems of computer modeling.”
This is a truism. Of course, a quote of an essay is not equivalent to a full essay. Now, does Russ’s quote capture the essence of the essay as regards models? Yes. Do your quotes? Absolutely not. In fact, saying that Mr Frame stated that we should trust models, which is what you want your quotes to imply, would be disingenuous. It is you who is taking things out of context here.
And you aren’t fooling anyone with how you won’t discuss all 22 quotes, because they all have been debunked already. You’d readily discuss them if the quotes were really debunked.
September 22, 2010, 12:08 pmRuss R.:
Waldo,
re: David Frame quote
Thanks for providing additional background on this quote. Quite the interesting read.
I selected it for my list not because I felt it was indicative of any sinister intent, or revealed any deceptive dealings. Rather, I included it because it was a simple, honest admission, by a climate scientist, of something that skeptics have argued for a long time… that models are not reality… they’re not even accurate depictions of reality… rather, they are simplified, convenient attempts to roughly simulate the real world, but are inherently limited by our present lack of understanding of various important phenomena, and certainty of their forecasts can be no better than that of the assumptions being fed into them.
So, I included Frame’s quote because it contradicts the arguments of some very argumentative individuals who continue to assert “The models are accurate“.
“And, by the way, I have no intention of looking up all 22 quotes above…”
Oh? What happened Waldo? You started out so enthusiastically and had a pretty good success rate going (albeit while picking off the low-hanging fruit). Why throw in the towel now? You even had the benefit of Shills coming to your assistance. (I was really looking forward to seeing you defend Jones’ instructions to delete emails).
And lastly, this statement of yours: “Denialists would like to believe that they are being denied the right to examine the evidence while refusing to adequately read up or understand the evidence freely available to them”
To which I resubmit the now-famous words of Phil Jones:
- “The two MMs [McIntyre and McKitrick] have been after the CRU station data for years. If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I’ll delete the file rather than send it to anyone”
- “Mike, Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4? Keith will do likewise… Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same? I don’t have his new email address. We will be getting Caspar to do likewise.”
- “We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?”
QED. Or am I somehow reading these quotes “out of context”?
September 22, 2010, 1:31 pmTed Rado:
Waldo: I have stated many times that I am not a climate scientist. I merely ask questions that anyone with some scientific or engineering background would ask. First among these are: Where will large amounts of energy come from if fossil fuels are largely eliminated, and how do we get the Chinese and Indians on board the CO2 reduction program?
None of the alternative energy schemes put forward so far are capable of large scale implementation, and the Indians are not willing to further impoverish their people by stopping their industrialization program.
These are reasonable questions, for which there should be answers if there is a well thought out program.
There are all sorts of peripheral issues, such as waste of government grants on kooky research projects and demonstration plants, etc., but the above questions are the main issues. If there is no way to implement the AGW program, what comes next doesn’t matter.
I await your further insults and diatribes with great anticipation, with no expectation of a constructive reply.
September 22, 2010, 1:50 pmShills:
Russ says,
‘I made a simple, logical argument.’
Ok, Russ. Here is another logical argument: I can drive all the way up and down the coastline of the entire continent and never fall off, so the world must be flat. Whats that you say? NASA have told you the world is round?? bullshit. I made a ‘simple, logical argument’, prove me wrong.
Your argument might seem logical but you also might be uninformed. So then, couldn’t my little idea of comparing proxy data be wrong too? Sure, and that is why I gladly invoke authority for this argument. And I’m afraid that my invoking authority is still greater evidence than what you (don’t) have.
You are making the claim, you prove it.
September 22, 2010, 4:57 pmWaldo says the world is flat:
You know, Shills, I asked Wally the same question about the shape of the world. In that case I got no answer.
September 22, 2010, 5:31 pmRuss R.:
Shills,
Since you seem to be having difficulty understanding basic logic, and would prefer to “invoke authority” the following should make things simple enough for you:
On the ‘Divergence Problem’ in Northern Forests: A review of the tree-ring evidence and possible causes
Rosanne D’Arrigo, Rob Wilson, Beate Liepert and Paolo Cherubini
Global and Planetary Change, Volume 60, Issues 3-4, February 2008, Pages 289-305 (doi:10.1016/j.gloplacha.2007.03.004)
Abstract:
An anomalous reduction in forest growth indices and temperature sensitivity has been detected in tree-ring width and density records from many circumpolar northern latitude sites since around the middle 20th century. This phenomenon, also known as the “divergence problem”, is expressed as an offset between warmer instrumental temperatures and their underestimation in reconstruction models based on tree rings. The divergence problem has potentially significant implications for large-scale patterns of forest growth, the development of paleoclimatic reconstructions based on tree-ring records from northern forests, and the global carbon cycle. Herein we review the current literature published on the divergence problem to date, and assess its possible causes and implications. The causes, however, are not well understood and are difficult to test due to the existence of a number of covarying environmental factors that may potentially impact recent tree growth. These possible causes include temperature-induced drought stress, nonlinear thresholds or time-dependent responses to recent warming, delayed snowmelt and related changes in seasonality, and differential growth/climate relationships inferred for maximum, minimum and mean temperatures. Another possible cause of the divergence described briefly herein is ‘global dimming’, a phenomenon that has appeared, in recent decades, to decrease the amount of solar radiation available for photosynthesis and plant growth on a large scale. It is theorized that the dimming phenomenon should have a relatively greater impact on tree growth at higher northern latitudes, consistent with what has been observed from the tree-ring record. Additional potential causes include “end effects” and other methodological issues that can emerge in standardization and chronology development, and biases in instrumental target data and its modeling. Although limited evidence suggests that the divergence may be anthropogenic in nature and restricted to the recent decades of the 20th century, more research is needed to confirm these observations.
Q&A time (and I’ll help you with the first two questions):
1. Does the dendro proxy data diverge from actual measured temperatures during the 150 years for which records exist? Yes, for approximately 1/3 of the period.
2. Do scientists know the cause of this divergence? No, they don’t; they have a number of theories, but more research is required.
3. Without knowing what caused the divergence, can scientists have any way of knowing whether or not similar divergences occurred during the prior centuries for which no temperature records exist? Yes or no?
I’ll await your answer to Question #3, and if it involves “compare them with other proxies” I’ll expect an explanation.
(And I’ll assume that you don’t really need me to disprove your cute little argument that the world is flat. I’m not sure what you were trying to demonstrate with that, but it doesn’t do much for your credibility.)
September 22, 2010, 7:16 pmWaldo Rado:
****”I merely ask questions that anyone with some scientific or engineering background would ask.”
No, you claimed you could “debunk” a number of working university professors with a mere afternoon’s work. Upon further examination, it would appear you have not actually read the good professors’ work and you hedge whenever I bring up the subject of you “debunking” anything. Big difference.
What is interesting is the attitude, Ted, that somehow thost darn scientists are cooking up all sorts of ridiculous stuff and the clear-headed people are are…what?
****”I await your further insults and diatribes with great anticipation,”
I have never insulted you, Ted, but I have been direct. And “diatribe”? Again, I believe I am being as direct as you and Russ are. No personal offense intended.
****”with no expectation of a constructive reply.”
My responses are as constructive as yours or anyone else’s. I simply give you answers you don’t like, Ted. Would you rather I simply agree with you?
September 22, 2010, 9:12 pmWaldo R Schneider:
****”I’ll assume that you don’t really need me to disprove your cute little argument that the world is flat.”
I think the point is, Russ, you choose which scientific doctrine you wish to disagree with not based on evidence but on belief.
Like this little decontextualized gem:
“Wikipedia: In 1989, Schneider addressed the challenge scientists face trying to communicate complex, important issues without adequate time during media interviews. This citation sometimes was used by his critics to accuse him of supporting misuse of science for political goals:
“Quote: On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but — which means that we must include all the doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands, and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we’d like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climatic change. To do that we need to get some broadbased support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This ‘double ethical bind’ we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both.”
Again, this is a different situation and more complex message (that is now also 22 years old) than your even briefer excerpt would imply.
Did you look up anything, Russ? Where did you get your 22 quotes?
And I haven’t thrown in any towel, but I do find that I have actually addressed many of these emails on this very blog…or with a little bit of investigation you could get a good deal of pertinent information youself. No reason I should do your homework?
September 22, 2010, 9:24 pmWaldex:
Wired magazine on Kevin Trenberth:
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/11/climate-hack/
“But Trenberth, who acknowledged the e-mail is genuine, says bloggers are missing the point he’s making in the e-mail by not reading the article cited in it. That article – An Imperative for Climate Change Planning (.pdf) — actually says that global warming is continuing, despite random temperature variations that would seem to suggest otherwise.
“It says we don’t have an observing system adequate to track it, but there are all other kinds of signs aside from global mean temperatures — including melting of Arctic sea ice and rising sea levels and a lot of other indicators — that global warming is continuing,” he says.
Gavin Schmidt, a research scientist with NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, says the e-mails offer no damning indictment of climate researchers, and that bloggers are reading information in them out of context.
“There’s nothing in the e-mails that shows that global warming is a hoax,” he told Threat Level. “There’s no funding by nefarious groups. There’s no politics in any of these things; nobody from the [United Nations] telling people what to do. There’s nothing hidden, no manipulation.
“It’s just scientists talking about science, and they’re talking relatively openly as people in private e-mails generally are freer with their thoughts than they would be in a public forum. The few quotes that are being pulled out [are out] of context. People are using language used in science and interpreting it in a completely different way.”
Trenberth agrees.
“If you read all of these e-mails, you will be surprised at the integrity of these scientists,” he says. “The unfortunate thing about this is that people can cherry pick and take things out of context.”
Read More http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/11/climate-hack/#ixzz10K5rAxOB
Or in Kevin’s own words from his webpage:
“In my case, one cherry-picked email quote has gone viral and at last check it was featured in over 107,000 items (in Google). Here is the quote: “The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.” It is amazing to see this particular quote lambasted so often. It stems from a paper I published this year bemoaning our inability to effectively monitor the energy flows associated with short-term climate variability. It is quite clear from the paper that I was not questioning the link between anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions and warming, or even suggesting that recent temperatures are unusual in the context of short-term natural variability.
“The paper on this is available here:
“Trenberth, K. E., 2009: An imperative for climate change planning: tracking Earth’s global energy. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 1, 19-27, doi:10.1016/j.cosust.2009.06.001.”
Context folks. Make up your own minds, of course.
September 22, 2010, 11:32 pmShills:
Russ,
As that paper implied, the divergence problem is not throughout the entire sample, but some significant NH stuff. Before you were saying ‘This divergence calls the accuracy of the entire dendroclimatology record into question. The paper doesn’t support all that you were saying.
you say: ‘I’ll await your answer to Question #3, and if it involves “compare them with other proxies” I’ll expect an explanation.’
Look up on proxy composites or composite plus scale methodology. When independent proxies can be calibrated and shown consistent, that increases confidence that they are on target.
‘I’m not sure what you were trying to demonstrate with that…’
I was showing you why a ‘simple logical argument’ can be totally wrong when it is uninformed. Maybe it kinda sunk in subconsciously, because at least you cited a paper. (Good for you).
September 23, 2010, 2:32 amShills:
Actually Russ,
Reading back through your posts, I have misinterpreted what you have said. I got the impression that you were writing off the dendroclim. field. But if you are merely saying that it raises some impeding obstacles then that’s fine. Sorry, my bad.
September 23, 2010, 2:44 ampauld:
“As that paper implied, the divergence problem is not throughout the entire sample, but some significant NH stuff. Before you were saying ‘This divergence calls the accuracy of the entire dendroclimatology record into question. The paper doesn’t support all that you were saying.”
You know I am not an expert on the divergence issues. It is my understanding, however, that the “hide the decline” graph shows the composite of all the proxies over time, not just the “NH stuff.” So if the the divergence issue is limited to the “NH stuff”, their impact is nevertheless sufficient to cause the composite graph to diverge significantly from the current temperatures. Hence, the need to “hide the decline” (i.e. divergence)
If the divergence issue is limited to just the NH, or to a small portion of the tree ring proxies, then why not eliminate those proxies which have the divergence problem? I suspect that this solution has not been pursued because there would not be many tree ring proxies left. I might be wrong on that. Maybe you could do some research on that Waldo.
I am aware of one proxy study by Craig Loehle (?)that eliminates tree-ring proxies entirely and relies on other types of proxies. The “problem” with his study is that it does not create a “hockey stick”. It shows a pronounced Medieval Warming Period.
September 23, 2010, 4:33 amRuss R.:
Shills,
No, I’m not writing-off dendro, nor am I writing-off climate modeling in general. I still view them as extremely valuable tools for analyzing climate beyond the limits of observations (i.e. distant past, near future, hypothetical scenarios, etc.).
What I expect from good scientists is an honest acknowledgement of the inherent limitations of the tools they are using. (i.e. “convenient fictions which try to provide something useful” and not empirical evidence).
In the case of dendro, the existence of a significant divergence of unknown cause raises doubts about the accuracy of the earlier proxy data. If, however, the cause could be reliably identified, and shown as being unique to the 20th century (e.g. fallout from nuclear tests, CFC concentrations, jet engine exhaust in the stratosphere, etc.), I would have much greater confidence in the earlier dendro record as a reliable proxy.
Furthermore, because tree growth is a function of more factors than just temperature, most importantly water, sunlight, soil nutrients, CO2, and hungry animals (and possibly others I haven’t considered, not being a botanist) I have some doubts that tree-ring data can serve as a reliable proxy for temperature UNLESS actions are taken to control for the influence of these other growth factors.
Right now, dendroclimatologists partially address this issue by focusing their research on trees where temperature is more likely to be the limiting factor, specifically northern conifers, growing at or near their range limits. But this is exactly why the “‘Divergence Problem’ in Northern Forests” impacts a significant amount of the dendro proxy data.
Anyway, I strongly believe the scientists have worked diligently toward getting the absolute best answers they can, given the limitations they face. I personally hope they are able to identify a cause for the divergence problem, and better resolve some of the present ambiguity it creates. But this requires being open and transparent about the problem, its possible causes, and its implications. “Hiding the decline” doesn’t help in any way, and severely damages their credibility.
September 23, 2010, 6:09 amRuss R.:
Waldo,
I’ve noticed that you skipped over the quotes by Keith Briffa and Edward Cook and moved on to those by Schneider and Trenberth. Should I assume this to mean you don’t believe those two were taken out of context?
Re: Schneider quote
See my earlier reply to Shills here:
http://www.climate-skeptic.com/2010/08/forecasting.html/comment-page-8#comment-12932
Re: Trenberth quote
I also replied to Shills on this one (and commented on my admiration of Trenberth’s honesty):
http://www.climate-skeptic.com/2010/08/forecasting.html/comment-page-8#comment-12931
“Did you look up anything, Russ? Where did you get your 22 quotes?”
Yes, I have looked up many of the quotes to see if they were inappropriately taken out of context, and have gone on to read a fair amount of commentary defending the scientists (some of which I consider very reasonable.) That said, many of the defenses being offered are insufficient to restore my trust (the “hide the decline” example is a good one… I know it doesn’t mean anything like some folks would like to pretend it does. But even taken in the correct context, it still concerns me greatly.)
Most of the 22 quotes came directly from the leaked CRU emails. The others are from a variety of internet sources. There are many more quotes out there that I have disregarded because I don’t consider them credible or relevant (e.g. I left Hansen’s many sensational quotes off the list entirely, since they generally relate to policy and not science).
September 23, 2010, 6:40 amTed Rado:
Waldo: Re “debunking”. Perhaps you can answer the question: How do you collect 90 billion eggshells per year? And, how is the calcium carbonate in eggsshells different from limestone?
Also, in the case of the researchers at Los Alamos: Where does the lime used for CO2 removal in their million absorbers come from, and where does the CO2 from lime manufacture go? How much CO2 is generated servicing the million absorbers vs, the CO2 absorbed?
Finally, the corn ethanol business can, as stated before, most certainly be “debunked” by any third year ch. e. student. Surely, no one now believes corn ethanol is a good idea on a large scale.
If you have some rational explanations, I would be delighted to hear them. Merely stating that these are qualified scientists and therefore what they say must be right begs the issue, and is a good place to hide rather than offer a counter argument. Anyone with a sound argument would be glad to explain it rather that attacking everyone.
September 23, 2010, 7:38 ampauld:
The Trenberth quote and, more importantly, his article, raise issues with implications that are subject to greater controversy than Trenberth lets on. For an interesting discussion, between Trenberth, Pielke, Sr., Josh Willis and Roy Spencer regarding the issues, see http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2010/05/24/comments-on-nature-commentary-by-kevin-trenberth/
September 23, 2010, 11:00 amI, by the way, like the way Dr. Pielke, Sr., when discussing Trenberth’s paper, invites Trenberth’s responses and posts them prominently on his blog. It would be nice if other climate scientists with blogs would provide the same courtesy.
Ted Rado:
Pauld: Amen, brother!! Civil, professional, and factual discussion of AGW and related issues would be a blessing indeed!!
September 23, 2010, 11:40 amWaldo R Cook:
Actually Russ, the CRU emails, the Cook one in particular, were the main subject of one of the first discussions I ever had on this board.
Plus, as I believe Shills pointed out, the emails are old news and have been officially cleared — you even posted one (“hide the decline”) you know is widely misrepresented, even on this very thread. But you posted it anyway. Along with several over 20 years old. Including one divorced from its lengthy philosophical essay. Including one no more substantial than a letter to the editor.
But fine, let’s at least look at Cook’s email in total:
“Hi Keith,
“Okay, today. Promise! Now something to ask from you. Actually somewhat important too. I got a paper to review (submitted to the Journal of Agricultural, Biological, and Environmental Sciences), written by a Korean guy and someone from Berkeley, that claims that the method of reconstruction that we use in dendroclimatology (reverse regression) is wrong, biased, lousy, horrible, etc. They use your Tornetrask recon as the main whipping boy. I have a file that you gave me in 1993 that comes from your 1992 paper.Below is part of that file. Is this the right one? Also, is it possible to resurrect the column headings? I would like to play with it in an effort to refute their claims. If published as is, this paper could really do some damage. It is also an ugly paper to review because it is rather mathematical, with a lot of Box-Jenkins stuff in it. It won’t be easy to dismiss out of hand as the math appears to be correct theoretically, but it suffers from the classic problem of pointing out theoretical deficiencies, without showing that their improved inverse regression method is actually better in a practical sense. So they do lots of monte carlo stuff that shows the superiority of their method and the deficiencies of our way of doing things, but NEVER actually show how their method would change the Tornetrask reconstruction from what you produced. Your assistance here is greatly appreciated. Otherwise, I will let Tornetrask sink into the melting permafrost of northern Sweden (just kidding of course).
“Cheers,
“Ed”
So what Cook is saying is that a paper has arrived, in his opinion unfairly targeting Briffa’s reconstruction, using some difficult math, but which does not prove its main point that Briffa’s reconstruction is incorrect. Context, context, context.
I do not know if Cook’s evaluation was correct – in fact, I believe the paper in question was actually published – but there is nothing underhanded here which your earlier excerpt implies there was. This is just a scientist talking informally with another scientist asking for help with a paper he believes is poorly constructed.
Why didn’t you post the complete text of the email, Russ?
September 23, 2010, 3:48 pmWaldosphere:
****”Civil, professional, and factual discussion of AGW and related issues would be a blessing indeed!!”
That is not what goes on here, Ted. This is the denosphere.
The denialists are here simply to poke holes in climate science, find conspiracies, and excoriate scientists. Usually these discussions are based on deliberately limited internet information, such as Russ’ pile of nothing quotes or his Excel generated stats.
As for your eggshell questions, why are you asking me? Why not ask the OSU professors? You clearly know something they do not; let them know!
September 23, 2010, 3:55 pmTed Rado:
Waldo: I am asking you because you jumped all over my question re the eggshell thing, which suggested that you knew something that I did not. As to the OSU professor, I have no desire to embarass him or any other academic who is taking advantage of the DOE handouts. If they’re comfortable with what they are doing, that’s their business.
As to the “denialists” on this blog, they are a welcome respite from the “Mother Earth is Crying” people who demonize anyone who wants to debate the WGA thing. I for one believe in a free and civil discussion of such questions, and do not believe anyone who disagrees with me is an evil person who wants to destroy the world, as do the Goristas.
By the way, if the AGW thing is “settled science”, why do Gore and his followers refuse to debate the issue? If I thought I was absolutely right, I would be dying to debate my critics. A group of Canadian scientists asked the PM for a thorough debate of the issue before Canada commited to Kyoto. Nothing of the sort has happened, as far as I know.
As far as being a denier, I have no strong position on AGW, other than a disinclination to screw up the world economy, as I have discussed previously.
September 23, 2010, 4:36 pmWaldotics:
****”As to the OSU professor, I have no desire to embarass him or any other academic who is taking advantage of the DOE handouts.”
So why publish your criticisms at all? Your comments on this board are certainly disdainful. It was not very hard to figure out who you are talking about. If you truly do not wish to embarrass your alma mater, why say anything at all? And isn’t the issue that they are using public monies?
I’m sorry, Ted, if I come off as aggressive or rude, but I believe you are now hedging and rationalizing. I highly suspect you know darn well that, despite your expertise in chemical engineering, the good professors actually know more. I also suspect that, in the United States with our organizational and transportation infrastructures, if we really wanted 90B eggshells, we could get 90B eggshells. Probably the least of their problems.
And who cares what Gore says? I might suggest that a “debate” as such would go nowhere because so much denialist information is disingenuous or outright misinformation.
Plus, as someone (who perhaps I’ll look up) smarter than I am pointed out, science is a matter of evidence and fact; it is not a matter for public debate. It is pretty clear that no one here (myself included) has the depth of knowledge to adequately judge the evidence; and Climate Skeptic is pretty typical. We are all amateurs and don’t really know enough to have an informed opinion — a reality that some really dislike and even find offensive. And, of course, a live public “debate” would not make a bit of difference in how people think. The good peeps here have their minds already made up and nothing will change them.
I have often wondered how this “debate” would have shaped up if Reagan had declared global warming a communist plot or George W had radified the Kyoto Treaty. So much of this is politics.
September 23, 2010, 5:45 pmRuss R.:
Waldo,
1. “the emails are old news and have been officially cleared.” Do you honestly believe that the “official inquiries” were conducted in a thorough, unbiased, and transparent manner? Read this and get back to me: http://www.thegwpf.org/images/stories/gwpf-reports/Climategate-Inquiries.pdf (and try to respond without resorting to ad-hominems).
2. you even posted one (“hide the decline”) you know is widely misrepresented, even on this very thread. But you posted it anyway. I’ve explained twice already that I included it because I consider it highly deceptive to conceal evidence of the “divergence problem” when showing proxy data reconstructions, especially for an audience of policymakers. (You’ve slagged me for overlooking something as trivial as the date that one of the scientists I quoted received her PhD, but you seem to have no problem with scientists willfully covering up evidence of something as significant as, well… y’know… a third of their proxy data not matching observations for reasons they can’t begin to explain. Waldo, only one of us is being objective here… I don’t think it’s hard to see which one.)
3. Along with several over 20 years old. Several? You showed one (Chris Folland quote), which I acknowledged could now be considered outdated. But several? Really? Can you point out which ones? And if you can’t, will you call yourself a liar and spare us having to do it?
4. Including one divorced from its lengthy philosophical essay. Including one no more substantial than a letter to the editor. I’ve already responded to you on both of these above, and neither quote was inappropriately taken out of context. You’re becoming repetitive Waldo. Some might call it grasping at straws.
5. “So what Cook is saying is that a paper has arrived, in his opinion unfairly targeting Briffa’s reconstruction, using some difficult math, but which does not prove its main point that Briffa’s reconstruction is incorrect.”
What I read is Cook acknowledging that the paper’s “math appears to be correct”, and he is enlisting help to find some other reason to dismiss it because he’s afraid of the damage it could do to the field of dendroclimatology.
I have no problem with a reviewer picking apart a paper and looking for flaws… that’s exactly what they’re supposed to do. My issue, and the reason I included this quote, has to do with his motivation: “If published as is, this paper could really do some damage.” He’s looking for a reason to squash this paper, not on its merits, but due to its potential implications. That, my friend, is a hallmark of bad science.
His only valid complaint is that while the paper shows problems with the earlier methods, it doesn’t demonstrate that the proposed approach is any better. But if that’s the only objection he has, then he should simply send the paper back demanding just such a demonstration.
6. “Why didn’t you post the complete text of the email, Russ?” Brevity. Emphasis. And because it didn’t change the context one bit.
7. “Russ’ pile of nothing quotes or his Excel generated stats.” Which you’re welcome to invalidate at any time.
As far as quotes go, you (and Shills) are now 1-for-7. I conceded on the quote from Folland, but you’ve failed to show that the quotes from Kopacz, Frame, Cook, Schneider, Trenberth and Jones (“Hide the decline”) were taken inappropriately out of context. Even in the most charitable context possible, they still cast doubts on the trustworthiness of climate scientists and their models.
Only 16 more to go.
September 23, 2010, 6:02 pmShills:
Russ says, ‘“Hiding the decline” doesn’t help in any way, and severely damages their credibility.’
Sure, have your opinion. But a number of scientists who were making this WMO statement (that’s what the email was about) didn’t think it was worth including. And secondly, no one else in or outside of the field (including those indi. investigations) seemed to have issue with it…
Why does your opinion differ from most others?
September 23, 2010, 6:13 pmRuss R.:
Waldo,
“I have often wondered how this “debate” would have shaped up if Reagan had declared global warming a communist plot or George W had radified the Kyoto Treaty. So much of this is politics.”
It appears you need a history lesson.
George W. Bush didn’t take office until 2001. You should know that the Kyoto Accord was negotiated and signed in 1997 during the Clinton/Gore administration. You can blame them for the US not ratifying it.
Or, more correctly, you should blame the US Senate, who in 1997 voted 95-0 against ratifying the Kyoto Treaty if it would exempt developing nations or result in serious harm to the economy of the United States.
Text: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c105:3:./temp/~c105xT4ymt::
Supporting votes included Senators Biden, Boxer, Byrd, Daschle, Dodd, Kennedy, Kerry, and Lieberman… all of whom happen to be prominent Democrats.
Full results: http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=105&session=1&vote=00205
Politics indeed.
September 23, 2010, 6:27 pmTed Rado:
Those who oppose a debate of the AGW theories are the same ones who argue that a large majority of scientists believe it is correct. That is an interesting argument. I guess we should determine if water runs downhill by having a vote rather than doing experimental and theoretical studies.
Interestingly, most of the scientists involved in these “votes” were not climate scientists. If one argues that only climate scientists whould vote, then the AGW people need to throw out the “votes” they are so proud of. Also, why not let the “voters” have a debate rather than a shouting and demonizing match.
This whole business is so foreign to well established R&D and engineering practises that I am amazed that anybody believes anything that is said, let alone what is “voted” as settled science. Questioning and debating hypotheses is fundamental to scientific investigation.
September 23, 2010, 7:46 pmWaldoHedge:
Hedging, Ted.
Russ I could not disagree with you more. By my count I am now 7-for-7. Each one of your quotes is changed, sometimes significantly, when its context is examined, and sometimes the entire meaning is changed.
Not to mention how weird it is you think this is a contest of some kind – still stinging from the RC math thing? (Yeah, I know, you are thrilled when people poke holes in your calculations – invalidation, you know)
Cook’s email is a perfect example. You are making a pretty big inference about what Cook meant which is not really supported by the email. You are reading into it what you want to read into it. And no, brevity is not a good enough excuse – in fact, it is a very bad excuse. The meaning is much different when the communiqué is examined in total. Be thorough and exact, my friend, that is far more important.
I apologize for saying “several” quotes over 20 years old – there are two so far. I made note of them in my posts.
I have not seen any real evidence that the CRU investigation was anything but legitimate. Typical of a denialist, you have cross-posted a website (the Global Warming Policy Institute) that you should be extremely dubious about. How many climate scientists work for the GWPI, Russ? How many publications in “Energy and the Environment” does Dr. Benny Peiser (a “social scientist”) have? I think I will skip your homework for now – I don’t think I trust your source. Perhaps someday, when time allows.
And certainly you realize that George Bush pulled out of the Kyoto agreement in 2001, saying it would hurt the U.S. economy? This was all I was referring to. It does not matter anyway – I was simply offering a hypothetical. So let me put it this way: “I wonder what would have happened if George W declared global warming a terrorist threat.” Better?
Well, I’m on a jet plane tomorrow and will be gone for several days. I’ll be thinking of you all.
September 23, 2010, 11:06 pmShills:
Waldo says: ‘I apologize for saying “several” quotes over 20 years old – there are two so far.’
Haha. According to Wally (I’m pretty sure) many moons ago, ‘several’ could mean 2. (Just an aside)
September 24, 2010, 12:56 ampauld:
“Sure, have your opinion. But a number of scientists who were making this WMO statement (that’s what the email was about) didn’t think it was worth including. And secondly, no one else in or outside of the field (including those indi. investigations) seemed to have issue with it…
Why does your opinion differ from most others?”
In may view, the “hide the decline” trick is such an obvious example of a deliberate attempt to mislead policy makers that I really don’t care what you or “others” think. The notion that “no one else in or outside the field” seemed to have an issue with it is just laughable.
September 24, 2010, 3:48 amShills, show me that you understand what they did, and then make an argument that what they did is acceptable. Your appeal to authorities is tiresome and in this case misplaced.
Russ R.:
Waldo,
I don’t think this is a contest. I just enjoy debating with people who fancy themselves to be more intelligent or better-informed, and proving them wrong with facts. Like this (which you haven’t responded to):
“Denialists would like to believe that they are being denied the right to examine the evidence while refusing to adequately read up or understand the evidence freely available to them”
To which I [again] resubmit the now-famous words of Phil Jones:
- “The two MMs [McIntyre and McKitrick] have been after the CRU station data for years. If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I’ll delete the file rather than send it to anyone”
- “Mike, Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4? Keith will do likewise… Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same? I don’t have his new email address. We will be getting Caspar to do likewise.”
- “We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?”
QED. Or am I somehow reading these quotes “out of context”?
There’s no shame in acknowledging when you’re wrong Waldo. We’ll respect you more than if you pretend to always be right, even in the face of contradictory evidence. (Or are you really one of those ‘denialists’ you rant about?)
“I apologize for saying “several” quotes over 20 years old – there are two so far. I made note of them in my posts.” Apology accepted. And you’re correct, there were two (Schneider and Folland), not one as I miscounted. My apologies for that.
“By my count I am now 7-for-7. Each one of your quotes is changed, sometimes significantly, when its context is examined, and sometimes the entire meaning is changed.”
Waldo, if you believe that you are somehow 7-for-7, then you are truly delusional. Here are the 6 where you failed to show the context changed the substance:
1. Climate scientists feel pressure to exaggerate in order to attract attention and funding. (Kopacz)
2. The media’s reporting of sound-bites places climate scientists in an ethical bind having to choose between being honest and being effective. (Schneider)
3. Climate models are not literal truths, but convenient fictions which try to provide something useful. (Frame)
4. By “hiding the decline” climate scientist concealed the divergence problem from the AR4 SPM, giving the false impression that the dendro proxy record matched recent warming. (Jones)
5. Climate scientists acknowledge in private that they can’t balance the energy budget or account for the lack of warming, (Trenberth) but stick to the public message that “the science is settled”.
6. When asked to review a paper in which he felt “the math appears correct”, a climate scientist (Cook) privately enlisted help to find reasons to reject it, stating that “If published as is, this paper could really do some damage.”
You tried dismissing these on contextual grounds, but they still stand up as reasons to doubt to the trustworthiness of climate scientists and their models. Feel free to dispute any of them on factual grounds (citing evidence to the contrary of course), but I suspect you’ll fail there as well.
“I have not seen any real evidence that the CRU investigation was anything but legitimate.”
That’s because you didn’t bother to read the paper I sent you. (What was that word you had for people who willfully ignore contradictory evidence?) And sure enough, you immediately resorted to your old ad-hominem argument to dismiss it without even looking at the substance. When you’re done reading it, get back to me and let me know if you still believe the official inquiries were thorough, unbiased and transparent.
And lastly, I still haven’t seen a response from you on my statistical results from two weeks ago (September 10, 3:21 pm) showing better than 90% confidence that Hansen’s A & B scenario projections differed from subsequent observations (And 99% confidence that his Scenario C was an accurate prediction). Does your silence mean you accept those numbers as valid?
September 24, 2010, 6:05 amhunter:
People who are afraid to debate invariably know they have a very good reason to avoid doing so.
September 24, 2010, 6:50 amThe AGW community knows in their hearts that if ‘global climate disruption’ is actually debated they will lose.
That is why today’s so many AGW community meetings are about how to market their belief.
That fear is what fuels the trolls here daily.
Ted Rado:
The levelling off of global temp rise over the last dozen years pretty much guarantees that nothing serious (and catastrophic to the economy) will happen in the near future, i.e., no Cap & Trade. In the meantime, years will pass in which additional data will be gathered, either proving or disproving the AGW theories and models. If the global cooling that is predicted by some followers of the sun spot theories turns out to be true, the running for cover of AGW enthusiasts will be fun to watch. Maybe AGW is causing cooling?
Thus, by accident, we will resolve the argument with minimal damage, except for a few hundred billion spent on kookoo research projects and prototype plants. I will be long gone by then, but it would be interesting to see the reactions of a whole army of people who will have made fools of themselves. Perhaps in the aftermath we will get back to sound science: Hypothesis, testing, verification, discussion, rejection or acceptance by the scientific community. All this done in a professional and civil manner. I can’t wait till this era of science by zealotry, screaming, and personal attacks is history.
September 24, 2010, 10:44 ampauld:
Ted Rado: I like you have been around long enough to have lived through many “civilization-ending” disaster predictions made by top experts, none of which have come to pass. The list is long and people argued for their disaster predictions with the same passion as those who believe in CAGW. I’ve become skeptical of such things and certainly need to see more evidence than just “all the experts agree”. With experience, Waldo will eventually learn not to believe everything the experts say.
September 24, 2010, 4:16 pmShills:
Paul says: ‘Shills, show me that you understand what they did, and then make an argument that what they did is acceptable.’
How about you show us your argument for this ‘obvious’ attempt at deception. I do wonder why something so ‘obvious’ was overlooked by everyone else…
Russ says: ‘By “hiding the decline” climate scientist concealed the divergence problem from the AR4 SPM, giving the false impression that the dendro proxy record matched recent warming. (Jones)’
Umm. No. the email was regarding a diagram for a WMO statement. Not the IPCC, and considering the date of the email is 1999, it certainly wasn’t for the AR4 synthesis report, as you seem to think. The WMO statements are not scientific papers (it’s a ten page pamphlet) so you wouldn’t expect them to explain every detail. (Do you think the public/ politicians personally have time to look into verifying tree ring proxy data or anything else??) The point of the statements is to give the public the scientist’s best understanding on the information, not to show every little uncertainty or discrepency, as you would expect.
Russ says: ‘You tried dismissing these on contextual grounds, but they still stand up as reasons to doubt to the trustworthiness of climate scientists and their models. Feel free to dispute any of them on factual grounds (citing evidence to the contrary of course), but I suspect you’ll fail there as well.’
Russ, how does your interpretation of the quotes stand as more robust than Waldo’s? And Wally has provided evidence that his interpretation is better, the indi. investigations into the matter. What evidence do you have??
September 24, 2010, 5:17 pmRuss R.:
Shills,
“Umm. No. the email was regarding a diagram for a WMO statement. Not the IPCC, and considering the date of the email is 1999, it certainly wasn’t for the AR4 synthesis report, as you seem to think. “
It looks like I was mistaken and referenced the wrong publication. Thank you for clearing that up for me.
The logical next question becomes… did the IPCC reports show the divergence between tree-ring proxies and temperature observations, or did they also “hide the decline”? Here’s TAR: http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/images/fig2-21.gif and here’s AR4: http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/figure-6-10.html It looks to me like they truncated the divergent series (which is slightly better than falsifying them by splicing in actual temperatures), but they still “hide the decline”.
“Russ, how does your interpretation of the quotes stand as more robust than Waldo’s? And Wally has provided evidence that his interpretation is better, the indi. investigations into the matter. What evidence do you have??”
I’ll let objective readers decide whose interpretation of the quotes is more robust, mine or Waldo’s. He’s provided his evidence, and I’ve given mine.
As for the independent investigations into the CRU emails, here’s a link to a report that details why the inquiries weren’t very objective at all. http://www.thegwpf.org/images/stories/gwpf-reports/Climategate-Inquiries.pdf Along with Waldo, I invite you to read it and get back to me.
September 24, 2010, 9:36 pmTed Rado:
Pauld: I couldn’t agree with you more. People tend to believe everything they see in print, and what comes out of a computer is holy writ.
I spent the last several years before I retired developing computer simulation programs for chemical plants. These MUST be validated before being used for serious purposes. An engineer wrote a program, the output of which was used to justify spending $27 million to expand plant production by 20%. The changes actually REDUCED production by 10%. The program was later found to be flawed. This happens regularly with unvalidated programs.
I am generally willing to spend a reasonable amount of money to test an idea rather than spend months arguing, as it is frequently cheaper and quicker. However, in the case of AGW, going ahead with the proposed program will cost tens of trillions and ruin the economy. Hence, we better get it right. Also, if AGW theory is correct, what are the alternatives? Maybe a boom in the far north and far south would result if many people moved there to avoid high temps. The Canadians, Scandanavians, and Siberians would love it.
As to Waldo, perhaps one day he will discover the pleasure of having a cordial discussion of contraversial issues rather than indulge in putdowns and name calling. I have a friend with whom I meet regularly to discuss current issues. We frequently disagree, but the conversation is lively and informative, and most certainly civil.
September 25, 2010, 8:11 amRuss R.:
“As to Waldo, perhaps one day he will discover the pleasure of having a cordial discussion of contraversial issues rather than indulge in putdowns and name calling.”
In Waldo’s defense, he has on occasion apologized when necessary, and he generally refrains from using inappropriate language. (Though I still take issue with his calling people “denialists”, without showing what specifically is being denied. Which is tantamount to calling someone a liar or thief without any evidence to support the accusation.)
I feel that he generally makes an effort to be civil, otherwise, I wouldn’t waste my time with him.
@Shills… I’ve already responded to your 5:17pm comment from yesterday, but it appears to be stalled in the moderation queue. I think I included one too many links.
September 25, 2010, 9:49 amShills:
‘it appears to be stalled in the moderation queue’
Just fragment it. Otherwise there is no telling when it comes up.
September 25, 2010, 4:26 pmWaldonation:
Hello Russ et al, please forgive me if I do not immediately respond to everything you post — you are sometimes verbose and I cannot always respond to everything, particularly as there are often multiple posters and often multiple issues. In fact, I am tired tonight and will return tomorrow. I have not actually looked at all your quotes above in depth — we shall see what their histories reveal.
Just so you know, I do not consider myself smarter or better informed than anyone — but I do claim that the good people on this website, and ones like it, are very specific in the information and opinions they are willing to entertain, usually without properly investigating their information.
By the way, I neither accept or reject your numbers — Gavin Schmidt was not impressed with your final stats, and I am more willing to believe his evaluation than yours.
September 26, 2010, 9:24 pmAlex:
“By the way, I neither accept or reject your numbers — Gavin Schmidt was not impressed with your final stats, and I am more willing to believe his evaluation than yours.”
Here we go again. “I don’t know whether your numbers are right or wrong, but I am going to smear them anyway.” And you have the gall to call *others* deniers?! Disgusting.
September 26, 2010, 9:55 pmRuss R.:
Just a sampling of Waldo’s self-contradictions:
“Just so you know, I do not consider myself smarter or better informed than anyone”
- “The point, Ted, is do you know what the hell you are talking about? You do not. This is a typical plaint of denialists when their uninformed opinions are challenged.”
- “No one here knows what they are posting about, Ted, including you.”
“I do claim that the good people on this website, and ones like it, are very specific in the information and opinions they are willing to entertain, usually without properly investigating their information.”
- “Ah yes, Climate Audit and a Pielke. A couple of unbiased, trustworthy sources for sure.”
- ” I think I will skip your homework [reading Montford's "The Climategate Inquiries"] for now – I don’t think I trust your source.”
- “By the way, I neither accept or reject your numbers — Gavin Schmidt was not impressed with your final stats, and I am more willing to believe his evaluation than yours.”
“To suggest that a poster is not objective is generally tantamount to firing the proverbial flame-thrower and igniting a flame war…
- “At one point in time didn’t you get very agitated when I suggested you were not particularly objective. Do you still feel you are an objective observer of the climate science phenomenon?”
I trust I haven’t taken any of these quotes out of context.
September 27, 2010, 7:12 amRuss R.:
Waldo,
“By the way, I neither accept or reject your numbers — Gavin Schmidt was not impressed with your final stats, and I am more willing to believe his evaluation than yours.”
So you’re telling me that Gavin Schmidt himself reviewed and evaluated my statistics? Or did he just look at the results and opine that accuracy isn’t a relevant measure (since “…forecasts are always ‘different’ from the actuality for all sorts of reasons…”), and we should instead assess the “skill” of the prediction?
Unfortunately for you, we aren’t debating whether the predictions were “skillful” (vs. an arbitrary baseline). The question at hand is the models’ accuracy (vs. observed reality).
So, since you’re the one who asserted “The models are accurate”, I suppose I should ask you… in your mind, what would constitute sufficient evidence that model predictions are NOT accurate?
September 27, 2010, 8:13 amWaldaction:
Russ, first off I fail to see how I’ve contradicted myself in any way in the above quotes. In fact, they all have a fairly consistent viewpoint.
You really are taking this personally, aren’t you?
Well, that’s neither here nor there. I believe we are simply rehashing what we have already posted, but just so we are clear–
1. Climate scientists feel pressure to exaggerate in order to attract attention and funding. (Kopacz)
What you present is a letter to the editor, that’s it. No evidence or proof of its claims, no vetting, only an opinion. So fine, this young scientist believes she is under pressure to produce. I feel bad for her, but there is no real indication that this is a problem for anyone but her. If this is 1/22nd of the best evidence you have, it is fairly weak.
2. The media’s reporting of sound-bites places climate scientists in an ethical bind having to choose between being honest and being effective. (Schneider)
Okay, I could agree with this to an extent.
But: it is over 20 years old, spoken off-the-cuff, and what Schneider is saying (if one reads closely) is that he and other climate scientists see a very dangerous pattern in the future and must sometimes resort to alarming sound bites to get the public’s attention. Hopefully, Schneider says, scientists can be both honest and media-worthy. That’s a big difference from what you are suggesting.
3. Climate models are not literal truths, but convenient fictions which try to provide something useful. (Frame)
Did you read Frame’s essay? I am not really willing to paraphrase the entire thing – again, doing your homework for you – but Frame is talking about the limits of models as tools, the conflict between approaches to using models, their utility, and finally a discussion about how to resolve uncertainty in climate science. What Frame argues above is that models are useful but limited.
And another thought occurred to me while rereading Frame: what makes you think you can “distrust” climate scientists from this essay anyway – it is a fairly straight forward and honest evaluation of model science, including a good deal that parallels skeptic opinion. There is nothing here that should make you “distrust” a climate scientist except, perhaps, if one takes the quote out of its context and posts it on its own.
4. By “hiding the decline” climate scientist concealed the divergence problem from the AR4 SPM, giving the false impression that the dendro proxy record matched recent warming. (Jones)
Yeah, this is wrong, at least according to the climate scientists. You not only misrepresented the email in question, you actually misunderstand it.
From our friends over at Real Climate:
“No doubt, instances of cherry-picked and poorly-worded “gotcha” phrases will be pulled out of context. One example is worth mentioning quickly. Phil Jones in discussing the presentation of temperature reconstructions stated that “I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.” The paper in question is the Mann, Bradley and Hughes (1998) Nature paper on the original multiproxy temperature reconstruction, and the ‘trick’ is just to plot the instrumental records along with reconstruction so that the context of the recent warming is clear. Scientists often use the term “trick” to refer to a “a good way to deal with a problem”, rather than something that is “secret”, and so there is nothing problematic in this at all. As for the ‘decline’, it is well known that Keith Briffa’s maximum latewood tree ring density proxy diverges from the temperature records after 1960 (this is more commonly known as the “divergence problem”–see e.g. the recent discussion in this paper) and has been discussed in the literature since Briffa et al in Nature in 1998 (Nature, 391, 678-682). Those authors have always recommend not using the post 1960 part of their reconstruction, and so while ‘hiding’ is probably a poor choice of words (since it is ‘hidden’ in plain sight), not using the data in the plot is completely appropriate, as is further research to understand why this happens.”
Argue with them.
5. Climate scientists acknowledge in private that they can’t balance the energy budget or account for the lack of warming, (Trenberth) but stick to the public message that “the science is settled”.
I assume you read his response above. I suppose you can simply disbelieve him, but that alone does not invalidate what he says. In fact, Russ, your “facts” are all opinion regarding the motivations of the scientists involved. A quote out of context: ““I consider it” – good for you. You have stated your opinions and seem quite convinced of them, but that alone does not prove anything except you have posted an opinion. I’m sorry, my brother, I know you are aching for some kind of victory, but it ain’t here yet.
6. When asked to review a paper in which he felt “the math appears correct”, a climate scientist (Cook) privately enlisted help to find reasons to reject it, stating that “If published as is, this paper could really do some damage.”
You left out this stuff “[the paper] suffers from the classic problem of pointing out theoretical deficiencies, without showing that their improved inverse regression method is actually better in a practical sense. So they do lots of monte carlo stuff that shows the superiority of their method and the deficiencies of our way of doing things, but NEVER actually show how their method would change the Tornetrask reconstruction from what you produced” – which yeah, changes the meaning of the email.
Now, we made need to agree to disagree here, but we’ve now been around this particular block already. Obviously, you may keep score if you like (although it’s a little weird) but I am not particularly convinced that there is any reason to “mistrust” climate scientists other than your rather emotional response to disingenuous financial analysts which, you might consider, you may be projecting onto climate scientists.
September 28, 2010, 12:45 amWally:
Waldo,
“first off I fail to see how I’ve contradicted myself in any way in the above quotes. In fact, they all have a fairly consistent viewpoint.”
That’s true, but if and only if that viewpoint is the one peaking out your sphincter.
September 28, 2010, 10:48 amWaldo Sympathetic to Wally:
Poor little Wally, I did not realize it had gotten quite so bad for you.
September 28, 2010, 12:15 pmWally:
Poor waldo, went and lost all sense of humor?
September 28, 2010, 1:02 pmRuss R.:
Waldo,
“You really are taking this personally, aren’t you?”
Not really… I just enjoy pointing out inconsistencies, using facts or people’s own words whenever possible. You should note, I’ve come to your defense when I felt you were being unfairly mischaracterized… something I clearly would not have done if I was “taking this personally”. As I’ve said before… I try hard to be objective.
Thank you for offering your rebuttals to the 6 quotes listed above. While I don’t agree with your assessments, I’m happy to let objective readers weigh both points of view and score things as they see fit.
In the meantime, there are still 15 quotes you haven’t addressed. (I’m particularly looking forward to reading your explanation of how Jones’ instructions to delete emails are being misinterpreted or taken out of context.)
As well, you’ve failed to respond to a number of issues I’ve put to you:
1. You stated: “the models are accurate”. I did a fair bit of work to statistically test how accurate various predictions proved to be. You responded “I neither accept or reject your numbers”. Some might view that as a rather lazy way to avoid having to deal with results you don’t like. I’ve invited you to tell me what would constitute sufficient evidence that model predictions were not accurate… to which, no response.
2. You stated: “Denialists would like to believe that they are being denied the right to examine the evidence while refusing to adequately read up or understand the evidence freely available to them”. I offered you 3 quotes from Phil Jones that directly contradict your assertion. You’ve now repeatedly ignored them.
3. You stated: “I have not seen any real evidence that the CRU investigation was anything but legitimate.”. It’s very common to not see evidence when you choose not to look at it. I offered you a recent report by Andrew Montford (The Climategate Inquiries) which points out a number of issues raising doubts about validity of the official investigations. You responded, “I think I will skip your homework for now – I don’t think I trust your source. Here’s another assessment from a different source that you can also choose to ignore: http://rossmckitrick.weebly.com/uploads/4/8/0/8/4808045/rmck_climategate.pdf (I expect you’ll claim McKitrick is also a biased source, given his longstanding opposition to a number of the scientists implicated by the CRU emails. I trust you’re capable of reading critically, filtering out any potentially biased opinions and focusing on any verifiable facts presented.)
I look forward to your responses, either addressing the evidence I’ve offered you, or retracting your assertions.
And lastly, you wrote: “I am not particularly convinced that there is any reason to “mistrust” climate scientists other than your rather emotional response to disingenuous financial analysts which, you might consider, you may be projecting onto climate scientists.”
I’ve had a good amount of experience both conducting and evaluating various quantitative and qualitative analyses. I come to know what best practices are, and what poor practices are.
Good analysts are transparent and objective. They present all the available data, rather than cherry-picking to include only those which support their view. They actively seek out contradictory evidence and opposing views. They show their methods and invite constructive criticism. They call attention to areas of uncertainty, rather than glossing over them.
Poor analysts only seek out data supporting their point of view, falling prey to confirmation bias. If they stumble across contradictory evidence, they find ways to rationalize, minimize, ignore or conceal it. They restrict others from seeing their data or methods for fear of being challenged. They mistakenly believe that acknowledging uncertainties or weaknesses will compromise their credibility.
If any of the analysts I’ve worked with pulled some of the ‘tricks’ I’ve seen from certain climate scientists (burying contradictory data, making recommendations while concealing personal doubts, intentionally deleting documents in contravention of a FOI notice) it would result in at least a reprimand, and possibly a dismissal, but most certainly a loss of trust.
September 28, 2010, 1:47 pmWaldooverwhelmed:
Now Russ, as I’ve said before you have presented me with a fair amount of information so you must give me a little time to respond, especially when I am taking the time to research histories, backgrounds, and contexts, and it is easy to miss something since you do tend to write a great deal and often repeat yourself, and I do have other things in life to tend to. I don’t deliberately ignore anything — I may simply have not gotten to it yet.
And I did post that I’d give your documents a looksee (some 50+ pages) if time permits, but I will not simply take them at face value. What the deniosphere terms “ad hom” I would call making sure the people (who were not part of the CRU investigation) are unbiased, don’t have an agenda, and/or know what they are talking about. You don’t trust climate scientists; I don’t trust denialists.
And yes, that was very fair minded of you to point out that I am basically civil, as are you.
As for your numbers above, my brother, I’ll be impressed the minute you pass peer-review – it’s way too easy to post here and then beat your hairy chest. They failed the RC test but perhaps this was a stacked jury, no?
Now, I am happy to admit that Phil Jones should be embarrassed and regretful (and probably is) by his responses to request for information (the 3 you posted above) – very childish of him and it did not do him any favors in the public eye. One can only hope this is not his professional demeanor all the time. Is there hard evidence he actually destroyed or withheld data? The rational, I believe, is that he had become defensive when he perceived that the two MMs were simply out to find something wrong with his work rather than, as you suggest, doing a legitimate critique. So sure, there is a context to the emails that denialists will frequently ignore – and it is a curious response considering the emotional reactions of many of the posters here. Wally is the perfect example, particularly if you look back through our various conversations. If we were suddenly public figures, how might he sound to the world posting something as juvenile (particularly from someone claiming to be a PhD candidate) as “that viewpoint is the one peaking out your sphincter”? This does not excuse Jones, of course, but his responses could be understandable if very unprofessional.
Now, even if Jones asked for emails to be deleted and he drug his feet there is still the mass of information on IPCC webpages, Real Climate, etc. etc. that is free and a click away. Why do three emails out of 1,000, an extraordinarily small amount of evidence, counteract the mass of information that is undeniably out there? In other words, how do Jones’ emails, even if they condemning to him personally, “contradict” the “fact” that the IPCC et al make their information freely available? And here I will quote you to you: “Poor analysts only seek out data supporting their point of view, falling prey to confirmation bias.” I might suggest this is exactly what you do by attempting to condemn an entire scientific community through 22 emails across 20 some years of work despite easily obtained evidence to the contrary.
In fact, Gavin Schmidt posted the following on the denialist mentality, and it is quite eloquent.
September 29, 2010, 12:51 amGavin Schmidt's commentary:
Openness and transparency aid replication and are essential to the progress of science. As far as possible, data and code should be available to everyone. Note, however, that replication of results is much more usefully achieved using independent approaches and sources of data rather than checking other people’s arithmetic. Independent explorations of problems are far more fruitful in terms of learning about the details and seeing new ways of looking at things than simply running someone else’s code. Open debate about uncertainties and approaches are essential (and if you ever go to a conference you will see this happening in spades).
Now that is out of the way, let’s examine what is actually happening in the public sphere. There are undeniably people who fervently do not wish for results of the science to be true. This can be motivated many things – vested interest, inclination, background etc. Regardless of why that exists, it undoubtedly does. However, among the scientific community no-one doubts that humans are causing CO2 (and other GHGs) to rise, no-one is confused about the fact that there is a greenhouse effect and that we are enhancing it, and no-one is in denial of the fact that the temperatures (as predicted) are in fact warming. This information, and the vast amount of ancillary data, theory and modelling that exists has led the science community to warn that continued emissions of GHGs risk changing the climate substantially. Given the first group of people’s inclination to not want this to be true, there have been (and continue to be) determined efforts to undermine the scientific conclusions. One of the most effective tactics is to continually claim that data is being hidden and that the process is not open and transparent. This is successful, not because anything is actually being hidden, but because regardless of what data is available you can always ask for more. Five years ago it was a demand than Mann make his code and data available – it was, and nothing changed. A couple of years ago the demand was for the GISTEMP data and code – that was made available… and nothing changed. The requests then moved to CRU, who because of their agreements with the Met Centers, can’t release everything in the public domain. This fact has been greatly exploited by people who conveniently ignore it when making ever more harassing demands for ‘the data’. Whether they get it or not, nothing will change. The target will simply be moved. Meanwhile, the real need for openness and transparency is set back because the vast majority of demands are very clearly partisan and insincere.
As for the peer-reviewed literature, bad papers (such as are described in the emails) sometimes make it through the process due to various events. Note that the papers in question are just bad – they come to unjustified conclusions based on faulty reasoning, bad analysis, and (often) a desire to get the ‘right’ result. This is not unique to papers that go counter to the mainstream (there are many bad papers on the other side too), but these are the ones that get picked up by the denial-o-sphere and are loudly touted in Senate hearings as if they undermined a century of work. Improving the functioning of the peer-review system so that this happens less often is a good idea – because it will lessen the chance of bad papers of any stripe wasting everyone’s time. Note that peer-review is simply an (imperfect) filter that allows scientists to focus on work that has passed a least a basic screening (usually). When we have to respond to obviously flawed, but highly publicised, papers it takes us away from doing real research and focussing on issues about which there is genuine (as opposed to manufactured) uncertainty.
If people want genuine public debate over issues that matter, the way is clear: Stop fuelling fake witchhunts looking for evidence that GW is a hoax, stop continually going back to long debunked talking points, and instead engage with scientists, here and elsewhere, on real questions. You will actually find scientists of all stripes remarkably keen to talk about their research and it’s implications once you get past the ‘when did you stop hiding your data’ type accusations. Not everyone has unlimited patience in dealing with constant attacks on their integrity that comes with being in the public eye on these issues, and so many choose not to be involved in that public debate at all. That is a shame, but it’s not a mystery. – gavin
September 29, 2010, 12:52 amRuss R.:
Waldo,
Some quick responses:
Re: Trust “You don’t trust climate scientists; I don’t trust denialists.” Actually, I don’t trust either side. I look at the evidence and decide for myself.
Re: numbers “They failed the RC test but perhaps this was a stacked jury, no?” I don’t consider it a “stacked jury” at all, because I don’t consider it an “us against them” situation. Data and correct statistical methods are what they are, and as such, I happily took the feedback that some helpful commentators provided, and have made the necessary adjustments. I posted the new results, which you again submitted for ‘peer review’ at RealClimate. To date, I have seen no suggestions that were errors or miscalculations in my figures. So, until I hear of any objections, I’m going to have to conclude the following: With greater than 90% confidence, actual temperatures since 1988 have differed from Hansen’s predictions, implying his model was not accurate. What would you conclude?
Re: Jones ” Is there hard evidence he actually destroyed or withheld data?” Not that I’m aware of, which is why I’m not calling him a criminal. This isn’t a court of law, however, in the court of public opinion, instructing colleagues to delete correspondence in the face of a FOI proceeding doesn’t inspire trust.
Re: evidence “Why do three emails out of 1,000, an extraordinarily small amount of evidence, counteract the mass of information that is undeniably out there? In other words, how do Jones’ emails, even if they condemning to him personally, “contradict” the “fact” that the IPCC et al make their information freely available?” It’s still evidence of a climate scientist repeatedly denying data access to those who were looking to critique his findings. (And if the CRU data were available via the IPCC, then there would have been no need to request them from Jones).
Re: confirmation bias “I might suggest this is exactly what you do by attempting to condemn an entire scientific community through 22 emails across 20 some years of work despite easily obtained evidence to the contrary.” Those 22 quotes are just a sampling of reasons that certain scientists and some of their models cannot be implicitly trusted without scrutiny. I never said the science was wrong. What’s wrong is the abandonment of the principles of science to advance personal and political objectives.
September 29, 2010, 10