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.
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?
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?
Please disregard. I can’t read.
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.
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)
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.
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.
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.
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.
Russ R,
Kevin T quote explained:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Kevin-Trenberth-travesty-cant-account-for-the-lack-of-warming.htm
The schneider quote:
http://climatesight.org/2009/04/12/the-schneider-quote/
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??
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.
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.
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.
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’??
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.
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.
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.
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.
Funny:
http://xkcd.com/793/
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.
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.
Ted Rado,
Yet 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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
Gee Pauld, you sure showed me.
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.
Just because many climate scientists believe tree rings make good proxy thermometers does not make it so.
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.
****”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
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
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.
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)
“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.
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.
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”?
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.
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.
You know, Shills, I asked Wally the same question about the shape of the world. In that case I got no answer.
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.)
****”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?
****”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?
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.
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).