Listen to this PodcastMore 60-Second Earth
-
Gravity's Engines
We’ve long understood black holes to be the points at which the universe as we know it comes to an end. Often billions of times more massive than the Sun, they...
Read More »
Fair warning: the following is more than 60 seconds, and it’s about climate change.
"Even in high school my idea of a good time was sitting in front of a computer and solving problems." Climatologist Michael Mann. “And that has always been true. I love using computational methods to learn about the way, hopefully, the way the world actually works.”
Some critics, such as physicist Freeman Dyson, charge that climate change science relies too much on such computer models. And even worse, that the climate scientists behind them are too much in love with their computational creations. Such mathematical approximations are crude, failing to capture the real world climate impacts of a cloud, for example. That makes them useful for understanding climate but not for predicting climate change, Dyson has argued. I asked Mann in a recent phone interview how he responded to such arguments.
"I have to wonder if Freeman Dyson will get on an airplane or if he’ll drive a car because a lot of the modern day conveniences of life and a lot of our technological innovations of modern life are based on phenomena so complicated that we need to be able to construct models of them before we deploy that technology.
“In the case of the climate, of course, there is only one Earth, so we can’t do experiments with multiple Earths and formulate the science of climate change as if it’s an entirely observationally based, controlled experiment. We need to rely on conceptual models of the system we’re studying and it’s no different in any other field of science. In fact, the way science progresses is by conceptual models being put forward and then testing them against observations. One of the most, I think, striking examples of that was just within the last month, this announcement, the Higgs Boson.
“Its existence was predicted by the standard model of particle physics and the fact that there’s—we got a glimpse of it, it looks like it may very well be there—is a real victory for that model of science where you test, you put forward conceptual models of the way the world or the universe works and test those models against the observations and see the extent to which they can predict new observations and when they do, it gives you increased confidence in the models.
“It’s no different in the case of climate change. The models are simply at some level a formulation of our conceptual understanding and when someone says they don't like models then I’m wondering what alternative they have in mind.
“How do they formalize their conceptual understanding? Through back-of-the-envelope, poorly conceived thought experiments? It's somewhat bewildering when I hear something like that from a premier scientist, and I think it belies a misunderstanding of the way models are used. In climate science, for example, where we don't need an elaborate climate model to understand the basic physics and chemistry of greenhouse gases, so at some level the fact that increased CO2 warms the planet is a consequence of very basic physics and chemistry.
“The details, how much warming you get, depend on things like feedbacks. And you can’t incorporate feedbacks through a back of the envelope approach. You actually have to critically think about the interactions that take place in this very complex system. And those feedbacks ultimately determine the extent to which that initial warming will be amplified, but they don’t even change the fact that you elevate greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere and you’ll get a warming of the surface. That’s basic physics and chemistry and people who claim that they don’t believe that, they don’t believe we’re warming the planet through increasing CO2 levels because of climate models, they don’t understand the fact that you don’t need a climate model to come to that conclusion. It's basic physics and chemistry.
“The climate models come in because we wanna know how that's modified by feedback. What are the important feedbacks? How will atmospheric circulation patterns change? And again, does Freeman Dyson, assuming he is willing to get on an airplane even though models have been used to test the performance of the airplane, assuming he does and he knows he’s going somewhere where they’ve predicted, where weather models have predicted rainfall for the next seven days, does he not pack his umbrella because he doesn’t believe the models? It's just in that case the worst that will happen is somebody gets wet when they wouldn’t otherwise have. In this case, the worst that can happen is that we ruin the planet.”
—David Biello
[The above text is a transcript of this podcast.]
See what we're tweeting about
113 Comments
Add CommentHere is a peer reviewed graph of the model prediction to the observed temperature rise:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipcc_tar/?src=/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/figspm-4.htm
Makes you wonder why to spite such easily obtained search results the science ignorati continue to insists the models are wrong. It is like they have no interests in the science but protecting some interests.
Freeman Dyson has it right and Michael Mann has it wrong.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHere are just a few of the areas in which the GCMs and conclusions drawn from them are unequivocally wrong.
1. GCMs do not solve the original partial differential equations describing all of the mechanisms included in the models. They solve modified equations that are approximations of the originals, which, by definition, introduce errors in the solution.
2. GCMs require numerical rather than exact solutions of the equations. The numerical solutions introduce additional errors in reproducing the modified equations particularly with regards to the temporal/spatial scales used in the solution and the type of grid chosen to define the physical space modeled.
3. Once the forms of the modified equations and the temporal and spatial scales have been chosen, then one must setup initial and boundary conditions that define and then drive the simulations. Huge errors are introduced in the simulations as a result of uncertainties in defining these boundary conditions for all the myriad processes necessary in GCMs. Give the same model to 10 different modelers, and you will have 10 different results depending upon how the boundary conditions are specified.
4. The myriad processes involving physical, chemical, and biological interactions have their own problems including important processes left out and incomplete mathematical descriptions of the ones included with numerous simplifying assumptions, but the greatest problem is how the processes are parameterized and the specification of these parameters. Give the same model to 10 different modelers, and you will have 10 different results depending upon how the parameters are specified.
5. Even if all the previously described problems could be eliminated, GCMs, or any model for that matter, cannot predict the future. They can only say what would have happened given the proscribed initial and boundary conditions. No one can know the boundary conditions for the future.
Admittedly, the previous is a very brief discussion of why Dyson is right and Mann is wrong. I could easily write a long paper or even a book on the subject, but I will exit this comment with the following statement - If you can give the same model to 10 different modelers and obtain 10 different results, then that ain’t science, or at least what I have always believed to be science.
Riddle me this. Why are four different model output runs included when comparing to "observed" temperatures? Additionally, on another graph in the IPCC report, why are the results of 14 (I believe this number is correct) different GCMs averaged and then included in the comparison of computed versus observed temperatures?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am fairly certain I know why.
pterostyrax Says: Riddle me this. Why are four different model output runs included when comparing to "observed" temperatures?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTrent Says: Each models makes different assumptions about the future input of CO2. If you had even a smidgen of knowledge you would have know that one, Riddler.
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch10s10-2.html
Anyone else wondering why Pterostyrax will not address the fact of the models and temperature match that is found in the peer reviewed literature? It is like he is in denial of reality. Funny that.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis graph is a comparison to computed versus OBSERVED temperatures. Four different carbon inputs for FUTURE inputs of carbon are irrelevant.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI do not mind the ad hominem, but at least get it right when you conduct one.
Pterostyrax Says: This graph is a comparison to computed versus OBSERVED temperatures. Four different carbon inputs for FUTURE inputs of carbon are irrelevant.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisShorter Pterostryax: Please ignore the graph with observed temperatures and the models that reproduce them.
Michael Mann speaks the truth.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI believe that for Freeman Dyson to malign the accuracy of the current versions of weather models is a false issue and a cheep shot at weather scientists in general. Moreover, arguing over the accuracy of various weather models misses the main issues about the science of weather prediction and global warming.
There are a few things that we know from weather scientists with a high degree of confidence: (1) the earth is indeed warming; (2) human activity is indeed making a meaningful contribution to that global warming; (3) global warming is changing and will continue to change global weather patterns through a very complex set of interactions that we are only just beginning to identify, better yet fully understand, and (4)weather scientists who construct these models to try to identify and understand these interactions and then predict the consequences to test and improve their models are very much on the right track.
These scientific efforts should be supported by the larger scientific community as well as the public. It is an imperative for this science to advance.
If we were to stop or slow the creation, evolution, continuous testing, and improvement of these models we would be doing the world a great disservice.
I think at least one note of clarification needs to be put here. It is blatantly obvious that Pterostyrax is engaging in obfuscation. Climate science has been making predictions and successful observations of those predictions since 1896. When Svante Arrhenius constructed a model of the atmosphere using nothing more than pencil and paper he made several key predictions:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1. Nights would warm faster days.
2. Winters would warm faster than Summers.
3. The Arctic would warm faster than anywhere else.
All of these predictions have been observed in the 20th and 21st century. Pterostyrax and friends want the public to not know of these and other successful predictions because their interests lay in the public being confused and ignorant. That is why they never ever address them. Ever.
"If we were to stop or slow the creation, evolution, continuous testing, and improvement of these models we would be doing the world a great disservice."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo argument here. My and Dyson's argument is that the models are currently not ready for prime time for the reasons I elucidated among many more that could be brought to bear on the efficacy of GCMs. Because one can throw a host of equations at the real world does not mean that the set of the previous has any bearing on the latter. Point in question - Long Term Capital's economic numerical models.
However, the need to improve the modeling efforts does not change the fact that the current status of GCMs in providing some semblance of the real world and conclusions drawn therefrom is greatly lacking any firm basis regarding sound science.
What a load of BS. Sorry Mr Mann but your models are simply wrong for two reasons. Assumptions of data such as a "global average temperature" and the belief you can choose what that average is. The second is lack of understanding everything that can affect climate. The higgs boson was not speculated simply by putting together a computer model of what we think might be there. It was after 40 years of real experiments done in particle accelerators that proved out so much of quantum theory that the variables left yet unproven, are few and one of them is a higgs boson, assuming it even exists and guess what physicists wont claim it exists until they see evidence of it outside of their models.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAn example of the fact your models are wrong is the "predicted" heat for the last decade, reported here in SA under the theory that the heat is not missing, just after yet more gerrymandering your model, all of a sudden that heat went into the deep ocean and at no point in that article was the possibility the heat never happened speculated on, it was rules out because you global warmists are unable to even conceptualize you might be off or wrong on some of your predictions.
As to experiments, obviously we can't make the entire earth's biosphere and observe it. The reason why, it is large and not understood is why it can't be effectively modeled either. You would have to actually understand the majority of everything about the climate and what affects it before a model would work. The problem is you and those like you have decided any factor, variable or information that could potentially show you are wrong about the cause of global warming or that it even exists at all.
Though you can in fact do experiments on some of the assumptions as some have, one is CO2 does not do what you claim. If CO2 acted as you describe in your models, we would have CO2 based heat indexes, not humidity based heat indexes. CO2 traps heat but more of it doesn't increase its heat trapping effect.
Your models also assume what the cause of the heat is, CO2 concentration even though CO2 has been far far worse in the past from natural causes. Your models assume how much CO2 "should" be there as well as what the temps should be and you assume any other possible factor involved in warming the planet is not relevant. The sun doesn't matter, the upper atmosphere doesn't matter, observed reality 10 years after your prediction doesn't matter, Cherry picked data from the 1800s, only choosing data that supports your claim and oh yeah and the Armageddon claims.
None of your "facts" are proven.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe earth is indeed warming? as compared to what? The last 100 years we humans have been measuring it? So what. It was a 75% temperate zone at the north pole 56 million years ago, so why is the last 100 years more relevant?
Human activity, which activity? This one is probably true but it is more likely that 7 billion humans and the billions more of livestock to feed us all producing body heat is having an effect. The fact we heat homes and have engines running at 200 degrees, the millions of sq ft of heated offices, factories, mining operations, the heat produced by power production, 7 billion cooks all of this is probably the human contribution. Take a closed foot ball stadium. 50k people producing body heat will heat the building plenty, it isn't because they are all exhaling CO2. Now if you want to discuss these contributions maybe but then unless you plan to genocide6 billion people to get to pre 1900 levels of population we are sort of stuck with the warming caused by this stuff.
Yeah the weather has been changing for 4 billion years, and the point is?
The miracle computer models that cant even predict a hurricane in advance somehow know enough to predict what will happen in 100 years. They are are on the wrong track. Making total assumptions on measures like CO2 levels, or what the average global temp is and assuming water vapor or clouds have no impact, only CO2 does not make them on the right track. In fact, when they understand enough to predict a hurricane next week or next year, then perhaps they know enough to predict global warming effects 50 years from now.
Yeah, nights likely do warm faster than days because they have a more variation in temperature to work with. If the planet is getting to a certain temperature each day, obviously day time has less temp to raise to get there, so it would be slower, relative to night.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSince the arctic is already extremely cold and the sahara desert is already really hot, again obviously it will warm faster in the arctic, because the tropics are already hot. So making the assumption we have more heat coming in, being produced by humans or on the unlikely chance it is heat staying, it is going to go to the arctic because the tropics are already hot. This is not complex and didnt need a model to predict.
Now how about a more specific prediction your climate models have made, the last 10 years in fact. You people predicted a massive rise in the global temp, which did not happen. I would think if your models predicted that and came out wrong, then either your models are incomplete or the heat never happened. Of course, SA published an article with tweaked models to all of a sudden determine that heat went into the deep ocean but even if that is true, it proves the point, your models are wrong.
Priddeseren Says: The earth is indeed warming? as compared to what?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTrent Says: The Earth you moron. Perhaps it is time you learned about baselines. Look here is global temperatures from NASA with a baseline of 1950-80
NASA Temperatures:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/Fig.A2.gif
Why are so stupendously ignorant of subjects you write multiple paragraphs of?
Prideseren Says: Yeah, nights likely do warm faster than days because they have a more variation in temperature to work with.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTrent Says: This makes no sense what so ever. Do you think about anything you write?
Pridesere Says: If the planet is getting to a certain temperature each day, obviously day time has less temp to raise to get there, so it would be slower, relative to night.
Trent Says: Gibberish. We are talking about OBSERVED trends in temperatures, not simple variation. Pay attention.
Pridesen Says: Once the arctic is already extremely cold and the sahara desert is already really hot, again obviously it will warm faster in the arctic, because the tropics are already hot.
Trent Says: See above about gibberish. I do though want to thank you for implicitly acknowledging the trend in the rise of temperatures on a global level.
When will Prideseren and his fellow ideological ignorati learn that because the Earth has been warmer in the past that does preclude humanity being the cause of climate change now?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is like saying that since forest fires have happened naturally in the past, arson is impossible.
I do want to reiterate Prideseren acknowledgement that the Earth is warming. I am so glad that we can do away with the needless denial of even the most basic facts and the utilization of moronic sophistry.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPrideseren Says: Human activity, which activity?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTrent Says: The ones that produce greenhouse gases. Why are you monumentally ignorant of facts that a 5th grader should know?
Wow is it me or is it impossible for Prideseren to differentiate between breathing and mining carbon products that have been sequestered in the Earth for tens of million of years and releasing them in the space of a few centuries? Now you know why Deniers are held in such contempt.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPrideseren Says: You people predicted a massive rise in the global temp, which did not happen.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTrent Says: Here is the IPCC report:
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/publications_and_data_reports.shtml
Please cite with a URL such predictions. Point me to the page and paragraph. Go ahead. Prove to me you are not a liar. What you say? It is not in the IPCC? Funny that.
Go ahead prove to me you are not a liar.
"Here is a peer reviewed graph of the model prediction to the observed temperature rise:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipcc_tar/?src=/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/figspm-4.htm"
Here is a peer reviewed graph of a GMC model's temperature predictions versus observations as well as a differing viewpoint as to the explanation or lack thereof of fit.
"It is like they have no interests in the science but protecting some interests."
It appears I could say the same for the modelers and you as well, if I were so inclined.
Science does allow differing viewpoints, does it not, or should this research article be rejected out of hand because it only disagrees with "scientific consensus".?
Sorry, forgot the link - http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2012/01/10/global-warming-no-natural-predictable-climate-change/?feed=rss_home."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd here is the link to the abstract of the original article - http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364682611003385#bib52
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPterostyrax Says: It appears I could say the same for the modelers and you as well, if I were so inclined.
Trent Says: Of course you are inclined. That is how you lot roll. Make accusations and assertions without a hint of evidence or coherence. Where as I can show that the fossil fuel industry has been giving millions to flacks to lie for them:
Source Watch:
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Patrick_J._Michaels
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Steven_J._Milloy
Ever wonder why such people are funded by the fossil fuel industry? Oh, let me guess. Charity. Yeah, that's the ticket/s
Pterostyrax Says: And here is the link to the abstract of the original article -
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTrent Says: Demolished here: Testing Hypotheses about Sun-Climate Complexity Linking
http://prl.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v104/i12/e128501
There are other problems too with the Scaffetta "hypothesis" such as the failure to explain such predicted and observed phenomena as stratospheric cooling while the troposphere warms, nights warming faster than days, the Arctic warming faster than the rest of the planet, etc.
Then again to an ideologue like you such predicted and observed phenomena are trivia.
Trent, care to address the clear mismatch between the GISS model predictions and observed data?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think Pterostyrax you are going to have realize than any alternative explanation is going to need to explain all of the phenomena. You simply can not ignore such predicted and observed phenomena such as:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1. The stratosphere cooling while the troposphere warms.
2. Nights warming faster than days.
3. The Arctic warming faster than the rest of the planet.
All of the above are falsifications of a solar hypothesis. You do not have the privilege of ignoring it.
"Facts are stubborn things"
John Adams
Pterostyrax Says: Trent, care to address the clear mismatch between the GISS model predictions and observed data?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTrent Says: The very first link in this thread gives lie to this assertion. Why lie? Why repeat a lie so easily revealed to be a falsehood?
The problem with your assertion is the paper you linked to purported to refute a 2003 paper by the authors published in 2010. The paper I linked to was December 2011.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCare to provide a peer reviewed article refuting the December 2011 article?
Are you aware of how the peer reviewed process and the subsequent discussion regarding the validity of the science works?
Michael Mann confirms in this interview that he is either willing to lie to make his point or (unlikely) that he is extremely ignorant.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHe falsely compares climate models (which are numeric computer simulations) with conceptual models. He is slightly closer when he talks about the models involved in building airplanes, because some of those, like many climate models, are finite element models. But it is completely dishonest to imply that because these models work in engineering of relatively simple systems, climate models are accurate. They are not - there are fundamental problems which they cannot or do not address (IPCC mentions the huge and critical uncertainties in predicting cloud effects (feedback) on albedo, as just one of many examples).
He implies that because the basic physics of the atmosphere is understood - voila... magically... we understand climate. This is utter nonsense. We understand the basic physics of the brain, too - does Mann want us to believe we understand human cognition?
He implies that since weather models are accurate (which they are not, and they are worthless beyond a week or two), and Dyson flies where the weather forecast is based on models, that the climate models must also be right.
Finally, he knocks down a straw-man as is so common when proponents like Mann attack skeptics: he implies that skeptics deny that CO2 concentrations affect the Earth's temperature. No scientifically literate skeptic ever makes such a claim. Serious skeptics know that predictions of the effects of CO2 increases are just guesswork, because the system is so complex that the feedbacks (e.g. clouds, above) cannot be well estimated, and that furthermore, the likelihood is that feedback effects are negative, not the strong positive feedback that Mann and his allies assume. They also know that, in the *absence* of feedback, the earth will warm about 1.2C for each *doubling* of the CO2 concentration (basic 1 dimensional radiation balance model).
The idea that this middling climate scientist can present such nonsense Freeman Dyson, one of the great intellects of modern science, is preposterous.
Mann is being remarkably dishonest here - I hope nobody is taken in by this nonsense - regardless of your opinion anthropogenic climate change. Mann is showing nothing but contempt for the reader and for Scientific American.
I strongly urge Scientific American to request and publish a response from Dyson. Not to do so, on such an important topic, would be unscientific.
This is a worn-out distraction from both the headline and the response from Michael Mann. They don't claim to do the granularity you claim they fail at. And the errors-of-approximation used in the models result in more conservative projections, so your criticism is actually pandering to the alarm-rattling crowd.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMann gets the acolytes he deserves. How fitting.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"They don't claim to do the granularity you claim they fail at."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAu contraire. This is exactly what the modelers claim - an accurate prediction of the impacts on global temperature of anthropogenic CO2 release.
"And the errors-of-approximation used in the models result in more conservative projections..."
Care to back this statement up with facts rather than assertion?
I was recently reading the 1986 edition of Contemporary Climatology by Henderson-Sellers. In the chapter on climate modelling they pointed out that the models were suggesting that the Arctic would be particularly affected by global warming, and if we saw such a trend it would strongly suggest that the models were accurate.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell, we've seen such a trend!
Pterostyrax Says: Care to back this statement up with facts rather than assertion?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTrent Says: You have been shown those facts. It is just that you reject or ignore them. See first post.
Oh, look folks another paper on models and observation that confirm the accuracy:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow natural and anthropogenic influences alter global and regional surface temperatures: 1889 to 2006:
http://www.leif.org/research/LeanRindCauses.pdf
I do wish that pterostryax would learn that Scaffeta has published rehash of earlier work. The earlier criticisms still stand and they still do not explain all of the observed phenomena. I do wish you would learn that is not a trivial objection.
I'm not a denier of global warming. It is clear that Man is causing global warming, and that it is very serious.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHowever, it is troubling that I keep seeing Michael Mann get science so badly wrong.
This time he claimed the Higgs boson has recently been found, and that the theorization leading to the postulating of the Higgs boson is analogous to the theorization leading to the global warming predictions.
In reality the Higgs boson has *not* been found. In fact even after repeated searches for it over the years it has never been found. This should (but usually does not) cast serious doubts about whether it really exists.
Furthermore, the way people came up with the Higgs was not at all analogous to how people came up with global warming theory. The global warming theory and its predictions are simply applications of physics principles that are very firmly unquestionably established. There can be no doubt about the frequency distribution of the blackbody radiation spectrum nor of the infrared CO2 resonance frequency. Other aspects needed for numerical results are more complicated, but still involve established science. The creation of the Higgs theory, on the other hand, was a speculative work, involving new purported concepts. (And t was not established to be true when the idea was conceived, and it is still not established now.)
"...they still do not explain all of the observed phenomena."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd GCMs do? Have you ever been involved in numerical modeling of temperature and carbon cycles in natural ecosystem?
I have spent thirty years modeling these phenomena, and, apologizing for tooting my own horn, was one of the best in the world at it. You can therefore stop attempting to point out my ignorance of the subject. It only highlights yours.
" The global warming theory and its predictions are simply applications of physics principles that are very firmly unquestionably established."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat statement is about 1/20th true (probably less). Temperature source/sinks are, for the most part, based on somewhat sound physics. However, there is a whole lot of empiricism involved in global temperature modeling when formulated in its entirety.
Carbon cycle modeling is a completely different story. The physics of CO2 dissolution in water and air is well established, but the rest of the carbon cycle is empirical for the most part.
I could go on, but the above should suffice to illustrate that your statement is not as clear cut as you appear to assert.
"We need to rely on conceptual models of the system we’re studying and it’s no different in any other field of science. In fact, the way science progresses is by conceptual models being put forward and then testing them against observations."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYep, and then call anybody who points out that the conceptual model isn't anywhere close to observations, a denier. Quiz for today.
Is Hansen's 1988 climate model prediction compared to observation out by:-
a) 0.004%
b) 0.04%
c) 0.4%
d) 4%
e) 40%?
Clue: It's not a-d.
I like how Mr. Mann does not bother to address the points made by Mr. Dyson but rather just attempts, and poorly at that, to discredit his advisary's opinion with nothing more than smoke and mirrors.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisUntil such time as the global climate modelers either come to grips with what they can do with their simluations their conlcusions are suspect. If they already know and are trying to cover it up then they deserve jail time.
In any case if they want people to believe that their results are correct then they need to publish their methods along with the all of the data sets and allow others outside of their circle confirm the results. Also, when people who may have some knowledge of how to build, run and interpret such models have some ideas maybe they should embrace them rather than automatically deflecting and calling people names like 'denier'.
Not sure what your point about the Higgs boson is. The reason it hasn't been found yet is that the Standard Model predicts a high mass which requires high energies not reachable by any accelerator except the LHC at Cern, and that collider has only been run at half its planned energy because of helium leaks and damage. So there's no mystery about why it hasn't been found.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat we need to keep in mind is there's more to global warming than global climate modelling. There's underlying basic physics (greenhouse properties of CO2, conservation of energy, etc) and real-world observations which support the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis (increasing global temperatures; shrinking glaciers, icecaps, and sea ice; biological evidence for earlier onset spring and later onset winter; invasion of lower latitude ecosystems and species into higher latitudes. There's little doubt that the planet is warming, and little doubt that the cause is anthropogenic CO2; the climate models are ancillary tools to investigate this hypothesis.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPterostyrax Says: And GCMs do?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTrent Says: Which part of the models predicted the following phenomena do you not understand?
1. The stratosphere cooling while the troposphere warms.
2. Nights warming faster than days.
3. The Arctic warming faster than the rest of the planet.
The above is not even a complete list. Some of those predictions date back to the 19th century done with pen and paper and another was the result of a computer model done way back in 1967.
Pterostyrax Says: I have spent thirty years modeling these phenomena, and, apologizing for tooting my own horn, was one of the best in the world at it. You can therefore stop attempting to point out my ignorance of the subject. It only highlights yours.
Trent Says: Since you have made credentials a issue. I want to know where you graduated from and what your training in geophysics is. I particularly want to know about your train in radiative transfer physics.
Ever read an interview with Dyson? He’s contrary.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this“It’s always possible Hansen could turn out to be right,” [Freeman Dyson] says of the climate scientist. “If what he says were obviously wrong, he wouldn’t have achieved what he has.[]I never claim to be an expert on climate. I think it’s more a matter of judgment than knowledge.”
Even Freeman’s wife Imme disagrees with him. After watching an Inconvenient Truth a second time together she asked:
“How far do you allow the oceans to rise before you say, This is no good?” she asked Dyson.
“When I see clear evidence of harm,” he said.
“Then it’s too late,” she replied. “Shouldn’t we not add to what nature’s doing?”
“The costs of what Gore tells us to do would be extremely large,” Dyson said. “By restricting CO2 you make life more expensive and hurt the poor. I’m concerned about the Chinese.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/magazine/29Dyson-t.html?pagewanted=all
More a matter of judgment than knowledge? What kind of judgment puts costs for the poor or Chinese ahead of all life at stake if we wait too long? And Freeman’s ideas on hybrid CO2 eating trees—a trillion would be needed, is not in tune with what man is actually doing to the earth. On what planet does he live to see man's overwhelming benevolence for nature? We’re destroying forests at a rapid rate as are fires from increasing drought.
If the U.S. can go to war based on Cheney’s 1% principle, then ditto for climate change.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/09/opinion/09friedman.html
You can diss the NY Times all you want, but nonetheless, the comments were Freeman’s.
BigBopper writes:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"What we need to keep in mind is there's more to global warming than global climate modelling. There's underlying basic physics ... and real-world observations which support the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis ... There's little doubt that the planet is warming, and little doubt that the cause is anthropogenic CO2"
It needs to be said again: the basic physics of CO2 warming is well known by both sides of the argument. Nobody contents that the earth hasn't been warming for several hundred years (well before man was emitting significant CO2). The observations you speak of merely confirm this fact.
There is plenty of contention over the significance of the warming - especially since it is a recovery from the "little ice age." The observations do *not* support the AGW hypothesis. They are not inconsistent with natural warming, and are often questionable and use cherry picked data ("hide the decline").
There is no doubt that man has increased CO2 concentration, and that the effect of this is likely a warmer earth than otherwise. However, the only prediction validated by physics is the logarithmic 1.2C per CO2 doubling of the non-feedback case.
Alarmists are predicting much greater warming (feedback >> 1 ) and that feedback is the true subject of contention. Anyone who claims to know the magnitude of that feedback is wrong, but there are historical reasons to believe it is not high.
Models are weak. Modelers tend to believe their models, because that's what they do for a living. But the non-linear dynamic system that is the earth's atmosphere defies accurate modeling.
For example, GCM weather models, which use the same approach (and sometimes same computer code) as many climate models, have no skill in predicting weather beyond a couple of weeks, and often err greatly only 12 hours out. Anyone forecaster knows it is routine for the various models to produce significantly different results for the near term, with the forecaster having to choose which blend of results is most likely.
There are many sources of model error, but the fundamental ones are chaos and resolution. Because of chaos and related effects, tiny changes can be greatly magnified in the atmosphere (there is huge short-term positive feedback). The models have neither the spatial nor geographic resolution to handle this, and it has been proven *theoretically impossible* to predict weather very far into the future. This uncertainty also afflicts, in different ways, climate models.
Mecyclone says: Nobody contents that the earth hasn't been warming for several hundred years.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTrent Says: Oh, so now no Little Ice Age now?
The science begs to differ:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/ipcc2007/fig6-10b.png
Mescyclone Says: It needs to be said again: the basic physics of CO2 warming is well known by both sides of the argument.
Trent Says: A Google Search reveals other wise.
Mescyclone Says: There is plenty of contention over the significance of the warming - especially since it is a recovery from the "little ice age."
Trent Says: Saying it is a recovery from the Little Ice Age is not an explanation of anything. The Earth energy budget is about inputs. All you have done is offer empty words.
Mescyclone Says: The observations do *not* support the AGW hypothesis.
Trent Says: Grossly false. Some of those observations in regards to a CO2 induced warming would look like have been predicted over a century ago and observed in the 20th and 21st century.
The whole rest of your argument is one big argument from ignorance.
"The whole rest of your argument is one big argument from ignorance."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf so, then perhaps you would address it. Or perhaps you could enlighten us on cloud physics modeling. How about addressing the issue of model parameterization? Can you explain why weather GCM's show very little skill much of the time, and no skill beyond 14 days, but are sufficiently accurate in climate modeling for us to spend tens of trillions of dollars based on the result?
"Saying it is a recovery from the Little Ice Age is not an explanation of anything. The Earth energy budget is about inputs. All you have done is offer empty words."
What I am saying is that it is a continuation of a trend. Would you care to explain why that trend existed before the CO2 inputs? Would you care to explain why the models failed to predict the leveling of temperature for the last decade or so? Perhaps you could address the disagreement of upper air measurements by radiosonde and satellite with the model predictions. Maybe you can defend the "hide the decline" event. Perhaps you can address the factors that influence the accuracy of tree ring climatology and Briffa's work. Since you cherry picked a graph from the high and mighty IPCC, would you please discuss their Himalayan glacier observations?
Mesocyclone Says: If so, then perhaps you would address it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTrent Says: Here have at it: Chapter 8: Climate Models and their Evaluation:http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch8.html
Mesocyclone: What I am saying is that it is a continuation of a trend.
Trent Says: I know exactly what you said and it makes no sense. A trend from what inputs? Just waving your arms around and saying "We are coming out of a Little Ice Age explains nothing. Climate trends are a result in the change of Earth's energy budget. Full Stop.
Mesocycole Says: Would you care to explain why the models failed to predict the leveling of temperature for the last decade or so?
Trent Says: You presume facts that are not in evidence. The 2000's are the warmest decade on the instrument record. Here take a look:
NASA Temps:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/Fig.A2.gif
In short the 80's were warmer than the 70's, the 90's were warmer than the 80's and the 2000's were warmer than the 90's.
You should also go and learn the difference between weather and climate it might keep you from repeating such fundamental mistakes again.
Now it is time you answered some of my questions: Would you care to explain how AGW has for over a century now been getting so much right? E.g how is it that way back in the late 19th century Svante Arrhenius could construct a model using nothing more than pencil and paper and predict phenomena that we can observe today? He predicted among other things:
1. Nights would warm faster than days.
2. Winters faster than Summers.
3. The Arctic would warm faster than any other place.
So clearly we have a successful model. Crude? Undoubtedly. Produced broadly accurate predictions indisputable. Care to cite peer reviewed empirically bases science that offers alternative explanation for the predicted and observed phenomena?
The majority of climate experts disagree with your contention that "the observations (of warming) do *not* support the AGW hypothesis". Now it is certainly possible for a majority of scientists to be wrong about something, but your dogmatism is clearly unwarranted.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo one doubts that climate models are imperfect, but some of their key predictions, such as disproportionate warming in the Arctic, seem to have been verified. We would therefore be well advised not to blithely dismiss them or jump to the conclusion that the warming we are seeing is natural or not likely to be major or highly disruptive.
If CO2 is this fantastic trapper of heat, then why bother burning fossil fuels to heat our houses? Why not just increase the percentage of CO2. Normal atmospheric content is 0.039%, and you get no ill effects up to 1%.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs far as the science goes, my understanding is that it's been proved that CO2 absorbs radiation, by taking satellite readings which shows radiation from the earth in the spectrum in whihc CO2 absorbs it, is reduced. However, it seems to me that if CO2 didn't interact with any other element then it could be said to conserve heat, but why wouldn't it transfer heat to another element that it comes in to contact with, which could radiate heat outside of the atmosphere? I'm not a scientist and am unfamiliar with the science that is said to demonstrate that CO2 absorbs and does not transfer heat, but would like a scientific explanation.
I got an interesting reply from my local MP about climate change. I wrote to him complaining that as Hansen's 1988 predictions for 2011's global mean temperature were 40% higher than reality, his climate model had no credibility, so why was our national science body, still promoting the global warming hypothesis.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy MP has replied saying that there were still unknowns in climate science (so non-commital as to whether he feels it's true or not there). He then goes on to say that apart from the global warming aspect, I should also bear in mind that there were positive reasons to move to a low-carbon economy. Namely, that the UK was dependent on fossil fuels whose supply was running out. Secondly, that the alternative energy industry was now worth £3trn, and that the UK could benefit from exploring opportunities to re-balance our economy by moving in to this new technological area. Thirdly, that the alternative energies were less polluting of the environment than fossil fuels.
I don't disagree with my MP. I think his alternative reasons as to why we should be moving to a low-carbon economy make a lot of sense. My contention is that claiming that it'll lead to global warming, will mean that when it's clear that the globe isn't warming, not only climate science but science in general will be considered suspect. We should move away from claiming any link between CO2 and global warming and focussing on the other net benefits of fossil fuel reduction.
Jdey SaysL CO2 is this fantastic trapper of heat, then why bother burning fossil fuels to heat our houses?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTrent Says: It traps and reradiates heat. It does not produce it. To be effective you would need IR radiators all over the house. Then you would need your house to be pretty well sealed against the rest of the atmosphere to keep it mixing with it. I mean, really, you think that it is an open question on the fact that CO2 captures and reradiates heat? That is a fact known since since Tyndall's 1859 experiments.
Jdey Says: However, it seems to me that if CO2 didn't interact with any other element then it could be said to conserve heat, but why wouldn't it transfer heat to another element that it comes in to contact with, which could radiate heat outside of the atmosphere.
Trent Says: The CO2 Problem in 6 Easy Steps:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/08/the-co2-problem-in-6-easy-steps/
It is a read for for people who are laymen but are scientifically literate. It is by a geophysicists explaining the basics. Read the first one hundred comments too.
Poker Player Says: The link you initially posted was a tricky piece of propaganda where model developers modified their model to get it to match historical observations.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTrent Says: Ah, the freedom to just make things up without a hint of evidence and analysis. Just one unsubstantiated declarative sentence after another. It must be so liberating to feel so untethered by fact and logic. /s
Poker Player Says: Ill wager $100K usd that you cannot come up with a GCM that will even reasonably accurately tell what rainfall will be like only 24 months into the future.
Trent Says: I do wish you would learn that no one believes your fake bets. I do know someone who is willing to wager 10,000 Euros on this sort of thing. So why do you not just mosey on over Deltoid's open thread and see what kind of wager you rustle up:
Deltoid"s Open Thread
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2012/01
/january_2012_open_thread.php
I am going to keep on asking you about the status of this bet now in every thread now.
"Ask Mann why it makes sense to average the results of many models vs. determining what model produces reliable, repeatable results and only using that model until a better one is developed. Ask Mann why he can trust the output of GCMs that produce significantly different results when they are runs multiple times using the same data."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere is the problem in a nutshell, which I alluded to in one of my earlier posts, which Trent never chose to address. When comparing computed versus observed temperatures, one compares the best output of ONE run of ONE model to "observed" temperatures. There is no scientific principle that allows one to average results from an experiment so as to make the computed versus observed values look better.
What the IPCC has chosen to do in Trent's graph is average model output from four runs (who knows what the variance in the parameters consist of) of a single model output (who knows which model was chosen) a.l.a. Trent's first post as well as average the output of 14 GCM model runs to provide a band of temperature predictions in which the "observed" global temperatures fall into. Even then, the IPCC cherry picked model outputs to include in the comparisons as more than 14 models were specifically addressed in the report. Some were not included in the averaging of model results.
Cherry picking of data. Where has that been heard from previously in the GCM modeling community?
This is manufacturing output to better match "observed" data, pure and simple. Such is the sad state of affairs that "science", or what increasingly passes as science nowadays, currently finds itself in.
Pterostyrax Says: There is the problem in a nutshell, which I alluded to in one of my earlier posts, which Trent never chose to address.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou have been addressed it is just that you choose to pretend to not have been answered. The models have shown that their predictions to be accurate time after time. The reasonable accuracy of these models is born out by their repeated success in predicting:
1. *The stratosphere cooling while the troposphere warms.
2. *Nights warming faster than days.
3. *Winters warming faster than Summers.
4. The expansion of the Hadley Cell.
5. The Arctic warming faster the rest of the planet.
That is not even a complete list. Yet, you clowns can not ever be bothered to answer how the models can predict these phenomena decades and in some cases nearly a century ahead of their observation. Nor do you or your ideological comrades offer a comprehensive alternative theory to explain them. Pitiful.
* The asterisk denotes those observations are double whammies of providing falsification for a solar hypothesis of global warming.
Exactly. I run the same type of models to predict reservoir flow properties and I can tell you for a fact that if my model results do not include an uncertainty analysis that they are considered worthless.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat the people supporting the GCM's and their results do not understand (or just do not want to understand) is that using the results of those models to make policy decisions has an economic impact. Therefore, if we, as a society, are going to make decisions based upon the results then we had better be well informed of the range of possible outcomes of the models and then the range of economic impacts from those decisions.
As a note: it really irritates me when I see a news article that reports that some government program is going to cost X with no range around that figure. Sometimes I think that my coworkers and I are the only people that actually realistically consider the uncertainty in our work and then honestly present it (I know that this is not the case but it does feel that way). There is nothing 'wrong' with admitting that there is uncertainty in your work. Actually I find that people that take the time to consider the result and the potential for that answer to be flawed are very thoughtful.
And here are some responses to you:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisChek Says: pokerplayer, whoever thinks that they want a GCM to predict the weather "36 months from now at 30 different locations around the world" doesn't understand what GCMs do, or what climate is.
You'd be better off trying your weather wager with a crackpot like Piers Corby
Trent Says: You do know the difference between climate and weather?
Yo Poker Player it is sort of hard to bet with someone who can tell the difference between climate and weather. Your ignorance is stunning.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFurther I do not think it has gone unnoticed that you refuse to even acknowledge the existence of all those prediction that have come true.
. *The stratosphere cooling while the troposphere warms.
2. Nights warming faster than days.
3. Winters warming faster than Summers.
4. The expansion of the Hadley Cell.
5. The Arctic warming faster the rest of the planet.
Poker Player Says: I never wrote that that there would not be warming.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTrent Says: Let me see. While admitting to some warming you deny any consequence of warming. Consequences like:
1.Accelerated sea level rise.
2. Melting glaciers.
3. A shrinking ice cap.
Cognitive dissonance thy name is Poker player.
Pokerplayer Says: I see no evidence of it being a degree of a problem to warrant the level of panic that you seem to have.
Trent Says: That is because you place your hand over your eyes and scream loudly so that your senses will not intake the data. You keep asking for what the consequences are people answer and then you go on to pretend that your questions have not been answered. Rinse and repeat. Over and over.
Pokerplayeer Says: I see no reason for the US taxpayer to fund things in other countries over the issue.
Trent Says: Keep on pretending that you live on a separate planet from other nations and that negative consequence their can not have negative consequence here.
Poker Player Says: There will always be areas harmed while other benefit as conditions change.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTrent Says: And here have an inept attempt to divert attention away from the proven accuracy of the models after declaiming loudly and incessantly they were no good.
Poker Player Says: There is no evidence to date of accelerated sea level rise.
Trent Says: You have been shown other wise. We have gone from a 2mm sea level rise for the 20th century to now a 3.2mm rise. That is a fact.
Poker Player Says: Melting glaciers are not necessarily a long term problem.
Trent Says: Only a good portion of the Earth's population depends on the annual melt of glacier for water and agriculture. Sure no problem as they shrink. /s
<I> “we ruin the planet”?</I>
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAny one who has seen the following global temperature data
http://bit.ly/pxXK4j
concludes that there has not been any change in the climate pattern, and there can not be any possibility of “we ruin the planet” when there is no evidence of man made climate change in the data: The observed warming of 0.6 deg C per century existed BEFORE mid 20th century, before widespread use of fossil fuels.
I dearly hope people try to solve real problems like poverty now than fictitious future problems.
Yes, climate models are useful for understanding climate but not for predicting climate change, at this stage.
Selti you must be smoking something.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNASA-GISS:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/Fig.A2.gif
Now tell me exactly how you explain the shrinking of the Arctic Sea Ice? The finding that now 89% of glaciers are melting? The movement of plants and trees to the higher latitudes? And that is just a small portion of the warming signs found on the Earth.
Poker Player Says: Now you are being untruthful in writing that you have reliable data to show there has been a change in the rate of sea level rise from 2mm to 3mm.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTrent Says: I have shown you reliable data before. It is just that you like to pretend you never saw it before.
NSF Study: Fastest Sea-Level Rise in Two Millennia Linked to Increasing Global Temperatures:
Here take a look at the peer reviewed findings:
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2011/06/13/1015619108.abstract
Poker Player Says: Also it is interesting that you other site has now banned my comments? Kind of interesting how they only like one story on the site.
Trent Says: I know you are lying. Why don't you ask me how I know?
Now now, Poker Player, if you are claiming to have been banned from Deltoid, well, that's not exactly true, is it? In fact, there's many folks there just waiting to see how you're going to back up some of your more 'interesting' claims. 'Run away with tail between legs' might seem a little more accurate - but don't take my word for it people, judge for yourselves by scrolling down from his arrival here -
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2012/01/january_2012_open_thread.php#comment-6211132
Yes. CO2 is a greenhouse gas.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHowever, the observed global temperature does not show accelerated warming with increase in CO2 emission.
Global Mean Temperature (GMT) data => http://bit.ly/pxXK4j
The most important observation in the above data is that the upper GMT boundary line passes through all the GMT peaks, the lower GMT boundary line passes through all the GMT valleys, and these lines are parallel. Also, the line that bisects the vertical space between the two GMT boundary lines is nearly identical to the long-term global warming trend line of 0.06 deg C per decade for the whole data. This result indicates that, for the last 130 years, the GMT behaved like a stable pendulum with the two GMT boundary lines that are 0.5 deg C apart as the end points of the pendulum’s swings, and the long-term global warming trend line of 0.06 deg C per decade as the pendulum’s neutral position.
In the above data, the GMT touched its upper boundary line only 3-times, about every 60-years, but has never crossed it for long in the last 130 years.
In the GMT data, a shift in climate to an accelerated global warming would have been indicated if the upper GMT boundary line had been a curve with an increasing positive slope with increasing years, or the upper and lower GMT boundary lines had been diverging with increasing years.
Fortunately, the upper GMT boundary line is a straight line having, interestingly, the same global warming rate of 0.06 deg C per decade as the global warming trend line for the whole data. Also, the upper and lower GMT boundary lines are parallel, showing no change in the magnitude of the GMT swing with increasing years. As a result, the vertical cooling or warming swing of 0.5 deg C between the two GMT boundary lines is cyclic and is therefore natural.
However, there is evidence of a persistent but natural global warming of 0.06 deg C per decade. Not 0.2 deg C per decade as claimed by the IPCC.
@Selti,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWords for Trees. You are doing it wrong. Here take a look at the same data from Had Cru with a linear trend:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/plot/hadcrut3vgl/trend
Note the difference between the two graphs. I invite everyone to ask themselves why when looking for a signal in noisy data that you would detrend it. I also encourage everyone to take a look at the y axis used for Selti's graph. Why those scales?
I can only come to the conclusion that Selti is trying distort the data and minimize the fact that since the 19th century temperature have increased by 0.8 C. with half that increase coming in the last thirty years.
But that is not all folks. People like Selti will never ever admit that as far back as the 19th century it was predicted that the dry and albedo high Arctic would warm faster than other part of the globe. That was not the only prediction but let us see if we can get him to admit one fact.
"Nobody contents that the earth hasn't been warming for several hundred years (well before man was emitting significant CO2)."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere is not a lot of evidence for much warming before 1800 and a lot more that there wasn't so your claim that nobody contends warming before then is false.
The above comment was a reply to mesocyclone (comment 45).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"The most important observation in the above data is that the upper GMT boundary line passes through all the GMT peaks, the lower GMT boundary line passes through all the GMT valleys, and these lines are parallel."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat's just garbage. Your lower GMT line doesn't come anywhere near the GMT valleys in the early part of the record or the late part of the record. Also, your upper GMT boundary line just touches the peak in the 1940s and chops off a lot of the peaks in Hadcrut before 1880 and after 1997. I think the most important observation in your graphs is that you've tortured the data until it confessed to what you wanted it to say.
If in the 1940s some had projected continued warming, they would have been wrong as shown below.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://bit.ly/zI5Sz6
It could be the same with the current continued warming projection.
Assuming the recent warming trend would continue, a climate scientist put a bet in 2008 that the record annual global mean temperature anomaly for 1998 (hadcrut3vgl.txt) would be exceeded before 2011. He lost! (http://bbc.in/yEJBn6 , Starts at 14:38)
AGW is a fictitious theory not supported by the data. It is something like saying, because potatoes contain poisonous element, it will kill you. Similarly, they say, because CO2 is a greenhouse gas, human emission of CO2 causes global warming. Instead of looking at the theory, what they must look is at the real world observation. Billions of people eat potatoes but it does not kill them.
To protect themselves from the freezing cold and the sweltering heat, to escape from the night's darkness, or in general, to free themselves from backbreaking toil of life, humans use fossil fuels that release CO2 into the atmosphere. The observed data shows this emission of CO2 has not changed the global mean temperature (GMT) pattern as shown in the above graph.
This graph shows there is no change in the GMT pattern because the slope of 0.06 deg C per decade of the GMT bands before mid-20th century (before widespread use of fossil fuels) is nearly identical to the slope of the band after mid-20th century.
As a result, IPCC claims of climate sensitivity of 3 deg C and projected warming of about 0.2 deg C per decade in the next couple of decades need modification. As shown in the above graph, as the global warming rate is only 0.06 deg C per decade, the true climate sensitivity is only 3x0.06/0.2 = 0.9 deg C.
Man made global warming is a fictitious theory that is not supported by the data.
The global mean temperature data shows GLOBAL WARMING has STOPPED as shown below:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://bit.ly/y6GWC1
Selti, you apparently posted this intriguing nonsense over at Deltoid (as 'sam') and then staged a (well-advised) tactical retreat! You really ought to check out some of the responses, you know; other readers might also benefit.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSimply start here -
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2012/01/january_2012_open_thread.php#comment-6211936
Similarly, after having announced above on scant evidence that he was banned at Deltoid - not actually true (and, boy, you have to really, really try hard to get banned at Deltoid! But a post did get held up in moderation for a while, which happens to all of us sometimes) - Poker Player has missed out on responses to his magisterial opinions on the impact of rising sea levels and (courtesy of the GWPF) ocean acidification, including the gem that begins -
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Wow, as a marine biologist who used to specialize in chemical ecology on coral reefs (in SW Asia) and who now works on coastal development in South Florida, it almost seems like Pokerplayer is a gift from the heavens offered up to me..."
Seems such a shame to miss it -
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2012/01/january_2012_open_thread.php#comment-6212119
selti (aka driveby sam) says "The global mean temperature data shows GLOBAL WARMING has STOPPED as shown below:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://bit.ly/y6GWC1"
If you follow his link, you will find that he has plotted the global temp using the HADCRUT temp record from 1998 to the present. Why cherry pick 1998 and HADCRUT? Because in the HADCRUT data (which uses fewer data points from the more rapidly warming Artic), 1998 was the hottest year on record.
In 1998, an strong El Nino caused heat transfer from the Pacific Ocean to the atmosphere. Consequently, we experienced above average surface temperatures. Conversely, the last few years have seen moderate La Nina conditions which has had a cooling effect on global temperatures. Even so January 2000 to December 2009 was still the warmest decade on record.
selti's cherry picking is not science. It is data manipulation (or as was noted above - data torture) in support of his cause - climate science denial.
The NASA site
http://climate.nasa.gov/keyIndicators/
shows all the indicators of global warming - temp, sea level, land ice, sea ice. The evidence is unmistakeable - it is warming, it is caused by CO2 and it is happening now.
There are no shortage of fake experts who will tell you otherwise - there are quite a few of them commenting here. But ask yourself the question - why do they need to cherry pick the data if they are correct. And why do all the science organisations like NASA, NOAA etc disagree with them.
"This graph shows there is no change in the GMT pattern because the slope of 0.06 deg C per decade of the GMT bands before mid-20th century (before widespread use of fossil fuels) is nearly identical to the slope of the band after mid-20th century."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAfter being shown earlier that this assertion is garbage, selti continues to repeat it as if there is nothing wrong. Selti is just a pontiff troll, i.e. he makes his pontifications from on high and has no interest in what the huddled masses say in response.
"The global mean temperature data shows GLOBAL WARMING has STOPPED as shown below:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://bit.ly/y6GWC1"
No-one claims that human-caused forcing will always overwhelm nature over a period as short as 14 years. For example: http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1896/to:1910/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1896/to:1910/trend nature can produce a cooling trend of 0.22 deg C/decade over a 14 year period, easily enough to overwhelm the last 14 years of increased human CO2 forcing.
Let me know when there is a cooling of 0.22 deg C/decade for 14 years, then I'll agree that humans are having little effect.
"Let me know when there is a cooling of 0.22 deg C/decade for 14 years, then I'll agree that humans are having little effect."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI should add to my comment that the global climate no longer has cooling periods like it used to have, e.g. the last decent 14 year cooling period ran from 1943 to 1957. Those days are over. Get used to it folks.
There is a cyclic component in the global mean temperature (GMT) data due to thermohaline circulation as described in the following paper.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://bit.ly/nyKlvC (see Figures 1 & 4)
This thermohaline circulation has a warming and cooling phase of about 30 years. From about 1970s to 2000s, the thermohaline circulation was during its warming phase and that is the reason for the observed global warming. From about 2000s to 2030s, the thermohaline circulation will be in its cooling phase. As a result, in the 2000s, the GMT (as already observed) plateaus, and global cooling should follow until the 2030s.
There is no evidence of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) so far. In the last 14 years, humans have released about 500 Gt of CO2 into the atmosphere. However, all this human emission of CO2 has not increased the global mean temperature. As shown in the following graph, for the last 14 years, with increase in human emission of CO2 by 500 Gt, the change in the global mean temperature trend was zero.
http://bit.ly/y6GWC1
As a result, Global warming is a fictitious theory that is not supported by the data.
AGW will die its deserved death in the coming five years with the expected global cooling.
On the other hand, if the 1998 record is exceeded in the next five years, I will join the AGW believer camp.
If you doubt my comments above, please read the following email that shows the doubts in AGW that climate scientists have in 2008 when discussing the issue in private.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this“Yeah, it wasn't so much 1998 and all that that I was concerned about, used
to dealing with that, but the possibility that we might be going through a
longer - 10 year - period of relatively stable temperatures beyond what you
might expect from La Nina etc.
Speculation, but if I see this as a possibility then others might also.”
http://bit.ly/zKPQvO
What we skeptics say in public, climate scientists say in private!
As a result, are these climate scientists a deniers?
Lotharsson
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Bernard, "selti" at SciAm would appear to have the right set of beliefs to consider a wager with you, although I don't know if he's prepared to put his money where his mouth is."
Yes, I will put my money where my mouth is:
I bet the 1998 record for hadcrut3gl.txt will not be exceeded in the next three years (2012, 2013 & 2014). This is a simple extension of the Annan & Whitehouse bet.
By the way, my real name is Girma.
I am banned at deltoid since 2008!
Girma:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"If you doubt my comments above, please read the following email that shows the doubts in AGW that climate scientists have in 2008 when discussing the issue in private."
Actually it shows they anticipate the possibility of global temperature being relatively stable over a period longer than would be strongly influenced by El Nino/La Nina. This has nothing to do with their acceptance of AGW of course, Girma's wishful thinking notwithstanding.
Girma:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"I bet the 1998 record for hadcrut3gl.txt will not be exceeded in the next three years (2012, 2013 & 2014). This is a simple extension of the Annan & Whitehouse bet."
If you were intellectually honest you would bet on the most up-to-date version of Hadcrut, Hadcrut4: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/pdf/1/e/PresentationMOSAC_16.4_Gordon.pdf
Of course, I don't expect Girma to be intellectually honest.
coneill
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAGW advocates, look at the following graph for a minute and "I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, consider it possible that you may be wrong."
http://bit.ly/xakrmJ
AGW advocates, what changed in the 161 years of annual global mean temperature data?
Is not the only change the uniform global warming of ONLY 0.06 deg C per decade?
Ah, so 1 of the 3 warmist datasets - HadCrut, is now disclaimed as being unreliable by warmists because it doesn't provide the "correct" figures? HadCrut is produced by the UK Met Office and the Climate Research Unit, University of East Anglia. I think you'll remember them as the guys who want to "hide the decline". Seems that since they got outed, they're not able to do this, and warmists now want to disown them.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYep, but you have to provide a credible explanation as to why a planet that is supposed to be retaining more heat as CO2 emissions increase, can have any cooling period at all. We've had solar lull, aerosols, ENSO effect, none of which correlate with observed data. For example, solar irradiance has increased since 2009, we've only had a mild La Nina event and aerosol emissions have not increased more than normal, which means 2011 should have been warmer than 2010. It wasn't. Not 1 year has Hansen's 1984 climate model made a correct prediction of global mean temperature and in 2011, it will have diverged from observed data by close to 50%.A hypothesis that doesn't match observed data is a broken hypothesis.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisArctic Sea Ice isn't getting thinner:-
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/files/2012/01/20110105_Figure2.png
The world isn't getting warmer:-
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1998/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1998/trend
Hansen's predictions are getting wildly inaccurate:-
http://www.columbia.edu/~mhs119/Temperature/T_moreFigs/PNAS_GTCh_Fig2.pdf
TrueSceptic at deltoid (Jan 2012 Open Thread #371)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"I'm a bit concerned that HADCRUT3 might soon be replaced by HADCRUT4, but we agreed on "HADCRUT", didn't we? All the same, I won't take the easy option: will there be a means of estimating what HADCRUT3 would have been once HADCRUT4 takes over? "
How about using the following equation:
Equivalent HADCRUT3 annual GMT = (1880 to 2010 Linear Trend for HADCRUT3/1880 to 2010 Linear Trend for HADCRUT4) * HADCRUT4 annual GMT
Where 1880 to 2010 Linear Trend for HADCRUT3 = 0.06 deg C per decade.
I hope everyone here realize that Jdey is straight out lying when he claims that the National Sea Ice Data Center is showing a steady sea ice extent:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHere is what it actually says about sea ice extent:
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
"Arctic sea ice extent in December 2011 averaged 12.38 million square kilometers (4.78 million square miles). This is the third lowest December ice extent in the 1979 to 2011 satellite data record, 970,000 square kilometers (375,000 square miles) below the 1979 to 2000 average"
extent."
And:
December 2011 compared to past years
"Arctic sea ice extent for December 2011 was the third lowest in the satellite record. The five lowest December extents in the satellite record have occurred in the past six years. Including the year 2011, the linear rate of decline ice December ice extent over the satellite record is -3.5% per decade."
You have to wonder why these clowns lie about so easily debunked untruths.
"You have to wonder why these clowns lie about so easily debunked untruths."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat's one of the characteristics of pathological liars http://depressiond.org/pathological-liar/ :
"Pathological liar refers to a liar that .. is unable to control their lying despite of foreseeing .. ultimate disclosure of the lie."
"you have to provide a credible explanation as to why a planet that is supposed to be retaining more heat as CO2 emissions increase, can have any cooling period at all."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat cooling period? You must be smoking something pretty strong if you think there has been anything like the 14 year cooling period that ended in the 1950s.
"we've only had a mild La Nina event"
Actually the strongest La Nina in nearly 40 years: http://www.bom.gov.au/social/2011/07/lanina-ends/
Not only that, but it redeveloped to give us a rare back-to-back pair of La Ninas in successive years.
Yes, jdey123 is definitely on some pretty strong stuff.
"so 1 of the 3 warmist datasets - HadCrut, is now disclaimed as being unreliable by warmists because it doesn't provide the "correct" figures?"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe corrected version is:
so 1 of the 5 warmist datasets - HadCrut (3 not 4), is now proclaimed as being the only reliable set by denialists because it alone provides the "correct" figures and because it leaves out fast-warming areas of the earth: the Arctic, including northern Siberia and Canada, and continental interiors of Africa and South America?
The raw data for ENSO events can be found here:-
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensostuff/ensoyears.shtml
The data does not match the statement that the recent La Nina was the strongest for 40 years.
I hope everyone here realizes that Jdey is straight out lying when he claims that the National Sea Ice Data Center is showing a steady sea ice extent:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHere is what it actually says about sea ice extent:
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
"Arctic sea ice extent in December 2011 averaged 12.38 million square kilometers (4.78 million square miles). This is the third lowest December ice extent in the 1979 to 2011 satellite data record, 970,000 square kilometers (375,000 square miles) below the 1979 to 2000 average"
extent."
And:
December 2011 compared to past years
"Arctic sea ice extent for December 2011 was the third lowest in the satellite record. The five lowest December extents in the satellite record have occurred in the past six years. Including the year 2011, the linear rate of decline ice December ice extent over the satellite record is -3.5% per decade."
My link's from the same site and shows that at the moment, the Arctic sea ice extent is greater than it was for the same period in any of the 4 proceeding years. Given that the claim by warmists is that the Arctic (in which there are no weather stations located) is warming far faster than the rest of the globe, this strikes me as somewhat unusual.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYo Jdey,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is patently obvious that you do not have a clue. Once again let us take a look at what they says, again:
"This is the third lowest December ice extent in the 1979 to 2011 satellite data record, 970,000 square kilometers (375,000 square miles) below the 1979 to 2000 average"
extent."
And:
" The five lowest December extents in the satellite record have occurred in the past six years. Including the year 2011, the linear rate of decline ice December ice extent over the satellite record is -3.5% per decade."
Just going to pretend those words do not exist, eh? Tell me, is it your opinion that one year be always higher or lower than the previous one? Are you at all aware of stochastic process?
And let us take a look at how the northern latitudes are fairing:
NASA-GISS:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/Fig.B.gif
Why lie so blatantly in the face of reality?
Words can obviously say what ever the analyst wants them to. I didn't produce the actual graph which I've linked to which is on the same site as the analysis that you've linked to. The reader can decide whether they wish to believe the analysis or the data as shown in the graph. It's hard to understand how you can accuse me of lying. You may disagree with my analysis of the graph but that's somewhat different from lying. All of the links that I'm providing nowadays are from sources that provide the raw data that we all analyse and that usually provide their own analysis which supports the global warming hypothesis.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs to the NASA link, that covers northern latitudes, not just the arctic. NASA make it clear on their website that temperatures from the Arctic are extrapolated from weather station readings taken from outside of the Arctic. This is one of many problems with earth-based temperature readings.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJdey Says: Words can obviously say what ever the analyst wants them to.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJdey Translated: What do Arctic Ice specialist know about the Arctic?
Jdey Says: I didn't produce the actual graph which I've linked to which is on the same site as the analysis that you've linked to.
Trent Says: Right. And the graph does not conform to your dishonest representations of it either.
Jdey Says: You may disagree with my analysis of the graph but that's somewhat different from lying.
Trent Says: You are not presenting an analysis but a dishonest pronouncement. You are simply wagering that most people will not follow the link.
Jdey, you are an incompetent propagandist. Simply repeating the lies that have already been exposed as lies reveal a deep lack of introspection on your part.
"Trent Says: You are not presenting an analysis but a dishonest pronouncement. You are simply wagering that most people will not follow the link."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne of the problems with Scientific American, is that it doesn't automatically create hyperlinks. However, a reader can verify for themselves whether the graph in question shows what I say it does or not. Calling me a liar or dishonest, could be said to be a trick on your part to suggest that you visited the hyperlink and found it to be different from that which I reported. I won't resort to calling you names, however. The reader is able to verify for themselves who is telling the truth.
Jdey Says: Says: As to the NASA link, that covers northern latitudes, not just the arctic.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTrent Yes, and that shows that the northern latitudes above 23 degrees are not warming more than the other latitudes how?
Jdey Says: NASA make it clear on their website that temperatures from the Arctic are extrapolated from weather station readings taken from outside of the Arctic.
Trent Says: Goddard Institute of Space Studies has a list of stations above 66 degrees latitude.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/findstation.py?datatype=gistemp&data_set=13&name=&world_map.x=284&world_map.y=37
Shall I give a very incomplete list of stations above 66 degrees? Yes? Ok!
Distance Station Name Lat Lon ID Pop. Years
547 km (*) Upernavik 72.8 N 56.2 W 431042100000 < 10,000 1880 - 2002
613 km (*) Danmarkshavn 76.8 N 18.7 W 431043200000 < 10,000 1951 - 2011
636 km (*) Myggbukta 73.5 N 21.6 W 431043300010 < 10,000 1932 - 1950
725 km (*) Dundas Radio 76.6 N
Does GISS extrapolate though? Sure it does. And that extrapolation is based on empirical reality.
Jdey Says: Calling me a liar or dishonest, could be said to be a trick on your part to suggest that you visited the hyperlink and found it to be different from that which I reported.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTrent Says: That is because you did. Just like you lied about there being stations in Arctic. Shall I post up a few more stations? Yes? OK!
53 km (*) Rea Point A,Nw 75.4 N 105.7 W 403719240010 < 10,000 1969 - 1986
335 km (*) Mould Bay, N. 76.2 N 119.3 W 403710720000 < 10,000 1949 - 1997
369 km (*) Resolute,N.W. 74.7 N 95.0 W 403719240000 < 10,000 1947 - 2011
397 km (*) Isachsen,Nw 78.8 N 103.5 W 403719170010 < 10,000 1948 - 1978
607 km (*) Holman,Nw 70.7 N 117.8 W 403719480030 < 10,000 1941 - 1969
661 km (*) Sachs Harbour 72.0 N 125.3 W 403710510000 < 10,000 1955 - 2004
698 km (*) Cambridge Bay 69.1 N 105.1 W 403719250000 < 10,000 1929 - 2011
722 km (*) Arctic Bay,Nw 73.0 N 85.2 W 403710950030 < 10,000 1937 - 1976
722 km (*) Eureka,N.W.T. 80.0 N 85.9 W 403719170000 < 10,000 1947 - 2011
Darn it. I that list is just not lining up like I want. I may have to do that by hand. My apologies.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA Very Incomplete List of Stations in the Arctic:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisStation Name: Latitude
Rea Point A,Nw 75.4 N
Mould Bay, N. 76.2 N
Resolute,N.W. 74.7 N
Eureka,N.W.T. 80.0 N
Alert,N.W.T. 82.5 N
Eureka,N.W.T. 80.0 N
Nord Ads 81.6 N
Gmo Im.E.T. 80.6 N
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/findstation.py?datatype=gistemp&data_set=13&name=&world_map.x=406&world_map.y=28
Is there just any more questions about Jdey's incompetent dishonesty?
Having found the originating source, I can confirm that I was mistaken in saying that there are no Arctic weather stations, there are large areas of the Arctic without any weather stations, however, as discussed in the "Handling the Arctic" section. The original comment was made in a section referring to problems with earth-based land sets. Although what I said wasn't accurate, it doesn't alter the underlying problem.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this“There’s no doubt that estimates of Arctic warming are uncertain, and should be regarded with caution,” Hansen said
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/2010-climate-records.html
Yo Jdey, the NASA analysis is based upon the empirical observation that large areas often share the same temperature profile. You are making a argument from ignorance. Think about it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd from the same section of the web page we find:
"On the other hand, GISS’s approach may either overestimate or underestimate Arctic warming. “There’s no doubt that estimates of Arctic warming are uncertain, and should be regarded with caution,” Hansen said. “Still, the rapid pace of Arctic ice retreat leaves little question that temperatures in the region are rising fast, perhaps faster than we assume in our analysis.”
Funny how you just leave out entire sections that are opposite of the narrative you wanted to present. It is like I was dealing with a dishonest person or something.
Re-post, hopefully with direct hyperlinks this time *fingers crossed*
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this<a href="Arctic Sea Ice is more extensive today than for the same period for any year since 2007">http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/files/2012/01/20110105_Figure2.png</a>
<a href="The world hasn’t got any warmer since 1998">http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1998/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1998/trend</a>
<a href="UK winter’s mean temperature in 2010-11 was the same as it was in 1910-11 and has barely changed in all of the intervening years (select link, choose 'Mean Temperature' in 'Climate Variable' and 'Winter' in 'Month/Season/Annual' list boxes">http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/actualmonthly/</a>
<a href="Hansen’s predictions are getting wildly inaccurate (scenario B is the light blue line and closest to actual CO2 emissions, black line represents actual temperature’s recorded">http://www.columbia.edu/~mhs119/Temperature/T_moreFigs/PNAS_GTCh_Fig2.pdf</a>
Scientific advance requires the following to hold true:-
i) A hypothesis be postulated
ii) A model produced which predicts expected results
iii) Observations taken which match the predicted results.
If observations do not match predicted results, the hypothesis should be withdrawn.
Additional useful links when examining the global warming hypothesis are:-
Land & Ocean datasets:-
a) <a href="HADCRUT (UK Met Office & Climate Research Unit, University of East Anglia)">http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/#datdow</a>
b) <a href="NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) State of the Climate report – Year to date figures appear just above the Precipitation section.">http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2011/11</a>
c) <a href="NASA GISS (Hansen’s departmental website)">http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/Fig.A2.txt</a>
Problems with earth-based datasets include:-
a) There are large areas of the Arctic with no weather stations, so results are either excluded or extrapolated from nearest weather stations.
b) Weather stations aren’t evenly distributed over the globe.
c) Temperature accuracy has increasingly improved over the years, with a reasonable degree of accuracy (+/-0.05C) only available from the 1950s onwards.
Ah well, I guess I'll have to ask Exxon to send me on an IT course. Lol.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Arctic Sea Ice isn't getting thinner:-
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/files/2012/01/20110105_Figure2.png"
So you think thickness means extent, do you? No wonder people think you're a liar.
"The data does not match the statement that the recent La Nina was the strongest for 40 years."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRegardless of how La Nina is measured, it certainly wasn't mild: http://www.bom.gov.au/announcements/media_releases/climate/change/20120104.shtml
"Years commencing with a strong La Niña are typically 0.10 to 0.15 °C cooler than the years preceding and following them. Although global temperatures have not been as warm as the record-breaking values seen in 2010, 2011 was the warmest La Niña year on record."
Anyone who thinks that 2011 should have been warmer than 2010 because the La Nina was "mild" is delusional.
"Not sure what your point about the Higgs boson is. The reason it hasn't been found yet is that the Standard Model predicts a high mass which requires high energies not reachable by any accelerator except the LHC at Cern, and that collider has only been run at half its planned energy because of helium leaks and damage. So there's no mystery about why it hasn't been found. "
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo, this is not correct. There have been mass predictions previously, and when the Higgs was looked for at those mass levels it was not found.
If a theory makes a prediction, and the prediction fails, the most likely implication is that the theory is wrong. But the Higgs True-Believers do not accept that--what they are not doing is reputable science--instead they just decide that it must be at a different mass range.
This type of thing is not new in "science"--you have just not been told about it. There were aether theories that were discredited but not abandoned. At one time the scientific community refused to believe that the Sun did not revolve around the Earth. One often hears this as "the Catholic Church refused to believe", but this is not what really happened--it was the scientific community alongside the Church. And of course, at the time, many people had the same type of view as you now have.
I bet a year from now it will still not be found, and the Higgsters will not have abandoned the unicorn particle. They will either claim yet another mass range, or they will replace it wit some Super-Higgs Particle that exists in 573 dimensions.
Perhaps you could help me understand that link you posted. It is a set of graphs from a 2001 IPCC publication showing the "agreement" between GCMs and observed temperatures.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou seem to imply in your post that it displays compelling proof regarding the accuracy of GCMs.
My expectation is that the reliability of a model would be determined by its ability to predict the future, so a graph made in 2001 of models versus observations up to the year 2000 would not seem to provide any information about how good a model is at predicting the future. In fact you would expect that a model is "trained" on observed data, and that it should hind-cast accurately.
However, it is pretty easy to "trick" up a model to match prior observed values by the introduction of additional variables with settings that need not have any physical justification. The only way of telling if they make any sense is how they predict the future.
My understanding is that by 2012, the observed data and the forecast temperatures in the same models in this report have quite a disparity.
Can you help me understand why you present this as strong evidence? What am I missing that doesn't seem to be available in your initial comment response?
No point in comparing economic models to climate models. Economic models start with basic assumptions about human behavior that are just assumptions, and sometimes assumptions that are plainly wrong (eg, rational choice).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMichael Mann/David Biello,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn the print interview, Michael Mann states:
"The least interesting thing you could do with these spatial patterns once you build them was to average all those data to get a single number for each years - the average temperature of the Northern Hemisphere - and plot that back in time, which is what yielded this hockey stick curve."
I certainly agree, and would like to point out that a plot of the global population (most of which, I think, resides in the Northern Hemisphere) over past several hundred years also demonstrates a similar 'hockey stick' curve.
It would very instructive to test the hypothesis that global warming is largely a product of human activity by correlating temperature to population, especially regionally. It'd be very interesting, for example, to determine how well the variation in the population of the Northeastern U.S., or Western Europe, explains changes in its temperature. While other factors such as atmospheric air currents also influence regional temperature variation, I expect that there'd be a very strong relationship with population growth over time and temperature over the past two hundred years.
Year - Population (billions)
1800 - 1
1927 - 2
1960 - 3
1974 - 4
1987 - 5
1999 - 6
2011 - 7
Source: United Nations Population Fund
Please see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_growth