Bishop Hill writes:
There is video available here of a lecture given by Professor Mike Hulme entitled “How do Climate Models Gain and Exercise Authority?”. Hulme asks whether deference towards climate models is justified and whether we should have confidence in them. I think the answer is “We don’t know”.
http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/page/195/media-gallery.htm
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As someone who works with models I am very concerned by the faith put it them by policy makers.
As is the case with even IPCC models, each one I work with is usually accompanied by an explanation of the limits and uncertainties of the model. This is not however typically written in a way or explained in a way that policy makers can understand. The question they usually ask is whether I as a professional “believe” or “feel” the model is accurate.
All to often, their eyes glaze over when I explain that my beliefs or feelings do not increase or decrease the accuracy of the model.
The best way I have found for explaining models to my managers is to remind them of the models that Wall Street used to create and manage mortgage-backed securities – they work well when conditions the model account for are the dominant ones that are in play, but work very badly when other factors that aren’t factored into the model become important. They still really don’t get it, but it helps.
They should gain authority when they can accurately predict a change in direction – ideally for several cycles. It is depressing how simplistic models built during a relatively benign period for both climate and finance have been seen as more reliable than common sense.
“How do Climate Models Gain and Exercise Authority?”
Only with considerable semantic and grammatical perversion, it would seem.
The whole question of ‘authority’ is one with a lot of history and philosophy behind it. We used to have authority figures, but whether it be God, priests, our parents, statesmen etc they were (or were claimed to be) living, rational and intelligent. Now we are supposed to vest authority in models: entities that are non-living, non-rational, non-sentient, non-speaking, non-thinking, and beyond scientific demonstration – this is a sociological phenomenon, and deeply troubling.
Well, I’m not vesting authority in such an entity.
In most cases, I would think that the answer to the question “should we have confidence in the models?” is yes, consistent with our understanding of the uncertainty. However, with the unanswered questions and concerns about the veracity of the climate model builders, I don’t think we have a true understanding of the uncertainty of the climate models, and therefore we cannot trust them.
If your gut response to the question is “we don’t know,” then isn’t the prudent answer to the question simply “NO?”
Doug’s comments re trying to explain models to his management: ” they work well when conditions the model account for are the dominant ones that are in play, but work very badly when other factors that aren’t factored into the model become important”
In other words models should not be depended on for complex systems. Is the earth’s Climate complex? Can i develop a reliable equation that represents the heat transfer associated with water moving in variable currents in the vast ocean from the lowest depths at the equator to the surface just under the ice in the arctic and relate it’s heat sink/source interaction with the atmosphere throughout the globe whilst ignoring the affects of variable cloud cover affecting the heat sink/source interaction between the the sun, earth and space?
Probably not, but it would be a lot of fun if I could get someone frightened enough to pay me to study/model it.
I am sure that avid izaac azimov fans will know what is coming. Before you know it, the programmers will attempt to include a “What is in the best interests of the human race” element into their models and the models will decide that what is in our best interests is, that it (the model) survives in order to protect us from ourselves. We are closer to this senario now than i ever thought we would be.
I’m for turning them off, whilst we still can.
tense change, sorry
I used to be in charge of evaluating commercial thermal-hydaulic and reactor fuel models for the government, and I can tell you that although those models were packed up with quite a but of dxperimental data, we insisted that they be used in the most conservative manner possible, and we applied penalty factors whenever the experimental database could not support a model of a particular phenomenon.
Knowing what sort of experimental database is needed to support modeling of a simple reactor fuel rod, operating in reasonably well defined conditions in a single-phase coolant, I have no confidence whatsoever that the environmentalists can model the entire atmosphere of a planet, assuming that one trace gas is the driver for the entire system. The inability to demonstrate, by comparison to actual observed data, that they can model the behavior of clouds, dooms them to the dustbin.
It was a common saying in the nuclear TH field that “no one believes the code calculations, except the person running the code, while everyone believes the experimental data, except the person running the experiment”. At least we had a LOT of people running experiments, at different scales, in different facilities, to have some sort of confidence that the data from the experiments was useful. The code results were highly susceptible to “creativity”, which is why they were examined quite closely, and their use was highly constrained.
That should read “backed up with quite a bit of experimental data”
A theory is something nobody believes, except the person who made it.
An experiment is something everybody believes, except the person who made it.
Albert Einstein
IPCC Third Assessment Report:
“In climate research and modeling, we should recognize that we are dealing with a coupled nonlinear chaotic system, and therefore that long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.”
Did they forget about this in AR4 (and now AR5)
Just because you have bigger and faster computers, doesn’t mean that this does NOT still hold…..
section 14.2.2.2 Balancing the need for finer scales and the need for ensembles
full section
http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg1/505.htm
The models gain skill by comparison with instrumental data. This would be a whole lot more credible if the pre-satellite instrumental data was worth a dime. As much as the dendro field is denigrated, the mangling and other issues in the “instrumental period” are more problematic because that’s the calibration period for the models.
Are you seriously proposing that I am gonna use my time to watch what Hulme is saying? Is a member of the Team!
Who’d buy a used car from that man [M. Hulme] ?
Brgds/Sweden
//TJ
HOW CLIMATE IS CHANGING ?
Massive Arctic iceisland drifting toward shipping lanes
The biggest Arctic “ice island” to form in nearly 50 years — a
250-square-kilometer behemoth described as four times the size of Manhattan
— has been discovered after a Canadian scientist scanning satellite images
of northwest Greenland spotted a giant break in the famed Petermann
Glacier.Canada.com – Aug 07 10:16am In another research, using Autosub, an
autonomous underwater vehicle, researchers led by the British Antarctic Survey
have captured ocean and sea-floor measurements, which revealed a 300 meter
high ridge on the sea floor. Pine Island Glacier was once sitting atop this underwater ridge, which slowed its flow into the sea. The warm water, trapped
under the ice, is causing the bottom of the ice shelf to thaw, resulting in
continuousthinning and acceleration of glacial melt. Lead author Adrian
Jenkins said, “The discovery of the ridge has raised new questions about
whether the current loss of ice from Pine Island Glacier is caused by recent
climate change or is a continution of a longer-term process that began when
the glacier disconnect from the ridge”.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/06/100620200810.htm
Not only warm water, but also concentrated Magnesium Chloride =7,100 p.p.m &
Sodium Chloride= 31,000 p.p.m. (de-icing agents) trapped under the ice, is
causing the bottom of the ice shelf to thaw, resulting in continuous thinning
and acceleration of glacial melt (under water glacier cutting).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fGHlEBvKYw&sns=fb
Last Winter, Australian Glaciologist, Neal Young, declared that more than
300 icebergs are floating in the East Antarctica.
DISINTEGRATED ICE SHELVES DISINTEGRATION DATES
Worde Ice shelf March 1986*
* Larsen A Ice shelf January 1995*
* Larsen B Ice shelf February 2002*
* Jones Ice Shelf 2008*
* Wilkins Ice shelf March 2008*
If the Ice shelves are disintegrating during WINTER, it is not SUN or CO2.
U.N. Secretary General, BAN KI-MOON recently declared that ” Let me be
clear, the thread of Climate Change is real “.
“The Climate is changing” said JAY LAWRIMORE, Chief of Climate Analysing at
the National Climate Data Center in Asheville, N.C. “Extreme events are occuring with greater frequency and in many cases with greater intensity”.
The current Climate Change is due to the following:-
1. Mushrooming of Sea water desalination systems in the Middle East:
Discharging of desalination & Cleaning chemicals & Concentrated brine into Oceans & Seas.
2. Artificial Island developments in the Arabian Gulf since 1985: dredging,
drilling, dynamiting & excavation of sea floor shifted Magnesium Chloride, Sulfur & Sodium Chloride.The geographic position of the Arabian Gulf, Ocean circulations bringing it to Arctic & Antarctic Oceans during Monsoon seasons along with hot water of the Middle East.
Those who are having the Oceans water Analysis since 1980 will WIN the
Climate WAR. Concentrated 7,100 p.p.m. of Magnesium Chloride & 31,000 p.p.m. of Sodium Chloride are detected in the Arabian Gulf. These are De-icing agents which are helping to disintegrates the Arctic & Antarctic
Ice shelves. Now International Desalination Association (IDA) formed a committee to investigate about it.
If we enforce strict Environmental regulations, recover MgCl3 and NaCl3 at
Straight of Hormosa and Straight of Gibraltar and recover those at closed eddies of Baffin Bay & Green Land Sea. Sea ice & Ice shelves in Arctic & Antarctic are Natural Air Conditioners of the Planet EARTH. When more ice in both Poles, the third Pole, as Scientists described, Himalayas will have abundance of ice and Snow & Bolivia will have more Glaciers & water.
Book releasing soon in USA ” Environmental Rapes & H. R. abuses Lead to Climate Change Control”.
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Hulme deliberately frames the question this way – asking whether or not X has ‘authority’. This is a part of post-normal science, an attempt by people like Hulme to relegate scientific truth as subservient to supposed utilitarian outcomes. No surprise really, as he was deeply influential in shaping the philosophy of the climategate crew.
There’s no such thing as ‘authority’ when it comes to computer models. What matters is if it is prospectively predictive. Hulme wants to steer debate away from this because once he and his post-normal crew have declared a model as ‘authoritative’ the little people can no longer question it or its’ conclusions
Doug in Seattle- the whole mortgage backed securities fiasco is and example of modeling
having no idea of what happens if at, random, a certain element(s) does not co-operate
with the program at hand.
“What bubble? I don’t see no bubble -this is going to go on for years!”- actually said to
me at a meeting by my old Real Estate company. I read a paper done by Prudential in 2006, that the Real Estate boom was “unstoppable” and had at least 10 years-according
to their projections (Modeling, of course) -It was done by the next year….
The Green Bubble is about to pop…
So as he said climate models are used for political purposes. If that is so, what are scientists doing having any connection with these models. And what are politicians doing using models as proof of the need for legislation and regulation. Have I got it wrong that models are a tool with limits and not in itself proof.
It’s a good thing my only interest in models is how good she looks.
“we don’t know” = NO in my book …
Actually the climate models don’t exercise any authority, the question is rather how either stupid or mentally disturbed (by evil militant fundamentalist extremist for a tree hugging hippie green communist) you have to be to actually buy all that IPCC like climate model crap?
Me and my refurbished flame thrower, however, seem to be viewed as very authoritative, even though they damn maniacs at the local petrol shop refuses to refill my tanks (I bought a few extra that now, sadly, are too empty to even have fumes left.) Just look at the tree huggers expressions when I’m near (hmm, do I have to remind you that it is statistical improbable for everyone to not like me, so why all the fear?) :p
In an essay published at
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/the-gulf-oil-spill-meets-the-newspeak-dictionary/?singlepage=true
Theodore Dalrymple wrote
“In an editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine for 11 August, titled “Moving Mental Health into the Disaster-Preparedness Spotlight,” Drs Yun, Lurie and Hughes (the latter a lawyer, it seems) write:
“Surveillance systems for mental health and substance abuse must be strengthened through broader intellectual investment in a conceptual framework and technical requirements.”
Long experience of bureaucracies has taught me to mistrust language such as this. There is a lot of connotation in it without much denotation: intellectual investments, conceptual frameworks and technical requirements escape from verbiage generators like oil from defective wells, and end up being even more expensive. Personally I am not sure that technical investments, intellectual frameworks and conceptual requirements would not be at least as good, if not better.”
When I heard Professor Hulme saying that climate models “offer access to the future”
I concluded that his lecture would offer much connotation and little denotation and I stopped listening.
Climate models gain authority in the same way economic models do; because of the ideological incentives of those who use them to promote them, and because they can’t be falsified because their results will always be adjusted ad-hoc to perfectly ‘predict’ the past, and their predictions will always be measured against other possible futures we can never know anyway. And in fine con artist fashion, as with the myriad of rip off psychics out there, when predictions are made it’s the few that pan out that people will remember, and the many that don’t that will be quickly forgotten, and the promoters of the models will have no incentive to stifle this behavior and every incentive to nurture it.