Guest post by Alec Rawls
Andrew Orlowski at the UK Register has an anecdotal account of Downing College’s skeptics-vs-believers mash-up. Ace of Spades pulled the juiciest bit:
In short, the day lined up Phil Jones, oceanographer Andrew Watson, and physicist Mike Lockwood, the latter to argue that the sun couldn’t possibly have caused recent warming. He was followed by the most impressive presentation from Henrik Svensmark, whose presentation stood out head and shoulders above anyone else. Why? For two reasons. The correlations he shows are remarkable, and don’t need curve fitting, or funky statistical tricks. And he has advanced a mechanism, using empirical science [image above], to explain them.
At the other end of the scale, by way of contrast, the Met’s principle research scientist John Mitchell told us: “People underestimate the power of models. Observational evidence is not very useful,” adding, “Our approach is not entirely empirical.”
Yes, you could say that.
Lockwood’s failed argument against a solar explanation
Orlowski on Lockwood:
The strongest argument, according to Lockwood, for the sun not being a driver in recent climatic activity is that “it has been going in the wrong direction for 30 years.”
Hmmm. So as soon as solar magnetic activity passed its peak, when it was still at some of the highest levels ever recorded, these very high levels of solar activity could no longer have caused warming?
As I have noted a number of times, this argument depends on an unstated assumption that, by 30 years ago (by 1980 or so), ocean temperatures had equilibrated to whatever forcing effect the 20th century’s high level of solar activity might be having. Otherwise the continued high level of forcing would continue to create warming until equilibrium was reached, regardless of whether solar activity had peaked yet. (The actual peak seems to have been solar cycle 22, from 1986-96, not 1980, as Lockwood claims.)
When I pressed Lockwood on his implicit equilibrium assumption he justified it by citing evidence that ocean temperature response to solar activity peters out (as measured by decorrelation) within a few years:
Almost all estimates have been in the 1-10 year range.
But decorrelation between surface temperatures and solar activity is very different from equilibrium. All decorrelation is measuring is the rapid temperature response of the upper ocean layer when solar activity rises or falls. That rapid response indicates that the sun is indeed a powerful driver of global temperature, but it says next to nothing about how long it takes for heat to carry into and out of deeper ocean layers.
This was brought out by AGW believers like Gavin Schmidt who are concerned about the energy balance implications of equilibration-speed. In a simple energy balance model, rapid equilibration implies (other things equal) that climate sensitivity must be low. Since belief depends on high climate sensitivity, the rapid equilibration claim cited by Lockwood had to be shot down, which was managed quite successfully (ibid).
In sum, Lockwood’s rapid equilibrium assumption is dead and buried, leaving him no grounds for dismissing a solar explanation for post 70’s warming. I’ll keep an eye out for video of Lockwood’s presentation, but I doubt he mentioned the rapid equilibrium assumption upon which his argument depends.
More punk students
Remember these graduate student “climate scientists,” going all Clockwork Orange for the planet or something:
Sounds like they made an appearance at Downing College too:
The audience had been good enough to heed Howard’s opening advice that “if anybody mentions Climategate, they’ll be evicted”. Nobody ambushed the CRU crew all day – it was all very polite. I noted that the skeptics made a point of listening politely to the warmists, and applauding them all. A group of students and a few others, simply giggled and mocked the skeptics, however from start to finish. One of their tutors (I presume) was in hysterics all day.
Give ’em an A. They learned their “observational evidence is not very useful” lesson well.
How satisfying it is when someone advancing a totally idiotic position is hammered by his own people. Though I cannot say that there is hope for the lot of them or even one of them.
Why isn’t this Quote of the Week?
“John Mitchell told us: “People underestimate the power of models. Observational evidence is not very useful,” ”
Really really?
If anyone has video evidence of this statement (audible), please, please get it posted and displayed with some context. It’s possibly the worst anti-science statement I’ve ever read.
After all, if they used observational evidence, somebody might observe that plants and animals thrive better in the summer than in the Spring and Fall, not to mention winter, and that could be the end of the hysteria.
Observational data has only 1 minor role when doing science by model. When you find your model doesn’t agree with the observations you know you have to can it and try again. Other than that, empirical data , who needs it?
Buffoon
The statement: “People underestimate the power of models. Observational evidence is not very useful,” is perfectly accurate. It is a statement about The Agenda which has little if anything to do with science.
“Why isn’t this Quote of the Week?”
My thoughts exactly. I just wonder if he actually kept a straight face will uttering such nonsense…
Can’t say much for the video.
“I am a climate scientist”
“I am the walrus”
“I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General”
Beatles and Gilbert & Sullivan got ’em beat, homey.
BTW, the sun is NOT a light switch. Have any of these idiots ever heard of thermal inertia? Just because I turn the stove off does not mean the kitchen immediately starts cooling off…
“People underestimate the power of models. Observational evidence is not very useful,” adding, “Our approach is not entirely empirical.”
Apparently he was addressing how to persuade elected officials.
Pompous Git says: “It is a statement about The Agenda which has little if anything to do with science.”
Perfectly correct. All of the junk science propaganda is simply to make a case for a huge wealth and power grab, redistribution of wealth to cripple the undeveloped world, and to create a one-world government. Why else do you think that they are already planning to try to implement a UN world level environmental monitoring agency, the brand new World Environmental Organisation (WEO), at the meetings in 2012? They also want to give UNEp more power to pushing their policies.
On John Mitchell’s comment that “people underestimate the power of models. Observational evidence is not very useful.”
And Buffoon’s comment that “it’s possibly the worst anti-science statement I’ve ever read.”
I couldn’t disagree more. Mitchell is giving very sage advice here on the state of observational data in climate science (and no I am not being sarcastic). By running models, climate scientists should be able to test their theories without having to wade through the high noise levels and/or short-term high amplitude variations in global temps that make the data record so complex (and of limited use).
Sadly, it seems, many of these scientists are looking for disaster scenarios so we take every quote from a climate scientist with maximum skepticism – occasionally to the point of missing one.
John Mitchell told us: “People underestimate the power of models. Observational evidence is not very useful,” adding, “Our approach is not entirely empirical.”
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Sounds like a bad re-run of Max Headroom…….
Climate models invalidate the real world
Observational evidence is worse than ‘not very useful’, it can be extremely damaging to beautifully crafted, lovingly polished, highly expensive models.
It is a bit like saying that a porcupine is ‘not very useful’ in a baloon factory.
There must be some kind of Stockholm Syndrome/Tron thing going on here. They seem to have become imprisoned by the computer models they created, and cannot bring themselves to disagree with the models, no matter how far the models deviate from reality. Bizarre.
“John Mitchell told us: “People underestimate the power of models. Observational evidence is not very useful”
I guess then, we can unequivocally say that: melting glaciers don’t mean squat; sea level changes have no relevance; polar bears aren’t really in danger; the thickness of arctic sea ice doesn’t matter, nor its extent; who cares if the Antarctic is warming?; changes in atmospheric CO2 don’t correlate to anything important; the hockey stick really was somebody’s bad joke; GISS and NCAR are wasting their time fudging the temperature history; Yamal trees really are just old firewood…
No, no, no. It’s a perfectly rational and justifiable statement. Determining how the Earth’s climate works by using observations is very difficult, because the climate signal is swamped by noise (weather, seasonal). Instead, with a model, you can fiddle with forcing functions and feedbacks, and run the model hundreds of times in experiments. The actual observational data is just another instance of those climate experiments. All you have to do is show that that your model could have generated the historical measurements, if only you had had enough butterfly wings to initialize the model with. As the feedbacks and forcing are fiddled with, the model results agree with, then don’t agree with, the observational data. Once the feedbacks and forcings are all tuned up, the model is golden, and has predictive capability.
I have no idea if this is /sarc or not, and I wrote it. But I can imagine a climate modeler saying it in all seriousness, and daring you all to point out the fallacy.
Steve from Rockwood says:
May 16, 2011 at 6:09 pm
Sadly, it seems, many of these scientists are looking for disaster scenarios so we take every quote from a climate scientist with maximum skepticism – occasionally to the point of missing one.
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“even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while”
Steve, First off, do you really believe climate science is advanced enough to make predictions that anyone should listen to?
And which ones should you listen to: warmcold, snowrain, droughtflood, windcalm…….
could, might, may, if……
Miss what?
“John Mitchell told us: “People underestimate the power of models. Observational evidence is not very useful,”
Great- I assume this means we don’t need to spend anymore money on equipment to measure those pesky attributes anymore………………………….
Lockwood only recently acknowledged that the sun likely was responsible for the recent strong negative NAO and southerly displacement of the jet stream. He stated that it only had a local effect on England’s cold temps in December and January but did not have a global influence. The Altai glacier temperature reconstruction from an ice core demonstrates a twenty year lag from group sunspot number and atmospheric temperature over the last 750 years. This years decline (.56 degrees today from last year) is right on schedule.
Science is dispensable when politics and finances are at the heart of the matter.
Climategate only helped discrediting their PR campaign yet the war is raging upon us: utilities, smart grids, money grab etc…
While so many skeptics celebrated the fall of Copenhagen thanks to climategate, Big Green has regrouped and is now winning.
This whole thing will not be resolved peacefully, no way. This is totalitarism after all.
Lockwood is correct iff solar radiance is the sole energy input into the earth-system.
He is wrong if plasma universe model is used, for then the measured millions of amperes of electrical current entering and exiting the earth system via the polar Birkeland currents add energy in addition to that supplied by solar radiance.
MattN says:
May 16, 2011 at 6:00 pm
BTW, the sun is NOT a light switch. Have any of these idiots ever heard of thermal inertia? Just because I turn the stove off does not mean the kitchen immediately starts cooling off…
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Let’s change that to: “the kitchen is immediately cool…”
Paul Coppin, other than the antarctic not warming, you just about got it right.
You know I always thought is was ill advised that climate scientiests in England used global circulation models to make seasonal forecasts for Great Britain 3 months in advance since the models were never shown to be skillful in regional predictions. I had no idea a person like John Mitchell existed. Given his statement, its now perfectly understandable to me now that they use them (even if they are horrendously inaccurate). So please, lets not discourage John Mitchell, he is a great of falsifiable predictions.