From Dr. Judith Curry:
They seem to obliquely admit the inadequacy of climate models by saying that they have not been falsified by the recent pause. Well, even if they have not been falsified, the climate models are not looking very useful at the moment, and climate model-derived values of climate sensitivity are seeming increasingly unconvincing.
From this post: UK Met Office on the pause
the Met Office believes its “vital role” and duty to be the provision of “advice and services” on climate change
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/about-us/who
if the models aren’t useful the whole edifice crumbles. They can’t possibly admit to that.
The climate models have been incredibly useful in exposing the bias of the warmers…
Why is it referred to as a ‘pause’? It may or may not have paused, but what we know for sure is that it has stopped.
“Climate models have not been falsified by the recent pause”?
Really? Not a single one? There are what, order of 100 distinct climate models out there, each one of which generates an entire Monte Carlo ensemble of spaghetti as one perturbs their parameters and initial conditions. Each one has to be validated against the recent pause independently. And not one of them is far enough off to throw out the window?
Or under the bus?
What about the ones that are falsified by virtue of getting rainfall, drought, or the patterns of heating or cooling just plain wrong? What about the ones that incorrectly predict LTT?
Or do they mean that there exist some climate models that have not yet been falsified by the recent pause?
Finally, if “climate models” in general are not yet falsified, just how long does the pause have to be before they are?
And please, no handwaving pulled out of butt-cheeks arguments. Let’s actually use the theory of statistical analysis to answer the question. Since “climate models” are not pulled out of an iid hat, their collective mean and variance are meaningless. That means the “envelope” of model results presented in various AR figures is meaningless, except when it is built for a single model, one at a time, and generated by e.g. Monte Carlo. So how, exactly, can such a statement be validated?
rgb
I agree with Michel. The warming period that started the whole panic about catastrophe was only 8 years long. We’re fully twice that and more with this the non-warming/cooling period, plenty enough to put the panic in perspective and the brakes on.
It’s more and more obvious the alarmists are playing with two sets of rules, one for us and one for them – we should remind people of that every chance we get.
Models have been already falsified by first half of 20th century, since they can not model 1910-1945 warming and subsequent cooling. “Recent pause” is actually a peak similar to that of 1945.
Those climate models are like a class full of imbeciles which, when tested, show that no individual scored better than 20% in a test. Nevertheless, the teacher finds that every single question has been answered correctly by at least one imbecile so awards an A+ to the whole class.
It took me a while to work out thesimile after reading this article at The Constipation.
A permanent pause?
So let me see….If I open the front door, catch my nads on the handle, trip over the carpet, step on the cats tail, fall down the step, hit my head on the stone lions, get bitten by the dog, fall into the gooseberry bush, sit on poison ivy, trip over the lawn sprinkler, stand in a pile of doggy do do, fall into the rose bushes, climb over the picket fence, get my shoe lace caught in the fence spike and end up flat on my face in the road with a broken nose and then promptly get run over by the school bus…… Then the model I developed for exiting the house, walking down the path and catching the bus is a successful one, because it started at the door and ended at the bus. Now I think I understand how this is done.
rgb;
The rabbit hole is that they are projections exploring scenarios, not initialized predictions, hence are not subject to falsification. They’re merely suggestive speculations, doncha know? Which are 95% likely, by expert consensus.
The Met Office offers incentive bonuses to its senior people.
Presumably that was intended as a reward for getting their forecasts right.
Any chance of the maximum bonuses not being awarded for inaccurate forecasts and fantasy climate modelling?
Stupid question really, just wondered if anyone knew of one single instance?
………… even if they have not been falsified ……….. ??
Can someone point to any model which has actually been validated ? Is the above phrase another example of reversal of the null hypothesis ?
rgbatduke says (July 24, 2013 at 12:35 am): “Really? Not a single one?”
Heh. As soon as I saw the title of the article, I suspected/hoped RGB would comment. I’ll keep my eye on this thread. 🙂
As the old Rolling Stones song goes, “Time Is On Our Side”.
In order to meet CAGW’s hypothetical minimum climate sensitivity of 2.0C (current anomaly 0.5C) by 2050, a temperature trend of roughly 0.4C/decade over the next 37 years is required, starting from tomorrow… Every month below this minimum 0.4C/decade trend requirement simply increases it in the future.
Over the past 150 years, the fastest decadal trend lasting over a decade has been around +0.16C/decade, which is less than half of what is required to validate CAGW. Further complicating matters for the Warmunistas are: 1) the 30-year PDO cool phase just started in 2008, 2) the lowest solar cycle since 1906 just peaked and weakens from here, 3) the AMO enter it’s 30-year cool phase around 2020, 4) the weakest solar cycle in 300 years starts around 2020 and 5) there hasn’t been any statistically significant HADCRUT4 warming trend since January 1995.
NOAA’s previous criteria for concern was 15 years of no statistically significant warming, which has already been surpassed; we’re into the 18th year now…
The most important thing from here is to nail the IPCC to an immovable goal post, which they’ll NEVER agree to. They’ll ALWAYS come up with some excuse as to why the goal posts need moving: Albedo flux, Vulcanism, “missing heat in oceans”, natural variability (i just love that squishy excuse), coal particulates, dust, 20 years is too short, 30 years is too short, in ad nauseum..
How long with this CAGW charade continue?
Brian H says:
Just a Mann-opause.
The temporary instability in the rise is projected to be overcome soon.
Management apologises for any convenience.
They are desperately trying to persuade UK Government that if they only spend another £80 million on a supercomputer they will be able to make the models works despite the whole shebang failing because of the major errors in physics from Sagan, Houghton, Hansen, Trenberth and Ramanathan.
Reblogged this on Tallbloke's Talkshop.
For RGB, the Nick Stokes reply (or my guess at what it will be):
You cannot throw out ‘some’ of the climate models because it is the ensemble result that counts.
For example, a particular model may produce ludicrous precipitation patterns but be very good at temperature. If you throw it out, then the ensemble temperature data would be unbelievable, but on the other hand, another model with superb precipitation projections might provide daft temperature data, but again you have to keep it in else the precipitation data becomes ludicrous.
This is crowd-sourcing of computer models at work!
My model works well enough.
Active sun causes poleward, zonal jets with less clouds allowing more energy into the oceans for a warming world.
Inactive sun the opposite.
The global air circulation pattern being the only necessary diagnostic indicator to establish the current trend.
“A permanent pause?”
Sure – why not? After all, when you press “pause” on your CD player, there is no rule that says that one day you must press “play”. You may even press “rewind” next, pr “eject” – tho not sure how that analogy works with climate 😉
We simply don’t have a good enough understanding of the complex climate system.
Juraj V. says:
July 24, 2013 at 12:43 am
“Models have been already falsified by first half of 20th century, since they can not model 1910-1945 warming and subsequent cooling. “Recent pause” is actually a peak similar to that of 1945.”
Of course. They never validated them because they knew it would fail.
So. What we have now is that the Western crony governments have diverted trillions into the climate scam, mostly via the renewable energy ruse. And they can’t admit that; the omnipresent windmills are testimony to their crookedness. So they must maintain that GCM’s are good as Gold; and Gavin continues to fiddle GISTEMP higher as we speak.
Ok, we can work with that.
Try reading yesterday’s London Times article by Hannah Devlin to see some truly vomit-inducing back-tracking by scientists about ‘accelerating warming’.
They combine having signed up to things they were ‘apparently not comfortable with’ with taking shedloads of public cash and excoriating those who remained true to their beliefs and expressed skeptical doubt.
The term ‘Nazi orderly at a concentration camp’ comes to mind: that bunch did what they were told, turned the other cheek and then claimed that it was just the evil officer class who made them do it.
How did history treat those orderlies, eh????
Predictably, the “Pro’s” – this time at DMI (the Danish Met Office) just a few days ago said the opposite: http://www.dmi.dk/nyheder/arkiv/nyheder-2013/klimamodel-genskaber-de-seneste-aars-temperaturopbremsning/
Google translation:
“New study of climate model EC-Earth, which is used in DMI’s climate research, suggest that increased intake of energy in the oceans play a key role for the past year slowdown in the growth of the global mean. In the past 10 to 15 years, the global average temperature has risen more slowly than in the past – and slower than most climate models predicted. This deceleration has occurred in a period during which atmospheric concentration of CO2 has remained growing and where the total external forcing (from solar radiation, greenhouse gases and particles) have been
largely unchanged. The slow down is also done in a period in which both the models and observations show that the climate system overall, has taken up as much energy as previously.
The climate, however, also exhibit natural variations in both short and long term. and several studies point. to deceleration may be due to natural variations in the atmospheric and ocean circulation in a period led to increased accumulation of energy in the oceans. Tha lead a Spanish research team to investigate whether the climate model EC-Earth could simulate the last year’s temperature slowdown if they started model based on an observed state and thereby could hit the contemporary flow pattern. The natural variations in climate models is in fact not automatically in line with the observed.
The results show that the climate model EC-Earth is better at representing the recent years deceleration in surface temperature when it is forced into the right flow pattern. They also show that the extra energy in the climate system during this period actually used to heat the oceans. This confirms that it is the natural variations in flow patterns that determine how much of the energy that actually accumulates in the oceans, and how much goes to heat the surface.
Further model studies with an exaggeration that is comparable to the one we have experienced in the past decade, confirm that global temperatures are increasing. However, there will be periods where the temperature change at the surface can be small or even negative. During these periods is recorded more energy in the oceans deeper layers.
The new results generally increases confidence in the climate models. At the same time, the results indicate some of the possibilities offered in the short-term climate forecasts. Forecasts, which among other things can become a valuable tool in relation to climate change adaptation.”
Well, well – follow the taxpayer money spent by politicians.
‘on the usefulness of climate models’
Chocolate and teapot spring to mind.