By Larry Kummer. From the Fabius Maximus website.
Paul Krugman — Nobel Laureate economist, #5 on Prospect magazine’s 2015 list of the world’s top “thinkers” — gives us powerful advice about the climate policy debate in his August 12 NYT op-ed (similar to this from a February column). It is the standard doctrine for science, except in climate science.
Paul Krugman. Creative Commons license.
“Here’s how I would approach the issue: by asking how we know that a modeling approach is truly useful. The answer, I’d suggest, is that we look for surprising successful predictions. General relativity got its big boost when light did, in fact, bend as predicted. The theory of a natural rate of unemployment got a big boost when the Phillips curve turned into clockwise spirals, as predicted, during the stagflation of the 1970s.
“So has there been anything like that in recent years? …Were there any interesting predictions from … models that were validated by events?”
In fact Krugman is discussing his own field, macroeconomics — but this insight has deep roots in the philosophy of science and applies as well to climate science. Predictions are the gold standard for validating theories. In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
(1962) Thomas Kuhn described failed predictions that undermined dominant paradigms (e.g., the Michelson–Morley experiment) and successful predictions that helped establish new paradigms (e.g., the orbit of Mercury). He said…
“Probably {scientists’} most deeply held values concern predictions: they should be accurate; quantitative predictions are preferable to qualitative ones; whatever the margin of permissible error, it should be consistently satisfied in a given field; and so on.”
Karl Popper set the bar for validation even higher in Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge![clip_image002[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/clip_image0021.gif "clip_image002[1]"){kind=small}
(1963). This is what Krugman meant by a “surprising” prediction.
“Confirmations should count only if they are the result of risky predictions; that is to say, if, unenlightened by the theory in question, we should have expected an event which was incompatible with the theory — an event which would have refuted the theory.”
Krugman, drawing on this tradition, points us to a solution for the deadlock in the ever-more-bitter public policy debate about our response to climate change: look for predictions, then test them.
The great oddity of the climate science debate
“Ad hominem attacks aren’t a final line of defense, they’re argument #1. …It’s about an attitude, the sense that righteousness excuses you from the need for hard thinking and that any questioning of the righteous is treason.” {By Paul Krugman. Quite true, as any skeptic quickly learns when discussing climate with an activist.}
Activists consider forecasts of models as like the Word of God. Skeptics mutter about vast conspiracies of climate scientists. Lost in this futile decades-long debate is discussion about the methodological testing necessary to create confidence that the results of climate models provide an adequate basis for public policy decisions that shape the world economy.
The necessary tools are well understood, and routinely applied in other fields. For example drugs are tested by prior review of study proposals, followed by analysis of their results by paid non-affiliated multi-disciplinary teams of experts (neither of which is done in climate science). Best of all are successful predictions, and successful risky predictions (for outcomes contrary to expectations) create strong confidence. These hard-won insights have had little influence on climate science. See these posts for examples…
- Thomas Kuhn tells us what we need to know about climate science.
- Daniel Davies’ insights about predictions can unlock the climate change debate.
- Karl Popper explains how to open the deadlocked climate policy debate.
- Paul Kurgan talks about economics. Climate scientists can learn from his insights.
- Milton Friedman’s advice about climate models & how to win the policy debate.
- We must rely on forecasts by computer models. Are they reliable? (Many citations.)
So the bitter public policy debate rattles on, each side hoping for a brute-force political resolution that crushes the large fraction of the pubic that disagree with them. Perhaps that will happen, and perhaps that will produce a useful outcome. But we can do better.
Scientists could re-run older models with actual emissions, not projections, and comparing their forecasts with observed temperatures. These multi-decade predictions would provide objective, powerful data that might resolve the policy debate — or at least create a clear majority of public opinion for one side so we can move on.
- My proposal: Climate scientists can restart the climate change debate – & win.
- Putting this proposal in a wider context of science norms and the climate science literature.
This will not happen without public pressure. As we see in Campaign 2016, our ruling elites prefer to give us a circus — treating us like children to be entertained rather than citizens to be informed. But we can stand up and re-take the reins of America, re-shaping the debates about climate change and other key issues.
Articles like the one described here by Paul Krugman show that even the most alarmists of the alarmists know — at some level — that the the methodological basis is weak for massive public policy action on climate change.
Taking this one step more, guessing — this cognitive dissonance (clashing truths in their minds) might account for some of the hysteria with which they reply to questions — no matter how simple and well-founded. If they were confident in their facts and logic they would welcome questions (call “buy signals” in sales).
This comment is profoundly true. The growing shrillness and unwillingness to engage is because they know their case weakens more every year, as all the past alarmist ‘projections that have NOT come to pass make them look increasingly bad. NYC west side parkway is not under water (Hansen) . Extreme weather has NOT increased (Hayhoe). Polar bears thriving (Gore, Sterling). Arctic ice has not disappeared (Wadhams). No climate refugees from Tuvalu. Skeptical scientists like Lindzen, Christy, Curry increasingly heard and increasingly ‘right’.
Larry,
This is simply not true, as I see these matters;
“So the bitter public policy debate rattles on, each side hoping for a brute-force political resolution that crushes the large fraction of the pubic that disagree with them.”
The “skeptic side” is not advocating anyone or anything be crushed as far as I can tell . . rather merely that a particular theory not be treated as Gospel, so to speak. You’re metaphorically casting this as a fistfight, one might say, but I see it as a mugging with the muggee merely trying to avoid being robbed.
This approach of yours is playing into the hands of the mugger, I feel . . Like you’re shouting; Hold on, don’t keep trying to get away . . , the disagreement about who should have what’s in your wallet can be resolved I believe, if the mugger is given another chance to make his case . .
See, one “side” is demanding all sorts of very expensive things be done, and the other is making no such demands . . It’s not a contest of demands . .
Great point.
The alarmist side is great at projecting their own transgressions onto the skeptical side.
John,
No need to travel far to find evidence supporting my assertion. Lots and lots of comments at WUWT about how President Trump will smite the alarmists.
You mean smite the mugger? ; )
Harkin,
“The alarmist side… ”
Krugman got one thing right about you: ““Ad hominem attacks aren’t a final line of defense, they’re argument #1. …It’s about an attitude, the sense that righteousness excuses you from the need for hard thinking and that any questioning of the righteous is treason.”
Also, calling me an alarmist is quite delusional.
Editor Of The Fabius Maximus Website —
You mean Trump might cut off their government research funding and cut off the subsidies to green business? Sounds like just leveling the playing field.
Eugene WR Gallun
John Knight, I have to agree. It seems to me that this article sets up a false narrative.
I call bull. Maybe some skeptics mutter conspiracy theories, but I don’t. And most on here and that I know personally don’t mutter this either. For anyone following along closely, the methodology has been the crux of argument by MANY skeptic scientists with impeccable credentials all along. A number of previously warmist scientists looked closely at the methodology and changed “sides” (e.g. Freeman Dyson, Lennard Bengtsson, etc.)
The author of this article must be reading too many “Lew papers” that try to sell CAGW on the basis of the 97% consensus (false) and skeptic conspiracy ideation (false). This article is a fail because it positions skeptics as a group of monolithic conspiracy theorists when I believe this is not even close to being accurate. I’m a scientist and engineer. I’ve helped build some of the space systems from which data used in this endeavor originates. It’s painfully obvious that the methodology in climate science is flawed (primarily modeling with no validation against real world). We skeptics are railing against the inertia of the majority that fail to be open minded about the theory being wrong after an increasing number of spectacularly failed predictions (e.g. Equatorial tropospheric hot spot anyone? Increasing extreme weather anyone? etc.). I am open to the fact that we’re causing some of the warming. But, I’m still waiting for one single empirical, data-based observation that supports the theory. So far, no luck for the warmists.
As for Krugman, I can’t believe that I actually agree with one of his thoughts for the first time. He is proof that Nobel is not the prestigious award it used to be. As a hard-core Keynesian, he loses all credibility with me. Try the book “Where Keynes Went Wrong” by Hunter Lewis if you think John Maynard Keynes was right. Then to educate yourself further, try either “Economics in One Lesson” by Henry Hazlitt, or “The Road to Serfdom” by Nobel Laureate Friedrich Hayek, or “Free to Choose” by Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman, or “Capitalism and Freedom” also by Friedman, or all of the above. Adam Smith had it right. Keynes had it wrong. Krugman is a Keynesian. ’nuff said.
Funds to the “skeptic side” have been cut off all along . . And here is Larry asking that we go along with the alarmists be funded for a decade or whatever longer, to give them yet more attempts at producing something that might help convince Congress to go along with their associated demands . . at our continued expense (in part) . .
Me no like Larry’s proposed “solution” ; )
Boulder Skeptic,
“Maybe some skeptics mutter conspiracy theories, but I don’t.”
Are you kidding? Broad statements about groups do not, in non-academic discussion, imply that they apply to each and every member of the group. I’m sure you know this, which makes your comment …odd.
As to belief in conspiracy theories about climate scientists distorting the data — no need to go far to find evidence. Read the comments in this thread. There are many making that exact point. Odd that you don’t see this.
+100
I’m not slave, Larry, and I have no moral obligation to remain silent when I believe I am seeing agenda driven science related tomfoolery. Besides which, the very thing that got my (serious) attention regarding global warming science, was the savage treatment of those then referred to as “Climate deniers”, and declarations of “settled science” that I saw as preposterous. This was an assault me (us) and even science itself, as I see it, and I will not pretend things like “climate-gate” and the Rico shakedown are indications of a scholarly debate.
In short, it’s OK to resist muggers, special snowflake ; )
Larry
Where is all the government funding to research None global warming? Does the IPCC put out a skeptics argument section? Does anybody that is getting funding say anything that doesn’t further the narrative?
The funding is to create a narrative, the narrative is to create a climate, the climate is to create political pressure, the political pressure is used to gain control. To not see this is to ignore the truth and to except the recurrence of failed history to the detriment of all free people.
Larry:
You are trying to defend your weakest point; using the double down defense, hoping that we will back off if you repeat erroneous opinions often enough.
I get the distinct impression you don’t actually read all comments. Maybe a quick glance, generalized understanding, perhaps.
Here you are perpetuating the myth that sceptics want to ‘crush’ anybody, but a few blatant liars. That certainly does not include gullible people who fall for the CAGW scam.
A myth about sceptics that deserves burial with the previous claims;
• Sceptics send death threats to alarmists. Instead it’s uncovered that one guy answering questions at a dinner table about his Kangaroo hunting license was changed into ‘death threats’. Many other claims about alarmists receiving death threats have been busted when they were asked for evidence.
Meanwhile, ask any of the sceptic/lukewarmer bloggers about the death threats they receive….
• Sceptics will not debate.
• Sceptics are all conspiracists. There are quite a few published notes/emails that have identified real conspiracies. Unlike all of the alarmist claims about ‘fossil fuel’ bought, Koch supported, well funded doubters.
About all of those ‘comments’ that expect Trump to ‘smite’ the alarmists.
Now, you are really stretching truth.
Virtually every comment with few exceptions anticipate Trump to cut off CAGW funding, fire the activists playing fast and loose with the science and to take measures to bring real science back.
As for as the majority of CAGW believers; they’re religious drones. When their leaders are fired for incompetence, fraud or just plain brainless, the drones will find a new belief to worship.
Most of us feel honest pity, and yes disgust at the more obnoxious, for the activists/advocates who honestly believe in consensus and ad hominems drive science.
Nor do we expect these drones and activists to suffer. I seriously doubt that most of them will claim serious belief for CAGW CO2 disasters in their dotage.
Krugman is a waste of time to read. Whatever his topical brilliance in a sector of economics, that fails to give him omnipotence or even superior intelligence.
Instead of reviewing CAGW economic claims or predictions rigorously, he just accepts whatever speculated CAGW claims are used to inflate problems.
Ideally Krugman should have dissected those economic models, and then reconstructed their analysis starting with present day observations. Logical reviews of each CAGW variable should be based on actual observations.
Once anyone starts playing “what if” models, reality is lost.
Perhaps you should actually read and digest skeptical/lukewarmer comments; here, Bishop Hill, JoNova, Dr. Curry, Climate Audit, The Big Picture (formerly No FrakkingConsensus). Pay attention to the previous name At Donna’s website; Maybe even read some of her books!
EditorotFMW,
You seem to read selectively (which seems to be a consistent theme in your responses here). I’ll try again.
Point 1: Your narrative is false in my opinion. You set up a straw man to shoot down using a generalization that I believe to be untrue regarding a majority of skeptics. We can disagree on the percentage of skeptics with the conspiracy ideation you and Lewandowski seem to be pushing but the fact remains that without evidence you use a false generalization (my opinion) as part of the foundation of your article.
Point 2: You talk about the idea of methodological testing of models and theory against reality being lost on BOTH “alarmists” and “skeptics”. Bull. That is precisely what this website excels at–allowing a voice to those who are showing that the theory doesn’t match the data (e.g. Mr Eschenbach, Mr Steele, etc.). And there are plenty of notable skeptic blogs/websites that do the same thing you say is lost on skeptics (Bishop Hill, Climate Audit, Jo Nova, Dr Roy Spencer, GWPF, etc.). The idea of what is required for falsification of a scientific theory is not lost on most skeptics. That’s why most of us are skeptics!
Odd that you don’t see this.
As someone who sees a comment like this as downright goofy;
“As to belief in conspiracy theories about climate scientists distorting the data — no need to go far to find evidence.”
~ I can vouch for Boulder Skeptics point #1 . . There are many climate alarm skeptics who studiously avoid any hint of any suspicion that intentional fraud/manipulation has been perpetrated by anyone in the alarmist crowd, and even I (who believes “conspiracy” in the hard-core sense has gone on from the get-go, and continues apace) generally couch my criticisms in terms that minimize that potential aspect of what has been going on with the CAGW phenomenon.
But I am getting tired of it . . for humans are capable of dishonesty and greed and cruelty and so on, and there is no reason to think anyone’s tongue would cleave to the roof of their mouth if they dared speak a conspiratorial word to like-minded interested parties. It’s easily demonstrated that people, including some with degrees in scientific subjects, have “conspired” in various ways in reality-land. It cannot therefor logically be taken off the table, so to speak, entirely.
If your argument depends on there being no chance whatsoever of any conscious collusion (conspiracy) going on among any on the very long CAGW gravy-train, so as to render anyone who expressed any sense that we’re being conned; out of order/discredited by default, as appears to me to be true in this thread at least, Larry, you have no argument as far as I’m concerned.
“climate scientists distorting the data” You could start at the NASA site and look at the last graph on this page (Difference Between Raw and Final USHCN Datasets) to see how NASA’s admitted adjustments create a temperature rise: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/ushcn/ushcn.html
Graphic, perhaps you should look at the temperature anomalies that were published in past years that were changed. NOAA/NASA within the last year has once again changed the temperature anomolies… not some years, all years. How many times do they need to adjust the temperatures ? Do you really think NOAA/NASA has any kind of credibility?
You need to be more clear on what you think a Conspiracy is. Most definitions I’ve seen include secrecy.
There also is research showing the maximum size a Conspiracy could be for it to have survived for a specific period of time. For example, the moon landing conspiracy theory could have included no more than 251 NASA scientists for it to have not unraveled during the 50 years since (http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-35411684).
Under these guidelines, ClimateGate qualifies as a Conspiracy which was exposed. However, the IPCC, EPA, GISS, Democrats, et al activities, since they are not concealed and involve perhaps millions of people, cannot be called (even in jest) a Conspiracy – an evil movement maybe, but no Conspiracy.
From what I’ve seen here at WUWT and other skeptic sites, I expect that no more than a handful even would entertain the term Conspiracy. For Alarmists even to try tarring skeptics with the word Conspiracy helps demonstrate how their tactics are closer to PR/Propaganda than true science.
A conspiracy requires two people.
Bob,
“There also is research showing the maximum size a Conspiracy could be for it to have survived for a specific period of time. For example, the moon landing conspiracy theory could have included no more than 251 NASA scientists for it to have not unraveled during the 50 years since (http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-35411684).”
Do you understand that such a “study” itself could have been paid for by people wishing to muddy the water, so to speak, and perpetuate the notion that conspiracy is extremely rare/virtually nonexistent?
“Under these guidelines, ClimateGate qualifies as a Conspiracy which was exposed. However, the IPCC, EPA, GISS, Democrats, et al activities, since they are not concealed and involve perhaps millions of people, cannot be called (even in jest) a Conspiracy – an evil movement maybe, but no Conspiracy.”
What do you think goes on within an “evil movement”, if not things like conspiring in various ways? Why call it evil if that sort of thing is not going on within it?
TV reporter A and Editor B (secretly) decide to trim a candidate C’s comment:
“Many talk as if conspiracy is rampant in Washington”
A clip appears in the reporter’s hit piece, showing candidate C saying;
*Conspiracy is rampant in Washington*
That’s conspiracy.
Exactly, their responses indicate insecurity. The constant call to authority, i.e. everyone believes this, don’t they is not the way my science teachers ever taught or explained science. They would always bring up the data or the formula and work through and show the work and the answer and why they follow. This is NOT what we see from climate scientists. They always point to the answer:
“1.5C in 2050 or whatever. Results will be horrific. What are we gonna do?”
Not, let me show you how this works and why you should believe it. I have been searching for that for 2 decades now. I took a class at Stanford on global warming. They never even tried to prove the 1.5 or 2C. They never even tried to prove 3 feet of water rise or whatever. They stuck to the most basic things you can imagine. They talked about feedbacks in theory. They never showed any of these actually are real. They never showed with data anything. They didn’t go to the climate record because it is embarrassing. Too many confusing points to explain. I have talked to liberal after liberal who claims to believe this stuff but no matter how smart they are or what science they are in they never have any knowledge of the subject. They simply believe what the climate scientists tell them. There is a profound lack of interest in the science by the liberals especially the ones who claim to be most concerned and militant. They rail and rail but only use call to authority. This is NOT the way I ever learned or did science.
Let’s get beyond the fluff. There are 4 classes of GW believers.
1) The nodding smart liberal who is probably science trained, who has not looked into the science but has a belief the scientists are right but is unsure a bit but unwilling to doubt it but unwilling to really speak forcefully for it and is probably a little scared to look into it too deeply because they have seen issues that disturb them but won’t admit it. These people will listen to arguments and nod their head offer no rebuttal and just be bored by the whole topic.
2) The activist who has no actual science training at all and simply uses the science as a cudgel to batter for causes they believe in. They use expletives and never appeal to anything other than authority. They are hateful and a pain to talk to because they only have spit and bile and moronic arguments.
3) The climate scientist type who is doing work in the field and believes in co2 doing negative things and believes that the politics of preventing climate change no matter how small or large is more important than the truth. Willing to modify the data, methods, misreport information, possibly with a subconscious desire to keep their career alive by keeping the fear alive and the grant money coming and a subconscious hatred for man and fear that man is doing evil in the world that needs to be stopped or the world will end.
4) The follower. These are not science educated who simply accept what they are told by the authority figures and will speak that they are sure because authority tells them and will vote as they are told but don’t think about it. They will laugh off any arguments against. They will cut short any discussion or descriptions for fear of upsetting the careful script in their heads about the subject.
As you can see there is very little room to actually engage any of these people and have an intelligent discussion. The few I have spoken to in category one may admit the effects of GW are overplayed but just as they are unwilling to do anything to help climate science they are unwilling to do anything against it.
“Massive”? Do you mean of some large magnitude?
Ten,
Just as the dictionary says: massive, meaning exceptionally large.
I assume you are kidding, pretending that sentence was not clear.
(I was hoping he meant you ought to have said astronomical , , : )
The root of massive is mass, signifying properties related to weight and inertia. Massive as an sensational, overwrought modifier for anything large whatsoever is just a popular youngster’s corruption of the original word. It indicates a lack of imagination, the boundless contemporary dictionary and all of its urban lingo notwithstanding. Speaking of astronomy, “massive” void, emptiness, or gas is another silly convention.
In 60’s while @ PSU, worked with ANALOG computers. Main directive: if your observations disagree with the predictions from your model – CHANGE THE MODEL! Unfortunately today, NASA and others are changing historical (started with Hansen in 2000) to make “histoical” data more closely match their projections! Climate Scientists all around the world should have crucified Hansen in 2000 when his new temperature graph differed from the 1999 version because he changed data from 30’s, 50’s & 70’s! Historical data is sacrosanct unless you can prove method or equipment was biased. Hansen didn’t even need to try and he’s still revered! That shows the depravity of AGW promoters today!
He is not a Nobel laureate!
There is no Nobel prize in economics!
There is only a prize for economics in the memory of Alfred Nobel, issued by some bankers.
Got that?
…from a source I don’t usually use(Wikipedia), but it appears to be appropriately sourced and footnoted…
“The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (officially Swedish: Sveriges riksbanks pris i ekonomisk vetenskap till Alfred Nobels minne, or the Swedish National Bank’s Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel), commonly referred to as the Nobel Prize in Economics, is an award for outstanding contributions to the field of economics, and generally regarded as the most prestigious award for that field.”
“The prize was established in 1968 by a donation from Sweden’s central bank, the Sveriges Riksbank, on the bank’s 300th anniversary. Although it is not one of the prizes that Alfred Nobel established in his will in 1895, it is referred to along with the other Nobel Prizes by the Nobel Foundation. Winners are announced with the other Nobel Prize winners, and receive the award at the same ceremony.”
“Laureates in the Memorial Prize in Economics are selected by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.”
“An endowment “in perpetuity” from Sveriges Riksbank pays the Nobel Foundation’s administrative expenses associated with the prize and funds the monetary component of the award.”
Maybe it would be good for the world if the author applied his suggestion to the dismal art of economics. Perhaps we wouldn’t have all of this ‘massive’ 🙂 debt crushing the future under its elitist beneficiaries’ heels.
Can they at least take some actual observations that don’t get fiddled with from version to version? That would be helpful to see if previous models fit the original data
+1
Unfortunately people peek. And if they don’t like what they see they close the door. That is why those who developed the models will never publish such a study. Indeed the fact that such a study has not been published is a good indication of the likely results.
Voltron —
The science is settled, only the data is uncertain.
Eugene WR Gallun
Paul Krugman is a true dyed in the wool warmist / socialist, exactly what I would expect.
What Krugman seems to be ignoring is that the IPCC has been publishing models since 1990, and been consistently wrong on the concensus of their model projections. How long should the IPCC ” test” be run? Twenty six years seems long enough to me 🙂
Actually, considering that “climate” is usually defined as a 30 year average of the weather, 60 to 90 years would be appropriate.
Not really, because modeling doesn’t have to be relegated to a single year; rather, it could be used to model any sequence of decades, or even centuries–and these forward or backward. Because their models can’t hindcast or forecast, their failure is sufficient to call them out for being dishonest at most and devious at least.
I find it odd that someone defined “climate” as average weather over 30 years. That is nearly 1/3 of the life of “Western” humans, and much less than half of my own life. When did the Climate Change? I must have missed it. 😉
When I took engineering at university we weren’t told to use 30 year averages. We were told to look for extremes and do recursion analysis. Many of our projects would last 60 to 100 years. Why did we define 200 year flood plains? Politicians ignore them anyway. They place their bets on “average” climate. Except when it is convenient to use extremes.
I worked on upgrading projects for facilities that were closing in on 100 years old or “three climates” old. They still worked well.
Take a look around and look for things that were initially built in 1920. Say for example, the Eiffel Tower – built in 1889. Arc de Triomphe – designed in 1806, completed in 1836. My cousins in England live in a stone house that is hundreds of years old. Tower Bridge in London – started in 1886, completed in 1894. And for North Americans – the Chicago Water pumping station – no longer operating but the building has been converted to a theatre and art gallery https://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/chicago/c4.htm. Even New York has buildings that are 300 plus years old:
http://ny.curbed.com/maps/the-20-oldest-buildings-in-new-york-city
We adapt, and we upgrade our facilities. 30 years is a blink in time.
I have always had a problem with a definition that defines “Climate” as a 30 year average. That wouldn’t even make sense to the Anasazi who may have moved on due to real climate change 1000 years ago.
I think there is a missing ‘zero’ from the “average climate definition”.
First they would need to model something right…..
Second, they need to measure nature accurately…
Krugman has been wrong about everything. The IPCC has been wrong about everything. Seems like a good match to me.
Again, we have another wearisome call to restart the “climate change” debate on more friendly terms.
The “debate” is a false issue. CAGW was created out of whole cloth and still does not have the first line of empirical proof to support it. There is nothing to debate from a scientific standpoint.
TonyL, I would be slightly more moderate in order to be much more persuasive.
CO2 is a greenhouse gas, established by Tyndall for the Royal Society in London in 1858. That is a first line of empirical proof. But, its dry grey Earth impact is 1.1-1.2C per log doubling. So whether that matters depends on feebacks like water vapor and clouds. There, we haven’t empirical proofs.
But we do have Monckton’s recent posts here on how those theoretically work, with a resulting sensitivity perhaps 1.6. And we have in the past 3 years a number of completely separate excellent observational energy budget papers saying 1.5-1.8 depending on stuff like aerosols, but based mostly on IPCC inputs. That range says we can all fo home and relax. RCP8.5 is physically and logically impossible. The climate models run hot (tropical troposphere hot spot, divergence to observed troposphere temperatures). And unless you put impossible RCP8.5 through hot running models, there is no CAGW. That still ignores natural variation. Bottom line, CAGW becomes aGw. Alarm cancelled.
Thanks, your call for moderation is noted, and heeded as is possible.
As you note, CAGW is a creature of the models. A lot of the rest is theory, like Monckton’s posts and ECS.
I have been trying to keep up with the evolution of the 1.1-1.2C per log doubling. An interesting story in it’s own right.
On the other hand, Willis E. had a recent post where he shows water vapor feedback starts positive at ~4 W/m2, shifts negative and zooms to -200 W/m2. If this line of investigation works out, then the whole thing was about nothing.
Yes, CO2 is a greenhouse gas. But I remain humble in the presence of nature.
Consider water, that most common of substances. We measure it’s boiling point, freezing point, enthalpy, entropy, create phase diagrams, on and on. Yet nowhere in our lab work on water are we ever given a hint of the ability of water to form hurricanes. Scale matters and things work differently in the atmosphere at large.
TonyL, some references. Curry’s Climate Etc had a very early 2010 post on pure SB, calculating 1.0C per CO2 doubling. AR4 had effectively 1.1 for ‘grey earth’. Lindzen 2011 and Parliamentary 2012 testimony used 1.2. Monckton’s recent post figured 1.16. Good enough for government work.
Willis posts on WVP are interesting and factual. Me, having studied a lot of papers (no original research from primary data) puts WVP at about half of IPCC (Bode f 0.25-0.3) vwrsus IPCC Bode 0.5, and cloud feedback at 0 to slight negative (vwrsus Inferred IPCV Bode +0.15) which gives ECS ~1.7-1.8. Calculable two different ways: via Lindzen’s Bode model or Monckton’s irreducibly simple equation. (Those can, in fact, be reconciled mathematicallyas Monckton can be further reduced. See my mathematical guest post on Monckton at Judith’s CE for those details.)
Highest regards.
If sensitivity is over 1 degree per “doubling”, meaning 280 to 560 ppm, why would the ice core variation from 180 to nearly 300 show a negative sensitivity? I’m defining negative sensitivity as CO2 dependence on temperature rather than temperature dependence on CO2.
We all know that there is an approximately negative logarithmic relation between increasing concentration and sensitivity… that higher concentrations result in less sensitivity.
The sensitivity should have been higher between 180 and 300, but it wasn’t. It was inverse.
Rud, Tyndall in fact demonstrated with his apparatus that radiation would only affect ‘cooler’ bodies. That is why he cooled his receiver internally to get a response. A great experimenter, he was. Brett
” another wearisome call to restart the “climate change” debate on more friendly terms”
the strategy is to wear you out.
” I would be slightly more moderate in order to be much more persuasive.”
persuasive? Anybody can think whatever he wants.
but my rights aren’t to be negotiated so
there is no debate and there are no friendly terms.
leave my wallet alone. that is all.
there is no part of ‘MINE’ that’s hard to understand.
there is no part of ‘NO’ that’s hard to understand.
NO, MINE.
next fool.
Alarmists don’t make any predictions these days. They make projections, so Krugman’s criterion “look how well their predictions match the real world” does not apply. Clever guys.
George,
A prediction is, to the IPCC, a forecast given an assumption of a specific emissions scenario. That is logical, since we don’t know what 21st century emissions will be. Hence “spaghetti graphs.”
Models used in the past ARs can be tested by running them with actual emissions from after they were created (preventing tuning them), and comparing the resulting *forecast* (technically a hindcast, as it is from the model’s future but our past) with actual global atmospheric temperatures.
What’s stopping them from doing that . . without any sort of granting by climate alarm skeptics en mass, that those models are inherently valid but for the specific emissions numbers? That sure as hell ain’t the only possible flaw in their ointment . . ; )
If you think those models get everything else just right, make your arguments, it’s free country (for now).
This is a completely disingenuous comment. The “spaghetti graphs” have very little to do with varying projections of emissions. They are all over the map because they refuse to contemplate any negative feedbacks or search for proper data with which to work. For the cost of a fraction of what has been spent on climate research by governments, we could have put sufficient satellites into orbit to accurately measure the amount of energy leaving earth across the spectrum. Instead, NASA spends it’s budget on Muslim outreach while NOAA advocates the use of ship engine intake water measurements as scientifically valid. The so-called climate scientists conspire to pervert peer review and climb onto the Socialist government gravy train. Is there really any doubt that there really is, at least effectively, a conspiracy?
We ve been misinformed…..for 20years. And counting with no end in site, unless Trump wins, but even with him the policies
Which are now being implimented will take years to get rid of,there is too much money at stake and the public knows less than nothing having been misinformed for too long.
“Beware of false prophets” used to be just a biblical advice. It is also a Nobelist’s advice now. There is a progress wherever you look.
Take a look at Johnson-Weld.
Take the isidewith.com quiz.
You may be pleasantly surprised we an honest third choice this time.
If you do not vote for Trump, you are voting for Hillary…There is NO third choice !!
It’s a sad day in the united states when we actually NEED a canadian to set us straight… (☺)
(Marcus, it’s too bad that you can’t vote!)
I’m with you Mike- Johnson/Weld is an excellent choice- and IF allowed into the debates has a chance at winning… If everyone would quit saying/believing he’s a wasted vote, I believe he could win- But don’t worry Marcus- My evil I’d be voting against would have been Trump. So, Johnson/Weld is stealing votes from BOTH sides….
At least you admit not wanting Trump. For anyone else, remember 1992 and Perot, who ran to the right of GHW Bush, and votes for him resulted in the election of Bill Clinton. Hillary Clinton is bad enough that any action that increases her chance of winning should be avoided. Her policy on global warming is bad enough to almost overshadow her policies on the economy and civil rights, let alone her placing the State Department up for bid.
” My evil I’d be voting against would have been Trump.”
Regardless of what else pops out of Ms. Clinton’s e-mail closet? Amazing . .
There is no choice at all. The wrong person will be elected even if Trump and Clinton are miraculously killed in a plane crash.
Starting with LBJ both parties policies have resulted in a growing number of folks who will never have a good job. The mantra was that the answer was education. Now we’re seeing that AI will replace knowledge workers. Even lawyers will be replaced by AI.
Bill Clinton promised to stand up for the little guy. Bill Clinton lied. Hillary (I can be anything you want me to be) Clinton will do no better.
Trump loves only winners. He doesn’t even know the problem exists.
Salvation by plane crashes? Won’t work. It’s turtles all the way down. [/rant]
Louise, rasmussen has johnson pulling republicans over democrats at a ratio of 3 to 1. At best he’ll just be a trump spoiler…
Krugman is saying that since models have worked before, in many fields, we know the climate models are correct. Cos models work. Shut up.
Gamecock,
Can you provide a citation for that? Your description sounds bizarre, unlike anything I’ve seen Krugman say.
Sure:
‘“Here’s how I would approach the issue: by asking how we know that a modeling approach is truly useful. The answer, I’d suggest, is that we look for surprising successful predictions. General relativity got its big boost when light did, in fact, bend as predicted. The theory of a natural rate of unemployment got a big boost when the Phillips curve turned into clockwise spirals, as predicted, during the stagflation of the 1970s.’
Sra. Krugman,
How is the climate supposedly changing that has you and your sycophants so concerned?
It is quite hilarious that Krugman is held up here as a voice of wise reason, with the suggestion to emulate his approach, and listen to his guidance.
Krugman is the Michael Mann of economics (a pseudo-science itself, with even less connection to reality than “climate science”).
He is a bullying know-it-all with a huge platform. He fails regularly, and spectacularly, yet pretends he is infallible. He even calls himself the Krugtron the Invincible, and his critics the “Always-Wrong” crowd.
Krugman, like Mann, relies on unsound and failed computer modeling. And on ad hominem attacks against logical critiques of his failed models and predictions.
He’s different from Mann in that he is able to “nuance” his predictions–that is, his writing he is cryptic, taking both sides of most issues, so that he can later claim success, regardless of the outcome.
So, why should anyone listen to anything Krugman has to say–in his own field of economics, for sure, but in a totally unrelated field, especially?
He has nothing useful to add to any discussion–except hubris and disdain. His Nobel prize is worth about as much as Obama’s Peace Prize.
https://fee.org/articles/paul-krugman-three-wrongs-dont-make-a-right/
To be fair you cannot criticise Krugman for making ad-hominem attacks when you refer to him as a ‘bullying know it all’. I always think bile is better kept in the liver rather than being spread across the internet.
Well, Bob, have you ever followed Krugman? His attacks on critics and his whining about criticism is positively Mannian.
When an interviewer quoted Krugman’s own past statements, verbatim, to him (pointing out his abject failure in predicting economic developments, all the Krugatron could do was splutter:
“KRUGMAN: So disappointing. Is all you can do is ad hominem and say, “Oh, you said this” and you were, pull out the…”
This is Krugman.
http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/noel-sheppard/2013/03/05/krugman-quoting-what-i-said-past-ad-hominem-attack
Just read Krugman regularly, if you can stomach it.
If not, Bing “Krugman bully” and you’ll have more than you can stomach.
Here’s a good overview:
http://www.cato.org/blog/prof-krugman-ace-ad-hominem-smear
“the hard right — which these days is more or less synonymous with the Republican Party — has a modus operandi when it comes to scholars expressing views it dislikes: never mind the substance, go for the smear.”
Voted worlds #5 thinker … right behind #4 Russel Brand.
Bob, sometimes it is better to be honest than nice & fair. If everyone that ever came in contact with Krugman (or his like) would provide an honest assessment, like Kent does, then maybe Krugman would learn from the criticism … then again it may be too late for Krugman, but others certainly would be more apt to see him as he truly is.
If more people would call Krugman (and people like him) on his blatant BS (like Scarborough did in Kents’ referenced citation) then world would be a better place.
Krugman is a lying P.O.S. Simple honesty … call it bile if you want to.
Only the leftie luvvies feel the need to pass out such awards for people who tow the PC line. Ahead of Brand is Naomi Klein… and number one was Piketty … ’nuff said. Can’t encourage scepticism … must all think correctly and here are some fine examples… I guess Dawkins didn’t attack enough religious figures last year to rate. Oh and I am atheist myself, but I don’t see the point in attacking religious people. The “no harm, no foul” approach seems reasonable IMHO.
There is a very subtle and clever twist to holding Krugman to his own espoused standards. He then cannot wriggle out of such a test on some other grounds. Hoist on own petard. Kudos to Larry for having devised it. First use of this particular jujitsu move was Lewis and Curry 2014, which used ONLY official AR5 stuff to counter the CMIP5 model sensitivity and thus IPCC’s own conclusions about ECS range.
Ristvan,
I agree!
I think it’s important to do more of this. Screaming “we’re right” and “conspiracy” are not going to convince people other than far-right true believers. The “correlation of forces” (as in military jargon) has been shifting against climate skeptics for years. It’ won’t take much to create an opportunity to stampede the public into support for public policy action.
Time to try new approaches.
Larry
So we shouldn’t point out the conspiracy? And I guess we should embrace the conspirators?
This is fallacy born of ignorance, there is absolutely a globalist movement that is using CAGW to eliminate the independence of the individual. This is not a conflict between 2 powers trying to gain control that needs moderation, it is a coup to eliminate the rights of the individual and to shift power away from you and your right to live your life as you see fit to a bunch of elitist who proclaim that they know what’s best for all of us. When in fact they are just trying to rest control to assure their own position.
I am not trying to control anyone, I am not trying to enforce my will on anyone, I am just resisting those that are.
“Time to try new approaches.”
Like reinforcing the utterly ridiculous notion that humans can’t conspire?
Yes they can, and oodles of them do every day. Gangs, cartels, Mafias, drug traffickers, human traffickers, etc, etc . . and each and every police/politician/bureaucrat bribe payer or receiver all over the world. It is silly to speak of conspiracy as even unusual on this planet . . don’t you agree, once you think objectively about it?
Playing along with the (to me) ridiculous idea that conspiracy is extremely rare or impossible or whatever, is aiding and abetting conspirators, and encouraging more conspiring, it seems obvious to me . . So why do so many mass-media talking heads roll their eyes in unison at any suggestion of conspiracy??
There’s only one logical answer I can think of, Larry. How ’bout you?
Kent,
“It is quite hilarious that Krugman is held up here as a voice of wise reason, with the suggestion to emulate his approach, and listen to his guidance.”
Is this your FAILure to read, or your reading FAILure? That’s not remotely correct,
I repeated the point in the very first comment above.
Ristvan understood this without difficulty, as shown in his comment:
Larry,
Quite accomplished at reading, thanks! You may want to read your own original posting. You begin with a paean to the clearly exceptionally intelligent and self-appointed Invincible Krugtron: “Nobel…..thinker….etc.”
And you tug your forelock in the direction of the failed economic modeler, suggesting that the great Krugman has the solution to the “climate change” debate:
“Krugman, drawing on this tradition, points us to a solution for the deadlock in the ever-more-bitter public policy debate about our response to climate change: look for predictions, then test them.”
That’s not a “juijitsu” of Krugman or climate modelers. You’re clearly and unequivocally holding up Krugman as an exemplar of scientific probity and wisdom.
He is not.
Again, why on God’s green earth would anyone take anything that Krugman has to say about modeling seriously, much less hold him up as an exemplar and wise sage of scientific inquiry?
That is really an ad hominem. We should judge the truth of someone’s statements based on evidence.
Personally, I don’t find a lot of problems with the following quote. Do you?
Commie,
“That is really an ad hominem. We should judge the truth of someone’s statements based on evidence.”
Have you examined the evidence of “the truth” of Krugman’s statements?
I have, and do.
Krugman is consistently wrong. Krugman believes in a model that is consistently wrong. Krugman virtually worships that wrong model. Krugman’s advising “climate scientists” about how to run computer models is ludicrous–based on the evidence of Krugman’s failures.
Even a blind squirrel finds an acorn now and then. 😉
Experts as a group are consistently wrong. In fact they are no better than a dart-throwing monkey at predicting the outcome of events.
“Even a blind squirrel finds an acorn now and then. ;-)”
The problem with that analogy here, commie, is that Krugman is not a blind squirrel. His eyes are wide-open, yet he does not see.
When the light hitting his retina reveal a pebble, this demented Krugatron squirrel convinces himself that his retina actually perceive an acorn. He then writes a column about the abundance of acorns and their delicious tastiness, and pats himself on the back for his wise nut-savvy for discovering the pebble-acorns. His demented acolytes praise the wonderful squirrel cult-master for his clear acorn-vision, and go out seeking the rock-acorns for themselves. While the cult-followers of the demented squirrel happily munch on pebbles, one reality-based observer notes that they are eating pebbles. This observation enrages the great bushy-tailed Krugatron and he unleashes his fury on the reality-based observer. A year later, when dentists throughout the forest are profiting from the tooth-reconstruction work on the damaged mouths of Krug’s followers, the all-knowing Krugatron writes another blog pointing out that he knew the acorns were pebbles all along, you bigoted haters!
So, no, Krugman is not a blind squirrel. He’s a demented cult leader living in an alternate reality squirrel.
Please don’t smear all Economists with the likes of Krugman. I am an economist.
Much of econ is clear, accurate, and simply descriptive of reality. A lexicon for money, trade and production. Linear Programming optimization is widely used in industry to good effect. It is primarily Political Economy that has been corrupted by laying with political dogs and picking up fleas…
Oh, and I would class it as a social study, not a science, though in reality it is a crossover of both to some extent. Based on human values, desires, and decisions, it is founded on clay, but does a good job of it given that. Many analytical techniques under uncertainty came from it.
Ok, sorry. Economics is a fascinating subject of study. Surely there are some useful micro-applications.
But the “quantification” approach to its study is an abysmal failure. The more that models are created and run–especially in Krugman’s special field of warlockery, macroeconomics–the more they fail. The more the fail, the more the stuck pigs squeal (see Krugman’s peacockish preening, boasting and denigration of his critics).
Since Krugman inserted himself into “climate science,” with all his baggage of failed models, and you lay claim to a useful application of Economic theory, maybe an analogy to climate and weather would be useful.
Krugman, Keynes, and company are like Mann and the climate modelers. They claim they have a useful theoretical computer model, but their predictions are wildly and spectacularly consistently wrong. When their failures are pointed out to them, they attack their critics.
On the other hand, your economic field (taking you at your word!) provides some useful guidance to some consumers. That is much like weather forecasting–which uses short-term computer models to provide 1 hour to 72 hours in-advance predictions of local weather events. These local forecasts are useful, and accurate a good portion of the time. When local weathermen fail in their predictions, they do not blame the wet picnickers for their failed forecasts.
So, the local TV weatherman (and the data-gatherers and model crunchers behind his forecasts) is an honest practitioner, working to improve his accuracy, and incorporating feedback into his work–much like you likely do with your economics work.
On the other hand, Mann and company, exactly as Krugman and company in Economics, fail regularly. Instead of using those failures to improve their work, Krugman/Mann attack those who point out their failures, and adjust data as necessary to fit the model.
Hope that helps to clarify. Don’t want to paint with too broad a brush.
Bottom line is that Krugman is an absolute nightmare of arrogant mendacity. To use Krugman as a wise counselor in how to conduct scientific inquiry (as this article appears to do) is well-nigh insane. If the entire article was intended to be sarcastic, it should be marked with a huge /sarc tag.
I would only add / note that what is called Keynesian today isn’t what Keynes said.
In particular, he specifically stated that government deficits during recessions must be balanced by surplusses during times of economic growth; and that ‘stimulus’ via deficits would only work for a year or two, then result in inflation or a “liquidity trap” (as we have now in Japan, E.U., increasingly the U.S.A.)
So by all means, toss rocks at neo-Keynsians… but not Keynes… he knew what would fail, and how.
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2016/02/29/the-present-global-liquidity-trap/
Keynes fails because he imagines a huge pot of money that isn’t in the economy, that government can seize and put back into the economy. This pot of money has never existed.
His basic premise is flawed, which explains why countries that try to follow his policy recommendations always fail.
Paul Krugman is not actually an economist.
Paul Krugman is a political activist, a socialist activist, rewarded by the activist king of Sweden, who uses his knowledge of economics to advance his anti human, UN-esque, point of view.
To frame who and what that twit is, you have to understand his self image. 1st he is an activist…. the rest is a means to an end.
Exactly. Krugman is a tool. He is a fairweather ally, motivated by the paycheck, and forever concentrated on whatever subjective, microscopic view can’t be entirely refuted because it may not be presented with enough meat on its bones for it to constitute a real position, save an argument. He’s always squinting at something that NYT subscribers can nod at with him, because they, like him, find if they ignore the greater reality and indulge their emotions and biases, they can sound important among others like them. Ergo, tool. He is to his own intensely narrow view of “economics” pretty much what you can expect him to be to climate: Appealing to the particular political bent that pays the rent. That takes some folding and molding of reality.
motivated by the paycheck? Sure, he spends his millions of dollars.
Or by the ideology and the power that he receives BECAUSE of his ideology and the praise he gets from his politicians because of his writings? How much money is a cocktail party in New York or Washington worth if it is attended by the glitterati and famous?
Paul, that’s a pretty good description of John Holdren as well, including the anti-human part.
I’m also fond of James Taranto’s title for Krugman, “former Enron advisor”.
There is no spoon, there is no debate. The facts stand by themselves, and we are most likely cooling.
Krugman should be thanked for pointing out that there is utterly no evidence that man’s CO2 is causing dangerous global warming.
Jim,
To what are you referring? I don’t see anything like that.
Paul Pfleiderer of Stanford also writes of economic models and the importance of passing them through reality filters. He calls them “Cameleon Models” when theoretical models are claimed to be relevant for policy-making while bypassing the reality filters. Good insights for the abuse of climate models.
https://rclutz.wordpress.com/2016/05/28/cameleon-climate-models/
Patrick Frank’s analysis of GCMs based on error propagation as seen at Heartland seems rational to me. The arguments against it that I have seen are not convincing to me. With it as a guide we need not wait to see if the models are sometimes right because, even if they are to some extent, we can’t trust the result.
Dr Frank has addressed an important issue that the IPCC has avoided taking seriously: the failure of GCM models to converge on parameters used to assess confidence in projections.
He correctly identifies cloud properties as the basis for variability in projections. This issue was addressed by Cess et al. as long ago as 1989. Interpretation of Cloud-Climate Feedback as Produced by 14 Atmospheric General Circulation Models
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jean-Pierre_Blanchet/publication/6090666_Interpretation_of_Cloud-Climate_Feedback_as_Produced_by_14_Atmospheric_General_Circulation_Models/links/0912f511174ef74dec000000.pdf
***
Stephens et al (2012, 2015) have shown the serious consequences of the uncertainties in estimating the role of clouds.
Sephens, et al, (2012). An update on Earth’s energy balance in light of the latest global observations
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Carol_Clayson/publication/260208782_An_update_on_Earth's_energy_balance_in_light_of_the_latest_global_observations/links/0f317534ff02eeec16000000.pdf
Stephens et al. (2015) The Albedo of Earth
http://webster.eas.gatech.edu/Papers/albedo2015.pdf
***
Dr Frank distinguishes between precision and accuracy. He shows that the root-mean-square of error in estimates of cloudiness among models is about 12% and this is equivalent to about 4 W m-2. He claims that this error is greater than the total GHG forcing from 1900 to 2000. (See Stephens et al. on this point.)
Since each GCM model propagates its error forward from year to year so that the errors accumulate, the appropriate error bars exceed the the value of the variable predicted.
He concludes that uncertainty about the effects of clouds is so great that error bars for various IPCC scenarios are equally great, so great that all of the scenarios are meaningless.
In my opinion, the studies by Stephens, et al. confirm this.
Some critiques of Dr Frank’s methodology have been posted online. I have some of my own. However, I think the overall approach is robust enough so that his conclusions would hold if the methodology were revised.
The reason is that 12% variation in cloud cover would have a substantial on albedo. A one-percentage change in albedo would change net radiative imbalance by +/-2.4 W m-2 (0.01 X 239 W m-2). And there are other effects related to clouds apart from albedo.
The IPCC relies heavily on the subjective judgment of scientists for assessing confidence in climate drivers. It seems to me that Paul Krugman is correct in saying that what is needed is a more objective assessment methodology.
Patrick Frank has shown one approach to objective assessment of the GCM ensemble. He has concluded that the models are too uncertain to guide economic policy. His claim should be taken seriously.
Let the modelers show that their models are robust.
***
Patrick Frank’s lecture to Doctors for Disaster Preparedness is here:
No Certain Doom: On the Accuracy of Projected Global Average Surface Air Temperatures
His paper published by The Skeptics Magazine is here:
A CLIMATE OF BELIEF
http://www.skeptic.com/reading_room/a-climate-of-belief/
I’ve made countless claims about the flaws of the climate model, without ever seeing an actual climate model. I made those comments based upon my understanding of modelling in general, and an understanding of their strengths and weaknesses. 9:00 into that video he shows an actual model, and from that model I can say all my observations were correct. Using models like that, they will have to make temperature more linear for their models to work. That is why they need to adjust historic data. They also leave out significant variables, so their models will never be accurate, and will never have high R^2 values. All they did was “curve fit” a short period of time matching CO2 and Temp during a random time when they may have correlated, but that is nothing more than a coincidence or a spurious correlation. The logryphmic
Decay of CO2 absorption dooms these models that are based upon linear relationships. The accuracy of these models will be improved if the make CO2 a logrythmic variable, but by doing that they will destroy their basis for their war on CO2.
One point that the modelers always neglect is that error bars are cumulative.
It’s been too long since my college physics classes, so I won’t attempt to explain calculations that I don’t remember that well.
To put it simply. If you multiply together two numbers, one with an uncertainty of 1% and a second with an uncertainty of 2%, then your result, doesn’t have an uncertainty of 1%, 2%, it is (if I remember correctly) 3%.
The more factors you add to the mix, the greater and faster the uncertainty grows.
When you run the same equation iteratively, as most GCMs do, the uncertainty grows with each iteration.
Given the huge uncertainties in past estimates of the earth’s “temperature”, uncertainty in clouds, and so on, there is no way these models can be producing numbers that are usable.
@CO2isLife:
I’ve looked at the code of a couple of models. IMHO, you are correct.
They are curve fittings without key variables and with lousy error tracking. Essentially, graduate thesis toys useful for getting a pat on the head degree, but not for modeling reality.
Code quality is highly variable and some is great, other bits sucky. Most of the error is error of assumption and omission. .. comments like ‘clouds are not right, using FOO plug number for now’ or something similar as I remember it…
More and more climate scientists are fixing the data to match the models. None of the models have worked foward or backwards. Actual emmisions depend entirely on how they define emissions and subject to revision depending on the circumstance and outcome. Climate scientists restarting the Debate? I thought it was settled science. The models are so far off that it is an opposite proof. It proves AGW wrong. The only reason this keeps going on is misguided public employees, government officials, and loyal activities, who have blind faith in AGW. AGW meets every criteria for a religion.
rishrac —
The science is settled, only the data is uncertain.
Eugene WR Gallun
-Rishrac
You’ve pretty much described the state of things, with one exception. The theme of crippling Western industry and slandering corporate activities to satisfy the AGW meme fits all to well with the agenda of the Left. It is that connection that impels the movement to get rid of fossil fuels and destroy industry. Without government and media help, the global warming movement would be like a vampire in the sunlight!
AGW agenda of attempting to shut down the west isn’t even debatable. The proponents of AGW are pretending to ” save the world ” when all they are, plain and simple, communists. The short term goal is to destroy the west, and the long term goal is to transform it into a wretched communist state. The US should invite the UN to leave. They take up valuable real estate, have spies and miscreants roaming around, and are basically corrupt.
Bingo!!! We have a winner. In any real science the results of the models would signal going back to step #1. If these people worked on Wall Street as modelers, they would all be fired. Only in academia can work this bad keep you employed.
Or, if they worked in an Ivy League Economics department, apropos this article, they’d be awarded the Nobel-administered-Swedish-bankers Prize, and hired to write a political column attacking those who disagree with them.
Here is how you approach the issue. Hold you hand out for any graph of CO2 versus any climate variable, least squares trend line fit, and correlation coefficient over 0.7, that is, not noise, sufficient for public policy. Time versus climate variables is false correlation of independent variables. You must graph dependent variables. No more time in the x-axis, start using carbon dioxide concentration. So far, CO2 versus global mean temperature data sets shows correlation around 0.34, which is called random noise. Start there. Then worry about it.
Kaspar – A good start. Here is a related problem: if global temps are rising, any monotonic, rising phenomenon can be substituted for rising CO2, and the logic works.
We have this term “covary.” It means two things vary in accord with each other. When one goes up, the other can be counted on to go up. (Or, go down, in the case of an inverse relation.)
CO2 is not varying with anything; it is rising monotonically. In the modern era, no one has yet recorded CO2 decreasing. That would let us check whether temps also had a similar decrease. This is fundamental to analyzing causality by examining supposedly related phenomena when they cannot be experimentally manipulated.
The archeohistorical accounts seem to say that CO2 and planetary temp do not covary, or that temp changes precede CO2 changes.
Munshi, J. THE SPURIOUSNESS OF CORRELATIONS BETWEEN CUMULATIVE VALUES
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jamal_Munshi/publication/292991614_THE_SPURIOUSNESS_OF_CORRELATIONS_BETWEEN_CUMULATIVE_VALUES/links/56b4a83608aeda41608743d8.pdf
Granger and Engle won a Nobel for work on co-integration, deveoped for econometrics. Time series are notoriously vulnerable to spurious correlation. Which is why first differences are taken for cumulative variables, such as CO2 intensity.
Based on an econometric technique called polynomial cointegration analysis an Israeli group concluded, “We have shown that anthropogenic forcings do not polynomially cointegrate with global temperature and solar irradiance. Therefore, data for 1880–2007 do not support the anthropogenic interpretation of global warming during this period.”
Beenstock, Reingewertz, and Paldor, Polynomial cointegration tests of anthropogenic impact on global warming, Earth Syst. Dynam. Discuss., 3, 561–596, 2012
URL: http://www.earth-syst-dynam.net/3/173/2012/esd-3-173-2012-discussion.html
It isn’t even that high, that is the result of “adjusted” temperature data. They can’t even adjust the data enough to make this model work.
While I understand the sentiment about retesting old models on actual emissions to look at the accuracy of predictions, it is both impractical and unnecessary.
Impractical because the warmunists who maintain them and ‘own’ the necessary supercomputer resources would not allow it. They have no incentives to be proven wrong, which they know they would be based on things like the missing tropical troposphere hot spot.
Unnecessary, because the CMIP3 and CMIP5 models ran multiple scenario simulations that bracket what actually happened. For CMIP3 it is scenarios A1b and A2. For CMIP5 it is RCP4.5 and RCP6. If actual (which has to be defined, lets stipulate low to mid troposphere as measured by the average of 4 radiosonde and three Satellite measurements, because the surface stuff is polluted by UHI and microsite issues, and subsequently fiddled) is statistically significantly lower than the lower bounded model run archived, then that model is falsified. Period.
The only remaining argument is the period of time before this comes definitively true. BAMS 2009 argued 15 years. Santer et. al. argued in 2011 17 years. An attempt last year to push this to 18 years was mathematically destroyed by Nic Lewis at Climate Audit. So, we just wait and see what happens in 2017. Larry’s desired experiment will have been run without having to do anything. And this is being charitable, because part of this time frame for CMIP5 includes tuned hindcasting, and the models still don’t get it right. The only CMIP5 model that might ‘pass’ this test is Russian INMCM4, which has high ocean thermal inertia (water planet), low water vapor feedback, and low sensitivity–although still higher at (iirc) 2.2 than recent observational 1.5-1.8.
The multivariable modeling techniques used by the Climate Alarmists have their roots in the field of economics. The original climate models were simply edited financial models. Every economist out there that has ever take econometrics knows this CO2 driven AGW model is pure garbage. Every serious statistician knows this CO2 driven AGW model is pure garbage. Every mathematician knows this CO2 driven AGW model is pure garbage. If you simply blindly test the data there is only one conclusion. Only once you identify the data as applying to AGW does the conclusion reverse itself. It is pure garbage. No double blind examination of the data would ever reach any other conclusion.
…Scientists could re-run older models with actual emissions, not projections, and comparing their forecasts with observed temperatures. …
If they do, the models will work well. This is because running a model is not a single run, but a huge amalgam of runs with subtly different parameters – the aim being to produce a desired result. You tell them the result you want – they provide it…
BAckfitting the data, not even the model, LOL
How can anybody think that the methods of science as described in this article could make the case for alarmism? These methods have been tried for decades and the data falls firmly and consistently on the side of skepticism.
Ad hominem, suing those who express skepticism publicly, trying to cut the tiny incomes of the actual scientists (skeptics) — those are the only methods the alarmists have. That is why they resort to these means.
The public is so profoundly science-illiterate that alarmists have been able to talk about “ocean acidification” to describe an alkaline pH that has moved .01 toward neutral–if the measurements are accurate. This is why skeptics get almost nowhere on the basis of the facts.
Only emotions count in a debate like this. We can get the screamers emotions on our side by studying regenerative agriculture. This is bright, positive, and truthful. By working with the greenies on this, we can transform them from devastatingly harmful, to making a GOOD difference. It will then be the easiest thing in the world to teach them a little science that backs up what they are doing.
Judith Schwartz has just written her second book about water. Her first one was Cows Save the Planet. Get it.
An adult answer to alarmists that are the equivalent of a three year old sreaming “you don’t love me” to his mother in the grocery store because she won’t fill the grocery cart full of crap is unlikely to have an impact.
Good article though. Non alarmists( ie grownups) have been suggesting this for years.
How can anybody think that the methods of science as described in this article could make the case for alarmism? These methods have been tried for decades and the data falls firmly and consistently on the side of skepticism.
Ad hominem, suing those who express skepticism publicly, trying to cut the tiny incomes of the actual scientists (skeptics) — those are the only methods the alarmists have. That is why they resort to these means.
The public is so profoundly science-illiterate that alarmists have been able to talk about “ocean acidification” to describe an alkaline pH that has moved .01 toward neutral–if the measurements are accurate. This is why skeptics get almost nowhere on the basis of the facts.
Only emotions count in a debate like this. We can get the screamers emotions on our side by studying regenerative agriculture. This is bright, positive, and truthful. By working with the greenies on this, we can transform them from devastatingly harmful, to making a GOOD difference. It will then be the easiest thing in the world to teach them a little science that backs up what they are doing.
Judith Schwartz has just written her second book about water. Her first one was Cows Save the Planet. Get it.
I am using my facebook account instead of my WordPress account because my browser could not access my WordPress account–Lady Life Grows
Let an economist provide the best evisceration, politely and respectfully too, of the Krugatron, and his vile bile:
“Krugman, armed with his Keynesian model, came into the Great Recession thinking that (a) nominal interest rates can’t go below 0 percent, (b) total government spending reductions in the United States amid a weak recovery would lead to a double dip, and (c) persistently high unemployment would go hand in hand with accelerating price deflation. Because of these macroeconomic views, Krugman recommended aggressive federal deficit spending.
As things turned out, Krugman was wrong on each of the above points: we learned (and this surprised me, too) that nominal rates could go persistently negative, that the US budget “austerity” from 2011 onward coincided with a strengthening recovery, and that consumer prices rose modestly even as unemployment remained high. Krugman was wrong on all of these points, and yet his policy recommendations didn’t budge an iota over the years.
Far from changing his policy conclusions in light of his model’s botched predictions, Krugman kept running victory laps, claiming his model had been “right about everything.” He further speculated that the only explanation for his opponents’ unwillingness to concede defeat was that they were evil or stupid.
What a guy. What a scientist.”
https://fee.org/articles/paul-krugman-three-wrongs-dont-make-a-right/
Lets not forget Krugman’s advising the Japanese on how to fix their economy…print more money…and now the BOJ owns pretty well every bond and stock in the country and the economy is worse off. His excuse: they didn’t print enough. That they paid him for his advice is bad enough..but following it is worse.
The unbearable lightness of being Krugtron the Invincible is filled with being wrong, being nasty, being nastily wrong, and being unsufferable.
Krugman’s entire schtick is based on a klunky and consistently wrong economic MODEL that he worships and constantly babbles about. When he’s not making badly wrong economic predictions, Krugman babbles about his model and his superiority in pretty much all facets of life.
The irony of Krugman directing another field of endeavor in how to carry out research, and how to use models is too rich.
Wasn’t it Krugman who waxed poetic in regards to the ability of the Chinese government to go ahead and do the “right thing” without having to worry about public opinion.
Don’t forget that under GW Bush Krugman predicted that America would become like Argentina. He is not only wrong, he is cynically and consistently wrong.
Hunter,
Right you are!
For a deep look into the heart of the shrill harpy of PC-Progressivism, his demons, his enablers, his shallowness, and his utter establishmentism, see this in-depth personality profile.
Warning: the Invincible Krugatron that emerges from this portrait may make some people nauseous. Not for the faint of heart, infirm, or young:
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/03/01/the-deflationist
Personally I think they know full well how to do a more accurate model but the problem is it probably doesn’t give the answer they want. Since this has more to do with a political agenda than actual science perhaps accurate, verifiable models that don’t give the ‘right’ answer are frowned upon. It’s too easy to fool the useful idiots by showing a fancy ‘scientistic’ model output (I.e. The Olympics opening BS) that shows impending doom because ‘these are scientists saying you’re doomed!’
It all depends on the results of November 8th 2016.
If Mrs. Clinton wins, this mess will continue for decades.
Federal Government funding causes global warming!
Stu, replying to Steve Case
Federal Government funding causes Mann-made global warming!
That is pure genius. We need a chart of AGW funding and temperatures. That will have an R^2 of 100, and a Correlation of +1.00.
There is no way the mess we call Western economics carries on like this for decades. We have a massive debt depression on the horizon. The only cure for that I am aware of is high inflation. Whether or not it will be possible to generate that before we fall into a deflationary spiral is very questionable but whichever way that goes, it will be very painful.
There is also the solution used in many banana republics over the years:
Abandon the old currency, issue a ‘new’ one amid much fanfare, and repeat… you can usually get one of these to work since noone reads history and don’t know it fails in short order (well, usually… Germany learned when they went to the new mark post W.W.II but then that was full of special features and special pleading as a case…). Brazil got something like 30? years out of it… Zimbabwe not so much…
Lol. Yeah right. “Skeptics mutter about conspiracies..”
I’ll disregard that snide remark and point out that skeptics have been arguing the facts and demanding predictions for nearly three decades. It’s the alarmist side that has been unapologetically vicious in their unending assaults.
Peter,
‘I’ll disregard that snide remark”
It’s fact. Just look at the comments at WUWT for confirming evidence of my statement. Lots and lots of comments about the conspiracy of climate scientists to distort the global temperature record.
It appears to be a core belief among commenters here.
You are wrong. I have been reading this blog for years, and the vast majority of informed skeptics here don’t believe in a massive AGW conspiracy. They know that AGW alarmists are much better funded, and suspect many in that camp are motivated by all that money sloshing around (most of it provided by the tax payer), but that’s not a conspiracy. That’s just blind herd mentality.
Mr. Editor,
It is the Attorneys General of states led by pro-AGW fanatics that are doing the witch hunting.
Naomi Klein has written a book, and made a pretty good living selling the ideas in that book, about how there is a grand conspiracy by “big energy” to destroy the Earth.
Lewandowsky and his gang…well do I need to go into more on that most unpleasant academic?
While some skeptics are certainly “muttering”, it is fanatic believers who are shouting… and getting their shouts echoed in the public square.
If a single skeptic says something stupid, that’s proof that all skeptics are conspiracy mongers.
For some reason leftists believe that they have to create false equivalencies whenever they criticize another leftist.
” The answer, I’d suggest, is that we look for surprising successful predictions. General relativity got its big boost when light did, in fact, bend as predicted. “
Yes, it did. But it was based on clear physical reasoning, which was accepted by those who could follow it. To them, the success was not surprising.
Climate models predict climate (response to forcings), not weather. To get a “surprising successful prediction”, you need to wait until the climate has in fact changed. It’s no use hassling about short term effects, which aren’t the prediction. Climate models predicted warming, and we have had warming. So they are on track. To be sure, you’ll need to follow them longer to get empirical assurance. But in the interim, as with general relativity in its early days, the underlying physical reasoning makes them the best estimate that is what you should use when needed.
As to re-running old models, that is no different to backcasting that is currently done, and was done with the old models when they were new.
http://www.woodfortrees.com/graph/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1850
Oops!
http://www.woodfortrees.org/graph/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1850
But, nick, those climate models are superimposed on a known period of natural cyclical warming. If there is one thing that the hiatus in warming has taught us, it’s that there is something larger at play here…
“Climate models predicted warming, and we have had warming. So they are on track …”.
===========================================
Any warming trend validates the models:
The models are not even close to reality. Krugman says to make a comparison between the climate models and reality. Well, there it is. Reality is the little blue line at the bottom. The climate models are all those lines shooting up at a 45 degree angle. Not even close. There you go, Paul. Problem solved.
” Reality is the little blue line at the bottom. “
“Reality” is a cherry-picked region – tropical mid-troposphere. How about a global comparison?
“How about a global comparison? …”.
==============================
According to the models the mid-troposphere over the tropics is where enhanced greenhouse warming should be most apparent, 2-3 times that at the surface, but I think you already knew that.
“How about a global comparison?”
You mean the surface temperature chart? The surface temperature chart looks very similar to the satellite temperature chart, so if you superimpose the surface temperature trend over the satellite trend, the chart is going to look the same. So I don’t see how the surface temperature chart makes the models look any better.
Nick Stokes
August 15, 2016 at 5:13 pm
“But in the interim, as with general relativity in its early days, the underlying physical reasoning makes them the best estimate that is what you should use when needed.”
The “underlying physical reasoning” aka “The Science” hasn’t got anything right yet, that is, nothing having to do uniquely with CO2 increases, which themselves have seen significant periods of radical Temp divergences twice since 1950. So instead of, “It’s just like Gravity”, now “It’s just like general relativity.” Which means you have no case whatsoever.
Climate models do not produce unique solutions to the problem of the climate energy state. There is zero reason to suppose that the recent warming and model outputs are any more than tendentiously coincidental.
From where I sit, we haven’t even successfully defined what it means to say that “the climate has changed.” Ergo, any measurement or analysis of whether or not it has happened is impossible. But In that vacuum, lots of people have sloppily and even corruptly claimed such a measurement.
“Nick Stokes wrote: To get a “surprising successful prediction”, you need to wait until the climate has in fact changed.
Has climate changed?
Formerly climatology was regional, as defined by Koppen and others, notably Trewartha. (When Hubert Lamb was 50 and I was a graduate student.)
The paper by Belda et Al (2014) shows the climate regions of the world (except Antarctica) for two periods, 1901-1931 and 1975-2005. Between the two periods separated by 75 years.
Climate classification revisited from Köppen to Trewartha, Belda, M. et al, Climate Research, 2014
http://www.int-res.com/articles/cr_oa/c059p001.pdf
The Belda maps show the climate regions of the world (except Antarctica) for two periods, 1901-1931 and 1975-2005, based on a 30 minute grid, average area about 2500 km2, (About 50,000 grid cells cover 135 million km2, the land area of the Earth except Antarctica.)
Between the two periods separated by 75 years, 8% of the cells changed climate type. When you plot a scatter diagram of distributions for the two periods, you will find there is little divergence from the straight line passing through the origin and with slope unity. R-squared is 99.5.
The Belda paper does not discuss error bars. However, the CRU (UK) has revised the climate data to remove wet bias, an adjustment that would increase R2, indicating even less change than these maps show.
In any other field of Earth science, using data with similar precision, we would claim confirmation of the null hypothesis that the two data sets separated by 75 years are not significantly different.
So yes, the Earth has warmed a little and most people worldwide are better off than their parents and grandparents. The people benefiting the most are those on the margins of steppe to desert and those on the margins between ice and tundra, but they are relatively few in number.
Nick,
You said, “Climate models predicted warming, and we have had warming. So they are on track.” Or maybe it is a spurious correlation because warming has been occurring for 10 to 15 thousand years. There is nothing surprising about warming based on past events. You suggest, “…you’ll need to follow them longer to get empirical assurance.” The point is, the models are running warm and the longer we observe, the less convincing the predictions are, based on empirical data. Logically, only one model can be the best as judged by the agreement with empirical data. Averaging the best with all the others just degrades the predictions. What should be done is to look at that one “best” model (I think it is a Russian model) and see how it differs from the others. That is the greatest value of models, providing insight on what is happening and how it is happening. Yet, climate scientists give equal weight to all of them, stir them in the pot, and say “See, it is going to get warmer.” A bookie probably would have come to a similar conclusion based on past history. How can models give us confidence that the correlation (as poor as it is) with predictions and reality isn’t spurious?
Nick,
Systematically wrong, as usual for you. Almost every sentence.
(1) “To get a “surprising successful prediction”, you need to wait until the climate has in fact changed.”
That does not even make sense. For example, a prediction that the warming trend since the mid- 19th century has slowed or accellerated would be “surprising” (or “risky” in Popper’s original terminology.”
(2) “Climate models predicted warming, and we have had warming. So they are on track.”
I assume you are (again) trolling us. First, directional predictions are not enough. Magnitudes matter. Precision and all that. Second, the world has been warming for 2 centuries, with anthropogenic effects dominant only since after WWII. So the warming by itself does not show models are correct or that there is AGW.
(3) …you’ll need to follow them longer to get empirical assurance.”
The models used in the first three Assessment Reports give us multi-decade predictions, if re-run with actual emissions. While not definitive (what is?), these results will tell us more than we know today.
(3) “But in the interim, as with general relativity in its early days, the underlying physical reasoning makes them the best estimate that is what you should use when needed.”
The relevant question in this post is about models as the basis for large-scale public policy measures. “Best estimate” is not enough. We need confidence in the reliability of the estimate.
(4) “As to re-running old models, that is no different to backcasting that is currently done, and was done with the old models when they were new.”
False. Running the data with data available when the model was created raises the questions about the role of tuning — which is (why outside of climate science) back-testing is not considered adequate unless additional measures are taken (e.g., running vs. out of sample data).
“That does not even make sense. For example, a prediction that the warming trend since the mid- 19th century has slowed or accellerated”
Yes. That would be a change. And for utility in verification, you need to compare against the uncertainty of measurement of the result. It takes time to get confidence in the measurement of the change and its prediction.
“Magnitudes matter.”
Yes. But the first question is, is the GCM-based prediction better than what you would have assumed in its absence – probably zero change.
‘“Best estimate” is not enough.’
It’s all you’ll ever have. And it is better than a worse estimate. There are decisions that just have to be made. Assuming zero change is choosing a basis for the decision, just as is using the best estimate.
“with data available when the model was created raises the questions about the role of tuning”
People mix up the role of tuning with curve fitting, as if having a few extra years data will alter the model and fit those years better. Tuning is done to characterise a few parameters that are otherwise difficult to pin down. The 2012 Mauritsen paper was much discussed, as it lay out in detail what tuning steps they used. The use they made of surface temperature was to shift the 1850-1880 global average temperature to the observed average of 13.7°C (para 12). Switching to an earlier model would not change that. They also, at an intermediate stage used a SST average 1976-2005 for matching. But again, that isn’t trying to match detail, just a single number. Any similar period would have sufficed. Tuning is typically done on a run of quite a short period.
Nick
Is there a C in AGW? For once and for all, because I have asked you this a hundred times, do you believe that there is Catastrophic warming coming from AGW?
“Is there a C in AGW?”
That is a sceptic framing. For my part, I just try to work out what is going to happen. I mostly leave it to others to decide how bad they think that will be. I do think AGW will cause problems for a lot of people.
Nick wrote, “Tuning is done to characterise a few parameters that are otherwise difficult to pin down.”
Not correct. Parameter tuning is done so as to cause the projected trend to match an observed trend. Tuning does not adjust a parameter to a physically correct value. Tuning adjusts a parameter to maximize statistical merit. Tuning does not make a projection physically more correct, nor does it reduce the uncertainty of a projection.
Projections made using tuned parameters are not unique, nor even tightly bounded, solutions to the climate energy state. Indeed, the true physical bounds to a climate projection are not known but are likely to be extremely wide; and to grow with projection length.
People don’t “mix up the role of tuning with curve fitting.” Model tuning is curve fitting.
It’s pretty clear from this and other comments that Nick does not know how physical meaning is assigned in science.
Consensus climatology has substituted statistical merit for physical meaning, making it a playground for Nick, but rendering the entire field into a pseudo-science.
meant, ‘Indeed, the true physical uncertainty bounds …’
Nick Stokes
August 15, 2016 at 5:13 pm
“But in the interim, as with general relativity in its early days, the underlying physical reasoning makes them the best estimate that is what you should use when needed.”
Yeah, that’s what we do in the case of determining a Drug’s safety and efficacy. The “underlying physical reasoning” makes Clinical Trials unnecessary. All anyone needs to do is say, “It’s just like general relativity in its early days.” And, by the way, I’m just like Einstein, “Plus Shipping and Handling.”
‘determining a Drug’s safety and efficacy’
Taking medication is always based on the best estimate of safety and efficacy. You never have perfect knowledge. Drugs are permitted and used when the likely benefit (relative to alternatives) exceeds the estimated risks. And knowledge of chemical mode of action and subsequent excretion of breakdown is part of that estimation.
“excretion of breakdown” -> “excretion or breakdown”
Nick Stokes
August 16, 2016 at 2:03 am
Re: “best estimate of safety and efficacy”
Based on real World empirical trials and the principles of real Science, the “best estimate” of the alleged CO2-Climate Change Disease is that it does not exist.
Likewise, the best estimate for The Treatment Of Nothing, involving trying to decrease the atmospheric concentration of CO2, or actually doing it, is that it should ‘very likely’ to ‘certainly’ get you a clear passage into Hell.
Why don’t people want nicer weather and more abundant crops, again?
So all the warmers need to do to be taken seriously and advance public policy in their preferred direction is to make falsifiable predictions correctly? That would certainly be a major shift in strategy from making predictions beyond any of our lifespans, and being 100% wrong about their rare near term exceptions.
Nick says, “Climate models predicted warming, and we have had warming. So they are on track.”
Hmmm. It depends on where and how you measure warming. For most of the US there was no warming of maximum temperatures that exceeded the 1930s and the US has the best climate data for the past century. The US may represent only a small subset of the globe, but data for most of the rest of the world is guess work due to the lack of real data.
For the last decade the Arctic Ocean has cooled due to ventilating heat that warmed air temperatures. Thus warming air temperatures represent cooling not predcted heat accumulation.
Most of Antarctica has not warmed and the Antarctic peninsula that once warmed dramatically and was toted as the canary in te coal mine is now cooling.
I think Nick has some blinders on!
There are three different types of comparisons that you can make between calculations and comparisons to show that your models are correct.
(1) Open comparisons where the people running the computers know the results of the experiment, and are just trying to match it. This is what would be done under Krugman’s proposal.
(2) Blind comparisons, where the modeler does not know the actual experimental results, but does know a lot about how the system he is trying to model works, so that he can tune the calculation for special situations where he understands how the system reacts.
(3) Double blind comparisons, where the modeler does not know either the exact experimental results, OR how the physical system has reacted in other “experiments”, so that there is no way the modeler can cheat. He has to hope that he has the physics right, and he has to hope that all the little things that he thinks are irrelevant are actually irrelevant, and not major phenomena that he has not/cannot model.
In some engineering disciplines, the double blind comparisons are the only acceptable proof of a modelers abilities. This would be very hard for climate calcs, where there is a lot of data about how the system works, so the blind comparisons are probably the best we can hope for. I think that when you are proposing to change the economy of an entire planet, it would be prudent (see the precautionary principle) for the people advocating for change to at least TRY to doa blind comparison, and it seems like some of them have actually stuck their necks out and made some predictions. When the predicted time comes, and they don’t meet the test, then it will be time to (metaphorically) chop off their heads.
rxc says, “…so the blind comparisons are probably the best we can hope for. I think that when you are proposing to change the economy of an entire planet, it would be prudent (see the precautionary principle) for the people advocating for change to at least TRY to doa blind comparison, and it seems like some of them have actually stuck their necks out and made some predictions.”
Valentina Zharkova and her colleagues have done just that.
“We found magnetic wave components appearing in pairs, originating in two different layers in the Sun’s interior. They both have a frequency of approximately 11 years, although this frequency is slightly different, and they are offset in time. Over the cycle, the waves fluctuate between the northern and southern hemispheres of the Sun. Combining both waves together and comparing to real data for the current solar cycle, we found that our predictions showed an accuracy of 97%,”
https://www.ras.org.uk/news-and-press/2680-irregular-heartbeat-of-the-sun-driven-by-double-dynamo
Interestingly, some science blogs dismissed this work in words that suggest to me that the writers, including a physicist writing for Forbes, are unaware of the vast literature on the solar physics as it influences the climates of the planets. (There is a lot more to solar physics than sunspots and TSI (total solar irradiance).
The most absurd comments I read went something like, “Well solar physicists and astrophysicists are not climatologists.”
Rather than Popper and Kuhn, I say Pauli and von Neumann had the better description for the current state of climate science.
“Your theory isn’t even wrong” – Wolfgang Pauli
“Give me five free parameters and my model can make the elephant fly” – John von Neumann
Climate models with a range of possible outcomes so wide that they are virtually unfalsifiable. Models with so many free parameters that they can predict anything the modelers wish.
The model predicts the elephant will fly!
http://mentalfloss.com/sites/default/legacy/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/550dumbo.jpg
Dr. Strangelove,
Thomas Kuhn’s book describes the current state of climate science quite well, as the usual no-quarter-given defense of a paradigm. Lots of similar examples in history. For details see Thomas Kuhn tells us what we need to know about climate science..
As for Popper, he’s ignored or despised by many climate scientists. Which is in itself significant.
Popper and Kuhn are good philosophers of science. I prefer Pauli and von Neumann’s witty comments because Popper and Kuhn are describing real scientists. The warmists cannot be considered as scientists because they abandoned the scientific method. They are a bunch of environmental activists who call themselves “climate scientists”
Dr Strangelove says, “Climate models with a range of possible outcomes so wide that they are virtually unfalsifiable. Models with so many free parameters that they can predict anything the modelers wish.”
Have a look at Patrick Frank’s lecture and paper. He shows that most of the variables in the models have little effect on the results. He is able to replicate the models using a one-line model.
Multi-million dollar grants are not needed. Dr Strangelove, you could replicate the CGM outputs used by the IPCC in a day on your laptop.
Patrick Frank’s lecture to Doctors for Disaster Preparedness is here:
No Certain Doom: On the Accuracy of Projected Global Average Surface Air Temperatures
His paper published by The Skeptics Magazine is here:
A CLIMATE OF BELIEF
http://www.skeptic.com/reading_room/a-climate-of-belief/
The GCMs are complex but the output is just a set of numbers that when you plot forms a curve. The curve can be replicated with a simple linear or quadratic equation. It’s like writing and solving all the physical equations of all the moving parts of a car. The output can be just a time-distance chart of the moving car. It looks simple once you have the answer. But what’s the question?
The answer is 42
“Paul Krugman — Nobel Laureate economist, #5 on Prospect magazine’s 2015 list of the world’s top “thinkers” ”
You’ve got to be kidding!
TA,
You have to get out more.
Being consistently and spectacurally wrong over and over again gets one on the list of “top thinkers”.
Sheesh.
But then again Obama got a Nobel for being, not Bush.
The Alarmist still cling to their failed Human Being their failed Champion Paul Krugman,
As if the Failed Krugman and his Failed New York Times, will Vanquish and smite All in their path to Oblivion.
?
The smell of Oblivion, … Victory.
!
This same pearl clutching. The models have already been tested and failed, but you’re convinced that this time, THIS TIME!, we will all suddenly relearn Popper and the scientific method and the scales will fall from our eyes. This whole thing ceased to be about the science decades ago. It’s merely the next battleground between the state and the individual. You will repent your sins and you will bow to the will of the state.
The models predict surface temperatures very well actually.
Problem is no one on this blog knows the difference between satellite measurements and surface temperatures.
So the bitter public policy debate rattles on, each side hoping for a brute-force political resolution that crushes the large fraction of the public that disagree with them. Perhaps that will happen, and perhaps that will produce a useful outcome. But we can do better.
___________________________
Brute force political resolution is unavoidable – that whole thing is unaffordable.
Just a couple of thoughts. First, I believe Einstein’s bending of light proof the first time was wrong. If I remember correctly it had to do with a solar eclipse in Siberia during WWI. It turned out Einstein assumed the Sun was a perfect sphere, which it isn’t. Second, in relation to the drugs comparison: I read several years ago that if every drug that didn’t perform better than the placebo in the double-blind studies was removed from the market, we would basically have alcohol and aspirin.
Stu,
“I read several years ago that if every drug that didn’t perform better than the placebo in the double-blind studies was removed from the market, we would basically have alcohol and aspirin.”
I can’t imagine where you read such a thing. I suggest you tell your doctor. He’ll enjoy a moment of laughter.
Or wait until a loved one is sick and then refuse drug treatment. Tell us how that works out for you.
I have had malaria twice from three species, typhoid, paratyphoid, respiratory failure from a Rickettsia infection, shingles outbreak twice, and MRSA following treatment for minor cut.
All of these could either have killed me or made life miserable, but all were successfully treated by modern drugs.
And so here I am, well past three-score and ten years because for most scientific claims, I accept the consensus view. In this I agree with Michael Shermer who explains his position in his great series of lectures.
http://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/skepticism-101-how-to-think-like-a-scientist.html
The reason I do not accept the consensus view of climatologists is the same as the reason I did not accept the consensus view for fixed continents in the years before plate tectonics became the consensus view: the evidence does not support the theory.
As for death from prescription drugs. I have seen that major causes of death are 1) not following directions for drugs that have been appropriately prescribed or 2) following directions for drugs not appropriately prescribed.
There are other problems with prescription drugs as well, but avoiding all prescription drugs is not the scientific way to approach the issues. Each recommendation to take a prescription drug has to be considered on its own merits based on the risks of harm compared with the value of the benefits.
Or you can just rely of the authority of the physician without question.
I don’t because I’m a skeptic, except for respiratory failure when I was in no condition to ask questions.
Interesting comment, Frederick. I note that for many years all the great minds and professors of Geology pooh-poohed all notions of continental movement and deliberately turned a blind eye to the remarkable way that the entire continent of Africa aligned with the entire continent of South America. That’s some blind eye! More than equalled in my mind to the blind eye that the world’s self appointed climate experts have displayed with regard to the scientific method and any notions of negative feedback. More like two blind eyes1
Without apparently knowing it, Krugman identified [PRECISELY] why CAGW skeptics are extremely skeptical of the disconfirmed CAGW hypothesis….
CAGW’s global warming model predictions are already laughably devoid of reality, with empirical global temp anomaly data already 2 standard deviations lower than predictions for 20 years! Under the rules of the scientific method, such huge margins of disparity and duration are already statistically significant to disconfirm the CAGW hypothesis….
Moreover, because of numerous natural cooling factors all converging at once (La Niña, PDO 30-cool cycle, AMO 30-year cool cycle, collapsing solar cycles since 1996), within 5~7 years, the disparity and duration of model predictions vs reality will soon exceed 3 standard deviations for 25 years, which is the point CAGW is laughed at and ridiculed…
CAGW advocates know this, which is why they are scandalously and desperately “adjusting” GISTEMP and HADCRUT4 data in a feeble effort to keep model predictions within 2 standard deviations of “adjusted” temp-anomaly datasets…
What pro-CAGW “scientists” can’t rectify is the growing disparity between GISTEMP and HADCRUT4 datasets, and the six independent (and unadjusted) satellite and radiosonde global temp anomaly datasets, which have already effectively disconfirmed the CAGW hypothesis…
Congress realizes this disparity, too, and has already issued a FOIA request to NOAA for all internal e-mail correspondence regarding the “Pause-Busting” KARL2015 “adjustments” made to GISTEMP data.
NOAA has told Congress to effectively go to hell; as they have absolutely NO intent of complying with this congressional FOIA request, and are now technically in Contempt of Congress..
(Cue JAWS’ soundtrack…)
Jeez…. I wonder what NOAA and NASA are trying to hide???
We’re getting tantalizing close to CAGW imploding.
“drugs are tested by prior review of study proposals, followed by analysis of their results by paid non-affiliated multi-disciplinary teams of experts”
Not what I’ve heard.
RoHa,
Yes they are, despite what you have heard. But the corrupting effect of big money has proven to be too powerful for the existing methodological safeguards. Lots of discussion now about how to strengthen them (e.g., requiring registration of studies before starting, so negative results aren’t put down the memory hole).
Climate science could learn a lot from medical testing (drugs and devices).
I suspect that climate models could be made to be a lot more accurate than they are, but political powers need highly inflated results for indoctrination purposes and to push legislation.
For example, on pages 11-12 of this government report they tell the citizens of Croydon that there is a chance of a 7°C rise in temperatures before the end of this century. And where do get such absurd figures? Someone models it, and then they publish the outputs as though they were facts instead of made up data.
Here’s a classically condescending pull quote.
“It is important that the public are not misinformed about the degree of climate change and its potential impacts. Seasonal fluctuations in the climate’s natural behavioural patterns can mask the long-term climate changes. For example the winter of 2009/2010 was characterised by temperatures below average, and extensive snow and ice cover across the UK, which would not appear to the general public to be characteristic of a warming climate.
“It is these short term fluctuations that may confuse people’s understanding of the long- term global warming trend – a reason why it is important to address behavioural change within this adaptation Action Plan.”
https://www.croydon.gov.uk/sites/default/files/articles/downloads/ccaaplan.pdf
Unfortunately, this key section does not appear until page 121 in the Technical Summary and page 126 in the main report: Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, WGI, 2013
“Even in the absence of external forcing, periodic and chaotic variations on a vast range of spatial and temporal scales are observed.”
For physicists and engineers this would be a red flag in any other field except climate.
Quote
The processes affecting climate can exhibit considerable natural variability. Even in the absence of external forcing, periodic and chaotic variations on a vast range of spatial and temporal scales are observed. Much of this variability can be represented by simple (e.g., unimodal or power law) distributions, but many components of the climate system also exhibit multiple states.
…snip…
Movement between states can occur as a result of natural variability, or in response to external forcing. The relationship between variability, forcing and response reveals the complexity of the dynamics of the climate system: the relationship between forcing and response for some parts of the system seems reasonably linear; in other cases this relationship is much more complex, characterised by hysteresis (the dependence on past states) and a non-additive combination of feedbacks.
End of quote:
Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, WGI, 2013
Ah, yes. The cold times when the concept of accumulated heat can be ignored as it is on holiday in the Bahamas or the like, to return shortly…
” brute-force political resolution that crushes the large fraction of the pubic”
Ouch!!!
‘The necessary tools are well understood, and routinely applied in other fields. For example drugs are tested by prior review of study proposals, followed by analysis of their results by paid non-affiliated multi-disciplinary teams of experts ‘
This is complete nonsense. When a pharma major e.g. GSK or Pfizer, carry out clinical trials, they pay for them. They design the protocols, they either do the experiments themselves or hire third-party contractors to do it on their behalf, they analyse the data and they present the data they choose to present to regulatory authorities when seeking marketing approval.
Everyone is affiliated to the pharma major in the carrying out the clinical trial experiments. If things were independent, then the FDA or equivalents overseas would be supplied by GSK with the funding for the trial, the trial would be designed by experts commissioned by the FDA, not by GSK, the data would be analysed by third parties, again commissioned by the FDA, not GSK and the analysis would be scrutinised by the FDA, not by GSK.
That’s what independent evaluation of drugs would entail.
Everyone knows that it doesn’t. It’s not saying the reality is appalling, but it is saying that it is skewed in favour of pharmaceutical company profits rather than dispassionate clinical practice.
“In fact Krugman is discussing his own field, macroeconomics….”
I had an economics professor tell the class the job of who specializes in economics is to predict the future then explain why the prediction failed.. Sore of like paying a baseball player big bucks with a 1.5 batting average.
Gets on base 3 times for every 2 times at bat. That’s pretty good.
Perhaps you meant a 0.15 batting average.
Until climate models include solar variations, lunar modulations, ENSO events, PDO/AMO cycles and volcanic eruptions/earthquakes in their scenario planning, they are pointless wastes of money.
What deadlock in the “climate policy debate” is there? I see none. What I do see is that the government has its mind made up and regardless of facts and the opinions of others is blasting full speed ahead with its climate policies of, for instance, heavily subsidised renewables and the EPA clean air plan. There can be no “debate” when one side does not listen, and has never listened, to anything the other side has said.
I guess neither Larry nor Paul understand that the models have been run. And rerun. And rerun with actual emissions, and rerun with adjusted temps and rerun with adjusted models . . .
They have failed. The alarm is completely unjustified.
The only thing that is ‘worse that we thought’ is the embarrassment that will certainly attain once the larger scientific community sees what these people have been foisting upon the world for at least the last 10 years.
So they go with consensus. They recruit stars from other fields.
This is getting more and more entertaining.
Unfortunately, this may leave us ‘in the lurch’ based on what the sun appears to be up to. We may be heading in the other direction, and with a dirth of new coal plants in the western hemisphere, things could get a bit dicey and that doesn’t even consider the agricultural impact we might want to prepare for.
Apparently those scenarios aren’t even on these guy’s radar screen.
Krugman shows that he still does not understand the scientific method.
Several times, we have been led astray by the desire to “corroborate” instead of conscientiously seek to refute conjectures/hypotheses/theories.
Repeatedly, his neo-Keynesianism has been refuted, and he’s focused on fabricating Freudian-like excuses and rationalizations rather than abandon the failed hypotheses.
When I am wrong, I am wrong. I must reject the failed theory and ask questions and try to propose another hypothesis, then turn it loose to be tested and critiqued.
Let’s take a peek at some of Krugman’s other thoughts that have been recently dissected for some perspective…..
https://mishtalk.com/2016/08/16/krugmans-arrow-theory-misses-target-by-light-years/#more-40165
What is bizarre and perhaps unique to “climate science” is that the claim that some spectral effect can “trap” energy on the side away from the source , 400K over a distance of a few hundred km in the case of Venus , has neither an enabling equation nor experimental demonstration to support it .
Injecting Paul Krugman into a science debate about global warming is a fundamental mistake. That is equivalent to throwing mud in the Olympic pool after it already has a green problem from a shortage of pool chemicals. That guy is a severely politicized economist in his own inexact science. You don’t need him to be a middle man for hard science methodology messaging when you can go there directly. His only purpose is to translate his brand of perpetual monetary stimulus into climate policy debate. Therefore he becomes a tool for carbon tax revenue to stimulate and redistribute again and under the new label of climate policy.
“That guy is a severely politicized economist in his own inexact science. You don’t need him to be a middle man for hard science methodology messaging when you can go there directly.”
Spot on!
That’s what I’m trying to say.
Krugman fits the bill precisely because he is not a “hard scientist”. Climate science is desperately in need of a few physicists to re-examine the trampeled ground (and try not to laugh) to arrive at conclusions and direction for future research, free of political influence or filtering. The present state of things is corrosive to the good name of science. Long past time the politicians butted out!
This “surprisingness” standard I have read about before, I can’t think of any good examples in which it has help convert adherents on one theory to another. In fact, the idea that a natural level of unemployment is bolstered by the ability of the Phillips curve to explain some observation seems pretty suspect when the 1970s appears to have set back the suitability of the Phillips curve itself as a tool.
The idea that a theory gains credibility by delivering correct, and previously unexpected results, seems fraught with problems. For instance, it suggests a standard of proof without reference to alternative explanations that provide equally surprising or even more surprising observations. How does one apply a weight to such evidence? What weight does one apply to a big “boost”?
The observation of the angular deflection of starlight was not unexpected, but was rather a consequence of theory that people designed experiments to test. Otherwise, what explanation is there for astronomers being in all those godforsaken places at the very moment of an eclipse?
What idiot even cares what ENRON ADVISOR Krugman spews?
The essence of this essay is that the predictive track record of the advocates in the global warming (CAGW) debate should decide who is correct and who is wrong. I agree with this premise.
The global warming alarmists have been consistently wrong, since none of their scary predictions have materialized. The warmists have perfect negative credibility to date.
Furthermore, that is ample evidence of unethical conduct by the warmists in the Climategate emails, the Mann hockey stick fiasco, the temperature data revisions, etc.
The climate skeptics have a much better predictive track record – below is our example from 2002. Our predictions were certainly “surprising” for that time and certainly “high-risk” – our co-author Dr. Sallie Baliunas was forced out of Harvard, allegedly by the current US President’s Chief Scientific Advisor and others – a shameful act and a great loss to the scientific community.
Regards to all, Allan MacRae, P.Eng.
Excerpts from past posts:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/08/12/the-moral-case-for-fossil-fuels/comment-page-1/#comment-2277431
[excerpt]
I have an excellent predictive track record, dating back to my first publications on this subject in 2002. In contrast, none of the scary predictions of the IPCC and the global warming gang have materialized – they have been consistently wrong.
The global warming gang have perfect negative credibility and yet they have caused our society to squander trillions of dollars of scarce global resources on a false crisis.
It is a professional and ethical obligation to speak out against such destructive nonsense.
Cheap abundant reliable energy is the lifeblood of society. When misinformed politicians fool with energy systems, innocent people suffer and die.
Regards, Allan
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/05/28/greens-blame-donald-trump-for-crumbling-paris-climate-accord/comment-page-1/#comment-2225581
[excerpt]
2002 DEBATE ON THE KYOTO ACCORD
Here is our predictive track record, from an article that Dr. Sallie Baliunas, Dr. Tim Patterson and I published in 2002 in our debate with the Pembina Institute on the now-defunct Kyoto Accord.
http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/KyotoAPEGA2002REV1.pdf
Our eight-point Rebuttal includes predictions that have all materialized in those countries in Western Europe that have adopted the full measure of global warming mania. My country, Canada, was foolish enough to sign the Kyoto Protocol, but then was wise enough to ignore it.
[Our 2002 article is in “quotation marks”, followed by current commentary.]
1. “Climate science does not support the theory of catastrophic human-made global warming – the alleged warming crisis does not exist.”
NO net global warming has occurred for more than 18 years despite increasing atmospheric CO2.
2. “Kyoto focuses primarily on reducing CO2, a relatively harmless gas, and does nothing to control real air pollution like NOx, SOx, and particulates, or serious pollutants in water and soil.”
Note the extreme pollution of air, water and soil that still occurs in China and the Former Soviet Union.
3. “Kyoto wastes enormous resources that are urgently needed to solve real environmental and social problems that exist today. For example, the money spent on Kyoto in one year would provide clean drinking water and sanitation for all the people of the developing world in perpetuity.”
Since the start of global warming mania, about 50 million children below the age of five have died from contaminated water, and trillions of dollars have been squandered on global warming nonsense.
4. “Kyoto will destroy hundreds of thousands of jobs and damage the Canadian economy – the U.S., Canada’s biggest trading partner, will not ratify Kyoto, and developing countries are exempt.”
Canada signed Kyoto but then most provinces wisely ignored it – the exception being now-depressed Ontario, where government adopted ineffective “green energy” schemes, drove up energy costs, and drove out manufacturing jobs.
5. “Kyoto will actually hurt the global environment – it will cause energy-intensive industries to move to exempted developing countries that do not control even the worst forms of pollution.”
Note the huge manufacturing growth and extremely polluted air in industrial regions of China.
6. “Kyoto’s CO2 credit trading scheme punishes the most energy efficient countries and rewards the most wasteful. Due to the strange rules of Kyoto, Canada will pay the Former Soviet Union billions of dollars per year for CO2 credits.”
Our government did not pay the FSU, but other governments did, bribing them to sign Kyoto.
7. “Kyoto will be ineffective – even assuming the overstated pro-Kyoto science is correct, Kyoto will reduce projected warming insignificantly, and it would take as many as 40 such treaties to stop alleged global warming.”
If one believed the false climate models, one would conclude that we must cease using fossil fuels.
8. “The ultimate agenda of pro-Kyoto advocates is to eliminate fossil fuels, but this would result in a catastrophic shortfall in global energy supply – the wasteful, inefficient energy solutions proposed by Kyoto advocates simply cannot replace fossil fuels.”
Governments that adopted “green energy” schemes such as wind and solar power are finding these schemes are not green and produce little useful energy. Their energy costs are soaring and many of these governments are in retreat, dropping their green energy subsidies as fast as they politically can.
IN SUMMARY:
All the above predictions that we made in 2002 have proven correct in those states that fully adopted the Kyoto Accord, whereas none of the global warming alarmists’ scary warming projections have materialized.
Here is my recent paper, which is as controversial today as our aforementioned debate with the Pembina Institute was when it was published by the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta in 2002.
I am confident that my recent paper is correct, with the possible exception of point 6 below – our prediction of imminent global cooling. I originally published our global cooling prediction in a Calgary Herald article in 2002, and I think it is still highly probable, given the current very low level of solar activity.
I hope to be wrong about global cooling, however, because cold weather kills many more people that warm weather, even in warm climates – also, I’m getting old and hate the cold.
Regards to all, Allan MacRae, P.Eng.
EVIDENCE SUGGESTING TEMPERATURE DRIVES ATMOSPHERIC CO2 MORE THAN CO2 DRIVES TEMPERATURE
September 4, 2015
By Allan MacRae
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/06/13/presentation-of-evidence-suggesting-temperature-drives-atmospheric-co2-more-than-co2-drives-temperature/
Observations and Conclusions:
1. Temperature, among other factors, drives atmospheric CO2 much more than CO2 drives temperature. The rate of change dCO2/dt is closely correlated with temperature and thus atmospheric CO2 LAGS temperature by ~9 months in the modern data record
2. CO2 also lags temperature by ~~800 years in the ice core record, on a longer time scale.
3. Atmospheric CO2 lags temperature at all measured time scales.
4. CO2 is the feedstock for carbon-based life on Earth, and Earth’s atmosphere and oceans are clearly CO2-deficient. CO2 abatement and sequestration schemes are nonsense.
5. Based on the evidence, Earth’s climate is insensitive to increased atmospheric CO2 – there is no global warming crisis.
6. Recent global warming was natural and irregularly cyclical – the next climate phase following the ~20 year pause will probably be global cooling, starting by ~2020 or sooner.
7. Adaptation is clearly the best approach to deal with the moderate global warming and cooling experienced in recent centuries.
8. Cool and cold weather kills many more people than warm or hot weather, even in warm climates. There are about 100,000 Excess Winter Deaths every year in the USA and about 10,000 in Canada.
9. Green energy schemes have needlessly driven up energy costs, reduced electrical grid reliability and contributed to increased winter mortality, which especially targets the elderly and the poor.
10. Cheap, abundant, reliable energy is the lifeblood of modern society. When politicians fool with energy systems, real people suffer and die. That is the tragic legacy of false global warming alarmism.
Allan MacRae, Calgary
~”Point: the oil industry, often viewed as the main culprit, understandably feel vulnerable in this regard.”
All I can say, Allan, is that I’m extremely envious of the Riches bestowed upon you by Big Oil. My check is not so much as even “in the Mail”!
“Point” referring to your excellent scientifically based Counter Points in:
http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/KyotoAPEGA2002REV1.pdf
But sadly again, in 2004 I wrote a very Skeptical Letter to the Editor of our tiny populated but very large geographical County’s Newspaper, which they published a few months later as the only Letter for that edition, because it took up ~1 1/4 pages out of about 12 total pages in that edition. Alas, here in Redneck Cowboy Country I’ve received from Big Oil not even a can of Neatsfoot Oil!
JPeden,
For the record, I have never gained a penny for any of my writing or activities as a climate skeptic. We did get a small fee for one article in the Globe and Mail , but we gave it away.
It has probably cost me income. It would certainly be easier to go along with global warming alarmist falsehoods and get a job with a government agency or one of the warmist groups.
The subject has never been discussed with any of my clients.
Instead of fighting for what is right, most energy companies just try to go along and avoid controversy. This cowardice was a huge disservice to their shareholders and society.
I do this because it is a professional obligation to combat dangerous polices that cause significant harm to society.
Another recent example of safeguarding the public is described here:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/08/12/the-moral-case-for-fossil-fuels/comment-page-1/#comment-2277446
These are not risk-free activities. Tim Ball has received many threats. I have received only one, following an article in the National Post in 2002 – I feel somewhat slighted. 😉
Regards, Allan MacRae, P. Eng.
Yep, FabMax, you and Paul Krugman in a countrywide TV confrontation against safespace PCorrected armageddonist green belivers – still waiting for THAT arrogant breakthrough
[ difference is: I talked to every other layman in my country. I wrote to any MSM in my indigenous vulgar, (Dante Aligheri) and abroad to. Not that much response – but not for the bin.]
At this point it would not only be “surprising” for CO2-Climate Change to deliver just one correct Prediction based on “The Science” of increasing CO2 concentrations, it would also ruin its Perfect Record of Failure!
Unhinged pseudo-intellectual snobs aka “The Experts of Academia, Journalism, and The Totalitarian Utopia” would probably panic and have to move their Cult another 20,000 miles into the cold ether to try to escape the Reality dogging them ever since their “Unjust” emergence from the warm 98.6 deg. womb. And after all, who amongst them really wants to live or rule in North Korea, the Dead United Soviet Socialist Republic, Venezuela, or the Stone Age with the spectre of something like the heat of the Nuremberg Trials always at their cloven hoofs? Their only other option would be to repair to the Underworld from whence they ultimately came. But it was also certainly “too damn hot” for “The Boys” down there!
I wrote on this on FM’s facebook page and tried with my modest understanding to ask where the observed tropospheric hot spot was : you can read FM’s response : he asked for chapter and verse (IPCC or “reputable climate science”) where it said a hotpsot was connected, and when provided with what I thought was fair : ” IPCC, Assessment Report 4, (2007), working group 1, The Physical Science Basis, Chapter 8.Fig 8.14, page 631
Fabius Maximus There is nothing on p631 that supports your weird theory that the Hot Spot is the central theory in current climate science, or AGW.”
….obviously I’m not talking in a language FM can hear/understand