It has been an interesting couple of days. Today yet another scientist has come forward with a press release saying that not only did their audit of IPCC forecasting procedures and found that they “violated 72 scientific principles of forecasting”, but that “The models were not intended as forecasting models and they have not been validated for that purpose.” This organization should know, they certify forecasters for many disciplines and in conjunction with John Hopkins University if Washington, DC, offer a Certificate of Forecasting Practice. The story below originally appeared in the blog of Australian Dr. Jennifer Marohasy. It is reprinted below, with with some pictures and links added for WUWT readers. – Anthony
J. Scott Armstrong, founder of the International Journal of Forecasting
Guest post by Jennifer Marohasy
YESTERDAY, a former chief at NASA, Dr John S. Theon, slammed the computer models used to determine future climate claiming they are not scientific in part because the modellers have “resisted making their work transparent so that it can be replicated independently by other scientists”. [1]
Today, a founder of the International Journal of Forecasting, Journal of Forecasting, International Institute of Forecasters, and International Symposium on Forecasting, and the author of Long-range Forecasting (1978, 1985), the Principles of Forecasting Handbook, and over 70 papers on forecasting, Dr J. Scott Armstrong, tabled a statement declaring that the forecasting process used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) lacks a scientific basis. [2]
What these two authorities, Drs Theon and Armstrong, are independently and explicitly stating is that the computer models underpinning the work of many scientific institutions concerned with global warming, including Australia’s CSIRO, are fundamentally flawed.
In today’s statement, made with economist Kesten Green, Dr Armstrong provides the following eight reasons as to why the current IPCC computer models lack a scientific basis:
1. No scientific forecasts of the changes in the Earth’s climate.
Currently, the only forecasts are those based on the opinions of some scientists. Computer modeling was used to create scenarios (i.e., stories) to represent the scientists’ opinions about what might happen. The models were not intended as forecasting models (Trenberth 2007) and they have not been validated for that purpose. Since the publication of our paper, no one has provided evidence to refute our claim that there are no scientific forecasts to support global warming.
We conducted an audit of the procedures described in the IPCC report and found that they clearly violated 72 scientific principles of forecasting (Green and Armstrong 2008). (No justification was provided for any of these violations.) For important forecasts, we can see no reason why any principle should be violated. We draw analogies to flying an aircraft or building a bridge or performing heart surgery—given the potential cost of errors, it is not permissible to violate principles.
2. Improper peer review process.
To our knowledge, papers claiming to forecast global warming have not been subject to peer review by experts in scientific forecasting.
3. Complexity and uncertainty of climate render expert opinions invalid for forecasting.
Expert opinions are an inappropriate forecasting method in situations that involve high complexity and high uncertainty. This conclusion is based on over eight decades of research. Armstrong (1978) provided a review of the evidence and this was supported by Tetlock’s (2005) study that involved 82,361 forecasts by 284 experts over two decades.
Long-term climate changes are highly complex due to the many factors that affect climate and to their interactions. Uncertainty about long-term climate changes is high due to a lack of good knowledge about such things as:
a) causes of climate change,
b) direction, lag time, and effect size of causal factors related to climate change,
c) effects of changing temperatures, and
d) costs and benefits of alternative actions to deal with climate changes (e.g., CO2 markets).
Given these conditions, expert opinions are not appropriate for long-term climate predictions.
4. Forecasts are needed for the effects of climate change.
Even if it were possible to forecast climate changes, it would still be necessary to forecast the effects of climate changes. In other words, in what ways might the effects be beneficial or harmful? Here again, we have been unable to find any scientific forecasts—as opposed to speculation—despite our appeals for such studies.
We addressed this issue with respect to studies involving the possible classification of polar bears as threatened or endangered (Armstrong, Green, and Soon 2008). In our audits of two key papers to support the polar bear listing, 41 principles were clearly violated by the authors of one paper and 61 by the authors of the other. It is not proper from a scientific or from a practical viewpoint to violate any principles. Again, there was no sign that the forecasters realized that they were making mistakes.
5. Forecasts are needed of the costs and benefits of alternative actions that might be taken to combat climate change.
Assuming that climate change could be accurately forecast, it would be necessary to forecast the costs and benefits of actions taken to reduce harmful effects, and to compare the net benefit with other feasible policies including taking no action. Here again we have been unable to find any scientific forecasts despite our appeals for such studies.
6. To justify using a climate forecasting model, one would need to test it against a relevant naïve model.
We used the Forecasting Method Selection Tree to help determine which method is most appropriate for forecasting long-term climate change. A copy of the Tree is attached as Appendix 1. It is drawn from comparative empirical studies from all areas of forecasting. It suggests that extrapolation is appropriate, and we chose a naïve (no change) model as an appropriate benchmark. A forecasting model should not be used unless it can be shown to provide forecasts that are more accurate than those from this naïve model, as it would otherwise increase error. In Green, Armstrong and Soon (2008), we show that the mean absolute error of 108 naïve forecasts for 50 years in the future was 0.24°C.
7. The climate system is stable.
To assess stability, we examined the errors from naïve forecasts for up to 100 years into the future. Using the U.K. Met Office Hadley Centre’s data, we started with 1850 and used that year’s average temperature as our forecast for the next 100 years. We then calculated the errors for each forecast horizon from 1 to 100. We repeated the process using the average temperature in 1851 as our naïve forecast for the next 100 years, and so on. This “successive updating” continued until year 2006, when we forecasted a single year ahead. This provided 157 one-year-ahead forecasts, 156 two-year-ahead and so on to 58 100-year-ahead forecasts.
We then examined how many forecasts were further than 0.5°C from the observed value. Fewer than 13% of forecasts of up to 65-years-ahead had absolute errors larger than 0.5°C. For longer horizons, fewer than 33% had absolute errors larger than 0.5°C. Given the remarkable stability of global mean temperature, it is unlikely that there would be any practical benefits from a forecasting method that provided more accurate forecasts.
8. Be conservative and avoid the precautionary principle.
One of the primary scientific principles in forecasting is to be conservative in the darkness of uncertainty. This principle also argues for the use of the naive no-change extrapolation. Some have argued for the precautionary principle as a way to be conservative. It is a political, not a scientific principle. As we explain in our essay in Appendix 2, it is actually an anti-scientific principle in that it attempts to make decisions without using rational analyses. Instead, cost/benefit analyses are appropriate given the available evidence which suggests that temperature is just as likely to go up as down. However, these analyses should be supported by scientific forecasts.
The reach of these models is extraordinary, for example, the CSIRO models are currently being used in Australia to determine water allocations for farmers and to justify the need for an Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) – the most far-reaching of possible economic interventions. Yet, according to Dr Armstrong, these same models violate 72 scientific principles.
********************
1. Marc Morano, James Hansen’s Former NASA Supervisor Declares Himself a Skeptic, January 27,2009. http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=1a5e6e32-802a-23ad-40ed-ecd53cd3d320
2. “Analysis of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for Greenhouse Gases”, Drs. J. Scott Armstrong and Kesten C. Green a statement prepared for US Senator Inhofe for an analysis of the US EPA’s proposed policies for greenhouse gases. http://theclimatebet.com
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Can anyone explain #7 (in the article list) in different, perhaps simpler terms?
Robert Bateman (20:45:47) : West Coast.
Since there are no recorded temperatures or weather records for my region in the Dalton or Maunder,
Were there not records from the Spanish Missions from Mexico up to San Francisco? And from the Russians from Alaska down to Ft. Ross in California? They each sent home descriptions of the land and climate of the time (toward the middle / end of the Dalton…)
You ought to be able to get a reasonable idea what a Dalton climate would be like for most of California and maybe even some of the further north coast. (Russians did rapidly move from colder Alaska down to California, but they still ought to have ‘reported home’ on the weather…) Missionaries were prone to tracking rather a lot of stuff, and they all depended on gardens and agriculture (that make a decent proxy).
I can tell you that Mission Olives were grown at all the missions, along with corn, beans, truck vegetables.
On the Russian side the wiki on Fort Ross is a reasonable place to start.
From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Ross I followed a link to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Friedrich_von_Eschscholtz
who was one of two naturalist / botanists who detailed what they found. Their works ought to include climate descriptions.
A random google of “California Mission gardens” lead to many including:
http://www.gardenvisit.com/history_theory/library_online_ebooks/ml_gothein_history_garden_art_design/californian_horticulture_mission_landscape_architecture
That says:
To the other side of landscape architecture they brought an equal contribution, that of horticulture. Father Junipero Serra himself planted seeds of the date palm as early as 1770, some of which grew and made fruitful trees. He and his followers also brought other palms, and all the fruits of southern Europe, the olive, the pomegranate, the fig, the lemon, the orange, the apple, the pear, the peach, and above all the wine grape. Because of the climatic affinity between California and Europe already remarked, these importations throve. Most of them were soon acclimatised, and were widely propagated by the industrious missionaries. It is recorded that the Mission of San Gabriel near Los Angeles had over 2000 fruit-trees at the beginning of the nineteenth century, and even today there is exhibited at this mission an ancient grape-vine dating back to those early times.
To me it looks like the same list we are still growing today. Stone fruit, like peaches, require winter chill to set fruit, and palms require some warmth (there is a ‘limit to palms’ line on many globes denoting the end of the warm climate regions…) Add in wine grapes that take summer warmth and not too much winter freeze… These three intersect in only a narrow climate band. California / Oregon Citrus like Oranges currently peter out about 100 miles north of Sacramento (too cold). So all this continues to say ‘not much change’.
(While you can grow some wine grapes in Washington / Oregon it is much harder to do and works best with hybrids of American & European grapes that did not exist then or on hybrid root stock. Cultural practices have also advanced to allow the spread into the areas that were formerly considered too cold for decent wine grapes. Some German style whites grow well as long as the vines are ‘banked’ if freezes are expected, but the missionaries did not use these practices.)
So my ‘first blush’ take on it is that during the Dalton things on the West Coast were not much different from now. I would guess a bit less rain (that, now that we have overbuilt drastically, will be considered a ‘drought’ but ought to be considered ‘normal’…) but otherwise, about the same.
A more detailed examination of particular locations and varieties planted ought to give fairly strict limits to temperature ranges. Some varieties are accurate to a couple of degrees on their limits… Degree-days and ‘chill days’ for stone fruits are known specific quantities.
juan (22:34:01)
Like P. Folkens I don’t buy the comet theory either. From memory, the temperature graph of the Younger Dryas is a square wave, with very rapid fall, then level, then rise. A single event wouldn’t do that, it’d be most likely to give a rapid fall followed by a linear or more likely exponential rise starting immediately after the event.
I’m not quite sure either why we keep having to have people explaining that climate is unpredictable. It’s known to be chaotic, isn’t it?
Sekerob (22:02:29) : “innovative approaches to the teaching of forecasting. ”
Okay, lets follow the money trail.
Teaching? Money trail? Really? On this planet???
Ouch, this is going to leave a mark on the AGW crowd. Wait until Anthony and the gang go to ICCC in NYC. The PR from there will be well timed.
Harold Vance — What I want to know is who insisted on a floor of $140M for something this obscure?
This is actually a very good idea, and probably indicates a more conservative approach than at first blush. Money into research for this subject is good because enough research might flush out enough real data to use to make any decisions with. Lots of commentators have called for dumping a big pile of money into research so that we have a better picture of what (if anything) we are dealing with. From there we decide what to do (if anything.)
Kmye — Can anyone explain #7 (in the article list) in different, perhaps simpler terms?
Climate changes slowly enough that for short term (100 year) time scales, it’s relatively stable.
The bad news is that this is pretty much in accordance with what the AGW alarmists are claiming, that it’s been stable for ages but all this recent CO2 stuff [insert hockey stick here] temps are now climbing faster than ever seen historically.
There’s more than one way to read the article.
I have posted these links before on WUWT.
They are not a joke.
“These studies are meant to inform the US Fish and Wildlife Service about listing the polar bear as endangered. After careful examination, my co-authors and I were unable to find any references to works providing evidence that the forecasting methods used in the reports had been previously validated. In essence, they give no scientific basis for deciding one way or the other about the polar bear.”
Prof. Armstrong and colleagues originally undertook their audit at the request of the State of Alaska. The subsequent study, “Polar Bear Population Forecasts: A Public Policy Forecasting Audit,” is by Prof. Armstrong, Kesten G. Green of Monash University in Australia, and Willie Soon of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. It is scheduled to appear in the September/October issue of the INFORMS journal Interfaces.
http://www.informs.org/article.php?id=1383
The authors of this study used these forecasting principles to audit the IPCC report. They found that:
Out of the 140 forecasting principles, 127 principles are relevant to the procedures used to arrive at the climate projections in the IPCC report.
Of these 127, the methods described in the report violated 60 principles.
http://www.ncpa.org/pub/st/st308
A rousing chorus:
“The wheels on the bus are falling off, falling off…”
To be fair to the IPCC they never claimed to forecast; rather they laid out scenarios based on how much CO2 was emitted. And then, from report to report, they revised these scenarios downwards.
All of which leads to the skeptics’ position that while there may be warming (or cooling) at .1 degree Celsius per decade/century/ any thirty one year period that fits, the reality is that no one should be making policy based on highly uncertain forecasts of relatively minor fluctuations.
There are good arguments for better data and more study; there are no arguments for spending (or losing) the hundreds of billions of dollars governments seem intent on spending to deal with an ill defined non-problem.
Kmye (00:07:12) : Can anyone explain #7 (in the article list) in different, perhaps simpler terms?
I’ll take a whack at it.
If you want to forecast something, the easiest way to do it is to say “What just happened will happen again.” That’s the ‘naive forecast’. So I say “The sun will rise tomorrow at the same time it did today”.
That will be relatively correct for ‘a while’ depending on what exact numbers you put on ‘relatively’ and ‘a while’. After a month or two you might notice the day length changing (seasonal change). Now you need a better model. You start to change your forecast to include seasonal changes.
The test:
You need to compare your seasonal model with your ‘naive’ model to decide which is better. If, first time out, you got the whole ‘longer then shorter then longer’ thing into your model it will beat “same time” fairly quickly.
But if you made your naive model in, oh, April, then noticed in June that the days got longer and only put in “Each day longer by {foo}” as your ‘improved model’, about the time September rolled around it would be pretty clear to everyone that the days were not still getting longer and your naive model is back to being the Top Dog. (And it is a pretty good top dog at the equator!)
What #7 says is that they tested ‘naive’ (no change) over a bunch of time periods. All the one years, all the two years, all the three year groups, etc. All the way up to 58 different 100 year periods. And they found that climate didn’t change much at all. At a 65 year forecast ‘nothing changed’ had it right 87% of the time (13% ‘missed’). They had to make 100 year forecasts to get the success rate down to 67% (failed 33%).
But what was a ‘failure’? 1/2 of one degree C was the test. So a year that was 0.6 C warmer or colder 100 years in the future was a ‘failure to predict’ for the ‘no change’ model. That is one heck of a good model.
The only reasonable way for ‘nothing changes much’ to get it that ‘right’ 65 and 100 years in the future is if: Climate just doesn’t hasn’t changed much on a 100 year scale; so there is little reason to expect it to change in the next 100 years. The more things change, the more they stay the same…
There ‘test period’ included much of the industrialization of the world and the attendant CO2 production, so it’s a fair test.
At it’s core, what #7 says is: Warming? What warming? You would predict better with a broken thermometer stuck on ‘this year’ than with a computer model like the GCMs.
There seems to be a big argument here about how to deal with a combination of:
a. Periods of tight stability around a relatively fixed ‘mean’ temperature.
b. Rapid changes of state to a new relatively fixed ‘mean’ temperature, either significantly higher or lower than the previous one.
To me, it’s a bit like a nuclear reactor. Mostly, there are stable states called ‘elements’. They hang around for ages, occasionally decay, but broadly look the same. Then someone blasts an element with high energy particles and they go ballistic, ending up as something new – maybe lower Mr (fission) or higher (fusion).
Seems any model to describe this needs a set of parameters which are broadly the same all the time and the odd one which is a short pulse of high activity followed by long periods of almost none.
Any of the current models set up that way?
The wonderful thing about climate models is that they cannot be validated by independent people or bodies. I dare say they are validated internally & there is absolutely nothing wrong with that per se as happens in all organiasations around the globe. However, for something to be taken seriously, independent validation is required. Just to say the output corresponds to expectations & observations is another thing all together. As I have said before, when they can tell me what the weather is going to be for a given day a week inadvance so thta I can plan ahead, then I’ll start to listen to them.
The wonderful thing about Climate Change is that it covers all the bases, if it gets warm = CC, if it gets cold =CC! Absolutely perfect in concept, infallible!
I note that most modellers claim no forecasting or prediction when it suits them, but say that these are projections based on scenarios, or “story-lines” as the IPCC now call them. I always thought story-lines were what they used in Soap Operas, which might go some way to explaining the models, science fiction based on science fact, like all good sci-fi programmes/shows, one uses relatively sound scientific argument coupled with a vivid imagination! I note that when some scientist somewhere comes up with a theory as to why some particular incident happened, within a couple of years or so it is incorporated into some sci-fi script somewhere, Dr Who is a classic example, as is Star Trek, then some half-wits start to think it all true, ( I won’t say which show is best naturally so as not to upset the Americans!) ;-)) Now, where’s my sonic screwdriver?
Note the Met Office’s Dr Vicki Pope frequently mixes & matches projection with prediction in the same articles, sometimes in the same paragraph too. Yet she maintains they do not make predictions, go figure!
BTW, it has became rather damp of late over here, with the all too typical bout of freezing temps to lock everything up solid, like car doors, etc. We are due for a saoking tomorrow I understand, followed by yep you guessed it, more arctic weather! Great. In an island built on coal, & with oil & gas beneath the sea, we’re struggling guys, struggling! Greens are fighting Greens over the Severn Barrage that turns out to be a real white elephant that will cost the good old UK taxpayer another fortune (that we don’t have) to build, & produce no more that 1% of our enegry needs as opposed to the 5% claimed. I believe you Colonials refer to it as SNAFU!!!!!!
Anthony Watts
Thank you for all your hard work and thank you for this wonderful web site.
The last couple of months have been such an education for me.
League of Gentlemen and Gentlewomen
Thank you for all your wonderful comments, ideas and feedback.
It is such a pleasure to read your intelligent contributions and to witness the establishment of such a fine community.
Global Climate Models are *not* forecasts on the 1 to 30 year range, but IMHO they *are* forecasts on the 30 to 100 year range. Armstrong appears to correctly be looking at the 30 to 100 year range (e.g. 65 years).
8. Be conservative and avoid the precautionary principle.
I thought the precautionary principle was conservative, and not the other way around. That said, as a species if we had followed the precautionary principle we would still be sitting up in the trees or extinct, take your pick.
Humanity has prospered through risk taking. AGW is BS lets go for it.
E.M.Smith (23:17:32)
That’s what I thought of too. Great movie: click
A couple of missions or trading posts on the coast isn’t going to give you much more than the oceanic influence that still exist today.
It’s inland that was not settled at the time. It’s inland that is missing.
Southern California is not my concern here.
The vegetation maps of the region south of me went basically unchanged except for the Desert Southwest being a woodland.
All I want to know at this point is what the proxy says for any Grand Minimums coinciding with the Younger Dryas.
They didn’t have thermometers in the Dalton.
Wiki is a poor place to find answers for work that has never been done. And besides, it’s open to editing and the sort of skulldugery that IPCC and Hansen have been up to.
Ought to be Indian lore and legend as they traversed inland all across the Siskyous, Cascades and No. Coast Ranges, but they got mostly wiped out.
“REPLY: Rob, what makes you automatically assume there’s a “money trail”? Looking for big oil again? 😉 Anthony”
So if the ‘money trail’ is out of bounds, why did you let this comment though on the Theon thread: “vstarrider (21:42:24) : Follow the money and you will find the cause. Hansen bet his reputation and his wallet on his models.”
On a more general note, I would like to offer some sincere advice. On the Theon thread you have a made a serious error of editorial judgment in running the story as presented. As a result, you have the blog in a fever of expectation about the imminent demise of AGW.
You know that’s not going to happen soon, if ever. You need to start dampening down the hopes and expectations you have raised, otherwise in a few weeks or months there are going to be some very disappointed people on WUWT.
The Theon situation is simple. The US has a new administration which has promised to take action on AGW. Whatever the degree of that action, the stance of the Obama administration represents a 180 deg turn from the previous one.
As happens in these situations, a few wild men have come rushing out of the bush waving pieces of paper in an attempt to stop the tide of history. They will fail because the brute reality is that in climate science they don’t count.
Inhofe is using Theon as cannon fodder, and as a result Theon just comes across as a grouchy old git trying to settle scores. It’s sad and pathetic. If you want to maintain the credibility of your blog, don’t encourage this sort of behaviour.
Interesting comments by Sen. Inhofe today regarding Al Gore: click
Check out the reader comments following the article. Most support Inhofe.
It looks if we have found an independent organization capable of verifying the AGW hysteria reports and publications from the UN IPCC, the UN World Meteorological Organization and the bias National Weather Organizations like NOAA and the Publications produced by the Skeptic Community.
Maybe it is possible to set up a cooperation with the International Institute of Forecasters to set up a non bias committee to peer review any weather of climate report used as a basis for Government policies and legislation.
When I took a look at the web site of the organization a noticed they offer financial support for research promoting forecasting methods and business forecasting practice:
“Grants and Research Awards
SAS/IIF Grant to Promote Research on Forecasting”
“For the seventh year, the IIF, in collaboration with SAS®, is proud to announce financial support for research on how to improve forecasting methods and business forecasting practice. The awards will be (2) two $5,000 grants. Applications should be submitted to the IIF Office by September 30, 2009. For more information on this grant opportunity, click here.
Anthony, I think you should send in an application for your weather station project because no forecasting is possible without sound basic data.
Let’s grab this bull by it’s horns.
Ron (Tex) McGowan (22:25:05) :
The rich, the Republicans and big business would be loving this.
Im neither rich, nor republican, and I don’t own a business. Im not employed by any company associated with oil.. and Im happy as heck more folks are jumping off the climate scare wagon.. So explain that?? Or maybe you hadnt considered that there might be folks that care about the enviornment but think GW is a money grabbing hoax?
The more folks that come over the better:) Make sure you write your senators tonite or we will have that pig of a stimulas package hanging over the next generations heads to pay off. Wonder what our children will think of us when GW and Carbon credits turns out to be the biggest pyramid scheme ever.
Michael J. Bentley
From the website “Science Poles”
Polarstern to drop 20 tonnes of iron sulphate in the Southern Ocean near Antarctica.
http://tinyurl.com/bmx99h
This is an experiment to grow algal blooms on the sea, which is supposed to absorb CO2 and drop it into the depths as a waste product of the algae. If it works as per the laboratory, we can expect more of this Geo-chemical Engineering.
On the route trace of Polarstern on the University of Bremen’s website, it appears that the ship is in the region of South Georgia.
You wrote:
“Again, my fear (along with the feeling my pocket is being legally picked) is that some well meaning moron will attempt some (gov’munt approved and funded) large scale experiment that will really mess up the climate.”
Looks like we’ve been pre-empted.
Next thing will be Tim Flannery’s pumping sulphur dioxide into the stratosphere, to give the planet “sunglasses”
[snip, snip snip snip snip snip snip snip, OK here’s the deal. You spent all that time, writing up several point by point rebutalls, there’s some good points in there, but at the same time, you make accusations of the authors pushing nonsense, silly, etc. I’m growing weary of you “foinavon”, attacking people that have the courage to put their name to their work, be it right or wrong, while you sit from the comfort of anonymity and hurl attacks. These two gentlemen have put their names on the line because they feel the methodology is not supported by procedures that insure a bias free outcome. So either use your real name and come to the level playing field that these gentlemen work on, and then use those terms, or revise the post so that it is free from denigrating terms, and I’ll repost it. Science has never been forwarded by anonymity, and I encourage people on both sides to stop this sniping from the shadows and put up or shut up. Example: Simon Evans. While I disagree with a lot of what he says, had the courage to stop being phantom “Steven Talbot”, and for that he has earned a measure of respect, let’s see what you are made of sir. – Anthony Watts]
Brendan H (03:10:54) :
“REPLY: Rob, what makes you automatically assume there’s a “money trail”? Looking for big oil again? 😉 Anthony”
So if the ‘money trail’ is out of bounds, why did you let this comment though on the Theon thread: “vstarrider (21:42:24) : Follow the money and you will find the cause. Hansen bet his reputation and his wallet on his models.”
Actually, I don’t see the issue with following the money, on either side of the debate. If anything, it helps to validate the information comeing out. If the “Big Oil” validates the warmists papers/theories and the “Green Lobby” validates the sceptics papers, then this can only be a good thing because it elliminates the bais that is found with those of a similar opinion.
What ever theories/papers that can’t be disqualified on both sides, must be closer to the truth, surely.
Neil Crafter (20:41:30) :
If a AGW-organisation would use a logo like this than i would be really scared, the choice of colors is just wrong unless the one who came up with has a twisted sense of humor, still that’s a kind of humor you have to keep in front of you if the subjects are as serious as this.
As a graphic designer, I can tell you that there is no accounting for some peoples tastes! One persons beautiful is another persons ugly. And don’t forget, the client is always right!!
Google “forecasting” just for fun.
Google “J Scott Armstrong” he literally wrote the book on forecasting.
you guys are falling into a trap. Armstrong isn t “the leading expert” on this subject. Armstrong IS this subject!
basically Armstrong and his associates are the only ones, who use their own “forecasting principles”.
they want to prevent government action. they do so, by requiring a long list of principles to be followed, to get a forecast to start government action.
if they find any principles violated, they will claim a failed forecast and use it as a reason to stop government action.
ask yourself this simple question: where is the article of “Armstrong, the forecasting expert”, warning us of the collapse of the financial industries?
now if he can t forecast his own field (economics), how is he qualified to “forecast” climate science?
REPLY: And James Hansen wrote the book on AGW, and GISS is the only organization that uses the procedure he developed, and it wasn’t until last year that GISS released the procedures, bowing to pressure. GISS offers no certification in the procedure they’ve developed. IIS does. Your point is moot. – Anthony