For those too young to remember (such as Jim Hansen’s coal protesters in Washington this past week), Clara Peller, pictured above, started a national catchphrase with “Where’s the beef?” that even made it into the 1984 presidential campaign. Today, the Boston Globe asks: where’s the global warming?
Watch the original commercial that started the catchphrase. It seems applicable today. – Anthony
JEFF JACOBY
By Jeff Jacoby, Globe Columnist | March 8, 2009
SUPPOSE the climate landscape in recent weeks looked something like this:
Half the country was experiencing its mildest winter in years, with no sign of snow in many Northern states. Most of the Great Lakes were ice-free. Not a single Canadian province had had a white Christmas. There was a new study discussing a mysterious surge in global temperatures – a warming trend more intense than computer models had predicted. Other scientists admitted that, because of a bug in satellite sensors, they had been vastly overestimating the extent of Arctic sea ice.
If all that were happening on the climate-change front, do you think you’d be hearing about it on the news? Seeing it on Page 1 of your daily paper? Would politicians be exclaiming that global warming was even more of a crisis than they’d thought? Would environmentalists be skewering global-warming “deniers” for clinging to their skepticism despite the growing case against it?
No doubt.
But it isn’t such hints of a planetary warming trend that have been piling up in profusion lately. Just the opposite.
The United States has shivered through an unusually severe winter, with snow falling in such unlikely destinations as New Orleans, Las Vegas, Alabama, and Georgia. On Dec. 25, every Canadian province woke up to a white Christmas, something that hadn’t happened in 37 years. Earlier this year, Europe was gripped by such a killing cold wave that trains were shut down in the French Riviera and chimpanzees in the Rome Zoo had to be plied with hot tea. Last week, satellite data showed three of the Great Lakes – Erie, Superior, and Huron – almost completely frozen over. In Washington, D.C., what was supposed to be a massive rally against global warming was upstaged by the heaviest snowfall of the season, which paralyzed the capital.
Meanwhile, the National Snow and Ice Data Center has acknowledged that due to a satellite sensor malfunction, it had been underestimating the extent of Arctic sea ice by 193,000 square miles – an area the size of Spain. In a new study, University of Wisconsin researchers Kyle Swanson and Anastasios Tsonis conclude that global warming could be going into a decades-long remission. The current global cooling “is nothing like anything we’ve seen since 1950,” Swanson told Discovery News. Yes, global cooling: 2008 was the coolest year of the past decade – global temperatures have not exceeded the record high measured in 1998, notwithstanding the carbon-dioxide that human beings continue to pump into the atmosphere.
None of this proves conclusively that a period of planetary cooling is irrevocably underway, or that anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions are not the main driver of global temperatures, or that concerns about a hotter world are overblown. Individual weather episodes, it always bears repeating, are not the same as broad climate trends.
But considering how much attention would have been lavished on a comparable run of hot weather or on a warming trend that was plainly accelerating, shouldn’t the recent cold phenomena and the absence of any global warming during the past 10 years be getting a little more notice? Isn’t it possible that the most apocalyptic voices of global-warming alarmism might not be the only ones worth listening to?
There is no shame in conceding that science still has a long way to go before it fully understands the immense complexity of the Earth’s ever-changing climate(s). It would be shameful not to concede it. The climate models on which so much global-warming alarmism rests “do not begin to describe the real world that we live in,” says Freeman Dyson, the eminent physicist and futurist. “The real world is muddy and messy and full of things that we do not yet understand.”
But for many people, the science of climate change is not nearly as important as the religion of climate change. When Al Gore insisted yet again at a conference last Thursday that there can be no debate about global warming, he was speaking not with the authority of a man of science, but with the closed-minded dogmatism of a religious zealot. Dogma and zealotry have their virtues, no doubt. But if we want to understand where global warming has gone, those aren’t the tools we need.
Jeff Jacoby can be reached at jacoby@globe.com.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Jeez he did’nt because he has not the facualty or acumen or abiity to do so, The trolls tou will always have with you. They are really not worth your time at all because they set forth spurious arguments that can be shot down at a minutes notice.
I dont’ notice them as they mean nothing to me
Carry on. Pleasant dreams.
Well, good night everyone: it’s time for bed and it looks like comments are no longer being moderated tonight anyway – so I won’t see anything that was put up either shortly before or after my previous post until I have time to check back again. This has definitely livened up a dull day; a nice spot of analysis is always invigorating.
Hopefully next time I get back here there will either be a new theory to try to develop or an attack on an existing one that cannot easily be broken down.
No new theory here, I just found this interesting:
A common argument AGW proponents use when a few years don’t jibe with the models, is that just because the models didn’t correctly predict the weather, that doesn’t mean they are likely to be wrong on long term trends. What would you say is right and/or wrong about people using the weather/climate distinction in that manner? I realize I could just search for such information, but it could be of value to other readers right here.
Thoth says:
Can you imagine this guy at a party? He’d be as much fun as a turd in the punch bowl. Lots of folks post here and they cover a wide spectrum, but I’ve never run across anyone so insufferable.
their evil empire is crumbling around them the empire built on the blood of the milloins , stewed in corruption lies and deceipt. globalcarbon tax the only hope of a decintergrating banking sector to raise some bail out cash when the government can’t print any more cause its run out of paper! the US deserves to have clowns like Gore
Parse Error (02:26:16),
A model is a model, and it can either make valid predictions or it can’t.
Ask your friendly AGW proponent where the time line is drawn between a model being capable of accurate predictions, and being consistently wrong.
It’s like someone claiming they have a model that can predict the stock market a year from now — but it just can’t seem to predict the market a month from now.
If someone tells you that, hang on to your wallet.
Parse Error wrote “A common argument AGW proponents use when a few years don’t jibe with the models, is that just because the models didn’t correctly predict the weather, that doesn’t mean they are likely to be wrong on long term trends”.
Hey Parse….the problem is….the members of the cult AGW will say anything or set forth anything that helps prove their argument.
They are cherrypicking (or more-like Cherry blossom-picking) data whores.
And if someone has used that argument that you mention above, (i.e. short term model errors does not mean long term model trends won’t be correct) they can’t have it both ways.
Do they think that small errors in weather forecasting models which yield busted forecasts….will somehow self-correct in the long run and yield long term climate forecasts?
That makes no sense whatsoever.
Case in point: If I had a nickel for every time the GFS has predicted a snowstorm in Norfolk “No-Snow” Virginia, I would be rich….and we would be a coastal ski resort (except no hills LOL). But the GFS has been wrong….again and again and again.
If weather models can not extrapolate out a week or two in advance, fail-safe….then how in the SAM HILL can we trust ones that try to predict years from now???
Not just weather and climate models…..but, for example…..the failed models which helped cause this current recession we are in….or the fact that NASA is now soliciting RFP’s to try to figure out what is going on with the sun in this 11th hour.
And just like my BEAVIS CORNHOLIO HYPED-UP FRIEND, the GFS, the busted BUSTED UKMET forecast for Western Europe this winter, the GOALPOSTS FINALLY JUST BEING TAKEN OFF THE FIELD in HATHAWAY’s solar forecasts, the stimulus package introduced to boost the first stimulus package, and Michael Mann’s BROKEN HOCKEY-STICK…nobody really knows what the hell is going on. (Some have an idea….and they are making good progress).
But there are just too many variables, that, like little viruses, pass under the grids of the models unnoticed…and after that happens the damage is done.
Hats off to the modelers though as the good ones and the good models deserve more funding!!
Chris
Norfolk, VA
My model works really well.
In the long term, it will get somewhat colder at times, and somewhat warmer at other times, in the climate you live in. Climates are stable, but their weather patterns vary both in the short term and long term. You can bank on it. Cap and trade that.
Thoth 21 30 30 said;
‘Guys like you are why Socrates took his life’.
I think you have rather missed the point of the Socrates story;
He was forced to commit suicide for refusing to recognise the gods promoted by the state and for ‘corrupting the young’.
http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/socrates.htm
Socrates would likely have refused to recognise the new religion of climate change promoted by the state without due recognition of testing a provable scientific hypotheses. He would also surely have considered it was the state corrupting the young by not providing a balanced view point.
There is no need for the unpleasant and childish coments you make as it detracts from the interesting points you sometimes make. Equally there is no call for the silly comments from some on ‘our’ side that you then provoke.
Please accept that most of us are not badly informed ‘deniers’ but have made our choices to be a sceptic based on examining a great deal of data with an open mind.
Hope you are in a more polite mood tomorrow.
TonyB
Thoth
I think I owe you an apology for attributing the Socrates remark to you. There seems to be a growing habit of not putting speech marks round someones elses quote, or not closing the speech marks, which makes folowing half a dozen diferent lines of discussion problematic.
There is some name calling from both sides, although I appreciate you are not necessarily promotiong AGW but like to parse the semantics of a situation.
Tonyb
TonyB is right. Sometimes it’s difficult to figure out who’s saying what.
To separate someone else’s quote it’s best to use the “blockquote” HTML tag:
<blockquote> to start the quote, </blockquote> to end it.
That’s what the blockquote tag is made for.
That’s simple enough: the models have a limited resolution, just like any other form of map and predictions based thereon. the smaller the scale you’re looking at, the more likely local conditions are to interfere. A road map is very good for showing me how to get from Philadelphia to Chicago, fair for showing me how to get across town, and useless in my house.
Now, that doesn’t mean that the map may not be wrong in any given detail, that the printer may not have made an error, or that conditions may not have changed – but it doesn’t mean that maps are either useless or unscientific. It means that you want a better map.
Sorry, but incorrect: a model is necessarily scaled down, which means loss of detail. Modeling was already discussed; if you actually want to refute that, go ahead and present your own examination of how models are evaluated, and demonstrate how it is incompatible with the material already presented. The question about “when the time line is drawn” demonstrates a lack of comprehension of scaling.
I quite agree with your conclusion – we need better models. The AGW hypothesis may well be overstated, incorrect, or be ignoring compensating mechanisms. The various furors, nontechnical statements, and “recommended courses of action” based on it could easily be totally misguided. That wouldn’t make it “unscientific” or even “junk science”. It would simply make it inaccurate. Model scaling – as noted above – is a severe limiting factor, but is also why models are better at long-term trends than short-term prediction. Still, a recommendation: don’t complain about “cherry-picking” and then provide only specific examples instead of general theory. It’s self-contradictory and weakens the argument.
Which is indeed a model, and actually makes a testable prediction: it could be falsified if temperaturs failed to vary. Unfortunately, we have more complex models which provide more useful predictions.
Yes, that was quoting someone else to answer a comment addressed to me. Hardly a worry, it’s difficult to answer another comment clearly without quoting part of it, which can make for difficult reading.
Very true, they’re just a nuisance to insert manually, and my usual word processor inserts all sorts of other tags which foul things up. On the other hand, this is a wordpress blog, and ought to be compatible with their HTML editor, so I’ll try running it through that, adding the blockquotes, and see how that turns out. My apologies if it renders this post even more difficult to read.
I’m having trouble reconciling that with:
As a guess, have we applied the same principle that created the floor plan of the house to make a map of the city which is no longer useful at the resolution originally used?
I’m very well aware of these arguments; I make similar ones myself all the time when confronting the neo-Malthusians who want to drag us back into the Stone Age. They like to turn to The Science for support, however the overwhelming majority of them know little to nothing about science and simply parrot Gore-Al‘s talking points. The more familiar we are with every aspect of the subject, the easier it is to show such people they are trying to use something they don’t even understand as a political weapon, and drive those discussions straight to the realm they belong in.
All of your points have indeed been addressed in the original post on models. All models necessarily loose detail, which is why comparison of predictions derived from models is statistical. If you want to claim otherwise you need to examine the development and use of models in general and establish some basis for that claim. If you don’t want to bother doing that, that’s your privilege – but why should I be interested in the repetition of ideas that have already been examined? New ideas and logical presentations are interesting. Your personal beliefs are your business.
As far as “making things simple” goes, please note that that was at the end of the post and after a rhetorical question; at that point you are not the only person being addressed.
Hopefully I can sort out the nesting here: The reason why models are useful in weather prediction and yield practical results is because there is a difference between “The weather tomorrow? Who knows?” and “Severe thunderstorms and high winds with a 70% chance of accuracy”. You may not always get the thunderstorms and high winds when they’re predicted, and you might get such a storm when nothing is predicted thanks in part to that local scaling problem. On the other hand, taking precautions every day is impractical, hence such predictions can help you avoid a substantial portion of the damage that an unexpected storm would normally inflict. That’s practical and profitable, which is why we have weather reports.
The atmospheric models tend to be going the opposite way from the “house map” to “city map” route. They’re most useful for things like projecting the progress of a cold front through an area, less useful for small-scale items. That’s why you see “a cold front will be moving through Ohio tomorrow afternoon or evening” instead of “70% chance of cold”. They give it an extremely high probability of coming through, but the exact timing is subject to the viewers exact location and to local conditions.
Now, “A model is a model, and it can either make valid predictions or it can’t.” is flatly incorrect. There are no models which make 100% accurate predictions about the real world. That’s why comparing models is a statistical matter.
I’d agree on the neo-Malthusians. Unfortunately, not knowing much about science isn’t strictly restricted to one side or the other – and most of the proposed “solutions” have little to nothing to do with the science.
I’ll probably have to look in again tomorrow. I have other things to do this evening. Have a nice evening everyone.
Thoth,
Whatever gets you through the night. I addressed one point and one point only.
1. One does not need a new model in order to falsify a model.
All your talk of weather prediction, model theory, epistemology, quantum electrodynamics, summer and post Labor Day fashion, and phenomenology has not remotely approached rebutting that point.
Indeed you have; thank you.
I wholeheartedly agree, that’s why I enjoy the opportunity to increase my knowledge so that I can reformulate my arguments to be as sound as possible, and I’m hoping others will do the same. Granted, the matter should never even arise among people who in reality only wish to debate on the proposed solutions, but since it does, I’ve found that diminishing opponents’ confidence in their own understanding of the justification they’re using to be extremely effective at causing them to reveal their true motives, which are often so repugnant that no further effort is required.
jeez (14:55:19) :
Im getting the point Thoth is conveying… Ill use an analogy, ok so youre sighting in a rifle(simplest predictive tool that comes to mind). You dial in till yah droppin three rounds on the bull. After you’ve zeroed a cross wind picks up, at 100m youre a few mm of, at 500 youre about a half foot off, at 1000 you dont even hit the target, so you re-zero, factoring in the new influences. As opposed to buying a new scope.
The problem with models is figuring out exactly what are the influences that are throwing them off… for example the current ones could be exaggerating the co2 forcings, or it could be that theyre right but the water vapour is causing a negative feed back… or water vapour was causing a greater positive feedback and co2 a smaller one, or some completely unknown mechanism is at play(ie ocean currents)
But if we keep “re-zeroing” the models it will lead to more accurate models eventually, and a better understanding off the climate system, i personally do agree with this… but i certainly wouldnt agree to basing policy on a models predictions when the accuracy of them brings the quantification’s into question.
But in short hes saying why throw away a perfectly good scope just because it isnt zeroes correctly.
MikeE
I understand that point, although I have issues with certain parts of the context you cited. However, Thoth said (I don’t have the exact quote), that you cannot discard a model unless you have a better one to replace it and that is patently untrue. I was not delving into the specifics of GCMs, their role in weather prediction, or how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
Well, Thoth, the blockquotes do make your posts easier to follow. [If “blockquote” is a bother to type, just set up a hot key shortcut.]
But as for the model discussion, it’s simply run out of gas. Models are wrong. All of them. Not one computer model predicted the steep decline in temps since 2007.
Now, if someone ever falsifies the hypothesis of natural, normal and routine climate change, based on the seasonal, solar, diurnal, galactic and oceanic effects that have been going on since way before the first SUV appeared, wake me.
But unless that happens, the AGW/CO2 hypothesis fails — as everyone else here seems to understand without any problem. But you’re new around here, so maybe you’ll eventually get up to speed and realize that your always-inaccurate computer models are the only thing that the AGW/CO2 hypothesis is based on; and the real world contradicts them: click
The atmosphere has had many times the CO2 concentration in the past with beneficial effects. It seems preposterous that some folks still cling to their strange belief that a change in a minor trace gas, from four parts in ten thousand to five parts in ten thousand, will trigger some fantastic kind of tipping point and cause runaway global warming. Regular folks don’t think like that unless there’s a verifiable, real world basis for it. Computer models don’t count as that basis.
The reason climate models are always wrong is simple: the results from models always tend towards the desires and expectations of the modelers. But I guess when all you’ve got is those always-wrong climate models, then that’s what you have to run with.
You can have the next [several hundred ±] words, Thoth. I’m headed for the current events page to read up on the good news from latest Gallup poll!
MikeE,
I understand what you are saying, and it makes perfect sense for a scope on a deer rifle. I think that if you try to zero it in for 100,000m though, you’re going to have a problem. The GCMs are trying to hit a target at 100,000m, when they haven’t been able to zero it in on the 100m target yet. At least, that’s the way I see it.
Thanks,
Mike Bryant
Mike Bryant (17:59:45) :
I like youre extension of that analogy, couldn’t agree more.
I was the guy that used the word “sophistry” and connected it (however remote) with the death of Socrates.
Socrates (even though he was technically a Sophist), was ultimately one who believed in inductive, rational, reasonable inquiry.
Interesting reading for those who care: http://facweb.bcc.ctc.edu/wpayne/socrates.htm
Ironically, some of Socrates’ zealot Sophist followers who took what he said into overdrive and helped prosecute him in the end.
The reason I say that is that “sophistry” (in all its modern derogatory and unflattering forms) is sometimes used by individuals on this blog.
Smokescreens, agenda, rhetoric, and DEFINITELY ad hominems, are all red flags to skip and not read the post…not too mention if the post seems like a 1000-word rant.
There is a beauty to brevity and that is exceptionally the case in the blogosphere here.
Well….back to THIS thread, and the article that inspired it, is a quote from Mr. Jacoby’s article
“When Al Gore insisted yet again at a conference last Thursday that there can be no debate about global warming, he was speaking not with the authority of a man of science, BUT WITH THE CLOSE-MINDED DOGMA OF A RELIGIOUS ZEALOT.”
I wonder what the great Socrates himself would think of “city-state “leaders” like Al Gore??
Not too highly I would surmise….
Chris
Norfolk, VA
MikeE,
If you don’t mind.
Imagine that you are sighting in a deer rifle at 100m. After each shot you have to wait ten years to see where you hit the target. That’s the situation we find ourselves in. They’ve already put the bullet high three times in thirty years.
IF they ever hit the target, we have to wait another hundred years to see where the further target is hit. How many times will that shot be high?
Smokey
Lets see… You have multiple sections to reply to, and it’s too long to simply block quote it, so I’ll simply number them:
Section One: Yes, the blockquotes seem to be working properly.
Section Two: Noting that models have limitations. Yes. Already discussed and – since the various atmospheric models continue to make useful predictions – the way to falsify and supplant them continues to be to make better models.
Section Three: Sorry, but demanding the falsification of a model that does not make falsifiable predictions as a prerequisite for being awake means that you’ll have to remain asleep.
Section four: To summarize, unless the logically impossible happens, you will continue to ignore the predictions of computer models. I trust that, in the interests of intellectual honesty, that will include not only short and long term weather prediction, but travel planning, medical applications, and all other forms of computer models? Or is doubt about the statistical basis of falsifying modeling only relevant where it is personally convenient to apply it?
Section five: Two logical problems here. First, and most obviously, this assumes that since one consequence of a given change is beneficial, all consequences must be. The same logic can be used to produce statements of the form “I have flat feet. I have fallen into a coma. The flat feet no longer bother me. Therefore the coma is beneficial”. Secondarily, as I have repeatedly pointed out, the value of models is statistical. The AGW/CO2 projections may well be inaccurate. That would not mean that the models were unscientific or even that they were poor models. It would simply mean that they are not perfect.
Section six: Sorry, but human desires tend to be distributed along the usual bell curve. The model projections are not.
Jeez
You’ve put up multiple posts, but the same answer applies to each, so I’ll simply put it up once.
As already explained, since models are inherently simplified, falsification of a model is statistical. Current atmospheric models make a great many predictions every day; every weather report involves a test of atmospheric modeling. Such models produce results far in excess of random chance, therefore their “falsification” requires either the creation and demonstration of a better model to supplant the current ones or a demonstration that their net predictive value has – for reasons unknown – dropped below random chance At this point that would require many years of weather predictions that were less accurate than would be expected by sheer chance. Your complaints about “not rebutting the point” continue to demonstrate a failure to understand the nature of modeling, or the explanation thereof, to begin with.
Your brain runs a set of models for “walking” that predict how you should move to walk successfully in your current environment. If you trip or stumble, that model has failed, and – by your logic – should be discarded. Personally, I prefer to replace the model with an improved version that includes the new data and to continue to walk.
savethesharks
I quite agree: “The notion that there can be no debate about global warming” is absurd. So are many of the proposed “solutions”. Fortunately, none of that has anything more to do with science than some tribal shamans pronouncement that we are all cursed because someone tipped over the sacred rock.
Thoth:
Sigh, you have yet to address my point (hint, I never mentioned Weather prediction).
This grows tiresome and it is obvious you have more energy to devote to this this than I.
I assure you, were I your logic professor this would not be a passing example.
However, I will simply leave you with this:
Get off my lawn you hippie!
Jeez
Your point has already been addressed repeatedly. Hint; it may have escaped your notice, but climate forecasting is simply long-range weather forecasting – as is the nature of models, the longer the term, the more general the results.
As for logic, it has apparently escaped your notice that I am supporting science and attempts at developing better modeling – not AGW. While the AGW hypothesis is scientific, as I’ve repeatedly noted, being scientific does not mean that it cannot be wrong.
Check back to my first post: I proposed a possible test that could indicate either cooling, stability, or warming without favoritism. Many subsequent posters took that as support for one outcome. Which side of an argument is more likely to oppose a objective test?
Personally, I would recommend spending some more time in a library, reading works that may or may not agree with you. It is entirely too easy to spend your time on the internet absorbing only information with which you already agree.
Dear Pamela Grey,
I am a 54-year-old with two masters’ degrees, albeit not in science, but with more than enough statistics. My own blog contains more than 900 articles about the science, some from primary sources, some even you lot could understand. Vocabulary is not a problem for me.
The comments on this blog are really sad.