You have to wonder- what were these guys thinking? The only media visual they could have chosen that would send a worse message of forecast certainty was a dart board…or maybe something else?
MIT’s “wheel of climate” – image courtesy Donna Coveney/MIT
The Greenhouse Gamble: Ronald Prinn, director of MIT’s Center for Global Change Science, and his group have revised their model that shows how much hotter the Earth’s climate will get in this century without substantial policy change. Standing with the group’s “roulette wheel” are, from left to right, Mort Webster, professor in the Engineering Systems Division; Adam Schlosser, principal research scientist at the Center for Global Change Science; Prinn, the TEPCO Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry; and Sergey Paltsev, principal research scientist, MIT Energy Initiative.
Popular Science writes:
It’s time to call your bookie, because the line on global warming is in. A new paper from MIT breaks down the odds of different outcomes from global warming, based on whether governments take action now or later. And if you’re taking that action, bet on “government getting involved” to beat the spread, as last week an important climate change bill made it out committee in the House of Representatives.
The bill, named the American Clean Energy and Security Act, would institute a cap-and-trade program, and reduce carbon emissions by 17 percent over fifteen years. The plan also calls for increased research into alternative energy, and provides $750 billion in subsidies to consumers to help offset the increase in energy cost the bill would cause.
See the compete article here
With that kind of cash payout, and since an MIT odds calculating machine is involved in making the modeling forecasts over 400 model runs, maybe this would be a more appropriate prop for the MIT photo op:
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Mike Bryant (20:59:14) :
I think that we should take our choice of one of the characters above and suggest a “speech balloon” or a “thought balloon”.
Might be fun.
“Step right Up Folks, only $1 to play, only $1… Spin the wheel and win $750B… Step right Up Folks…”
Meanwhile, as MIT rolls out its lastest most sophisticated cimate forecasting device, Prof. Pielke Sr. and Meteorologist Mike Smith are actually engaged in some meaningful dialogue:
http://climatesci.org/2009/05/26/comments-by-mike-smith-of-my-weblog-debate-question-for-professor-steve-schneider-and-colleagues/
This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen.
You can tell they get paid no matter what;
as long as they tow the line. It’s too bad
we can’t peek into the future to see the
shame their progeny will have to endure.
As clever and convincing (cough) as MITs cardboard climate wheel is, I wonder if the AGW industry has ever offered even ONE piece of empirical evidence that proves that recent climate change cannot be natural?
markinaustin:
You can start by telling him/her that a study showing that homogenization alters the trend at three “poorly sited” sites to match the trend at two “well sited” sites is hardly definitive evidence that the trends reported for each of the locations is unbiased. A larger sample has the potential to produce more robust estimates of the bias, if any, introduced by poor siting (both before and after homogenization).
Second, you can tell him/her that the most common siting issues (e.g. the MMTS near buildings issue; the waste water treatment plant issue) imply that more recent observed temperatures will be spuriously warmer than those at the beginning of the record (in, say, 1880, when not a single station was tied to a nearby building via electronic tether, and there were no air conditioning units or waste water treatment plants at all).
Moving existing sites into such locations introduces a step change at a given point in time. If the amount of waste processed at a treatment site increases over time, or the extent to which air conditioning exhaust impacts an MMTS site increases, a warming trend may be introduced – and one that has nothing to do with climate changes. What’s more, the surfacestation.org survey of the network gives us every reason to believe that such influences are common.
But there’s the rub. The fact that homogenization increases, rather than reduces, an observed (raw data) warming trend that we have strong reason to believe is exaggerated by siting issues is prima facie evidence that it does not eliminate site bias as well as the authors of his/her cited paper would like to believe.
Before surfacestations.org, the generally poor condition of the network was not generally appreciated, and the systemic nature of biasing influences could only have been guessed at. Now we know, and we know that attempting to homogenize away these problems is a shaky proposition at best.
Adolfo Giurfa (19:57:17) :
MC: You’re making fun of the Massechusetts INSTITUTE of Technology
I think WUWT did not do anything but presenting facts, as always.
Really the MIT people did it to themselves
I agree. I stand corrected sir.
Greg Cavanagh (19:43:58) :
I don’t understand this “…and provides $750 billion in subsidies to consumers to help offset the increase in energy cost the bill would cause”.
What’s the point of raising the cost of energy, and then subsidising the consumers for the rising cost of energy?
————————-
Never heard of brokerage fees ??
A lot of people who can’t get real jobs can get paid (by you and me) for subsidizing some fictitious stuff and then reverse subsidizing it all over again.
Or is it the other way round ?? Whatever, my brain hurts ….
ok…. so, Richard Lindzen works at MIT—is there a typo here somewhere?
C’mon, its just a buck a spin. And you could win a stuffed manbearpig for your sweetie!
I think this is the VIT, the Vegas Institute or Technology. Yes, this is the typo here.
From climate models to lotto! We truly are in the Golden Age of science!
Should these guys take a Probability at Stats 101 class? No wait, a 100 class–that would be sufficient.
They say the Michigan Tech (MTU, yaa Houghton) is ranked just lower than MIT. But why now??
Moms, dads, rethink where your engineering inclined children should go to school!
http://www.mtu.edu/
But wait, maybe the Body Snatchers have got to MTU too!
“”Greg Cavanagh (19:43:58) : What’s the point of raising the cost of energy, and then subsidising the consumers for the rising cost of energy?””
Because apparently money actually has started growing on trees!
The gr$$n economy. Got printing presses, will subsidize.
Keith Minto (19:42:09) :
Good one!!
“”Robert Coté (19:53:44) : This is win-win for them.””
When you have the peer-reviewers, the politicians, and the tv on your side you’d have to be an idiot not to win. Judging by the poll numbers though it looks like something lower than idiots is running the thing—I’ll [snip myself] before I mention any names…… James Hansen…. opps
Meanwhile the North Pole is still frozen solid and external temperatures at the buoy were around -11C.
Quick! …spin the wheel. You could win a Smartmeter.
I want a Smartmeter, not a Dumbmeter. Dumbmeters
are for dummies.
Thank you MIT, I hope you get everything you deserve.
Do you think people even know what’s coming?
Oh Gawd… trying desperately to spin and get their 15 minutes of fame. Or should that be infamy.
Greg Cavanagh (19:43:58) :
What’s the point of raising the cost of energy, and then subsidising the consumers for the rising cost of energy?
Inflation will lower the value of the housing stock, so the whole game can begin again.
Greg Cavanagh (19:43:58) :
I don’t understand this “…and provides $750 billion in subsidies to consumers to help offset the increase in energy cost the bill would cause”.
What’s the point of raising the cost of energy, and then subsidising the consumers for the rising cost of energy?
The notion is that you redirect behavior in specific things while being neutral in the aggregate. The reality is usually that the gullible masses are happy with “free money”, the government loses 20% in the processing, and the taxpayers get fleeced and grouse about it.
So, for example, you get a $10,000 guzzler tax on a Ford F350 4×4 based on EPA gas consumption.
That is supposed to get you to make a ‘better choice’ and buy a new Chrysler/Fiat 500 cc hybrid 1 person econobox or ride the bus, that will now be subsidized.
That $10,000 is then used, for example, to put a $6,000 rebate on, oh, bus tickets. (What, you expected the whole $10k to show up in a rebate? Politicians, remember?). This $6k is supposed to offset the $10k and get you or someone else to take the bus and be neutral on the aggregate economy. Nice, no?
More bus riders, fewer gas guzzlers, and only $4k went into the reelection fund / bribe account called “oversight”.
The reality?
The reality is that you don’t buy the new $10k+$30k truck or the ecoskate, you keep fixing up your old one because you need a truck to do your job and don’t have the $10k bump. Can’t haul cattle feed in an ecoskate.
The govt spends the $6k anyway (about $4k of which actually helps the bus system) and raises taxes on something else, like gas, or just prints money to make up for the non-sale of the truck.
More people need to take the bus, since they are no longer employed making trucks and can’t afford gas, to look for work at the bus subsidy audit bureau, where an added $5,000 is spent, tracking the $6k that was spent, to discover that $2k went to preparing their response to the audit… which found that $2k was used to print and administer the bus ticket coupons and $1k was used for management bonuses, leaving $1k to buy down the cost of bus tickets, that just went up by $2k due to fuel cost increases under the new taxes to pay for the $5,000 audit bureau …
Got it?
The sad thing is that I can accurately describe how it is supposed to work and how it actually behaves and could even do it in the proper bureaucratic justification language used in budget processes… But I don’t think I could do it with a straight face any more. At one time I could.
So Greg, I understand it and trust me: you are better off not understanding it…
We have these fantasies that the economy can be fine tuned and the scales can be rebalanced with nudges here and behaviour modifications there neatly shifting consumers in a nuanced way. And the reality is that folks just trudge on trying to get by in ever more difficult conditions while the system grinds to a halt due to unintended consequences and ham handed bureaucracies.
Meanwhile the politicians and PACs all congratulate each other on the nightly news and tell you how happy you are now; never noticing that what was supposed to happen never happened. Their consultants remind them never to dwell on the negative and people love a winner, so Be Positive!
Have I mentioned lately that Economics is called The Dismal Science for a reason? Especially Political Economics…
“” rbateman (20:13:30) : Don’t do it. It reads like an ARM mortgage.””
You’re right, it does :
“A global warming title that places limits on emissions of heat-trapping pollutants. This legislation would cut global warming pollution by 17% compared to 2005 levels in 2020, by 42% in 2030, and by 83% in 2050.”
http://energycommerce.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1630:energy-and-commerce-committee-passes-comprehensive-clean-energy-legislation&catid=122:media-advisories&Itemid=55
Robert Coté (19:53:44) : This is win-win for them. With the near absolute assurance of substantial policy changes their warning scenarios are thus averted.
The cock crows and takes credit for the sunrise,
I’m cheerfully watching the advancing cold and dreaming of Coq au Vin when the SHTF happens… Be careful what you take credit for…
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/05/23/south-hemisphere-record-early-snow/
When it is “way cold” I intend to march around with a sign demanding that they get the weather right. We gave them control as they required and now they need to stop climate change as they promised…
Only one caption required: “Jeez! If those simpletons fall for this, they’ll fall for ANYTHING!”
Un farce pathétique. The value of an MIT degree just took a nosedive.
crosspatch (20:50:28) :
“The only media visual they could have chosen that would send a worse message of forecast certainty was a dart board”
Wheel, dart board, what’s the difference?
Try chucking a dart at the roulette table in your local casino!
More seriously, I keep reading of these multiple model runs with slight changes in input data being averaged. Is that valid? My limited understanding of chaos theory indicates that a chaotic system is inherently unpredictable since it depends on exact knowledge of the inputs and therefore any trends detected are most likely to be reflections of the underlying assumptions of the model. Multiple readings will only average out random error, not systematic. Would someone more expert than I (i.e. almost anyone or his dog) care to comment?
Each of the outer tick marks represents an 8 degree portion of their dart board. That means the blue slice indicates only a 4% chance of temperature rise being less than 3C.
I see the study is from MIT. Would that be the Monte-carlo Institute of Theology?
Caption should read:
I spent $50 billion on climate research and all I got was this cute roulette wheel!