There has been a development over the last 10-15 years or so in the scientific peer reviewed literature that is short circuiting the scientific method.
The scientific method involves developing a hypothesis and then seeking to refute it. If all attempts to discredit the hypothesis fails, we start to accept the proposed theory as being an accurate description of how the real world works.
A useful summary of the scientific method is given on the website sciencebuddies.org.where they list six steps
- Ask a Question
- Do Background Research
- Construct a Hypothesis
- Test Your Hypothesis by Doing an Experiment
- Analyze Your Data and Draw a Conclusion
- Communicate Your Results
Unfortunately, in recent years papers have been published in the peer reviewed literature that fail to follow these proper steps of scientific investigation. These papers are short circuiting the scientific method.
Specifically, papers that present predictions of the climate decades into the future have proliferated. Just a two recent examples (and there are many others) are
Hu, A., G. A. Meehl, W. Han, and J. Yin (2009), Transient response of the MOC and climate to potential melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet in the 21st century, Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, L10707, doi:10.1029/2009GL037998.
Solomon, S. 2009: Irreversible climate change due to carbon dioxide emissions. The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Published online before print January 28, 2009, doi: 10.1073/pnas.0812721106
Such studies are even reported in the media before the peer reviewed process is completed; e.g. see in the article by Hannad Hoag in the May 27 2009 issue of Nature News Hot times ahead for the Wild West.
These studies are based on models, of which only a portion of which represent basic physics (e.g. the pressure gradient force, advection and the universal gravitational constant), with the remainder of the physics parameterized with tuned engineering code (e.g see).
When I served as Chief Editor of the Monthly Weather Reviews (1981-1985), The Co-Chief Editor of the Journal of Atmospheric Sciences (1996-2000), and as Editor-in-Chief of the US National Science Report to the IUGG for the American Geophysical Union (1993-1996), such papers would never have been accepted.
What the current publication process has evolved into, at the detriment of proper scientific investigation, are the publication of untested (and often untestable) hypotheses. The fourth step in the scientific method “Test Your Hypothesis by Doing an Experiment” is bypassed.
This is a main reason that the policy community is being significantly misinformed about the actual status of our understanding of the climate system and the role of humans within it.
In lieu of a long philosophical essay on the scientific method in climate studies, I have time only to offer the following:
1) The magnitude and sign of “anomalies” is determined using an arbitrarily chosen reference period in corrupted temperature records of inadequate length.
2) The workings of the actual climate system are little known, but much speculated upon.
3) The in vitro effect upon temperature of doubling CO2 in a parcel of cloudless air is very modest and not directly applicable to a cloudy atmosphere.
4) The eureka moment arrives when someone spies a formula for feedback that shows mathematical potential for amplified system response.
5) The computer models are designed to show amplified effects via all sorts of imputed “feedbacks,” which lead to scary results, trumpeted in the media.
Of course, the critics of this approach to science are accused of being in the pocket of “big oil,” or are likened to flat-earthers and creationists. They are challenged to produce their own models. After all, “what else could it be?”
Models are great heuristic tools. But one has to be very careful in using models as predictive tools.
The problem arises when models are used to predict things in nature that are contrary to observations. It’s the old Garbage In / Garbage Out routine.
I can build a computer model that will show that a geopressured gas-bearing Middle Miocene sandstone at a depth of 15,000 feet should have a seismic Class Three AVO anomaly. If I drill a Class Three AVO anomaly tied to such a sand…I will be drilling a dry hole. Those types of sandstones under those conditions in the Gulf of Mexico will always have Class Two AVO anomalies or no amplitude anomaly at all. Observation and analogy, if available, should always guide the modeling process.
The AGW modelers are essentially modeling something that the geological record doesn’t really support: CO2-driven climate change. Even the best geological evidence of a CO2/Temperature relationship, Pleistocene ice cores, fails to support CO2-driven temperature changes. If anything, the lag time between the temperature changes and the subsequent CO2 changes supports a system in which climate changes drive atmospheric CO2 changes.
“Former US vice president” Albert Jr has problems.
…-
“Gore held back from going to NKorea to negotiate release of two US reporters
WASHINGTON : Former US vice president Al Gore was “held back” from travelling to North Korea to negotiate for the release of his two employees – journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee.
That is according to Selig Harrison from the Centre for International Policy, who said Gore sought diplomatic backing from the Obama administration in a private meeting on May 11.
Ling and Lee have just been sentenced to 12 years in North Korean labour camp.
Neither Al Gore nor the company he founded, Current TV, have made any public comments, since the two journalists were captured whilst on a reporting assignment in March.”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2268078/posts
Funny, maz2. Al Gore is no Ross Perot — who went into ayatollah-ruled Iran and rescued his employees.
Instead of attempting to help his employees, Al Gore hides behind Mama Obama’s apron strings, clinging to the excuse that he’s being ‘held back.’
What a guy …NOT.
@Ron de Haan (09:55:58) :
Absolutely correct. Consensus is a political term, not a scientific one.
Science is supposed to be determined by the preponderance of the evidence and is never settled.
“”” K-Bob (21:41:16) :
I get tired of reading about how some plant or animal has changed its nesting, feeding or blooming habits due to “climate change”. God forbid that living things on this planet change! Put it in a paper and claim its due to manmade climate change and you’ve contributed to the “huge” wieght of evidence for man made climate change. Of course the argument for man made climate change is an undeniable truth! It says so right there in those models. It’s not just the lack of verification of models, but the leap of logic by these silly studies based on what the models proclaim.
One question that I have often pondered: Why hasn’t someone produced a climate model based on Lindzen’s argument that water vapor is a negative feedback? “””
I’m not familiar with the details of Prof Lindzen’s argument that water vapor is a negative feedback. (I don’t have time to read the entirety of Scientific literature) but I do notice that the word feedback is tossed around in climate circles, and often I doubt that it is correct usage.
Some solar radiation lands in the ocean and heats some water. A water molecule evaporates from the ocean, into the atmosphere, and that water molecule starts absorbing solar radiation from around 750 nm Wavelength and out into the solar infrared tail; thereby warming the atmosphere (positive feedback ?) but reducing the ground level insolation; a cooling effect, so negative feedback ?
About 47-48 % of the solar spectrum lies at wavelengths longer than 750 nm, and water vapor absorbs across roughly half of that spectral range in multiple bands, so it is conceivable that water vapor can take out about 20% or so of the incoming solar radiation in the tropical regions where there is plenty of ocean water. So that is potentially a significant negative feedback effect if you want to put it in those terms.
I seem to vaguely recall some fairly general principle of physical systems that they tend to react to perturbations, in such a way as to act in opposition to the perturbation; whicvh is a pretty generic description; but not necessarily a pedantic definition of negative feedback.
I believe it is called Le Chattalier’s Principle; and his statement of the principle may have related to chemical reactions. But boiling water is an example in a closed container.
You heat the water so it boils and fills the sealed volume with steam and the pressure builds up. As a result of the pressure rise, the boiling point of water rises, and eventually further pressure rise stops.
Lenz’s law is an electromagnetism example of LC’s principle.
Arguably water vapor/solar radiation negative feedback is nothing more than that.
But then there is that fact that the water vapor greenhouse effect also warms the atmosphere; which after all is where all those Stevenson screen owl boxes are sitting; so that is clearly positive feedback.
But if we drop the word vapor, and acknowledge that water exists permanently in the atmosphere in all three phases; vapor, liquid, and solid; and in the two non vapor phases it forms visible clouds that reflect sunlight back into space, and block additional sunlight from reaching the ground; thereby cooling the ground (negative feedback); but also warming the cloud so the moist air rises to a new density equilibrioum altitude depending on how much water/ice heating is taking place in the cloud.
The ground we know always gets cooler underneath the cloud in the shadow zone; and presumably the lower atmosphere in contact with that ground also cools.
So I believe the conclusion is inescapable; water in vapor form has both positive and negative feedback properties; but in the other phases where clouds are formed it is always negative feedback; as far as the temperature of the ground and near ground air mass.
I don’t have any idea how much of this relates in any way to Professor Lindzen’s statements about water vapor negative feedback; but if any of it does, then I agree with him.
George
Graeme Rodaughan (19:35:31) :
Michael Crichton also wrote an excellent piece on this topic.
“Nobody believes a weather prediction twelve hours ahead. Now we’re asked to believe a prediction that goes out 100 years into the future? And make financial investments based on that prediction? Has everybody lost their minds?
Stepping back, I have to say the arrogance of the model makers is breathtaking. “
The day when someone can model the stockmarket with predictive capability will be the day when I think the climate modellers have a chance.
Matt Bennett (21:39:25) :
“. . .it will be my post that is snipped . . .”
Looks like you are as wrong about the snipping of your post as you are about the “scientific consense.”
Meanwhile, I tend to agree with you that the main AGW issues are “not all that difficult to understand if you actually give it a go and leave the politics behind.” I used to be an ardent AGW pessismist . . . until I took politics out of my spectacles, and I was amazed at the flimsy support there is to GW alarmism.
The NorKs have enough problems without a Gore-effect crop failure.
Everyone thought the “science was settled” on space, time, and gravity, for hundreds of years after Newton. Until Einstein came around and turned basic physics on its head.
The arrogance of the AGW crowd is astonishing.
Instead of the scientific community telling the AGW folks “prove you’re right”, the AGW folks just burst on the scene, bypassed the hypothesis stage by intimidating everyone into accepting their claim as a “theory”, and then told the world “prove us wrong”. The media then turned their “theory” into a law on par with the law of gravity.
Truly sad (and despicable) how the people who claim to have the monopoly on science and reason (while simultaneously pointing the finger at their opponents as being unscientific) are the very ones who have destroyed the public perception of science. Science now is just some poorly reported, poorly conducted “study” that gets published on Google news; the story filtered in such a way as to advance the political ideaology of the reporter and/or news agency.
Leif 20:01:48
I think the original presentation was the classical example of one cycle of the process. I tend to call it a waltz with one step forward, two steps back and one step to the side. What you describe is really multiple cycles where the real anomaly grows til it’s no longer able to be ignored and creates the basis of the next cycle. Peilke covers one cycle and you cover over one cycle. Science is a series of these cycles and always will be.
Benjamin P. (09:11:09) :
All you folks have done is stigmatize the word “model” and then use that stigma that you have created as some strawman argument of why climate science is bunk (because they use models!!!)
Nonsense.
Gravity is not a model, it is a theory. A model, as used in AGW, is a hodge podge of many theories a la gravity theory according to the modeler’s whim and taste.
Theories are predictive, that is why they are called accepted theories, because their equations can be used to predict with precision, in the case of gravity, trajectories and statics.
Models are as good as the data on which they have been fitted, if the theories incorporated are right, to the precision allowed by the complicated use of these theories. They cannot be predictive in long time frames, viz the global mess from the models used in the economy.
Theories can be communicated to other scientists with a few clear paragraphs and well defined mathematical formulas.
Models have obscure computer coding and arcane use of theories, and nobody can understand the code unless spending enormous time on them, as E.M Smith has done.
If you do not know the difference you cannot be taken seriously.
Without any comments but one: Climate Bull Sh!t up to the ceiling.
http://en.cop15.dk/news/view+news?newsid=1448
jorgekafkazar (22:14:17) :
“Matt Bennett (21:39:25) : “And anyone who thinks AGW theory relies on computer models is an ignorant fool.”
Yes, Matt! Based on the evidence, AGW theory relies every bit as much on argument ad hominem, cherry picking, data tampering, organized suppression of dissent, and alarmist ranting as it does on computer models.”
Priceless!!! Wished I was as witty to come up with such reply
I have to add my two cents on why AGW cannot be predictive ab initio.
I did not delve into the code, but tried to understand the logic of gridding the planet and using the fluid transport equations on the grid boundaries etc. etc. I discovered that they incorporate a lot of average values for many of the variables that control, or should control the climate.
Now using an average value for a variable is like taking the first order term in a perturbative expansion for the variable in question. First order terms are a good approximation of a solution if the solution is well behaved. This is a foolhardy assumption for a system that everybody , including the IPCC, agree is chaotic. The more time steps, the more there will be a divergence from the true solution, because the higher order terms will kick in. Actually this is the reason why weather predictions, that are based on similar models, cannot go much further than ten days, and can be wrong even short term. To make predictions for climate in time frames of ten years is totally irrational.
So, though I agree with Leif that models can be very useful tools, the way integration is a useful tool, the specific General Circulation Models of AGW are being used way out of their level of possible validation.
Leif Svalgaard (09:25:31) :
” Models are necessary, essential, and fundamental, and almost everything we do in modern science is based on models at some place in the chain of evidence. The real issue is over-reliance on [crummy] models, but that is not the fault of the models [or the modelers], but of the media and the generally stupid portion of the populace that is taken in by the propaganda.”
So it is only the media who are to blame? Have you ever heard a modeler correcting the media? I really think that the climate modellers do over-rely on their models and at the same time are very pleased with the media attention.
Ben p. 9:11:09
Models like what you’re referring to are not time iterative like a climate model. That is the rules and/or conditions are not changing with time without some overall guiding principles directing those changes to prevent errors from compounding and blowing up in your face. The fact that time and space resolution are insufficient, approximations are being used, and some of the physics is sometimes dead wrong or even missing from the model are other ‘minor’ difficulties that prevent results from being achieved.
It’s been a long time since the deterministic universe concept bit the dust.
http://jer-skepticscorner.blogspot.com/2009/06/skeptics-from-around-globe_09.html#0
Alarmism about climate is predicated upon the assertion that contemporary temperature changes are both unprecedented and unnatural. Using the Little Ice Age as a base point for today’s temperatures is a contrivance designed to promote alarmism. The existence and world-wide distribution of the Medieval Warm Period, greatly devalues the credence of any assertion of climate alarmism, which is why paleoclimatology has become a discipline of great policy import over the past decade.
The science of climate change is multi-faceted and extensive because climate is a dynamic, multi-variate entity. Left to themselves, the various disciplines may eventually have resolved many of the disputes over data and their meaning that have emerged. I say may, because the point is mute. Once the IPCC was formed, the science ceased to exist in an objective, value-free, apolitical vacuum and all climate science became enmeshed in an increasingly polarized and ideological politicization that persists today.
Is science ever truly objective and non-ideological? That’s a good undergraduate philosophy question. The reality for climate change is that the science has become massively politicized. Until this is explicitly acknowledged within the various disciplines themselves, the overall result will remain as disputed and contested as the politics it mimics.
Chris Schoneveld (12:19:40) :
So it is only the media who are to blame?
It is more the unwashed masses that are to blame for lapping up the media stuff. You may counter that they have little choice as where would they otherwise go? If this is so, then how would you ‘correct’ a free press? make it less ‘free’? or argue that we don’t have a free press because it is beholden to advertisers, owners, and interest groups? And how would you correct that? tell owners etc what they should say?
What an excellent and generally well mannered debate. One point I haven’t seen raised is regarding the hardware being used to do the measurement work. There have been problems with satellite drift, sensor fade, leaky diaphragms in Argo buoys. Then of course, all the shortcomings of the surface measurement gear Anthony and his volunteers have discovered with the surface stations project. Weather balloon data consistency, sea surface measurements using canvas buckets, plastic buckets, metal buckets, insulated buckets covered buckets, engine cooling water intake sensors….
The list goes on and on.
This has led to claim and counter claim, the dismissal of one scientists results in favour of another by both sides of the AGW argument, and so on.
Accurate data is fundamental to the scientific method. Without it, all is confusion and controversy. We are at the beginning of a voyage of discovery, yet some say they can already draw accurate charts of what lies in front on the basis of flawed data somehow made good by statistical methods and computer power and their assumptions about initial conditions and parameters.
They remind me of C16th explorers carrying maps on which are there are marked areas bearing the legend:
Here be Dragons.
anna v (22:23:34) :
The “eureka” moment happened when the water got out of the bathtub, not Archimedes. 😉
Leif Svalgaard (12:49:36) :
Chris Schoneveld (12:19:40) :
So it is only the media who are to blame?
It is more the unwashed masses that are to blame for lapping up the media stuff. You may counter that they have little choice as where would they otherwise go?
They could go and get a life. I recently rang the TV license authority and told them I wouldn’t be answering any of their nasty letters because I no longer require their propaganda service. The TV sold on ebay a few days ago.
Without any comment:
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Taxing Cows
By Alan Caruba
Just how crazed is the Environmental Protection Agency? When I say “crazed”, I mean just how far out of touch with reality, with science, with the economy, with common sense, and with the American people is the EPA?
Ever since the Supreme Court made one of the greatest blunders since the Dred Scott case, declaring carbon dioxide (CO2) a “pollutant” that could be regulated by the EPA, that deranged agency has been pushing a tax on CO2 emissions from cows, pigs, and other farm animals on which we depend for milk and meat at the local supermarket.
According to Encarta, in 2005 there were an estimated 95,848,000 cows in the United States. Presumably, there are comparable numbers of pigs, goats, and other critters that emit belches and farts sufficient to destroy the Earth with the CO2 they emit. Nor should we overlook the six pounds of CO2 that the 307 million Americans exhale daily.
Since there is NO global warming and the Earth has been cooling for the past decade, the proposal that these farm animals be taxed constitutes a criminal act, devoid of any justification.
Since CO2 plays virtually no role whatever in so-called “climate change”, taxing farm animals is a violation of the known science and an assault on the economy in the name of the greatest hoax of the modern age.
It is not, however, a matter of “saving the Earth” so far as the EPA and the rest of the Obama administration is concerned. It is MONEY. And money is POWER.
The proposal, floated in late 2008, would impose a per-cow tax on any farm or ranch with more than 25 dairy cows, 50 beef cattle or 200 hogs that would require a payment of about $175 for each dairy cow, $87.50 per head of beef cattle, and $20 for each hog.
Suffice it to say that dairy farmers across the U.S. are being forced to send many of their herd to the slaughter house because the price of milk has fallen to the point where it is unprofitable to maintain them. Owners of even a modest-sized cattle ranch would face additional costs of $30,000 to $40,000 a year. Add a tax on cows and you end up with a nation that has to import more milk than oil.
Taxing farm animals is a great way to bankrupt dairy farmers and cattle ranchers, along with all those who raise hogs. After that, it is only a matter of time before Americans would all have to become vegetarians because the cost of meat would put an end to that part of our diet.
As bizarre as the EPA proposal is, the effort by the Democrat-controlled Congress to impose a Cap-and-Trade bill on the nation in the name of reducing CO2 emissions dwarfs the farm and ranch proposal.
The Heritage Foundation has crunched the numbers on Cap-and-Trade concluding that job losses would exceed 800,000 annually for several years. Durable-manufacturing employment would decrease by 28 percent. Machinery-manufacturing job losses would exceed 57 percent. The same would hold true for textile-mills, electrical equipment and appliance manufacturers, paper and paper product jobs, and jobs involving plastic and rubber products.
Cap-and-Trade isn’t just a job-killer, American Solutions estimates that it would increase gasoline prices by 74 percent, electricity rates by 90 percent, natural gas prices by 55 percent, and add $1,600 a year to the cost of living of a typical household.
The result would be to make the Great Depression look like a day at the park, but minus the hot dogs and ice cream.
This is what House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid have planned and they want the bill passed before Congress goes home for its summer recess.
At that point, the destruction of the U.S. economy would be complete and there would be no reason for Congress to return.
Does this seem an extreme conclusion to you? No, it is the reality the nation faces.
E.M.Smith (02:58:07) :
Wow!!!
Another rant like this and you will be well on your way to becoming my hero!