By Steve Goddard
Yesterday, the Guardian reported :
Meteorologists have developed remarkably effective techniques for predicting global climate changes caused by greenhouse gases. One paper, by Stott and Myles Allen of Oxford University, predicted in 1999, using temperature data from 1946 to 1996, that by 2010 global temperatures would rise by 0.8C from their second world war level. This is precisely what has happened.
Huh?
The temperature rise since WWII reported by CRU is 0.4C (not 0.8C) and it occurred prior to the date of the study. Climate models use thousands of empirically derived back-fit parameters. Given that fact, the only thing remarkable is that their prediction was so far off the mark. Their forecast is the equivalent of me predicting that Chelsea wins 12-0 yesterday. Off by a factor of two, and after the fact.
I recently attended a meeting of weather modelers, who told me that their models are effective for about 72 hours, not 60 years. GCMs use the same underlying models as weather modelers, plus more parameters which may vary over time.
h/t to reader M White
Leif Svalgaard says:
August 15, 2010 at 10:38 pm
Glenn says:
August 15, 2010 at 10:06 pm
You might also want to support your contention that 2010 will be higher than any other, before 2010 is over.
“Every month of 2010 has been warmer than the same month in 2009:
2009 0.377 0.374 0.370 0.410 0.402 0.500
2010 0.490 0.474 0.571 0.559 0.508 0.522
Unless you can show otherwise, I’ll take that as a good indication that the rest of the year will not be much different.”
You call that support? 1996 was 0.137C. There are years that are cooler, and years that are hotter than others. 1998 for instance, the year before the article. Unless the Guardian article (which is the one showcased in this thread) has misrepresented the article itself, predicting one year will be hotter than another is silly, and is silly since 1998 also fit the bill. But 2008 was 0.327C. I’ll ask you again, how did they arrive at the prediction with 1946-1996 data, and what is the prediction exactly?
Leif Svalgaard says:
August 15, 2010 at 11:36 pm
stevengoddard says:
August 15, 2010 at 11:21 pm
How about their ending year, 1996 from the same sentence? Temperatures rose 0.4C from 1946 to 1996.
“and they predicted another 0.4 for the following 14 years [which has indeed come to pass]. Clear enough?”
You saying that each year of the following 14 years (1996 -2010) has been 0.8C higher than 1946?
Glenn says:
August 15, 2010 at 11:47 pm
You might also want to support your contention that 2010 will be higher than any other, before 2010 is over.
“the January-July period [of 2010] was the warmest first seven months of any year on record, averaging 58.1 F (14.5 C). In second place was January-July of 1998.” [National Climatic Data Center reported Friday].
You saying that each year of the following 14 years (1996 -2010) has been 0.8C higher than 1946?
They predicted that 2010 would be 0.8C higher than 1946, and it looks that it will be [or close].
Glenn says:
August 15, 2010 at 11:47 pm
I’ll ask you again, how did they arrive at the prediction with 1946-1996 data
I have no idea, but I assume that Goddard reported that correctly [I could be wrong], and predicting future climate is what climate scientists do, no?
Is this the same ‘Leif’ that writes on Joe Romm’s funny site?
No, no, no.
‘Fails’ and ‘their’ both relate to the subject of the sentence, not the object. So they should agree – either ‘fails its’ or ‘fail their’. The o-levels, or the number of them, are irrelevant.
I must go and grease up my combine harvester.
WOW! Ms Gillard has just stated on Ten News there won’t be a carbon tax! I wonder if her advisers are watching what is going on in places like Spain, Greece, The US and, in particular, the obvious global cooling happening.
Mind you, she is a politician, so won’t hold my breath.
Leif Svalgaard says:
August 15, 2010 at 11:45 pm
“Glenn says:
August 15, 2010 at 11:33 pm
and 1998 is “by 2010″.
Looks like fuzzy math to me, but perhaps my standards are higher than yours…”
An example of your standards: ““Which it did precisely, so good prediction”.”
Your turn.
Leif Svalgaard says:
August 15, 2010 at 11:59 pm
Glenn says:
August 15, 2010 at 11:47 pm
I’ll ask you again, how did they arrive at the prediction with 1946-1996 data
“I have no idea, but I assume that Goddard reported that correctly [I could be wrong], and predicting future climate is what climate scientists do, no?”
So you don’t have any idea, but you know “precisely”, quote: “Which it did precisely, so good prediction”. Is that based on what Steven reported?
Ms Gillard has promised the greens something for their preferences,I suspect it is an ETS. Ms Gillard will promise anything,she knows she doesn’t have to keep any promises.She has 3 years to rule(presuming somebody doesn’t do to her what was done to Rudd.
Leif Svalgaard says:
August 15, 2010 at 11:57 pm
“the January-July period [of 2010] was the warmest first seven months of any year on record, averaging 58.1 F (14.5 C). In second place was January-July of 1998.” [National Climatic Data Center reported Friday].
Not if you use those new fangled things called satellites. The NOAA chaps don’t like them ‘cos they can’t fabricate the data.
http://i599.photobucket.com/albums/tt74/MartinGAtkins/Jan-Jul-UAH.jpg
July is the second warmest for the UAH data set.
http://i599.photobucket.com/albums/tt74/MartinGAtkins/UAH-Jul.jpg
“I do still play footie two or three times a week. Lots of foreigners and talent in the US these days. What did you think of the Liverpool own goal today?”
As Liverpool fan, very painful to watch.
Noelene says:
August 16, 2010 at 1:48 am
Ms Gillard has promised the greens something for their preferences,I suspect it is an ETS.
Where’s the money coming from?
The greens and Gillard will do more damage than Rudd. A hefty energy tax is a certainty and more ad-hoc taxes will be the order of the day. It will all of course be in the name of building a better more caring community. There is no free lunch. If the government have control over the network it will censored for your own good. The service will be pathetic and subscription costs will be out of reach for all but the ever expanding and well paid bureaucracy.
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s2983739.htm
Their already setting up CSIRO to be a propaganda machine for any lunatic scheme they can conjure up in the name of saving the planet.
Leif Svalgaard says:
August 15, 2010 at 1:04 pm
” ‘world war’ without qualification is World War I …”
It’s already been pointed out that the quote actually said second world war, but I’d like to add the remark that, in England, if you say either “the World War” (without qualification) or “the War”, it means WWII. The First World War (as it is most commonly referred to) is “the Great War” (its pre-WWII name).
@Leif Svalgaard
‘and they predicted another 0.4 for the following 14 years [which has indeed come to pass]. Clear enough?’
ROFL, If you went to as great a length to explain your whole reasoning, in as a simple and clear way, in the first place as you do argue moot points maybe people actually would understand the point you make, in the first place. :p
This really has to be absolute Carbon Really Aint Pollution! The very fact that they have predicted “exactly” what occurred is the dead give away here. Can’t they be more convincing by saying “almost” or “very nearly”, I’d be more inclined to pay attention to a 0.75°C or 0.85°C approach than an exact one! I’m from the “that’s near enough” school of engineering!
> MartinGAtkins says:
August 16, 2010 at 2:15 am
Not if you use those new fangled things called satellites. The NOAA chaps don’t like them ‘cos they can’t fabricate the data.
July is the second warmest for the UAH data set.
http://i599.photobucket.com/albums/tt74/MartinGAtkins/UAH-Jul.jpg
I don’t think NOAA or UAH deliberately fabricate data, but I still haven’t seen an explanation for why the July 2010 UAH anomaly is only ~0.05 deg higher than the July 2009 anomaly while the raw AQUA Ch5 temperatures are ~0.2 deg higher.
Glen asked “How does one get the 2010 mean temp before at least the end of 2010?”.
You must be new around here Glen.
Computer models can already tell us the mean temperature for 2050 and beyond.
Steve Goddard fails O-level reading!
It is a good idea when attacking others for being inaccurate to get one’s own facts right.
The comment on the graph shows temperature anomaly 0.44C.
Wrong. More like 0.7 even if you believe CRU undocumented unreproducible (I’ve lost my data ) adjustments.
So what Stott (and the Guardian in citing him) got wrong was that the 0.7C rise that had already happened would continue and hit 0.8C by 2010.
So 0.44 gets rounded down to suit the argument but was the wrong figure anyway since it is the “anomaly” w.r.t the 1960-91 average NOT since WWII.
Steve totally missed what Stott and the Guardian could have been critised for and shot himself and thus WUWT in the foot.
Anthony, if Steve cannot make more effort to be objective and accurate maybe he should be given less column space on WUWT. He is damaging the credibility of the site.
best regards.
sorry the cite=”” tag does not seem to work. First quote was from guardian , second from Goddard.
[Reply: use the simple ‘blockquote’ command in HTML (not BBCode). ~dbs, mod.]
In 2008 in the first month the anomaly was -0.2 and now it is about +0.5. So it has risen 0.7 in just two years, which just goes to show how unimportant the rise of 0.8 was from the second world war.
The rise in 60 years is no more than the short fluctuations, and depending on which 50 year period you take you can get a positive or even a negative anomaly.
“I recently attended a meeting of weather modelers, who told me that their models are effective for about 72 hours, not 60 years. GCMs use the same underlying models as weather modelers, plus more parameters which may vary over time.”
____________________
Is there a lawyer in the house? IS THERE A LAWYER IN THE HOUSE?
Hopefully this video will make it clear to everybody. There is no date prior to 1915 which has seen a 0.8 rise.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaOeHKARSxY]
More clearly :
“moving backwards from the present, there is no date prior to 1915 which saw a 0.8C rise.”
And …. all of the rise occurred prior to the date of the study.