Guest post by Indur M. Goklany
Although it is encouraging that the Royal Society now acknowledges that climate science may not be as settled as it previously implied, the Society’s new report still stands as an embarrassment to science because it fails to offer justifications based on science (and policy analysis) for a number of its (politically correct) statements.
First, it claims in its opening sentence, “Changes in climate have significant implications for present lives, for future generations and for ecosystems on which humanity depends.” But two paragraphs later it acknowledges that, “[T]he impacts of climate change … are not considered here.” Hence, the RS has no scientific (or other basis) for this claim. At most it could say, “ALTHOUGH WE DID NOT CONSIDER THEIR IMPACTS, changes in climate COULD have significant implications for present lives…, IF SUCH CHANGES ARE VERY LARGE.” [Suggested INSERTIONS in the RS’s original language are in UPPERCASE letters.]
For the same reason, the RS’s statement in the very last paragraph (number 59), “However, the potential impacts of climate change are sufficiently serious that important decisions will need to be made”, is unsupported by any evidence.
Equally embarrassing are statements regarding the cause (or attribution) for recent warming. In paragraph 2, it states, “There is strong evidence that the warming of the Earth over the last half-century has been caused largely by human activity.” But we are talking climate, not weather, and half a century doesn’t even span a one full cycle of the AMO or PDO, nor does it span the length of the Little Ice Age, Medieval Warm Period, or other historical periods of climatic change.
Moreover, what is the “strong evidence” referred to in the preceding quote that allows the RS to claim that warming has been “caused largely by human activity”? This “strong evidence” comes down to the RS’s acceptance of the methodology underlying the IPCC’s claim of attribution (see paragraphs 37 to 39). But as noted in another WUWT post, this is an “argument from ignorance”— certainly not what one would expect from as august a scientific body as the Royal Society.
In addition, this argument assumes the validity of models, even though they have never been validated using “out-of-sample” observational data, and are, moreover, unable to simultaneously provide reliable estimates for surface temperature AND precipitation at less than continental scales (see Appendix A). The inability of models to generate reliable estimates for surface temperature at such scales is noted in paragraph 50, but the RS is conspicuously silent on their inability to do any better with precipitation. These issues (and others) are noted on the annotated PDF of the RS report here:
RS_ClimateChange_SummaryofScience (PDF)
Third, it is disappointing to see the RS use the term “predict” in conjunction with model results. The IPCC does not “predict”, it “projects”. As Kevin Trenberth has noted, the IPCC makes “no predictions … instead [it] proffers ‘what if’ projections of future climate that correspond to certain emissions scenarios.”
APPENDIX A: IPCC Models Have Not Been Validated
IPCC models have not been validated using out-of-sample data under conditions of high greenhouse gas concentrations.
It is insufficient for a climate model to accurately reproduce the spatial and temporal pattern for one climatic variable; it should be able to do so for the ensemble of variables that have a significant effect on impacts. This includes not just temperature but, perhaps more importantly, precipitation. But little confidence can be placed in the IPCC model results to simultaneously reproduce results for both temperature and precipitation even when “in sample” data are used, let alone when out-of sample” data are utilized.
As noted elsewhere (Goklany 2009, pp 12-13, at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1548711
[F]or a climate model to be valid, it should be able to simultaneously forecast with reasonable accuracy the spatial and temporal variations in a wide variety of climatic variables including temperature, pressure and precipitation, as well as endogenously produce the patterns and rhythms of ocean circulation (among other things). But we know from the AR4WG1 that models are unable to do this even for “in sample” data. As it states, “Difficulties remain in reliably simulating and attributing observed temperature changes at smaller [that is, less than continental] scales” [AR4WG1: 10.] And this [is] what it says about projections of climate change:
“ There is considerable confidence that climate models provide credible quantitative estimates of future climate change, particularly at continental scales and above. This confidence comes from the foundation of the models in accepted physical principles and from their ability to reproduce observed features of current climate and past climate changes. Confidence in model estimates is higher for some climate variables (e.g., temperature) than for others (e.g., precipitation).” (AR4WG1: 600, emphasis added)
This tacitly acknowledges that confidence is low for model projections of temperature at less than continental scales, and is even lower for precipitation — perhaps even at the continental scale. Notably, it doesn’t provide any quantitative estimate of the confidence that should be attached to projections of temperatures at the subcontinental scale. This lack of confidence in temperature and precipitation results at such scales is reaffirmed by recent reports from the US Climate Change Science Program (CCSP):
“Climate model simulation of precipitation has improved over time but is still problematic. Correlation between models and observations is 50 to 60% for seasonal means on scales of a few hundred kilometers.” (CCSP 2008:3).
In summary, modern AOGCMs generally simulate continental and larger-scale mean surface temperature and precipitation with considerable accuracy, but the models often are not reliable for smaller regions, particularly for precipitation.” (CCSP 2008: 52).
The IPCC does not say that “all” features of current climate or past climate changes can be reproduced, as a good model of climate change ought to be able to do endogenously. In fact, it notes:
“Model global temperature projections made over the last two decades have also been in overall agreement with subsequent observations over that period (Chapter 1). “Nevertheless, models still show significant errors. Although these are generally greater at smaller scales, important large scale problems also remain. For example, deficiencies remain in the simulation of tropical precipitation, the El Niño-Southern Oscillation and the Madden-Julian Oscillation (an observed variation in tropical winds and rainfall with a time scale of 30 to 90 days).” (AR4WG1: 601; emphasis added).
I’m sorry, Tim, but I was the one who looked at the IPCC’s own categories on the IPCC’s own site and added up the numbers I gave you concerning the “annex [something]” Countries which the IPCC specifically did not include as having to be restricted by the Kyoto Protocols. They could sign or ratify the Treaty without having to be restricted.
Snap out of it!
SimpleSeekerAfterTruth – you’re wondering about the RS Policy department. Read this.
oh, and add Richard Lindzen’s paper on the wholesale backdoor infiltration of science bodies by activists.
JPeden says:
I’m sorry, Tim, but I was the one who looked at the IPCC’s own categories on the IPCC’s own site and added up the numbers I gave you concerning the “annex [something]” Countries which the IPCC specifically did not include as having to be restricted by the Kyoto Protocols. They could sign or ratify the Treaty without having to be restricted.
I think you might be getting a bit confused. I assume you’re referring to Annex I / II which is a classification of countries defined during the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change treaty negociations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Framework_Convention_on_Climate_Change#Annex_I_countries
http://unfccc.int/files/press/backgrounders/application/pdf/fact_sheet_unfccc_emissions_reporting.pdf
“Non -Annex I Parties
These are developing countries recognised by the Convention including major developing
countries as well as LDCs, many of whom are recognised as being specially vulnerable to the
adverse impacts of climate change, including those with low-lying coastal areas and those prone
to desertification or drought. Others include those heavily reliant on income from fossil-fuel
production and commerce.”
The IPCC didn’t define which countries were or were not to be included in the Kyoto protocol.
What it did do was provide a scientific basis for the need to act. It did this by gaining the endorsment of all Governments. http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/ipcc-principles/IPCC%20Procedures.pdf
“By endorsing the IPCC reports, governments acknowledge the authority of their scientific content. The work of the organization is therefore policy-relevant and yet policy-neutral, never policy-prescriptive.” http://www.ipcc.ch/organization/organization.htm
Tim Williams
I used to trust the science authorities, like yourself. They couldn’t all be wrong. They had such plausible, easily-digestible, scientific-looking answers to all the “skeptics'” issues. I perused the lot. I thought I understood. I was being pestered in the green forum I had joined… by someone with a different conclusion… once, twice, three, four times I checked him, because I do that, check the evidence at source AFAIC, and still felt I could refute him…
…then the gates of Hell crashed open.
Fortunately I was on extended sick leave and had time to start digging, and the spiritual resources to cope with a shattering realization and collapse of my previous passionately-held paradigms and drivers of my work. For six weeks I swung wildly back and forth, then finally it was clear beyond a shadow of doubt. I decided the best thing I could do to help people was write up my story, and the science I had taught myself, and come to love, in the process.
Click my name. Read my story. Come to love the science like I did.
Lucy Skywalker says at 9:41 am [ … ]
That was a fascinating email exchange between Bob Ward and Martin Durkin, who thoroughly deconstructed Ward’s arguments. All Ward can do is make accusations of ‘misrepresentation.’ And as always, the alarmist is never able to admit it when he’s wrong himself – which he is throughout their email debates, and which remind me of the email exchange between Phil Jones and John Daly.
Durkin freely admitted his one [likely but unproven] error regarding volcanoes – and he reminded Ward that it had already been corrected previous to their email exchange, showing that Ward was just nitpicking. Ward’s other complaint of “misrepresentation” concerned Carl Wunsch’s schoolboy complaint that his words didn’t really mean what he had clearly stated.
I recall that Wunsch kerfuffle. It was obvious by his subsequent backing and filling that Carl Wunsch had forgotten to toe the AGW party line, and had been quoted saying things that supported the skeptical view of AGW. Carl’s complaint over the verbatim use of his own words was clearly the result of people reprimanding him. Carl didn’t emerge from that particular episode at all well. But better, at least, than Bob Ward does after tangling with Martin Durkin.
My thanks to Lucy Skywalker for posting that email exchange, which I had not seen before. Durkin comes across with class, patience, authority, and wide-ranging knowledge of the subject, while Ward repeatedly falls back on name-calling, constantly accusing Durkin of “misrepresentation” out of frustration at being corrected on every point he argues.
This is another fine example of why the climate alarmist crowd is better off never debating skeptics. When they do debate, they get slaughtered.
Tim Williams says:
October 3, 2010 at 10:15 am
….I think you might be getting a bit confused. I assume you’re referring to Annex I / II which is a classification of countries defined during the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change treaty negociations.
I didn’t look at wikipedia or unfcc, I looked at the IPCC’s own site about 3-5 years ago where I found the Countries actually listed which were not going to have to adhere to the Kyoto Protocols. It was also the U.S. Senate’s finding in 1997 that certain Countries were not required by the Kyoto Treaty to adhere to its Kyoto Protocols, so that the IPCC’s Climate Science claims could simply not be considered credible.
China and India…..,etc., etc., as I’ve already pointed out and could easily add to in respect to the fact the ipcc Climate Science is not real Science and is instead only a massive Propaganda Op..
But you, dear Tim, are at best now merely arguing mightily for what is at best essentially only a “distinction without a difference”, so that you are therefore either intentionally arguing according to a well-known, irrelevant, and boring propaganda tactic; or else you are in an apparently irremediable state of severe denial which I now know I can’t do anything about….snif.
It’s like I’ve entered a parallel universe on the one hand ‘Lucy skywalker’ is urging me to read his / her story and come to ‘love the science’ as the ‘gates of hell crash open’ whilst simultaneously being told to ‘snap out of it’ by someone who seems to be irrevocably ignorant of the workings of the IPCC .
Lucy, I’ve clicked your name, I’ve read your story and I’m not in the least bit impressed. JPeden, I don’t really know what to say. I’ve tried really hard to understand what you’re trying to say but it makes no sense at all.
I can’t put it any clearer than this…
The IPCC has not, does not, and will not ‘exclude’ any country from any treaty obligations.
If you have any evidence to the contrary please post a link, a clue, anything more convincing than a vague reference to IPCC recognition of countries excluded from CO2 targets in the Kyoto protocol to support your accusation.
Tim Williams says:
October 3, 2010 at 8:30 am
There is a simple answer, Tim: fashionable nonsense. If you knew a bit of science history, you might be aware that august bodies such as the Royal Society have succumbed to fashionable nonsense many times in the past. Nor is the Royal Society averse to dabbling (or more) in the politics of the day. We can go back to the eighteenth century debate over whether pointed or blunt lightning conductors are better, or look to the recent (2008) resignation of the Society’s Director of Education over the statement he made regarding creation science.
Tim Williams
My guess is that you switched off the science details of what I wrote and you are still falling back on “trust authority” without actually grasping the science issues, or seeing the dirt and dogfighting behind the scenes, in tarring those who disagree.
Here, to remind you, are the main science issues, that have been explored in great detail so I won’t elaborate here but you can research the skeptic take very easily if you choose:
* The inflation of warming due to a whole basketful of factors corrupting the data and insufficiently or improperly accounted-for.
* The artificial depression of past temperature records due to the very nature of the calibration of proxies, that cannot help but mine for hockey sticks.
*The artificial depression of past CO2 levels due to a whole basketful of factors causing its partial escape from ice cores before measurement.
* The city-dwellers’ failure to comprehend the vast mass of the oceans, compared with the tiny mass of the atmosphere, and their capacity, following Henry’s Law, to outgas CO2 far in excess of all our emissions, at the tiniest global temperature increase.
* The reluctance to look at what is staring everyone in the face: the Sun: because its measured effects, still very inadequately understood, do not seem to match up to the measured temperature changes.
There are many eminent individual scientists who also see AGW as nonsense, like Nobel prizewinner Kary Mulliss who talks about Scientific Method here. It’s much harder in this situation, currently, to stand up in opposition to the majority. It should not be, but debate has been suppressed and people still risk losing their jobs and reputation, like David Bellamy did, if they speak up. It was much easier for me, a retired nobody, to work out the truth about the science without fear of reprisals. But even I lost all my former “green” friends.
Truly this situation stinks. But one cannot fight evil with evil, only with truth.
Lucy Skywalker:
At October 4, 2010 at 12:19 am you say to Tim Williams:
“But one cannot fight evil with evil, only with truth.”
Sorry, but the above discussion demonstrates that “truth” rolls off Tim Williams like water from a duck’s back: any argument and/or evidence is ignored by him with the most pathetic excuses. His contributions to this thread have repeatedly demonstrated this.
For example, at October 3, 2010 at 1:44 am I wrote:
“Pease read my post above at October 1, 2010 at 5:35 am and comment on my “own original research” and that of Kiehl before posting more of your misleading and offensive twadle.”
His only response to that request is at October 3, 2010 at 8:30 am where his complete answer says:
“I’d quite like to give your peer reviewed paper a read Richard but it’s proving a little tricky to track down. “Energy and environment” wants me to pay for it.”
But Kiehl’s paper is not behind a pay wall, and (as my post at October 1, 2010 at 5:35 am had said);
“More recently, in 2007, Kiehle published a paper that assessed 9 GCMs and two energy balance models.
(ref. Kiehl JT,Twentieth century climate model response and climate sensitivity. GRL vol.. 34, L22710, doi:10.1029/2007GL031383, 2007).
Kiehl found the same as my paper except that each model he assessed used a different aerosol ‘fix’ from every other model. ”
A simple Google would have found Kiehl’s paper at
http://www.atmos.washington.edu/twiki/pub/Main/ClimateModelingClass/kiehl_2007GL031383.pdf
Simply, this was the latest in the above series of evasions to my points from Tim Williams, so I decided to ignore anything further from him.
In summary, the above contributions from Tim Williams have repeatedly demonstrated that they are intended to obfuscate the issues being discussed here, so I have decided to ignore them . And I suggest that all others also ignore anything further from Tim Williams and, thus, stop pandering to his disruption of sensible discussion.
Richard
Richard S Courtney says:
October 4, 2010 at 1:53 am
Sorry that I’m now to be ignored. But, for it’s worth, I’ve just read the Keilh paper you kindly linked to. http://www.atmos.washington.edu/twiki/pub/Main/ClimateModelingClass/kiehl_2007GL031383.pdf
Is this the paper that supposedly blows AGW out of the water?
What I’ve learned is this.
a) CO2 is a greenhouse gas (might be news to some on here)
b) There was observed late 20th century warming of the climate (also a bit contentious?)
c) Models haven’t done a good job at explaining the warming due to the high degree of uncertainty over the role of aerosol forcing….However all models did predict the late 20th century warming as greenhouse gas forcing predominated.
d) As anthropogenic CO2 emissions are predicted to rise, the uncertainty over the role of aerosols may become less important for future model projections.
Just in case anyone thinks the IPCC have been a bit sneaky over the role of aerosol forcing…
“Key uncertainties.
Aerosol impacts on the magnitude of the temperature response, on clouds and on precipitation remain uncertain.”
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/syr/en/mains6-2.html
PS. Apologies to Jeffrey T. Kiehl for the error in spelling.
to tim williams
Re the recent meeting @ur momisugly the french academy of sciences, lindzen indeed participated. His name is on the list you kindly included in your post !
He made a presentation on the current status of GCMs, together with the representatives from French Met and ISPL.
As to conclusions, we’ll see if proceedings from the event do differ from the conclusions as summarised in the press communique !
daniel says:
You’re right. My mistake.
Sorry.
Tim Williams says:
October 3, 2010 at 3:00 pm
It’s like I’ve entered a parallel universe on the one hand….
Admitting your problem is the first step to recovery, but I’m not holding my breath.
Tim Williams:
Thank you for your post (at October 4, 2010 at 9:54 am ) which demonstrates which you can find no flaw in the argument in my post (at October 1, 2010 at 5:35 am ) that I concluded by saying:
“So, the models are known to be wrong, and it is known why they are wrong: i.e.
1. they each emulate a different climate system and are each differently adjusted by use of ‘fiddle factors’ to get them to match past climate change,
2. and the ‘fiddle factors’ are assumed (n.b. not “estimated”) forcings resulting from human activity ,
3. but there is only one climate system of the Earth so at most only one of the models can be right, and
4. there is no reason to suppose any one of them is right,
5. but there is good reason to suppose that they are all wrong because they cannot emulate cloud processes which are not understood.
Hence,the statement in the RS document (which I quote above) is misleading.”
There could not be a more clear confirmation of my argument than your complete inability or unwillingness to mention it together with your posting straw men.
Richard
Richard Courtney, Tim Williams et al:
Re: the validity of the IPCC climate models.
Logic provides the framework for resolution of the issue of the validity or invalidity. In the course of the following remarks, I address this issue.
A model is a procedure for making inferences. In each instance in which an inference is made, there are many (often an infinite number of) candidates for being made. Which one of these inferences is correct? The model builder must decide!
Logic is the science of principles by which the correct inference may be identified. These principles are called the “principles of reasoning.”
For the deductive branch of logic, the principles of reasoning have been known since Aristotle. The problem of extending logic through the whole of logic is called “the problem of induction” after “induction,” the process by which one generalizes from specific instances. In the construction of a model, the builder of this model uses induction; he/she does not necessarily use inductive logic, however.
In 1963, a solution to the problem of induction was found. It could be shown that: a) an inference had the measure which was called its “entropy” and b) this measure was unique. That it was unique had the significance that the problem of induction could be solved by optimization. In particular, that inference was correct whose entropy was maximal or whose conditional entropy was minimal. Thus, the principles of reasoning were to maximize the entropy or minimize the conditional entropy.
In the following period of 47 years, few model builders implemented this advance. Most of them continued in the tradition of deciding which inference was the correct one by the use of intuitive rules of thumb called “heuristics.” However, in each instance in which a heuristic identified a particular inference as the correct one, a different heuristic identified a different inference as the correct one. In this way, the method of heuristics violated the law of non-contradiction. Non-contradiction was the cardinal principle of logic.
Climatology is one of the many fields of inquiry in which models continue to be built under heuristics rather than under the principles of reasoning. A heuristic in common use is to select the correct inference by expert judgment. This kind of judgment is a role for the IPCC “consensus.” In effect, “warmists” are people who favor identification of the one correct inference by this heuristic.
A consequence from use of this heuristic has been for the IPCC climate models to assert possession of information by the model builder which this model builder does not possess. Were a model having this character to be tested, it would be invalidated when it was found that the relative frequencies of outcomes lay closer to the base rates for these outcomes than asserted by the model. The IPCC avoids discovery of this invalidity of its models through its continuing failure to test the models.
To jump back to 1980, in that year the first meteorological model to be built under the principles of reasoning was published. It was reported that replacement of heuristics by the principles of reasoning had increased the span of time over which precipitation could be forecasted with statistical significance by a factor of 12 to 36, dependent upon circumstances. Prior to the replacement, the span was less than one month. After replacement, this span was 12 to 36 months.
Terry Oldberg :
At October 5, 2010 at 12:07 pm you assert:
“A consequence from use of this heuristic has been for the IPCC climate models to assert possession of information by the model builder which this model builder does not possess.”
Yes. Please read my comment at October 1, 2010 at 5:35 am for proof of this.
Richard
Richard Courtney (October 5, 2010 at 1:24 pm):
Thank you for taking the time to respond.
To expand the discourse into the realm of professional ethics, for a model builder to assert possession of information which this model builder does not possess is equivalent in effect to fabrication of empirical data. Scientists agree that the penalty for fabrication should be severe. However, for committing acts of equivalent effect the IPCC model builders have received the endorsement of some of the world’s most prestigious learned societies plus the Nobel Prize!
Terry Oldberg
daniel says:
October 4, 2010 at 2:49 pm
to tim williams
“Re the recent meeting @ur momisugly the french academy of sciences
…..As to conclusions, we’ll see if proceedings from the event do differ from the conclusions as summarised in the press communique !”
Bad luck Daniel. The French academy has reaffirmed the IPCC findings.
– Several independent indicators show an increase of warming from 1975 to 2003.
– This increase is mainly due to the increase in CO2 concentration in the atmosphere
– The increase in CO2 and, to a lesser degree, of other greenhouse gases, is unequivocally due to human activity.
– It constitutes a threat to the climate and, moreover, to oceans as a result of the acidification process it generates.
– This increase drives retroactions of the global climate system, the complexity of which requires the use of models and tests for the purpose of validating them.
– The mechanisms which can play a role in the transmission and amplification of solar forcing, and in particular, of solar activity, are not yet well understood. Solar activity, which has slightly decreased on average since 1975, cannot be dominant in the observed warming during this period
– Important uncertainties remain in the modeling of clouds, the evolution of marine ice and polar ice caps, ocean/atmosphere coupling, the evolution of the biosphere and the dynamics of the carbon cycle
– The projections of climate change over the 30 to 50-year period are only slightly affected by the uncertainty in the modeling of slow-moving processes.
Lots of ‘uncertainty’ however to keep Claude Allegre happy. He was so happy with the conclusions he signed the document.
http://www.ambafrance-us.org/climate/report-of-the-french-academy-of-sciences-on-global-warming/
http://www.academie-sciences.fr/publications/rapports/pdf/climat_261010.pdf