Over at The Air Vent, Jeff reviewed the book “Warnings” by CCM Mike Smith. This is a book about weather, weather forecasting, severe weather events, and the people and technology that save lives and help people in their daily lives by making weather forecasting their mission. I’ve got the book, I’ve read it, and there’s nary a mention about climate in it.
The number five comment out of the gate at tAV was from Professor Eric Steig, Real Climate contributor and author of the recently rebutted paper that purported to show continent-wide Antarctic warming, that turned out to be nothing more than a statistical smearing artifact.
Professor Steig must still be angry about his paper being effectively rebutted, because he launched a rather bizarre rant of the “weather is not climate” meme about the author’s website, while at the very same time labeling Mike Smith a “liar” and “dishonest” in the context of a book professor Steig has never read.
Eric Steig said
‘Curious’ wrote “Does it cover the distinction between weather and climate?”
Well, I have not read the book, but if you watch the video the author links to on his web site, you’ll find he uses the same lie that Lindzen does “If you can’t predict the weather 5 days from now, how can you be confident in a forecast 100 years from now.” Hello, these are completely different concepts. No one is claiming they are predicting *weather* 100 years from now (or even 10 years from now!).
Mike Smith may be a good meteorologist, but he evidently hasn’t learned this very basic difference yet. Either that, or he is a very dishonest person.
Wow, just wow.
Mike Smith replied:
Mike Smith said
Hi Everyone. I thought that instead of Mr. Steig hurling accusations about me and everyone speculating as to my positions, I would make a few comments and clear the air.
First, there is NOTHING about global warming or climate change in “Warnings.” The book has received excellent reviews and I am very proud of it. I believe that any of you who might chose to read it will enjoy it as much as Jeff did. I certainly appreciate him posting the review.
Mr. Steig says, “No one is claiming they are predicting *weather* 100 years from now (or even 10 years from now!).” I suggest, he read p. 118 of the 2009 National Climate Change Assessment. It makes a WEATHER forecast for the number of heat waves to occur in Chicago during the period 2070-2099. The is just one of the few weather forecasts in the document (i.e., a weather forecast is a forecast of specific conditions at a specific place and time). Here in Kansas, there are various predictions made about drought and reservoir levels on a sub-state basis in 2050. It is factually incorrect to say that “no one” is making weather forecasts decades into the future.
I am very well aware of the differences between weather and climate. The assertion that we can forecast climate decades into the future depends on climate models being unbiased, the errors averaging out, and their ability to forecast volcanic eruptions and changes in solar energy as as other non-atmospheric inputs. No skill (other than in hindcast mode) in any of these areas has been demonstrated. Here is a new paper on the subject: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/section?content=a928051726&fulltext=713240928 From the abstract: “Besides confirming the findings of a previous assessment study that model projections at point scale are poor, results show that the spatially integrated projections are also poor.”
Finally, I don’t understand the need for pejoratives like “liar” and “dishonest.” We have never met and, to my knowledge, have never had a conversation. While we may disagree on these points, I do not doubt Mr. Steig’s good faith. I wish he would have given me the same benefit of the doubt.
Mike
‘Tis a strange world we inhabit in blogland where people accuse you of being a liar and dishonest without even reading what you’ve written.
Just in case Professor Steig reads this and decides to read the book, here it is:
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Here is an another amusing rant from someone else who has impeccable credentials on commenting on climate change – Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKN0517626320101205
“It makes a WEATHER forecast for the number of heat waves to occur in Chicago during the period 2070-2099. The is just one of the few weather forecasts in the document (i.e., a weather forecast is a forecast of specific conditions at a specific place and time).”
That’s an odd one. OK, I guess it’s specific conditions at a specific place. But what’s the specific time?
The first resort of the charlatan – accuse anyone who disagrees with you of lying or deceit and keep up the smears for as long as you can. I think Mike Smith is being incredibly magnanimous here, if he had used the language Eric Steig has used against Professor Steig, I’m pretty sure there would already be a writ for libel being drafted if not issued.
It is good that you chose to notice this. Jeff is too nice to put Steig’s arrogance, and ignorance, in its proper place.
Mark
Eric Steig – playground bully. If calling people nasty names like a big stupid kid is the sum of his scientific training then perhaps he’s in the wrong job and the wrong playground.
Damn you can be real thick sometimes, Nick.
Mark
If we agree to give millionaires and billionaires permanent tax cuts, will they let us abolish the Federal Reserve and have our own federal government print our own money for us tax free?
This would be a pretty good trade, don’t you think?
The rich really aren’t giving us anything of great value in return for our gift to them.
07/12/10
Met Office Dumps Doomsday Sea Level Predictions
SNIP please don’t post OFF TOPIC comments and especially please don’t report ENTIRE ARTICLES in comments. This is what links are for – Anthony
Actually I’m not sure I know what differentiates a climate forecast and weather forecast. The now discontinued seasonal forecasts from the MetOffice didn’t specify specific weather on specific days, they just indicated whether it would be warmer or colder than average and that there would be more or less precipitation. They always seemed to indicate it would be warmer than average, exactly like UK climate predictions and they’d no clue what the rain would be doing, just like UK climate predictions. Even the monthly forecasts beyond a fortnight are pretty vague. So (for any climate scientists out there) when does weather become climate and what’s the name for the unpredictable gap between accurate weather forecasts and accurate (ha, ha) climate forecasts? ‘Wimate’ or ‘cleather’?
A thirty year period may not seem very specific, but such a period predicted to commence some sixty years or so into the future is very specific indeed. Specific enough to scare those who hear the prophecy, regarding the dangers posed for their great grandchildren.
Tempted as I am to e-mail my eldest gg telling him that in the event of the cold materialising that I expect to be around in his old age, he should consider a move to Chicago, I shall hold my counsel as I don’t want him to think that I have lost my marbles.
And THAT’S why the “team” falls down so much! They are tripping on the marbles they have lost…
I just flicked over to RC to read Steig’s stuff, which is nothing more than a vicious and illogical rant, then wandered to the bottom of the page and found a sort-of ‘cartoon’ which leaves absolutely no doubts about the editorial view at RC of sceptics. There is some worrisomely weird stuff going on in Warmist heads if this is an example of what they see as ‘humour’.
UK Sceptic says:
December 7, 2010 at 12:37 am
“Eric Steig – playground bully. If calling people nasty names like a big stupid kid is the sum of his scientific training then perhaps he’s in the wrong job and the wrong playground.”
Mr (Nelson) Steig has read this post and all the comments therein and wishes me to convey to you his following comment……….”Ahhhhh Haaaaaaa”
“Kate says:
December 7, 2010 at 12:57 am”
Record lows are not being recorded everywhere as far as I can see, the UK, NZ and Aus. Yet, initial reports of the firest fires in Israel, although weren’t directly being attributed to “global warming”, you could feel there was a hint in the newscast. As it turned out, it was startd by a 14 year old boy.
Just not working out for the warmists.
Climate is just the average of weather. The climate models TRY to predict weather on a day to day basis which is then averaged to make a “climatic” prediction. If the weather is not right, how can the average be right? All the overs and unders may all cancel themselves out, but thats not proven, and what if there is a bias to be more over or under?
I disagree with Steig et al. argument that climate is more predictable than weather, since the two are the same thing, climate being made from weather.
Climate is what you expect, weather is what actually happens. The two never match, as one (in a traditional sense) is the average of the past weather, not the weather happening today. With climate models, its a forecast of the future average, but if its not right weather wise today, who can be sure it will be 10 years from now? No one does, and there are no magic crystal balls.
It is the weather outside we are interested in Mr Steig, not the average of it all. And the alarmists constantly talk about hurricanes, storms, snow, drought, heat waves etc…all in the future and due to anthropogenic emissions – are they confusing weather and climate also?
What about those that shout about 2010 being the warmest year? isnt that the same? (plus they fail to mention its due to a natural phenomenon!)
It’s only the beginning of December and the farmers in northern Florida are facing freezing temperatures for multiples of days. Crop failures in norther Florida in the beginning of December are predicted.
Kate says:
December 7, 2010 at 12:57 am
“……the number of British pensioners dying of cold has increased from 9 per hour to 12 per hour.”
Dear Kate. Do you have a reference for that statement? It deserves a wider publication.
I suppose the real issue is that climate scientists cannot help themselves. They study climate but they inevitably have to justify their research by making weather forecasts based on their results.
I may ‘dishonest’ and a ‘liar’ but I cannot see how climate scientists can not do this. They need to test their climate predictions and they can only be tested by comparison to the physical manifestation of climate which is weather. They do this with hindcasts but these tests raise valid concernsa bout model tuning. So they must do forecasts or predict current situations such as the tropospheric hot spot that we read so much about. I’ve read that these are ‘good’ at global levels but ‘not so good’ at continental scales. I’ve rad things from Realclimate and eslewhere that the bad fit of these models is not due t the models but to the paucity of quality data.
So I find it very puzzling, in a way, if climate scientists, wax indignant about questions about the utility of their models in predicting weather. It is a necessary part of the scientific process that they do so so that they can be falsified.
So of someone asks me what the difference between weather and climate is, I tell them that weather is what is used to test our ideas about climate. I so not see how this could make me ‘a lair’ and ‘dishonest’.
Steig just blew whatever chops and dignity he had to smithereenies. What a puerile rant.
That’s always been his m.o. Mann’s, too, so no doubt as to why they partnered.
Mark
Peter Miller says:
December 7, 2010 at 12:14 am
Here is an another amusing rant from someone else who has impeccable credentials on commenting on climate change – Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez.
My dear chap, I think Mr Chavez has summed up the whole AGW scam beautifully, nothing left out at all, apart from the liberal left-leaning intellectual elites who are out to make their millions from hard-pressed taxpayers within the western developed world before the well runs dry & they are found out! The real reason for all those deaths in both Venezuala & Columbia is that those people lived in poor conditions & could not escape from such extremes. Why does their Beautiful Leader not use some of his (sorry country’s) millions from oil revenues to rectify the situation by creating jobs & better social conditions instead of doing the usual socialist thing & wait for a hand out from some one else?
Eric Steig calling Richard Lindzen a lair says much more about Eric Steig than it does about Richard Lindzen. It is true that if we cannot be sure about weather 5 days from now then certainly we cannot be sure about “climate” 100 years from now. Why? Because both forecasts are made by man. To think man can be more accurate in a forecast made for 100 years from now than 5 days from now because, supposedly, “climate” has less noise than weather is a more ridiculous supposition than assuming Antarctic temperature made from interpolation is just as accurate as actual instrument readings.
Grumpy old Man says: “……the number of British pensioners dying of cold has increased from 9 per hour to 12 per hour.”
Dear Kate. Do you have a reference for that statement? It deserves a wider publication.
…Yes, I do.
The oft-reported figure is 9 per hour but the reality is far worse than that. Check the National Pensioners’ Convention website for more accurate information.
This is from earlier this year, and it gives the 12 per hour figure:
http://www.thisiscornwall.co.uk/news/Pensioners-claim-cheap-fuel/article-614920-detail/article.html
Pensioners can claim cheap fuel
SHOCKING winter death statistics has spurred a Longdowns fuel company into action.
Unique Ecofuels, a recycled wood-fuel provider, has introduced a discount for pensioners. The company, at Herniss Business Park, recycles wood waste into burnable briquettes for home heating systems.
Anyone on a state pension will now get a 25% discount – receiving four bags of briquettes for the price of three. Each bag has around 100 briquettes. They are £3.95 each or £10 for three.
Owner, Paul Rutter, said: “It is not just the environment we feel strongly about. We are committed to helping the local community wherever possible. This is why we have discounted our already low prices. We know it’s a small gesture, but we hope it helps.”
He set up Eco fuels last year to deal with trade waste and offer a low-cost heating fuel.
When the National Pensioners’ Convention announced that 12 pensioners each hour are dying as temperatures remain low and many feel they cannot afford fuel, he chose to act. He added: “These cold temperatures present a challenge for us, but it’s horrible to think of people deliberately sitting in the cold because they are struggling to afford the fuel to keep themselves warm. We couldn’t fail to act when we heard these shocking statistics.”
For more information contact Ecofuels on 01209 861621, visit the website www. uniqueecofuels. co.uk or drop in to the site.
[MOD NOTE: It appears your link goes to an article almost 2 years old.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009, 15:18 … bl57~mod]
Maybe Steig should tell his crimate Heidi Cullen that weather and climate are “completely different concepts” . So she’ll stop hurling such forgettable things like
And the urgency is that the longer we wait, the further down the pipeline climate travels and works its way into weather, and once it’s in the weather, it’s there for good.
Kate says December 7, 2010 at 12:57 am: “Its report sets out how to cut Britain’s “carbon” emissions [notice they still can’t manage the whole phrase “carbon dioxide”] 60% from 1990 levels…”
==============
There is nothing more classically Orwellian than the use of the word “carbon” in climate propaganda, when the actual issue is (if anything) carbon dioxide.
The former – carbon – is the dirty black stuff of Dickensian London, aka “soot.” It gets into your clothes, your hair, your lungs. Of course we’d all want to get rid of it. Only a lunatic (or a denier) wouldn’t want to scrub the atmosphere of filthy disgusting “carbon.”
“Carbon dioxide” on the other hand is a trace gas which is an essential component of organic life. Animals and human exhale it constantly, and plants use it to grow. It’s the “fizz” you get from a bottle of Coca Cola. It comes from compost piles, volcanoes, and the oceans. You can’t see it, taste it, or feel it. It’s currently 0.04 percent of the Earth’s natural atmosphere, but has been up to 20 times higher in the past.
I wonder what Orwell (or Edward Bernays) would be saying about today’s propaganda crusade against evil and dirty “carbon.”