From his blog http://www.drroyspencer.com/ which I’m repeating here to help get wide exposure.
A Challenge to the Climate Research Community
I’ve been picking up a lot of chatter in the last few days about the ’settled science’ of global warming. What most people don’t realize is that the vast majority of published research on the topic simply assumes that warming is manmade. It in no way “proves” it.
If the science really is that settled, then this challenge should be easy:
Show me one peer-reviewed paper that has ruled out natural, internal climate cycles as the cause of most of the recent warming in the thermometer record.
Studies that have suggested that an increase in the total output of the sun cannot be blamed, do not count…the sun is an external driver. I’m talking about natural, internal variability.
The fact is that the ‘null hypothesis’ of global warming has never been rejected: That natural climate variability can explain everything we see in the climate system.
> A better challenge is to give just one weather/climate
> scenario that disproves global warming.
Can’t be done. So flexible is the theory, that there is not now
any possible climatic event that is inconsistent with the AGW
hypothesis. Unfortunately this comes with a price tag. Because
the theory is immune from refutation, it is no longer Science.
steven mosher says:
February 2, 2011 at 4:33 pm
You’ll note that nothing in AGW demands that temperatures move outside their historical extremes. AGW merely requires that temperatures with More GHG in the amosphere be warmer than it would be without that GHG.
========================================================
lol, dang Steve, you sure are stirring the pot today! As to your definition of AGW, …. puh-leez.
No one is arguing water vapor doesn’t retain heat for the earth. But you knew that.
Prove that its CO2. Prove that man’s contribution is significant, spectrum and all. And prove that the results will be catastrophic. That’s what people are arguing about. I didn’t even get into the sub-topics such as albedo or other fictional excaserbating issues. (tipping points, ect.) Funny thing is, I can’t tell you how many times today I was wishing that it was true. But, being able to warm the world with my actions or will, is simply a fantasy. For me, and everyone else on this marble.
Mosh, your implication is ugly. I tell you that I have written to Dr. Bilitza, and you interpret this as me promising to write him. Then you say “we have no update”, as though I didn’t follow through on my supposed “promise”.
Now that’s not nice, Mosh, not nice at all. As I said, I had already written to Dr. Bilitza. He never wrote back, so save your snark and your nasty insinuations for him.
And if that’s your best evidence, I thought Dr. Roy had asked for a peer reviewed paper, not a discussion between you and me.
w.
######
you’re reading too much into it.
1. I’m pointing out that spencer never gave a quantified null.
2. I’m pointing out what that can lead to.. somebody finding something odd that was not specifically specified as a NULL
Now WRT the mail you wrote.
1. When we wanted Jones data because we thought we might find something wrong with it we were pretty damn dedicated about finding it. I think You FIOA’d it.
2. Have you FIOA’d the info about the algorithm?
3. Folks get in a huff when scientists doubt the data.. just pointing out a similar case.
No paper means no null hypothesis rejected and no settled science. However that doesn’t make the AGW hypothesis a bad one. It is still the most likely explanation for at least part of the warming. There are lots of reasons to think that increased CO2 in the atmosphere should lead to warming, whether it has or not. And there is no paper either which proves that an increase of CO2 cannot cause some warming. So AGWers cannot scientifically reject the posibility that the rise in temperatures is mostly due to natural variation, and Skeptics cannot rule out either that CO2 played an important part. No settled science works both ways.
Climate sensitivity is a completely different matter, though. Not only no paper demonstrates it to be 3C/doubling or more, they are not even close to making us believe that it is a most likely estimate. All past and present data point to a much lower value. Only “virtual computer games” support the 3C/doubling estimate.
I’m hoping and thinking that we’ll see a sharp drop this year and next, accompanied by a strong arctic ice rebound. Revenge served cold, IOW.
Re steven mosher says,
Feb 2, 2011 at 4:33pm
“You’ll note that nothing in AGW demands that temperatures move outside their historical extremes. AGW merely requires that temperatures with More GHG in the amosphere be warmer than it would be without that GHG.”
Steven
Frankly I’m a bit distressed about what you wrote above because over the years I have come to expect high quality thinking in your posts (despite your too often exposed proof-reading aversions). There are two things here that I find upsetting. First the whole statement is, at first glance, arguably a logical howler, equivalent to, “Red is always black, except when it’s red”.
I’ve tried to think of any possible way that statement could have meaning —even the possibility that it could be true if it included a simple hitherto hidden element. The temperature would increase only at the “string” (or even Platonic forms) level of reality (i.e. not measurable in any fashion we know of yet) and would exist only as long as it takes the relevant higher frequency photons to exit the earth’s atmosphere. So it really would get warmer, it just would not actually be any warmer. (Nah, I didn’t really think you’d buy that—but.)
On the other hand, at second glance at this first point, are you saying that AGW theory contains the qualifier that no matter how high the temperatures get they will NEVER get higher than they were at some previous time, unless caused to be so by something other than GHGs?
The other thing that causes a wince is your assertion that AGW “merely” requires “warmer” temperatures. What? Are you serious? Do you mean that all the disastrous consequences, the economic, social and psychological trauma, the guilt, the sometimes bitter debating and yelling back and forth is just a whole lot of —words signifying nothing???? That’d be grrrreat!!!….for some of us.
But maybe you’ve got something here that can make everybody happy. Some folks get their AGW, but it won‘t make a bit of difference to anybody else. Really GRRREAT!!!
But then again, maybe you just misspoke yourself.
Ron
@ur momisugly Leif Svelgaard: “Show me one peer-reviewed paper that has ruled out experimentation by little green aliens as the cause of most of the recent warming in the thermometer record.”
Show me one scientific paper peer reviewed or otherwise that suggests little green aliens as the most likely cause of the recent warming in the thermometer record>
It is a good idea. In fact I usually add that little challenge to any comments I make in the MSM. So far I have been treated to a thousand and one effects of warming that, “I am just too stupid to understand”. But not one link to a single paper.
Seems the world is strong on opinion and short on facts.
Nylo says:
February 2, 2011 at 10:10 pm
So AGWers cannot scientifically reject the posibility that the rise in temperatures is mostly due to natural variation, and Skeptics cannot rule out either that CO2 played an important part. No settled science works both ways.
——————————-
Null hypotheses are never proven. They are just more true than the alternative hypothesis. The scientific method proves things by throwing alternative after alternative at the null, in an attempt to disprove it. If CO2 causing the warming is the null, what is the alternative? CO2 is not causing the warming. This means that there is a natural component, no matter which you choose as the null. There must be, therefore, a defined component that applies to the variations that occur without man-made perturbation.
What we know about this component is commonly referred to as ‘weather’ and dismissed as too noisy to be a part of the climate. Daily variations transact large amounts of energy, which poses problems for the logic in choosing AGW as the null hypothesis. The logical choice of a null hypothesis is that normal variations that happen on the daily scale can explain warming and cooling trends.
If this is the null, and it deserves to be so, then the alternative is that CO2 is causing the warming. This means you have to rule out the daily variations. Good luck using averaged data to rule out daily variations.
Leif Svalgaard says:
February 2, 2011 at 12:11 pm
Show me one peer-reviewed paper that has ruled out experimentation by little green aliens as the cause of most of the recent warming in the thermometer record.>>>
Leif, Leif, Leif, you have your aliens mixed up. Its little white mice running their experiments on us. Its all documented in great detail in Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. You can’t claim its not peer reviewed, I have a lot of peers and they’ve reviewed it, in fact millions upon millions have, many of them real scientists with degrees and everything. In fact, read the reviews, you’ll find all kinds of comments, but not one that it isn’t true.
Its may be funny to you, but by the standards of AGW and CO2, that book is science too.
One of the themes in this thread is the idea that the historical temperature data can only be fitted with models that include AGW CO2. This is nonsense and only really tells us something about the modelers ie that they are too lazy to include other effects. A few examples of important effects not included in models:
(a) Clouds
(b) Cosmic rays
(c) Undersea volcanic eruptions
The second point about models is that they can fit observations without having any physical basis whatsoever. A simple linear regression model fitted to temperature data gives quite a good fit. So does a sine wave with a reasonably long period, at least half as long as the temperature series itself. The fit of any model to the data can always be arbitrarily improved by adding more terms. For example, the simple y = mx + c linear model fit could be improved by adding an x^2 term. By improved we mean that the residuals are smaller. This does not make it a better model.
You cannot prove a model write or wrong. What you can do is make predictions using the model and then compare these predictions to new data. It is difficult to make controlled experiments on the climate of the earth, although not impossible – Svensmark and Calder describe very interesting controlled experiments to relate cosmic rays to clouds development in The Chilling Stars. However the difficulty of running a controlled experiment for the climate of the earth means that the only real test of a model is to make a clear and measurable prediction of future data (eg temperature of the planet) for a useful period into the future such as for 10 years. Then you wait until you have collected the data and compare.
As far as I can see most of the IPCC predictions of the future based on their report in 2001 have failed such as:
(a) Increase in global temperature has plateaued, not increased as predicted
(b) Sea level rise of up to 60 cm per decade has not happened
(c) Sea level rise has not accelerated and indeed the change for the last couple of years is actually negative! (Likely a temporary effect in the long march out of the LIA)
(d) Hurricane frequency and strength has not increased
I use the 2001 report as the reference because then we have a close to 10 year period to observe new data and test the predictions. Where is the IPCC analysis in the 2007 report to compare the predictions of the 2001 report with the actual outcomes in the real world?
If climate scientists were doing science properly they would be arguing for better data collection systems to be available so as they could test their predictions. While satellite data fulfill some of this requirement we should remember they are remote sensing systems. Climate scientists should be arguing for more, better and properly sited temperate and climate monitoring stations to be put in place – instead we have witnessed the great “decline of the thermometers” in the GHCN data series and amateur groups such as WUWT having to point out the inadequacies of many meteorological collection points as climate monitoring sites.
Leif Svalgaard:
The point was that you cannot prove a negative. You mention that several natural cycles exists. Some would say that they don’t exist [hockey stick people] or are actually man-made [aerosols, CO2, land use, etc], so we are back to square one on that.
What do mean? For example AO/NAO cycle is identified back to many centuries and affects temperatures over NH. Can you show a reference which claims that there is no such cycle?
Myrrh says: February 2, 2011 at 5:17 pm
“What fingerprints? The Vostok graph like others of its ilk shows clearly that something is forcing,”
Then Myrrh, the task is pretty simple. Show statistically that the signal (forcing) to noise (natural variation) ratio is higher enough to make your (bogus) assertion of 95% confidence.
Let me even help you do it: according to the IPCC report, the noise is 1/f type noise. We have enough instrumentation reading before CO2 and after for you to characterise the natural variation before the CO2 and then test using statistics to see whether the change in signal is compatible with that noise model (null hypothesis not disprove) or incompatible with that noise model (null hypothesis disproved and so it must be external forcing).
That is all we are asking you to do: PROVE IT STATISTICALLY and stop talking BS about the “hand of god”. (referring to a notorious incident of handball, which was not spotted, but which very much had human fingerprints on it!)
David Falkner says:
February 2, 2011 at 8:03 pm
Well, climate modelers have stated time and again that they canot explain global temperatures without CO2. They should have proof somewhere they couldn’t do it, and why they couldn’t do it, right?
What they are actually saying is they have not the faintest idea of the causes of climate change because CO2 is consistently shown to be irrelevant to any such changes in the past.
Bringing in CO2 and arguing that it is the cause is a red herring, because they already admit, tacitly by accepting past records as in Vostok, it is one of the things shown to not cause climate change.
What they are actually saying is that they are not climate scientists.
@KR Feb 2, 2:00pm –
I followed your link to skeptical Science’s blog and muoncounter’s comment there and his Santer link.
The Santer paper is just awful science. How in the world did Science actually publish such a weak, sloppy, illogical mess such as that?
I tried to post this response to his comment as follows, but it kept rejecting it as having ad hominem attacks in it. No, there are not any in it.
@228 (muoncounter) said:
Is Santer kidding?
It is a model. Models are not empirical evidence.
First of all, Santer is using tropopause height as a proxy for, not just warming, but he takes it to an unwarranted next step, bypassing the warming itself and going straight to “humans did it.”
His statement should have been in two parts. First it should have said, “We show that tropopause height is a quantifiable proxy for a warming climate,” and then he should have shown his evidence that it was humans that caused the tropopause height change. His logic is flawed. His CO2 = humans thinking is getting in the way of his logic.
Wow. The only empirical evidence here is the first, radiosonde data, and it is only evidence that the tropopause has changed. Nothing in that fact points at humans. The 2nd one is weather forecasts, and forecasts are not empirical evidence. They are guesses. The 3rd is climate models, and models are not empirical evidence, either. So all he is left with is “Weather balloons say the tropopause changed height.” That says nothing about humans. To Santer maybe it does, but it isn’t scientific to take that quantum leap. Santer: In logic you can’t leave steps out.
Again, models are not empirical evidence. They are lines of code and can only give back what is programmed in. GIGO anyone? I am not slurring the modelers intentions, just that they need each physical process to be 100% proven out before they can rely on the output of that portion of the code. And they also need to not include even one code character of supposition or surmise or assumption.
THIS one is beautiful. Santer here is admitting that as of 2003 no one – I repeat, no one – had done what Dr. Spencer is asking in 2011. So, the first question should be, “Has anyone done it since then?” Of course, in this paper Santer is claiming that he and his cohorts have come to rescue climate science from that oversight.
But has he?
Sorry. Demonstrating based on estimates? Not science. Come on Santer! You can do better than that.
Really guys, this is sad. On this site where you claim to be properly skeptical, you don’t let that pass as science, do you?
And ohmygod, this one in the Abstract caught my eye:
I’ll even pass on the “simulated” and get to the real goody:
This is the same solar irradiance that has been shot down as a direct and naturalforcing for warming itself, but it is okay for Santer to drag it out and claim a causal link to tropopause height? For a proxy? Holy crap! Talk about a double standard! But at the same time, let’s see what Santer does with it…
Okay, he only mentions it twice in the body of the text. The first is
“The natural external forcings considered are changes in solar irradiance (S) and volcanic aerosols (V)”
where he assigns a variable name to it. Okay… No real science there. . .
Then the last mention of solar irradiance is:
First here, let’s point out that this is the only meaty (?) use of solar irradiance in the entire paper.
But this is puzzling. Without any sourcing, he states that as fact, leaving everyone to stipulate that it is an uncontested fact, I guess. But, wow. He is giving solar irradiance a power that isn’t referenced and a power that isn’t allowed to anyone who tries to use it as a direct forcing on climate, who want to use it as a “natural forcing.” They can’t use it directly, but he, Santer, can use it as a forcing for a proxy – with no demonstrated evidence that it really is true.
Do I have that right?
I have to ask, where did he pull that out of?
All in all, if you, muoncounter, call any of that solid science, you don’t seem to have have very high standards.
VERY poor logic, sloppy concepting of the paper – what can I say? Terrible…
And in conclusion, nowhere in it does Santer develop an answer to Dr. Spencer’s challenge.
Models and simulations and estimates – none of them are empirical evidence that does what Santer claims it does.
Solar irradiance – if he wants to use that for proxies, he has to “show his work,” and prove why it is valid to use it.
Seriously, if I were a grading it as a paper, I’d flunk the dude.
KR says:
February 2, 2011 at 2:00 pm
This question/challenge was cross-posted on Skeptical Science.
I would consider the challenge busted.
I tried to follow that last link and it is behind a paywall (as I suspect you know). Over the years I have followed many such links posted by warmers (that is the only “evidence” they ever post) and not once has the article said what it was supposed to say. And if you challenge the warmers … they just post another link … and another link and none of them ever back up their assertions.
What is it with you guys? Do you have some frigging random link generator?
I propose another “Null hypothesis” … these global warmers are all just automatons from some horrible science experiment that went wrong. They are all just part of some big simulation to come back with random scientific sounding responses … random links to articles, random scientific ideas picking up any news article on the weather and adding the phrase … “yet more proof of global warming”.
Seriously
Put the evidence. Not some frigging useless link and certainly not ones behind pay walls. Put up the evidence or shut up!
I was all set to agree with those here who argue that Dr Spencer should be asking for a null hypothesis. But on relfection I don’t think so.
As I understand the null hypothesis, asking to prove others are not genuine forcings is not the same as asking if CO2 has no effect.
As a null hypothesis for each of the natural forcings, maybe that would work, as long as it is the change that is being looked at. They all do have some effect. AGW argues that all the other ones (at least in toto) are a fixed value, thus leaving CO2 to be the change culprit by default. That is really their underlying mantra.
Dr Spencer is asking if that assumption – that the total of all the other forcings never changes – has been proven. That is what got me to change sides, that it was never proven. I am still looking for that paper, after 15 years.
I do think it is significant that Santer admitted in his paper that no one had done this by 2003. Even one of their own admits it. And if it had been done since then, WUWT would have been right on it.
_____
BTW, it is amazing how many comments on this thread have not been responsive to the question asked. That is unusual here.
dallas says: February 2, 2011 at 6:28 pm
“The wager does need to better worded. Longer term oscillations like the PDO and AMO would need to be named specifically. Since Tsonis et al. 2007 showed a relationship between oscillations and climate shifts, it would need to be proven that Anthropogenic Greenhouse Gas variation has or has not over powered these oscillations. Better worded, it would be a neat bet.”
Dallas, that is a superb post and though I’ve said too much, it deserves comment.
My assessment of the climate is that it consists of a lot of random fluctuations in the form of semi-stable “oscillations”. We see these large shifts from one state to another with El Niño/La Niña. Or to be accurate we see events that we ascribe the name El Niño/La Niña, because they are more like Atlantic highs/lows. We know they exist because we can pin a name on them, and they are to some degree predictable, but in terms of a total noise model for the climate, they are not really predictable because they arrive at random times and at random intensities and as such are really constituent parts of the total variation just as weather is a constituent part of the total climate.
So, what I would say, is that if you can provide a prediction for any of these oscillations with say >95% confidence of their absolute contribution to global temperature within the time span we are considering, then sure they aren’t random and so after doing the basic analysis with them it sure … we can take out their contribution and see if that makes any significant change.
Humans have such a difficult time with science because it’s so easy for them to be human.
David Falkner:
At February 2, 2011 at 11:16 pm you attempt the same ‘bait and switch’ that Trenberth recently advocated when you write:
“Null hypotheses are never proven. They are just more true than the alternative hypothesis. The scientific method proves things by throwing alternative after alternative at the null, in an attempt to disprove it. If CO2 causing the warming is the null, what is the alternative?”
The null hypothesis is NOT “If CO2 causing the warming” and a claim that it could be is a denial of the scientific method.
I said this in another thread but it seems proper to quote it here.
“A scientist has to work within the scientific method. He/she does not have the luxury of changing the method because of any personal desire. And part of the scientific method is an acceptance of the nature and importance of the null hypothesis in any investigation.
The null hypothesis is that in the absence of evidence of a change then it has to be assumed there has been no change.
So, in the case of AGW, it has to be assumed that climate behaviour has not changed from previous climate behaviour unless and until there is evidence that climate behaviour has changed.
There can be no compromise with this.
The null hypothesis in AGW is that climate behaviour has not changed as a result of the anthropogenic emission of GHGs (i.e. following the industrial revolution) and it is the ONLY scientific assumption because there is no evidence – none, zilch, not any – evidence of such a change. If such evidence were produced then the null hypothesis would be disproved and there could be investigation of what caused the change. But unless and until such evidence exists there is not – and there cannot be – any scientific purpose in investigating the cause (perhaps AGW or something else) of a change which is not known to exist.”
Roy Spencer’s challenge is merely a statement of what is required by science before AGW can be considered as being a likely reality.
You and Stephen Mosher are right that this requirement is not fair: it is not. But science is not about what is and is not fair: it is a method to discern what is and is not most likely to be true.
Richard
Great challenge. It is equal to the challenge: prove that CO2 is no GHG.
Re steven mosher says,
Feb 2, 2011 at 4:33pm
Gee Steven, took a while for me to realize exactly what had just said and the implications.
You see there is more CO2 today and no increase in temperatures. Since CO2 levels have increases markedly in the last 31 years, and temperatures are now hitting the exact same level they were at 31 years ago, and having never exceeded their historical extremes upward or downward, seems by your very statement above you seem to have just refuted an entire string of theories flying around:
— that CAGW exists and the warming was cause by mankind made CO2 and it’s consequences will be catastrophic
— that AGW exists and the warming was cause by mankind made CO2
— that GW exists and the warming was caused by elevated CO2, natural or not
And we’ll just let the satellite temperature readings in coming months and years prove beyond a reasonable doubt that CO2 has had not a little but in actuality no affect on temperatures at all, global or otherwise.
Congrats and thanks for finally saying that so clear. You the man!
RR Kampen says:
Right. Try to prove a negative.
RR, it scares me that you’re a teacher.
I like to compare this AGW issue with a murder trial. Your wife was killed and they found her buried in your garden. You have no alibi, and given that the relationship was not good, it can be claimed that you had motives. Yet there is no solid proof that you did it, no fingerprints, ADN, witnesses, etc.
It is certainly posible that you didn’t do it. You can claim that, historically, there have been lots of murders of the wives of other people, with the victim being buried afterwards in her own garden, and it wasn’t always the husband. You can claim that you are not the only person who may want your wife dead. You can claim that your garden can be easily accessed by anyone (no alarm, no dog, easy fence…). But in the end, the jury only has to find you guilty “beyond any reasonable doubt”. And “reasonable doubt” is such a subjective term. If you are very lucky, they will declare you not-guilty due to lack of proof. But even in that case, that doesn’t mean that you are truly inocent, nor does it mean that the most likely thing isn’t still that you did it. It only means that they couldn’t find the final proof yet.
In this analogy, your wife’s murder is the temperature rise and you are the anthropogenic explanation, and other people who may also have motives to kill your wife are the other posible natural factors. Yes, there may be no solid proof against you, but all of the admittedly weak evidences point to you, and you cannot prove that any other person did it. Even if declared not-guilty, you are still the most likely murderer.
WheelsOC says:
February 2, 2011 at 1:14 pm
“I would pose to Dr. Spencer a counter-challenge, that he publish one peer-reviewed paper that convincingly establishes natural, internal climate cycles as the cause of most of the recent warming in the thermometer record. But Dr. Spencer has said he doesn’t want to publish in the peer-reviewed literature anymore and prefers more laxly refereed venues like Geophysical Research Letters. It seems a bit hypocritical to demand peer-reviewed rebuttals to his non-reviewed assertions. That’s not how the burden of proof works”.
Peer reviewing only works if those who are invited to review are prepared to see a piece of work which flies contrary to their views but is otherwise sound, get into print. Many years ago the editor of one professional journal sent a well-researched article by a friend of mine to two of his university peers. One liked it and there were only a few minor suggestions. The other hated it and came up with a number of destructive reasons for not publishing. But the editor was determined that the article should be published. So she sent it to me as the third reviewer, knowing full well that because the author was a friend of mine and that we shared the same views, she would secure a majority for publication.
Dr. Spencer is probably fed up with having his papers turned down because journals like Nature send them to be peer reviewed by ardent AGW propagandists.