Guest Post by Ira Glickstein
As I continue to plow through Vol 1 Issue 1 of the new Journal Nature Climate Change, I came to the following amazing statement:
Communicating the value of climate modelling … requires confronting such apparent contradictions as the fact that increasing a model’s complexity — by adding the behaviour of clouds, people or ecosystem feedbacks, for example — may actually increase the uncertainty in climate projections. Atmospheric scientist Kevin Trenberth of the US National Centre for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, has explicitly warned that unless such seemingly paradoxical results are communicated carefully, the more complex modelling being used in climate simulations for the upcoming fifth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) may confuse both the public and decision-makers, thereby reducing their willingness to act. [My emphasis]
“Apparent contradictions”? Heck yes, and more than simply “apparent”! The Warmists finally understand that including the major natural cycles and processes that affect climate change in their models will make it that much harder for them to convince the public that human activities are the main cause and, therefore, changing our activities the main solution!
Yet, the title of the paper that includes the above quote is The role of social and decision sciences in communicating uncertain climate risks – as if communications was the major problem, rather than the fact it is largely nonsense they are trying to communicate.
They base their opinion on Trenberth’s 2010 paper which includes these equally amazing words:
[An IPCC AR5 chapter] will deal with longer-term projections, to 2100 and beyond, using a suite of global models. Many of these models will attempt new and better representations of important climate processes and their feedbacks — in other words, those mechanisms that can amplify or diminish the overall effect of increased incoming radiation. Including these elements will make the models into more realistic simulations of the climate system, but it will also introduce uncertainties.
So here is my prediction: the uncertainty in AR5’s climate predictions and projections will be much greater than in previous IPCC reports, primarily because of the factors noted above. This could present a major problem for public understanding of climate change. Is it not a reasonable expectation that as knowledge and understanding increase over time, uncertainty should decrease? But while our knowledge of certain factors does increase, so does our understanding of factors we previously did not account for or even recognize. …
Trial and error
It has been said that all models are wrong but some are useful. …
Performing cutting-edge climate science in public could easily lead to misinterpretation, and it will take a great deal of work communicating carefully with the public and policymakers to ensure that the results are used appropriately. … what to do about climate change is a high-profile, politically charged issue involving winners and losers, and such results can be misused. In fact — to offer one more prediction — I expect that they will be.
[My emphasis]
When confused, when in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout.
Here is what they say (and what they may be thinking):
- Including important forcings, such as clouds, will increase uncertainty. (Yeah, we were much more certain when our simple models gave nice crisp conclusions that matched our political biases. Then we added some of the complexity of the real-world climate, and now the conclusions are uncertain. Could it be that our political biases are at fault? Nope, we just have to work on our communications tactics and “social and decision sciences” to sell this load of baloney to the great unwashed public.)
- The contradictions are merely “apparent” and the results merely “paradoxical”. (Yeah, if we merely communicate this stuff carefully so as not to confuse the public and decision makers and make them unwilling to act in the politically-correct way.)
- There are mechanisms that can amplify or diminish the overall effect of increased incoming radiation. (OOPS, we forgot about those effects that diminish the overall warming. How can we include them in a way that does not add to public uncertainty about our competence?)
- Scientific knowledge and uncertainty are supposed to increase over time. (So how come we keep looking dumber?)
- All models are wrong, but some are useful. (Why is it that as our models become less wrong they become less useful to our political agenda?)
- Public disclosure of climate science research results can lead to misinterpretation and results can and will be misused. (We better keep our climate research results away from the public until we get a chance to misinterpret and misuse them before the skeptics find out the truth behind our methods.)
My, their web is getting extremely tangled isn’t it? I’ve been working on an explanation of highly intelligent, well educated people behaving like Dr. Trenberth. Working title:”Functional Idiocy.”
Don’t confuse them with facts, baffle them with BS!
The nonsense in Trenberth is the idea that uncertainty is simply an artifact of what goes on in the model, not an artifact of what goes on in the real world.
As some one has said much of climate science occurs inside a virtual reality created by the models – too many gamers in the discipline if you get my drift.
I said when the paper was published that I thought that expectations were being managed now that more of reality is having to be owned up to.
Deadman,
The real answer is billions of dollars worth. But the fun answer is enough to spin a story.
Unfortunately, I think many in the public believe this is how real science is done. In the case of uncertainty just get a bunch of pointy-headed gurus who can tell us what to do, even if it’s just gut feel or instinct. This is where the IPCC comes in.
So… by adding clouds and other things to the models to make them behave more like the real world increases the danger of them… behaving less like the real world? Yep, the science is settled. Thanks Kevin, you have cleared up everything… If only we weren’t spending the rent money on this stuff it would be funny.
“The Warmists finally understand that including the major natural cycles and processes that affect climate change in their models will make ….”
… will make the models much closer a match the semi-chaotic solar/Earth system that it actually is, unpredictable.
Sigh.
All climate change is local.
OT from the closed thread, but this isn’t about that subject anyway.
“Dave Springer says:
April 28, 2011 at 4:21 pm
… Lesson 1: Never ascribe malicious intent when incompetence can explain the situation…”
Noble statement, but I am growing sick and tired of attributing actions of malice due to simple ignorance. These buffoons know exactly what they are doing and are relying on the public being either to stupid or too lackadaisical to hold them any standard whatsoever. So, they get a “free pass,” carry on smartly and continue to push the scam.
It’s time for the B/S to stop. Period.
Scientific knowledge and uncertainty are supposed to increase over time.
Did you perhaps intend to write certainty?
tokyoboy says: (April 28, 2011 at 9:06 pm)
“A research field, for which no control experiment is possible, allows for any enunciation and can live out as long as funds are available.”
Very nice, tokyoboy! Bears repeating.
GixxerBoy says: April 28, 2011 at 8:56 pm
Either:
[1. ——finally acknowledging their models have been primitive and inaccurate, unable to ‘model’ what the climate does at all —-( too dumb or too blinded by fanaticism to see that this leaves them vulnerable), or
2. They are smug because they know they are ——They’re in charge, they can manipulate the mass’s opinion how they choose, so no one will care.]
—————————————————————————-
I hope it’s #1. I fear it’s #2.
GixxerBoy. Forget 1 –accept2. But people only accept BS for so long – then they get angry. History tells us that the greater the anger the greater the punishment. We can see this anger happening even now (other issues though) in certain parts of the world when enough is enough.
Douglas
Dr Trenberth, thanks for finally confirming my deeply held conviction that CAGW is a crock.
The irony is that, at the same time that even the most activist pseudoscientists are having to confess that their “science is settled” projections are little better than hunches and wild stabs-in-the-dark; the political machine is in overdrive to introduce ineffective “solutions” to the catastrophic crisis the pseudoscientists projected.
This is particularly the case in the UK when EVERY political party with any representation, except the (out in the wilderness) UKIP and the (racist and fascist) BNP are 100% committed to the scam.
OK, there are a decent number of honourable individual exceptions. But the policy of the leadership is monolithic.
Our real masters, the unaccountable and anti-democratic European Union, are actively working up a Carbon Tax at the moment. Parts of it (direct taxes on high energy users in Industry) are already in place. Other parts (increased tax on red diesel used in agriculture and construction plant) are about to be imposed. All this will increase prices of just about everything. It is in addition to the hidden subsidies and stealth taxes for BigWind and bungs for WWF, Greenpiss and the rest, extracted through electricity, gas and fuel bills.
Inevitably, the truth will out. But I genuinely fear it will get very messy.
As I read Trenberth’s statement, above, they’re going to build a new gun that will shoot farther and have less windage than the old one, but will have even less chance of hitting the elephant. If people find this out, the sillies will use this information against those responsible.
There are idiots in climatology, and there are incompetents in climatology, and there are lunatics in climatology. Kevin Trenberth is none of these. There are only one or two categories left, and I’m really not sure which he falls into. I’ll just say he’s amazing and let it go at that.
The bases are always covered by Warmists. It is just now they are sounding a bit silly.
What struck me the most is the fact that these guys already KNOW what the outcome of the so called “cutting edge” models will be!
He knows that it will predict doom and the only problem will be how to convince the public about it.
They are amazing, one have to admit.
Jack, my last response
typed as a haiku of sorts
lost its formatting.
How Much Wool?
It’s enough to weave
a tangled web, I believe,
wherewith they deceive.
“If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts., but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.”
Francis Bacon
Trenberth
‘So here is my prediction: the uncertainty in AR5′s climate predictions and projections will be much greater than in previous IPCC reports —But while our knowledge of certain factors does increase, so does our understanding of factors we previously did not account for or even recognize. …’
———————————————————————-
Can Trenberth be for real? ‘Rumfeldian’ statement – re the Iraq war – and we all know how many unknowns were involved in the decision making then. Trenberth’s statement amounts to ‘No matter about any of this though, what we say is right and always was so’ – As it was in the beginning is now and ever more shall be – world without end – amen!
Douglas
I think many have missed the really alarming bit of Dr Trenberth’s statements. He really doesn’t understand how uncertainty works.
If a model has ‘n‘ parameters, they sum the uncertainties of the parameters and call that the uncertainty of the system. Adding new parameters, with their own uncertainties, thus increases the “uncertainty” if the system. Thus they equate known uncertainty with total uncertainty. If I cannot see it, it isn’t there. (Ostrich uncertainty?)
Of course, the problem is that those uncertainties were already in the system — they just had not been identified.
This practice of ignoring the presence of unknown uncertainty will inevitably lead to overestimation of the accuracy of the model — which is exactly what we have seen.
How can ignoring important data make your models more certain than including it? Ignoring uncertainties doesn’t make them go away. It’s like saying, “I don’t know how to model the real world, so I’ll just pick and choose a few easy things to model and ignore all the other key factors. Then I’ll present my findings as settled science.”
Trenberth is like the drunk who dropped his keys in the dark on his way home from the bar and then went to the nearest streetlight to look for them because the light was better there. Just because uncertainties are greater in the dark, doesn’t mean you can find the answer under the streetlight.
The near-future history is silly. It has illogical phrases like this: “Prediction b: By 2015, a punitive tax on non-renewable carbon-based energy will quadruple costs of coal, oil, and natural gas. All or most of the Carbon Tax revenue will be returned to the people, making it (almost) revenue-neutral. ”
What’s the flaw? Well, the money returned to the people will mostly be spent on activities that generate GHG. Indeed, because of inefficiencies compared to producing GHG in optimised fossil fuel plants, this fragmented activity by the peasants will probably increase the per capita production of GHG.
Time after time, I have asked the authorities for lists of ways that peasants can spend windfalls WITHOUT producing GHG. Time after time, no anser has been given. This is because the ONLY way of significance is through spending on more nuclear power production. Even then, it merely inserts another step in the human chain of production of GHG. Does anyone know of such a list?
It is almost impossible to envisage a large scale way for billions of people to spend money while reducing total GHG. The economists’ faulty models need to be run again, with a boundary assumption that a person has a cradle to grave emission quota of GHG and there ain’t much that can be done to alter that. If you need an analogy, every person will breathe in an amount of oxygen in a lifetime, an amount that can be measured. If they do not, they get ill or die.
Likewise, unless they emit a calculatable amount of GHG over a lifetime, they will get sick or die from one of many ailments precipitated by energy shortage.
The problem with today’s professional theorists is that they have no practical knowledge. Knowing a Professor of ignorance with more degrees than I can count, I asked him why, if he was so concerned about the environment he drove his hybrid puddle jumper with the lights on all the time, his reply was for safety and it should be a law for all. After 5 minutes of trying to explain that it requires energy for the lights and it costs on average $80.00 per year per car I could see that I was talking to myself and gave up.
“…by adding the behaviour of clouds, people or ecosystem feedbacks, for example — may actually increase the uncertainty in climate projections.”
This is so basic that I cannot begin to describe it. OF COURSE it does. The models are a system put together of uncertainties. There are few understood constants and the whole project is an increasingly comical effort to deny the obvious chaos. Of course there can be climate science… but the model predictions as “settled science”? Don’t try to fool me with something this obvious.