In June 1986, Dr. James Hansen made a prediction to an AP newspaper reporter, which was carried in Oxnard, CA, of a 2 degree temperature rise by 2006. This was two years before, almost to the day before he and Senator Tim Wirth duped a bunch of Washington legislators with stagecraft on a hot June day by turning off the a/c in the hearing room while complaining about global warming and urging the need for “immediate action” (translation: cash).
Like Dr. Hansen’s 20 year sea level prediction, it hasn’t come true. In honor of the 80’s, when a popular TV commercial for a fast food restaurant had inspired a whole nation to say the catch phrase, I ask Dr. James Hansen, regarding your claims of global warming, “Where’s the Beef”?!
Let’s have a look at Exhibit A: Hansens’ GISTEMP graph, distributed worldwide from the GISS headquarters above Jerry Seinfeld’s favorite Monk’s Restaurant in New York City. Annotations in blue mine.
Source: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/
Exhibit B: The GISS Data, available here. Let’s do the math.
Global Land-Ocean Temperature Index (C) (Anomaly with Base: 1951-1980) ---------------------------------- Year Annual_Mean 5-year_Mean ---------------------------------- 1986 0.13 0.18 1987 0.28 0.20 1988 0.33 0.26 1989 0.21 0.31 1990 0.36 0.28 1991 0.35 0.24 1992 0.13 0.24 1993 0.14 0.25 1994 0.24 0.24 1995 0.39 0.30 1996 0.30 0.39 1997 0.41 0.40 1998 0.58 0.40 1999 0.33 0.43 2000 0.35 0.46 2001 0.48 0.46 2002 0.56 0.49 2003 0.55 0.54 2004 0.48 0.55 2005 0.62 0.56 2006 0.55 0.53
Finding the difference: 0.55C – 0.13C = 0.42C
Predicted change 2.0C compared to Actual change 0.42C = Climate Fail
Exhibit C: Where’s the Beef?!
Note: I realize that I could have placed the top prediction at 2.13C, but why pile on? 😉 What’s 0.13C between friends? Besides he said “nearly” and it is near well enough.
Don’t believe me? Read for yourself. The Press-Courier – Google News Archive Search
Big h/t to Steve Goddard at Real-Science for finding this one.
UPDATE: Some commenters suggested Hansen may have given the 2 degree number in Fahrenheit rather than Celsius. Another article on the same day suggests he did.
Read article here: http://news.google.com/newspapers
So at 4F we have 2.2 C If the reporter in the first story took the middle between 2-4F as 3F we have 1.67C or “nearly 2 degrees higher in 20 years” as the reporter from Oxnard states.
The 2010 Annual Mean Temperature anomaly from GISS is 0.63 C
So, no matter how you look at it, Hansen’s 1986 prediction has not come true,
Just reading to the end of the piece makes it crystal that the reporter was talking in Farenheit. So Hansen’s prediction, if this secondary source is accurate, was out by about 0.5C over the period. But the post and graph exaggerate that by 80%. What are the chances of a correction, I wonder?
Incidentally, Dr Hansen went on to add that he ‘would like to understand the problem better before I order any dramatic actions’ ( source ) which is not exacly the language of a shrill alarmist. We do now understand the problem better and Hansen’s view on what are the current appropriate actions are plain.
“The low-lying Pacific nation of Kiribati is negotiating to buy land in Fiji so it can relocate islanders under threat from rising sea levels.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/kiribati/9127576/Entire-nation-of-Kiribati-to-be-relocated-over-rising-sea-level-threat.html
Perhaps J. Hansen has been saving up for a place to retire. Seems there may be an island paradise up for sale due to the inhabitance leaving.
Larry in Texas says:
March 9, 2012 at 1:23 am
Hansen comes out forthrightly and says “temperatures will rise 2 degrees C by the year 2006.”
Did he?
Actually he was reported by the press as saying that would occur as a result of the growth of GHGs, since as a result of the panel’s testimony then and since that growth did not occur, (CO2 emissions growth much lower than was happening then, Montreal protocol signed etc.) I don’t see how his projection can be faulted. If you want to hold him to what he said then quote all of it. It’s a bit like saying that New Orleans will beat the Giants in the play-offs if they can get past the 49ers, they well might have unfortunately they failed to get past the 49ers!
And if you want to accurately quote what he said then rather than rely on dubious press coverage go to :
“Ozone depletion, the greenhouse effect, and climate change: hearings before the Subcommittee on Environmental Pollution of the Committee on Environment and Public Works, United States Senate, Ninety-ninth Congress, second session, June 10 and 11, 1986, Volume 1”
Volume 99, Issue 723 of S. hrg, United States Congress
steven mosher says:
I’m trying to clarify a rather simple matter for Roy Spencer and others.
You are missing their point.
People here are playing stupid by pretending they dont get the difference between a prediction anda projection.
You say “the difference” as if such a difference exists in every instance the words are used, and as if there is only one such difference possible. Wrong on both counts.
No one is playing dumb. They are pointing out the inconsistent usage of the terms, specifically the intentionally inconsistent usage better known as the fallacy of equivocation.
In common usage, “prediction” and “projection” are synonymous. This is the basis that the others play on to achieve the equivocation.
In their communications to the public regarding the dread fate that awaits us, “climate scientists” use of “prediction” and “projection” is synonymous, and every prognostication, forecast, augury, prognosis, prophecy – WTF you want to call it -they make is intended to be interpreted as a prediction. And it is.
In their internal conception of the issue, “climate scientists” use of “prediction” and “projection” is synonymous.
WRT the running of climate models against varying input scenarios, a linguistic distinction may be made wherein a “prediction” predicts both the scenario and the model result, and a “projection” is a prediction of results contingent upon the realization of the scenario, which is held to be an unquantified hypothetical.
WRT IPCC convention, a “projection” is a prediction, and a “prediction” is the projection that is judged to be “most likely”. This differs markedly from the scenario dependence usage, and is instead a slight variation on the common usage.
Statistically speaking, a “prediction” involves a particular correspondence between population statistics of the predicted and observed states, whereas a “projection” does not. This usage differs from all of the above.
In “climate science” apologetics, a “prediction” is a prediction that you want to stand behind, and a “projection” is a prediction that you want to run from. This also differs from all of the above. It is really nothing more or less than the ex post facto implementation of the IPCC convention, but pulling it off generally involves a vague and inconsistent appeal to one or more of the others, accompanied by furious hand waving.
I build a building. I do analysis. I tell you it will survive a earthquake of mag 9.
Is my statement unfalsifiable simply because I cant test it until a mag 9 quake comes along?.
No.
If a magnitude 8 quake shakes the building down, is my model falsified?.
Your prediction is certainly falsified, and you would be held responsible under civil and possibly criminal law for loss of life and property that resulted. Saying “that was just a projection” would not be an affirmative defense.
Whether or not your model is also falsified would depend on how much of your prediction of mag 9 survivability was based on the model.
Really? including the part of my model that has the law of gravity in it? Is the whole thing wrong?.
It is not required that all components be wrong for the thing as a whole to be wrong. If the plane crashes due to a structural failure, the design was wrong – even if the tray tables worked flawlessly.
do we question all the science in my model or do we find the parts that need improving.
If you make a prediction, and the prediction fails, the one part that is certain to need improving is you. Or, more likely, replacing. The fundamental problem in a failed prediction is not the model, but the unwarranted faith placed in it. That sort of behaviour is most frequently an uncorrectable personality trait. The ones for whom it is uncorrectable are typically easy to spot. Rather than reassess the aspects of their performance that led to the failure of their prediction, they say “that was only a projection.”
To the extent that your failed prediction was based on a failed model, that model needs replacing. You might be able to salvage some parts of the old model to use in the replacement, but a failed model is a failed model.
From steven mosher on March 9, 2012 at 9:01 am:
Found by Google over at Stoat (trust me, I’d never search there myself):
So the esteemed William M. Connolley, Wikipedia expert extraordinaire, was just playing stupid? Well, I suppose I could grudgingly believe that, however…
http://scx.sagepub.com/content/30/4/534.short
Science Communication, June 2009, vol 30, no. 4, 534-543.
Wow, that’s a lot of climate scientists playing stupid.
The end of the abstract implies the distinction:
possible -> projection
probable -> prediction
Thus, for example, Leif could project that a CME will destroy Civilization As We Know It next week, and get lots of press coverage saying it. But at the same time, he could privately predict that projection wouldn’t happen. When the projection doesn’t come true, he can properly claim he was correct as it was possible, and state we need greater federal funding for determining when it would be probable. I predict there will be scared Congresscritters working to get him the money.
Mosher obviously isn’t playing. A projection is the “if” of a prediction. Quit making excuses for Hansen.
CO2 emissions were not in any way curtailed, which was the entire “if”. CO2 emissions continued to rise (as projected), temperatures did not (as predicted). Hansen is entirely wrong. Every single thing he has predicated his predictions on has come true, every single supposed effect has been missing: No temperature rise, no, accelerated melting, no sea-level rise, no unusual weather, no abnormal droughts, no unprecedented flooding, no enhanced earthquakes, no alien invasions.
Projection might be a good term for certain people around here to learn the definition of, though.
Phil Clarke:
Hansen was wrong by a lot more than .5°F:
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/image22.png
Note that Scenario A is the relevant metric.
The planet has been warming along the same trend line since the LIA, so it didn’t take a genius to do a little extrapolation. But even with a few hundred years’ trend to extrapolate, Hansen was wrong.
“Fred H. Haynie says:
March 8, 2012 at 5:53 pm
A projection is the extention of a trend line or curve into the future. It is no better than statistical confidence limits and the physics on which the curve is based. If the physics are good and the error bars are close, you may have confidence to dare and make a prediction. Hansen is doing no better in predition than a snake-oil salesman.”
Just to clarify something here. Hansens graphs were not pure physics models but parameter-fitted equations. First year statistics courses teach you that you can’t trust a fitted model outside the range that was used to fit the equation. Especially you can’t fit a curve to data(straight line, polynomial, whatever) and use it for any kind of projection/prediction because the equation used for the fit doesn’t necessarily have any physical connection to the data.
Climate scientists are constantly publishing graphs showing straight lines, or other curves, fitted to data and trying to draw concllusions such as .23 degrees/decade. It is complete nonsense, and I’m truly embarrassed that this kind of stuff gets published.
Richard S Courtney says:
March 9, 2012 at 6:53 am
Myrrh:
You make factually accurate points in your post at March 9, 2012 at 4:01 am but they are not relevant.
==============
It was relevant to my point. I was making the observation, maybe not clearly enough sorry, that they did say they made predictions by their own definitions – there’s a lot of backpedalling chorus saying they only make “projections”, but as one can see in the morass of obfuscation on probables and the mixing of definitions on tables – where is the table which gives the spread of “most likely”?, but anyway, even their likely carries a 100% possible.
My point is that they use all these as certainties, they always have, and that’s exactly as Mann uses it. They don’t give a damn they’re wrong, as long as they can keep making it all sound certain. That’s why every projection is a prediction. And that’s how general public take it as you say, because they’re meant to take it that way.
We should treat every projection just as they do – as solid prediction. They didn’t admit to any uncertainty of CAGW in the constant yelling that we had to ‘act now’ and their constant ‘well we weren’t expecting that and now we’ll tweak the models a bit differently’, when it’s clear the models have always been junk science; is all part of disdain they show for us. They’re all culpable for projecting this junk onto us.
The logical conclusion from the better observational match with (but even lower than) Scenario C (no change in CO2 output) is that larger output, and indeed a higher total level, has no effect. Therefore CO2 is irrelevant to temperature.
Hansen was a good, brave scientist to make that set of predictions/projections. He must now own up to the total falsification of the assumptions on which they were based.
Phil. says:
March 9, 2012 at 11:10 am
“CO2 emissions growth much lower than was happening then, Montreal protocol signed etc”
Please substantiate this assertion.I have a data file of emissions from I cannot remember what source which shows CO2 emissions rising almost linearly from 1960 onwards, with what could be a temporary uptick from 2002-2006.
Smokey
Do pay attention. I said C not F – also your timescale is wrong and your choice of scenario is very wrong. Other than that… not bad.
But the evidence is available for anyone interested in what more recent models and scenarios projected. The projections from the IPCC TAR are here
Scenario A1F1 is probably the closest to what actually happened, emisssions-wise, for which the projection was +0.32C from 1990-2010. I leave the comparison with the observed change to you …. 😉
Question is, has Hansen et.al. learned anything since that hearing in 1988?
Yes.
They’ve learned to make their projections/predictions to a time farther away.
The farther out in time their projection is, the better. And they can say “it’s for the grandchildren”.
As it should be – because as their policies come into effect, future generations may need some laughter to ease their misery.
Phil Clarke says:
March 9, 2012 at 10:23 am
“Just reading to the end of the piece makes it crystal that the reporter was talking in Farenheit. So Hansen’s prediction, if this secondary source is accurate, was out by about 0.5C over the period.”
Then @12:40 pm Phil Clarke says:
“Do pay attention. I said C not F – also your timescale is wrong and your choice of scenario is very wrong.”
Yes, you did say °C, my misteak. But the time axis in the chart is correct. And the chart is in °C. I only referred to °F based on your comment referring to the reporter. And the choice of Scenario A is correct: “CO2 emissions as actually occurred.”
Other than that… not bad.
Why is everybody down on Jim, the true scientist? …….Forecast heat is missing?
This is not true: Jim found out as you all know that the missing heat is only
hiding “”in the pipeline””” and cannot be seen by you blind skeptics……
Predicted heat is not missing at all….. you must all be crazy…JS
Maybe beef is on the menu is his jail cell.
Jim Petrie says:
Temperature changes, i.e., differences, which are what are being talked about here are the same whether measure in degrees Celsius or Kelvin. I.e., a temperature rise of 2 deg C is also a temperature rise of 2 K.
In fact, it is so much built into the system that climate scientists have generally chosen to consider the temperature response due to this “negative feedback” to be the reference (“zeroth-order”) response and then talk about positive or negative feedbacks from there. So, in other words, because the heat loss to space increases by the fourth power of temperature, a 4 W/m^2 increase in forcing (due to doubling CO2 levels, for example) will lead to an ~1.2 K increase in temperature, all else being equal.
Then, the question becomes how this 1.2 K value changes once we consider other things…ice-albedo feedback, water vapor feedback, cloud feedback, etc. When climate scientists talk of the feedbacks being positive, they mean that this 1.2 K value ends up higher once these other feedbacks are considered. If it makes you happier, whenever you hear a climate scientist say that he thinks the net feedbacks are positive, you could replace this with the statement that he thinks that the net feedbacks other than the feedback due to the Stefan-Boltzmann Equation are positive. Any scientist who is believes that the climate sensitivity due to doubling CO2 is less than infinity believes that the net feedbacks are negative if you call the S-B Equation a feedback.
Basically, you have called such people liars because you have misunderstood what they are saying. Nobody is claiming that the net feedbacks are positive if you call the Stefan-Boltzmann response a feedback. They are claiming that the net feedbacks are positive if you consider the S-B response to be the zeroth-order effect. It is simply a matter of terminology…and either way leads to the same result.
Not very often, actually, but that’s another story.
Beef?? BAH! More like “pink slime” from the usual bunch!
http://www.chicagotribune.com/sns-rt-food-meatschoolsl2e8ea00h-20120309,0,96561.story
Kadaka again
Hi Kadaka.
I don’t think it is pedantic looking at temperature in terms of kelvins. The Y axis starts way down there at 2.7. If you use centigrade or Fahrenheit you are just looking at the top of the graph. A rise of 3 degrees C would look quite alarming if you look at the usual kind of plot, but if you include the entire Y axis from 0 kelvin to 300 or so the rise is in fact only around 1%.
And thanks again for furthering my education.
In June 1986, Dr. James Hansen made a prediction to a newspaper reporter in Oxnard, CA of a 2 degree temperature rise by 2006. Did he?
Why does the story start “Washington (AP)”
REPLY: Oh crimony. Are you mentally ill? – Anthony
Classy response Anthony.
The stories in both the Miami News and the Press Courier both refer to Washington as the source and refer to the Committee hearing there. So your claim that Hansen was talking to a reporter in Oxnard, CA is of dubious validity. It’s more likely that the papers are just using an Associated Press story and that the reporter is quoting what Hansen said in the hearing, rather than to the reporter directly.
REPLY: The hearing Hansen is famous for was in 1988, the story was in 1986, about a lesser subcommittee hearing – when you post snark that is unclear on the point, which is your MO here, you get snark back, if you want to be taken seriously, be clear without snark. I don’t much care for snark from people that haven’t the integrity to criticize me personally without using their name.
The AP story wasn’t discovered until later. The statement I made is referencing this:
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/james_hansen_1986-prediction.jpg
But none of that makes any difference, and all you are doing is trying to draw attention away from the fact that there’s no beef to Hansen’s’ 1986 prediction. Where’s the beef? There’s some, but about the size of the patty on “big bun”.
But to be clear, I’ll amend the opening paragraph.- Anthony
Curious sceptics might want to look at what Hansen actually said in the hearing. See here, http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015035756843;page=root;view=1up;size=100;seq=25;orient=0;num=21 Unfortunately page 19 is missing, so we don’t know what the scenarios A and B are in 1986 and what time period they are talking about. He does talk about a doubling of CO2 in the 2020’s which is much higher than we’ve had.
I’m going to guess 20 years which fits in with what they say later. That means they’re talking about 2006. Hansen says that there would be between 1 -1.5°C across most of the USA and Southern Canada. Here’s GISTEMP for 2006: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/do_nmap.py?year_last=2012&month_last=2&sat=4&sst=1&type=anoms&mean_gen=0112&year1=2006&year2=2006&base1=1951&base2=1980&radius=1200&pol=reg
That looks pretty accurate to me.
He also estimates 2-3°C in the regions of the Arctic and Antarctic: looks like he got one right and one wrong.
You might also like to note that he assumes climate sensitivity of 4°C but there’s a bit that didn’t copy that ends “by about a factor of 2”.
Conclusion: Hansen did pretty well in 1986 if you read what he said, not what the press reported.
REPLY: Hmmm, well when you look at the actual NCDC data, before Hansen gets his mitts on it to adjust it and smear it around with 1200km smoothing, it tells a different story. Still no beef. I’ll add that later today – Anthony
The hearing Hansen is famous for was in 1988, the story was in 1986, about a lesser subcommittee hearing – when you post snark that is unclear on the point, which is your MO here, you get snark back, if you want to be taken seriously, be clear without snark. I don’t much care for snark from people that haven’t the integrity to criticize me personally without using their name.
The AP story wasn’t discovered until later. The statement I made is referencing this:
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/james_hansen_1986-prediction.jpg
Whole article here: http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=llJeAAAAIBAJ&sjid=AWENAAAAIBAJ&pg=5501,1378938&dq=james-hansen&hl=en
You have made comments in the comment stream and allowed comments that made it look like Hansen was talking to the reporter. Given that the very first words under the main title show that it was an AP report, you should have been more cautious.
BTW it’s absolutely clear from the date on the stories: June 11 1986 and the content of the first paragraph that it was a 1986 Subcommittee hearing. If you look at the transcript that I posted a link to earlier you will see that the so-called quotes to the reporter are actually taken from the transcript.
Turboblocks:
It is not clear what you are trying to say in your complaints to Anthony and, therefore, I would be grateful if you were to clarify some issues, please.
Assuming you are correct in asserting the quotation from Hansen was taken from his 22 September 1986 submission, then he was speaking to politicians.
Do you agree?
The politicians speak English: they do not speak IPCC-speak and the IPCC Glossary did not yet exist then.
Do you agree?
So, the politicians – like the journalists – could only have understood Hansen’s statement to be a prediction based on his expert understanding and knowledge.
Do you agree?
Assuming you do agree the above three statements, then what he said was (perhaps deliberately) misleading in that he must have known his statement would be understood to be a prediction.
Do you agree?
If his statement is understood to be a prediction then events since then show it was seriously in error.
Do you agree?
The scenario issues are completely irrelevant to this because he must have known his audience would have understood him to have been making a prediction.
Do you agree?
I would appreciate your clarification because, at present, your argument gives the appearance of being an exercise in obfuscation.
Richard
Joel Shore says:
March 9, 2012 at 7:51 pm
“In fact, it is so much built into the system that climate scientists have generally chosen to consider the temperature response due to this “negative feedback” to be the reference (“zeroth-order”) response and then talk about positive or negative feedbacks from there. So, in other words, because the heat loss to space increases by the fourth power of temperature, a 4 W/m^2 increase in forcing (due to doubling CO2 levels, for example) will lead to an ~1.2 K increase in temperature, all else being equal.”
That is so painful to read. That is not how feedback works. When you have feedback, all else is never equal. It’s more or less definitional. Feedback induces a dynamic response.