Nicola Scafetta sent me this paper yesterday, and I read it with interest, but I have a number of reservations about it, not the least of which is that it is partially based on the work of Landscheidt and the whole barycentric thing which gets certain people into shouting matches. Figure 9 looks to be interesting, but note that it is in generic units, not temperature, so has no predictive value by itself.
While that looks like a good hindcast fit to historical warm/cold periods, compare it to figure 7 to see how it comes out.
Now indeed, that looks like a great fit to the Ljungqvist proxy temperature reconstruction, but the question arises about whether we are simply seeing a coincidental cyclic fit or a real effect. I asked Dr. Leif Svalgaard about his views on this paper and he replied with this:
The real test of all this cannot come from the proxies we have because the time scales are too short, but from comparisons with other stellar systems where the effects are calculated to be millions of times stronger [because the planets are huge and MUCH closer to the star]. No correlations have been found so far.
See slide 19 of my AGU presentation:
http://www.leif.org/research/AGU%20Fall%202011%20SH34B-08.pdf
So, it would seem, that if the gravitational barycentric effect posited were real, it should be easily observable with solar systems of much larger masses. Poppenhager and Schmitt can’t seem to find it.
OTOH, we have what appears to be a good fit by Scafetta in Figure 7. So this leaves us with three possibilities
- The effect manifests itself in some other way not yet observed.
- The effect is coincidental but not causative.
- The effect is real, but unproven yet by observations and predictive value.
I’m leaning more towards #2 at this point but willing to examine the predictive value. As Dr. Svalgaard points out in his AGU presentation, others have tried but the fit eventually broke down. From slide 14
P. D. Jose (ApJ, 70, 1965) noted that the Sun’s motion about the Center of Mass of the solar system [the Barycenter] has a period of 178.7 yr and suggested that the sunspot cycles repeat with a similar period. Many later researchers have published variations of this idea. – Unfortunately a ‘phase catastrophe’ is needed every ~8 solar cycles
Hindcasting can be something you can easily setup to fool yourself with if you are not careful, and I’m a bit concerned over the quality of the peer review for this paper as it contains two instances of Scafetta’s signature overuse of exclamation points, something that a careful reviewer would probably not let pass.
Science done carefully rarely merits an exclamation point. Papers written that way sound as if you are shouting down to the reader.
The true test will be the predictive value, as Scafetta has been doing with his recent essays here at WUWT. I’m willing to see how well this pans out, but I’m skeptical of the method until proven by a skillful predictive forecast. Unfortunately it will be awhile before that happens as solar timescales far exceed human lifespan.
Below I present the abstract, plus a link to the full paper provided by Dr. Scafetta.
=============================================================
Multi-scale harmonic model for solar and climate cyclical variation throughout the Holocene based on Jupiter–Saturn tidal frequencies plus the 11-year solar dynamo cycle
ScienceDirect link
Nicola Scafetta, ACRIM (Active Cavity Radiometer Solar Irradiance Monitor Lab) & Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA
Abstract
The Schwabe frequency band of the Zurich sunspot record since 1749 is found to be made of three major cycles with periods of about 9.98, 10.9 and 11.86 years. The side frequencies appear to be closely related to the spring tidal period of Jupiter and Saturn (range between 9.5 and 10.5 years, and median 9.93 years) and to the tidal sidereal period of Jupiter (about 11.86 years). The central cycle may be associated to a quasi-11-year solar dynamo cycle that appears to be approximately synchronized to the average of the two planetary frequencies. A simplified harmonic constituent model based on the above two planetary tidal frequencies and on the exact dates of Jupiter and Saturn planetary tidal phases, plus a theoretically deduced 10.87-year central cycle reveals complex quasi-periodic interference/beat patterns. The major beat periods occur at about 115, 61 and 130 years, plus a quasi-millennial large beat cycle around 983 years. We show that equivalent synchronized cycles are found in cosmogenic records used to reconstruct solar activity and in proxy climate records throughout the Holocene (last 12,000 years) up to now. The quasi-secular beat oscillations hindcast reasonably well the known prolonged periods of low solar activity during the last millennium such as the Oort, Wolf, Spörer, Maunder and Dalton minima, as well as the 17 115-year long oscillations found in a detailed temperature reconstruction of the Northern Hemisphere covering the last 2000 years. The millennial three-frequency beat cycle hindcasts equivalent solar and climate cycles for 12,000 years. Finally, the harmonic model herein proposed reconstructs the prolonged solar minima that occurred during 1900–1920 and 1960–1980 and the secular solar maxima around 1870–1890, 1940–1950 and 1995–2005 and a secular upward trending during the 20th century: this modulated trending agrees well with some solar proxy model, with the ACRIM TSI satellite composite and with the global surface temperature modulation since 1850. The model forecasts a new prolonged solar minimum during 2020–2045, which would be produced by the minima of both the 61 and 115-year reconstructed cycles. Finally, the model predicts that during low solar activity periods, the solar cycle length tends to be longer, as some researchers have claimed. These results clearly indicate that both solar and climate oscillations are linked to planetary motion and, furthermore, their timing can be reasonably hindcast and forecast for decades, centuries and millennia. The demonstrated geometrical synchronicity between solar and climate data patterns with the proposed solar/planetary harmonic model rebuts a major critique (by Smythe and Eddy, 1977) of the theory of planetary tidal influence on the Sun. Other qualitative discussions are added about the plausibility of a planetary influence on solar activity.
Link to paper: Scafetta_JStides
UPDATE 3/22/2012 – 1:15PM Dr. Scafetta responds in comments:
About the initial comment from Antony above,I believe that there are he might have misunderstood some part of the paper.
1)
I am not arguing from the barycentric point of view, which is false. In the paper I am talking
about tidal dynamics, a quite different approach. My argument
is based on the finding of my figure 2 and 3 that reveal the sunspot record
as made of three cycles (two tidal frequencies, on the side, plus a central
dynamo cycle). Then the model was developed and its hindcast
tests were discissed in the paper, etc.
{from Anthony – Note these references in your paper: Landscheidt, T.,1988.Solar rotation,impulses of the torque in sun’s motion, and
climate change. Climatic Change12,265–295.
Landscheidt, T.,1999.Extrema in sunspot cycle linked toSun’s motion. Solar
Physics 189,415–426.}
2)
There are numerous misconceptions since the beginning such as “Figure 9 looks to be interesting, but note that it is in generic units, not temperature, so has no predictive value by itself.”
It is a hindcast and prediction. There is no need to use specific units, but only dynamics. The units are interpreted correctly in the text of the paper as being approximately W/m^2 and as I say in the caption of the figure “However, the bottom curve approximately reproduces the patterns observed in the proxy solar models depicted in Fig. 5. The latter record may be considered as a realistic, although schematic, representation of solar dynamics.”
{from Anthony – if it isn’t using units of temperature, I fail to see how it can be of predictive value, there is not even any reference to warmer/cooler}
3) About Leif’s comments. It is important to realize that Solar physics is not “settled” physics. People do not even understand why the sun has a 11-year cycle (which is between the 10 and 12 year J/S tidal frequencies, as explained in my paper).
4)
The only argument advanced by Leif against my paper is that the phenomenon is his opinion was not observed in other stars. This is hardly surprising. We do not have accurate nor long records about other stars!
Moreover we need to observe the right thing, for example, even if you have a large planet very close to a star, the observable effect is associated to many things: how eccentric the orbits are and how big the star is, and its composition etc. Stars have a huge inertia to tidal effects and even if you have a planet large and close enough to the star to produce a theoretical 4,000,000 larger tidal effect, it does not means that the response from the star must be linear! Even simple elastic systems may be quite sensitive to small perturbations but become extremely rigid to large and rapid perturbations, etc.
It is evident that any study on planetary influence on a star needs to start from the sun, and then eventually extended to other star systems, but probably we need to wait several decades before having sufficiently long records about other stars!
In the case of the sun I needed at least a 200 year long sunspot record to
detect the three Schwabe cycles, and at least 1000 years of data for
hindcast tests to check the other frequencies. People can do the math for how long we need to wait for the other stars before having long enogh records.
Moreover, I believe that many readers have a typical misconception of physics.
In science a model has a physical basis when it is based on the observations
and the data and it is able to reconstruct, hindcast and/or forecast them.
It is evident to everybody reading my paper with an open mind that under the scientific
method, the model I proposed is “physically based” because I am
describing and reconstructing the dynamical properties of the data and I
showed that the model is able to hindcast millennia long data records.
Nobody even came close to these achievements.
To say otherwise would mean to reject everything in science and physics
because all findings and laws of physics are based on the observations and
the data and are tested on their capability of reconstruct, hindcast and/or
forecast observations, as I did in the paper
Of course, pointing out that I was not solving the problem using for example
plasma physics or quantum mechanics or whatever else. But this is a complex
exercise that needs its own time. As I correctly say in the paper.
“Further research should address the physical mechanisms necessary to
integrate planetary tides and solar dynamo physics for a more physically
based model.”
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Scafetta,
Let me explain if I got the case correctly; All discussion about is to define and fix a formula about the cycle time and period for over heating the Earth by the Sun.
Now let’s make a model on trial & error and take X years the cycle time and proceed. Why you stop at this point, parallel to theory makings, let’s try which one of the models are more complying with the existing climate realities on the Earth. This would help you to find out 9.8-10.9-60 years the period or whatever would be more realistic. You should not forget the destination.
agfosterjr says: March 26, 2012 at 12:59 pm
“Solid correlation is not to be dismissed for lack of a causal mechanism.”
you got the point! Bravo!
Usually only those who understand that point are able to discover something. Of course, sometimes they may be in error. But the fact remains that only those who understand the above point do discoveries. Those who do not undertand the point just wait that somebody else does the discovery.
Bart says: March 25, 2012 at 3:20 pm
“Such quasi-cyclical behavior could easily be the effect of a resonance in the Earth’s ocean/land/atmospheric system. I think Dr. Scafetta is right about the Earth’s near term climate future, but for the wrong reasons, and I look forward to seeing how his predictions for the future pan out.”
See, Bard. The problem is that not only the harmonics of the climate match the astronomical harmonics in their frequencies, but even the phases are in good agreement. If you look careful at my figures, you can see hindcast test going back for several millennia and everything appears to match quite well (by taking into account the simplicity of my proposed model and the fact that the proxy data are not perfects).
TI believe that this result is very important although no everybody may understand it.
Of course everything can also be a coincidence. But in physics, contrary to what some individual thinks, we are not looking at the absolute inner truth of the things, but at how they appear to our experience and analysis. This is true for everything. Essentially all science is made of correlations.
Nicola Scafetta says:
March 26, 2012 at 8:02 pm
Well, I took the time to mull this over more thoroughly, and now I am not so sure that the tidal effects are negligible. Yes, the tidal acceleration due to Jupiter across the diameter of the Sun is about 3000 times less than the tidal acceleration of the Moon across the Earth. But, Earth’s ocean tides are significant, and that is water, which is almost seven orders of magnitude more dense than the gases of the photosphere, and significantly more viscous as well. And, while the Sun’s gravitational pull at the photosphere is about 28 times greater than the Earth’s pull at the surface, the ocean tides are diurnal, whereas the Sun rotates at an average of roughly once a month, so there is greater time for the tidal force to exert full effect.
I do not know, Nicola. This is venturing outside the realm of things I have spent much time studying. I may have spoken hastily, and I need to take more time to consider the problem.
Leif Svalgaard,
The note that I was assuming Newton’s third law applied in the interest of disclosure since so much is different in GR, and not be be “flippant”. Jupiter I had as a factor of 2 more significant than Mercury, scaling as the tidal effects. The 2 orders of magnitude came from if the effects were ended up in the 2% of the solar mass that is in the convective zone.
I’m not thinking of barycentre, but of GR quadrupole, angular momentum and tidal effects, allowing Jupiter to directly couple to the mass currents in the solar dynamo, or indirectly perturb the dynamic through its general accumulative torquing of its extended convective zone (extended in the extended body sense). The barycentre weights the outer planets higher. Jupiter is central to both, however. The free paths/free fall in GR are for points, co-located points in extended bodies want to take different paths, since they are coupled (in extended bodies) there are torques.
I’m not sure your cites on GR vis’a’vis the Newton’s third law are on point. In GR even orbiting bodies are just mass currents, as are the solar equatorial bulge and any mass flows within the sun. It is all more dynamic with gravity no longer instantaneous. But as I disclosed, I’m not sure the 3rd law holds for all these GR effects. I’ll have to look back over my references, but I suspect it is still a good assumption for the quadrupole moment. The solar equatorial bulge and other mass currents are asymmetrically within the fields of the planets, particularly the inner 4.
Martin Lewitt says:
March 27, 2012 at 1:59 am
I’m not thinking of barycentre, but of GR quadrupole, angular momentum and tidal effects,
There is no way you can isolate angular momentum from the barycentre. Two peas in a pod.
@ur momisugly Peter Kovachev
I suspect we are now very far OT and should take this conversation offline. There may be a delay before I email you as I am falling ill and I may end up back in hospital later today. Hopefully not.
@ur momisugly Nicola
Regarding your comment:
It is also true that not all correlations are scientific. That said, I experienced the scorn of mainstream authority some years ago when I was conducting some experiments on plant growth under the influence of seaweed (kelp) extract. This material had a greater effect at high dilution that decreased with increasing concentration and everybody knows that “dose makes the poison”. There were two observed effects: stimulated plant growth and increased disease resistance, though these were rarely observed at the same time. Additionally I was told that foliar feeding with the material could not possibly have any effect “because plant leaves cannot absorb large molecules”.
Some Dutch researchers discovered the causal mechanism behind my observations. Spring harvested kelp had high levels of auxins, plant hormones involved in cell elongation. Autumn harvested kelp had high levels of the plant hormone abscissic acid, the hormone responsible for leaf fall in deciduous trees. Hormones only have their effect at particular concentrations, thus explaining the issue of the extract ceasing to have the desired effects when applied at too high a concentration. The differing compositions of the parent materials explained the differing plant responses in different trials. These days seaweed extract is used widely in horticulture rather than only by heretics like the Git.
Good luck with it all Nicola and keep smiling.
@ur momisugly Bart
I am impressed.
I love the phrase “vanishingly small”. Reminds me of the modeled (I say modeled because it actually is not directly measured) uptick in atmospheric fossil fuel CO2 when taken into perspective. Yet they say our planet is going to burn by 2030 or something like that, because of it. And to be clear, they mean that portion of CO2 that is calculated from the burning of fossil fuels. If we were forced to stop putting that part into the atmosphere, we would be cool as cucumbers they say. All because of a vanishingly small portion of CO2 being removed from the atmosphere.
It is a ridiculous argument as is the search for barycenter influences on Earth’s temperature (and that is the ultimate goal here, make no mistake). Vanishingly small variations of this or that are buried in the room filled with a very natural, eating and pooping elephant called Earth. Why are some driven to examine such vanishingly small measurements in such a room? I’m a firm believer in elephant poop. I heard it’s even really good garden fertilizer.
Pompous Git: I’m very sorry to hear that you’re not well and I pray for your speedy recovery. I’m getting over pneumonia myself, which fortunately didn’t require a hospital stay. My website’s down for now, but here’s my email: avbarzel@gmail.com. I know it’s inadvisable to leave contact info on blogs, but I figure the trolls and idiots have gotten bored and have dropped off this page long time ago. I can probably leave my banking passwords here for safekeeping, as it’s just us the wonks here now. I stay offline on the Jewish Sabbaths, between Friday evenings and Saturday nights, but otherwise I’ll keep an eye on messages from you. Write if you’re bored and cellphone pics of pretty nurses are always welcome too. Get better and in shape for the battle fast, Git; this fire-fight requires every swinging dick, as they say in the forces.
Peter Kovachev says:
March 27, 2012 at 10:07 am
“I know it’s inadvisable to leave contact info on blogs, but I figure the trolls and idiots have gotten bored and have dropped off this page long time ago.”
Beware the Bots.
Thanks for the warning, Bart. I knew about bots…in a vague sort of way…but the link finally clarified the mystery. Anyway, the same address is plastered all over my website, http://www.barzel.ca, which is with GoDaddy, but is down now and is being temporarily moved to my server sometime by tonight or tomorrow morning, then back to GoDaddy, hopefully with their email accounts or an email form. Oddly enough, my above gmail address got only two spams in three years. Still, I want to dump that gmail address soon and sever my relationship with Google, as we all should, given how nosy and generous with their info on us they’ve become.
In this thread whether, in climatological terminology, there is a meaningful
difference between the ideas referenced by the terms “prediction” and “projection” has been at issue.Some, including WUWT’s Willis Eschenbach, have weighed in on the position that there is not a difference. Others, including me, have weighted in on the opposing position. In light of this
controversy, I offer the following testimony (
http://nzclimatescience.net/index.php?
option=com_content&task=view&id=57&Itemid=1 ) by Vincent Gray. Dr. Gray is a
veteran IPCC Expert Reviewer.
NZCLIMATE & ENVIRO TRUTH NO 150
WHEN IS A “PREDICTION” NOT A PREDICTION?
JULY 1ST 2007
Alice Lives
But “glory” doesn’t mean “a nice knockdown argument” Alice objected.
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpy said, in rather a scornful tone. “it means
just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less”
“The question is” said Alice, whether you can make words mean so many
different things” “The question is” said Humpty Dumpy, “which is to be the master — that’s
all”
When I was at school I had a book called “Clear Thinking” which sought to argue that we should use words that have precise meanings. It included a number of passages showing how politicians are experts in using words which sound impressive, but have no meaning whatsoever. Many of the illustrative passages were from speeches made by the then British Prime Minister, James Ramsay McDonald.
The environmental movement is a supreme example of how a whole series of words can be invented which superficially seem beneficial, but which can be used to conceal the main overall objective of the movement which is to harm human activity.
“The environment” What is it, where is it, what are its boundaries? All these are decided any way that they wish by anybody who call him/herself an “environmentalist”, to persuade us to take harmful decisions.
The term has a long history. It is a new form of “Nature”, which is supposed to exist separately from humans, and to be somehow, superior. Anything that is “natural” is preferable to anything that is “artificial”. Darwin himself fell for this when he attempted to distinguish between “natural” and “artificial” selection.
The political term is “conservative”. The richest people in all human societies want to maintain their privileges so they argue than any change is bad; particularly any change which interferes with their income. “Conservation” is a similar term. Not only must we conserve the incomes and
privileges of the rich, but we must conserve the superior “natural” world.
Ordinary humans do not count, unless they are primitive and backward. “Sustainability” is a recent similar term, used to prevent and frustrate any sort of change. Since it admittedly harms contemporary humans the hypocritical claim is made that we make all these sacrifices “for the sake of future generations”. All past experience show that future generations always have different attitudes, beliefs, and technology, They will not thank us for our foolish sacrifice.
Ernst Haeckel coined the term “ecology” to describe the constantly changing interaction between all organisms. “Environmentalists” have redefined this scientifically correct term to take us back to our medieval ancestors who believed in a static world. They have divided the world into static “ecosystems” which must be maintained permanently in a constant state. No “ecosystem” in the way they think of it actually exists, but who cares?
“Biodiversity” is another environmentalist absurdity. It seeks to claim that there is some sort of moral superiority in actual numbers of “species” present in an “ecosystem”. Unfortunately it is almost impossible to count them all, so that in practice, it tends to refer to those creatures that
are visible to the human eye.
Other organisms have no such qualms. Deciduous trees have devised a cunning system for killing off competitors by shedding poisonous leaves which kill off other plants. With al other organisms, biology is competitive. Only humans are supposed to commit suicide on behalf of the preservation of other organisms.
Then we have the fraud of “endangered” species. There is no record of any one of them ever becoming actually extinct. I tried asking Google for a list of organisms that had recently become extinct. The number was very small, about the same as for the past 400 years.
Darwin devoted his famous book “The Origin of Species” to explain that “species” is only a card index classification category which is decided arbitrarily from the opinions of taxonomists. Environmentalists have restored the concept of Linnaeus that “species” are created by God and are unchanging; or at least must be prevented from changing.
Darwin’s work presented a real challenge to taxonomists in trying to classify fossils. They are obsessed with the coming of “speciation” a process that actually takes place in their own minds when they try to decide how much difference is enough for them to take out a new index card.
Nowadays they have the conflict between the amount or importance of genes as opposed to more readily visible characteristics.
“Climate Change” has actually been rigidly defined by an International Treaty as “change of climate by human-produced greenhouse gas emissions”. But this rather inhibits the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which, on the face of it has the sole task of promoting this definition. If they keep to it too rigidly they cannot show that “natural” climate effects can be rubbished, so they change the definition to include “natural” effects, but switch to the other one whenever they feel like it.
The IPCC “Climate Change 1990” was called an “Assessment”. It included a Chapter entitled “Assessment of Climate Models”. Page 1 of the “Executive Summary” of the “Policymakers Summary” had a paragraph headed “Based on current models, we predict:” and under this they give the “Business as Usual” scenario results. These results are thus not just from the results of models, but they include the assumptions of this particular scenario. Even if you think the models might be correct, how can you rely on what is no more than guesswork about the future–100 years ahead?
Later they confessed “There are many uncertainties in our predictions” but they did not give any actual estimates of how high these were. The next paragraph was headed “Our judgment is” So, it is a matter of opinion only.
They also used such terms as “we expect”, “we are confident that” “we conclude” all purely opinions, not scientific evidence. There was no glossary, or definitions in this Report.
The IPCC “Climate Change 1992” said: “Scenarios are not predictions of the future and should not be used as such”It seems that after that they stopped using the word “prediction”.
The IPCC “Climate Change 1994” included an evaluation of emissions scenarios which had the prize quotation: “Since scenarios deal with the future; they cannot be compared to observations”
Since ALL of the IPCC pronouncements incorporate scenarios it means that you
can never find out whether they are correct, In any case they always “predict” or “project” so far ahead that they will enjoy their generous pensions without the danger of somebody checking up on them.
The “Report on Emissions Scenarios (2000)” repeated the definition of “scenario”, but also said:
“Scenarios are images of the future or alternative futures. They are neither predictions nor forecasts”
The IPCC “Climate Change 1995” abolished the use of the term “predictions”.In the “Summary for Policymakers” they even retreated to the utterly ambiguous statement:
“The balance of the evidence suggests a discernible human influence on the climate”. This statement did not even mention greenhouse gases, In this report there was no mention of “predictions” or “projections” Climate Models were “evaluated”, NOT “validated”
The IPCC “Climate Change 2001” also banned the use of the word “prediction”, but they introduced the word “projection” instead. They had, at last, a Glossary”, and they defined “projection” as follows: “Projection (Generic)
A projection is a potential future evolution of a quantity or set of quantities, often computed with the help of a model. Projections aredistinguished from predictions in order to emphasise that projections involve assumptions concerning e.g. future socio-economic and technological
developments that may or may not be realised and are therefore subject to
substantial uncertainty”
This is an IPCC definition. It does not appear in any dictionary, most of which merely regard a “projection” as a “scheme” or a “plan.” This definition, surely, means that any “forecast” of the future which involves assumption of a particular “scenario” as to what might happen,
should not be called a “prediction”
The “Summary for Policymakers” for the IPCC “Climate Change 2007” keeps to this definition. All their “forecasts” are called “projections”: But it is obviously dishonest, as they have ignored that part of their own definition
which says that “projections” are “subject to substantial uncertainty” when
they ascribed 90% probabilities to several “projections” and consider that
some “projections” can be “virtually certain”.
The word “prediction” is creeping back into use. They can obviously change
the meaning of words to suit themselves and the current political
possibilities. The public believe that the IPCC makes “predictions” and I
continue to try and point out that “officially” they say firmly that they do
not.
Terry Oldberg says:
March 27, 2012 at 9:57 pm
Thanks, Terry. In that reference, Dr. Gray quotes the IPCC definition of a “projection”. He says
So yes, the IPCC claims that projections are different, because they depend on assumptions about the future … but of course, predictions and forecasts also depend on assumptions about the future, so what?
What the IPCC calls “projections based on scenarios” have been usually called “conditional forecasts”. These are forecasts of the form “IF A happens, then B will happen. IF C happens, then D will happen.”
My opinion is that the IPCC has tried to sell this bogus definition of “projection” in order to excuse the fact that their forecasts are often not falsifiable, because they don’t want to be responsible for any of them.
Which of course means that their work is not science to the extent that it is not falsifiable.
And that to me is what renders all of your nuances and semantics and idiosyncratic definitions superfluous. I truly don’t care what you call a claim about what will happen tomorrow. Use whatever word you want, it’s a claim (which might include conditions) about what tomorrow will look like, and I’m indifferent to what you call it.
I care only and solely about whether the claim is falsifiable, it is immaterial to me whether you call it a pro-diction or a pre-jection.
If a prediction/projection/forecast is falsifiable, it is a testable and valid scientific statement. If it can’t be falsified because it lacks specificity or time or error bounds, it is not scientific.
The rest is just words.
All the best,
w.
Willis Eschenbach (March 28, 2012 at 12:33 am):
Thanks for taking the time to reply. It sounds as though we agree with the possible exception of some details. One detail is that in order for the predictions of a model to be falsifiable the methodology of the study must reference a statistical population. The methodology of the IPCC’s study of global warming refererences no statistical population. Hence, the IPCC’s models are not falsifiable.
The dictionary definition of a “prediction” or “forecast” is inadequate for the purpose of establishing the requirements for falsifiability because it treats a prediction in isolation of its statistical context. This context is established by a couple of sets. One is the complete set of predictions that are made by the model. The other is the complete set of independent events in the population. The relation from the predictions to the events in the population is one-to-one.
In the case of a predictive model, this model has a set of independent variables and a set of dependent variables. The values of the independent variables become observable at the start-time of an event. The values of the independent variables become observable at the end-time of the same event. As the events are independent and a climatological study is longitudinal, the end-time of one event is the start-time of the next event in the sequence. Thus, the complete set of events is a partition of the time-line.
A “condition” is an example of a state of nature and is a proper subset of the Cartesian product of the values that are taken on by the various independent variables. An “outcome” is also an example of a state of nature and is a proper subset of the Cartesian product of the values that are taken on by the various dependent variables. A “prediction” is an extrapolation from the observed condition of the associated event to the unobserved outcome of this event.
In statistically testing a model one observes a subset of the events in the statistical population; this subset is an example of a “sample.” One compares the predicted to the observed relative frequencies of the various outcomes. Ignoring the complication of sampling error, the model is falsified if the relative frequencies do not match with respect to at least one if the several possible outcomes. The model is “validated” if not falsified.
Years ago, Vincent Gray pointed out to IPCC management that the IPCC climate models could not be validated. The IPCC could have reacted by admitting that the models were insusceptible to being falsified with the consequence that the IPCC’s study was not scientific. However, this is not what IPCC management elected to do. What it did was to maintain the fiction of a scientific methodology and change the statistically meaningful term “validation” to the statistically meaningless term “evaluation.” In an IPCC-style “evaluation,” a set of IPCC-style “projections” of the global average surface temperature is compared to a global surface temperature time series.
The term “prediction” sounds like the term “projection” and the term “evaluation” sounds like the term “validation.” Also, the ambiguity of reference of the dictionary definitions of these two word pairs fosters conflation of the ideas that are referenced by them. Both phenomena foster a false belief in the proposition that the IPCC’s models were falsifiable and thus that the methodology of the IPCC’s study was scientific when it wasn’t.
Geoff Sharp says:
March 27, 2012 at 5:49 am
There is no way you can isolate angular momentum from the barycentre. Two peas in a pod.
;———————
Sure you can.
Just calculate the center of mass and the total angular momentum of the center of mass.
You just need to realize angular momentum is a vector (actually it’s a pseudo vector.)
Leif Svalgaard says:
March 26, 2012 at 2:18 pm
‘Gravity waves’? the Sun is extremely stiff, gravity waves have periods of hours.
;—————–
I’m assuming by gravity waves people mean buoyancy and not the ripple of spacetime.
What is the Reynolds number for the Sun?
Leif Svalgaard says:
March 24, 2012 at 6:16 am
The numerology never stops. How about the height of the Cheops pyramid being one billionth of the distance to the Sun.
;———————————
“The problem of the source of a star’s energy will be considered; by a process of exhaustion we are driven to conclude that the only possible source of a star’s energy is subatomic; yet it must be confessed that the hypothesis shows little disposition to accommodate itself to the detailed requirements of observation, and a critic might count up a large number of ‘fatal’ objections.”
A. Eddington, The Internal Constitution of the Stars.
Terry Oldberg says:
March 27, 2012 at 9:57 pm
…
Terry, a comment which I would hope you will take in a positive sense.
I didn’t finish reading the last thing you posted. It was far too long, and again I found myself lost as to what point you were trying to make. So I bailed out about a quarter of the way through.
Let me suggest that you seriously need to boil your ideas down to the key essential points. Because no matter how good your prose might be, if I’m giving up and not reading it, your effort is wasted. I, like many people, have much more information coming in than I can process. Every one of my posts attracts usually hundreds of comments. This post of Dr. Scafettas is over 500 comments already. So everyone uses some kind of triage to decide what to read, because I and other folks may not have time to read your three vertical feet of text.
Let me emphasize that I am as subject to this constraint as you are. People have a short attention span. I have to write to fit that.
To explain what I mean, let me digress a bit, and talk about playing music.
I’ve made my living at various times playing music. And when I started, I had the idea that if the audience didn’t like my work, it just showed that their musical taste wasn’t all that good.
But then I realized that I was looking at it backwards. My job was to entertain, not to play the music as I thought it ought to be played. I found that blaming the audience for a poor reception was total nonsense. So I started singing what entertained the audience.
It didn’t mean that I wasn’t free to play the songs I wanted to play. It didn’t mean I couldn’t get my musical or even political message across. It merely meant that I had sing in such a way that would catch my audience’s interest, that would get their toes tapping, that would leave them clapping. That was the first thing, to involve them and entertain them, and once I had their interest, I could do pretty much whatever I wanted.
The same thing is true of my writing. I have to write to entertain as much as I do to communicate, to investigate, or to educate. It doesn’t stop me from getting my ideas across, it just means that I can’t drone on and on. I have to be interesting, I have to be clear, I have to be concise, or I’ll lose my readers. There’s miles of text on the web to attract them, I have to hold their interest …
An exercise that is valuable for me is to put my ideas into the form of a standard “five paragraph essay”. The first paragraph lays out the main thesis, along with the three principle ideas or reasons that support my main thesis.
The next three paragraphs explain, one by one, the three supporting ideas or reasons.
The final paragraph pulls it all together and ties it back to the main thesis.
The other exercise I do is the “elevator speech”. The situation is this—some person who could give you immense support in your work gets in the elevator on the ground floor with you. You realize that you have the length of the elevator ride to explain your brilliant idea in such a way that the person gets it and offers their support.
What do you say?
The elevator speech requires that you severely boil your ideas down until only the core remains. It requires that you cut out every extraneous or useless word. You have a few short paragraphs to explain your idea so the other person grasps the essentials of your idea.
I do these exercises myself, to clarify my own thinking about the given issues as much as to make a compelling narrative.
My best to you,
w.
Leif Svalgaard says:
March 24, 2012 at 7:12 pm
There are hundreds of papers that have gone there since Kepler…
;—————–
And we’ve learned to think of the mean Keplarian ellipse as a set of excitable eccentricities driven by resonances.
Leif Svalgaard says:
March 26, 2012 at 10:35 am
Douglas Gough [one of the leading experts on solar circulation and dynamics] had commented on W&P
You might enjoy one of Gough’s recent papers: http://arxiv.org/pdf/0905.4924v1.pdf
Well the arxiv paper is a good deal more readable (and interesting) than the garbled mess of his W&P comments, which start with an ad hom “fairy tales” before an admission that he didn’t read more than the first few pages of their paper.
Why do you waste my time with this? Neither you nor he display any understanding of the Wolff-Patrone mechanism whatsoever. No wonder you both shied away from trying to get any half baked ‘rebuttal’ published.
The Arxiv paper was of interest though so thanks for that. It clearly shows what a primitive stage of understanding we are at with respect to th Sun. So I’ll be laughing harder at further assurances that the mainstream “fairy tale” of how the Sun works is well defined and correct.
Agile Aspect,
What I had in mind with gravity waves, is some effect in the sun, analogous to the QBO (quasi-biennial oscillation) in the climate system on earth.
“Gravity Waves in the Sun”
http://www.es.ucsc.edu/~glatz/pub/rogers_glatzmaier_mnras_2005.pdf
Willis Eschenbach (March 27, 2012 at 9:57 pm):
Thanks for sharing your ideas. Your recommendation for construction of an elevator speech is a good one. In conjunction with an attempt at starting a business, I’ve worked hard over a period of 5 years at constructing one but without success in reaching the intended audience.
The topic is logic. The deductive logic is relatively simple but in the construction of a model one also needs the inductive logic and this turns out to be mathematically complicated. Publication of logically flawed arguments is accepted practice in the scientific journals and within the agencies that fund research leaving researchers without incentive toward mastering a difficult subject.
Terry Oldberg says:
March 28, 2012 at 12:24 pm
Thanks for your thoughts, Terry. We agree that the central issue is falsifiability.
However, you say “… in order for the predictions of a model to be falsifiable the methodology of the study must reference a statistical population.”
Now, I’m a pretty smart guy. But that one baffles me. First, I’m not clear on the connection between the model and the “study”. What is the study?
More to the point, suppose the model says I’ll make a hundred bucks ± twenty bucks by the end of tomorrow. That model forecast is clearly falsifiable (and far too often falsified, but that’s another issue).
But where is the “statistical population” for my model? What would be the “study” that “must reference a statistical population”? And why must the study reference anything at all? It seems to me that whether a model is falsifiable must be determined by the particular type and characteristics of the output of the model. You look at the model output, and you look at the actual outcome.
To be falsifiable, it seems to me that very little is required. Any falsifiable forecast must involve a variable whose future value is not known, and a predicted range for that variable on a particular future date. If I have that and the actual outcome that’s all I need—which doesn’t include any “statistical population”.
For example, if a given climate model says the global surface air temperature (for specificity we’ll agree to use UAH MSU T2LT) will be higher by 2° ± -.2°C in the year 2050, what more is necessary?
If the temperature rises 1°C by 2050, the forecast is falsified. If it rises 1.9°C, the forecast is validated. Why do I need a “statistical population”?
What am I missing here?
w.
Willis Eschenbach (March 28, 2012 at 2:36 pm):
Good questions! In responding, for brevity I’ll reference a model whose job is to predict whether in 24 hours, the state of some system will be B or NOT B given that the current state of the same system is A or NOT A. A and NOT A are examples of “conditions.” B and NOT B are examples of “outcomes.” An “event” takes place when the condition (either A or NOT A) is observed, there is a time delay of 24 hours and then the outcome (either B or NOT B) becomes available for observation. If the outcome and condition are both observed, the associated event is said to be “observed.” Note that an event can be observed only after a 24 hour time delay.
A predictive model makes a conditional prediction. My model makes a conditional prediction that is the pair of propositions “A implies B” and “NOT A implies NOT B.” This conditional prediction references the set of events to which the model’s conditional prediction is claimed to apply. This set is an example of a “statistical population.” In testing the model, a subset of the events in the sample are observed and the predicted are compared to the observed outcomes. This subset is an example of a “sample.” If there is not a population, there is not a sample and the model cannot be tested.
In the second of your examples, you make a start on defining the single event that ends in 2050 but don’t complete this definition. It sounds as though one of the outcome possibilities for this event is that the temperature has risen by 2° ± -.2°C by comparison to a referenced temperature; you do not specify the referenced temperature. You specify none of the remaining outcome possibilities and none of the condition possibilities. You do not specify the duration of the event. You provide no details on any of the remaining events in your population.
By the way, “study” is trade jargon for “research project .” A study has a “methodology,” one possibility for which is the so-called “scientific method.” Under the scientific method, claims made by the model are falsifiable necessitating the description of the associated statistical population.
Terry Oldberg says:
March 28, 2012 at 1:32 pm
I’m shocked, I tell you …
In any case, the amount I don’t know about statistics far exceeds what I do know.
I know enough to know that that neither the average and range of a number of runs of a given model, nor the average and range of an “ensemble” of models, can be assumed to adequately explore the dynamical state-space of the real world.
All the best,
w.
PS—Again in the intention that it be taken as an appreciative inquiry, let me comment on the web page that comes up when I click on your name. One man’s opinions. It starts out:
First thing that hits my eye is “Offerings”. This is a word with strong religious overtones.
Next, “KnowledgeToTheMax”?? I know of no way to say this nicely. That’s a terrible name.
A name needs to embody the core vision of your ideas. It should express power, fluidity, strength, flexibility, speed, that kind of thing. What you have there is none of those. It is a boast.
Next, don’t put a list up of who the message “targets”. “Targets” sounds like spin. But that’s not the main issue. A list like that can only turn people off … particularly if they’re not listed, and sometimes if they are. There’s no upside to the paragraph, it won’t increase your readership, it can only reduce the number of folks willing to read on.
You go on to say:
Honestly? That’s right where I’d stop reading. First, nothing is ever “completed”, there’s always more unknown.
Second, if it has indeed “completed logic”, you are the very last man who should mention that. Instead, you should wait for the acclaim, for the logicians to come and ask for your secrets. Wait for them to hail you now that knowledge is completed. And when they do, you say “Aw, shucks, it wasn’t all that much, actually, but thanks.”
But claiming it yourself? For me, that’s just boasting, and it’s one pretty sure sign of a SIF, a “single issue fanatic”. I move on at that point.
You continue:
“Maximum possible knowledge …” that makes me very uneasy …
Let me pass on a bit of wisdom I was fortunate enough to learn early on:
Every all-inclusive statement is false.
Yes, I know … that’s an all-inclusive statement, so the gears strip, but it’s still true.
You should say “creates an increased amount of knowledge”. You have no way of possibly knowing that you’ve achieved the maximum. That’s like saying “the AGW supporters believe …”, which also doesn’t work. I can say “some AGW supporters believe”, but not “all AGW supporters believe”
The other problem is, when I read “maximum possible knowledge”, it comes across as boasting.
All I can say is, once I got that far in reading your web site, I’d have stopped reading long before that …
(Yeah, yeah, I know, that doesn’t make sense either, but it reads well, don’t you think?)
Anyhow … that’s one man’s opinion.
w.
Willis Eschenbach (March 27, 2012 at 9:57 pm):
Thanks for sharing your unvarnished impression of my sales pitch! I get too little of that.
Terry