Note: Short term predictions are relatively easy, it remains to be seen if this holds up over the long term. I have my doubts. – Anthony
Guest post by Frank Lemke
The Global Warming Prediction Project is an impartial, transparent, and independent project where no public, private or corporate funding is involved. It is about original concepts and results of inductive self-organizing modeling and prediction of global warming and related problems.
In September 2011, we presented a medium-term (79 months) quantitative prediction of monthly global mean temperatures based on an interdependent system model of the atmosphere developed by KnowledgeMiner, which was also discussed at Climate Etc. in October 2011. This model describes a non-linear dynamic system of the atmosphere consisting of 5 major climate drivers: Ozone concentration, aerosols, radiative cloud fraction, and global mean temperature as endogenous variables and sun activity (sunspot numbers) as exogenous variable of the system. This system model was obtained from monthly observation data of the past 33 years (6 variables in total: the 5 variables the system is actually composed of (see above) plus CO2, which, however, has not been identified as relevant system variable), exclusively, by unique self-organizing knowledge extraction technologies.
Now, more than a year has passed, and we can verify what has been predicted relative to the temperatures, which have really been measured (fig. 1).
Verifying the prediction skill of the system model from April 2011 to December 2012, the accuracy of the most likely forecast (solid red line) remains at a high level of 75%, and the accuracy relative to prediction uncertainty (pink area) is an exceptional 98%. Given the noise in the data (presumably incomplete set of system variables considered, noise added during measurement and preprocessing of raw observation data, or random events, for example), this clearly confirms the validity of the system model and its forecast.
In comparison, the IPCC AR4 A1B projection currently shows a prediction accuracy of 23% (September 2007 – December 2012, 64 months) and just 7% accuracy for the same forecast horizon as applied for the system model (April 2011 – December 2012, 21 months).
The two models, IPCC model and atmospheric system model, use two very different modeling approaches: theory-driven vs data-driven modeling. The IPCC model is based essentially on AGW theory by emission of greenhouse gases, namely CO2, the presented atmospheric system model on the other hand is a CO2-free prediction model. It is described by 5 other variables. The IPCC model shows a prediction accuracy of 7% and the atmospheric system model an accuracy of 75% for the same most recent 21 months of time…
The climate system is a complex system that consists of a number of variables, which are connected interdependently, nonlinearly and dynamically and where it is not clear, which are the causes and which are the effects. The simplistic linear cause-effect relationship “more atmospheric CO2 = higher temperatures” the IPCC model is based on is not an adequate tool to describe the complexity of the atmosphere sufficiently.
Read the complete post here:
http://climateprediction.eu/cc/Main/Entries/2013/1/21_What_Drives_Global_Warming_-_Update.html
How does it “predict” the response to El Nino in 1998? And I find this confusing:
So you use global mean temperature to predict global mean temperature? How does that work, exactly?
“no public, private or corporate funding is involved”
How do they manage that? Who pays the electric bills, etc.? I’d sure love to see how that works. 🙂
“is a CO2-free prediction model” – OMG. Really? Wow. And they got 75% instead of 7% …..
Go figure. It will be very interesting to see if this approach works over decades. I would love to see it expanded so others could re-weight variables and add their own to publicly make predictions.
Sunspot numbers? Why? And I am serious. Why? What algorithm do you use for sunspot numbers? And what is that algorithm based on mechanistically (not correlationally)?
Betting on weather= tomorrow will be mostly similar to today
Betting on climate= the present decade’s average anomaly will be next decade’s average anomaly.
/Bet
WAG= for the next 20 years the average anomaly will be 0.5C
/Sarc
/Fey
😉
bye-bye carbon di
crosspatsch says:
“So you use global mean temperature to predict global mean temperature? How does that work, exactly?”
Presumably lagged actual temperature as a partial vector autoregression (VAR). There’s bound to be persistence in the system.
It’s kind of like using parasitic drag as the main determinant of speed and ETs for a dragster. Though in theory it makes a difference, adding another layer of wax isn’t the solution to your low ETs.
“unique self-organizing knowledge extraction technologies.”
What the hell? You mean a Neural Network, don’t you? Why not just say it? Why use this stupid jargon?
So you use global mean temperature to predict global mean temperature? How does that work, exactly?
The BUT (Business as Usual) theory to date is the most accurate way of predicting next year’s temperatures – same as last year.
However this makes me suspicious too. I once made a horrible mistake in a merchant banking model, in which I accidentally incorporated previous model results into the new run. This slipped through testing, because the inclusion of previous data masked problems with the rest of the model.
Once the mistake was corrected, the rest of the model went wild – very embarrassing.
So I’m very suspicious of any system which places a heavy reliance on previous values. Yes it might and probably is necessary when predicting global temperature, but my experience shows such inclusion could also easily mask problems with the model, at least in the short term.
At the very least I would expect inclusion of previous temperatures to lead to a cumulative error – any slight mistake in predicting this years temperature would create an even larger mistake in predicting next year’s temperature, which over a few iterations would render the model prediction worthless.
How well does that work out in the last eight observations shown in the graphic? Prediction is for a downward trend, observations are an upward trend and then suddenly out of nowhere a massive reversal. I dunno, Color me skeptical.
IMHO. The temperature lag is probably a function of ENSO and creates the greater influence on prediction. It has been definitively demonstrated that sunspot numbers correlated with temperature is not robust, not reliable, and not valid. But the dang things have legs as much as CO2 does. Which is equally not robust, not reliable, and not valid.
The modeler that gets it right will use ENSO patterns of oceanic circulation and SST (a much slower lagged effect) with a variables related to other atmospheric circulation patterns that come and go (more immediate effects), that kick in after a certain value is reached (IE beyond neutral). Multiple scenarios will demonstrate these long and short term teleconnections, meaning that given an ENSO condition, depending on whether or not a shorter term atmospheric pattern kicks in, the temperatures will be thus.
Somehow I met that site a few months ago. Interesting approach indeed, but it’s not more than yet another extrapolated regression. Sophisticated and slightly obscure regression but still just a regression. There’s no guarantee the relations their self-organizing prediction machine established are real. They may be, or they may be just artifact of the method.
Data-driven models are good exercises to go through when analyzing a complex, dynamic, non-linear system. But nothing is theory-free, other than simple vector autoregression. Choosing the 6 variables, for example, had to be based on theory. And simple predictive skill doesn’t tell you much, except as something to compare the perfomance of a theory-based structural model with. The coefficients that emerge should be meaningful, and simulations should be used to test for things like stability and results that make sense given what we know about natural processes. What was it von Neumann said? “With four parameters I can fit an elephant and with five I can make him wiggle his trunk.”
Eric Worrall says:
January 24, 2013 at 1:32 pm
“The BUT (Business as Usual) theory to date is the most accurate way of predicting next year’s temperatures – same as last year.
However this makes me suspicious too. I once made a horrible mistake in a merchant banking model, in which I accidentally incorporated previous model results into the new run. This slipped through testing, because the inclusion of previous data masked problems with the rest of the model.”
You had state leftover from a PREVIOUS run. (Forgot to clear all variables, I guess)
In the kind of time series extrapolation this model uses, you “look back” to the time series so far – of THIS model run. Which is legit.
Still, I’m not convinced it’ll have predictive skill for climate. Climate is the 30 year mean, in other words, low frequency component. The validation period is too short to tell us much about the low frequency component.
I’m using models of this kind for “next day” trading decisions, so my models have to guess the next day right, in a way. And are trained on a history of a thousand days ATM. I wouldn’t trust these models to look far into the future. It’s a probabilistic guess at best.
But if you need to… well I would say if you want to look 30 years into the future the smartest thing would be to train the model on a history of a thousand consecutive real 30 year intervals of climate.
Knowledge Miner is nice software, but it would be nice to read a complete description of how it was implemented in this case. A bunch of us wrote the same thing about neural networks just a short time ago. Nothing is “self organizing” here: the modelers made choices such as what data to input to the algorithms.
It is good to see the model forecast tested against new data.
“The Global Warming Prediction Project is an impartial, transparent, and independent project”? From the name of the project alone, you know that none of those adjectives applies.
The above prediction is quite similar (if you take off the fast fluctuation) to my prediction published in 2010 and later in 2012 papers.
e.g.
Scafetta N., 2012. Testing an astronomically based decadal-scale empirical harmonic climate model versus the IPCC (2007) general circulation climate models. Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics 80, 124-137.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364682611003385
Scafetta N., 2010. Empirical evidence for a celestial origin of the climate oscillations and its implications. Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics 72, 951-970.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364682610001495
see here for the latest update of the prediction (since 2000) which agrees great with the data:
http://people.duke.edu/~ns2002/#astronomical_model_1
for example the model predicts a peak in 2015 as mine.
The only problem with the above figure in the post is that it seems that the latest temperature dot for Dec/2012 is located at Jan/2012.
Has the model been used to make “hind-casts”? If so were they accurate? If not will hind-casting be attempted?
This climate forecast model is a real travesty.
Plus it got me thinking.
How will alarmists cope if warming never returns for the rest of their lives?
A few more years of the same will be bad for them. 6, 7 or 8 will be painful.
But 10, 20 or 30 years of a non-warming planet will be catastrophic for their funny little fictitious world.
I sure hope they cry us a river.
Let us assume that they have correctly identified the most significant variables (which do not include CO2 – IPCC and alarmists please note) and can get a good correlation for past data. The problem is still predicting the values of those variables. Maybe they can use models to predict the variables they are using in the model to predict climate. Of course then they will have other variables to predict, which will mean other models to predict the variables they need for the models to predict the variables they need to predict the variables they need to predict the climate. Then they will need models … ad infinitim …
The neural net was fit to 33 years and 3 sunspot cycles. ‘Out of range’ accuracy was “good”, but only for 21 months, less than 2 years. Given the predictability of the seasons (winter is colder then summer), the time series autocorrelations, and the fact that climate changes very slowly, it is not surprising that a sophisticated data fit did better then first principle physics in GCMs– for a couple of years. But that is useless for multidecadal predictions for all of the known problems inherent in out of range forecasting from data fits. The Arts of Truth used a medically peer reviewed correlation between BMI and Miss America pagent winners to “prove” the winner would show up dead from starvation by 2020. You should believe that about as much as CAGW.
And even if CO2 wasn’t a predictor in this net, it is still “there” in the temperature side of the neural net fit. So says nothing about climate sensitivity, either. An interesting question is whether, had it been explicitly added, the neural net would have given better predictions? One suspects yes, but for the simple reason it’s another variable for the net to massage. I believe it was Von Neuman who said, “give me four variables and I can model an elephant. Give me five, and I can model its trunk.”
I agree with Anthony. Doubtful for the long run. Trivial for the short run.
What temperature sets did they use to calibrate to the past?
If they used GISS or HadCrud, they have serious problems matching any future reality.
neural networks can be very good, the test is to keep adding historical strong data sets to keep validating things.
my suspicion is that it will not predict past the “momentum” of the current data or about 10 years.
love the concept of an agnostic neural network data mining, if that is what they did.
the work is in the data assembly not the processing anymore so funding could be quite modest if you value the required very smart people at enthusiast rates.
YEP says:
January 24, 2013 at 1:18 pm
crosspatsch says:
“So you use global mean temperature to predict global mean temperature? How does that work, exactly?”
Presumably lagged actual temperature as a partial vector autoregression (VAR). There’s bound to be persistence in the system.
But what is the source of that persistence?
I doubt there is much persistence from atmospheric temperatures, that is, the thermal energy in the air.
Otherwise, over the 21 month forecast period we have seen a large difference between summer and winter anomalies, which wasn’t the case for most of the prior period. To get such a good forecast it must be forecasting the summer/winter shift, which raises the question, How well does it hindcast the prior period when this shift was absent?
Eric Worrall says:
January 24, 2013 at 1:32 pm
“At the very least I would expect inclusion of previous temperatures to lead to a cumulative error – any slight mistake in predicting this years temperature would create an even larger mistake in predicting next year’s temperature, which over a few iterations would render the model prediction worthless.”
Is that not the mark of chaos? And are not chaotic systems inherently unpredictable? My scepticism knows no bounds!
Accuracy relative to prediction uncertainty.
I love that line, prediction is hard, we know dick all.
Only 1C error range,at least they’re making predictions and willing to pst them.
If I was looking at an electronic circuit I would say that the model is missing a damping factor (negative feedback) fwiw.
Any suggestions?
Not only are models wrong, they have to be wrong. This has to do with the fantastic scale, complexity and variability of the thing being modelled and the ludicrously narrow, simplistic and static nature of the models (the best ones, that is).
Apart from all that, models are great. Well, that chick who was married to Billy Joel, at least.
To YEP
While I agree with the whole “anti-variable” argument. As long as these guys aren’t asking for money/holding us for ransom then i have no problem with them running this train of thought. If they can roughly predict long term weather then frankly doesn’t matter if they have a goat grinding variable…
Some of the issues dealing with short/long term weather and short/long term climate is that we don’t know all the variables currently. If we can roughly make predictions then they maybe about to reverse engineer the true variables from those predictions.
Crosspatch says “So you use global mean temperature to predict global mean temperature? How does that work, exactly?”
Non-linear dynamic equations often take some fraction of the output as input. Its what makes them non-linear and usually chaotic. The real question for how well this model works is in the prediction of changes of state and how close to a cusp we are right now to one of those changes. Not that I want to be around for the next ice age but it would be nice to see if we can put a date range out there for us to worry about.
Finally, an inexpensive climate forecast model that works:-
http://www.cynicaltimes.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/OverviewCoinFlipGreenonBlack.jpg
RELATIVELY … LOL Bench pressing 500 pounds is relatively easy compared to bench pressing 2000 pounds. I can’t do 500 pounds and nobody can do 2000 pounds.
In terms of climate, I’m not bad for five minute forecasts. I guess the definition of the word ‘short’ matters.
Is this weather forecasting or climate forecasting????????? Colder or warmer I am not impressed.
Good noodnight all. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Mr. Layman here.
“Climate” is a study of chaos.
From what I’ve learned here and other places my impression is that the best we can do is identify past climate cycles we’ve gone through, theorize what may have caused them, try to see if what we think may have caused them is happening now and where that might lead us. The problem is that the past climate was as chaotic as our present “climate”. We just don’t know EVERYTHING long past to project in the present what will happen long term.
Think of all those drug commercials in the US. Lots of disclaimers. (Who knew an eye drop might kill you?8-) Sure, they have those disclaimers to legally CYA but they need to CYA because it could happen. Before a drug hits the market it’s been thoroughly tested. But they don’t know everything. The human body is incredibly complex.
“Climate” is incredbly complex.
Me, I’d be happy with an accurate weather forecast 4 days out. I don’t want to bet my kids’ future on a “climate forecast” 100 years out. (No disclaimers.)
Think of all those drug commercials in the US. Lots of disclaimers. (Who knew an eye drop might kill you?8-) Sure, they have those disclaimers to legally CYA but they need to CYA because it could happen. Before a drug hits the market it’s been thoroughly tested. But they don’t know everything. The human body is incredibly complex.
“Climate” is incredbly complex.
###############
yup. that is why it is weird that people think it is safe to geo engineer the planet by dumping C02 in the air.
AndyG55 says:
January 24, 2013 at 2:02 pm
What temperature sets did they use to calibrate to the past?
If they used GISS or HadCrud, they have serious problems matching any future reality.
—————-
Using GISS might be why they can get to only 75%
A more accurate past may give a more accurate prediction.
A little Garbage In will still calculate some level of Garbage Out.
cn
Mean global temperature needs to be carefully defined. How can one be determined with reasonable accuracy when there are such limited and concentrated data stations that omit 70% of the planets surface. Extrapolation with such limited data is unreliable and subject to manipulation.
“So you use global mean temperature to predict global mean temperature? How does that work, exactly?”
I think that what they mean is that global mean temperature is an OUTPUT variable. It sure aint a constant!
@ Steven Mosher says: January 24, 2013 at 3:36 pm
“Climate is incredbly complex ……. that is why it is weird that people think it is safe to geo engineer the planet by dumping C02 in the air.”
It’s only what we all exhale. Who should stop breeding then?
If earth’s climate is driven by chaotic processes – and I’m afraid it is to a large extent – than we will never be able to predict “climate” (= 30 years of future weather). Even if our model was a perfect fit and the model would perfectly mimic chaotic atmospheric behavior, the outcome would be correct only by chance.
Not even an identical second earth at the same place and time would have the same climate when chaotic processes are involved. We’re currently not even sure if major climatic events like ice ages are driven by predictable variables like orbital forcing. Even that coud be chaotic. How can we expect to be able to forecast any short term reversals in cooling or warming trends?
When modeling chaotic processes, you could select the best forecast model today and tomorrow it could still be wrong.
Color me unimpressed.
Steven Mosher says:
January 24, 2013 at 3:36 pm
Think of all those drug commercials in the US. Lots of disclaimers. (Who knew an eye drop might kill you?8-) Sure, they have those disclaimers to legally CYA but they need to CYA because it could happen. Before a drug hits the market it’s been thoroughly tested. But they don’t know everything. The human body is incredibly complex.
“Climate” is incredbly complex.
###############
yup. that is why it is weird that people think it is safe to geo engineer the planet by dumping C02 in the air.
Large quantities of CO2 have been pumped into the atmosphere before by nature to levels far higher than those currently claimed to be tipping points to runaway warming – and the planet cooled. So you can forget your post-normal superstition.
The problem is that variations of ENSO can cause tremendous variation in atmospheric temperature at the surface and ENSO can not be predicted reliably in the future. It is also not cyclical in that you don’t always get an El Nino after a La Nina or vice versa. Having six consecutive El Nino events separated by neutral periods would be just as valid as any other outcome. Rather than using sunspot numbers, I might be more tempted to use something like F10.7 flux running average lagged by some period of time but that gives you some notion of general direction but nothing more than that. ENSO and volcanism can throw your predictions right out of the water and any kind of persistent change (such as a persistent negative NAO) can cause reinforcing feedbacks to those things and, again, make any prediction beyond a few months useless. The LIA onset was pretty quick and there is some evidence that there were some reinforcing feedbacks that kept it that way for a while. Trying to predict those, particularly when things like volcanism are involved can just be silly. The best you can do is something like “if overall conditions remain as they are, we expect the following, but if things change, then there will be changes”. And nobody likes to hear predictions like that.
Steven Mosher says:
January 24, 2013 at 3:36 pm
yup. that is why it is weird that people think it is safe to geo engineer the planet by dumping C02 in the air.
========================
0.0003 to 0.00039 = 0.0001
0.01% of total
Steven Mosher says:
January 24, 2013 at 3:36 pm
Think of all those drug commercials in the US. Lots of disclaimers. (Who knew an eye drop might kill you?8-) Sure, they have those disclaimers to legally CYA but they need to CYA because it could happen. Before a drug hits the market it’s been thoroughly tested. But they don’t know everything. The human body is incredibly complex.
“Climate” is incredbly complex.
###############
yup. that is why it is weird that people think it is safe to geo engineer the planet by dumping C02 in the air.
===========================================================
Or Olvatine in the ocean? 😎
Either way, we don’t know enough. If it wasn’t for the politics involved and the cost in $$ and freedoms that the policitians are after, let the honest scientist continue to … well … observe and apply the scientific method to any hypothsis that may arise from those observations. The Hansens and the Manns haven’t put out any ‘disclaimers’ that said they might be wrong or the consequences if they are. But the Gores and the Obamas are cashing in.
“People think it is safe to geo engineer the planet by dumping C02 in the air.”
People are just living. The only people I’ve heard of that are trying to “geo engineer” anything are those that have picked CO2 out of the chaos that makes “climate” and are trying to limit or remove it because they feel that what Man adds is somehow not “natural”.
I’ve spent a fair amount of time at climateprediction.net and generally I’m impressed. To quote from the home page:
Climateprediction.net is a distributed computing project to produce predictions of the Earth’s climate up to 2100 and to test the accuracy of climate models. To do this, we need people around the world to give us time on their computers – time when they have their computers switched on, but are not using them to their full capacity.
What do we ask you to do?
We need you to run a climate model on your computer. The model will run automatically as a background process on your computer whenever you switch your computer on and it should not affect any other tasks for which you use your computer. As the model runs, you can watch the weather patterns on your, unique, version of the world evolve. The results are sent back to us via the internet, and you will be able to see a summary of your results on this web site. Climateprediction.net uses the same underlying software, BOINC, as many other distributed computing projects and, if you like, you can participate in more than one project at a time.
Why do it?
Climate change, and our response to it, are issues of global importance, affecting food production, water resources, ecosystems, energy demand, insurance costs and much else. Current research suggests that the Earth will probably warm over the coming century; Climateprediction.net should, for the first time, tell us what is most likely to happen.
I don’t see a lot of hysteria going on here.
Bit off-topic – or maybe not?
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com.au/2013/01/new-paper-finds-why-weather-climate.html
Paper is released under Creative Commons:
http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijgp/2012/863792/
I picked up on this as a result of a note I wrote years ago – “internal waves?” – as a result of observing hydraulic flume, high & low flow wind tunnel experiments.
It’s not safe to geo engineer the planet by dumping CO2 in the air. Nor is it unsafe. It’s just too bloody hard. That why there’s no CAGW or climate disruption or whatever we’re supposed to call it this week.
On the other hand, if we were foostering with windmills and solar panels when a Mount Tambora or Laki-style eruption occurred, then there’d be change! That change would involve climate and economics and all the stuff clever people like to “model” for the rest of us.
It’s odd that we don’t fuss much over the one trigger for radical climate change that is pretty inevitable and can come at any time. Behave, you Decade Volcanoes, till we can dismantle our neo-medieval piles of junk and get some nice new nukes and lots of fossil fuel power on stream. Governments! Make like Angela Merkel and talk green while digging brown.
CO2 trading that isn’t working:
EU CO2 market fix hangs in balance after MEPs urge rejection
BRUSSELS, Jan 24 (Reuters Point Carbon) – A proposal to rescue the ailing EU carbon market hung in the balance on Thursday after a committee of European lawmakers urged the bloc’s parliament to reject efforts to rescue carbon prices, which crashed to record lows on the news…
http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/1.2152161
——————————————————————————–
So, we can relax again. Their prediction is roughly what we have seen out of the window for years now. Nothing is happening at all. Another 30 years of a non-warming of the planet will be catastrophic for Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming. It will be interesting to see who is the last man standing, as there will assuredly be one.
“The Global Warming Prediction Project…” These are the first 5 words and the name of the project. Hardly a “impartial, transparent, and independent project” if you are assuming there will be Global Warming to predict over the next 60 months or so. Still, I’ve been asking the question for some time – has anyone tried running the GCM models and shrinking the climate sensitivity factor to see if the predictions can be flattened down until it to fits into the subsequently observed range. If IPCC had used 1C/doubling of CO2, their forecast ranges would have at least included the observed record that came to pass.
Mosher “people think it is safe to geo engineer the planet by dumping C02 in the air.”
Have you honestly not, over the past decade or so begun to reconsider downwards the degree of influence that CO2 must have? I believe the IPCC has. What will it take to give you second thoughts? The planet has already tested CO2 geoengineering many times in the past.
Ah a neural network. Those do indeed work reasonably for short term prediction, but long term is usually not quite as good. But ok, lets see.
Steve Mosher wrote;
“yup. that is why it is weird that people think it is safe to geo engineer the planet by dumping C02 in the air.”
Yup, that is ALSO why it is weird that people think it is safe to geo engineer the planet by dumping;
Mercury (CFL bulbs)
Silicon Tetraoxide (Si PV Cells)
Lithium (batteries)
Radioactive mine waste from mining for rare earth elements (Advanced Magnets)
Etc.
Etc.
Etc.
On the planet.
The only difference between the alleged “geo engineering” that has happened in the past and the “geo engineering” you advocate is we DON’T KNOW THE UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES (AND YOU CAN BE SURE THERE WILL BE MANY) OF ALL THE “GREEN SCHEMES” YET…………….
Cheers, Kevin
How can I take a predictive climate model seriously that does [not] factor in chickens and goats? As near as I can determine, accurate “readings” of chicken entrails and goat fur is at the foundation of AGW prognostication.
Eyeballing the graph, the prediction is just BAU (=BUT), as so many commenters have already pointed out. It makes no sense. Stick the same BAU forecast anywhere you like in the past, and in a very few decades it will be a long way off.
My guess is that their forecast will already be visibly too high by its end year (2017).
Make that “does not” factor in….
“the presented atmospheric system model on the other hand is a CO2-free prediction model. ”
We should be thankful for small mercies … CO2 has no influence in this model and it seems to orbit closer to reality as a consequence. This must be a shuffle in the right direction … now for those negative forcings 😉
Ha Ha they said “quantitative prediction” and “non-linear dynamic system of the atmosphere” in the same paragraph!
3 pages – but i can’t bear to open 2 and 3:
24 Jan: Politico: DARREN SAMUELSOHN and JONATHAN ALLEN: John Kerry: Mr. Climate
Obama’s choice of John Kerry as the nation’s top diplomat is the strongest signal to the international community — and the smart set in Washington’s political class — that the president is truly committed to striking deals designed to save the world…
“Obviously, he has enormous credibility. I think that’s going to help,” said Phil Schiliro, former Obama White House legislative director. “Combine that with the fact that the president has such a commitment to the issue, and it sends a good signal.”…
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/01/john-kerry-climate-change-86695.html?hp=t1
Y’all might like to compare this forecast with the timing and amount of cooling predicted in my blog
http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com/2013/01/global-cooling-timing-and-amountnh.html
“Conclusions1) It seems reasonably probable – say 60-40 that the NH will cool by about .35 degrees by 2035.
2) We should be able to check the accuracy of this forecast by 2018 -20.”
The structural shortcomings of the IPCC models are also discussed there- this new method certainly is better structured than the IPCC models which are little more than drafting tools to produce AGW propaganda.
“This model describes a non-linear dynamic system of the atmosphere consisting of 5 major climate drivers: Ozone concentration, aerosols, radiative cloud fraction, and global mean temperature as endogenous variables and sun activity (sunspot numbers) as exogenous variable of the system.”
So it is based on:
A) sunspot numbers
B) radiative cloud fraction
C) ozone concentration
D) aerosols
E) ?past? global mean temperature
(A) is solar.
In reality, (B) is not solely but heavily influenced by solar activity / solar-modulated GCR flux (as in the illustrations with water vapor and cloud variation in http://s7.postimage.org/69qd0llcr/intermediate.gif — click to enlarge), though such as the ENSO impacts it too.
(C) is also not solely but largely influenced by solar activity, as in UV.
That means the model is largely solar-based in the end.
While interesting, some weaknesses, though, include:
Sunspot numbers can break down as a metric when the probable Grand Minimum develops, since one time of 0 sunspots can be much different from another time of 0 sunspots in solar activity (and hence in GCR flux, etc.), as the last minimum already started to demonstrate, let alone the future.
And, particularly, as big questions for any prediction:
1) What exactly is the assumed future of solar activity, as in how is it being guessed for year-by-year future detail? You have to predict the future sun to start to predict future terrestrial temperatures, and different predictions of future solar activity vary. I would want to see not just the outputs but the inputs to the model assumed over future years; that even includes aerosols, like is it effectively implicitly assuming no substantial volcanic eruptions between now and 2017?
2) How are ocean oscillations like the ENSO being handled? Really predicting the ENSO in detail would be necessary for predicting future temperatures closely.
In initial looking at their website, I haven’t yet checked all the slower-loading parts yet, though, so some of what I am looking for might already be answered perhaps.
A note to all.
When reply to a comment, please at least copy/paste the name and timestamp of the commenter. If you don’t, then sometimes no one knows the thought or the person who “thunk it” that you are responding to.
(With those two bits of info then we can scroll up to the original comment.)
[The moderators strongly recommend also adding a “blockquote” before the quoted words, and a “/blockquote” after the quote. Mod]
“Give me four variables and I can model an elephant. Give me five, and I can model its trunk.”
And what about two variables?
For example, adequate reconstruction of HadSST2 temperatures of tropics (30S-30N) by linear regression could be achieved by consideration only 2 factors – ENSO (Nino34 index from HadSST2) and step climate regime changes in 1925/1926 and 1987. During these steps the mean value of temperature rises, over which natural variability associated with ENSO occurs.
Calculations are in this simple Excel file:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/63jb7fd3v4c8vmb/Tropical%20SST%20with%20shift%20%28for%20figure%205%20and%206%29.xls
Correlation coefficient for monthly mean time series – 0.86. Another remarkable moment is that coefficients of linear regression can be fitted by small amount of data – for example, from 1910 till 1940, for adequate reconstruction of the whole period.
Reality of climate regime shifts in 1925/1926 and 1987 is proved by many independent studies that are summarized in our preprint: http://vixra.org/abs/1212.0172
So lemme guess, the model mimics the recorded history of the HADCrud data that was used to construct it to 98% of something.
So now go and input the history of some other like time period, that HAS NOT been used to create the model; do you still get a 98% match to any 79 month period of data from the last 10,000 years or what.
They say the model is confirmed; how does that work.
There are completely fake models of the fine structure constant that predict the answer to about 8 significant digits; yet they have no input data from the physical universe.
So 98% good doesn’t confirm diddley squat.
Present levels of CO2 in the air are very low by historical standards. Biology says the level is near the starvation level for plants. Those claiming that adding more CO2 is a bad thing is a statement that does not pass the sanity check. Anyone who understands atmospheric evolution via the biological carbon cycle would say that adding CO2 to the air is good. Global ecosystems would be far healthier with 1000 to 2000 ppm CO2 in the air.
“””””…..KevinK says:
January 24, 2013 at 5:02 pm
Steve Mosher wrote;
“yup. that is why it is weird that people think it is safe to geo engineer the planet by dumping C02 in the air.”
Yup, that is ALSO why it is weird that people think it is safe to geo engineer the planet by dumping;
Mercury (CFL bulbs)
Silicon Tetraoxide (Si PV Cells)……””””””
So why don’t you lay on us that Silicon Tetra-oxide waste material from PV cells again.
I’m familiar with Silicon di-oxide; aka quartz, and even SiO which has virtuall no place in Si PV cells, but so how exactly does Silicon Tetraoxide go together, and where is it used in the Si PV cell ?
Well there is Silane of course, but one would likely call that Silicon Tetrahydride; not Tetra-Oxide.
This is some new device Physics I’ve never learnt.
KevinK says:
January 24, 2013 at 5:02 pm
=======================================================
I wonder. Does GE make the equipment to recover mercury from landfills?
(Mods, I tried the “blockquote” thing fro the first time time. Hope I got it right.)
Steven Mosher says:
January 24, 2013 at 3:36 pm
###############
yup. that is why it is weird that people think it is safe to geo engineer the planet by dumping C02 in the air.
————————————–
Steven,
Nothing more irritating or valuable than the guy who keeps you honest, although
it can be bitter at times. You got me at least; if all things were equal (if economic devastation wasn’t in the equation) I’d just as soon NOT have a boatload of CO2 pumped into the atmosphere, certainly not just with geo engineering as a justification, and yes, I’ve comforted myself with the rationalization that the CO2 might be a good thing, without having any rigorous scientific basis for doing so.
All things aren’t equal though. I definitely believe the cost of avoiding the risk vastly
outweighs the cost of taking it to such an extreme degree that it’s still a no-brainer.
But still, your point is taken, and thanks for posting it.
Regards.
I would like to know how they plan on predicting the weather/climate for the future when they are using the data for the last 30 years of of a system that cycles over a 60 year period? We have about 180years of fairly good records, 3 full cycles! I have seen 1 full cycle and I know that there are good records for twice that length of time. 30 years of data only guarantees that the the next year prediction will be close and after that the error bars will expand.
My own prediction is that in 60 years weather/climate will be about the same as it is now, or slightly cooler, after cooling and then warming, Don’t need fancy computer programs to figure it out, JUST PAY ATTENTION when you read up on recorded facts written by the people of that time. Believe it! humans of a thousand years ago were every bit as intelligent as those of the present, and they had no reason to lie about the facts to promote an agenda. pg
WillR says:
January 24, 2013 at 2:17 pm
If I was looking at an electronic circuit I would say that the model is missing a damping factor (negative feedback) fwiw.
Any suggestions?
Yeah screw Maxwell and his equations…..
This just might be the reason for all our problems. Well worth a post on WUWT IMHO.
yeah, that 98% error bar has me wondering if they have a clue what they’re actually doing…
Mosher quips: “yup. that is why it is weird that people think it is safe to geo engineer the planet by dumping C02 in the air.”
So now you got something against 7B people breathing and trying to subsist in our world? What is with you greens? Your ilk is responsible for thinking up plans on how to geo engineer solutions or to waste money in worthless investment for a CO2 problem that has not even remotely proven to exist. You won’t be happy till everyone else is feeling as miserable as you. And if that ain’t tough enough for you, wait till Willis gets here.
So, If I followed what they do, they feed a number of possible input variables into an adaptive network, as well as the output values they want to model, using the inputs and outputs, it constructs an equation that’s based on some of the inputs (at least in this case), it’s this equation with in this case the output generated temperature feedback, that generates a new output value. This would work if the output generated is based on the the outputs past time series and the external input (Sunspots). So basically they are saying that future temps are based on past temps, and the Sun. They have a model for Sunspots, based on the Sunspot time series of the past. with these two equations, and the time series required (in their model the sunspot count, and global temperatures as collect over the last 33 years) their adaptive model (will calculate a new value time series).
here’s a picture of the climate model
http://climateprediction.eu/cc/Main/Entries/2011/9/13_What_Drives_Global_Warming_files/droppedImage_1.png
It doesn’t ascribe a physical process to their output, just an equation that’s based on the data used for input that will predict a matching output (temperature series). This isn’t a lot different than fractals, and other self referential chaotic systems. Dr Glassman has a simple 2 part equation that did a good job of calculating temps that’s similar in nature.
It is a good thing that it doesn’t reference co2, the network did not find the co2 signal in the output. This is what we’ve been saying.
Where it would have problems is for dependent inputs longer than 33 years. So for instance the AMO/PDO time series if it’s longer than 33 years, and represented in the temp time series, which I would expect it to be, will only contain it’s effects from the 33 year period. Depending on the network delay parameters it might predict the whole cycle, but it is under sampled and probably won’t. But since I think both have switched during the last 33 year, it might do okay.
This is like Newton coming up with the equation for gravity based on a couple of inputs, but it’s a much simpler equation with fewer dependencies. That’s why no human has been able to do the same with climate.
It’s the same as using a fft to decompose some complex wave form into a collection of sine waves, that when summed recreate the complex waveform, but instead of a bunch of sine waves, this is an equation.
Easy peasy.
No-one is or can be “expert on the future.” Any complex dynamic system –one with three or more mutually interacting variables– is necessarily chaotic/fractal, non-random but indeterminate, self-similar on every scale.
Regardless of modellers’ sophistication, any and all non-linear extrapolations are exponentially qualitative, not quantitative, meaning that “false precision” inescapably corrupts any extended time-series at its very root.
On this basis, conventional “hindcasts” too are terminally misleading. Realistically testing any multivariate scenario requires not “working backwards” but setting a remote start-date to begin a model-run from scratch, without interim “adjustments” or any skewed causative factors whatsoever. In principle, this simply cannot be done; and anyone claiming otherwise is if not a knave or charlatan, then a benighted fool.
Try running a global Hedge Fund for 3 – 6 months, and see how far conventional wisdom carries. Recall the celebrated case of Long-term Capital, rife with Nobelistas, whose verities evaporated overnight: Where illusions define imaginary problems, contingencies govern and exceptions rule.
Mark Bofill says:
January 24, 2013 at 7:05 pm
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What risk? The claim has been made. The last 16 years have shown the claim is without merit. (Substitute ‘hypothesis’ for ‘claim’ if you wish.) What “brainer”? Why risk more?
You’re free to risk your own well being or pay out of your own pocket but not mine. Would you use Government to force me to do so? If so, we’re back to my original comment.
Forget about it. Mosher only trolls here these days. One post per thread…then poof gone, while everybody else flails.
Gunga Din says:
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
January 24, 2013 at 9:33 pm
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Dang it!
I meant to copy this.
Gunga Din says:
January 24, 2013 at 4:19 pm
Steven Mosher says:
January 24, 2013 at 3:36 pm
(Me:)Think of all those drug commercials in the US. Lots of disclaimers. (Who knew an eye drop might kill you?8-) Sure, they have those disclaimers to legally CYA but they need to CYA because it could happen. Before a drug hits the market it’s been thoroughly tested. But they don’t know everything. The human body is incredibly complex.
“Climate” is incredbly complex.
###############
(Mosh:)yup. that is why it is weird that people think it is safe to geo engineer the planet by dumping C02 in the air.
===========================================================
(Me again:)Or Olvatine in the ocean? 😎
Either way, we don’t know enough. If it wasn’t for the politics involved and the cost in $$ and freedoms that the policitians are after, let the honest scientist continue to … well … observe and apply the scientific method to any hypothsis that may arise from those observations. The Hansens and the Manns haven’t put out any ‘disclaimers’ that said they might be wrong or the consequences if they are. But the Gores and the Obamas are cashing in.
“People think it is safe to geo engineer the planet by dumping C02 in the air.”
People are just living. The only people I’ve heard of that are trying to “geo engineer” anything are those that have picked CO2 out of the chaos that makes “climate” and are trying to limit or remove it because they feel that what Man adds is somehow not “natural”.
Steve Oregon says:
January 24, 2013 at 1:54 pm
This climate forecast model is a real travesty.
Plus it got me thinking.
How will alarmists cope if warming never returns for the rest of their lives?
A few more years of the same will be bad for them. 6, 7 or 8 will be painful.
But 10, 20 or 30 years of a non-warming planet will be catastrophic for their funny little fictitious world.
Never be surprised how people can rationalise their beliefs. Eleven of the last 12 years have been the hottest in 34 years. We hear all sorts of excuses, including it is cooling, the temperature has plateaued, the measurements are wrong, the people measuring it are corrupt etc. What they won’t admit is that it is getting hotter. They ignore or make up various stories to explain the reduction in the Arctic ice cap, the rising sea, the retreat of the glaciers, the number of broken heat records broken being nearly three times the number of cold records broken.
So I imagine they will cry you a river of tears when it doesn’t get colder. They will be crying because they missed the opportunity to do something about it when they could.
Pamela Gray says:
January 24, 2013 at 1:33 pm
“The modeler that gets it right will use ENSO patterns of oceanic circulation and SST (a much slower lagged effect)”
==========================================
I respectfully disagree with you and Tisdale on this. This years aborted nino is the classic example. There is a bigger oscillation that transcends ENSO. To some extent the thermohaline circulation is like the loose end of a fire hose in the Pacific. It is quite likely that the northern Pacific has been a deepwater deadend since the Cretaceous. Its current deadend status is evidenced by the antiquity of the deepwater off California.
Bob Tisdale’s work detrending clearly shows that the 1997/8 El Nino was not the whopper everyone thinks it is. It was actually less severe than the previous big one in the eighties. It was a hinge that swung the loose end of the firehose to the eastern Pacific.
OK. I didn’t make my point very well.
You’ve seen those commercial put out by a law firm about some disease or side effect? (‘If you or your loved one has ever suffered from …”) Do you know what they’re doing? They are shopping for clients. They have MDs on their payroll that no longer practice medicine but make their living testifying in court. So it is with CAGW “climate scientist”. They are now being used by those who’s agenda (money, political power. ideology etc.) stands to profit by their testimony. That has all to often corrupted their testimony.
There is no genuine risk from providing affordable energy. CO2 is no more a pollutant to be limited and removed than H2O is a pollutant to be limited and removed.
Steven Mosher says:
January 24, 2013 at 3:36 pm
” yup. that is why it is weird that people think it is safe to geo engineer the planet by dumping C02 in the air.”
Ah, precautionary principle Mosher again. The oceans outgas CO2, Mosher; how will you stop them from doing so?
About any human activity besides sitting there is geoengineering. How will you stop humans from building houses, Mosher?
Steven Mosher says:
January 24, 2013 at 3:36 pm
yup. that is why it is weird that people think it is safe to geo engineer the planet by dumping C02 in the air.
Oh, turn it off already, you’re boring. We dump F’-all CO2 in the air in comparison to what nature “dumps” and historically has dumped in the air. There is no evidence at all that the CO2 from coal is any more harmful than the CO2 from termite farts. Plants eat it up just the same. CO2 levels have been way higher in the past than now, and it wasn’t Armageddon. If the Alarmists were to realise their goal of reverting back to pre-industrial CO2 outputs, the West will join the third world in famine, misery and death. SO what’s YOUR solution to your perceived problem? Besides more bed wetting, I mean?
Moe says:
January 24, 2013 at 9:48 pm
“Never be surprised how people can rationalise their beliefs. Eleven of the last 12 years have been the hottest in 34 years. We hear all sorts of excuses, including it is cooling, the temperature has plateaued, the measurements are wrong, the people measuring it are corrupt etc. What they won’t admit is that it is getting hotter. ”
I’m not sure, but I tend to think you’re NOT being sarcastic.
Moe, yes, it is getting hotter, but only in the GCM’s. In real world Germany I got an effin -5 deg C and ice and snow outside, this is not right! In 2000 I was able to walk around in a T Shirt. DO SOMETHING, MOE! CO2AGW, why have you forsaken us?
So over the period of prediction, which is too short to produce a reliable conclusion, the actual temperatures vary much more than the predicted temperatures.
So it’s not looking good so far.
In fact the data mining model used does not seem to be much more useful than a linear extrapolation of the previous few years temperature trend.
“radiative cloud fraction” as an input makes no sense. For all anyone knows, this may closely track CO2 concentrations, and so in reality CO2 is an input into this model.
You have to know what drives changes in “radiative cloud fraction” for this to be of any use. What’s the ten-year forcast for this parameter?
A few remarks from the comments and the post.
1. This is true out-of-sample (ex-ante) forecast. The system model was developed in May 2011 algorithmically by software on data of 6 variables (ozone, aerosols, reflectivity, SSN, CO2, HADCRUT3) from Nov 1978 – Apr 2011 (378 months). The time constraint is simply given by the availability of satellite data (TOMS) used for the first three variables. This model (actually it is a set of nonlinear dynamic models that are interconnected) has been predicted then until Nov 2017 (79 months). This prediction has been published in my original post in Sep 2011 and on Climate Etc. in Oct 2011. Neither this initial prediction nor the models have been modified since then. So the model has proven that it worked for 21 months so far.
You find further information about the system model in my original post:
http://www.climateprediction.eu/cc/Main/Entries/2011/9/13_What_Drives_Global_Warming.html
There are also forecasts for ozone, aerosols, SSN etc.
2. I consider it a medium-term prediction, because it predicts 79 months ahead relative to the 378 months of observation data. But this is just 6 years and in the context of climate this is short-term, of course. This is what this model can do: forecasting few years ahead. Longer forecast horizons are not possible given the short observation time of 32 years. It is a decadal-scale forecasting model, which also the UK Met Office is doing research on.
3. The system model was developed by inductive self-organizing modeling, which is knowledge extraction from data. It shares some concepts of Neural Networks but it goes beyond them. It is not a Neural Network. Self-organizing modeling means that the model is completely undefined at start, nothing else is given than observational data (and a learning algorithm). During self-organization an optimal complex model is evolved, autonomously, i.e., the composition of the model structure, the parameters, the relevant inputs, the individual transfer functions. Self-organization performs STRUCTURE IDENTIFICATION and parameter estimation, Neural Networks and traditional statistics only perform parameter estimation.
More on this here:
http://www.knowledgeminer.eu/about.html#som
4. Why SSN? SSN, TSI, or the sun‘s magnetic field data are all highly correlated. They represent sun activity. Also remind that we use more or less noisy data anyway. Practically, it makes no difference which of these variables is used. I also tried TSI and the results are very similar.
Sunspots forecast here:
http://www.climateprediction.eu/cc/Main/Entries/2012/3/22_Sunspot_number_prediction_(3).html
5. Additionally, our climate system is essentially influenced by external, cosmic climate drivers such as the Earth Orbit Oscillation in centennial time frames, the multidecadal tri-synodic Jupiter/Saturn cycle, or the well-known orbit eccentricity Milankovitch cycle, which causes glacial and interglacial ages on Earth. These cosmic climate drivers are responsible for most of the variation of solar radiation received on Earth, resulting in medium- to long-term warming and cooling trends, independently from the sun‘s own rather small changing activity and radiation.
http://www.climateprediction.eu/cc/Main/Entries/2012/10/8_What_drives_climate_in_the_long_run_A_new_paper.html
DirkH, if the -5 degrees you are experiencing is a record breaking cold temperature, then there are three warm records broken at the same time somewhere else. The ratio of hot records broken to cold records is about 2.8.
The problem is what you are experiencing is on a little speck of the Earth and we should be looking at the world as a whole.
@Steveta_uk
Radiative cloud fraction is different from CO2. See here:
http://www.climateprediction.eu/cc/Main/Entries/2011/6/23_Prediction_of_Radiative_cloud_fraction.html
@YEP
„Data-driven models are good exercises to go through when analyzing a complex, dynamic, non-linear system. But nothing is theory-free, other than simple vector autoregression. Choosing the 6 variables, for example, had to be based on theory.“
No. Things are different here. The chosen 6 variables and also their time lags of up to 120 months (which sums up to several hundred inputs, actually) are just POTENTIAL inputs. Self-organization develops an OPTIMAL COMPLEX model out of the given data. This includes composition of the model, self-selection of relevant variables and their dynamics, validation. No theory involved. However, if there is well-known a priori knowledge (theory) it should be used also for data-driven modeling.
@Ian
„Has the model been used to make “hind-casts”? If so were they accurate? If not will hind-casting be attempted?“
No, no hind-casting but real forecasting. The reason is simple: Satellite data only go back until 1979. So there is no data that could be left out for hindcasting.
@Truthseeker
„Let us assume that they have correctly identified the most significant variables (which do not include CO2 – IPCC and alarmists please note) and can get a good correlation for past data. The problem is still predicting the values of those variables. Maybe they can use models to predict the variables they are using in the model to predict climate. Of course then they will have other variables to predict, which will mean other models to predict the variables they need for the models to predict the variables they need to predict the variables they need to predict the climate. Then they will need models … ad infinitim …“
No. It is an interdependent dynamic system of 5 variables (plus CO2, but it is independent). That‘s it. No more.
http://www.climateprediction.eu/cc/Main/Entries/2011/9/13_What_Drives_Global_Warming.html
Moe says:
January 25, 2013 at 3:25 am
DirkH, if the -5 degrees you are experiencing is a record breaking cold temperature, then there are three warm records broken at the same time somewhere else. The ratio of hot records broken to cold records is about 2.8….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Well Moe, the warm record sure as heck is not being broken across the ocean in North Carolina! It is 15°F ( -9.4°C) The record min is 17 °F
Notice how record breaking warm is always a sign of climate change but record breaking cold is not?
@Nicola Scafetta
„The only problem with the above figure in the post is that it seems that the latest temperature dot for Dec/2012 is located at Jan/2012.“
I have checked it, it is correcly shown at Dec 2012. Thanks.
“The simplistic linear cause-effect relationship “more atmospheric CO2 = higher temperatures” the IPCC model is based on is not an adequate tool to describe the complexity of the atmosphere sufficiently.”
This statement is the gist of my skepticism.
When I first heard the argument that a trace gas at 350ppm drives the climate. period.
Too simple, too cut-and-dried. I became a skeptic. Some time later I found WUWT, and realized I wasn’t alone.
Hey Moe, Hey Moe. CO2 causes global warming. Mean average temperature rises. period.
That’s the theory. Extreme temperature records go back 150 years or so. A very short time.
Breaking records does not relate to average global temperature.
The Earth’s temperature has not risen in 15 years. While CO2 has gone up. Get it – no correlation. Never mind causation. (Where’s the link for your Stat of “2.8”?)
Gunga Din says:
January 24, 2013 at 9:33 pm
========================================================================
What risk? The claim has been made. The last 16 years have shown the claim is without merit. (Substitute ‘hypothesis’ for ‘claim’ if you wish.) What “brainer”? Why risk more?
You’re free to risk your own well being or pay out of your own pocket but not mine. Would you use Government to force me to do so? If so, we’re back to my original comment.
——————————————————————————-
Whoa there. I didn’t say anything about using the Government to force anybody to do anything. My position is quite the opposite, actually; if CAGW were in fact proved beyond a shadow of a doubt I’d still rely on mitigation via the free market, capitalism, and innovation as the best bet to see us through.
But you’ve got to call a spade a spade. There is always risk when you mess with complicated systems, of unforeseen consequences if nothing else. Life is FULL of risk, as I’m fond of saying, this isn’t a wiffle ball world where everything is guaranteed to be safe. I don’t think the guys who try to model climate (or even predict the weather for that matter) have difficulty succeeding because they’re incompetent fools, but because it’s a damn hard thing to model or predict. Maybe it isn’t a tractable problem at the end of the day. But a consequence of this is that if something is hard to predict, it’s hard to know (as in know with scientific certainty, not just know as in good enough for me know) how the system is going to react to being perturbed. Do I THINK CO2 is going to hurt anything? No. Do I have some reasonable evidence of it? Yeah, I think so. Am I scientifically certain of this? Heck no, I haven’t done the work.
Was Mosher standing up a straw man with the Geo engineering thing? Sure. I don’t know Mosher at all so maybe I’m giving him too much credit, but it seems to me he’s plenty sharp enough to know that. Who argues that we should burn fossil fuels for the sake of geo engineering, well, nobody. But people (myself included) do argue that it’s plant food and that it may well be beneficial to the environment and mankind. I took his comment to heart because I’d privately accepted the argument that CO2 is going to be good for the environment without subjecting the that theory to the same skeptical rigorous standard I subject AGW to.
~shrug~ Just to explain where I was coming from. I might be nineteen kinds of wrong here, I often am. I therefore value comments like yours (and Mosher’s, incidentally) that help me see it when that’s the case.
Regards.
GAH!!! – I’d still rely on ADAPTATION, not mitigation. I was wondering what my foot was doing sticking out of my mouth after finishing my last post…
Frank Lemke says:
January 25, 2013 at 4:14 am
“No. It is an interdependent dynamic system of 5 variables (plus CO2, but it is independent). That‘s it. No more. ”
Frank, I think you should see if those same inputs can also generate the CO2 output. That would help sort out cause and effect. If that alone won’t do it, add the human co2 signal. This will clarify how much of the rise is human based.
Having spent a lot of time modeling, and running simulations, I like what you’re doing here, it’s time this was done.
@frank Lemke
Can you explain the difference between the prediction show in this post, and the prediction shown in the slideshow on the climateprediction.eu site? There are a number of differences between this post’s prediction and hindcast relative to the slideshow.
There are two main differences:
1. This older model is based upon temp data only (HADCRUT3), which where separated into 9 latitudinal bands (so it is in a sense an auto-regressive model), and
2. It uses monthly data from 1890 to 2010.
So this new model presented in this post is much more complete (adequate).
“blockquote”Moe says:
January 24, 2013 at 9:48 pm
Never be surprised how people can rationalise their beliefs. Eleven of the last 12 years have been the hottest in 34 years. We hear all sorts of excuses, including it is cooling, the temperature has plateaued, the measurements are wrong, the people measuring it are corrupt etc. What they won’t admit is that it is getting hotter. They ignore or make up various stories to explain the reduction in the Arctic ice cap, the rising sea, the retreat of the glaciers, the number of broken heat records broken being nearly three times the number of cold records broken.
So I imagine they will cry you a river of tears when it doesn’t get colder. They will be crying because they missed the opportunity to do something about it when they could.”/blockquote”
“Eleven of the last 12 years” The highest points on any hill are always at the top; this is meaningless.
CO2 emission rates and atmospheric concentration increasing with no increase in temperature?
A planet which has entered previous ice ages with CO2 concentrations many times current levels?
Anthropogenic CO2 3% of the total?
Do what about it while “they” could?
Pamela Gray says:
January 24, 2013 at 1:33 pm
“The modeler that gets it right will use ENSO patterns of oceanic circulation and SST (a much slower lagged effect) with a variables related to other atmospheric circulation patterns that come and go (more immediate effects), that kick in after a certain value is reached (IE beyond neutral).”
Such a model must predict ENSO beyond a year if it is to produce predictions valid beyond a year. I’m a realist. ENSO is part of a cause / effect chain. It does not “just happen.” A major objective of climate science must be to predict ENSO over decadal time scales and beyond. When this can be done a lot of pieces of the puzzle will fall into place. If not, ENSO will continue to be the noise that obliterates the signal.
pochas says:
January 25, 2013 at 6:19 am
“Such a model must predict ENSO beyond a year if it is to produce predictions valid beyond a year. I’m a realist. ENSO is part of a cause / effect chain.”
The model would only have to account for the effects on ENSO, as long as it’s already dependent on the variables the equations rely on. This was why I suggested that with 33 years of input temp data, it might or might not have enough data to model longer time frame effects. Until you get enough satellite temp data to include all of the ENSO cycles changing state, we won’t know if the equation has the independent variables required to model ENSO. Even if it doesn’t, it would not make the equation useless, only that there was some addition inputs required.
MiCro says:
January 25, 2013 at 6:44 am
Mod’s this:
“effects on ENSO”
should have been
“effects of ENSO”
You can change my post or add this one as clarification.
MiCro says:
January 25, 2013 at 6:44 am
“The model would only have to account for the effects on ENSO, as long as it’s already dependent on the variables the equations rely on. ”
I’ve seen studies of the ENSO cycle that conclude that the cycle is linked to the annual cycle (shows up at Christmas), and, if linked, recurs at either 2 or 3 year intervals, or not at all. It is a phenomenon that feeds back on itself but seems dependent mostly on the annual cycle but also on outside factors that are also cyclic and nonstationary.
There are a lot of posts and I didn’t have time to read them all, but a couple caught my eye. Why use sun spot counts as a variable was the gist of them. According to the posts I read, it’s all about enso and ocean temperatures. May I ask a silly question? You really don’t think that big ball of fire that heats the world has any effect, thus the increases and decreases of the furnace’s output wouldn’t be a valid variable in ANY model? Are you serious?
===============================================
Thanks for explaining and clarifying. I had misunderstood where you were coming from.
================================================================
I often find myself tasting my toes. That’s the risk we all take when we voice our opinions. 😎
Horse says:
January 25, 2013 at 6:07 am
“blockquote”
========================================================
Replace the quotation marks with the .
See “Rick Werme’s Guide to WUWT” on the right sidebar for more details.
pochas says:
January 25, 2013 at 7:20 am
“but also on outside factors that are also cyclic and nonstationary.”
And it’s these inputs that might not be derive-able from the inputs used. What will be needed are enough cycles on ENSO, that cover all of it’s various cycles, and then various inputs that might be the source of the cycles that developed, then new inputs that might be the root cause of the cycles would then be added to the model and more adaption runs, to determine if the network “finds” the required inputs to enrich the equation. Once they are identified, they would be added to the required inputs list.
I could see it might take a number of rounds of this process to identify all of the inputs that control climate(well temperatures any ways).
It’s really just a method to select from a bunch of signals to find a combination and an equation that references some of those signals that result in another signal as output.
Once you have an equation, you can potentially decompose that equation into physical effects that cause the results. It’s the ultimate way to solve the physical system that causes a set of specific results for a non-obvious complex system.
Currently, climatology says this is something like TSI * CS * aerosols * scaling factors * orbital factors, etc, etc. These equations are expressed in GCM’s, and then run iteratively over a model of the earths surface (the grids). It too is self referential, they just tried to start from first principles, but the main first principle was that CO2 controls the system. Most of the people here disagree with this, that’s why we’re looking for evidence that proves this wrong.
Moe,
Skeptics need not rely upon “beliefs” or ways to “rationalize” them.
The 11 of the last 12 years being the hottest in 34 years is no more meaningful than any other 11 years out of the 34. Or within any previous 34 year period.
It’s your own “belief” that needs perpetual rationalizing excuses.
The past 16 years is what it is. No one need label with anything other than what the record shows.
Forget about whether it is cooling or a plateau. But the global temperature is surely not getting hotter. Despite your foolish clamoring to view various observations as “evidence” of your belief.
Proof of your hapless delirium appears with your fantasy that “something” can be done “about it”.
You haven’t any idea what “it’ is, what “something” is or how it would do anything at all.
Yet you’re certain the opportunity to do something is being missed?
You might as well be advocating the sending of radio messages to outer space to prevent the alien invasion you’re convinced is imminent.
=========================================================
Let me try that again.
Replace the quotation marks with the less than and greater than signs. (These are reversed. When I didn’t reverse them they disappeared.) > <
Horse, how did you get your 3%, better check this. The co2 concentration is 40% higher than before industrialisation.
Gail, you suffer from the same problem as DirkH. If there is a cold record on California, there are three warm records broken somewhere else.
Robroy, Nobody ever said co2 concetration was the only thing that determined temperature. There are many factors. However the steady increase in co2 leads to a increase in the trend in temperature. You’re a skeptic, so check out what the statistically significant time should be to discover the trend. Hint, it is longer than 12 years. You have been duped to believe that there hasn’t been any ‘statistically significant warming in the last 12 years’ to mean there is no warming.
DirkH, as I said earlier, people will do anything to justify their belief systems. You asked the question, what would happen if there was a cold year coming up to the people who support the concept of AGW? Well look at the posters here. we are continually get warm years one after another, yet they go to extraordinary lengths to say it is not warming.
The implications of this model is astounding. Recently I read somewhere that the planet is getting greener and crop yields are increasing. Could CO2 actually be of great value as a fertilizer? It would mean that coal is not only providing affordable electricity but is doing double duty by making food more abundant for the masses.
CO2 BASED
I have added Frank Lemke’s forecast to 2017 to the list
JAMES HANSON 1.4 C for A option,
1.2 C for B option
0.6 C for C option
IPCC 0 .750 C [A2, A1B, B1 scenarios perAR4
0.5 C multi-model median [range 0.25 to 1.0C] per leaked AR5 chapter 11
CLIVE BEST 0. 55 to 0 .7 C ADJUSTED BASED ON AIB and B1 SCENARIOS]
MET OFFICE [UK] 0.430 C [0.28 C to 0.59 C] WAS 0.76 C previously
NON CO2 BASED
N.SCAFETTA 0.450 C HARMONIC MODEL [RANGE 0.3 to 0.55 C]
P. MICHAELS 0.4 to o.5 C ADJUSTED TREND OF IPCC
TALLBLOKE 0.4 to 0.5 C BASED ON SEA SURFACE TEMP
FRANK LEMKE 0.4 C SELF ORGANIZED PREDICTIVE MODEL [RANGE 0.5 to 0.3C]
G.ORSSENGO 0.226 C STATISTICAL MODEL BASED ON GMTA HADCRUT gl3 [0.1C to 0.55C lower and upper limit]
D. EASTERBROOK -0.1C BASED ON 1790-1820 PAST TREND
0.0 C BASED ON 1880-1915 PAST TREND
0.4 C BASED ON 1945-1977 PAST TREND
S-ICHI AKASOFU < 0.5 C [BASED ON PAST TEMPERATURE PATTERN
M.VOORO 0.350C LAST 12 YEARS TREND OF OBSERVED HADCRUT3 PROJECTED TO THE END OF 2017
ACTUAL OBSERVED
OBSERVED HADCRUT 3GL TO THE END OF DECEMBER 2012 0.403 C
Moe says:
January 25, 2013 at 12:53 pm
.
The 3% is the amount of CO2 in the atm, so it went from just under 2% to 3 some %.
This is a hypothesis, repeated attempts to actually measure a change in the atm due to co2 that would cause this, has failed.
I’ve studied the entire NCDC GSoD record set, all 120 million records, looking at how much of the day time rise in temps is lost over night, and it shows no loss of cooling.
graphs of the world.
And the US only here:
Now if you look at the last one, the yearly averaging of nightly cooling is negative (it’s colder the next morning than the temp today went up) ~45 of the last 70 years. This is from NCDC’s data, the same data you say proves warming, well if it’s good enough to prove temps are up, it’s good enough (actually better because I use measurements from the same station taken within 24hr’s of each other) to prove there’s no loss of cooling, the hallmark of how CO2 causes global warming. What we do see is when the daily temp goes up, it cools off more that night. Just what thermal dynamics says it should do.
I tried to embed an image, and it doesn’t look like it worked, this is the chart for the Continental US
http://www.science20.com/files/images/Global%20Annual%201940-2010%20Diff_1.jpg
[Reply: Only Anthony, authors, and mods can embed images. But your clickable link works fine. — mod.]
Moe:
You again assert your ignorance of the carbon cycle when at January 25, 2013 at 12:53 pm you write
Nature emits 34 molecules of CO2 for each molecule of CO2 emitted by humans. That seems like 3% to me.
I don’t know the cause of the recent rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration, but I want to know. People who think they know are mistaken.
In one of our 2005 papers we assessed the carbon cycle and determined that a quantitative model of the carbon cycle cannot be constructed because the rate constants are not known for mechanisms operating in the carbon cycle. Therefore, we used ‘attribution studies’ as a method to discern mechanisms that are not capable of being the cause of the observed rise of atmospheric CO2 concentration during the twentieth century.
(ref. Rorsch A, Courtney RS & Thoenes D, ‘The Interaction of Climate Change and the Carbon Dioxide Cycle’ E&E v16no2 (2005) )
We used three different basic models to emulate the causes of the rise of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere in the twentieth century. These numerical exercises are a caution to estimates of future changes to the atmospheric CO2 concentration. The three models used in these exercises each emulate different physical processes. Each model assessed whether the mechanism would explain the rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration measured at Mauna Loa assuming the rise has
(i) an anthropogenic cause
and
(ii) a natural cause.
Thus, we generated 6 models.
Each model agrees with the observed recent rise of atmospheric CO2 concentration. The models demonstrate that the observed recent rise of atmospheric CO2 concentration may be solely a consequence of the anthropogenic emission or may be solely a result of, for example, desorption from the oceans induced by the temperature rise that preceded it. Furthermore, extrapolation using these models gives very different predictions of future atmospheric CO2 concentration whatever the cause of the recent rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration.
Each of the models in our paper matches the available empirical data without use of any ‘fiddle-factor’ such as the ‘5-year smoothing’ the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) uses to get its model to agree with the empirical data.
So, if one of the six models of our paper is adopted then there is a 5:1 probability that the choice is wrong. And other models are probably also possible. And the six models each give a different indication of future atmospheric CO2 concentration for the same future anthropogenic emission of carbon dioxide.
Data that fits all the possible causes is not evidence for the true cause. Data that only fits the true cause would be evidence of the true cause. But the above findings demonstrate that there is no data that only fits either an anthropogenic or a natural cause of the recent rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration.
Hence, the only factual statements that can be made on the true cause of the recent rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration are
(a) the recent rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration may have an anthropogenic cause, or a natural cause, or some combination of anthropogenic and natural causes,
but
(b) there is no evidence that the recent rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration has a mostly anthropogenic cause or a mostly natural cause.
So, please stop disrupting the thread with your unjustifiable beliefs and return to discussion of the climate model which is the subject of this thread.
Richard
mosomoso says:
January 24, 2013 at 2:18 pm
Not only are models wrong, they have to be wrong. This has to do with the fantastic scale, complexity and variability of the thing being modelled and the ludicrously narrow, simplistic and static nature of the models (the best ones, that is).
Apart from all that, models are great. Well, that chick who was married to Billy Joel, at least.
<<<<<<<
Every word you said. A two mile deep slosh of water
divided between EIGHT basins, or so –
A two mile deep slosh of water,
spinning a thousand miles an hour,
having a continuously variable quantity of ice on the ground,
having a continuously variable quantity of ice overhead,
having a continuously variable quantity of radiation impinge on it,
having a continuously variable mixture of air in an atmosphere, around it all.
Can you imagine having so little human dignity you actually take money to publish words in a 'study' wherein you claimed to have "calculated"
"the temperature of the earth"?
The Billy Joel chick's a valid model.
Moe:
In your post at January 25, 2013 at 12:53 pm you also wrongly say
No lengths are required.
Global warming stopped 16+ years ago.
”Being warm’ is not ‘warming’.
Warming consists of rising temperature. Cooling consists of falling temperature.
There has been no discernible trend in global temperature since 1997.
So, there has been statistically significant (at 95% confidence) global warming for 16+ years.
But people like you go to extraordinary lengths to pretend it is warming although it is not.
Richard
Ouch!
I have done it again. Sorry!
I wrote
So, there has been statistically significant (at 95% confidence) global warming for 16+ years.
I intended to write
So, there has been no statistically significant (at 95% confidence) global warming for 16+ years.
Richard
Moe says:
January 25, 2013 at 12:53 pm
“DirkH, as I said earlier, people will do anything to justify their belief systems. You asked the question, what would happen if there was a cold year coming up to the people who support the concept of AGW? Well look at the posters here. we are continually get warm years one after another, yet they go to extraordinary lengths to say it is not warming.”
The US is 1.5% of the surface of the planet. Get over it already. Nothing is warming in Germany, or for that matter, in Russia or China.
Moe,
You’d better go find Harry and Curly.
Because if you believe the world is “getting hotter” you need to be slapped.
Richardscourtney, are you calling Lord Monckton a lier? He knows that the 40% increase in co2 in the atmosphere is due to human activity. He understands that 34 molecules are added to the atmosphere by nature, but he also understands that nature absorbs these 34 molecules out of the atmosphere by photosynthesis. Net effect is zero contribution from nature and the one molecule contributed by humans accumulates in the atmosphere.
Now I am curious to know what sort of skeptic you are. A REAL skeptic would ask the question’ what time period would give me a statistical significant answer to what is happening to the Earth’s temperature?’ And then work it out.
Instead, you are a PRETENT skeptic, by trying to give the impression that there has been no warming in the last 16 years, because the time period is too short to be statistically significant. Your statement ‘no statistically significant warming in the last 16 years’ really means you can tell if it is warming or not. You cannot conclude that it is not warming, which is what you are doing.
DirkH, You are cherry picking. Look at the number of heat records broken in America last summer. Literally thousand of them. Record heat in Russia caused caused a drastically reduce crop and as a consequence they banned all grain exports out of Russia. What is being experienced is extreme heat in summer with extreme cold in winter, with the cold records falling at a third the rate of warm records.
Moe:
I am copying all of your post at January 26, 2013 at 12:39 am because it is so egregious that I don’t want my response to be thought ‘over the top’.
I know for certain fact that the Third Viscount Monckton of Brenchley is an honourable and honest man whose shoes you are not worthy to lick clean.
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=2938
But I made no mention of him, so you asking if I called him a “lier” (sic) can only be a statement you have made about you.
I cited, referenced and explained my work which is published in the peer-reviewed literature. If it has any fault then I would like to learn of that, but I know you are plain wrong in your ignorant assertion that each molecule of anthropogenic CO2 “accumulates in the atmosphere”. Indeed, the increase in atmospheric CO2 is equivalent to less half of the anthropogenic emission (n.b. not all of it).
It is possible – but very unlikely – that the anthropogenic emission is the cause of the recent rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration: were you not a buffoon then you could have asked me to explain that. Instead, you chose to make a statement which is so wrong that a schoolboy could see your error (are you a schoolboy?).
Your knowledge of statistics is zero.
I wrote
You have replied
You really, really don’t have a clue what you are writing. Obviously you have done a ‘copy & paste’ from some warmunist web site. This is demonstrated by your silly comment
Work what out? The data set determines what is – and what is not – statistically significant over any time period.
The globe may have warmed or it may have cooled over the last 16 years, but any global temperature change is so small that it cannot be discerned as being different from zero (at 95% confidence). And 16 years is important because The NOAA’s State of the Climate report in 2008 said this:
There has been zero trend (at 95% confidence) in global temperature for 16+ years whether or not one includes all the data or removes the 1998 ENSO peak by extrapolating back across the peak or by interpolating across the peak. Thus, there is a “discrepancy” between reality and what the climate models “rule out”.
Putting that in plain English in hope that you can understand
The recent zero trend (at 95% confidence) in global temperature for 16+ years demonstrates that the climate models don’t work.
So, Moe, I am a true sceptic because I am a scientist. I am not as you claim a “PRETENT skeptic” (sic). Hence, I don’t accept model outputs as projections as truth unless they are shown to work. I have presented you with data which shows the models don’t work but you – being a gullible fool – have swallowed untrue propaganda which tells you to ignore the data.
Richard
RichardCourtney, you are a very curious scientist indeed that revert to name calling and be-littling of others to ‘prove’ a point. I too am a scientist, and that is why I find it curious that you will not look for a statistically significant time period to establish a temperature trend.
I suspect that you don’t want to do this because you know the answer. The Earth is warming.
Moe:
You add to your proclamations of your ignorance of statistics when you write at January 26, 2013 at 12:47 am
The weather monitoring started only about 150 years ago.
On its first day the first weather station recorded eight record values; i.e. max. and min. for temperature, precipitation, wind speed, and barometric pressure. On the following day some (possibly all) of those records would have been broken.
As time passed the period between obtaining a new record increased, but records inevitably continued to be broken. This is true for each weather monitoring site. And there are now hundreds of monitoring sites.
Therefore, a weather record is obtained somewhere on most days. This results from the short time of the monitoring (~150 years) and the large number of measurements (8 parameters measured at hundreds of monitoring sites on each of 365 days each year).
But the Earth has been warming from the Little Ice Age for centuries, so the globe warmed for most of the ~150 years that the measurements have been made. Clearly, when the measurements started there was equal probability of obtaining a record high or record low temperature. But 100 years later the globe was warmer, so there was more chance of setting high temperature records and less chance of breaking the low temperature records which were obtained when the Earth was cooler.
Discernible global warming continued until about 16 years ago. Clearly, there is now high probability of setting high temperature records because the globe has only been this hot for the last 16 years of the 150 year record. But there is little probability of setting low temperature records because the Earth was cooler for ~130 years of the monitored time.
But you say of the recent time “the cold records falling at a third the rate of warm records”.
A third! That is so high a proportion of “cold records” that it is extraordinary.
”The cold records falling at a third the rate of warm records” is strong evidence that the global warming over the last ~150 years has been trivial.
And you would have known that if you had any understanding of what you are talking about.
Richard
Moe says:
January 26, 2013 at 12:47 am
DirkH, You are cherry picking. Look at the number of heat records broken in America last summer. Literally thousand of them. Record heat in Russia caused caused a drastically reduce crop and as a consequence they banned all grain exports out of Russia. What is being experienced is extreme heat in summer with extreme cold in winter, with the cold records falling at a third the rate of warm records.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Yes and that means the Northern Hemisphere jet stream has gone from zonal to a meridional pattern creating ‘blocking highs’ and large swings in temperature. The shift in pattern started about the year 2000 and has become more obvious and stable.
This poleward / equatorward shift in the jets will effect albedo by causing a poleward / equatorward shift in the three main cloud bands, namely the ITCZ and the two mid latitude jets.
Throughout the late 20th century warming trend all those cloud bands were further away from the equator letting more solar shortwave in to the oceans causing a rise in Sea Surface Temperature (SST) because a poleward positioning of the cloud bands reflects less due to the lower angle of incidence of solar input and leaves more open sky in lower latitudes.
Now that the cloud bands have moved more equatorward thanks to the meridional pattern more incoming solar is being reflected from the top of the atmosphere and less energy is getting into the oceans. This effect can be seen in the graph I linked to above, note how the SST has level off.
You can see this increase in solar radiation at the Earth’s surface as a decrease in albedo.
Albedo Graph 1985 – 2005 from: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2007/10/17/earths-albedo-tells-a-interesting-story/
More recent Albedo measurements graph from: http://www.bbso.njit.edu/
Note how the albedo has been INCREASING since around the year 2000.
Additional Information:
Solar Radiation, Top of the Atmosphere, Surface, 10m below ocean Graph
Solar wavelengths vs ocean depths Graph from link use google translate link
Graph of solar radiation and earth radiation
Ozone is what absorbs UV blocking it from reaching the surface. Stratospheric ozone has been depleted by 5 to 6 percent at middle latitudes since the mid 1970’s and peaked in the 2000s.
2012 Antarctic Ozone Hole Second Smallest in 20 Years
As a chemist I think H2O and O3 have a lot more impact on the earth’s climate when compared with CO2.
MiCro says:
January 25, 2013 at 8:39 am
“And it’s these inputs that might not be derive-able from the inputs used. What will be needed are enough cycles on ENSO, that cover all of it’s various cycles, and then various inputs that might be the source of the cycles that developed, then new inputs that might be the root cause of the cycles would then be added to the model and more adaption runs, to determine if the network “finds” the required inputs to enrich the equation. Once they are identified, they would be added to the required inputs list.”
I would suggest that one of these derived inputs would be the net tidal gravity vector at the surface, calculated from the ephemeris. The model would have to include the geography of the ocean bottoms and shorelines, as these may critically affect ocean circulation. Its not a simple problem we’re looking at.
Moe:
I replied to your fallacious, offensive and insulting post at January 26, 2013 at 12:39 am with the factual refutation of your nonsense which I provided at January 26, 2013 at 4:03 am.
You have replied to my factual rebuttal at January 26, 2013 at 5:02 am saying in total
Thankyou for the compliment which says I am “a very curious scientist indeed”. Yes, being a scientist I try to be as curious as possible because curiosity is a necessary basis of science.
But I called you no “names” and I “belittled” nobody. I merely pointed out your falsehoods and explained them.
I also noted that you had made a ‘schoolboy error’, and so I reasonably asked if you are a schoolboy. You have replied by claiming you are “a scientist”. Frankly, I doubt such a claim from an anonymous internet troll who proclaims ignorance of basic statistical principles and repeats them when they are pointed out.
You have again stated that one needs to “look for a statistically significant time period to establish a temperature trend”. I can do no better than to quote my words you purport to be answering but have failed to understand
The “length of time” is not something one needs to “look for”.
And you have completely ignored my explanation of the importance of the lack of discernible global warming (at 95% confidence) over the last 16+ years. It falsifies the climate models according to the NOAA falsification criterion.
Worst of all, you conclude by asserting
As any scientist would tell you, if that were true then it is not possible to know it because there has been no discernible global warming (at 95% confidence) over the last 16+ years.
You claim to be a scientist. Possibly true, but your posts indicate you are merely another anonymous ‘cut & paste’ troll who doesn’t understand anything he/she/it has copied.
Richard
Richard,
That was a marvelous slapping of Moe, “the scientist”.
And yet another demonstration of a running-on-empty alarmist trying to challenge a full tank skeptic.
Their defective selves have no sense of any measure of significance. They inflate the meaningless, deflate the germane, conclude the preposterous and decree the baseless.
Then get offended when they are perceived to be a school boy.
RichardCourtney, I see your justificaqtion of slurs proves my point, and Steve Organ fully agrees that you are not playing nice by ‘slapping me down’. Still if you can’t understand statistics how can you understand what good behaviour is?
But getting to the nub of the issue, you stated:
The data set determines what is – and what is not – statistically significant over any time period.
I agree and asked you to be a REAL skeptic and tell me what a statistically significant time period would be. You dodged answering, because you know what that would be and the results would show the Earth is warming. Something that would undermine all your arguments.
Richard, you must be getting frustrated with climate not agreeing with you. You can can’t believe the rules of physics are wrong but are continually confronted with the results you don’t expect (but still agree with the rules of physics) without your head exploding. Be a REAL skeptic and look to see why your expectations are wrong (that is the Earth is warming), your mental health depends on it.
Steve, whose running on empty? You do a good line in school boy bullying, but once again, you resort to this because you know Earth is warming (when you care to use a significance test).
When the data and evidence is against you, you may as well slag off as you have nothing else to justify your position.
Hope you are planning for more hot and unpredictable weather (like putting aside a few more bucks for insurance premiums for instance), because what you are experiencing is only going to continue.
Please, validating the model with only the most recent 21 months? That is completely meaningless. And I say this as somebody with a ton of experience with neural nets (or whatever else this “self-organizing model” might be).
Come back and talk to me in 33 years.
rgb
@rgbatduke says:
January 26, 2013 at 2:18 pm
“Please, validating the model with only the most recent 21 months? That is completely meaningless. And I say this as somebody with a ton of experience with neural nets (or whatever else this “self-organizing model” might be).
Come back and talk to me in 33 years.”
This is true out-of-sample (ex-ante) forecast. The system model was developed in May 2011 algorithmically by software on data of 6 variables (ozone, aerosols, reflectivity, SSN, CO2, HADCRUT3) from Nov 1978 – Apr 2011 (378 months). The time constraint is simply given by the availability of satellite data (TOMS) used for the first three variables. This model (actually it is a set of nonlinear dynamic models that are interconnected) has been predicted then (in May 2011) until Nov 2017 (79 months). This prediction has been published in my original post in Sep 2011 and on Climate Etc. in Oct 2011. Neither this initial prediction nor the models have been modified since then. So the model has proven that it worked for 21 months so far.
You find further information about the system model in my original post:
http://www.climateprediction.eu/cc/Main/Entries/2011/9/13_What_Drives_Global_Warming.html
So this is NOT model validation on most recent 21 months, it is validation of the true prediction skill of that model on observed data of the past 21 months, which were not known at the time the model and the prediction was done (May 2011).
The system model was developed by inductive self-organizing modeling, which is knowledge extraction from data. It shares some concepts of Neural Networks but it goes beyond them. It is not a Neural Network. Self-organizing modeling means that the model is completely undefined at start, nothing else is given than observational data (and a learning algorithm). During self-organization an optimal complex model is evolved, autonomously, i.e., the composition of the model structure, the parameters, the relevant inputs, the individual transfer functions. Self-organization performs structure identification and parameter estimation, Neural Networks and traditional statistics only perform parameter estimation.
More on this here:
http://www.knowledgeminer.eu/about.html#som
pochas commented on Finally, a climate forecast model that works?.
“I would suggest that one of these derived inputs would be the net tidal gravity vector at the surface, calculated from the ephemeris. The model would have to include the geography of the ocean bottoms and shorelines, as these may critically affect ocean circulation. Its not a simple problem we’re looking at.”
I agree, but remember anything that effects temp, is in the temp record already, what we don’t know is if the cause of everything in the temp record is in the input records, or if we have enough of the inputs time series to recreate all of the variations of the output time series.
Consider you can construct a annual time series from hourly data, but you can’t construct an hourly series from annual data.
Also when looking at a annual world average, your change in current while creating a local hot spot, might also create a cold spot somewhere else of equal but opposite magnitude.
Moe says:
“…tell me what a statistically significant time period would be.”
Get with the program! Do we have to educate every noob who comes along??
‘Statistically significant’ = 17 years. That explains the desperate consternation among the alarmist crowd; the planet is making fools of them for their CO2=CAGW conjecture.
Moe:
I read your post addressed to me at January 26, 2013 at 1:55 pm.
Please tell me what it said other than that you are ignorant of statistics and don’t have a clue what you are talking about.
I feel sure that you intended to say something more than, that but several readings of your post fail to reveal whatever it is. So, please tell me if your post did say – or was intended to say – anything more than you are ignorant, arrogant and have an unsubstantiated belief in “it is warming”.
Richard
rgb, an observation, since it doesn’t contain a co2 input, it doesn’t necessarily have to be “right”, it just has to be more accurate than gcm’s based on raising co2.
RichardCourtney, I will explain it again, but this time so a non scientist can understand someone like D. D. Stealey for instance.
When analysing the data to see underlying trends, you must analyse sufficient data to come to a conclusion that you are confident of.
If you have insufficient data, you cannot have confidence in your conclusion.
You select a period of time whereby you are not confident of your conclusion. I suggested that you analyse more data, that will produce a statistically significant result and then tell,us all what the trend it.
Simple.
Because you profess to be a scientist, this would be second nature to you, but you refuse to do it. The only reason I can think of for you refusing to do this is because you are a pretend skeptic and do not like the answer you will get. That is, the Earth is warming. It will probably cause you a mental breakdown to accept this fact.
Well you better get your head around it because the mechanism that is in place to warm the Earth is still in place, and, as we emerge out of a solar minimum the rate of change will increase.
And please, can you come up with something better than your repetitive put downs, they are showing that you have nothing left in your tank to support your point of view.
Moe says:
“Because you profess to be a scientist,…”
Get up to speed, noob. Richard Courtney is a published, peer reviewed scientist. What are you? Just a refugee from an alarmist blog, no?
You also have no clue about my background. You are just a know-nothing peddling your alarmist nonsense here. Contrary to your assertion, scientific skeptics [of which I am one] do not assert that there is no global warming. What we know is that a natural warming trend has been in place since the end of the LIA. Further, global warming has not accelerated, despite the large infusion of [harmless, beneficial] CO2 into the atmosphere.
The lack of any acceleration in global warming solidly deconstructs your misguided belief in catastrophic AGW. Because if CO2 caused any measurable global warming, then we would be able to measure the increase. But there are no such measurements. The fact is that the alarmist crowd has no testable, verifiable scientific evidence showing that CO2 causes any measurable warming. None.
Now run along back to Shemp and Curly, they might have some new talking points for you. Because the ones you’re using don’t work here.
Hey DBStealey, I was giving you credit for realising the error that Richardscourtney was making. Ie the time period he was using was to short. As a peer reviewed scientist (could you direct me to some of his research to se how he tackled statistical significance), Richard should also be aware of his shortcomings.
The rest of your posting is a red herring, until Richard will accept his error (and you should let him fight his own battles as he should take the consequences of his own mistakes), there is nothing further to discuss. He knows He should sample a sufficient time period of data so he can get a statistically significant result. Yet he doesn’t even after several requests.
Because he repeatedly refuses to acknowledge this, he is misleading the readers. (I can tell when my point is hitting home as he tries to get the high ground by belittling me. Pity that he has to resort to those tactics to deflect the obvious critercism he is facing).
He can’t get away from it, the Earth is getting warmer.
Moe says:
“He can’t get away from it, the Earth is getting warmer.”
And you can’t get away from your belief that human activity is the reason.
It is not, at least not to any measurable degree.
Global warming has been naturally rising for hundreds of years — along the same trend line. There has been no acceleration of that warming despite the increase in CO2 since the start of the industrial revolution.
If you cannot understand what that means, let me help: it means that CO2 is getting the blame for something it isn’t causing. Can you not understand that??
Moe commented
“When analysing the data to see underlying trends, you must analyse sufficient data to come to a conclusion that you are confident of.
If you have insufficient data, you cannot have confidence in your conclusion.
You select a period of time whereby you are not confident of your conclusion. I suggested that you analyse more data, that will produce a statistically significant result and then tell,us all what the trend it.
Simple.”
Absolutely!
I’ve analyzed 240 million temp samples (daily min/max) to see how much temps drop compared to how much they went up during the preceding day, and there’s no trend.
And at ~3.5 million mean temps/day there’s some 47 million samples for the last 17 years, is that enough?
Now I also find it interesting that most of the records getting set, were previously set 50-70 years ago, you know in the 30’s and 50’s. Which had BTW ~ 50k samples/year in the 30’s, and ~500k samples/year in the 50’s. So all of your record setting temps are being compared against 1/7 to 1/70 as many samples.
“I suggest you analyze more data” too.
MiCro, your statement: I’ve analyzed 240 million temp samples (daily min/max) to see how much temps drop compared to how much they went up during the preceding day, and there’s no trend. Shows you haven’t grasped the concept either. Think about length of time, greater than 1day. In fact think.greater than 16 years as Richard has repeatedly mentioned that that will not give a statistically significant answer either.
There is no need to go back to the thirties, there is sufficient satellite data to get an answer that you will have confidence in. And the answer is you get is the Earth is warming (did you read that Richard, the answer you get is the Earth is getting warmer!).
Moe,
I didn’t say that since the 30’s there was no warming, only that there is no evidence that co2 has reduced the ability for the earth to cool at night, which is the only way that co2 can be the cause of the warming.
The 240 million samples invalidate the agw hypothesis.
Moe:
It is a new day. I have fulfilled some duties. And I come here to find you still promoting your ignorant drivel.
You have not answered my request to you at January 26, 2013 at 3:14 pm which concerned your post addressed to me at January 26, 2013 at 1:55 pm and asked you
Instead, you have published a series of posts which seem to say exactly what I understood you to have said, and they say nothing more. For example, this at January 26, 2013 at 10:12 pm
Yes, I “get it”. You understand nothing that is said to you and you understand nothing you say.
Let me refresh your memory of what has happened here. I list what you claim and others have said to you.
1.
I repeatedly explained to you that statistical significance is a function of the analysed data set. But you failed to understand that and so you have repeatedly asked for a longer time to be analysed.
2.
MiCro presented data which showed no warming since the 1930s. But your reply – in effect – says “since the 1930s” is too long because “There is no need to go back to the thirties”. And, of course, that poses the question as to what you think is long enough but not too long.
4.
You claim there is warming over the entire satellite record since 1979. But nobody disputes that: D B Stealey and I have repeatedly told you that there has been global warming over the last 150 years as recovery from the LIA. It seems you want the ‘Goldilocks option’: i.e. not to short and not too long but ‘just right’ to suite your assertion.
5.
The global temperature assessments (including both the RSS and UAH satellite determinations) EACH and ALL show there has been no discernible global warming at (95% confidence) for the last 16 years. In other words, there was global warming but there is no evidence of global warming over the most recent 16 years.
6.
The zero trend (at 95% confidence) in global warming over the last 16 falsifies the climate models according to the NOAA falsification criterion. You have studiously ignored this fact despite my repeatedly pointing it out to you.
7.
Your excuses for your refusal to accept reality have become progressively more desperate
I have repeatedly told you
But you have replied by repeatedly asserted that statistical significance is a function of the time period. IT IS NOT. It is a function of the variance of the data within any time period.
8.
Despite all evidence and argument, you persist in asserting “it is warming”. As I have repeatedly explained to you, if there is any warming or cooling at present then that cannot be known because there has been zero trend in global temperature (at 95% confidence) for the last 16+ years.
You are wrong. You know you are wrong. Everybody can see you are wrong.
But that does not matter to you because the purpose of any troll is to be a disruptive pest, and you are fulfilling your purpose.
Richard
pochas says: @ January 26, 2013 at 8:16 am
….I would suggest that one of these derived inputs would be the net tidal gravity vector at the surface, calculated from the ephemeris. The model would have to include the geography of the ocean bottoms and shorelines, as these may critically affect ocean circulation. Its not a simple problem we’re looking at.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
You might want to meander over to E.M. Smith’s blog and look at Lunar Resonance and Taurid Storms and Lunar Cycles, more than one… and Why Weather has a 60 year Lunar beat
Richard, for a PR guy, I would expect that you would know a little more about being polite. I suppose you are as good a PR guy as you are a scientist. I figured you were not a scientist when you came up with your lame excuse about statistical significance. You obviously know nothing about statistics. What area of science do you work in again? Still that doesn’t matter, your job is to confuse the uncertain.
I googled your name to see some of your scientific papers. What an eye opener. I would suggest other readers do the same. You are worse than a pest or troll, you are someone who deliberately tries to mislead people.
I am disappointed because I thought I was discussing a serious issue with you, but you are nothing but a paid fibber – not that they are getting their monies worth, you are very bad at it (at least to a REAL skeptic).
But still you have a chance to redeem yourself, just come up with a statistical significant time frame to see what is happening with the temperature trend, and let us know what it is and I will reconsider my very low opinion of you.
BTW, you very aggressive attitude and bullying behaviour I have pointed out previously has been noted by others. The only change is that you seem to be more desperate lately. I guess the pressure to perform when everything is going against you is starting to tell.
Moe says: @ January 26, 2013 at 1:55 pm
….I agree and asked you to be a REAL skeptic and tell me what a statistically significant time period would be. You dodged answering, because you know what that would be and the results would show the Earth is warming….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Richard Courtney, does not have to tell you that because it has been clearly stated by Climatologists a number of times. The time period would then be counted backwards from the present as has been done by numerous people.
I also took a close look at the interpretation of the NOAA State of the Climate report in 2008 excerpt Courtney and others presented in this comment.
The fact that there is not rejoicing going on that we have no disaster pending but instead weaseling and squirming shows that CAGW was never about science but about coming up with a crisis that could be used to beat the human population into submitting to global totalitarian rule.
“The data doesn’t matter. We’re not basing our recommendations on the data. We’re basing
them on the climate models.” ~ Prof. Chris Folland, Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research
“The models are convenient fictions that provide something very useful.” ~ Dr David Frame, climate modeler, Oxford University
“The only way to get our society to truly change is to frighten people with the possibility of a catastrophe.” ~ Daniel Botkin emeritus professor Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology, University of California, Santa Barbara.
The IPCC mandate states:
Humans were tried and found guilty BEFORE the IPCC ever looked at a scientific fact. The only mistake that was made was actually putting a quantified number of years (15 to 17) on what would prove the CAGW conjecture incorrect and then running out of tricks used to artificially increase the temperature. Having the satellite temperatures in the hands of honest scientists must really sting and of course a smear campaign has ensued. Actual temperature graph.
But skeptics are willing to go along with the mutilated surface temperature records and even with them you get 16 or more years of zero to negative trend at 95% confidence.
…………….
The NOAA’s State of the Climate report in 2008 said this:
“Near-zero and even negative trends are common for intervals of a decade or less in the simulations, due to the model’s internal climate variability. The simulations rule out (at the 95% level) zero trends for intervals of 15 years or more, suggesting that an observed absence of warming of this duration is needed to create a discrepancy with the expected present-day warming rate.”
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/bams-sotc/climate-assessment-2008-lo-rez.pdf
Dr. Phil Jones – 5 July 2005
“The scientific community would come down on me in no uncertain terms if I said the world had cooled from 1998. OK it has but it is only 7 years of data and it isn’t statistically significant.”
Dr. Phil Jones – 2009
“Bottom line: the ‘no upward trend’ has to continue for a total of 15 years before we get worried.”
“The simulations rule out (at the 95% level) zero trends for intervals of 15 yr or more, suggesting that an observed absence of warming of this duration is needed to create a discrepancy with the expected present-day warming rate.”
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/bams-sotc/climate-assessment-2008-lo-rez.pdf
“A single decade of observational TLT data is therefore inadequate for identifying a slowly evolving anthropogenic warming signal. Our results show that temperature records of at least 17 years in length are required for identifying human effects on global-mean tropospheric temperature. ”
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2011/2011JD016263.shtml
“The LLNL-led research shows that climate models can and do simulate short, 10- to 12-year “hiatus periods” with minimal warming, even when the models are run with historical increases in greenhouse gases and sulfate aerosol particles. They find that tropospheric temperature records must be at least 17 years long to discriminate between internal climate noise and the signal of human-caused changes in the chemical composition of the atmosphere.”
https://www.llnl.gov/news/newsreleases/2011/Nov/NR-11-11-03.html
“The multimodel average tropospheric temperature trends are outside the 5–95 percentile range of RSS results at most latitudes. The likely causes of these biases include forcing errors in the historical simulations (40–42), model response errors (43), remaining errors in satellite temperature estimates (26, 44), and an unusual manifestation of internal variability in the observations (35, 45). These explanations are not mutually exclusive. Our results suggest that forcing errors are a serious concern.”
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/11/28/1210514109.full.pdf
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/11/28/1210514109
In comments at Realclimate in 2007 where the latest plateau in temperatures was discussed Gavin Schmidt confirmed that he would be “worried about state of understandig” if 1998 was not dethroned as the record holder in _all_ temperature indices within 5 years. 1998 had already been dethroned by 2005 and 2007 in the GISS and NOAA indices at the time but 1998 was still the record holder in the RSS index as it is now. 5 years has gone by since then and no new record has been reached in the RSS index.
In comments Gavin confirmed this statement from a Daniel Klein: “If 1998 is not exceeded in all global temperature indices by 2013, you’ll be worried about state of understanding”
http://www.realclimate.org/?comments_popup=497#comment-78146x.
Well it hasn’t been exceeded in the latest satellite graph.
……………………
These were all given more than once by others.
MiCro:
Thankyou for your clarification at January 27, 2013 at 3:32 am which says
You make a good and very important point.
Can you write up your work for publication?
Richard
richardscourtney commented
“Can you write up your work for publication?”
I can, and have put some of it together, follow the link in my name.
But I will most likely need some help with some of it, if you follow the link, you can contact me from there, we can take this off line, and see what can be done.
Moe:
I have read your flaming post at January 27, 2013 at 4:01 am.
For the information of others, I am not and I never have been a “PR guy”. And my words to you have been very mild responses to your egregious behaviour.
Your claim that I am a “paid fibber” is two lies in two words. However, I suspect you are a paid troll. And I never – not ever – attempt to “mislead people”. Please refrain from assuming that others do as you do.
Your assertion that you are ” a scientist” is patently ridiculous. Indeed, your persistently stated ignorance of statistics is so profound that it beggars belief.
I have repeatedly explained to you that the statistical significance of a trend depends on the variance of the data set but you persist in demanding – and have yet again demanded – that I define a time frame for a statistically significant trend. I did: I stated that for 16+ years the trend in global temperature has been indiscernible from zero (at 95% confidence).
I will spell it out for you in hope that you will be able to understand (although I doubt it when I strongly suspect you are schoolboy posting from the laptop in your bedroom).
A linear trend is a straight line with formula x = a*y + c
If a set of three or more points lie on that line then they have the trend (i.e. the slope) specified as a.
So, when there are a set of points in a time series it can be determined if they approximate to a linear trend by means of a least-squares fit. This determines the line through the points which provides the lowest value for the squared values of the points from the line. This line is the trend.
PLEASE NOTE THAT THE TIME LENGTH OF THE TIME SERIES IS NOT RELEVANT.
Obviously, a least-squares analysis will provide a result for a whether or not there is a valid trend. The validity of the trend is indicated by the square of its correlation coefficient (r^2). An r^2 near 1.0 indicates the data provides a ‘true’ (i.e. useful) trend and a r^2 near 0 indicates the apparent trend is not valid. I can’t post equations here so you will need to look up how to calculate an r^2 for yourself.
The standard deviation (s.d.) of the data can also be determined and is the inverse of the variance of the points from the determined trend. And confidence limits can be determined for the trend. In principle, any confidence limits can be calculated. Strict sciences (e.g. physics) use 99% confidence. This states there is a 1 in 100 chance that the trend is not within those limits, Climatology is less rigorous and normally uses 95% confidence limits. This states that there is 1 in 20 chance that the trend is within those limits.
Any scientist would know this and would not pester about provision of a time frame for a statistically significant trend, but may have requested an r^2 statistic for the stated trend.
Another of your several errors was your claim that every molecule of anthropogenic CO2 accumulates in the atmosphere. That was so ignorant an error that I ridiculed it. But I notice that Lord Stern has recently made that same error and Willis Eschenbach has very recently posted an article on WUWT about his making it.
You are a know-nothing, anonymous pest trying – with some success – to disrupt this thread.
I will not feed your ignorant, irrelevant and stupid trolling with any more replies whether or not they are flaming posts aimed at me.
Richard
Moderator:
My reply to Moe seems to have gone in the ‘bin’. Please retrieve it.
Richard
Oh dear.
In my anger, I made some serious errors in my post at January 27, 2013 at 11:42 am
I wrote
This determines the line through the points which provides the lowest value for the squared values of the points from the line.
but intended to write
This determines the line through the points which provides the lowest value for the squared values of the distances of the points from the line.
I wrote
This states that there is 1 in 20 chance that the trend is within those limits.
but intended to write
This states that there is 1 in 20 chance that the trend is not within those limits.
Sorry. I should not rapidly type the keyboard while angry at outrage.
Richard
========================================================
It would seem that “Mother Nature” doesn’t often cooperate with “Model Nature”.
Gunga din says ‘Get with the program! Do we have to educate every noob who comes along??’
Well it appears you are one of th noobs (your term) that need educating. Your answer was wrong!
Richard, Ganga fas had a go and got it wrong, perhaps you can grab a stats package and some satellite data (there is enough) and tell him how long a time span you need to get a statistically significant answer to determine the Earth’s temperature trend with confidence. BTW, you claim that is not time dependant is incorrect. You are dealing with a time series, and statistical significant answer can be achieved by selecting an appropriate time period.
Moe:
Your post at January 27, 2013 at 5:28 pm says in total
I have never heard of “Gangs fas” or what he/she did or said that was “wrong”.
I went to the bother of explaining how a time series is analysed to determine a linear trend and to assess if it is statistically significant (see my post addressed to you at January 27, 2013 at 11:42 am with corrigendum at January 27, 2013 at 12:19 pm).
You have not stated any error in that explanation because it is correct.
Instead, you have repeated your mistaken belief that the statistical significance of a time series is a function of the analysed time period. It is NOT: it is a function of the variance of the data (as I explained with sufficient detail for it to be understood by an average 12-year-old).
Your reply demonstrates that the explanation is beyond your understanding.
Clearly, you need to waste less time blogging from your bedroom and to spend that time in your mathematics lessons at school which is where you should be.
This thread is not the place for little boys to pretend to be grown ups, and you are wasting space on the thread. Stop skiving off from school and learn what you are trying – and failing – to talk about.
Richard
===========================================================================
Actually, I didn’t say that. (See my comment “Gunga Din says:
January 27, 2013 at 12:22 pm”) However I do not disagree with what D. B. Stealey said.
(Can I interest you in some Mint Toe-Paste? I need to use it myself at times. 😎
MiCro:
re your post at January 28, 2013 at 7:18 am.
Please see the inbox of your blog’s contact facility.
Richard
Richard, you are incorrect in asserting that statistical significance is not a function of time. Repeatly stating this the more your math (and scientific) credibility suffers. You said your self that statistical significance cannot be established with sufficient confidence in 16 years. However extending the time period you will get statistical significance.
I am surprised that you keep this up instead of doing the analysis. You’re a scientist (in what area I wonder) so you should know how to calculate significance. But if you wish to continue to show your true colors to the threaders, I will continue to point out your error.
You could do the right thing and work out how far you must go back in the time series to get acceptable significance and do the analysis. Check what the trend is with sufficient confidence and let everyone know what it is.
I will give you two hints. It is longer than 17 years and the result will show you the Earth is warming.
============================================================
I think Moe may have confused me with D.B. Stealey.
(BTW I’m honored.)
Mint Toe-Paste not only makes the experience of tasting one’s toes less unpleasant but also serves as a lubricant to make it easier to extract one’s foot from one’s mouth. The only thing that defeats it is pride.
Moe,
Since you want a longer trend than 16 years [and I agree], here is a very long term trend chart.
That chart has one very noticeable feature: the long term global temperature trend rises along the same trend line, whether CO2 is low or high. Despite the recent increase in CO2, there is no acceleration in global warming. [In fact, global warming has stalled for the past 10+ years.]
That tells us unequivocally that rising CO2 does not cause any measurable global warming.
You write:
“Check what the trend is with sufficient confidence and let everyone know what it is.”
I have shown the long term [natural] global warming trend. It shows that the ≈40% rise in CO2 has not caused global warming to increase. At all. Either you can free your mind from the pervasive, anti-science AGW propaganda, or you can’t. But facts are facts, and the facts show conclusively that CO2 has had no measurable effect on global temperature.
Moe:
At January 28, 2013 at 1:12 pm you begin your ridiculous post saying
Say what!?
1.
I did NOT merely merely assert that statistical significance is a function of the variance of the data and NOT of the length of analyses time. I explained it but you have been incapable of understanding the elementary statistical procedure which I provided for you.
2.
I did NOT say “statistical significance cannot be established with sufficient confidence in 16 years”. I REPEATEDLY DENIED IT. This is merely another in your series of lies.
3.
Only you have made the ignorant and silly error of claiming that the length of time (not the r^2 statistic) defines the validity of a determined trend. Indeed, I doubt you did as I advised and looked up its equation.
I advised you to stop wasting time on the computer in your bedroom and to spend the time in the maths. lessons at school where you should be. Clearly, you have rejected that advice.
Read the explanation of basic regression analysis which I provided for you.
Long before there were “stats packages” which you say I should obtain (but have), I was using a cylindrical slide rule to conduct regression analyses in my lab. One needs to understand what one is doing and how to do it in order to obtain a regression that way. Indeed, one needs to be able to assess the likely result to within an order of magnitude because a slide rule doesn’t provide the decimal point. And you say I need to press a button to get a result! Yes, I can do that, but I know what the program is doing, and you keep proclaiming you don’t.
Stop wasting your time stating falsehoods here. I am sure the pocket money you get paid for trolling is useful, but the education you would get in school would be much more useful to you for your adult life.
And I again tell you that your superstitious belief that “The Earth is warming” is nonsense. There has been no discernible trend (at 95% confidence) in global temperature for 16+ years so if the Earth is warming or cooling it is not possible to know it.
Richard
DBStealey says:That tells us unequivocally that rising CO2 does not cause any measurable global warming. Unfortunately you must not have heard of the greenhouse effect. You are confused in thinking that CO2 is the only reason the earth should heat. There many influences as you know because each year is not a replica of the previous. The CO2 effect is overlaying these other influences causing the trend that you have correctly identified as hearing.
Oh dear Richard I think I have identified why you are confused. The data is a function of time (hint the temperature series is a TIME series). Therefore going back in TIME will give you statistical significance that you will be confident with. I am surprised that you are continuing to deny this, but if you must show you ignorance of stats that is ok by me. (Where on earth did you study this? I think your cylindrical (I think you mean circular) slide rule must have let you down.)
I am afraid you have said you cannot get statistical significance in 16 years as in ‘there has been NO STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT warming in the last 16 years’. Are you backing away from this statement?
As for your statement: And I again tell you that your superstitious belief that “The Earth is warming” is nonsense. ‘ I think you had better have a look at DBStealey’s post at 3:21 where he says:the long term global temperature trend rises along the same trend line,’ Once again your credibility is taking a beating.
Moe,
You are hand-waving. There is no measurable, testable evidence of global warming from CO2. None.
You cannot measure any global ‘greenhouse effect’. That is an assertion on your part, with no measurable basis in fact. It is an assumption, which may have some validity — or not. So if you believe it is valid, post the amount of the ‘greenhouse effect’ that results from X increase in CO2.
You can’t. Neither can anyone else. And if something cannot be measured, it is no more than a conjecture; an opinion.
Your comment is nothing but hand-waving. You write of a putative ‘CO2 effect’ without being able to produce any verifiable, testable scientific evidence or measurements.
If you actually believe that “the CO2 effect is overlaying these other influences causing the trend…”, then what you are doing is repeating scientifically baseless alarmist propaganda instead of thinking for yourself. “Overlaying” is just another baseless assertion. That nonsense may get traction at RealClimate or some other pseudo-science blog, but it fails here at the internet’s “Best Science” site.
There is no verifiable, testable, measurable “CO2 effect”. None. You are like a guy in his bed in a dark room, totally convinced that there is a black cat under your bed. You can almost hear it breathing. But when you get up and turn on the light… there is no cat. And there never was.
Wake me when you can produce any measurable, falsifiable, testable scientific evidence quantifying a “CO2 effect”. Unti then, you are just hand-waving.
Oh dear, DB do you dispute that there is a greenhouse effect?
When Richard comes back with his analysis and declares the Earth is warming you can then come back with an explanation as to why it is warming.
Moe,
As usual, you have the scientific method exactly backward. I don’t “dispute” a putative greenhouse effect, I only ask you to prove that it exists, and that it is measurable. The onus is on the one making the assertion, and your belief in a greenhouse effect is only an assertion. You have no measurable evidence to support your belief.
So either provide empirical, testable, falsifiable scientific evidence verifying a global “greenhouse effect”… or admit that you are operating on a belief system.
The onus is on you, not on scientific skeptics. You are the one making the assertion. Get it now?
DB, you say:’I don’t “dispute” a putative greenhouse effect, I only ask you to prove that it exists, ‘. If we are in agreement, why do you want me to prove it to you. Seems a little redundant.
Where is Richard with his analysis, I want him to eat humble pie and apologise to the readers for wasting their time. It is amazing, how people of low integrity, run off with their tail between their legs when they are found out rather than admit their error and move on.
Yo, Moe,
I don’t know why you are so fixated on another commentator that you feel you must ask me about him. Are you insecure, or what? FYI, I don’t speak for anyone but myself.
Or, maybe it is just a distracting tactic because I challenged you to provide scientific evidence, in the form of verifiable measurements, showing that your greenhouse effect exists?
You made the assertion that a greenhouse effect exists. Now prove it — or admit that it is a conjecture.
DB, you don’t dispute it so there is no need to prove it. I really can see your point. You can just as easily look at the reasons you used not to dispute it as to me giving them to you.
As for asking about Richard, that was more a note to self. I notice when people are shown up on this blog, they slink away to stop drawing attention to their errors.
Just to clarify, Moe is pronounced like Zoe not like toe, but I still appreciate your Yo Moe, it is good. (I guess that should be Yo Mo).
Moe:
In your post at January 28, 2013 at 9:29 pm you say
A note to self is not posted on the world’s most popular science blog.
A note to deceive is posted in such a manner.
I have repeatedly pointed out your several errors but you have not admitted any of them and you have slunk away from admitting your many mistakes.
The most notable of your silly and mistaken notions is that the statistical significance of a trend in a time series is defined by the length of the data set. As I have repeatedly stated – and provided a detailed explanation – the statistical significance is a function of the variance of the data and is determined by the r^2 statistic.
You have refused to admit your silly and ignorant error. Instead, you keep repeating it!
An apology for your behaviour here would be appropriate before Mummy tucks you up for the night.
Richard
Moe, whilst I am fascinated by your ability to take such a beating and keep coming back, it’s time to follow The First Law of Holes.
RichardCourtney and D.B. Stealey – this is starting look like a couple of Rottweilers tearing apart a kitten; please let Moe go…
Richard, thank heavens you are back, so I can educate you again. I must admit I admire your persistence at showing your ignorance.
They may not have covered this in the math subject in your diploma course in divinity or whatever it was you did, so here goes.
You have a time series of the Earth’s temperature. That is temperatures taken at regular intervals. In this case yearly (year is a unit of TIME).
When you plot temperature against TIME, the plot goes up and down in a zig zag fashion. You can put a trend line through it. It will have a gradient. If you wish to see which way the gradient is slopinging, you have to take enough years of data to make sure you are confident of the underlying trend. I will stress this for the dim, ENOUGH YEARS OF DATA. That Richard is time…..
You admit 16 years is not enough TIME, so I ask you to work put how much TIME you need to be confident that your conclusion about the slope of the trend line. You will not do this because you know which way the trend slopes. Upwards, ie the Earth is warming.
Then you persist in your repeated error that time has nothing to do with it. It doesn’t matter as a few of my friends are injoying reading your pathetic attempts to redeem your credibility, but with each post, you damage it further.
Thanks horse, but I am not being mauled or taking a beating. As you can see Richard is hung up on an error, which he thinks he can bluff his way into making better by repeating it. (Along with his customary abuse).
Nice of you to take an interest in me, but I am quiet ok. I keep goading Richard back as I am quiet enjoying him showing his ignorance (surely, you can give me credit for that as earlier he vowed to stop responding).
Horse:
I appreciate your post at January 29, 2013 at 2:39 am which says in total
I accept your point about what this “looks like” but, with respect, there are three reasons why I do not think Moe can be “let go” but needs to be forced to desist.
Firstly, Moe has been successful in destroying this thread (does anybody now remember that the subject of this thread is a specific climate model?). Failure, to defeat Moe’s behaviour will encourage other trolls to disrupt other WUWT threads in similar manner.
Secondly, his disruptions have consisted solely of falsehoods and misrepresentations. The Moderation policy of WUWT allows free expression and if that is to be of value then it has to enable complete refutation of presented falsehoods and misrepresentations.
Thirdly, from behind the cowardly shield of anonymity, Moe made a post aimed at me which consisted solely of lies, smears and personal defamations. He has not retracted or apologised for any of that, so I feel no reason to be gentle when correcting falsehoods and misrepresentations from the egregious coward.
Richard
Richard, cry me a river of tears. It appears you can dish it put, but can’t take it.
Why don’t you spend your time constructively and work out how many years data you would need to get a statistically significant answer to what is happening to the Earth’s temperature. You know what I mean… Be a REALskeptic for once.
Moe:
Your post at January 29, 2013 at 3:24 am says in total
What is it I can’t take?
I have kicked your butt from here to Alaska and all you have done is tell lies.
There has been no statistically significant trend (at 95% confidence) in global temperature for the last 16 years. There was for the previous 16 years.
I explained how and why regression analysis is conducted and how the validity of a regression result is demonstrated by the r^2 statistic.
You have repeatedly asserted the nonsense that the validity of a regression analysis depends on the length of the time series and not the variance of the data.
OK. Demonstrate your silly assertion. Explain why it is so if you really think it is.
Stop shouting ‘It is, it is!’ and explain why you think it is.
Your baby talk is earning your pay as an employed troll, but it is achieving nothing else except to show how warmunists will go to any lengths to spread disinformation.
Explain your ignorant and silly assertion. Put up or shut up.
Richard
PS I anticipate more lies and irrelevance instead of the required explanation from you.
Moe says:
January 28, 2013 at 1:12 pm
It is longer than 17 years and the result will show you the Earth is warming.
If the earth were in fact warming as the models predicted, then 16 years would be sufficient. As proof, see the four years below. Note the period from 1995 to 2010.
Start of 1995 to end 2009: 0.133 +/- 0.144. Warming for 15 years is NOT significant which DOES agree with Phil Jones.
Start of 1995 to end 2010: 0.137 +/- 0.129. Warming for 16 years IS significant which DOES agree with Phil Jones.
Start of 1995 to end 2011: 0.109 +/- 0.119. Warming for 17 years is NOT significant.
Start of 1995 to October 2012: 0.098 +/- 0.111. Warming for 18 years is NOT significant.
Werner Brozek:
Thankyou for your post at January 29, 2013 at 10:13 am which clearly demonstrates the scientific fact that significance is a function of the variance and not the length of the data set.
However, that scientific point is not now the issue. If science were the issue then we would still be evaluating the climate forecast model which is the proper subject of this thread.
The subject now is that a troll, Moe, has completely derailed this thread by use of a series of falsehoods. It is imperative that Moe needs to be forced to admit that at least one of his false assertions is wrong: otherwise other trolls will assault WUWT threads to cause similar derailment by similar method.
Anybody who knows anything about elementary statistical analysis knows Moe is wrong. The need is to force Moe to admit that he knows he is wrong because that will defeat his method of disruption. I have explained Moe is wrong, and you have demonstrated Moe is wrong, but it needs to be admitted by Moe that Moe is wrong.
Richard
Werner, you are wrong, even Richard concedes that sixteen years is insufficient time to get statistical significance as in ‘there is no statistical significance in 16 years’. Of course Richard is using the accepted 95% confidence level.
Moe,
Werner Brozek is correct, you are wrong, and the more you comment the clearer it becomes that you are a noob to this subject. You cannot even get the scientific method right. And trying to nitpick your way out of the fact that global warming has stalled only shows that you are blind to extensive scientific evidence.
Cognitive dissonance. It is usually incurable, and it infects legions of wild-eyed climate alarmists like you.
Moe:
At January 29, 2013 at 6:36 am I wrote to you saying
And I added
Your immediately subsequent post (at January 29, 2013 at 12:12 pm) fails to explain why you assert your nonsensical falsehood and spouts more falsehoods. Saying in total
Quad Erat Demonstrandum.
I have repeatedly told you that the most recent 16 years DOES give a statistically significant trend and the trend is indistinguishable from zero (at 95% confidence) . Your assertion that I have said otherwise is merely another of your lies.
I have explained how and why the length of time is not relevant but the variance of the data is when assessing the statistical significance of a time series.
You make the daft claim that the length of time determines statistical significance. I have challenged you to justify that falsehood. You have ignored the challenge and – as I predicted you would – instead you have provided more irrelevant falsehood.
PUT UP OR SHUT UP.
Richard
Moe says:
January 29, 2013 at 12:12 pm
Werner, you are wrong
You may want to take this up with Phil Jones from an article on June 2011:
“Climate warming since 1995 is now statistically significant, according to Phil Jones, the UK scientist targeted in the “ClimateGate” affair.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13719510
I see there are 4 independent pieces of evidence that show CO2 does not control climate
1)This model that can reproduce temperature trends better without referencing CO2, than the CO2 based GCM’s.
2)Temperature trends have flattened off for a length of time that climate modelers define as improbable, as CO2 continues to increase.
3)My investigation of night time cooling shows no loss of cooling for the bulk of the surface record for the periods that have a reasonable number of station records (1950-2010). Included in these records are a few stations with very low humidity, and low winds that had a 60 degree F swing up and down within 24 hr’s.
4)Utilizing a handheld IR thermometer, on a 35F day, pointing it at a clear sky, reads below minimum scale of -40F, or it reads max scale of over 608F in the general direction of the Sun.
@moe,
I think you’re coming at statistical significance from the wrong direction, maybe I can help illustrate with an example, leaving out the computations:
Say I’m out measuring Subway ‘foot long’ sandwiches. I measure two sets of 20 sandwiches each set.
In the first set, all of the measurements are more or less evenly distributed between 11.9 and 12.1 inches.
In the second set, lets say my measurements come out as more or less evenly distributed between 11 and 13 inches.
The variance in this second set is larger (and hence the standard deviation is larger), and this alone affects what we can say with any desired degree of confidence about the set. Clearly, we have greater confidence that futher samples taken from the first set are going to be within + or – .5 inches of 12 inches than the second set, right? Time has nothing to do with it, the size of the sample set doesn’t have a whole lot to do with it; it’s the variance you compute from the data that determines what you can say with what degree of confidence. The only reason the size of the set matters is that the odds of getting a bad estimate of mean and variance goes down with a greater number of samples / observations.
Hope this helps.
Also note that a single yearly average is made from ~3.5 million daily records (based on the increasing record counts for almost every year we’ve been taking measurements and the record count of 2010)
richardscourtney says:
January 29, 2013 at 12:44 pm
Moe:
At January 29, 2013 at 6:36 am I wrote to you saying
You have repeatedly asserted the nonsense that the validity of a regression analysis depends on the length of the time series and not the variance of the data.
OK. Demonstrate your silly assertion. Explain why it is so if you really think it is.
Stop shouting ‘It is, it is!’ and explain why you think it is.
[self snip]
Put up or shut up.
Richard, I’m afraid you’re missing something.
In order to determine the statistical significance of a trend in time-series data you first calculate the correlation coefficient, r, then you determine the critical value for a certain degree of significance, say 0.05, that threshold value depends on the number of points.
See attached table:
http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/siegle/research/correlation/corrchrt.htm
The number of degrees of freedom, df=Number of points-2
Note that you need a r value of .990 for 0.01 level of significance with 4 points but only r of 0.254 for the same significance with 100 points.
I have explained how and why the length of time is not relevant but the variance of the data is when assessing the statistical significance of a time series.
You make the daft claim that the length of time determines statistical significance. I have challenged you to justify that falsehood. You have ignored the challenge and – as I predicted you would – instead you have provided more irrelevant falsehood.
Consider it justified, I suggest you learn some statistics before pontificating on the subject next time.
Phil. says:
February 1, 2013 at 8:46 am
Let me note that each of these 16 + points include 365 daily points, made from just under 10,000 individual measurements, so these 16 years of data are actually derived from about 47 million measurements. That seems significant to me.
Phil.:
I read your ignorant arm-waving at February 1, 2013 at 8:46 am.
I will bother to detail your error when you have addressed the point by MiCro at February 1, 2013 at 9:38 am.
I suggest that you use your full name when you next spout rubbish. There is no fun in chopping off the head of an anonymous troll even one who – like you – has been called in as a last-ditch defence of a defenestrated anonymous troll.
For now, I point out that using http://www.skepticalscience.com/trend.php to determine how long it has been that the global temperature trend is not different from zero at 95% confidence one obtains the following values from the different data sets.
RSS
Warming is NOT significant for over the most recent 23 years.
Trend: +0.126 +/-0.136 C/decade at the two sigma level from 1990
UAH
Warming is NOT significant for over the most recent 19 years.
Trend: 0.143 +/- 0.173 C/decade at the two sigma level from 1994
Hacrut3
Warming is NOT significant for over the most recent 19 years.
Trend: 0.098 +/- 0.113 C/decade at the two sigma level from 1994
Hacrut4
Warming is NOT significant for over the most recent 18 years.
Trend: 0.095 +/- 0.111 C/decade at the two sigma level from 1995
GISS
Warming is NOT significant for over the most recent 17 years.
Trend: 0.116 +/- 0.122 C/decade at the two sigma level from 1996
The times to the nearest month when warming is not significant for each set are:
RSS since September 1989;
UAH since April 1993;
Hadcrut3 since September 1993;
Hadcrut4 since August 1994 and
GISS since October 1995
Richard
MiCro says:
February 1, 2013 at 9:38 am
Phil. says:
February 1, 2013 at 8:46 am
Note that you need a r value of .990 for 0.01 level of significance with 4 points but only r of 0.254 for the same significance with 100 points.
Consider it justified, I suggest you learn some statistics before pontificating on the subject next time.
Let me note that each of these 16 + points include 365 daily points, made from just under 10,000 individual measurements, so these 16 years of data are actually derived from about 47 million measurements. That seems significant to me.
What it ‘seems’ to you is hardly relevant, what’s referred to is the statistical significance of a fit, that is related to the number of points being fitted. If you’re fitting annual data you have 16 points, monthly data 192 points.
Phil.:
Thankyou for your reply to MiCro at February 1, 2013 at 10:34 am which says
Yes! 192 monthly points or only 16 annual points in 16 years.
So, now take the next step and see if you can work out why the time period is not important.
Richard
richardscourtney says:
February 1, 2013 at 10:52 am
Phil.:
Thankyou for your reply to MiCro at February 1, 2013 at 10:34 am which says
What it ‘seems’ to you is hardly relevant, what’s referred to is the statistical significance of a fit, that is related to the number of points being fitted. If you’re fitting annual data you have 16 points, monthly data 192 points.
Yes! 192 monthly points or only 16 annual points in 16 years.
So, now take the next step and see if you can work out why the time period is not important.
Still waiting for the correlation coefficient along with the number of points.
Phil.:
re your post at February 1, 2013 at 11:17 am.
Nice body swerve but it does not avoid the tackle.
You claimed it was the length of the time period which affects the r^2 as a denial of my correct statement that it is the variance of the data set. You now admit that the number of points within a time period affects the variance.
But in attempt to obfuscate the issue you now demand that I produce the variance (presumably for each of the data sets I cited at February 1, 2013 at 10:34 am).
No dice! You have admitted I am right and your assertion was wrong.
Unless, of course, you can show that the variance is the same for the monthly (which I used) and the annual data of at least one of the data sets I cited.
Richard
richardscourtney says:
February 1, 2013 at 12:51 pm
Phil.:
re your post at February 1, 2013 at 11:17 am.
Nice body swerve but it does not avoid the tackle.
You claimed it was the length of the time period which affects the r^2 as a denial of my correct statement that it is the variance of the data set. You now admit that the number of points within a time period affects the variance.
No I did not Richard, as an editor your reading comprehension skills are terrible!
What I clearly said was: “In order to determine the statistical significance of a trend in time-series data you first calculate the correlation coefficient, r, then you determine the critical value for a certain degree of significance, say 0.05, that threshold value depends on the number of points.”
So to spell it out for you again: you first calculate the correlation coefficient, r. (This is not the variance!)
Then in order to determine the ‘statistical significance’ of the fit you compare that with the critical value for the data set, usually one gets that from tables, for any given level of significance (say 0.05) this is tabulated against the degrees of freedom which is given by the (number of data points used -2). For the fit to be significant at that level the correlation coefficient must exceed the critical value.
But in attempt to obfuscate the issue you now demand that I produce the variance (presumably for each of the data sets I cited at February 1, 2013 at 10:34 am).
No I did not, I asked you for the Correlation coefficient and the number of data points used so that we could assess the statistical significance for ourselves.
No dice! You have admitted I am right and your assertion was wrong.
I certainly have done no such thing, I have however demonstrated that you don’t know what you are doing!
Unless, of course, you can show that the variance is the same for the monthly (which I used) and the annual data of at least one of the data sets I cited.
For the monthly series fit to be statistically significant the Correlation coefficient should exceed ~0.125 for the annual series it should exceed ~0.468.
Phil.:
I am responding to your obfuscation at February 1, 2013 at 3:24 pm.
No! I am still refusing to be side-tracked. The reality is as follows.
1.
The anonymous troll posting as Moe wrongly claimed the statistical significance of the linear trend of a time series is determined by the time period of the time series.
2.
I repeatedly explained he was wrong and that the statistical significance of the linear trend of a time series is determined by the variance of the data set. Indeed, I even explained what a linear trend is, what a linear regression does to determine the trend, and how the significance of a determined trend is determined.
3.
The troll posting as Moe continued his erroneous assertion and I challenged him to explain how and why the statistical significance of the linear trend of a time series is determined by the time period of the time series (i.e. not the variance of the data set)..
4.
The troll posting as Moe withdrew when others attempted to explain the matter to him.
5.
Three days after the withdrawal of Moe, and possibly on instruction from ‘troll central’, you entered the thread at February 1, 2013 at 8:46 am. In that post you stated that the number of points affects the confidence then quoted my having said to Moe
And added
6.
Of course, you had not justified it at all: you had mentioned the number of points in the data set (n.b. not the time period) and added an untrue ad hom.
7.
MiCro pointed out that the assessed data was derived from thousands of data points, and I demanded you answer that before I replied to your nonsensical post.
8.
At February 1, 2013 at 10:34 am, your reply to MiCro did as anticipated and admitted that the result of a 16-year trend would differ if one used the 16 annual points or the 192 monthly points; i.e.
You admitted that it was the data set which determined the variance and, thus, the confidence of the trend and NOT the time period of the trend.
9.
At February 1, 2013 at 10:52 am, I pointed out that you had admitted I was right and challenged you to explicitly state you were wrong.
10.
You subsequent posts have each attempted to prevaricate the fact that your post at February 1, 2013 at 10:34 am admits I was right and you were wrong.
I suggest you go back to ‘Troll Central’ and tell them the lie peddled by Moe cannot be defended and that is why you have failed to defend it.
Richard
richardscourtney says:
February 2, 2013 at 3:31 am
Phil.:
I am responding to your obfuscation at February 1, 2013 at 3:24 pm.
No! I am still refusing to be side-tracked. The reality is as follows.
Hardly sidetracked, you’re being shown how to properly assess statistical significance and the data to do so was requested.
1. The anonymous troll posting as Moe wrongly claimed the statistical significance of the linear trend of a time series is determined by the time period of the time series.
Quite correctly as pointed out, when fitting the linear trend to a number of points the correlation coefficient is determined and then tested to see if it represents a significant trend. To do this the critical value for the data is determined using tables and to be significant r must exceed this value. This critical value depends strongly on the number of points used. For a monthly time series the number of points is proportional to the time period over which the fit is made.
2.
I repeatedly explained he was wrong and that the statistical significance of the linear trend of a time series is determined by the variance of the data set. Indeed, I even explained what a linear trend is, what a linear regression does to determine the trend, and how the significance of a determined trend is determined.
But didn’t get it right, I take it you didn’t read the link I gave which does show how to determine significance.
5.
Three days after the withdrawal of Moe, and possibly on instruction from ‘troll central’, you entered the thread at February 1, 2013 at 8:46 am. In that post you stated that the number of points affects the confidence then quoted my having said to Moe
As far as I know the ‘troll central’ only exists in your head.
6.
Of course, you had not justified it at all: you had mentioned the number of points in the data set (n.b. not the time period) and added an untrue ad hom.
The number of points used in the fit is a function of the time period! Apparently you don’t know what an ad hom is, surprising since you constantly use them as you have in this post.
7.
MiCro pointed out that the assessed data was derived from thousands of data points, and I demanded you answer that before I replied to your nonsensical post.
Well I answered Micro before your demand! As I said it’e the number of points used in the fit that counts not how they’re derived.
You admitted that it was the data set which determined the variance and, thus, the confidence of the trend and NOT the time period of the trend.
No your reading comprehension problems again, in a time series the length of the series determines the significance of the fit.
As I told you above for an annual series of 16 points you need an r of 0.497 for significance at p=0.05, for 18 years it’s 0.468 and for 10 years it’s 0.632.
For a monthly series of 192 points you need an r of ~0.125 for significance at p=0.05.
According to you:
“Hacrut4
Warming is NOT significant for over the most recent 18 years.
Trend: 0.095 +/- 0.111 C/decade at the two sigma level from 1995”
So you’re claiming that r for that dataset is less than ~0.125?
Phil.:
Moe was wrong.
You have come here to try to say he was right.
You have failed because he was wrong.
The trends I cited to you (at February 1, 2013 at 10:34 am) are correct at 95% confidence. And, yes, I know that is an inconvenient truth for warmunists like you.
If you want to know how to conduct regression analysis and how to assess its statistical significance then see my explanation (above) for Moe at January 27, 2013 at 11:42 am with corrigendum at January 27, 2013 at 12:19 pm.
And that is all I will bother to say in response to any more of your trolling.
Richard
PS Although your knowledge of statistics is as low as Moe’s, I congratulate you that your intended insults are more subtle than his.
Richard, I had been away for a few days on assignment and I see that Phil has also point put your error, which you seem unable to comprehend.
I had left a challenge for you to provide a time period so I could work put a statistically significant trend for you, but it was snipped. At any rate, I am bored with this issue, but at least your ability to comprehend basic statistics is now on record.
richardscourtney says:
February 2, 2013 at 10:41 am
Phil.:
Moe was wrong.
You have come here to try to say he was right.
You have failed because he was wrong.
Given your demonstrated knowledge of statistics you’re not competent to judge that!
You don’t understand the Pearson Significance test and the importance of sample size in it despite being given a link to a description of how it is used.
The trends I cited to you (at February 1, 2013 at 10:34 am) are correct at 95% confidence. And, yes, I know that is an inconvenient truth for warmunists like you.
Really, you say that:
“RSS
Warming is NOT significant for over the most recent 23 years.
Trend: +0.126 +/-0.136 C/decade at the two sigma level from 1990”
Based on that data there is ~3% probability of the trend being zero or less!
If you want to know how to conduct regression analysis and how to assess its statistical significance then see my explanation (above) for Moe at January 27, 2013 at 11:42 am with corrigendum at January 27, 2013 at 12:19 pm.
Yes I know you think that’s how it’s done, try reading the link I gave which describes how to determine significance.
And that is all I will bother to say in response to any more of your trolling.
Richard
PS Although your knowledge of statistics is as low as Moe’s, I congratulate you that your intended insults are more subtle than his.
As stated above you don’t know enough to judge that. I make no insults when I describe your knowledge of stats as weak, that’s based on your statements, it’s a statement of fact not an insult. Your posts on the other hand are full of insults, calling anyone who disagrees with you a ‘troll’, a ‘warmunista’ (whatever that’s supposed to mean?)