Guest post by Paul Homewood
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/mar/27/climate-change-model-global-warming
The Mail on Sunday ran an article by David Rose a couple of weeks ago, pointing out just how woeful most climate models had been in predicting global temperatures in the last decade or so. Added to other media reports in recent months, the public at large, at least in the UK. are now gradually becoming aware that temperatures have flatlined for several years.
Desperate to counter this, the Guardian have reported on some work by Myles Allen, Professor of Geosystem Science at Oxford University. They report:-
Forecasts of global temperature rises over the past 15 years have proved remarkably accurate, new analysis of scientists’ modelling of climate change shows.
The debate around the accuracy of climate modelling and forecasting has been especially intense recently, due to suggestions that forecasts have exaggerated the warming observed so far – and therefore also the level warming that can be expected in the future. But the new research casts serious doubts on these claims, and should give a boost to confidence in scientific predictions of climate change.
The paper, published on Wednesday in the journal Nature Geoscience, explores the performance of a climate forecast based on data up to 1996 by comparing it with the actual temperatures observed since. The results show that scientists accurately predicted the warming experienced in the past decade, relative to the decade to 1996, to within a few hundredths of a degree.
The forecast, published in 1999 by Myles Allen and colleagues at Oxford University, was one of the first to combine complex computer simulations of the climate system with adjustments based on historical observations to produce both a most likely global mean warming and a range of uncertainty. It predicted that the decade ending in December 2012 would be a quarter of degree warmer than the decade ending in August 1996 – and this proved almost precisely correct.
The new research also found that, compared to the forecast, the early years of the new millennium were somewhat warmer than expected. More recently the temperature has matched the level forecasted very closely, but the relative slow-down in warming since the early years of the early 2000s has caused many commentators to assume that warming is now less severe than predicted. The paper shows this is not true.
These claims raise a number of issues, but let’s start by looking at the actual numbers. Plotted below are the annual HADCRUT4 anomalies, (based on y/e August, in line with Allen’s workings).
The decade averages, as indicated by the red lines, have increased from 0.196C to 0.467C, so on the face of it, Allen’s prediction was spot on. But we need to delve a little deeper.
1) Let’s start by making a general observation. The Guardian suggest that the results of this one model somehow vindicate climate modelling in general. This is clearly a nonsense, as we will see later, as is their claim that it “should give a boost to confidence in scientific predictions of climate change”
2) The article also talks about “the relative slow-down in warming since the early years of the early 2000s”. This is more nonsense – warming has not “slowed down”, it has stopped.
3) The first thing to notice about Allen’s prediction is just how low it was, compared with most other models. His forecast of 0.25C warming in 16 years equates to about 1.5C/century, well below other predictions. We’ll compare a couple later.
4) His starting point, the 10 years ending 1996 were, of course, affected by Pinatubo. The years 1992-94 were about 0.15C lower than the years before and after, so it is reasonable to assume the decadal average was about 0.04C lower as a result. In other words, about a sixth of Allen’s prediction of a 0.25C increase is no more than a rebound from Pinatubo.
5) As there was warming between 1986 and 1996, the temperatures at the end of that decade were already higher than the decadal mean. The average of 1995/96 was 0.07C higher than the decadal mean. In other words, part of Allen’s predicted increase between 1996 and 2012 had already occurred before 1996.
6) By the time the paper was written in 1999, Allen, of course, already knew that temperatures had climbed significantly since 1996, with the average of 1997 and 98 being 0.46C. Remember that his model predicted a figure of 0.45C for the decade to 2012, (0.196C + 0.250C).
I wonder why we were not told then that there would be no net warming for the next 13 years?
7) Although the model has, fortuitously, accurately predicted the temperature to 2012, this does not mean that it has been validated. The lack of warming for at least 10 years is a significant feature, and any model that fails to predict this cannot be said to be validated. It is ludicrous to posit that it “should give a boost to confidence in scientific predictions of climate change”.
8) As I mentioned, many other models forecast much more rapid rates of warming. The Met Office’s decadal forecast in 2007, for instance, which predicted global temperatures in 2012 would be 0.60C higher than 1996.
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2013/02/06/met-office-decadal-forecast2007-version/
9) Or Hansen’s famous 1988 model, that predicted more than a degree of warming, even under Scenario B.
http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k247/dhm1353/Climate%20Change/HansenvUAH.png
Conclusion
Contrary to the Guardian’s claims, Myles Allen’s work does not indicate vindicate climate modelling in general, nor does it inspire confidence in current predictions.
Furthermore, Allen’s work fails to explain why temperatures have flatlined in the last ten years, and why his original model did not predict it. More importantly, it has nothing to say about what this pause means for temperatures during the next decade.
But you would not expect to hear any of this from the Guardian.
There are people who live in the real world then there are the people in the above story.
(facepalm)
Anyone with a print copy of the Grauniad is probably burning it right now to keep warm.
I see the Guardian has not taken up another prediction Myles Allen was involved in-
“Myles Allen first hit the headlines when a research project that he was involved with issued a press release (26th Jan 2005) predicting that temperatures could rise by 11° C even if the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is limited to only double the level before the Industrial Revolution.”
http://ccgi.newbery1.plus.com/blog/?p=81
Strange how the press release does not seem to be available on climateprediction.net!
The Guardian is to jounalism what Ghengis Khan was to diplomacy!
It seems global warming modeling is remarkably accurate at predicting past temperatures.
AGW promoters have very little sense of shame.
I’m going to make a prediction what the high temperature on my front porch will be today.
Tomorrow I’ll let you know what it will be today.
Even a blind pig finds an acorn sometimes.
Given the enormous number of ‘prediction’ darts thrown at the global warming board, it is hardly news that one has landed somewhere near the center.
It’s not the Guardian, which amazes me, but the source. I just can’t understand how a Professor at Oxford, can produce a report which frankly, worms its way around the observed facts, and produces results which intentionally obscure the truth.
And todays offering from the Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/mar/31/alps-skiing-climate-change
Basically then, Myles Allen has modified climate models retrospectively to fit observations. A crude piece of PR supporting his climate change hypothesis.
I imagine Allen’s forecast was not two straight flat lines. It was a line going up as shown in Figure 3 in the 1999 paper.
http://140.208.31.101/bibliography/related_files/mallen0001.pdf
Its really the forecast from HadCM2 prepared for the IPCC 1992 supplement using IS92 scenarios (and which was amended from time to time up to about 1998 and hence the projections might start in 1997).
The temperature projections from this report are the lowest of any climate model forecasts made. The primary IS92A scenario only gets to 2.0C (from 1990 levels) by the year 2100 while the current forecasts are all in the 2.8C (from 1990 levels) range.
http://www.cics.uvic.ca/scenarios/img/is92_temps.jpg
You can get some kind of data for the IS92 runs of HadCM2 here. I believe Myles Allen says he used the GSA-identified scenario – the second group of forecasts on this page at the bottom. They are only available in long-term means and the grid system data is unusable so don’t bother downloading.
http://www.ipcc-data.org/is92/hadcm2_download.html
Mike Hulme also published about the projections here.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378099000151
If I was a Climate Scientist or ex warmist mainstream news reporter, I would run now. When the depth and scale of this scam is realized (as is now happening) your own mainstream media will have absolutely no mercy on you. It will become the story of the decade LOL
Nobody other than left-leaning BBC luvvies read the Grauniad. It panders to the weird belief system of the chattering classes who live in leafy London and get their income from the hard work of taxpayers.
No need to follow the money, just the stink
Face in the trough Yeo
http://order-order.com/2013/02/15/tim-yeos-2-5-million-conflicts-of-interest/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2187948/Conservative-MP-chairs-climate-committee-earns-140k-green-energy-firms.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/conservative/2529667/Tory-MP-Tim-Yeo-in-conflict-of-interest-row-over-car-tax-report.html
http://eotp.org/2012/09/19/2012-conservative-m-p-tim-yeo-conflict-of-interest/
And so on- ad infinitum
When is this freeloader going to get the boot- or preferably the Huhne?
Every day some clairvoyant somewhere predicts a plane crash.
Every now and then one of them gets lucky….
You’ve got “indicate vindicate” there in the conclusion.
[Thanks- sorted]
In other headlines: Tesco to Reshelve Pork with Other Poultry
“… what this pause means for temperatures during the next decade”.
What pause? Why do you believe the 15-year flat trend is a “pause”?
Earlier, you quite correctly say that warming has not “slowed down”, it has stopped. The entire warming episode lasted only 20 years, and then it was over. Eventually a new trend will commence, heading either upwards or downwards, but it won’t be a resumption of the 1980/90 trend.
We don’t describe the 1940-77 period as a “pause” between the two warming trends that occurred last century.
The Guardian reveal their true colours not by what they say, but rather by what they don’t.
If AGW really was as bad as they claim (“The Gravest Threat To Humanity, Ever”) then any weather or climate event that even remotelychallenges the theory of climate catastrophe would be great news for the future of us Earthlings, and woulld be greeted with optimistic headlines of “Has climate catastrophe been averted”? But never shall such words pass the Mods attention at the Guardian’s CiF, let alone the actual Editor.
Thus their agenda is revealed as pre-determind, with nothing allowed to challenge their pro-AGW prejudice, or the social policies that are ‘urgently required’ to ‘tackle climate change’. They even knowingly refute the obvious implications of the observed reality of no global warming for well over a decade – despite record CO2 emissions, as it rather embarrassingly flatly contradicts the entire AGW theory that their predjudice is predicated on.
They should be ashamed of themselves.
No matter, as temperatures continue in flat-out the wrong direction as per the climate models doom-laden predictions we can console ourselves with the knowledge they’re heading for perhaps the most humiliating climbdown in UK newspaper history.
Rather that “Global Warming Predictions Prove Accurate”, a better title would have been, “One Global Warming Prediction Accurate”.
Does anyone know where to find the original Allen 1999 paper and prediction?
The chart image in the Guardian article is a bit strange… It shows observations (yellow diamonds for annual data, red for 10 year means), and it compares these observations to the prediction (a dashed black line). However, it also shows a solid black line growing at an even higher rate, but says nothing about what this line is, or why it’s shown.
What do you expect? It is the “Guardian” second only to the BBC in spreading the AGW gospel.
Moonbat (Monbiot) is a regular columnist for this loss-making rag.
I was stunned when I first read the Guardian article … and then I realised Duncan Clark must obviously have been caught up in a ‘global warming time-warp’ that left him confused, and not realising that April Fools Day – April 1st, 2013 – is actually tomorrow.
Should I find it hilarious that their baseline temp is ‘pre-industrial’? I mean, I guess that makes sense if you’re trying to define human effect on the temperature but it still seems like garden of Eden bias.
I’ll never need more to know it’s true what they say about the Guardian though. Describing this one particular model as an “Analysis of climate change modelling for past 15 years” punches my sense of reality in the face the same way the President of Iran does when he says he might be the 12th Imam.
As a mere electronics technician , with no science training past the high school level, I would say 1.That if your theory does not match observable facts, you have an invalid theory and it is back to the drawing board.
2. If you have a model that seems to fit the observable facts, you need to confirm the model by feeding in different test data and see if your model still produces a similar result.
If it does, you may have a problem with your data handling procedures that will invalidate the model.
3. If 1 and 2 both happen to you as a scientist ,well ,we don’t shoot people for honest errors.
4.The biggest mistake you can make, is being unwilling to admit you made one.
dahun says:
March 31, 2013 at 5:13 am
It seems global warming modeling is remarkably accurate at predicting past temperatures.
___________________
Not really- they don’t even backtest with accuracy, regardless of the Guardian’s claim.
Good observation. But I would also add the “clairvoyants” fallacy to what is wrong with this prediction.
Just as clairvoyants claim to have made an accurate prediction, statistics have shown such outcomes are based on no more than chance. When taken together, the numerous predictions made by clairvoyants nearly always turn out to be false. Occasionally a prediction comes close to observed outcome.
In this case, we have not clairvoyants, but a panopoly of climate predictions. In some ways, these are even less impressive than predictions made by clairvoyants. At least the clairvoyants have a large domain of possible events to draw on – assassinations, natural disasters, wars, etc. The predictors of climate, however, have a very limited domain – globaly averaged temperatures. It does not take many predictors for one of them to have a very high probability of being correct.
How anyone can attribute a climatic meaning to this is beyond me. It has no more merit to be published in a scientific journal than a “paper” by Mystic Meg claiming to have predicted the banking crisis of 2008.
The Mail has returned to the charge
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2301757/Governments-climate-watchdog-launches-astonishing-attack-Mail-Sunday–revealing-global-warming-science-wrong.html
including this
And last week, The Economist repeated our claims that many scientists now believe that previous estimates of ‘climate sensitivity’ – how much the world will warm each time the level of carbon dioxide doubles – are far too high.
In a key 2007 report, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change suggested this was most likely to be about 3C, with 4.5C considered ‘likely’. However, recent research suggests the true figure is much lower – between 1.5C and 2C – giving the world many more decades to avoid disaster through effective new technologies.
I looked, but could not find, the original Allen and Tett article in 1999. I could not find it, but I did find references to it, all behind paywalls.
As it’s ‘climate science’, this begs the question: “What did the 1999 paper really say?”
Anyhow, the article is written in the Guardian, the natural home of the UK’s leftie, ‘intellectual’, self-proclaimed elite..
This is an article fit only for the Enquirer. The Enquirer used to do clairvoyant predictions and alien invasion stories but stopped after they were gifted with hollywood stories of stars turning up in jail. Could be why the Guardian took up the prediction stories, since NO ONE else is stupid enough to let climate prediction stories be a significant permanent part of their rag history.
I find it amusing that the Guardian is entirely dependent for its very existence on Autotrader magazine — a publication which relies for its very existence on the internal combustion engine!
Big Oil sponsors The Guardian! You couldn’t make it up.
RE point “3”: So in effect the Guardian is saying that of all climate models the one that DOES NOT predict “catastrophic” climate change IS THE ONE they tout as accurate!
Thats pretty …ahem…”cool”.
From 0.00000001% to 0.01% is big jump in confidence- 100000000%. All modeller need to take note- make the most carbon dioxide effect minimising model and you might be this lucky.
The 11 degree rise press release in 2005 is here:
http://web.archive.org/web/20051125093707/http://www.climateprediction.net/science/pubs/climateprediction_press_release.pdf
Gunga Din says:
March 31, 2013 at 5:21 am
I’m going to make a prediction what the high temperature on my front porch will be today.
Tomorrow I’ll let you know what it will be today.
==============================================================
Can you predict yesterday’s lottery numbers too?
Re the graph in the Guardian: Interesting yellow diamond pattern of individual year data toying with his prediction. I’ll wager a bet he is hoping, maybe even praying to the god of yellow diamonds, that those gems start “playing” a more congruous tune and start moving up a little bit more in the direction of his future prediction. That prediction rises like the Grand Tetons, as do all other AGW predictions. My prediction is that Mother Nature will also sink this boat in due time. It has already developed a leak.
You mean out of all those predictions…….they found one!
….I’ll be damned
I was going to post on the Guardian website but my posts are so heavily moderated now.
I like the way they just gloss over the fact that initially their forecasts did not show the rapid warming that happened and then had to wait until the model “caught up” with the real world.
Oh well. I suppose a broken clock is correct twice a day, you just have to wait until the time catches up with it.
Bit off topic but whats do you think the odds are of somebody posting a comment on the guardian website pointing out the cherry picking and not being deleted ?
I have created thirty eight models for predicting the outcome of a spin of a roulette wheel. They are amazing. I don’t want to get into too much detail about how they work, but no matter what number comes up, one of my models correctly predicted it.
Maybe some Brits are starting to get it:
It’s the cold, not global warming, that we should be worried about
No one seems upset that in modern Britain, old people are freezing to death as hidden taxes make fuel more expensive
By Fraser Nelson8:07PM GMT 28 Mar 2013
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/elderhealth/9959856/Its-the-cold-not-global-warming-that-we-should-be-worried-about.html
It’s still freezing here in Blighty!
I notice no comments allowed in that article. gee why is that…..
1.5 degrees C/ 100 years. Oh, my! This implies very limited feedback from clouds, etc.
Catastrophe averted. Let’s go back to using cheap energy.
A single carefully cherry-picked forecast, not “predictions”, plural. Looking at predictions made in the 1980s presents as very different picture, particularly those of Hansen from Venus (defended by Mann from Mars by stopping at 2005).
What becomes evident is that the Earth apparently (at what level of statistical significance & reliability, I don’t know, given cooked book data) enjoyed about 20 years of much-appreciated warming from ~1977 to 1997 (or less time, since the latter was a mega-El Nino year), followed by 16-17 years & counting of flat temperatures (longer in some series & actual cooling without “adjustments” that always make observations warmer recently & colder in prior decades), despite continually rising CO2 levels.
CAGW FAIL.
The Guardian didn’t get the memo. Global warming is over. We can forget about it. The new demon is ocean acidification.
This morning the CBC interviewed Rob Stewart who has just made a movie “Revolution” which he is promoting. The interviewer asked him “What about the people who don’t believe in global warming?” He replied “Forget about global warming, this isn’t about global warming, it’s about ocean acidification.” (The quotes aren’t exact but I think the meaning is correct.)
There we have it folks. The environmentalists aren’t even bothering to defend “global warming”. It’s a distraction from the new disaster.
More moving of the goalposts
I should predict every possible trend of future stock market performance and then in a few years dig up the one that was correct, then sell my consulting services to stock brokers everywhere.
It seems to me that the most important point to make is that Allen’s model predicted only mild warming. Skeptics should use this article to say “Look, the Guardian is using the accuracy of a climate model which actually supports the skeptics’ perspective as evidence of the accuracy of the alarmists’ perspective. What sense does that make?”
Theory validation requires understanding the difference between prediction and explanation. The theory-derived prediction can be incorrect, based on observed data. But the explanation for why the prediction was wrong can still match the underlying theory. This would lead to a new prediction, still based on the same theoretical assumptions. So, to invalidate a theory requires more than just inaccurate prediction. It also involves finding another theory that better explains the observed results. As long as current theory continues to hold the best explanatory power, it will appropriately guide future predictions.
Every week somebody seems to be able to predict the lottery numbers here. Different person every week but what an amazing ability to have eh!
I see no way to leave comments below the fold on their pages.
I noticed this article liked somewhere on another site last week and was going to leave a comment at the Guardian article disputing their claims. However when I got there there was NO comments facility on this Guardian article despite the fact comments are normally allowed. Do you think they ere afraid of the reaction to their tawdry lies.
Elizabeth says:
March 31, 2013 at 5:29 am
“If I was a Climate Scientist or ex warmist mainstream news reporter, I would run now. When the depth and scale of this scam is realized (as is now happening) your own mainstream media will have absolutely no mercy on you. It will become the story of the decade LOL”
Well of course the MSM will not be too harsh with itself; just like the German MSM wasn’t too harsh with itself after predictions of a dying off of German forests turned out to be baseless hype.
What they will do is scaling back for the moment but making a new alarmist attack at any opportunity.
Over the past few weeks, Der Spiegel had Bojanowski write about CO2AGW; and Bojanowski is an honest soul – for an unknown reason he works for Der Spiegel nevertheless. Strange things happen.
But, they have now fallen back to one of the more ridiculous ways of the warmist, by pushing the first Lewandowsky conspiracy paper that was already refuted at WUWT and Climate Audit in 2012. They don’t mention the refutation of course, and all their commenters don’t even know that Lewandowsky invented his “data”.
So, I was thinking that the Bilderbergers have given up pushing CO2AGW, but now it looks like the MSM will relentlessly and again and again come up with the same old smears and lies and fabrications, no matter whether they lose their last paying customer or not; at which point they will probably collectively be bailed out with printed fiat money.
Rick Bradford says: March 31, 2013 at 5:24 am
Ahh, Rick, not ‘center’ – Bull. (Apposite)
The titles of the “More On This Story” links on the right side of this Guardian story are quite telling:
Spring: where has it gone?
Britain set for coldest March since 1962
Cold weather to continue for a month, say forecasters
Millions of Britons flee abroad in search of Easter sunshine
Is this freezing weather good for anything?
Army helicopters in Northern Ireland to drop food to snow-stricken animals
Cold spring kills thousands of newborn lambs
Cold weather makes triple-dip recession more likely, economists fear
Cold weather could stay until late April, say forecasters
Cold weather leaves thousands without power
Hill walker found dead in Scottish Highland.
More snow on the way as Britain hit by travel chaos
Snow storms continue to disrupt power and transport across UK
Heavy snow sweeps across the UK – video
Snow and flooding hits the UK – in pictures
Snow and winds cut power to 40,000 homes in Northern Ireland
Nature lies dormant ahead of first day of spring
UK farmers face disaster as ‘perfect storm’ strikes
John Vidal: How the government could end this long winter at a stroke
It appears that the Guardian does “need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows”. Now the CAGW crew are not just cherrypicking data or time periods, but cherrypicking predictions. Just goes to show, if you throw enough crap against a wall, some is bound to stick but it’s still crap.
Guardian, Monbiot, Thomson Reuters/Globemedia, Sir Crispin Tickell… Carbon market invested shills.
When was the “null” hypothesis of natural variation replaced by your so called “current” theory? When did CO2 induced warming become theory, when it has barely secured conjecture status and only flickers as a hypothesis, as the above model (hypothesis) failure… seems to indicate. Please clarify. GK
Kindlkekinser….not so. We are talking about a contention. A contention requires positive verification. The status of any competing contention has no bearing upon that of any given contention. There are no circumstances under which it can it be said that something is necessarily true simply because no-one has proven it untrue.
Global warming predictions are accurate, so long as accurate is defined as being between 0% to 100% right.
Why are we still laboring under the misapprehension that averaging surface temperatures gives you anything physically meaningful? Some places might have warmed, others cooled, others remained relatively static.
The first thing to notice about Allen’s prediction is just how low it was, compared with most other models.
I would be shocked if some group out there didn’t come close in their predictions.
I have a 100% success rate when picking winning horses. Pretty amazing until you dig a little deeper and find that, at any given meeting, I bet, to win, on every horse in every race.
Pamela Gray says:
March 31, 2013 at 6:46 am
Re the graph in the Guardian: Interesting yellow diamond pattern of individual year data toying with his prediction. I’ll wager a bet he is hoping, maybe even praying to the god of yellow diamonds, that those gems start “playing” a more congruous tune and start moving up a little bit more in the direction of his future prediction. That prediction rises like the Grand Tetons, as do all other AGW predictions. My prediction is that Mother Nature will also sink this boat in due time. It has already developed a leak.
You are not alone in your prediction
“Russian scientist Dr Habibullo Abdussamatov, of the St Petersburg Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory, painted the Doomsday scenario saying the recent inclement weather simply proved we were heading towards a frozen planet.
Dr Abdussamatov believes Earth was on an “unavoidable advance towards a deep temperature drop””
http://www.thegwpf.org/russian-scientist-warns-earth-heading-ice-age/
and
Or as Piers Corbyn puts it in his own inimitable style:
““The new Mini Ice Age is upon us” (Active pdf via http://bit.ly/YwPTBH ) is getting a lot of interest. There are many examples of its development and many serious agricultural and economoc issues that must be addresse. Some important matters are:
=> Increase in storms enhanced by Jet stream meanders – eg More Sandy’s
=> Increase in extreme damaging hail events
=> World hunger as temperate zones have increasingly poor harvests due to late Springs and wet cold summers.
Prayer Wheels (wind turbines) and burning food (biofuels) are the total wrong way to go. The CO2 warmist religion and the self-serving (or stupid), ‘climate experts’, academics, politicians and media who espouse it must be stopped.
http://www.weatheraction.com/displayarticle.asp?a=525&c=5
A day early for April Fool’s day was not?
“Global warming predictions prove accurate”
This is the last gasp for what by any objective measure can only be seen now as a propaganda programme. This is obviously a response to the Mail article, but has in its desperation gone beyond what can gain purchase in the minds even of its own readers.
All people, particularly those most in thrall to this proposition, which will be Guardian readers, have been trained over many years to anticipate Armageddon. To now put forward such a tepid position is simply not in accord with that. It cannot stand as an interpretation that fits with the basic nature of what has been built. It is qualitatively different.
For some time I have referred on occasion to the Guardian “Comment is free” section and also the publication in entirety, where numbers of mentions of certain words are tabulated, to get an impression as to how this issue is traveling. It can be seen that for the readers of the Guardian themselves, this issue is dead.
The following is far from precise, but is indicative.
As a reference point for an issue that animates both readers and the functionaries who produce this LIfestyle Guide, which should act a mirror for the concerns and gratifications of those it is produced for, a topic where this mandate is in accord with performance is Gay Marriage.
“Gay Marriage”
Comment is free: % change in 2012 from previous peak – 171% (from 2008 peak of 140)
Guardian: ” ” ” ” ” ” ” – 205% (from 2008 peak of 493).
The functionaries are somewhat ahead of the game, leading fearlessly, but these concord.
In contrast:
“Carbon”
CiF – 24% (from 2009 peak of 570)
G. – 61% (from 2009 peak of 3,923)
“Carbon Emissions”
CiF – 15% (from 2009 peak of 416)
G – 43% (from 2009 peak of 2,710)
“Carbon Pollution”
CiF – 19% (from 2008 peak of 94)
G – 53% (from 2009 peak of 468)
“Environment”
CiF – 14% (from 2009 peak of 1,310)
G – 96% (from 2009 peak of 11,266)
“Environmentalism”
CiF – 39% (from 2008 peak of 688)
G – 96% (from 2008 peak of 4044)
It is clear that willingness to engage, by the even atypical Guardian social coterie, with Global Warming/Climate Change/etc and even anything to do with The Environment, has collapsed.
The functionaries, being deeply embedded in this elderly and moribund culture, are failing to perceive the feedback from their constituency, although attrition is occurring at least at a detailed level, even if they utterly fail to absorb the near extinction of interest in the environment as a whole.
There seems to be a lag in the response times of the functionaries. Someone with an interest in statistics can probably come to an accurate prediction, by reference to other terms such as renewable, sustainable, solar, green energy etc, but at a guess, these things will become “unmentionable” in 12 to 18 months.
It is remarkable that all politicians, whose only keenly developed attribute is to sniff the wind, don’t realize that to take a vehemently anti-Green stand, in all its manifestations, is not only risk free but is possibly the only thing that will save their necks. By not doing so, they plainly identify themselves as also being functionaries, even if of a different hue, who are blinded and incapable of survival response, and thus face certain death.
OTY But apparently marcott has replied through realclimate.. guess what there is no longer a hockey stick! On the presented graph anyway. They think there going to get away with it by pretending they never put a stick anyway just watch. This paper needs to be withdrawn immediately from Science
Kindlekinser says:
March 31, 2013 at 7:24 am
………………….. As long as current theory continues to hold the best explanatory power, it will appropriately guide future predictions.
—————————————–
As long as current theory continues to hold the best explanatory power, it will appropriately guide future incorrectpredictions.
see if this makes it correct.
cn
future incorrect predictions.
don’t quite have it down yet I forgot the space
cn
In addition to the above:
“climate change”
CiF – 30% (from peak in 2009 of 1,057)
G – 67% (from peak in 2009 of 5,911)
“global warming”
CiF – 31% (from peak in 2007 of 405)
G – 60% (from peak in 2007 of 2,051)
It seems from this and above that the consumers (and functionaries with a lag) increasingly abhor raising anything of a concrete nature, such as carbon or the environment itself. These things having a tangible physical reality is unpleasant for them.
Instead, what dedication they have, although greatly diminished, is to the abstract notions, which can do them no harm, and are there to provide succour. The religious element is the only thing not actually in its death spasm, although it is plainly debilitated, looking wan, and the adherents will soon be reduced to plaintiff wails.
What on Earth is a “scientific prediction” in this context? Anyone hazard a guess?
G. Karst: The null hypothesis is not a theory. CO2 warming has been a theory for over 100 years. I doubt many people, even here, would suggest that CO2 does not cause warming–it is a physical property of the gas that can be empirically demonstrated in the lab. The debate now is whether human caused increases in CO2 and other so-called greenhouse gases are currently affecting our climate beyond natural variability. So (loosely) the theory is that rising CO2 et al is causing warming. The data are showing global temperatures are holding relatively steady at an elevated rate even as CO2 continues to increase. The theory therefore suggests there must be other mechanisms at play preventing rising temperatures at this time. Plenty of candidates for these mechanisms exist consistent with the theory, from solar cycles to underestimates of deep ocean warming.
It is possible that climate science is in the last gasps of a Ptolemaic system, trying to make its model fit a system that is fundamentally different than current theory supposes. If that is the case, then it will take a metaphorical Copernicus to propose an alternative theory that provides a better explanation of the observed data.
Wamron: I’m not sure what distinction you are making by using the term “contention”. Of course one can’t claim something is true because no one has demonstrated it to be untrue. I must be misunderstanding your comment.
From the Guardian Media Group Plc (“GMG”) 2012 annual report: “GMG is the parent company of Guardian News & Media, publisher of guardian.co.uk one of the world’s leading news websites as well as guardiannews.com and the Guardian and Observer newspapers”. And from the GMG consolidated income statement for the year ended 1 April 2012: “Loss attributable to the equity shareholder: £71.6m (2011 profit: £5.4m)”.
Good news doesn’t increase circulation or advertising sales, the business model of all media corporations. Controversy, bad news and alarmism is what it takes so that’s what they publish. And if you want politicians (aided and abetted by the UK Hacked Off campaign) to have the power to regulate UK newspapers, forcing them to print just anodyne party-line rubbish, their losses will escalate until they go out of business – leaving the BBC with a monopoly on news, funded by the UK poll tax on live-reception kit. Ugh.
In case of uncertainty, I did mean “plaintiff” not “plaintive” above. It is more certain that such people will expect compensation for the demise of this platform than it is that they will allow themselves to be seen to have not prevailed. That would be socially awkward.
Elizabeth says:
March 31, 2013 at 5:29 am
If I was a Climate Scientist or ex warmist mainstream news reporter, I would run now. When the depth and scale of this scam is realized (as is now happening) your own mainstream media will have absolutely no mercy on you. It will become the story of the decade LOL
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
And the story is getting out. This video by black students has over two million views. It is a REAL SLAM at CAGW Africa For Norway – New charity single out now!
You know it is all over when the these guys start lampoon the establishment
Kindlekinser says:
March 31, 2013 at 10:27 am
G. Karst: The null hypothesis is not a theory. CO2 warming has been a theory for over 100 years. I doubt many people, even here, would suggest that CO2 does not cause warming–it is a physical property of the gas that can be empirically demonstrated in the lab. The debate now is whether human caused increases in CO2 and other so-called greenhouse gases are currently affecting our climate beyond natural variability. So (loosely) the theory is that rising CO2 et al is causing warming. The data are showing global temperatures are holding relatively steady at an elevated rate even as CO2 continues to increase. The theory therefore suggests there must be other mechanisms at play preventing rising temperatures at this time. Plenty of candidates for these mechanisms exist consistent with the theory, from solar cycles to underestimates of deep ocean warming.
It is possible that climate science is in the last gasps of a Ptolemaic system, trying to make its model fit a system that is fundamentally different than current theory supposes. If that is the case, then it will take a metaphorical Copernicus to propose an alternative theory that provides a better explanation of the observed data.
Wamron: I’m not sure what distinction you are making by using the term “contention”. Of course one can’t claim something is true because no one has demonstrated it to be untrue. I must be misunderstanding your comment.
This is not quite correct.
In the lab it has been shown that CO2 will scatter 3 narrow bands of infrared in an enclosed short column of non-radiating gases leading to an increase in temperature. It has been hypothesized that CO2 in the atmosphere behaves in the same way and thus raises atmospheric temperatures. However, it has never been shown that in the unenclosed dynamic atmosphere the scattering of infrared by CO2 leads to rising atmospheric temperature as there are many unquantified (unmeasured) feedbacks. Indeed there is quite vigorous debate on the subject of lapse rates, their cause and how they are or are not affected by radiative gases and water vapor. The satellite metrics appear to show that OLR is what would be expected given the surface temperature and not apparently modified by CO2. Balloon sonde data also appear to show the same lack of ‘forcing’.
If there are quantified empirical data from actual measurements of the Earth’s atmosphere giving the degree that CO2 actually affects the real atmosphere that you can cite that would be a good addition to the debate. The entire claim and counter claim of sensitivity is due to lack of this empirical data.
Kindlekinser says:
March 31, 2013 at 7:24 am
Theory validation requires understanding the difference….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Nice spin but no cigar.
I suggest you look at a different theory – The oceans as a calorimeter, by Nir Shaviv, The paper was accepted by the Journal of Geophysical Research. The actual paper Nir J. Shaviv (2008); Using the oceans as a calorimeter to quantify the solar radiative forcing, J. Geophys. Res., 113, A11101, doi:10.1029/2007JA012989.
Kindlekinser says:
“The null hypothesis is not a theory.” No, it is a hypothesis, just like it says. Like any hypothesis or theory, the Null Hypothesis can be falsified. But so far, it has withstood all attempts to falsify it.
You add: “…the theory is that rising CO2 et al is causing warming.” You are confusing laboratory results with the planet — which is affected differently by convection.
You say:
“The data are showing global temperatures are holding relatively steady at an elevated rate even as CO2 continues to increase. The theory therefore suggests…” &etc.
Global temperatures are not “holding relatively steady at an elevated rate”. See here. Temperatures have been much higher in the past, during times when CO2 was very low. Current temperatures are neither unusual nor unprecedented.
There is no “theory” that says CO2=AGW. That is merely a conjecture, with no measurable evidence to support it. The only empirical evidence we have shows that changes in CO2 are the result of changes in temperature — not the cause.
In science, measurements are everything. If something is not measurable, it is nothing more than a conjecture; an opinion. A guess.
This is an excellent article. If anyone needed proof that the Guardian publishes propaganda rather than science then that proof is found in this article. There can be no excuse for the outrageously false claims made about these modelers and their model. Savaged by science and the facts, Alarmists are fleeing to obfuscation and lies.
Kindlekinser…
“Wamron: I’m not sure what distinction you are making by using the term “contention”. Of course one can’t claim something is true because no one has demonstrated it to be untrue. I must be misunderstanding your comment.”
You understood my comment. Can you not understand that saying something is true because it has not been proven untrue is exactly what YOU said in a previous comment? Maybe not what you thought you were saying but it is what you said.
“The null hypothesis is not a theory. CO2 warming has been a theory for over 100 years. ”
Do you know what is even meant by “theory” and “null hypothesis”?
Kindlekinser says:
March 31, 2013 at 10:27 am
….. I doubt many people, even here, would suggest that CO2 does not cause warming–it is a physical property of the gas that can be empirically demonstrated in the lab…..
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
We are a wee bit more sophisticated than you seem to think:
WUWT: The Logarithmic Effect of Carbon Dioxide
The only way the fraudsters can get a large climate sensitivity out of CO2 is by having it cause a positive feedback with H2O. That however is not happening so you are stuck with CO2 having an ever decreasing effect.
It is Water with the help of the Sun that run the climate CO2 is a minor bit player.
” It predicted that the decade ending in December 2012 would be a quarter of degree warmer than the decade ending in August 1996 – and this proved almost precisely correct”
and
“the early years of the new millennium were somewhat warmer than expected”
Doesn’t that mean if they predicted the average correctly, but the early years were warmer, that the later years were cooler than predicted? However, they go onto say “More recently the temperature has matched the level forecasted very closely”.
Can all three of those statements be true?
I thought this was pretty cool from comments in the Guardian, similar to the Dr David Viner piece.
2004 BBC, and if recent trends continue a white Christmas in Wales could certainly be a thing of the past.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/north_west/4112137.stm
BBC 28th Marck 2013, Alan Kendall, general manager of Snowdon Mountain Railway, said: “It’s the worst I’ve experienced in the 11 years I’ve been here. He said temperatures were dropping to -20C in places.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-north-west-wales-21969488
Ian W…I dont see how your reply relates to my comment.
yes some models got it right.
others predicted cooling.
the majority predicted more warming than occured.
this paper is an example of the sharp shooter fallacy.
Wamron says:
March 31, 2013 at 11:39 am
Ian W…I dont see how your reply relates to my comment.
Possibly because my reply was not to your comment?
Ian W says:
March 31, 2013 at 11:03 am
Kindlekinser says:
March 31, 2013 at 10:27 am
G. Karst:
Ian W responding to Kindlekinser’s response to G. Karst.
Ian W: I think we are in agreement here. Lab results demonstrate that CO2 has the potential to cause warming in the atmosphere, so the theory is that it does. My point is that data haven’t invalidated the theory because there is no better supported theory to replace it that matches the evidence that warming has occurred, including evidence that it has been warmer in past eras. Your point about demonstrating actual atmospheric effects of CO2 I think is a staple of understanding why the Earth is as warm as it is. Absent CO2 we would be much colder.
Gail Combs: I don’t smoke cigars or anything else, and I’m not trying to spin. Are you suggesting that “oceans as calorimeter” represents a better supported theory? The role of the oceans in atmospheric warming has been an ongoing part of the debate, so perhaps it will emerge as having more explanatory value. I don’t think it has that status yet, though, based on the cited paper from 2008.
D.B. Stealey: The null hypothesis will remain the same no matter what theory one is testing. And it is simply untrue that that the theory has resisted all attempt to falsify it. Any significant result reported in the literature would have by definition falsified the null. But a significant finding in one study doesn’t mean the null hypothesis goes away for the next study. As for their being no theory that CO2=warming, I am at a loss how to respond. Perhaps that is not the technical configuration for the theory, but that’s what everyone is talking about here
Wamron: I don’t say that the theory is true. I just say that it remains viable until a better theory replaces it. And, yes, I know the difference between a null hypothesis and a theory. I was responding to a comment that asked when the null hypothesis of natural variation was replaced by CO2 warming theory. That makes no sense to me as written. The null hypothesis doesn’t get replaced; various theories compete with each other against the null hypothesis. Theories with explanatory value continue, theories that no longer provide explanatory value are discarded.
Kindlekinser:
Your post at March 31, 2013 at 7:24 am says in total
Oh dear! That is so wrong it would require a book to detail all its errors.
Scientific theories are never “validated” but may be falsified.
This is because
(a) science seeks the closest possible approximation to truth by attempting to find information which is not consistent with existing understanding(s) and amending or rejecting understanding(s) in the light of the obtained information
but
(b) pseudoscience decides an understanding is true and seeks information which supports the understanding while ignoring or rejecting information which is not consistent with the understanding.
In other words “theory validation” is the practice of pseudoscience and not science. In science a theory cannot be validated because it is accepted as being the best available explanation which it is hoped can be falsified to provide a better explanation.
In science a theory is determined to be wrong when it is falsified; i.e. when empirical data does not agree with the theory. The theory is then amended or rejected. And observation that a theory makes incorrect predictions is empirical evidence that the theory is wrong; i.e. it falsifies the theory.
However, there may be some debate as to whether or not the prediction was inaccurate and not completely wrong. For example, if a theory says the globe will warm by x over a stated period but the globe only warms by 50% of x then the theory may not be completely wrong, although the theory has been falsified such that it needs amendment. But if the globe does not warm or cools over the stated period then the theory is completely falsified and needs to be rejected.
Whether or not “another theory” exists is irrelevant to the scientific rejection of a theory. If the theory is falsified by empirical data then in the absence of another theory all that can be said is “We don’t know” (which is probably the most profound of scientific statements).
Using a theory which is known to be wrong is NOT an appropriate guide to “future predictions”. If the theory is wrong then its predictions would most probably be wrong. Tossing a coin would be a better guide to “future predictions” because only 50% of its predictions would be wrong.
Richard
LOL. I presume he was indoors with the furnace on when this propaganda was penned.
==============================================================
Of course I can.
But, unlike the Hansenites and Goregaphiles, I haven’t figured out how to profit from it.
Kindlekinser:
I rebutted the nonsense you posted at March 31, 2013 at 7:24 am. Subsequent to that twaddle, at March 31, 2013 at 10:27 am you have presented a post which is also complete nonsense and begins saying
The Null Hypothesis is a basic scientific principle which a conjecture must overcome before it can be elevated to become a hypothesis.
Anthropogenic global warming (AGW) has not overcome the Null Hypothesis and, therefore, it is merely a conjecture. It is not yet a hypothesis and is nowhere near becoming a theory.
Many conjectures have existed for over 100 years and have recently been emulated using computer models (e.g. alien spaceships) but that does not elevate them to being theories.
I point out that WUWT is a science blog and suggest your posts would be more appropriate at pseudoscience blogs such as SkS and RC. They waste space on WUWT.
Richard
‘“Global warming predictions prove accurate”– Guardian’
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-r1cWwg5Dl0w/TY_SL3p5crI/AAAAAAAARb8/N2_Kdu7K0e4/s640/blog+212.jpg
What has the BBC and the Independent got in common?
Fast forward.
re: Kindlekinser… It seems to me what’s being likely demonstrated is that feedback effects are either much less positive or non-existent or negative. I think the core of what’s happened is that once warming was observed and popularly (among scientists) thought to be significantly due to CO2, feedback became inevitably overcharged because of a linear trend bias and especially because the logarithmic curve of CO2 band saturation is something not many people can comfortably model in their own thinking – so the automatic tendency is to turn it into something linear or even exponential by picking up a lot of positive feedback effects to bend the curve. Even Einstein pulled an arbitrary number to prevent a finite big bang universe if I remember that right, which goes to show how easily it can happen in an incomparably less definite field. The same thing happened going down in the 70’s cooling scare – the human mind has a pretty strong tendency to look for trends leading to problems and assuming they are self caused and avoidable. We’re looking at climate trends and trying not to walk off a cliff, naturally assuming that there is a cliff and that we are doing the walking. (If that doesn’t give too much credence to the theory that abstract thinking is dominated by our “engine” for dealing with physical reality)
I think it is worth saying that there could still be a CO2 warming effect, since the temperatures are at a ‘plateau’ even though as far as I’ve understood solar activity has been low since the last warming trend stopped. If the solar effect is strong it could/should imply a strong CO2 effect which seems to be overlooked. Caveats are needed. “Warming(/cooling)” seems to inherently imply a feedback direction rather than “this much warmer than what the trend would have been”. Natural variability is a baby thrown out without any bathwater as the garden of Eden assumption that there was some kind of natural temperature before the industrial revolution seems to be goram systemic (where does our ‘plateau’ of “warm temperatures” fit in the overall interglacial line rather than what the pre-industrial temperature was, which is what the Guardian’s model uses as a baseline). Finally seeing how similar theories of AGC were (“growing consensus among scientists” I think is a direct quote from Time about it in the 70’s) it shows that CO2 as the theory about temperature seems too easily to become pollution particulates as the theory about temperature – it becomes too easily isolated due to biases to comfortably describe it as a default which has to be replaced I think. However I may be misreading anyways that you’re saying it is the theory rather than warming is the theory for CO2.
“But the new research casts serious doubts on these claims, and should give a boost to confidence in scientific predictions of climate change.”
—
Again, they try to redefine the term climate change as if it is a pro-AGW stance. It is not. Climate change is a skeptical position that counters the notion of unprecedented global warming. Of course, they never mention that they might mean “man-made” climate change. Even so, climate change means that there is nothing unprecedented going on.
Kindlekinser:
“I don’t say that the theory is true. I just say that it remains viable until a better theory replaces it.”
No mate, what you said is up there for the world to see, to whit:
“So, to invalidate a theory requires more than just inaccurate prediction. It also involves finding another theory that better explains the observed results.”
What you said THERE is that a theory is not invalidated if no other theory has been validated in its stead. So, as I said previously, you are maintaining that a contention is valid unless proven invalid by demonstration of the validity of an alternative contention. In other words, anything is true until disproven. By that yardstick a guy who says his wearing a kilt keeps tigers at bay has a valid explanation as to why there are no tigers in the park.The mere fact that there never were any tigers in the park provides no explanation as to why there were no tigers in the park. So his is the only “explanation”.
An explanation is meaningless if it is neither sufficient nor necessary. AGW is not necessary because there are other explanations and it is not sufficient because it cannot explain events happening now.
The problem with your use of the word “theory” is that you dont seem to acknowledge that a set of contentions only become a theory when the hypotheses they generate have been validated by the correctness of their predictions. OK I see you were referring to a specific use of “null hypothesis” (or misuse). But you still fall over on that business of the difference between a contention, opinion, or conjecture and a genuine theory. AGW is not a theory until it generates testable hypotheses. Its only incidentally voiced hypotheses (temperature predictions) have failed. It is not a theory, it is conjecture, opinion, contention.
Your particular stumbling point is failure to disentangle validity from custom. You refer to the customary retention of non-validated theory but this OCCURRENCE does not constitute any kind of ersatz validation. A thing is not valid upon the contingency of its currency but upon demonstration that it corresponds with actuality. That can only be accomplished by measure of the accuracy of its predictions.
So, you remain wrong about that. The accuracy of the predictions IS everything. When you refer to attempts to retroactively explain failed predictions in order to defend a theory you describe precisely what Popper called “immunisation” of a pseudo-theory against disproof. When you suggest additional “explanations” need to be added, then you engage in EXACTLY what Imre Lakatosh called the construction of a “protective belt” of sub-tending theories. On both counts you explicitly state the thought processes that are characteristic of pseudo-science.
Kindlekinser says:
March 31, 2013 at 12:25 pm
Ian W: I think we are in agreement here. Lab results demonstrate that CO2 has the potential to cause warming in the atmosphere, so the theory is that it does. My point is that data haven’t invalidated the theory because there is no better supported theory to replace it that matches the evidence that warming has occurred, including evidence that it has been warmer in past eras. Your point about demonstrating actual atmospheric effects of CO2 I think is a staple of understanding why the Earth is as warm as it is. Absent CO2 we would be much colder.
Unfortunately, I do not think we are in agreement.
All that laboratory experiments showed was that in an enclosed cylinder with CO2 mixed with non-radiating gases illuminated with infrared, the temperature in the cylinder rose.
It is pure conjecture to assume that the same effect shown inside a closed cylinder will raise the temperature of the Earth’s atmosphere. CO2 molecules will still be absorbing and re-emitting infrared in just the same way, but there are multiple dynamic effects such as water vapor changing state and atmospheric enthalpy, and convective processes and the multiple secondary effects of those. Your laboratory experiment removed many of the real world variables so it cannot be simply assumed that in the presence of those variables the results will be the same.
richardscourtney: [first response] You didn’t need a book; your post was sufficient to emphatically correct my use of validation in this context. I disagree, though, that the theories generally are rejected only when they are falsified completely. Often they are discarded because another theory does a better job of explaining the phenomenon. Yes, if you don’t have another theory and the existing one has been completely falsified, then “I Don’t Know” is the best response. But that is clearly not the situation we are in now.
richardscourtney: [second response] Twaddle seems unnecessarily harsh, though it is a great word I’ll keep in mind if ever I have the opportunity to use it. Your strong reaction notwithstanding, I am not the first person on this web site, or even in this thread, to use the more general usage of “theory” to describe CO2 as a greenhouse gas. However, the “scientific theory” that CO2 has warming properties for the atmosphere in general is not in dispute, and serves as a partial explanation for why the Earth is warm and Venus is boiling. The more specific idea (hypothesis, conjecture) debated here and elsewhere that human increase of CO2 has the potential to warm the Earth even more was first proposed over a century ago, and is based on this scientific theory. Since the scientific method can be applied to this question, unlike your comparison to alien spaceships, I can’t see how this discussion counts as pseudoscience.
Kindlekinser’s remarks are another example of how — in the absence of direct empirical observation of the postulated CO2 / water vapor amplification process which confirms its presence in the earth’s climate system — the debate over human-induced climate change continues to pass through the GHG Narrative Diode.
The GHG Narrative Diode works this way …. any trend plateau which is anything less than a statistically significant declining trend in Global Mean Temperature occurring continuously over some long period of time — three to five decades — will continue to be interpreted as representing insufficient evidence that a human caused GHG-driven global warming trend isn’t still operative as the primary driver for climate change.
Said another way, a statistically significant trend in falling global mean temperature must occur continuously over some very lengthy period of time — thirty years at the minimum, but more likely fifty years — before the climate science community ever begins to question the narrative of human-caused GHG-driven global warming.
There is something now evidently something unusual flourishing in the Longdendale Chain system which supplies water to Manchester’s half million inhabitants. A special concentrated version of this water is supplied to the water coolers in the offices of the Grauniad. This is the only viable explanation of the weird articles that emanate from this once great newspaper these days.
The Grauniadistas are a bunch of navel-preening, self-servinbg liars who are lying in their self-serving naval-preening. And they want everyone else to pay for their luxury vacations around the world, preaching poverty to us ignorant masses. Grrr#
Very difficult to observe the charts correctly ,when observing them thru Pound Notes, mistakes will be made and there is much more work to be done as long as them Pound Notes keep coming.
The Iconoclast says:
March 31, 2013 at 7:02 am
I have created thirty eight models for predicting the outcome of a spin of a roulette wheel…
_____________________________________________
Call it an “ensemble”, and start lapping up grant money.
Iconoclast:
On second thought, your ensemble is fatally flawed because one of your models is always right. Understand the high-level approach; it’s important that NONE of the individual models in an ensemble is right. Only then can you state with confidence that their average is sure to be right.
Paul – that HadCRUT4 temperature chart you have neatly shows that we are dealing with not just one but with two climate standstills, one in the eighties and nineties and one in the twenty-first century. I showed this three years ago in my book What Warming? This leaves hardly any space for greenhouse warming. That graph is not a good way to show it but satellite temps that I used make it crystal clear. I have an updated and annotated satellite curve showing all this but don’t know how to show it in a comment.
Kindlekinser says:
“The null hypothesis will remain the same no matter what theory one is testing.”
Say what?? By that definition, we can simply dispose of the Null Hypothesis, since it doesn’t matter. Tell that to Kevin Trenberth, who desperately wants to reverse the Null Hypothesis, and put the onus onto scientific skeptics — thus requiring them to prove a negative.
The climate Null Hypothesis matters. It shows conclusively that current climate parameters have been routinely exceeded in the past [when CO2 was very low]. Therefore, current temperatures are neither unusual, nor unprecedented. What we are observing now is completely natural.
In fact, there is no verifiable, testable, measurable scientific evidence showing that the rise in [harmless, beneficial] CO2 has caused any global warming. Thus, the conjecture that CO2 causes global warming lacks any measurable support.
This is not to say that CO2 does not cause any of the current global warming. Even if it did, the effect is so minuscule that it is too small to measure. And without measurements, claims of AGW are merely conjectures.
You can argue this all day, but unless you can produce verifiable measurements showing that CO2=AGW, you are exhibiting a religious belief system — not science. Science is all about observed, verifiable, testable measurements. Without measurements, all you are doing is asserting a conjecture; an opinion. A belief.
If you can produce verifiable, empirical measurements showing that a rise in CO2 is the cause of global warming, I am all ears. But absent any such measurements, the Scientific Method says that your belief system lacks empirical observations or facts. Therefore, your belief that CO2 is causing global warming is merely a baseless conjecture.
The guardian should have printed the article on April first like this article.
http://www.theweatheroutlook.com/
Why does the comment I have made require moderation?It becomes boring after a while
Those believing that they landed on the moon, those are the same intellectual people believing in AGW……
Then we get realistic people…I will rather stick with them
Kindlekinser:
I am copying all your post at March 31, 2013 at 2:32 pm so it is clear that I am not disputing your weasel words out of their context.
My first response to you demolished YOUR MAIN POINT which was
Having been totally demolished on your main point you now pretend that was a trivial issue which was incidental to what you wrote.
IT WAS NOT A MINOR POINT. IT WAS YOUR MAIN POINT.
When warmunists are shown to be wrong they usually pretend what they said was not really the point they were making. You now attempt that with me having attempted it with Wamron whose post at March 31, 2013 at 2:18 pm states he is as offended by your doing it as I am. This typical warmunist behaviour is also being discussed on WUWT in threads discussing the Marcott paper
e.g. at http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/31/marcott-issues-a-faq-on-thei-paper/
Not content with that, your second sentence misrepresents what I said. I did NOT say
Indeed, my post at March 31, 2013 at 12:46 pm (which you claim to be answering) said
Kindlekinser: so far in this post I have only addressed the first two sentences in your post. And I have rebutted them as being gross misrepresentations.
And concerning AGW you continue with this piece of blatant hutzpah
As I am sure you know, that statement is misleading bollocks.
Clearly, the AGW hypothesis as emulated by climate models is completely and unequivocally falsified by a variety of empirical data; e.g.
Missing ‘hot spot’
Missiing ‘Trenberth heat’
Missing ‘committed warming’
Lack of predicted warming over the most recent 16+ years despite increased atmospheric CO2 concentration
etc.
However, there are several alternative conjectures and hypotheses which attempt to explain recent climate variability and remain to be falsified; e.g. those of Svensmark, of Shaviv, of Tisdale, etc.
The remainder of your post (which I am answering) is meaningless – and content-free – waffle.
I conclude by repeating the conclusion of my post addressed to you at March 31, 2013 at 1:06 pm which was not in any way “harsh”.
I point out that WUWT is a science blog and suggest your posts would be more appropriate at pseudoscience blogs such as SkS and RC. They waste space on WUWT.
Richard
Since when has hind-casting become a way of verifying a correct forecast. Absolutely awful and it is getting worse than we thought.
Arno Arrak
I have an updated and annotated satellite curve showing all this but don’t know how to show it in a comment.
If you leave a comment on my site, I can email you back.
Thanks
Paul
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2013/03/29/global-warming-predictions-prove-accurate-guardian/
The most puzzling thing in life to me, at the moment, is why so much time and energy goes into debating AGW. It doesn’t matter; it is irrelevant!
To paraphrase: It’s the energy security, Stupid!
By 2050, when there are 10 billion of us, we, the fortunate ¼ of the population now using ¾ of the energy produced, will be fighting tooth and nail to hang on to our way of life. The other ¾of the population will be battling like mad to reach our standard of living. I hope this is all metaphorical fighting-talk.
By 2050, we will need 3 to 4 times more energy than we use now, in the face of declining (and ever more expensive) fossil fuels and many other resources. If WE cannot provide THEM with clean, affordable energy, then a nation’s energy security becomes paramount and the fight will really be on for energy sources. Energy availability can mean food and water to a nation – not the other way round.
Only breeder reactors can arithmetically supply an energy-rich future to every single individual on the planet, for all of time, from inexhaustible uranium and thorium fuel sources. The need to push for the adoption of this technology is immediate.
Instead, we have useless blogs, articles and masses of irrelevant prognostications about AGW.
You’d all better get spending your time solving the energy security issue now, or you or your kids will have problems, orders of magnitude greater than the AGW ‘threat’, to worry about in a couple of decades or so.
To the various people dealing with the kindlekinser:
I admire your dedication in demonstrating the inadequacies of said kindlebeing. I realize it is necessary to do this whenever such pops up. Whilst it might have some value to you as intellectual exercise, it can’t be much, given the very obvious holes in what passes for a thought process in the kindlekinser, and that most of your efforts are in simply getting a clear response to basic things. Very frustrating.
Do you make the mistake of assuming kindlekinser is actually capable either by capacity or intent, or both, of coming to any sort of agreed understanding – one that reflects any degree of human intelligence I mean?
It seems to me that this is a forlorn prospect. I suppose the best that can be hoped for is that it is obvious to everyone – even possibly the kindlekinser – that he is bereft of comprehension.
It’s an interesting question. Is he simply dumb? Possessed by the spirit of the Dawning New Age and rendered appropriately incapable? A troll?
I just wonder what a kindlekinser can possibly hope to achieve by this. It can’t, surely, be a vindication of his position. Could it? Is this possibly sincere? A Warrior for Virtue in his own mind? A clever diversion from something else? What is the point?
Moderator:
I have posted a reply to jc which seems to have gone in the ‘bin’. Please retrieve it.
Richard
Steven Mosher says:
March 31, 2013 at 12:17 pm
yes some models got it right. others predicted cooling. the majority predicted more warming than occured. this paper is an example of the sharp shooter fallacy.
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Yes, and any five year old can guess tomorrows temperaturee to be colder, or the same, or warmer, or boiling; so the range of models shows how poorly developed the science is, still in its infancy. But the CAGW theory/ guess is catestrophic anthropogenic global warming. This is not happening, not even in the guardian article, which is cherry picked datelines, and wrong on many fronts.
Rob says:
March 31, 2013 at 2:05 pm
………….I think it is worth saying that there could still be a CO2 warming effect, since the temperatures are at a ‘plateau’ even though as far as I’ve understood solar activity has been low since the last warming trend stopped. If the solar effect is strong it could/should imply a strong CO2 effect which seems to be overlooked……………..
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First if the system was a simple CO2 increase => Temp increase there would not be a debate and predictions would be very simple. However the system is not simple and that means you have first order effects, second order effects, third order effects…. Also the system HAS TO HAVE FEEDBACKS if the system does not have feedbacks we would be snowball earth or an inferno.
This means proving in the lab that CO2 can absorb certain wavebands of low level IR energy and “..it is a physical property of the gas that can be empirically demonstrated in the lab…” means diddlesquat in regards to the larger system. Even arch warmist William Connelly who screens all climate information at Wikipedia has allowed the knowledge that the effect of CO2 is logarithmic to stand.
Graph 1 and Graph 2
You say “… I’ve understood solar activity has been low since the last warming trend stopped. If the solar effect is strong it could/should imply a strong CO2 effect which seems to be overlooked…”
You are looking for a quick change in a HUGE system, That just doesn’t happen (Thank goodness) but we ARE seeing a change, not in the temperature but the weather patterns. The NH Jet stream has gone from polar to a meridional flow pattern. This means you get blocking highs, droughts, more rain, and temperature extremes as the meanders of the jets alternately suck air from the poles or the tropics into a region. This is the real reason for ‘Weather Weirding’
In regards to temperature, you are completely overlooking the ‘hot water bottle effect’ of the oceans. Air temperature and weather FOLLOWS the oceans not the other way around.
This is a visual comparison of the energy content of the ocean vs air link
Oceans are over 70% of the earth’s surface. This is the amount of incoming solar energy that penetrates the oceans to 10m vs Top of Atmosphere (TOA) graph Note that the oceans are effected by the high energy wavelengths. This graph Graph: Solar Radiation Intensity and Wavelengths at Ocean Depths gives the areas different wavelength will penetrate to with the energy being absorbed. Note that the wavelengths back radiated by CO2 have an effect approaching nil.
This is a critical point. Ocean energy content is more dependent on certain wavelengths than it is on the Total Solar Insolation (TSI.) NASA has recently found that while TSI may be relatively constant the energy at different wavelengths is not and the higher wavelengths, those that effect the ozone layer and the ocean, change the most. NASA: link 1 and link 2 and link 3 and link 4
With regards to why CO2 is really a minor concern aside from its logarithmic effect is this graph showing the relative energy of incoming and outgoing energy. This graph shows the atmospheric absorption bands of incoming and outgoing energy. Your are comparing nickels and dimes for CO2 to billion (10^8) dollar bills for the ocean when you look at the relative strengths of the energy combined with the width of the waveband. This is especially true when you toss in the variation in the upper wave lengths coming from the sun.
As you can see from this link the actual measurement of TSI is not as ‘clean’ as one could wish so there is no agreement on solar variation. link 1 and NASA link This graph shows the different interpretation of the measurements. ALSO SEE: Judithgate (-translated from Czech by author) for the politics and back-up information like letters and such from scientists.
This is why I pointed to The oceans as a calorimeter
The changes in the height of the atmosphere NASA: Earth’s upper atmosphere is heated less by the sun and it is therefore less “puffed up.” and the solar UV/ozone link and its effect on clouds and winds is just being explored. Paper
In other words CO2 is no longer a real player because of the logrithmic effect and scientists have no real idea of the effects of the sun because they, thanks to the IPCC mandate, have been too busy trying to pin the blame for CAGW on humans.
The IPCC mandate states:
Robert Wilson, employee of the World Bank was the former chair of the IPCC. The World Banks vested interest.
This is the fraud that is producing nothing but fuel poverty and deaths.
The ultimate hypocrisy of the World Bank.
GRAPH: World Bank Lending for Coal Plants by Year and the story World Bank coal funding hits record high as it seeks climate finance control: World Bank funding for coal power stations has soared 40-fold over the last five years to hit a record high of $4.4 billion in 2010, new figures reveal. Also The so-called Danish text, a secret draft agreement… hands effective control of climate change finance to the World Bank…
Colin Megson says: @ April 1, 2013 at 4:29 am
…By 2050, when there are 10 billion of us, we, the fortunate ¼ of the population now using ¾ of the energy produced, will be fighting tooth and nail to hang on to our way of life. The other ¾of the population will be battling like mad to reach our standard of living. I hope this is all metaphorical fighting-talk….
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Don’t bet on it.
The gauntlet has already been thrown.
The Cyprus depositor ‘Haircut’ was aimed at the Russian Oligrachy link Now the emerging second and third world countries, disgusted by the rape from the World Bank and IMF “structural adjustment programs,” are planning to pack up their toys and going their own way.
World Bank to be hit with a BRIC ~ The BRICS Countries, Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, have agreement in principle to form their own “Development Bank”.
The UN and WTO had their eyes focused on the glories of ‘Global Governance’ with them at the steering wheel. Unfortunately to bring about the necessary interdependence and destruction of US sovereignty they stripped the EU and the USA of their wealth, factories and technology and handed it over to other countries. Clinton Approves Technology Transfer to China This included top secret MILITARY technology The USA is now to the point our military is considering buying from foreign suppliers. link
Sorry I just do not trust that Russia and China have anything but their own national interests in mind and if we do get hit with a mini-Ice age these two countries are going to get hit the hardest. Unfortunately our home politicians have already weaken the EU and USA from the inside. See my comment on lack border security @ CHEIFIO.
I really hate being treated as a pawn on a giant chest board where the deaths and destruction is very very real and the elite always win. (I was married to the son of a minor elite family, his Vietnam draft papers mysteriously were lost for months and months until the end of the war. His start of basic training/OCS was timed so he missed ‘Nam by just one week.)
The reflection by jc [April 1, 2013 at 4:46 am] is actually helpful to me here. Why am I trying to engage now? What could I possibly hope to get out of this, given that the community here is much more invested in this topic than I am, and is clearly more skilled in the debate? A point that I thought was a simple commentary on the difference between theory prediction and explanation [as opposed to the truth or fiction of global warming], turned out to be embedded in a complicated set of assumptions and language conventions that I had not fully appreciated. I used terms loosely and was called on it, rightly. And in the process I’m afraid I just made richardscourtney and a few others angry.
I’ll be silent now.
@ Gail Combs says: April 1, 2013 at 8:46 am
I have to say, from what I have seen on this site generally, that you have a hell of a lot of energy you are prepared to put into this issue. And you seem to be able to contribute across the range of perspectives, from science to society. With details backed up by references or links when needed.
This is not a post intended to just applaud. I think the ability to see AGW in the wider context is going to be vital from here in. When anything gets into the world of Politics, let alone the murky activity of “politics”, people find it hard to see through to the basics, and are habitually polarized, so this can hardly be straightforward.
This is, as you say, all contingent now on Big Issues deriving from existential questions facing various societies, and in that, they are brutally simple. To be able to marry AGW, and the “cultural” imperative behind it, with all its associated structural manifestations, to understanding these issues is going to be literally a matter of life or death, at least for some.
Many who come to this site would say this has always been the case with AGW, which I wouldn’t disagree with. But we are at the pointy end now.
Another ‘warmista’ explanation for a ‘coldista’ phenomenon
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21991487
“Climate change is expanding Antarctica’s sea ice, according to a scientific study in the journal Nature Geoscience.
The paradoxical phenomenon is thought to be caused by relatively cold plumes of fresh water derived from melting beneath the Antarctic ice shelves.
This melt water has a relatively low density, so it accumulates in the top layer of the ocean.
The cool surface waters then re-freeze more easily during Autumn and Winter.”
So, there we are.
Andor says:
March 31, 2013 at 11:20 pm
“Those believing that they landed on the moon, those are the same intellectual people believing in AGW……
Then we get realistic people…I will rather stick with them”
Lewandowsky, is that you, trying to produce the evidence for your papers?
@ Kindlekinser says: April 1, 2013 at 9:38 am
It takes something to admit you haven’t been on top of an issue: maybe things created their own momentum and got out of hand. Stick with it. You – as I guess you know – can get a lot out of this site. If you want something covered every which way, allowing you to come to your own well-founded conclusions, you’re as likely to get it here as anywhere.
@ DirkH says: April 1, 2013 at 12:35 pm
Yes I read that too. I quickly gave up trying to understand it.
So maybe it is Lewandowsky.
Kindlekinser:
In your post at April 1, 2013 at 9:38 am you say
No, not “angry”. Annoyed and offended at trolling which was clearly intended to mislead uninformed onlookers.
You came here spouting nonsense as fact and made no attempt to pose questions.
Now you claim your behaviour was based on ignorance. I don’t buy it.
Richard
@ richardscourtney says: April 1, 2013 at 12:48 pm
He has to wear that. The cost of making categorical statements when not thought through or informed, whatever the motivation. A loss of credibility.
Kindlekinser
If you are prepared to learn, I don’t think we can ask any more.
Ian says:
April 1, 2013 at 12:17 pm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21991487
The very same thing is happening in the Arctic over recent years, but it is not expanding the sea ice there.
The difference between the two is quite simple and that is the ocean circulation isolates Antarctica from warmer currents and energy from the mid latitudes etc. The Arctic ocean has warm currents feeding into it all the time originated from tropical based oceans. The AMO is part of this process and the warmer it is the more energy reaches the Arctic basin and reduces sea ice.
Antarctica is a classic example of CO2 having very little / no affect on temperatures in a polar region. The CO2 affect on polar regions is only exaggerated because of the mechanism I have described earlier that only occurs in the Arctic.
Finally climate change is doing this and doing that can literally mean anything and does not distinguish between natural or unnatural. If they mean global warming that mention it, but they can’t do that because there hasn’t been any.
This is unbelievably bad. If you look at the graph in the Guardian article, you can see that the prediction is already out by about a tenth of a degree, after just over ten years.
The red line, indicating actual temperatures, is a ten year mean, so it effectively removes the recent non-warming. By chance, the prediction and the red line just happen to meet. Change the smoothing period and they no longer meet.
In ten years, all they have to do is increse the smoothing to a twenty year mean, and the lines will still accurately meet.
Fortunately the graph also shows the annual measurements over the period of the prediction (the yellow diamonds). Using the Mark One detector (the human eye) the trend over this period looks flat. And the everage of these points puts the current temperature at around one tenth of a degree below the prediction.
To summarise:
1. The two graphs meet at the moment only because of the smoothing they chose to apply.
2. The annual data shows that the prediction is already one tenth of a degree too high, after just over ten years.
In other words, his prediction is wrong, just like the others. The only difference is that maybe it isn’t quite so wrong as the others.
In a few years it will be interesting to add the additional annual data to that graph.
Chris
@ Gail, very interesting, I particularly appreciate the point about ‘looking for a fast change in a huge system’, as the article I read that predicted a solar driven cooling trend speculated that the oceans were buffering a down tick.
I’m shocked that the world bank is funding so much coal! I can’t say I disapprove, it’s much better than putting brakes on development as that leaked paper might lead to. And apparently the downsides on air quality are at least mildly offset by the nitrogen and carbon fertilizing vegetation. It would be nice to get away from coal (and if warmers were serious they’d be funding gas and/or nuclear at massive rates to displace coal in developing countries) but it’s still a lot better for people than burning wood.
I have come to the conclusion that we all have a little blame global warming and its consequences and guilt even more politicians who do not slow down.
http://www.globalwarmingweb.com/