People send me stuff. Lance Wallace writes:
Anthony, this short “Perspectives” report in Science seems to me to be worthy of a posting in WUWT. Not only is it a very clear indication of crucial problems with the GCMs, it appears in Science magazine, for years a dogged defender of the faith. I’m including the article (paywalled of course) because I think your readers will be blown away by the figure if you can run it.
The authors ran some extremely simplified CMIP5 GCMs, looking only at how they treated water (precipitation, cloud formation), and found extreme differences from one model to the next, as is evident from the figure.
In the final section titled Back to Basics, they make clear that the problem is a fundamental one of not understanding the coupling between water and general circulation. They specifically state it would be better to go towards numerical weather prediction rather than continue to expand the coverage of the GCMs.
By the way, they picked just two aspects–clouds and precipitation–to concentrate on, but they mention a few others, such as sensitivity and arctic amplification of temperature change. Then there are also aerosols, energy balance, and ocean circulation. I could see more examples of models simplified down to each of these aspects in turn and compared to see how they perform. – Lance Wallace
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Science 31 May 2013:
Vol. 340 no. 6136 pp. 1053-1054
DOI: 10.1126/science.1237554
What Are Climate Models Missing?
Fifty years ago, Joseph Smagorinsky published a landmark paper (1) describing numerical experiments using the primitive equations (a set of fluid equations that describe global atmospheric flows). In so doing, he introduced what later became known as a General Circulation Model (GCM). GCMs have come to provide a compelling framework for coupling the atmospheric circulation to a great variety of processes. Although early GCMs could only consider a small subset of these processes, it was widely appreciated that a more comprehensive treatment was necessary to adequately represent the drivers of the circulation. But how comprehensive this treatment must be was unclear and, as Smagorinsky realized (2), could only be determined through numerical experimentation. These types of experiments have since shown that an adequate description of basic processes like cloud formation, moist convection, and mixing is what climate models miss most.
Full text at http://www.sciencemag.org/content/340/6136/1053.summary (paywalled)
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The figure from the article shows how four different models have wide variances on clouds and precipitation.
on the climate model, even in the simplest model confi guration. Shown are changes in the radiative effects of clouds and in precipitation accompanying a uniform warming (4°C) predicted by four models from Phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) for a water planet with prescribed surface temperatures.
Clouds and water are central to our global atmospheric processes, and clearly, these models aren’t doing much better than dartboards at figuring out what the real atmospheric score is.
With wide variances like that, no wonder climate models can’t model reality, from Dr. Roy Spencer’s recent post: STILL Epic Fail: 73 Climate Models vs. Measurements, Running 5-Year Means
A big disagreement between warmists and skeptics is in how observations should be compared to models. The disagreement is large enough that Schmidt, Hansen, Tamino/Stoat are able to say that post 1988 history is largely validated, though at the ‘lower’ end, while Spencer (ref above graph) says the comparison shows an ‘epic fail’. Schmidt et al routinely use 1988 as the reference point and GISTemp as the reference data. Spencer uses neither, and he isn’t alone in this.
In the Spencer comparison, the key data comes from weather balloons and satellite data, not station-based temperature data. He fixes the comparison at 1979, not the commonly discussed 1988 These two points of departure from the warmist position demonstrates the depth of the problem with coming to resolution of the debate/argument/dispute/war. In a billboard display earlier this year, CFACT did a similar thing by using HadCru data and not GISTemp data. (In a response to me they said that they couldn’t accept the changes GISS had done to the base data. Rightful in this or not, by doing this, CFACT (Morano) admits that their audience would not be sufficiently swayed if the official American sources of NOAA/NASA were cited; by using only weather balloons and satellite data, Spencer similarly makes an implicit acknowledgement that the temperature data collected and/or analyzed by all the governmental agencies is not sufficiently distinct from official, modeled projections to convince the unconvinced the warmist narrative is off-base.
So, as scientists, what would we say is the basis for initiating observation and models at 1979 and changing data-types? We are clearly entering into an argument of apples and oranges if we can’t agree on what should be the reference time and data types.
Personally, I’d favour taking the warmist position more than not, as the warmist position is obviously the power-position at present (holding the reins, perhaps, rather than completely in charge of the horse) and the one to counter. As a skeptic, I also think the disconnect of model to reality is sufficiently great (and becoming greater) that we can afford to be generous in the debate: they have given themselves enough roped to be hanged in the next two years.
For time: perhaps 1983 would be more “fair” than either 1979 or 1988. If, by 1988, Hansen et al is saying that the principles are settled, and only details uncertain, the pattern BY 1988 should be clear: up-and-down wiggle room through 1988 has a balance point of about 1983. The statisticians in the audience should be able, by referring to r-values in the IPCC models, to say what the reference point should be, however. As for data, we may use the weather balloons and satellites to question the adjustments to raw data GISTemp uses, but we should not discard it: this is the crucial data that Congress and the American public are shown, after all. Ignoring it only suggests we can’t show a true “fail” of the IPCC/Hansen-Gore claims.
Agreeing on reference points in time and dataset is crucial to acceptance by the mainstream undecided that the skeptics have a legitimate complaint about the “consensus” on climate change. As long as the warmists can dismiss the skeptics position as manipulative cherry-picking of endpoints, no argument against CAGW can prevail. Hansen is never wrong if what he claims is different from what we argue about; we are never right if Hansen isn’t concerned about what we are talking about.
A 1983 or so beginning-of-comparison still shows the modelling to have an epic fail.
When you are dealing with a chaotic system, whether it be a human being or a weather pattern, it is unlikely you can ever come up with a single “answer.” Chaos theory suggests you may, in certain circumstances, have answers “attracted” to a certain range, (IE Strange Attractors,) however even that theory is still in its infancy, and has a long way to go before it produces much that can help with a specific forecast. I’ll still take Bastardi over a computer any day.
This is from an essay of mine:
“There is a temptation to make a science out of psychology, because certain patterns of human behavior seem recognizable. Though Chaucer created the Wife Of Bath back in 1375, she reminds me of a lady who served me burgers back in college, and though Shakespeare created Falstaff in 1593, Flastaff reminds me of a guy I worked third shift with, in a cannery. Certain characters are like certain weather maps, and provide us with analogs we use, and give us the sense we can predict behavior in the same manner we can predict the weather.
However every forecaster knows that all it takes is some stupid butterfly flapping its wing somewhere, and two maps which start out nearly identical can come to quite opposite solutions. In the same manner two people, both resembling Falstaff, can reach a fork in the road where one is redeemed while the other progresses steadfastly on to their tragic demise.”
Full essay (quite long) is at http://sunriseswansong.wordpress.com/2013/06/09/dazzling-baffling/
It doesn’t matter whether you are attempting to predict humans or weather, not even the hugest computer in the world can give you a single answer that is right.
I think I’ve never heard so loud
The quiet message in a cloud.
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Jim Brock says:
June 9, 2013 at 5:24 pm
“…what is new is not true and what is true is not new….” .
I have no idea where this might orginally come from , but it is somewhat simliar to and old russian Soviet-Era folk joke, the two main public newspapers there at the were named Pravda (= The truth ) and Isveztija ( The News ) , and some section of the public then usde to claim that there existied an old proverb that went like this: ” There is no Isveztija in the Pravda, and no Pravda in the Isvestija” , which if translated literally becomes ” There are no new(s) in the truth , and there is no truth in new(s)” , maybe soone hijacked that thougth ( sarcasm) from there.
Robin @ur momisugly five thirty-six
Has got it right down to the licks.
Attention! was roared,
Get up to the board,
I’ve had it with your keyboard clicks.
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Lance Wallace says:
June 9, 2013 at 6:46 pm
Thanks for the research. Good news on the authors. Maybe Science Mag is making something of a move toward reality.
When Science starts covering the success of sceptic models over mainstream models then there is actually a chink in the armor. Until then, jumping on every admission of imperfection as though it is THE END of climate science just makes you sound like creationists have since the ’60’s. They’ve been constantly proclaiming the imminent collapse of mainstream biology…for decades.
What the authors point out quite honestly is that there has been no improvement in how GCMs treat water since 1963 when Joseph Smagorinsky first attempted to do it. And that despite the fact that what Smagorinsky had was an IBM mainframe that does not compare even to a laptop today while the modeling kings of IPCC have dozens of supercomputers at their disposal. If I had any authority on this I would decide that if fifty years of attempting to model that system with the best equipment available does not give believable results it is time to stop wasting money on it. We knew that models were constantly producing wrong projections and yet no one has been held accountable for that. The mid-troposphere results that Roy Spencer shows are a case in point. These CMIP5 morons chose mid-troposphere to model because it does not have anything in common with climate down on this earth. It cannot be compared to any global temperature trends or climate features like the El Nino phenomenon. I occasionally check mid-troposphere temperature trends and have found a long-term down trend that corresponds to nothing on ground level. And those data from 73 models, working on 73 supercomputers, are meant for the upcoming AR5 report. I rate their real information content as zero, especially since their base temperature projection does not use the newly revised versions of ground-based temperature curves in which the phony late twentieth century warming has been removed.
@jim Brock & rogerknights:
I like this one better:
“There are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say there are things that we now know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we do not know we don’t know.”
Rumsfeld
Hummmm,,,, the Sun which provides 99+% of our energy has something to do with climate?
Ya think!
Ryan says:
June 9, 2013 at 7:39 pm
When Science starts covering the success of sceptic models over mainstream models then there is actually a chink in the armor. Until then, jumping on every admission of imperfection as though it is THE END of climate science just makes you sound like creationists have since the ’60′s. They’ve been constantly proclaiming the imminent collapse of mainstream biology…for decades.
And, so, what is your ACTUAL opinion?
The sad epitaph about Richard Alley, Mann, Hansen, Schmidt (Gavin) and Trenberth is that they do no possess the ability of comprehension. For them ‘Climate Science’ is the greatest religious drug ever invented ! In addition, they have profited by there buffoonery for years ! Now they desperately hope to profit by it for their retirement programs.
FAT CHANCE.
Dr. Spencer has clearly shown that all 73 models have failed compared to empirical observation. There are many differences in the various parameters between the models. A logical explanation would be that a common assumption for all the models is in error. All the models assume that the net effect of adding radiative gases to the atmosphere is warming.
Could there be an error in the “basic physics” of the “settled science”? What would happen if you solved for just radiative flux for increasing concentrations of CO2? Radiative gases are critical for tropospheric convective circulation. What would happen if you failed to model the increased speed of tropospheric convective circulation and the resulting increase in surface cooling that would result? You might get the wrong answer. You might conclude that the net effect of radiative gases in our atmosphere is warming.
A mistake THAT bad would require an escape plan for the climate scientists involved.
Plan A. Come up with a “sciencey” sounding excuse that hides the real reason all the models failed.
The heat is hiding deep in the oceans! It will be back!
The warming is being masked by aerosols!
Natural variability greater than previously estimated!
Climate sensitivity may be less than previously estimated!
Did we say 6C? No, no we meant 2C!
– but the Internet scrutiny will never end.
Plan B. Airline tickets to Brazil.
– A bit expensive.
Plan C. Fake noses.
– The budget option.
Ryan says:
June 9, 2013 at 7:39 pm
“Mainstream models” progressively diverging from empiric data = failure to understand climate processes. Is that so hard to comprehend?
Hey Puppet Person…Cool it. Your rhetoric crossed the line further up-thread.
This is pretty good science. For one thing, it is VERY SIMPLE. No problem complexity to fall back on. Given that, the divergence of the model results shows one very straightforward thing. The underlying dynamics of GCMs is both highly nonlinear and chaotic. A second very interesting question would be just how sensitive even the models THEMSELVES are to perturbations in initial conditions. Presumably the figures above are some sort of average over many runs from many random initial conditions (at least, that’s how I would do it). It would be interesting to see the spread in dynamical state or its real-time time evolution and not just the average over it. I would predict that there is almost as much variation within most of the models as there is between them.
One can then add complexity just a little at a time to see how it affects the spread even more. Perhaps latitudinal “continental” bands. Perhaps orange-wedge shaped continents. Perhaps continents shaped like the black patches on a soccer ball. Perhaps similar variation in ocean depth — water worlds aren’t going to build up anything like the north-south oceanic currents (e.g. the Gulf Stream) that dominate European weather. If global warming ever does get out of hand, all one has to do is shift the GS a few degrees south and Europe goes straight into the icebox and the next ice age begins.
Oh, wait, you mean we cannot change enormous global circulation features like ENSO and the GS that dominate the patterns of the climate? Darn!
rgb
In “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” (Ang Lee, 2000) a notorious bandit chief called Black Cloud tells his latest conquest, “All this Black Cloud stuff just makes my job easier.” Indeed… the Green Gang of Briffa, Hansen, Jones, Mann, Trenberth et al. promote this bumpf as they descend on taxpayer caravans, freezing at the very mention of (gasp) “Anthropogenic Global Warming” [say what?].
After a quarter century of this BS since 1988, it’s high time that private-citizen Route Masters kibosh “Dark Cloud” forever.
Doug Proctor: I think Dr. Spenser uses 1979 as a start date is because that is when the satellite data begins. Please correct me if I am wrong.
Correct. Death wishes should not be posted; the moderators should remove this one.
Wait, so weather is climate, now?
Ryan (7:39pm), speaking of chinks in the armor, I’m actually quite pleased that you are still around. Have you had a few sips of our “Koolaid’ by now? You are not a stupid person, and so you must have noticed that the levels of intelligence and thoughtfulness here are refreshingly far above those at the tiresomely memetic “warmist” sites, occasional kooks here notwithstanding. Perhaps you are an honest enough inquirer to be willing to test your preconceptions against some formidable and deeply knowledgeable intellects. In that case, look up some of the lengthier posts of “rgbatduke” (Dr. Robert G. Brown, sample a few comments above this one), Richard Courtney, Greg Goodman, Willis Eschenbach, and “ferd berple”, to name but a few. Then buzz over to Climate Audit for more of the same with an emphasis on statistics. You may find you like hanging out with highly intelligent and articulate and honest people, as I do.
And you may find your views changing. If you are not open to having your views changed through an increase in knowledge and understanding, I advise you to cut your losses and get out of here, because many here will tell you that is just what happened to them. They hung around too long and lost their warmist “faith”. Can you choose wisely, grasshopper?
Pamela (9:11pm, re Master_Of_Puppets at 6:05 pm) my sentiments exactly. Mods, would you kindly have a look?
RoHa says:
Fail mark for “would of”. Surely you have read “would have” often enough to internalise it.
Passable. Better: Fail mark for “would of”. Surely you have read “would have” often enough to have internalised it.
: > )
Doug Procter..there is no comparisim(sp?) between models and observation. I can make a model that says you are a complete twit,but real observation says you are a nice guy. I can make a model say anything,observation shows the truth.Sort of like the model says my backyard is in a drought,while observation shows it is actually 2 feet under water.
Ryan says (June 9, 2013 at 7:39 pm): “When Science starts covering the success of sceptic models over mainstream models then there is actually a chink in the armor.”
Why? If you say 1 + 1 = 3, you’re wrong, whether I can add 1 + 1 correctly or not. I can’t speak for all skeptics, but personally I don’t think anybody can predict the Earth’s climate system. if somebody says he can, I smell a rat, not a scientist.
“Until then, jumping on every admission of imperfection as though it is THE END of climate science just makes you sound like creationists have since the ’60′s”
Eh? Who wants the “end of climate science”? The “imperfections” just show that the CAGW scare is a politically-motivated hoax. Did it ever occur to you that the end of climate politics could be the beginning of climate science?