Note: The video has been updated to reflect the fact that Climate Models Fail is now available for sale in Kindle and pdf formats. I also replaced the word “employed” with “used” (as suggested by many viewers) and corrected one of the years discussed in the video.
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This YouTube video provides a preview of my new book Climate Models Fail. The book discusses and illustrates how the climate models being used by the IPCC for their 5th Assessment Report show no skill at simulating surface temperatures, precipitation and sea ice area.
Climate Models Fail is now available for sale in Amazon Kindle and .pdf editions.
My writing style definitely leans to the technical side, as visitors here well know. To make it easier to read, Climate Models Fail is being proofread by someone without a technical background. Her suggestions have been great.
And for those wondering, the cover art is by Josh of Cartoons by Josh.
A note about the video: In addition to providing an overview of climate model failings, I also threw in a few jabs at the IPCC that many of you will enjoy.
RICHARDSCOURTNEY POST AT 08:20AM SEPT. 13TH. Is quite good and said well.
Berényi Péter:
Your post at September 13, 2013 at 9:34 am asks and says in total
Firstly, I draw your attention to my above post at September 13, 2013 at 8:20 am
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/09/13/a-video-preview-of-climate-models-fail/#comment-1416063
It explains why your question is misplaced; viz.
at most only one and probably none of the climate models emulates the climate system of the real Earth.
However, I recently answered your specific question on another WUWT thread. That answer is at
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/09/05/statistical-proof-of-the-pause-overestimated-global-warming-over-the-past-20-years/#comment-1409041
I copy part of that post to here.
I hope this is a clear and sufficient answer.
Richard
Bob Tisdale said:
“To make it easier to read, Climate Models Fail is being proofread by someone without a technical background. Her suggestions have been great.”
Bob, if I didn’t already admire you, that statement ALONE would give you huge brownie points in my book! THANK YOU. It’s not that I don’t like the technical side, I LOVE IT. I just don’t always understand it. I plow through it because the “truth” is what matters to me, and if it’s in there, I want to find it. But many people don’t care and will ignore anything they don’t easily comprehend. The simpler the message, the easier it is to spread to the masses.
So thank you for considering the viewpoint of the less technically inclined BEFORE going to print and taking the suggestions of your proof reader to heart. It matters!
Bob, thanks for posting. I always enjoy and appreciate your posts. It is a good video.
Most people who are not experts need slides/graphs that fully incorporate the point consolidated within the slide/graph. Implicit relationships do not get across effectively.
To help convey your point you may consider adding a second trace on each temperature anomaly chart to indicate atmospheric concentration of CO2 over the same time frame. The disparity will then more effectively be related.
I wonder what the target audience is for this book. I always try to look at things from the perspective of those without a science or engineering background. Why? Becasue I seem to be surrounded by them. How will they react to this video and the book? Eyes will begin to glaze over pretty quickly I fear. Too many graphs and too much jargon. People want to hear a story and be entertained. A video with cartoon charactors might be an idea. It’s got to have great imagery, relationships, emotions, personal growth, etc. Mountains of dry facts are deadly boring. Water World is one of my favorite movies. It exaggerates beyond reason what the world would be like with no ice to communicate the message. A great story not easily forgotten. It is now part of the culture and consciousness. Is it any wonder we find educated adults who think the Arctic and Greenland are ice-free?
Bob Tisdale,
LOL! My favorite line (among many good ones) was your last (I heard it as if directed at a bunch of Climatologists sitting before you in a lecture hall, mouths hanging open in dismay at what they’ve just seen and heard): “Have a nice day.”
Bwah, ha, ha, ha, haaaaaaaaa! , all you pseudo-scientists grubbing for government $$, your climate models are CRAP!
(Re: your target audience, I see it as: 1) motivated laypersons like Aphan and I who are not put off by “multidecadal,” etc..; and even more, 2) genuine scientists (and journalists) who either mistakenly believed in the validity of the climate models or who knew they were junk, but needed a way out of the CAGW jungle. Your book is the way out. WAY TO GO!)
Well done!
A fan,
Janice
P.S. Josh, GREAT artwork, perfectly underscoring Tisdale’s message. “Mrs. P.” – lol.
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Hmmm….Bob, you are right but I think many will read that line as “hired by the IPCC”. Perhaps change the sentence to something like, “Video: modellers whose models are used by the IPCC”.
(Of course the modellers themselves are being “used” also but in another sense.)
Bob Tisdale,
For your future thoughts on climate modeler’s bias you might consider Craig Loehle’s book (link below) ‘Becoming a Successful Scientist: Strategic Thinking for Scientific Discovery’. It has a wonderful section on general bias and also scientific bias that discusses in particular the (IIRC) toolmaker’s fallacy / bias.
http://www.amazon.com/Craig-Loehle-PhD/e/B0034NGGNA
John
richardscourtney says:
September 13, 2013 at 9:54 am
The problem is the ‘Texas sharpshooter fallacy’.
Indeed it is. And, as you can see, I am not a great fan of complex computational climate models fitted to a single run of a unique physical entity either.
Still, eliminating already failed models is a must, their “projections” should be excluded from all analyses, their funding be discontinued. And we may even learn something important along this way, by seeing what makes the difference between immediate failures and somewhat tenable ones. It does not mean of course any one of the remaining models could be used to forecast future climate states, much less their average behavior, but in my reading these models originally were not even meant to do that, they were only heuristic tools to make forming conjectures easier, to be verified experimentally later on.
Salvatore Del Prete says: “fantastic that is.”
Thanks, Salvatore. I liked “fanastic” too.
Mike M says: September 13, 2013 at 7:30 am
Nor are such “fudge factors” limited to the computer models – as at least one of the modelling crowd has acknowledged:
Carefully chosen fudge – “gold standard” science explained
Bob Tisdale, thanks for a great introductory video; I suspect your book will be a tremendous aid to those of us who fall into the category of “statistically-challenged” 🙂
excellent video clip Bob. I will certainly be buying a copy of the book in one form or another
TV series coming up: When Climate Models Fail!
And it was my idea! I expect my name on the credits, and a large slice of the royalties.
Sod Webster. Here’s what the real dictionary says:
employ
verb
[with object]
1 give work to (someone) and pay them for it:
the firm employs 150 people
[with object and infinitive]:
temporary staff can be employed to undertake the work
(as adjective employed)
83 percent of employed people were working in full-time jobs
•keep occupied:
the newcomers are employed in developing the technology into a product
2 make use of:
the methods they have employed to collect the data
http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/employ
Berényi Péter:
In your response to me at September 13, 2013 at 2:51 pm you say
YES! And the misuse of the models for provision of forecasts has resulted in their discredit (which is sad).
Richard
Bob Tisdale says: @ur momisugly September 13, 2013 at 8:41 am
Gail Combs: Thanks.
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Nice.
This is a really important point to get though to people. It is the reason papers that do not give a genuflect to CO2 as the main climate control knob are never discussed or included in the IPCC reports. They are outside the mandate.
As my husband just remarked they were given the mandate to determine the number of angels dancing on the head of a pin and now they have lots of computer models determining that number and even computer simulations of the probable dances….
Just to be clear, my comment http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/09/13/a-video-preview-of-climate-models-fail/#comment-1416210 was meant more along along the lines of correcting a typo.
I made it before I watched the video. It would probably be tough to go back and edit a video already out there. But if the line is in the book then I do think that you should be clear that you don’t mean the modellers are being paid by the IPCC since that is not what you meant
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Treasure maps maybe. Only the pirates got rich.
Izen: You are wrong about models. You compare sample groups against a null hypothesis, not predictions. When you make a prediction you use forecast skill. You measure forecast skill by comparing your models predictions against other models predictions. It’s the only way of knowing how good a model is.
Bob Tisdale: After reading your first book, I found your technical posts much easier to follow. Your book was well written and as I mentioned before, was able to walk the reader through the subject matter without being insultingly simplistic, while still being simple to follow.
I have not yet watched the video above… however, I will buy your book in pdf format when it comes out. I know you will let us know! I think anyone who benefits from your contributions here should buy your books for two reasons. 1) It will help us better understand your contributions. 2) Your contributions are valuable and we should support your efforts.
It is interesting that Izen would quote George Box at the end of his comment on models. I think the author of the 1978 ” Statistics For Experimenters” along with Stu and Bill Hunter, would be appalled at models in use today in the climate debate. Statistical models are to be used in conjunction with Mechanistic models as we fine tune our understanding of the world. Statistical models help frame the questions that help fine tune the mechanistic models, not the other way around. The end goal, as in any scientific endeavor, is to end up with better mechanistic models that explain the energy balance that our earth experiences.
Ric