Patrick Carlberg writes:
I can’t assess the validity of the values from the climate models presented in AR5 (mostly due to lack of time). But I can tell you there are tricks used in the way they interpret the statistical inference.
One of the key points in the new IPCC report is that the CO2 forcing level of confidence was increased from “High” to ”Very High”. The way this was done was by increasing the uncertainty. The means are about the same in AR4 and AR5 but the uncertainty interval has increased from 0.34 to 0.7.
In the same graph (In AR5) an estimate of the total anthropogenic radiative forcing is included. Given the uncertainty in the calculations there is no statistical difference between 1980 and 2011.
My guess is that if the 1950 values were included at the same level of confidence then there wouldn’t be any difference between 1950 and 2011 either.
Here is the original IPCC predictions (it is completely unethical for the IPCC to just restate their previous predictions lower – its like welching a golf bet, except this time the money on the line is into the billions).
http://s7.postimg.org/kb8xaanob/IPCC_Forecasts_July2013.png
And then versus the spread of the models in AR4, with predictions starting about 8 and a half years ago.
http://s24.postimg.org/uk2g52uol/IPCC_AR4_vs_HCrt4_UAH_RSS_Aug_2013.png
It is all just computerised twerking.
Thanks, Patrick. Very good, simple analysis. Congratulations!
This is the trick that produces ‘confidence’ out the IPCC’s hat.
Foootnote 16, “No best estimate for equilibrium climate sensitivity can now be given because of a lack of agreement on values across assessed lines of evidence and studies.” says it all.
I could say that this is ‘on the topic of alarmist confidence tricks’, but to be honest I’m not particularly on-topic here.
The appropriate article for me to attach this comment to is Willis Eisenbach’s ‘the real Canadian Hockey Stick’ http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/07/13/the-real-canadian-hockeystick/ Sadly, that article no longer accepts comments.
Anyway, the confidence trick is that the tax Willis wrote about was written up here, claiming it was an environmental and economic success story. http://www.sustainableprosperity.ca/dl1026&display
‘[S]cepticalscience.com’ as of 22 August is linking to that article without acknowledging any of the points Willis brought up.
Did anyone get any of those points into comments on the article in later issues of Canadian Public Policy? If not, does anyone have access to those comments, and can they do so?
Great set of articles, by the way, Willis.
PETERMUE: do you have any sceptic blogs such as WUWT in Germany, or are they purely Anglo Saxon phenomena?
George Lawson October 1, 2013 at 1:24 am says:
“It is mind boggling to understand why a group of so called scientists want to continue to cheat and lie in everything they do. What is their hidden agenda, and why would professional people want to sully their personal reputations, which they have, in order to promote a cause that cannot be supported with true science?”
I agree. Part of it is financial but this cannot be the full story. Reluctantly I have to conclude that it is stupidity. They really do not have the ability to think critically and understand how it all hangs together. As a result, thousands of technician-level papers get published that do not amount to a scientific advance. James Watson ran into the same problem when working on the double helix. This is how he explains it: “One could not be a successful scientist without realizing that, in contrast to the popular conception supported by newspapers and mothers of scientists, a goodly number of scientists are not only narrow-minded and dull, but also just stupid.”
They truly are “confidence men”.
The real real confidence trick is the IPCC regarding these intervals as symmetrical. Thus, widening the interval to include the real world at the bottom end ends up making the high end “worse than we thought”, or at least “solidifies” support for wackily-high worst-case scenarios.
That way, they’re able to take what should be a loss (models unrealistically high, worst-case scenarios ridiculously high) and turn it into a win (models within bounds, worst-case scenarios within bounds). Normally, having to widen your confidence interval is also something of a loss, since you have to admit that things were more uncertain than you originally believed, but they’ve managed to turn it into a double-win for themselves.
JQuip wrote: “Out of morbid curiosity. Assuming this is true, and that it is included in the models: Then how do the models turn a log curve into an exponential one for temperature prediction?”
With lots of positive feedback in the models resulting from small increases in temperatures. Which raises the question, if the total earth climate system is a positive feedback system exquisitely sensitive to small temperature increases, why didn’t all of us burn up in the Roman and Medieval Warm Periods. That we didn’t strongly suggests a system dominated by negative feedback.
It appears for all the world that William Connolley of Wikipedia shame was the final editor/arbiter of this entire report. This has his MO all over it. The entire document deserves a place on the junk science shelf of irreproducible results.
Nick Stokes,
I read your words, but not sure they make sense. Their “scientific understanding” is higher, yet the know the number less well than they did in AR4? The only way that makes sense is if they are more certain the number lies in that range now that it has been expanded. But they are more confident of a less certain number (which is fine in one way but not so good if people don’t know the whole story and just see it as more certain). Sorry, no other way to spin it.
Nick Stokes comments
And
By implication, AR4 left out a number of things due a lack of understanding. A comparison of AR4 with AR5 shows this, now acknowledged, lack of understanding is far from trivial. The “degrees of freedom” in absolute terms have more than doubled for CO2 and more than quadrupled CH4. For halocarbons they increased more than five-fold. More remarkable is the forcing per unit of gas in the atmosphere. CO2 has reduced by 10%, CH4 almost doubled (due to including other effects) and Halocarbons halved.
Most important of all, is that a few years ago we were being told that the lack of warming compared to the models was to the negative forcing from aerosols. The role of these is much reduced, and the “degrees of freedom” now include the possibility that aerosols have a net positive effect.
The details are posted up here.
With hindsight, will the IPCC now be admitting that they had too high a level of confidence with their figures in 2007? Given that overconfidence in the past, is it not prudent to wait for another few years to see if there is similar over-confidence this time around?
manicbeancounter says: October 1, 2013 at 2:07 pm
“Most important of all, is that a few years ago we were being told that the lack of warming compared to the models was to the negative forcing from aerosols. The role of these is much reduced, and the “degrees of freedom” now include the possibility that aerosols have a net positive effect.
…
With hindsight, will the IPCC now be admitting that they had too high a level of confidence with their figures in 2007?”
In the AR4, the number for direct aerosol effect was rated as med/low confidence, and indirect effect low confidence. The range did not include zero, but came close. The SPM rhen said that aerosols “remain the dominant uncertainty in radiative forcing”.
Bill says: October 1, 2013 at 1:40 pm
“which is fine in one way but not so good if people don’t know the whole story”
They have given the whole story, mostly on the same page. What more can they do?
Nick
I did not say that it was a high level of confidence in AR4, but “too high a level of confidence”. For those who are no familiar with Mancunian, this means that the confidence level was too high. In AR4, there was high confidence in CH4 and halocarbons which have dramatically changed.
As for aerosols, in 2007 I would alledge it was a fudge factor. I worked for over 20 years in accountancy, analyzing and compiling figures that do not fall out to a nice round figure like in a high school maths or physics problem. Climate is the same. Figures that come to nice round figures on real data are extremely rare. In auditing, a test of manipulated figures is patterns, or figures that tell a precise story. Working out the uncertainty bands on different forcings will lead to varied and apparently random figures. Still more, if anyone is dumb enough, as I was in beancounting mode, to add together the range of uncertainties for all the different forcings, there would be irregular figures. For AR4 summary table 2.4 the positive anthropogenic forcings uncertainty range add to 40% of the total, and the negative anthropogenic forcings uncertainty range add to 200% of the total. Change any number by +/-0.01 and the figures do not fall out. Further, the central net forcings of 1.60 Wm-2 was almost identical (given the huge uncertainties) to the central net forcing of 1.66 Wm-2. So the PR angle could be conveniently shortened from “anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions” to “rising CO2 levels”.
So not only is AR4 contradicted by AR5 (including for figures with “High Confidence” in AR4), it would appear the AR4 figures have been reverse engineered.
Maybe the UNIPCC have got high quality science this time, that the lay public can have confidence in. But given the track record, it is advisable wait and see if they give a consistent story in a few more years.
Frank says:
October 1, 2013 at 1:52 am
“Patrick: There is no doubt that atmospheric CO2 has risen since 1950 and 1980. The forcing associated with CO2 increases in proportion with the logarithm of the CO2 concentration. There is some uncertainty associated with the proportionality constant, but such constants do not change with time. Therefore there is no doubt that the radiative forcing from CO2 has risen since 1950 and 1980-.”
Only IF ALL OTHER THINGS BEING EQUAL ; i.e. when assuming hydrostasis (an atmosphere that does not expand or contract).
The atmosphere is not hydrostatic (although climate models assume it to be able to apply the barometric equation); this changes the radiative forcing. (TOA height changes; lapse rate changes; density changes)
Looks like the models got it wrong. What has really happened with radiative forcing? I don’t know. But it’s not warming. The theory is wrong.
Nick Stokes says: October 1, 2013 at 2:43 am
Nick, Can we accept that effects are not homogenous over the globe?
Here is a graph from Willis Eschenbach showing SST from Argo in the tropical ocean area –
http://www.geoffstuff.com/Willis%20flat%20SST.PNG
Seems to me that the balance of incoming and outgoing might be different in the tropics to the sub-tropics so one value might not fit all.
Geoff Sherrington says: October 1, 2013 at 10:51 pm
Yes, of course. In fact, forcing is different from TOA balance. Balance has to be maintained, except for temporary variations, whether or not forcing increases.
°Remember the Dying of the Thermometers, 1990? It coincides with a 1.4°C step change in the average. The “Dying”, btw, consisted of ignoring their data. They are still there, almost all of them, but their info never makes it to the HadCRUTs, etc.