Steve McIntyre writes: IOP: expecting consistency between models and observations is an “error”
The publisher of Environmental Research Letters today took the bizarre position that expecting consistency between models and observations is an “error”.
The publisher stated that the rejected Bengtsson manuscript (which, as I understand it) had discussed the important problem of the discrepancy between models and observations had “contained errors”.
But what were the supposed “errors”? Bengtsson’s “error” appears to be the idea that models should be consistent with observations, an idea that the reviewer disputed.
The reviewer stated that IPCC ranges in AR4 and AR5 are “not directly comparable to observation based intervals”:
One cannot and should not simply interpret the IPCCs ranges for AR4 or 5 as confidence intervals or pdfs and hence they are not directly comparable to observation based intervals (as e.g. in Otto et al).
Later he re-iterated that “no consistency was to be expected in the first place”:
I have rated the potential impact in the field as high, but I have to emphasise that this would be a strongly negative impact, as it does not clarify anything but puts up the (false) claim of some big inconsistency, where no consistency was to be expected in the first place.
Read Steve’s entire post here: http://climateaudit.wordpress.com/2014/05/16/iop-expecting-consistency-between-models-and-observations-is-an-error/
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Wow, he’s basically saying “models have no inconsistency with reality”. Damn, I guess we just aren’t as qualified as members of the sacred order to read graphs like these:
Ross McKittrick writes in comments at CA:
I have no idea if Bengtsson et al. is a good paper, not having seen it. But the topic itself is an important one, and notwithstanding those attempts at gatekeeping mentioned above, there’s no stopping the flow at this point because the model/observational discrepancies are so large and growing. A few recent examples in print include:
– Fyfe, J.C., N.P. Gillett and F.W. Zwiers, 2013: Overestimated global warming over the past 20 years. Nature Climate Change, 3, 767-769, doi:10.1038/nclimate1972
– Swanson, K.L., 2013: Emerging selection bias in large-scale climate change simulations. Geophysical Research Letters, 40, DOI: 10.1002/grl.50562.
– McKitrick, Ross R. and Lise Tole (2012) Evaluating Explanatory Models of the Spatial Pattern of Surface Climate Trends using Model Selection and Bayesian Averaging Methods. Climate Dynamics DOI 10.1007/s00382-012-1418-9.
– Fildes, Robert and Nikolaos Kourentzes (2011) “Validation and Forecasting Accuracy in Models of Climate Change International Journal of Forecasting 27 968-995.
– Anagnostopoulos, G. G., D. Koutsoyiannis, A. Christofides, A. Efstratiadis & N. Mamassis (2010). “A comparison of local and aggregated climate model outputs with observed data.” Hydrological Sciences Journal, 55(7) 2010.
– McKitrick, Ross R., Stephen McIntyre and Chad Herman (2010) “Panel and Multivariate Methods for Tests of Trend Equivalence in Climate Data Sets”. Atmospheric Science Letters, DOI: 10.1002/asl.290
And I know of another one nearly accepted that continues the theme. It may be that Bengtsson et al. had some flaws, though I agree that the reviewer didn’t point to any. Instead the reviewer tries to argue that models and observations are not meant to be compared, and the editor swallowed this nonsensical argument, no doubt happy for a straw to clutch at.
But nobody should be surprised that ERL has the slant that it does: This is a journal with Peter Gleick, Stefan Rhamstorf and Myles Allen on its editorial board:
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/page/Editorial%20Board
You can’t advertise a hard-line editorial stance any better than that. Well, maybe they could: they list as their #1 Highlight publication of 2013… Cook, Nucitelli et al.
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/page/Highlights-of-2013
Strangely, they really seem to be objecting that the Times had the nerve to run the story after all the work that’s been done to convince the press about the supposed dangers of “false balance”:
With current debate around the dangers of providing a false sense of ‘balance’ on a topic as societally important as climate change, we’re quite astonished that The Times has taken the decision to put such a non-story on its front page.
Evidently they too subscribe to that editorial position: don’t print anything that might give the impression there’s actually a range of scientific views out there.
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Has anyone yet added 2012, 2013 to the graphs above? I think that would be valuable to show the continued discrepancy between the models and observations
“The publisher of Environmental Research Letters today took the bizarre position that expecting consistency between models and observations is an “error”. ”
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And yet the point is they are consistent. Consistently wrong in ONE DIRECTION. This is very informative.
Now seriously guys:
(emphasis added)
Opening the door for oversimplified claims of errors and worse from the climate sceptics media side. This is a reason to reject publication of a scientific paper? Does it have anything to do with anything BUT trying to control a media outcome. This is a reason to reject publication, to control a media outcome.
Opening doors for claims from any side should have nothing whatsoever to do with the scientific merits of the paper. The climate sceptics media side least of all.
The models are correct. Reality is an error.
@ur momisugly David A says:
May 16, 2014 at 1:13 pm
Not only they are consistent… by being wrong in one direction, they are also the only source for publications. That sucks… Saying only source, I mean that other “parallel” journals will also reject with similar reviews. No conspiracy though, this is just a result of totally rotten whole scientific research system (including all other disciplines).
There is something to be said about observation time scale and model time scale. This is and was a known issue so it is correct that they cannot compare observation to models without that understanding. However, CMIP5 was designed specifically because of this and it is a sub-decadal model. This is why modelers that wrote the AR5 chapter said specifically that a 20 year interval that is outside the forecast is “vanishingly small.” Any paper rewritten with CMIP5 and the corresponding observational interval is valid. This is why we now see some scientists embracing ENSO when only 5 years ago they dismissed it as a non-factor. Five years ago Mann would have said these weather cycles are irrelevant. Now Xie and the follow-ons need a reason why sub-decadal models are not within observation and they need decadal events to explain it. They will also start using solar cycle to explain it, so just wait. There is always a decadally variant process to blame sub-decadal incoherence on. Hopefully the modellers will stand up to the “true believers” and keep their integrity.
The Three Great Commandments of Climate Science:
Thou shalt not confuse observations with the data from the holy models
Thou shalt bear false witness against the disbelievers of the Holy Hockey Stick.
Thou shalt not be found out in thy false witness, as thou shalt deride, deceive and be contemptuous of all those who might dare to expose your false witness.
@Mark Bofill says:
May 16, 2014 at 1:18 pm
Not only media outcome, this is to control balance in favor of certain school of thought, i.e. control of funding and academic power.
Walt The Physicist says:
May 16, 2014 at 1:32 pm
And this doesn’t surprise me of course. But it’s expressed so baldly. I mean, is there another way to read it? Any sort of fig leaf at all?
@ur momisugly TimB says:
May 16, 2014 at 1:31 pm
Of course, all these are valid points for discussion via responding with a scientific publication or discourse at a conference. However, these scientific disagreements can not be used for rejection.
“… Hopefully the modellers will stand up to the “true believers” and keep their integrity. …”
I have seen no evidence since the 80s that there are any climate model makers who have a shred of integrity. Not one tiny bit of evidence. On the other hand, I have seen much evidence that the entire lot are snake oil mongers of the worst sort.
“Evidently they too subscribe to that editorial position: don’t print anything that might give the impression there’s actually a range of scientific views out there.”
Not sure there is a range of scientific views. There is the science that says the models have failed; and then there is the political ideology of AGW.
Obvously Prof Bengtsson is outraged at his treatment by others in the climate science community since his decision to join the GWPF. Going to the Times is perhaps the first manifestation of his outrage. Perhaps it will also be his last. Perhaps he will bear his maltreatment with quiet dignity.
On the other hand, if he doesn’t choose to do that, then with him having been on the inside of the system all these years at the highest levels, I am very sure that he has more than enough ammunition to torpedo these frauds and make them regret crossing him just as much as Mann will regret crossing Mark Steyn.
This is a quote from the 2010 UNESCO report “media Literacy and the New Humanism” that expresses the UN entities’ attitudes toward the media’s obligations to their vision. This is the code the Times supposedly broke.
“Humanity must force the media system as a whole to shoulder the obligation to stimulate the intense intercultural relation that the global world demands of us must act as an interpreter and translator…the goal is to align the entire media system with the obligation to make a systematic effort at mutual understanding among all the collectives, peoples, societies and communities in this global world.”
Models serve a similar function. It’s why variance with actual reality is just fine. The point of the model is to gain the power and money to try to change reality and institutions going forward.
oversimplified claims of “errors”???………….LOL
Uh…WRONG….is simple enough
With enough words, we can convince you of anything
where no consistency was to be expected in the first place
When I first read this, I took it to mean that they were stating that the models were never expected to be consistent with observations. Then I thought, nah, I must be mistaken, they couldn’t possibly have said something so stupid. So I read it again, real careful, and it says…. whoa, it says what I thought the first time.
Then I recalled this quote from ClimateGate:
“The data doesn’t matter. We’re not basing our recommendations on the data. We’re basing them on the climate models.”
Prof. Chris Folland, Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research
So they’re actually right. They’ve departed from the need to consider what is happening in the real world altogether. They live entirely in a computer model of their own creation, and simply cannot comprehend that there is something called “reality” out there that the models don’t describe. This is beyond not wanting to admit that the models are wrong. I sense that they truly don’t understand that their models are not reality.
The reviewer’s assertion that the error ranges from climate models is “not directly comparable to observation based intervals” is absolutely true. The error ranges of climate models are simply a measure of their own statistical internal behavior, with no connection to any physical reality actually being modeled. It is a mistake to say that wider or narrower error ranges have any bearing on the skill of the models at forecasting the actual climate.
It would be interesting to see what these models would “project” the temperatures would be if CO2, CH4, and all other greenhouse gasses were kept at their 1950 levels. Would the models show that there should have been significant cooling?
The Matrix lives in climate science.
And Marcos, yes, several have. But not easily assessible via Google, yet. (wait my next book out end this year– updating everything to at least mid 2014, a real chore.) You can too. Cut and paste the above graphic, look up and add the UAH and or RSS updates, then repost. Anthony is moving as fast as he can given his enormous Koch funded staff. Perhaps you could help out by doing as you request for him. Come on. Chip in.
“Summarising, the simplistic comparison of ranges from AR4, AR5, and Otto et al, combined with the statement they are inconsistent is less then helpful, actually it is harmful as it opens the door for oversimplified claims of “errors” and worse from the climate sceptics media side.”
Obviously, one has to ask why it is “less than helpful” to compare ranges of ECS from AR4, AR5 and Otto et al and point out that they are inconsistent? Less than helpful to whom?
The second bit – “actually it is harmful as it opens the door for oversimplified claims of “errors” and worse from the climate sceptics media side” – is a fundamentally political point that has absolutely no place in any peer review process. This is an open admission that there is politics involved in peer review.
The position of Environmental Research Letters is revealing of the lack of conformity of global warming climatology to the scientific method of investigation. However, it is not exactly “bizarre” for this lack of conformity has been apparent for many years in the structuring of global warming research.
The claims that are made by a model are falsified by the evidence if and only if the observed relative frequencies of the observed events in the statistical population underlying the model fail to match the relative frequencies that are predicted by the model. For the current batch of climate models, there is no such statistical population. Hence these models lack the property of falsifiability. To expect consistency between models and observations is truly an “error” because the claims of these models are not falsifiable.
Many people have been led to expect consistency between models and observations. This expectation is a consequence from widespread applications of the equivocation fallacy on the part of climatologists in making global warming arguments. I address this topic in the article at http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=7923 .
Well then…
The good news is that I now have a model proving that FTL travel is possible, without silly stuff like dimensional warps, exotic matter, tachyons… or consistency with reality.
I leave for Trantor tomorrow morning, in my spaceship powered by unicorn farts.
Davidmhoffer
A couple of years ago I read something in a book by a well known scientist that I wished I had bookmarked as I have no idea now who said it.
They had been carrying out research into a number of historic temperature data bases. The comment Ran along the following lines.
‘We checked the observed temperature data and noted it ran warm compared to the models. So we have assumed the observed data is wrong and have used the modelled figures.’
Tonyb
Climate science ‘orthodoxy’ has had the sort of week that only Bertolt Brecht could make sense of
If you substitute ‘models’ for ‘government’ and ‘observations’ for ‘people’ in his poem “The Solution”, you’ll see what I mean
After the uprising of the 17th June
The Secretary of the Writers Union
Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee
Stating that the people
Had forfeited the confidence of the government
And could win it back only
By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?
I seem to remember some part of the Old Testament mentioned that it was a sin to try and test the omnipotent one.
I wonder what the models are for then, if they are not to be used for testing. Decoration?