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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Ralph Kramden wrote;
“During my career as a chemical engineer I wrote many computer models. If I had said, “we should not expect consistency between the model and observations”, not only would I have been fired, I would have been drop kicked out the front gate.”
I don’t know Ralph, that whole observation versus model consistency thing never comes up in Aerospace engineering;
Engineer; I assure you good potential customer that our models state explicitly that this airplane is indeed flying
Potential Customer; But the wheels are touching the ground, I can see it myself…..
Engineer; Again, I assure you that our models convincingly show that there is indeed a layer of air between the tires and the ground…..
Potential Customer; But, it looks like the tires are nailed to the ground (apologies to Monty Python)….
Engineer; But, but, but the models… the models say…..
Ex-Customer: What’s that shiny airplane doing up in the air over there ???
Ex-Engineer; oh that’s our competitor, he denies that our airplane can fly……
Cheers, Kevin
David A says:
May 16, 2014 at 4:38 pm
Mike Maguire says:
May 16, 2014 at 3:24 pm
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Yes Mark you got my comment here, David A says:May 16, 2014 at 1:13 pm. What is informative is indeed that the models are in fact consistently wrong in over predicting warmth. This indicates something fundamental and wrong is consistent in all the models. The most likely forcing they have wrong is the climate sensitivity to CO2.
Now you would think they would adjust their sights as you not indicated. Remarkably the IPCC takes the mean of all the “wrong in one direction” models, and bases their ever failing predicted future disasters on this.
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There is likely more wrong than just the climate sensitivity to CO2.
“The most likely forcing they have wrong is the climate sensitivity to CO2.”
Climate sensitivity is not a forcing, and it is not the input to the models – it is the output i.e it is the result of the model calculations. The most likely thing to be wrong is the parameterisation of clouds and aerosols.
Tonyb says:
May 16, 2014 at 2:41 pm
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Yeah, I vaguely recall something along those lines as well. The problem is that the climate debate has gotten so… I don’t even have a word for it… surreal? that a comment along those lines is reminiscent of all sorts of things. When the Argo buoys first started reporting data, they didn’t report what the models expected, and the immediate assumption was that there must be something wrong with the Argo buoys. Then there’s the data that Willis has been writing a lot of articles on (ceres?) which measures the energy imbalance at TOA. The measurements report a 5 watt/m2 imbalance which is obviously wrong so they apply an adjustment to it based on some model criteria that gets it back to a 1/2 watt or so.
In an environment such as that, the reasoning to reject reality in favour of models actually seems to be reasonable to a surprising number of researchers.
I don’t find models reliable. They are however good for walking down runways while modeling clothes, though they are usually silent so don’t give their opinions on matters. Some seem to be employed spinning around poles – maybe this has something to do with vorticies, but they appear to be in even less repute.
It seems to me that we should be able to analyze the writing & phrasing of the review and possibly identify the reviewer.
But Bengtsson’s papers don’t RELY on models.
Ah Ha! I now completely get this kind of thinking. The research design is a post normal (like wayyyyy past normal) modeled “what if this were true” design. Which is why the results do not have to match reality, and in fact should not. This is why climate warming research results are so loved by those seeking taxes and those seeking insurance clients. Nothing has to match reality because it was only designed to conjure up “what if this were true” results.
So I should be able to super duper computer model this: because I get up before the Sun rises (every damn time), I should be able to model (with all the necessary fudge factores) that the world will come to an end if I don’t get up. Which means I can impose a World Wide Pamela Gray tax.
Must set up that bank fund account toot sweet cuz this Leprechaun has found her pot of gold! No wonder Obama is out on the talk circuit.
“…where no consistency was to be expected in the first place.”
—
So the same models that were used to convince politicians to spend billions fighting climate change were never expected to be consistent with reality. Is this an admission that they knew they were selling snake oil all along? Where can I go to get my tax money back? If I lost money investing in a company based on the prospectus they published, wouldn’t I have a claim against them if they admitted that their prospectus was never expected to be consistent with reality in the first place? Models that don’t match the real world don’t get to dictate where real money is spent. From now on they can spend monopoly money. In their imaginary reality, it should work just as well.
“I should be able to model (with all the necessary fudge factors) that the world will come to an end if I don’t get up. Which means I can impose a World Wide Pamela Gray tax.”
—
To impose a tax, you would need to get elected first; otherwise, it would be considered black mail, or in your case, Gray mail. On second thought, by hiring the right lobbyists, you could get away with such extortion. Big firms do it all the time.
***”I, like any of you” ??? the Guardian includes the “climate sceptics media side” quote, comes up with this predictable attack on Bengtsson & Murdoch!
16 May: Guardian: Nafeez Ahmed: Murdoch-owned media hypes lone metereologist’s climate junk science
Absurd anti-science faux journalism flares up again – as usual, it’s Big Oil that’s set to benefit, not the public
This morning ***I, like any of you, was disappointed to see that the frontpage of The Times carried a story by the paper’s environment editor, Ben Webster, which read, ‘Scientists in cover-up of “damaging” climate view.’
Variations of the story had been plastered everywhere, spearheaded by Murdoch-owned outlets, repeated uncritically by others…
The “unbearable” scientific isolation that Prof Bengtsson experienced as a consequence of joining the GWPF, and submitting scientifically questionable material to a leading journal, should not come as a surprise. That the climate science community roundly rejects the GWPF’s denialist rantings, and found Bengtsson’s work in this regard unfit to publish, is evidence for the overwhelming consensus on climate change – not against it.
As an illustrative example of just how isolated Prof Bengtsson and his ilk are, consider the fact reported earlier this year by Scientific American that out of more than 2,000 peer-reviewed climate science publications put out over the last year from November 2012 to December 2013, the number of scientists who denied the role of human-caused CO2 emissions in current climate change “is exactly one.”…
Compare that to the number of scientific authors of those 2,000 plus papers – 9,136. So over nine thousand scientists over the last year agree that our fossil fuel emissions are principally responsible for contemporary climate change, and just one disagrees. The poor sod must be feeling pretty damn lonely, I imagine. Perhaps almost as lonely as Prof Bengtsson.
Such media misrepresentation is now par for the course…
What we’re seeing here, then, isn’t really journalism at all. Whatever its intent, in effect, it amounts to little more than glorified industry PR calling itself ‘news.’
The real story is how the IPCC’s projections and solutions are likely to be far too conservative, having been ‘diluted’ by pressure from the world’s biggest fossil fuel polluters.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2014/may/16/murdoch-media-hypes-lone-climate-denial-big-oil
behind paywall, but the headline comes as no surprise:
Global warming paper ‘was not suppressed’
UK Financial Times – 9 hours ago
The step was taken after an author of the rejected study, Swedish scientist Lennart Bengtsson, told The Times newspaper he suspected intolerance of dissenting views on climate science had prevented his paper from being published. IOP Publishing, the …
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/144aeafc-dd10-11e3-8546-00144feabdc0.html
rogerknights : “But Bengtsson’s paper don’t RELY on models”
Really? Try this one
http://www.tellusb.net/index.php/tellusb/article/view/20189/html
chosen because it is recent, and he is the sole author, so it cannot be stated that the views are not his, and it is in an open access journal so anyone can read it.
It makes extensive use of computer based models. He is using the models to argue that ‘natural variability’ in the climate is greater than some think (which might be right, or at any rate is not disproven) but along the way he remarks that you need greenhouse gas forcing to explain the current climate.
‘expecting consistency between models and observations is an “error”.’
Of course it is. You don’t want people to show that your models are junk and your theory is crap, do you?
Methinks it’s a little much to expect consistency between empty assertions (models) and observed physical data, especially when the assertions are driven entirely by political agendas. Since when are lies consistent with truth?
The problem here is that the wrong side of this inequality (not equation, for heaven’s sake!) is being defended by Environmental Research Letters. In their view, empty assertions obviously trump observed physical data.
@ur momisugly Lew Skannen
But the OT also says
“When a prophet speaketh in the name of the Lord, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously; thou shalt not be afraid of him.” (Deut. 18:22)
Mike Maguire says: May 16, 2014 at 3:24 pm
What’s fascinating is that the disparity between global climate models and observations seems to be an easy fix.
My comment:
Not so. The models cannot be adjusted as easily as a firearm or missile guidance system because the problem is not with the values of the parameters, but with the model structure.
I use the term “model design” to take in the context of the models and their purpose from the point of view of the modelers, their sponsors and the users of model outputs.
The modelers may be seeking to show the forcing effects of GHGs and the impact of human production of GHGs, not to replicate the climate system as a whole, including its natural variability..
The mismatch between projections and observations may result from the natural internal variability in the temperature of planet Earth and extraterrestrial factors that are not captured by the models.
I believe that the omission of factors that are natural rather than man-made is a fundamental property of model design.
The reviewer said that the models should not be expected to account for observations. If the models cannot simulate the Earth’s climate system, the AGW paradigm may be called into question.
In my opinion, the reviewer implies that the hypothesis may be correct, but the models do not support either its truth nor its falsity. I interpret this as a frank admission of the fact that the reviewer is relying on faith in the AGW paradigm. This is entirely consistent with the history of science as described by Thomas Kuhn and Charles Mackay (take your pick).
For a person who is willing to subject articles of scientific faith to scrutiny a different conclusion might be reached as follows:
If there is no way to show that the hypothesis does not account for the real world (the observations), that means the models are designed in a way that they cannot falsify the AGW hypothesis. The models are not scientific tools but an elaborate form of ritual for confirming faith in the AGW paradigm.
The reviewer is being perfectly candid about the skill of the models. Their scientific value is negligible. That is the main reason why Bengtsson’s paper should have been published but could not have been published by this journal with this editorial board.
I would really like to see Mr. McIntyre and/or Mr. McKitrick incorporate their two comments into an Op Ed in the Times or the Wall Street Journal or other widely read popular publication. I think that would help people to see through the explanatory fog that is going to be laid down over this whole incident.
I recently when round and round with a pro AGW that bought, hook line and sinker, the drivel that Gavin came out with that the models could indeed tell us what the climate is going to be in 50 years, granted weather model are not much use beyond seven day but climate models are different. It falls on deaf ear that weather is chaotic and the out come of weather is climate and if weather is chaotic, climate has to be too. Yet in there world weather and climate are two different things, now were are not going to know what the weather is going to be in ten day but we will be able to tell you it going to be warmer in fifty years and we can tell you by how much. I even pointed out finical firm tried that with the stock market and failed, they no long use models in there buying and selling of stocks, yes they do use economic models to try to guess the movement of the market but the thought you could put historic data in a computer and run a model and than decide what stocks to buy and sell is dead, far to much money was lost with that line of stupidity. Yet the climate charlatans. Are still sticking to the line model can predict the future and it heresy to say it is not so.
jimmi_the_dalek says:
May 16, 2014 at 6:02 pm
“The most likely forcing they have wrong is the climate sensitivity to CO2.”
Climate sensitivity is not a forcing, and it is not the input to the models – it is the output i.e it is the result of the model calculations. The most likely thing to be wrong is the parameterisation of clouds and aerosols.
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Pedantic, but yes, CO2 is however a forcing, and climate sensitivity refers to those feedback responses to a doubling of CO2.
Never forget that the theory is CAGW. Currently all but the A is MIA. The models are failed by the observations.
What I believe is reality. Reality has no right to prove ME wrong.
Mark Bofill says:
May 16, 2014 at 1:18 pm
Now seriously guys:
Noticed this right away.
Waited to see hwo will spot it too.
I think this is THE most revealing sentence of that document.
In the financial world there exists the same refusal to accept that current models cannot predict the future accurately:
That financial models are plagued by calibration problems is no surprise to Wilmott–he notes that it has become routine for modelers in finance to simply keep recalibrating their models over and over again as the models continue to turn out bad predictions.
“When you have to keep recalibrating a model, something is wrong with it,” he says. “If you had to readjust the constant in Newton’s law of gravity every time you got out of bed in the morning in order for it to agree with your scale, it wouldn’t be much of a law But in finance they just keep on recalibrating and pretending that the models work.”
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/finance-why-economic-models-are-always-wrong/
Friends:
Everybody knows one is often forgiven for being wrong and rarely forgiven for being right. Therefore, I have watched a series of recent WUWT threads without commenting on the validity of the reported Review Comment which recommended rejection of Bengtsson’s paper.
But nobody has stated the obvious truth so I write to point it out although it places me in the invidious position of saying, “I told you”.
There is nothing new in the stated reason for recommending the rejection of Bengtsson’s paper and that reason is consistent with the subject of Bengtsson’s paper.
The above article reports
Bengtsson’s paper compares model performances reported in the IPCC AR4 and AR5 Reports, and it compares those different performances to reality. As several commentators (including Steve McIntyre) have pointed out, the recommended rejection of Bengtsson’s paper says the differences between the model results and reality are not novel information and have no importance: the Review Comment says;
and
This clear statement that “no consistency” was expected between model outputs and reality was clearly and repeatedly stated in the IPCC AR4. Indeed, the AR4 repeatedly asserted that reality should be ignored if it did not concur with model results.
Models can be altered over time and, therefore, there is also no reason why model results reported in AR5 should be consistent with model results reported in AR4.
The important point is that the AR4 defined reality as being what could be modeled and NOT what is observed. I repeatedly objected to this in my Peer Review of the AR4. And I pointed out that
All my review comments on this matter were ignored and in the years since the AR4 was published I have repeatedly reported this misuse of the models by commenting on it in several places including on WUWT.
I copy the strongest of my several AR4 Review Comments about this matter below this comment.
Richard
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Page 2-47 Chapter 2 Section 2.6.3 Line 46
Delete the phrase, “and a physical model” because it is a falsehood.
Evidence says what it says, and construction of a physical model is irrelevant to that in any real science.
The authors of this draft Report seem to have an extreme prejudice in favour of models (some parts of the Report seem to assert that climate obeys what the models say; e.g. Page 2-47 Chapter 2 Section 2.6.3 Lines 33 and 34), and this phrase that needs deletion is an example of the prejudice.
Evidence is the result of empirical observation of reality
Hypotheses are ideas based on the evidence.
Theories are hypotheses that have repeatedly been tested by comparison with evidence and have withstood all the tests.
Models are representations of the hypotheses and theories.
Outputs of the models can be used as evidence only when the output data is demonstrated to accurately represent reality.
If a model output disagrees with the available evidence then this indicates fault in the model , and this indication remains true until the evidence is shown to be wrong.
This draft Report repeatedly demonstrates that its authors do not understand these matters. So, I provide the following analogy to help them. If they can comprehend the analogy then they may achieve graduate standard in their science practice.
A scientist discovers a new species.
1. He/she names it (e.g. he/she calls it a gazelle) and describes it (e.g. a gazelle has a leg in each corner).
2. He/she observes that gazelles leap. (n.b. the muscles, ligaments etc. that enable gazelles to leap are not known, do not need to be discovered, and do not need to be modelled to observe that gazelles leap. The observation is evidence.)
3. Gazelles are observed to always leap when a predator is near. (This observation is also evidence.)
4. From (3) it can be deduced that gazelles leap in response to the presence of a predator.
5. n.b. The gazelle’s internal body structure and central nervous system do not need to be studied, known or modelled for the conclusion in (4) that “gazelles leap when a predator is near” to be valid. Indeed, study of a gazelle’s internal body structure and central nervous system may never reveal that, and such a model may take decades to construct following achievement of the conclusion from the evidence.
jimmi writes “The most likely thing to be wrong is the parameterisation of clouds and aerosols.”
The most likely thing wrong is the belief that essentially fitted components such as clouds and poorly measured and understood aerosols combined with other coarsely averaged and simplified physics components produces a model that can represent changes to our climate.
Models aren’t to be considered “wrong”. All models are wrong. We know that. The question is whether a model is useful and so far the GCMs simply aren’t. And the worst thing is that “science” is taking a massive detour away from the road of verifiable truth by relying on them.
TimTheToolMan:
In your post you paraphrase the statistician George Box’s aphorism to the effect that all models are wrong, some are useful. This aphorism is, however, out of date. Today, using available technology, it is sometimes possible to build a statistically validated model of a system which, like the climate, is “complex.” While it is available, this technology is not used in modern climatology.