Readers may recall the contentious discussions that occurred on this thread a couple of weeks back. Both Willis Eschenbach and Dr. Leif Svalgaard were quite combative over the fact that the model data had not been released. But that aside, there is good news.
David Archibald writes in to tell us that the model has been released and that we can examine it. Links to the details follow.
While this is a very welcome update, from my viewpoint the timing of this could not be worse, given that a number of people including myself are in the middle of the ICCC9 conference in Las Vegas.
I have not looked at this model, but I’m passing it along for readers to examine themselves. Perhaps I and others will be able to get to it in a few days, but for now I’m passing it along without comment.
Archibald writes:
There is plenty to chew on. Being able to forecast turns in climate a decade in advance will have great commercial utility. To reiterate, the model is predicting a large drop in temperature from right about now:
David Evans has made his climate model available for download here.
The home for all things pertaining to the model is: http://sciencespeak.com/climate-nd-solar.html
UPDATE2:
For fairness and to promote a fuller understanding, here are some replies from Joanne Nova
Agnostic says:
July 8, 2014 at 7:17 pm
Dr Evans said as much himself. What he says is that if the global temp does not drop by at least 0.1C,
Since he forecasts a 0.6C drop, the 0.1C is not enough as discriminator. 0.1C is well within random variation, so tells us nothing.
He knows the model is wrong.
What he has ‘revealed’ [as if it were the ten commandments on gold tablets] is not ‘the model’ but just a vehicle to run the model. The model is how to construct the 11 parameters from a given input. That is not revealed, so cannot be judged, and therefore the scientific value of the revelation so far is nil.
The clear point to make is that David Evans stated from the very outset that his paper was a hypothesis subject to testing in a falsifiable way in the next few years. He is actually predicting a T drop.
The IPCC says that solar change (TSI) has minimal effect. Evans suggests a notch delay filter does show an amplified effect of some key changes. That is the hypothesis which is subject to testing. He has not put forward a mechanism (as yet) other than it relates to the flipping of the sun’s magnetic field.
I feel there has been a lot of misrepresentation by some on this issue reflecting a spoiled brat attitude that if they did not invent it or if it was not done their way then it cannot be right. Evans is not saying it must be right but that given his analysis of past activity it is a reasonable hypothesis of highly amplified solar influence which should be put to the test.
A positive outcome does not “prove” it of course but it certainly is a step forward compared to other hypotheses proffered without a falsifiable testing requirement which has left climatology still clambering around and stuck in a vortex hell bent on sucking the energy out of world economies despite models not working and Hansen’s forecasts being wrong.
Lief, with respect, if you make the target wide enough a blind person can hit it. Dr Evans is being very specific and not rambling about some similar T. What is your specific falsifiable prediction within the next few years based on your “hypothesis?” Will you walk away from your hypothesis if the prediction is wrong?
Salvatore Del Prete says:
July 8, 2014 at 10:02 am
… to no lower tropospheric hot spot in the tropics, …
Nice summary but I think u meant to say:
… .to no UPPER tropospheric hot spot in the tropics,
tonyM says:
July 8, 2014 at 7:35 pm
He has not put forward a mechanism (as yet) other than it relates to the flipping of the sun’s magnetic field.
He would have been better off not going there at all.
Lief, with respect, if you make the target wide enough a blind person can hit it. Dr Evans is being very specific and not rambling about some similar T.
To claim success if the drop is at least 0.1C is meaningless as such a small change is well within random fluctuations.
What is your specific falsifiable prediction within the next few years based on your “hypothesis?” Will you walk away from your hypothesis if the prediction is wrong?
First, I don’t have a prediction nor a hypothesis about the climate. Second, if I had, I would indeed walk away. I do have a prediction about solar activity. So far that prediction is looking good [too good, actually], and within a year we should know if it holds up, or I need to eat crow [or whatever it is people eat in such a situation], but should I be wrong, we will have learned something important about the Solar Dynamo. What will Evans learn if his prediction does not pan out?
tonyM says:
July 8, 2014 at 7:35 pm
In response to Leif’s request for a specific prediction from me, I offered 0.3 degrees C +/- 0.2 cooler for the average T during the second 30 years of the satellite era (2009-2038) than for the first. I didn’t ask the good doctor for his forecast in return. If he believes that climate or at least T is totally chaotic, then he might not want to offer one. I don’t share that conclusion.
tonyM says:
July 8, 2014 at 7:35 pm
He has not put forward a mechanism (as yet) other than it relates to the flipping of the sun’s magnetic field.
He would have been better off not going there at all.
Leif, with respect, if you make the target wide enough a blind person can hit it. Dr Evans is being very specific and not rambling about some similar T.
To claim success if the drop is at least 0.1C is meaningless as such a small change is well within random fluctuations.
What is your specific falsifiable prediction within the next few years based on your “hypothesis?” Will you walk away from your hypothesis if the prediction is wrong?
First, I don’t have a prediction nor a hypothesis about the climate. Second, if I had, I would indeed walk away, if proven wrong by the data. I do have a prediction about solar activity. So far that prediction is looking good [too good, actually], and within a year we should know if it holds up, or I need to eat crow [or whatever it is people eat in such a situation], but should I be wrong, we will have learned something important about the Solar Dynamo. What will Evans learn if his prediction does not pan out?
is one to assume that the ONLY affect solar radiation can have is to heat things?
i think not.
Gary: here is what you need to do. Get out your backyard pool. Even a kiddy pool will work. Fill with cold water out of your hose. Aim a UV light at it that puts out roughly 5% of the W/m2 energy you get from a heat lamp that puts out visible and infrared light. Measure heat change in kiddy pool over a 24 hour period. Now start again with cold water the same temperature and aim that visible/infrared lamp at it. Measure heat change in kiddy pool over a 24 hour period. Tell me which lamp has sufficient energy worth buying as a pool heater.
well gnomish, I know solar radiation can’t talk and has no opinion on spinach. Does it have something hidden in its well known and measureable wavelengths? Something invisible to detection? (I can hardly ask that last question without spewing spitting a cold one on the computer screen.)
[snip – covered earlier, let’s not continue the food fight between you and Willis….or anyone else for that matter.
If you have something useful to discuss about the model, that doesn’t deal with personalities, please post it. – Anthony]
“So test it. You have the data. You have the spreadsheet. You have (I assume) the ability to understand it. So test it. Stop slagging from the sidelines and prove him wrong. Or is that beyond your capabilities? He has provided a model and expected output. Identify the error”
I dont think you understand
1. his model cant be tested. Look at his prediction. There is no confidence interval. He has resorted to a
guess. the model predicts a fall of .6C and he declares a .1C threshold.
2. I am more interested in out of sample testing. You can do that with what he gave.
3. The structural uncertainty is also the first thing I want to look at. he didnt release the info to do that.
In short, His paper claims the development of a model. starting with data he developed a model
THAT is the step I am interested in because THAT is the science.
Oh wait. here is my model for temp for the next 10 years the temp in 10 years will be the same as today
and if its beyond a +- .2c margin, then my model is wrong.
please test my model.
You see how silly that is. That is what david has done. the science bits are the development of the model.
in short by looking at that we can reject it TODAY, rather than waiting 10 years. but to do that he has to release what willis has been asking for.
Otherwise, I have a much simpler model. no code. temp in 10 years will be the same as today +-.2C
Leif and I worked on this for a month.
Steven Mosher:
How would one do out of sample testing of Dr. Evans’s model?
Top-down solar modulation of climate: evidence for centennial-scale change
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/5/3/034008/fulltext/
“This implies that `top-down’ solar modulation could be a larger factor in long-term tropospheric change than previously believed, many climate models allowing only for the `bottom-up’ effect of the less-variable visible and infrared solar emissions. We present evidence for long-term drift in solar UV irradiance, which is not found in its commonly used proxies.”
Exhibit A: Solar expert Svalgasrd suggests: “As we all know ‘with five parameters I can make the elephant wiggle his trunk’ and in Evans’ model there are many more.”
Exhibit B: Top physicist Motl suggests: “David Evans’ notch-filter theory of the climate is infinitely fine-tuned.”
In other words it’s not a model, merely wiggle matching in which lack of detectable correlation is taken to be profound proof of offset hidden correlation.
Recent commenter Chester on the Evens blog pointedly imagined: “You actually did what you accused climate modelers of doing – made a model that assumes the sun alone is responsible for global warming. / Imagine the furore on the sceptical blogs if one of the emails contained this phrase: …look for a low pass filter in the empirical transfer function, assuming the climate was mainly driven by CO2.”
This is like one big BS detector test, to see of you put batteries in it this decade or not.
ren posted this earlier, pamela gray: http://lasp.colorado.edu/home/sorce/science/?doing_wp_cron=1404857698.6750700473785400390625
uv can make ozone, for one thing, which can lead to clouds.
http://www.see.leeds.ac.uk/admissions-and-study/research-degrees/icas/the-effect-of-ozone-on-mineral-dust-in-the-atmosphere/
uv could conceivably reduce the population of surface dwelling ocean microorganisms which could influence albedo and transparency- influencing the absorbtion of heat by the body of water.
stellar fusion radiation produces ‘tsunamis’ of plasma – this affects a tide of extrasolar particles that are driven away and return like the tide when the sun is less active. particles can nucleate clouds, affecting albedo and insolation as well as upwelling radiation.
so yeah- you should give up trying to talk or feed spinach – try some snark free science.
Pamela, I do not necessarily subscribe to the Lu UV/CFC hypothesis any more than to the Svensmark solar magnetosphere/CRF theory. Having read all the papers, remain unconvinced.
But I will tell you, since typing this on an iPad this evening, that I am utterly convinced that small changes in threshold control ‘gates’ can cause very large changes in signal outputs. That phenomenon is proven by the transistor, many of which power this iPad into its binary Boolean logic that obviously works.
David Evans solar model posits an equivalent ‘force X’ control gate. There are plausible physical candidates, two noted above, neither convincingly proven. Let’s see what develops.
One of the most useful part of Evans model is the ability to vary relative contributions (CO2, solar, aerosol, black carbon…) I proposed that to him, but now suspect was ‘pissing upwind’ (an old nautical expression for a dumb thing to do) since he had already figured that utility out and had embedded it in his spreadsheet model. No way could it have been done in the past few weeks.
Go play with it. input your prejudices, beliefs, suspicions. All CO2 or all solar being poor choices IMO. Beats the H out of having to book weeks on the worlds most expensive supercomputer to run one iteration of a GCM model that cannot be correct from first principles. Posted elsewhere why, with graphic examples in my next (somewhen now sooner) book.
Steven Mosher says:
July 8, 2014 at 8:03 pm
Why would you waste time working on a model that includes CO2 as an important driver or forcing, when all the evidence in the world shows that it isn’t & no evidence suggests that it is?
Pamela Gray says:
July 8, 2014 at 7:28 pm
“Right”? You are not even conversant.
Rud Istvan says:
July 8, 2014 at 8:26 pm
What you said. Gates.
Small changes in orbital & rotational mechanics modulating insolation make enormous differences in climate on the scale of tens of thousands of years, so why not similarly small changes in other solar-related parameters on the scale of decades, centuries & millennia?
Steven Mosher hypocrisy alert:
“The spreadsheet is useless to investigate the actual scientific decisions he made.”
So mere source code isn’t useful for reproduction is it? What scientific decisions were behind having a dozen chops for most of the BEST thermometer station outputs? Why was that software knob turned to eleven? What happens to the final global average of you turn it down to five?
@Willis – I note with respect your change of tone while you maintain the questions you want answered. Well done and I look forward to yours and many others analysis of Dr. Evans’ work. It sure feels like science to me. I am delighted to be able to watch it unfold.
@Anthony- Relax and enjoy the conference. 🙂
@Latitude- I almost always feel like you type what I am thinking. Your point of view is usually more informed than mine however.
Anthony,
The model has great promise, even if it fails in its current mode. It is a “living program”, subject to changes as people find weak points. But to find those points, the program needs to be run and tested. For some, they also demand immediately the remainder of the documents, which are coming. Please look at the number of demanders as compared to those who are looking for an education, and willing to wait. How many times do David and Jo need to ask for patience? It is coming, as promised.
While you have stated you have respect for them and what they are doing, your actions on this post do not seem to support that. Why are you allowing people to personally denigrate the authors and the process here instead of making them state their claims on their website? Why not make them go to the source? Is it because of the “mutual support” they receive here? “Crowd-bashing” is not healthy, or very scientific.
I like a large number of your articles and guest authors but am getting jaded in the overall trust department.
Respectfully,
Brad
Gary, you can’t be postulating that the even tinier UV variation (meaning the variation is way less than the 5% quoted above) can cause ocean heat trends. Are you postulating that? Are you saying, as some have actually said with a straight face, that UV increase (a normal variation) is heating the deep oceans and is the cause of trends in that metric.
UV trends with TSI which trends with SSN. There is no measurable correlation in the temperature data. Unless of course you do that box car thing. Whatever else (IE causing the cancer on my lip that was removed a decade ago) it does is not germane to this discussion.
And clearly a simple minded person would grasp that UV does not have the energy to heat the oceans. There isn’t enough of it in total solar insolation, and its variation is even tinier. And that’s a fact easily measured and verified.
I don’t know about the warming between 1940-1970, In 1947, England had the coldest winter ever experienced, and 1963 was the same. Maybe just isolated, but nevertheless, it was bloody cold.
John Hewitt says:
July 8, 2014 at 3:12 pm
..
I totally agree with Anthony here – he has allowed “robust debate” to continue, where on most other (alarmist) blogs, commentators would most likely be locked out after one “adverse” post. As Anthony said, “As skeptics we have to be doubly hard on each other, pal review has no place here.”.