Dressing Properly for Ben Santer's Invitation

RayG
Koonin Chairs APS Climate Review
Steven Koonin, Chair
Climate Change Statement Review, Workshop Framing Document Climate Change Statement Review Subcommittee, American Physical Society, December 20, 2013
AMERICAN PHYSICAL SOCIETY CLIMATE CHANGE STATEMENT REVIEW WORKSHOP, TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS January 8, 2014
e.g., Koonin asked (p80):

What is the gateway for getting included in CMIP5 ensemble?

Collins quoted:

“There is no minimum fidelity requirement for inclusion in the ensemble.” . . .”

Koonin:

So, what happens if you take only the models that do better and look at all the kinds of results you have been showing us?

Collins:

“To date, a set of diagnostics and performance metrics that can strongly reduce uncertainties in global climate sensitivity,” a la projections, “has yet to be identified.”

etc. through 573 pages.
Koonin headed up the APS review, taking recorded evidence from and critiquing experts on BOTH sides of climate change science before writing.
Judith Curry observes:

What Pierrehumbert doesn’t get is that Koonin took a very hard look at the evidence in the IPCC (he largely wrote this document), then listened to present ions by myself, held, collins, santer, linden, christy and questioned us at length (see this transcript). And his conclusions are in the WSJ.
Dismissing Koonin’s remarks as plucked from skeptics blogs misses the whole point – a highly regarded physicist (a democrat to boot) takes a serious look at the evidence in the IPCC and ends up, well pretty much agreeing with moi.

Add another win for Koonin.

RayG
Thanks for posting Santer’s CV.
I apologize for my strong reaction against Santer and presenting such a one sided perspective.
From his CV, Santer has indeed been working to “validate” models:
Dissertation: “Regional Validation of General Circulation Models”
Research Associate: “validation of climate model control run results using Monte Carlo techniques”
With 11,947 citations, Santer has achieved very remarkable academic achievements.
Santer has to work with the challenge of nature “not behaving” to his models, while working on such a “noble cause” of “saving the planet” to which he has given his life work. So how can we better address objective evaluations rather than ad hominem attacks?
While he publishes articles supporting the IPCC, I find the arguments “Unproven” in the face of models predicting 200% higher than reality since 1979.

Mark
While there is the strong temptation to apply such accusatory terminology, I strongly recommend against it without explicit public evidence thereof (though some may consider climategate as evidence.)
Such attribution poisons the public discussion (such as the ad hominem attack of calling persons climate “deniers” insinuates being an antisemitic Holocaust deniers and anti-scientific). It is much better to stick to logical debate methodology and the objective scientific evidence.
e.g., See Roy Spencer’s sworn testimony to Congress. e.g., that > 95% (>2 sigma) of all global climate model temperature predictions from 1979 are now outside the objective global temperature evidence (>95% probability of being wrong).
Leveraging the legal/regulatory basis will have far more effect. E.g., Spencer testified:

In the parlance of the Daubert standard for rules of scientific evidence, the models have not been successfully field tested for predicting climate change, and so far their error rate should preclude their use for predicting future climate change (Harlow & Spencer, 2011).

These extradorinarily high error rates disqualify the IPCC/Santer’s global climate models under the Daubert Standard:

the factors that may be considered in determining whether the methodology is valid are: \(1) whether the theory or technique in question can be and has been tested;
(2) whether it has been subjected to peer review and publication;
(3) its known or potential error rate;
(4) the existence and maintenance of standards controlling its operation; and
(5) whether it has attracted widespread acceptance within a relevant scientific community. 

e.g. Leverage the objective facts of Spencer testifying as an expert witness:

Rule 702. Testimony by Expert Witnesses
A witness who is qualified as an expert by knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education may testify in the form of an opinion or otherwise if:
(a) the expert’s scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge will help the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue;
(b) the testimony is based on sufficient facts or data;
(c) the testimony is the product of reliable principles and methods; and
(d) the expert has reliably applied the principles and methods to the facts of the case.

(Unfortunately the courts have largely abdicated their duty regarding holding government to the scientific method.)
Furthermore, the 18 year global warming “pause” (while CO2 continues to rise) exceeds Santer’s 17 years needed for evidence of major anthroprogenic contribution, negating that confidence.
Addressing such objective evidence of failure of climate models by the scientific method will eventually win over the public and then politicians.