Guest essay by Kesten C. Green
Global warming is a forecasting problem. The claim of the IPCC and sympathetic alarmists is that if we don’t stop emitting carbon dioxide, the Earth will be dangerously warmer in the future. How can they know that?
To put it another way, given the state of knowledge, are the IPCC using forecasting methods that are known to provide accurate forecasts?
In order to draw attention to this question, Professor Scott Armstrong in 2007 challenged former Vice President Al Gore to a bet on what would happen to global average temperatures over the next 10 years. Mr. Gore was getting a lot of media coverage at the time for his claims that temperatures on planet Earth were at a “tipping point” due to human emissions of CO2. He nevertheless declined, on the grounds that he does not bet.
With Scott Armstrong, I had published a paper evaluating the procedures that the IPCC were relying on for their scenarios of future dangerous warming[1]. We found that the procedures violated 72 out of 89 relevant evidence-based forecasting principles.
If you are not sure on whether that is bad or not, think of how many violations of evidence-based procedures by ground crew or pilots that are typically associated with a major airline crash. One or two, perhaps? Bear in mind, too, that commercial air travel is a much simpler, and better understood, situation than global climate change.
How would you react if the pilot announced before take off that he was sure that your flight was special, and so he would not be following the usual procedures?
With the draconian nature of climate policy and regulatory responses to the global warming alarm, getting the forecasting right would seem to be a fundamental requirement for avoiding making the wrong decisions. What if, as some scientists believe, we are in for another period of long-term global cooling?
With these concerns in mind, Scott Armstrong went ahead with the bet, in order to highlight the importance of using evidence-based (scientific) methods for forecasting. We set up theclimatebet.com site to monitor progress on “The Global Warming Challenge”.
The Global Warming Challenge is a notional 10-year bet between Al Gore—represented by the IPCC’s 0.03ºC per annum “business as usual” increase in global average temperatures—and Scott Armstrong—represented by the Green, Armstrong, and Soon no-change forecast[2]. Specifically, Armstrong bets that temperatures will equal the 2007 annual average against the scenario that temperature will increases from that level at a rate of one-twelfth of the IPCC annual increment per month.
The arbiter of the bet is the University of Alabama and Huntsville’s lower troposphere global mean temperature anomaly series originated and maintained by John Christy and Roy Spencer from satellite data. The final day of reckoning will be early in January 2018, when the UAH observation for December 2017 is released.
Is it really possible that the simple no-change forecast of 21st Century temperatures is better than the IPCC projections from expensive and complex computer models?
Yes, it is. That conclusion is consistent with the evidence Scott Armstrong and I present in our recently published review of evidence on the effect of complexity on forecasting[3]. We found that using complex methods increases forecast errors relative to the forecasts from simple methods that decision makers could understand by 27% on average. We expect that the results of The Climate Bet will increase that average.
Even more importantly, the IPCC has no regard for the Golden Rule of Forecasting[4]. The Golden Rule is to be conservative when forecasting by staying close to cumulative knowledge about the situation and about forecasting methods.
The IPCC scenarios are derived entirely in contravention of that fundamental rule of forecasting. The dangerous manmade global warming scenarios are premised on the unscientific (unconservative) assumption that “this situation is different”. Forecasting research tells us that ignoring the Golden Rule typically leads to an increase in forecast error of around 45%.
So how is the Global Warming Challenge progressing?
An up-tick in temperature anomalies in June saw Mr. Gore and the warming scenario score the first win against the no-change forecast since January of 2013, nearly two-and-a-half years ago. The outlook for the dangerous warming scenario remains bleak, however. Over the 7.5 years of the Armstrong-Gore Bet so far—we have now passed the ¾ mark—the errors that have arisen from projecting temperature to increase at a rate of 3°C per century are more than 50% larger than the errors from the no-change forecast.
The chart presents the entire history of the bet, to date, and the table shows the latest three years of data from UAH, and the Armstrong and Gore forecast figures.
[1] Green, K. C. & Armstrong, J. S. (2007). Global warming: Forecasts by scientists versus scientific forecasts. Energy & Environment, 18(7+8), 997–1021. Available online from http://www.forecastingprinciples.com/files/WarmAudit31.pdf
[2] Green, K. C., Armstrong, J. S., & Soon, W. (2009). Validity of climate change forecasting for public policy decision making. International Journal of Forecasting, 25, 826–832. Available online from http://www.kestencgreen.com/gas-2009-validity.pdf
[3] Green, K. C. & Armstrong, J. S. (2015). Simple versus complex forecasting: The evidence. Journal of Business Research, 1678–1685. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2015.03.026.
See also simple-forecasting.com.
[4] Armstrong, J. S., Green, K. C., & Graefe, A. (2015). Golden Rule of Forecasting: Be conservative. Journal of Business Research, 1717–1731. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2015.03.031
See also goldenruleofforecasting.com.
I suspect the current El Nino will help out Gore for awhile but the final date is far enough out to contain at least the beginning of the likely La Nina that follows.
AL Gore is a complete fraud…..”do as I do, not as I say” He also obviously has zero morals, ask Tipper.
But why uah? Was it the troposphere that was challenged? I’m fairly certain Gore comes closer to losing with surface temperatures aswell?
Nasa spokesman Gavin Schmidt sums it up on twitter
https://mobile.twitter.com/ClimateOfGavin/status/621135215155650560/photo/1
“A model result is skillful if it gives better predictions than a simpler alternative.”
It is difficult to think of a model that is simpler than ‘no change’.
It would be hugely embarrassing if the billions spent, gave climate models that performed no better than ‘no change’ or callendar’s model from 1938 or linear extrapolation.
One part of forecasting future climate which is never really talked about (in my opinion) is natural variability. If you think you know the effects of CO2 and make a projection based on estimated emissions, you still need to add in natural variability.
I’ve asked this many times with no satisfactory answer, where do the projections for future natural variaiblity come from? What are they? And when I ask about past natural variability the answer is just to subtract out the CO2 warming. This seems to be a circular argument to me. This is the kind of graph I am talking about: http://www.windows2universe.org/earth/climate/images/pcm_ensemble.png Where did that blue line come from?
al_a_gorical must be right, after all Obama agrees with him and both have grad degrees in climatology! DaveW
ps sarcasm
The other pertinent matter is Ivar’s question. What is the optimal temperature for the earth?
Tipper who?
After enough “adjustments” to the raw data, I predict surface measurements from NASA will eventually match AlGore’s predictions, and he will eventually win the bet.
How could the global warming crown be wrong with the two best climate scientists in the world on their side (Al Gore and the Pope)?
This whole climate debate does have a conclusion. I have recently realized we have the data to compute what will happen in 2100 without climate models. The logic is unassailable. We have gotten 1/3 of the CO2 gain we expect in a doubling of CO2 that is expected to be about what we get by 2100. We know that CO2 is logarithmic in it’s effect. This means that we have gotten 50% of the temperature gain that we could expect from the remaining 67% of CO2 that we put in. Since we also have fully 70 years and one cycle of PDO/AMO data it is basically trivial to compute the additional temperature gain and does not need computer models anymore. If there was any non-linearity we would certainly have seen something by now to prove that. We have enough percentage of the entire curve that anyone would have to admit we cannot be far off with this calculation.
The gain in temperature since 1945 (roughly when CO2 output tripled compared to prior WWII) CO2 was 310. The temp was between 0.3 and 0.6C lower than today depending on if you use satellites and some land data or purely the adjusted land data. Therefore the additional gain from the remaining 67% of CO2 we put in should be no more than roughly another 0.3 to 0.6C or a total TCS of 0.6-1.2C/doubling of CO2.
Debate ended. End of story. I have been following this debate for decades and have debated all these factors one way or another, seen all the mistakes of the “science” community all the politics and everything and I feel like it’s at an end. I just don’t see how anyone can argue this point. We have the data, it’s 70 years by gosh. We have put in 1/3 of all the CO2. We have enough to easily see where this is going with some additional input. This isn’t rocket science anymore.
I believe the debate from this point is constrained to this 0.3 – 0.6C range for additional heat to 2100. Since everyone agrees and did agree a long time ago that a total temperature change under 2 degrees and this would then mean a total temperature change far less than 2 degrees possibly half that there is no concern for massive or significant impact that are negative. We have also seen that even with 1/2 the effect of CO2 in the system the “damage” is quite well restrained. Other than a few storms that have been accused of being caused by global warming the impact appears to be virtually zilch. 2 times zilch is still zilch.
This excellent article reminds me of how picking stocks via throwing darts consistently outperforms highly paid money managers.
Re: Green “losing the bet” 7/18/2015
Global warming is a forecasting problem. The claim of the IPCC and sympathetic alarmists is that if we don’t stop emitting carbon dioxide, the Earth will be dangerously warmer in the future. How can they know that?
Professor Lewandowsky tells us how.
During the last two decades, the scientific evidence for the fact that humans are interfering with the climate has become unequivocal. The vast majority of domain experts agree that the climate is changing due to human CO2 emissions. [¶] Given this broad agreement on the fundamentals of climate science, what cognitive mechanisms underlie the dissent from the consensus by a vocal minority of people? At least two major variables have been identified. The primary variable involves people’s worldview or “ideology”; that is, a person’s basic beliefs about how society should be organized. Lewandowsky, S. et al., Recurrent Fury: … , (2013/2015) pp. 142-3.
They know not by forecasting, but by ballot-free voting. Moreover, things are not as they are; they are as they seem to be – to the people they aim to convince.
We know life after death exists because the massive consensus of the men of cloth say it is so. We know God exists because the overwhelming consensus of Judeo-Christian-Islamic preachers say He does. Those unequivocal facts are confirmed by the people with their supernatural worldview or “ideology”.
That, forecasting-free, is the essence of scientific method foisted by the left and the Post Modern Scientists.
When doom has been but ten years in the future for the past thirty years is when you might think it’s not so. But then, why think at all when no number of wrong predictions is discrediting?
By their very essence, CAGW disciples remove themselves from any requirement for logic or debate. Rhetoric and blind faith is their standard.
“The Global Warming Challenge is a notional 10-year bet between Al Gore…”
Seriously? You make up a bet then say the person who didn’t take part in the bet has lost?
“Mr. Gore was getting a lot of media coverage at the time for his claims that temperatures on planet Earth were at a “tipping point” due to human emissions of CO2. He nevertheless declined, on the grounds that he does not bet.”
.
He doesn’t have a single share on the stock market?
Wow…
with regard to real temperatures: What happened to Watts et al 2012 paper showing preliminary that most of the warming trend in the USA was artificial? Three years passed no news?
Natural cycles upon natural cycles upon natural cycles………
Why does no one check Gore’s bank accounts? You may have to beyond the U.S. But he will not be saying and talking lies unless money is swarming to him!
If there’s any individual to blame for for enabling political correctness to override the scientific method, its Al Gore.
Al Gore only bets with other people’s money.
It;s also important to remember that it was the Clinton/Gore administration that gave Hansen his soap box after the previous administration set him aside as a lunatic fear mongerer. Can you say sour grapes?
Another good 2015 forecasting paper at Golden Rule of Forecasting:
Green, Armstrong, & Graefe’s response to commentators, titled “Golden rule of forecasting rearticulated: Forecast unto others as you would have them forecast unto you” is available as a working paper here, and is published online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2015.03.036
If you look at a basic atmospheric physics/climate text book, you will find that the dominate heat transport mechanism, in the troposphere (convection dominates up to 20km, transition zone is 20 to 40km, radiation dominates above 40km) is convection, water cycle latent heat changes/movement, and planetary cloud changes, not long wave radiation. As hot air rises, as greenhouse gases warm/heat adjacent molecules by collision (temperature/heat tries to equalize), and due to the lapse rate, greenhouse gases cool the troposphere, they do not warm the troposphere.
Comment:
The basic atmospheric text books all include a silly problem where one assumes there is no convection in the troposphere and then helps the student calculate how much greenhouse gases warm the troposphere. What is the point? Have people turned off their minds? Critical analysis looks at the observations to determine if they do or do not support a theory. How many paradoxes are required to invalidate the greenhouse gas theory and the theory that cyclic climate changes including abrupt cyclic climate changes are not due to solar cycle changes?
This paper uses basic standard physics to show, big surprise, that ‘greenhouse’ gases cool the troposphere, and that the temperature of the earth is higher than the temperature of a blackbody radiating in a vacuum, due to the lapse rate and the fact that there is an atmosphere about the earth. We are at the bottom of an ocean of air. If there was no ‘greenhouse’ gases in our ocean of air, using basic physics analysis for gas in a gravitation field, indicates the bottom of the troposphere would be warmer not cooler.
http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/acs.2014.45072
As one moves higher in the atmosphere there are more ions (conductivity of the atmosphere increases by a factor of 30 for example from sea level to 20km) and there is observational evidence of free charge (which is a paradox, there should be no free charge, as it is assumed the solar system is neutral) both of which inhibit/reduce the greenhouse effect.
We have all assumed that the cult of CAGW’s greenhouse gas theory/mechanism is correct and that their GCM (general circulation models) models are incorrect as they amplify (positive feedback) the CO2 forcing which is incorrect. Observations/analysis supports the assertion that the planet resists (negative feedback) a forcing change (Sensitivity issue).
We have assumed that the additional ‘greenhouse’ gases in the our atmosphere cause some warming and hence assume the majority of the warming in the last 30 years was due to increases in atmospheric CO2. The issue then is what is the sensitivity of the climate system to the increased forcing.
Observations indicate, however, that there are multiple fundamental errors in the basic greenhouse gas theory/atmospheric modeling, in addition to the fact that the planet resists rather than amplifies forcing changes.
Observations support the assertion that the majority of the warming (more than 75%) in the last 30 years was due to solar modulation of planetary cloud cover (cloud cover changes can warm specific latitudes and can explain why there is almost no warming in the tropical region) as opposed to the increase in atmospheric CO2. The CO2 mechanism, the same as an increase in total solar irradiation should cause the most amount of warming in the tropics not in high latitude regions.
1) Latitudinal Paradox: The most amount of greenhouse gas warming should have occurred in the tropics not in high latitude regions.
http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0809/0809.0581.pdf
More to explain the latitudinal paradox. As the earth is a sphere, not a flat table top and as the greenhouse gases are evenly distributed in the atmosphere the most amount of greenhouse warming should have occurred in the tropical regions not in high latitude regions. The same comment/logic applies to how the earth would respond to an increase or decrease in total solar irradiation.
http://www.eoearth.org/files/115701_115800/115741/620px-Radiation_balance.jpg
2) Plateau of 18 years without warming paradox:
A plateau of 18 years without warming, is more difficult to explain and has different logical implications than a period with less than expected warming (a wiggly line that is gradually increasing). Less warming than predicted can be explained by less sensitivity to forcing or lags in the response of the climate to changes in forcing. The CO2 forcing mechanism is theoretically always present. As atmospheric CO2 has been gradually rising for the last 18 years, the CO2 forcing mechanism should if it was real, have increased and hence planetary temperature should have continued to increase.
3) No correlation Paradox:
There are periods in the paleo record periods of millions of years when atmospheric CO2 is high and the planet is cold and vice versa. During the recent glacial/interglacial cycle, planetary temperature increases (glacial period ends by some unknown forcing function, the forcing function is not insolation at 65N) and then 500 to 600 years later atmospheric CO2 rises.
As Humlum et al note (see link to paper above) 7 out of 8 times (last 30 years) planetary temperature rises and then atmospheric CO2 rises. Cause must lead effect, not follow effect. There is no correlation of planetary temperature with atmospheric CO2 rise (recent warming period) and there is curiously no correlation of anthropogenic CO2 emissions and the atmospheric CO2 rise. (The rise in atmospheric CO2 occurs in the low latitudes in the Southern hemisphere rather than in the Northern hemisphere where there is majority of the anthropogenic CO2 emission.)
4) Cyclic abrupt warming and cooling
There are cycles of small, medium, and super large abrupt cooling and warming that have a periodicity of 1470 years. The climate changes correlate with solar cycle changes. The past warming and cooling cycles are high latitude, same as the recent warming period.
5) No tropical tropospheric hot spot
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/07/16/about-that-missing-hot-spot/
GCM predict that there should be hot spot at 8km above the surface of the planet. This is not observed.
Because there is neither evidence nor precedent for warmer conditions or higher CO₂ concentrations having any negative effects for life on Earth, the entire CAGW argument must be dismissed as the logical fallacy known as Special Pleading.
Corporate gang green loves the green scams because they provide a convenient veil to mask their true motives:
“When General Electric blamed “a variety of energy regulations that establish lighting efficiency standards” for the closing of incandescent light bulb factories in Virginia, Ohio and Kentucky, its PR team left out a critical detail: General Electric and fellow light bulb manufacturers Phillips and Osram Sylvania had lobbied for those regulations.
Ignore claims that the incandescent light bulb ban was imposed to fight global warming. The motive behind the bulb ban is money: Incandescents have a low profit margin.”
–Amy Ridenour
http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA628.html
Find the fallacies, and follow the money.
Green scams like wind turbines and vast solar arrays are bleeding wounds on the economies of those nations saddled with these monstrosities…
And where the blood pools, the vampires feast.