Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Charles Koch has given a rare interview to the [Washington Post] New York Times, covering a range of issues, including Climate Change.
So what does Koch think about Climate Change?
Q: Are you worried about climate change?
A: Well, I mean I believe it’s been warming some. There’s a big debate on that, because it depends on whether you use satellite measurements, balloon, or you use ground ones that have been adjusted. But there has been warming. The CO2 goes up, the CO2 has probably contributed to that. But they say it’s going to be catastrophic. There is no evidence to that. They have these models that show it, but the models don’t work … To be scientific, it has to be testable and refutable. And so I mean, it has elements of science in it, and then of conjecture, ideology and politics. So do we want to create a catastrophe today in the economy because of some speculation based on models that don’t work? Those are my questions. But believe me, I spent my whole life studying science and the philosophy of science, and our whole company is committed to science. We have all sorts of scientific developments. But I want it to be real science, not politicized science.
Is Koch right about climate models not being falsifiable?
Leaving aside hilariously indefensible ridiculae, such as the predicted the end of snow, predictions of an imminent ice free arctic, the missing global warming fingerprint, and the record busting growth of Antarctic ice, the aspect of alarmist climate science which most offends my sense of scientific propriety, is the shifting statements about the pause.
In 2008, NOAA suggested that Near-zero and even negative trends are common for intervals of a decade or less in the simulations, due to the model’s internal climate variability. The simulations rule out (at the 95% level) zero trends for intervals of 15 yr or more, suggesting that an observed absence of warming of this duration is needed to create a discrepancy with the expected present-day warming rate..
In 2011, Climategate star Ben Santer extended the deadline to 17 years, stating that the lower troposphere pause had to be at least 17 years long before a clear signal that human-made CO2 warming theories should start to be questioned.”. That 17 year pause came and went.
The Royal Society in a recent meeting with British skeptics shifted the goalpost again, with a suggestion that a pause of 50 years, in addition to the 18 years we have already experienced would be required, before we should start to question alarmist climate models.
Of course, the alternative is to try to make the pause go away, with highly questionable adjustments.
A few alarmists, such as German climate researcher Hans Von Storch, have broken ranks with their peers, and admitted there are serious problems reconciling climate models and observations. But Von Storch’s frank admission of the issues is more the exception than the norm.
In my opinion, this shameful display of unscientific goal shifting, and the repeated unfounded assertions of certainty, in the face of serious scientific discrepancies, simply isn’t good enough. In my view the shoddy science practiced by climate alarmists more than justifies Charles Koch’s suggestion, that alarmist climate models are not falsifiable science.
There was an interesting post on Bart Verheggen’s blog about this very topic.
https://ourchangingclimate.wordpress.com/2014/02/17/is-climate-science-falsifiable/
The poster (Hans Custers) suggests 10 things that would falsify climate science. It is light-hearted, and there is much to criticize.
What is even more interesting than the post itself is the response in the comments to heathergirl1234. She makes several valiant attempts to ask fairly straightforward questions about scientific falsifiability in general. The blog denizens seem to take the stance that since she asked a question, she must be ignorant. They proceed with a barrage of links and references to dry technical research papers and videos on YouTube. They then berate her for not educating herself by following up on those links and references.
Now, I like it when commenters provide links. I have both the inclination and the background to wade (up to my ankle at least) into some of the dry technical material. But most people have neither the time, the inclination nor the background to delve like that. Heather asked some very straightforward questions and wanted only equally straightforward answers. Not getting that she eventually left (who could blame her).
This is an issue of communication. You have to engage people on their terms, not on yours; something I learned from teaching introductory Astronomy and Physics for 10 years. Sticking your nose in the air and saying, “If they are not going to educate themselves, then they shouldn’t get involved at all”, is just snooty.
Then krischel takes up the challenge and makes a determined effort to keep the discussion focused on the issue of falsifiability of climate science. It is worth reading if only to see how the denizens so easily veer off topic. Something which happens here quite a lot and is not always a bad thing; sometimes discussions go down other paths. But sometimes they go completely off the rails.
To summarize, the 10 ways suggested to disprove the human impact on climate are:
A drop in global temperatures for some period of time to the level of 50 years ago or longer, without a clear cause.
A drop in global sea level for some period of time.
A strong rise or decline in the atmospheric CO2 level.
The discovery that climate forcings in the past were much larger, or temperature changes much smaller, than science thinks.
Warming of the stratosphere
Major errors in equipment in satellites, measuring outgoing longwave radiation.
Evidence of a substantial fall of relative humidity with rising temperature.
A source of heat in the climate system that we do not know yet.
A fundamental flaw in the scientific understanding of radiation physics or thermodynamics.
CO2 molecules appear to behave differently in the wild, than they do in a laboratory.
I think and hope that at long last this CAGW theory is losing support. Common sense has said all along that an extra CO2 molecule for every 10,000 other molecules in the atmosphere is not going to make a jot of difference. The fact that these models disagree with each other proves they are not fit for purpose, The fact that the Met Office use a supercomputer with AGW factored in but still cannot get a weather forecast right, should say it all (their new £97,000,000 supercomputer goes online next month and I predict that unless they get rid of the part of the program linked to AGW, then it will be just as wrong as the last one).
This science is far from being settled!
As I am learning, (C)AGW is not settled science, it is unsettling science.
One sentence makes the whole article not reliable: “A few alarmists, such as German climate researcher Hans Von Storch…” HvS is the reverse of an alarmist! Read more, write less!
Agreed, that is a mistake from Eric: Hans von Storch was never an alarmist and while he still believes in the effect of CO2, he is the first to admit that even the low-end model of his group fails to replicate the pause…
Hans von Storch and Dennis Bray conducted a widespread survey under climate scientists in 2008 which did give far more nuanced answers than the 97% “consensus”, very interesting reading:
http://ncse.com/files/pub/polls/2010–Perspectives_of_Climate_Scientists_Concerning_Climate_Science_&_Climate_Change_.pdf
Von Storch is an interesting character. I did consider describing Von Storch as a “luke warmer”, but I think its more accurate to describe him as someone who fully embraces the alarmist position, but demands that his fellow scientists explain the discrepancies between models and observations.
For example, Von Storch’s testimony to the US Congress in 2006;
http://cstpr.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/060619_ushouse_energycommercehvs.pdf
Based on the scientific evidence, I am convinced that we are facing anthropogenic climate change brought about by the emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
Sorry Eric,
von Storch is not an alarmist, he doesn’t endorse the C in CAGW, only the A. He openly dislikes the real alarmists of PIK, Mann and others. In his opinion we are still going to 2°C for 2xCO2, still borderline the “luke warmer” position, but contrary the alarmist position, is ready to admit that he may be wrong.
BTW, I am in the same position, as I am convinced that AGW is real, but at a lower effect (around 1°C for 2xCO2), and more beneficial than harmful…
I observe that a barrier to converting global warming climatology into a real science is the hold on peoples’ minds of the related ideas of a) radiative forcing and b) the equilibrium climate sensitivity. These ideas lie in the foundations of global warming pseudoscience where they act as substitutes for the statistical populations that would facilitate falsifiability and conveyance of information to policy makers about the outcomes from their policy decisions.
Not convinced Ferdinand – if Von Storch thinks global warming is harmless, why didn’t he say so in his 2006 testimony to Congress?
However, rather than debate this issue here, why don’t you write up what you know about Von Storch, and submit it to Anthony as a story? I’d love to know more about Von Storch, he is one of the more interesting characters in the climate debate.
More a matter of nuance, Eric.
Hans von Storch is of the opinion that humans are increasing the earth’s temperature and that that may have an effect. If that is harmful or harmless is not mentioned and he doesn’t make any statement on that, as he in the first place want to do real science, not politics and maybe he is of the opinion that he simply doesn’t know the effects of such a warming. He definitely is not in the alarmist’s camp…
I can write to Hans von Storch, to see if he is willing to give his own opinion here…
There’s more going on here,
And as we all know
What the real drivers are
Behind the climate change show;
But while we debate it
Until we’re all out of breath,
The poor needing cheap energy
Have been sentenced to death!
http://rhymeafterrhyme.net/2015/08/08/the-pseudo-morals-of-a-pseudo-science/
Read the article. Chas. Koch is a charming, thoughtful, patriotic fellow who thinks, yeah, we have warmed some and probably CO2 has contributed. He’s concerned about the middle class and the poor under recent administrations. He describes himself as a classical DEMOCRAT!!! He’s not happy with either Repubs or Demos. He says Demos are taking the US to disaster at 100mph, but Repubs are also doing so, but at 70mph.
I (and the interviewer!) was expecting a guy with red horns and sharp pointy teeth from all the horrible press and blog comments I’ve read. Why has this wonderful fellow been so vilified? To me, he is the classic American of several generations back that I remember who made the US the most powerful, innovative, productive, advanced, prosperous, welcoming, friendly, generous of peoples on earth. If so many are so hateful towards such a persona, what do such people have in mind for our future? That, my friends, is more scary than an Iran with bundles of nukes, the worst of climate futures and an ocean at a pH of 5.
He describes himself as a classical DEMOCRAT!!!
‘Classical liberalism’ is more like a libertarianism without the fruits and nuts on top.
Many of those who oppose climate change consider themselves classical liberals but they have nowhere left to go except to the right.
Yam, It was explained to me by a 94 year-old former economics dept head from U. of Wisconsin, that the conservatives were mostly dems until L.B.J. signed the civil rights bill. That caused a mass defection of conservatives to the Republican side of the fence, particularly in the south. I was around 15 when that happened, so I wasn’t paying attention to politics and can’t verify it from my observation.
Dawtgtomis,
Watch this video.
Koch and others make a very simple mistake when talking about ‘falsification”
The principle at play here is falsifiability. A theory, or statement, or model must be falsifiable IN PRINCIPLE.
for folks who havent read the primary literature on this, wikipedia will do in a pinch
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability
“Falsifiability or refutability of a statement, hypothesis, or theory is an inherent possibility to prove it to be false. A statement is called falsifiable if it is possible to conceive an observation or an argument which proves the statement in question to be false. In this sense, falsify is synonymous with nullify, meaning not “to commit fraud” but “show to be false”. Some philosophers argue that science must be falsifiable.[1]”
For example 2+2= 4 is not falsifiable. you cannot concieve of an observation which would call this into question.
This demarcates “science” which is falisifiable from math and logic which is not
Another example (here is where trouble starts ) would be God Loves Me. And people who had faith would say that nothing could convince them that god didnt love them.
This demarcates “science” from ‘religion’
So is climate science or specifically climate models ‘falsifiable” in principle. Yes.
“A statement is called falsifiable if it is possible to conceive an observation or an argument which proves the statement in question to be false”
The issue is not that climate science is not falsifiable. if it were not falsifiable people would not even compare the outputs to observations.
The issue is something entirely different. the issue is this
1. What do you DO when a model disagrees with observations?
The answer to that is not black and white. Even Feynman didnt know what to do in some cases where
standard theory predicted one thing and observations said something else.
There is no hard and fast rule about what to do. collect more data? run the test again? make changes to the model?
Mosh, have they discovered the Falsifiability time machine yet that works to year 2100?
Mosher:
1. What do you DO when a model disagrees with observations?
Fundamentally, that model is wrong and can’t be used to “project” the future, neither base any policy on such a model.
After that hard fact, one can have different options:
– looking at why the model fails and if the cause is found, adjust the model on that knowledge.
– restart from scratch if the cause is found and the model has fundamental errors in it.
– collect more data if no obvious cause is found.
– give it up if you have no idea where or what to look for…
Steven Mosher:
We are discussing the failure of the climate models to emulate the evolution of climate behaviour and you ask
Oh! That does bring back a memory.
Long ago (i.e. in 2000) 15 scientists were invited from around the world to give a briefing at the US Congress in Washingtom, DC. The briefing consisted of three Sessions each Chaired by one of 5 of the invited scientists who each gave a presentation and questions were invited from the floor after the 5 presentations.
Fred Singer chaired the first Session on Climate Data,
I chaired the second Session on Climate Models, and
David Wojick chaired the third Session on possible Climate Policy options.
After the presentations of the second Session the first questioner stood and said in an aggressive manner,
“The first Session said we cannot believe the climate data and this session says we cannot believe the climate models. Where do we go from here?”
Gerd Rainer-Weber stood to answer but as Chair I gestured him to sit then I turned to the questioner and said,
“Either the Climate Data are right or they are not.
If the climate data are right then the climate models cannot emulate past climate.
If the climate data are not right then we have nothing with which to assess the Climate Models.
In either case we cannot use the Climate Models to indicate future climate. So, I agree your question, Sir, where do we go from here?”
The questioner did not reply but studied his shoes.
Gerd then signaled that he was satisfied, so I took the next question.
Perhaps you can say where you think we should “go from here”?
Richard
Richard,
Your response to the ‘questioner’ was the best that could have ever been made. I would also have to note that the ‘questioners’ response was the best he/she could have done (studied their shoes and kept their mouth shut).
Math originated as the ability to ‘count’ physical objects with the immediate next steps of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division required for tallies and division.
2+2=4 was ‘proven’ well before the time of Greece and was one of the propelling forces behind written language as most of the first cuneiform examples are tallies and apportions. Communication that knowledge required inscribed language.
Feynman certainly did know and he made the famous statement several times in near identical words.
Feynman’s point was absolute! “When a model disagrees with observations, the model/postulate/theory/research is wrong!
Not partly right, not mostly right, not almost right. The model is wrong and must be reevaluated to determine why.
When a complex climate model is wrong, it is wrong</b period! Break the model down to contributing parts and identify which components are incorrect!
This is the curious part. Why hasn't the climate teams spent serious cash on evaluating and discarding incorrect components?
Then again, why hasn't 18 years of model error forced climate modelers to realize their models were falsified in the first year. Eighteen years ago, the world would have been very patient at climate modelers spending time, money and effort on breaking the models down to working versus non-working components. At this point in time, many if not most people are plain sick of climate modeler's sheer arrogance; both in refusing science and climate modeler's acting as our elitist superiors.
Its not curious. There are two simple problems. First is resolution, constrained by computatiomal limits. Insufficent resolution forces parameterization of physically unresolvable climate processes. Parameterization requires attribution (parsing between AGW and natural variation) for proper ‘tuning’. There is insufficent good information to do that (yet)– another 30 years of sat mapped Arctic ice, another 50 years or so of ARGO, a few more decades of GRACE ice mass in Greenland and Antarctica,…based on the past hundred years temperature estimates. So model parameterization is almost fully AGW according to AR5; conforming to the original IPCC charter from UNFCCC. The pause shows that to be incorrect. Dissecting those fundamentals would expose the whole house of cards for what it is.
One thing you don’t do is keep republishing the same model output with increasing confidence values.
Neither do you change the supposed observations, as is SOP in so-called climate science.
2+2 is falsifiable if you are using base 3. 2+2 in base 3 is 11. We all know that computers run in Base 2 (binary) right. Well, ok, some transistors use ternary logic.
[Snip. This is another ‘David Socrates’ sockpuppet.]
Proof that 1+1=2 from the “Principia Mathematica” by Bertrand Russell and A.N. Whitehead, page 379…[heh]
Philosophers are always desperately trying to squeeze juice out of nothing. This old ‘science’ has said and reasoned pretty much all there is to say. It is a frustrating thing to find something new in this field. 2+2=4 is that by definition, by semantics. If you break two pieces of chalk in half, you have 4 pieces. We could have created the counting terminology to be 1,2,3,5,4,7,8,9….then 2+2=5. Moshe is right about this not a field for falsifiability. He’s wrong about what should be done about models that don’t match reality.
Gary Pearse:
In reality this “old science” is an evolving science. The part of it that is “old” in the sense of no longer evolving is the classical logic.
In the classical logic, propositions have truth-values. That they have truth-values renders propositions obeying the classical logic falsifiable. 2+2=4 and 2+2=5 are examples of propositions obeying the classical logic. The truth-value of the first of the two propositions can be proved to be true. The truth-value of the second can be proved to be false. Thus, the proposition that the classical logic is “not a field for falsifiability” is false.
I take issue with several of Mr. Mosher’s contentions starting with his contention that logic is not falsifiable. Logic is that field of scientific inquiry that contains what is known of the rules by which true propositions can be discriminated from false ones. Mathematics conforms to the subset of rules belonging to the classical branch of logic wherein every proposition possesses a truth-value. Thus, the proposition that “2+2 = 4” has a truth-value and the proposition that “2+2=5″ has a truth-value. The truth-value of the first of the two propositions can be proved to be ‘true’ while the truth-value of the second can be proved to be ‘false.” A proposition is “falsified” when the value of its truth-value is proved to be ‘false.” Under the classical logic, the assumption is made that there is sufficient information for a deductive conclusion to be reached. Hence, observation is neither needed nor appropriate for falsification.
Under the condition of insufficient information for a deductive conclusion to be reached from the available evidence, the generalization of the classical logic that is called the “probabilitic logic” applies. It is formed by replacement of the rule that every proposition has a truth-value by the rule that every proposition has a probability of being true. The contention that a model claim has a specified probability-value is falsified by reference to the corresponding relative frequency value in the statistical population underlying the this model. A climate model of today lacks the underlying statistical population thus lacks falsifiability.
Mosher is correct in implying that people compare the outputs of climate models to observations. However, contrary to his assumption such a comparison does not confer upon these models the attribute of falsifiability. For this the underlying statistical populations are needed.
Finally, Mosher implies misleadingly that the climate models “predict.” This usage of “predict” is misleading because it makes of “predict” a polysemic term supporting frequent applications of the equivocation fallacy on the part of global warming climatologists ( http://wmbriggs.com/post/7923/ ). While lacking skills that are required for conduct of a scientific study, global warming climatologists have proved themselves to possess skills that are required for application of the equivocation fallacy. Applications of this fallacy have created the appearance of the falsifiability of the climate models without the reality of it.
[Snip. This is another ‘David Socrates’ sockpuppet.]
Tomer:
“Scientific” is a polysemic term one of whose meanings is “demonstrable knowledge.” If we restrict the meaning of “scientific” to this one then logic is a field of scientific inquiry.
By the way, Aristotle is described by some of his biographers as a “scientist” and as the founder of the scientific method of inquiry. See for example http://www.notablebiographies.com/An-Ba/Aristotle.html .
[Snip. This is another ‘David Socrates’ sockpuppet.]
Tomer
I’m not dancing around the meanings of words. Quite the opposite.
The content of the classical logic is settled. However, there have been major advances in the non-classical logic in the past 70 years. These have brought us, for example, HDTV.
It was possible to develop HDTV because of the invention by Claude Shannon of information theory. It is a fully scientific theory in the modern sense of “scientific.” The classical logic is that specialization of information theory that is the result when information needed for a deductive conclusion is not missing. Thus, the classical logic is also “scientific” in the modern sense of that word.
[Snip. This is another ‘David Socrates’ sockpuppet.]
Tomer:
You are accurate in stating that HDTV is not a deduction from logic. In addition to having a deductive branch, though, logic has an inductive branch. The latter branch is of recent vintage and is one of two breakthroughs that made HDTV possible.
terry, you and willard and I are probably the only people who could have an intelligent conversation about the falsifiability of logic. I’m try to illustrate this for folks in the simplest way possible.
Models predict that if the world work warms to 1000C, there will be no ice.
That is clearly falsifiable.
In short the models have empirical content which is what the concept of falisifiability is trying to articulate.
Steven Mosher:
Unfortunately, your example of “models predict…” contains two terms that are polysemic in the language of climatology; they are “model” and “predict.” That each term changes meaning in the midst of your argument makes of this argument an equivocation. As it is an equivocation and not a syllogism one cannot properly assume that the conclusion of your argument is true. This conclusion is: “That is clearly falsifiable.”
This shortcoming may be overcome by replacing the polysemic terms of your argument with monosemic ones. This can be accomplished, for example, by attaching modifying adjectives to “predict” and “model” in such a way as to make the resulting terms monosemic. If this is done, it is found that your conclusion is false in reference to today’s climate models for they lack the underlying statistical populations that would make this conclusion true.
Steven Mosher on August 8, 2015 at 4:16 pm: lterry, you and willard and I are probably the only people who could have an intelligent conversation about the falsifiability of logic. I’m try to illustrate this for folks in the simplest way possible”
LOL classical, clueless arrogance from SM, he’s now the world expert on philosophy, science, climate, & vapid commentary.
The fact is Steven, there is a climate model that has been verified with millions of observations: the 1976 US Standard Atmosphere, and which also proves that CO2 has no measurable or significant effect upon temperature. Your refusal to acknowledge this clearly defies any logical explanation.
Steven, IMO by any reasonable measure the models have already been falsified – as Von Storch said recently in an interview with Der Spiegel, 98% of climate models cannot be reconciled with observations. In a few years that will rise to 100%. Since the alarmists who create the models refuse to accept that disagreement between their models and observations is legitimate grounds to call falsification, in my view what they are practicing is not science.
This denial of the value of observational evidence, and its applicability to climate science, is beautifully captured by a statement a few years ago from the British MET office:
People underestimate the power of models. Observational evidence is not very useful. Our approach is not entirely empirical.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/05/16/people-underestimate-the-power-of-models-observational-evidence-is-not-very-useful/
Eric Worrall:
While the climate models have proved to be inaccurate they have not been nor can be falsified. Falsification will remain impossible pending identification of the underlying statistical populations.
Eric read Terry.
Also the following
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duhem%E2%80%93Quine_thesis
Terry, Moshe, what you are saying about a construct (model) based on a fledgling theory is simply wrong, even though you two have egghead knowledge of philosophy’s arcane semantic structure that only you two can apparently understand. Don’t forget that the work handed out to climate scientists along with infinite funding promised was by UNFCC creator Maurice Strong (Canadian Marxist, now retired in Beijing, who only competed high school and has had a lifelong mission to destroy Western civilization and capitalism and to create world gov of the elites) was to find humans culpable of warming that will end the world. Isn’t it likely under these conditions that what goes into the models is pretty much guaranteed to be not fit for purpose if it DOESN’T show humans, unfettered, causing thermageddon.
I’m only an engineer so I apologize to my betters for saying that constructs of this kind are falsifiable if they don’t match to some meagre degree what they claim to represent. If I, tomorrow, create a climate model that says we are going to freeze to death in 30 years, surely it is falsified if in 2045 if we can sunbathe in Nunavut instead. Thomas Malthus had a model at the end of the 18th century – duly based on solid physics, that in a hundred years, with population growth and the expanding margins of cities, that they would be buried in horseshit. WS Jevons, another Malthusian, in the the 1860s bemoaned that at the current rate of coal usage, the industrial revolution would come to a halt by the turn of the 20th Century.
As a Canadian engineer, I wear a steel ring on my right hand made from a collapsed bridge over the St. Lawrence River in Quebec that killed a number of construction workers. This model falsified itself and we wear this ring as a reminder of what happens if we do a construct that doesn’t work.
Here you two are the only ones in the world who can understand philosopher’s logic but number among the masses in not understanding you have been given your marching orders by malthusian misanthropes. You guys are the donkey in George Orwell’s “1984”
Gary Pearse:
It does not seem to me that the need for a model to have an underlying population in order for it to be falsifiable is “arcane.” In the U.S. the Food and Drug administration insists upon a sufficient sample size for statistical significance of the conclusions from a study of the safety or efficacy of a drug that is a candidate for its approval. Here the sample size and statistical significance are nil. Would a drug candidate be approved if the sample size and statistical significance were nil? NO WAY!
To be frank, it sounds to me as though you are among the multitudes of bright earnest generally well trained people who, however, have slim understanding of the scientific method and have been duped by applications of the equivocation fallacy into thinking the conclusions of the climate models are falsifiable when they are not. These people believe the conclusions of climate models are falsifiable though the sample size is nil.
Terry Oldberg:
This is an admission of falsified. When a drug, food additive, food derivative, etc. fails to achieve sufficient sample size and statistical significance, you are correct, it will not be approved.
The result is negative, all claims of that drug, food additive, food derivative, etc. are considered unproven or falsified; until and when sample size and statistical significance is proven beyond doubt along with determining evidence for any observable side effects.
Until climate model statistical populations and statistical significance demonstrating accurate simulation of climate reality those climate models remain unproven. Given the climate models repeated failure to provide any accurate climate simulation, they are falsified until proven capable.
Mosh and the climate modelers need to understand that an old saying is very apropos to climate models and proof of the current climate models.
“You can’t get there from here!”
You’ve all heard from engineers, physicists, statisticians and programmers with model experience here and on other blogs. The current crops of climate models are far too complex clumps of unproven pieces.
Tear the complex climate model beasties into their components and then begin the arduous process of design, test, re-design, test and prove every component; by itself, alone, independent until accuracy is certain. Claiming statistically significant is false, climate models must achieve genuine accuracy that any and all agree with.
Well said!
Gary Pearse August 8, 2015 at 7:18 pm
“Don’t forget that the work handed out to climate scientists along with infinite funding promised was by UNFCC creator Maurice Strong … was to find humans culpable of warming that will end the world.”
The “Principles governing IPCC work” seems to support your observation:
The revision history of that document is a clear indication that the document can be regarded to hold the fundamental principles for the Panel. The document was first approved in 1998 and latest amendment was in 2013.
Paragraph 1 :
“The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change … shall concentrate its activities …. on actions in support of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change process.”
Here is an extract from Wikipedia that will help to understand this better: The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change .. is an international environmental treaty .. The objective of the treaty is to “stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system”.
Hence the following will be a legitimate interpretation of Paragraph 1:
“The panel shall concentrate its activities on actions in support of stabilizing the greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system”.
Obviously, the principles does not nourish a culture of systematic scrutiny or attempts to falsify parts of the theory about anthropogenic warming.
How do you deal with the following unscientific actions?
“it is still impossible, for various reasons, that any theoretical system can ever be conclusively falsified. For it is always possible to find some way of evading falsification, for example by introducing ad hoc an auxiliary hypothesis, or by changing ad hoc a definition. It is even possible without logical inconsistency to adopt the position of simply refusing to acknowledge any falsifying experience whatsoever. Admittedly, scientists do not usually proceed in this way, but logically such procedure is possible”
Karl Popper (The master mind behind the modern scientific method – the empirical method) warned about these procedures, and ruled out from the the empirical method.
Ref. The logic of scientific discovery
How do you falsify models which are adjusted to mach the observations?
Texas sharp shooter fallacy – shoot first then draw the target
How do you deal with those who simply refuse to acknowledge falsifying experiences whatsoever – like then the model prediction don’t match observations?
Charles Koch actually seems to be familiar with the modern scientific method – the empirical method.
You are not:
http://judithcurry.com/2015/08/03/president-obamas-clean-power-plan/#comment-722875
+1
If you have to make ad hoc adjustments to a theory to make it agree with observations the theory has been falsified. But proponents of that theory will continue with adjustments as they have much of their financial and emotional career tied up with it.
According to Max Plank …” a new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it”.
1. What do you DO when a model disagrees with observations?
Easy employ rule one of climate ‘science, ‘when reality and models differ in value it is reality which is error ‘
“for folks who havent read the primary literature on this, wikipedia will do in a pinch”
I recommend the real stuff (Soothing for scientific minds, first part is easy reading):
http://strangebeautiful.com/other-texts/popper-logic-scientific-discovery.pdf
Show me the modeling graph with the 70 year pause please. Oh and explain the calculus that allows this plateau. How many more are there?
When it is not possible to falsify something it enters into the realm of “belief” and exits the realm of “science”. Science is based on finding those circumstances in which a hypothesis fails to predict what has been observed. No more, no less. The escathological cargo cult of the CAGW is thus a religion, since it prevents finding those circumstances, and denies that they have occurred when they are found.
The hypothesis is:
What if the net change in the global average surface temperature were to decrease? Would that disprove the hypothesis?
ΔT_net = ΔT_CO2 + ΔT_1 + ΔT_2 + … + ΔT_N
The net change in the (global average surface) temperature on the left-hand-side is the sum of contributions on the right-hand-side. So there is a contribution to the change in temperature from CO2 plus contributions from other things. The contribution from CO2 is always positive.
The net change in temperature (ΔT_net) could increases, decreases or stays the same. None of those cases would disprove the hypothesis. Even if the net change in temperature decreases (it gets colder), that would just mean that one or more of the changes ΔT_i is more negative than ΔT_CO2 is positive. If the temperature were to decrease, then the most we could say is that something else is affecting the temperature more than CO2. But it would not disprove the hypothesis.
nhill:
You say
The hypothesis is:
True, a temperature decrease would NOT falsify THAT hypothesis.
But that is not the hypothesis under discussion.
The hypothesis being discussed is:
An increase in the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere induced by emissions of CO2 from human activities will provide an increase in the global average surface temperature which is predicted by outputs of climate models.
The concentration of atmospheric CO2 and emissions of CO2 from human activities have each increased but the climate models predicted warming that has not happened (see comparison plots in the illustration of the above essay) and the failure of that prediction falsifies the discussed hypothesis.
In other words, the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis as emulated by climate models is refuted by observations.
Richard
Fair enough. A clear distinction should be made between the physical model (what I called the hypothesis) and the computer models. The graph at the very beginning of this post show clearly that the computer model predictions/projections/forecasts/scenarios/prognostications are inadequate. There is a clear divergence between the observations and the computer model output.
What does this mean?
It does not necessarily mean that the physical model is wrong. It may mean that, but it does not necessarily mean that.
For example, the theory of gravity says that a block of wood will slide down an incline plane (that is the physical model). You use a pocket calculator to compute the time that it takes the block of wood to slide down the incline plane (that is like the output of the computer model). Your calculation shows that it will take 5 seconds. But when you actually let the block slide down, you measure the time that it takes to be 7 seconds. It actually takes significantly longer than you had calculated. That does not mean that the theory of gravity (the physical model) is wrong. It just means that you have not taken all of the factors affecting the time of descent of the block into account. You have neglected the friction between the block and the inclined plane. So you modify your simple physical model to include friction. Then, when you recalculate the time including the effect of friction (you modify your computer model), you find that the predicted time is 6.5 seconds. Which is much closer to what you actually observed.
This might be an answer to Steve Mosher’s question above: “What do you do when the computer model output does not match observations?” The first thing you do is go back and modify/update/revise your physical model to include factors that were previously ignored because they were assumed to be negligible, or just simply to difficult to account for. Then you update your computer models and recalculate. In short, you do not need to assume that the entire physical model is necessarily invalid. Just try to modify it and see if the results are any better. If not…, well…, then…, try, try again. In science, models (both physical and computer) are constantly modified and improved.
nhill:
Yes, we have reached agreement.
Richard
nhill,
The first thing you should do is publicly reveal that your models are worthless as is and publicly state that absolutely no policy decisions should be made or even considered based on any of the current climate models. Then start from scratch and only include only factors that can be proven to be valid. Any future conditions/assumptions/guesses/religious desires/political wants/self serving claims/etc that are added to future models be clearly noted and publicly revealed as to having any entry into the future models.
Furthermore, invite, support, and openly discuss throughout the entire scientific establishment any and all assumptions that will be encoppassed in the new models.
These are some of the first things you should do.
eyesonu,
Wow. You are probably right. In an area that is as contentious and publicly scrutinized as climate science, such public declarations may be called for.
I am a bit taken aback, though. My background is in theoretical particle physics. I have been involved in some research projects that were highly controversial, but only with the rather rarefied community of particle physicists; nothing that was ever of any interest to the public at large.
A Chemist in Langely has a blog post called “More on Professionalism in the Climate Change debate”. He talks about the differences he sees between licensed professionals and academics that was quite an eye-opener. The motivation for the post was a few exchanges the Chemist had with “And Then Theres Physics” and “Sou”.
nhill:
Your reply to eyesonu says
Thankyou. That is interesting.
The underlying issue is stated in the link from your link where it says of an academic
That sums-up the attitude towards ‘climate science’ of scientists whose careers have been outside academia. We would have been sacked if we had behaved in the manners revealed by climategate but the academics whose misconduct was then revealed have no remorse, and subsequently others (e.g. Gleick) have been rewarded for extreme misconduct!
Thankyou for providing your links that I commend for all to read.
Richard
The problem is that if there are many variables (not just friction in your example) then what values do you use to get the best prediction result? You can tweak them all as much as you like and get great comparisons to past results…but unless you strike on the correct set of parameters you can say nothing about the future.
Furthermore it may be near impossible to become more confident about individual parameters if they’re all set well inside their “expected” ranges. Whatever that may mean.
And then there is the question of unknowns. For example perhaps you didn’t take into account friction with the air and only allowed for friction with the plane. Without allowing for the specific effect of friction with the air, you can never create a general model that projects over great distances.
The Null Hypothesis should be the Status Quo, the Null Hypothesis should be “CO2 or Man is NOT causing Climate Change.” The way you would test that is by finding a statistically significant difference between the mean and standard deviation of the past 50 and 150 years vs the previous 15k years of the Holocene. If you take the time to test the ice core data you will discover that there is absolutely nothing abnormal about the mean or standard deviation/variation of temperatures over the past 50 and 150 years. You will discover that temperatures were warmer in the past, temperatures showed greater variation in the past, CO2 is not related to temperature, CO2 does not lead temperature, there was a Medieval and Roman Warming period and there was a little ice age. CO2 is a red herring.
co2islife
I agree that the Null Hypothesis is what should be discussed, but we are discussing the hypothesis presented by the above essay.
Richard
[+emphasis]
Unbelievable! Time to tear down the goalposts.
Agree – unbelievable.
“The game of science is, in principle, without end. He who decides one day that scientific statements do not call for any further test, and that they can be regarded as finally verified, retires from the game.”
(Karl Popper in The Logic of scientific discovery – On the modern scientific method: the empirical method.)
The anticipation that the Royal Society will act in accordance with modern scientific principles, in accordance with the empirical method, has thus been falsified – it has been demonstrated to be wrong.
The Royal Society has evidently abandoned the scruples that are expressed by its motto: “Nullius in verba” (take no one’s word).
…The Royal Society in a recent meeting with British skeptics shifted the goalpost again, with a suggestion that a pause of 50 years, in addition to the 18 years we have already experienced would be required, before we should start to question alarmist climate models….
Actually, it’s worse. They said that they “wouldn’t change their minds even after a 50 years pause”.
So one might ask, what WOULD change their minds? A temperature plummet to the depths of the Little Ice Age? Or a full blown Ice Age? Or would they still be saying “Put that coal fire out!” to the last remnants of humanity trying to survive on a glacier?
Sounds like the satirical story “Fallen Angels” – in the story, the environmentalists were still pushing CO2 reductions in the midst of a new ice age.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/06/22/prescient-fallen-angels-a1991-satire-of-climate-alarmism/
Rubber mallet.
Indeed one question the alarmist have a great problem is ‘what would disprove the theory ?’ to which in a ,ironic twist, they very unscientifically have no answer.
+1
Remember, we’ve already had a roughly 40 year pause (actually, temperature decline) during a period of massively increasing CO2 levels, during the post WW II era.
…….” the lower troposphere pause had to be at least 17 years long before a clear signal that human-made CO2 warming theories should start to be questioned.”
Eric, sorry, it was a typo, it should read “71 Years”…..
There is in fact a 1-D climate model that was verified by millions of observations: The 1976 US Standard Atmosphere, which remains the gold standard today. The hundreds of physicists, physical chemists, meteorologists, rocket scientists, etc that worked on this massive effort mathematically proved & verified with millions of observations that the Maxwell/Clausius/Carnot/Feynman gravito-thermal greenhouse effect is absolutely correct, and did not use one single radiative transfer calculation whatsoever, and furthermore, completely removed CO2 from their physical model of the atmosphere.
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2014/12/why-us-standard-atmosphere-model.html
“This might be an answer to Steve Mosher’s question above: “What do you do when the computer model output does not match observations?” The first thing you do is go back and modify/update/revise your physical model to include factors that were previously ignored because they were assumed to be negligible, or just simply to difficult to account for. Then you update your computer models and recalculate. In short, you do not need to assume that the entire physical model is necessarily invalid. Just try to modify it and see if the results are any better. If not…, well…, then…, try, try again. In science, models (both physical and computer) are constantly modified and improved.”
It depends.
The first thing you do depends on the EASE of doing it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster-than-light_neutrino_anomaly
It this case you have two choices: Find a mistake in the experiment or REBUILD a huge amount of physics.
Obviously scientists make a PRAGMATIC decision and focus on the data and the experimental set up
But logic ( theory say X, observation says Y) doesnt tell you WHICH to look at.
Pragmatic values drive the decision. The “logic” of falsification can only tell you “Somethings wrong”
The mismatch IN AND OF ITSELF doesnt point to anything explicit. Could be the data, could be a part of the theory, could be both, could be a fluke.
A mismatch between theory and experiment ( hey they never match absolutely) is normal. The trick is finding out where the problem is exactly.
Folks should study the Duhem Quine thesis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duhem%E2%80%93Quine_thesis
Gary Pearse
August 8, 2015 at 7:18 pm
Something’s wrong.
Steven Mosher:
You posed the question
And as answer to it you assert:
No, it does NOT “depend” on anything.
And you are very wrong when you assert,
“The first thing you do depends on the EASE of doing it”.
The first thing to do is to report the discrepancy and the need for it to be resolved.
The wicki link you provided illustrates this saying
Having announced the discrepancy then possible reasons for the discrepancy are determined and each assessed.
You say,
“Pragmatic values drive the decision. The “logic” of falsification can only tell you “Somethings wrong”
The mismatch IN AND OF ITSELF doesnt point to anything explicit. Could be the data, could be a part of the theory, could be both, could be a fluke.”
It is not relevant that “logic ( theory say X, observation says Y) doesnt tell you WHICH to look at” because scientists slog through ALL the needed investigations. Scientists do NOT choose WHICH investigations of the discrepancy to pursue but conduct them all.
“Pragmatic values” may “drive the decision” of which possibilities charlatans will choose to investigate, but scientists make no such choice and slog through all the investigations.
Only very,very rarely will a cherished theory be found to be plain wrong but it sometimes happens; e.g. the Michelson–Morley experiment falsified the theory of the luminiferous aether. And that is why all possibilities – including fundamental error of the theory – need to be considered.
Richard
Or they should read E. T. Jaynes Probability Theory, the Logic of Science (or his online Mobil lecture(s), or the online/free perpetual preprint of the book that was polished and finished posthumously. Before, or while, reading this they should also read Richard Cox’s monograph: The Algebra of Probable Inference as it is arguably the most important philosophical work since David Hume demonstrated that philosophy was bullshit, and so was science if the goal of science was either the deduction or inference of truth or falsehood.
The bundle of assumptions in the Duhem Quine thesis link above are basically Bayesian priors in the probabilistic analysis of any hypothesis or experiment. In the scientific worldview, the set of Bayesian priors is the entire linked body of empirically supported belief as it forms a network of joint and conditional probabilities with a strong requirement of consistency.
The process of scientific endeavor involves constantly computing marginal probabilities (how likely is it that increasing carbon dioxide by 100 ppm will cause a temperature increase of 0.4 C, given a long list of often unspecified prior beliefs in physics, chemistry, etc etc, the model, and the data) and, when the model fails to describe/predict the actual events within the bounds set by properly done statistics, modifying the probability of the truth of the assumptions (called “recomputing the posterior probabilities”). There is no good “recipe” for the latter at this point because the network of knowledge is fabulously complex and has substantial and often understated uncertainties built into it — we believe in e.g. the laws of classical (in context) and quantum (in context) and (non)relativistic (in contexts) physics rather strongly up to where we have issues with completing a consistent field theory and down to where our ability to solve problems deteriorates due to complexity computational and mathematical both, but we believe rather less strongly that we can assign some specific number to “aerosol forcing” in some particular approximate mean field computational implementation of energy transport in a climate model being conducted on a grid 30 orders of magnitude away from the Kolmogorov scale for the hydrodynamics problem.
But yes, this is precisely the problem with much of climate science. People (if anybody is still reading this thread at all) should look at the Storch survey above. It is eye-opening. Look especially at the comments at the end — it isn’t even true that the majority of climate scientists consider global warming due to CO2 to be the most pressing problem (or among the top ten!) facing the world. And when they do, they do with a frightening specificity concerning specific risks that suggest that this is their specific area of research and they have no broad appreciation even of climate science per se.
I would love to see scatter plots of much of this study. For example, the vast majority of respondents state that the IPCC estimates for things like global temperature and rainfall and so on are “just right”, not too high, not too low. And yet in specific questions earlier, when asked about our state of knowledge of precisely these things and our ability to compute them, there was considerable spread with very few people asserting that it was “excellent”, most asserting that it was middling good, middling bad. This is amazing for two reasons — one is that there is some sort of cognitive disconnect between IPCC estimates being right on the money and yet a poor opinion of where being on the money is, and second a factual disconnect, because it is a simple matter of fact that at the moment the predictions of CMIP5 are systematically too high, extremely so for the troposphere, but also too high for the surface temperature even after it has been once again “adjusted” with an adjustment that curiously has an almost perfect correlation with increasing CO2 in order to re-introduce a monotonic increase in what was a flat record. Even more surprisingly, large number of respondents acknowledged that the models do a poor job of predicting rainfall, weather extremes, sea level rise or local climate change (they thought they worked the best for global temperature) but they still responded that the IPCC report predictions of these quantities were accurate!
Also amusing was the confusion illustrated as to just what a “prediction” vs “projection” was — among the surveyed scientists! They couldn’t even agree on something as simple as this. They did seem to agree, though, that they should be communicating a range of future possibilities, not certainties, even as they overwhelmingly approved the AR SPM that does the exact opposite.
The saddest single thing was that a substantial fraction of those surveyed were not able to accept that climate change has at least some benefits that might offset risks. Amazing.
rgb
Yet the propagandists of the MSM and their political masters would have the public believe that “scientists” are an anointed high priesthood in 97% agreement that humans are causing catastrophic climate change (or something bad), an apocalypse requiring the abandonment of industrial economy to avoid.
“A mismatch between theory and experiment ( hey they never match absolutely) is normal. The trick is finding out where the problem is exactly.”
Theory and experiment are supposed to match without systematic errors and within stated levels of uncertainty. If not – your theory has been falsified.
This does not mean that you have to discard every bit of the theory. But you cannot claim that you currently have a proper understanding. And you don´t immediately know what is wrong.
There are also ways in which you can fool the test. Like – if you commit the Texas sharpshooter fallacy of drawing the target after the shooting. Similarly if you adjust and fine tune your models to the observations, or if you only show the successful results.
Well said.
I have watched the GCMs output being observed, nit picked, criticized, judged and commented upon for over 10 years. Occasionally, I think various GCMs have been tweaked or modified. I remember one year when the European model received a significant upgrade and ever since its been one of the top models in forecasting tropical Atlantic cyclonic events. There are many models and many of them have suites or versions of themselves running. They run daily and some people grab their output and present it publically in weatherunderground for those people interested in these short term predictions. I being one of those with skin in the game, do watch this output occasionally for useful information to my particular interests. One of the principles in evaluation is that the model produces consistently similar results on successive runs, and that various models will tend to cluster around a significant result. Also if the result is near term ie 4 days out or closer in time then more weight should be given to it. When they are projecting out past 10 days, one should be more skeptical of their results. That 10 day rule hasn’t improved at all since 2006. Personally I place more weight on observational weather but I don’t discount the benefit of using model output especially in the very short term.
Mike
I gather that you do not disagree with Mr. Koch regarding the lack of falsifiability.
Yes I think falsifiability would enhance their situation. In fact I think those who control the models have internal falsifiability, else why the constant rerunning or the occasional upgrades. For my use these are a second order tool.
Just got back from Washington DC. Charles’ Brother David is funding the renovation of the dinosaur exhibit in the Natural History Museum. What caught my eye was the the origin of man presentation covered a lot of past climate change and how it impacted man. Clearly making the case that climate change is nothing new, and man has adapted in the past.
http://www.si.edu/Exhibitions/Details/The-David-H-Koch-Hall-of-Human-Origins-What-Does-It-Mean-To-Be-Human-249
I then went over to where the dinosaur exhibit will be and on the construction wall are graphics spelling out words. Coal, Carbon and Climate Change are words repeated on the walls. I did not see CO2. It appears to me that David is fighting fire with fire. The truth is on his side. I only hope he has this chart greeting people as they enter the exhibit.
http://www.paulmacrae.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/co2-levels-over-time1.jpg
Scientists to Smithsonian: Cut ties with Koch brothers
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/in-the-loop/wp/2015/03/24/scientists-to-smithsonian-cut-ties-with-koch-brothers/
One other thing I noticed was that there is a video on the Hydrothermal Vents at the ocean floor. The video details all the toxic gasses that they spew into the oceans, and yet life thrives. The one gas they never mentioned was that hydrothermal vents pump out huge amounts of CO2 and the pH is around 2.8
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/nature/life-in-the-abyss.html
‘shameful display of unscientific goal shifting, and the repeated unfounded assertions of certainty, ‘
The trouble is when you look at climate ‘science’ you need , ironically, to use a model that you never use for any other science because ‘unscientific goal shifting, and the repeated unfounded assertions of certainty,’ along with standards that would unacceptable for undergraduate handing in an essay , are norm for this area.
And you have to say its worked well, its gone from poorly funded unknown and less cared about part of physical sciences to major league with more funding they it knows want to do with , a high profile and for some of its ‘leaders’ world leaders on speed dial. We may moan about poor pratice and worse science but the bottom line it is approach that has worked very well for those in the area. On the other hand admitted that is far from ‘settled science’ it likley to see much of those goodies disappear , now you decided which approach they are going to take.
I model based paper or result should be not just falsifiable, it should be retractable. There are many papers that should have been retracted when various diagnostic issues became known, especially those diagnostic issue relevant to the result or projection. For example model results projecting increased risk of drought should be retracted when they are shown to underrepresent the increase in precipitation associated with the warming, as in Wentz’s 2007 paper in Science.
The Null Hypothesis “Man is not causing climate change” is falsifiable. Simply take the ice core data. Is the temperature and variation in temperature different over the past 50 and 150 years as compared to the other 15k years of the Holocene? The answer is absolutely not, you will also discover that 1) there was a little ice age 2) there was a Roman, Medieval and Holocene Optimum.
Simply construct a temperature record of thermometer data and then satellite data post 1979 over the past 150 years. Use that data to tack onto an ice core data set. Test for max and min, standard deviation and mean over the past 150 and 15k years.
Is there a syllogism that falsifies your null hypothesis? If so, please present it for critical examination.
Not sure what that graph is trying to tell us, where does the blue end and where does the red end? Anyway, that is a temperature “reconstruction.” It clearly shows a max variation of less that 1°C over the past 10k years. Check any ice core data set. The temperature volatility is much greater than 1°C.
From Vostok I calculated the average to be -3.7411°C and Spread between the Max and Min to be 8.12°c.
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/icecore/antarctica/vostok/vostok_deld.txt
If I use just the Holocene I get these values. BTW, I started the Holocene as -11,191 years ago. I chose this number as the first positive value after some pretty extreme negative values. I “Cherry Picked” the period that would benefit the Warmest the most, and most likely support their case. I deliberately excluded data that would support my case.
Spread between Max and Min is 4.03°C.
Standard Deviation of 0.60°C
Average -0.35°C
Average step in change in time 42.6 years.
Simply check the numbers yourself. The ice core data proves all the claims of the Climate alarmists to be complete and utter lies.
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cdo/f?p=519:1:::::P1_study_id:2453
Bottom line, even cherry picking data to favor the alarmists, the numbers still don’t work in their favor. This “science” is truly that bad. This “science” make junk science look credible.
Please tell me Tomer that you realize that Marcotte’s blue trace represents a smoothed temperature because of the centuries or so of resolution. Hidden in it most certainly include spikes like your red one of daily resolution. Here’s a test: they grew wine grapes in Scotland in the MWP. Do you think this possible today? Marcotte is a young fellow who was coaxed to add the red line at the request of prominent hockey stick promoters. When challenged by statistician Steve McIntyre (Climate Audit), he backed off and stated that his work did not in fact have the kind of resolution to deal with the hockey stick. However if you want to do this, here is what you do: take the annual temperatures from 1850 to present and average them. This will still be a little iffy but it would cut your tail off by two thirds and would be closer to resolution of Marcotte et al. Your tail, of course would still be better in terms of error bars than Marcottes proxies.
The red and blue spikes at the end are both preposterous fabrications.
Any proposition — no matter how superficially plausible — remains only a superstition if it cannot be decisively falsified. Mud wrestling over details of specific evidence for or against such a superstition only lends it an entirely fraudulent appearance of credibility.
Until the vanguard AGW faction endorses a specific and coherent theoretical proposition which it is possible to indisputably falsify by verifiable evidence at hand, these promoters have no legitimate claim to be “scientists”. Indeed, they are just another band of self-promoting career rent seekers with their snouts firmly shoved into the public trough.
Well said!
I can’t read or reply to these articles,because every 30 seconds it jumps to an ad for BP.
whatever
I wonder how high the models would have predicted the temps if they didn’t have El Chicon and Pinatubo already factored in? There are two dips in the model record that are hinddasts!
Travis:
It’s better to use “projected.”
I don’t think anybody is going to have to pay,do time or even lose face for this absurd ruse. I don’t care really. The ones who pulled the strings are just to powerful and utouchable. The ones who pushed the cause most likely were thinking with their hearts and truly were duped. The movement seems to be in endgame damage control now but I could be wrong. Soon they will burn their own pizzeria as any good grift would know to do. What a waste of time and money.
Charlie:
Take heart. With people like Charles Koch on our side, justice may triumph!