By Larry Kummer. From the Fabius Maximus website.
Paul Krugman — Nobel Laureate economist, #5 on Prospect magazine’s 2015 list of the world’s top “thinkers” — gives us powerful advice about the climate policy debate in his August 12 NYT op-ed (similar to this from a February column). It is the standard doctrine for science, except in climate science.
Paul Krugman. Creative Commons license.
“Here’s how I would approach the issue: by asking how we know that a modeling approach is truly useful. The answer, I’d suggest, is that we look for surprising successful predictions. General relativity got its big boost when light did, in fact, bend as predicted. The theory of a natural rate of unemployment got a big boost when the Phillips curve turned into clockwise spirals, as predicted, during the stagflation of the 1970s.
“So has there been anything like that in recent years? …Were there any interesting predictions from … models that were validated by events?”
In fact Krugman is discussing his own field, macroeconomics — but this insight has deep roots in the philosophy of science and applies as well to climate science. Predictions are the gold standard for validating theories. In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
(1962) Thomas Kuhn described failed predictions that undermined dominant paradigms (e.g., the Michelson–Morley experiment) and successful predictions that helped establish new paradigms (e.g., the orbit of Mercury). He said…
“Probably {scientists’} most deeply held values concern predictions: they should be accurate; quantitative predictions are preferable to qualitative ones; whatever the margin of permissible error, it should be consistently satisfied in a given field; and so on.”
Karl Popper set the bar for validation even higher in Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge![clip_image002[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/clip_image0021.gif "clip_image002[1]"){kind=small}
(1963). This is what Krugman meant by a “surprising” prediction.
“Confirmations should count only if they are the result of risky predictions; that is to say, if, unenlightened by the theory in question, we should have expected an event which was incompatible with the theory — an event which would have refuted the theory.”
Krugman, drawing on this tradition, points us to a solution for the deadlock in the ever-more-bitter public policy debate about our response to climate change: look for predictions, then test them.
The great oddity of the climate science debate
“Ad hominem attacks aren’t a final line of defense, they’re argument #1. …It’s about an attitude, the sense that righteousness excuses you from the need for hard thinking and that any questioning of the righteous is treason.” {By Paul Krugman. Quite true, as any skeptic quickly learns when discussing climate with an activist.}
Activists consider forecasts of models as like the Word of God. Skeptics mutter about vast conspiracies of climate scientists. Lost in this futile decades-long debate is discussion about the methodological testing necessary to create confidence that the results of climate models provide an adequate basis for public policy decisions that shape the world economy.
The necessary tools are well understood, and routinely applied in other fields. For example drugs are tested by prior review of study proposals, followed by analysis of their results by paid non-affiliated multi-disciplinary teams of experts (neither of which is done in climate science). Best of all are successful predictions, and successful risky predictions (for outcomes contrary to expectations) create strong confidence. These hard-won insights have had little influence on climate science. See these posts for examples…
- Thomas Kuhn tells us what we need to know about climate science.
- Daniel Davies’ insights about predictions can unlock the climate change debate.
- Karl Popper explains how to open the deadlocked climate policy debate.
- Paul Kurgan talks about economics. Climate scientists can learn from his insights.
- Milton Friedman’s advice about climate models & how to win the policy debate.
- We must rely on forecasts by computer models. Are they reliable? (Many citations.)
So the bitter public policy debate rattles on, each side hoping for a brute-force political resolution that crushes the large fraction of the pubic that disagree with them. Perhaps that will happen, and perhaps that will produce a useful outcome. But we can do better.
Scientists could re-run older models with actual emissions, not projections, and comparing their forecasts with observed temperatures. These multi-decade predictions would provide objective, powerful data that might resolve the policy debate — or at least create a clear majority of public opinion for one side so we can move on.
- My proposal: Climate scientists can restart the climate change debate – & win.
- Putting this proposal in a wider context of science norms and the climate science literature.
This will not happen without public pressure. As we see in Campaign 2016, our ruling elites prefer to give us a circus — treating us like children to be entertained rather than citizens to be informed. But we can stand up and re-take the reins of America, re-shaping the debates about climate change and other key issues.
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Let an economist provide the best evisceration, politely and respectfully too, of the Krugatron, and his vile bile:
“Krugman, armed with his Keynesian model, came into the Great Recession thinking that (a) nominal interest rates can’t go below 0 percent, (b) total government spending reductions in the United States amid a weak recovery would lead to a double dip, and (c) persistently high unemployment would go hand in hand with accelerating price deflation. Because of these macroeconomic views, Krugman recommended aggressive federal deficit spending.
As things turned out, Krugman was wrong on each of the above points: we learned (and this surprised me, too) that nominal rates could go persistently negative, that the US budget “austerity” from 2011 onward coincided with a strengthening recovery, and that consumer prices rose modestly even as unemployment remained high. Krugman was wrong on all of these points, and yet his policy recommendations didn’t budge an iota over the years.
Far from changing his policy conclusions in light of his model’s botched predictions, Krugman kept running victory laps, claiming his model had been “right about everything.” He further speculated that the only explanation for his opponents’ unwillingness to concede defeat was that they were evil or stupid.
What a guy. What a scientist.”
https://fee.org/articles/paul-krugman-three-wrongs-dont-make-a-right/
Lets not forget Krugman’s advising the Japanese on how to fix their economy…print more money…and now the BOJ owns pretty well every bond and stock in the country and the economy is worse off. His excuse: they didn’t print enough. That they paid him for his advice is bad enough..but following it is worse.
The unbearable lightness of being Krugtron the Invincible is filled with being wrong, being nasty, being nastily wrong, and being unsufferable.
Krugman’s entire schtick is based on a klunky and consistently wrong economic MODEL that he worships and constantly babbles about. When he’s not making badly wrong economic predictions, Krugman babbles about his model and his superiority in pretty much all facets of life.
The irony of Krugman directing another field of endeavor in how to carry out research, and how to use models is too rich.
Wasn’t it Krugman who waxed poetic in regards to the ability of the Chinese government to go ahead and do the “right thing” without having to worry about public opinion.
Don’t forget that under GW Bush Krugman predicted that America would become like Argentina. He is not only wrong, he is cynically and consistently wrong.
Hunter,
Right you are!
For a deep look into the heart of the shrill harpy of PC-Progressivism, his demons, his enablers, his shallowness, and his utter establishmentism, see this in-depth personality profile.
Warning: the Invincible Krugatron that emerges from this portrait may make some people nauseous. Not for the faint of heart, infirm, or young:
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/03/01/the-deflationist
Personally I think they know full well how to do a more accurate model but the problem is it probably doesn’t give the answer they want. Since this has more to do with a political agenda than actual science perhaps accurate, verifiable models that don’t give the ‘right’ answer are frowned upon. It’s too easy to fool the useful idiots by showing a fancy ‘scientistic’ model output (I.e. The Olympics opening BS) that shows impending doom because ‘these are scientists saying you’re doomed!’
It all depends on the results of November 8th 2016.
If Mrs. Clinton wins, this mess will continue for decades.
Federal Government funding causes global warming!
Stu, replying to Steve Case
Federal Government funding causes Mann-made global warming!
That is pure genius. We need a chart of AGW funding and temperatures. That will have an R^2 of 100, and a Correlation of +1.00.
There is no way the mess we call Western economics carries on like this for decades. We have a massive debt depression on the horizon. The only cure for that I am aware of is high inflation. Whether or not it will be possible to generate that before we fall into a deflationary spiral is very questionable but whichever way that goes, it will be very painful.
There is also the solution used in many banana republics over the years:
Abandon the old currency, issue a ‘new’ one amid much fanfare, and repeat… you can usually get one of these to work since noone reads history and don’t know it fails in short order (well, usually… Germany learned when they went to the new mark post W.W.II but then that was full of special features and special pleading as a case…). Brazil got something like 30? years out of it… Zimbabwe not so much…
Lol. Yeah right. “Skeptics mutter about conspiracies..”
I’ll disregard that snide remark and point out that skeptics have been arguing the facts and demanding predictions for nearly three decades. It’s the alarmist side that has been unapologetically vicious in their unending assaults.
Peter,
‘I’ll disregard that snide remark”
It’s fact. Just look at the comments at WUWT for confirming evidence of my statement. Lots and lots of comments about the conspiracy of climate scientists to distort the global temperature record.
It appears to be a core belief among commenters here.
You are wrong. I have been reading this blog for years, and the vast majority of informed skeptics here don’t believe in a massive AGW conspiracy. They know that AGW alarmists are much better funded, and suspect many in that camp are motivated by all that money sloshing around (most of it provided by the tax payer), but that’s not a conspiracy. That’s just blind herd mentality.
Mr. Editor,
It is the Attorneys General of states led by pro-AGW fanatics that are doing the witch hunting.
Naomi Klein has written a book, and made a pretty good living selling the ideas in that book, about how there is a grand conspiracy by “big energy” to destroy the Earth.
Lewandowsky and his gang…well do I need to go into more on that most unpleasant academic?
While some skeptics are certainly “muttering”, it is fanatic believers who are shouting… and getting their shouts echoed in the public square.
If a single skeptic says something stupid, that’s proof that all skeptics are conspiracy mongers.
For some reason leftists believe that they have to create false equivalencies whenever they criticize another leftist.
” The answer, I’d suggest, is that we look for surprising successful predictions. General relativity got its big boost when light did, in fact, bend as predicted. “
Yes, it did. But it was based on clear physical reasoning, which was accepted by those who could follow it. To them, the success was not surprising.
Climate models predict climate (response to forcings), not weather. To get a “surprising successful prediction”, you need to wait until the climate has in fact changed. It’s no use hassling about short term effects, which aren’t the prediction. Climate models predicted warming, and we have had warming. So they are on track. To be sure, you’ll need to follow them longer to get empirical assurance. But in the interim, as with general relativity in its early days, the underlying physical reasoning makes them the best estimate that is what you should use when needed.
As to re-running old models, that is no different to backcasting that is currently done, and was done with the old models when they were new.
http://www.woodfortrees.com/graph/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1850
Oops!
http://www.woodfortrees.org/graph/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1850
But, nick, those climate models are superimposed on a known period of natural cyclical warming. If there is one thing that the hiatus in warming has taught us, it’s that there is something larger at play here…
“Climate models predicted warming, and we have had warming. So they are on track …”.
===========================================
Any warming trend validates the models:
The models are not even close to reality. Krugman says to make a comparison between the climate models and reality. Well, there it is. Reality is the little blue line at the bottom. The climate models are all those lines shooting up at a 45 degree angle. Not even close. There you go, Paul. Problem solved.
” Reality is the little blue line at the bottom. “
“Reality” is a cherry-picked region – tropical mid-troposphere. How about a global comparison?
“How about a global comparison? …”.
==============================
According to the models the mid-troposphere over the tropics is where enhanced greenhouse warming should be most apparent, 2-3 times that at the surface, but I think you already knew that.
“How about a global comparison?”
You mean the surface temperature chart? The surface temperature chart looks very similar to the satellite temperature chart, so if you superimpose the surface temperature trend over the satellite trend, the chart is going to look the same. So I don’t see how the surface temperature chart makes the models look any better.
Nick Stokes
August 15, 2016 at 5:13 pm
“But in the interim, as with general relativity in its early days, the underlying physical reasoning makes them the best estimate that is what you should use when needed.”
The “underlying physical reasoning” aka “The Science” hasn’t got anything right yet, that is, nothing having to do uniquely with CO2 increases, which themselves have seen significant periods of radical Temp divergences twice since 1950. So instead of, “It’s just like Gravity”, now “It’s just like general relativity.” Which means you have no case whatsoever.
Climate models do not produce unique solutions to the problem of the climate energy state. There is zero reason to suppose that the recent warming and model outputs are any more than tendentiously coincidental.
From where I sit, we haven’t even successfully defined what it means to say that “the climate has changed.” Ergo, any measurement or analysis of whether or not it has happened is impossible. But In that vacuum, lots of people have sloppily and even corruptly claimed such a measurement.
“Nick Stokes wrote: To get a “surprising successful prediction”, you need to wait until the climate has in fact changed.
Has climate changed?
Formerly climatology was regional, as defined by Koppen and others, notably Trewartha. (When Hubert Lamb was 50 and I was a graduate student.)
The paper by Belda et Al (2014) shows the climate regions of the world (except Antarctica) for two periods, 1901-1931 and 1975-2005. Between the two periods separated by 75 years.
Climate classification revisited from Köppen to Trewartha, Belda, M. et al, Climate Research, 2014
http://www.int-res.com/articles/cr_oa/c059p001.pdf
The Belda maps show the climate regions of the world (except Antarctica) for two periods, 1901-1931 and 1975-2005, based on a 30 minute grid, average area about 2500 km2, (About 50,000 grid cells cover 135 million km2, the land area of the Earth except Antarctica.)
Between the two periods separated by 75 years, 8% of the cells changed climate type. When you plot a scatter diagram of distributions for the two periods, you will find there is little divergence from the straight line passing through the origin and with slope unity. R-squared is 99.5.
The Belda paper does not discuss error bars. However, the CRU (UK) has revised the climate data to remove wet bias, an adjustment that would increase R2, indicating even less change than these maps show.
In any other field of Earth science, using data with similar precision, we would claim confirmation of the null hypothesis that the two data sets separated by 75 years are not significantly different.
So yes, the Earth has warmed a little and most people worldwide are better off than their parents and grandparents. The people benefiting the most are those on the margins of steppe to desert and those on the margins between ice and tundra, but they are relatively few in number.
Nick,
You said, “Climate models predicted warming, and we have had warming. So they are on track.” Or maybe it is a spurious correlation because warming has been occurring for 10 to 15 thousand years. There is nothing surprising about warming based on past events. You suggest, “…you’ll need to follow them longer to get empirical assurance.” The point is, the models are running warm and the longer we observe, the less convincing the predictions are, based on empirical data. Logically, only one model can be the best as judged by the agreement with empirical data. Averaging the best with all the others just degrades the predictions. What should be done is to look at that one “best” model (I think it is a Russian model) and see how it differs from the others. That is the greatest value of models, providing insight on what is happening and how it is happening. Yet, climate scientists give equal weight to all of them, stir them in the pot, and say “See, it is going to get warmer.” A bookie probably would have come to a similar conclusion based on past history. How can models give us confidence that the correlation (as poor as it is) with predictions and reality isn’t spurious?
Nick,
Systematically wrong, as usual for you. Almost every sentence.
(1) “To get a “surprising successful prediction”, you need to wait until the climate has in fact changed.”
That does not even make sense. For example, a prediction that the warming trend since the mid- 19th century has slowed or accellerated would be “surprising” (or “risky” in Popper’s original terminology.”
(2) “Climate models predicted warming, and we have had warming. So they are on track.”
I assume you are (again) trolling us. First, directional predictions are not enough. Magnitudes matter. Precision and all that. Second, the world has been warming for 2 centuries, with anthropogenic effects dominant only since after WWII. So the warming by itself does not show models are correct or that there is AGW.
(3) …you’ll need to follow them longer to get empirical assurance.”
The models used in the first three Assessment Reports give us multi-decade predictions, if re-run with actual emissions. While not definitive (what is?), these results will tell us more than we know today.
(3) “But in the interim, as with general relativity in its early days, the underlying physical reasoning makes them the best estimate that is what you should use when needed.”
The relevant question in this post is about models as the basis for large-scale public policy measures. “Best estimate” is not enough. We need confidence in the reliability of the estimate.
(4) “As to re-running old models, that is no different to backcasting that is currently done, and was done with the old models when they were new.”
False. Running the data with data available when the model was created raises the questions about the role of tuning — which is (why outside of climate science) back-testing is not considered adequate unless additional measures are taken (e.g., running vs. out of sample data).
“That does not even make sense. For example, a prediction that the warming trend since the mid- 19th century has slowed or accellerated”
Yes. That would be a change. And for utility in verification, you need to compare against the uncertainty of measurement of the result. It takes time to get confidence in the measurement of the change and its prediction.
“Magnitudes matter.”
Yes. But the first question is, is the GCM-based prediction better than what you would have assumed in its absence – probably zero change.
‘“Best estimate” is not enough.’
It’s all you’ll ever have. And it is better than a worse estimate. There are decisions that just have to be made. Assuming zero change is choosing a basis for the decision, just as is using the best estimate.
“with data available when the model was created raises the questions about the role of tuning”
People mix up the role of tuning with curve fitting, as if having a few extra years data will alter the model and fit those years better. Tuning is done to characterise a few parameters that are otherwise difficult to pin down. The 2012 Mauritsen paper was much discussed, as it lay out in detail what tuning steps they used. The use they made of surface temperature was to shift the 1850-1880 global average temperature to the observed average of 13.7°C (para 12). Switching to an earlier model would not change that. They also, at an intermediate stage used a SST average 1976-2005 for matching. But again, that isn’t trying to match detail, just a single number. Any similar period would have sufficed. Tuning is typically done on a run of quite a short period.
Nick
Is there a C in AGW? For once and for all, because I have asked you this a hundred times, do you believe that there is Catastrophic warming coming from AGW?
“Is there a C in AGW?”
That is a sceptic framing. For my part, I just try to work out what is going to happen. I mostly leave it to others to decide how bad they think that will be. I do think AGW will cause problems for a lot of people.
Nick wrote, “Tuning is done to characterise a few parameters that are otherwise difficult to pin down.”
Not correct. Parameter tuning is done so as to cause the projected trend to match an observed trend. Tuning does not adjust a parameter to a physically correct value. Tuning adjusts a parameter to maximize statistical merit. Tuning does not make a projection physically more correct, nor does it reduce the uncertainty of a projection.
Projections made using tuned parameters are not unique, nor even tightly bounded, solutions to the climate energy state. Indeed, the true physical bounds to a climate projection are not known but are likely to be extremely wide; and to grow with projection length.
People don’t “mix up the role of tuning with curve fitting.” Model tuning is curve fitting.
It’s pretty clear from this and other comments that Nick does not know how physical meaning is assigned in science.
Consensus climatology has substituted statistical merit for physical meaning, making it a playground for Nick, but rendering the entire field into a pseudo-science.
meant, ‘Indeed, the true physical uncertainty bounds …’
Nick Stokes
August 15, 2016 at 5:13 pm
“But in the interim, as with general relativity in its early days, the underlying physical reasoning makes them the best estimate that is what you should use when needed.”
Yeah, that’s what we do in the case of determining a Drug’s safety and efficacy. The “underlying physical reasoning” makes Clinical Trials unnecessary. All anyone needs to do is say, “It’s just like general relativity in its early days.” And, by the way, I’m just like Einstein, “Plus Shipping and Handling.”
‘determining a Drug’s safety and efficacy’
Taking medication is always based on the best estimate of safety and efficacy. You never have perfect knowledge. Drugs are permitted and used when the likely benefit (relative to alternatives) exceeds the estimated risks. And knowledge of chemical mode of action and subsequent excretion of breakdown is part of that estimation.
“excretion of breakdown” -> “excretion or breakdown”
Nick Stokes
August 16, 2016 at 2:03 am
Re: “best estimate of safety and efficacy”
Based on real World empirical trials and the principles of real Science, the “best estimate” of the alleged CO2-Climate Change Disease is that it does not exist.
Likewise, the best estimate for The Treatment Of Nothing, involving trying to decrease the atmospheric concentration of CO2, or actually doing it, is that it should ‘very likely’ to ‘certainly’ get you a clear passage into Hell.
Why don’t people want nicer weather and more abundant crops, again?
So all the warmers need to do to be taken seriously and advance public policy in their preferred direction is to make falsifiable predictions correctly? That would certainly be a major shift in strategy from making predictions beyond any of our lifespans, and being 100% wrong about their rare near term exceptions.
Nick says, “Climate models predicted warming, and we have had warming. So they are on track.”
Hmmm. It depends on where and how you measure warming. For most of the US there was no warming of maximum temperatures that exceeded the 1930s and the US has the best climate data for the past century. The US may represent only a small subset of the globe, but data for most of the rest of the world is guess work due to the lack of real data.
For the last decade the Arctic Ocean has cooled due to ventilating heat that warmed air temperatures. Thus warming air temperatures represent cooling not predcted heat accumulation.
Most of Antarctica has not warmed and the Antarctic peninsula that once warmed dramatically and was toted as the canary in te coal mine is now cooling.
I think Nick has some blinders on!
There are three different types of comparisons that you can make between calculations and comparisons to show that your models are correct.
(1) Open comparisons where the people running the computers know the results of the experiment, and are just trying to match it. This is what would be done under Krugman’s proposal.
(2) Blind comparisons, where the modeler does not know the actual experimental results, but does know a lot about how the system he is trying to model works, so that he can tune the calculation for special situations where he understands how the system reacts.
(3) Double blind comparisons, where the modeler does not know either the exact experimental results, OR how the physical system has reacted in other “experiments”, so that there is no way the modeler can cheat. He has to hope that he has the physics right, and he has to hope that all the little things that he thinks are irrelevant are actually irrelevant, and not major phenomena that he has not/cannot model.
In some engineering disciplines, the double blind comparisons are the only acceptable proof of a modelers abilities. This would be very hard for climate calcs, where there is a lot of data about how the system works, so the blind comparisons are probably the best we can hope for. I think that when you are proposing to change the economy of an entire planet, it would be prudent (see the precautionary principle) for the people advocating for change to at least TRY to doa blind comparison, and it seems like some of them have actually stuck their necks out and made some predictions. When the predicted time comes, and they don’t meet the test, then it will be time to (metaphorically) chop off their heads.
rxc says, “…so the blind comparisons are probably the best we can hope for. I think that when you are proposing to change the economy of an entire planet, it would be prudent (see the precautionary principle) for the people advocating for change to at least TRY to doa blind comparison, and it seems like some of them have actually stuck their necks out and made some predictions.”
Valentina Zharkova and her colleagues have done just that.
“We found magnetic wave components appearing in pairs, originating in two different layers in the Sun’s interior. They both have a frequency of approximately 11 years, although this frequency is slightly different, and they are offset in time. Over the cycle, the waves fluctuate between the northern and southern hemispheres of the Sun. Combining both waves together and comparing to real data for the current solar cycle, we found that our predictions showed an accuracy of 97%,”
https://www.ras.org.uk/news-and-press/2680-irregular-heartbeat-of-the-sun-driven-by-double-dynamo
Interestingly, some science blogs dismissed this work in words that suggest to me that the writers, including a physicist writing for Forbes, are unaware of the vast literature on the solar physics as it influences the climates of the planets. (There is a lot more to solar physics than sunspots and TSI (total solar irradiance).
The most absurd comments I read went something like, “Well solar physicists and astrophysicists are not climatologists.”
Rather than Popper and Kuhn, I say Pauli and von Neumann had the better description for the current state of climate science.
“Your theory isn’t even wrong” – Wolfgang Pauli
“Give me five free parameters and my model can make the elephant fly” – John von Neumann
Climate models with a range of possible outcomes so wide that they are virtually unfalsifiable. Models with so many free parameters that they can predict anything the modelers wish.
The model predicts the elephant will fly!
http://mentalfloss.com/sites/default/legacy/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/550dumbo.jpg
Dr. Strangelove,
Thomas Kuhn’s book describes the current state of climate science quite well, as the usual no-quarter-given defense of a paradigm. Lots of similar examples in history. For details see Thomas Kuhn tells us what we need to know about climate science..
As for Popper, he’s ignored or despised by many climate scientists. Which is in itself significant.
Popper and Kuhn are good philosophers of science. I prefer Pauli and von Neumann’s witty comments because Popper and Kuhn are describing real scientists. The warmists cannot be considered as scientists because they abandoned the scientific method. They are a bunch of environmental activists who call themselves “climate scientists”
Dr Strangelove says, “Climate models with a range of possible outcomes so wide that they are virtually unfalsifiable. Models with so many free parameters that they can predict anything the modelers wish.”
Have a look at Patrick Frank’s lecture and paper. He shows that most of the variables in the models have little effect on the results. He is able to replicate the models using a one-line model.
Multi-million dollar grants are not needed. Dr Strangelove, you could replicate the CGM outputs used by the IPCC in a day on your laptop.
Patrick Frank’s lecture to Doctors for Disaster Preparedness is here:
No Certain Doom: On the Accuracy of Projected Global Average Surface Air Temperatures
His paper published by The Skeptics Magazine is here:
A CLIMATE OF BELIEF
http://www.skeptic.com/reading_room/a-climate-of-belief/
The GCMs are complex but the output is just a set of numbers that when you plot forms a curve. The curve can be replicated with a simple linear or quadratic equation. It’s like writing and solving all the physical equations of all the moving parts of a car. The output can be just a time-distance chart of the moving car. It looks simple once you have the answer. But what’s the question?
The answer is 42
“Paul Krugman — Nobel Laureate economist, #5 on Prospect magazine’s 2015 list of the world’s top “thinkers” ”
You’ve got to be kidding!
TA,
You have to get out more.
Being consistently and spectacurally wrong over and over again gets one on the list of “top thinkers”.
Sheesh.
But then again Obama got a Nobel for being, not Bush.
The Alarmist still cling to their failed Human Being their failed Champion Paul Krugman,
As if the Failed Krugman and his Failed New York Times, will Vanquish and smite All in their path to Oblivion.
?
The smell of Oblivion, … Victory.
!
This same pearl clutching. The models have already been tested and failed, but you’re convinced that this time, THIS TIME!, we will all suddenly relearn Popper and the scientific method and the scales will fall from our eyes. This whole thing ceased to be about the science decades ago. It’s merely the next battleground between the state and the individual. You will repent your sins and you will bow to the will of the state.
The models predict surface temperatures very well actually.
Problem is no one on this blog knows the difference between satellite measurements and surface temperatures.
So the bitter public policy debate rattles on, each side hoping for a brute-force political resolution that crushes the large fraction of the public that disagree with them. Perhaps that will happen, and perhaps that will produce a useful outcome. But we can do better.
___________________________
Brute force political resolution is unavoidable – that whole thing is unaffordable.
Just a couple of thoughts. First, I believe Einstein’s bending of light proof the first time was wrong. If I remember correctly it had to do with a solar eclipse in Siberia during WWI. It turned out Einstein assumed the Sun was a perfect sphere, which it isn’t. Second, in relation to the drugs comparison: I read several years ago that if every drug that didn’t perform better than the placebo in the double-blind studies was removed from the market, we would basically have alcohol and aspirin.
Stu,
“I read several years ago that if every drug that didn’t perform better than the placebo in the double-blind studies was removed from the market, we would basically have alcohol and aspirin.”
I can’t imagine where you read such a thing. I suggest you tell your doctor. He’ll enjoy a moment of laughter.
Or wait until a loved one is sick and then refuse drug treatment. Tell us how that works out for you.
I have had malaria twice from three species, typhoid, paratyphoid, respiratory failure from a Rickettsia infection, shingles outbreak twice, and MRSA following treatment for minor cut.
All of these could either have killed me or made life miserable, but all were successfully treated by modern drugs.
And so here I am, well past three-score and ten years because for most scientific claims, I accept the consensus view. In this I agree with Michael Shermer who explains his position in his great series of lectures.
http://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/skepticism-101-how-to-think-like-a-scientist.html
The reason I do not accept the consensus view of climatologists is the same as the reason I did not accept the consensus view for fixed continents in the years before plate tectonics became the consensus view: the evidence does not support the theory.
As for death from prescription drugs. I have seen that major causes of death are 1) not following directions for drugs that have been appropriately prescribed or 2) following directions for drugs not appropriately prescribed.
There are other problems with prescription drugs as well, but avoiding all prescription drugs is not the scientific way to approach the issues. Each recommendation to take a prescription drug has to be considered on its own merits based on the risks of harm compared with the value of the benefits.
Or you can just rely of the authority of the physician without question.
I don’t because I’m a skeptic, except for respiratory failure when I was in no condition to ask questions.
Interesting comment, Frederick. I note that for many years all the great minds and professors of Geology pooh-poohed all notions of continental movement and deliberately turned a blind eye to the remarkable way that the entire continent of Africa aligned with the entire continent of South America. That’s some blind eye! More than equalled in my mind to the blind eye that the world’s self appointed climate experts have displayed with regard to the scientific method and any notions of negative feedback. More like two blind eyes1
Without apparently knowing it, Krugman identified [PRECISELY] why CAGW skeptics are extremely skeptical of the disconfirmed CAGW hypothesis….
CAGW’s global warming model predictions are already laughably devoid of reality, with empirical global temp anomaly data already 2 standard deviations lower than predictions for 20 years! Under the rules of the scientific method, such huge margins of disparity and duration are already statistically significant to disconfirm the CAGW hypothesis….
Moreover, because of numerous natural cooling factors all converging at once (La Niña, PDO 30-cool cycle, AMO 30-year cool cycle, collapsing solar cycles since 1996), within 5~7 years, the disparity and duration of model predictions vs reality will soon exceed 3 standard deviations for 25 years, which is the point CAGW is laughed at and ridiculed…
CAGW advocates know this, which is why they are scandalously and desperately “adjusting” GISTEMP and HADCRUT4 data in a feeble effort to keep model predictions within 2 standard deviations of “adjusted” temp-anomaly datasets…
What pro-CAGW “scientists” can’t rectify is the growing disparity between GISTEMP and HADCRUT4 datasets, and the six independent (and unadjusted) satellite and radiosonde global temp anomaly datasets, which have already effectively disconfirmed the CAGW hypothesis…
Congress realizes this disparity, too, and has already issued a FOIA request to NOAA for all internal e-mail correspondence regarding the “Pause-Busting” KARL2015 “adjustments” made to GISTEMP data.
NOAA has told Congress to effectively go to hell; as they have absolutely NO intent of complying with this congressional FOIA request, and are now technically in Contempt of Congress..
(Cue JAWS’ soundtrack…)
Jeez…. I wonder what NOAA and NASA are trying to hide???
We’re getting tantalizing close to CAGW imploding.
“drugs are tested by prior review of study proposals, followed by analysis of their results by paid non-affiliated multi-disciplinary teams of experts”
Not what I’ve heard.
RoHa,
Yes they are, despite what you have heard. But the corrupting effect of big money has proven to be too powerful for the existing methodological safeguards. Lots of discussion now about how to strengthen them (e.g., requiring registration of studies before starting, so negative results aren’t put down the memory hole).
Climate science could learn a lot from medical testing (drugs and devices).
I suspect that climate models could be made to be a lot more accurate than they are, but political powers need highly inflated results for indoctrination purposes and to push legislation.
For example, on pages 11-12 of this government report they tell the citizens of Croydon that there is a chance of a 7°C rise in temperatures before the end of this century. And where do get such absurd figures? Someone models it, and then they publish the outputs as though they were facts instead of made up data.
Here’s a classically condescending pull quote.
“It is important that the public are not misinformed about the degree of climate change and its potential impacts. Seasonal fluctuations in the climate’s natural behavioural patterns can mask the long-term climate changes. For example the winter of 2009/2010 was characterised by temperatures below average, and extensive snow and ice cover across the UK, which would not appear to the general public to be characteristic of a warming climate.
“It is these short term fluctuations that may confuse people’s understanding of the long- term global warming trend – a reason why it is important to address behavioural change within this adaptation Action Plan.”
https://www.croydon.gov.uk/sites/default/files/articles/downloads/ccaaplan.pdf
Unfortunately, this key section does not appear until page 121 in the Technical Summary and page 126 in the main report: Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, WGI, 2013
“Even in the absence of external forcing, periodic and chaotic variations on a vast range of spatial and temporal scales are observed.”
For physicists and engineers this would be a red flag in any other field except climate.
Quote
The processes affecting climate can exhibit considerable natural variability. Even in the absence of external forcing, periodic and chaotic variations on a vast range of spatial and temporal scales are observed. Much of this variability can be represented by simple (e.g., unimodal or power law) distributions, but many components of the climate system also exhibit multiple states.
…snip…
Movement between states can occur as a result of natural variability, or in response to external forcing. The relationship between variability, forcing and response reveals the complexity of the dynamics of the climate system: the relationship between forcing and response for some parts of the system seems reasonably linear; in other cases this relationship is much more complex, characterised by hysteresis (the dependence on past states) and a non-additive combination of feedbacks.
End of quote:
Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, WGI, 2013
Ah, yes. The cold times when the concept of accumulated heat can be ignored as it is on holiday in the Bahamas or the like, to return shortly…
” brute-force political resolution that crushes the large fraction of the pubic”
Ouch!!!
‘The necessary tools are well understood, and routinely applied in other fields. For example drugs are tested by prior review of study proposals, followed by analysis of their results by paid non-affiliated multi-disciplinary teams of experts ‘
This is complete nonsense. When a pharma major e.g. GSK or Pfizer, carry out clinical trials, they pay for them. They design the protocols, they either do the experiments themselves or hire third-party contractors to do it on their behalf, they analyse the data and they present the data they choose to present to regulatory authorities when seeking marketing approval.
Everyone is affiliated to the pharma major in the carrying out the clinical trial experiments. If things were independent, then the FDA or equivalents overseas would be supplied by GSK with the funding for the trial, the trial would be designed by experts commissioned by the FDA, not by GSK, the data would be analysed by third parties, again commissioned by the FDA, not GSK and the analysis would be scrutinised by the FDA, not by GSK.
That’s what independent evaluation of drugs would entail.
Everyone knows that it doesn’t. It’s not saying the reality is appalling, but it is saying that it is skewed in favour of pharmaceutical company profits rather than dispassionate clinical practice.
“In fact Krugman is discussing his own field, macroeconomics….”
I had an economics professor tell the class the job of who specializes in economics is to predict the future then explain why the prediction failed.. Sore of like paying a baseball player big bucks with a 1.5 batting average.
Gets on base 3 times for every 2 times at bat. That’s pretty good.
Perhaps you meant a 0.15 batting average.
Until climate models include solar variations, lunar modulations, ENSO events, PDO/AMO cycles and volcanic eruptions/earthquakes in their scenario planning, they are pointless wastes of money.
What deadlock in the “climate policy debate” is there? I see none. What I do see is that the government has its mind made up and regardless of facts and the opinions of others is blasting full speed ahead with its climate policies of, for instance, heavily subsidised renewables and the EPA clean air plan. There can be no “debate” when one side does not listen, and has never listened, to anything the other side has said.
I guess neither Larry nor Paul understand that the models have been run. And rerun. And rerun with actual emissions, and rerun with adjusted temps and rerun with adjusted models . . .
They have failed. The alarm is completely unjustified.
The only thing that is ‘worse that we thought’ is the embarrassment that will certainly attain once the larger scientific community sees what these people have been foisting upon the world for at least the last 10 years.
So they go with consensus. They recruit stars from other fields.
This is getting more and more entertaining.
Unfortunately, this may leave us ‘in the lurch’ based on what the sun appears to be up to. We may be heading in the other direction, and with a dirth of new coal plants in the western hemisphere, things could get a bit dicey and that doesn’t even consider the agricultural impact we might want to prepare for.
Apparently those scenarios aren’t even on these guy’s radar screen.