New paper explains inherent flaws of computer models predicting future climate change
London, 21 February: Claims that the planet is threatened by man-made global warming are based on science that is based on inadequate computer modelling. That is the conclusion of a new briefing paper published today by the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF).
The report’s author, eminent American climatologist Professor Judith Curry, explains that climate alarm depends on highly complex computer simulations of the Earth’s climate.
But although scientists have expended decades of effort developing them, these simulations still have to be “tuned” to get them to match the real climate. This makes them essentially useless for trying to find out what is causing changes in the climate and unreliable for making predictions about what will happen in the future.
Professor Curry said: “It’s not just the fact that climate simulations are tuned that is problematic. It may well be that it is impossible to make long-term predictions about the climate – it’s a chaotic system after all. If that’s the case, then we are probably trying to redesign the global economy for nothing”.
Prof Curry recently announced that she was abandoning academic life due to the attacks on her research and the “craziness” of the climate debate.
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Theoretical astrophysics is suffering the same delusion as climate science. Mathematics are a tool that do not produce real physical things, maths helps us understand real physical things.
What has been happening in theoretical science is things are produced with mathematics only and then these things are presented as real physical objects, or a future state of objects. This is fine in exploring possibility but one does not, should not, present these things as physical.
The singularity is a perfect example, but so is cosmic background radiation, the former a an artefact given real physical properties and the second is a result of data processing not anything to do with observation or reality.
‘They’ simply don’t understand computers. Existing computers are not up to the task they’re being used for and unless some epic advance in parallel computing comes about, never will be.
The scientists are, like most everybody else, quite in awe and wonderment of these new, shiny, expensive, over-hyped (by their makers) machines. Machines that never get anything wrong.
People who’ve been awake for the last 30 years or so will know that proper parallel computing is like fusion reactors – always 20 or 30 years away.
Look at The Problem – energy movement through the atmosphere.
At the equator lets say 12 hours of sunshine, going in a linear ramp from zero at sunrise, 1,800W/sqm at noon and back to zero at sunset. (I know its not properly like that but this keeps the sums easy for those of us without a super PC)
So, the power coming down from El Sol changes at 1,800W per 6 hours = 300W per hour = 1W every 12 seconds.
To be able to see the supposed 3W coming from GHGs, our (digital) calculator will need that 12 second resolution – the data won’t be sampled often enough otherwise.
We need a computer that can calculate and re-calculate The Climate every 12 seconds or faster.
Its Not Going To Happen.
Period
OK. Certainly play and experiment with the things to find out what they can do, but don’t be going making Life or Death decisions based on their output.
Some folks say they are being used as tax generators. Absolutely.
Why?
Is it not the sign of failing economies/societies/civilisations that tax has to rise?
If the ‘economy’ was successful, existing taxes would generate greater and greater revenue and tax rates and the things its levied on would decrease, not increase.
See the UK right now. Hospitals are being closed, health services cut and we can’t even look after the old-folk properly, *despite* 70% of our gross salaries going in tax and mandatory takes.
And our chancellor is putting ever more punitive taxes in place on businesses this time.
We now have the bright new Information Tech society that was sold us 20+ years ago – it don’t work – just like the computers that drive it.
Climastrology reminds me very much of the psychics, fortune-tellers and sundry mediums knees-up at my local race course every year. Every year they put up advertising posters everywhere and I wonder why they bother.
We welcome our new machine overlords and the reptiles who swarm over and tend them. But please, deliver the utopia before you kidnap the children. Otherwise, no deal.
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With the poor quality model predictions on global warming may go up by 2 to 6 oC with the doubling of carbon dioxide. Using these hypothetical raise, thousands of papers were published in both national and international journals, the hypothetical impacts on various aspects. In 1994 I questioned the authors of a paper published in an international journal [senior author was a member of the editorial committee of the journal] and my comments were published in the journal in 1995. Here the worst scenario is, the authors of such papers are using poor quality model estimates for the hypothetical raise in temperature. All these are good for nothing papers. They wasted public money towards their salaries and poor quality research. By this way in fact they generated the very same carbon dioxide — huge quantity –; for running the computers, travel, etc. Unfortunately, they are the main advisers to governments and media.
Here let me bring to your kind notice a fact on pollution — The fuel technology and vehicle technology brought down the air pollution levels. few days back a report presented a linear increase in air pollution and ground level ozone irrespective these technological reductions. The SO2 has come down drastically; NOx also has come down and ozone must come down. To senasationalize their studies, they attributed millions of people died and health disorders rampant with these pollution levels. In fact we rarely encounter deaths due to Air pollution but keeps the patient under drug lifelong.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
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Since Climate models are developed as boundary value problems vs initial value problems they are doomed to failure. Weather models are posed as initial value problems, I think.
Models probably seem convincing to many young people and a good proportion of the middle aged too. They are less convincing to those of us old enough to remember the Club of Rome and its Limits to Growth report in 1972. I, like many other young people at the time, was worried by the report because it was based on a model using a technique known as systems dynamics, developed by Professor Jay Forrester at MIT and the model was run on a computer so the calculations were obviously correct, weren’t they?
My father, being older and wiser, thought the predictions were a load of rubbish or, too put it much more politely, that the conclusions depended on the assumptions, may of which were dubious. Now I am older and, I hope, wiser too. There will come a time, difficult as they may find it to imagine now, when today’s young people will also be older …
Roy,
“Models probably seem convincing to many young people and a good proportion of the middle aged too.”
Ha! I learned about models while researching in cybernetics at Brunel University in 1970s. My question was why do organisations staffed by intelligent, experienced and well intentioned people still make an unexpectedly large number of wrong decisions? It was inspired by my continuing frustration at what I perceived to be the stupidity of the people I worked for. Part of the background looked at the history of Operational Research, artificial intelligence, general systems theory, genetics, fuzzy logic.
I worked most recently with the Human Variome project, which, building on the human genome project’s work, aims to facilitate understanding and treatment of genetically caused or influenced disease.
It is all utterly fascinating, models played a part but fundamentally I still don’t know the answer. Perhaps we cannot improve on Einstein’s masterful insight:
“Only two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity”
Peter Gardner February 22, 2017 at 4:48 am
“It is all utterly fascinating, models played a part but fundamentally I still don’t know the answer. Perhaps we cannot improve on Einstein’s masterful insight:
“Only two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity””
Peter, you have so improved such! Now we have the infinity of Peter Gardner’s trash, should he survive!!
Will,
“Peter, you have so improved such! Now we have the infinity of Peter Gardner’s trash, should he survive!!”
An you must be one of Einsteins stupidities.
Now that they have almost 3 decades of models to real temperatures, why don’t they work to find out what is wrong with their models? Or are they so proud they can’t admit their models are wrong. It’s reality that is wrong. I think the reality is they want to tax the air and carbon is measurable. Tax is just another form of slavery and tool of control.
Ryan
There are a number of things wrong with climate models, but a major one is overvaluing climate sensitivity. Addressing this attacks the CAGW core value that CO2 is the problem.
This is one of the wonderful things that happen when you claim science is settled, and it isn’t: fundamental disagreements with natural have to be excused by some other method than modifying the initial assumption.
“…fundamental disagreements with natural [observations?] have to be excused by some other method than modifying the initial assumption”
Like, for example, modifying the global temperature data.
Source: Tony Heller
https://realclimatescience.com/all-temperature-adjustments-monotonically-increase/
OR
Fabricating aerosol data “out of thin air”.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/12/20/study-from-marvel-and-schmidt-examination-of-earths-recent-history-key-to-predicting-global-temperatures/comment-page-1/#comment-2103527
Comments, based on a quick scan of Judith Curry’s 2017 report for GWPF:
A good state-of-the-art paper on models – it speaks to the mainstream debate between climate alarmists and skeptics, which is mostly about ECS.
The ECS estimates (really only guesses) are still too high, imo – my guess is 0.3C or less, if ECS exists at all in terms of significance. Since CO2 lags temperature at all measured time scales, we do not even know what primarily drives what, cart before horse, etc. – climate scientists have (mostly) “ignored” this conundrum since at least 2008, when I published my paper in icecap.us.
I would like to have read more about aerosols, and the fabrication of aerosol data to force models to hindcast the global cooling from ~1940-1975. See my 2006 conversations with Douglas Hoyt on climateaudit.org.
I think there is a tendency to overstate the complexity of the modeling problem. Here is why:
Bill Illis’s one-line model with only four (really only three) input parameters does a great job of bounding global temperature – to get a functioning climate model, we only need to better-predict its primary input, which is Nino3.4 temperatures. The next most important input parameter in Bill’s equation is “Aerosol Optical Depth volcano Index”, which only matters when truly huge volcanoes erupt, and then there is the AMO, which matters a little, and atmospheric CO2, which has insignificant impact.
Best, Allan
Reference to Illis model:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/01/23/december-2016-global-surface-landocean-and-lower-troposphere-temperature-anomaly-update-with-a-look-at-the-year-end-annual-results/comment-page-1/#comment-2404993
Bill’s graph is here – since 1958, not a whole lotta global warming goin’ on!
The GCM’s applied in in climate change predictions are based on equations derived from applying Newton’s second law to a parcel of air which is assumed not to mix with its surroundings. These equations are then assumed to apply to general atmospheric motions.
Such foolishness should have been flagged and rejected many years ago.
Douglas
If the so-called “academy” had integrity, it would have done so. It doesn’t, so it didn’t.
A couple of things. We get reports of astonishing things that have a bearing on the nature of climate change discovered by NASA and these are quietly swept under the rug and hardly mentioned again, even by sceptics. Secondly, we get thumb on the scales tampering with data and hiding of data, destruction of data, losing of data, and the like, all serving the CAGW theory. First though, a bit of climate psychology. If the science is driven by a nonscientific agenda and a lot of money changing hands if the sought after result is achieved, you can rest peacefully in your scientific beds by chopping the reported projections and trends in half. We may not know what these should be, but we can be sure that every artifice was employed by the Team to push the trend substantially to the high side. We know that there is nothing underestimated by IPCC elves in their workshops and we know observations have been running about half the projections. Remember, too, that the Hudson R. highway is still well above water and it was supposed to be gone in 2000 and also children in UK were not supposed to know what snow is…Wacky Wadhams ice disappearance…
Now that something is likely to be done about the egregious agenda driven attribution of human CO2 as the main reason for warming, I think we need a person or persons in science who have the stature to be able to advise the new administration of things to be looked at. Here’s a few:
a) What ever happened to the finding by NASA that the ice caps on Mars also shrunk during the 1990s in concert with Earth warming. What is happeniing now on Mars (and Earth).
b) NASA’s clear finding that the earth is greening significantly enough for it to be readily seen in imagery of the Sahel , Australia, Southwestern USA and other desert regions of the world as well as tree growth elsewhere. We better archive this before it has an accident.
c) Crop yields have grown dramatically in recent decades, partly from agtech factors and partly from increased CO2. Surely we can take old seeds and experiment with them to see what percentage of the new yields are from CO2.
4) Except for a couple of images from the CO2 mapping satellite, we are not hearing much or seeing any papers come out probably because they don’t like where the bulk of the major CO2 sources seem to be and they don’t like that it isn’t as well mixed as they would like.
5) Much of the sea ice data has deteriorated – satellites? Something should be done to get this stuff back on track. CAGW proponents don’t seem to be anxious to do this -it has been a disappointing metric for them.
6) Lamar Smith is getting back at the T. Karl affair, but I would like to see a thorough revisit to the use of algorithms for cooling old temps to steepen warming. Oh and where does the Shuklax Klan affair at Mason University stand these days – He got 6 million from the NSF and only published one paper on it and paid his wife and daughter for managing his enterprise. I haven’t heard of anything he’s done since the debacle where he was setting up a Nuremburg trial for several skeptical scientists.
“Secondly, we get thumb on the scales tampering with data and hiding of data, destruction of data, losing of data, and the like, all serving the CAGW theory.”
A bit of wisdom that has survived the test of time
“Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus is a Latin phrase meaning “false in one thing, false in everything.” At common law, it is the legal principle that a witness who testifies falsely about one matter is not credible to testify about any matter”.
To be 33C or not to be 33C
There is a popular fantasy that the earth is 33C warmer with an atmosphere than without due to the radiative greenhouse effect, RGHE.
Let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start – so I hear.
The 33C difference is between an alleged average surface temperature of 288K/15C and 255K/-18C, the alleged surface temperature without an atmosphere. Let’s take a closer look.
Per IPCC AR5 glossary the average land surface temperature is measured 1.5 meters above the ground, but 80% of the land doesn’t even have reliable weather instrumentation or data. The average sea surface temperature is a combination of buckets and thermometers, engine cooling intakes, buoys, satellites, etc. This “global” surface average temperature, one number to rule them all, must represent: both lit side and dark sides, both poles, oceans, desert, jungles and a wide range of both land and sea surfaces. The uncertainty band must be YUGE!
The 255K is a theoretical calculation using the S-B ideal BB temperature associated with the 240 W/m^2 radiative balance at the top of the – wait for it – atmosphere, i.e. 100 km.
So, the 33C difference is between a) an average surface temperature composed of hundreds of WAGs that must be +/- entire degrees and b) a theoretical temperature calculation 100 km away that cannot even be measured and c) all with an intact and fully functioning atmosphere.
The surface of the earth is warm because the atmosphere provides an insulating blanket, a thermal resistance, no different from the insulation in the ceiling and walls of a house with the temperature differential determined per the equation Q = U * A * dT, simple to verify and demonstrate.
A voltage difference is needed for current to flow through an electrical resistance.
A pressure difference is needed for fluid to flow through a physical resistance.
A temperature difference is needed for energy to flow, i.e. heat, through a thermal resistance.
RGHE upwelling/downwelling/”back” radiation is a fictional anti-thermodynamic non-explanation for the “33C without an atmosphere” phenomenon that doesn’t exist.
“Professor Curry said: “It’s not just the fact that climate simulations are tuned that is problematic. It may well be that it is impossible to make long-term predictions about the climate – it’s a chaotic system after all. If that’s the case, then we are probably trying to redesign the global economy for nothing”.”
I think this is a profound statement except I believe it IS impossible to make long term predictions about climate. Although I am not a computer modeler, I have spent a lot of time looking at much smaller models and except for FEA of mechanical systems where the physics is understood and not CHAOIC the CFD models have to be tuned to reality since the Physics and Chemistry cannot be accurately defined with equations for a chaotic system. Besides there are too many variables affecting climate besides “CO2.
The company I worked for watched the competition implement a new process technology adaptable to existing plants while our computer Modelers could not show the economic benefits of the technology and management insisted on using computer modeling. Finally a bunch of us engineers implemented the technology which included process reactions with catalyst and now at least 20 plus of the company plants have been modified successfully capturing the economic benefits. That technology is now the standard for the industry.
Why do we taxpayers pay for 100+ failed models? Would 4 not have been enough to prove their failure? What a waste of $$ and talent in addition to misleading politicians who have another agenda including hating fossil fuels and controlling our use of energy to the point of mandating “renewable” fuels which cannot cut the mustard and are very expensive and require expensive storage systems to compensate for their inadequacy.
“The company I worked for watched the competition implement a new process technology adaptable to existing plants while our computer Modelers could not show the economic benefits of the technology and management insisted on using computer modeling. Finally a bunch of us engineers implemented the technology which included process reactions with catalyst and now at least 20 plus of the company plants have been modified successfully capturing the economic benefits. That technology is now the standard for the industry.”
Key differences: you could build something real and introduce it quickly, thereby proving it works well enough for its purpose. Even if it performed slightly differently from forecast, it still worked well enough. You cannot do that with global climate, only with small parts of it. The IPCC has already stated the impossibility of predicting global climate or average climate accurately. In engineering you can make approximations in place of insoluble partial differential equations with a large number of independent variables and stipulate boundary conditions such that the approximation is good enough for the intended use of your device, which is acceptable in a business world where your device is expected to have a short life until replaced by something better. Engineering is very empirical.
It seems to me the AGW lunatics imagine that humans can engineer not just the world’s climate but the world’s entire economic activity in order to limit behaviour of the whole so as to maintain climate within narrow margins of some ideal they cannot even define.
Are there “Computer Predictions of Climate Alarm”? If so, I’d say they’ve been spot-on.