Guest essay by Charles G. Battig, M.D.
Some say that “God” might reside in a computer…the Deus ex Machina, literally means “god from the machine”. Amongst those individuals are those divining climate with climate computers in which are embedded general circulation models. This has generated a belief system…belief that all variables which drive global climate at all time scales have been identified, quantified as to individual contribution and interactions, and that chaotic variability is foreseeable. At the current state of scientific knowledge, such belief is intellectual hubris masquerading as achieved scientific endeavor.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology pioneering meteorologist and mathematician Professor Edward Lorenz doubted this ability in the 1960’s. The serendipitous discoverer of chaos theory postulated “is there such a thing as a climate?” Is there a definable “normal global climate” from which deviations might be termed abnormal? His 1965 paper includes “…if in addition the present state or the present and past states are not known with complete accuracy, any forecasting procedure will lead to poorer and poorer forecasts as the range of prediction increases, until ultimately only the periodic component can be predicted in the far distant future.” His statement is a description of what has become known as chaotic behavior. Such systems are characterized by the fact that tiny changes in initial conditions may result in wildly different final outcomes over a period of time. Climate behavior aptly fits the definition. Short term changes are known as weather, and weather prediction accuracy has improved out to a week or so over the decades.
Now Judith Curry has had the courage to note the absence of clothes on the climate-computer emperor. Professor Curry, the author of over 180 scientific papers on weather and climate, recently retired from the Georgia Institute of Technology where she held the position of Professor and Chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. She has authored (via the GWPF who reformatted it) “Climate Models for the Layman” in which the fundamental problems inherent in computer modeling are laid bare. These problems are serious enough to cast doubt on the ability to construct such a climate forecasting system. Current climate model predictions diverge from historic reality when viewed over decadal time-scales. Yet these fallible predictions, otherwise known as scenarios, are used by politicians, environmental advocacy groups, and energy firms to set public policy and future energy plans.
Professor Curry:
“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.”
However, there have been those amongst the “we” who have learned to profit mightily from trying to “redesign the global economy.” Billions of dollars have been spent by governments to control energy production and use in their attempt to control the climate. Billions of taxpayer money have been directed to the promoters of numerous such schemes. Controlling energy means controlling all aspects of modern life, including personal freedom. Man-made dangerous climate change is a prime example of “false bad news”, a term coined by economist Julian Simon to define the use of false news scare tactics in the media in his treatise “Hoodwinking the Nation.”
Kudos to Professor Curry for exposing this false god.
Charles G. Battig, M.S., M.D., Heartland Institute policy expert on environment; VA-Scientists and Engineers for Energy and Environment (VA-SEEE). His website is Climate Reality
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What a load of disinformation. Exxon earns over $475 million dollars per day AND they earn hefty government subsidies. Don’t talk to the public about where tax dollars are going when those dollars go straight into the pockets of the wealthy elite.
America is the richest country in the world yet has the worst health care system, most expensive drug prices and the biggest military budget ever and you want to disregard climate change based on some belief that it is a tax scam?
Shame on you and your toxic spam.
[you should come here and try it, rather than writing slams from the comfort and safety of France -mod]
Would the US be better off with 0 Exxon’s or 1000 Exxon’s? How about if the world economy had 0 Exxon’s or 1 million Exxon’s?
For my part I believe most of us would be much better of if the world economy had 1 million companies the size of Exxon. The wealth created is what is required if we for example want to colonize our solar system. Right now no one has enough money to make it happen in a big way.
Fusion Rockets would solve the money problem.
Moronic post.
Just wait till Marine Le Pen wins the Presidential election and the EUSSR collapses.
What do you think will happen then?
Mark. While some cities (Grenoble, Paris, Lyon, Strasbourg etc) cool air about 0.01 °C by whipping the taxpaying carbon based lifeforms with anything from tax increases to commuting obstructions during Holland’s term: how has French healthcare and military evolved? It’s not like the former would be dispatching preventive cancer treatment patients directly to the cemetery? Or the latter mobilised on the streets heavily armed. Right?
mark, so you think depreciation and expense are tax subsidies and skip over the taxes Exxon pays. Exxon earns a profit annualized that is about ten times less than your claim, by the way. That is called “deception” or “lying”. Unless you are so ignorant as to think gross revenue equals earnings? And America’s health system is the worst you claim. Yes Obamacare has made things worse, but you have no evidence our health system is the worst. Because it isn’t. So you lied twice. Climate hype depends on liars like you to imbed untruth and ignorance in the public square. You are the toxic spewing twit.
How can you argue otherwise – (super) computers are the new God(s)
They are untouchable, they are always correct, they are tended by a select few in what you can only call Temples.
They dispense rules that us mortals must live and also guilt, in equal measures.
We already have (anywhere with a monarchy) representatives of God down here on Earth – it says so on every UK coin you look at. They all have the letters FD – Defender of the Faith.
King Knut worked that out, set yourself as Christian king (God’s earthly representative) so that if you upset the king, you upset God and hence, you pay the price. (No Heaven for you bonny lad)
So, what have we now, Prince Chuckles here in the UK has swallowed the climate guff, hook, line and sinker.
What other evidence if not the CO2 data from Hawaii, immutable words of great precision that we must all live by, coming down off a mountain – a mountain of fire and brimstone no less!
There was a ‘great’ civilisation somewhere very dry, a desert basically. somewhere in the Middle East I think – possibly The Himyar.
Their bureaucracy built, in their capital city, an epic water feature. This was to show how rich and powerful they were and hence could effectively squander a rare and valuable resource (water) – just because they could.
The Himyar civilisation did not last very long after its construction (I wonder why – Brexit anyone?)
Are these new supercomputers our equivalent to the Himyar, in a desert, building water fountains, pools and constant splashing water?
I watch a video lecture by Pat Frank and a related paper where he applied to climate model projections the point that Edward Lorenz made about the propagation of errors. He argues that errors are not only propagated but amplified.
Worth looking for again.
Error can be considered noise of the form 1/f^n, where n=0,1,2…
n=0 is random noise, the coin toss. It converges to give us the law of large numbers. It is the 2 body problem, a planet orbiting a single attractor, with a mean and deviation. We have mathematical solutions to these problems.
N=1,2…n gives us pink and brown noise. The noise does not converge. It is the 3,4..n body problem. There is no meaningful average, only a local average, depending on which bodies you are currently orbiting. These types of systems are beyond our capability to solve mathematically from first principles.
Judging by where the demands of climate scientist and activists alike seem to converge, the “god” at work here is the spirit of hive-mind socialism. Every solution that we must urgently impose on society involves higher taxes, bigger government, less freedom, less prosperity, less free speech and fewer human comforts. But to what end?
This is not a mystery. Consider the following quote:
“The more we come to know about the gnosis of antiquity, the more it becomes certain that modern movements of thought, such as progressivism, positivism, Hegelianism, and Marxism, are variants of Gnosticism.”
— Eric Voegelin, Science Politics and Gnosticism, Two Essays, 1968.
“This has generated a belief system…belief that all variables which drive global climate at all time scales have been identified, quantified as to individual contribution and interactions, and that chaotic variability is foreseeable. At the current state of scientific knowledge, such belief is intellectual hubris masquerading as achieved scientific endeavor.”
Nobody believes this. In fact we know the opposite to be true.
Strawman is not a good way to start an argument.
Just saying
Starting in 1896 scientists have developed models, mathematical abstractions, in order to understand and predict the earths climate.
Without exception those models have improved over time and will continue to improve. They will never be perfect; they will always be wrong. wrong in small areas, wrong over small periods of time, but increasingly less wrong.
They will, without exception, be scientifically superior to A) claims we cant know. B) claims it will never be known. C) claims that fail to represent the Green house effect.
The question is this: CAN models, however flawed, INFORM policy. You have, for example, historical data about sea level rise.. To this you can apply a statistical MODEL. The statistical model says that over the next hundred years you can expect sea level to rise 1 foot. The statistical model knows only about prior data.
It assumes the future will be like the past.. the rate of rise will continue. You also have a Physics model. Its incomplete. And it tends to be biased high . It predicts a 3 foot rise.
You are building a road by the ocean.
Do you.
A) Plan for the road to last?
B) Build it such that it is only 6 inches above current sea level and ignore the past?
C) Accept the statistical model as certain and build it at 1 foot above sea level?
D) Add an arbitrary safety factor to the statistical model?
E) Trust the Physics model and be on the safe side since it is biased high?
F) Listen to what random bloggers say?
G) Bias adjust the physics model
You cant avoid decision unless you decide that you are not building roads to last.
Who decides what information, what models, will inform the decision?
Who decides what weight to give each piece of information.?
So where do you build the road? at 6 inches above Sea level? 1 foot? 2 feet? 3 feet?
6 feet?
Suppose you are building a sea wall in Japan? how high?
Suppose you are building a dam and have to decide how to build an emergency spillway?
Steven
I realise that the ‘road’ is an analogy to demonstrate your point, but….
The rise in SLR of either 1 or 3 feet is projected/predicted over the next 100 years. There are two standards of road building – standard A has a design life of 30 years, Standard B for 100 years but costs three times as much.
So to build the road one foot above current to A will cost 1 unit of resource. To build it to B to a height of 3 feet will cost 9 units.
We only have i unit of funding available. More will require increasing taxation, either directly or to fund borrowing.
Since both projections/predictions could be found 30 years from now to be inaccurate, why would you commit the 9 units now?
Mosh @ur momisugly 11:20 – “The question is this: CAN models, however flawed, INFORM policy.”
The answer is simple. Yes, they CAN inform policy and all too often are used for that very purpose. But, as comedian Chris Rock once said in one of his HBO specials, “You CAN drive a car with your feet if you want to. That don’t make it a good f#*%ing idea!” Using flawed models to try to inform policy is like basing a marriage on a lie; Like deciding whether or not you need to wear a winter coat based on whether it is sunny or cloudy and disregarding the thermometer; Like building a house on a flood plain because it hasn’t flooded for a few years so you expect it will never flood again. Or like building a road “to last” when you know the sea will soon permanently flood it no matter whether you go with historical trend or unproven theoretical model that is flawed. It’s a bad idea no matter how you slice it. Your analogy is not even apples to oranges. It’s more like apples to pixie dust.
What decision would you make in this scenario: You go to the doctor for a routine check up and he says he’s concerned about your blood pressure, although it has never been high and is not high now. But, he says that things might be different soon because you are getting older and you might decide to start smoking or change your diet and exercise routine in the near future. He wants to prescribe a drug that is extremely expensive and known to have severe side effects, but will keep your blood pressure from getting higher than it is. His recommendation is based on his model (that tends to run high) of how your blood pressure MIGHT be, however flawed that model is, rather than your “statistical model” based on your health history. Additionally, you know your doctor will receive vacations and other various gifts/incentives if he convinces you that you need this medicine to prevent the rise in blood pressure. He assures you this increase will happen sometime in the future and he’s the expert, so you need to trust him. Would you take the medication without question and be happy that you averted disaster while you suffer from the side effects that keep you constantly miserable and broke? Do you seek a second opinion somewhere else, or just dismiss him as a quack and find a new doctor who?
Note: I understand it might not be a perfect analogy, but I believe it is a lot closer than yours.
Steve, the answer of course is to let the present road fail by neglect, spend the money on something foolish like a train no one will ride or even better on windmills, and when the road fails blame it on climate change.
Steven Mosher, your assertion that climate models are improving does not seem to be supported by evidence. In fact it seems Dr. Curry and many other qualified observers are right on target and that it is fair to point out that despite many billions of dollars and many man years of work and huge computer time the models are not significantly better at all.
*slow claps* Excellent post! Always thought of it like this, and glad to see lots of my thoughts on it (and more) are written down and expanded upon. People think we can do anything, when they don’t realize the limitations of computers, at least currently. Who knows if we could do better with Quantum Computers, though I’d think it wouldn’t make much difference because of our ability to measure things to so many decimals for initial conditions.
Dr Battig,
Deum de dolo.
To remain consistent with the latin popular phase “Deus ex machina”
Deum de dolo means God from a deception.
or
Deum ex machina mendacii. God from a deceptive machine.