Here are a few random quotes and thoughts about the paper called An observation-based scaling model for climate sensitivity estimates and global projections to 2100. This was the first statement that caught my eye:
We estimate the model and forcing parameters by Bayesian inference which allows us to analytically calculate the transient climate response and the equilibrium climate sensitivity as: 1.7+0.3−0.2 K and 2.4+1.3−0.6 K respectively (likely range).
I always get nervous when someone says that they are using “Bayesian inference”. The problem is not with the Bayesian theory, which is correct. It basically says that the probability of something happening depends in part on what went before, called the “Bayesian Priors”. And clearly, in many situations this is true.
The problem is in the choice of the priors. This depends on human judgement, plus some pre-existing theory as to what is going on … I’m sure you can see the problems with that. First, human judgment is … well … let me call it “not universally correct” and leave it at that. And next … just what pre-existing theory of climate are we supposed to use when we are investigating the theory of climate?
Then came this statement.
The ecological consequences of global warming could be dire; therefore, better constraining climate sensitivity is of utmost importance in order to meet the urgency of adjusting economical and environmental policies.
This one makes the sweat break out on my forehead, because it is one of the fundamental building blocks of a whole host of theories … but it is rarely supported by even the flimsiest of evidence. It is just stated as undeniable truth, as in this paper. They do not make even the slightest attempt to justify it.
Every realistic description that I’ve read about the gradual warming over the last three centuries or so contains some verifiable facts:
- Things are warmer now than during the Little Ice Age.
- In general that increased warmth has been a benefit for man, beasts, and plants alike.
- There have been no “climate catastrophes” from that warming.
Couple that with the following data …
… and it becomes very difficult to believe that “the ecological consequences of global warming could be dire”.
Confronted with these facts, the fallback position of the alarmists is usually “But mah sea level! Mah sea level is gonna drown everyone” … however, as I’ve shown over and over, even the longest sea level records don’t show any acceleration due to the warming.
So we are starting out from way behind, crippled by false assumptions. And these false assumptions, these “Bayesian priors” are driven by the initial mistake made by the IPCC, what I’ve termed the “Picasso Problem”. Picasso said
“What good are computers? They can only give you answers …
At first I didn’t either understand this or believe it. I mean, I’m a computer guy, why is a painter questioning my computer use? … but eventually I saw that looking for the right answers is not what we should be doing. What we should be focusing on instead is looking for the right questions. As the old saying goes, “Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer.”
And tragically, the IPCC at its inception was asked the wrong question. When IPCC was first set up, it was tasked to answer the question:
“What level of CO2 is dangerous to humanity??”
In fact, they should have been tasked to answer the question:
“Is increasing CO2 a danger to humanity?”
And obviously, the current paper suffers from the same problem—it is answering the wrong question … and not only that, it is answering the question with computers …
For the next issue, let me preface it with a few definitions from the paper:
Emergent properties of the Earth’s climate, i.e. properties which are not specified a priori, are then inferred from GCM simulations. The equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) is such a property; it refers to the expected temperature change after an infinitely long time following a doubling in carbon dioxide (CO2) atmospheric concentration. Another is the transient climate response (TCR), which is defined as the change in temperature after a gradual doubling of CO2 atmospheric concentration over 70 years at a rate of 1% per year.
With those definitions, they go on:
Since the United States National Academy of Sciences report (Charney et al. 1979), the likely range for the ECS has not changed and remains [1.5,4.5] 𝐾.
The problem with this is that they say it as though it was a good thing … when in fact it is a clear indication that they are operating on false assumptions. In fact, as they are clearly unwilling to admit, the likely range has increased, not stayed the same. You can see this issue below:
And this increase in the range of the equilibrium climate sensitivity should be a huge danger signal. I mean, in what other field of science has there not only been no advance in forty years on a central question, but in fact the uncertainty has increased? I know of no scientific field other than climate science in which this is true.
They continue:
Future anthropogenic forcing is prescribed in four scenarios, the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs), established by the IPCC for CMIP5 simulations : RCP 2.6, RCP 4.5, RCP 6.0 and RCP 8.5 (Meinshausen et al. 2011). They are named according to the total radiative forcing in Wm−2 expected in the year 2100 and are motivated by complex economic projections, expected technological developments, and political decisions.
There are a couple of problems with this. First, these assumptions of future forcings form another part of the Bayesian priors discussed above. And given that these priors are based on “complex economic projections, expected technological developments, and political decisions“, they are infinitely adjustable to match the desires and theories of the investigators.
A more fundamental problem, however, is the relationship between the forcings and the response of the models. As Kiehl pointed out over a decade ago in “Twentieth Century Climate Model Response and Climate Sensitivity”:
It is found that the total anthropogenic forcing for a wide range of climate models differs by a factor of two and that the total forcing is inversely correlated to climate sensitivity. Much of the uncertainty in total anthropogenic forcing derives from a threefold range of uncertainty in the aerosol forcing used in the simulations.
This is a crucial paper which has been conspicuously ignored by scientists in the field. It says that if you assume larger forcings, the model shows a smaller climate sensitivity, and vice versa. Not only that, but as I showed in Life Is Like A Black Box Of Chocolates, the relationship between the forcings and the model output is both linear and ridiculously simple, viz:
The outputs of the climate models are very well emulated by a simple lagged and scaled version of the inputs.
Here is an example of my analysis showing how well the model output can be emulated by that absurdly simple formula:
This formula has only three tuned parameters—lambda (the scaling factor), tau (the lag factor), and a volcanic adjustment. (Curiously, the current paper agrees that there needs to be a volcanic adjustment, saying “the instantaneous temperature response [to the eruptions] is weaker than expected using linear response theory.”)
This shows that with all of their complexity, the outcome of the climate models can be almost perfectly emulated by a simple formula. And another implication is that the calculations of equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) and transient climate response (TCR) from the outputs of these models are completely meaningless … as supported by the fact that there has been no progress made in refining the estimates of ECS and TCR over the last forty years.
In continuing to read, I finally lost both the plot and all further interest in the paper when they said (emphasis mine):
In order to make progress, Hasselmann et al. (1997) proposed a response function consisting of a sum of N exponentials – effectively an N box model (although without using differential equations: the boxes were only implicit). Nevertheless, they ultimately chose 𝑁=3 out of practical necessity—so as to fit GCM outputs.
To translate that, they are defining reality on the basis of whether or not their description of reality matches the output of computer models … and at that point, I quit reading.
Seriously, I could go no further. Any study claiming that a description of reality is only worthwhile if it matches the output of absurdly simplistic climate models is not worth my time to investigate.
Best holiday regards to all on this day after Christmas,
w.
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I think you, and everyone else, Willis, are right to stay away from the New Reality. This New Reality seems to be centered on feelings instead of measuring or studying something. Like: “White Silence is Violence”, which requires redefinitions and large-left-lateral-leaps-of-logic.
[this is just too far afield, even for myself~ctm]
To ctm: You carry the responsibility, I don’t. Thanks. Merry Christmas.
Nice article Willis.
Bayes has become quite popular over the last few years. Often used by people who haven’t really grasped the concept.
The main problem does not lie in the priors. They can be any guess you want before seeing the data. (naive Bayes). The data then updates the priors. Unless you are a climate modeller of course. Then you just ignore the data.
I think a climate modeller would ignore the data and the model.
No, then you homogenise and adjust the data.
“They can be any guess you want before seeing the data. (naive Bayes). “.
No, a guess does not maximize the entropy of the naive subjective prior and may require strong evidence to escape the error and particularly the lie.
E. T. Jaynes Probability Theory: The Logic of Science (Cambridge, 2003) Chapter 12 Ignorance priors and transformation groups p.372 and follows.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_maximum_entropy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MaxEnt_school
I can’t find the text you are quoting.
try searching for the word assumptions.
Did so. 6 hits. The quote not found.
The text is in the original paper that Willis provides the link to.
This is just another “model” with all the inherent “climate scienceᴸᴼᴸ” fudge factors.
It is one model, and has a range less than the whole Chimp5 ensemble
Whoopy-doo !!
Why should a computer game that makes wrong climate predictions be called a “climate model”?
The effect of CO2 on the global average temperature is unknown, so ECS and TCS numbers are just opinions.
Having a computer programmed BY PEOPLE does not change a computer game into a real climate model. Even if the people have Ph.D. degrees.
The computer games merely predict whatever the owners want predicted — their personal opinions converted into complex math.
There is no evidence in measurements since 1979 that the TCS is over +1 degrees C. per CO2 doubling, and it could be zero, since no one knows what happens outside of closed system lab experiments with CO2.
Assumptions about CO2 are not facts.
The temperature numbers before 1979 are far from global coverage, and have been “adjusted” far too many times — not to mention all the wild guess infilling — not worthy of real science.
We know the global average temperature is higher than in 1979, but that temperature has been generally rising for 20,000 years.
So we know global warming happens without any influence from man made CO2.
In fact, we have 4.5 billion years of climate change from natural causes.
So it is impossible to claim that, since the 1970s, natural causes of climate change no longer matter, and man made CO2 is now the “climate controller”.
Another bizarre assumption is that the climate was “prefect” in about 1750, and any changes from that point are an “existential crisis.”
People living in the period from 1650 to 1750 thought their climate was too cold, but what could they possibly know about the climate they lived in?
The only models I like are tall and slim, on runways.
Those are real models.
”There is no evidence in measurements since 1979 that the TCS is over +1 degrees C. per CO2 doubling, and it could be zero.”
Correct. There is more evidence giving validity to the +1C being caused caused by other factors.
“I would rather have questions that can’t be answered than answers that can’t be questioned.”
Richard Feynman
Speaking of such prohibited answers – none dare question the RGHE.
I am working on version 5.0 in a series of experiments that demonstrate:
1) radiation does not function separately from non-radiative heat transfer processes,
2) which means the surface of the earth cannot radiate as near BB creating “extra” energy for the GHGs to “warm” the terrestrial surface.
3) No RGHE, no GHG warming, no CAGW.
“It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong.”
Richard Feynman
Newton’s flaming laser sword: “If something cannot be settled by experiment or observation, then it is not worthy of debate.” This is why the alarmist left won’t debate climate – they can’t possibly win the debate.
There you go again with this rationality stuff Willis.
Man it’s almost 2021!
“Science” has now had ‘progressive’ principles for a decade or so at least.
So just check that old-school ‘scientific method’ privilege stuff, boyo, if you want to get published in “THE literature” ever again.
Willis, I think the problem is worse than asking the wrong question. The problem is that politicians should not be commissioning “science” to prove that they need more control over the populace. Science is supposed to advance human knowledge, not bolster political power.
“Science” is replacing religion in that respect.
It has always been that way around, ever since most of the money came from politicians.
Eisenhower warned us. Right below where he warned us about the military-industrial complex.
Really glad you took this one on, Willis.
Reading through I had to stop at this way-station: “<em>(Charney et al. 1979), the likely range for the ECS </em>
The Charney ECS and every ECS since then, depends upon the assumption of ceteris paribus. Nothing changes except the increase in CO2 and its forcing.
Under that assumption an increase in air temperature is locked in.
Your image of a snake biting its tail is a perfectly appropriate visual analogy for the entire global warming enterprise. The logic is self-recursive and the results of it are physically meaningless.
“ceteris paribus”
The ultimate root of disagreement. As silly as using it In economics.
Quote:
“”The ecological consequences of global warming could be dire; therefore, better constraining climate sensitivity is of utmost importance in order to meet the urgency of adjusting economical and environmental policies””
Therein is The Killer
1) It is a statement of Magical Thinking – repeat it over and over and over and bingo!
It becomes true
2) They actually admit to knowing Diddly Squat by including the Weasel Word ‘could’.
The Emperor could be wearing silk knickers today or he could be Going Commando.
And if you wanna argue that (=what Contrarians do) it is you who is The Stupid One
3) It’s grammatical garbage anyway.
3a) Do they mean constraining estimates of climate sensitivity?
3b) Do they mean adjusting climate itself so as to constrain its sensitivity?
Wow, the hubris.
They don’t even know and cannot explain their own subject
But they care.
But Shirley, don’t we all? Seriously. ##
Seemingly not, hence why they need to say what they do.
So we see a nice positive feedback loop, repeat repeat over and over and over again getting more strident with shorter timescales every time
With luck we can see how this positive loop will end – the predicted disasters will have to have happened yesterday if The Science follows its own trend line
Bang or Whimper?
## But is ‘caring‘ the same as ‘worrying‘
Is that the problem with this thing?
w.
“This shows that with all of their complexity, the outcome of the climate models can be almost perfectly emulated by a simple formula”
I don’t think the formula even needs to be as complicated as the one you developed. If you do a trend line on the temperature you can get pretty close with just a simple y – mx+b linear equation. It’s the same for the CGM’s once you get more than 10 years out. They all basically turn in to y = mx+b linear projections. And no one in the climate science elite ever seem to question this.
Dr. Pat Frank pointed this out some months ago and in addition calculated the uncertainty in iterative processing of GCMs. Not only is the output emulated by a simple linear equation, the uncertainty is so large as to make the models worthless.
You can analyze a pigs ear many different ways, but guess what, it is still a pigs ear. GIGO!
When a paper ceases being objective science and starts to become a lobbyist/activity, such as the second quote above from the paper, you should throw the paper away. (This is certainly not the only field in which this occurs, a recent widely-mentioned covid-19 paper did exactly the same.)
Science is objective and apolitical. If journals had any integrity and any real interest in science they’d endorse this position by rejecting any submissions that didn’t conform. And don’t get me started on scientific academies and other bodies!
Climate Dynamics provides for the publication of high-quality research on all aspects of the dynamics of the global climate system.
Their average submission to acceptance period looks like about 218 days.
This paper took 1,253 days (May 2017 to Nov 2020).
Is that an outlier … almost out of date?
You got to wonder about shaky hands with reviewer sign-offs?
Maybe no one is really sure this is important aspect of the science?
We need new measures of “concensus” to instill any trust in publication credibility.
Defining reality as what matches computer modeling reminds me of how the devil tried to get a religious scholar to commit heresy by accepting his model of reality. The religious scholar replied : “Let’s assume that … there is no God. Then His nonbeing is divine. Only … the Cause of all Causes could have the power not to exist.” (Quote: I.B.Singer’s “Zeudlus the Pope”)
Happy Christmas to you too!
The application of a Bayesian prior to climate simulation was presumably shown to be invalid by Ed Lorenz in his “Deterministic Non-periodic flow” 1963 paper.
Or to use the language of the stock market, “past performance in no predictor of future performance”.
…but it never was about climate. Money and control that’s all it is. The sooner we can wake people up to this fact the sooner we can get on with important things in the world.
Willis, since your simple model matches the outputs of the GCMs does that mean it exhibits a TCR and ECR too? Same of different?
Maaybe I don’t read very well but I read it as those two factors are irrelevant to the outcome.
What Andy said …
w.
Great writeup, Willis. And lo, God created “academics” … in order to forever have someone to confuse modeling with reality. Reminds me of my grad school days:
in our first-year doctorate program we reviewed a slew of economic developments in theory, one of which was the “Kydland-Prescott Filter” – a relatively recent (it was the early 90’s) development in macroeconometrics. Take a slew of determinants (aggregate investment, money supply, interest rate, whatever) and some linear algebra, and “fit the curve” of GDP by backwards optimization. In our study group, we dutifully re-constructed their original work and even got “extra credit” for recreating all the computation.
Which did nothing for yours truly during class discussion, when I decided to raise my hand and point out to our professor (a nice gent, British) that I “still didn’t see” the ability to fit a curve as anything so special in terms of understanding, or predictive ability. He expressed his shock that I didn’t “get it” … to which I (rather unwisely) replied – “It’s not that I don’t get it, I think … it’s just that you could take an orthogonal polynomial of sufficient degree and get the same or better fit … but still have no real understanding WHY.”
Seems to me to be the same … what … myopia (or even navel-gazing) going on here. Such a shame. Kydland and Prescott, btw, were awarded the Nobel Prize in 2004. Bully for them, I say … but if you’ve ever wondered what the hell is wrong with Economics (macro, eh … micro is fine), I’d say it’s the same damn thing that’s wrong with Climatology. Argh.
One thing I learned in forecasting equipment and budgets for the phone company was that if you DID NOT KNOW why something was changing, trending was almost worthless. When you begin to walk into the future there is simply too many variables you don’t know about to make credible projections. The further out you go, the less probable your projections will become reliable.
Hi Willis,
I think there actually has been some progress in narrowing the range of plausible sensitivity. Papers by Lewis, Lewis and Curry, and others on observationally estimated sensitivity pretty consistently fall near the low end of the Charney range (1.5 to 4.5). This is (of course) mainly ignored by most in the field, but AR5 did not even present a likely range due to “conflicting” estimates from different techniques. Which is not to say activist ‘climate scientists’ will pay any attention to the lower observational estimates, but clearly at least some people involved in writing AR5 recognized the crazy models are in clear conflict with observations. The current implementations of the models are even further away from observations….. the models only get stranger and stranger.
The political and economic hucksters relying on paid CliSci practitioners are flogging their flunkies to hype the hysteria more and more. The super-hot UN IPCC CMIP6 models for AR6 are just the tip of the “it’s worse than we thought” ice berg (the Russian model will raise eyebrows, though). Smart people see that the CAGW era is coming to an end and they need to get their money out before the fall. The fall will come when the tax bill becomes apparent to the average Joe and Jane.
Germany is on the forefront of the curve, where costs are now apparent and people are associating it with government policy. “Energy poverty” is being openly discussed in German media. Opposition German political parties will smell the blood in the water and take some big bites of the current rulers.
AfD is the party on ascendance in Germany. AfD’s principle climate change stance is skepticism on AGW and no more wind power. It will sweep to power if they maintain that stance as average Germans freeze this winter too scared to turn on their heat for the heating bill to explode their fiances.
The great thing about Leftists: They always push it too far!
Exploding fiancés? It would be less messy if they just broke off the engagement, I think.
Dear Mr. Fair,
Unfortunately a large part of the opposition in Germany are the Greens and the successor of the former East-German Communist Party (SED, now they call themselves as “Linke”). Both of these parties are very strongly for the climate- and CO2-hysteria, especially the Greens. Anyway, the roots of the Greens are also communist (their initial base and the most prominent leaders are the communists from the earlier West-Germany). Angela Merkel has shifted the originally conservative CDU from the middle of the political spectrum into a mid-left position, and she is also an advocate of the climate- and CO2-hysteria. Pls, take into account the sad fact, the Germany is eventually a half-colony of the US, and the climate- and CO2-hysteria has been promoted in Germany mainly as an initiative from the US (Obama administration trying to use climate- and CO2-hysteria to promote globalism to ensure the world leading function of the US). Now the CDU is strongly splitted: A part of the party would like to go in bed with the communist Greens (the “progressives”), and another part (“conservatives” and “bürgerliche”) would like to push back the CDU in the middle of the political spectrum. This plattform within the CDU called Werteunion, and they are against climate- and CO2-hysteria. Note, that the left turn of the CDU has started after the eavesdropping of the mobile phone of Angela Merkel by certain US authorities during the Obama era.
What is being done to Germany, with active accomplices, is the Morgenthau Plan of WWII yore, in full swing.
Note the SPD and CDU already signed the nuclear phaseout 5 months before Fukushima. It was not the Greens who followed Dr. Schellnhuber’s Great Transformation (Merkel’s science advisor, since fired for his open eugenics.)
Now Davos will announce the Great Reset at the Jan’21 conference.
Dr. Schellnhuber was dubbed CBE by the Queen personally in 2004, hardly a “communist”.
Note BoJo’s unbelievable green subversion – same wine in an ale cask.
Dear bonbon,
I live in Germany, and I know the political program of the Greens, too. It is very close to the political program of the AOC/Harris-led wing of the dems. The SPD has lost at least half of her voters, and now the SPD is in a hard competition with the Greens, which of them would become more left-wing. To the Greens in Germany: The original CDU-SPD proposal for CO2-tax was 10 €/tonne, the Greens wanted 40 €/tonne. At the end of the day the SPD and Greens enforced the CDU to accept 25 €/tonne als initial price, which could be increased practically without limit in the future. As to the nuclear phaseout: The nuclear phaseout was decided by the SPD-Green government in 2000. In 2010 the CDU/CSU-FDP goverment shifted the nuclear phaseout by 14 years for the most nuclear power plants in Germany (these nuclear power plants could remain operational 14 years longer as decided by the SPD-Green government in 2000). We should remain, please, at the facts.
Hari, I like a good conspiracy theory as much as the next guy, but I was getting at what Dr. Roger Pielke, Jr. calls the “Iron Law of Politics:” Regular people will not vote for a person or political party that promises to lower or limit the growth of their standard of living. Transitory political passions, such as the now-popular GND (socialism with lipstick), fall in the face of economic reality. It can happen slowly or quickly, but reality always intrudes on the politician’s pet theory of the path to election victory.
But, with more-or-less the WHOLE MSM on the Left side, will ‘the People’ find out about what the politicians actually MEAN before it gets to a vote?
Poland, who just ordered 2 US nuclear reactors, with the usual CO2 false justification, sent an open letter to the German Embassy in Warsaw to halt the nuclear phaseout :
https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Polish-group-calls-on-Germany-to-reverse-nuclear-p
Any discussion that does not dismiss RCP 8.5 as implausible doesn’t deserve further consideration.
This is one of your best articles. Easy to follow your argument and easy to see the folly of climate “science”.
I can think of one other field where no progress has been made in either understanding the mechanism(s) involved or the predictive powers: Astrology. I think Astrology and Climate Science are on equal scientific footing (which is none whatsoever).
“… there has been no progress made in refining the estimates of ECS and TCR over the last forty years.”
Even controlled thermonuclear fusion has seen SOME progress in the last 40 years!
The main advances of fusion have been to learn what deosnt work. They’ve learned that laser implosion of a fuel pellet is impractical and that Tokamaks, running with a vaccum inside, surrounded by liquid helium cooled superconducting magents and with copious amounts of hard neutron radiation pouring out thru the container walls that generates high temps that must be carried away to do work on a steam cycle, they are thus ungodly expensive to build.
I see that the Japanese have managed to keep fusion going for 20 seconds …
w.
Korea. Pulsed power, after all, runs the usual combustion motors….
Joel
Knowing what doesn’t work can be very valuable. Consider all the materials that Edison tried as filaments for a light bulb before he found something that actually worked. Looking at commonalities for the things that don’t work can provide insight on what might work.
They know more about what they don’t know in fusion.
The problem with climate Scientology is they don’t seem interested to even know what they don’t know, since it would affect their funding
“We estimate … by … inference … to analytically calculate …”
Seriously, people write crap like that in Scientific publications?
And they derive error bars from their inferred estimates?
Might as well read ‘We make a wild ass guess based on our hunches, and presto, we fool you into thinking this is an analytical calculation.’
There are so many climate superstions taken for granted now by mainstream CliSci it is hard to keep track of them all. It is junk science all the way down in all 3 legs of the climate scam, the paleo-reconstructions, the instrumental records, and the climate models (past, present, and future).
The 1.5ºC limit for warming, a completely arbitrary number pulled out of the IPCC’s nether-regions, is one such belief that exists at the superstition level in CliSci.
The belief that climate models “prove” anthro CO2 attribution to past climate warming, when that is what the climate models were written to do. That’s like claiming a Hollywood CGI animation for Superhuman movie proves that putting Kryptonite near Superman removes his superpowers. It all exists completely within a simulation written to show that.
CliSci went for the 1.5C limit when the IPCC AR5 actual historic data forced them to arbitrarily reduce mid-term warming predictions of the CMIP5 models (without lowering long-range calculations). They were afraid they could not show that the world would ever reach the magic 2C limit (also pulled out of their nether-regions).
Willis, I can think of another discipline that has not advanced in 40 years – the area of astronomy that deals with the orbits of stars around the center of the galaxy. Reality appears to not follow Kepler’s Law by a factor of five. They have proposed dark matter to explain the difference but have got no further. I personally agree with the idea that something is causing the increase orbital velocities, and not that the law of gravitation is wrong. However, there is no observational data to support my faith. The observations tell us that gravity does not work at galactic scales like it works at local scales. Kepler’s Law accurately describes the motion of our planets around the sun, but not our sun around the center of mass of the galaxy.
Kepler applies to systems with 90% mass at center, not 99% mass spread about the disk.
Kepler does apply close to the supermassive object at SgrA* with ~25 stellar orbits now measured.
The computer has given us The Answer. The hard part is working out what The Question actually is.