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Comments 50451 to 50500:

  1. The Ridley Riddle Part One: The Red Queen
    Markx, if you are more interested in the politics than the science, then perhaps you can make a positive contribution on this thread GHG reductions - a challenge for the right? One of the worrying sources of "skepticism" is a knee-jerk antipathy from people who find proposed solutions at odds with their political beliefs. This leads to hunting down disinformation to feed their skepticism instead of an honest search for the truth.
  2. Matt Ridley Risk Management Failure Deja Vu
    Victor@18 Actually, I read your blog post several days ago. Like you, I had seen the post on WUWT, then I did a google search on NVAP-M which led me to your blog. After I read your post, I went back and read the Colorado State paper. Nice catch on how WUWT (as well as Matt Ridley) distorted the conclusion in the report by quoting a single sentence out of context.
  3. The Ridley Riddle Part One: The Red Queen
    (-Moderation complaints snipped-)
    Moderator Response: [Sph] Posting on SkS is a privilege, not a right. This site exists first and foremost to present the science and to debunk misunderstandings and misrepresentations of the science. Discussion of the science is welcomed. This site does not exist to allow fake skeptics to create the impression of a false debate, fair or unfair.

    Please note that posting comments here at SkS is a privilege, not a right. This privilege can and will be rescinded if the posting individual continues to treat adherence to the Comments Policy as optional, rather than the mandatory condition of participating in this online forum.

    Moderating this site is a tiresome chore, particularly when commentators intentionally submit offensive comments. We really appreciate people's cooperation in abiding by the Comments Policy, which is largely responsible for the quality of this site.

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  4. Matt Ridley Risk Management Failure Deja Vu
    BBD and Neven, Fortunately, someone has invested the time to look closer at the curios claims made by Ridley and Lewis. It seems the more "sophisticated" the fake skeptics are, the more skilled they are at deluding themselves and anyone who will listen or take them seriously. A post by ThingsBreak titled "Matt Ridley and the Wall Street Journal misrepresent paper cited in Ridley column" exposes just how "creative" and sly Lewis et al. had to be to force their desired narrative. "Ignoring the two main findings of a paper for values that you’re either estimating from a curve or are creating yourself based on data not used by the paper will be seen by at least some people to be misleading. Claiming that ECS cannot be estimated by paleo data is absurd, especially when so many are aware of efforts like the PALAEOSENS project and various paleoclimatic intercomparison groups." So yet another alleged "nail in the coffin of AGW" is, pardon the pun, vapourized. Water vapour is not our friend in this situation, I'm inclined to call it "Darth Vapour" ;) Physics cares not one iota for the shenanigans of fake skeptics....
  5. Matt Ridley Risk Management Failure Deja Vu
    JoeT: "Victor @6 Nice write-up on your blog. Perhaps, with your permission, skepticalscience might want to reprint it." Joe, thank you for your nice words. Everyone has permission to reprint any post. I must honestly say, that I do not see it as a special post. Anyone with access to the literature could have written it. We need more open access publishing to make the life of the climate ostriches more difficult. I am just amazed as the boldness of the climate ostriches and hope that the post helps to speed the demise of this PR circus a little and the word "climate sceptic" will again be reserved for sceptical people. The discussion on the best response to climate change is difficult enough without misinformation.
  6. Matt Ridley Risk Management Failure Deja Vu
    If we bank (pardon the pun) on Ridley's optimism and it turns out to be unfounded, we will be on a path headed towards catastrophe. But I'm sure Ridley will be fine. He was born into the 1%. My sense is that the more sophisticated contrarians are going to run with this. Indeed.
  7. Matt Ridley Risk Management Failure Deja Vu
    @ 15 Albatross I'm sorry even to have to suggest this extra workload, especially the *weekend before Christmas*. Unfortunately, it looks as though it needs to be done, and to halt the nonsense, done properly. If it makes anyone feel any better, just consider how much time and effort went into constructing NL's analysis. So very, very carefully.
  8. The Ridley Riddle Part One: The Red Queen
    Philippe Chantreau at 20:23 PM on 22 December, 2012 said: "...In Shanghai, .... outside elevators. One looses sight of the ground in smog when reaching the 15th floor on a good day. ..." I had the opportunity to take a job in Shanghai last year, and that was one of the reasons I chose not to. It is interesting to note that the Chinese are addressing that problem to some extent by opening coal fired power stations at the rate of about one every two weeks. While that may sound counter intuitive, those power sources are replacing millions of old inefficient coal burning boilers which are largely charged with often wet, usually dirty coal. I think you will see in the future that they continue to deal with these issues in their own way. In some systems, direct government action and policy may play a predominant role.
  9. The Ridley Riddle Part One: The Red Queen
    (-snip-). Philippe Chantreau at 20:23 PM on 22 December, 2012 said: 1. A major downfall of capitalism, which has nothing to do with the basic concept or its intent, is the "immunity" given to some corporations and certain individuals, enabling them to consolidate their power and exploit their positions to entrench and enrich themselves. 2. …. there never was communism in the Soviet Union, or China, or Korea. These places have experienced totalitarian socialism, as defined by state ownership of the means of production. 3. ….. socialist countries have a notoriously poor record of environmental performance, far worse than capitalistic countries. 4. ….. strong environmental regulations, and consistent enforcement thereof, are theoretically possible only where there is adequate separation of powers….. Philippe, I absolutely agree with your points 1 to 5 above, but am not sure if I can make any valid comparison of the EPA to the market crash. DSL at 14:46 PM on 22 December, 2012 makes very good points, “…… does this year's corn production mean that global warming is benefiting corn production? Or are there other, more significant factors at work?....” Which can be applied directly to show the meaninglessness of Killians’s statement: Killian at 18:44 PM on 31 July, 2011 said: ".... crop reductions of 3% are already being realized..." My point still remains that government action is not necessarily always in everyone’s (or anyone’s) best interests, subject as they are to lobbyists of all types and from all directions. (-snip-).
    Moderator Response: [DB] Allegations of impropriety snipped. You have been warned about making such before, with the previous such comment warranting you being given a 2nd Warning. This is now your Final Warning; further such violations of this site's Comments Policy will result in a revocation of commenting privileges.
  10. Matt Ridley Risk Management Failure Deja Vu
    BBD @11, Scientists at SkS are looking into the blog article written by financier Lewis. However, like grading/evaluating any bad paper, it takes time to separate the (little) wheat from the copious chaff.
  11. Matt Ridley Risk Management Failure Deja Vu
    This nonsense is so consistent with fake skeptics and those in denial being completely incapable of advancing a internally consistent and coherent hypothesis. The contradiction here is very clear. In the same week fake skeptic and denier web sites have touted two hypotheses that are completely at odds with one another. First, they rehash the long debunked Galactic Cosmic Ray hypothesis. Second, the trot out another favourite that climate sensitivity is low. Well, if GCRs play a big a role as fake skeptics and those in denial claim, then the climate system has to be sensitive to very small forcings, in other words climate sensitivity must be very high, not low.
  12. Matt Ridley Risk Management Failure Deja Vu
    Re the trend in specific humidity, plots of Dai (2006), HadCRUH (2008) and Barry & Kent (2009) can be found here: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/bams-state-of-the-climate/2009-time-series/humidity HadCRUH data download link here: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcruh/ Tamino looked at this data here: https://tamino.wordpress.com/2010/08/08/urban-wet-island/
    Moderator Response: [TD] Linked the URLs.
  13. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #50
    Doug H, I *highly* recommend you buy acopy of Friel's book: it is dense, it is excruciatingly detailed, and I used it as a reference book, a lot.
  14. More ice loss through snowfall on Antarctica
    markx - Very interesting. Of course, as has been said in many contexts, "size matters". Drop in relative sea level at the grounding edge of an ice sheet is an influence on ice sheet loss rates (-). So are the warming water at the grounding level (+), changes in precipitation due to atmospheric water vapor levels (-?), lubrication of the ice sheet from percolated melt water (+), and acceleration of sheet movement due to reduction of the grounding line dam effect (+), among others. Unfortunately, given the observations on ice sheet thicknesses, the sum of these influences is still (as far as I can see) leading to ice sheet loss in Greenland and parts of Antarctica.
  15. Matt Ridley Risk Management Failure Deja Vu
    Doug H - That figure has apparently been reformatted/redone to a more horizontal orientation than the original (not certain of its provenance), and I suspect the vertical bar has been lost due to resizing (dropping a few pixels is always risky with thin lines). The full illustration of interest from Knutti and Hegerl 2008 is Figure 3a:
  16. Matt Ridley Risk Management Failure Deja Vu
    I urge you to give Lewis' estimate of climate sensitivity a careful review. Thoughtful commentary has already begun, which suggests that there is merit in subjecting his assumptions to very close scrutiny. If it should turn out that there are assumptions in NL's work which bias its conclusions, then a reference page here would be extremely valuable. My sense is that the more sophisticated contrarians are going to run with this.
  17. More ice loss through snowfall on Antarctica
    Some degree of 'self regulation' occurs due to gravitational effects - new research by Gomez (student of Jerry Mitrovica)
    Evolution of a coupled marine ice sheet–sea level model Natalya Gomez,1 David Pollard,2 Jerry X. Mitrovica,1 Peter Huybers,1 and Peter U. Clark3 Received 16 June 2011; revised 18 November 2011; accepted 6 December 2011; published 14 February 2012. [1] We investigate the stability of marine ice sheets by coupling a gravitationally self-consistent sea level model valid for a self-gravitating, viscoelastically deforming Earth to a 1-D marine ice sheet-shelf model. The evolution of the coupled model is explored for a suite of simulations in which we vary the bed slope and the forcing that initiates retreat. We find that the sea level fall at the grounding line associated with a retreating ice sheet acts to slow the retreat; in simulations with shallow reversed bed slopes and/or small external forcing, the drop in sea level can be sufficient to halt the retreat. The rate of sea level change at the grounding line has an elastic component due to ongoing changes in ice sheet geometry, and a viscous component due to past ice and ocean load changes. [......]
  18. Matt Ridley Risk Management Failure Deja Vu
    Several points to make here. I've noticed that most of the 'more sophisticated' sceptics have dropped denial of warming and its anthropogenic origins and now base all their arguments around the climate sensitivity issue. So 'it wont be bad' seems to be the 'meme du jour'. Ridley fits the mould perfectly. To John Brookes: "...optimists... [are] ...generally healthier and happier than pessimists..." They are until overtaken by events they didn't foresee due to their irrational optimism. It's interesting that there are so many optimists around -- I'd have thought that, thanks to evolution, we'd have lost them all to lions hiding behind rocks. The Ridleys of this world (especially given his financial background) tend to fall optimistically into the 'short-termist' camp. It's also a more general failing. I was struck by this graph the other day showing longer timescales than we usually see. If the concern is future generations, rather than our own self-satisfaction, the cherry-pickers need to think a little more deeply.
  19. Matt Ridley Risk Management Failure Deja Vu
    Victor @6 Nice write-up on your blog. Perhaps, with your permission, skepticalscience might want to reprint it.
  20. Matt Ridley Risk Management Failure Deja Vu
    It was Sir John Sulston (biologist, Nobel Prize winner) who called Ridley an "irrational optimist". http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b017mrbd
  21. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #50
    Doug at #10. I feel your pain, as I frequently have exactly the same problem. One way around it that usually works is to copy a word string from the search return for which you want the original thread. Paste the string into G00gle, and include in the search field "site:http://www.skepticalscience.com/". Where SkS's engine fails to deliver the URL, G00gle usually succeeds.
  22. Climate's changed before
    I came across this article http://www.nature.com/news/polar-research-trouble-bares-its-claws-1.12015 about how crabs, which had been excluded from the Antarctic continental shelf for 30 million years because of the cold, are invading due to the incursion of warmer ocean waters. They are preying on an ecology that had evolved free from hard-shell-crushing predators. This is evidence that the current climate change is far beyond normal natural variation
  23. Philippe Chantreau at 20:23 PM on 22 December 2012
    The Ridley Riddle Part One: The Red Queen
    Re Markx: A major downfall of capitalism, which has nothing to do with the basic concept or its intent, is the "immunity" given to some corporations and certain individuals, enabling them to consolidate their power and exploit their positions to entrench and enrich themselves (2008 crash anyone?). See? I can do rethoric too. The reference to the EPA would be laughable if it wasn't so grotesque. Tell me Markx, how much did the 2008 market crash cost to the world economies? Sorry, that was an unfair question, because these costs are still unfolding as we speak. If everything was really accounted for, we'd be in the multiple trillion range. All because of a way too small number of individuals controlling way too large an amount of wealth and having no clue about risk management, or plain economic reality. And of course nobody to effectively watch them. When did the EPA ever wreak such havoc on the entire world? I'll add that there never was communism in the Soviet Union, or China, or Korea. These places have experienced totalitarian socialism, as defined by state ownership of the means of production. The only instances of socio-economic systems truly akin to theoretical communism are known among primitive societies, and are aptly called primitive communism. It is to be noted that socialist countries have a notoriously poor record of environmental performance, far worse than capitalistic countries, except perhaps for Cuba (I'm not even sure). In these countries, environmental regulations are virtually non existent, and what few there are can't be enforced. In fact, strong environmental regulations, and consistent enforcement thereof, are theoretically possible only where there is adequate separation of powers. And that is exactly what is observed in geopolitical reality. Furthermore, environmental regulations are actually a late feature of fully mature states with a long, functioning history of separated powers. In Shangai, luxury high rise hotels have sprouted, where they fancy outside elevators. One looses sight of the ground in smog when reaching the 15th floor on a good day. In more mature countries, there are laws that aim at preventing that sort of thing. Not sure about you but I know where I'd rahter live.
    Moderator Response:

    [DB] Note to all participants:

    Please restrict the discussion on communism by tying your comments back to the OP with an establishment of relevance. Comments solely focusing on communism will be subject to moderation under the "No Politics" portion of the Comments Policy.

  24. Matt Ridley Risk Management Failure Deja Vu
    Its funny, but when it came to running a bank, Ridley was an optimist. Everything would be fine. I once heard a lecture on learned optimism. Basically it said that optimists were generally healthier and happier than pessimists, and that we should all learn how to be optimists. However, it did offer a caution. If you are in an aeroplane, and are heading for a thunderstorm, you should very much hope that your pilot is a pessimist. It appears that Ridley has learned little from the failure of his optimism at Northern Rock, and is now applying it to climate science. On a slightly related note, it has been found that the presence or absence of optimism in people diagnosed with cancer does not affect their outcomes. However the presence of hope does lead to more positive outcomes. One hopes it will work for climate change as well.
  25. Matt Ridley Risk Management Failure Deja Vu
    One of Ridleys arguments that indicates "that the water vapor feedback is weak" is that water vapor does not show any trend. He probably got this piece of misinformation from WUWT. In his guest post at WUWT Forest Mims makes this claim, by citing one sentence from an article on the NASA NVAP global humidity dataset. Had he quoted the entire paragraph, not just one sentence, the message would haven been that the authors did not try to study the water vapor trend. They did not do so because the dataset is currently only suited to study "seasonal to interannual variability" due to inhomogeneities in the dataset. For example, because the types and number of satellites changed during the observation period. But Mims knows better than the authors and does not feel the need to say that the authors of this paper do not agree with his original science without arguments. Furthermore, this dataset is only 23 years long and thus not interesting for trend analysis as the uncertainty would be huge anyway, even if the dataset would not be biased. Another clear piece of misinformation.
  26. CO2 effect is saturated
    Thank you again. The application of Modtran by Professor Fiedler is most illuminating. I tried the MONASH program and have given feedback to their group. Another program on David Archer's website is the NCAR radiation code. The out put table has symbols 1ev p z T q What do these mean? I am certain 1 eV cannot mean one electron volt?
  27. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #50
    vroomie @ 11, thanks very much for the suggestion. I will have to see if my local library can order it in for me (I live in a rural town). The book review presents it as just what I was looking for. I have provided that link to the person who called him an expert, but doubt it will change their mind.
  28. Matt Ridley Risk Management Failure Deja Vu
    The caption to figure 1 includes this:
    The IPCC likely range (2 to 4.5°C) and most likely value (3°C) are indicated by the vertical grey bar and black line, respectively.
    I could not see either a vertical grey bar or a black line in the image - am I going blind? Perhaps, like Ridley's credibility, they are figaments of the imagination ...
  29. Matt Ridley Risk Management Failure Deja Vu
    Ridley's answer to a question at the parliamentary enquiry to the Northern Rock fiasco was revealing: Q406 Mr Fallon: But you were wrong? Dr Ridley: We were hit by an unexpected and unpredictable concatenation of events. Except that the events were predicted by some analysts. With respect to climate change, just because there are uncertainties does not mean that terrible outcomes are unpredictable or unexpected. Wishful thinking is not an admissible defence against gross negligence. http://www.skepticalscience.com/Ridleyriddle3.html
    Moderator Response: [DB] Hot-linked URL.
  30. The Ridley Riddle Part One: The Red Queen
    Regulation of pollutants and failed pseudo-communist totalitarian states, connected in just a couple of sentences. Who knew that "don't pour your used motor oil into the gutter" leads directly to being dragged out of your government-owned flat by the NKVD in the wee hours of the morning? Reasonable, much?
  31. The Ridley Riddle Part One: The Red Queen
    markx, Really? You are going to equate the EPA with the totalitarian communist dictatorships of post-WW II? Really? And you want to be taken seriously?
  32. The Ridley Riddle Part Two: The White Queen
    Penner et al (2010) paper mentioned above:
    "......Warming over the past 100 years is consistent with high climate sensitivity to atmospheric carbon dioxide combined with a large cooling effect from short-lived aerosol pollutants, but it could equally be attributed to a low climate sensitivity coupled with a small effect from aerosols. These two possibilities lead to very different projections for future climate change....."
    This seems to me to be a point of some importance. They go on to say:
    "....These uncertainties in atmospheric chemistry and physics must be reduced to build an optimal control strategy for short-lived pollutants that affect the climate. We propose that, given a focused effort including atmospheric observations and sensitivity studies using climate models, the questions needed to address an optimal strategy can be answered within the time frame of the Fifth Assessment from IPCC, that is, by 2013...."
    I think they come to a very logical conclusion. It seems this would be worth knowing.
  33. The Ridley Riddle Part One: The Red Queen
    markx, any real-world instance of communism or capitalism is a historically-developed instance. At some point, Soviet communism was no longer communism. You start out talking about the concept, and then you replace the concept with an historical instance. My advice to you is to avoid discarding ideas and instead address specific instances and their historical development. As for corn, does this year's corn production mean that global warming is benefiting corn production? Or are there other, more significant factors at work? How much corn was planted this year, and how close was the planting to a record? And what of other crops? Here's the Financial Times on the year's global grain production: "The year just ending has seen the third major price rise, with the price of corn reaching an all-time high. The culprit has been bad weather in almost all of the world’s top food producing regions: the Black Sea area of Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan, the Latin American farmland belt of Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay and Argentina, and the US Midwest. Only Australia, India and the rice-producing nations of South East Asia have enjoyed relatively good weather."
  34. The Ridley Riddle Part One: The Red Queen
    Killian at 18:44 PM on 31 July, 2011 ".... crop reductions of 3% are already being realized..." Must have missed the memo http://www.grains.org/index.php/chart-of-the-week/3953-world-corn-production-predicted-to-be-second-highest-on-record-for-fy1213 World Corn Production Predicted to be Second Highest on Record for FY12/13 Published on Friday, 02 November 2012 20:40 "This week's U.S. Grains Council Chart of the Week shows world corn production of 839 million metric tons (33 billion bushels) for the 2012/2013 marketing year will be the second highest on record..."
  35. Matt Ridley Risk Management Failure Deja Vu
    Ridley practically ran his bank into the ground. And we're supposed to take his advice on how to run national or global economies with regards to climate? No thanks. Stick a fork in Ridley-as-climate-advisor. He's done.
  36. The Ridley Riddle Part One: The Red Queen
    actually thoughtful at 13:17 PM on 30 July, 2011 says: "...The fallacy is the premise that government spending is "waste" or negative...." The fallacy to this particular fallacy is the concept that government will always act in everyone's best interest. Zealotry driven noble causes are probably the worst case scenario. Communism is a case to point: A plausible enough theory, but it did not work, and it took 80 years for the majority to recognize the case, completely overtaking the lives of several generations in some regions. A major downfall of communism which had nothing to do with the basic concept or its intent was the 'authority' given to government bodies and certain individuals enabling them to consolidate their power and exploit their positions to entrench and enrich themselves. (EPA anyone?)
  37. Matt Ridley Risk Management Failure Deja Vu
    Darn denialists. We could be having an interesting and educational discussion of how to rightly do a risk analysis -- do you use the mode, the mean, or the entire distribution, weighted by severity of risk? -- but instead we have to go over and over again the dangers of cherry picking for your desired result. I hope for the day when people (especially those active in the media) will self correct when they are tempted to cherry pick.
  38. Matt Ridley Risk Management Failure Deja Vu
    Sort of like playing the lottery...which of course is essentially a tax on people who are bad at math... I don't feel that lucky.
  39. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #50
    Doug H, 210, the *standard* for debunking Lomborg is "The Lomborg Deception," by Howard Friel. He painstakingly takes apart Lomborg's assertions in a fashion that will leave no doubbt in your mind as to how far off-base Lomborg really is.
  40. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #50
    I don't know where else to post this question, so I apologise if I am out of line. Using this site's search function, on the term "Bjorn Lomberg", I receive numerous hits to comments, but these results do not indicate the original article to which they apply and do not provide a hyperlink to the original comment or thread. Is it possible to tweak the search engine, so that returned comments include some way to at least navigate back to the original post? I was looking for information to rebut a post at The Conversation, in which someone has referred to Lomberg as a "world renowned expert on economics of climate change" and I'm sure there is material here that would help, but I can't get to it using the search function.
  41. Hans Petter Jacobsen at 08:44 AM on 22 December 2012
    Solar Cycle Model fails to predict the recent warming
    Thanks to Tommi for his kind offer in @14. But I had already programmed the library function for reading the HadCRUT4 ascii format when I read his comment. The HadCRUT4 webpage that MA Rodger provided a hyperlink to, gives the possibility to download the temperatures in a simple ascii format. I follow the monthly Northern hemisphere link to download the temperatures for the NH. There are some differences between the HadCRUT3 and 4 NH temperatures. But the HadCRUT4 NH temperatures seem to fit with the model approximately as the HadCRUT3 NH temperatures do, i.e. OK until the mid 1970s, but not after that. That is not surprising, because I have earlier seen that the NASA GISS NH temperatures also fit with the model in approximately the same way as the HadCRUT3 NH temperatures do. I have generated the same plots as in Figure 2 and 3, but now based on the HadCRUT4 NH temperatures. I show these plots in this google blog spot. Those interested in more details can follow that hyperlink.
  42. Models are unreliable
    " if Foster and Rahmsdorf are correct" If they are correct, then short term surface temperatures are dominated by ENSO, and so for climate models to have the accuracy you want, then they would have to make accurate predictions about ENSO for decades in advance. In practice, ENSO is difficult to predict even month's in advance. Is the current rash of La Ninas unusual historically? No, nor would a rash of El Ninos be but I will bet that if it happens there wont be complaints about models underestimating rate of warming. Climate models have no skill at decadal prediction, nor do they pretend to. It's a fake-skeptic trick to try and prove models wrong by looking at short term trends. Climate is 30 year weather trends, and these are the robust outputs of models. There are attempts at decadal predictions - look at Keenlyside et al 2008. How is this one working out? If surface temperatures are dominated by chaotic weather, then instead of looking at the surface temperature to validate models, then how about looking at indicators that are long-term integrators. Eg OHC and say global glacial volume?
  43. This is Global Warming - A Lesson for Monckton and Co.
    My response to Ridley's WSJ piece will be published later today, FYI.
  44. Models are unreliable
    No such thing as a "throwaway remark" in our brave new world; you can't just roll down the window and toss out litter without finding it stubbornly affixed to your reputation, later on. I hope Jack will deal with Tom and KR's remarks; judging by those I count perhaps a half-dozen assertions on Jack's part that appear to be baseless.
  45. Models are unreliable
    JackO'Fall Tom Curtis - "The test of the model is the comparison between prediction and observations once the model is run on actual forcings." JackO'Fall - "You are 100% correct that the method you propose to test a GCM would be the best. However, I have never seen a model used that way." Then I would suggest looking at the performance of various models here on SkS, both of "skeptics" and of climate researchers, as well as the considerable resources on Realclimate: Evaluation of Hansen 1981 Evaluation of Hansen 1988 2011 Updates to model-data comparisons And even a cursory look via Google Scholar provides a few items worth considering (2.4 million results?). I find your statement quite surprising, and suggest you read further. "OTOH, if you are a modeler worth your salt, you will freely admit the range of shortcomings in models, the inherent problems with any computer model, the difficulty with trying to model as chaotic and complex a system as our climate, and the dangers introduced with any assumptions included." If you are a modeler worth your salt, you will know that all models are wrong, but many are close enough to be useful. And the record of reasonable models in predicting/tracking climate is quite good. Your statements regarding models appear to be Arguments from Uncertainty - the existence of uncertainty does not mean we know nothing at all.
  46. Models are unreliable
    JackO'Fall, probably you do not realize how fundamentally wrong some of your contentions are, due to your admitted lack of background in climate modeling, climatology, and science in general. You are overconfident in your experience with modeling in general, too. Your expressed overconfidence is going to trigger some strong reactions. I hope you do not take offense and retreat, but instead get some humility and learn. Many lay people new to the global warming discussions enter with similar overconfidence. You need to learn the fundamentals. Start with this short set of short videos from the National Academy of Sciences: Climate Modeling 101. Your implication that climate modelers do not want to, or have not considered, improving their models is not just offensive to them, but reflects poorly on your understanding and ascribing of motivations. Modelers are consumed by the desire to improve their models, which you would know if you had even a passing familiarity with their work; every paper on models describes ideas for how the models can be improved. Just one example is the National Strategy for Advancing Climate Modeling. Then look at the Further Reading green box at the bottom of the original post on this page (right above the comments). Your contention that models are not open for public inspection is wildly wrong. A handy set of links to model code is the "Model Codes" section on the Data Sources page at RealClimate. Also see the last bullet, "Can I use a climate model myself?", on the RealClimate page FAQ on Climate Models. (You should also read the FAQs.) The Clear Climate Code project is an open source, volunteer rewriting of climate models. So far it has successfully reproduced the results of the GISTEMP model. But computer models are not needed for the fundamental predictions, as Tamino nicely demonstrated. Successful predictions were made long before computers existed, as Ray Pierrehumbert recently explained concisely in his AGU lecture, Successful Predictions. The vertical line in this first graph separates hindcasts from forecasts by a bunch of models. Your baseless, snide remark about "crappy code" reveals your ignorance of software engineering. You can start to learn from Steve Easterbrook's site. Start with this post, but continue to browse through some of his others.
  47. Models are unreliable
    Jack O'Fall: Please move any further discussion on the economics of climate change to an appropriate thread. It is completely off-topic on this thread. If you have references to economic analyses supporting your position please provide them on an appropriate thread; otherwise you are engaged in unsubstantiated assertion, which will not get you very far here. (All: Any responses to Jack regarding ecnomics should also be on an appropriate thread.) As far as the rest of the wall of text goes, please note that climate models are attempts to create forecasts based on the known physics, existing empirical data, and the reconstructed paleoclimate record. If you want to "disprove" AGW, meaningfully, you must show the physics is wrong, not the models.
  48. Solar Cycle Model fails to predict the recent warming
    HPJ @11 What kind of formatting would you need the hadcrut4 data to be in? Or alternatively which hadcrut3 data format did you use? I can help you convert it to pretty much any input format you want, don't bother modifying the programs. Just drop me a note at my.name at gmail.com
  49. This is Global Warming - A Lesson for Monckton and Co.
    Thanks for the replies to my post. I think I could defend my, admittedly a bit provocative, metaphor with the hockeystick, but I don't want to sidetrack. I shall follow up the links and the reactions to the wsj article, to counter-evidence some lukewarmist tendencies I now detect in myself.
  50. Models are unreliable
    Tom Curtis @592, Re 1): Tax and dividend policies are deceptive, in my view. It is not just a wealth transfer, but it changes behavior (as you intend it to do). This change in behavior has ripples, and the ripples have efficiency costs. For example, a carbon tax in India or China would prevent most of the new coal plants from opening (if it didn't, I think it's fair to call the tax a failure). There is no 'second best' option available to replace those plants at a price that is viable (today). Thus, the tax is retarding the economic growth and advancement of millions of our most poor people without actually collecting any revenue from those power plants. There would be no redistribution of wealth as a result, instead there would be a lack of growth and no taxation to show for it. To produce that missing power with a 'greener' technology will indeed push the price tag into the trillions. Unless you have a cheaper way to produce that volume of power. (side note: I don't want them to build those coal plants for a number of health reasons, but I recognize the economics of it for them and that until they are at a higher economic level, clean isn't a concern for them) 2) Uncompensated or not, ALL negative externalities cause inefficiencies. Taxing them is helpful in reducing the net effect, but compensating for them is actually counterproductive (it creates an incentive to by 'harmed' and eliminates the incentive to avoid harm). To pay for the costs associated with coal, I would fully support a targeted tax on what causes the medical issues (clean coal [in spite of being a misnomer] produces a lot less harmful byproducts than dirty coal, but little difference in CO2). Taxing the carbon would be a very inefficient way to deal with that problem, compared to taxing the release of specific combustion byproducts. But, yes, in a general sense, taxing externalities, such as coal byproducts, is an efficient way to try to compensate for the negative consequences. 3) You are 100% correct that the method you propose to test a GCM would be the best. However, I have never seen a model used that way. Hindcasting is a distant cousin, as best, as the models were developed to account for the known inputs and known climate. Taking the exact models used in AR4 and updating all the unknown variables, specifically CO2 emissions (as opposed to CO2 levels), volcanic activity, & Solar output for the following 8 years (unknown to the modeler at the time of finishing their model), you should be able to eliminate the range of results normally produced and create a single predictive result. That should be much more useful to compare than a range of predictions to cover the uncertainty. Comparing that 'prediction' with actual measurements would be the best way to test the GCMs and would even provide a result that 'could' be proven wrong. Having the possibility of being proven wrong by observations is actually a needed step for AGW, otherwise it hardly fits the definition of a theory. Though, I suspect the climate models of today are more accurate than those used in AR4 (at least I hope they are, otherwise our process is really broken). OTOH, if you are a modeler worth your salt, you will freely admit the range of shortcomings in models, the inherent problems with any computer model, the difficulty with trying to model as chaotic and complex a system as our climate, and the dangers introduced with any assumptions included. At least, those are the caveats I accept in my modeling (except for the difficulty modeling the climate; I have much more simple tasks, but ones with more immediate and absolute feedback to test my predictions).

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