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johnd at 15:22 PM on 5 June 2010Models are unreliable
doug_bostrom at 13:36 PM, Doug, where my interest really lies with the Japanese researchers is the work they are doing with the Indian Ocean Dipole. They are the ones that identified it about a decade ago and it's relevance to the Australian climate, and beyond, is gradually being appreciated. Previously our most eminent researchers had hopped on the El-Nino wagon and it became identified as supposedly the dominating influence over most of Australia. However for those whose understanding of the Australian weather and climate was based on what actually can be observed or happens on the ground, rather than what is being said in the media, or even in peer reviewed papers, a lot simply didn't reflect what was being, or had been observed for generations. Then some other independent researchers and forecasters started working the IOD into their calculations and models and suddenly a lot of what had been attributed to ENSO began to appear as being due to the IOD, at least over wide parts of Australia. This began to show how the independent cycles of each system could at times either enhance or offset each other, or remain neutral, thus throwing a completely different understanding into the picture. Now as I understand it, research is being carried out in other parts of the world to determine if the ENSO system is as dominant an influence as previously considered. Given that ENSO is relevant to the climate research and how the climate is modelled, particularly with models having to be validated by backcasting, if the understanding of ENSO changes, that may require some aspects of the models to change. That's where I see the relevance. -
Doug Bostrom at 14:48 PM on 5 June 2010It's cooling
Mahalo and Aloha, Dr. Tom! -
DrTom at 14:41 PM on 5 June 2010It's cooling
Aloha All, I am new here but I am not new to the subject matter. Pardon me for writing simply. I am retired and simplicity appeals to me. It is becoming difficult to pretend nothing is happening. Even if we discard anthropogenic causation, we cannot disregard our observations. The earth is getting warmer every year. 2010 is already the hottest year on record. 128.3°F was measured at the town of MohenjuDaro, Pakistan, on Wednesday, May 26. As I write this, temperatures in parts of India are 125°F and both the flora and fauna are dying. How is that possible? Well, in fact, it IS possible. The earth used to be much warmer than it is now. Before humans existed. Whether the fluctuation is natural or not doesn't concern me any longer. People will rationalize arguments that the ecosphere is not warming because they don't want to believe it is. Either way the outcome is the same. We are entering an extinction event. We will last longer than Atlantic Bluefin tuna; they will be extinct within a couple of years. The human race may have 25 years left...or fifty...or ten. Even assuming that we are simply at the beginning of the next natural Milankovitch warming cycle or, on a shorter scale, a Bond Event or a natural orbital perturbation or a solar max or for no discernible reason whatsoever, we can interpolate that the oceans will become net exporters of CO2 before 2040 just as the forests are now. By that time we will have a CH4 problem. If we happen to be in one of the 'abrupt' climate changes, we can expect temperature increases within a few years to a few decades, depending on the causality, to increase right past the sweet spot at which humans can survive. Potentially thirty to fifty degrees Fahrenheit warmer. We have an historical record of those sorts of temperatures. And that assumes the 20 BILLION tons of CO2 we are happily pumping into the atmosphere annually is not a factor. That the 7 billion people on earth are not a factor. That the hydrological cycle is beginning to fluctuate is not a factor. That the annual loss of millions of Hectares of arable land to erosion and millions more to desertification are not factors. Because, in fact, they are no longer factors if we have jumped the shark. The tropics have encroached into sub-tropical zones by four degrees of longitude in the recent past. The weather, never predictable, was at least stable within recorded history. Now it isn't. Now EVERY flood is a 'hundred year' or 'thousand year' flood. Now there are going to be hurricanes for which another level of intensity will have to be made. Category 6. Now the once-predictable seasons of the year are changing. Everywhere. Given that weather is dynamic, I still defy anyone to tell me the weather where they are is not anomalous. The type of anomaly and the direction of temperature variation at any given point is of no import. That we cannot account for some of the trapped heat merely means we don't know where to look. It could be hiding in the AMO but it could just as easily be involved in a previously unobserved chemical reaction of which we know nothing. My suspicion is that it is charging the clathrate gun but I do not care to debate postulates. Imagine a spinning top as a metaphor. As the rotation decreases, a wobble begins but it wobbles through it's steady state enough that the wobble is barely noticeable. During that period three observers could debate whether it is speeding up, slowing down or naturally imbalanced at a steady momentum. The only way to know is when it collapses. Predicting the collapse event is not possible until it happens; there is a real possibility that it might never collapse. Schrödinger's top. My belated point is this: If you live on Easter Island, cutting down coconut trees for the nuts might seem like a good idea until you have cut down the last one. After that, further debate about whether to do it becomes meaningless. a hui hou T -
chris1204 at 14:40 PM on 5 June 2010Irregular Climate: a new climate podcast
Ned @ 18: '...or should that be Chris Canaris?' The possibility that I might be commenting so transparently reflects the respect I have for this Blog and John's efforts in maintaining fair debate. :-) -
Doug Bostrom at 13:54 PM on 5 June 2010Monckton Chronicles Part II – Here Comes the Sun?
Monckton notices Dr. Abraham, blows up, covered at deSmogBlog -
Doug Bostrom at 13:36 PM on 5 June 2010Models are unreliable
Johnd, I'm wondering how a problem with a seasonal weather or interannual climate forecasting application of a GCM relates to the application of GCM's to produce projections of global climate? The two objectives are not the same. The initializing conditions allowing the model to produce specific regional forecasts of seasonal and interannual climate behavior will cause this application to suffer from the same issues as other weather forecasting systems. More, they'll be sensitive to small perturbations such as those alluded to in the correspondence you quote. In all probability the issue there is w/the compiler change, btw. The goal of the SINTEX application you're worrying over is that of producing -forecasts- of specific weather and climate behavior in specific regions of the globe. That's not the same objective of GCM application to describe gross behavior of the global climate over multi-decade periods. In short, your concern with this problem w/SINTEX is not relevant, or at the least you've not shown how it is. More here on SINTEX applications for seasonal and interannual climate forecasts, for the curious: Seasonal Climate Predictability Using the SINTEX-F1 Coupled GCM -
Marcus at 13:34 PM on 5 June 2010Irregular Climate: a new climate podcast
Sorry, another point I'd like to raise. If its off-topic, then please delete. A false assertion some "skeptics" make is that those who accept AGW are completely closed minded towards the possibility of the warming being caused by something else. This is patently *untrue*! About a decade ago, the blogs lit up with claims by the skeptics that "the sun was to blame"-with links to papers that backed up that position. My first response was not disbelief. No, my first response was "well, it certainly *sounds* plausible". My second response was guarded relief. After all, if the last 60 years of warming was just a part of the suns larger cycle, then it meant we had nothing to worry about! However, when I read all the papers on the subject, it made it clear that-though solar variation could explain the bulk of climate change over the last 12,000 or so years (if not more) it was completely *unable* to explain the warming of the last 30-60 years. Needless to say I was not happy because-contrary to some people's opinions-I gain no pleasure about being on the "right" side of the AGW debate. If being "right" is a victory, then its an extremely bitter victory to me-because in this case being "right" means that-unless something is done to correct the problem-we're very likely headed towards a bad end. That knowledge gives me no joy whatsoever! -
Marcus at 13:22 PM on 5 June 2010Irregular Climate: a new climate podcast
dhogaza @ 35. Very good point. Although I have only a rudimentary understanding of particle physics, I'm certainly flummoxed by the more complicated ideas. In such cases, I defer to the greater knowledge of those who've made Particle Physics their life's work, even if I don't understand it myself. I certainly don't go around saying "well I don't understand it, so a boson & muon can't actually be real". Yet this is, in some respects, what the more extreme "skeptics" seem to be doing. Worse still, is they seem to do the equivalent of saying "well I don't believe in a muon or a boson, because I don't understand it, butsays that atoms are actually made up of gnomes. That sounds much more plausible to me, & I like the person saying it, so that's what I choose to believe!" -
johnd at 13:05 PM on 5 June 2010On the Question of Diminishing Arctic Ice Extent
Ned at 12:23 PM on 5 June, 2010, as I understand it the Goddard problem come about due to the older image used not representing the total ice extent. The reasons are not explained but apparently the data that created the image was sourced from NSIDC. I think all that was explained in the link I provided earlier, including the actual images in question. When the corrected image was processed by Goddard, his result was a close match for the NSIDC results even if there is some question over whether or not he gave the correct weighting to the pixels. -
johnd at 12:51 PM on 5 June 2010Models are unreliable
Tom Dayton at 11:52 AM, there is a fundamental similarity however, in that weather is about redistributing heat imbalances. But where does it start and stop in limiting the rate of incoming heat or removing heat from the system. -
Marcus at 12:46 PM on 5 June 2010Why does Anthony Watts drive an electric car?
Speaking of vested interests, I'll highlight some key reasons why I think electric cars still haven't made it big (forgive my use of Australian costs & units of measure-but that's all I have to go on ;) ). As I stated earlier, the average electric car consumes around 12kw-h of electricity for every 100km traveled. In Australia, the average cost of grid electricity is about 25c/kw-h, or around 15c during off-peak. This means that your car will cost about $1.80 to $3.00 for every 100km traveled. By contrast, an IC engine vehicle uses an average of 10L of petrol per 100km (closer to 12L if you factor in peak-time idling). At a current cost of around $1.30 per liter, this means that you'll pay $130 for every $13 for every 100km you travel. See why there's so much opposition? Add to that the fact that electric cars tend to break down less often, require less maintenance & require far less replacement parts (as they have far fewer parts subject to general wear & tear) & you start to see why EV's are a God-Send to the average consumer, but are so hated by the oil & automobile industries ;)! -
johnd at 12:41 PM on 5 June 2010Models are unreliable
doug_bostrom at 11:06 AM, just adding to my earlier reply to you. It may be of even more value to non-sceptics over sceptics to wade through the "Cloud Swamp" and become more familiar with the complexities of clouds. I would be surprised if many do, yet it is probably more vital to understanding climate change than many, perhaps most other issues given it is the least understood,. -
Marcus at 12:31 PM on 5 June 2010Why does Anthony Watts drive an electric car?
Shawn, I consider myself "left-of-center", & if someone said that they had a viable means of generating 24/7 electricity with a lifetime CO2 footprint of less than 10g/kw-h, then I'd say BUILD IT! One reason I'm a huge fan of bio-sequestration is because its a *proven* method of reducing CO2 emissions at the source of generation. On the demand side of things, I'd love nothing more than if my local energy suppliers sold the concepts of energy efficiency & green energy with the same vigor as they flog kw-h from more conventional sources. The problem with all of these, though, is that vested interests often seem to get in the way-which is where the government usually has to step in. -
johnd at 12:30 PM on 5 June 2010Models are unreliable
KR at 11:51 AM on 5 June, 2010, KR, I have copied an email exchange relating to the change of computer which may be of interest to you. The email was not to me so I blanked out the recipient, but they are available on the internet to view. The most recent reply is on top. From: Jing-Jia Luo [mailto:jingjia.luo@...com] Sent: Monday, 22 June 2009 2:35 PM To: ====================== Cc: Toshio Yamagata Subject: Re: Seasonal forecasts from 1 June 2009 (monthly mean maps) Dear Peter, Nothing except the computer has changed since 1 April 2009; the forecast model is the same as before. We repeated the forecasts initiated from 1 March 2009 (with the same model and initial conditions), 9-ensemble mean did show certain differences as I mentioned before. I am still not quite sure what the actual reasons for this difference are. One possible factor can be due to the different FORTRAN compiler. This means the executable codes of the coupled model are different now though the source code itself has no any change. I asked NEC system engineering. The answer is that it is basically no way to get the same results on the new Earth Simulator (like chaos). Theoretically, if we have infinite ensembles, the results may be equal if the new compiler does not change the code systematically. But who knows (sometimes, bug fix in the compiler can induce big changes in the model results). We are planing to redo the hindcast step by step (we are facing another technical problem. Our model speed become slower despite the much faster new machine). Bets regards, Jing-Jia On Mon, Jun 22, 2009 at 1:08 PM, -
Tom Dayton at 12:24 PM on 5 June 2010Models are unreliable
Explanation of "initial value" (weather) versus "boundary value" (climate) models is provided by Steve Easterbrook at his site Serendipity. -
Ned at 12:23 PM on 5 June 2010On the Question of Diminishing Arctic Ice Extent
johnd writes: "Clearly NSIDC also use pixel counting. If you think about, if weighting was not given to the pixels, any error would cause an UNDER estimation, not an OVER estimation. " John, I work with projections of gridded geographic data every day. The problem here isn't with "counting pixels", it's with a failure to understand the scale variation associated with non-equal-area map projections. Apparently Steve Goddard made this mistake at WUWT, Berényi Péter makes it here, and no doubt lots of other people are doing the same thing elsewhere. Different projections will have different patterns of scale variation. I'm guessing that the PIPS2 images people have been grabbing are in a polar stereographic projection with the planar surface tangent to the earth at 90 north. But it could be secant ... or an orthographic projection rather than stereographic ... or something else entirely. This is why it's essential to have metadata describing the characteristics of the data you're working with. Maybe there are metadata for these images somewhere, though I haven't seen them. But unless you have the specific projection parameters used to create the images, you cannot simply count the pixels on date 1 and date 2 and draw any conclusion about whether ice area increased, decreased, or stayed the same. -
Tom Dayton at 11:52 AM on 5 June 2010Models are unreliable
Most relevant to this thread about climate models, is this snippet from the Spencer Weart site that Doug linked to:That was a fundamentally different type of problem from forecasting. Weather prediction is what physicists and mathematicians call an "initial value" problem, where you start with the particular set of conditions found at one moment and compute how the system evolves, getting less and less accurate results as you push forward in time. Calculating the climate is a "boundary value" problem, where you define a set of unchanging conditions, the physics of air and sunlight and the geography of mountains and oceans, and compute the unchanging average of the weather that these conditions determine.
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Marcus at 11:52 AM on 5 June 2010Monckton Chronicles Part II – Here Comes the Sun?
What I loved was that, on the UKIP Website, they mention how "Climate Change Expert, Lord Monckton, is giving evidence to Congress....". Say what?!?! By their standards of Expertise, my long-time interest in the planets, astronomy & space travel makes me an Expert in all these fields! In that case, maybe NASA should speak to me about their next mission-before they speak to those "egg-heads" that actually work for them. After all, that's effectively what the US Congress is doing-talking to someone who proclaims to be an expert instead of talking to those people who actually *know* something about the subject. Whose next on their list of witnesses-Plimer? Kinninmonth? -
KR at 11:51 AM on 5 June 2010Models are unreliable
johnd, with regard to the Sintex model and changes based on computer platform - it might be worthwhile for them to look at any differences in floating point calculations: IEEE compliant or not, single versus double precision, compiler/math library updates, etc. That kind of change is enough to make a difference on these scales. The original work on chaos and the Lorenz attractor came out of a very simplified weather model (3 variables, planar planet, etc.) that exhibited chaotic behavior - extreme dependence on starting conditions. Lorenz found that restarting his simulation with values rounded by 1/1000 (from a printout) was sufficient to get entirely different results! That result in the early 70's was sufficient to jump start non-linear system analysis and chaos theory. -
Doug Bostrom at 11:44 AM on 5 June 2010Why does Anthony Watts drive an electric car?
Further to fusion, here's an interesting little comparison of the costs of fusion R&D versus other things we're buying: The Cost & importance of Fusion Research in Perspective Written by an interested physicist, I suspect but the numbers are the same regardless. -
Doug Bostrom at 11:29 AM on 5 June 2010Why does Anthony Watts drive an electric car?
Shawn, try as I can I do not see sufficient grounds for violent disagreement with your last reply. I maintain that the market has been ineffective in tackling some problems, notably (and sorry to be so boringly repetitious on this) municipal sewage system. The market provides vital bits and pieces to be plugged into sewage treatment systems but there just does not seem to be sufficient profit in the actual collection and treatment process per se. Yet there's not doubt that creating a market for trading pollution credits can be a boon by the simple act of imposing a price on those pollutants. Personally I like the concept of a fusion reactor but at the same time I can't help but notice the really large one we are orbiting and that is a dominant feature of our daytime sky. Many people find themselves frustrated that we are attempting to build a little puny one down here before harnessing the article already having the virtue of existence. Fortunately it's not a matter of mutual exclusivity; we can do both. -
michael sweet at 11:23 AM on 5 June 2010Irregular Climate: a new climate podcast
The basic science of climate HAS been shown in a transparent and understandable way in the IPCC reports. The NAS report is also written in a transparent and understandable way. The people who deny this are not reading what has been put before them. While we engage them here, we often have to review basic physics that is well understood (like the long review of heat released by fossil fuels last week). This is not because the science is not clear, but due to a lack of effort to understand by the "sceptics". I like this give and take because I often have to engage students who read the sceptic websites and have the same talking points. From Sceptical Science I learn how to counter these arguments. -
shawnhet at 11:15 AM on 5 June 2010Why does Anthony Watts drive an electric car?
actually thoughtfull, "www.capanddividend.org - a web site devoted to the idea. Senators Cantwell and Collins have introduced a bill to create this tax as law." I have to say that this seems to be a pretty good idea based on my limited reading of it. doug:"Regarding your second remark, what I fail to see is how considerations of the "free market" are useful or appropriate when discussing an almost exact analogue to other pollutants, of the sort we've discovered are technical problems amenable to solution, with a scientifically demonstrated compelling requirement to be corrected, and which the free market has historically always proven incapable of addressing on its own." Perhaps, the market has been unable to address these issues on its own, but it has always been part of the solution. To pretend OTW is to pretty much ensure that whatever position you advocate will either a.never be adopted or b. Effective long-term action is always economical in nature IMO. "Finally, there has never been a functioning example of a pure "free market" any more than there ever has been one of communism. Fortunate, because each would be intolerably obnoxious in its own unique way, more so than we've experienced with the corrupted implementations with which we've so far experimented." Well, clearly communism never worked, but I think that the vast majority of markets function pretty darn well. If your point is that no markets are 100% free, then OK I will accept that arguendo (kijiji may not be completely free but its close). This doesn't mean that we should ignore the market, though. "Your assertion in #96 is rather difficult to believe, by the way. Have you actually explicitly asked these folks you speak of whether they'd reject a quick and reasonably clean path to solving both our energy requirements and our present C02 pollution problem?" Well, I never said that they would *reject* it, I said that they would be disappointed by it because it would make their other goals more difficult to achieve. I don't personally think that this is all that unusual a position. You will often find members of "green" parties who oppose research into fusion, even though it is comparatively inexpensive. See the Wiki page on the ITER reactor for a couple examples: "Jan Vande Putte of Greenpeace International said that "Governments should not waste our money on a dangerous toy which will never deliver any useful energy". "Instead, they should invest in renewable energy which is abundantly available, not in 2080 but today."[15]" "Rebecca Harms, Green/EFA member of the European Parliament's Committee on Industry, Research and Energy, said: "In the next 50 years nuclear fusion will neither tackle climate change nor guarantee the security of our energy supply." Arguing that the EU's energy research should be focused elsewhere, she said: "The Green/EFA group demands that these funds be spent instead on energy research that is relevant to the future. A major focus should now be put on renewable sources of energy." French Green party lawmaker Noël Mamère claims that more concrete efforts to fight present-day global warming will be neglected as a result of ITER: "This is not good news for the fight against the greenhouse effect because we're going to put ten billion euros towards a project that has a term of 30-50 years when we're not even sure it will be effective."[20]" Cheers, :) -
Doug Bostrom at 11:06 AM on 5 June 2010Models are unreliable
This review article is a little long in the tooth but is pleasingly boggy in terms of showing the difficulty wading through the complexity of cloud treatments. It's also a nice illustration why so few skeptics are capable of emerging from the other side of the cloud swamp bearing useful contributions to the problem; one might say the "Cloud Swamp" is a test capable of identifying what real skepticism looks like. Cloud feedbacks in the climate system: A critical review -
johnd at 10:38 AM on 5 June 2010Models are unreliable
doug_bostrom at 10:28 AM, with regards to your last comment. They do, and we have. -
Doug Bostrom at 10:28 AM on 5 June 2010Models are unreliable
Johnd, let me reiterate that general circulation models are not used to produce forecasts in the sense that we use the word to describe predicting weather. GCM utility lies in predicting tendencies. There's a huge difference between the two objectives. With regard to clouds, from all that I've read any real skeptic would do well to zero in on those as the single largest possible weakness of GCM's. But don't get your hopes up. -
dhogaza at 10:14 AM on 5 June 2010Irregular Climate: a new climate podcast
"Whenever some piece of natural science is actually settled, researchers should be able to make it transparent and understandable for anyone outside the field provided she has a firm grasp of some basics like the underlying physics and some inclination to math. If they fail to do so, the science is not settled. It is as simple as that." Yeah? How many people outside of particle physics really understand the standard model? It might be wrong but ... if it's wrong, it's not simply because it's complex and largely impenetrable to those outside the field. -
Doug Bostrom at 10:01 AM on 5 June 2010Irregular Climate: a new climate podcast
BP: As [homeopathy enthusiasts] have peer reviewed journals as well, to be a denier is obviously foolish. Now that's a twist. First definition that popped up via Google: "Peer, a person who is of equal standing with another in a group." But there are distinctions between groups, of course. Let me point out redundantly that a peer group called the National Academy of Sciences accepts anthropogenic warming as what scientists regard to be factual: A strong, credible body of scientific evidence shows that climate change is occurring, is caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for a broad range of human and natural systems... Some scientific conclusions or theories have been so thoroughly examined and tested, and supported by so many independent observations and results, that their likelihood of subsequently being found to be wrong is vanishingly small. Such conclusions and theories are then regarded as settled facts. This is the case for the conclusions that the Earth system is warming and that much of this warming is very likely due to human activities. Read the facts here. So for virtually all of us denizens in the lower orders of peer groups, the remaining quibble is "very likely." In order to best the peer group called the National Academy of Sciences, find a more likely explanation it's necessary for us to substitute better research than what lead the NAS to its conclusions. That's not very likely. -
johnd at 09:59 AM on 5 June 2010Models are unreliable
doug_bostrom at 08:17 AM, thanks for an interesting article. Especially interesting that the article should mention the following:- "It was now evident, in particular, where clouds brought warming and where they made for cooling. Overall, it turned out that clouds tended to cool the planet — strongly enough so that small changes in cloudiness would have a serious feedback on climate.(89)" -
johnd at 09:48 AM on 5 June 2010Models are unreliable
doug_bostrom at 08:17 AM, the link below may help illustrate the overlap of weather data and climate modelling. Note that the various forecasts used are grouped as Coupled GCM's, Ensembles, and Statistical, and are identified with each agency that produces each. I personally favour the Japanese Sintex model as being one of the most accurate, often identifying any change in trends well ahead of any of the others. Until May last year they were extremely accurate, correctly forecasting conditions completely opposed to the more recognised agencies that generally had rather more dismal success. They then updated their computer system which, without absolutely any changes to the models or the data being inputted, began throwing up forecasts more in line with other agencies. Even when they ran old data through, the results turned up different to the forecasts produced on the old system, even though the original forecasts were extremely accurate. I think they are still trying to identify as to why this has occurred, but it does then make one wonder if all agencies use similar computing systems, is there some inbuilt logic in the computer itself that will influence how the data is processed. The Fast Break Newsletter -
Berényi Péter at 09:28 AM on 5 June 2010Irregular Climate: a new climate podcast
#31 robhon at 03:00 AM on 5 June, 2010 So, I believe the most accurate terms are AGW believer and AGW denier... for those of us who are NOT researchers That is not so. Whenever some piece of natural science is actually settled, researchers should be able to make it transparent and understandable for anyone outside the field provided she has a firm grasp of some basics like the underlying physics and some inclination to math. If they fail to do so, the science is not settled. It is as simple as that. Moreover, an outsider like this is able to spot inconsistencies, sloppy methods, omissions, circular reasoning and the like. If you don't accept this, there is no way for you to tell crackpot and genuine science apart. There are experts of homeopathy, astrology or parapsychology with their respective huge underlying bodies of knowledge. These are complex fields requiring many years of study and they even claim to do original research. Your approach can be translated to this context as there being genuine homeopathy researchers while anyone else is either a believer or a denier. As they have peer reviewed journals as well, to be a denier is obviously foolish. -
yocta at 09:27 AM on 5 June 2010CO2 is not the only driver of climate
RE#266 theendis far I second KR. Making statements waiting for someone to correct you, in my view is lazy. You say: If N2 and O2 absorb and emit radiation, are they GHG's? I can’t understand why you would ask this question as it demonstates to the reader, an incomplete understanding of the science. All molecules will have absorption/emission spectra, but whether it is relevant to Earth’s radiation budget (and hence if we would label them as greenhouse gases) is dependant on the particular wavelength of light they are active to. The hullaballoo about CO2 is that it is strongly active in the infrared region which is why we are so interested in its properties. See this as a primer on infrared spectroscopy and here on spectroscopy of planets in general and why different solar bodies have different measured temperatures and atmospheric colours. As to the rest of your questions bu they will happily provide references for you to read up on but it's not SS readers' job to answer them directly if you don't first do the homework. You need to go back and read a first year text on Climate Science, or get a one-on-one with an academic at a university. This took me about 40 mins to find good enough reliable web links to explain my points so I sympathise with people's lack of patience with you if you don’t make a demonstrated effort first to understand the existing physics behind that of climate science. -
KR at 08:30 AM on 5 June 2010Models are unreliable
doug - thanks for the link! Fascinating reading... I hadn't realized the complexity of the models used. My apologies for inaccuracies, johnd - looks like GCM models have some similarities to short term weather forcasts, but are far more extensive and detailed. I'll repeat, though, that each refinement brings the GCM's closer to matching the actual world behaviors, and makes them more and more useful for looking at the "what-if" scenarios. -
Doug Bostrom at 08:17 AM on 5 June 2010Models are unreliable
Johnd, I suspect you made a simple typographical error. Weather forecast outputs are not a part of general circulation model inputs. Meanwhile, GCM's -are- climate models; the full term is "general circulation model of climate." Finally, just to be extra clear for bystanders, climate models do not produce forecasts nor is that the purpose of such models. For the curious, see background information on general circulation models here. -
Riccardo at 08:17 AM on 5 June 2010On the Question of Diminishing Arctic Ice Extent
johnd, yes, but depending on where you put your zero and on the area sampled you may under or over estimate the total area and hence average ice thickness. -
Dennis at 08:14 AM on 5 June 2010Monckton Chronicles Part II – Here Comes the Sun?
Daved Green @12: There's probably no legal standing in the US to sue Monckton over his misquotes of scientists' published work. However, a workable approach would be for someone (John Abraham?) to apply the same thorough analysis to Monckton's US Congressional testimony, and then get that congressional committee (I believe Ed Markey is the chair) to subpoena Monckton to explain (under oath)the disrepancies between his testimony and what the scientists he has cited actually have said. And some of those scientists could be there testifying as well. Monckton would then have to appear before congress the next time he planned to visit the US, or risk defying a congressional subpoena. -
KR at 08:09 AM on 5 June 2010Models are unreliable
johnd - when dealing with models, it's really not a black-and-white issue of right/wrong. What's important is the predictive capability of the model, which is a sliding scale; how close is the prediction to the actual outcome? Newtonian physics is "wrong" according to General Relativity - but accurate enough to compute most orbital paths outside of Mercury. Each of these models is 'valid' for the assumptions used - the relationships, the feedbacks, time scales, input values, etc. These assumptions can be shown to be incorrect - if a feedback value is incorrect, or an important relationship neglected, discovering the more accurate value or relationship can lead to abandoning or modifying a model. And if your assumptions are wildly off, your model is as well. These different models all disagree where questions about actual values (current and future research questions!) are still open. If the climate sensitivity is somewhere between 2-4.5 degrees C to a CO2 doubling, then any assumption in that range is in itself valid, and the models predictions will vary. This doesn't mean that the climate sensitivity is therefore 0.1 or 15! The models are close. None of the models are perfect - they are not exactly right on the input assumptions, input conditions, relationships, etc. The only complete model would be a copy of the Earth! But after sufficient testing (multiple runs with historic data compared to present, future predictions checked after a couple of years, etc.), they are close, or they are abandoned. And if they are close, they are useful for decision making. In my opinion (for whatever that's worth) weather predictions are far more likely to be wrong than climate models, given equal accuracy on assumptions - weather is a short term non-linear chaotic system, and the smallest bit of error in starting conditions, or insufficient granularity of the model, will result in the weather departing from the model after a time. Climate, on the other hand, is far less chaotic - long term averaging overrides any short term non-linear variance. And as doug_bostrom said, detailed weather forcasting models have nothing to do with the GCM's - only the long term average measurements are inputs to GCM's. -
johnd at 08:06 AM on 5 June 2010Models are unreliable
doug_bostrom at 07:57 AM, doug, which part do you disagree with, that weather data is plugged into GCM's, or that GCM's are plugged into climate models? -
Doug Bostrom at 08:01 AM on 5 June 2010Models are unreliable
Johnd, forecasting is not what climate models do. You're probably on top of that but it's an important distinction for folks less up on the topic, frequently the source of confusion. -
Berényi Péter at 07:58 AM on 5 June 2010Robust warming of the global upper ocean
#60 Ken Lambert at 23:46 PM on 26 May, 2010 The mechanism of heat transfer to the oceans from the atmosphere has always been unconvincing You are right. Downwelling can only occur close to the ice edge where sea surface temperature is pretty constant (determined by freezing point of seawater). On top of that water salinity at surface has to be higher than at bottom and/or its potential temperature has to be lower. It is easy to see that with no additional heating from below bottom water becomes saturated sooner or later in both respects. If that happens, circulation is halted. Thermal conductivity of water is rater low (0.58 W m-1 K-1). It means that with 20 K temperature difference between surface and water at a depth of 4000 m heat transfer by conduction is only 3 mW m-2. It takes more than 150 kyear to heat up the abyss by 1 K this way. On the other hand average heat flow from oceanic crust is 100 mW m-1 and at some places it can be as high as 350 mW m-1
For geothermal heating it takes only 5000 years to raise ocean temperature by 1 K. BTW, there is about the order of magnitude correspondence between this figure and alleged ocean turnaround time.
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Doug Bostrom at 07:57 AM on 5 June 2010Models are unreliable
After all, weather forecasting provides much of the data that that is plugged into GCM's that end up being plugged into all the climate models. No. -
johnd at 07:46 AM on 5 June 2010On the Question of Diminishing Arctic Ice Extent
Riccardo at 07:32 AM on 5 June, 2010, I think the same principle still applies. The area represented by a pixel will still be larger as the distance from the focal point increases. -
Rob Honeycutt at 07:32 AM on 5 June 2010Why does Anthony Watts drive an electric car?
Ha! Maybe, in time, the whole car is going to fold up like George Jetson's car and we'll carry it into our homes like a briefcase and charge it there. :-) -
Riccardo at 07:32 AM on 5 June 2010On the Question of Diminishing Arctic Ice Extent
johnd, "any error would cause an UNDER estimation, not an OVER estimation." not true, it depends on the projection. For example, you may have a projection that makes the area calculated at, say, 70° correct with opposite bias on the two sides. There's no way to come to any meaningful conclusion without knowing which projection has been used. -
Rob Honeycutt at 07:18 AM on 5 June 2010Why does Anthony Watts drive an electric car?
Doug, You're right. I hadn't thought about that. It's been a while since I lived in an apartment. A quick google search turns this up though... I wish I had the patent on that thing. -
johnd at 07:13 AM on 5 June 2010Models are unreliable
KR at 23:29 PM on 4 June, 2010, the point I started out to make was that models, be they forecasting the weather or the climate, should be within themselves 100% valid. That is, the combination of assumptions cannot be shown to be incorrect. If they could be then that particular model would be flawed and should not be used. Because each individual model is based on valid assumptions then it has as much chance of being correct as any other individual model. With the IPCC they take the mean as being the most likely outcome. With weather forecasters the process is similar with a number of different models all being run simultaneously with a range of different outcomes. When the forecasters are required to give a forecast for an extended outlook the use their best JUDGEMENT to select the output of whatever model they think at that time to be the most likely to eventuate. As I had mentioned earlier, this at times has resulted in different agencies simultaneously issuing forecasts totally 100% opposing each other. Obviously someones best judgement is different to someone else. They both can't be right, just as all models, be they weather or climate models, cannot all be right. Only one can hope to be right. HOWEVER as does happen with weather forecast models, at times ALL can be wrong. There is no fundemental reason also why all the climate models tracked by IPCC cannot be all wrong. After all, weather forecasting provides much of the data that that is plugged into GCM's that end up being plugged into all the climate models. -
Doug Bostrom at 07:09 AM on 5 June 2010Why does Anthony Watts drive an electric car?
Rob, for sure when I remove my rose-tinted spectacles the swap idea does have some faults. However looking through neutral density I also realize we've got millions of vehicles owned by folks living in apartments, condos and "townhomes" w/parking arrangements distinctly problematic for retrofit with plug-in chargers. It'll be easy for me to charge, I've got ample 110 and 220 in my attached garage. Yet my brother lives in an apartment with his vehicle parked in a low-density arrangement that looks as though it would be extremely expensive to retrofit with charging infrastructure. Beyond the sheer amount of hardware and labor needed to equip the parking area with chargers, the parking spaces themselves do not closely correlate with the apartment location. Some form of duplicative electric metering would be needed, even if in the form of an integrator in the vehicle that could be read via wireless at the gate or whatever. Or maybe a credit card reader at the charger? What to do? Yet another head-scratcher. Hmmm. -
johnd at 06:34 AM on 5 June 2010On the Question of Diminishing Arctic Ice Extent
Ned at 02:00 AM on 4 June, 2010, Walt Meier, research scientist at the NSIDC made the following statement is a response to an issue where Steve Goddard wrongly calculated an increase in ice extent due to a problem with the images used. Walt Meier" "The proper way to calculate a comparison of ice coverage is by actually weighting the pixels by their based on the map projection, which is exactly what NSIDC does." This is taken from the article at http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08/15/goddard_arctic_ice_mystery/ Clearly NSIDC also use pixel counting. If you think about, if weighting was not given to the pixels, any error would cause an UNDER estimation, not an OVER estimation. -
Rob Honeycutt at 06:31 AM on 5 June 2010Why does Anthony Watts drive an electric car?
Doug... I actually saw a TED talk about that same battery swap program. As I remember part of the model is that you wouldn't own the battery in your car. You'd just drive in and a machine would swap out the battery on the underside of the car. The Tesla Model S is apparently built with the battery swap idea in mind. I still think it's a dubious business model with a future unknown like battery technology. Plus, current gas stations are based on a model where we all have to fill up fairly frequently. If you get 100 mile range on a battery that means that over 90% of "refueling" will take place at night in people's homes. -
Ned at 06:07 AM on 5 June 2010On the Question of Diminishing Arctic Ice Extent
Maybe I missed something. Do we actually know what projection is used for those maps? It doesn't seem to say anything on the website. I was just speculating about polar stereographic, but it could be any azimuthal projection (orthographic, Lambert, ...?) The scale variation would depend on the specific projection parameters. More broadly, what metadata are available describing these data? Have the model results been validated, and if so, what is the structure of the error? I find it a bit disconcerting that the entire community of "skeptics" (here, at WUWT, etc.) seems to have suddenly latched onto this PIPS2 model with little to no examination of its suitability for the purposes to which they are enlisting it. Or perhaps I've missed something, and all these questions have been satisfactorily answered already.
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