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Composer99 at 08:11 AM on 4 March 2014Global warming theory isn't falsifiable
Re: John Hartz's call for volunteers to write up an OP, I'd be willing to give it a shot, if no one with better scientific qualifications (read: any qualifications at all) steps up.
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davidnewell at 07:50 AM on 4 March 2014Global warming theory isn't falsifiable
"Nero fiddled", and sure enough, I hear the sound of violins.
Are the glaciers melting?
It's taken 150 years to ignorantly get ourselves into this peril: it will take 150 years of directed response to reverse the trend: isn't it time to move into "response" and let the late-adapters fogure it out?
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John Hartz at 07:36 AM on 4 March 2014Global warming theory isn't falsifiable
We need a volunteer to write an OP for this comment thread.
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davidnewell at 07:34 AM on 4 March 2014The Editor-in-Chief of Science Magazine is wrong to endorse Keystone XL
I agree that Ms McNutt drew the wrong conclusion, but I think that saying:
"The Editor-in-Chief of the one of the world's most prestigious science journals should know that doing her part for minimizing global warming requires more than a few gestures which, although they set a good example, are inconsequential in terms of solving the problem.."
is also an incorrect and/or gratuitous statement.
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John Hartz at 07:34 AM on 4 March 2014Global warming theory isn't falsifiable
All: PanicBusiness has been banned from further posting on the SkS website. The person behind the PanicBusiness screen is the same person the was behind the Elephant In The Room screen. Sock puppetry is strictly prohibited by the SkS Comments Policy. Persons engaging in sock puppetry automatically lose their posting privileges.
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John Hartz at 07:30 AM on 4 March 2014Models are unreliable
All: PanicBusiness has been banned from further posting on the SkS website. The person behind the PanicBusiness screen is the same person the was behind the Elephant In The Room screen. Sock puppetry is strictly prohibited by the SkS Comments Policy. Persons engaging in sock puppetry automatically lose their posting privileges,
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David Lewis at 06:07 AM on 4 March 2014The Editor-in-Chief of Science Magazine is wrong to endorse Keystone XL
The US is increasing its own oil production faster than at any time in its history. (See: WSJ article). The increased production is due to implementation of new techniques, i.e. horizontal drilling and fracking.
In this context, its hard to see how US political activists can single out Canadian tar sand oil production as something that, if expanded, means it is "game over" for the climate, while they remain basically silent about their own soaring oil and gas production.
Stopping Keystone XL can be seen as a trade issue, i.e. the US is attempting to limit the ability of Canada to trade in a commodity the US is expanding its own production of.
The Keystone XL campaign seems to have originated in the ideas of Jim Hansen, who came up with the its "game over" slogan. In "Thoughts on Keystone XL", I wrote an analysis of Hansen's political ideas, by comparing the Hansen position to that of Stephen Chu. Chu, when he was head of the US DOE supported Keystone.
In "Rethinking Keystone XL" I argued that Obama was actually looking for something significant and meaningful to do when he raised the topic of climate change in his 2nd Inaugural Address. I suggested that the "movement" could, and should, tell him what that something is.
US activists could call on Obama, who still claims he is very interested in leaving a meaningful legacy on the climate issue, to implement regulation that would affect the price of all activities that emit carbon to the atmosphere that are engaged in on US soil.
PS. In "Keystone XL, One Head of the Hydra" I attempted to show how the pipeline industry can work around a cancellation of the part of the Keystone XL activists are calling on Obama to stop. It is a very flexible and fast moving industry.
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John Hartz at 03:10 AM on 4 March 20142014 SkS Weekly Digest #9
Steve L & Phillipe Chanteau:
Your concerns are duly noted.
The sentence, "Some scientists got caught fudging data!" is clearly being made by the climate denier sitting atop the North Pole.
If folks in Deniersville draw attention to this particular toon, the more people will see it and will have a good chuckle.
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mbryson at 02:44 AM on 4 March 2014The Editor-in-Chief of Science Magazine is wrong to endorse Keystone XL
Thanks for this, from a Canadian and Albertan -- an excellent summation, revealling just how untenable our national and provincial position has become. As one of the wealthiest nations and regions in the world, we must become part of the solution, not a determined outpost of bitterly destructive and short-sighted policies. Our governments' utter determination to serve the interests of one industry to the exclusion of any other considerations will not be changed from inside Canada (opposition parties across the board support pipelines and continued development of the tar sands). Those of us who see the endgame a little more clearly know that the sooner long-term economic and trade consequences of this obsession become clear, the better the chance that we and the world will manage to change direction and avoid catastrophic consequences.
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Mike3267 at 02:36 AM on 4 March 2014The Editor-in-Chief of Science Magazine is wrong to endorse Keystone XL
I think Andy Skuce has the politics backwards. If Obama says he'll approve the pipeline if Canada agrees to X, and Canada says no to X, then the pipeline won't be built and the blame will shift to the Canadaian government.
But more importantly, this is just the wrong battle. If you are opposing jobs, profits and market forces generally, you are more likely than not to lose. Skuce acknowledges that "blocking the construction of new fossil fuel infrastructure is an imperfect way of keeping carbon in the ground." This should be central stategic point, not just a tangental remark. We need a price on GHG emissions, and that should be our central focus. Obama could say to the House GOP that he will support Keystone if they lower carporate taxes and add a carbon tax. This starts to shift the focus of the debate.
See, for example:
http://www.npr.org/2014/02/11/271537401/economist-says-best-climate-fix-a-tough-sell-but-worth-it
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/699c1f18-8d79-11e2-a0fd-00144feabdc0.html
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Philippe Chantreau at 02:12 AM on 4 March 20142014 SkS Weekly Digest #9
Agree with Steve L. I can see the usual deniers claiming "SkS confesses that scientists fudged data" in big headlines and linking to the cartoon as a "source." That would be fit perfectly with their standard methods...
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Composer99 at 00:53 AM on 4 March 2014The epidemic of climate science false balance in the media
MartinG:
IMO you are confusing effective communication strategies with propaganda.
Assuming a policy solution to global warming is required, domestic constituencies (voters) have to be willing to support political efforts to reach that solution. If the applicable science doesn't get communicated effectively to the public, who are unlikely to have the inclination or expertise to, say, wade through the entire IPCC AR4 or AR5, such a policy solution stands no chance of being implemented.
IMO you are also espousing a simplistically negative notion of propaganda (as a technique). What's your evidence that propaganda has only been used to "push false impressions" in the past, or that it "rarely has a lasting effect"?
(One of the most striking pieces of propaganda I can think of is "Rosie the Riveter", below. Is the "impression" being made upon the viewer false or unethical? Can you really say that it, and other propaganda encouraging women to work in factories in the US during the Second World War, did not have a lasting effect?)
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MA Rodger at 21:22 PM on 3 March 2014Models are unreliable
PanicBusiness @682.
To truly get a handle on what you are on about, what would you consider defines "High sensitivity AGW supporters "?
And regarding the part of AR5 Figure 11.25 that you pasted in the thread above. Is this not what you have requested? A projection based on current climate science that you can compare to you own particular view that it is "very likely that in the coming five years there will be no significant warming or there will even be significant cooling."? Indeed if you examine Figure 11.25 you will find it is projection a global temperature rise of 0.13ºC to 0.5ºC/decade averaged over the next two decades.
And regarding your comment that "High sensitivity AGW supporters are either extremely unlucky(in a sense that an implausible scenario happens) or wrong." What you describe as an "implausable scenario" is presently explainable by the recent run of negative ENSO conditions. The underlying global temperature rise remains ~0.2ºC/decade which does not as of today indicate any "unlucky" 'hiatus' unless it is an accelerating rise in temperature that is being projected.
Of course, climate science is expecting such an acceleration, that being evident in AR5 Figure 11.25. However talk of acceleraton may not be very helpful for somebody still grappling with the concept of average global surface temperatures getting higher with time. Where many have difficulty when they reflect on global climate is the vast size of the system under examination. It functions on a different timescale to that we humans are used to. So it will not give definitive answers on the basis of 5 or 10 years data.
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Steve L at 16:01 PM on 3 March 20142014 SkS Weekly Digest #9
Not a fan of the toon of the week this week. I don't think SkS should be either, since it violates an important guideline in how to debunk myths -- it promotes a backfire effect. In fact, when I saw it I asked myself, "Did some climate scientists get caught fudging data?" I realize that the cartoon is portraying AGW-deniers, so showing one make a false claim is accurate, but I suspect it nevertheless propagates that particular myth.
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Rob Honeycutt at 15:03 PM on 3 March 2014Models are unreliable
Interesting. Here's the passage right next to Fig 11.25.
The assessment here provides only a likely range for GMST. Possible reasons why the real world might depart from this range include: RF departs significantly from the RCP scenarios, due to either natural (e.g., major volcanic eruptions, changes in solar irradiance) or anthropogenic (e.g., aerosol or GHG emissions) causes; processes that are poorly simulated in the CMIP5 models exert a significant influence on GMST. The latter class includes: a possible strong ‘recovery’ from the recent hiatus in GMST; the possibility that models might underestimate decadal variability (but see Section 9.5.3.1); the possibility that model sensitivity to anthropogenic forcing may differ from that of the real world (see point 5); and the possibility of abrupt changes in climate (see introduction to Sections 11.3.6 and 12.5.5).
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Rob Honeycutt at 14:33 PM on 3 March 2014Models are unreliable
PanicBusinss... Curious if there was a reason you omitted the lower panel of the figure.
Also wondering why you would link to a tinypic without citing the actual location of the source material. This is located in AR5, Chapter 11, Fig 11.25.
What you fail to grasp is that there are a number of things that could be wrong with this. Models could be running hot. Surface temp readings could be reading low (poor polar coverage). More heat may be going into the deep oceans than anticipated. There may be an under counting of volcanic activity. There may be an under counting of industrial aerosols.
What we're likely to find is that it is some combination of these things. Problem for you is that, none of these would invalidate models since models are just a function of the inputs.
Ultimately what doesn't change is the fact that we have a high level of scientific understanding regarding man-made greenhouse gases. The changes in radiative forcing from GHG's relative to natural radiative forcing is large. That gives scientists a high level of confidence that we are warming the planet in a very serious way, regardless of how the models may perform on a short term basis.
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DSL at 14:13 PM on 3 March 2014Models are unreliable
"If" is a lovely word, isn't it?
PB: "But I may not need it after all If there will be no significant warming in the next 10 years it will cast serious doubt on CAGW scenarios."
Yes, and if we find out that aliens have been manipulating our instruments, that will make a big difference as well. Perhaps you'll agree that such a scenario is unlikely. Upon what basis do you imply that "no significant warming" is likely? What model are you using, and is it "falsifiable" as you define it?
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PanicBusiness at 14:10 PM on 3 March 2014Models are unreliable
But this picture of the models compared to actual temperatures appears to support that the AGW threat is less imminent than AGWists used to think. If there is no significant warming in the next few years, It suggests that High sensitivity AGW supporters are either extremely unlucky(in a sense that an implausible scenario happens) or wrong.
As seen in IPCC AR5
Moderator Response:[RH] Changed image width to preserve page formatting.
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scaddenp at 14:08 PM on 3 March 2014Global warming theory isn't falsifiable
DSL - I agree - I would love to hear the basis on which PB forms his/her opinion.
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scaddenp at 14:04 PM on 3 March 2014Models are unreliable
Since the science never refers to "CAGW", perhaps you had better define it for us? And of course you are going to go on record as changing your mind if there is seriously significant warming in next 5 years? (I think there is a high likelihood of El Nino in that period) - or are you firmly of the opinion that surface temperature record has nothing to do with ENSO modes?
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PanicBusiness at 13:28 PM on 3 March 2014Models are unreliable
Obviously not in the format I wanted, and It is very hard to infer actual confidence intervals as highlighted in 12.2.3:
These ensembles are therefore not designed to explore uncertainty in a coordinated manner, and the range of their results cannot be straightforwardly interpreted as an exhaustive range of plausible outcomes
But it does provide some predictions. The problem remains that it will be still very hard to publicly demonstrate the strengths and weaknesses of this report. The reason for that is it is nearly impossible to recreate the predictions for a quantiatively defined scenario. Later it says explicitly that I will not get what I wanted. (But it is great that they acknowledge the need to have it)
In summary, there does not exist at present a single agreed on and robust formal methodology to deliver uncertainty quantification estimates of future changes in all climate variables.
But I may not need it after all If there will be no significant warming in the next 10 years it will cast serious doubt on CAGW scenarios.
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DSL at 12:48 PM on 3 March 2014Global warming theory isn't falsifiable
PB: "I personally find it very likely that in the coming five years there will be no significant warming or there will even be significant cooling. If that happens I want the CAGW community to not come up with additional excuses, and hand-waving like it was totally expected."
Can you tell me how you arrived at that prediction? I'd like to repeat the method to see if I get the same result.
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davidnewell at 12:12 PM on 3 March 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #9B
I am reposting this here because I cannot find the "one Planet" thread which stimulated it. Coming back to this site and picking up where you left off is .. difficult.
=================
#48, One Planet
1. I find a resonance with your posts, perhaps because I am a "Safety Engineer", which runs a fine line between technical knowledge and "human factors". I find common cause with your apparent disdain for the “profit motive” as being an adequate guide for directing human activities.(The proper employment of “the profit motive”, however, and by extension “Capitalism”,) could lead to appropriate outcomes IF the “ultimate cost of goods sold” was expressed in the “purchase price”, in the current marketplace. This, however, requires “appropriate and accurate regulation”, which is not likely to eventuate. ..)
2. The educated participants hereabout tend to make enlightened projections AS IF those factors considered include consideration of the unknown “black swans” which lurk in the depths of changing complex systems.
There is no one here that can establish a “confidence interval” of their projections being accurate ten years into the future. The nature of “Nature” is un -quantifiable. No one knows which straw, when pulled out of the pile, will result in a collapse to another , lower, level of complexity: with unknown results: with the possible exception of knowing that the change will be considered “undesirable” by the humans which may survive.
3. Relatively soon, This site will become obsolete. Every person on Earth will become a “true believer” in “climate change”. Despite their conditioning, they will wish for things to be “as they were” before “The Anthropocene” began to degrade the “Greater Whole” of which we are a part. (capitalized because it is appropriate to do so, IMHO)
4. I cannot find the locus for my originally having posted this link, because I would like to defend against the puerile (as I remember it) objection to it's premise. (My current schedule makes my visits “erratic”, but I'm storing THIS URL in my word processor, so my defense of it can have continuity in one place.)
In my opinion, the brain-trust that this group represents should be directed towards evolving responses which include “Direct Air Capture”, because if this is NOT done: well, see #2, P 2, above.
David
PS If you have a beter idea for direct air capture, lay it out..
5. WWW.EarthThrive.Net
Near Term (25 years)
1.Direct Air Capture and Sequestration of CO2.Mid term (50 years)
2. Mitigating the Drought in the US Southwest
Long Term (150 years)
3.Significantly Influencing the Earth’s Hydrologic cycle
through increasing water vapor, cloud formation, and
terrestrial precipitation
Moderator Response:[JH] Unnecessary white spaces deleted.
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Bob Loblaw at 11:56 AM on 3 March 2014Drought and Global Climate Change: An Analysis of Statements by Roger Pielke Jr
Riduna:
Dr. Roger Pielke Sr. is an atmospheric scientist. Junior is not. Senior carries different baggage, but they are both on the same train, hence it can be hard to keep them apart when reading about them.
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Johnny Vector at 11:19 AM on 3 March 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #9B
@BC: The link appears to be here:
Moderator Response:[JH] Thank you.
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Tom Dayton at 10:58 AM on 3 March 2014Models are unreliable
PanicBusiness, you wrote:
I want the AGWers (who are on supposed consensus) to state their predictions now and clearly as to how much surface temperature warming will happen in function of CO2 emissions with confidence intervals in the future. This is how you make predictions.
It seems you have not done much research. The IPCC has produced its AR5 report, containing those projections. One thing you absolutely must take into account is that the projections depend on assumptions about forcings such as greenhouse gas emissions, aerosols from volcanoes and humans, and solar intensity. Those are uncertain. We can't model each one of the infinite scenarios of forcings. So the IPCC defined a few scenarios that span the range of reasonable expectations of scenarios. GP Wayne has written an excellent explanation of the greenhouse gas emission aspects of those scenarios. How well the models project temperature depends in large part on how well the real world forcings match each of the scenarios. Even the best-matching scenario will not assume exactly the same forcings as happened in the real world. That is not an excuse, it is as unavoidable a problem as is the traffic condition that will actually happen during your drive to work, versus your beforehand scenarios of possible traffic conditions--the scenarios you use to decide when to leave for work.
The projections themselves are in the AR5. Projections from 2016 to 2050 are in the Near Term chapter; see figure 11.9. Projections beyond that are in the Long Term chapter.
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davidnewell at 10:48 AM on 3 March 2014A Hack By Any Other Name — Part 3
There appears to be a great number of would-be post-=adolescent yahoos whose primary aim is to screw up boards, (or corporate databases) and who download aps to effect that end from (usually) Eastern European sources, and try them out "just because they can".
THIS attack appears to be specifically malicious, though.
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Rob Honeycutt at 10:47 AM on 3 March 2014Global warming theory isn't falsifiable
PB @33... I've continued this conversation on a more appropriate thread. Here.
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Rob Honeycutt at 10:46 AM on 3 March 2014CO2 limits will harm the economy
PanicBusiness (from this previous thread)...
First, you're repeating a citation of the exact same article you posted before and adding no new content. That is considered sloganeering here at SkS. The fact of the matter is that regulations positive net impact on the economy. Larry Bell is presenting only the cost side of the equation while ignoring the net benefits. You can go to google scholar and read dozens of papers on the economic impacts of environmental regulations and see that there is actually a net positive result.
You still, also, seem completely oblivious as to what Figueres is saying relative to China. She's merely pointing out that it is far easier for China to take action on climate change. Figueres states,
“They actually want to breathe air that they don’t have to look at,” she said. “They’re not doing this because they want to save the planet. They’re doing it because it’s in their national interest.” [From your own link here.]That's not a value judgement on which system she prefers. It's just a point of fact. Because of their political system the can move far faster than we can in the west. I often point out that China is run like the world's largest private corporation, and the Chinese people are their customers.
If you want to have an open and honest conversation about this, I'm all for it. But you're definitely going to have to drop the dismissive attitude. The second thing you can do is support your claims with actual research rather than links to politically modivated people and groups like Larry Bell and the CEI.
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Tom Dayton at 10:25 AM on 3 March 2014Models are unreliable
PanicBusiness, you wrote on another thread:
I personally find it very likely that in the coming five years there will be no significant warming or there will even be significant cooling. If that happens I want the CAGW community to not come up with additional excuses, and hand-waving like it was totally expected.
"The CAGW community" specifically disclaims the ability to predict temperatures for five year and even ten year spans. That's weather, not climate. So you've set up a strawman if you mean you want predictions from now for the next five years.
If instead you mean that in five years the trend over the previous 30 years (25 years ago from now, plus 5 years into the future) will be below the GCMs' projections, then first you will need to verify that result after having used the models to hindcast using the actual forcings during that period (Sun, aerosols, and greenhouse gases), or at least will have to statistically adjust the model projections to accommodate the actual forcings, as was done by Schmidt, Shindell, and Tsigaridis. To be thorough you should remove ENSO as well, though over a 30-year period it should average out to about zero. When I say 30 years, I mean really 30 years. Focusing on the last five years of a 30-year period is just looking at weather, so if the projections were within range for 29 years and in the 30th year dipped below the 90% range, you can't yell about that 30th year as if that is climate.
If after doing all that, five years from now the 30-year trend is below the 90% range of the model projections, then I would say that the projections were too high and that policies depending on those projections need to be modified. But the modifications of policy would not be to assume the models are "falsified" in the sense that they are useless. Instead, policies would need to be reworked to suit projections that are lower than those original projections, but lower only as much as indicated by the difference from the observations.
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Riduna at 10:24 AM on 3 March 2014Drought and Global Climate Change: An Analysis of Statements by Roger Pielke Jr
The article calls ... "Dr. Roger Pielke, Jr., a University of Colorado political scientist."
I thought he was an atmospherric scientist and, as such, should know what he is talking about - though he has a long record of showing the opposite.
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scaddenp at 10:12 AM on 3 March 2014Global warming theory isn't falsifiable
I would expect climate scientists to say, yes we were wrong and to continue to investigate to find out why.
I would also ask the corrallary of your question. I would expect the next El Nino with an index of 1.8 or more to register record global temperatures on all current indexes including tropospheric satellite measurements. If this happens, will you change your stance and ask yourself what measures you would support to reduce global emissions?
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scaddenp at 09:57 AM on 3 March 2014Global warming theory isn't falsifiable
"I want the AGWers (who are on supposed consensus) to state their predictions now and clearly as to how much surface temperature warming will happen in function of CO2 emissions with confidence intervals in the future. This is how you make predictions."
Firstly, what part of "models have no skill at decadal level prediction" do you not understand? However, if you understand that models do not predict ENSO, then I think it is possible to make reasonable predictions for a 5 year trend given a value for the ENSO index. Ie, to make predictions of the form "if ENSO value is this, the aerosols are Y, TSI is Z, then temperature will be T +/-" -
Tom Dayton at 09:56 AM on 3 March 2014Global warming theory isn't falsifiable
Okay then PanicBusiness: What you are asking for is what the GCMs produce, and which are described (and should be commented on) in the post Models Are Unreliable. See my comments to you there.
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PanicBusiness at 09:54 AM on 3 March 2014Global warming theory isn't falsifiable
I want to have a document from 2014 stating what the "settled science" actually says. As a reference. And see what happens.
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scaddenp at 09:50 AM on 3 March 2014Global warming theory isn't falsifiable
My thoughts on how to falsify anthropogenic global warming.
Like any other theory, you falsify by demonstrating that observations are at variance with the tenets of theory. So let look at the tenets how they could be falsified:
1/ the increase in CO2 is due to human emissions.
Falsified if a/ showing insufficient emissions to account for the increase. b/ show the isotopic signature is inconsistant with emission.
2/ The rising CO2 concentration is causing increased LW irradiation of surface and consequent change in outgoing LW; and that radiation will have the spectral signature of CO2.
Falsified by ground or space spectrometers readings inconsistent with calculated signature. Pyrgeometers not registering increased LW.
3/ In accordance with conservation of energy and Planck's Law, the increased LW irradiation will warm the oceans and land surfaces. Because most of the surface is covered by liquid however, and ocean/atmospheric processes have a big influence on surface temperatures, an equilibrium temperature will take 100s of years to be obtained. While this is happening though, the ocean heat content will rise at a rate consistent with the energy imbalance.
Falsified by OHC decreasing or stable; falling or stable 30-year surface temperature trends.
Models may not be perfect, they are always wrong in some ways, but they remain the most skillful way to predict the future climate that we have. If you dont like models, then you have to fallback on less skillful methods. -
PanicBusiness at 09:49 AM on 3 March 2014Global warming theory isn't falsifiable
Okay I will try to be as clear as possible.
I personally find it very likely that in the coming five years there will be no significant warming or there will even be significant cooling. If that happens I want the CAGW community to not come up with additional excuses, and hand-waving like it was totally expected.
I want the AGWers (who are on supposed consensus) to state their predictions now and clearly as to how much surface temperature warming will happen in function of CO2 emissions with confidence intervals in the future. This is how you make predictions.
If, for example, there will be 0.4°C cooling in the next 30 years I want to be able to say this is what they said and they were wrong. Or if they do not have the courage to make any meaningful prediction or just extremely vague ones, I want to be able to say they are not even wrong.
thank you for reading.
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john byatt at 09:43 AM on 3 March 2014A Hack By Any Other Name — Part 3
Thanks JH, undies changed, no problem
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scaddenp at 09:22 AM on 3 March 2014Global warming theory isn't falsifiable
It appears PanicBusiness "real" skeptics were fooled by strawman predictions, cherry-picked starting point and false baselining. What happened to the "skepticism" when assessing those claims?
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KR at 08:28 AM on 3 March 2014Global warming theory isn't falsifiable
PanicBusiness - You have been referring to GCMs and falsifiability; this is however an inappropriate terminology. Global circulation models are simulations of physics, evaluations of how those physics and the climate state might evolve over time, but they are not in themselves either hypotheses or theories.
GCMs are models, and models in general are always 'wrong' in that they do not contain the entirety of the physics, the details, and in that there will always be errors. The question with models is whether or not they are useful. It may very well be that the current generation of GCMs are incomplete in aspects of the climate that make them inaccurate - insufficient accounting for variability or modes thereof, or (as in the case of many models) run with inaccurate forcings or temperatures. There's certainly a significant literature pointing in that direction, as with England et al 2014 wrt variability or Contan and Way 2014 wrt temperature measures.
The only judgement you can make based solely on model output is whether or not they are accurate enough to be useful.
Global warming theory and the anthropogenic influence, on the other hand, is entirely falsifiable. Predictions include night warming faster than day, winter warming faster than summer, warming troposphere and cooling stratosphere, polar amplification, the changes in top of atmosphere forcings with changing GHGs, the sum climate energy increase as seen in ocean heat content, etc. If these predictions failed, there would be evidence against the theories.
Those predictions have, however, been validated within the limits of the data available - while falsifiable, they have not been. And you have not been discussing the theories themselves in any fashion whatsoever.
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Tom Dayton at 08:26 AM on 3 March 2014Global warming theory isn't falsifiable
PanicBusiness, you missed the point of my example of string theories. String theories certainly qualify as scientific theories as opposed to supernatural explanations. That was true despite them not being falsifiable when they were thunk up originally, as is true of a great many theories when they are originally thunk up but have not been subjected to empirical tests capable of falsifying them, and even when nobody has thought of a way to falsify them. Theories can be very valuable in other ways (e.g., fruitfulness) despite that. Initially, theories can get a pass on the falsifiability attribute of theory quality, as they can for low scores on other attributes. They are still scientific theories, and may even be potentially great theories because there is good reason to hope they can be improved in their low-scoring attributes. Eventually the theories might be abandoned because despite a great deal of work, folks have given up improving their low-scoring attributes or their total low score summed across all the weighted attributes. They might be "abandoned" meaning set aside because they are not as good as competing theories, rather than being "discarded" because they have been "falsified." Even a theory that appears to be falsified can be resurrected by realizing that some of its auxiliary theories were the pieces that were wrong.
"Falsifiability" is not an unambiguous, monolithic attribute. It depends on context--framework. Newtonian physics has been "falsified." But Newtonian physics has not been falsified in contexts where relativity is not strong enough to be important. Consquently, Newtonian physics is used a lot more than relativistic physics is. Newtonian physics still is a legitimate scientific theory. It scores poorly in certain attributes, but in most contexts of use those attributes are not very important.
Falsification is not the only attribute of scientific theories. It is not necessarily the most important attribute.
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Tom Dayton at 07:57 AM on 3 March 2014Global warming theory isn't falsifiable
PanicBusiness: You implied that I said GCMs are not falsifiable. That is incorrect. GCMs of course have the ability to be empirically demonstrated wrong. But there are many varieties of "wrong," so there are many varieties of my answer to your question. I can't respond with my answer to your question until you specify which variety of "wrong" you are asking me about. For example, do you want to know my criteria for concluding, based solely on the match of GCM projections to observations, that the presence of greenhouse gases does not make the Earth warmer than it would be otherwise? Or do you want to know my criteria for concluding that GCMs over-predict temperature trend by 2 times? Or what? Exactly?
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jja at 07:56 AM on 3 March 2014Drought and Global Climate Change: An Analysis of Statements by Roger Pielke Jr
In RPjr's senate testimony he stated that his models of future hurricane activity response to climate change, if perturbed to align with worst case model projections (I assume a 36% increase in extreme hurricane (3+) landfalls by 2100, that these events would not produce a stastically significant result for several decades.
I would like to know just how many extreme hurricane landfall events were needed between now and then to produce a statistically significant result.
Then I would want to see a total cost, in lives lost and economic damages for the sum of those events.
Finally, I would like to see the same projections (lives and cost), scaled out to 2200 for the climate response that results from maintaining BAU emissions for those "several decades" while we wait for the statistically significant trend to surface, and only then engaging in significant mitigation activities.
I am guessing that his model would show at least 14 significant major hurricane landfall events, above those that would have happened absent of global warming, for a total sum cost approaching 650 billion dollars and hundreds of lives lost.
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Albatross at 07:54 AM on 3 March 2014Drought and Global Climate Change: An Analysis of Statements by Roger Pielke Jr
I have mixed feel ing about Holdren debunking Pielke. The downside is why Holdren bothered trying to enagage and reason with a bit player like Pielke, it just feed's Pielke's ego, not to mention that Pielke just loves attention.
On the up side, a highly respected and influential figure has finally called Pielke on his repeated misleading comments, misinformation and misrepresentation of the facts. Footnotes or not-- including key information in footnotes just highlights the fact that Pielke is not being 100% honest with his audience, yet Pielke is ironically trying to use his conscious decision to claim his innocence ;) Fail.
Pielke has been quite slippery in the language he has used (and also what he has chosen to highlight or ignore for that matter) to appease the Republicans and help Republicans in their ongoing agenda to stand in the way of the USA reducing GHG emissions.
This episode has tarnished Pielke's reputation and his claim to be a supposed "honest broeker", and rightly so. Pielke walks a fine line between right and wrong and it was just a matter of time before he went over the line and got called out.
After Spencer (an infamous "skeptic") completely lost it in public recently, he is probably not going to be called to testify on behalf of the Republicans (the 3% has become even smaller). Fortunately, Pielke (a political scientist) will likely be only too happy to come to the aid of the obstructionist and ant-science Republicans when they next try to undermine climate science.
PS: It is interesting, Pielke allegedly voted for Obama and was happy with the appointement of Holdren as science advisor. Yet Pielke is only to happy to repeatedly help the Republicans stall on addressing AGW.
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PanicBusiness at 07:36 AM on 3 March 2014Global warming theory isn't falsifiable
Okay Tom Daytons' 32 is an excellent start for discussing falsifiability in the framework of GCM based simulations but one thing I want to point out is that if you have a theory you are the one obliged to provide a possibility of falsifiability as to mature your theory into a scientific theory. To stick with tom's example string theorists are indeed having hard time to finding testable predictions (with current technologies) but they are also under heavy pressure from the rest of the theorethical physics community to do so. For a catch up on the controversy you can read Woit's blog.
Now I do want to make sure that at this point everyone understands the need for a theory to be falsifiable. You can write books about it but this little text sums it up best from wikipedia about Pauli
"[...] However, this was not his most severe criticism, which he reserved for theories or theses so unclearly presented as to be untestable or unevaluatable and, thus, not properly belonging within the realm of science, even though posing as such. They were worse than wrong because they could not be proven wrong. Famously, he once said of such an unclear paper: "It is not even wrong!""
P.S. I like the automatic helper on the sidebar that helps people with keywords. It makes writing to a wider audience a lot easier.
Moderator Response:[JH] You are now skating on the thin ice of excessive repitition which is prohibited by the SkS Comments Polcy. All of your assertions about falsifiability have been thoroughly addressed many times over by more than one SkS contributor. Please cease and desist replowing the same ground. If you do not, your future posts will be summarily deleted.
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Tom Dayton at 06:36 AM on 3 March 2014Global warming theory isn't falsifiable
PanicBusiness, I continued my response to you on the more appropriate thread Models Are Unreliable.
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Tom Dayton at 06:33 AM on 3 March 2014Models are unreliable
This comment is a continuation of a conversation that started on the Falsifiability thread; this continuation is more appropriate on this Models Are Unreliable thread.
PanicBusiness: I can say that evaluating GCMs' temperature projections requires evaluating the GCMs' hindcasts rather than forecasts, when the hindcast execution differs from forecast execution only in the hindcast having the actual values of forcings--at least solar forcing, greenhouse gases (natural and artificial), and aerosols (natural and artificial). That is because GCMs' value in "predicting" temperature does not include predicting those forcings. Instead, GCMs are tools for predicting temperature given specific trajectories of forcings. Modelers run GCMs separate times for separate scenarios of forcings. GCMs are valuable if they "sufficiently" accurately predict temperature for a given scenario, when "sufficient" means that scenario is useful for some purpose such as one input in policy decisions.
My other requirement for evaluating GCMs is that even within an accurate scenario of forcings, that the short-term noise be ignored. Perhaps the most important known source of that noise is ENSO. ENSO causes short term increases in warming and short term decreases in warming, but overall balances out to a net zero change, meaning it is noise on top of the long term temperature trend signal. You can do that by comparing the observed temperature trend to the range of the model run result trends rather than to the trend that is the mean of the individual runs. In GCM trend charts sometimes those individual model runs are shown as skinny lines, as in the "AR4 Models" graph in the "Further Reading" green box below the original post. (Unfortunately, in many graphs those skinny lines are replaced by a block of gray, which easily can be misinterpreted to mean a genuine probabilistic confidence interval around the mean trend.) Actual temperature is expected to not follow the mean trend line! Actual temperature is expected instead to be jagged like any one of those skinny model run lines. The GCMs do a good job of predicting that ENSO events occur and that they average out to zero, but a poor job at predicting when they occur. The mismatches in timing across model runs get averaged out by the model run ensemble mean, leading easily to the misinterpretation that the models project a trend without that jaggedness.
Another way to see past ENSO and to match observed forcings is to statistically adjust the GCMs' projections for those factors. That approach has been taken for observations rather than models by Foster and Rahmstorf. That approach just now has been taken for model projections by Gavin Schmidt, Drew Shindell, and Kostas Tsigaridis--paywalled, but one of their figures has been posted by HotWhopper. Doing so shows that observations are well within the range of model runs.
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PanicBusiness at 06:08 AM on 3 March 2014Global warming theory isn't falsifiable
Hi, @Rob Honeycutt
It is remarkable how you fall for the number one communist fallacy. You seem to think that the cost of restricting free markets manifests itself in the cost of creating and enforcing the regulations plus incubating otherwise unhealthy business models. NO. The vast majority of the cost of the climate regulations is in the fact that on the long run free markets are the best possible model for efficient use of the available resources(yes, free markets are the most sustainable when you account for the actual goods and services produced). Now for the actual cost, see what we got here. $8B? really?
"The Small Business Administration estimates that compliance with such regulations costs the U.S. economy more than $1.75 trillion per year — about 12%-14% of GDP, and half of the $3.456 trillion Washington is currently spending. The Competitive Enterprise Institute believes the annual cost is closer to $1.8 trillion when an estimated $55.4 billion regulatory administration and policing budget is included. CEI further observes that those regulation costs exceed 2008 corporate pretax profits of $1.436 trillion"
As for Ms Figueres, here's another reference if you think the last one was an unbalanced interpretation. But I don't think you have room to question that the AGW/CAGW beliefs are strongly tied to devastating political regulations. Here's another:
"The political divide in the U.S. Congress has slowed efforts to pass climate legislation and is “very detrimental” to the fight against global warming, she said."
Most of what I say is widely accepted the reason why I still provide references is to give opportunity for readers to catch up on the issue.
note: Rob's confused comment calls for an answer but I do recognize it is not very beneficial continue ths discussion and I am committed to put an end to it.
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Tom Dayton at 05:00 AM on 3 March 2014Global warming theory isn't falsifiable
PanicBusiness: Your question is poorly formed and even odd: "How much more discrepancy between the GCM based simulations and real measured surface temperature anomalies is required before it is safe to announce that those models have been falsified*?"
I don't know what exactly "falsifying" GCMs means. It is not as clear cut as "falsifying" the theory that CO2 absorbs and emits infrared radiation at certain wavelengths.
If what you mean is demonstrating that GCMs' temperature projections are inaccurate, you need to specify what amount of accuracy is sufficient, because of course GCMs' projections are not and never will be 100% accurate, but that fact is not relevant to anything at all.
When evaluating any theory, it is necessary to specify the framework/goals within which it is evaluated--to what purposes is the theory being put, and is the theory sufficiently useful for those purposes? For example, in the world of physics, string theories so far are not "falsifiable" insofar that nobody has even conceived of a way they could be empirically distinguished from each other or from non-string theories--not even in principle. So string theories rate "0" in the falsifability attribute of theories. (Not exactly 0, because somebody might come up with a way someday. They are not unfalsifiable in such a deeply principled way to get a true 0.) But string theories rate high in the fruitfulness attribute--they have sparked creative thinking even within non-string theories.
You failed to provide that framework for evaluating GCMs, so I can't answer your question.
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Jim Eager at 02:20 AM on 3 March 2014A Hack By Any Other Name — Part 3
I have received two emails from SK as described by John Byatt.
Moderator Response:[JH] The SkS automated email system is experiencing a technical glitch. Please bear with us while we fix it.
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