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curiousd at 15:38 PM on 31 January 2013Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama
This may be pushing the no political comments policy, but IMO, in the U.S. there will be effective action once things get bad enough (hopefully dust bowlism of the American Midwest will suffice) that permanently installed "World War Two Type Rules" for climate change action will be invoked. I will stop at severely rationing what is for most people a vacation luxury - round trip intercontinental jet flights. There is a long laundry list of such actions that would be necessary, but are no more draconian than done during WW2. There is already a flicker of this....the folks whose ocean view of Cape Cod would be terribly marred by windmills may now have to deal. See http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/16/us/wind-farm-faa/index.html -
Bernard J. at 13:36 PM on 31 January 2013Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama
Dagold. There was a TV advertisement broadcast in Australia back in the 1990s (or perhaps earlier) where a grandfather and his small grandson are walking into the middle distance on a barren plain, and the grandson says something to the effect of "grandpa, what happened to all the trees?", to which the grandfather responds with "when I was a lad we had these things called forests...". He followed with a description of the animals that lived in the forests, and I seem to recall the boy asking why the forests were allowed to be destroyed. At the end there was the inevitable message from the NGO that commissioned the ad, but I have to admit that the tail end of the content escapes me at the moment. Perhaps someone here has a better recollection of the piece, and might even be able to locate the video itself. I'd be interested to actually see it again, and it would probably be a good template for your project. -
dana1981 at 13:28 PM on 31 January 2013Climate Sensitivity Single Study Syndrome
Yes, sparse OHC data are a challenge. It's interesting that for example when Levitus et al. (2012) came out, climate contrarians were saying the error bars were too small and OHC data are still highly uncertain. Now suddenly they seem to think the uncertainties are inconsequential. In his new 'ten tests' document, Matt Ridley said that aerosols and ocean heat uptake "are now well understood". My jaw nearly hit the floor when I read that. Personally I'm more comfortable with paleoclimate-based sensitivity estimates, the main problem there being that feedbacks in different climate states may not be the same, as I mentioned in this post. And of course there are significant uncertainties in forcing and temperature data further back in time, but the results always seem to be fairly consistent (PALAEOSENS being the latest example). -
Bernard J. at 13:27 PM on 31 January 2013Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama
gws at #13:Utterly disastrous and calamitous climate disruption will make sure that we drastically lower our consumption and population. The former requires preemptive action, history teaches us that the latter is more likely to become true.
With respect to effective and timely action to address human-caused global warming, I've thought for several years now that your alternative description of cause and effect is inevitable. A significant nail in the coffin will be the likely result of the Australian federal election on 14 September this year, which will result in a government that intends to reverse, by effectively a decade or two at least, action to mitigate carbon pollution. I hope that there is serious, significant, and prominent scientific input in the coming debate, although Australia's media (including much of the ABC's news outlets) doesn't want logical, objective truth - they want a story, and the best story would be to change the government. And when the climate is subsequently changed all the more for having changed government and installing a cadre of climate change denialists, the Australian media will be delighted at the inevitable smörgåsbord of climate disaster stories - up until the day that their jobs and/or their lives are affected by it... -
michael sweet at 12:46 PM on 31 January 2013Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama
Witsend: Go comment on the thread about renewable baseline power. People who have looked seriously into this issue come to the opposite conclusion you do. Perhaps you could learn more about the available data. -
michael sweet at 12:43 PM on 31 January 2013Renewables can't provide baseload power
The Los Angeles Times had another article on solar power in Hawaii published January 2013. Apparently they get 25% of their power in some parts of Hawaii from rooftop solar. They will be the leaders in developing how to manage this type of power source. They install more solar in Hawaii because grid power is much more expensive than in the rest of the country. This article suggests that nighttime baseline is about 30% of peak daytime usage. Hawaii has trouble with surges in power due to their small grid size (each island has a separate grid). These issues would not apply to the mainland. -
Doug Hutcheson at 11:59 AM on 31 January 2013Lessons From Past Predictions: Ridley vs. IPCC and Hansen
dana1981 @ 16, Daniel Bailey emailed the Ridley GWPF PDF to me - thanks, Daniel. What a crock! I am an interested spectator of average intelligence, not a scientist, but even I could debunk most of what the document contains. The front cover lists the GWPF Board of Trustees and Academic Advisory Council: why am I not surprised at the rubbish they advocate? -
curiousd at 11:38 AM on 31 January 20132012 Shatters the US Temperature Record. Fox, Watts, and Spencer Respond by Denying Reality
I am taking a different approach to digging out these two datasets myself. I have now a PNG of the version 2.5. I also have found a quote from a NOAA site to wit: "The US HCN version 2 monthly data will continue to be updated through 2012 and will be available in static form thereafter." So I will contact a public relations e mail at NOAA I found and ask for the version 2 for CONUS 2012, as per stated. -
Doug Hutcheson at 11:38 AM on 31 January 2013Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama
scientists tend to invoke the "principle of least astonishment"
Whereas nature impartially invokes the principle of "cause and effect". Perhaps scientists should emphasise the most likely outcomes suggested by their research, rather than the least astonishing and not downplay the worst possible outcomes. Policy makers need accurate information, in order to increase the chances of making effective policies. The public need to be woken up, but I despair of discovering how to do this. -
Doug Hutcheson at 11:12 AM on 31 January 2013Australia's Great Barrier Reef: Last Chance to See?
For its part, the Australian Government appears to not be genuinely concerned about the ultimate fate of the Great Barrier Reef. Simultaneously, it has expressed an intention to save the reef, whilst planning to greatly increase fossil fuel exports from sea ports adjacent to the GBR.
This exactly parallels the government's approach to global warming: paying lip-service to CO₂ reductions, while pressing hard on the accelerator of fossil fuel exports. Sadly, they talk the talk, but don't walk the walk. I guess this reflects public attitudes here in Oz. Homo Stupidus stupidus. -
amhartley at 10:47 AM on 31 January 2013Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama
As a statistical decision theorist, I’m not convinced that ESLD should stop or even be reduced. The optimistic under-estimations of sea level rise, global warming, etc., identified by Brysse et al. are all exercises, albeit informal, in risk minimization (here, risk = expected loss). To explain: If one knows that an (optimistic) under-prediction of, say, 1% of the effects of climate change will result in a loss of x, whereas a (pessimistic) over-prediction of 1% will result in a loss of Ax, where A>1, then it takes a systematic under-prediction to minimize risk, & the degree of under-prediction needed depends on A. Of course, if individual climate scientists were the only ones to suffer when their predictions are wrong, then A would probably equal 1, so that they would want to report simply the most likely future effects as such. However, one could argue that the entire society will suffer more from over-predictions than from under-predictions, at least in the short- to mid-term, since over-predictions lead to those charges of “crying wolf” & thus a loss of confidence in climate science. So, ESLD might not be so bad, & might even minimize risk? -
dana1981 at 09:37 AM on 31 January 2013Lessons From Past Predictions: Ridley vs. IPCC and Hansen
Doug @15 - you're not missing anything good. But there will be a link in the blog post we do on the list. -
dagold at 09:01 AM on 31 January 2013Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama
I am shooting a 3 minute video (having it shot by a filmmaker) in which a grandparent is apologizing to his grandchild for the planet we are leaving them (I am using as my rough baseline the potential 4C world the Pottsdam Institute/World Bank report finds is possible by the 2060s). I intend to shoot multiple videos with similar themes. (Robert Redford, for example, is a grandparent. He WILL (I declare) be in one of the vids once they catch on). The vid will be followed by a short narrated slide-show backing the dialogue with scientific findings, descriptions of the 'coming world', satellite film of Arctic ice melting, etc. If anyone would be interested in vetting the 1 page script and slideshow, please email me and I'll be glad to send it along. my email: dagold56@hotmail.com -
tamikenn57 at 08:48 AM on 31 January 2013Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama
Vroomie and Shoyemore thank you for the links. -
Doug Hutcheson at 08:46 AM on 31 January 2013Lessons From Past Predictions: Ridley vs. IPCC and Hansen
Martin Lack @ 13, following that link, I get "ERROR 403: Forbidden". It seems my computer is the common denominator, as others have obviously not had the problems I am having accessing this document. Sigh. -
gws at 08:13 AM on 31 January 2013Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama
"... only by drastically lowering our consumption and population could we hope to stave off utterly disastrous and calamitous climate disruption." Hmmh, more like this way I guess: Utterly disastrous and calamitous climate disruption will make sure that we drastically lower our consumption and population. The former requires preemptive action, history teaches us that the latter is more likely to become true. -
witsend at 08:04 AM on 31 January 2013Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama
When I was in West Va for a mountaintop removal mining shutdown protest, the miners (in a very suspiciously well-organized terroristic counter-demonstration) would shout at us things like, don't like electricity? use candles! This is something deniers understand that most climate activists and scientists won't admit (and it weakens their case) which is that there really is no change that we can replace the concentrated energy of billions of years of sunlight in fossilized fuels with so-called renewable sources. It does not compute. So, since activists and scientists have been falsely promising the public that our industrial party can continue uninterrupted if only we install solar panels and wind farms, the message has been rejected...because it's just false. It almost certainly wouldn't work anyway because it's too late - but people who know this, and who know about amplifying feedbacks, have a moral obligation to state the truth - only by drastically lowering our consumption and population could we hope to stave off utterly disastrous and calamitous climate disruption. I won't hold my breath! -
gws at 07:01 AM on 31 January 2013Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama
Sorry to spoil the good vibe, but if the past is anything like prologue, the next IPCC report is not likely to be strongly worded. The process does not allow for that, I think. The strong words have to come from us scientists directly, more actively than passively as has been mostly the case. In addition, people who, like my better half, don't like to hear or see doom and gloom, and the mainstream press of course, would have to finally wake up to this unprecedented challenge ... sooo, not remotely likely to happen (at least in the US). I cannot read the Oreskes&Conway article from this wireless, but I venture to say its contents may be viewed as ... "prophetic"? It is hard to "do the right thing" when you do not know what the future brings. These days it feels even harder although (because?) we do know what the future brings. Alas, I think it will get much much worse before humanity collectively works on the solution, which is why humanity will survive, but society as we know it definitely not. And as Naomi Klein wrote, that is a, if not the main reason the denier movement exists. They fight a fight against physics they cannot win, ultimately, and unequivocally, destroying along the way the very thing they care most about. Go figure. -
Bart Verheggen at 06:52 AM on 31 January 2013Climate Sensitivity Single Study Syndrome
Same here: I've cited Ramanathan and Feng's (2009) simple climate diagnosis often, assuming (like they did) that equilibrium sensitivity enters into the calculation of the post-Industrial energy budget. Nic Lewis' estimate (at Bishop Hill) takes the same approach, also assuming it is equilibrium sensitivity he's getting. Problem is that for the past 150 years, no OHC data are available. But still, also for the past 40 years, with the decreased estimate of aerosol forcing in the draft AR5 report, the resulting effective sensitivity would be smaller than it is using a stronger aerosol forcing. There could be a lot of potential explanations for that, but one key aspect which I don't have a good answer to, nor have I found one, is: How much would we expect the effective sensitivity to differ from the equilibrium sensitivity, and why? I think the key must be in the fact that while the system is out of balance and in transition, the ocean heat uptake of the past decades is not necessarily reflecting the extent to which the climate is currently out of balance, because it takes time to warm up and catch up to the current imbalance/forcing. Just thinking out loud here. -
shoyemore at 06:33 AM on 31 January 2013Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama
vroomie #7, Great video. David Suzuki does a great short video on exponential growth as well. See here: David Suzuki on Exponential Growth: The Test Tube -
dana1981 at 06:02 AM on 31 January 2013Climate Sensitivity Single Study Syndrome
Bart @19 - the concept of effective sensitivity is fairly new to me, and does seem rather unclear even amongst many climate scientists. It seems like the default assumption is to treat it as equivalent to equilibrium sensitivity, as long as sufficiently long timespans of data (~150 years) are analyzed. But if the estimated value can change by 50% just by including another 10 years of data, something is wrong. It may be more of a problem on the measurement side, with deeper ocean heat accumulation being neglected, in combination with uncertainties in the forcing data. So the issue may not be that feedbacks change over time, but rather that measurements of the necessary variables are not sufficiently precise for effective sensitivity calculations to be very accurate. I think that's still an open question, but I would caution against assuming that these effective sensitivity results are accurate estimates of equilibrium sensitivity. -
witsend at 05:39 AM on 31 January 2013Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama
Naomi Oreskes explores exactly this problem in a fascinating essay from the fictional perspective of science historians in the future, basically asking, what were they thinking with the reticence and caution when the fate of our species (and most others) was obviously at stake? Excerpts here: http://witsendnj.blogspot.com/2013/01/more-research-is-needed-not.html -
Bart Verheggen at 05:36 AM on 31 January 2013Climate Sensitivity Single Study Syndrome
Dana, Re the difference between effective and equilibrium sensitivity you write: "The two are also the same if climate feedbacks do not change over time" Is that the only difference though? I know that equilibrium sensitivity (and thus the strengths of the feedbacks) depends on temperature, but this dependency is rather weak at the current global temps (it becomes stronger for a much warmer or much colder planet). So why then would feedbacks change significantly over time, if it's not due to a temperature dependence of the sensitivity? I thought that part of the difference may be that while the planet is out of energy balance and the radiative forcing is increasing, that catching up with that imbalance takes time, during which the forcing has again increased, causing yet another build-up of the imbalance. Ie it is an iterative process, and the current ocean heat uptake does not give the full imbalance that we may eventually expect. I'm not sure if I'm on the right track here, since I'm incorporating the future increase in forcing, which may or may not be correct. I haven't come across a good explanation of the difference between effective and equilibrium sensitivity yet; the IPCC definition of the former are not very clear either in my mind. Many authors have in the past assumed them to be the same (eg Schwartz, Ramanathan and Feng). So this seems to be quite a source of confusion. current ocean heat uptake is for some reason not the full measure of the -
r.pauli at 05:35 AM on 31 January 2013Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama
Indeed. Thank you so much for this breakthrough posting. A concept worthy of careful scrutiny And I refer us to Oreskes and Conway's peer reviewed speculative fiction article: The Collapse of Western Civilization: A View from the Future Authors’ note: Science fiction writers construct an imaginary future; historians attempt to reconstruct the past. Ultimately, both are seeking to understand the present. In this essay, we blend the two genres to imagine a future historian looking back on a past that is our present and (possible) future. The occasion is the tercentenary of the end of Western culture (1540–2073); the dilemma being addressed is how we–the children of the Enlightenment–failed to act on robust information about climate change and knowledge of the damaging events that were about to unfold. Our historian concludes that a second Dark Age had fallen on Western civilization, in which denial and self-deception, rooted in an ideological taxation on “free”markets, disabled the world’s powerful nations in the face of tragedy. Moreover, the scientists who best understood the problem were hamstrung by their own cultural practices, which demanded an excessively stringent standard for accepting claims of any kind–even those involving imminent threats. Here, our future historian, living in the Second People’s Republic of China, recounts the events of the Period of the Penumbra (1988–2073) that led to the Great Collapse and Mass Migration (2074). http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/DAED_a_00184 -
dana1981 at 04:53 AM on 31 January 2013Lessons From Past Predictions: Ridley vs. IPCC and Hansen
Ridley's new list of '10 tests' is pretty horrid, full of denialist blog-based misinformation. We'll address it in a future blog post. -
vrooomie at 04:18 AM on 31 January 2013Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama
ubrew12, you are most assuredly correct: This video series is one I refer people to, all the time, in order to correct their poor understanding of the exponential function. -
ubrew12 at 03:52 AM on 31 January 2013Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama
They say the most tragic thing about humankind is its inability to understand the exponential function. This IPCC prediction-bias may in part be an example of 'linear thinking' at work. -
Martin Lack at 01:53 AM on 31 January 2013Lessons From Past Predictions: Ridley vs. IPCC and Hansen
#11 For the avoidance of any doubt, Doug, the Matt Ridley document is here: http://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2013/01/Ridley-Lukewarmer-Ten-Tests.pdf -
Lionel A at 01:26 AM on 31 January 2013Lessons From Past Predictions: Ridley vs. IPCC and Hansen
It looks like the GWPF have repositioned this document: There is a link on their home page along with a claim that 'James Hansen Turns Climate Sceptic' which turns out to be a pastiche of comment about that recent study examined here with the article 'Climate Sensitivity Single Study Syndrome'. The article was originally on the The Daily Caller as Norway climate study sparks debate over global warming urgency with plenty of spin from Pat Michaels. The article does not imply that Hansen is newly sceptical about climate change as the GWPF head suggests. -
shoyemore at 00:32 AM on 31 January 2013Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama
vroomie #4, You Martin Luther King quote reminds me of Winston Churchill's remark that America always does the right thing - after it has tried everything else. Let's hope that time has come around again. With American leadership, action on climate change has a good shot. Without it, we are probably screwed. -
vrooomie at 23:41 PM on 30 January 2013Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama
Amen, Bernard J, at @3. The more I read and study this issue, the more deeply concerned I become, and even being an earth scientist, I think a *loud* clarion call is needed. The 'herd,' as you perfectly put it, is simply content to go along to get along. Cornel West, on Tavis Smiley recently, said essentially the same thing. In many ways, we at a climatological 1967, a real turnign point, where what we do--we, extended to all of Western civilisation--is goign to be harshly judged by future generations, if we fail to do the right thing. Martin Luther King once quipped, it's always the right time to do the right thing. The right thing is to keep on battling back the misinformers and telling this story to all. -
Bernard J. at 23:23 PM on 30 January 2013Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama
I've said it before and I'll say it again... It's for this reason I feel that if AR5 isn't strenuously worded in the most vehement terms, and if governments don't finally stand up in response and act with serious intent, all future assessment reports will simply become catalogues of humanity's path to civilisation collapse and ecological blitskrieg. The herd really needs to wake up. -
Bernard J. at 23:15 PM on 30 January 2013Australia's Great Barrier Reef: Last Chance to See?
I have no doubt that the Reef is on an inevitable trajectory to destruction, for all the reasons detailed in this comprehensive piece. I also suspect that in the next few decades the decline will begin to resemble that of the Arctic sea ice over the last few years, where all but the most pessimistic were caught off-guard by the rapidity of the decline as it progressed. -
curiousd at 22:20 PM on 30 January 20132012 Shatters the US Temperature Record. Fox, Watts, and Spencer Respond by Denying Reality
I tried to access "Version 2 USHCN" and compare it to "Version 2.5 USHCN". I was stopped by a statement about my dealing with possible unauthorized access to government information and/or a government computer. But Anthony Watts must know how to get around this. Can someone point to a way for me to find data and/or graphs showing : (a) Average US lower 48 temperatures versus year for USHCN version 2 (b) Average US lower 48 temperatures versus year for USHCN version 2.5 To then show an extremely hostile audience how Watts compared a temperature from one data base shown graphically with another data base also shown graphically, and that this last year was the hottest relative to other years on the data base for both data sets, though not so when last years temperature from one dataset is compared to another data set ? That statement from the NDCD above in the lead post by dana 1981 would be met by scorn as another example of a government agency supporting "climate change myth" as a means of promoting a socialist agenda. -
curiousd at 21:31 PM on 30 January 2013Climate Sensitivity Single Study Syndrome
Yes, Glenn Tamblyn at 16 above. Great article indeed, and much needed. -
Brendon at 21:06 PM on 30 January 2013Climate Sensitivity Single Study Syndrome
Thanks for this great article! The diagram showing the difference between TCR and equilibrium climate sensitivity is fantastic. -
michael sweet at 21:02 PM on 30 January 2013Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama
James Hansen warned about this problem back in 2007. Dr. Hansen often leads the pack in pointing out the actual problem. Unfortunately, he thinks the situation is worse than the IPCC reports. It will be interesting to see what the next IPCC report says about this publication. -
Thierry Tacite at 20:47 PM on 30 January 2013Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama
Thank you very much for this very interesting article. It helps a lot to understand the climate scientist attitude facing climate change. I hope to have time to translate it in french. -
Glenn Tamblyn at 18:49 PM on 30 January 2013Climate Sensitivity Single Study Syndrome
In addition to Knutti & Hegerl there is this new paper, still in pre-release. A meta study of over 2 dozen other studies, all using Paleo-Climate analyses. Time scales start at 10-20,000 years and stretch out to +400 Myr. The broad conclusion - CS = 3.1 to 3.7.And not a Climate Model in sight. -
Doug Hutcheson at 18:29 PM on 30 January 2013Lessons From Past Predictions: Ridley vs. IPCC and Hansen
Lionel @ 10, it looks as though they have had second thoughts: when I click on your link, I get the dreaded 404 "Sorry, but you are looking for something that isn't here." Well, I was looking for intelligent analysis of scientific research, so I suppose they are right in saying "Sorry, but you are looking for something that isn't here." "8-) -
curiousd at 17:38 PM on 30 January 2013Climate Sensitivity Single Study Syndrome
To KR at 10, I kind of agree that the AMO could turn out to be the polywater of climate science. I am good with your argument but I think that there is an audience that will respond best to demonstrations that what they are experiencing right now is due to short term effects of C.C. Although it is not a clean regression result yet, I just put in the assumed AMO of Zhong and Tung, smoothed the existing Berkeley Earth data, took data since 1900 to remove Krakatoa, and subtracted from the smooth data ( T c.s. X Log base two CO2 increase + weighting x AMO). Got lowest residual with weighting of AMO 0.4 , T.C.S. of about 1.9. (Whereas a simple linear log fit to unmassaged data as I used to do gives for BEST a transient C.S. of 3). So if I am doing this right, even if you give these folks their AMO, on the land where we live the transient c.s. by itself is large enough to make dilly dallying about mitigation unwise. -
jonb at 14:41 PM on 30 January 2013Australia's Great Barrier Reef: Last Chance to See?
Note that although the Reef Plan (Reef water quality protection plan)was agreed to in 2003 any real on ground action did not start till 2008 with the A$200 million Reef Rescue program (see Brodie et al 2012 in Marine Pollution Bulletin). So although we are now seeing some small improvements in water quality this was too little - too late to prevent the new crown of thorns wave of outbreaks. However a new Reef Rescue program is funded and will commence in 2014. We can expect to see further improvements in water quality from this but whether this will be enough in the face of climate change issues to maintain coral cover on the GBR at some acceptable level is doubtful (see Brodie and Waterhouse 2012 in Estuarine Coastal and Shelf Science). Note also that the De'ath paper shows that coral cover on Cape York reefs is not declining over the period 1986 to 2011. This is the one area of the GBR which is not subject to intense agricultural pollution. -
AndyS at 09:03 AM on 30 January 2013Climate Sensitivity Single Study Syndrome
My apologies to Andy Skuce for nicking his handle. It wasn't intendedModerator Response: [AS] No problem, I was going to change it anyway. -
Tony O at 08:52 AM on 30 January 2013Climate Sensitivity Single Study Syndrome
We know from paleo studies that CO2 increases as temperatures rise and this increase came from the natural systems. So we can expect additional natural CO2 as we warm. The Earth will go from a carbon sink, to a carbon source. There are the simple physics chemistry responses such as warm oceans can hold less CO2 and the biospheric responses dying burning trees, phytoplankton losses then there are the biggies melting permafrost and ocean methane clathrates. So if we double CO2, expect nature to add her bit too. -
Philippe Chantreau at 06:08 AM on 30 January 2013NASA Retirees Appeal to their Own Lack of Climate Authority
Ah, the "ideal temperature of the Earth" question. I'm always amused when I see that old canard kicked into quacking again. It is difficult to explain the promotion of such an argument except by postulating that the ones pushing it have not done given the subject much thought. What's funny is how clever and smug some feel when throwing the flailing ol' quackster in the conversation. From whom point of view would that temperature be "ideal"? The Earth? It's a planet, a ball of material orbiting around a star, it does not have feelings, it just exists. The ideal temperature range from the point of view of the Earth is that allowing for its existence, pretty wide. From the point of view of life, as a phenomenon? More restricted, no doubt, but still pretty open. Ever since their precursors took the better forms, life has been about bacteria. It is so now and always will be until the Sun explodes. The range of temperatures allowing them to exist is still generous. From the point of view of vertebrates? Terrestrial vertebrates? Mammals? Primates? Humans! Of course, that's the ideal temperature we're looking for. The temperature range in which humans not only can exist but flourish to the point that they can take their minds off of basic necessities and do all those other fun things that their brains can do. Now, that is a much more narrow temperature range; we're not talking about survival here but advanced civilization. Hasn't SkS looked at that? Of course they have: in a recent installment,the Y-Axis of Evil was thus exposed, but there were other posts before looking at that same question. No matter how exhausted and wrong any argument is, you know it's going to pop up again, driven by someone so convinced that they'd be ready to go to a war of words for it. -
sidd at 04:10 AM on 30 January 201316 ^ more years of global warming
For a good explanation of nonlinear least squares, i like Bevington, "Data Reduction and Error Analysis for the Physical Sciences" It has a good FORTRAN implementation. As for others, I seem to recall that the Bevington version is superior to the one in Numerical Recipes, or used to be. I use the open source Gnu FORTRAN compiler sidd -
sidd at 04:04 AM on 30 January 201316 ^ more years of global warming
To detect if fitting parameters are correlated, look at the off diag elements of the correlation matrix that gnuplot dumps after the fit converges. sidd -
william5331 at 03:18 AM on 30 January 2013Australia's Great Barrier Reef: Last Chance to See?
As with so many other problems we are causing, as individuals we are very clever and know exactly what we should be doing but as a species we are incredibly dumb. What a strange animal we are. -
Bob Loblaw at 02:53 AM on 30 January 2013Climate Sensitivity Single Study Syndrome
I haven't read the Norwegian stuff yet, but comments I've made about parameter fitting over here in the "16 more years of Global Warming" thread seem applicable. If you have multiple fitting parameters that are highly correlated, then you can get very similar results with quite different values of the parameters. In such a case, small variations in input data can also lead to large differences in fitted values. I can't say that this is what is happening to the Norwegian work, but it is one of the things I would look for if I were doing such a study. -
dana1981 at 02:23 AM on 30 January 2013Climate Sensitivity Single Study Syndrome
Dean @9 - I agree the study sounds like it's suffering from overfitting of natural variability, but that's not the same thing as "curve fitting". That's when a bunch of parameters are allowed to vary freely without physical constrataints to make a model fit the data - that's not what the Norwegian group is doing. Their model has a physical basis, they're just not fully accounting for the natural variability in the system (apparently).
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