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« Lilley in HuffPo | Main | Brown out »
Friday
Jun212013

Von Storch on the pause

Hans von Storch, interviewed in Spiegel, is well worth a read this morning:

Unfortunately, some scientists behave like preachers, delivering sermons to people. What this approach ignores is the fact that there are many threats in our world that must be weighed against one another. If I'm driving my car and find myself speeding toward an obstacle, I can't simple yank the wheel to the side without first checking to see if I'll instead be driving straight into a crowd of people. Climate researchers cannot and should not take this process of weighing different factors out of the hands of politics and society.

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Reader Comments (58)

The more these guys talk the less credibility they have. They really need to shut up. Can anybody reconcile the following two statements made by Storch:

Storch: “Certainly the greatest mistake of climate researchers has been giving the impression that they are declaring the definitive

and

Storch: “Yes, we are certainly going to see an increase of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) or more — and by the end of this century, mind you.”

We were wrong to declare we were certain, but I am certain that in the future….

Do these guys need to fail an IQ test to become “climate scientists”?

Jun 21, 2013 at 10:30 AM | Unregistered CommenterGeckko

Geckko - it can't be easy reconciling an imaginary world with reality.

Jun 21, 2013 at 10:41 AM | Unregistered Commenternot banned yet

I thought it was a very good interview and worth reading carefully in full.

Regarding "Climate researchers cannot and should not take this process of weighing different factors out of the hands of politics and society" - most climate scientists do not do this, as I said here.

The definition of "dangerous climate change", and how (or indeed whether) to respond to the risks, are not purely scientific issues. They can be informed by science, but also rest on values, so ultimately are political and personal judgement calls.

Jun 21, 2013 at 10:44 AM | Registered CommenterRichard Betts

"Yes, we are certainly going to see an increase of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) or more -- and by the end of this century, mind you. That's what my instinct tells me"

That's a very strange thing to say in a piece about the limits of understanding in climate science and the consequences for policy making. It rather spoils the whole argument.

I do like this though, concerning whether or not the perceived increase in the frequency of extreme weather events is due to global warming: "Since there has been only moderate global warming so far, climate change shouldn't be playing a major role in any case yet." This is a point that should be made more loudly and more often.

Jun 21, 2013 at 10:50 AM | Unregistered CommenterNicholas Hallam

Preachers in the groove:

http://youtu.be/LiYZxOlCN10

Jun 21, 2013 at 10:53 AM | Unregistered Commenternot banned yet

Jun 21, 2013 at 10:53 AM | not banned yet

Impressive!

Jun 21, 2013 at 11:05 AM | Registered CommenterMartin A

Do these guys need to fail an IQ test to become “climate scientists”?
Fail an IQ test? What a fascinating concept!

Richard Betts
The trouble is that there are too many (one would be too many!) who do. Or try to.
Hansen, anyone?
But it's not the pure scientists that are the problem; it's the scientist-activists who can't make up their minds which hat they are supposed to be wearing and I'm sorry to say there seem to be a few of those inside your own establishment, not to mention various learned bodies!

Jun 21, 2013 at 11:09 AM | Registered CommenterMike Jackson

Right, Richard, values were tunnel visioned and political and personal judgement calls abrupted. That's tyranny.
===================

Jun 21, 2013 at 11:37 AM | Unregistered Commenterkim

Commenters @ Watts Up have keyed on the 'instinct' remark. Hey, I've got instinct, too, but he's got massive computers. He speaks of 'five years at the latest' to acknowledge fundamental problems with the models, but he's already there if he's using his instinct for authority instead of his massive computer.
======================

Jun 21, 2013 at 11:43 AM | Unregistered Commenterkim

This is the Von Storch who says they now need twenty years:

Storch: "If things continue as they have been, in five years, at the latest, we will need to acknowledge that something is fundamentally wrong with our climate models. A 20-year pause in global warming does not occur in a single modeled scenario. But even today, we are finding it very difficult to reconcile actual temperature trends with our expectations."

This whole edifice of CAGW/AGW stinks, and I'm distinctly unimpressed with the Met Office. Your models are all cock, you haven't a clue but you're willing to bet the farm on it. The problem is that it's NOT your farm!

Jun 21, 2013 at 11:49 AM | Unregistered CommenterSwiss Bob

"Unfortunately, some scientists behave like preachers, delivering sermons to people."

Unfortunately its not just arrogant smug scientists.

A bunch of poor dirt farmers in Indonesia weren't aloud to cut down trees with chainsaws and bull dossers "because its the environment innit"Greenpeace and WWF would not allow them to do that.

So they could farm their land and feed their families .So these poor farming peasants went in and firebombed all the trees out the way.

So next door wealthy highly industrialized Singapore is now covered in smog and pollution and no one is allowed out.

Environmentalists there is a difference between sustainability and subsistence.Instead of caring about the planet start caring about the people who live on the planet. Better still get out of peoples lifes.

Jun 21, 2013 at 11:52 AM | Unregistered Commenterjamspid

' But even today, we are finding it very difficult to reconcile actual temperature trends with our expectations."'

Just a reminder to everyone that in these circumstances the scientific thing to do is to alter your expectations...not whinge about the temperature records.

We can never remind climatologists often enough of Feynman's fundamental insight into real science:

'“It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong”

But I suspect many will never have heard of him, let alone understand his wisdom.

Sob!

Jun 21, 2013 at 11:56 AM | Registered CommenterLatimer Alder

Preachers in the groove:

http://youtu.be/LiYZxOlCN10
Jun 21, 2013 at 10:53 AM not banned yet

Self snipped - too long and off topic. Lyrics posted on discussion.

Jun 21, 2013 at 11:56 AM | Registered CommenterMartin A

I think people should be careful about rushing to judgment on the basis of a close textual analysis of words that have almost certainly been translated into English. The overall thrust of Hans von Storch's remarks are laudable, and he is a genuine and open-minded scientist rather than an activist. He may well have meant that this is his best estimate, but it is quite clear that he is a genuine sceptic — in the proper sense (before the term was debased by activists). And this is a transcript of a conversation, and who hasn't been loose with words in conversation? So why not cut him a little slack.

Jun 21, 2013 at 11:57 AM | Unregistered Commenteraynsleykellow

Martin A - Unlike their day jobs, I think the work displays that essential climate metric: "skill".

Thanks for the transcript :-)

Jun 21, 2013 at 12:05 PM | Unregistered Commenternot banned yet

I prefer the good folk of Minnesota with 'I'm a Denier'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vx-t9k7epIk

Jun 21, 2013 at 12:06 PM | Registered CommenterLatimer Alder

aynsleykellow: I agree. It has been my impression over a number of years that Von storch has always behaved as a scientist should and he has been noticeably different in this respect than the general gaggle of mainsteam "climate scientists".

He is candidly admitting that they got it wrong and don't know why.

Jun 21, 2013 at 12:06 PM | Registered Commenterthinkingscientist

aynsley - have a look at notrickszone for on the spot commentary. If you have questions on the translation, I think that would be a good place to post:

http://tinyurl.com/HVS-at-notrickszone

Jun 21, 2013 at 12:14 PM | Unregistered Commenternot banned yet

@Geckko
Note that the interview was conducted in German. The translation is not great, and these sort of subtleties differ a great deal between English and German.

The German "sicherlich", here translate as "certainly", does not convey p=100%.

Jun 21, 2013 at 12:22 PM | Unregistered CommenterRichard Tol

Again about the quote starting:

Yes, we are certainly going to see an increase of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) or more -- and by the end of this century, mind you."

I think I agree with Aynsley - translation may be at fault here. I can't find the German version of the full interview online, but there are excerpts at klimawiebel, here,, including this whole paragraph:
"Ja, zwei Grad oder mehr werden wir wohl kriegen – bis Ende des Jahrhunderts wohlgemerkt. Das sagt mir mein Instinkt, weil ich ja nicht weiß, wie sich die Emissionen entwickeln werden. Andere Klimaforscher haben möglicherweise einen anderen Instinkt. In unsere Modelle gehen nun einmal viele Annahmen ein, die höchst subjektiv sind. Mehr als Laien sich das vorstellen, ist Naturwissenschaft auch ein sozialer, vom Zeitgeist geprägter Prozess. Rechnen Sie also ruhig mit weiteren Überraschungen."

The end of the paragraph, both in English and German, introduces caveats and that is clear from the English version. But I think even the first sentence is quite tentative, though it has been made to sound more emphatic through translation. E.g. "wohl" in German means something more like "probably" than "certainly". And the bit about the end of the century has been a little strangely translated - it comes across as a caveat in German, to my reading. Here's my attempt at a different translation of the first sentence:
"Yes, we will probably get a warming of two degrees or more, though only by the end of the century, mind you."

Jun 21, 2013 at 12:29 PM | Registered CommenterJeremy Harvey

ak and RT, does the word 'instinct' as translated convey the same meaning in English as von Storch used it in German?
==============

Jun 21, 2013 at 12:33 PM | Unregistered Commenterkim

Richard Betts (Jun 21, 2013 at 10:44 AM) said "Regarding "Climate researchers cannot and should not take this process of weighing different factors out of the hands of politics and society" - most climate scientists do not do this"

The troubles is that when the 'minority' that do do it create headlines in the MSM or make stupid YouTube videos, none of the 'majority' seem prepared to speak out against them... the 'Silence of the Lambs' or just a cynical refusal to recognise something that ultimately helps scare people into givining you more funding?

Jun 21, 2013 at 12:34 PM | Unregistered CommenterDave Salt

Martin A - I just saw you snipped the transcript. IMO the last line is bang on topic for the HVS quote Bish has selected to lead the post. The rest of the work gives a very clear context....

aynsley - Not sure what happened to a link I posted earlier (it might still show up) but check out NoTricksZone 17 June 2013 for a German based commentary. Pierre links to KLIMAZWIEBEL where HVS comments in German.

Jun 21, 2013 at 12:36 PM | Unregistered Commenternot banned yet

I'm with the fans here - I've been a fan of von Storch (and also of Eduardo Zorita) for a long time.

He gets the big picture right: (1) the models are on the verge of falsification; they haven't been falsified yet but the level of special pleading is starting to get worrying; another five years like this and the game is over, but (2) that doesn't mean AGW is all nonsense, and it will continue to warm, albeit probably not as much as people thought.

At Cheltenham we were asked how to find out whether Tamsin was right or I was right, and we agreed on the answer: wait.

Jun 21, 2013 at 12:39 PM | Registered CommenterJonathan Jones

@kim
The German "Instinkt" is more like "gut feeling" than "instinct".

Jun 21, 2013 at 12:46 PM | Unregistered CommenterRichard Tol

@ Jonathan Jones 12:39 PM

"At Cheltenham we were asked how to find out whether Tamsin was right or I was right, and we agreed on the answer: wait."

It's amazing that 'scientists' expect the public to immediately believe that their model 'is right', but when doubt appears, we always have 'to wait' in the hope the climate changes to appear to verify their 'model'.

Jun 21, 2013 at 12:49 PM | Unregistered CommenterJoe Public

@Joe Public
You should carefully select your type 1 and type 2 errors.

1. If you falsely believe that anthropogenic climate change is real, you will waste money on climate policy.

2. If you falsely believe that anthropogenic climate change is not real, you will save money on climate policy but will be confronted with the consequences of climate change.

If you believe that 1 is a smaller problem than 2, you should continue to give climate models the benefit of the doubt.

If you believe that 2 is the smaller problem, you should discard climate models.

Jun 21, 2013 at 1:02 PM | Unregistered CommenterRichard Tol

uRichard Tol - I'm surprised that you simplify to that extent.

Jun 21, 2013 at 1:11 PM | Unregistered Commenternot banned yet

Richard - typo apology.

Jun 21, 2013 at 1:16 PM | Unregistered Commenternot banned yet

Richard Betts 'Climate researchers cannot and should not take this process of weighing different factors out of the hands of politics and society - most climate scientists do not do this' - but because of consensus, if some of you do, all of you do. And yes, I know that many of you hate the consensus word more than sceptics by now.

Individually many of you are doing an outstanding job but collectively (with the warmist band wagon) you're only as good as your most vocal members. Those people predict, with near absolute confidence, the most extreme outcomes and demand radical action to prevent them. Where are the non sceptic voices denouncing this? When you listen to the likes of Ed Davey do you think his view of the future climate is anything like yours or von Storch’s or is it the catastrophic thermogeddon version? Who should he be taking his advice from, you or James Hansen or the BBC? Indeed, if CO2 induced extinction is on the table, how are policy makers supposed to measure that against the failure of antibiotics or a banking crisis or rising unemployment? If you knew nothing about climate what would you think about Joe Romm’s version of the Marcott graph with 4º C of predicted warming bolted on? If it wasn’t right, it should have been widely condemned. Indeed the non robust end of the graph should never have made the headlines or for that matter, peer review.

The Science and Technology Committee are debating how to convey climate change to the public but no one influential seems to have asked the question 'exactly what is it we want them to understand?' Politicians are as much at sea about what to think about AGW as the public. Consensus is bandied about like a talisman but how many of those who use it could even say what that consensus was? From your point of view it certainly doesn’t include pre ordained policy actions. Do they know that?

Climate science has been involved in the politics from the moment someone thought ‘if the media emphasises the worst case scenario it’s not a bad thing because it gets the issue noticed’. How many decades now since Hansen’s congressional testimony? It’s too late to withdraw and say climate science is policy neutral because that would contradict the ever present consensus.

Jun 21, 2013 at 1:42 PM | Unregistered CommenterTinyCO2

Heh, Richard, I feel a lot better now. Guts have been used for prediction since the beginning of time.
=========

Jun 21, 2013 at 1:53 PM | Unregistered Commenterkim

@Kim
Storch's guts are impressive.

@Not banned yet
This lot is hard to satisfy. Strip down an argument to its bare essentials, and people complain it is too simple. Make the argument in full, and people complain they can't follow.

Jun 21, 2013 at 2:32 PM | Unregistered CommenterRichard Tol

Von Storch reports that the 15-year pause isn't rules out by the models, though occurs in under 2% of runs.

So if we are to accept that 98% unlikely level means that it's still plausible, why shouldn't we treat the 97% consensus in the same way.

Jun 21, 2013 at 2:45 PM | Unregistered Commentersteveta_uk

@Joe Public

Neither Tamsin or I said anything about what society should do while waiting. We left that sort of thing to Claire Craig.

Jun 21, 2013 at 2:47 PM | Registered CommenterJonathan Jones

"Von Storch reports that the 15-year pause isn't rules out by the models, though occurs in under 2% of runs.

So if we are to accept that 98% unlikely level means that it's still plausible, why shouldn't we treat the 97% consensus in the same way.

Jun 21, 2013 at 2:45 PM | steveta_uk"

Apart from the fact that the 97% consensus is faulty I would say that playing the percentages the 3% deniers have a 50% higher chance of being right than the 2% model runs showing that 15 years of stand still is possible.

Jun 21, 2013 at 3:10 PM | Unregistered CommenterJohn Peter

@ Richard Tol.

OK, I'll cut him some slack.

But even if we translate "certainly" in his second statement into "almost certain", "extremely likely", or even "highly likely", it still isn't a good look.

Jun 21, 2013 at 3:34 PM | Unregistered CommenterGeckko

It takes one to know one, Richard, and I certainly admire your guts.

A poster at Watts Up corroborates your 'gut feeling' for 'instinct', though just using 'feelings' instead of gut.

Here's the problem. Most of the world has a gut feeling that humans are raising the temperature catastrophically, and that feeling was engendered with the use of blame and guilt. Who is to say that von Storch's feelings aren't of similar origin. He's certainly not using 'science', which is apparently as settled as an upset stomach.l
================

Jun 21, 2013 at 4:00 PM | Unregistered Commenterkim

So climate scientists are finally coming round to what sceptics have been saying for years: climate sensitivity to CO2 is lower than the IPCC thinks it is, and natural factors play a more significant role than they have been credited with in the models.

And this is news.

Jun 21, 2013 at 4:18 PM | Unregistered CommenterTurning Tide

@Kim
Storch's honest about his source of information.

And don't forget that this is the gut of someone who has been at the top of climate research for more than 3 decades.

Jun 21, 2013 at 4:47 PM | Unregistered CommenterRichard Tol

A telling point, Richard, but remember the climate research he's been at the top of for 30 years has indulged in a feast of catastrophic predictions. 'At the top' suddenly doesn't sound quite so great.
======================

Jun 21, 2013 at 4:52 PM | Unregistered Commenterkim

I think it was Richard Tol who remarked that the convention - unique to academe - is that you can only criticise a paper if you are prepared to put in at least as much work to provide a better or alternative version on the same topic.

This is a completely daft way of doing business and ensures that crap wok is never challenged - why spend a year's effort to point out something that could be done in two pages and 30 minutes work without this convention and all the extraneous work associated with it.

And like the theory of good money being driven out by bad, it leads to an overwhelming mount of junk in the 'scientific literature'.. It seems that anybody can publish anything and - once the pal-review hurdle has been accommodated (mine's a pint, Joe - thanks, now what am I approving?) there is minimal chance of it ever being challenged.

No other form of human enterprise adopts such a stupid convention. A sports fan who notices that Bloggs was out of position to let in the first goal in the European Cup Final is not obliged to replay the enitre tournament as a goalkeeper before his views can be heard. A financial auditor need not reproduce every transaction in an entire year's trading to suggest that all is not well in the accounts. And a judge an jury need not relive every second of a criminal career to find the perp guilty.

STM that this convention is designed (whether accidentally or by design) to ensure that academics get a quite unchallenged life.but at the expense of truly rigorous scrutiny of their work. The barrier to entry into that endeavour is set far too high.

Jun 21, 2013 at 4:53 PM | Unregistered CommenterLatimer Alder

A lot of people are talking about translation issues.

May I point out that he is also talking to a journalist, and you are only getting the journalist's cut. A journalist can easily make a person contradict themselves, especially if they can cut the conversation. I wouldn't read too much into individual words until you are sure of the context.

Of much greater import is his comment that flat periods occur in only a few percent of cases. That's a complete answer to the warmist defence that we shouldn't worry about flats, because they do occur...

Jun 21, 2013 at 4:56 PM | Unregistered CommenterDodgy Geezer

Jun 21, 2013 at 4:53 PM | Latimer Alder

Time to bring up the Eisenhower's prescient speech again

" Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as
we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite
danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a
scientifictechnological elite."

" Crises there will continue to be. In meeting them, whether
foreign or domestic, great or small, there is a recurring
temptation to feel that some spectacular and costly action
could become the miraculous solution to all current
difficulties. "

" Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been
overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories"

I have a gut feeling that the funding currently provided to the many climate scientists is a very important part of their day to day work

Jun 21, 2013 at 5:08 PM | Unregistered CommenterRob Burton

@Latimer
I followed your advice, and see where that got me.

Google Richard Tol ERL

Google Richard Tol PNAS

Google Richard Tol Gartzke

Jun 21, 2013 at 5:11 PM | Unregistered CommenterRichard Tol

'Candidly admitted they got it wrong and don't know why'.

This is a terrible indictment of modern science teaching. Most scientists and engineers fail to understand the S-B equation. Houghton applied the two-stream approximation to an optical discontinuity when this had never been verified and still has no experimental proof. In short, academic science lost its marbles and it has taken scientists and engineers from outside academia to put the so-called teachers right.

It is very serious that so many mistakes can be made and not picked up by peer review; first Sagan who inherited his error from wrongly assuming van der Hulst's data proved one optical scattering process. Then Hansen and Houghton, Trenberth, Ramanathan and Lindzen are less culpable because Meteorology teaches incorrect back radiation physics and the last two are superb experimentalists.

Jun 21, 2013 at 5:28 PM | Unregistered CommenterAlecM

@Richard Tol

Thanks for those references. I'm glad I had correctly remembered the trials and tribulations you went through in trying to comment on somebody else's paper.

I guess the bright spot is that the internet and blogospheric review will soon make this convention pretty redundant anyway.

We have already seen (for example with the non-mysterious disappearance of Gergis et al) that today's world-wide all comers review process is quicker, more rigorous and more effective than any amount of conventional 'peer-review' could ever be.

It will take time, but I cannot imagine any young scientist expecting that her work would not receive such assessment in the future.

But I am still left with the nasty taste that whenever I find some academic process or convention or etiquette, its primary purpose is always to assure the practitioners a quiet, untroubled, uninterrupted life. Things like rigour, correctness, replication, openness, disclosure or anything else that might cause them angst are placed well down the list of priorities.

Jun 21, 2013 at 5:32 PM | Unregistered CommenterLatimer Alder

"..."[D]angerous climate change", and how...to respond to the risks, are not purely scientific issues. They can be informed by science, but also rest on values, so ultimately are political and personal judgement calls." --Richard Betts

That seems to be one opinion on the situation, Richard-san. But when the "science" is so palpably fabricated [viz, climate models that don't predict, obscene hockey stick jiggery-pokery, tweaking (or loss, in toto!) of historic temperature records, demonstrable journal gatekeeping, endless ad hominem attacks in lieu of logic, and so on and on], the situation IS purely scientific. No political decision based on Lysenkoist science can ever be a good one.

Furthermore, those making the political calls are not to be trusted. They are not being informed by science; they are evoking false evidence via one-sided funding of research, and deliberately using it to promote draconian political agendas.

We can't remove them from power immediately; we can only cut the pseudoscience out from under them. They will probably go ahead, anyway, and the outcome will be beyond your worst nightmares, a thousand times worse than a degree or two of "global warming" or whatever the weasel-word du jour is.

Jun 21, 2013 at 8:49 PM | Unregistered Commenterjorgekafkazar

Unfortunately for Jorge,credencing climate cranks is no improvement to kowtowing to Lysenko, or oily Russian climate apparchiks like Yuri Izrael.

Storch has it about right, but then so do all but the most politicized of his colleagues.

Jun 21, 2013 at 9:01 PM | Unregistered CommenterRussell

"Unfortunately for Jorge,credencing [sic] climate cranks is no improvement to kowtowing to Lysenko, or oily Russian climate apparchiks like Yuri Izrael." --Russell

Unfortunately for Russell, his crude strawman, red herring, and ad hominem arguments are null and void.

Jun 21, 2013 at 9:35 PM | Unregistered Commenterjorgekafkazar

We know there was a ice age scare in the 70s. This is documented history.

At the latest, abruptly and not predicted, by 1979 the ice age scare was over.

In 1988 Hansen did his infamous presentation declaring catastrophic alarmist global warming.

Now, doing the maths, or "connecting the dots," and, considering the data available at the time, Hansen must have concluded his "man made armageddon warming thesis" in 1986 maybe, so it took ... maybe 5-7 years to arrive at deduction.

Yet, with all the data and hindsight collected since, the empirical evidence, the observations, it takes 5-7 times (30 years?) to disprove this untested, un-questioned (until now), failing Hansen thesis.

The maths seems a little dubious and weighted towards a pre-determined result.
The wrong result.

Jun 21, 2013 at 10:54 PM | Unregistered Commenterhandjive

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