Tuesday
Jul232013
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Your ship is sinking. Will spin help?
Jul 23, 2013 Climate: sensitivity This is a hypothesis that the Met Office seems to be testing in the series of papers they have released today. There are three documents:
- Paper 1: Observing changes in the climate system (PDF, 2 MB)
- Paper 2: Recent pause in global warming (PDF, 1 MB)
- Paper 3: Implications for projections (PDF, 664 kB)
Having focused on climate sensitivity in recent months, as far as this blog is concerned it's the third paper that is most of interest. As readers know, there is a surfeit of new observationally constrained papers that have found low climate sensitivity. Strangely, the Met Office authors only consider the Otto et al study, which had a relatively high ECS estimate - a function of the ocean temperature dataset used. As we know, if any other dataset had been used then they would have got an estimate in line with the other recent observational estimates.
Sure looks like spin to me.
Reader Comments (235)
rhoda - IMO checking the code is a secondary issue. Look to the results - as contributions from Koutsoyiannis and Pielke Snr document, the models do not produce results in line with observation. From that basis they cannot be fit for formulating any policy responses to "climate change".
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2012/10/09/quotes-from-peer-reviewed-paper-that-document-that-skillful-multi-decadal-regional-climate-predictions-do-not-yet-exist/
nby: While agreeing with your critique of the models, even without code, I strongly want all code to be released but not just that. All the starting conditions for every run that has contributed to any published result. In a form that means the results can be reproduced on a reasonably affordable computer.
This I assume would mean big changes. Exactly so.
David Salt
Therein lies the reason for so much argument here. As for the boy and the wolf, both sides were stupid. Boy and townsfolk both though there was no wolf and both were wrong.
On climate change, the scientists are calling "Wolf" because they think there is evidence for one. The politicians who agree have all manner of reasons from principle to self-interest for supporting policy responses .
The sceptics vary from those who think there is evidence that there is no wolf, through those who reject the science because they prefer not to think about it, to those who know there is a wolf but have political or economic reasons to cast doubt on it.
Rhoda, Roger Longstaff
How do you distinguish between a new hypothesis and a deus ex machina? For me the answer is simple. If it comes out of the data and the science it is a hypothesis. If it has no scientific basis it is a DEM.
Weather and climate models work by using equations to simulate energy flow in, out of and between blocks of atmosphere 50 kilometres on a side, like a more complex version of the Game of LIfe.The difference is that the weather models work hour by hour on current data and are intended to operate on a timescale of a week or so.Climate models ignore the short term variations and are optimised to identify longer term changes.
Climate sensitivity is not programmed in as a single value in either type of model. It emerges from the equations describing the effect of CO2, water vapour etc. on energy flow.
Sometimes models do surprisingly well. Research "atmospheric rivers". These were first observed as emergent behaviour in models, before being recognised as a real-world phenomenon.
not banned yet
Something we agree on. A skilful regional climate model would need a much finer grid than the 50km resolution of current global models. Since the computing power needed would increase as the square of the grid size reduction, we may not have the technology yet.
There is also the problem of information. The only areas with the density of weather stations to support such a model are in the US and Western Europe. The rest would have to come from satellite data which is due to decrease as the current generation of weather satellites wear out without planned replacements.
I do disagree with your response. Better to make the best of what we have and recognise its limitations, rather than take your all-or-nothing approach.
Richard Drake - I agree but I suspect the issue of scalability is not easily resovled.
EM - atmospheric rivers are from NWP models:
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/atmrivers/questions/
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/collaboration/um-collaboration
If you want to play with the Met Office's Unified Model, these are the people to talk to.
//
Better to make the best of what we have and recognise its limitations, rather than take your all-or-nothing approach.
//
Nope - not if you have models which predict the opposite of observations.
Better approach is to recognise the shortcomings and work towards improvements in both concept and implementation:
http://judithcurry.com/2013/06/16/what-are-climate-models-missing/
not banned yet
Thanks for the atmospheric rivers reference .
Have you read the discussion at Climate Dialogue on regional models?
http://www.climatedialogue.org/are-regional-models-ready-for-prime-time/
EM - no, I saw it and saw RP Snr commenting. I might read more if time permits.
Re: your keen interest in Climate Dialogue debates - You never did get back to me about the thread on LTP and AR4. See last comment here for yet another "bump";
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2013/6/11/more-parliamentary-statistics.html?currentPage=2#comments
not banned yet
You'll find Dr. Curry's basis point about uncertainty widely accepted. Hansen's 1981 model was 1-dimensional and of minimal complexity, yet forecast the long term trend to the present within one standard deviation.
The current generation of models include greater complexity , driven by the desire to improve resolution in time and space, but are bedevilled by the high noise level due to weather and local factors as you move to finer scales.
We need to talk to a mathematician. Is it possible that the models are running up against a climatic equivalent of Kurt Godel's incompleteness theorem?
not banned yet.
We never did finish the long term persistence discussion. I'm afraid my mind wandered.
As they say, "One day you too might have a body and a mind like mine; if you're not careful!"
Entropic Man (Jul 25, 2013 at 8:15 PM):
"The two [models and observations] would be regarded as diverging significantly when the upper 95% confidence bound of the observations and the lower 95% bound of the model no longer overlap."
First, apologies for reaching so far back; I only just caught myself up on this thread.
The criterion you cite is too conservative -- the method effectively adds two 2-sigma deviations, rather than combining them in an rms fashion which would be appropriate if they're independent. Lucia has many posts on the comparison of models to observations which have a lot of statistical detail. For example, read this one.
"I'm afraid my mind wandered."
Ah, such a shame as it was an opportunity to discuss some science.
//
Re: my link to Judith Curry's post - my point was the paper she was discussing - it is relevant to the distinctions between GCM/ESM and NWP model development.
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/340/6136/1053.summary
Time for a physical wander. Bye bye.
Entropic Man (Jul 26, 2013 at 11:26 AM), you forgot to include the type of sceptics who knows there's a wolf but does not believe it's a man-killer... better to first understand the nature of the beast than to rush out and kill a potentially innocent creature.
Entropic Man (and Rhoda, Roger and others), I forgot to say thanks for helping to maintain an 'adult' discussion on this subject... proof that at people on both sides of this very controversial debate can still discuss it in a civilised and reasonably objective manner.
...meanwhile, from completely the other end of the climate blogosphere, we have Peter Sinclair awarding his "Climate Denial Crock of the Week" to..... the Met Office!.
It seems he thinks we shouldn't even talk about what the global temperature record is actually doing.
Richard Betts (Jul 26, 2013 at 3:56 PM) it reminds me of that old saying, "with friends like these..." :-)
Richard Betts (Jul 26, 2013 at 3:56 PM) -
Well, if you're a denier, Richard, I see no reason why the term wouldn't apply to the lot of you!
David Salt
Apologies. Living in Northern Ireland I am very aware that the extremes tend to make all the noise and the moderates on either side are easy to overlook.
Richard Betts.
An awful lot of misunderstanding seems to boil down to language.
If you use the style and vocabulary normal for a scientific paper it becomes incomprehensible for the layman.
If you use language comprehensible to the Clapham omnibus passenger, you introduce a vagueness which can be used against you by those so inclined.
"Pause" is one such term. I suspect that the Met Office uses it in the sense of a temporary and short term reduction in the rate of an ongoing warming trend. Many sceptics will interpret it as an immediate and permanent end to global warming, and spin accordingly.
EM:
I haven't seen this anyone do anything this stupid even once. Some forecast that there will be cooling from now on. I discount those forecasts just as I do those that arise from ensembles of GCM runs. I don't think we know. But I repeat that nobody interprets 15+ years data in itself as a 'permanent end to global warming'. Feel free to show me otherwise.
Richard Betts: I am reminded of Lindzen's serious point about the 'iron triangle' of scientists, activists and policy-makers. This I read as activists trying to bring you back into line. But it's becoming the plastic triangle - on a very hot day. Good luck :)
Richard Drake
I need a different collective noun.
"Many sceptics" drags in a lot of sensible sceptics like yourself.
I need a suitable term for those like Montford and Watts, who seek to put their own political spin on the output from the Met Office and others.
Notice the last sentence of Montford's thread above. "Sure looks like spin to me."
And from Bob Tisdale on WUWT "The UKMO is offering the same old tired excuses."
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/07/25/part-1-comments-on-the-ukmo-report-about-the-recent-pause-in-global-warming/#more-90426
Commenters under that WUWT blog include a number of "warming has stopped" believers.
Would "blokes on blogs" be suitable? How about "political sceptics", or "spin sceptics"?
I like "spin sceptics", if nobody objects too strongly. It defines a specific element of sceptic political activism within the broad sceptic church, a mirror to the politically active greens, who also have the habit of spinning.
Hmm, deep waters. I actually quite like "spin sceptics" for what it's worth. But none of this gets to the heart of what was wrong in what you wrote:
It was 'permanent end to global warming' that was the dumb phrase. Who has interpreted 15+ years pause as a permanent end to global warming? How can 15 years be permanent? As I said before, I've not seen one example of this. Can you give us one?
EM
You can call us whatever you like and I am sure it will be no worse than what we have been called in the past. It is a pity that the Met Office has been so pampered that it can not handle a little well deserved criticism without calling foul.
It may have escaped your notice but skeptics do not have sufficient access to the media to spin anything.
nby:
I think Steve McIntyre/Guy Callendar may have resolved it :)
Richard Drake
Surely you jest? Look around you.
dung
Try the Daily Mail, the Daily Telegraph, the Daily Express.The Spectator, The Economist, the New York Times, The Australian. All have sceptic editorial policies, usually at the behest of their owners.
EM: I asked for an example of someone interpreting the 15+ year pause as a 'permanent end to global warming'. Just one will do.
Jul 25, 2013 at 1:27 PM | Unregistered Commenter Richard Betts
Hi Richard,
Oh, that’s good to know – even though Richard’s Rules of Order™ - as Dung quite correctly advised you in his comment – refers specifically (as they have on several occasions in the past) to those of Richard D., to whom my comment (to which you are now replying) had been addressed.
I didn’t think it would have required too careful a reading - from the context in which I had again referred to them - for this to have been clearly understood! But, alas, must have been mistaken.
[For those who might have missed the backstory, on Richard D’s remarkable rules (and some of Richard B’s. response choices past), details can be found in my comment of Dec 9, 2012 at 2:10 AM – following a two-day … uh … pause in the thread Quantifying Uncertainties in Climate Science]
I quite agree. Maybe you could convince Richard D. of this, because he has some very different ideas. For example the December post I mentioned above, and more recently, his supremely silly suggestion (which I now see he has subsequently reiterated, in his unique “even when I’m wrong I’m right” fashion) in this thread that I should be apologizing to you!
To recap the initial bidding, without Richard D’s interference, so to speak …
When Anthony Watts had asked you via twitter:
followed by a link to Steve McIntyre’s July 15 “Nature-mag Hides the Decline”, you obviously had to at least follow the link prior to composing your (by now) very well-known (non-responsive, irrelevant to Steve’s points – and who knows, possibly even diversionary) tweet in reply!
I think that if I were at your keyboard, while I was on Steve’s blog - particularly knowing that he doesn't do twitter - I would have chosen to take advantage of the opportunity of not being limited to a mere 140-character (responsive or non-responsive – depending on what I felt like, of course) reply.
And in my reply-tweet to Anthony, I would have said something along the lines of, “Sure, Anthony, pls see my comment on CA” – probably enough characters to spare to even include a convenient link to my comment, as well. How parallel and cool is that, eh? And anyone who's interested gets to see everything in context - even the non-twitterati!
However, as you say, perhaps you just didn’t “feel like it” … at least not until July 22, a full week later.
So, just out of curiosity … do you think you might at some point “feel like” responding to the comments in this thread that are more up your “scientific” alley? For example, Nic Lewis’ observation (which I had highlighted in my earlier comment of Jul 25, 2013 at 3:20 AM):
In the meantime, thanks for the twitter lesson. I’ll be sure to carefully watch for the dots in future :-)
EM
I do not read all of the papers you mention however the Telegraph does not have a skeptic editorial policy. Only the Sunday Booker article is skeptic and he is heavily outnumbered by the green brigade including Geoffrey Lean, Louise Gray, Emily Gosden and Nick Collins.
The Spectator has a subscriber base of 500 so Whoopy Doo and yes they are skeptic and the Mail has the wonderful Mr Rose.
You appear to have trawled the world and come up with seven publications, one of which is incorrect and one too small to matter.
Have you seen the circulation figures for newspapers these days? Far more important is the servile BBC and equally biased Sky. My statement holds good.
Richard Drake - you might enjoy this post and follow up comments at WUWT:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/07/27/another-uncertainty-for-climate-models-different-results-on-different-computers-using-the-same-code/
Dung
Delingpole at the Daily Telegraph, he's certainly a sceptic.
Newspapers always need small 500-1000 word pieces. That's an opportunity to prevent the sceptic case. They should be readable, coherent and, if possible, topical. Try rebuttals of climate change science they've just reported.
Don't worry too much about grammer and punctuation. That's what subeditors are for.
Most newspapers have an Advice to Contributors page on their websites
I've had a number of reports on local club activities and competitions published in my local newspaper.
Failing that, I've had three letters published in New Scientist and two in the Daily Telegraph. Keep them concise, pithy, factual and topical and you've a good chance of publication. Rant and they'll be spiked!
You may not get the first published, or the second, but once you've demonstrated that you can write sensibly, the editor will take you more seriously and you'll get published.
If you want a modern alternative, what about YouTube?
The advantage of newspapers and mazazines is that once you are published, you will be read. Internet communications tend to be lost in the noise.
Richard Drake
Here's a man who thinks that global warming has not only stopped, but that we're heading into another Ice Age.
I'm sure that his job with the Heartland Institute is entirely irrelevant.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterferrara/2013/05/26/to-the-horror-of-global-warming-alarmists-global-cooling-is-here/
EM, nice try but I already wrote this three days ago:
Someone believing that global cooling leading to another little ice age is going to happen RIGHT NOW is (I probably agree with you) likely to be barking up the wrong tree, just on the law of averages, such as we understand them for climate (which is not very much). But your claim was this
This isn't that. It's interpreting a whole lot else as signalling the immediate advent of a new little ice age. Probably wrong but a different matter entirely.
One other thing though. What possible vested interest can the Heartland Institute have in a new little ice age?
Richard Drake
They have used similar tactics against tobacco legislation, low lead petrol, and seat belts in past campaigns.
They are a professional lobby organisation paid to cast doubt on evidence, scientific or otherwise, that goes against the interests of their clients.
I reccomend a visit to their website, especially the tobacco section. There you will find a message couched in a language and style you may recognise.
http://heartland.org/policy-documents/welcome-heartlands-smokers-lounge
Richard Drake
The Heartland Institute is a professional lobby organisation paid to campaign in the interest of their clients.
Over the years they have campaigned against, among others, tobacco legislation, lead-free petrol, seat belts and the idea of global warming. A regular tactic is to cast doubt on the evidence.
I recommend a visit to their website , especially the tobacco section. You may recognise the style and the arguments.
http://heartland.org/policy-documents/welcome-heartlands-smokers-lounge