Thursday
Feb202014
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill APS shows the way
Feb 20, 2014 Royal Met Soc Royal Society Judith Curry is recounting her experiences with the American Physical Society, which has decided to update its public position statement on climate change. This last happened in 2007, so one assumes that the move is prompted by the publication of the IPCC's Fifth Assessment Report.
It's fascinating to see that the APS seems to have taken on board the criticisms of outsiders and has gone out of its way to put the process in under the control of people who are "above the fray". They have also adopted a policy of transparency in reaching their conclusions, a process that is ongoing. This even extends to holding hearings and publishing the transcripts.
Learned societies in the UK would do well to follow suit.
Reader Comments (79)
The outcome will be even more interesting.
Reposted from Unthreaded:
That looks like an extremely promising development. I have long wondered if the climate scaremongering tacitly supported by physicists giving their atmospheric counterparts the benefit of the doubt would continue until or unless enough of those physicists were driven to put their own fields aside and take a deeper look into the climate one. Judith Curry writes:
[H/t Ross Lea, Unthreaded 10:20 AM)]
Here's hoping!
God bless the late Hal Lewis.
Pointman
Pointman
+1
I attended an after dinner talk by Hal Lewis - brilliant physicist and brilliant speaker. It's about time climate "science" was given a good working-over by independent physicists. It's a pity we don't currently have a Feynman to lead the team.
"God bless the late Hal Lewis.
Pointman
Totally agree, Pointman, and for those who may not be familiar with the great Hal Lewis here is one of my favourite quotes from that wonderful resignation letter of his -
" How different it is now. The giants no longer walk the earth, and the money flood has become the raison d’être of much physics research, the vital sustenance of much more, and it provides the support for untold numbers of professional jobs. For reasons that will soon become clear my former pride at being an APS Fellow all these years has been turned into shame, and I am forced, with no pleasure at all, to offer you my resignation from the Society.
It is of course, the global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist. Anyone who has the faintest doubt that this is so should force himself to read the ClimateGate documents, which lay it bare. (Montford’s book organizes the facts very well.) I don’t believe that any real physicist, nay scientist, can read that stuff without revulsion. I would almost make that revulsion a definition of the word scientist. "
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/10/16/hal-lewis-my-resignation-from-the-american-physical-society/
We will see if this makes a difference because it won't if the people they are involving are the same bunch of tired catastrophiliacs that have done more to damage their science than to take it forward in any meaningful way.
Mailman
Judith says: "That said, I have no idea what will actually transpire between now and when a new statement appears, and what the new statement will actually say."
We'll see.
The Greenies are very very good at this part of the process.
Sounds like a very solid process. One could question whether the APS should have any position on climate change at all -- Curry made that suggestion. But transcripts! And a committee not formed by the committed! How refreshing!
I think we saw that to some extent in AR5 as well. A newer generation of scientists who aren't as wedded either to advocacy or to reflexive defense of prior statements. In conflict, of course, with the IPCC leadership and the government representatives; I wouldn't say that AR5 was free of "spin". But some progress was made.
Indeed why should the APS or for that matter the Royal or any other similar body have a collective or corporate position or policy on "Climate Change" any more than it should have a position on, for example on Plate Tectonics or ExtraterrestriL life, or even UFO's. Perhaps it is something to do with political correctness rather than science.
That APS transcript is very interesting reading. I have only got to page 92, but how about this response to questions about the hiatus:
(my bold)
Finally, an honest statement about the fallability of climate models and the fact that science is never settled.
Thanks for taking the time on the phone earlier. As an accountant you feed reliable (?) info into a matrix to assess the viability of any enterprise. If the results seem odd then you check the whole process and look for errors - ultimately the final balence sheet tells the story. I had done this with The Nile Climate Engine time and again, using all parameters available to recheck the findings. The results are solid. Conor.
Next time Sir Paul Nurse talks to journalists about climate change perhaps one of them will ask him why the Royal Society did not investigate the matter thoroughly and openly, like the American Physical Society, before pronouncing on the subject.
Final line of my quote above should read:
"... chances of having a hiatus of 20 years are vanishingly small."
The 18 came from a spurious line number in the original transcript that I didn't edit out.
ROY
Has it sunk in yet that Nursey may have got the job specifically because he had signed up to the emissions agenda, specifically to avoid the possability of the RS scrutinising the integrity of the climate industry? i exchanged a couple of emails with him earlier and came away with the impression that I was not dealing with a first rate mind.
Thinkingscientist
I was going to post the exact same quote. Thanks.
It's pretty remarkable in that:
a. It comes from a warmist.
b. Openly acknowledges the 'pause' – something that Michael Mann (and most of our politicians/activists) considers an act of denial in and of itself.
c. Concludes, after a bit of hand-waving, that they have no clue why the models are all running 'hot'; something that has been (and still is) justification for being called a denier.
So, remind me again why we should base a multi-trillion dollar dismantling of the global economy and a restructuring of our political processes on the basis of these conclusions?
Stuck-Record,
Its the difference between a scientist talking technically and acting properly as a scientist as opposed to a scientist acting as an activist when talking to politicians.
TS
I read some of the APS workshop proceedings after Judith Curry referred to them earlier and was struck by the same passage of Collins' statement that thinking scientist reproduced above.
I couldn't help thinking about the thread at Andthentheresphysics blog where the resident catastrophiliacs, lead by uberscientist Dana, proved conclusively to each other that no kind of hiatus had ever existed - except in the stunted imaginations of gullible denier untermenschen like us.
So I decided to point out this new development to the consensus crew over there and, just in case my post doesn't survive anders' stringent moderation/mutilation/annihilation procedure, I hope Bish won't mind if I repost it here:-
Yes, you DO have an opinion: that it is just those THREE.
"all three are noted in that the IPCC report"
Yes, but were they noted with proper emphasis and priority?
I'm come to learn that seldom is what said incorrect. Occasionally it is a wildly unjustified inference, but usually each sentence passes muster. What is important is what is NOT said. It's the magicians trick of misdirection: look at what is in my right hand and forget I have a left.
Thinking scientist
How would you identify that the pause has ended?
The first question posed about AR5 is "why are no sceptic papers/reports/views included"?
Sorry, Foxgoose, it looks like a no-show for you. However, "Rachel" does point out: "They’re pretty rude there [Bishop Hill], Chandra. I hope we are not like that to contrarians."
While some can be pretty merciless with the likes of Chandra, most, here, tend to be less unpleasant than on "pro-" sites. Those, like Euan Mearns appeared to, approach this site as a bunch of ignorant delinquents, can get short shrift, but if (like EM) you adapt your approach, the results can be very productive.
A. C. Osborn
What papers would you suggest?
"The first question posed about AR5 is "why are no sceptic papers/reports/views included"?
I wanna know why there are no papers on the star child or yeti included.
##########################
factually there are skeptical papers included at least in the chapter I reviewed
EM,
"How would you identify that the pause has ended?"
I'd keep an eye on this graph:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl
I'm not sure there's much point in trying to get precise about something that is fuzzy.
Feb 20, 2014 at 6:11 PM | Unregistered Commentersteven mosher
And would that be a "balanced" number of papers or just the odd one or 2 that are not very critical?
Perhaps you would like to name the papers so we can see how sceptical they actually are?
Feb 20, 2014 at 6:08 PM | Unregistered CommenterEntropic man
It is not up to me to suggest papers, it is up to the reviewers to provide a "Balanced" review.
"The UK has suffered its wettest winter in records dating back more than a century, the Met Office has announced.
Figures for December 1 to February 19 show that the UK has had 486.8mm (19.2 inches) of rain, making it the wettest winter in records dating back to 1910, beating the previous record set in 1995 of 485.1mm (19.1 inches)."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/weather/10652123/UK-suffers-wettest-winter-on-record.html
Paul Homewoods effort to look at figures:
"Comparisons with 1929/30
It already looks as if February will end up being another very wet month in the South West, so we may very well find that the 3-month total, for Dec-Feb, exceeds most other years since 1910.
Whatever the outcome, though, it does not look likely that the latest Dec-Feb figures will come any where close to the Nov-Jan period in 1929/30. If current trends remain, my guess would be for another 200mm this month, which would leave a total for the three months of about 650mm. This is well below the 812mm recorded from Nov 1929 to Jan 1930."
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2014/02/13/6989/
So who is right, Met Office or Paul Homewood? Maybe Met Office has forgotten about 1929/30. Shukman also on to it in BBC News 18.00 today http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-26280219
Maybe we could do with reviewers here who are also "above the fray".
Postscript: I smell a rat. 1929/30 was November to January and November was not a winter month so 1929/30 does not count. If I am right here they are smarter than I thought.
1910, not 250 years then?
James Evans
I ask because I foresee a lot of discussion along the lines of " The pause has ended", followed by " No,it hasnt!". Clearly recognised criteria would save a lot of hot air.
The ENSO forecasts are showing an increasing probability of an EL Nino in later 2014 or early 2015. This is likely to push one or both of those years above 1998 in Hadcrut4.
Would this be sufficient for you to regard the pause as ended? If not, what threshold would you need to see crossed?
A C Osborn
One reason why I ask is that, offhand, I can't think of many sceptical papers.
I bet they go with the 'consensus', or at least have enough weasel words to allow the warmists to claim support.
I sense panic here.
We have been told that the chances of having a hiatus of 20 years are vanishingly small. And the warmists want to play double or quit?
How miniscule a jump in temperature due to a possible anticipated El Nino would you take to agree that the hiatus has all been a terrible mistake? Till we can forget the hiatus ever occurred and go back to something we are all a lot more comfortable about (i.e. the prospect of catastrophic warming).
Entropic man: "what threshold would you need to see crossed?"
Interesting question. I suggest a criterion that the 15-year OLS trend for the WMO surface temperature anomaly (average of the three major datasets) exceeds 0.2 K/decade. It was last at that level in mid-2008.
Be afraid - you are still dancing to their tune: warmer water goes northward along the eastern coast of any continental land mass in the N hemisphere. Colder water travels south down the western coast. In both cases they affect the global mean temp, which is an averaging of these factors. Throw in resultant cloud/solar/sea ice etc and you have a ballpark figure that on its own indicates nothing. Start processing the equitotial Atlantic SSTs and the truth will reveal itself: the planet at that location is still absorbing more solar energy than pre 1900 at a rate sufficient to guarantee that the arctic will be a pond within our lifetimes.
HaroldW
" I suggest a criterion that the 15-year OLS trend for the WMO surface temperature anomaly (average of the three major datasets) exceeds 0.2 K/decade. It was last at that level in mid-2008."
A logically proposed metric. Presently at 0.08 K/decade?
EM,
these might be some reasons why there aren't that many sceptical papers:
http://climateaudit.org/2009/03/04/a-peek-behind-the-curtain/
http://www.pattern-recognition-in-physics.net
How would you identify that the pause has ended?
Feb 20, 2014 at 5:56 PM Entropic man
As we've discussed before, in the absence of a statistical model for a time series,
it's hard toyou can't analyse it and make meaningful statements about it. Given one statistical model, ten years pause would be highly significant. Given a different model (but the same time series), twenty years pause could be due to pure chance with high probability.And, from another viewpoint, it all depends who you are talking to and what is their outlook.
Plus, it's not a black/white thing; the longer the pause goes on, the more difficult it becomes to defend the belief that the world is getting warmer. But, obviously, there is no 'winning post' where it abruptly becomes definite.
But if you can say how long no increase in global average temperature would count as a definite halt, maybe we might also agree that that same length of time of monotonic increase* would count as indicating that 'the pause' has ended.
Dunno where it came from, but a central plank in climate science folklore is "(T=<30yr) = weather; (T>30yr) = climate". Is that relevant?
* Uncorrelated year-year random fluctuations are permitted.
Harold W
I like that. It's clear and unequivocal, except that it varies considerably depending on individual years.
I couldn't lay hands on the WMO figures, but using Hadcrut4 I came up with these anomalies.
2013 would have been 0.83, because it is 15 years on from the 1998 EL Nino.
2014 would need to be 0.60.
2015 would be 0.55.
2016 would be 0.74.
2017 would be 0.79.
Perhaps a 0.3C increase in 15 years calculated using the 5 year average would be better than using individual years.
EM,
"The ENSO forecasts are showing an increasing probability of an EL Nino in later 2014 or early 2015. This is likely to push one or both of those years above 1998 in Hadcrut4."
A forecast of a probability of a likelihood. I think I'll just wait.
"Would this be sufficient for you to regard the pause as ended? If not, what threshold would you need to see crossed?"
If the graph did something like it did in the late 70s, then I'd probably think that the plateau was over.
I'm not sure I could tell you what precise criteria I'd use to recognise my aunt Agnes. But I think I'd know her if I saw her again. I'm 95.0073% sure of that.
EMSays:
Personally, I would wait for the passage of time and then decide. What would you do?
The Had CRUt4 data has confidence limits of about +/- 0.1C.
Crudely, any year more than 0.2C above 1998 could be regarded as a significant change. That would be any anomaly above 0.73C.
Thinking scientist
That is a rather intuitive approach for a scientist. What criteria would you use?
Here is a further exchange from the transcript:
So just to remind me, what is the putative forcing due to CO2?
I fear that just defining the current 'pause' as a technical question means that the importance of it is rather missed. It is the ever widening divergence between emissions growth and system response that is key. Therefore you could have a point where the pause is ended yet divergence continues to widen.
So for me, its when the divergence starts to narrow that is important here for the hypothesis to have weight.
Entropic man -
I think your metric (difference of 5-year means 15 years apart > 0. 3 K) would also be fine.
The criteria which I was trying to meet are:
(1) can't be triggered by a single ENSO event
(2) long enough to be distinguished from other randomness
(3) short enough that a trend change is recognized well before it becomes "climate" (i.e. 30 years)
(4) simple enough to be calculated and understood
Plus I happened to have 15-year trends on my spreadsheet. :-)
Your metric meets all those criteria, so it's fine by me. Interestingly, it wouldn't have been passed in the c.1910-1940 warming, although the 15-year OLS trend did exceed the 0.2 K/decade threshold then. It would have first passed in 1991 (average of 1987-1991 less the average of 1972-1976 was 0.33 K), and last passed in 2005. One possible downside is that it includes observations going back 19 years, so it will take a little longer to get the 1998 El Nino out of the calculation.
By the way, I don't think that the WMO publishes any index. However, the Met Office has referred to the WMO temperature anomaly in its annual forecast, e.g. here, as the average of the three major surface temperature datasets. I use Excel; using R one could automate its calculation. Both metrics (OLS slope and difference of 5-year means) being linear, one can compute them on each dataset in turn and average the results, if that is more convenient.
Green Sand -
Yes, I also get 0.08 K/decade over the last 15 years (Jan 1999-Dec2013).
Radical
It's an actual Rachel though she goes by "Rachel".
"Be afraid..." As a rule of thumb, anything following this phrase is scary bollocks. No one has any idea what life would be like for humans if the Arctic was a pond, by which I presume you mean an area of shallow water.
Foxgoose, re your posting on "andthentheresphysics" I doubt it will see the light of day. Anders seems to have an invisible friend called "Rachel", or is it "Rebecca"? who ruthlessly cuts out comments that raise questions about the thought processes on the site. Of course, Anders, who is just a "reasonable scientist" trying to see both sides has no control over her invisible friend. I'm left with the impression that we might be talking to someone who thinks they're a scientist, or ought to be, but isn't in reality. Some really naïve notions, like only climate scientists should be able to talk about climate science publically, presumably in the belief that the great unwashed are impressed by higher order members of the community, strike me asone. I wondered if she'd taken her idea to the limit and considered where that would lead for, say, Eugenics, where there was an almost 100% consensus about both the theory and the actions needed, but couldn't pursue the question because I am persona non grata.
GERONIMO
Cereal crop production is the mainstay of the global populations diet. Continuation on our current path will alter seasonal weather cycles, thus our ability to plan agriculture to feed said population........ This is not an academic exercise, it is called the future.
"Cereal crop production is the mainstay of the global populations diet. Continuation on our current path will alter seasonal weather cycles, thus our ability to plan agriculture to feed said population........ This is not an academic exercise, it is called the future."
Complete rubbish, grain production is higher than ever. As one would expect, since cereal crops prefer warmth to cold and more co2 to less co2.
Cereal crops *heart* global warming.