Friday
Mar072014
by 
Josh
Josh Catching up - Josh 262
Recently, particularly since the 'Communicating the pause' blog post and discussion, it seems that Climate Science is trying to play catch up with sceptics. The latest Climate Sensitivity discussions have had a similar tone. Whatever the excuses for tardiness I think this is an entirely welcome development.
Reader Comments (43)
We should welcome people who have denied reality until it bit them????????????
Do I daresay, the floods, have put a bit of sting in the interaction of reality with its human occupants?
As fake wealth and prosperity built up in the noughties, a dangerous illusion took hold - that we were so well off and insulated that humanity could afford to waste money, time and effort throwing away hard-earned protection against human stupidity and the elements.
Extreme events are a double-edged sword. Useful as campaigning devices only if your own skin is not threatened by them!
Can we all get our taxes back please?
I've got a Willis lukewarmist quote in my About page.
It's from 2007.
Josh, me thinks you are the compleat angler!
Perfect cast to the perfect cast!
They think that their endorsement validates a more lukewarm position. I resent the hell out of that. They were way behind a significant clutch of amateur scientists. Still are, in fact. But still they play the expert. It will not wash amongst those who have been involved for some time.
Oh, and none of those mentioned are even free to speak. Oh, I'm sure they are theoretically free, but it would not be a good career move.
Fair Weather Friends.
Get a bit of PDO warming, and they'll be right back in the True Believers camp....
Absolutely!
I'm baffled by this, Ed and Richard seem to believe they've scored a victory somewhere along the line - is it because they've just discovered sceptics were aware there'd been warming and that some of it could have been caused by human emissions?
Surely it can't be that, can it?
Am I alone in not having an effing clue why they're so triumphant?
Don't let them forget that the temperature standstill was found by sceptics, and nothing Betts or Hawkins and their ilk are saying wasn't first said by sceptics. They have been slower and more narrow minded than the sceptics, and more unscientific. Followers, not leaders. They have been shown what science is really all about.
and Ed Hawkins tweets that the cartoon is wrong and that the sceptics should be the latecomers. Clueless, says it all really. the sceptics were at the "Pause Party" five years ago and while Hawkins and Betts put their bottles on the table and start to party the "sceptics" are in the library talking science.
Give them a break. They still haven't understood that the rabid greenies they have been consorting with, are the biggest danger to their professions (and career). This awakening process might be painful.
Please put them in a not-too-smart room :)
geronimo
"Surely it can't be that, can it?"
No damn sure it isn't! What it is doing, quite effectively, is shifting the glare away from the divergence of observational data and model projections.
The whole thrust of the politically inspired AGW cause has always relied on dire public messaging of 'trivially true ' (Lindzen TM ) but grossly exaggerated global warming and rising sea level, supported by supposedly unquestionable and incontrovertible evidence from an an overwhelming consensus of expert scientists.
Frustratingly for the success of the whole political campaign this warming trajectory has completely failed to materialise. At last, that tack is in the process of reluctant abandonment, after 15 years of stasis, compounded by the fear of solar induced reversal. Ocean acidification, the first fallback attempt, never really adequately caught the public imagination, so now, abandoning all pretence of faux scientific proof, the big political propaganda push is for an alarming increase of extreme weather intensity, just like this and that only worse...
What will never be admitted though, is any possibility of the known but suppressed beneficial consequences of mild warming and enhanced atmospheric CO2 leading to substantial increases in crop growth season and yield.
Just discovered Ed Hawkins has blocked me on twitter. He's in good company, Michael Mann, George Monbiot. Well done Ed.
We should welcome those who are willing to question the consensus from *inside* the consensus. No time for recriminations or hard feelings. Let's save those for the parasites and insiders who profited their billions off these phonies up policies.
Let's build this brick by brick.
Why are opinions of a sceptical nature (i.e not easily convinced) not given equality on scientific issues? regardless of the subject, having the right to form ones own opinion and express it outweighs the futile suppression of it, especially if ones opinion is being forcibly imposed on you.
He started mass censorship on his blog today too - all my posts pointing out that the Cowtan & Way paper was orchestrated by the SkS clowns were summarily disappeared.
It seems we can begin to detect a strong inverse relationship between projected climate sensitivity and consensus intolerance of opposing viewpoints.
By the time TCS = 1 they'll all be walled up somewhere like the Branch Davidians.
Foxgoose
As Maurizio and I explained to you on twitter, Ed was just removing off-topic comments. Not "censorship" at all - that's completely unfair.
Posted on another thread but now seems relevant here:
Richard Betts
"Can I ask you to consider snipping shub's comment? "
No Richard, this can no longer be a nice academic polite discussion. It has been allowed to fester for far, far too long.
Time for warts and all! Just what is Ed worried about? If "loons" (not Shub as you well know) are about they are obvious. That is life and it is life that your "research" is going to effect, whether you like it or not! So you and Ed need to get used to it and PWQ.
Again whether you like it or not, now comes responsibility, agreed not what you thought you had signed on for, but you, Ed and many others have now got it!
You found it, you promoted it, you demanded action, you convinced the politicians, the officers and more importantly the money men! Welcome to the real world! This is the time when the money men, and they tend to be not nice people, start asking questions.
Ed deleting comments why? Just leave the crap there for all to see, because we all know the loons and anyhow it is doubtful that you, Ed and Tamsin will see the your careers through this medium
Mar 8, 2014 at 12:42 AM | Registered CommenterGreen Sand
Ed and Dick are just doing what the Egyptians did in 73; declare victory and feel good about yourselves.
Green sand, thanks
This is not the first or the last 'sensitivity' thread in the climate debate, the Ed Hawkins one. As detailed in 2007 by Roe and Baker, the mathematics in the calculation of climate sensitivity inherently restricts the ability to reduce the uncertainty range of climate sensitivity. Lewis and Crok argue that observational evidence better restricts the range, Forster and Gregory argue that important dynamic elements of the climate system are excluded by such assumptions. Big surprise heh. As omnologos points out, only climate science can arrive at what Charney merely guesstimated via expensive computational modeling and declare that to be a great scientific achievement.
What is the perfect temperature for the planet?
H/T http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/03/07/a-pointed-question/
I posted a few times on Ed's thread but my stance is the same: there are too many theorists waving their hands around talking about the effects of Co2 without ever quoting a recent detailed experiment to show said effects.
I wouldn't mind if this was it but this supposed science is then applied to the real world where it has real consequences e.g, the famous lack of snow plows a few winters back due to Met Office predictions of warmer winters.
But also there are the various tax schemes proposed, decarbonisation targets, it goes on.
So here is an analogy of where climate science is:
It is like saying an aeroplane is fit for flight with passengers without ever performing a single performance test. All performance indicators have been calculated from theory, including supposed settled science and mulitple simulations have been run showing that it can perform within the stated flight envelope.
No physical test has ever been run, even the engines have not been switched on.
Now, would you fly in that plane?
And if not, why not?
If your answer is because I need to see that it can fly first before I would get in it, to say otherwise would be to assume a hell of a lot and would be bordering on madness, then you should be asking for climate scientists to demonstrate the basic greenhouse effect of CO2 in a lab. And until then to assume that we can apply their theory to real world applications is equally madness.
If you would fly in the plane....well religion can overcome a lot but are you going to blindly believe that the designers covered everything including predicting the actual performance of the device and where it would fail.
Am I alone in not having an effing clue why they're so triumphant?
Mar 7, 2014 at 8:58 PM geronimo
They think that welcoming a lower sensitivity value means we now accept that value and are prepared to support action on those levels. Wrong. To me, all it proves is the debate is not over, it never started. I don’t even rule out higher sensitivity values. Without knowing what end of the sensitivity range we are going to get, we face a lot of problems acting on it.
If sensitivity was high you would not be building windmills, you’d be spending any and all spare money on nuclear. High cost, low return schemes are just a sticking plaster on a gaping wound. You waste time and resources on something that won’t help. We wouldn’t bother buying in the technology piecemeal, but set up new departments to turn them out cookie cutter style. We’d create over capacity to take up the strain from home heating and transport. You’d also want to embrace austerity until you could seriously replace fossil fuels. To do such a thing you’d need very convincing evidence and a public that wasn’t numbed by years of uncertainty and bad predictions. You wouldn’t spend too much on protecting people from the effects of sea level rise or other climate hazards, you’d ban all development in vulnerable areas and plan to evacuate those presently at risk. You wouldn’t be teaching kids about the environment, you’d be teaching them how to live with less. You’d scrap rules about building aesthetics and introduce ones for energy efficiency instead.
If sensitivity is low then we have much more time to develop the science and the solutions. Concentration on mitigating the effects would be the best short-term option. You can take the time to introduce nuclear and not be panicked into paying top prices for low carbon energy. You’d debate the options with the public and let them decide how we are to react to the problem.
The current plan is to amble vaguely in the direction of reducing CO2 while throwing very unconvincing science at the public. The public quickly get the impression that nobody really knows what they’re talking about and start building up resistance to action. Politicians randomly waste money on their pet schemes, feeling justified that they have to do SOMETHING. Energy prices rise, causing people to suffer and resent action on CO2, without the countering effect of a real sense of concern. Business suffers, reducing income, reducing our resources to act on CO2 and any effects. Production continues unabated abroad. Net effect - CO2 goes up.
So no, this is not debate over, this is just debate begun... but I doubt the consensus brigade are ready yet.
http://www.businessinsider.com/california-drought-could-last-for-a-century-2014-3
So nothing unusual there then. It's normal.
Depends if you want polar bears to return to Scotland (where they have been roaming for most of the last 100,000 years), or hippopotami and other Africa megafauna roaming in England as they were during the Eemian, c. 130kya.
I prefer something in between. But considering the last two days of freezing winds and sleet (and last year's non-existent spring) a little bit warmer would be fine here, and I'm sure for most people who have to endure the cold winters of the Northern Hemisphere.
1. I suggested Ed to remove the Cowtan comments - the "discussion" was being polluted by endless exchanges on a topic that isn't important to Forster or Lewis. For the former, observations aren't too important. For the latter, sensititivity doesn't depend on infilling gymnastics.
2. Ed, Richard, Tamsin may or may not be considering not circling wagons any longer. For now we can only watch in desperate awe as the fastest, hasty-est response to a report has ever been published (by Ed) - thereby guaranteeing it would only obfuscate the issue. Odes to "skeptics have seen the lights", let's leave them to the kindergarteners among us.
One of many aspects that leave me stricken by the less than magnificent desolation of climate "science" (not a scare quote - it's for lack a better word of it), is that modellers who've been unable to restrict the range of uncertainties for several decades are for mysterious reasons working tiredlessly to keep the range as wide as possible- including arguing that there is no good observation data to rely upon (only more models0.
Or consider this - we have many models to work with. Some of them seem better than others, after many years of experience. Why can't we discard the worse ones? Only a climate modeller would know (hint: they think that different models are "correct" in hindsight at different times - so today's snake oil salesmodel is tomorrow's clarvoyancy tool and the day-after-tomorrow snake oil salesmodel again).
Why would climate modellers not understand how wrong all that be, I cannot fathom. Basically we know that we know that TCR and ECS sensitivity is anywhere between 1.1C and 4.5C. We know also that no amount of modelling and supercomputing will improve the situation (=narrow the range).
As things stand, if I put on my "policymaking hat" I would definitely remove funding from the whole climate modelling enterprise. We know enough.
"Basically we know that we know that TCR and ECS sensitivity is anywhere between 1.1C and 4.5C. "
Maurizio, I don't think we know that for sure. I don't think we have a clue. (I still reject the concept of any sensitivity number except as a local and short-term phenomenon. Nobody up to now has pointed out where the concept is established. I think it has always been taken as obvious. It isn't.)
Rhoda - I was being sarcastic - that particular sensitivity range is everything we know from climate modelling. Everything ;) - and everything we will ever know too.
Sort of like the knowledge of how bad free radicals are for one's youthful appearance. Yeah, maybe, perhaps.
Indeed. And that reminds me of what Lindzen said in an old interview (somewhere on youtube) when the whole computer modelling game started up - it was the wrong avenue to go down, and the research money should have gone into observational science.
And I explained to you that my comments weren't off-topic.
Some commentators, on your side of the debate introduced the Cowtan & Way paper as if it was an established part of the climate science record.
I simply pointed out that the paper was an activist project, planned on the leaked Skeptical Science "private forum" and should therefor be seen in that light.
I have debated this with Tamsin on the early thread and, with Bish's permission, will extract the relevant part of what i said there:-
…...it's wrong to concentrate on a paper which is simply an interesting mathematical treatment of existing data and hold it up as "evidence" of anything.
It's very interesting to consider a parallel between that paper and the Lewis & Crok paper we're discussing here.
It's fair to say that both papers were produced by amateur scientists, outside the mainstream of consensus climate science, who thought they could improve on a particular generally accepted conclusion of the science.
Cowtan & Way used novel treatments of existing data to try and make the case that the HADCRUT data set was underestimating the current temperature trend because of geographical data limitations.
Several of the more open-minded sceptic commentators like Lucia said that the paper was mathematically viable and interesting piece of work.
Shortly afterwards, Cowtan & Way began to be regularly referenced in climate discussions by serious mainstream scientists like Schmidt & Rahmstorf as if it were now one of the established temperature data sets. I seem to remember Rahmstorf publishing a table where C&W had its own column alongside HADCRUT, GISS etc.
The point I have been trying to make is that's it's very odd that this peripheral, amateur piece of work has been seized on by consensus scientists and promoted ahead of the established results.
Contrast that with the treatment meted out by you and your colleagues to Lewis & Crok.
Rather than taking the time to read & digest the paper and make a sober technical judgement on it - we had an overnight "rapid rebuttal" of the paper, accompanied by mass tweeting from you, Richard, Ed & others - ignoring the author's conclusions completely and putting your own spin on one aspect to create the line "sceptics finally accept dangerous climate change".
One thing is for sure - hell will freeze over before any of you consensus crowd will casually refer to Lewis & Crok as "increasing evidence for lower climate sensitivity."
In short this whole episode is just another little cameo showing the politicisation and asymmetry of the whole climate debate.
The point I consider important here is that there in an increasing body of "climate science" work which is specifically produced for a political end.
It is fair to point out that the Lewis & Crok paper has similar origins because of the GWPF association - and this has been vigorously pointed out by your side.
For some reason, comments referring to the activist origins of papers conceived by the SkS crowd always seem to end up being "off-topic".
Go figure - as they say.
Edging into the negotiation phase.
Pointman
That's it TinyCO2? They believe that because a single report, not peer reviewed, shows less sensitivity, but warming anyway, has opened the door for some sort of denouement with sceptics in which we will, mutually, plot solutions that will stabilise the Earth's temperatures at some "safe" level? Even at a superficial level there doesn't seem much cause for their optimism given the number of obstacles they'd have to overcome.
1. The current situation suits the Greens. They would prefer that the scientists had made more dire forecasts, but the current situation in terms of the science suits them. They are unlikely to want us to dilute the already draconian laws being enacted throughout the Western industrial societies because they don't accept them as being draconian enough.
2. They still have to persuade the sceptics that 2C represents a dangerous rise in temperature. They seem to have forgotten that all the disasters they were forecasting at a 3C rise were quite clearly fabricated from computer models, and all along the way the fact that there was no upside to temperature increase smelled of propaganda, not science. I'm not a big fish in the argument, but I believe I represent a sceptical view that says: (a) The dangers have been exaggerated; (b) The solutions are political not practical; (c) Humans will adapt to the changes in climate, who's to say we won't?
3. With whom are they going to agree the new denouement? Do they not realise that they're the puppets in this not the puppet masters? Do they really think that they'll be allowed to water down the solutions they've been instrumental in providing the evidence for?
Small wonder I didn't have an effing clue why they were triumphalist.
To reiterate what I've said before, the current climate sensitivity of 3C was originally conceived by Charney from two computer models one of which gave an ECS of 2C and one of which gave an ECS of 4C (you have to guess which one was James Hansen's) Charney took 0.5 from the lowest and added 0.5C to the highest and bingo! We have an ECS range of 1.5 to 4.5C with a likely value of 3C that has withstood $100bn of research and stayed stubbornly the same since 1979.
You don't have to have an O-level in common sense to find this improbable, from which it is really easy to assume that the scientific community have no clue what the ECS is. Why now would I, or anyone else, believe, on the back of one paper, admittedly based on observations rather than models, that the new ECS is correct? Something else I've been harping on about is that papers that suit either position in the climate wars are accepted instantly as evidence by the clisci community bypassing the more usual scientific modus operandi of testing the hypothesis in the new paper, usually over several months or years.
Of course, Ed and Richard could be enthusiastic about new denouement because it may have dawned on them that they've got themselves on a hook they need get off as the model forecasts are beginning to look more and more ludicrously diverging from reality. Who knows? But Richard's uncharacteristic outbursts on Ed's removing comments from his blot (which he's entitled to do and needs no defending) might be telling us something. Richard is seldom agitated by anything and tends to keep a cool head whatever the provocation, so why the angst at accusations that Ed's deleting posts that he doesn't agree with.
Time for everyone to calm down and take time out to study the implications of the Lewis and Crok paper, rather than instant hype, or trying to shoot it down. This isn't some school yard argument millions of people are already being adversely affected by policies implemented on the basis of 3C ECS, let's take a step back and try to get a real understanding of what the ECS is, if there's one at all.
One of the tactics which has been adopted is to identify and emphasise aspects which sceptics can be said to agree with and use this as evidence of support for the consensus and by implication the policies which are the object of the exercise.
There is also a related shell game going on where they are prepared to spread the numbers far enough to squeeze in those compatible with sceptic understanding, while carefully scrubbing round the inconvenient truth that to do so invalidates the case for the policies.
Same old same old. They, especially Richard Betts, must at all costs frame the debate. The reason they have seized upon the Lewis and Crok paper is that they believe it gives them the opportunity to move the debate away from the shonky science onto the ‘what do we do about it’ stage. We deniers will be allowed to debate how much warming there will be – always within the parameters of it being ‘dangerous’ – and what the best policy response is. And given that all warming will be framed as ‘dangerous’ then the policy response will be more of the same self-flagellation in an attempt to appease the Goddess Gaia.
Meanwhile, in the real world, global surface temperatures will continue to do nothing to support the alarmism that is required to support both arms of the consensus world view and denierism will continue to grow within a population weary of the failed cataclysmic prophecies of the brotherhood of anointed soothsayers and charlatans. Political reality will be ever more present in energy policies in Western nations. Winning elections means acknowledging that the bottom line on the electricity bill swings votes. So more fudge. A lot more fudge on the policy front.
And the same old bollox on the science front. The belief that climate sensitivity is a constant. The belief that climate sensitivity is a scientific concept rather than a political one. The failure to realize that we live on the water world where climate is controlled by the most miraculous molecule that human imagination could conceive - H2O is truly the magic molecule. Time that CO2 is exposed as the pretender that it is and is discarded on the scrapheap of failed science.
Perry (Mar 8, 2014 at 8:49 AM): that is a question I have frequently asked, particularly on pro- sites; it is the logical conclusion when being told that any further rise will be dangerous, if not catastrophic; it also implies that there is a perfect temperature, and that it is less than the one we have at present. No-one has yet even tried to offer an answer.
We need to focus on the policies the AGW extremists are pushing:
Less preparation for normal weather events
No coal
No fracking
More windmills
Carbon taxes
No nukes
More solar
And show them for the loser, dangerous people hurting policies they are. As well as show that each and everyone of these costs us more than we ever get out of them. Big green, who is pushing this list and more, is our real enemy.
They are using science- especially climate science- to push this garbage.
That it turns out there is no more truth in the extreme AGW claims than there was in the big green phony lawsuit against Chevron is no surprise.
"Here was one of the world's foremost bastions of contrariness when it comes to man-made climate change, admitting that temperatures were actually rising in response to human emissions of greenhouse gases"
-BBC
They were ready with the spin.
Pointman suggests they are approaching the negotiation phase.
I remember when Judith Curry started up her on-line enterprise. There were a number of establishment scientists who were asking about the structure of the skeptic world. It felt to me as if they would like to find a couple of people they could negotiate with and have the skeptics quiet down.
Unfortunately, this is a much less organized world than that. Everybody is skeptical for different reasons, personal to them. The rowdy Chinese and Indians have one set of issues, Judith Curry has another, Scottish Skeptic has another, and Mark Steyn has another, to mention just a couple. There is no group that is large enough to usefully negotiate with. There is nobody who can tell their guys to quiet down, and you would notice the difference.
I predict frustration down that alley.
Pardon me. I MODEL frustration down that alley.
HR hits THE point:-
Comments on the GWPF climate sensitivity report
Answer:
"it will need a bit more thought" not really Ed, if that was the case this thread would not be in existence. Enjoy your hols! Looking forward to mine.
PS just in case: to all concerned:- THE point is "the disconnect between model and observational estimates" do not be distracted!
Lapogus
"And that reminds me of what Lindzen said in an old interview (somewhere on youtube) when the whole computer modelling game started up - it was the wrong avenue to go down, and the research money should have gone into observational science."
And Freeman Dyson said the same 30 years ago and has said the same recently as he turned 90 years young. I particularly liked his opinion about how 10 years of modelling leads to falling in love with your model and believing it is the real world. Modellers who think the data is wrong are indicative of such a problem. Anyone who has viewed modellers up close (even those modelling tomorrows weather) will recognise the trait.