The Curry Agonistes
UPDATE: As with many of her previous appearances at this site, Judith Curry is an active participant in the comment thread below.
Judith Curry, a climate scientist at Georgia Tech, has a knack for setting off tremors in the climate blogosphere. There was a lot of rumbling last week after Curry got into a rather contentious exchange with Gavin Schmidt and readers at Real Climate. Other notables, such as Joe Romm and William Connolley jumped into the fray. All this was precipitated by a review of Andrew Montford’s book, The Hockey Stick Illusion, posted at Real Climate. As Roger Pielke Jr. observed, these debates over the hockey stick controversy “can be arcane, technical and simply impenetrable due to years upon years of perceived slights, a practice of in-group shorthand and a chorus of followers on either side cheering on the spectacle.”
Last week’s ritual bloodletting of Curry in blogland was remarkable for how unrestrained it was. I am struck by the phenomena of this respected climate scientist who is being met with increasingly derisive scorn from prominent members of her own community and from many climate advocates. I’m curious as to what drives her to keep engaging in what appears to be a very lonely battle.
Earlier today, we had an email exchange, in which I pressed Curry to explain what is driving her to keep banging away on certain issues and themes.
KK: Why do you feel the need to revisit the hockey stick debate? It’s not central to our understanding of climate science, nor does it factor into the policy debate. The general public is surely not paying attention to it anymore. So why do you feel so compelled to defend this particular book by Andrew Montford?
JC: I am not so much defending this book as recommending that people read it. Climate scientists can learn a lot from Montford’s book. Not in terms of who is “right” or “correct” in terms of the science (that is still being debated), but how to avoid unnecessary conflict in the climate debate. While the hockey stick is not of any particular scientific importance, Montford’s book explains why the hockeystick became a big deal, owing to the IPCC’s choice to make the hockey stick a visual icon for the IPCC in its marketing of the IPCC. Therefore, in the public’s mind, challenges to the hockeystick metaphorically became challenges to the entire global warming argument. And the Climategate emails, while not illuminating any actual scientific misconduct, provided a view into the underbelly of how the consensus was actually built: upon human judgment that was influenced by petty rivalries, a sense of self importance, a political agenda, and the brutal dismissal and even sabotage of competing viewpoints. Not a pretty picture.The fundamental mistake made by the climate researchers involved in the hockey stick debate was to mistake McIntyre et al. as merchants of doubt (a la Oreskes and Collins), when instead they were motivated over a concern for public accountability of the research. The response of the climate researchers to McIntyre and McKittrick, by attacking their qualifications and motives rather than trying to work with them or at least understand what they were trying to say, backfired big time and arguably culminated in Climategate.
KK: I’m still trying to understand what gave rise to this latest round of Curry bashing?
JC: My hypothesis is that the level of vitriol in the climate blogs reflects the last gasp of those who thought they could influence national and international energy policy through the power politics of climate science expertise. The politics of expertise is about how scientific information is used in the policy making process, including how diverging viewpoints are interpreted and how science is weighed relative to values and politics in the policy debate. The problem comes in when the “power” politics of expertise are played. Signals of the “power” play include: hiding uncertainties and never admitting a mistake; developing a consensus with a high level of confidence; demanding that the consensus receive extreme deference relative to other view points; insisting that that science demands a particular policy; discrediting scientists holding other view points by dismissing them as cranks, trivializing their credentials and say that they are not qualified to hold an opinion; and attacking the motives of anyone that challenges the consensus. Sound familiar? In the case of climate change, the authoritarianism of “science tells us we should . . . “ could not withstand the public perception of scientists engaging with pressure groups, lack of transparency that meant people were unable to evaluate the information themselves, and then the climategate affair that raised questions about the integrity of the scientists.
Romm quickly honed in on the view that it was far more important to discredit me than Montford or McIntyre. Romm is “America’s fiercest” practitioner of the power politics of climate expertise, making brutal attacks on scientists and others that diverge from climate orthodoxy. My comments rankle so much with Romm because I used to be in the stable of experts that he cited. My putting the spotlight on uncertainties and too much confidence, plus listening to other view points and posting on rival blogs, and now calling people out on the power politics of science issue, has to be mighty uncomfortable for Romm. Romm didn’t just stop with his “Shootout at the RC corral“ post. Now he has dredged up an interview I gave a few months ago to a Brazilian reporter. I wrote out my replies to the questions of the Brazilian reporter. My answers were then translated into Spanish. Which were then translated back to English. Has anyone ever played the game of telephone?
KK: I question if there is really this breach of trust between the climate science community and the general public. Again, the average person is probably not paying much attention to these fractious debates between skeptics and a subset of the climate science community. I mean, every profession gets dinged by its share of controversies. The foundation for anthropogenic global warming rests on numerous solid pillars, which you agree with. So how is that a batch of intemperate emails and a decade-old scientific controversy over the hockey stick can rock this foundation, which is what you seem to be arguing?
JC: Evidence that the tide has changed include: doubt that was evidenced particularly by European policy makers at the climate negotiations at Copenhagen, defeat of a seven-year effort in the U.S. Senate to pass a climate bill centered on cap-and-trade, increasing prominence of skeptics in the news media, and the formation of an Interacademy Independent Review of the IPCC. Concerns about uncertainty and politicization in climate science are now at the forefront of national and international policy. There is an increasing backlash from scientists and engineers from other fields, who think that climate science is lacking credibility because of the politicization of the subject and the high confidence levels in the IPCC report. While these scientists and engineers are not experts in climate science, they understand the process and required rigor and the many mistakes that need to be made and false paths that get followed.
Further, they have been actively involved in managing science and scientists and in assessing scientists. They will not be convinced that a “likely” level of confidence (66-89% level of certainty) is believable for a relatively new subject, where the methods are new and contested, experts in statistics have judged the methods to be erroneous and/or inadequate, and there is substantial disagreement in the field and challenges from other scientists. The significance of the hockey stick debate is the highlighting of shoddy science and efforts to squash opposing viewpoints, something that doesn’t play well with other scientists. Energy Secretary and Nobel Laureate Steven Chu made this statement in an interview with the Financial Times:
First, the main findings of IPCC over the years, have they been seriously cast in doubt? No. I think that if one research group didn’t understand some tree ring data and they chose to admit part of that data. In all honesty they should have thrown out the whole data set.
But you don’t need to be a Nobel laureate to understand this. I have gotten many many emails from scientists and engineers from academia, government labs and the private sector. As an example, here is an excerpt from an email I received yesterday: “My skepticism regarding AGW has been rooted in the fact that, as an engineer/manager working in defense contracts [General Dynamics], I would have been fired, fined (heavily) and may have gotten jail time for employing the methodology that [named climate scientists] have used.”
KK: Are you suggesting that the methodology of certain climate scientists rises to the level of a crime? Also, I have to ask you to defend this assertion that the failures of Copenhagen and the Senate climate bill are somehow tied to rising skepticism of climate change by policymakers. I don’t see the evidence for that, though I realize that climate skeptics make for convenient scapegoats by advocates such as Joe Romm.
JC: I am not suggesting that at all. Scientists make mistakes all the time, that is actually how science progresses, provided that the mistakes are acknowledged and learned from. If you want to understand the palpable impact of Climategate on European (particularly Dutch) politics, read this paper.
Skepticism has been rather unfortunately defined to be anyone who diverges from IPCC orthodoxy, not only in terms of the science, but in terms of accepting the policies that science “tells us” we must have. The revolt is more in the sense of breaking this linear link between science and policy (see also this post by Pielke Jr.).
KK: The majority of comments at both Real Climate and Climate Progress were quite disparaging of you, which in my mind, speaks more to their readerships, since I have no way of knowing how the respective blog hosts chose to moderate the comments. After experiencing this latest blogospheric hazing, you have to wonder, what’s the point? Are any of your colleagues advising you to move on to a more constructive venue, and if so, what would that be?
JC: Well, first I have to comment on the moderation of RC and CP on this. They chose comments that consisted of personal attacks, while rejecting many comments that were supportive of my viewpoints or asked challenging questions. The reason that I know what comments were rejected because many of these people subsequently posted on climateaudit or emailed me. In one instance, a comment was rejected by CP from someone who had previously made a guest post at RC. So this reflects not only on their readership, but reflects specific choices made by the moderators at RC and CP, that I personally interpret as an attempt to discredit me.
The point is this. I have gotten hundreds of emails from practicing scientists and engineers in a range of different fields and holding positions in academia, government, and the private sector. I have also had discussions with a number of climate researchers who are concerned about the politicization of the field and the overconfidence in the IPCC. They are encouraging me to continue standing up for the scientific method and against the politicization of science. I’m sure that there are some of my colleagues that don’t like it or wonder what the point is, but they are not talking to me about it. I am getting feedback from scientists that like what I’m doing.
In terms of something more productive to do, I would encourage climate scientists to reflect on how to dig out from the hole we’ve dug for ourselves. Time to listen to some new ideas and some new experts. This time, I suggest listening to a plurality of viewpoints, and for scientists to make sure their data and methods are transparent to the public. And stop trying to simplify all this into a straight climate change science drives global energy policy strategy, which was misguided and naïve, to say the least. The real problem is sustainability, which is a complex confluence of ecosystems, food, water, energy, population growth, finite natural resources, and the desire for economic development. Sustainability is a value that nearly everyone can share. The fundamental spatial unit of sustainability is the region, which makes it easier for people to identify their common concerns and secure their common interests. Yes, there are global elements to all this in terms of climate change and finite natural resources, and the realization that regional instabilities can have global consequences. It’s not a simple problem, and there is no silver bullet, but there are millions of little solutions that can all add up. Climate change needs to be considered as but a single element in the context of all these issues. And independently of the broader sustainability issues, we need rational energy policies that account not only for environmental issues, but also economic and national security issues.
Once you start thinking about sustainability and the broader issues of energy policy as the main challenges, and not climate change, then the overwhelming barrier of politics and economics becomes less monolithic. And more importantly, climate science can get back to being science rather than being about politics. My citations of Feynmann on the RC thread were to remind people of the difference. Climate science is a fascinating and important scientific problem. Lets step back and figure out how to do a better job so that our field can regain the respect of the Nobel laureates in physics, scientists and engineers from other fields, and credibility of the public. Most importantly we need to stop playing the power politics of climate science by saying “Here is what science says we must do” and start saying “Here is our best understanding, and here is where our uncertainties are . . .”
Thanks, Dr. Curry, not just for this interview, but for all your efforts to reduce the politicization of climate science, and break down the walls between tribes. As they never said in Latin, “Illegitimi non carborundum.”
I particularly like your summary,
climate science can get back to being science rather than being about politics. .. Climate science is a fascinating and important scientific problem. ..[W]e need to stop playing the power politics of climate science by saying “Here is what science says we must do” and start saying “Here is our best understanding, and here is where our uncertainties are . . .” The reluctance to admit areas of uncertainty is the hallmark of a dogmatic approach rather than one of scientific investigation. Although I will say that many of the papers qualify their results, and it is only subsequent usage that ignores the caveats expressed originally.
And thanks to you too, Keith, for facilitating such discussions as are possible. Oh, and get well soon.
Dr. Curry continues to remind me that there is still great reason for hope for the fledgling field of climate science. Thanks to both of you for the post/interview.
HaroldW, thanks, I’ve definitely turned a corner–even feeling human again.
Keith,
You began your posted email exchange with Judith Curry with: “KK: Why do you feel the need to revisit the hockey stick debate.” But the “exchange” with Gavin Smith that is the subject of this post was in the comments section of a post by Tamino on Real Climate reviewing The Hockey Stick Illusion.
The real question should have been, why are the activists on Real Climate finally responding to an issue they still claim is irrelevant and dead. If you answer that question properly, then the harsh response to Ms. Curry and her posting is not hard to understand at all.
My answer, for what it’s worth, is that they understand the politics of the matter better than the skeptics who otherwise share their political views. They see Ms. Curry in particular as a real danger to their agenda, and rightly so. And they are not as sanguine about abandoning that agenda as the skeptics who want to find some “common ground” with them think.
This is actually quite timely, as it is clear that many of those who have contributed to this mess are trying to reclaim the agenda in the public fora–including the blogosphere.
Professor Curry is spot on in her criticism, in my opinion. I hope she’s prepared for another round of personal attacks and distortions of what she writes–the game of telephone does not require a Brazilian translation when some of the blogospheric extremists get involved.
I’m jealous, Keith–good interview, well done, but I’m jealous. Get sicker!
I looked in vain for reference to or answers to the substantive critiques of her posts that were made in comments on RC (I’m not really following CP and don’t intend to; nor do I consider RC and CP to be the same genus of science blog, much less the same species, so to lump their moderation practices as being of a piece, is misleading). On RC it certainly wasn’t all, or even mostly, name calling, though that’s how your post here seems to portray it. Characterizing the blogland response as ‘bloodletting’ makes it seem like there were no substantive points made. Nor could it possibly put the response in context, e.g., of the factual mistakes and generalizations JC has committed in defense of her ‘new experts’ since establishing herself withing this debate; of the drive-by nature of her initial response to Tamino’s RC review of Montford; etc.
I note too that JC has herself become a bit of a policy advocate here, albeit of broad goals that few would disown (e.g., the need for ‘rational energy policies’). I hope Roger Pielke Jr doesn’t start calling her a stealth advocate again.
And as for the recourse to anecdotes like ‘I have hundreds of scientists and engineers writing me’ [in support]. Resisting the mischievous urge to demand, in the interest of transparency (of course), to see *all of her emails on the subject, and right now, please, otherwise it’s her fault for digging herself into a hole*, is it really any surprise JC is getting feedback from some scientists and engineers (who apparently read the climate blogs) that like what she is doing’? Anyone perusing the such blogs’ comments could easily find a subset of self-identified scientists and engineers (predominantly, from my anecdotal evidence, retired) condemning Climategate and the supposed decadence of climate science (often contrasted to how science was done ‘in my day’). So yes, we know they’re out there; I’ve noted before that one can also find online a cohort of self-identified scientists (typically *not* biologists, I hasten to add) and engineers who are ‘skeptical’ or even ‘auditors’ of the claims of evolutionary biology. It’s practically a cliche. So if it’s true that ‘The point is this. I have gotten hundreds of emails from practicing scientists and engineers in a range of different fields and holding positions in academia, government, and the private sector’, then color me unimpressed. I’m much more interested in that dark-matter bulk of scientists, particularly climate scientists, who ‘aren’t talking to’ JC. One really wants to get a sense of what her colleagues are making of this spectacle — and not just the self-selection of those in ‘agreeance’. Would JC consider presenting these views on the state of climate science, at one of the larger scientific meetings related to her field, to an auditorium full of her peers? Perhaps some of the non-talkers will talk to her then and the rest of us could hear what they have to say (via reportage/live feeds). I realize that she’s become one of your favorites, KK, and you’d probably hate to see her retreat to more traditional fora, but to someone used to seeing scientific debates played out in publications and meetings, this whole debate-by-blog thing is hardly dispositive. And when we reach the point of hoary internet cliches like ‘I have tons of people emailing me in support’ it’s borderline silly.
Dr. Curry –
Thank you again for laying out a rational and well-stated position regarding the current state of climate science and a path forward which may allow progress to be reached in both understanding the potential impacts of human-induced climate change (whatever its magnitude) and working to establish an approach for developing future sustainable energy sources which have less overall impact on the environment. Please continue with your dialog despite the over-the-top reactions of some in the community.
Judy,
A few questions come to mind that I’m hoping you’ll clarify.
You say
“My hypothesis is that the level of vitriol in the climate blogs reflects the last gasp of those who thought they could influence national and international energy policy through the power politics of climate science expertise.”
As a scientist, are you planning on testing this hypothesis, or is this just a ‘feeling’ that you have?
Later you suggest:
“Time to listen to some new ideas and some new experts.”
What new ideas and new experts did you have in mind? Why are they worth listening to, as opposed to say Hansen, Jacobsen, and Ramathan for example?
Another puzzler:
“And stop trying to simplify all this into a straight climate change science drives global energy policy strategy,”
Do you have any evidence to support this contention?
Finally, you say:
“Once you start thinking about sustainability and the broader issues of energy policy as the main challenges, and not climate change, then the overwhelming barrier of politics and economics becomes less monolithic. ”
It seems to me that the opposite is true. Once you start thinking in terms of sustainability, the barriers and complexity from a policy POV become much more numerous and difficult. Take biofuels, for example. From a mitigation perspective all you need to worry about is lifecycle GHG impacts. But if you’re concerned about sustainability in a broader sense, then you need to take into account things like water impacts, biodiversity impacts, third world agricutural policy dynamics, etc.
IMO, energy security is a subset of climate security, which in turn is a subset of the broader issue of environmental/economic/political sustainability writ large.
Keith,
You say “ I’m still trying to understand what gave rise to this latest round of Curry bashing?” Do you have any comment on the substantive elements of the points made at CP, RC, or Stoat? Or are you simply interested in the spectacle and personality dymanics? That’s fine, imo, but I find it odd that you claim to be puzzled by the reaction of the moderators at those sites.
GaryM:
“The real question should have been, why are the activists on Real Climate finally responding to an issue they still claim is irrelevant and dead. ”
Why indeed. This is too rich. RC is first condemned for ignoring the ‘controversy’ ; then JC dares us all to study Montford’s book, else we have no basis to judge to dark view of the ‘auditors’ towards climate science; and when Tamino does that deed for RC, GaryM says’ takes it as proof that those darned RC folks were lying all along when they said the hockey stick ‘issue’ is beside the point (or, as KK phrases it, “not central to our understanding of climate science, nor does it factor into the policy debate.”)
Hilarious.
The interview is a very interesting read; many thanks to Keith and to Dr Curry.
I’ve tried and failed to articulate many things in the past which have now been expressed in crystal-clear fashion by Dr Curry, and in so doing have affirmed that – particularly on principles – Dr Curry serves as a beacon for those seeking a rational perspective and a path forward. All hope is not lost after all. It’s a great relief.
I’m sure it’s just because I’m “in the sceptic camp” that I didn’t perceive the discourse on Montford’s book to be equally vitriolic on CP/RC compared with CA/BH. I didn’t get the sense that the sceptics were goading Curry into battling on, pushing her back into the ring to take a beating at all. The level of understanding of the issues being highlighted by Dr Curry were well-known to the readership at CA/BH and, frankly, it was nice to have those issues survive moderation courtesy of Dr Curry’s heavyweight profile.
If I may run with that ring-side analogy for a moment, though, I felt that the opening that Dr Curry made on RC (with a hyperlink to CA – usually disabled by RC moderation, deleted completely, or lost in moderation) was an opportunity to tag Steve McIntyre. This was an opportunity that Steve didn’t miss, and delivered three fact-laden knock-out blows. One to Tamino, one to Gavin and one to Mann.
The now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t sleight of hand, swapping out Tiljander and dendro proxies that was illuminated so precisely by Steve McIntyre (a beautiful Penn & Teller moment, I felt), and the subsequent admission from Schmidt that a verified 1300 year no-dendro-no-tilj isn’t possible, has – I feel at least – delivered the final blow to the hockey stick. I can’t help feeling that, if they’d taken Dr Curry’s advice and read the HSI book like she’d suggested, they wouldn’t have made the mistake of letting Tamino review the HSI on the front-page of RC. Another demonstration of why there’s every reason to NOT disregard a word of what Dr Curry has to say.
For the record, I’m VERY much a layman, and I TOTALLY get the trick performed by Mann and exposed by McIntyre. It’s all there, and it’s an absolutely enthralling exposé. I’m off to read the book again.
Judy Curry and Steve MacIntyre should each have one day a plaque, a portrait or a statue erected in their honor in the Halls of Science, wherever these mythical Halls might be. Honesty, restraint, critical thinking, clear debate of methods and results, separation of Science and Politics, fidelity to data, and a dogged and relentless pursuit of Truth. Their virtues epitomize what Science should ever be..
Recommended reading:
Nearly a hundred years ago, Max Weber wrote two lucid essays, “Science as a calling” and “Politics as a calling”. Two essays, not one. That distinction, and the essays’ contents, say it all.
GaryM(4),
I agree with Steven (9): RC rose to the challenge to give the book a hearing. Just because it wasn’t the one that Judy would have liked doesn’t negate that it got some valuable real estate at RC. The world of letters is full of negative reviews. Such is life. My suggestion was that it be balanced out with another review that perhaps gave Judy’s perspective. Alas, what resulted was a car wreck in the comments.
Marlowe (8): you ask reasonable questions that I hope Judith takes on. I also recognze there was legitimate criticism of her comments in RC but I wonder if it was overwhelmed–even undermined by an amen greek chorus.
As for Stoat, I continue to have a soft spot for the guy, though I was put off by his opening remark that Judith had officially joined the dark side.
Steven (6): I too am not impressed by the ancecdotal email citations. I’d also rather see some of these people come out from their cloak and post here or elsewhere.
Steven Sullivan:
As an example, here is an email that I received this morning from a leading European climate scientist whom I have not personally met (name removed):
To: curryja@eas.gatech.edu
Sent: Tuesday, August 3, 2010 10:35:46 AM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
Subject: FW: Fwd: Fwd: PNS, Judith Curry, Joe Romm and the attorney general of Virginia
Dr. Curry,
I am appalled by this way, your efforts to establish a communication in the different views about climate change and climate policy are abused. Maybe the dispute in the US is much more viscous than in Europe (or than the part I am observing). But I want to express my respect for holding out your honest and honorable efforts, and ask you to continue to present your independent and thoughful position.
Regards
——
Yes, I would be happy to speak to my peers on this. I have been invited to make one presentation (by COSEPUP, a NRC Committee), entitled What we can learn from climategate: perspectives from a climate researcher. I am currently preparing a new talk, entitled “Climate Science and the Uncertainty Monster” that I will try out at Georgia Tech in early September. If any one would like to invite me to give this seminar in some sort of a major venue, I would be happy to do so (keeping in mind that I do limit my travel).
For nonscientists, it takes hindsight to understand warnings from scientists.
Example: http://caliber.ucpress.net/doi/abs/10.1641/0006-3568%282004%29054%5B0297%3AMFPCCF%5D2.0.CO%3B2
Look at the ‘slow drips’ thread earlier.
Hector, I read “Science as a calling” recently – I was pointed there by a commenter at BH. You’ve reminded me that I was asked for a response which I didn’t give.. I need to dig through the archives, but in the meantime I would emphatically recommend it, and I think now is probably a good time to consider a future discussion, in the light of Dr Curry’s insights, on how universities can free themselves of the shackles of external interests and return to the ethics of scientific method. I’ve yet to read “Politics as a calling”. Must do, soon.
Regarding Stoat, I’m afraid that reading his efforts in the discussions on Wikipedia have relegated Connolley to the lowly heights of the disingenuous. I simply cannot trust as honest a word the man says.
Marlowe Johnson #8:
Re my new “hypothesis”, lets first consider my previous hypothesis on “tribalism”, that I threw out there last November. Google tribalism climate change, there are 76,000 hits. Evidence for this hypothesis has piled up, the latest exchange in the blogosphere provides yet further evidence.
As for the power politics of climate science expertise, RC’s new post looks like another play along these lines (as was the PNAS paper itself). So lets just sit back and watch the evidence roll in
Keith and Steven Sullivan, regarding why more climate scientists don’t speak out, who would want to subject themselves to the abuse that I have been subject too? I note that a number of government scientists post blog comments under pseudonymns, they have emailed me to identify their comments.
I’ll let my arguments stand or fall on their merits, I don’t need any public support from my colleagues. My arguments seem to be striking a chord, otherwise they would be ignored.
In a recent post, Gavin Schmidt admitted that (1) once discredited tree rings and discredited Finnish sediment data are discarded, Mann’s past reconstructions of past temperatures cannot be validades for periods before AD 1500, i.e. for the Medieval Warm Period; (2) that this “does not matter” because the temperature during the Middle Ages is not important at all. CA has a lengthy commentary on this (http://climateaudit.org/2010/08/01/the-no-dendro-illusion/). Of course it DOES matter. The now dismissable Hockey Stick chart (i.e. the reconstruction of temperatures during the latest millennium) was the ONLY “proof” that current warming was unprecedented. If the MWP existed, and was warmer than today or than expected temperatures during the coming century, and the world survived nicely (even allowing the Viking settlement of Greenland and Labrador, and generally improving the ease of living at medium-high latitudes as in medieval Merry England and its wine-producing valleys), then the fearsome character of current warming should be somewhat reassessed.
However, Dr Schmidt admission of the “lack of skill” of reconstructions before AD 1500, a viewpoint long held by serious critics such as MacIntyre and others, as well as the excessive indignation directed at Dr Curry’s polite and moderate contentions, is a telling sign that some new winds are blowing.
Marlowe, re the substantive points made at RC, stoat etc., i presume you mean the technical details surrounding the hockey stick debate. The complexity of taking on any one of these points (and I am not an expert in tree rings nor do i desire to be) is substantial, see this post at climate audit, that takes on the Mann et al. 08 paper. A very different perspective than what is provided at RC and stoat. As to who is correct in this arcane argument, its hard to even care, since I have such low confidence in the paleo reconstructions for a whole host of very basic reasons.
Its more important to look at the forest and not just the tree rings. Acknowledge that this is highly uncertain science where there is a lot of things to debate. The challenge for climate scientists is to keep these kinds of debates from blowing up into conflagrations; none of the other scientific debates about specific issues has blown up into a conflagration like the hockey stick did.
As a retired scientist who worked in an engineering environment, I would like to add my name to the list of people who “think that climate science is lacking credibility” and who “would have been fired….. for employing the methodology that [named climate scientists] have used.”
Dr Curry
You know by now, that posting at blogs is an entirely different credibility game – with completely new skill sets. Great blog commenters – and by ‘great’, I mean, the ones who can reel off articulate smackdowns and cringe-inducing insults while supporting their own camp positions, are many.
I hope your example catches on – of saying what’s on your mind, however soundbite unfriendly it might seem, to those clamoring for recompense and punishment for words and phrases, rather than meditating and confronting the meanings behind them. I thank you for refraining from word-to-word defence of contentious issues, and hope that your example is taken up by more and more scientists who will come to the blogs and stay on, in whatever platform they feel comfortable in.
If quote-literalism and consistency mongering is the game – let it be played at all levels. A group cannot demand scientific leniency, in pursuit of a larger ‘truth’ (vis a vis the stick) and yet, insist on reading regurgitated comment entrails to find fault.
All bloggers cannot become scientists, but a good number of scientists can take to the blogs – it is a game with its own rules, and it requires some investment of time and effort, no doubt. (and some practice with typing!).
Keith and Judy:
Many thanks for this enlightening and civil exchange.
I am not an academic scientist, but I have spent the last 30 years undertaking large scale data analysis for clients including NRC/NSF and where significant legal issues were at stake.
I actually wrote to Judy applauding her efforts, persistence and equanimity at RC. From my perspective, Gavin failed in his role of moderator for this discussion. Some of his own comments were pretty dismissive and incendiary. More importantly he made no visible effort to restrain some of the comments from well known commenters who were appallingly rude. Assuming that the point of such discussions is to persuade some other party – it is hard for me to see how they could possibly think they were going to persuade anyone. That said, Gavin did allow some of my comments and his comments were civil.
I am not surprised at all by Judith’s comments here. I would be interested in hearing the extent to which her views changed after Steve visited GT, a couple of years ago – if they in fact did.
Why do we care about the hockey stick? Because it’s statistical trickery masquerading as conclusive scientific evidence, specifically designed for the purpose of assisting the advancement of a political agenda. The yearning to have it exposed for what it is is irrepressible. I’m in awe of Schmidt’s assertion that temperatures in the MWP are scientifically uninteresting, when considering the significance of the graph in the TAR, the downplaying of its inherent uncertainties and its position in Gore’s video – itself required viewing for my kids at school.
I do appreciate that it’s not interesting to a lot of climate scientists who have no interest in the subject of paleo reconstruction, but as an example of the susceptibility of science to politicization it remains iconic in stature. So it moved from famous to infamous, it still retains its notoriety.
Of course I accept that it would be fallacious to tar all of climate science with brush painting, in lucid detail, the antics of the paleo reconstruction engineers and I reject all efforts to do so (even my own, when I’ve been tempted) but it is at the same time difficult not to perceive the collective regard of those antics as a baseline example of abysmal standards that CAN be followed in academic sciences – surely a grave concern?
Someone, somewhere (I can’t find it) made the point that the enquiries into UEA/CRU activities were not just failures of diligence, by their failures to address very clear and well-expressed criticisms of the work being performed at CRU and elsewhere, they became themselves further evidence of the corruption of academic sciences by outside and inappropriate influence. It seems impossible to read them any other way.
So I’m sad to say that the hockey stick cannot go away until the worthlessness of the thing is as well known as the image of the thing itself. In this endeavour it can serve a purpose, because there is much to do both to lay the groundwork upon which that confidence in academic sciences can be built, and then to rebuild the credibility that it will then deserve.
Dr. Curry,
I see that you are responding to comments — you are a brave lass indeed.
Question: Were any of your posts at RC deleted or edited?
I personally refuse to even visit RC because of editing and deleting of posts — very unethical and unscientific behavior in my view.
Shub, I am not sure I can recommend that climate scientists join the blogospheric discussion. It takes a lot of time and commitment to host your own blog (which is why I don’t do it). Doing drive-bys at other blogs is very hazardous (e.g. my drive by last week at RC). Blogging is definitely a skill that needs honing. The single reason that I hear from other senior scientists for not blogging is that they want to stay away from the vitriol, and and tendency to take attacks personally. Not to mention the time issue.
Re blogging skills, i honed what skills i do have at climateaudit, it definitely takes practice. So I am not too optimistic about other voices joining in in the short term, but in the medium term people are beginning to realize that this medium is rapidly growing in importance, it can’t be ignored, and it has tremendous potential for public participation, engagement, and education.
Bernie, re Steve McIntyre’s visit to Georgia Tech, it didn’t change my mind much, but he did give me the rather surprising (at the time) impression of a nice and unthreatening guy.
However, i think the visit made a very big impact on McIntyre, which he relayed to me much later. By being able to visit a university and engage with climate scientists and students, with the highlight being a visit to Kim Cobb’s paleoclimate lab, Steve got the impression of a bunch of smart, curious people doing good science. Which was counter to the experience he had had in engaging other academics in the climate field.
“The challenge for climate scientists is to keep these kinds of debates from blowing up into conflagrations; none of the other scientific debates about specific issues has blown up into a conflagration like the hockey stick did.”
Judy don’t you find it at least a little ironic that the very people you are championing, in this case Montford, have been largely responsible and in some cases benefited financially from ‘blowing up’ the hockeystick debate. Or have I somehow got it wrong — Montford is donating all his book sale profits to clearclimatecode.org right 🙂 ?
And let’s not forget that the climategate aspect of the issue stems from a criminal act, a point which Steve Mc and company (yourself included presumably) have chosen to ignore in your various writings on the subject. As is often the case, what people choose not to discuss is often as revealing as what they do choose to talk about.
Finally, by your own admission you haven’t got the relevant expertise to judge paleo-reconstructions and yet you choose to advocate on behalf of a group of people that quite clearly thinks its bunk. As a scientists don’t you see how untenable this position is?
Simon H – makes a point about “Stoat” – or “scrote” as he is beginning to be known. – Simon – I agree 100% – you took the words right out of my mouth. WC’s antics on Wiki and his childish attempts at censorship have left him naught but ridicule.
I really do think WC is a most poisonous and unworthy individual.
What a contrast to read the openness of Dr Curry.
A truly honorable lady and true scientist.
Marlowe Johnson
I dispute what you try to infer.
Montford wrote a book – Judith Curry said “Read it” – are you against reading of books? or is it just some type of books you object to? How can the reading of a book be so dangerous to the warmists?
As for the “criminal act” – the fact is that the emails were leaked by an insider so hacked off with the habitual denial of relevant FoI requests that they released the emails that demonstrated to all just what actually went on.
As for criminal acts – it was only the ridiculous 6 month time limit that prevented the UK Information Commissioner from charging the CRU and those within it of a REAL criminal act of ignoring FoI requests!
Then we have the issue of money. So now that it has been proved that the CRU and NOT the sceptics were the real recipients of money from Big Oil, you try to damn Montford with the feint praise that his book is being too successful and that he is making money out of it.
Staggering hypocrisy considering the gravy trail the warmist “Team” have been riding.
Thank goodness for honest people who have derailed this alarmist monster.
Dave, none of my posts at RC were deleted or edited.
Dr Curry
I would say one thing about having your own blog. When you post comments at someone else’s blog, especially on ‘drive-by’ mode at blogs which cut out supporting comments but encourage hostile ones – it can leave the net impression that many valid and clever-sounding questions and objections arose to your comments and you couldn’t answer them. I am sure you are aware of this, many times over now. Don’t you think this is simply because you are one single person, and they are many, many commenters?
On your own blog, you could say what you want – and your long comments would make excellent blog posts themselves – and yet retain some control over what you say.
I say this because, even as we speak, commenters are taking it out on your blog comments, which is after all, in the conversational ‘comments’ section of any post, refusing to give you your due as a commenter who is participatory in an ongoing *discussion*, (which entails the other to participate as equals) .
Have your own blog, and then the game changes – if they have to respond to you, they have to link to you, refer to your blog by its name and track what you say over time, rather than yelping like lipsmaking hyenas who only somehow mistake snooty hoo-haa-puffery for scientific credibility.
Just suggestions, Dr Curry.
Dr. Curry,
I think these two statements contradict each other:
The fundamental mistake made by the climate researchers involved in the hockey stick debate was to mistake McIntyre et al. as merchants of doubt (a la Oreskes and Collins), when instead they were motivated over a concern for public accountability of the research.
and
My hypothesis is that the level of vitriol in the climate blogs reflects the last gasp of those who thought they could influence national and international energy policy through the power politics of climate science expertise.
. To the extent that one is willing to misframe or misrepresent (let alone miscalculate) the science in order to ‘get’ the policy results desired, one will not welcome any challenge to one’s presentation of the science, no matter how fair or accurate it is, or how honest and competent and disinterested the person making the challenge is. In fact, the more widely the challenger is perceived as honest, competent and disinterested the more unhappy one will be, no matter if the perception happens to be correct.
Marlowe Johnson
1: There is no evidence that any criminal act was involved in the release of the CRU emails. British police are still looking into it, but have so far come to no conclusions. In any case, criminality and the content of the emails are two separate issues; their truth or otherwise is unrelated to how they were obtained.
2. Andrew Montford is doubtless earning something from his book. What of it? Again, the issue of earning something is separate and distinct from any truth it might contain.
I think these two points you make illustrate the instinctive tendency of some people in this debate to seek to divert attention from the issue of truth to the issue of finding some means of blackening the name of the messenger if the message doesn’t please.
Has Dr. Curry’s level of expertise changed since she started engaging in the debate? Is she any the less competent as a scientist? Yet again, separate the issues. Be clear. Be analytical. Be dispassionate. Dr. Curry is one of the few grown-ups in the debate, resolutely staying out of the gutter and concentrating on substantive issues. This is courageous, but more importantly, it is demonstrating by example that, were such behaviour emulated on all sides, we could elevate the conversation – indeed, perhaps, start it for the first time.
Steven Sullivan (9),
Lying? In my experience people go to all kinds of lengths to say things to convey something that is not true without, in their mind, lying.
It is possible to rationalize that “the reconstructions are irrelevant” because they are irrelevant, in your mind to the “real issue”, which is about forcings etc, and/or because there is so much “overwhelming” evidence that shows the same thing. But of course, that is not what “relevant” means.
First, do the Real Climate consensus scientists sometimes say things that are not true? When I first started following this blog, Gavin Smith, in discussing the tijlander proxies in Mann 08 posted a comment as follows:
(5)… This issue was clearly acknowledged in the M08 paper and both of these possibilities (with and without ’tiljander’) were shown (it made almost no difference to the final reconstruction).
Supp. Fig. S8a
When other commenters objected that the paper did not address the issue in the way Smith claimed, he posted:
(43)… Just click on the link ““ really, it won’t bite. And then apologise.
But of course, that figure was not ” in the M08 paper.” The figure he linked to was of a later revised figure, not in the original paper, posted by Mann on the internet in November, 2009 (as the link itself showed). Was Smith lying here? I’m not a mind reader but my bet is that he knew and understood Mann08 as well as any of those who were criticizing it. So forgive me for being “skeptical.”
Second, on the larger point of whether climate scientists have until very recently thought paleo reconstructions were relevant to the science and policy debate? To the uninitiated like me, the AR4 seems to say so:
“If the behaviour of recent temperature change is to be understood, and the mechanisms and causes correctly attributed, parallel efforts are needed to reconstruct the longer and more widespread pre-instrumental history of climate variability, as well as the detailed changes in various factors that might influence climate (Bradley et al., 2003b; Jones and Mann, 2004)….The first (Mann et al., 1999) represents mean annual temperatures, and is based on a range of proxy types, including data extracted from tree rings, ice cores and documentary sources.” (emphasis added)
If there were objections to inclusi0n of this material as irrelevant, you would think someone would have said so at the time.
I believe that the day that Dr Curry got involved at RC was very exciting and also very revealing.
I am a regular contributor at Bishop Hill though I am not a scientist by training.
Many of the rather well qualified contributors at BH were involved in the bust up.
Thinking Scientist and Atomic Hairdryer were both involved (forgive this old man for not remembering all).
Our guys were constantly posting on BH during the “debate” and constantly their posts at RC were either edited before acceptance or deleted.
There were a lot of “Gung Ho” posts but these two guys were posting only scientific arguments to Gavin. Gavin still had to censor them.
During this time we had a visitor at Bishop Hill, he called himself Bishop Phil and he set about randomly insulting members on our site.
His modus Operandi was to respond to posts being made and questioning points that were made in those posts. Anyone who responded positively and confidently was subsequently ignored. However when he found say less confident posters he hounded them with his criticism. Others who offered answers to his criticisms were ignored.
It is obviously a total coincidence that this happened while Bishop Hill bloggers were asking Gavin some tough questions.
Should I ever find that Mann, Gavin, Tamino, Bob Watson, Trevor Davis and Phil Jones were saying the same things as me I would seriously have to question my sanity.
Keith Kloor (12),
I wasn’t criticizing the content of the review, or that the review was posted, at all. My first (minor) point was merely that your initial quote got the timing wrong. The criticisms and defenses of the book have been ongoing, and were started neither by Judith Curry’s comments nor by the Tamino post, but the context of the current brouhaha was in her responding to Tamino.
My larger point was the incongruity of reviewing a book done by those currently claiming the whole issue is irrelevant. It was in fact good to see Real Climate addressing the issue substantively, after someone actually, you know, read it. But I disagree that it was done in a spirit collegial debate, rather than because there is a sense that their political moment is slipping away.
The whole “it is irrelevant” argument appears to be about changing the subject at a time when the chance for real, transformative legislation, is slipping away. I believe that the Tamino review just shows they think they are failing in that effort, and cannot leave The Hockey Stick Illusion out there as the current last word on the issue for the public.
Interesting that JC suggests the climate scientists themselves were making a “power play”. This may be for a few, those early on the scene such as the late Steve Schneider, but maybe it’s more a question of providing what your paymasters want – and you get a little fame too.
Keith:
I would like to thank you Keith for hosting this great discussion.
I would like to thank Dr. Curry for agreeing to be interviewed.
This is a great discussion and I look forward to many more such civil discussions.
As has been often remarked, the Hockey Stick issue is relevant–not so much as to our understanding of current climate–in our discussion of where our understanding of our current situation is and who we should listen to going forward.
Scientists should be free to contribute to policy discussions, as long as they tell us which hat they’re wearing when they speak–scientist or advocate. But when there is a history of bad faith, as is clearly the case with defenses of the Hockey Stick, we shouldn’t be asked to forget that history with claims that the HS is no longer relevant scientifically.
It’s been a really bad month for the ‘consensus’ crowd, with the passing of Stephen Schneider, abandonment of Cap and Trade, the Potemkin papers from Schneider et al, Oppenheimer et al, and cetera. I think it’s beginning to tell on those still trying to defend the inner wall.
But the worst of it (for them) is the emergence of voices that can’t be casually dismissed, such as Judith Curry, and equally as important, in my opinion, the appearance of places such as CaS where actual discussion can take place.
It really shows up the paucity of actual discussion in many other places–including, sadly, good blogs like Bart Verheggen’s, Steve McIntyre’s and Bishop Hill’s, not through any fault of their own but due to commenter dominance by one side. It’s still pretty even here–and that’s keeping us all honest.
An insignificant correction, Brazilians speak Portuguese, not Spanish.
I notice that Dr. Curry is no longer calling skeptics “deniers” as she was doing until recently.
Why the change Dr. Curry?
We will be seeing a lot more climate scientists following in Dr. Curry’s footsteps. Lot’s of geniuses with PhD’s will be doing the big backtrack that Dr. Curry is now doing. I give her credit for being an early adopter of a soon to be fashionable academic trend.
Probably one of the most poorly considered moves on the Team’s part is the decision to largely refuse to publish dissenting views at RealClimate.
While CA and WUWT will snip material which is off topic, ad hominum or purely political, they will publish dissenters. Which means that the conversation is two sided.
Dr. Curry’s “hypothesis is that the level of vitriol in the climate blogs reflects the last gasp of those who thought they could influence national and international energy policy through the power politics of climate science expertise.” is confirmed by the unwillingness of the RC moderators to allow even a whisper of heterodox dissent.
And it has been interesting to see, as various wheels fall off the assorted versions of Mann, that other blogs are shutting down comments.
These are all signs that the Team – and what a tiny team it turns out to be – realize that the paleoclimate work is either wrong or largely useless for the purpose of climate alarmism. These are people who are personally and intellectually invested in their work and it is hardly surprising that they would prefer to silence their critics rather than admit the truth of those criticisms.
@SS ” And as for the recourse to anecdotes like “˜I have hundreds of scientists and engineers writing me’ [in support]. Resisting the mischievous urge to demand, in the interest of transparency (of course), to see *all of her emails on the subject, and right now, please, otherwise it’s her fault for digging herself into a hole*, is it really any surprise JC is getting feedback from some scientists and engineers (who apparently read the climate blogs) that like what she is doing’?”
JC: “The reason that I know what comments were rejected because many of these people subsequently posted on climateaudit or emailed me.”
Well, then go over to CA . No one is stopping you. The only reason they aren’t public, as the authors fully intended, is because they were censored by the heavy-handed moderators. Why don’t you demand that the Hockey Team post them in the spirit of transparency in within full context ? I now understand why they insist that Climategate was a non-event. Clearly they have learned absolutely nothing from the experience. They deliberately orchestrated a viciously hostile “take down”, ignoring the horrified onlooker’s cries for mercy. Had it been anyone else, JC’s voice would go unheard, just like the un-named scientist who previously spot-lighted on the very same blog, as a guest host. Just a few short months ago, RC completely ignored her.
This clearly reflects just how terrified they are. Instead of behaving like gentlemen or even mildly professional, the comments are hand-picked to escalate the mob into grabbing their pitch-forks.
Kudos to Dr. Curry for her remarkable courage and professional dignity!
Also, that meaningless comparison between evolution and CAGW never worked in the first place. What else ya got? The tobacco industry? Anti-vaxxers? Unlike CAGW, these other issues readily make solid, convincing, and supporting evidence freely available to the public. Mainstream climate science continues to clutch the hockey stick in a death grip.
I just wanted to point out that Judy repeated above a couple of fictions that she was corrected on here and elsewhere:
1) The Chu quote is an obvious mis-transcribing by the FT. That’s a comma, not a period, making for an if/then statement.
2) The 76,000 google hits for tribalism+”climate change”? Um, no. And if one scrolls through the relevant ones that are there, most of them are denialist blogs quoting her.
Unfortunately this sort of sloppiness has been more the rule than the exception for her in the course of the recent blog discussions.
“pretty even here?” I can count the number of conservatives around here on my thumbs.
(is it still OK to have a sense of humor?)
Doug (29):
Whatever you think of Stoat or whatever you consider him to be guilty of elsewhere, your characterization of him here was over the top. Curb the derogatory language, please.
I just took the time to read through most of the 500+ posts at RC on the HSI book and the nasty comments directed at Ms. Curry for quoting the book on doubts about the validity of the Mann 08 paper. Gavin’s recent admission that the proxies are basically invalid for periods more than 500 years ago is devastating to the Hockey Team and their attempts to defend their work.
Appears to me that the Mann 08 paper should be withdrawn, and the Hockey Stick is completely discredited. The RC parrots who reflexively attack anyone who disagrees with them, and their pathetic attacks on Dr. Curry, will most likely be begging RC to delete the whole post and all their comments.
Dr. Curry will be remembered as a giant, and the Hockey Team will barely be remembered at all.
You want bad reviews? Here are some of my favorite:
The Lord of the Rings – “The book is not readable because of the overuse of adverbs.”
Grapes of Wrath – “While the story did have a great moral to go along with it, it was about dirt! Dirt and migrating. Dirt and migrating and more dirt.”
Mrs. Dalloway – “The only good thing to say about this “literary” drivel is that the person responsible, Virginia Woolf, has been dead for quite some time now. Let us pray to God she stays that way.”
The Great Gatsby – “It grieves me deeply that we Americans should take as our classic a book that is no more than a lengthy description of the doings of fops.”
Lolita – “1) I’m bored. 2) He uses too many allusions to other novels, so that if you’re not well read, this book makes no sense. 3) Most American readers are not fluent in French, so to have conversations or interjections in French with no translation is plain dumb. 4) Did I mention I was bored? 5) As with another reviewer, I agree, he uses a lot of huge words that just slow a person down. And it’s not for theatrics either, it’s just huge words mid-sentence when describing something simple. Nothing in the sense of imagery is gained. 6) Also, to sum it up, it’s a story about a pedophile.”
Source: http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/reviews/lone_star_statements.php
Steve Bloom (#44)
It helps to not be sloppy when you alledge others of sloppiness. Clicking through your link gave me 74 600 results. While it’s not 76 000, I also know that google results tend to be somewhat variable (within a margin of error) so I would give Judith the benefit of the doubt on that one!
Also, calling the actual links that you find denialist is one of the most obvious ad hom attacks I think I’ve seen.
sambo,
how would you prefer to characterize sites like wuwt, nofrakkinconsensus, etc.?
Near the end of the interview, Judith talks a bit about sustainability. I suspect this important topic is going to get lost in this thread. But along these lines, I did want to point out the special news focus in Nature’s recent issue, “Can Science Feed the World?” Worth a look for those interested in sustainability.
Dr. Judith Curry,
Thank you!
Amazing. Not a single mention of the factual criticisms (dismissed as “bloodletting”) of Curry’s statements throughout the whole interview. Scientific journalism at its finest, aye.
Marlowe (#51)
Calling 74 600 links not worth looking at because they are denialist is one of the most striking ad hom attacks I have ever seen (especially in quantity)! I stand by that statement.
Keith (#52)
I have been lurking for quite some time now. What you mention (sustainability) is one of the issues that I find is getting the least attention and is arguably the biggest issue we face. I think what frustrates me in all of the climate blogosphere is that this issue is being ignored because everyone is stuck discussing trivialities (how many google search results there are?)
#53
quantity does not equal quantity. but if you want to use google to guide your life be my guest. just don’t expect it to carry much weight in an argument (unless your formulation is lohan=public attention, or somesuch). For Judy to resort to that kind of…piece of evidence in support of her claim?…isn’t very scientifiic…
Hello Judith Currey, just want to say thanks for having an unclosed mind.
#54
If I said 6000 scientists are warmistas (because they were involved in the IPCC) and so not a word that they say should be trusted, you could call that a blatant ad hom attack (justly). I don’t think that argument is predicated on whether you use a list of scientists or a list of links on the internet. Ask yourself this. Did Steve Bloom click through every link that he saw when he did the search? I’m not sure about you, but I kind of doubt it!
FWIW, google is a great tool that you can use (actually, it’s a company!) however I prefer my life is ruled by reason and truth. I guess I’m just a denier though.
#55
OK, as a disciple of reason what do you think is the median value for climate sensitivity? please cite sources.
Keith wrote:
“Last week’s ritual bloodletting of Curry in blogland was remarkable for how unrestrained it was. I am struck by the phenomena of this respected climate scientist who is being met with increasingly derisive scorn from prominent members of her own community and from many climate advocates.”
And all because Dr. Curry had suggested that they “read a book”. I don’t venture into the RC den very often (and when I do it’s only to lurk in the hope of seeing some evidence that its contributors might have learned the art of civil discourse). Sadly, my visits have always been very disappointing. But, having read <em>The Hockey Stick Illusion</em>, I thought I’d go see for myself what Tamino had to say.
The title of his post did not augur well. Nor did his opening paragraph:
“If you don’t know much about climate science, or about the details of the controversy over the “hockey stick,” then A. W. Montford’s book The Hockey Stick Illusion: Climategate and the Corruption of Science might persuade you that not only the hockey stick, but all of modern climate science, is a fraud perpetrated by a massive conspiracy of climate scientists and politicians, in order to guarantee an unending supply of research funding and political power. That idea gets planted early, in the 6th paragraph of chapter 1.”
Couldn’t quite believe my eyes! Had we actually read the same book?! Montford had been recounting the early history of the global warming movement and hypothesis (as documented by Spencer Weart). Here’s the “6th paragraph of chapter 1”:
“The [1979 WMO organized first World Climate Conference] was instructed to review the state of knowledge of climatic change and variability, due both to natural and anthropogenic causes, and also to assess what this meant for humankind. In the way tha bureaucracies sometimes do, however, the scientists actually did something slightly but tellingly different to what they had been asked to do. Rather than simply assess the state of scientific knowledge and consider what might happen in the future, they set out the steps they thought policy makers should take in a ‘Call to Nations’ that was issued at the end of the conference. This statement called for full advantage to be taken of man’s knowledge of climate, for steps to be taken to imporve that knowledge, and for potential manmade changes to climate to be foreseen <em>and prevented</em>. This then was not merely a call for more research, but also a demand for a particular policy outcome – prevention rather than adaptation. One can almost detect the germ of a[n] idea forming in the minds of the scientists and bureaucrats assembled in Geneva: here, potentially, was a source of funding and influence without end. Where might it lead?”
Was Tamino misrepresenting Montford in his opening volley? Indisputably. But then I hadn’t been reading the book through green-tinted glasses, nor with a view towards diminishing any adverse impact it might have on adherence to the tenets of catastrophic AGW alarmism.
What about the rest of Tamino’s “critique”, you might ask? Good question … unfortunately, though, Tamino neglected to provide any page references from the book to those parts he was supposedly describing.
I seem to recall that Dr. Curry gave the review a “C-“. Frankly, I think she was being too kind 😉
Keith also wrote: “I’m still trying to understand what gave rise to this latest round of Curry bashing?”
Should this question not have been addressed to the perpetrators?!
That aside, my guess would be that this is merely a more public extension of the behaviours we saw in the Climategate emails: civility and respect towards a perceived “enemy” is conspicuously absent.
This, IMHO, is the downside of interactions within some virtual communities; the keyboard facilitates a “distance” which becomes an artificial “shield” behind which a mud-slinger can hide, and brow-beat to his/her heart’s content!
It’s certainly not unique to the blogosphere: Over the years, I’ve seen exactly the same behaviours in IRC, newsgroups, listservs – and even in small closed-loop E-mail threads. It’s even worse “behind closed screens” – when the “bashee” is not part of the “conversation”. Yet, I cannot recall ever having seen such behaviours exhibited in “real life” – even within the context of a heated debate.
Dr. Curry, thank you for your openness and your principled stand. And thank you, Keith, for providing this forum.
Apparently so, sambo. BTW, you (and Judy) should understand that those large numbers showing in google searches aren’t real, or rather that they’re something like hits vs. page views. If you scroll down the page I linked, you’ll see that it says there are 695 unique results. IOW the rest are duplicates.
In terms of the relevant ones (those using the terms in the context Judy does), every one that I could see (and I scanned through quite a few pages) was recent and referred to her. As for denialist blogs, I’m probably more familiar with them than you are, so I’m afraid you’ll have to leave that to my judgement.
Re ad hominem, you’re wrong:
“It’s a denialist blog” is a characterization, not an ad hom, however much you might disagree with the characterization.
“It’s a denialist blog and therefore wrong” would be an ad hom. Note that I said no such thing.
Marlowe (#56)
I deliberately didn’t say what I think about AGW because (to your question) I don’t know what the climate sensitivity is. Is that reasonable enough for you? Why does it matter, especially considering what my original argument was (re google search results/blatant ad hom attack)?
Marlowe Johnson Says:
August 3rd, 2010 at 9:35 pm
how would you prefer to characterize sites like wuwt, nofrakkinconsensus, etc.?
Marlowe
I think calling them Realists is quite reasonable…
Realists look at the real world data…. not at the models
thats something scientists are supposed to do.. you know..
put up a theory, test it with REAL data, and then if the data does not support the theory, change or abandon the theory..
The exact opposite of what we see from many of the “so called” scientists of AGW
“For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled.”
Richard Feynman
At the moment, for many climate scientists Public relations takes precedence over reality. Sadly for them their theory is not supported by reality and if possible is becoming LESS supported by reality.
Judith.. congrats on keeping up the talking, you are an example to the rest.. Keep insisting on the scientific method.
“An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it.” “” Mohandas Gandhi
I think what astounds me the most is the absolute disengenuousness of many supporters of AGW. Their minds are closed, they are true believers and it does not matter WHAT the data say (or what the ‘modifications/adjustments’ to the data do to it as long as those modifications support their belief).
This is why more and more people are becoming skeptical
If the science had merit then there would be less skeptics, not more.
One more quote…
“The science is settled” various supporters of AGW.
(the biggest lie of them all)
cheerio
Jim
Re #60: I can see why your visists to RC have been disappoionting, Hilary. I predict much more disappointment in your future, plus some carbon taxes.
Keith,
Is the overall problem, not one of just climate science, but one of the techniques and activism inherent in “post-modern science?”
I look at the (relatively young) individuals involved, and the virulent rhetoric coming out, and I don’t see my professor’s notions of how science is done circa 1980 and before, but I see how post-modern science is done when activism and guesses are encouraged when important decisions need to be made and too little information is available.
Or is this more just scientific process meets greater Internet Jerkwad Theory?
I do have to agree that when physicists, chemists, biologists, engineers comment at RC and have their comments moderated, deleted or mocked, the end result is that RC becomes their own worse enemy.
#61
Judith claimed 76 000 hits and didn’t make any intepretation beyond stating the result she got. I intepreted that as making the search and stating the number and I do understand that many of the links are duplicate, however you are moving the goalposts at this point. In any case, when I click through your link, I only see the 74600 number and I don’t see anything about the number of unique results (admitedly this is probably a browser configuration or somesuch, however the interpretation to what Judith said is still incorrect).
Re: ad hom, looking at your post, you don’t actually say that they are wrong or that they should be ignored. You do imply (by your use of denialist) that they should be ignored, although I will retract ad hom, even if it’s debatable IMHO.
Thanks Judith for bearing the heat from some very unlikeable folk.
I appreciate all that you are trying to do, and believe the world will be a better place for your efforts to stand up for honest and reliable scientific research.
Fuller wishes:
“It’s been a really bad month for the “˜consensus’ crowd, with the passing of Stephen Schneider, abandonment of Cap and Trade, the Potemkin papers from Schneider et al, Oppenheimer et al, and cetera. I think it’s beginning to tell on those still trying to defend the inner wall.”
You know, you guys have been saying this sort of thing for months, or even years, now, more or less claiming or predicting the death of the ‘consensus’, and yet, it hasn’t happened, it’s not happening now, the science isn’t changing direction, and the evidence for AGW continues to grow. I await more evidence that actual *climate scientists* are substantially rejecting that evidence, and rejecting the idea that something serious must be done in response to it.
sambo:
“Marlowe (#51)
Calling 74 600 links not worth looking at because they are denialist is one of the most striking ad hom attacks I have ever seen (especially in quantity)! I stand by that statement.”
Hey, I get 2,700,000 hits to ‘9/11 inside job’.
‘Argument from Google authority’ is a mug’s game.
Steven Sullivan
You can use google search results if you caveat it. Judith did. Her argument seems to be (Judith correct me if you think I misrepresent this) that there was a great deal of interest and discussion on her thesis (tribalism) which is demonstrated by the google search result. Additionally, the blogosphere rumblings provide further proof that the hypothesis is sound. I think you’ll be happy to know that you’re adding further proof to her hypothesis by arguing about google rather than her actually arguments.
Reality check: here is the sort of thing that, in fact, the ‘skeptic’ community is promoting. This is the abstract of one of the talks given this past June at the otherwise respectable annual ‘Interface Symposium’ of statisticians and computer scientists , in a session chaired by Dr. Edward Wegman and his protege, Dr. Yasmin Said.
Inv ““ 4 Perspectives on Climate Change
Global Warming, Fact, Fiction and Fraud
Don Easterbrook, Western Washington University
The global warming debate is filled with facts, fiction, and fraud. The facts are that (1) the Earth has experienced natural global warming and cooling 4 times in the past century, 40 times in the past 500 years, and 60 times in the past 5000 years, long before CO2 could possibly have been a factor, (2) at least 10 warm/cool climate fluctuations between 10,000 and 15,000 years ago were far more intense than recent warming, including warming of 15°F in 40 years, (3) from 1945 to
1977, while CO# was soaring, we had 30 years of global cooling, (4) although we’ve had global warming (1977 to 1999), Antarctic ice is not melting, (5) nothing that humans are doing can significantly affect global climate. The fiction is that (1) CO2 is capable of producing warming of
the atmosphere 10°F by the end of the century, (2) sea level will rise 20 feet this century, (3) global warming is causing extinction of polar bears, (4) carbon cap and trade will reduce atmospheric CO#, (5) carbon cap and trade will affect global warming. The fraud is (1) faking data, (2) changing climate data to make it appear warmer, (3) lying about Himalayan glacier retreat, (4) deliberate suppression of data that doesn’t support CO# as the cause of global warming.”
Would Dr. Curry care to comment on such claims, or , at least, on their promulgation at a meeting of non-climate scientists?
The point, sambo, is that Judy’s claim of support for her climate science tribalism idea turned out to be to a fairly limited number of sites quoting her.
Keith Kloor:
I did note Judy’s comments on sustainability. While I think anything that results in a more sensible and realistic approach to a country’s energy policy should be encouraged and it is difficult to be against the general concept of sustainability, a focus on sustainability in and of itself will not lead to a more open, candid and objective approach to science. Remember that Lysenko had apparently worthy goals: pity about the intended and unintended consequences.
The reactions to Judy’s comments at RC, CP and to a markedly lesser extent here are indicative of attitudes that are inimical to what is generally regarded as the scientific process. Their similarity to the tone of the Climategate emails is not a coincidence. I still find the juvenile pettiness at RC and specifically in Tamino’s review of not appropriately acknowledging or identifying Steve McIntyre very irritating and indicative of a total lack of objectivity. The consequences can be seen in Gavin’s comments on the Montford Delusion post and the sharp, substantive and largely unanswered rebuttals at Climate Audit. It is all so unnecessary and so counterproductive.
Sullivan @65,
“You know, you guys have been saying this sort of thing for months, or even years, now, more or less claiming or predicting the death of the “˜consensus’, and yet, it hasn’t happened, it’s not happening now, the science isn’t changing direction, and the evidence for AGW continues to grow. I await more evidence that actual *climate scientists* are substantially rejecting that evidence, and rejecting the idea that something serious must be done in response to it”.
You might ask yourself where are your new battalions… the *climate scientists* you claim aren’t getting the job done, and you are winning no-one to your cause, which would surprise few who read what you (all) have to say and how you say it.
The climate is going to do what it’s going to do regardless of our opinions and strongly held beliefs. Science will muddle its way forward with one step ahead and two steps in reverse, the way it always does.
What we can do is prepare for impacts and act to mitigate. And if we were not pestered by hysterics on the fringes, it would be easier to do and to get other people to agree to the things we need to do in the short term.
As Steve Mosher said elsewhere today, insistence on global action results in no action. Romm calls me a delayer. I kind of think the reverse is true.
So you can go commune with your tribe of *climate scientists* and pretend the rest of us don’t exist or are flat-earther denialist baby-eaters. But you still had a rotten month. Tick-tock.
Steven Sullivan:
Do you have a copy of Easterbrook’s actual presentation? The last four points in the abstract certainly demand evidence to support such extreme charges of fraud – evidence of fraud that I for one have not seen.
On the other hand, why on earth are you asking Judy to comment on this particular presentation. Is this what you see as some kind of litmus test? Do you think that what she has said in any way supports the charges Don Easterbrook made?
> not merely a call for more research, but also a demand for a
> particular policy outcome ““ prevention rather than adaptation.
As though it were a simple choice between two extremes, eh?
http://army-energy.hqda.pentagon.mil/renewable/renewable.asp
Fuller still:
“You might ask yourself where are your new battalions”¦ the *climate scientists* you claim aren’t getting the job done, and you are winning no-one to your cause, which would surprise few who read what you (all) have to say and how you say it”.
I don’t recall proposing, or calling for, any ‘new battalions’. I’m happy to simply ask what the many climate scientists whose voices are NOT heard in these rather monopolized debates, think is being achieved by Dr. Curry’s rhetoric.
Drs. Curry and Pielke Jr argue that the ‘job’ of climate scientists isn’t to convince anyone that something should be done (that would be injecting *values* or *advocacy* into the picture, you see…and that’s dishonest brokerage). No, it’s simply (and quite unrealistically) to lay out the evidence and give their best model of what’s happening..to provide a series of scenarios of what Y might be given X. In fact they’ve done *that* job well (e.g. AR1). I’m glad to see you suggest they do more than just that….I think they have to, too, given the propaganda and ideological forces arrayed against the idea that AGW matters.
That it’s all coming down now to ‘how you say it’ rather than the ‘it’ itself, for some of the parties involved who should really know better, shows a degree of decadence from Enlightenment values that renders their critiques of climate science, and their smug scolding that it has ‘dug its own hole’, all but moot in comparison.
The climate is going to do what it’s going to do regardless of our opinions and strongly held beliefs. Science will muddle its way forward with one step ahead and two steps in reverse, the way it always does.
Bernie,
Dr. Curry has persistently and naively charged climate scientists with the main responsibility having gotten us into the current policy impasse, due to a sin of overreach. I point to Dr. Easterbrook’s presentation as a counterexample — the sort of willfully obfuscating noise that is being generated, week after week, by the forces of denial. This instance is particularly chilling as it is under the aegis of a respectable scientific conference, and is presented in the guise of information from one branch of science to another.
Judith Curry:
“As for the power politics of climate science expertise, RC’s new post looks like another play along these lines (as was the PNAS paper itself). So lets just sit back and watch the evidence roll in”
So, you dismiss the RC post (which addressed substantive complaints about the PNAS paper), and also dismiss, I presume, the responses from RC to critiques in the comments, as nothing more than a play of ‘power politics of climate science expertise’ ? Interesting.
My, my, how the evidence does indeed continue to ‘roll in’.
Here is a reality check. Every climate scientist in the world, hell every scientist in the world, could be absolutely certain of every element of the “consensus,” and every one could agree on the identical policy responses that the science requires. But if they and their political patrons can’t convince 50% plus one of the voting public to support their policies, they will have zero impact on the implementation of policy in the real world.
If the scientists “lay out the evidence and give their best model of what’s happening” with the arrogance and condescension they have shown to date, well, wait for November. Please, condemn everyone who disagrees with you as evil, stupid or both. Don’t stop now.
Climate scientists have become conservatives’ best weapon against centralized state control of the global and national energy economies. Go ahead, go back to just ignoring the McIntyres, Currys, Fullers and Kloors. Better yet, keep vilifying them every chance you get.
Copenhagen withered and cap and trade is (almost) dead. We like the way you work.
Sullivan at 76,
The RC post addressed some objections, not all. I posted about them at my site earlier today. I submitted a comment to RC which they did not see fit to publish. I also pasted that into my article today. The PNAS paper has serious problems. As I wrote to RC, if this is the standard to which climate science aspires, I’m not surprised there are skeptics.
If you don’t want to visit my site, I made most of the same objections at Michael Tobis’ site shortly after the paper was published.
In brief:
The paper violates a canon of social research, by allowing the identity of research subjects to be ascertained–the names are easily found on the website of one of the paper’s authors. This is such an ethical issue that the paper should be scrubbed on that ground alone.
Second: The paper does not critically assess homogeneities or heterogeneities within the differing statements signed by scientists. Some of the petitions, especially the older ones, do not confer the title of skeptic on signatories.
Third: The choice of Google Scholar as preferred database is strange, given the large number of academic databases available to the research team. Google Scholar has no published standards to which people can refer. A follow-on criticism is that there was no attempt to cross check the research findings or validate results by using any of the available alternative databases.
Fourth, the search was conducted only in English, despite the fact that many climate scientists publish in other languages. Their methodology as discussed in the paper’s Supporting Statement does not address this issue at all. Do they have some reason to think that scientists publishing in English would have the same publication record as those publishing in Russian, Chinese or Polish? Were the relevant petitions and letters available in other languages and promulgated in foreign countries?
Fifth, there was no attempt to sense-check the results. They do not discuss any real world contact with scientists to ascertain the correctness of their publication lists, job specialties or place of employment. And in fact numerous errors in all three have been noted on the internet.
Spencer Weart had it right when he said the paper should not have been published in its present form. It is worthless as science, and the only real motivation for its existence is political–to point people to the list on Prall’s website so they can use it as a blacklist.
It’s shameful.
Thanks, Dr. Curry for your courage. For someone in your position, to put your carrier on the line, step out on the ice and speak the truth takes an incredible amount of courage.
You Rock!
It scares me to see that there are so many scientists in America who talk NewSpeak. They talk about concensus. They want to blacklist people. They want “dissenters” put away int asylums.
Of course they attack someone who likes freedom of speech. Of course they attack you if you recomment a book they dont like.
Scary.
JC is shocked, SHOCKED about:
“…the underbelly of how the consensus was actually built: upon human judgment that was influenced by petty rivalries, a sense of self importance, a political agenda, and the brutal dismissal and even sabotage of competing viewpoints.”
Aw, come on. Science was always like this. Read the history of quantum physics – Schrondinger hated Heisenberg and vice verse. Wolfgang Pauli came down on a young grad student with such withering sarcasm that he delayed a great discovery (electron spin) for years, and possibly robbed the young man of a Nobel Prize. Yet we do not diminish Pauli’s massive contribution because of his personal grudges.
I think Ms Curry is rather inflated by her own self-importance. European politics is NOT transfixed by Climategate. Dutch politics is all about the politics of emigration and the hates of the right-wing, not about climate change. Climategate has only added to the anti-science agenda of the hatemongers.
Steven Sullivan #71
Professional conferences are for exchanges of ideas. Some of the ideas presented at a conference will turn out to be incorrect. Prejudging what ideas are interesting, important vs incorrect based upon a submitted abstract is not simple, and many conferences do their best to accommodate nearly all the submitted abstracts in some way (I have no idea how selective this particular conference is). In any event, it is a good thing to listen to a plurality of viewpoints.
Without seeing Easterbrooks presentation, I am not going to judge the details of it, although based on previous presentations of his there are likely to be errors. But this does not mean all of his statements are 100% incorrect.
For example, many people doubt that carbon cap and trade policies would actually reduce CO2. Somebody lied about Himalayan glacier retreat. Sea level will not rise 20 ft this century. Serious experts are questioning whether global warming will lead to the extinction of polar bears. He is correct that the period 1945-1970’s was a period of cooling, which has not been satisfactorily explained (other than by loading the climate models with aerosol during that period)
As for his statement regarding the Antarctic sea ice, we have a paper forthcoming (PNAS) that explains this apparent paradox.
His statement about 10F warming by the end of the century, well such a large degree of warming is on the far tail of the distribution and hence unlikely but not impossible
Statements of Easterbrooks that are contentious but possibly correct: deliberate suppression of data. I believe (hope) that he is incorrect on faking of data
I also understand that his analysis of paleoclimates is judged by experts to be incorrect. However, given that the “standard” in this field is the hockey stick, well I’ll let that speak for itself.
So does his presentation provide a balance view of the climate situation? Not at all. He has cherry picked extreme statements to knock down. But about half of his statements are not demonstrably incorrect.
So I’m sure my analysis will be translated into “Curry supports Easterbrook’s science.” No I do not. The one presentation of his that I saw online at the Heartland Conference had much that was obviously incorrect. His presentation that you cite seemed designed to set up straw dogs to knock down, and cumulatively discredit global warming. But with regards to his specific statements, about half of them cannot be dismissed with a high level of confidence.
Its called having an open mind, and looking at the arguments and judging the arguments (statements, in this case) rather than who is making the statements.
The bottom line is that even if someone is on a skeptics “blacklist”, and if many of their arguments are incorrect, they can also make correct statements
Congratulations to Judy Curry for her integrity, bravery and intelligence. She is carving out a place in history.
Congratulations to KK for providing a blog where climate science can be discussed in a civilized way. Very nice interview with JC that gave her an opportunity to shine.
I wonder if KK is/will be criticized by the AGW faithful for giving JC a podium?
toby: “I think Ms Curry is rather inflated by her own self-importance”
You are out of line. Your remark is rude and disrespectful in a personal way. You should apologize to Judy Curry. This is not RealClimate. KK is trying to create a blog where climate science can be discussed in a mature, humane, productive way. This is so rare in the world of climate science blogs and needs to be protected.
Steven Sullivan:
I thake it therefore that you do not have a copy of Eaterbrook’s presentation and that therefore you do not know what if any evidence he has for his last 4 assertions.
You must not know too many statisticians. I suspect that if there were flaws in Easterbrook’s empirical evidence they would have been brought to his attention rather quickly. Do you really think folks are that easily swayed by bad data?
Your charge against Dr. Curry makes no sense. Are you saying that her criticisms somehow contributed to whatever misinformation Dr. Easterbrook may or may not have conveyed? You seem to be illustrating on of the points that Dr. Curry actually made – that of supposing critics of having no basis for their position before knowing what they have to say. I suspect Easterbrook may have over-reached in his fraud charge, but I do not know until I see his evidence and argument.
I’d just like to leave another message of support for Judith Curry for her brave stand. She is quite right in many areas. There is indeed a changing tide and an increasing realisation from non-climate scientists that a significant amount of climate science borders on political activism.
From a not-so-brave scientist.
Toby:
You wrote:
“European politics is NOT transfixed by Climategate. Dutch politics is all about the politics of emigration and the hates of the right-wing, not about climate change. Climategate has only added to the anti-science agenda of the hatemongers.”
How is this relevant to what Dr. Curry has said? Why the pejoratives? Why the absolutes? Whence the certainty? Why the defensiveness.
Do you have any idea how reasonable people are likely to respond to this type of rhetoric?
Toby #85 re your statement
Aw, come on. Science was always like this. Read the history of quantum physics ““ Schrondinger hated Heisenberg and vice verse. Wolfgang Pauli came down on a young grad student with such withering sarcasm that he delayed a great discovery (electron spin) for years, and possibly robbed the young man of a Nobel Prize. Yet we do not diminish Pauli’s massive contribution because of his personal grudges.
Yes science can be very nasty, seems like Newton ranked near the top in this regard. The problem is when scientists start playing power politics (which Newton and Pauli did not) in terms of trying to influence public policies. If you behave like that, people won’t trust you. This is the fallout from Climategate.
#86
Judy,
Nicely and precisely said. As you say, an open mind is essential. That is what you were calling for at RC. What we were treated to was a bombardment of closedmindedness. I can understand it among activists: It is unseemly coming from scientists.
“I wonder if KK is/will be criticized by the AGW faithful for giving JC a podium?”
Undoubtedly, it will. Which at first seems unfortunate. But hopefully people who aren’t familiar with C-a-s will check it out for themselves. RC probably has a lot more lurkers than participants, given it’s highly intimating atmosphere. In addition, RC snips or blocks comments at a rate unmatched by any other high-traffic blog. There are at least 2 blogs dedicated for the sole purpose of posting these comments (1 of them permits moderated comments from any climate blog. But about 90% are from RC). When RC’s silent major discovers this forum, it will make a good impression. Just like me, this could be exactly what they are craving. The archives contain a virtual who’s who list of prominent climate blogging. Many will find the friendly, lively, and civil environment very appealing.
I’d like to point out, the bloggers who cannot resist disparaging C-a-s, will do so out of jealousy. Insightful readers will easily pick up on this.
Maybe the old cliche that any publicity is good publicity will prove to be the case? I hope so!
” The problem is when scientists start playing power politics (which Newton and Pauli did not) in terms of trying to influence public policies. If you behave like that, people won’t trust you. This is the fallout from Climategate.”
Judy, what exactly does ‘power politics’ mean to you, an atmospheric scientist? Or are you pursuing a career change into policy sci with RPJr 🙂 ?
From my POV, it’s you that is trying to play politics by legitimizing the activities of a group by and large don’t support significant climate mitigation policies. That’s fine btw, but don’t pretend that you’re somehow above the fray at this point. Quite the opposite in fact.
Steve Bloom, Hank Roberts,
Thankyou for your many posts detailing your analysis of denialist sites on Google. It has certainly added to the debate.
Any thoughts on a recent comment at RC – “Under either method (CPS or EIV) it is not possible to get a validated reconstruction to before 1500 without the use of tree rings, or the Tijlander sediments” followed by “Response: That appears to be the case with the Mann et al 2008 network (Gavin)
Judith Curry
Compliments for upholding integrity in science.
By end 2010, China’s increase in CO2 is projected to eclipse ALL Kyoto reduction ‘promises’.
Lets have a dose of reality and debate the pros and cons of Accommodation as well as Mitigation.
For the IPCC to claim high confidence while excluding ocean oscillations and ignoring most Urban Heat Island effects is an exercise in hubris.
Climate “projections” must be distinguished from “evidence”. Both need to be debated in the context of the peaking and rapid decline of light oil exports. e.g. Once an OPEC country, Indonesia went from peak production to NO exports in 10 years.
Shutting down our economy from lack of transport fuels will soon cause orders of magnitude greater economic harm than any of the realistic climate projections.
Judy, what a difference a year makes in terms of the public debate. You may recall the discussion we had following your panel at the GA Env. Conference. I’ll give you credit here for consistency of positions; that science should be science, not politics. Kudos to you!
Regarding the highly selective moderation at Romm’s Climate Progress, welcome to my world. For the last few years, no matter how grounded in science (atmospheric physics, geology, etc.), economics, etc., any post made by Carbonicus is sent to the outer ether and never gets posted. But any and all posts, no matter how insane, not supported by facts, etc. but which support Joe’s eco-catastrophe Thermageddon scenario are posted in warp speed. That’s pure propaganda politics, obliquely posing as “science”. Having heard Romm debate on the subject, having seen interviews he’s given, this is much less than surprising.
I salute your courage, the consistency of your positions, and the calm and factual manner in which you’ve handled yourself. In the face of the typical ad hominem attacks that Romm and those on his side of the debate resort to when they are losing a debate on sheer fact, empirical evidence, and the laws of physics and economics, you are to be commended.
Hope to see you at this year’s conference later this month, and hope to engage in more calm, respectful discussion of the subject. And, I’ll offer a little wager for you; one with two components (one scientific, the other political), just to make the next year or two even more interesting.
Interesting final comment, David Hagen. I assume you are calling for significant cuts in the use of fossil fuels, in particular oil?
How odd it is that some are so entrenched in their own ideologies that they are unable even to recognise the act of a physical scientist extending into political advocacy, let alone acknowledge it as a breach of scientific principle.
And how interesting it is that all they can perceive is what they assume must be an act of politically motivated scientific impropriety, when witnessing an objective reviewer then attempt to separate the science from the political.
“From my POV, it’s you that is trying to play politics by legitimizing the activities of a group by and large don’t support significant climate mitigation policies.”
What have scientists got to do with climate mitigation?
That is to say.. what have CLIMATE scientists got to do with mitigation POLICY?
Marlowe Johnson, I recommend that you read Feynman’s little essay on the value of science. Every time I mention Feynmann, Gavin yawns, apparently he has been reading Feynman since he was in kindergarten. Well read it again, maybe this time it will sink in.
By speaking out publicly, one can argue that I am making political statements, but these are political statements only in the sense of raising issues regarding the integrity of climate science. Those who practice the power politics of expertise view my statement as something else, where anyone who voices uncertainty about a scientific issue as sabotaging policy. So what I am doing is perceived as power politics only in the eyes of those who are playing the game of the power politics of expertise.
Keith, it is quite obvious to me why William Connolley was a bit condescending about Judith Curry: one of his pet discussion points is the early paleoclimate reconstructions, and Judith Curry fell hook, line, and sinker for the deniosphere’s misrepresentations of the early knowledge about paleoclimate. Reading the SAR (page 174, Judith, in case you are willing to learn) makes it clear MBH98 and MBH99 are NOT contradictory to the prevailing view at that time. If anything, it confirms a number of points discussed in the SAR: the MWP may have been warmer than today in some parts of the world, but likely not synchronous all over the world, and there is a LIA.
Anyone could have checked this, and I would have expected a scientist to do so. Judith Curry did not, and that’s not the first time. She has jumped in with rash comments on many an occasion now, only to have to admit she was wrong or actually not interested or not knowledgeable, or whatever other excuse she could come up with. As a scientist she should know she is held to higher standards than the average joe. Hence the snark.
Oh, and let’s not forget she jumped in at RC with snark. She claimed there were “numerous factual errors and misrepresentations”, but when asked, never said what those numerous factual errors and misrepresentations were. Funnily enough, when she came with her own ‘review’, she made loads of factual errors and misrepresentations! Fair enough she admitted she could have remember incorrectly, and clearly she did, but no such disclaimer when she claimed Tamino made numerous factual errors and misrepresentations…
Dr. Curry,
I am a Ph.D. former scientist, now working in industry. I for one would be fired, and could possibly subject to civil and criminal penalties, if my work used the same kind of self-justifying opinion and sloppy thinking that you have demonstrated in this whole Montford “debate.” You keep harping on uncertainty — you are a scientist, publishing in this field. Why can’t you quantify the uncertainty? You seem to be trying to move into political science or social science. Note the word “science” — they use math in these disciplines as well. You will need to do more than print an anecdote supporting your position to publish in these fields.
Until you do the hard work of actually answering the hard questions, instead of labeling questions as attacks, you are doing politics, not science.
Umm.. can’t say I can work out where that came from. Or, for that matter, where it’s headed. Could you be a little more clear on what it is you’re accusing Curry of doing/being/…ummm, Gator? What the…?
[…] Comments SimonH on The Curry AgonistesGator on The Curry AgonistesMarco on The Curry AgonistesJudith Curry on The Curry AgonistesSimonH on […]
JC:
“Somebody lied about Himalayan glacier retreat.”
Really? It wasn’t just an error, somebody *lied* about it? You’re sure about that?
You know, it was right here that Judith Curry challenged folks to read Montford’s book and to address his “three main critiques” of MBH. Keith even turned it into a post. When Tamino did so, instead of thanking him, Curry blasted him for not addressing a whole different set of points. And when Gavin Schmidt showed that she was wrong on these, Curry did not then concede that some, at least, were wrong, Curry asserted that Schmidt’s rebuttal was full of logical fallacies (though without identifying any of them at all).
This is why Curry has been criticized, and it is telling that readers of Keith’s will get no idea of this — I guess it doesn’t fit his narrative.
Marco
You seem to think that “jumping at RC with snark” is a deed worthy, in itself of punishment?
I jump at RC with snark – all the time. Everyone’s yelling there all the time anyway. The only other mode of jumping in is to praise Mike Mann or Phil Jones heaven-high, or indulge in some random denier bashing.
Given the “roof-to-wall” error bars of paleoclimate reconstructions, as much confidence can be placed in a global medieval warm period as can be in a “medieval climate anomaly” (whatever you cannot explain away is an anomaly). If someone, as Dr Curry, is snarky about the amount of confidence placed in conclusions from tree-ring data from the MWP – it is entirely deserving for that mere fact alone.
Gator,
I think you stringent industry standards should be directed at those who seek to influence global economic policy *first*, before getting angry at well-meaning critics. If you are feeling frisky and want to bash deniers, we are game for you 😉
Gator, a quick lesson on uncertainty. Statistical uncertainty can be quantified (things like measurement error). Scenario uncertainty cannot be quantified. There is also ignorance, which includes things we might at least have a hint of, and then the unknown unknowns. Much of climate science is at the border of ignorance, and model projections into the future are scenarios.
Lets take a look at uncertainties involving the paleo reconstructions for the past millenia, this list of uncertainty sources is by no means exhaustive:
uncertainty in the conversion of the proxy to temperature, which requires careful calibration of the proxies against the historical temperature record and then testing the calibration against out-of-sample measurements
uncertainty in how you select vs discard samples, an objective test would have numerous scientists look at the same samples and decide what should be included and why
uncertainty in how to interpret differences in time series from proxies in the same locale
uncertainty in how to aggregate a limited number of samples into a global or a hemispheric sample (this one is a show stopper in my opinion).
uncertainty in the model used to extract a trend.
etc. etc.
I am not an expert in paleoreconstructions, nor do i have any interest in being one, or in publishing in this field. But i can say that as a scientist I do not think that Mann et al. have come anywhere close to adequately characterizing the uncertainties (not to mention mistakes) in their analysis that would lead anyone to have a “likely” level of confidence in their results, implying 66-89% certainty.
This is my point with regards to the paleoreconstructions, and it doesn’t depend on any nuances in the published papers, they all suffer from the same problem, and there is a problematic to say the least expression of too much confidence in the IPCC report.
Shub imagined:
“Everyone’s yelling there all the time anyway. The only other mode of jumping in is to praise Mike Mann or Phil Jones heaven-high, or indulge in some random denier bashing.”
That’s rather hysterically untrue.
Keith you say “Last week’s ritual bloodletting of Curry in blogland was remarkable for how unrestrained it was.”
Compare to the following directed at Dr. Oppenheimer in the comments of RP Jr’s blog*, bearing in mind your comment. These are edited extracts for flavour (Tom Fuller will be proud I’m sure…):
“Such analyses are no better than astrology”
“A study like this…is delibrately playing the racist card.”
“This is nothing more than political lobbying wrapped up in science themed wrapping paper.”
“Geez, this is pathetic”
“This story is just the kind of daft alarmism that confuses rather than informs”
“Does this blatantly shoddy work not call into question everything else ever done by this scientist?”
Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t think the study is that great (not for the same reasons as Pielke & Tol), though to be honest I only skimmed it. But I find it interesting that these comments attacking the author of a published paper (and having the grace to respond in person to Pielke Jr’s previous blogpost) exist unheralded when comments attacking A.N.Other blog commenter who happens to be a University professor have garnered widespread opprobrium.
Care to comment?
Forgot the link:
* http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2010/07/michael-oppenheimer-responds.html
This is an “error?”
“The scientist behind the bogus claim in a Nobel Prize-winning UN report that Himalayan glaciers will have melted by 2035 last night admitted it was included purely to put political pressure on world leaders.
Dr Murari Lal also said he was well aware the statement, in the 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), did not rest on peer-reviewed scientific research.”
Dear Dr. Curry,
you recommend reading Montford’s book to learn “how to avoid unnecessary conflict in the climate debate”. From your comments here it seems your analysis suggests the following mistakes by climate scientists:
(1) IPCC chose to make the hockey stick a “visual icon” in “marketing” IPCC. I believe the only basis for this claim is the TAR – the past-1000-years graph appears as part of figure 1 in the SPM of WG1. But it doesn’t appear on any report covers or at all in the TAR Synthesis report, as far as I can see, so claiming IPCC chose to use it for “marketing” seems a bit of a stretch. Is TAR WG1 SPM the only justification you have for this claim? If it had not been included in that figure 1, but only the instrumental past-140-years data, would that entirely satisfy your concerns on this point? If so, how can it be that one figure is so central to avoiding conflict? I just don’t understand how this can be extrapolated to avoiding conflict in the future, can you elaborate?
(2) The consensus was built upon human judgment involving typical human failings. But the same is true in all of science – scientists are human. Are you suggesting that, to avoid conflict, we replace human scientists by something else? What specifically do you think could be done differently to fix this?
(3) Climate researchers mistook McIntyre for a “merchant of doubt” rather than somebody with “concern for public accountability of the research”, and they should have tried “to work with them or at least understand what they were trying to say”. But it seems from what I’ve read that, in their first exchanges with McIntyre (before the M&M publication), all the scientists were reasonably polite and offered help. They provided data or told him where it was available, etc.
I think it’s instructive to compare the reception of McIntyre’s contributions with that of Nick Barnes (clearclimatecode.org). Nick is very clearly doing work to provide “public accountability of the research” involving the GISS temperature product, similar to what McIntyre was claiming to do with the paleo-climate reconstructions. ClearClimateCode has worked to both understand and rewrite the GISS temperature code, and has done so in an open and non-attacking manner that has brought considerable cooperation from the scientists. The work has been extremely successful, even though it involves just reproducing what scientists have done, rather than writing new work up for publication as in traditional scientific work. So it really is an excellent example of bringing public accountability in a way that strengthens and validates the science. It’s good work.
McIntyre could have chosen a path like Nick Barnes, cooperating with the scientists and leaving off the accusations and assumptions of bad faith. He chose otherwise. I’m not sure how anything the “scientists” chose to do could have made a difference there. Perhaps you can explain this too?
Wait, this description of the “error” is even better.
“The chairman of the leading climate change watchdog was informed that claims about melting Himalayan glaciers were false before the Copenhagen summit, The Times has learnt.
Rajendra Pachauri was told that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment that the glaciers would disappear by 2035 was wrong, but he waited two months to correct it. He failed to act despite learning that the claim had been refuted by several leading glaciologists.”
JD:
“I am not an expert in paleoreconstructions, nor do i have any interest in being one, or in publishing in this field. But i can say that as a scientist I do not think that Mann et al. have come anywhere close to adequately characterizing the uncertainties (not to mention mistakes) in their analysis that would lead anyone to have a “likely” level of confidence in their results, implying 66-89% certainty.”
The NAS first review of the surface temperature paleo work (2006) — which was conducted by a panel that included at least some ‘skeptic’ input — summarized:
It can be said with a high level of confidence that global mean surface temperature was higher during the last few decades of the 20th century than during any comparable period during the preceding four centuries. This statement is justified by the consistency of the evidence from a wide variety of geographically diverse proxies.
Less confidence can be placed in large-scale surface temperature reconstructions for the period from A.D. 900 to 1600. Presently available proxy evidence indicates that temperatures at many, but not all, individual locations were higher during the past 25 years than during any period of comparable length since A.D. 900. The uncertainties associated with reconstructing hemispheric mean or global mean temperatures from these data increase substantially backward in time through this period and are not yet fully quantified.
Very little confidence can be assigned to statements concerning the hemispheric mean or global mean surface temperature prior to about A.D. 900 because of sparse data coverage and because the uncertainties associated with proxy data and the methods used to analyze and combine them are larger than during more recent time periods.”
.
.
.
Based on the analyses presented in the original papers by Mann et al. and this newer supporting evidence, the committee finds it plausible that the Northern Hemisphere was warmer during the last few decades of the 20th century than during any comparable period over the preceding millennium. The substantial uncertainties currently present in the quantitative assessment of large-scale surface temperature changes prior to about A.D. 1600 lower our confidence in this conclusion compared to the high level of confidence we place in the Little Ice Age cooling and 20th century warming. Even less confidence can be placed in the original conclusions by Mann et al. (1999) that “the 1990s are likely the warmest decade, and 1998 the warmest year, in at least a millennium” because the uncertainties inherent in temperature reconstructions for individual years and decades are larger than those for longer time periods and because not all of the available proxies record temperature information on such short timescales.”
http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11676&page=3
NB that Mann et al 2008 is a response to NAS 2006;
Mann et al 2008 abstract:
ABSTRACT:
Following the suggestions of a recent National Research Council report [NRC (National Research Council) (2006) Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years (Natl Acad Press, Washington, DC).], we reconstruct surface temperature at hemispheric and global scale for much of the last 2,000 years using a greatly expanded set of proxy data for decadal-to-centennial climate changes, recently updated instrumental data, and complementary methods that have been thoroughly tested and validated with model simulation experiments. Our results extend previous conclusions that recent Northern Hemisphere surface temperature increases are likely anomalous in a long-term context. Recent warmth appears anomalous for at least the past 1,300 years whether or not tree-ring data are used. If tree-ring data are used, the conclusion can be extended to at least the past 1,700 years, but with additional strong caveats. The reconstructed amplitude of change over past centuries is greater than hitherto reported, with somewhat greater Medieval warmth in the Northern Hemisphere, albeit still not reaching recent levels”
Have you read Mann 2008, JC? You will certainly find discussion of caveats and uncertainties therein.
yet Fuller :
“The RC post addressed some objections, not all. I posted about them at my site earlier today. I submitted a comment to RC which they did not see fit to publish. I also pasted that into my article today. The PNAS paper has serious problems. As I wrote to RC, if this is the standard to which climate science aspires, I’m not surprised there are skeptics.”
RC has in fact posted your comment as of 11:24 today…albeit edited for content. Your tendency towards melodrama (your initial thundering high dudgeon postings over the PNAS paper were a personal favorite of mine) is on display in the full version at your site, so I’m not surprised at their choice . They have left in what they think is are possibly substantive points of yours anti the PNAS paper.
Steven,
I am glad you took issue with what I said above. Because it allows us an opportunity to review the casual hysterics a good number of skeptical commenters habitually and graciously overlook all the time. For example, from your comment above
“…the sort of willfully obfuscating noise that is being generated, week after week, by the forces of denial…”
“Forces of denial..”? How interestingly Dubya’esque and Hollywood-worthy!
What’s next – ‘axis of denial’, …’national day of consensus’..?
If your comments always pass moderation at RC, you are probably not the right person to judge RC’s moderation. What’s ‘true’ about RC comments and how they appear, is better judged by outsiders and bystanders.
Regards
117. So why is it SO difficult to reconstruct (from the data) even a vague resemblance of the product of Mann 2008? Either the data or the algorithm is flawed or the “skills” of the statistician maybe in error, but the helpfulness of “the team” honestly renders the article *worthless* to the world of science.
I concur that we do need to move on from this “trick”.
The erroneous glacier retreat date — two sentences published in WG2, not the ‘state of the science’ WG1 section, which includes a 45-page section of glaciers and ice — bears a remarkable resemblance to the more credible date originally proposed by a Russian researcher– a transposition of numbers gets you from one to the other (2350–>2035).
There is furthermore several pages in Chapter 10 (“Global Climate Projection) devoted to glacier decline, which do no include the 2035 date.
(see RC for further links on that:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/02/ipcc-errors-facts-and-spin/)
Altogether that’s a mighty peculiar way to ‘lie’.
As for Dr. Lai’s role, he has denied the Daily Mail’s account. If you have any experience with the British tabloids — particularly their climate science reporting — you’d do well to pause before accepting their version of events.
Intrepid Wanders:
“117. So why is it SO difficult to reconstruct (from the data) even a vague resemblance of the product of Mann 2008?’
It’s not. It’s been done independently by several parties, both academic and blogospehric. It’s also been done by Mann et al. upon removal of multiple proxies (see the supplements to Man et al 2008).
Argh, replace ‘NAS’ with ‘NRC’ in my post 117.
Shub:
“the sort of willfully obfuscating noise that is being generated, week after week, by the forces of denial”¦”
“Forces of denial..”? How interestingly Dubya’esque and Hollywood-worthy!
Granted. Would you prefer ‘denialsphere’? Or perhaps use the Curryesque rhetoric of ‘tribes’?
Arthur Smith,
#1 At the news conference for the rollout of the TAR, John Houghton had the hockey stick image behind him. It was also a compelling image in Al Gore’s movie. The public really identified with this image. Re avoiding the conflict, you really have to read the book, as I read the book i saw so many “if only” points. But I think the real story starts circa 1998. Why was Mike Mann, a recent Ph.D., asked to be a lead author for the IPCC, positions usually reserved for much more senior scientists? I can only infer that the substantial publicity surrounding is 98/99 papers motivated his selection, i.e. somebody wanted that icon, even though the field of global reconstructions was brand new. It would have been better to stick with the historical temperature record.
#2 Scientists are of course fallible, and a consensus can be fallible. But a little more humility and a better understanding of uncertainty would go a long way.
#3 Again, i suggest reading the book, which has alot of documentation regarding this issue. From McIntyre’s perspective, he wanted to cooperate, and he did not receive much cooperation in return. The relative success in cooperating with Nick Barnes is a function of different approaches and different personalities. Like I said, we need to learn from what went wrong with the McIntyre interaction.
Arthur Smith [115]:
Your second point resonates the most with me since I have been thinking about that very question.
“(2) The consensus was built upon human judgment involving typical human failings. But the same is true in all of science ““ scientists are human. Are you suggesting that, to avoid conflict, we replace human scientists by something else? What specifically do you think could be done differently to fix this?’
It is not just about avoiding conflict but also how to progress more efficiently by being less encumbered by all the normal human frailties that we all have. What is amazing about man is his ability to construct systems that enable him to transcend the limitations of individual people. Societies benefit enormously from well defined/well enforced laws.
Maybe climate science could be defined as a set of classes in an object oriented language that could be constructed for the purpose of summarizing the state of climate science and as a support system for conducting climate science.
This would be useful for:
* eliminating emotion
* encapsulating knowledge
* enforcing rigorous logic
* defining a precise language/vocabulary for climate science
* improving precision in climate science communications
* data mining
* detection of synergies
* error detection/quality control
* documentation
* amenable to an open source programming approach
* facilitating construction of climate science related expert systems and AI systems that would support climate scientists in their work
And btw, Shub, I rarely post to RC (as they used to say, ‘you can look it up’). I do read it regularly. But even a bystander like me can see that your comment re: the comments there consisting only of “yelling”/Mann-Jones praise/denialist-bashing, remains patently false.
Your attempt to avoid and distract from that point, is noted.
JC:
“#3 Again, i suggest reading the book, which has alot of documentation regarding this issue. From McIntyre’s perspective, he wanted to cooperate, and he did not receive much cooperation in return. The relative success in cooperating with Nick Barnes is a function of different approaches and different personalities. Like I said, we need to learn from what went wrong with the McIntyre interaction.”
Does that ‘we’ include McIntyre?
Ever see ‘Rashomon’? One wonders what elements of this story a Montford-like tome written from Mann/CRU’s perspective might illuminate.
Maybe ‘co-operation’ fell when CRU/US scientists because of
1) viewing those after the station data and tree-ring data as ‘being in the pay of big oil’?
2) realizing that there could be papers hostile to one’s own, if data and programs was shared freely
3) viewing the temperature product as subsumed under ‘intellectual property rights’
4) being stung by open criticism on public blogs which contrasted with the courteous one-on-one email conversations and requests from the same person/s?
5) foolishly viewing science as a gentleman’s game, oblivious to the fact that forces were gathering, using their papers to rearrange world economies
6) thinking all they had to do to skeptics, was to ignore them to death
> somebody wanted that icon
Well, they needed to replace the Lamb “cartoon” sketch used in 1990 (the one Wegman much later digitized, trying to extract a data set from it, because he didn’t know it was a cartoon).
That was “vaguely useful then because there was nothing better available. It was a hurridly drawn sourceless schematic that no-one uses nowadays; and if anyone *did* use it they would be roundly criticised.”
http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2010/06/ipcc_1990_fig_71c_again.php
People _still_ refer to that 1990 sketch, e.g.
http://climateaudit.org/2007/11/20/the-loehle-network-plus-moberg-trees/#comment-119312
Tim (108):
Just curious: What’s my narrative?
Steven
I dont want to post random comments which passed moderation at RealClimate (when skeptical commenters measure their words so carefully to pass it) – the comments do exactly what I said they did. It would be off-topic.
They are there in every thread pretty much.
One of the key things we need to learn from this is that university scientists are ill-prepared to be the repository for scientific data and interface with a broad range of requests from the public. This should be handled by the government. If the government had a formal verification and validation system in place for key climate data sets, a web site where all this data was easily available with relevant documentation, well then a lot conflict could have been avoided. Transparency can eliminate much conflict, and an adequate characterization of uncertainty can eliminate much of the rest.
The hockey stick graph was only in “An Inconvenient Truth” by mistake.
Hank Roberts: it would have been much more appropriate to discuss the uncertainties and challenges in putting together a global reconstruction, then describe the first such effort (MBH). But not include a statement in the summary for policy makers that includes a high confidence level.
Steven Sullivan, the issue is not so much what is stated in the scientific papers, but what is said in the press releases and the IPCC (including the summary for policy makers). Whereas Mann et al. 08 certainly mention uncertainties, they only scratch the surface, IMO
Dr. Curry & KK: Plenty thanks for this most interesting reading, after which some hope for the restoring of sound [& true] science just kind a came across in me thinking. Keep up your awsome stamina, Dr. Curry!
Brgds from Sweden
//TJ
Steven Sullivan #128
“One wonders what elements of this story a Montford-like tome written from Mann/CRU’s perspective might illuminate.”
Brilliant. Go for it. I will personally buy 10 copies. Don’t forget to include primary source material.
Arthur Smith,
1.) The Hockey Stick was most certainly used exploit public alarm. a.) An Inconvenient Truth
b.) The Summary for Policy Makers
c.) Distributed to every Canadian household through the mail.
Perhaps if you happen to be a scientist and decided to read and digest the IPCC reports in detail, then you could put the Hockey Stick in it’s proper perspective. But it was sold to the rest of the world, including the UN policy makers, as rock-solid scientific proof that the late 20th century global temperatures were unprecedented. How exactly did it trigger a formal investigation like the Wegman Report ?
2.) The problem with applying this rhetoric to the Hockey Stick, is that rather than acknowledge and correct this mere “human error”, Mann and RC continue to try to vindicate it. Check what Mann writes here: http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2009/02/06/tabloid-fossil-fuel-shill.aspx You really get a feel for his emotional state. Clearly his ego is so tied up in the HS graph, he continues to perceive any criticism as a personal attack. The guy will go to his deathbed still insisting it is 100% robust.
3.) Hindsight is 20/20. McIntyre was sailing in uncharted waters. Skepticalscience has always functioned to reinforce RC and the IPCC. How can you reasonably draw a comparison? McIntyre could only dream of the obvious advantages they enjoy over ClimateAudit? But consensus scientists love to get in that sound-bite suggesting that the auditors create their own reconstructions. How is that possible unless you are privy to the all of the data? It doesn’t take a Phd to understand that’s impossible.
I approve of everything that is being said… however the fact of the matter is that this will be decided on a political plane and particularly in the United State Senate and the United States Supreme Court.
What the climate “scientists” I don’t think appreciated that once matters get to this level different factors come into play.
The US Senate will not pass its climate change bill and neither will the Australian Senate. Clearly the “scientists” have lost the argument there – I appreciate they have been hijacked by the politicians and fraudsters but so far they have robustly defended their position.
There is also litigation on several levels in the United States about all this. In particular the Attorrneys- General of Texas and Virginia seem keen to judicially review the EPA regulations on GHG and also the Virginia A-G has asked the University there for the dirt on Mann. If anything is going to end up in the Supreme Court it will be this. May I remind the readers that these Attorneys- General are directly elected by the people of their states and so they have a mandate. Courts order “discovery” where information must be made available and if it is not judged tend to draw their own conclusions. What is more they may or may not be impressed with peer review which in some cases merely acts as a mutual back scratching exercise.
You may say, what have the people to do with “science”? Everything I would argue. I have not heard that all the raw ddata and computer programs have been made available by Jonees Mann NOAA & etc. so their reseach can be replicated and examined – if it has pardon me. The last time I looked they were pleading they have lost/ thrown away the raw data and in any case it was covered by confidentiality agreements and the computer programs remained a closely guarded secret.
A basic axiom in real science is that others can replicate what you do. I have not heard that Einstein considered it necessary to keep his workings a secret and I suspect he was a better scientist than this lot will ever be.
So the people really have no choice but to exercise their democratic rights – and I understand politicians who approve of MMGW are losing elections on this very issue.
That is why 6 Democrats joined with the GOP (41) to vote against the EPA regulations in the Senate – that vote was lost 47-53 but the GOP will make gains in November.
My personal opinion is that matters of climate are massively complex and these “scientists” cannot establish their position (out of another half dozen possibilities) and this has been made worse by the a priori assumptions, selective data & etc. When Al Gore is mixed in with all this toxicity doesn’t cover it.
Shub,
”
Steven
I dont want to post random comments which passed moderation at RealClimate (when skeptical commenters measure their words so carefully to pass it) ““ the comments do exactly what I said they did. It would be off-topic.
They are there in every thread pretty much.”
No need to post ‘random’ (hah) comments. Anyone can read the entirety of any thread on RC, and see that you’re still wrong to claim that the comments consist wholly of “yelling”, Mann/Jones praise, and ‘random denier bashing’. However, I see here you are pulling back from that characterization just a tiny bit. Keep working on it, your model may eventually approach accuracy.
JC:
“One of the key things we need to learn from this is that university scientists are ill-prepared to be the repository for scientific data and interface with a broad range of requests from the public. This should be handled by the government. ”
Call me crazy, but I can’t help thinking the McIntyre ‘tribe’ doesn’t trust government much. So this bold recommendation may not get the traction you’d like, from the people you like.
Btw, I’m all for it. But then again, I work with Genbank/Swissprot/Pubmed, etc. public biomedical data every day.
bernie:
“Brilliant. Go for it. I will personally buy 10 copies. Don’t forget to include primary source material.”
Not sure I’m personally up to the task, but I’d consider it. Will you pay my salary while I do it? I’ll have to go on sabbatical from my current job.
And if the answer’s no, and I don’t write the book, that means…what, exactly? That it’s wrong to wonder if Mann’s perspective would be illuminating?
Tim Lambert Says:
August 4th, 2010 at 2:14 pm
The hockey stick graph was only in “An Inconvenient Truth” by mistake.
!!!!
And Al Gore happened to have a cherry picker, standing around by coincidence, to go for a ride to show the audience, the ‘hockey stick blade’
😉 😉 😉 😉
Andrew 99
“I have not heard that all the raw data and computer programs have been made available by Jones Mann NOAA & etc. so their research can be replicated and examined ““ if it has pardon me. The last time I looked they were pleading they have lost/ thrown away the raw data and in any case it was covered by confidentiality agreements and the computer programs remained a closely guarded secret.”
I suggest you look again. Perhaps through lenses not crafted by the denialsphere, this time.
Steven #144
I think you do me an injustice. Whether you or anyone else writes does not matter. I really do believe writing such a book is a brilliant idea. Do you really want a repeat of the Double Helix?
Alas my limit is to buy 10 copies.
Re: The Brazillian interview.
The translator from Portuguese to English happens to be none other than Tenney Naumer. She’s the female blogger who maligns JC regularly with especially catty remarks. Her mistranslations could only be deliberate. Just read one of her posts in English which are cut-&-paste quote mines from other blog comments, punctuated by inserting her own insulting remarks throughout. This was clearly no accidental event like the game of telephone!
http://climatechangepsychology.blogspot.com/2010/07/currygate-continues-judith-curry-has.html
Keith, can you edit “Spanish” to “Portuguese” in what JC stated? It’s just a matter of time before someone will take and run with that.
“I would like to propose that we form a “Phil Jones Devotional Circle”, and put a nice logo on our personal and organisational websites, linking through to a page here at RealClimate (or elsewhere) that extols the virtues of said Phil Jones, and catalogues his many great achievements”
Steven, the above is a comment from RealClimate. Don’t blame me if you cringe with embarrassment and collapse – you asked for it. ;). You want me to go over there and pull out more recent ones for you…?
What is there to back off from? People are yelling at RC all the time. If comments are in caps, and consist of monosyllabic barks – I call that yelling.
Steven Sullivan,
Noted and I will. I’ll come back sometime with what I find. I am not competent to do this replica research and think around issues of course but it would be nice to know others are.
I appreciate my lenses are crafted as you say but I am a historian and a lawyer and there is much about the whole thing which stinks. Personally I think this is one of those crazes which seizes the English speaking world from time to time. The Popish Plot of the 167o’s comes to mind. In 1678 it was dangerous to doubt it – by 1685 it had been blown out of the water. Here the tide probably turned in November 2009 or a little earlier – from being thought a lunatic if one denied it to at least a realisation one had a point of view. History in the making!
Judith Curry, Barry Woods et al – what you are remembering as a “hockey stick” from “An Inconvenient Truth” is I believe the graph of *CO2* concentrations for the last 600,000 years. That has nothing to do with paleo-climate reconstructions. There are many “hockey sticks” out there – human population, CO2, methane, world GDP, you name it. The 20th century was extraordinary.
But the “iconic” paleoclimate reconstruction of Northern Hemisphere temperatures for the past 1000 years was not, to my recollection, a major factor in “An Inconvenient Truth” at all. I don’t know about any of the other claims of its appearance, but this entire “anti-hockey-stick” stance is extraordinarily misleading: all of the above non-paleo “hockey sticks” are extremely solid, as far as the data is concerned. The paleoclimate one is the least solid of them, and as far as I can tell has been only rarely used (right around TAR). The motivations for that we can argue as long as we want, but one instance hardly seems to justify all the negative anti-hockey-stick vitriol.
In my view the one thing we really can learn to reduce unneeded conflict from all this, and I don’t think reading Montford’s book would be much help (it certainly doesn’t seem to have helped Judith Curry avoid unnecessary conflict!) is the need to be extremely careful and precise in the things we say and claim. Scientists should exercise greater care in their work, and those criticizing the science should also be precise and exact in their statements. Vague claims are tossed around far too often, and there is a lot of discussion of motivation (Dr. Curry has herself proposed several regarding IPCC people here). If Dr. Curry had made statements that were actually precise and carefully stated, backed up by facts, the “unnecessary conflict” on the Real Climate blog would have been far more muted, if there had been any.
I urge all parties to exercise greater care and precision in their claims.
@GaryM:
It doesn’t help your case (at least for UK readers) to rely solely on the Daily Mail for your links. Have you any more credible sources? National Enquirer perhaps?
The breakdown in co-operation between McIntyre and mainstream paleo-climate people seems to have happened in 2003, just before the publication of the first McIntyre and Mckitrick article in Energy Environment. The Hockey Stick Illusion has a history with quotes from contemporary emails. Note in particular pages 70-71 and 91-92 (as well as much of the discussion in between). The co-operation was, on this account, quite limited and broke down when hard questions about data were (politely) asked. Montford’s account is supported by email evidence from both McIntyre, Rutherford and Mann. McIntyre’s requests, though persistent, do not seem to me in any way out of place in investigating what was at that time a very important article in public discussion. Once the article was published various allegations were made about what data had been requested and how it had been used – see Montford. Although these allegations were repeated recently to the Penn State enquiry, which accepted them, some of them seem demonstrably false (e.g that McIntyre had asked for a spreadsheet which was specially assembled for him). After this episode co-operation seems to have broken down completely. I can’t see any fault in what McIntyre did, but I can understand why Mann was not best pleased. However you have to take the hit if you have made the mistakes. This systematic history if one of the appealing aspects of the Montford book. If you think he has got it wrong, then find those parts and supply the evidence.
Arthur #151
Re your statement “I urge all parties to exercise greater care and precision in their claims.”
This would be the main motivation for starting my own blog, where I have control of the agenda and where I can post what i want, and carefully research it. This is much easier than Q&A’s from blog journalists and also commenting on other blogs. Answering questions on the fly or trying to raise points for substantive discussion on someone else’s blog, well, the pitfalls are many. Live and learn.
Tim, why don’t you post this again
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/2010/08/03/the-curry-agonistes/comment-page-4/#comment-12799
but without the distracting last snarky sentence?
Any hint of snark is shiny and distracting.
Anything that can be interpreted in any way as snark will get _all_ the attention, and questions in the same post will be ignored.
In comment 148, the author remarked about Tenney Naumer’s translations. She is a Joe Romm type environmentalist. It is hard to imagine that her translation could be fair or accurate. She used to comment frequently on Dotearth, and she was virtually never fair or even handed. See for example, posts 148, 149, 161 & 162 at “data mining” Dotearth column: http://community.nytimes.com/comments/dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/02/a-climate-scientist-on-data-mining-for-dirt/?sort=newest&offset=1
JD
It’s the billions of dollars (nine billion last) year alone pouring into the coffers of the institutions by various government agencies, that are the corupting influence in science. Those who believe, or go along, with the government position on global warming are the ones recieving the research grants. Since scientists livelihood depends on these grants it’s a totally corrupting influence.
Ask yourself why so many of the skeptics are retired scientists or tenured professors who aren’t afraid to speak out.
Legal Perspective
I am a lawyer, and I believe the Climategate revelations and the Oxburgh and Mann whitewashes will not go down well with a lot of lawyers and judges. The idea that you only question one group of witnesses on one side of an issue will not go down well with the legal community. In a similar situation, the top judge in the state of New York stated that as a prosecutor he could indict a ham sandwich if he wished [because the grand jury system permitted prosecutors to present only their side of the case to grand juries]
Similarly, when the EPA’s carbon dioxide regulation proposal wends its way through the courts, the obvious bias and advocacy of many warmist scientists will not be well-received by some judges. It will be interesting to me to see whether the environmentalists will be able to keep Justice Kennedy on board now that much of climate science has been exposed as biased and non-transparent. I believe that a substantial, and mostly unstated component of the Supreme Court’s decision in Massachusetts v. EPA was the belief that the science was crystal clear. A good number of judges will not believe this is the case now because of the Climategate revelations and the failure of the mainstream scientists and institutions to make any sort of reasonable investigations into the Climategate revelations.
JD
JD
Aurthur and Stephen:
It appears to me that you are to new to the game to understand what is being commented on. At least that is how you come across.
Hank and Tim:
You have not lost your sense of tribal preservation that I noticed when I attempted to post at RC some years ago. You still use the same twist method that is preferred. I say keep it up. You are doing the reality crowd a favor with your comments.
Your defenses of the tribe is more transparent than you are aware.
The use of the Hockey Stick was deliberate in AIT.
Any attempts to support Mann’s papers when it is obvious they are faulty just makes the errors more obvious. It would have been better to just let time remove the problem from the public eye.
Keep supporting UEA, Mann, RC,and others in the tribe. The better acquainted people are with their work the more people will become realists and turn against the tribe.
BTW! I saw claims the tide has not turned. That shows you remain blind to reality.
I must say I did not read Tamino’s Hatchet job on HSI and I do not read much of Gavin’s ranting as it is mostly wrong on both counts. Those Leopards were born and raised with the spots they wear and are not about to change them.
I see you also used all the worn out excuses for the Glaciergate situation also when it is now so easy to find the history of that fiasco which shows it was a deliberate inclusion to provide a touch of alarm just as other claims are based on fabricated opinions based on what ifs like the computer models and the Hockey Stick.
Hank Roberts says: “why don’t you post this again but without the distracting last snarky sentence?”
OK, let’s see if that makes a difference:
You know, it was right here that Judith Curry challenged folks to read Montford’s book and to address his “three main critiques” of MBH. Keith even turned it into a post. When Tamino did so, instead of thanking him, Curry blasted him for not addressing a whole different set of points. And when Gavin Schmidt showed that she was wrong on these, Curry did not then concede that some, at least, were wrong, Curry asserted that Schmidt’s rebuttal was full of logical fallacies (though without identifying any of them at all).
Shub #110:
When Judith Curry jumps in with snark, she and anyone else should not be so surprised and/or upset to get snark back.
And her lack of confidence in the paleoclimatic reconstructions is fully based on OTHERS telling her she should be doubtful, as she openly admits to not having expertise in the area (and as a result repeats false claims about MBH98/99 being at odds with the prevailing views at that time).
GaryM:
Murari Lal claims David Rose misquoted him amongst others in response to questions from Andrew Revkin and Joe Romm. David Rose tried to defend himself on deltoid, only digging himself deeper into doodoo by claiming he had never been accused of misquoting before, only to be slammed in the face with Roger Pielke Jr, a few months earlier, accusing Rose of misquoting him…that’s the credibility of David Rose.
Judith Curry #126: if somebody wanted MBH98 in, there’s no need to get Mike Mann as lead author. Paleoreconstructions were already in the FAR and SAR (see e.g. fig 3.20, page 175). It is more than likely MBH98/99 would have been shown in the TAR even without Mike Mann as lead author. If you have any evidence to the contrary, please show that evidence.
Note that I am not surprised Mann was selected: his work was amongst the first to include multiple types of proxies. Who better to take than someone who was finally trying to merge the various proxies.
Marco #163 I am not blaming anything in the TAR on Mann. It is those higher up the food chain that made the decision to make the hockey stick an icon and who approved the high confidence levels in the summary for policy makers. You would expect somebody to push for their own work, which Mann did, I have no problem with that. But you need multiple perspectives, and an actual assessment, to occur in the context of the IPCC process.
Marco
Uncertainties and previously “won” ground is being conceded by the paleoscientists even as we speak.
Who are these non-OTHERS who convinced you, for example, that high confidence can be placed on these reconstructions? Was it the same people who now admit that such confidence and prominence to paleo-reconstructions was unwarranted?
It is called science advocacy – play up the significance of early conclusions, win credibility and real-world significance for your work, and then, carry out strategic retreats, back-treading on some earlier claims and point out that “uncertainties” were dealt with previously as well. It has been done by many branches of science before, it will continue to be done.
Those of us who are smarter than to see true science being present at the heart of such advocacy efforts will do so, from the beginning.
‘May the road rise to meet you,
May the wind be ever at your back,
And may your efforts be rewarded,
At every bend, and twist, and turn.’
This debate is going to last many, many years.
Always remember to take care of you and yours first!
Judith,
Could you respond to Tim Lambert’s post above?
Judith, I was asking you to provide evidence that Mann had to be chosen as author to make sure MBH98/99 was included. I provided evidence that the SAR already contained figures of paleoclimatic reconstructions, and there thus is little to no reason to assume the TAR would not have included such a figure. And all the more recent reconstructions, which includes but is not limited to MBH98/99, give a hockeystick shape.
And to add another potential injury to your narrative: the much maligned hockeystick actually comes from MBH99. Which, if I recall correctly, is AFTER the selection of the lead authors.
Shub, I see no ‘ground conceding’ by paleoclimatologists. They have been clear about the uncertainties from the start (does anyone ever read the articles and IPCC reports they are criticising?).
Re the question of whether the hockey stick in AIT was the CO2 graph or not, here is the quote from the book.
[S]o-called global warming skeptics often say that global warming is really an illusion reflecting nature’s cyclical fluctuations. To support their view, they frequently refer to the Medieval Warm Period. But as Dr Thompson’s Thermometer shows, the vaunted Medieval Warm Period (the third little red blip from the left below) was tiny in comparison to the enormous increases in temperature in the last half-century ““ the red peaks at the far right of the graph. These global-warming skeptics ““ a group diminishing almost as rapidly as the mountain glaciers ““ launched a fierce attack against another measurement of the 1000 year correlation between CO2 and temperature known as the “˜Hockey Stick’, a graphic image representing the research of climate scientist Michael Mann and his colleagues. But in fact scientists have confirmed the same basic conclusions in multiple ways with Thompson’s ice core record as one of the most definitive.
Many reconstructions show the general shape, and have been conflated repeatedly, and the mistakes get corrected repeatedly.
Example:
“The point I draw from all this is that Mann et al.‘s tree rings look a lot like Thompson et al.‘s ice cores. And that Muller’s critique of Mann’s hockey stick (whatever it might have been) is probably out-of-date–hence not in the ‘climate’ chapter of the textbook for the current version of the course ‘Physics for Future Presidents’.”
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2009/07/in-which-james-fallows-is-a-frog-stepping-into-global-warming-water-carrying-a-hockey-stick.html
Discussion of the current work being done would be most welcome. Spending all this time agonizing over decades-old stuff is like being around religious arguments about what the founders meant — science doesn’t care all that much about the earlier work, it’s not a “foundation” for later work — it’s just the particular pattern of stepping stones people happened to have used to get to where we are now.
The science could have followed a variety of paths in the past, picked up or missed this or that — but the way science works is to improve what we know.
Does anyone think if something had been done differently 20 or 30 years ago, that the ice cores coming up now would look different??
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/may/04/climatologist-mosley-thompson-warming-antarctica
Sorry Marco, in my hurry to criticize climate scientists of being less than honest,…I forgot to read the IPCC reports.
Tim Lambert, the reason I am not replying to your question is that I cannot imagine the importance or significance of any answer I could possibly give, other than in the context of climate blog warfare. Of which I have had enough.
I would like to pick up on a point raised over on Gavin’s thread re “settled science”, specifically with regards to comments 112, 115, 138. Here are my objections to Somerville’s essay
1. “This is solid settled science” are words you would never hear from a physicist, I would wager. Quantum mechanics is much more settled than almost any aspect of climate science. There are currently two very bright scientists challenging quantum mechanics: Roger Penrose and Tim Palmer. Are these guys called “deniers” or even “skeptics” by other physicists? Not even close. Roger Penrose is rumored to be a strong candidate for the Nobel Prize in physics. It would have been more appropriate to say: Here is our best current understanding of the issues, and we acknowledge that there are uncertainties.
2. The second point, about the greenhouse effect, is the best understood of his points. But there are many unknowns re the global distribution of atmospheric CO2 and the global carbon budget. The OCO satellite mission is designed to address some of these uncertainties. Yes the qualitative statements made by Somerville reflect relatively solid understanding, but hardly settled science
3. Regarding our climate predictions are coming true. Well a few might be, and many aren’t. Plus you can get the “right” answer for the wrong reason. For a good references regarding the uncertainties in climate models, see this paper by Stainforth et al.
4. The standard skeptical arguments have been refuted many times over. Sorry, not buying it. Many skeptical arguments have not been adequately refuted, too numerous to list here.
5. Science has its own high standards. It depends on the argument, not on the qualifications or particular expertise of the person conducting the research. This is an attempt to dismiss anyone who is not a “climate researcher” from legitimacy in commenting on the basic physics, statistical analyses, the logic of arguments, model verification and validation, etc. The same approach taken by Schneider’s PNAS article. I’m not buying it.
6. Its silly to imagine that all these learned societies are wrong. Sorry, its not silly. Groupthink, confirmation and framing biases, plus undoubtedly other heuristic biases can easily come into play.
It is the overconfidence reflected in Somerville’s essay that is really hurting climate science and its public image. Settled science, its not.
Judith Curry,
“1. “This is solid settled science” are words you would never hear from a physicist, I would wager.”
Argument from incredulity and argument from common practise, two logical fallacies in one sentence. No sale.
“The second point, about the greenhouse effect, is the best understood of his points. But there are many unknowns re the global distribution of atmospheric CO2 and the global carbon budget.”
Somerville’s first statement was: “The greenhouse effect is well understood. It is as real as gravity. The foundations of the science are more than 150 years old. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere traps heat.”
How do those ‘unknowns’ alter confidence in his statement?
Somerville’s second statement was: “We know carbon dioxide is increasing because we measure it. We know the increase is due to human activities like burning fossil fuels because we can analyze the chemical evidence for that.”
How do those ‘unknowns’ alter confidence in his statement?
“It is the overconfidence reflected in Somerville’s essay that is really hurting climate science and its public image.”
How precisely do you intend to demonstrate “overconfidence” in “this is solid settled science” which is a qualitative statement? Without engaging in unfalsifiable semantic quibbling?
His first statement: “The world is warming.”
All lines of evidence agree; surface station measurements, sea surface temperatures, radiosondes, satellites, sea level rise, global glacier melting, borehole measurements, migration and ranges of fauna and flora, ocean heat content measurements. Many of which time series show remarkable agreement. Whether the world is warming or not is no longer a scientific question of interest… calling it “settled science” seems a reasonable description to me… I can’t see any objection beyond semantic quibbling… do you have anything quantitative to offer? Similar for his other claims… the existence of the greenhouse effect, the fact that co2 is a ghg, the fact that co2 concentrations are increasing, the fact that this increase is due to the burning of fossil fuels. None of those are scientific questions that are being studied and disputed anymore… they are resolved… they are not of interest.
That’s where I’m looking for a clear answer too. Yes, you can find people on blogs who will disagree at great length with any of that list, they’re here among us. Dr. Curry? Your take on these, or any similar list you care to provide? What do _you_ consider settled, from looking at what’s being published on current questions in science? Any of these?
> The world is warming.
> the greenhouse effect
> co2 is a ghg
> co2 concentrations are increasing
> this increase is due to the burning of fossil fuels.
Lazar,
Somerville’s main premise in statement #1 is “The essential findings of mainstream climate change science are firm.”
The attribution of 20th century climate change rests on imperfect models that have been tuned to erroneous solar forcing data (i.e. the IPCC AR4 runs used outdated and apparently incorrect solar forcing), and aerosol forcing is “tuned” to get a good match with global temperature. Hence there is much circular reasoning involved in the IPCC model attribution studies. Their experiments show that it is plausible that greenhouse forcing can explain warming in the latter half of the 20th century, but cannot rule out a major role for solar forcing and internal multidecadal ocean oscillations at the “very likely” level, 90-99% certainty.
That’s an example of what I mean by overconfidence. Yes I could write a paper on this, and I am (stay tuned), but that in a nutshell is an example. There is too much bootstrapped plausibility in the overall argument made by the IPCC to support such high levels of confidence.
Penrose isn’t questioning basic quantum effects but <a href=”http://discovermagazine.com/2005/jun/cover/article_view?b_start:int=0&-C=”interpretations of the breakdown at larger scales</a>… which in fact are far less settled than co2 being a ghg and the increase in atmospheric concentrations being due to human activities.
“Here is our best current understanding of the issues, and we acknowledge that there are uncertainties.”
Is too bland, it doesn’t convey any impression of the degree of understanding. E.g. “Here is our best current understanding of the non-planar geometry of the Earth, and we acknowledge that there are uncertainties.” vs. “The Earth is not flat, this is solid settled science.”
Hank, your implied argument is more CO2, more greenhouse warming, therefore observed temperature increase is caused by CO2. Not that simple, see my previous comment on attribution. Yes, there is increasing greenhouse gases, yes they contributed to an increasing surface temperature. But the real question is the attribution.
I will take on the “world is warming”, which is given unequivocal >99% confidence level by the IPCC. Well yes, it almost certainly is (of course it depends on exactly what period you select), but that confidence level is not warranted based upon uncertainties in the historical data set.
The AR4 (Figure 3.6) uses the HADCRUT3 dataset for surface temperature, whose error statistics are described in some detail by Brohan et al. Sources of error analyzed include estimates of measurement and sampling error, temperature bias effects, and the effect of limited observational coverage on large-scale averages. The errors in the land surface data are thoroughly characterized (Brohan et al. 2006; Fig. 12a), with a 5-95% error range of about 1.2C. Because the oceans comprise approximately 70% of the earth’s surface, the error bars in Figure 3.6 of the AR4 are dominated by errors on the ocean dataset (Fig 12c in Brohan et al.), which are too small (about 0.3C in 1850), perhaps by a substantial amount (Fig 12b). Does anyone find it hard to imagine how the errors could be smaller over the ocean given the large sampling problem? According to Rayner et al. , the historical database of SST observations contains biases that are comparable in size to climate variations, arising from changes in instrumentation and data sources. Gridded analyses are produced by inferring missing data and smoothing available observations by making assumptions about the statistical properties of the observations using data from the relatively data rich period 1960-1990 (EOFs). These assumptions can introduce substantial errors because the climate of the last 150 years is not stationary and observations are not randomly distributed and are increasingly sparse in the early portions of the record. This presumption that modes of variability over the entire period is encapsulated in this relatively short period of time begs the question of what is climate change, and misses the longer internal multidecadal oscillations particularly in the Pacific Ocean.
Punchline time. I would go with “unequivocal” temperature increase since 1950. Lets use counterfactual reasoning to see if there is anyway that we can imagine how the temperature might not have increased going back to the 19th century or even the first few decades of the 20th century. Well, since there is miniscule sampling by ships of the Pacific Ocean and the Southern Ocean, which together comprise a substantial fraction of the globe, it is surely possible (at greater than 1%) that the actual temperatures in these regions are different than what the EOF constructions are, based on 1960-1990 patterns. Is there any hope for improving this situation? Well yes. There are many many ship logs of marine weather that have not been digitized. An effort is underway to digitize a huge number of British ship logs. And can somebody please do the Chinese, Japanese, etc. ship logs also. Once you’ve done this and done a more credible spatial analysis and a believable error analysis, then I am prepared to listen to “unequivocal” or even “very likely.”
Bou
No, I don’t think CO2 explains everything. Nobody does. People attribute that silly idea to others, when they’re feeling rhetorical.
How about the base calculation for climate sensitivity for doubling of CO2 without feedback — about one degree C .
Still being debated in the science journals, or agreed on by the scientists in the field?
Here, turns out someone else is asking the question today:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2010/08/comments-on-miskolczi%e2%80%99s-2010-controversial-greenhouse-theory/
Judith Curry,
Somerville’s main premise in statement #1 is “The essential findings of mainstream climate change science are firm.”
You’re moving the goalposts here. What are the “essential findings”? He gave a list. You objected to items on the list being described as “solid settled science”;
“Here are my objections to Somerville’s essay […] 2. The second point, about the greenhouse effect, is the best understood of his points. But there are many unknowns re the global distribution of atmospheric CO2 and the global carbon budget. The OCO satellite mission is designed to address some of these uncertainties. Yes the qualitative statements made by Somerville reflect relatively solid understanding, but hardly settled science”
I responded:
Somerville’s first statement was: “The greenhouse effect is well understood. It is as real as gravity. The foundations of the science are more than 150 years old. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere traps heat.”
How do those “˜unknowns’ alter confidence in his statement?
Somerville’s second statement was: “We know carbon dioxide is increasing because we measure it. We know the increase is due to human activities like burning fossil fuels because we can analyze the chemical evidence for that.”
How do those “˜unknowns’ alter confidence in his statement?
Answering those questions would clarify your objections (do you still object?). Instead you introduce a new complaint;
“The attribution of 20th century climate change rests on imperfect models that have been tuned to erroneous solar forcing data (i.e. the IPCC AR4 runs used outdated and apparently incorrect solar forcing)”
What are the effects of using corrected solar forcing? Is this a big deal or a negligible effect?
“Their experiments show that it is plausible that greenhouse forcing can explain warming in the latter half of the 20th century, but cannot rule out a major role for solar forcing and internal multidecadal ocean oscillations at the “very likely” level, 90-99% certainty.”
… based on what? Intuition? Assertion? Something more substantive?
In your response to Hank, you write;
“I will take on the “world is warming”, which is given unequivocal >99% confidence level by the IPCC. Well yes, it almost certainly is”
What is the difference between “almost certainly” and “solid settled science” and why does it matter?
This is relevant to my response, where I wrote;
How precisely do you intend to demonstrate “overconfidence” in “this is solid settled science” which is a qualitative statement? Without engaging in unfalsifiable semantic quibbling?
His first statement: “The world is warming.”
All lines of evidence agree; surface station measurements, sea surface temperatures, radiosondes, satellites, sea level rise, global glacier melting, borehole measurements, migration and ranges of fauna and flora, ocean heat content measurements. Many of which time series show remarkable agreement. Whether the world is warming or not is no longer a scientific question of interest”¦ calling it “settled science” seems a reasonable description to me”¦ I can’t see any objection beyond semantic quibbling”¦ do you have anything quantitative to offer? Similar for his other claims”¦ the existence of the greenhouse effect, the fact that co2 is a ghg, the fact that co2 concentrations are increasing, the fact that this increase is due to the burning of fossil fuels. None of those are scientific questions that are being studied and disputed anymore”¦ they are resolved”¦ they are not of interest.
… again, a response would be good.
Finally,
bootstrapped plausibility
… I would be grateful if you would explain what that term means in layman’s language.
… the link to the Penrose article.
Ross McKittrick’s review of the GHCN is comprehensive and rather disconcerting for anyone wishing to draw firm conclusions based on measured temperature trends. I strongly recommend reading it.
If you’re intending to draw conclusions on late 20th century warming, you should definitely read McKittrick’s review of the GHCN.
Lazar,
Since you seem to be racking up impressive lists of non-specifics…I ask this question
Is the evidence because of the warming, or is the warming because of the evidence?
Lazar #181,
It’s a long step from “the world is warming” to “the cause of the majority of the recent temperature increase is CO2”. We’ve seen recent papers upon the topic of black carbon, e.g. http://news-releases.uiowa.edu/2010/july/072710global-warming.html , http://scrippsnews.ucsd.edu/Releases/?releaseID=891 , and I have a vague recollection that Hansen attibuted up to 25% of global warming to black carbon, although I’m trying to hastily finish this post so I’m not running that thread to earth.] Dr Pielke Snr emphasizes land use effects.
I think it’s a similar step to “with business-as-usual, the increase in CO2 will result in a 21st century increase of 3 K” [perhaps 2K, whatever other value you have in mind]. The extrapolations of emissions to CO2 concentrations are somewhat loose because I don’t believe that we have sufficiently localized the mechanism by which approximately half of the anthropogenic emissions are sequestered. Without that, it’s hard to be sure whether such sequestration will increase over time as concentrations increase, or perhaps are self-limiting, resulting in a faster increase of atmospheric concentrations. Given the question of the fraction of GW attributable to CO2, and the observed rise of temperature as we’ve experienced half a CO2 doubling, I’m not convinced that the path we’re on is going to result in +3 K by 2100. It may happen; the curves I’ve seen which project to +3 K aren’t that different (at the current date) from those which project much lower. But the fact is that it doesn’t appear that we’ve experienced half of a +3 K gain, and the system is not (in my opinion) understood with enough certainty to be firm on such predictions. Nor, to be fair, to deny such predictions with any certainty.
Lazar, I will repeat this comment from last week:
Charles Sanders Peirce outlined four methods of settling opinion and overcoming disagreements, ordered from least to most successful:
1. The method of tenacity (sticking with one’s initial belief) and trying to ignore contrary information.
2. The method of authority, which overcomes disagreements but sometimes brutally.
3. The method of congruity or “what is agreeable to reason,” which depends on taste and fashion in paradigms.
4. The scientific method whereby inquiry regards itself as fallible and continually tests, criticizes, corrects, and improves itself.
You seem to be settling for #3; I am insisting on #4.
Dr. Curry, is there _any_ agreement you consider generally shared among scientists from which it’s possible to build?
Do you agree with Dr. Spencer’s statement about the greenhouse effect?
I’m looking for a least common denominator of shared agreement about what’s established and can be relied on — from the scientists involved in climate study. Do you agree with Spencer on the basic greenhouse effect as he describes it? Ignore all the feedback issues — how about the basic idea as he explains it.
He tells some commenters they’re wrong. Do you agree?
Dear Judith,
Please note that the language used in Brazil is Portuguese, not Spanish.
Secondly, for your info, it is very easy for a native English-speaker to translate Portuguese that started out as English — the constructions are so different from those used by native Portuguese speakers.
Thirdly, please point out the errors in my translation.
Thank you,
Tenney the Translator
re: #187
btw Judith, when you stop using method 1, please let us all know.
re: #156
JD Ohio Says:
August 4th, 2010 at 10:32 pm In comment 148, the author remarked about Tenney Naumer’s translations. She is a Joe Romm type environmentalist. It is hard to imagine that her translation could be fair or accurate. She used to comment frequently on Dotearth, and she was virtually never fair or even handed. See for example, posts 148, 149, 161 & 162 at “data mining” Dotearth column: http://community.nytimes.com/comments/dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/02/a-climate-scientist-on-data-mining-for-dirt/?sort=newest&offset=1
Dear JD,
My translation was absolutely free of any bias. The translation was very simple. But I doubt you actually read it.
Re: #148
I do not quote mine and then cut and paste. I do paste in relevant scientific research and related links, quite another matter.
My blog has over 2,600 scientific articles on climate science. I’ve read them all and more besides.
You might benefit from doing likewise.
Did you contact Dr Curry before translating?
What on earth for, it was strictly easy stuff, go have a look and then come back and tell me what was biased or incorrect.
Maybe I translated the word “sim” incorrectly as “yes” when she meant “no.”
Or maybe not.
Chris,
Was paying attention to the Gavin Smith thread, so didn’t see your comment. My comment at 117 linked to the wrong paper. The quote “the Times has learnt” self evidently came from the Times, and the article is here. But I can see why a Brit would be skeptical about the objectivity of anything on the climate coming from the Times. So point well taken, maybe better the Enquirer next time.
OK, I’ll try to link one more time…
OK, I’m going to try putting my head in the lion’s mouth. I have several issues with claims above which to my somewhat experienced eye (not skilled scientific, good at logic, English, manipulation, and hidden agendas) look political rather than scientific. I use scientific in this context to mean objective, with regard to history and the observable world as well as theory and experiment.
First, about Feynman, who was a friend in the last few years of his life, I find it exceedingly irritating to see him used as a resource by those with whom I’m quite sure he would not agree. Same with Galileo, Einstein, et al. (except I didn’t know them). He was in person the same quirky straight-thinking man you get in his writings, and he would not support the anti-science movement that is so eager to claim him as their hero.
Second, the claims that RC is solely political and censors a lot. I read a lot of the article when it appeared, and was a little shocked by Dr. Curry’s assertions which on careful reading seemed to lack substance on the science, be quite stubborn, and be largely unwilling to make any concession except that she would not support her claims properly. She continues to make vagueish claims which do not support her points as well as they should for her to be so certain she is right. She has been answered in detail and with great patience, and backed away several times without ever really dealing with the substantive issues. I am on a steep learning curve (since 2004ish) and RC is one of my favorite places to try to learn more, so I am really careful reading there. I was inclined to think well of Dr. Curry, but after reading her comment and the responses there, I found her clearly involved with the campaign to obscure real work and progress on the issues affecting our climate. Her frequent use of ClimateAudit and other offside pseudo-skeptic sites supports this.
Others here continue to insist that Mann, the various inquiries that have shown the planet and the science to be quite clearly as stated despite the campaign to in the first case claim black is white and in the second to claim it’s totally dishonest. The hockey stick does in fact exist, as has been pointed out above. It is easily identified by the naked eye. As far as I can ascertain, there’s nothing wrong with Mann’s work either. If his work was given the same leeway as Montford’s he’d come out solid gold.
Here’s another example of misdirection. Several commenters claim that indicators that have been said to be unnecessary to the overall conclusions have therefore been discredited/disowned. That is not the case. It was pointed out that there were so many measures that certain ones were unnecessary to the whole picture.
The “trick” word has been exploited where in fact it was used to reconcile different data collected in different ways – anyone must conceded that measurements have become easier to collate as instrumentation and the need for consistent observation has increased the data.
Again and again it has been pointed out that a lot of the data that is claimed to be hidden is in plain sight, and where it is not it is not the fault of the scientists but the conditions and institutions in which they work.
Claims of censorship are another favorite canard. In fact, each blog requires someone to decide what goes in and when it appears. As far as I’ve been able to see (I don’t visit blogs that use third-hand information to carefully slant information, which is while I like RealClimate which goes to the source; I also don’t want to “click” on them as they will claim that as validation as well) this claim is more a talking point than a reality. But if like the BBC, the Guardian, and DotEarth where the campaign to discredit science and magnify the -gate controversies (which I still do not believe are honest – such careful editing to make irascible scientists trying to do their jobs look dishonest, and such precise timing – just before Copenhagen, for example) has drawn comments that are not at all proportional to what is actually known by real experts, every blog did not limit comments as to relevance and honesty, they too would be overwhelmed.
I’d better stop here, though there’s more I could say. Such as the massive FOIA requests that 3 1/2 staffers are supposed to handle along with their regular workload …
@ Hilary Ostrov (might be 61, but my browser somehow only shows the last digit completely)
You couldn’t understand how Tamino made his claim about Montford, and quoted from the latter’s book. I’ll just highlight the part of the comment, which I believe Tamino reacted to: “This then was not merely a call for more research, but also a demand for a particular policy outcome ““ prevention rather than adaptation. One can almost detect the germ of a[n] idea forming in the minds of the scientists and bureaucrats assembled in Geneva: here, potentially, was a source of funding and influence without end. Where might it lead?”
What Tamino says (in what I’d call an over-the-top manner, but I have not read much science on climate change, and nothing of Montford), is the carefully worded implication of motive. The scientists did not, in the narrative quoted, go for prevention because they believed adaptation impossible/too expensive. Neither did they believe in research for its own sake, or because the evidence present pointed in the direction taken. The only motivation Montford mentions is money. And power.
Now, I know he does not say explicitly that this is their motivation. But it is the only possible motivation he mentions. If this is to be a tome of history, such speculation has no room. If you know the motive (documented by more than one scource), you may write that. If you don’t know the motivation, you can speculate, but you should make it clear that you are speculating, and you should give several possible explanations. Montford did not do this in the part you quoted, and that – speaking as a MA in history myself – is not good. He should have refrained from the last sentence, as it is merely speculation.
Tenney
You could have contacted her for the simple reason that she could have given you a copy of the transcript, which was in English to begin with.
Instead you made it into a game of “hey, look what we said, in a language we don’t get” and sent it to Joe Romm
And now, you try to defend yourself saying that your translation was impeccable. That is not the point. Even it was, the problem of people doubting your motives has arisen, not because of your translation skills, but because of your partisan involvement – “Currygate”? “head vise”?
JD Ohio does not know Portuguese natively, as you possibly do, – he has every ground for his doubts – you’ve provided them.
this is long, but here is the entire exchange with the Brazilian inteviewer
QUESTIONS:
What do we know about climate change? And what we don’t?
There are many uncertainties associated with the climate data records, and also with climate models
Is it fair to say that science still doesn’t know how serious is the climate crisis?
There is uncertainty in terms of how much of the warming in the latter half of the 20th century can be attributed humans. There is also substantial uncertainty in the projections of 21st century warming.
But can the science reduce or eliminate this uncertainty in time to avoid the consequences of climate change?
This isn’t what I am suggesting. No, the uncertainty can’t be eliminated. But we make decisions all the time in the face of uncertainty. The uncertainty needs to be factored into the decision making process.
How do you see the controversy caused by the hacking of East Anglia University email servers?
The emails from East Anglia University have fueled concerns about methods used to construct historical surface temperature records and also paleo reconstructions of surface temperature over the past 1000 years (the so called hockey stick). Further, the emails have raised concerns about scientists’ behavior regarding peer review of research published in scientific journals, the IPCC assessment process, and violations of the Freedom of Information Act.
What kind of concerns do you mean?
Denial of Freedom of Information Act requests, trying to influence peer review to keep papers critical of their research out of the published literature and the IPCC report.
Do the disclosed messagens exchanged by researchers like Michael Mann and Phil Jones show any sight of improper behavior?
There are several investigations underway to assess this. But based on what I know, I would answer “yes” to this question.
Why? What improper behavior?
I’m not going to get into specifics, there are official investigations underway.
What about the IPCC? How do you see its procedures? Is it still accurate enough to be considered as the basis for political discussions and climate negociations?
I think that some major changes to the IPCC are needed (see attached essay that was published in the British Association for Science Magazine, March issue)
Why does the uncertainty in the climate science matters? What kind of uncertainty do you mean?
With regards to the surface temperature data: inaccuracies in the measurements themselves, adjustments made to the data to account for things like the urban heat island effect, and “homogenization” methods that fill in regions where measurements are not available.
With regards to models, this includes a whole range of issues, including the forcing data (e.g. the sun, aerosol particles in the atmosphere), “tuning” parameters, and missing processes (such as ice sheet dynamics, carbon cycle processes).
These uncertainties have not been adequately quantified
Will we ever have the ultimate model? When should we regard the results as accurate enough to justify curbing the emissions?
We will probably never have perfect climate models. But as I stated before, uncertainty in climate models and climate research should not preclude decision making related to energy policy and reducing emissions.
You say that we need to address those scientific uncertainty analysis before requiring expensive effort to curb emissions. But can we afford to wait and face some impacts of global warming?
No, this is not what I say. I say that scientists have done a poor job of characterizing uncertainty. Decisions to curb emissions should account for this uncertainty in the climate science.
Will the voters understand this? Do they know about how science deal with the uncertainty to evaluate if it´s time to act?
Decisions are made be governments all the time in the face of uncertainty, including decisions regarding the economy, national security, etc.
How to discern the true skeptics from the industrial lobbyis who only want to spread the confusion?
The bottom line is the scientific data, the arguments, and the models. True skeptics will make arguments and debate them either in the peer reviewed literature or on the technical blogs. Assessment reports like the IPCC should sort out the meaningful from the meaningless if the process is working correctly.
Yes. True skeptics will make arguments in peer reviewed literature or on the technical blogs. But the large public learns about climate science on popular media such as popular blogs, TV or newspapers. How will they know the difference between those true skeptics and people making political and economic arguments in the name of science?
The public won’t easily be able to discern the difference. Continued efforts are needed to engage and educate the public on this issue.
Do you see lobbys paid by the fossil industry deploing an organized campaing to increase the confusion?
This is somewhat of an issue, but not a big driver for skepticism regarding climate change.
Can we have a balanced scientific discussion with so many professional skeptics lobbying around?
I don’t really know of any professional climate skeptics. Most of the people arguing against curbing emissions are people making political and/or economic arguments, they don’t care about the science. So I wouldn’t call them professional skeptics. The other skeptics have some scientific training, but very few receive any money from oil or coal companies. Think tanks like the Heartland Institute, American Enterprise Institute, Cato Institute, Competitive Enterprise Institute, are mainly worried about poor policies that will harm competitiveness and the economy, and they spend some time and effort holding conferences, submitting freedom of information act requests. Only a few skeptical scientists receiving any significant funding from these think tanks (e.g. Pat Michaels, Fred Singer, the Idsos).
Are you personally afraid of climate change?
I recognize that there are significant risks associated with climate change. The whole issue of what constitutes “dangerous climate change” has not been adequately identified and assessed ““ this is a complex issue involving regional variations, different cultural values, economics, etc. I am concerned about the risks associated with climate change, I am not personally afraid.
Do we have reason to be afraid?
Susan Anderson, I appreciate your thoughtful post and concern about this whole situation. It is almost impossible to reply to you in this context, so I will just summarize here what I have been trying to do in the blogosphere since last Nov. It is my sincere hope that your friend Feynman would have approved.
1. The scientific method is paramount for issues of scientific debate; there are no “shortcuts” to getting the right answer. Science rests on the data, methods and the argument; the “who” doesn’t matter. Scientists always need to keep an open mind, and engaging with skeptics can ensure an open mind and help in firming up hypotheses
2. In assessing science for policy makers, scientists need to do a better job of characterizing uncertainties.
3. Reproducibility is an essential feature of the scientific method, and this requires transparency of methods and availability of data
If you are a newcomer to this mess, I agree that the blog wars have become totally ugly. For my writings on this subject (i.e. things I want to say, rather than responses to questions others ask me, or replies to others engaging in the blog wars), I refer you to these essays.
On the credibility of climate research
An open letter to graduate students and young scientists in fields related to climate research
Can scientists rebuild trust in climate science?
Earlier writings on climate policy
Judith,
As someone who works on the policy side of things I find your statement about the role of uncertainty bizarre. Why do you think that scientists need to do a better job of characterizing uncertainty for policy makers? Aren’t all of the relevant facts to support an aggressive mitigation suite of policies already well known and properly characterized (i.e. high likelyhood that sensitivity is around 3 C and very unlikely to be below 2 C?
Beyond that, doesn’t more uncertainty tend to support even more aggressive action (i.e. risk aversion ala Weitzman)?
Hank Roberts #188
I like this way of putting it. Yes, the basic physics of gaseous radiative transfer are well understood (not perfectly); Roy Spencer and scienceofdoom are doing a good job on this topic. Carbon dioxide is increasing in the atmosphere, fossil fuels are contributing in a dominant way, but there are many uncertainties in the global carbon budget in terms of sources and sinks. But overall, these are two “pillars.” After that, the uncertainties become greater. How much greenhouse gas warming (in the absence of feedbacks) actually warms the earth has been insufficiently accurately calculated IMO; whereas the radiative forcing is well understood, the translation of this into surface temperature change requires including the complexity of the land surface, ocean and ice/snow surface processes, in the context of everything else going on (even without feedbacks) is much more complicated than the simple calculations that give 1C sensitivity to doubled CO2. Is the 1C reasonable? Sure. But we cannot have a high confidence in this until we’ve done a better job of actually calculating it. And from there, things become more uncertain. The climate system is very complex, it is not easily understood.
So yes, we can make statements about the plausibility and the reasonableness of these statements, but putting high levels of confidence on them such as in the IPCC reports has riled the skeptics (not to mention the merchants of doubts) and generally triggered B.S. detectors, which has led to conflict, which is getting in the way of sensible policies.
If you think about climate change in terms of scenario risk (including plausible scenarios of great harm), without any way to put a probability on the scenarios, risk managers are not going to ignore it. This is the so called Black Swan situation in engineering, something catastrophic that has a low expectation of occurring, and its one of the most important aspects of risk management. Military intelligence and strategists ponder the management of plausible worst case scenario and worry about the unknown unknowns. On the other hand, in the financial sector, they focus more on statistical uncertainty and Knightian risk, which means they periodically get blindsided by a crash.
So the bottom line problem of overconfidence has been anchoring to specific emission targets to prevent a specific risk. We’ve failed to fully articulate the risks of the plausible worst case scenario, and at the same time may have underestimated the possible contribution of natural variability to dominating the climate of the next century. And our overconfidence and trying to reduce uncertainty and anchor to a mean has gotten in the way of better understanding natural variability and also articulating the plausible worst case scenario. So uncertainty is a two-edged sword when it comes to policy making. But its critical in terms of the science, otherwise we end up fooling ourselves in the short term.
Judith Curry,
“Lazar, I will repeat this comment from last week:”
That response is vague and unresponsive to my queries. In this debate and others, you have consistently evaded substantiating and defending specific claims of fact. Is it surprising that this approach has received much criticism?
For the record, I am not “settling for #3”. And the approach detailed above is inconsistent with “insisting on #4”.
Marlowe Johnson #205
Your post reflects perfectly the conflict in policy making.
In spite of the confidence levels in the IPCC, there are substantial unknowns. Uncertainty in the global climate change problem is confounded by its global scale and varying impacts at local scales, by a spectrum of time scales and time lags between forcing and responses, and by the impossibility of validation for future projections. Under conditions of deep uncertainty, optimal decisions based upon a consensus can carry a considerable risk. Obersteiner et al. (2001) characterizes the climate policy dilemma in the following way: The key issue is whether “betting big today” with a comprehensive global climate policy targeted at stabilization “will fundamentally reshape our common future on a global scale to our advantage or quickly produce losses that can throw mankind into economic, social, and environmental bankruptcy”. This is the key question regarding the UNFCCC type policies.
Weitzmann makes the important point that when a comprehensive decision analysis includes plausible catastrophes with unknown probabilities, the policy implications can be radically different from those suggested by optimal decision making strategies (such as specific emission targets). Weitzmann (2009) describes the tendency for high-impact low-probability catastrophes to be associated with a fat-tailed probability distribution, as opposed to the more commonly encountered thin-tailed probability distributions. A fat-tailed probability distribution function (PDF) assigns a relatively much higher probability to rare events in the extreme tails than does a thin-tailed PDF. Weitzmann argues that it is plausible that climate change policy stands or falls to a large extent on the issue of how the high temperature damages and tail probabilities are conceptualized and modeled.
Krugmann has interpreted Weitzmann’s argument as implying that “You might think that this uncertainty weakens the case for action, but it actually strengthens it.” How should we interpret Krugmann’s seemingly paradoxical statement? Krugmann seems to be implicitly making two assumptions: the precautionary principle, and a representation of the climate change risk by a PDF. Many have argued that the uncertainties are too large and the space of possible worlds hasn’t been anywhere near adequately sampled to for a PDF, not to mention the issue of model structural uncertainty. However if you start from the premise of some robust decision making frameworks and consider scenarios as possibilities, then reducing uncertainties makes action on a particular scenario more likely. So Weitzmann raises an important point, but I don’t agree with Krugman’s interpretation.
Marlowe, here is a relevant quote from Steve Schneider’s Mediarology essay. Understanding and characterizing uncertainty in the climate change problem was a passion of Schneider’s.
“What happens when our current understanding of a complex issue turns out to be incorrect, when we have either under- or overstated a potentially dangerous outcome or not pinpointed the correct outcome at all? To address this, I recommend employing “rolling reassessment.” We should initiate flexible management schemes to deal with long-term issues that have potentially irreversible consequences, and also revisit each issue, say, every five years. The key word here is flexible. Knowledge is not static “” there are always new outcomes to discover and old ones to rule out. New knowledge allows us to reevaluate theories and policy decisions and make adjustments to policies that are too stringent, too lax, or targeting the wrong cause or effect. Both scientist-advocates and citizen-scientists must see to it that once we’ve set up political establishments to carry out policy that people do not become so vested in a certain process or outcome that they are reluctant to make adjustments, either to the policies or the institutions.
Continuously updating our knowledge base is what society asks us scientists to do, but some scientists don’t like subjective assessment, for using it means we could be proven wrong at any moment (what economists have long called “the type I error”). However, the “answer” shouldn’t be as important to a scientist as whether or not he or she gave his or her best judgment given everything that was known at the time. Science doesn’t assign credibility to people who arrive at the right answer using the wrong reasons or hypotheses; the process is more important than the product. Science wants to know why we reach certain tentative conclusions. So should citizen-scientists. I’ll bet those who get the process right more often also get the answer right more often.
While scientists are more adverse to type I errors, from a citizen’s point of view, the more important problem is what is called the “type II error.” This can occur if, because of inherent uncertainty, we wait for more data, and we ignore a subjective forecast which turns out to be true. Oftentimes, both society and nature suffer the consequences of a type 2 error. (See notes on Type I and Type II Errors.)”
Tenney #191
“Dear JD,
My translation was absolutely free of any bias. The translation was very simple. But I doubt you actually read it.”
Your right I didn’t read it. I would mention that I am a trial lawyer who has had 150 jury trials, and you are the epitome of bias and invective. In my experience, 999 out of 1,000 people like you would be incapable of fairly translating the material. You translating Curry would be like Limbaugh translating Obama to non-English speaking people.
An example of your intellectual capabilities and your bias can be found in Dot Earth post #149 where you stated in reference to my comment that it was fraud the CRU to lie about its reasons for not releasing data: “He write pure balderdash here.” Also, “WHAT!?!” My explanation of your obvious flaws in reasoning was in 162. http://community.nytimes.com/comments/dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/02/a-climate-scientist-on-data-mining-for-dirt/?sort=newest&offset=2
The bottom line is that I flagged your background so that people much more skilled in translation could look at it. If there were errors or interpretations that improperly cast disfavor on Curry, then we all know where they came from. If somehow you overcame your bias, and the translation was accurate, then I would be happy to acknowledge in this instance your submission was fair. However, everyone should be informed that you are in no sense a neutral observer.
JD
Let’s not get sidetracked with debating the background of another commenter. It’s OT.
Ah, but Keith, can I just merely note that the translation Judith provided has no substantial differences to what Tenney provided? And that our trial lawyer thus needs to apologise to Tenney for making false allegations?
Judith Curry,
1) Obviously claims that you are receiving emails supporting your position are at best anecdotal. That was my point in stating that I would be fired etc for stopping at the same type of justification/reasoning you have been using here.
2) Your list of uncertainties in paleoclimate research reads like a list of things you don’t know, not a list of things the field hasn’t considered. Each of those items will have an error associated with it that will contribute to final values. Have you considered that some errors are irrelevant to the type of measurement being made? For example, finding a proxy for absolute temperature is unnecessary if one is looking for temperature changes. Of course, this is in the literature.
3) Your comparison with quantum mechanics and Roger Penrose was telling. If you don’t know anything about a subject it is probably best not to pontificate about it. Quantum mechanics is on solid footing because it makes clear, testable predictions. Many people don’t like the predictions because the idea that QM relies on probability offends their philosophical sense of how the world should work. Well, so far no one has been able to construct a competing theory that actually works when it comes to comparison with theory. Bell’s theorem was supposed to show QM was wrong; instead it proved QM really was strange and no purely local theory of QM would work. Same with the EPR “paradox.” Roger Penrose is a smart guy, obviously, but even smart people can be wrong. Witness the Emperor’s New Mind.
In general, simply making pronouncements like “there’s too much uncertainty” is not a convincing scientific argument. You should and can quantify the effects of all of those questions you mention. The fact that you don’t bother to check what the uncertainty is points to the fact that you are not here to push a scientific agenda, but are pushing a political agenda.
Dear apology-demanding Marco
You miss the point that our friend Tenney loses either way. If the translations were similar (although I do not know Portuguese), from wherein erupted the idea that Dr Curry spread ‘disinformation over the entire country of Brazil’. You have both the texts in front of you now. Could you please that out for us?
Tenney is a partisan source of information in this episode – someone who merely handed another tar brush to Joe Romm. You have to choose – be a partisan advocate, or a diligent researcher – not an easy task to do both.
JC: “We’ve failed to fully articulate the risks of the plausible worst case scenario”
Please, even approximately and tentatively, do so.
Or, a pointer to whatever you consider a fair try, even if it has failed to fully articulate the risks. Any of these? Schneider’s recent one?
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=climate+worst+case+scenario
Schneider’s piece is paywalled, but the illustration is accessible:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v458/n7242/fig_tab/4581104a_F1.html#figure-title
Marlowe (204)
Aren’t all of the relevant facts to support an aggressive mitigation suite of policies already well known and properly characterized (i.e. high likelyhood that sensitivity is around 3 C and very unlikely to be below 2 C?
The answers are no and no. I don’t think anybody who wants to be referred to as a scientist would defend a statement like “all of the relevant facts are already well known”. The climate science is still in its adolescence, there is a lot to learn. The PDF, as Judy explains, are not nearly as well known as some think.
Beyond that, doesn’t more uncertainty tend to support even more aggressive action (i.e. risk aversion ala Weitzman)?
As long as the aggressive action is free or very cheap – yes. Otherwise it’s a matter of a careful calculation. You shouldn’t be on the policy-making side if you don’t understand it.
If I may address a couple of opening questions to Susan Anderson, firstly based on your statement “As far as I can ascertain, there’s nothing wrong with Mann’s work either. If his work was given the same leeway as Montford’s he’d come out solid gold.”
Can I infer from this clear assertion of yours that you have read Montford’s book? Because your assertion seems clear, but other things you say raise the suspicion that your assertion is disproportionately more authoritative than it is in fact substantive.
My second question (I have so many, but I promise to try not to inundate) is: You say “Such as the massive FOIA requests that 3 1/2 staffers are supposed to handle along with their regular workload “¦”
Susan, are you aware that the scientists had five years to prepare for the introduction, in 2005, of the UK’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), and have you at all familiarised yourself with the circumstances under which the 61 requests for information were made a year ago – a response to groundless rejections and obfuscations of a mere handful of FOIA requests – and are you aware that responding to FOIA requests is a legal obligation that affects not just the University of East Anglia but all public bodies and institutions receiving funding from taxpayers, and are you aware that, contrary to the CRU’s assertions, at the Parliamentary Enquiry the Information Commissioner asserted that the 61 requests would not be considered vexatious?
In short, Susan, to what lengths have you gone – using your “somewhat experienced eye” – to examine the balance of arguments on these matters? Given that you are, as you say, “good at logic, English, manipulation, and hidden agendas”, surely you have desired to ascertain the measure of these from source? The reason I ask is that, somewhat in contradiction to your assertions, you also state “I don’t visit blogs that use third-hand information to carefully slant information, which is while I like RealClimate which goes to the source;” which I can state with abundant certainty is in fact frequently not the case – particularly with regard to peer-reviewed criticisms of Mann’s work – and also “I also don’t want to “click” on them [sceptical blogs] as they will claim that as validation as well”.
Susan, I too consider myself discerning with regard to hidden agenda, and yet rather peculiarly instead of finding a kindred spirit in your writing, I strangely sense a disconnect. But this disconnect seems to me be sourced in your presumption – which I have to say I believe is erroneous, based on the evidence to hand – that your primary source of climate information, RealClimate, is not actually the scientifically balanced, dispassionately objective source you have allowed yourself to believe it is, and is instead an advocacy platform for the purpose of advancing an ideological agenda.
Judy,
With respect, nothing you just wrote answers the questions I put to you. So let me repeat: Why do you think that scientists need to do a better job of characterizing uncertainty for policy makers? Aren’t all of the relevant facts to support an aggressive suite of mitigation policies already sufficiently well known and properly characterized (i.e. high likelyhood that sensitivity is around 3 C and very unlikely to be below 2 C?
Beyond that, doesn’t more uncertainty tend to support even more aggressive action (i.e. risk aversion ala Weitzman)?
See here’s the kinds of questions that a typical policy maker asks:
– how much is it going to cost?
-how many jobs is it going to create?
-how big a problem is it (for us)?
-what are others doing about it?
-how will stakeholders react?
-who is going to pay for it?
The only question that is relevant to the work of climate scientists is ‘how big a problem is it?’. Now most rational people think it’s a big enough problem to warrant action. So then the question becomes how much and how quickly (scope and timing). These are questions for WGIII types not you; so why exactly do you think it is necessary to better characterize the uncertainty, and more importantly how would you do so in language that a policy maker (i.e. non-technical person) would understand?
Now if we were at the point where we had already exhausted the low and medium hanging fruit and were simply trying to reduce emissions from 60% down to 80%, then I can see where the role of WG I types might be more relevant. But we are so far from that situation that it’s safe to say IMO that debates about climate science are essentially irrelevant at this stage for policy makers. Sorry if that hurts 🙂 !
Marlowe, we’re talking past each other. I’m saying that Weitzmann’s argument goes counter to focusing on the 2C, and specific stabilization argument. I am writing a paper about characterizing uncertainty (hope to submit within a few days).
And i agree 100% that details of climate science aren’t terribly relevant at this point for policy making.
The issues I raise are that science is getting very screwed up in this process (never a good thing), and that scientists aren’t asking the right questions (e.g. characterizing the plausible worst case scenario)
As for what I think we should actually do, see the text from the last question KK asked me, where I discussed sustainability etc.
Ok I’m confused then. Why did you say that scientists need to do a better job of characterizing uncertainty for policy makers if the science that we’re talking about (WGI) isn’t relevant to them?
Hank, here is the latest from IPCC types that I’ve seen, and it is woefully inadequate IMO, poses the issue in terms of “reasons for concern.” Here is an interesting one on responding to climate mega catastrophes. Re the IPCC WG II Report, which it seems to me should have addressed this kind of thing, focused too much on trying to attribute impacts to greenhouse warming (and failing IMO owing to overwhelming uncertainties). Rather they should have focused on understanding and clarifying regional vulnerabilities and the relative importance of climate change (compared to population increase, economic development, land use, etc.) in understanding the overall regional vulnerability. If you do this, you can take your plausible worst case scenario in terms of the climate variables (temperature, precip, etc) and see how much all this actually matters to each region in the broader context.
Take sea level rise. Whether the global sea level rise is 20 cm or 4 m only matters in the context of looking at each specific location, addressing local geological issues influencing sea level rise (such as subsidence, growth of deltas, etc), assessing the risk of storm surge in that location, assessing the economic assets that are at risk, assessing the social vulnerability, and addressing the issue of economic resources available for engineering (dikes etc.)
So once people have done that for all the relevant locations (I’d settle for a few), we’d have the basis for assessing what the plausible worst case scenario might be and might actually mean in terms of socioeconomic impacts. And then integrate over all coastal locations. We would thereby gain an understanding of the thresholds for sea level rise that would overcome our adaptive capacity. And then integrate over all the other types of impacts. Then you have some rational basis for making decisions.
Marlowe, one more point regarding why uncertainty is important info in the policy making process. Selecting an “optimal” policy (i.e. specific emissions target with cap and trade) based upon the best guess of 2C and a related CO2 concentration runs the risk of serious economic consequences if the risk is lower, and serious impacts if the risk is higher. Robust decision making strategies reduce the vulnerability of the decisions to uncertainties. Examples of robust decision strategies include local adaptation measures that will help with risks they are already facing and building a portfolio of technologies for clean energy, geoengineering, carbon sequestration etc. to be deployed when they are needed (in the case of geoengineering and carbon sequestration) or economically viable (in the case of energy technologies.)
Too much certainty can lead you down the path of making an “optimal” decision that has a strong likelihood of doing an equal amount of damage as no action (by being inadequate or unnecessary).
And yet another point. Too much certainty and an optimal decision that is unpalatable to policy makers and industry will run into political problems, whereas robust decision strategies are much less likely to be derailed by political conflict
Pielke Jr has a very interesting and relevant post
Judy:
I agree with the points that you raise in #222. However, one of challenges in your wise disaggregation approach is that it suggests mitigation strategies that themselves raise a host of issues that create fundamental conflicts for a number of the major stakeholders – a veritable Catch22 snakepit. For example, major deltas could readily be defended from higher sea levels by dams and canalizations but at a significant potential cost to local habitats – as was the case with the Zuyder Zee albeit on a much smaller scale. Similarly, a widespread and massive commitment to nuclear power plant construction in the US could dramatically reduce emissions. There is, therefore, a class of mitigating strategies that are technically feasible but “undesirable”. The solution set frequently proposed by strong CAGW proponents essentially are claimed to have minimal effects on the environment. But they tend to be totally unrealistic and frequently require zero GDP growth scenarios. You may already have seen it, but Roger Pielke Jr did a good jub sizing the issue. possible solutions and public policy challenges during a recent presentation – http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2010/08/recent-talk-of-mine.html#comments
Bernie, I agree that these are the kinds of discussions we should be having rather than obsessing over details of the science in the face of massive uncertainties, and in considering various policy options and examining their possible unintended consequences, as well as their likely efficacy.
Simple unbiased translation? Here’s a sample for comparison. You can be the judge.
Original transcript:
Can we have a balanced scientific discussion with so many professional skeptics lobbying around?
JC: I don’t really know of any professional climate skeptics. Most of the people arguing against curbing emissions are people making political and/or economic arguments, they don’t care about the science. So I wouldn’t call them professional skeptics. The other skeptics have some scientific training, but very few receive any money from oil or coal companies. Think tanks like the Heartland Institute, American Enterprise Institute, Cato Institute, Competitive Enterprise Institute, are mainly worried about poor policies that will harm competitiveness and the economy, and they spend some time and effort holding conferences, submitting freedom of information act requests. Only a few skeptical scientists receiving any significant funding from these think tanks (e.g. Pat Michaels, Fred Singer, the Idsos).
Tenney’s “free of bias” and “very simple “translation:
“POCA ““ Do you see a lobby campaign by the fossil-fuel industry to increase confusion?
Curry ““ This also exists. But I do not see it as an important factor in skepticism in general in relation to climate change. The majority of people who write against the control of emissions use political or economic arguments. They are not concerned with the science. You can’t even call them skeptics. There are other skeptics who have a background in science. But few of them receive any money from oil or coal companies. Entities like the American Enterprise Institute or the Competitive Enterprise Institute are preoccupied with the politics that could affect the competitiveness of the U.S. and our economy. So, they spend time and money organizing conferences and demanding information from climate researchers.
“I really don’t know any professional skeptics” couldn’t possibly translate into “this also exists?”
OR
“Entities like the American Enterprise Institute or the Competitive Enterprise Institute are preoccupied with the politics that could affect the competitiveness of the U.S. and our economy. So, they spend time and money organizing conferences and demanding information from climate researchers.” “Think tanks like the Heartland Institute, American Enterprise Institute, Cato Institute, Competitive Enterprise Institute, are mainly worried about poor policies that will harm competitiveness and the economy, and they spend some time and effort holding conferences, submitting freedom of information act requests?”
Naumer’s attempt to excuse outright dishonesty as poor translation ability doesn’t fly. Read her blog and comments on DotEarth. Her communication skills and command of the English language are far above average. Only far Left ideology explains the startling lack of ethics.
When the ends justify the means, the rules no longer apply.In the realm of climate change concern, that agenda comes in the guise of environmental extremism.She unapologetically uses the exact same tactics as Romm and D’Hogaza, perpetuating the myth of Big Oil funded disinformation campaign conspiracy. Read between the lines in her craftily written mistranslation, and her agenda is discovered. Environmental activism is emotion pretending to be science. Tenney’s hatred of the USA, Capitalism, Freedom of speech (and data from tax-payer funded entities),Free-market economy,Corporations, and Democracy is her motivation. American far left-wing Progressives, frequently share her sentiments. So the deeper motivation tends to go unrecognized. A disastrous impact on our economy and more importantly our freedom, is exactly what they want. If China is permitted limitless CO2 emissions, CAGW is really not the primary concern. Communism, after all, is the ideal form of government. If it takes a totalitarian regime to enforce the one child limit on the entire globe, so be it.
Cap & Trade, arbitrary surtaxes on energy, and ridiculous government over-regulation imposed on the US, will have no effect on the atmosphere. They are clever schemes to dismantle the standard of living and our democratic free society.
Who is Naumer to decide what our country is permitted to do? Or demand that Judith Curry and Andy Revkin”shut up?” Or to denounce our laws insuring our rights or freedom (especially FOIA)? Ironically, the right of free expression, permits Tenney’s to willfully misrepresent and slander(or is blogging actually libel?) Judith Curry fearlessly.
JD and Gary have probably already figured this out, too.
“Does anyone find it hard to imagine how the errors could be smaller over the ocean given the large sampling problem?”
Rather than imagining things, I prefer to consider real properties, like the difference in heat capacity, thermal conductivity, and convection/wind driven mixing between sea water and land. These will have significant impact on diurnal and seasonal differences in variation in sea and land temperatures and the noise of the signals. Also, the sea surface is by definition at sea level(plus or minus small variations caused by tides, wind); higher altitude land masses will not have as much mass of atmosphere to buffer diurnal/seasonal changes. Upslope versus downslope winds wind also add variance to land measurements depending on which way the wind is blowing. (There is also the issue of greenhouse effects of thicker/more humid air over ocean compared to land, but since many here consider those effects to be uncertain, I’ll ignore them.)
Brian Dodge #229. Yes, there are many local effects that confound the interpretation of local land surface temperature measurements. But this pales in comparison to having virtually no data at all. Prior to 1920, there is almost no data in the Pacific Ocean (trying to find a good plot to show you, but only finding things behind paywall). Jump into the ICOADS data set and see how sparse the sampling is in some ocean regions even as recently as 1950. Further, there are substantial disagreements in the SST analyses between different analysis products (much larger than differences in land temperature products.)
Laursaurus #228 Thank you for clarifying the translation issue. Personally, I view the Tenney episode as a meaningless salvo in the climate blog wars. Joe Romm gave it some meaning by posting on it; Joe seems pretty desperate to discredit me as an expert, which seems necessary to his strategy of the power politics of expertise.
Ditto.. thanks Laursaurus! You’re a star! I’d added it to my list of “things I have to do, to determine veracity” and can now happily cross it off. I won’t comment on Tenney since, once I’ve removed all the expletives, there’s not enough left of my sentence to make any sense. ;o)
> woefully inadequate … “reasons for concern”
The phrase (RFCs) is from the TAR; the “embers” image is the same used in Schneider’s Nature article, to which I linked — are the two articles similar? since Nature’s paywalled I don’t know.
Thanks for the pointer; that article ends:
“Here, we describe revisions of the sensitivities of the RFCs to increases in GMT [global mean temperature] and a more thorough understanding of the concept of vulnerability that has evolved over the past 8 years. This is based on our expert judgment about new findings …. smaller increases in GMT are now estimated to lead to significant or substantial consequences in the framework of the 5 ‘reasons for concern.'”
What do you consider “woefully inadequate” in their work?
— revisions of the sensitivities? (which ones, which way? possibly just sketching the “embers” revision as you’d have changed it would communicate the idea — moving the levels or changing the error bars, as suggested earlier for forcings)
— understanding of the concept of vulnerability?
— expert opinion? Something else?
Can you sketch out how you’d have urged the article be different if you had been a coauthor? (I’m guessing your upcoming publication will try to further develop this idea.)
> no data in the pacific ocean
The alkenone proxy, a recent one, looks rather good:
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=pacific+ocean+alkenone+temperature+proxy
Hank, my issue is that “reasons for concern” isn’t anywhere close to catastrophic. If there are potential for catastrophes, lets figure out what they are, and don’t pretend that burning embers or reasons for concern fit the bill.
Judith Curry,
“4. The scientific method whereby inquiry regards itself as fallible and continually tests, criticizes, corrects, and improves itself.”
I read this as meaning any scientific claim/hypothesis/interpretation is open to revision by potential future discoveries of new evidence and new insights. Nothing can be ‘known’ with 100% certainty. Infallibility is a religious belief. Scientific knowledge is fallible.
No disagreement there.
Richard Somerville called the items on his list “solid settled science”.
I intepret that phrase as meaning;
solid : great agreement among a high quantity and quality of evidence, with little or no evidence against
settled : the claim is no longer a subject of scientific inquiry and dispute
science : as first discussed, always open to revision upon new evidence
Combine point 4 above with your statements;
“the “world is warming” […] Well yes, it almost certainly is”
“”unequivocal” temperature increase since 1950”
… is that saying anything different from Richard Somerville’s stt?
… could it simply be that… you’ve misinterpreted his meaning?
Dr. Curry, your response (#205) to Hank Roberts suggests you continue to speak on matters you are not very familiar with. You claimed:
“whereas the radiative forcing is well understood, the translation of this into surface temperature change requires including the complexity of the land surface, ocean and ice/snow surface processes, in the context of everything else going on (even without feedbacks) is much more complicated than the simple calculations that give 1C sensitivity to doubled CO2.”
But actually that translation into first-order temperature change is a startlingly simple calculation that has been repeated many times with essentially the same result – the Planck “uniform-temperature” response is in fact one of the most precisely known numbers in the entire subject, known to an order of magnitude better precision than radiative forcings. See in particular the no-feedback numbers in tables 1 and 2 of Soden and Held (2006), downloadable here:
http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/reference/bibliography/2006/bjs0601.pdf
I suggest that if you or anybody else wants to make pronouncements about uncertainty in climate science they need to put a lot more effort into actually understanding the science that has been done to this point.
#212 – Gator,
Your statements about being a “scientist”, “being fired” and “in the industry” is becoming very tedious and lack credibility. I have worked in the “High-Tech” industry for many years and any statement that may *confuse you* as to Dr. Curry’s intent on describing the sloppiness of scientist in general should yank you chain this much.
As humans, we have the choice of improvement or the choice that we are perfect. From what I observe, I prefer the former.
BTW. I enjoy Penrose a lot, but, if one is reasonable, QM is just a segway to the next branch of understanding (e.g. Newtonian Gravity -> Einsteinian Gravity </> QM). It is always about the better *troof* 😉
Lazar, I can see I made this way too complicated. Somerville’s point #1 contains the following sentences:
1. The essential findings of mainstream climate change science are firm. This is solid settled science. Human activities are the main cause. The warming is not natural. It is not due to the sun, for example. We know this because we can measure the effect of man-made carbon dioxide and it is much stronger than that of the sun, which we also measure.
It is disputed as to whether humans are the main cause. The IPCC AR4 lists our knowledge level of solar forcing as low. And I have described the other related uncertainties in surface temperature change, solar and aerosol forcing data sets, model uncertainties, and the actual methodology for inferring attribution.
As for your definitions:
solid : great agreement among a high quantity and quality of evidence, with little or no evidence against
settled : the claim is no longer a subject of scientific inquiry and dispute
Somerville’s statements dont qualify as solid or settled
Arthur, surface temperature change is determined by the balance of heat fluxes that includes downwelling longwave and shortwave radiative flux, surface albedo and emissivity, heat conduction from below (or turbulent transfer in the case of the ocean), melting or freezing of surface water/ice (on land or ocean), and surface latent and sensible heat fluxes. The Soden and Held paper isn’t relevant to the issue I raise; its about feedback, and I am talking about the direct radiative forcing of CO2.
If you would like to consider the papers that I have written on the surface energy balance, I’ve published about 20 that relate directly or indirectly to this topic.
> “reasons for concern” isn’t anywhere close to catastrophic
Well, that phrase is from the 3rd IPCC.
It’s history. You can’t change what they called the list.
But — the science: That gave a specific list of forcing estimates and uncertainties about which they felt concern was warranted.
The list and weights are updated in those recent papers.
Could you respond to the science in the two papers suggesting an update of those issues?
Judith Curry,
Thanks. Finally. We get there. I actually agree that ‘human activities are responsible for most of the observed warming in the latter half of the 20th century’ is not quite “solid settled science”… close, but not quite.
Judith @ 205: Can we say with some certainty that doubling or quadrupling atmospheric CO2 will lead to a further drop in oceanic pH?
Lazar, yes we are now no longer talking past each other. But i don’t think it is all that close. And I really don’t like the way the attribution statement is worded in the AR4, James Annan has a nice new paper on a Bayesian approach that would be an improvement in terms of methodology.
Deech56 , yes increasing CO2 will lead to a further drop in oceanic pH, but how much and the magnitude of the impacts on ocean ecosystems are topics of active investigation. Note, this area is outside of my expertise, so I won’t say much on this one.
Hank, this is just too much work for me to tackle at the moment, good topic for its own thread
Judith @245, thank you for your reply. My question was a bit of a placeholder (and maybe a bit rhetorical), but I’ve been bothered by the fact that so much of the discussion about whether or not to act revolves around $$.
I am not a physicist or an engineer; my background is in biology (veering into medical research) and although there may be uncertainties in the disruption of complex ecosystems, the results have a tendency to be bad. Ocean life has not fared well of late; I cannot see how the additional stresses of warming and acidification will be anything but detrimental. No, I am not certain of how bad the damage will be, but undoing the damage will not be easy.
Doing nothing about CO2 emission does not maintain the status quo. I’m sorry, but discussions about whether a scientist was too junior to serve as a section coordinator or whether a proxy should have not been used seem so trivial when we face serious risks that are non-trivial.
Deech56, the whole situation is a complex mess of politics, economics, cultures, scientific debate, blogosopheric warfare, and uncertain but potentially very damaging if not catastrophic impacts. I’ll go back to my answer to Keith at the top of the post, that the only way we are going to get action is to identify and secure the common interest on a region by region basis. Pitching the problem and the solution as irreducibly global has backfired politically.
Steven Mosher’s written to Steve McIntyre with a hilarious parody of the RC discussion on no-dendro-no-tilj. Ya gotta go see, Judith! 🙂
I apologize that the link above was broken – here’s the correct link:
http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/bibliography/related_files/bjs0601.pdf
Reference is Brian J. Soden, Isaac M. Held, Journal of Climate Vol 19 p. 3354, “An Assessment of Climate Feedbacks in Coupled Ocean-Atmosphere Models”.
Dr. Curry (#240) – you clearly are mistaken on this subject, or have some very different definition of “no-feedbacks”. Yes, Soden and Held were studying feedbacks in climate models – and the first thing you have to do there is find what the response is with *no feedback*. That was the question you were previously claiming to address, what the no-feedback response of surface temperature would be to a doubling of CO2. And the answer is extremely well-constrained. Your claims of uncertainty on this quantity have absolutely no foundation.
You have studied surface energy-balance, but the long-run no-feedbacks balance question is not an issue of surface energy-balance, but energy balance at the tropopause where radiative forcings are specified. On the issues you claim are important:
“downwelling longwave and shortwave radiative flux” – if you have specified radiative forcing, then this is known, it has no bearing on the no-feedbacks response.
“surface albedo” – again it would be a forcing; if you leave out feedbacks, this must not change.
“[surface] emissivity” – is essentially very close to 1 everywhere – and known pretty well, and again unchanged if we leave out feedbacks
“heat conduction from below (or turbulent transfer in the case of the ocean)” – these are heat flux processes at the surface that have no bearing on radiative balance at the tropopause; to the extent they change in any case other than via the uniform temperature response assumed in the definition of “no feedbacks”, they are a feedback anyway.
“melting or freezing of surface water/ice (on land or ocean)” – again no bearing on radiative balance at the tropopause, etc.
“surface latent and sensible heat fluxes.” – and once again ,no bearing on radiative balance at the tropopause.
I can only understand your response if you have some very different definition of “no feedbacks”. What is your definition, and can you cite a source on it?
I read the same think at CA. Sometimes it’s good to lighten-up a little and laugh at selves. Keith play a minor part it the play.
One correction to my last – by “downwelling longwave radiative flux” I was thinking Dr. Curry was referring to the small amount of solar longwave flux, but of course there is considerable downwelling longwave flux from the atmosphere itself that *does* increase under a uniform no-feedbacks response. That is a natural part of the simple radiative transfer calculation I was referring to, and it is the upwelling flux at the tropopause that needs to increase to match the forcing; the increase in downwelling flux is part of why the surface temperature response is larger than you might naively expect from the magnitude of the radiative forcing.
Arthur, the issue that I raised was with regards to the 1C surface warming per doubling CO2, the so called direct sensitivity, with no feedbacks. This is not addressed in the Soden and Held paper.
When I am not an expert on a subject, I freely admit it (as I have with tree rings and ocean acidification).
I have written another 20 (or so) papers on the subject of climate feedback, including a chapter on this topic in my textbook Thermodynamics of Atmospheres and Oceans. I am of course open to learning more about this subject. And to admitting a mistake that I might make even in an area of my expertise.
If you are interested in more recent and sophisticated analyses of climate feedback than the Held and Soden paper, I would be happy to provide them. Or papers that address the direct CO2 sensitivity, which is the issue I raised.
Arthur, I just spotted your message 252. The whole issue of relating surface temperature change to changes in flux at the top of the atmosphere (ie the simple linear feedback model) is well, overly simple. This is discussed somewhat in my book chapter and also in the thread on Lindzen and Choi.
SimonH and Laursaurus, yes i spotted this, pretty amusing. We need more of this for comic relief (also have you been checking out cartoonsbyjosh
Dr. Curry, yes, please provide a reference on how your “direct CO2 sensitivity” differs from Soden and Held’s lambda-0 (which assumes that the temperature change is uniform throughout the troposphere – i.e. Planck response tabulated in those tables I mentioned).
Yes the “linear feedback model” is simple; it is also surely largely correct on the response to a small forcing. If even small forcings cause non-linear responses then we surely have far more to reason to worry!
Also if you have any peer-reviewed reference at all that gives a substantially different number for “no-feedbacks” Planck response or some other definition you may favor, I would appreciate it. Your claims so far seem to go completely against what I have read on the subject.
Since “no-feedbacks” is a rather theoretical concept that cannot be seen in practice in the climate system (which has feedbacks that cannot be disentangled) I’m also very unclear why you feel your expertise in tropospheric energy flows in the real atmosphere (which has all those complications you mention) has any relevance to this question, which is much more a matter for experts in modeling and radiative transfer, as far as I can tell.
re: 228
laursaurus,
Go to the Portuguese text and use google translator. I did my translation of the Portuguese manually, but others used google translator and came out with pretty much the same wording that I did, and from what I know, translation software has no bias. I worked with what I had, which was what Istoe magazine chose to publish.
It is a pity that J. Curry did not send her original text to J. Romm after my translation appeared.
Oh, and to self-proclaimed trial lawyer — you call yourself a lawyer? You didn’t even look at the evidence.
Dr. Curry, I just took a look at your review of Lindzen and Choi which you just mentioned; in it you state quite clearly:
“Climate system without feedbacks would have an equilibrium climate sensitivity of 0.3 K/Wm2 corresponding to the global average warming of about 1.1 K for doubling of CO2.”
This 0.3 K/Wm^2 is precisely the negative inverse of Soden and Held’s lambda-0 value. Do you now believe this statement in your review was wrong? On what basis?
Judith,
Before you trot out the ‘over-mitigate’ bogeyman you need to at the very least address Weitzmann’s dismal theorem. IMO that basically nails any ‘overmitigate’ concerns, as there is virtually zero chance of us conclusively ruling out a 1-in-20 very bad climate scenario. So I ask again, why do climate scientists need to do a better job of characterizing uncertainty for policy makers? How will this help them make ‘better’ decisions?
Further, as i mentioned earlier, it’s important to realize the role that timing/deployment plays into all of this. Can you unbuild a coal-fired power plant? Not really. Once it’s there, it’s gonna run for 40yrs or so. It becomes what’s known in the biz as a sunk cost. This is why industry typically pushes for delay. they want to protect the value of their capital assets as long as possible. perfectly rational from their POV, but notsomuch from a public one.
On the mitigation side, things are for the most part very different, with the exception of nuclear and geological CCS Wind turbines, solar, (and biochar) are largely scalable technologies, as are most of the low to medium hanging fruit on the mitigation tree.
What this means as a practical matter, is that it’s much easier for us to adjust our course in the direction of less mitigation than more when new information comes in. It seems to me that you’ve been reading too much Cato/AEI lit on this aspect of the AGW problem…
re: 228
Yeah, thanks for clearing up the translation episode. You went from one incorrect assumption to another and to yet another and so on and pretty soon you have painted me as a dictator of the U.S.
You’re either ready for your debut on FOX or for running for public office.
So, Judith, you think that comment cleared things up?
Very telling.
Also very weird.
Portuguese text from Epoca magazine:
ÉPOCA ““ A senhora vê alguma campanha de lobby da indústria dos combustÃveis fósseis para aumentar a confusão?
Curry ““ Isso existe também.
——————————————–
Literal translation:
Epoca: The senhora sees any campaign of the lobby of the industry of fossil fuels to augment the confusion?
JC: This exists also.
———————————
Wow, I am truly biased and devious!
[N.B. In other comments above, I referred to the magazine as “Istoe,” when I should have written “Epoca.”]
Re: 260
So how does “I really don’t know any professional skeptics” translate to “this also exists?”. Are they both correct/incorrect? If it’s a gray area which translation is closest?
As you say, “very telling. A lso very weird”
It should be clear that Dr. Curry’s original text was edited by Epoca, not by me.
Epoca printed: “Isto existe também.”
The translation is therefore: “This also exists.”
I had to set aside an attempt to write what became a review of my own “Pilgrim’s Progress” from innocent desire to make a contribution to trying to get to the point of a culture that enables such contributions. I found a concerted campaign to prevent action, with great skill and success, and a lot of connections to industry over the decades. It’s nothing new. You’d think people would take a hard look at the claims and consider the possibility that they are putting themselves and their descendants at risk by the foolhardy enterprise of choosing present ease at the cost of all our futures. Now the evidence is pouring in in the macro world.
However, I digress, and should save the proper post, as what seems altogether evident from Tenney’s post at 260. I don’t know Portuguese, but it should be possible to confirm that the text is as posted or not. If so, it seems obvious that her translation is correct:
Portuguese text from Epoca magazine:
Época – A senhora vê alguma campanha de lobby da indústria dos combustÃveis fósseis para aumentar a confusão?
Curry РIsso existe tamb̩m.
—
Literal translation:
Epoca: The senhora sees any campaign of the lobby of the industry of fossil fuels to augment the confusion?
JC: This exists also.
Seems pretty straightforward. Not sure exactly now, for example, ” Isso existe também” is claimed to be “I really don’t know any professional skeptics”. If in fact the original said the latter, then it is Epoca, not Tenney, who is at fault. Look for yourself.
Tenney sometimes uses intemperate language, but the collection of information on her blog is useful and wide-ranging even if you dislike the occasional excursions into the more political aspects of our lives. Anyone seeking specific information from top sources would do worse than take a look. Things like satellite pictures of Greenland – how is that biased? Most scientists are irascible, and her obvious ability makes it not surprising that she does not suffer fools gladly.
Shub, the claim was that the translation was wrong. It wasn’t. Hence, our trial lawyer made a false claim. Wouldn’t go well with a jury…
Tenney, now that you have the original language from Dr Curry instead of the incorrect translation by Epoca, are you going to revise the language on your site to correct the misrepresentation of Dr Curry?
Marlowe #259
The difference between Weitzman’s take (policy to be driven by possibilities at the tail) vs the optimum policy model driven by specific emissions targets based upon 2C warming (i.e. we have a high degree of confidence in the climate model projections) is substantial in terms of how you approach the policy. Yes, both strategies argue that we have crossed some sort of threshold that triggers the precautionary principle and therefore we should act, but exactly what should those actions be? Heading back to emissions targets and timetables is really going back to the optimal strategy. If you the level of uncertainty is high, you should be using a more robust decision making strategy. Over on Gavin’s thread, Andy #271 lays it on the line (I understand from previous posts that Andy is in military intelligence). The required change worldwide is enormous, requiring enormous political will worldwide, and the actual policies themselves carry a risk of substantial unintended consequences. Until we have a better handle on the vulnerability and the unintended consequences of the policies, not much is going to happen.
Ideally people would go into a hedging mode while we are waiting to sort this out; the main issue seems to be to build no more coal plants. In this U.S. politically this would mean dealing with the economics and politics of states like W. VA. If we can’t even manage this one, there is no hope for the rest of it. Part of the political problem has been that scientists have insisted that the problem as well as the solution is irreducibly global. Taking a more local/regional perspective on this is probably required to make progress.
Regarding translation, and i don’t really want to get into this. There is the literal translation of individual words, and then there is the actual communication of the originally intended meaning, which depends on how the words are arranged, the punctuation and the ordering of the statements. This is what was lost in the two translations. Recall, there were two translations done here.
Arthur Smith, I’m not sure this is getting anywhere. My original point is that in the direct sensitivity to CO2 calculation, we have paid inadequate attention to the actual delta T part, how the heat actually changes surface temperature. Yes climate models do this all the time, but only in artificial experiments like Soden and Held (July only), and the delta T hinges on the physics of what is actually going on on these surfaces, which is inadequately treated IMO, and a July only analysis totally misses the melting of snow in the northern hemisphere (the hemisphere is asymmetrical), which eats up some of the CO2 forcing for the latent heat of melting and doesn’t raise the surface temperature. Etc. Etc. Relating delta T to delta Flux at the top of the atmosphere doesn’t help much IMO.
This isn’t the thread to get into all this, my whole point in raising this issue in the first place is that even the things that we regard as settled, aren’t really totally settled, questions can still be asked and the answers might change a bit.
Judith @267 (for now): Is this the kind of approach you are leaning towards?
Steven W. Popper et al., “Shaping the Future”, Scientific American, 292(4), 2005
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=shaping-the-future
(behind a paywall, but you might be able to go through your library)
co-author Robert Lempert has a piece here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-j-lempert/redesigning-the-internati_b_633105.html
Dear Marco
I told you already. Tenney read the Brazilian version and concluded for whatever reason that Dr Curry was spreading disinformation(TM) throughout Brazil. She now realizes that the reporter/editor might have inserted some phrases. It is precisely for such reasons that I inquired whether she contacted Dr Curry. She said “whatever on earth for”. Now she says that the “Dr. Curry’s original text was edited by Epoca, not by me”.
Whose point do you think has been proven correct?
Tenney also believes Dr Curry should send her version of the interview text to Joe Romm (!) It has escaped her blogger/reporter ethics, (has it), that perhaps she could, or maybe should, do it herself.
Our lack of faith in Tenney’s translation is not for the lack of skill in her translation abilities. It is something else. The claim wasn’t that the ‘translation was wrong’. The claim was that the ‘translation could be wrong’, given her ideologic slant. The claimsmaker is a JD, for Pete’s sake – read his original post.
” It is hard to imagine that her translation could be fair or accurate”
Knowing all that we know, it is hard to imagine her translation could be fair. In reality, it might be, and it is. But Ms Naumer’s strong pro-warmist editorializjng and insults throughout her blog, and her comments, which is glaring in this very example, prove that she is not a reliable, neutral source.
Ms Naumer: Could you please explain to us why Joe Romm did the “head-exploding” Ayn Rand -type “define your terms” post, based on your provided translation? Surely, your ‘head-vise’ comment is what he picked on. Could you please explain which parts of the above interview, you felt was ‘disinformation’, so much so, that you joined the ongoing pile-on and took your translation to Joe Romm? If you read Romm’s post carefully, he has, in stream of cons. thing, forgotten to mention at all.
For the record: Ms Naumer’s prolific climate blog keeps popping up, in my Google searches and I read it many times in the past. I, of course, sidestep her editorializing and get to the material that she presents.
Shub, the argument he makes would be slaughtered in court, because anyone can confirm the translation. His argument would thus be easily constructed as an ad hominem. And that’s never a smart strategy when that ad hominem can be shown to be irrelevant to the issue. In this case it is easy to show our JD wrong. His boss would not be happy with a defence that can be used so easily to undermine the credibility of the lawyer himself…
Marco, yes Robert Lempert is one of the people that I have been reading. The robust approach makes much sense in presence of uncertainties. This is why acknowledging uncertainty matters, in terms of deciding on an optimal vs a robust strategy
Susan Anderson: “it is Epoca, not Tenney, who is at fault.”
There is indeed a fault. In the context of the translation, it may indeed be the case that Epoca is primarily in error. But the fault has been identified and Tenney is secondarily at fault. Until Tenney corrects the misrepresentation of Dr Curry in her own presentation, she is remiss. If she fails to make the corrections at all, then Tenney will be at fault.
The issue with the translation is that IMO before going on the attack, Tenney should have checked with me regarding the accuracy of the translation (2-way), and that I said what was actually being attributed to me. Old fashioned journalism would do this. That somebody in the blogosphere did what Tenney did doesn’t surprise me, or even especially bother me. But Joe Romm should know better.
Dr. Curry, I am completely dumbfounded by your most recent response (#269). Please answer a straight question: do you have a different definition of “no-feedbacks” temperature response than the equilibrium Planck response used for example by Soden and Held in the paper I referenced, with a precise numeric result that entirely agrees with your original comment in that “Lindzen and Choi” review?
Your recent comment is completely unresponsive on this central question. You have been flinging your expertise around and questioning my understanding, and yet you fail to answer this straightforward question on the definition of “no feedback response”. I find it extremely odd behavior.
In your comment you state “My original point is that in the direct sensitivity to CO2 calculation, we have paid inadequate attention to the actual delta T part, how the heat actually changes surface temperature.”
But how the heat changes surface temperature is irrelevant to the actual equilibrium change in temperature – rather what it tells us is how long it will take for the temperature to respond. That’s certainly a useful question to discuss, but it’s a very different question than what the equilibrium no-feedbacks temperature response is.
Surely you understand this. So why did you respond with such misdirection?
You say “Relating delta T to delta Flux at the top of the atmosphere doesn’t help much IMO.” – but “delta Flux at the top of the atmosphere” is the only thing that matters in the equilibrium response. If the climate system has not managed to balance flux at the top of the atmosphere for a given forcing, then the climate is still absorbing net energy, and it is still warming up, and you have not reached the equilibrium response.
Marco, here is something else that has influenced my thinking on this:
Brunner and Lynch: Adaptive governance and climate change
this is an example of the new ideas and new voices that I mentioned in my last answer to keith
(psst, Judith #273, that was me). It is reasonable to discuss such an approach; I was intrigued by the SciAm article years ago and I think we’re on the same wavelength. I do think, though, that the same voices of opposition will crop up.
Deech56, sorry about that! communication is much easier when people are on the same wavelength, that is for sure!
Since a couple of people including Dr. Curry have attempted to respond to what I said, here’s an attempt to clarify before I quite this time-consuming argument. This brings up a primary point, which is the insistence that I (and others who have time constraints) *must* read a book I’m suspicious about instead of other books that provide valuable information I feel I need. This is a very good talking point but breaks down in real time. Noone has time to read everything that’s out there, and contrarian information is so profuse that one may bury oneself in it. You will claim that the reverse is true, but as a general rule of thumb I like to go to the most professional sources, starting with sites such as NOAA and NSIDC. The June 18 issue of Science has a terrific section on oceans which I am still gnawing at. I also like to keep up with world weather news at places like the BBC. Lately I’ve found my local weather report on Yahoo provides little snippets of information on world problems, such as the recent huge algae bloom in China, the latest on Pakistan and Russia. These gleanings turn up little know factoids such as the Enbridge oil spill at Kalamazoo being from tar sands. I’m fond of satellite pictures, which are opinion free, and follow the melt in Greenland, the Arctic, glaciers, etc. at sites that give information on them. The satellite pix on Russia, by the way, are revealing if you zoom in to the north end, where you can see the bogs that are likely to release methane, a tipping point that is hard to nail down because there is inadequate baseline information.
In the early oughts, I began using the Internet to check world weather. As an artist, at first I was fascinated by cloud patterns. I also noticed a pattern of increase in extreme and damaging weather, shifting seasons, lengthening warm seasons, and the like. After a while the increase in over-the-top floods, whatever you wish to call them, began in many cases to include the largest ever recorded. There were interesting items such as the increase in potency of poison ivy and other weeds that thrive on CO2. Millions worldwide were losing their homes or at the least having those homes trashed on a Katrina scale (now it’s tens of millions) because of floods. How many of you even know about the over 50 million in China affected by their floods? Australia was going dry (yeah, it’s a big country and Perth is in the west.
After a lifetime of peripheral awareness and avoidance of responsibility relative to global warming/climate change I realized that what I had learned decades ago was coming into the realm of the obvious. I wanted to find places on the web to share interesting information about climate/global warming/appropriate action. That’s when I encountered the almost unbelievable intensity and hostility of the “denialist” movement and began to use what I know, English, to see what they were up to. I read The Republican War on Science, and Storm World by Chris Mooney. I read Spencer Weart and other overview books, such as the one including a chapter by Andy Revkin. I started at AccuWeather which at that time was dominated by a nasty attack machine that bore no relationship whatsoever to what I had come to understand from my long acquaintance with science (on many fronts, at Princeton, MIT, and Harvard), which includes several Nobelists. My friendship with a group that regularly met for bull sessions with Dr. Feynman was coincidental to teaching drawing at MIT, where he was pursuing one of his many avocations, and I got a pretty good idea of his tendencies. I still maintain that he would not approve of the vagueish claims and refusal to go to the substance of the matter. I finally settled on DotEarth and dug in to learn more, clicking on links and following the evidence. That’s where I recently encountered Dr. Curry. Andy Revkin seemed to be seeking authority in the middle, but having little luck as each of these voices of “reason” seemed to be ignoring, sidestepping, or otherwise distracted or distracting from what appeared to be to be an increasingly obvious picture of planetary abuse. I’m quite willing to treat the “climate wars” as a side issue, but not willing to ignore the 97% of scientists in favor of the 3% in service of the “middle”. This is not the middle, it’s an illusion, and due to the traditions of press coverage far too much voice is given to these “moderate” voices.
I came to RealClimate quite late in this; it was at least a cool-headed place rich in information that answered questions up to a point, and maintained a scientific level that while being above my head was not so abstruse I couldn’t work at digesting it (the Duae Quartunciae response to Monckton was the deepest I ever went in trying to follow the actual argument). I kept feeling that feeding trolls was perhaps not a good way to address our mounting crisis, but the fake skeptics with their industry supported think tanks are very energetic and getting better and better at obscuring the real issues. The best I can say for Dr. Curry is that she appears to have been taken in. Her refusal to zero in on substantive scientific responses such as those by Arthur Smith, looks either evasive or challenged by the science, is not in her favor. I’d suggest she begin by noting the overlap between these think tanks and early support for big tobacco: here’s a list of those involved in the tobacco wars. Of course many of the new organizations don’t go back that far, but SourceWatch and ExxonSecrets have used annual reports and public tax records to draw some damning conclusions.
1. Acton Institute
2. American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)
3. Alexis de Tocquerville Institute
4. American Enterprise Institute
5. Americans for Prosperity
6. Atlas Economic Research Foundation
7. Burson-Marsteller (PR firm)
8. Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW)
9. Cato Institute
10. Competitive Enterprise Institute
11. Consumer Alert
12. DCI Group (PR firm)
13. European Science and Environment Forum (defunct)
14. Fraser Institute
15. Frontiers of Freedom
16. George C. Marshall Institute
17. Harvard Center for Risk Analysis
18. Heartland Institute
19. Heritage Foundation
20. Independent Institute
21. International Center for a Scientific Ecology
22. International Policy Network
23. John Locke Foundation
24. Junk Science (Steven J. Milloy)
25. National Center for Public Policy Research
26. National Journalism Center
27. National Legal Center for the Public Interest (NLCPI)
28. Pacific Research Institute
29. Reason Foundation
30. Small Business Survival Committee
31. The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition (TASSC)
32. Washington Legal Foundation
Obviously I could go on and on, but at some point one must have a life. Good luck to you all – I’m sure outside this campaign even those I think are promoting information that is dubious at best are nice people in their lives. We all bear responsibility in wasting our planet, and paths of action are certainly difficult.
Lazar and Gator, to follow up on Penrose, I refer you his presentation last March at the Royal Society’s Workshop on Handling Uncertainty in Science, which I had the privilege to attend. His talk is titled: Uncertainties of quantum mechanics ““ faith or fantasy?
Substitute “climate change” for “quantum mechanics”, and there would have been riots in the streets (or at least the blogosphere). My point is that questioning “established” science is regarded as a good thing in physics, but apparently not in climate change.
Judith Curry,
There are papers published on uncertainties in climate science all the time. There are no riots. I’m not, and I’m not aware of anyone who is, denying that there are uncertainties in climate science. Richard Somerville is not claiming that everything, or even ‘most’, of climate science is “solid settled.” But thanks for the link, it looks interesting.
Judith Curry,
Being clear on where the science is solid and settled helps to focus attention and inquiry where it is most needed… i.e. where uncertainties are significant… which is one of your main aims right?
Re: JDGATE TENNEYGATE CURRYGATE
In post no. 209 I stated:
The bottom line is that I flagged your background so that people much more skilled in translation could look at it. If there were errors or interpretations that improperly cast disfavor on Curry, then we all know where they came from. IF SOMEHOW YOU OVERCAME YOUR BIAS, AND THE TRANSLATION WAS ACCURATE, THEN I WOULD BE HAPPY TO ACKNOWLEDGE IN THIS INSTANCE YOUR SUBMISSION WAS FAIR. However, everyone should be informed that you are in no sense a neutral observer.
I am here to apologize and acknowledge that from what I know your translation of the Portugese article was correct from what I can tell based upon my checking it with Google translate.
***************
I still stand by my statement that you are biased and in no sense a neutral observer. In addition to my observations of your record at Dotearth, the comments you have made with respect to Ms. Curry’s interview support my assertions. For instance, you have stated:
“More Currygate: Judith Curry has spread disinformation in Brazil. Interview from Época magazine, May 1, 2010 [The phrase “Currygate” is so over the top that it is laugh out loud funny]
“I won’t even try to debunk this because, frankly, halfway through reading it my vise failed containment and now I have to clean up a grey gooey mess all over my office ““ I hate it when that happens!
“And even if the translation back to English were 100% accurate, who knows if the interviewer got the original translation right “” assuming Curry wasn’t speaking Portuguese. She can clear that up if she wants. Don’t hold your breath, unless you’re in the Tea Party (see below).
“It [postnormal stuff] seemed like another ill-defined term that allows users to smear science and scientists without actually defining their terms”
***************************
Most people would consider your statements intemperate (I do) and would need confirmation to assure them that your translation was accurate. In that sense my observations were spot on because I hadn’t even read your blog when I mentioned your biases and intemperateness. Your blog just confirms my observations from Dotearth.
The largest issue is that you gleefully began a childish and snarky attack on Curry that was based on incorrect information (from the Portugese magazine that you did not fact check) that you supplied. The incorrect information was caused by your lack of diligence and was supplied to a well-known blogger. How do you propose to make right what you have incorrectly done?
JD
Susan Anderson #280: “This brings up a primary point, which is the insistence that I (and others who have time constraints) *must* read a book I’m suspicious about instead of other books that provide valuable information I feel I need.”
I would certainly agree with you that time constraints prevent “normal” people from digesting all of the information there is. I would suggest, though, that if you are going to make statements that are intended to sound authoritative on subjects, you should at least be expected to read the content you determine to criticise. Anyone doing anything less should only be considered disingenuous in the extreme.
I’m not really sure if connecting your name-droppings are supposed to be intended as an argument from authority, but it’s not really working for me. Since you are an artist, I could reminisce before you that some of my earliest memories, growing up, are of regularly visiting Henry Moore’s studio. However, I am no pretender and I can assure you that my childhood experiences of Moore have not stood me in good stead with respect to conveying how Moore, were he still alive, might interpret new works in modern art. I would never pretend to speak for him, nor use his name to add weight to my argument, say, that Hockney’s latest work is good or bad. (Though if I wanted to, I could tell Hockney myself. I tend to choose to remain quiet, though :). )
re: 284
JD,
The quote you attributed to me in your above comment #284 was part of a post from Climate Progress that I reposted to my own blog. It was not something I wrote.
Am I neutral with regard to purveyors of junk science?
Certainly not.
btw, I let a tech run antivirus and defrag software on my laptop, ended up losing printer drivers and java security stuff, so have been busy with that and some other work, but when I get a chance I will post the original of Dr. Curry’s text to my blog.
Judith Curry, as Lazar already noted, there are plenty of papers that discuss uncertainty in climate science. The IPCC reports discuss all kinds of uncertainty. You may not like several of the uncertainty qualifiers in the IPCC report, but that does not take away that uncertainty IS discussed. The problem starts when somebody makes large claims about uncertainties being too small, or too high, but fails to substantiate with factual information why those uncertainties are (in that person’s opinion) incorrectly qualified, or use uncertainties to promote inaction or proclaim fraud and hoax.
JD Ohio: good you apologised.
Regarding the interview in Portuguese being an improper translation from the exchange Judith Curry allegedly had: perhaps after this experience a few more ‘skeptics’ will finally not take every remark they read in a newspaper, whenever it can be spun the ‘right’ way, as absolute truth and evidence of a big conspiracy. Even on this thread we have had GaryM referring to Murari Lal’s supposed interview with David Rose, of which the former has vehemently denied making the claims that Rose created in his writing (as in “knowingly adding false information to the IPCC report to put pressure on politicians”). Tenney can thus be accused of being naive.
Dr. Curry’s original English text:
“Think tanks like the Heartland Institute, American Enterprise Institute, Cato Institute, Competitive Enterprise Institute, are mainly worried about poor policies that will harm competitiveness and the economy, and they spend some time and effort holding conferences, submitting freedom of information act requests.”
Dear JD,
When Dr. Curry makes it clear that she understands that said “think” tanks (and those on their payrolls) are purveyors of junk science and are well funded by the likes of the Koch brothers and ExxonMobil, then I will remove the “head vise” alert.
Dear apology- Marco,
I see that you fancy yourself as having collected your pound of flesh, in the face of clear evidence that there was unwarranted bias on Ms Naumer’s part, even with the absolutely benign Portuguese text. I see also, that you overlook the fact that it was JD’s digging that led to all of us, realizing that there were small differences in the Epoca text and Dr Curry’s text. Keep at this game – I am sure you do a great deal of good to the climate science community. Keep chalking up your scorecard.
It is unbelievable that, you venture to proclaim that the Himalayan error by the IPCC, has anything to redeem Murari Lal. The sole reference for your claim on this – a Realclimate post (IPCC – facts and spin) and its contained material, and Lal ‘vehement denial’. Heh! I would try to help you here – please read – Bidisha Banerjee’s detailed exposition of the IPCC ‘error of its ways’ in crafting the glacier statement, and the mess it created, in trying to support it – there is a trail of very unscholarly activity documented there. It is on the Yale Climate Forum website.
If anything, from the Himalayan glacier blunder, to the Amazon statement, Realclimate has only contributed to slowing down an understanding the real underlying issue. This is obviously because of their knee-jerk pro-IPCC stance Please quote primary sources for this type of thing.
Dear Ms Naumer
Whom you call “purveyors of junk science” (PJS) is your *judgement* – not a factorum. Please do not confuse the two. Everyone does not have to conform to that judgement.
As per your logic, as soon you encounter someone who refuses to label the Heartland Institute as PJS, your head will explode.
Not all of us are thus afflicted.
Ok, I’m starting to understand. Its not good to recommend that people read books, and that I am somehow under the influence of a bunch of organizations, 75% of which I have not even heard of before. I guess its dangerous to try to think through a complex problem and try to come to your own conclusions, even tho your expertise is pretty much on par with those that came to the “official” conclusion.
Communicating in the blogosphere is not simple. And I’ll bet Gavin finds his collide-a-scape thread much more challenging than blogging at RC where he is in control of the main post and the moderation. Gavin, I would appreciate your take on the differences, I am thinking I would be much more effective and get in less hot water if I had my own blog.
One more point about the list of organizations in Susan’s post. Whereas these organizations may have effective lobbyists, I don’t seem them influencing the skeptical narrative that is influencing the public. Check out Morano’s site, very occasionally something will pop up that is sourced to CEI, AEI or Heartland, but nearly everything else is coming from independent bloggers. It is this changing dynamic that has stymied those that are trying to fight the “dark side”, they are pointing their arrows at the wrong targets.
Lazar, my points re uncertainty are these:
1. Very few aspects of the science are totally settled, although some are more settled than others. Claiming a high confidence level is not justified by the science. People become suspicious when they see these high confidence levels that are not justified by the science.
2. At the science-policy interface, characterizing the uncertainties (in terms of their location, type, level and identifying areas of ignorance) is part of the information that policy makers need. For example, Betz goes as far as to argue that failing to adequately explore the plausible worst case scenarios is in violation of the precautionary principle.
3. Failure to adequately characterize uncertainties is tending to send the institutions that support climate science in directions that are sub optimal both for the science and to support policy making
4. Much disagreement can be resolved if both sides adequately characterize the uncertainties. In a highly politicized situation, this disagreement (conflicting certainties) produces political conflict.
Tenney, re your statement:
“When Dr. Curry makes it clear that she understands that said “think” tanks (and those on their payrolls) are purveyors of junk science and are well funded by the likes of the Koch brothers and ExxonMobil”.
Of course these think tanks are funded by industry and private citizens that have an agenda, be it political or for personal economic advantage. So what?
See my post #294. And the money spend on the right wing think tanks is orders of magnitude less than the funding of the enviro groups (this was discussed extensively on some other thread somewhere, but the info is all publicly available).
And your point is what, exactly? Think tanks and advocacy groups aren’t driving the agenda anymore. Obama is reported to have blamed the enviro advocacy groups for failure of the bill in the senate. And its not like the right wing think tanks “beat” the enviro groups. Both are becoming increasingly irrelevant, what Jerome Ravetz calls the “radical implications of the blogosphere.” THIS is the point i was trying to make in the Brazil interview.
Shub in extremis:
“Steven, the above is a comment from RealClimate. Don’t blame me if you cringe with embarrassment and collapse ““ you asked for it. . You want me to go over there and pull out more recent ones for you”¦?
What is there to back off from? People are yelling at RC all the time. If comments are in caps, and consist of monosyllabic barks ““ I call that yelling.”
yes, Shub, no one, including me, says you *cannot* find such instances in RC. Your claim was that “yelling”/Jones-Mann worship/random denialist bashing comprise the *totality* of RC comments. You were patently wrong about that — and you’d be wrong even if you’d claimed they comprise the *majority* of RC comments. As you are wrong about claiming that people are yelling ‘all the time’ there. What does that mean? That there is a ‘yelling’ post every few minutes?
My amusement at your transparent attempts to avoid admitting your smear, more than suffices to counteract any (rather unlikely) embarrassment , much less a ‘collapse’, I might suffer upon reading RC posts cherry-picked by such as yourself.
Tenney, in my Q&A with Keith at the head of the post, here is my analysis of what went wrong:
In the case of climate change, the authoritarianism of “science tells us we should . . . “ could not withstand 1. the public perception of scientists engaging with pressure groups,
2. lack of transparency that meant people were unable to evaluate the information themselves, and then
3. the climategate affair that raised questions about the integrity of the scientists.
where I’ve enumerated the three points for clarity. Point #1 reflects a battle of the think tanks/advocacy groups, who have traditionally battled on enviro issues. Points #2 and #3 are blogospheric issues. If you want to blame anyone for the current situation with no climate energy policy, blame the bloggers, not the think tanks. The merchants of doubt didn’t have very much effect relative to the bloggers. And you need to read the Hockey Stick illusion to understand the different motives of the bloggers like McIntyre relative to the industry funded merchants of doubts. This is the point I have been trying to make for the last several months. I would be interested in someone refuting this position, that has read both Merchants of Doubt and the Hockey Stick Illusion.
Naumer: “When Dr. Curry makes it clear that she understands that said “think” tanks (and those on their payrolls) are purveyors of junk science and are well funded by the likes of the Koch brothers and ExxonMobil, then I will remove the “head vise” alert.”
Wow! Have you no shred of integrity? Up to this point, people were giving you the benefit of the doubt by assuming the magazine had dishonestly misinterpreted JC. Even a marginally ethical blogger would set the record straight and issue a formal apology. It’s shocking that instead of clambering to retain your integrity, you act like you’re doing JC a favor. I can’t believe you’re actually making demands for a scientist to propagate your smear campaign in exchange for removing just one of the thousands of snarky, mean-spirited remarks you’ve spewed everywhere online? Apparently, you fully intended to craft your interpretation to promote an ideological agenda. The climate change skeptics frequently are described as having the mindset of a conspiracy theorist. But between you and Susan, this mental state can be also found on the fringes of the ACC movement. Instead of government, prosperous big corporations collude with international bankers to control major events, the economy, and our individual lives.
Tenney, if you don’t value your own integrity enough to take responsibility for the content you produce, you’re only harming yourself. Now that the blogosphere understands how much your bias erodes your credibility, no one will waste their free time reading your blog in the future. Your catty attacks on scientists have no power to change scientific facts.
Judy posts faster than I do. I was hoping she didn’t dignify Tenney’s garbage with a reply.
Judy, I’m blow away by your social grace and poise through all the mean-spirited crap thrown on you these past few weeks. What a wonderful role-model you are for girls who love science! I feel completely opposite from Tenney; you are a source of pride to all female scientists, and to intelligent life on the planet.
“Obama is reported to have blamed the enviro advocacy groups for failure of the bill in the senate. ”
That’s pretty funny! The enviro’s are blaming him for not exploiting the BP spill to support their agenda.
It’s nice that he’s not still blaming Bush for all his problems!
Oops, another try at clarification. It seems some details were plucked out of my attempt to explain where information that is valuable can be found by an amateur with some experience and some resources, and what my experience was with the fake skeptic movement that pushed me to regard them with suspicion. This was slightly distorted in a cleverish way to look different from what I said. Having reread that, I would suggest anyone interested in what I said check it rather than taking someone else’s word about my emphasis.
I think Dr. Curry, while disagreeing with me on a number of points, would have a right to claim she has the same problem in being misunderstood and having her meaning distorted.
You’re right about the fancy list of acquaintances (buried deep in a comment including a lot of other salient stuff) being over the top, and I apologize. I meant to emphasize that I have good resources in checking sources. Certainly any attempt to misuse Feynman gets my nanny, but the claim that I am trying to argue “from authority” seems in its snarky way to be intended to invalidate my sincere but amateur attempt to explain why it is so annoying to see the clamor of misdirection when things are so serious. That’s awesome about Moore studio!
As to the list of conservative organizations that have a record of supporting both big tobacco and climate denial, you see them all over the place. I don’t doubt that Morano has a hand in getting the information out here there and everywhere – he’s good at it – but their material gets nearer the front page in, for example, the New York Times, than do authorities with more integrity, IMNHSO. There’s lots more about backroom connections, but this one was simple and straightforward and ready to my hand, so I thought it might indicate the line of thought.
I read lots of books, and recommend everyone read ’em. Just be catholic and eclectic, not seeking reinterpretations that confirm bias. I recommend The New Yorker!
Merchants of Doubt should be on everyone’s reading list. Though many other books have researched and exposed the ongoing campaign in all its tawdry clinging expansion, this is a good one. I am also about to get Schneider’s most record, “Science as a Contact Sport”.
I have found little but evasion in responses to substantive questions here or at RC, but I thought I would try once more to speak up for the beleaguered state of the art in climate science.
Judith Curry (#295)
I agree with most of those points, as they stand, *as points of principle* (their logic is sound, and they agree with my understandings of human behavior). With more digging into the details (more citations for your claims, more logical detail explaining what you are claiming and how the evidence supports your claims), better clarity, and more careful choice of examples (I’ve seen a really, really bad link to a blog rant… which I won’t mention as the debate will be beside the point), they might be more understandable as particular criticisms of climate science. Publication of your paper may produce a discussion which has more light and less heat.
Dr. Curry, are you intending to just blow off Dr. Arthur Smith’s last pointed question to you?
Judith Curry,
… in other words, I agree with 2., 3., and 4., and the first sentence of 1.
I disagree with
“Claiming a high confidence level is not justified by the science.”
I haven’t seen a cogent, nailed down case. As with all fields, there will be individual examples where confidence has been overstated and others where it has been understated, which serve fine as cautionary tales. But to make a case that there are serious social and policy implications in the way climate science is currently presented, I think you at minimum need evidence of a systematic bias which is large enough to lose sleep over…
Tenney, this is a thread on the blog wars and the politics at the science-policy interface. I would prefer not to get into a discussion on climate sensitivity on this thread, I raised a peripheral point that Arthur Smith took in a different direction and questioned my expertise. There is just no point to going there on this thread. As far as I can tell, I have addressed the issues that he raised, and my take on the climate sensitivity issue is amply discussed on the Lindzen and Choi thread previously mentioned.
If you want to play gotcha with me (well clearly you do), don’t be too surprised if I am not too motivated to engage with you.
On the other hand, I am impressed by Susan Anderson’s contributions and her openness and honesty and willing to admit a few tactical mistakes in her previous posts. Susan, I hope that this exchange helps you understand how difficult it is to communicate in the blogosphere, where people pounce on something small that is peripheral to your main point. But with some perseverance, a useful dialogue can develop!
… correction, agree with points 2. and 4., disagree with 3.
re: 299
“Now that the blogosphere understands how much your bias erodes your credibility, no one will waste their free time reading your blog in the future. ”
Readership is increasing fairly rapidly considering the blog has no ads, no commercial purpose, and rarely does more than post the newest research results.
So, Judith, I guess then that you do intend to blow off Dr. Arthur Smith’s question.
Susan, just to be clear: in addition to some poor typing in my post, I didn’t mean to sound “snarky” with the use of the term “argument from authority”. I apologise for my abruptness. I was referring to this term: Argument From Authority. I appreciate the point you were making, and further appreciate your clarification on the matter.
I’m concerned that many of the points you make regarding climate scepticism seem to have their foundations in rather arcane misconceptions of “deniers” – misconceptions that I think, for honest scientists involved in the debate, have long been put to bed. I think this is a significant stumbling block in adding substance to your arguments and until you are able to determine the difference between today’s climate sceptics and Oreskes’ merchants of doubt.
The continuing attempts at diminution of valid questions about climate science, by accusing their askers of being paid by “Big Oil”, has probably done more to harm the credibility of the science than any other single act. Actually, now that I’ve typed that I can think of quite a few other things that scientists have said and done that have exacted far more harm to the credibility of the science, but I digress… for a liberal environmentalist and conservationist like myself, to be told that I AM in the pay of “Big Oil” has neither impressed nor endeared.
Tenney #309: “Readership is increasing fairly rapidly”
Site hits are not a measure of accord. A visit can be positively or negatively inspired, though all clock a +1 on your counter. Mine to yours have been merely through morbid curiosity, I’m afraid.
SimonH,
Most people come to the blog through google searches when they look for hard science related to climate change.
Lately, they have arrived looking for information on the Petermann Glacier, for example.
The blog is primarily about the science, not the blogosphere.
There are now over 2,600 articles, so it is a very good database of the latest research in many areas of climate change, but not all. Just put any keyword into the search field in the upper lefthand corner and you should get a long list of articles published in the peer-reviewed journals.
Wow.
Dr. Curry (#306) – you have not addressed the issue that you raised, which I questioned because it was so stunningly different from my understanding of the science, and now you refuse to discuss it further? Let’s be clear what just happened here:
* Dr. Curry has all along been discussing the issue of uncertainties in climate science, that IPCC overstates certainty, etc.
* When Hank Roberts asked (comment #176) about specific things he thought were “settled” and whether Dr. Curry agreed with them, and then followed up in #188 with a very specific question on uncertainties, Dr. Curry responded (comment #205) by stating this issue of no-feedback response as her first area of concern:
“whereas the radiative forcing is well understood, the translation of this into surface temperature change requires including the complexity of the land surface, ocean and ice/snow surface processes, in the context of everything else going on (even without feedbacks) is much more complicated than the simple calculations that give 1C sensitivity to doubled CO2. Is the 1C reasonable? Sure. But we cannot have a high confidence in this until we’ve done a better job of actually calculating it.”
* However, when Dr. Curry reviewed the Lindzen and Choi paper back in January, she clearly stated “Climate system without feedbacks would have an equilibrium climate sensitivity of 0.3 K/Wm2 corresponding to the global average warming of about 1.1 K for doubling of CO2”, in accordance with my understanding of the question.
I apologize that I questioned her expertise in this area, but again, the response to Hank Roberts was so completely at odds with my understanding (I recently wrote on essentially this subject here) that I thought the error was simply a matter of her unfamiliarity. Frankly, the alternative that she *was* familiar with the science on this was far more troubling.
Now I’m left with the question that perhaps her definition of “no feedbacks” response is somehow different from the standard one I’m familiar with. I’ve asked for citations, I’ve asked for her definition, I’ve asked for alternative calculations that give a different number from the standard Planck response value. So far I’ve had nothing resembling a coherent answer.
Dr. Curry, do you have any explanation for this? Please? I’m trying to give you as much benefit of doubt as I can here.
Dr. Curry points to the Climateaudit thread where she wrote:
“Climate system without feedbacks would have an equilibrium climate sensitivity of 0.3 K/Wm2 corresponding to the global average warming of about 1.1 K for doubling of CO2”
I’m satisfied with that, though a bit dizzy that it took so many circles and arrows to get it clear.
Are there any climate scientists publishing these days who disagree with that number, and publishing a different number?
If nobody’s publishing alternative views, is _that_ settled?
(oh, please …)
I’m not trying to trick anybody here.
I’m trying to find out what all the climate scientists _do_ agree on, or accept as settled trusting other scientists.
Asking the scientist — is this one fact settled?
If we did a poll of people who’ve published on climate, would we get any disagreement on that number from scientists?
No tricks, no traps, no gotchas — just, what’s agreed? This much?
#286 Tenney Naumer Says
“re: 284
JD,
The quote you attributed to me in your above comment #284 was part of a post from Climate Progress that I reposted to my own blog. It was not something I wrote.
Am I neutral with regard to purveyors of junk science?
Certainly not.”
Was it you or Romm speaking when your blog stated: “”I won’t even try to debunk this because, frankly, halfway through reading it my vise failed containment and now I have to clean up a grey gooey mess all over my office ““ I hate it when that happens!” Sounds like your tone. Your blog is very “busy” and it is hard to distinguish what is yours and what originated elsewhere.
Second, even if the matter originated somewhere else by putting it on your blog without specific disclaimers about your disagreement with the content, you become responsible for the content under the law of defamation. You can’t repeat a statement and then escape responsibility for it by saying you merely quoted another.
Third, do you think this is a statement made by a fair, or biased observer: “Postmodernism = the condition of being dumbed down
Synonymos with “mental laziness” (Your post 15 on Romm’s blog made on August 1, 10 discussing JC) If someone thought you were mentally lazy would you want them interpreting your words or submitting your work to others for criticism?
JD
Susan Anderson Your post # 25 on Romm’s blog on 8/1.
“Great article, nice job Tenney and Dr. Romm!…BTW, Judith Curry seems to exemplify a kind of “higher laziness” in her approach.”
Do you think this comment made in conjunction with Romm’s post on JC was fair or balanced or responsible?
JD
Arthur, for goodness sake, life happens. An immediate and comprehensive response is an unreasonable demand at the best of times, but doubly so on a weekend. Nobody is jumping up and down because they’re not getting answers to questions from Gavin on the concurrent thread are they? We accept he’s busy doing real-life-things. Arthur, meet reasonable.. reasonable, Arthur.
JD,
I stand by my definition of postmodernism.
And, it should be clear from the format of the blog post on my blog to which you refer what was going on since I provide the bylines, dates, source, backlinks, etc.
btw, you have probably misinterpreted prevailing law with regard to free speech. What law school did you attend?
Tenney
Your mind-boggling arrogance and hostility, in the face of positive engagement is amazing. Maybe you are angry that we are taking money from big oil companies? You continue to post – as though someone wronged you.
If you blog about science and climate topics which are trending on Google, you will get visits – that doesn’t mean anything much, only that you are leeching hits off Google.
What is surprising about the entire Joe Romm thread, – we can see in action, proponents of CAGW, the crowning jewel of the ‘academic left’, joined at the hip with the environmental movement, questioning concepts of ‘postmodernism’ and ‘post-normal’ science, concepts which were birthed within this movement in the first place. Are these people even aware how funny they sound?
Science studies and postmodernism gained prominence questioning the military-industrial-scientific complex, genetic engineering, mega projects and nuclear power. Now that the movement sees/saw power within its grasp, via the ‘hard sciences of climate WG1’, they are ready to jump ship and ridicule their own legacy.
No one tell the constructivists of the climate-science establishment’s sleath-flying under the radar. 🙂
319 Tenney
“you have probably misinterpreted prevailing law with regard to free speech. What law school did you attend?”
Here is one source: http://www.internetdefamationlawblog.com/ It states:
“The general rule is that absent the application of a privilege, a person or entity is liable for republishing a defamatory statement.” (See third para of Dec. 3, 08 posting — Salzano case) There are many subtleties and exceptions, but this rule is the starting point. If you disagree with me or my citation, maybe you may want to ask Joe Romm for his opinion; he is saying that Clive Crook should be sued for libel. Because I do many different things, I choose not to give personally identifiable information about myself. Would prefer not to be prejudged by people doing Google searches.
You still haven’t answered my question as to whether it would be fair for someone who thought you were mentally lazy to translate your words or submit your work to others for criticism?
JD
JD et al, I think that you made your case and are now paying way too much attention to Tenney Naumer. Those of you on eother side who have read her comments on other blogs realize she is simply an empty echo chamber – a noisesome distraction at worst. Let’s move on and focus on more substantial issues.
Arthur–
I echo what SimonH said (318). I’ve been out all day and am only now just able to catch up on the two threads. The tone of your recent comments to Judith jumps strikes me as unnecessarily in-your-face. You don’t seem interested in having a conversation; just merely strutting and I’m not even sure what you think you’re strutting about. Perhaps you should devote a post on your blog to whatever you think Judith is not doing in your estimation.
But I’m going to ask you to chill if you want her to be responsive in this thread.
Shub, there is absolutely zero evidence, in contrast to David Rose’s narrative that the Himalayas claim was included even though they knew it was wrong. Andrew Revkin published a comment by Lal, and so did Joe Romm. Realclimate came much later, and I did not refer to RC at all in support of my statement. Whatever the mistakes that were made, there simply is no evidence of deliberate manipulation, as David Rose tried to make people believe.
Yet Dr. Curry refers to the ‘lies’ about glacier retreat date as one of the things that gives her pause. Which is the sort of rhetoric that I expect is giving some her colleagues pause.
JD,
You wrote: “You still haven’t answered my question as to whether it would be fair for someone who thought you were mentally lazy to translate your words or submit your work to others for criticism?”
Sure. Anyone could do that. Why not?
Himalayagate indicates incompetence and/or conscious distortion. The one thing that is hard to credit is the notion of an honest oversight. Pachauri’s responses to the issue give lie to that.
Marco:
“Shub, there is absolutely zero evidence, in contrast to David Rose’s narrative that the Himalayas claim was included even though they knew it was wrong.”
If by “they”, you mean the IPCC authors – you are wrong and Rose is correct.
The IPCC authors were clearly, and explicitly pointed out to the error in the reviewer comments. They responded with a “missed to clarify” but did not clarify anything.
Lal also claims, and it is certainly possible that this is true:
“˜We knew the WWF report with the 2035 date was “grey literature” [material not published in a peer-reviewed journal]. But it was never picked up by any of the authors in our working group, nor by any of the more than 500 external reviewers, by the governments to which it was sent, or by the final IPCC review editors.’
You are focusing on the first part of this passage? By citing this passage, Rose actually, partially exonerates the authors of the chapter. He is giving voice to a claim – which is certainly substantiated by looking at the SOD text, that the authors did not cite the WWF report. Go figure.
@Bernie
Wasn’t it one of the authors or prime sources of the IPCC WGII who spotted the Himalaya error? Not a sceptic, nor an auditor, but someone already involved in the process?
If my memory is correct here, this bodes well for the IPCC reports (and .. well, not so well for Pachauri).
Arthur, we have no disagreement on the definition of “no feedbacks.” The point i was trying to make in my original post was about how delta T is actually determined in such studies.
oystein
You are wrong. See above.
The glacier-melt nonsense had/has been going on for quite a few years and credible people have spoken out against the concept, even before the AR4
RE Judith @295, et al. I hope you wil consider the following from a scientist (now bureaucrat) in another field, but used to controversy (vaccine research, animal models, HIV, etc.)
1. Communication: Please consider communicating from your own blog, where you can craft and control your message. Trying to find your posts in various blogs is dizzying, and posts like the one at RC do not help build bridges. I can understand your position much, much better based on your interview here and subsequent comments.
2. Uncertainty: From the outside, it appears that the climate science community is addressing this, but it appears that you disagree with the IPCC “likely”, etc. conclusions. In biological systems, we deal with uncertainties all the time (I am currently working on approval of drugs under the FDA “Animal Rule”; as Casey Stengel, or was it Yogi Berra, said, you can look it up), but while we should strive to reduce uncertainty, we should recognize that we will always have incomplete information. For a problem with a long response time, that’s the nature of the beast, but that is no excuse for inaction.
3. Policy: Yes, I would like to see a discussion spurred by the thoughts of Lempert, Brunner, et al. I have to admit that I had to search for Lempert’s post ““ as a recovering medical researcher I avoid Huffington Post (a search using the terms Huffington Post and Orac will give the reasons). With the US Senate’s recent Epic Fail, there may opportunity for a new approach. It will be interesting to see if you can cash in (not in a monetary sense, but a political sense) on your outreach. Framing will be essential; the message that would be good to hear would use phrases like “risk management”, “we don’t know everything, but we know enough to take action”, “energy independence”, etc.
4. Fallout: OK, somewhere in the internet I expressed dismay at your writings about the CEI. I have a background in toxicology and familiarity with the medical literature, and can judge the outputs of right-wing, free market, industry-supported (take your pick) think tanks in other fields closer to my expertise than climate. Unlike we as a scientists, they are not bound by the truth. The forces that led to the Senate’s inaction haven’t gone away, and I believe that they will respond to you as they have to Mann, Jones, Hansen and your other colleagues if you advocate reducing carbon emissions. .
Anyway, JMHO, and I wish you luck. (And people, can we please move away from Tenneygate?)
Um – can someone please edit my post above to get rid of the MSWordspeak?
Color me embarrassed.[[FIXED./KK]]
Hank Roberts #315 You point to the strategy of assessing confidence by consensus (i.e. what do the published papers say, do the experts agree.) What I’m saying is that this isn’t good enough to justify a high level of confidence. You have to continually challenge what has been done from many different directions, then you can have confidence in it.
The issue I raised in this context was the direct CO2 sensitivity, an issue that there is general agreement, but that even this could be challenged because of the inadequacy IMO in the treatment of the actual physics at the surface (land, ocean, cryosphere) that is necessary to translate the CO2 forcing into a delta temperature change. Further, in the course of discussion with Arthur Smith, I also raised the issue of the oversimplicity of relating delta T to delta F at the top of the atmosphere; this requires a whole bunch of assumptions that are never satisfied exactly (or even very closely).
The larger point I was trying to make is that even the most “settled” pieces of science aren’t entirely settled. And attribution, which was a much more complex scientific issue, should not be considered settled at the very likely level (90-99% confidence), for reasons that I stated in an earlier post. Even if this conclusion is “plausible”, our understanding of the 20th century forcing from solar and aerosols is inadequate, and the models are highly tuned to match observed surface temperature variability based upon inadequate forcing. IMO, for a very likely confidence level, you need to do much more work than has been done by the IPCC and the papers they reference, for this confidence level to be justified by the scientific evidence. Note, the lack of contrary evidence isn’t sufficient, it may simply mean that the known unknowns have been inadequately explored and the unknown unknowns inadequately pondered.
Confidence by consensus tends to minimize uncertainties, and including consensus in the confidence criteria itself (which is what the IPCC does, following the Moss and Schneider guidelines) makes a confident consensus a self feeding process. There have been numerous papers written on this, i will dig up the links if anyone is interested
Deech: “Color me embarrassed.”
Don’t sweat it, Deech. Nowt to be embarrassed about, all of us have suffered at the hand of this comment mechanism at one time or another. 🙂 Keith will edit-up in due course. I’m dying to write Keith a new comment module.
Dr Curry,
You may remember writing, in the Washington Post (10 Oct 2007), this:
“The rationale for reducing emissions of carbon dioxide is to reduce the risk of the possibility of catastrophic outcomes. Making the transition to cleaner fuels has the added benefit of reducing the impact on public health and ecosystems and improving energy security — providing benefits even if the risk is eventually reduced”
and:
“There is no easy solution to this problem; the challenge is how best to develop options that are feasible, efficient, viable and scalable. Lomborg is correct to be concerned about the possibility of bad policy choices. But I have yet to see any option that is worse than ignoring the risk of global warming and doing nothing.”
It seems to me that, rightly or wrongly, many of the sort of people you refer to as “political skeptics” on the blogosphere are starting to claim you as one of their own.
I was just wondering if you had changed your opinions in the last 3 years?
On the issue of the ‘no-feedback’ response, I find this discussion little strange. The no-feedback response is not an observable quantity. It hasn’t been observed and can’t be observed. It is instead a model metric – a ‘what if’ number that is determined from a model making a set of ‘clean’ assumptions in order to disaggregate various different effects.
In early work using single column radiative-convective models, the ‘no feedback’ number was found by calculating the temperature change needed at the surface to balance the radiative imbalance at the TOA assuming that the lapse rate and all other factors in the atmosphere were constant. In any particular column configuration this number will depend on the amount of cloud, water vapour etc. there is, but for situations that roughly resemble mean global conditions, you get the 0.3 W/m2/C response.
In more recent studies where you can use GCMs to make this estimate (work by Bony, or Soden etc.), it is done a little differently but the principle is the same. Here you are calculating a global mean number by averaging together all the different columns each with their representative clouds and water vapour and temperature distributions. You end up with the same number more or less.
You might find small differences depending exactly on the radiation codes, or the amount of upper-trop water vapour in a particular simulation, or (perhaps more importantly) the cloud distribution, and so the ‘no feedback’ number does not have the status of a universal constant, but nor is it very different under different approaches.
However, it doesn’t depend on the physics at the surface, or the treatment of ice or land processes. These calculations are purely radiative transfer calculations in the atmosphere. The only boundary condition that is being changed is the surface (skin) temperature. (That is, there are no sensible or latent heat flux calculations or changes to the seasonal or diurnal cycles, no changes to albedo etc.).
Calculating the full response requires including all of the feedbacks and this will of course depend on details of how all the model processes are dealt with (which is why it is more variable among models of course). But I think we could be clearer about why there might be (small) variations in the ‘no-feedback’ parameter in different assessments.
Some comments on Judy’s statements about attribution, ie.
“The attribution of 20th century climate change rests on imperfect models that have been tuned to erroneous solar forcing data (i.e. the IPCC AR4 runs used outdated and apparently incorrect solar forcing), and aerosol forcing is “tuned” to get a good match with global temperature.”
First off the AR4 claim was “Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.”. This is only a statement about changes since ~1950, not the whole of the 20th Century. No-one will dispute that pre-1950 trends in solar or aerosol forcings are uncertain, though there are some constraints. Additionally, the uncertainties implied are a function not only of uncertainties in forcings, but also in the magnitude of internal variability. The evidence base for this statement is summarised in Table 9.4.
However, the statement that solar forcings were “erroneous” is not true. There is actually relatively little uncertainty in post-1950 TSI reconstructions – certainly not enough to declare that anything used in 2004 was ‘erroneous’. There are continuous revisions to our understanding of solar forcing (in particular how the spectral components vary in tandem with TSI – Harder et al, 2009), but I am unaware of any big issue in the overall level of TSI trends post 1950 (the ACRIM/PMOD dispute seems to have been resolved in favor of PMOD – Gray et al (Revs. Geophys, in press), Krivova et al (2010), but this had very little impact on longer term trends in any case). Post-1950 there are the F10.7, neutron monitor counts, magnetograms, geophysical indices etc – none of which indicate any significant solar trend. Therefore, while there are certainly interesting issues left to explore with respect to solar, it is highly unlikely that any D&A study is going to find that it plays a role in 1950 trends because there simply isn’t a trend that is even remotely large enough (even taking the most extreme view of the sensitivity of the climate to solar activity).
However, Judy’s statement about model tuning is flat out wrong. Models are not tuned to the trends in surface temperature. The model parameter tuning done at GISS is described in Schmidt et al (2006) and includes no such thing. The model forcings used in the 20th Century transients were also not tuned to get the right temperature response. Aerosol amounts were derived from aerosol simulations using the best available emissions data. Direct effects were calculated simply as a function of the implied changes in concentrations, and the indirect effects were parameterised based on the median estimates in the aerosol literature (-1 W/m2 at 2000) (Hansen et al, 2005; 2007).
The model’s 20th C temperature changes were what they were – we did not redo the AR4 simulations with differences in the aerosols in order to get a better match with the observed record (and I am unaware of any group doing so). However, as we clearly stated (Hansen et al, 2005) similar results could have been attained with a smaller forcing (larger aerosol effect) and higher sensitivity (and vice versa) (though the matches to the ocean heat content data provide some additional support to the model values). Many different groups have done many different experiments with different aerosol effects and different sensitivities – no such runs have produced a result that is inconsistent with the AR4 statement. This is of course not a proof, but there is no D&A analysis that I am aware of (which includes the possibility of model amplitude errors in their response to solar, internal variability etc.) that would attribute less than 50% of the post 1950 warming to anthropogenic effects with any significant probability. Note that this is not the same as stating that internal variability or natural forcings have produced no component of the trend with 90-99% probability.
Of course, there is always the possibility that everything is wrong or there is some unknown effect that no-one is yet aware of, but statements but if Judy is aware of any positive evidence that the AR4 statement is wrong as opposed to just acknowledging that it could conceivably be, I would like to see it (it is of course conceivable that my reading is just not complete). For instance, is there D&A paper that gave a possible anthropogenic component of less than ~0.3 deg C over the last 50 years with say, more than a 5 or 10% chance? (note that before anyone jumps in, D&A studies need to include all known factors, not just solar, or CO2).
It is not sufficient to simply say that something is complex and therefore no statement can be made at the “very likely” level. Complexities and uncertainties can be quantified and it is only if you have some actual positive evidence to indicate that these have been significantly underestimated would one have grounds for claiming that the (relatively modest) AR4 statement was over-confident. I would like to see this evidence.
#306
Judy you say:
“If you want to play gotcha with me (well clearly you do), don’t be too surprised if I am not too motivated to engage with you.”
You’ve pretty much summed up the dynamics on the hockey stick debate don’t you think? But somehow I doubt you’ve ever called McIntyre on it…
Gavin, my statement about the confidence levels is that they are unsupported by the types of arguments they have made and the amount of evidence that has been provided. The AR4 statement may be correct, but there are too many uncertainties (most of which have not been adequately dealt with) for a “very likely” confidence level to be supported at this time. Here are a few examples of what lies beneath Gavin’s seemingly reasonable statement, and why I cannot support the “very likely” confidence level. I will focus this statement on the forcing data, which IMO is sufficient reason to reject a very likely confidence level.
The level of scientific understanding of radiative forcing is ranked by the AR4 (Table 2.11) as high only for the long-lived greenhouse gases, but low for solar irradiance, aerosol effects, stratospheric water vapor from CH4, and jet contrails. Radiative forcing time series for the natural (solar, volcanic aerosol) forcings are reasonably well known for the past 25 years but estimates further back in time have increasingly significant uncertainties. Okay, with low levels of confidence in some potentially key forcings, already we should be worried about a “very likely” confidence level, but it gets worse.
Based upon new and more reliable solar reconstructions, the AR4 (Chapter 2) concluded that the increase in solar forcing during the period 1900-1980 used in the AR3 reconstructions is questionable and the direct radiative forcing due to increase in solar irradiance is reduced substantially from the AR3. However, consideration of Table S9.1 in the AR4 shows that each climate model used outdated solar forcing (from the AR3) that substantially overestimate the magnitude of solar forcing. Specifically, the old solar forcing data sets that were used in the AR4 simulations shows an increase in solar forcing in the early part of the century
Hansen et al (2007) acknowledges the problem “Climate simulations for 1880-2003 with GISS modelE”. They state, “Lean et al. (2002) call into question the long-term solar irradiance changes, such as those of Lean (2000), which have been used in many climate model studies including our present simulations. The basis for questioning the previously inferred long-term changes is the realization that secular increases in cosmogenic and geomagnetic proxies of solar activity do not necessarily imply equivalent secular trends of solar irradiance.” Following that, GISS goes on to explain the reasons for their continued use of the erroneous TSI data set, “The fact that proxies of solar activity do not necessarily imply long-term irradiance change does not mean that long-term solar irradiance change did not occur.” The punch line here is that Hansen and many other climate models cannot explain the warming during the period 1910-1940 without increasing solar forcing. If they can’t explain this earlier warming, why should we be highly confident in their explanation of warming in the second half of the 20th century, which is approximately the same duration and magnitude of the warming during 1910-1940?
Now lets take a look at the aerosol forcing, discussed in chapter 2.4 of the AR4. Consideration of Figure 2.20 of the AR4 shows that, given the uncertainty in aerosol forcing, the magnitude of the aerosol forcing (which is negative, or cooling) could rival the forcing from long-lived greenhouse gases (positive, or warming). The situation is actually even worse than this, with even the low confidence estimate by the IPCC being too high. Morgan et al. (2006) , who are social scientists, conducted an elicitation of expert opinion on aerosol forcing (see also Morgan et al. 2009 for an interpretation relative to AR4). The aerosol indirect effect was judged to be much larger than those generated by the IPCC. Morgan et al. 2009 further states that experts routinely underestimate uncertainty, particularly in an environment attempting to establish a consensus. So what’s the problem with aerosol forcing? Well first, there are no satellite observations of aerosol optical depth prior to 1979, so aerosol forcing prior to 1979 is virtually unconstrained; i.e. the “explanation” of the cooling during 1940’s and 1950’s relies on well, tuning, basically. The 20th century aerosol forcing used in the AR4 model simulations relies on inverse calculations of aerosol optical properties to match climate model simulations with observations. The only constraint on the aerosol forcing used in the attribution studies are that the derived forcing should be within the bounds of forward calculations that determine aerosol mass from chemical transport models, using satellite data as a constraint. The inverse method effectively makes aerosol forcing a tunable parameter for the model, particularly in the pre-satellite era. The other problem is that key physical processes involved in cloud-aerosol interactions (that are at the heart of the aerosol indirect effect) are highly uncertain and hotly debated, such as heterogeneous nucleation (e.g. see our recent paper plus the discussion over at ACPD.) http://atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/10/2669/2010/acpd-10-2669-2010.html
Anybody getting uneasy yet about that “very likely”? Without trying to dig into the issue of model tuning on this post which is already overly long, ask yourself this question. Take a look at AR4 Figure 9.5. With all the different forcing datasets used and different model sensitivities, how is it that each model does a credible job of tracking the 20th century global surface temperature anomalies (AR4 Figure 9.5)? The intermodel spread in modeled temperature trend expressed as a fractional standard deviation is much less than the corresponding spread in either model sensitivity or aerosol forcing. This agreement of all the models with each other and the observations is accomplished through each modeling group selecting the forcing data set that produces the best agreement with observations, along with model kludges that include adjusting the aerosol forcing to produce good agreement with the surface temperature observations. If an incorrect solar forcing data set is used, then this is effectively compensated for by model kludges. If a model’s sensitivity is high, it is likely to require greater aerosol forcing to counter the greenhouse warming, and vice versa for a low model sensitivity. That’s how it works.
So is the IPCC statement about attribution plausible? Sure. Should we have a high level of confidence in the attribution based on the uncertainties (of which I have only scratched the surface)? IMO, “very likely” is too confident.
” I would encourage climate scientists to reflect on how to dig out from the hole we’ve dug for ourselves.”
Judith is the only one holding the shovel.
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/07/judith_curry_and_the_hockey_st.php
Her selective quoting and interpretation so Dr. Chu’s comment is a clear indication that Judith is attempting to push a narrative, no different from a Marc Morano, rather than objectively analyze anything. The word “if” (as in a hypothetical) is ignored.
And of course, Keith has his own spin. He’s astonished that when someone accuses scientists of wrongdoing, consistently gets facts wrong, and consistently fails to support her assertions, is met with some criticism. Instead, it’s truth-seeker Judith vs those evil tribal scientists.
Chu:
“On balance if you look at all the things the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the body of experts convened by the United Nations to advise governments in responding to global warming] has been doing over the last number of years, they were trying very hard to put in all the peer-reviewed serious stuff. I’ve actually always felt that they were taking a somewhat conservative stand on many issues and for justifiable reasons”¦.
They should be able to say that this is serious science and take a somewhat conservative view. If you look at the climate sceptics, I would have to say honestly, what standard are they being held to? It’s very asymmetric. They get to say anything they want. In the end, the core of science is deeply self checking.”
Marlowe Johnson,
Some reflections on the hockey stick debate, which is a DEBATE. Based on the broad types of uncertainties on the topic of paleo reconstructions, which i listed on an earlier post, the “likely” confidence levels in the IPCC AR3 and AR4 seem unjustified.
I wanted to stimulate further debate on this topic, which IMO is needed to make progress on this issue. This is why i suggested reading the HSI, and wanted a rebuttal from the RC folk. Which Tamino did. I piped in at RC with a brief post, which was a huge mistake in the tactics of blogospheric warfare, since I didn’t have time to spend on this and didn’t have a copy of HSI with me.
I made one technical mistake, point #7. Here it is:
7. The Mann et al. 2008, which purports to address all the issues raised by MM and produce a range of different reconstructions using different methodologies, still do not include a single reconstruction that is free of questioned tree rings and centered PCA.
At the continued prodding of SOC over at CA (after I acknowledged the mistake and apologized), I revised my statement to be:
7. The Mann et al. 2008, which purports to address all the issues raised by MM and produce a range of different reconstructions using different methodologies, still do not satisfy their critics because of problems with the proxies and analysis methods.
Mistakes are a “disaster” in blogospheric warfare. But in science (which is what i care about anyways), mistakes can turn out to be interesting and result in people looking at something in a new light.
As a result of my mistake and Gavin’s reply, McIntyre dug more deeply and came up with something illuminating. And now we are having the kind of discussion on Gavin’s thread that I originally wanted to provoke.
When science is uncertain and the paleoconstructions certainly are, science wins when data and hypotheses are examined from all angles. McIntyre has contributed to that probity in a big way. If you don’t like the blog wars or the way the media has reacted to this, well a little more humility in admitting uncertainties and not overselling this stuff in the IPCC and press releases would have gone a long way towards preventing this.
I’d like to propose that we all get out of the way for a few hours on a Sunday and let Judith and Gavin continue, if they are so inclined, without our interruptions–just for a while, as I’m sure we all have a lot of questions.
NewYorkJ:
I’m wondering if this is the “narrative” that Tim Lambert (109) accused me of having. I had asked him what my narrative was, but he never responded. Maybe you’ve answered for him.
At any rate, where do you get this idea that I have some “spin” on all this. Did you detect that in the Q & A with Judith? What about the one with Gavin? In my questions to him and my comments in that thread, do you detect the same s0-called spin?
About the only think I object (on these two threads) is when people are rude and/or insulting. I think if someone disagrees with Judith or Gavin, they can say so without being unduly loud or showy about it.
Judith (#340),
You’re still missing Gavin’s first point. The confidence levels in the sections you’re referring to apply estimates of forcing since 1750. See figure 2.20. The “very likely” conclusion refers to the last 50 years. Much of the uncertainty is in regards to the climate response to a significant change in solar activity. With better measurements in recent decades, we also note that solar activity has been mostly flat or decreasing slightly over the last 50 years, therefore not adversely affecting the “very likely” confidence level discussed. You’re mainly attacking a strawman.
There are other scientists who believe the IPCC has been too timid. As is the case with any consensus position, the lowest common demoninator wording is often adopted. I’ll refer you to Dr. Lacis (which the crowd you support grossly misrepresented), who commented on another “very likely” conclusion.
Human-induced warming of the climate system is established fact.
“My earlier criticism had been that the IPCC AR4 report was equivocating in not stating clearly and forcefully enough that human-induced warming of the climate system is established fact, and not something to be labeled as “very likely” at the 90 percent probability level.”
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/17/lacis-at-nasa-on-role-of-co2-in-warming/
Gavin, the points you make about calculating the no feedback response are correct as far as they go. This issue arose obliquely in the context of another point I was making. Yes these are estimates. In terms of elucidating sensitivity and feedback responses, we can imagine different ways of doing this. So speaking as a scientist, I am saying we shouldn’t get to “settled” about any of this. I don’t see the point in getting into this further here.
Tom (343):
Gavin and Judy are free to address one another. They’re also good at filtering out noise.
You have good intentions, but I don’t want to discourage anyone from contributing to the discussion, and lots of folks have interesting things to say.
Keith @333 – Thanks.
Judy, You have significantly expanded the scope of the AR4 statement. The Lean (2002) solar forcings are not that different from the Wang Lean and Sheely (2005) forcings in the last 50 years, and no further forcing data sets have been proposed that alter this (I am working on a paper exactly on this issue, but read the Gray et al review (in press, available at AGU)). In every case the longer term solar forcing is less than was used in AR4, thus cannot possibly lead to a weaker anthropogenic contribution in the last 50 years. This is a therefore a non-issue with respect to the AR4 statement. (Note too that the confidence levels in fig 2.20 are for pre-industrial to present forcings, not just for recent decades).
You state that “The punch line here is that Hansen and many other climate models cannot explain the warming during the period 1910-1940 without increasing solar forcing.” This is not true, and it is not a conclusion of Hansen et al (2007). Indeed, we point out specifically that the 1940s peak in the temperature record is not matched in the forced component of our simulations regardless of the solar forcing used. We suggest instead that is likely to be a feature of the internal variability since individual runs do show excursions of this magnitude (a result also noted in GFDL papers on the subject Delworth et al, and is seen in figure 9.5 in AR4 too).
Your next line is illogical. “If they can’t explain this earlier warming, why should we be highly confident in their explanation of warming in the second half of the 20th century, which is approximately the same duration and magnitude of the warming during 1910-1940?”
The reason why there is a difference in our ability to confidently attribute changes in 1910-1940 compared to post-1950 (and for reference 50 years is longer than 30 years), is precisely because of the well-known issues you have mentioned. Confidence in forcings is less, confidence in the temperature record is also less (cf Thompson et al (2007)), and there is not the same contrast between possible solar changes and GHGs that allows for a more confident attribution in the later 20th Century. Are we to assume that you think that any climate change in any period of the past must be attributed with the same confidence as the most recent period before that can be credible? That would certainly be a novel argument.
Nobody is arguing that aerosol forcings are not uncertain. But let’s think about what that uncertainty means for the attribution issue, noting that the net effect of aerosols is almost certainly cooling. Imagine that the aerosols have a minimal effect (ie. forcing much less than generally assumed), then you would get a good match with obs using models with a lower-end sensitivity. But you would end up with an attribution to greenhouse gases that would match or exceed the recent trend (i.e. no effect on the AR4 statement). Now, let’s take a case such that the aerosols have a big effect, so that the net forcings are much smaller than the median estimate. In that case, only the models with high sensitivity will match obs, and again, the impact of GHGs will be strong and positive. The reason why the aerosol uncertainties don’t have much of an impact is because they are cooling in the aggregate. Only if there was a significant chance of the anthropogenic aerosols actually having a net warming effect would this change the conclusion and evidence for this is sorely lacking.
Finally, I cannot speak for what other modelling groups have done, but I can absolutely assure you that your description for how the modelling is done at GISS is not ‘how it works’. Our model’s sensitivity has varied over the years as a function of a number of issues – and we have not adjusted our aerosol forcings to match. For AR5 we will have two variations on the forcings (a parameterised indirect effect and a calculated version). The parameterised effect is exactly the same as what we used in AR4, despite the fact that the model sensitivity is different (slightly higher this time). The calculated indirect effect is what comes out of the code we are using and again, was set independently from the sensitivity calculations (which we have not yet done in any case).
There may be, as Kiehl (2007) pointed out, some reasons why the AR4 runs as a whole did not span the whole possible space of sensitivity/aerosol forcings. But again, think about what this means for the attribution issue – we are essentially missing the high sensitivity/low aerosol cases (which will have much warmer temperature rises than observed), or the low sensitivity/high aerosol cases (which will have much less temperature rise than observed). In either case, what information can you gleam from this in terms of attributing the actual trends? They just won’t be relevant. On the contrary, it is by looking at the simulations that have reasonable matches to observed trends (constructed in any plausible fashion) that allow you say something robust about attribution.
None of the issues you are raising are novel or have not been considered in the relevant literature, and so while you are entitled to your opinion on whether a ‘likely’ or ‘very likely’ statement is the best assessment, other informed people can come to other conclusions (as I do, and as IPCC did). However, by misconstruing the very carefully worded AR4 statement you are half-fighting against a strawman of your creation.
Gavin, rather than discussing specific uncertainties, item by item, model by model, and never getting anywhere, my overall problem is with the logic of how confidence levels are determined by the IPCC. Confidence needs to be established by explicit analyses of uncertainties and reflection on what you might not be considering; high confidence should not rest on the best guesses or gut feelings of experts.
The “Guidance Paper“ by Moss and Schneider (2000) recommended steps for assessing uncertainty in the IPCC Assessment Reports and a common vocabulary to express quantitative levels of confidence based on the amount of evidence (number of sources of information) and the degree of agreement (consensus) among experts. Whereas there are some good guidelines in Moss and Schneider, unfortunately the actual implementation of this guidance in the AR3 and AR4 WG1 Reports adopted a subjective perspective or “judgmental estimates of confidence,” whereby a single term (e.g. “very likely”) characterizes the overall confidence. The focus of the IPCC on uncertainty has arguably more on communicating uncertainty rather than characterizing it (e.g. Peterson, 2006).
Take a look at Figure 4 in Moss and Schneider. The confidence levels refer to state of knowledge descriptors that consider two dimensions: the amount of evidence, and the level of consensus/agreement. The amount of evidence can ignore critical elements of the problem. The consensus depends on the agreement of a selected group of experts. Forget for a moment issues of gatekeeping that keeps paper out of the literature or bias among the particular group of experts (or pressure from policy makers). This method focuses on the known knowns, excluding many known unknowns, and giving almost no consideration to the unknown unknowns. With subsequent assessments, the level of agreement/consensus will tend to feed upon itself, since it requires far more effort to overturn an established consensus opinion than it is to establish a new consensus.
Now take a look at Box 2. Not a complete list, but not a bad list either. Do you see much discussion of these uncertainty issues in the IPCC Assessment Reports or do you see them figuring in explicitly into the confidence levels? Especially since physical scientists generally prefer to consider uncertainty in objective terms, why did the WG1 authors choose the subjective perspective and focus mainly on communicating uncertainty rather than evaluating it? I don’t know. Peterson suggests that possible explanations include the lack of time given other competing priorities and the simplicity of using a scale in a table rather than diving deeper into the uncertainties, which enabled the assessors to continue with only a minimal change in their usual working methods. Defenders of the IPCC method of characterizing uncertainties argue that the subjective method with easily understood terms is more easily understood by policy makers.
For reference, here are some papers discussing the issues I raise (ones that I can find accessible online copies):
Peterson (2006)
Oppenheimer et al. (2009)
Kandlikar (2005)
Oppenheimer et al 2008
Gavin the points you make in #349 are not unreasonable. My concern is that the kind of argument you are making is for plausible attribution, not for confidence in attribution at the 90-99% level.
Dr Curry
As a slight tangent to what you discussed, this is a question I’ve asked before and not gotten any great answers
The IPCC statement on post -1950 warming, and its “very likely” conclusion, rests on one thinking process. It rests on the logic that ‘natural variability’ as known (modelled), and should have occured post-1950s, has not taken place. Instead, rising temperatures have deviated upwards, and this difference is then attributed to anthropogenic factors. The IPCC has diagrams to this effect.
On the other hand, rising real-world temperatures have deviated downwards, as compared to the model-predicted temperature rise in the past 10-15 years, and this time, the difference between observed real temperatures and modelled ones, has been attributed to ‘natural variability’.
For example, S Rahamstorf says as much at Realclimate (attributing the recent tiny plateau to ‘natural variability’).
The timescales of the two processes and magnitudes are different – I understand that, but the switch in logic, I don’t get.
In the first instance, the rhetorical impression on which the likelihood of attribution rests is that ‘natural variability’ is understood to a great degree, so much so that it can be modelled. In the second instance, ‘natural variability’ is used as a ‘unknowns’ crutch – to fall back on when models and reality diverge.
I questioned partially/briefly on this on Bart’s website. Eli Rabett, scoffed at the idea that models are heuristic.
So, how do we understand this?
I appreciate the work that GISS and other modeling centers are doing to improve our understanding, but that does not in itself vindicate what I think is overconfidence in the AR4 assessment. With a substantially lower sensitivity in the new GISS model, does it give a different anomaly temps for the 20th century that deviate from the observations? Or was it the GISS AR4 simulations that deviated significantly from the observations? If both simulations pretty much agree with my observations (with substantially different sensitivities), then that would seem to support the argument that i made.
Regarding attribution, lets turn the question around. What would have to be the case for the AR4 statement to be incorrect, which would require a >50% attribution to some sort of natural variability. Recall, there only needs to be a 1-10% chance that the alternative explanation could be correct.
As far as I can tell, the solar variability story is still not settled. If the 1910-1940 temperature increase is attributed to natural internal multidecadal variability, then why not the recent increase? Does the urban heat island effect and other land use changes contribute nothing? Recall, we only need a 1-10% chance that these things add up to more than a 50% influence on the temperature increase in the latter half of the 20th century.
Part of the problem is the way the statement is worded. A bayesian approach to the attribution would undoubtedly lead to a different construction on the attribution statement.
The current wording with its “very likely” ends up giving bootstrapped plausibility to the uncertain elements that go into this, such as the forcing and models.
#342
I strongly disagree that #7 was your only error, but I made my points clearly at the time, I do not need to repeat myself. Your rewritten point 7 is completely unobjectionable, but ask yourself whether anything that Mann et al can do will satisfy their blogospheric critics? It is very obvious to me that nothing could possibly mollify them and so your new #7 is irrelevant. If you doubt this, ask yourself whether the complete openness of the GISTEMP product (online data, online code, multiple sensitivity tests, independent rewriting) has mollified Anthony Watts or Joe D’Aleo or Chris Horner or E. M. Smith? All of them continue to claim (some in court filings no less) that it is somehow manipulated or not to be trusted.
It is always easy to find something to criticise in any analysis – particularly complicated ones like a paleo-climate reconstruction. Many choices need to be made. For each choice, an argument can be made that one should have done it differently, and as long as you are not constrained to demonstrate whether the choice makes a difference (as no blogospheric critics are), one can continue to take pot shots at any choice whatsoever. And if it gets demonstrated that the choice did not make a difference, well, you can just move on to the next one. This is not constructive criticism, this is just criticism. Anyone else who comes in with a different set of choices gets criticised in exactly the same way because it is clear that the most fundamental problem that the critics have is that the analysis is being done at all. (Because if they thought otherwise, they’d do it themselves).
Shub, you basically raise the critical question. The big multidecadal oscillations like the North Atlantic Oscillation, Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation receive barely a mention in the AR4.
Now, with the absence of solar forcing for the 1910-1940 period plus the leveling off of temperature for the past decade, main stream climate researchers like Hansen and Rahmsdorf are talking about natural internal variability for these two periods (but somehow we are supposed to believe that this is not very important for the period 1950-2000?)
Since these oscillations aren’t forced, individual climate model simulations will not pick up the correct timing of say the North Atlantic Oscillation. But an ensemble of simulations should produce distribution of oscillations in terms of frequencies and magnitudes that match observations. Unfortunately most models don’t do a great job at this. For an overview, check out the DEMETER project.
Internal modes aren’t like sunspot cycles, the mode can disappear or change frequency. An interesting question is how/whether these modes will change with global warming. Another even more interesting question is how global warming will project onto these modes of variability. Trying to find an available paper that discusses this, failed, here is a citation:
Nature 398, 799-802 1999, Signature of recent climate change in frequencies of natural atmospheric circulation regimes, S. Corti, F. Molteni & T. N. Palmer
So the point is that the “mainstreamers” are increasingly talking about these multidecadal modes as being significant in the attribution for the last 100 years. I also note that skeptics have been making this point for several decades. So overall this is a move in the right direction, but IMO this further supports my argument about too much confidence in the AR4 conclusion.
#353
Not sure where you got the idea our current model sensitivity is lower than before. It is not. Although I don’t have an exact number yet, all of our beta-tests show values higher than the 2.7 deg C that we had in AR4. However, that is not sufficient to determine whether our modelled temperature trends will be higher or lower. Additional issues are the rates of ocean heat uptake – which will be different (probably slower than before, but again not yet clear), and the magnitude of other forcings (trop ozone, land use, direct aerosol effects, and even the well-mixed greenhouse gas forcings). These forcings are now being calculated as part of the transient simulations and are not imposed upon the model a priori. So the possibility that we can ‘fix’ our long term trends to match obs given that we only have one shot at this, is ruled out.
For your reverse IPCC statement, you would need to show some reason to think that internal variability can produce trends of > 0.3 deg C in SAT over 50 years at the same time that ocean heat content is increasing and the stratosphere is cooling, more often than once in a blue moon. The 1910-1940 period does not demonstrate that for the same reason that you can’t attribute it to some exact contribution of solar/volc/ghg/aer etc. *If* you had better constraints on aerosol or solar forcings for that period (not likely any time soon), *and* confidence that the temperature trends were good to < 0.1 deg C/30 years (say) *and* a tighter bound on climate sensitivity – then you might be able to constrain the internal variability component over that period, and *maybe* it would be large enough. But using best estimates for all those things, you don’t have any confidence that this is the case. Our ensemble mean trend in AR4 for 1910-1940 was 0.12 deg C/30 years with ensemble 2SD of +/- 0.42; observed trend: ~0.34 (GISTEMP). In terms of attribution, a quick scan of the single forcing runs implies that the forcing due to volc, ghgs and solar are comparable in magnitude (0.08,0.15,0.07) with roughly 0.12 cooling from aerosols (minor contributions from everything else). This doesn’t provide much evidence that the internal variability in the model is significantly underestimated in the global mean temperatures at least. The results are similar in other models.
Not sure about your comment about a Bayesian approach giving a different statement. All of the likelihood statements in AR4 are implicitly Bayesian. The temperature record is a single historical event, there is no possible frequentist statement that can be made about it. I find Moss and Schneider’s paper a very good summary of how these assessments should be done, and I do see the elements of their procedure throughout the D&A literature and in Chapter 9 of AR4. If you are complaining that ‘unknown unknowns’ are not included, then sure, but they are never included in anything for obvious reasons. Everything in the assessments implicitly includes the statement “In the light of our current knowledge”. They can’t possibly be absolute. ‘Known unknowns’ – like the aerosol forcing, and early century solar, and climate sensitivity, and uncertainty in the temperature records themselves are all acknowledged and quantified.
Gavin, you miss my point. I am not trying to establish a high confidence in the natural variability argument, I am only pointing out that the high level of confidence in the AR4 statement only requires a greater than 10% confidence level in the alternative argument, which requires only 51% of the forcing to be natural. IMO I have made sufficient arguments to doubt the high level of AR4 confidence.
Regarding the uncertainty in the temperature records all being acknowledged and quantified, see my post 179. Can you read Rayner and believe that the error bars for the ocean in Brohan et al. which are used in the global error bars for the surface temp in the IPCC report? I sure can’t. The EOF reconstructions are a deal breaker for me.
#355
“Now, with the absence of solar forcing for the 1910-1940 period plus the leveling off of temperature for the past decade, main stream climate researchers like Hansen and Rahmsdorf are talking about natural internal variability for these two periods (but somehow we are supposed to believe that this is not very important for the period 1950-2000?)””
I think this illustrates exactly where you are going wrong. You have set this up as a false dichotomy: either a trend must be internal or it must be forced. But it is clear that this is not the case at all. From the number I gave in my last post, the 1910-1940 trends there is a forced trend (which itself is uncertain) combined with internal variability in any particular run. For short time periods the internal variability is large compared to forcings, but as periods get longer the internal variability term decreases in importance. No-one has claimed that there is zero contribution to the 50 years trends of multi-decadal internal variability (of all types – not just that associated with the modes you name) – but note that the contribution may have been positive or negative, just as no-one is claiming that there is no forced component 1910-1940. It is also clear that trends over 10 years have a higher internal component than trends over 50 years, so I don’t understand your jab at Hansen and Rahmsdorf at all.
Gavin, as for the quantification of aerosol forcing uncertainty in the IPCC, perhaps you didn’t read my previous post with the Morgan et al. reference.
Also see references in my previous post. I realize you don’t have time to read these papers on the fly, but they support my arguments that critique the IPCC. I am aware of your arguments, I have seen them many times before, they reflect the mainstream IPCC consensus view. So I don’t think that your arguments are actually countering mine, but that is of course in the eye of the beholder.
Shub, there was one reviewer comment that asked for more substantiation of the 2035 claim. The response, by the review editors, indicated they would look at the matter. They did not. Well, that happens. Fact remains that Rose claimed:
“The scientist behind the bogus claim in a Nobel Prize-winning UN report that Himalayan glaciers will have melted by 2035 last night admitted it was included purely to put political pressure on world leaders.”
This is false, and this is what I reacted to.
I don’t think I have missed your point at all. Raising a potential issue is not sufficient to make a case that it is large enough to matter. There is no evidence that internal variability on these timescales can provide 51% of the post-1950 year trend. It is not that there is a little evidence, there is none. This doesn’t mean that it is absolutely impossible, but it just justify relegating that possibility to a very low chance.
Again, I am not arguing that SST records (particularly prior to WWII) are perfect – they are not. Indeed the differences between the SST analyses are large. But again, this is an issue that improves over time, and the analyses over the last 50 years are much better than during the first half of the century – yet another reason why attribution statements for 1910-1940 are less certain.
Gavin, Can you clarify for me what the forcing agent is for the warming during the period 1910-1940? Solar forcing during that period is apparently miniscule, according to what Lean says in the AR4.
Here is what the AR4 says in Ch 9:
“Modelling studies are also in moderately good agreement with observations during the first half of the 20th century when both anthropogenic and natural forcings are considered, although assessments of which forcings are important differ, with some studies finding that solar forcing is more important (Meehl et al., 2004) while other studies find that volcanic forcing (Broccoli et al., 2003) or internal variability (Delworth and Knutson, 2000) could be more important. Differences between simulations including greenhouse gas forcing only and those that also include the cooling effects of sulphate aerosols (e.g., Tett et al., 2002) indicate that the cooling effects of sulphate aerosols may account for some of the lack of observational warming between 1950 and 1970, despite increasing greenhouse gas concentrations, as was proposed by Schwartz (1993). In contrast, Nagashima et al. (2006) find that carbonaceous aerosols are required for the MIROC model (see Table 8.1 for a description) to provide a statistically consistent representation of observed changes in near-surface temperature in the middle part of the 20th century. The mid-century cooling that the model simulates in some regions is also observed, and is caused in the model by regional negative surface forcing from organic and black carbon associated with biomass burning. Variations in the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation (see Section 3.6.6 for a more detailed discussion) could account for some of the evolution of global and hemispheric mean temperatures during the instrumental period (Schlesinger and Ramankutty, 1994; Andronova and Schlesinger, 2000; Delworth and Mann, 2000); Knight et al. (2005) estimate that variations in the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation could account for up to 0.2°C peak-to-trough variability in NH mean decadal temperatures.”
Here is what the AR4 says in ch 2 re solar variability:
“The estimates of long-term solar irradiance changes used in the TAR (e.g., Hoyt and Schatten, 1993; Lean et al., 1995) have been revised downwards [NOTE THE SAME ESTIMATES WERE USED IN AR4 SIMULATIONS], based on new studies indicating that bright solar faculae likely contributed a smaller irradiance increase since the Maunder Minimum than was originally suggested by the range of brightness in Sun-like stars (Hall and Lockwood, 2004; M. Wang et al., 2005).”
“A new reconstruction of solar irradiance based on a model of solar magnetic flux variations (Y. Wang et al., 2005), which does not invoke geomagnetic, cosmogenic or stellar proxies, suggests that the amplitude of the background component is significantly less than previously assumed, specifically 0.27 times that of Lean (2000). [NOTE GISS AR4 USED LEAN 2000]”
BTW, I wasn’t taking a dig at Hansen and Rahmsdorf at all; i was complimenting them to the extent that they were carefully considering natural internal variability in terms of attribution.
361 and 362, ‘Tis a pity Roger Pielke Sr.’s work receives so little attention as the period in question is the tail end of a century of radical transformation to the land surface of this planet including conversion to agricultural use and denuding of vast areas of forest, the construction of tens of thousands of dams and the conversion to industrial levels of coal usage all over the planet.
> 1910-1940
“Previous apparent trends (eg 1880-1910, 1910-1940) had all abruptly ended, there was no reason to assume things would be different in 1988 – unless you accept the model’s prediction, of course…which is precisely the point….”
http://julesandjames.blogspot.com/2010/08/wiley-interdisciplinary-reviews-climate.html#8069524284170570054
Judith Curry,
“If the 1910-1940 temperature increase is attributed to natural internal multidecadal variability, then why not the recent increase?”
You’re stating a non sequitur…
I can suppose that X causes Y
And asking why people don’t conlude
X causes Z.
Is the 1910-1940 increase attributed to natural internal multidecadal variability?
Hansen (2007):
“Two noticeable discrepancies with the temporal
variation of observed global surface temperature are the
absence of strong cooling following the 1883 Krakatau
eruption and the lack of a warm peak at about 1940. We
suggest in Supplement Sect. S1.2 that the near-absence of
observed cooling after Krakatau may be, at least in part, a
problem with the ocean data.
The model’s fit with peak warmth near 1940 depends in
part on unforced fluctuation”
Hansen, J. et al. (2007), Climate simulations for 1880″“2003 with GISS modelE, Climate Dynamics, 29(7-8), 661-696, doi:10.1007/s00382-007-0255-8.
Judith,
“and the unknown unknowns inadequately pondered”
How does one ponder unknown unknowns?
Gavin, the sensitivity for Hansen (1988) was 4.2 C. You state 2.7C for the AR4 simulations, and now a likely higher value for the AR5 simulations. And I’ll wager that all of these simulations show a good match with the time series of global surface temperature anomalies. Interesting to ponder how such a good agreement materializes; somehow all the new forcing data sets and model parameterization changes magically give pretty much the same time series of gloal temperature.
Hank, thanks for pointing out the post on James Annan’s site, i just found out about this journal on Fri and have avidly been reading the papers.
But the point is this: how can we have any confidence that we understand natural variability if we can’t explain the 1910-1940 period? If the answer is natural internal multidecadal variability, then we are likely to be underestimating this contribution to the latter half of the 20th century attribution assessment.
Judith Curry,
“But the point is this: how can we have any confidence that we understand natural variability if we can’t explain the 1910-1940 period? If the answer is natural internal multidecadal variability, then we are likely to be underestimating this contribution to the latter half of the 20th century attribution assessment.”
So much of this is woolly…
The hypothetical claim that we can’t explain 1910-1940 gmst
The framing in terms of either/or, instead of how much
The assumption that if we can’t, it must be due to a complete absence of understanding of natural variability, ignoring uncertainties in forcings and observed gmst, again the either/or thing
The assumption that if it was natural variability then, it is likely to be now (more than we thought)…
Send them before the Revolutionary Tribunal!
Judith Curry,
“Gavin, the sensitivity for Hansen (1988) was 4.2 C. You state 2.7C for the AR4 simulations, and now a likely higher value for the AR5 simulations. And I’ll wager that all of these simulations show a good match with the time series of global surface temperature anomalies. Interesting to ponder how such a good agreement materializes; somehow all the new forcing data sets and model parameterization changes magically give pretty much the same time series of gloal temperature.”
How close, numerically, is a “good match”? How do these ‘good matches’ compare to the expected effects of combined changes in sensitivities and forcings? What are the numerical differences that make you wonder about magic? Wait… that was a “wager”… so you’re guessing? And then you take the guess as a given?… “Interesting to ponder how such a good agreement materializes”
Keith,
“At any rate, where do you get this idea that I have some “spin” on all this. Did you detect that in the Q & A with Judith? What about the one with Gavin? In my questions to him and my comments in that thread, do you detect the same s0-called spin?”
I thought your interview with Judy was tough and fair, and you asked some good questions. If anything, Gavin had a much easier ride, tho probably you had less to press him on.
Dr. Curry (#330) – thanks for agreeing on the definition of no-feedbacks response. Evidently others here don’t think this is very important, but I appreciate Dr. Schmidt (#337) echoing my remarks in saying “it doesn’t depend on the physics at the surface, or the treatment of ice or land processes. These calculations are purely radiative transfer calculations in the atmosphere.” So I remain confused why you think there is any significant uncertainty in the number.
The no-feedbacks response comes from a calculation essentially identical to the calculations that determine radiative forcing. The major difference is that the no-feedbacks response comes from the full radiative properties of the system across the spectrum (all emission is increased when temperature rises), while the radiative forcing for, say, doubling CO2 comes from taking a more subtle difference between the radiative properties with and without the added GHG’s.
So the uncertainty in the value of radiative forcings is of necessity far greater than the uncertainty in the linear no-feedbacks response.
In the tables of the Soden and Held paper I referenced above, the range in lambda_0 values across a wide variety of models goes from -3.13 to -3.28 with a mean of -3.22 and standard deviation of 0.04. In other words, the no-feedbacks “Planck” response, while as Gavin says not a universal constant, is consistent across all models to within about 2 or 3 percent.
In contrast, IPCC AR4 WG1 Ch 2 cites all greenhouse gas radiative forcing numbers as known only to within 10% (Executive Summary, p. 131).
So I remain puzzled why Dr. Curry, apparently familiar with all this, would say the no-feedbacks response value was considerably *less* certain than the radiative forcing number.
Arthur, I’m getting rather burnt out here and there are other things I need to do. This is an interesting topic for another time. Again, the way it is normally done is a simplification, there are other ways of thinking about this and making the calculation.
Dr Curry
Thank you. I must admit, I felt a small touch of satisfaction, and relief, that outsiders like me, can follow issues independently and ask correct questions (re: #355).
I hope you start your blog sometime soon. 😉
Shub:
I bet Tom Fuller would be happy to host as a returning guest poster!
Dr. Curry (#373) – the way it is normally done is not a simplification, it is a direct consequence of the definition of no-feedbacks response, which I thought we agreed on. If you have some “other ways of thinking about this and making the calculation” then, as I’ve asked before, I would love to see an alternative definition or peer-reviewed reference on the subject!
Laursaurus, you’re correct, although I think there are others who would beat me to the punch.
Where’s Lucia? Don’t see her on either of these posts…
#366 And I thought we were doing so well.
“And I’ll wager that all of these simulations show a good match with the time series of global surface temperature anomalies. ”
Hmm.. well, there will be different responses with identical forcings, but you perhaps overestimate how much difference a small change in equilibrium sensitivity will have in over a short period. The 1988 model has slightly over shot trends since then with only slightly larger forcings than we actually estimate know. A straight scaling would imply that a model with a sensitivity of 3 deg C would have done better. The difference between 2.7 and 3 degrees is not going to be so apparent. Only the AR4 model has been run for the 20th C, though obviously the AR5 model will be. My wager will be that it will have a slightly higher 20th C trend for the reasons discussed above.
“Interesting to ponder how such a good agreement materializes; somehow all the new forcing data sets and model parameterization changes magically give pretty much the same time series of global temperature.”
What is this? You imagine some result that you might occur, and then you insinuate it’s because we fixed it (because, let’s be frank, magic doesn’t exist). Perhaps this is a new way of doing science without actually doing any work? I’d greatly prefer if you went back to being serious.
Judith and Gavin,
You’re technical arguments are interesting but I can’t help thinking the obvious public disagreements between you both will be used by climate sceptics/deniers to claim once again that there is no consensus, the ‘jury is out on climate change’ etc etc. It will give ammunition to those who wish to ignore the problem at least until it is too late.
I know Gavin doesn’t want this and Judith wrote in 2007 “But I have yet to see any option that is worse than ignoring the risk of global warming and doing nothing.”
But, isn’t that what’s going to happen unless we all get our act together?
Arthur Smith #376 Check out some of the early (circa 1970’s, 1980’s) papers on energy balance climate models. At some point i will get into this.
tempterrain:
What you fear and the silence you appear to argue for is exactly what Judy is arguing against. Open discussions mean open discussions. Acknowledging reasonable criticisms from “political” opponents is a prerequisite for open discussions. Suppressing or ignoring such arguments is not helpful and counter to the norms of scientific discourse. It also tends to backfire politically when the critics happen to be right once or twice, viz., the credibility of IPCC and Pachauri.
P.S. I am optimistic that we will manage whatever anthropogenic global warming is in the pipeline without dramatically enlarging the scope of government or the role of the UN.
Tempterrain, I agree with Bernie’s statement regarding the importance of open discussions on this. It is essential for scientific progress, and on such an important topic, it is essential that the absolute best information is made available to policy makers, with full disclosures of uncertainty. Uncertainty can dissipate political will for dealing with a problem, but being overly certain and confident risks bad policies being made don’t solve the original problem and/or have very undesirable unintended consequences.
In terms of actually taking action on this issue, I think climategate was a much bigger problem than scientists debating and talking about uncertainty. At this point, transparency, openness and continued scientific discussion and debate are needed. But none of the scientific issues being debated here should prevent rational decision making on this topic.
Gavin #378
Gavin in a previous message states: “However, Judy’s statement about model tuning is flat out wrong. Models are not tuned to the trends in surface temperature.”
Not directly, but much tuning does take place, and no one submits climate model results that deviate substantially from the observed global temperature deviations. That is where “magic” apparently comes in. I glanced at your 2006 paper, the only mention of tuning or calibration I see is in the last paragraph: “Further work is being done to improve the higher- resolution simulation, which includes tuning of various parameterizations as well as investigating the impact of matched increases in the vertical resolution.”
The aerosol forcing is the biggest tuning in this regard in many climate models, although the GISS model uses published forward calculations (the right thing to do, but still fraught with great uncertainty), whereas many climate models use an inverse method to get aerosol forcing that matches. Se the IPCC for a summary of how this is done
Climate model tuning is discussed on realclimate here and here. The latter post states: “Note that most “˜tunings’ are done at the process level. Only those that can’t be constrained using direct observations of the phenomena are available for tuning to get better large scale climate features. As mentioned in the previous post, there are only a handful of such parameters that get used in practice.”
I for one think it would have been appropriate for Schmidt (2006) to discuss these tunings.
Dr Curry at #380 shows (IMO) where she runs aground by getting so much of the science basics wrong again. I don’t mean this as a personal attack, but my own honest impression of the biggest failing in this whole very strange input into what is, at heart, a technical topic.
Arthur (#372) is right about “no-feedback response” and how it is calculated. It is not a simplification, except in the trivial sense that calculating it involves a large numeric integration; and Dr Curry’s response at #373 saying “there are other ways of thinking about this and making the calculation” is, I think, based on another failure of technical understanding.
Dr Curry follows up in #380 suggesting we look at unnamed papers on energy balance. I don’t think that is responsive. I don’t buy the “burn out” line, unless it comes with a recognition that the original statements about “other ways” were, in fact, not well founded and she needs to go back and recheck these technical points to let her input have much value.
The method involves a conceptually simple but mathematically arduous integration for radiation transfer in the atmosphere: over the globe, over times, and over altitudes, for a given surface temperature and atmospheric profile. Repeat as needed for different temperatures to get the response!
Dr Curry seems to be suggesting there’s some other better way, but is frustratingly coy about spelling it out or dealing with responses that challenge the technical foundation of her claims.
At this stage it seems very likely that Dr Curry doesn’t really know of any better way either — unless it is itself a simplification to shorten the integrations! Or else, she is just incorrect in her understanding of the technical details again.
—
This, in fact, is the real cause of all the problems. It isn’t that people have knives out for a scientist breaking ranks or that we can’t tolerate dissent. It is that Dr Curry’s various inputs invariably come powerfully linked to technical statements that are incorrect or technically flawed in some crucial way.
I don’t mean any lack of respect here. But I think these technical points are critical — and are shown to be critical by the fact that Dr Curry keeps making these kinds of technical statements as a basis for her input. The problem is that she keeps shying away from the questions or challenges on such points.
Cheers — Chris Ho-Stuart
Arthur Smith, see this link for a broader perspective on climate sensitivity. The linear relationship between delta F and delta T is an approximation
Chris Ho Stuart, thank you for your email. Please understand that I have devoted many hours to this thread (pretty much blew my weekend, and now I have to do the work that I get paid to do), which is on the blog wars and the politics at the science policy interface. I am prepared to discuss broad issues of science here, but not get into scientific details. we can save that for a future technical thread on the topic.
Note, the link on my previous post to arthur didn’t go through, here is the link.
Gavin, the inability for climate models to provide a consistent explanation for the warming between 1910-1940 does not inspire confidence in the attribution process, since the warming between 1970-2000 was nearly the same magnitude as the earlier warming. I can’t state it any simpler than this.
Judith Curry
“Arthur Smith, see this link for a broader perspective on climate sensitivity. The linear relationship between delta F and delta T is an approximation”
“climate sensitivity” is not the “no feedback response”. On page 10 of your link the authors state briefly that the “no feedback response” is equal to 0.30 W/m^2. That is the only mention.
#383
In your haste to find some reason to argue with me, you have (again) ended up not reading the references. Schmidt et al (2006) does in fact discuss all of the process level tunings that were done to improve the model match to modern climatology. Specifically, it discusses tuning of the relative humidity thresholds (sec. 3.g): “The model is tuned (using the threshold relative humidity U00 for the initiation of ice and water clouds) to be in global radiative balance (i.e. net radiation at TOA within ±0.5W m−2 of zero) and a reasonable planetary albedo (between 29% and 31%) for the control run simulations.” It also discusses tuning of the gravity wave drag parameterisations (Table 2) and the consequences of these tunings for model-obs comparisons (section 5). The reason why there is no discussion of tuning the model to match temperature trends is because that was not done. How can I make that any clearer?
Keith, let me repeat the same request I made in the ‘Gavin’ thread — a separate thread for each of the scientists, focused on science.
Over there, people fill the thread with stuff keeping Gavin from focusing on interesting science questions.
Here, Dr. Curry says she is “…. not get into scientific details. we can save that for a future technical thread on the topic.”
In both cases — your two threads are overwhelmed with long postings that don’t deal with the science, but assert as true things someone believes to be true.
Please — set up a science-questions thread, for each scientist, and keep it heavily moderated (even silent for days if the scientists don’t have anything to add, so they can come back to a focused thread when they have information to add) — leaving these fuzzy topics to continue to catch the driveby/assertion/opinion/belief postings/
Or if you don’t want to host such topics, try to hand off to someone who will that both scientists will work with.
It’s an opportunity here, almost working, needs help though.
Oh, never mind, I see you’ve already said you won’t do that:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/2010/08/04/gavins-perspective/#comment-13718
#387.
The ability to do attribution depends on a number of factors: quality of the observed data, quality of the forcing data, and the difference in the predicted fingerprints of the various forcings. We have clearly established above that each of these aspects is less congenial to attribution in the period 1910-1940 than it is for 1950-2000. Yet you still seem to think that the periods are equal in some sense (otherwise your logical link of the two periods makes no sense).
Judith Curry,
“Gavin, the inability for climate models to provide a consistent explanation for the warming between 1910-1940 does not inspire confidence in the attribution process, since the warming between 1970-2000 was nearly the same magnitude as the earlier warming. I can’t state it any simpler than this.”
How is anyone to make heads or tails of these stts? “Inability” — how much? It’s not an either/or thing. What are the sources of alleged inability, and how do they relate to confidence in attribution over 1970-2000? “does not inspire confidence” — to whom, what does the negative stt “not inspire confidence” mean, and why? And how does ‘it’ flow from “inability”, quantitatively? “since the warming between 1970-2000 was nearly the same magnitude as the earlier warming” — are confidence levels in the observational record and forcings “nearly the same” over 1970-2000 vs. 1910-1940? Gavin has raised this issue a number of times… are you factoring those issues in your alleged statements about confidence?
Too much loose stuff; how can any reader make sense of, let alone check and evaluate, your stts? A paper is usually the start of discussion, where points are nailed down and can be nailed. The “radical implications of the blogosphere” don’t change this, despite what Ravetz says (and Ravetz is a dolt). You’re a scientist.
Dr. Curry (#385, 386) – thanks for the link, but that’s a scary paper! “more than a 50% likelihood that Delta T2x lies outside the canonical range of 1.5°C to 4.5°C, with disquietingly large values not being precluded.”
In any case, eq. 6 and 7 seems to be the only place there discussing “the change in global-mean near-surface air temperature without feedback” and the number is identical to what every body else says it is.
Yes, the linear relation between delta F and delta T, with or without feedbacks, is an approximation. But it should be an increasingly good approximation for small values of delta F, except in the very worrisome case where the linearized equilibrium sensitivity is actually infinite!
The things we don’t understand, where the true uncertainty lies, are *all* feedback issues. There is essentially no uncertainty (10% level) in radiative forcings, and there is even less uncertainty (2-3% at most) in the no-feedbacks response. If you want to discuss uncertainty in our understanding of climate, feedbacks are the central issues, not the bare radiative physics.
Arthur, the issue is that there is no unique relationship between F and T. Run a radiative transfer code, and see how many different combinations of surface temperature, atmospheric temperature and humidity profiles, and cloud properties you can put together to give you a specified value of TOA SW and LW fluxes.
Gavin, it is very difficult to have confidence in the attribution statement for the latter half of the 2oth century, if we cannot explain the warming in the earlier period. If the warming in the early period was caused by multidecadal ocean oscillations such as the AMO and PDO, then it is much more difficult to rule out the same as dominant factors in the current warming.
Hank, I understand what you want. I’ve come to realize that I can’t do extensive technical discussions on someone else’s blog (climateaudit comes closest to a format and moderation that I can deal with). and not to mention the time factor; sometimes I have time and sometimes I don’t (last week at RC was an example of when i didn’t have time). It is likely that I will start my own blog, I am investigating the technical aspects right now, the first thread will be a discussion of the what and the how, and the ideas that you put forward will be a key aspect of what i would like to accomplish.
Dr Curry — I am sympathetic, to some extent, but on a strictly impersonal level it won’t wash. IMO the most important criticism you have received has been on those points where you get details wrong: again, and again, and again!
You mean well, I am sure, but you have ended up making a mess of things, precisely because you mess up the details. The problems you have experienced are not primarily because people have been mean to you, but because people have been pointing out technical flaws in your posts, which undermine the whole thing — and that is where you responses have been wholly inadequate.
You say:
“I am prepared to discuss broad issues of science here, but not get into scientific details. we can save that for a future technical thread on the topic.”
But as long as you keep making broad statements that fail to withstand examination in the light of details, you demonstrate the problems — a rather ironic way to illuminate the “blog wars”.
The thread here has been most useful, and certainly calmer. In my view, this discussion is showing just why these technical details matter, and how the fundamental problem is how to get people past invalid broad characterizations when they won’t look at or can’t understand the technical details that invalidate them!
I look forward to the more technical thread if it ever happens. Technical details of physics and how the natural world works are my own personal primary interest. I know in my head that our response is important, but it’s not what grabs my interest.
IMO one of the hurdles we face in these discussions is that many people have an almost unlimited capacity to avoid the plain consequence of technical details if it becomes a threat to their preferred broad picture.
But good luck with it in any case. I’ll be interested to see where it goes — Chris
Chris,
There has been a great deal of technical discussion on both of these threads. At this point, the level of detail you are asking for would probably be best met by Judith at her own blog, once that is started up.
Yes, Keith; there has. It has been my main interest in this thread.
Gavin and Arthur have been particularly good at the technical specifics; and others have engaged also. Steve McIntyre, for example. Dr Curry also… but by her own account, she limits her technical contributions, and in my view this means she has so far not adequately responded to some of the most telling criticisms of her broad pictures.
I do know she has addressed some technical details, but (IMO) she has frequently missed the point. Witness the mess above on no-feedback response, which Arthur and Gavin both described accurately and Dr Curry got wrong. She’s since shifted to sensitivity issues, but without acknowledging this is something different and without recognizing the defects in her remarks with respect to no-feedback response.
It’s been a pattern in these threads.
I think Dr Curry is aware that the technical detail DOES need to be addressed better in her own remarks and I don’t belittle how much work that can be. I appreciate the limits of time, and that she’s been a bit overwhelmed with the exchanges in recent weeks. I can wait, and I wish her well with it, honestly.
As it stands, there’s been enough said to suggest that her broad pictures are distorted by problems with underlying details. I remain willing to read more when and if it gets fixed, but so far it’s not promising.
The exchanges in recent weeks have been — as others have noted — something of a train wreck. It’s been illuminating as a object lesson in the problems rather than for actual insight to address them! It is the technical specifics which appear here and elsewhere that are the only reliable foundation for a credible broad picture, and I continue to think one of the best things for scientists to do is to carry on harping on those pesky details and correcting the specific errors where they are made in public discourse. It’s being done in this thread too.
Cheers — Chris
I agree with Chris. The technical details need to be sorted out first, before making generalized claims.
I also believe that Judith Curry has the best of intentions, and is acting from genuine concern.
A final point, not to have a dig, but for reasons of productive debate, it is imperative to acknowledge points that are made and concede the good ones. Gavin blew up a number of claims (some of them uncontroversial, binary true/false stuff, like claims about the contents of a paper), and JC failed to dispute or concede the points, the closest to a concession was…
“Gavin the points you make in #349 are not unreasonable.”
… is too vague. This is how readers and commenters can become frustrated.
#396
Your statement is equivalent to stating that we can’t find someone guilty of a crime today because some other cases in the past are still unsolved. It is a non sequitur. It is precisely because we have more information about changes today than we have about changes longer ago that attribution gets easier. We know for the recent period that ocean heat content went up, not down. We don’t know that for 1910-1940. We know for the recent period that the stratosphere has been cooling. We don’t know that for 1910-1940. We know for the recent period that solar has been flat. We don’t know that for 1910-1940. Etc.
Some earlier changes *are* very likely attributable to various causes – where the conditions I outlined above are met – an orbital cause for N.H. Summer warming in the Early Holocene, a lake discharge event for the 8.2 kyr event for instance. But you need a signal that is clear, potential causes that are well defined and that have distinct fingerprints that can be discerned in the available data.
For 1910-1940, three factors at least contribute to warming as far as we can tell – increasing GHGs, increasing solar, and decrease in volcanoes. Increasing aerosols counters that. The solar and aerosols are the most uncertain, and so the attribution to forced vs. internal, or natural vs. anthropogenic will also be uncertain. Our AR4 model suggests for instance that a third of the trend can be attributable to the net forcings, and two thirds to internal variability, and that about half of the forced trend was anthropogenic. But there are large error bars, and I don’t know how robust that is across different models.
You appear to be demanding a level of certainty about 1910-1940 that doesn’t exist before you will accept the level of certainty about recent trends that does. I fail to see how that makes sense. Each attribution problem is unique, and while the same techniques can be used , and the same logic applies, the answer, or even whether an answer can be sensibly given depends entirely on the specifics of the case.
Gavin writes,
“Each attribution problem is unique, and while the same techniques can be used , and the same logic applies, the answer, or even whether an answer can be sensibly given depends entirely on the specifics of the case.”
In other words, independent variables. The fact that the internal variability component of a trend may be +0.2 deg. C. in one period, doesn’t alter the probability of it being -0.001 deg. C. in another disjoint period. Because they are two independent random variables, with symmetric distributions, and means of zero. Right?
Reading these threads with great interest, I am struck with one aspect of the dispute in particular. Who has the “burden of proof” as it were.
In the realm of the consensus in general, and the next AR in particular, it seems that Gavin Smith is correct that the burden is on Judith Curry to demonstrate sufficient uncertainty to justify a change in the literature.
However, in the public debate, it is a simple fact that the last year has shaken the public’s confidence in the science as presented, particularly as to its certainty. If all you care about is the academics, then have at it. But for those who genuinely fear imminent, drastic consequences from the use of fossil fuels, the burden has shifted markedly to the consensus scientists to remove the uncertainty from the public’s mind.
In that context, if the consensus scientists cannot convince Judith Curry and Steve McIntyre (who seem to share their basic political leanings), I think the chances of convincing 50 percent plus 1 of the electorate approach zero.
(As an aside, Lazar umpiring the balls and strikes of this debate is like a Yankee fan umpiring a game between New York and Boston.)
Gavin, the issue is this. How can we have confidence in the model attribution, that it is getting the right answer for the right reason? User confidence in a simulation model system depends critically on confirmation of simulations, both using historical data (hindcasts, in-sample) and actual forecasts (out-of-sample observations). The lack of ability to convincingly explain the variability in the earlier part of the 20th century reduces the confidence in attribution of the late 20th century. Why do we have more confidence in a short term weather forecast than a climate forecast on century time scales? Confirmation with out-of-sample observations for the weather forecasts builds confidence in the weather predictions. For a climate model simulation on 100 year time scales, we only have one realization for which we have historical data. And even for that single century simulation, we do not have a confident explanation for more than half of that period.
So it depends entirely on the specifics of the case. Well ok, you only have one “case” that may or may not have the correct attribution. You can’t place much confidence in simply one case.
GaryM, the burden of proof is on the IPCC, not on poor little me.
The history of the IPCC is intimately connected with the policy issue of stabilization of atmospheric greenhouse gases. In the context of the precautionary principle and the UNFCCC, the IPCC’s main objective has been to assess whether there is sufficient certainty in the science so as to trigger action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions under the precautionary principle. This objective puts the IPCC in the position of bearing the burden of proof. As proponents, the IPCC is working to establish evidence to support its thesis of greenhouse warming contributing to dangerous climate change, and providing arguments against a primary cause being natural variability. This framework is different from one that conducts a comprehensive assessment of natural climate variability and land use change and their impacts, in addition to anthropogenic changes in atmospheric composition, with no a priori assumption of their relative roles. A valid concern is that in its role as an assessor of the risk of dangerous anthropogenic climate change in the context of the precautionary principle, the IPCC is subject to both framing and confirmation biases, whereby the scientific problem is framed too narrowly and the narrow framing plus pressures from policy makers to reduce uncertainty produced confirmation bias.
This is the point I am making. The burden of proof is on the IPCC. Based upon their case and too much circular reasoning IMO and overconfidence, reasonable doubt is not an illogical position.
GaryM, trying to umpire this based on who “sounds better” or replies to more of the other persons arguments, really doesn’t mean much. Too often, rhetoric and truthiness wins the argument.
The POINT I have been trying to make is that as scientists we need to continually challenge all of our premises, or we will end up fooling ourselves, and to start we need to do a better job of assessing and characterizing uncertainty in all aspects of our science.
Lazar, the points that you think Gavin “won” in some way, well I don’t concede any of them. He missed my points, criticizing something i didn’t say, and then I say I don’t disagree with what he said. Its distraction from my point, he hasn’t refuted my points in any convincing way, IMO.
If I ever get involved in a discussion like this again in the blogosphere, i will insist on a formal argument structure, with numbered arguments and premises so that justification can be assessed in a more sensible way.
Judith, Gavin and Bernie,
No-one is suggesting that scientific discussion, and even argument should be hidden away but, at the same time, it is important to publicly state just what you do agree upon as well as what you don’t.
The deniers are politically astute enough to magnify all and any differences they can identify in order to, as Judith well puts it, ‘dissipate political will for dealing with a problem’. They’ve convinced themselves there is no a problem.
So, it’s important to find time to simply say, whatever differences you might have scientifically, that you both do agree that the build up of atmospheric CO2 and other GHGs is a problem which needs to be addressed and that they cannot be allowed to increase out of all control.
Re: Burden of proof. This is a larger discussion and an imp0rtant one. The rather feverish reach for the precautionary principle leads one to think that the consensus team does not believe they can overcome this burden. The skeptical side, OTOH, often seems to think they get off scot-free as they are pointing out defects rather than offering alternatives.
So this often seems like a proof-free discussion–with inevitable results…
Judith Curry (407),
I agree with you 100% if you are talking about where the burden of proof should be. My comment was about where that burden currently lies as a matter of fact.
You describe the IPCC as it should be, I was just describing it as it is. I understand that part of your argument is that the IPCC should adhere to its own rules. Again many (including me) would agree. But there again, it is the IPCC that has to be convinced to do that.
Since the IPCC controls the assessment report process, it determines the rules, appoints the authors etc. The IPCC thus ultimately decides what level of certainty to include in the report. I was not speaking in a metaphysical sense of who is right, nor in any sense trying to criticize or demean “little old” you. I was just making the larger point that the “ultimate” burden of proof, regardless of what the IPCC thinks, rests on the climate consensus scientists.
(If I am wrong, and you can change the levels of confidence in the next AR without convincing the Gavin Smiths of the world that they are wrong, then I stand corrected. Otherwise, you are arguing with someone who essentially agrees with you.)
In other words, in the arena of debate that I find much less interesting (the UN), Gavin Smith and the other consensus scientists have the advantage, no matter who likes it or not. In the arena that matters to me, where people vote on how much taxes they will pay and who controls their economy, not only does the consensus bear the burden, but you are winning the debate.
Similarly, my crack about Lazar as an umpire had nothing to do with what is really important in the debate. For what little my opinion is worth, I care not at all about who “wins” this debate in the academic sphere. I care a great deal about what policies are implemented or not. That it is the only reason I, and millions of others not involved in the inside baseball, are following the debate at all.
You get enough guff from those who disagree with you. There was none intended in my post.
Judith Curry,
How about;
1)
JC: “Gavin, the sensitivity for Hansen (1988) was 4.2 C. You state 2.7C for the AR4 simulations, and now a likely higher value for the AR5 simulations. And I’ll wager that all of these simulations show a good match with the time series of global surface temperature anomalies. Interesting to ponder how such a good agreement materializes; somehow all the new forcing data sets and model parameterization changes magically give pretty much the same time series of gloal temperature.”
GS: “What is this? You imagine some result that you might occur, and then you insinuate it’s because we fixed it (because, let’s be frank, magic doesn’t exist). Perhaps this is a new way of doing science without actually doing any work?”
JC: “much tuning does take place, and no one submits climate model results that deviate substantially from the observed global temperature deviations. That is where “magic” apparently comes in. I glanced at your 2006 paper, the only mention of tuning or calibration I see is in the last paragraph: “Further work is being done to improve the higher- resolution simulation, which includes tuning of various parameterizations as well as investigating the impact of matched increases in the vertical resolution.” […] I for one think it would have been appropriate for Schmidt (2006) to discuss these tunings.”
GS: “In your haste to find some reason to argue with me, you have (again) ended up not reading the references. Schmidt et al (2006) does in fact discuss all of the process level tunings that were done to improve the model match to modern climatology. Specifically, it discusses tuning of the relative humidity thresholds (sec. 3.g): “The model is tuned (using the threshold relative humidity U00 for the initiation of ice and water clouds) to be in global radiative balance (i.e. net radiation at TOA within ±0.5W m−2 of zero) and a reasonable planetary albedo (between 29% and 31%) for the control run simulations.” It also discusses tuning of the gravity wave drag parameterisations (Table 2) and the consequences of these tunings for model-obs comparisons (section 5). The reason why there is no discussion of tuning the model to match temperature trends is because that was not done. How can I make that any clearer?”
Tom Fuller,
That is why people fight so hard over who has the burden of proof. Where the proponents have the burden of proof, the opponents win by default if the proponents fail to meet their burden. I think it is the same here. No one is imposing a burden of proof in the electoral sense. It is just a matter of fact. If the consensus cannot meet their burden (ie. convince the voters of the likelihood, degree and certainty of the risk), the skeptics need not prove a thing.
After Kyoto it seemed the climate consensus had met its burden (with the politicians at least). Judith Curry, Steven McIntyre and the other prominent skeptics were all around before Copenhagen but were nowhere near as prominent.
Revelation of the scope of the “remedies” being proposed for Copenhagen, combined with the climategate imbroglio, changed things drastically. They awakened the voters, who scared the politicians, who derailed Copenhagen and then (so far) ditched cap and trade. And the consensus scientists essentially found themselves back where they started, having the burden of proof all over again. Which accounts for a lot of the anger I think.
tempterrain, #410: “So, it’s important to find time to simply say, whatever differences you might have scientifically, that you both do agree that the build up of atmospheric CO2 and other GHGs is a problem which needs to be addressed and that they cannot be allowed to increase out of all control.”
What you’re asking for is a simplistic assertion to resolve a complex issue. The assertion you request would be untruthful in that it would misrepresent the current state of climate knowledge with regard to forcings and feedbacks (and other elements including surface temperature record integrity etc). But, and in my opinion most importantly, it would be an assertion that should not BE made by scientists. Scientists should not be dictating policy. Their role is to do the science and provide the summation of that knowledge to policy makers, not in the form of policy dictation but in the form of current scientific knowledge.
We vote for our policy makers in a democracy. That’s how it works. I did not – with all due respect, Gavin and Judy – vote for these scientists. They DO NOT have a mandate to dictate whether or not I drive a car, pay a tax, pay a higher tax, heat my childrens’ bedrooms or have my grandmother “disconnected” for an over-sized carbon footprint, just because she selfishly wants her measly little life support machine running 24/7.
SimonH, (and Judith)
I don’t think anyone is asking Judith to say anything she hasn’t said previously. She, in 2007, accused Lomborg of “standing squarely in the sceptics camp” and of failing ” to appreciate the risks that global warming bring to us all.”
Previously she has also argued that scientists should ” fall out of the ivory tower” and engage the public:
http://www.pacinst.org/topics/integrity_of_science/AGU_IntegrityofScience_Curry.pdf
Fair enough, but whether the Watts Up With That website is the best place is debatable. However, having done that, she might well agree that it would now be useful to tell Anthony Watts that he too is ” failing to appreciate the dangers….”
tempterrain:
You said,
“So, it’s important to find time to simply say, whatever differences you might have scientifically, that you both do agree that the build up of atmospheric CO2 and other GHGs is a problem which needs to be addressed and that they cannot be allowed to increase out of all control.”
Speaking just for myself, I have no problem with this statement, and I doubt anybody actually could as it is stated. But it includes many unproven prognostications and no time horizons and as such makes a lousy basis for assessing policy alternatives. It is the equivalent of saying that we should not allow pollution. Whatever the problem, you need to size it and then size the cost of solving it. Science plays a role at every stage. Scientists and those asked to pay for the solution may well disagree over the specifics and the specifics are very important. This is why Gore and others create scary scenarios and folks like me like to check the reality behind those scary scenarios. However, it is difficult to check things out when there is limited access to data and methods, nobody wants to answer tough questions, and many start by assigning demeaning and degrading labels. Are you really surprised that folks like me tend to become more skeptical. Do you really think I am going to find a Gavin more persuasive than a Judy Curry? Judy’s position is very astute – if you do not allow dialogue on the science, how are you going to get dialogue on policy options. The position of not talking to critics will not persuade those who believe in zero government involvement (little will) but it certainly will leave me with no real option but to be skeptical of almost everything that those who demonize their opposition say. For example, how do you think I should respond to Congressman Markey’s over the top comments?
> respond to … Markey’s …
Depends.
Are you thinking about what Markey actually said?
Or are you thinking about what Morano quotes him as saying?
Are you aware Mark Morano makes stuff up, puts quotation marks around it, and gets it widespread across many blogs?
Do you check his sources?
Skepticism: good for you, and it should be liberally applied.
Testing for a sense of humor …
Bernie,
I’m more concerned that the next Australian PM will be a person, Tony Abbott, who is on record as saying the “science of climate change is crap” so I’ll pass regarding your question on Congressman Markey!
Incidentally, saying that CO2 and other GHG emissions should be controlled isn’t the same as saying they should not be allowed.
Hank:
You are mistaken. Moreover I try to check out anything that seems too good or too bad to be true though in this instance I originally relied on WUWT.
The following statement is on Ed Markey’s website
http://globalwarming.house.gov/mediacenter/pressreleases_2008?id=0308#main_content
Markey: Giant Ice Sheet Breaks Off Greenland, Global Warming Deniers Should Call it Home
August 7, 2010 ““ An ice sheet covering 100 square miles has broken off Greenland. This giant ice island is more than four times the size of New York’s Manhattan Island and comes following the warmest six months on record. Today, Chairman Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), Chairman of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, released the following statement:
“An iceberg four times the size of Manhattan has broken off Greenland, creating plenty of room for global warming deniers to start their own country.” Emphasis added
As I said, this kind of bad taste and silliness is hardly likely to be persuasive.
I have little time for opportunistic political types like Morano, but in this instance you are definitively wrong. The courteous thing to do would be to acknowledge your mistake in this particular instance.
tempterrain:
That is what happens when you cry wolf all the time – people begin to think you are full of it – especially when you call them nasty names to boot. I know nothing about Tony Abbott and how well versed he is in climate science. If he is referring to Al Gore’s brand of Climate Science then what could one call it? Slick PR efforts have a nasty way of backfiring.
http://www.climatedepot.com/a/7626/Dem-Congressman-Markey-wants-icy-concentration-camp-for-4-billion-people–Wants-climate-deniers-to-relocate-to-ice-island
Madness.
Bernie:
“Himalayagate indicates incompetence and/or conscious distortion.”
As one of a handful of such errors, whose direness/erroneousness has been disputed in each case, and all of which occurred in the non-science sections of a 2007 document comprising thousands of pages — a document I presume ‘auditors’ have been combing for ‘gotchas’ as diligently as they have climatologists’ stolen emails — I would say its overreacting ludicrously to consider this as ‘evidence’ of something more pervasive in either case.
Shorter version: Have you ever considered what the ratio of *correct* to *mistaken* statements might be in the IPCC 2007 report?
@bernie #421:
“If he is referring to Al Gore’s brand of Climate Science then what could one call it?”
Pretty close to the views of 97% of climate scientists – and, more importantly, mostly supported by the vast majority of the scientific literature on the subject? Any errors generally were of unclear timescales (such as sea-level rise), not eventual consequences – and even there reality is trending towards AiT.
Want to discuss, by contrast, the Great Global Warming Swindle?
I’m not particularly interested in arguing with climate sceptics on this blog – its usually a waste of time. I did contribute in the hope that I might find out from Dr Curry if she has changed her opinions in the last few years.
Judy Curry 2010 and Judy Curry 2007 sound to be quite different people!
But I guess that I might not.
Gavin : “In your [ JC’s ] haste to find some reason to argue with me, you have (again) ended up not reading the references. Schmidt et al (2006) does in fact discuss all of the process level tunings that were done to improve the model match to modern climatology. ”
Judith was asking about the tuning of parameters at the emergent phenomena scale, not the process scale. This is clear from her quotation of RealClimate in #383.
Tempterrain, I don’t have alot of disagreement with Gavin on the basics of the science as they are portrayed in the literature. I do apparently disagree with him on how all this ends up getting portrayed in the IPCC in terms of confidence levels, and the overall logic of how this argument should be made.
While I think that the general story portrayed by the IPCC narrative is plausible, and more likely than not, and some of it likely, I am very concerned by many of the very likely statements and unequivocal. Every time the IPCC has to draw back on one of its confidence levels (so far only in the paleo chapter, but more could be coming), or a major challenge is made by skeptics or whoever, the public and policy makers just have another excuse to discount the IPCC scientific information in the decision making process. By making more defensible assessments of confidence and clearly stating the nature of the uncertainties and areas of borderline ignorance, then what we do know plus the uncertainties can be factored into the decision making process. And too much certainty hurts the science; there is much in the way of basics to be done, whereas most of the funding and scientific energy is being put into every more complex climate models and impact assessments.
Re the Judy Curry of 2007 vs 2010, KK interviewed me on this a few months ago.
Oneuniverse yes you are correct, I wasn’t referring to the process level parameter tunings, but to overall model calibration. This is a perfect example of what I said in my previous post, whereby Gavin criticizes me for something I didn’t say, then I don’t disagree with what he did say
Dear Hank
To get #422, one must have a sense of humor.
And you seem to have missed the tiny “visit site”, next to the text.
If you don’t want Congressman Markey to be made fun of, by Morano, you’d ask him not to say the kind of super-intelligent things about deniers he said. In a long, long list of stupid things said by many obviously very bright people about ‘deniers’. Heh.
Sorry, correction: Judith was asking about the tuning of parameters at the emergent phenomena scale, as well as the process scale.
Tempterrain, re the policy angle, I still stand by the statement I made in my cooler heads op ed, we do need to do something. Exactly what we should be doing, I make no pretense of having any especially good or wise ideas on this. But the professed urgency of the need to make what may turn out to be very policy is a big mistake IMO.
In terms of figuring out what we should be doing, I think we need to pay more attention to the two tails of the distribution. We need a better understanding of natural climate variability (somebody needs to explain that 1910-1940 warming, and then the cooling in the 50’s and 60’s, and we also need a better handle on abrupt climate change). Then we need to more clearly articulate the plausible worst case scenario . Instead, in its relentless drive to narrow the uncertainty, we have ever more complex climate models, still with substantial model structural uncertainty, trying to zoom in on whether the sensitivity is 2.5 or 3.5 C or how much rain we will have in africa in 2100. We can’t answer these questions with much confidence, and we are at the point of diminishing returns on all these model embellishments.
IMO we still need to keep asking these questions and challenging the science, this just isn’t settled science and wont likely be for a long time. Even if the science does get significantly more “settled”, natural chaotic variability of the sun, the earth (volacnoes etc), and the climate system just make the whole thing rather unpredictable. We can put scenarios out there and ponder them, but we are never going to nail down with any confidence what the actual temperatures are going to be in 2100 or even 2050. We need to ackowledge this, and factor this uncertainty into our policy making.
Judith: This is a perfect example of what I said in my previous post, whereby Gavin criticizes me for something I didn’t say, then I don’t disagree with what he did say
Yes, it’s very plain.
Thank you for raising these excellent topics. I hope you do start a website or blog, as these issues have long been in need of sensible discussion.
> If you don’t want Congressman Markey to be made fun of, by Morano, you’d ask him not to say the kind of super-intelligent things about deniers he said.
Yes, the Congressman Markeys are making the Moranos do it.
Gavin, Judith has touched on an area that I’m wrestling with myself re attribution. Please excuse the paraphrasing, I’m not trying to put words in mouths, just trying to reduce things to basics.
It would I think, be reasonable to say that as of late 2009 climate modellers were essentially saying “We have a pretty good grasp of the attributions and most factors/forcings have been taken into account. We have quite high confidence in our models.” Which is fair and reasonable.
However, along comes 2010 and Susan Solomons paper showing that up to 30% of the warming might be from a previously unknown factor. Doesn’t this impact on the confidence that you have in the model wrt how the forcings accounted for and modelled?
Similarly, and I think this is the “magic” that Dr. Curry refered to. (If I’m wrong, I hope she will correct me.) The obvious test of the skill of a model is hindcasting. So we have a model that hindcasts well with a sensitivity of say 4.7 degrees. The output roughly matches the historical record. So we view the model as having skill.
However, we take (virtually) the same model and drop the sensitivity to 2.5 degrees and it still roughly matches the historical record when hindcasting. This is the magic bit. Many other factor or calculations must have changed inside the model or else halving the sensitivity would have blown the hindcasting well away from the record. The fact that many other factors must have been adjusted to compensate for the reduction in sensitivity is self evident, you cannot halve a major input to an equation and still get the same answer without also changing other factors. This is the “tuning” people refer to.
It is also self evident that if you can modify other factors to compensate for the change in sensitivity, then those other factors are not known to a high confidence level. If you knew the values, then you could not change them.
It seems to me that you can either have high confidence in accounting for the values of forcings or you can have an adjustable sensitivity. I can’t see how you can have both.
Yet climate models seem to manage this. How?
@433 Willard.
Yes, I’ve noticed that Americans don’t seem to make much fun of their politicians. In Oz, every politicians knows that they put their head on the satire and ridicule block every time they open their mouths.
We find it keeps their pomposity down. 😀
JohnB,
My point is only about the justification of making fun. There must be proper ways to justify making fun. Relying on the You Made Me Do It game is not one of them.
I am sure the Moranos can own what they are doing.
#428
I was talking about tuning for emergent properties (like global albedo, radiative balance, high latitude SLP), and I did discuss them in the paper and in the comment. You seem to have some idea that there is some additional tuning that goes on beyond what was discussed in Schmidt et al (2006). There is not. The model code and configuration presented there is exactly the AGCM code and configuration used in our AR4 runs (which, by the way, is online and downloadable by anyone).
To be clear, the reason why I am pressing Judy on these points is to find what the basis is for her claims regarding the IPCC. So far we have got a single specific issue (SST error bars in Brohan et al, 2006 – a ‘deal-breaker’) combined with a lot of weakly thought out generalisations that are neither novel nor ignored by IPCC. Frankly, I was hoping for something a little more substantive.
Hank, Steven, tempterrain, Robin:
I am not going to defend Morano’s hyperbole. Polemicist abound on all sides.
On the other hand, statements like “I’m not particularly interested in arguing with climate sceptics on this blog ““ its usually a waste of time” – are, IMHO, symptomatic of attitudes that almost guarantee a knockdown drag out battle over policy that those pushing for more environment friendly policies are simply likely to lose.
I believe this is what Judy sees. Judy, with less invested in the paleoclimate details, can see that thoughtful and talented skeptics like McIntyre make many valid points and are not foaming at the mouth ogres. (McIntyre is not a pussycat either and he can be as scathing and snarky as Gavin – but really not much different.) Not to engage them in honest debate is fundamentally anti-science. What would Gavin lose by directly engaging with McIntyre? Sure, he would add some legitimacy to McIntyre. But what is actually the problem with that?
There is a status quo – no matter how much you wish it wasn’t the case. Occasionally dramatic changes work, most of the time they fail and fail miserably. To change the status quo you will need the support of skeptics.
From a political perspective, a reluctance to engage skeptics is ultimately self-defeating. It seems to me that it is based on a premise that skeptics are essentially too dumb or too evil to see the truth. Do you really think skeptics like me or others who have posted on this thread are dumb or evil? If you are not willing to try to persuade me, then it seems to me that you are ready to coerce me. (This is the context for reactions to Markey’s stupid comment which is full of nasty allusions.) That is a sure fire formula for increasing resistance: It is the fundamental political nexus – your values vs my liberty. In the US, this is a battle that is going to be hard to win.
Gavin, go back and reread all the posts I’ve made. you haven’t scratched the surface in terms of actually responding or refuting the points I’ve raised. Rebuttal by distraction with peripherally related issues isn’t cutting it in my book, although you may manage convince a few readers that you are actually scoring points.
Regarding model calibration, you are the one who brought up the GISS model, I didn’t. You are raising a whole host of issues that are attempting to deflect from the issues that I raise. There are many climate models out that there, you can claim what you want about the GISS model, I won’t attempt to refute you, but there is alot of calibration that goes on in climate models in terms of parameter adjustments and whatever that cannot be related to empirical measurements or theory owing to scale mismatches and coupling of submodels. I intend to write a post on this issue in the future.
If you aren’t concerned by any of the points I’ve made regarding the IPCC, that is of course your choice; others are concerned. And you should be concerned.
JohnB thank you, very clearly stated.
Gavin, in case you need a quick summary of the main issues I’ve raised in this with regards to IPCC AR4 in the context of 20th century attribution:
global sea surface temperatures prior to 1950; error bars that are too small
Kludged aerosol forcing using surface temperature information, that makes the attribution of the mid century cool period to aerosol cooling pretty meaningless
Outdated solar forcing used in the climate models, that has a spurious trend in early part of the century
Inadequate attention to the multidecadal ocean cycles as an explanation for the major trends. The IPCC states that for the NAO, the peak to trough NH T signal is 0.2C. and this is only one oscillation (and this is only one oscillation).
Inadequate characterization of uncertainty, and biases that can arise in the context of consensus type expert elicitations (i.e. where the “very likely” comes from
With regards to your focus on the GISS model, I can certainly understand why you personally focus on it, but frankly nearly everyone I talk to is relatively dismissive of the GISS climate model, and focus more on the NCAR and GFDL climate models.
Bernie, I agree that McIntyre and Gavin have similar levels of snark. The RC posts aren’t too snarky, but Gavin’s inline responses to comments are high snark. McI has very snarky headlines (it does grab a reader’s attention right off) and posts can be snarky, but on the comment threads when McIntyre is interacting with individual commenters he is almost never snarky.
I think M&M have made valuable contributions, and I personally appreciate their contributions in the blogosphere and the published literature. The resentment arises, I suspect, from McKitrick’s effectiveness in getting media attention and McIntyre’s snark in the blogosphere. And its like the RC guys don’t do the same?
I realize that snark and media attention are key weapons in the power politics of expertise. But can we grow up please, give credit where it is due, focus on the arguments someone is making? Snark and media publicity are irrelevancies in the overall progress of science, and to the extent that scientists (and others) get distracted by this, well science is the loser.
Yes, the Congressman Markeys are making the Moranos do it.
Dear Willard, you should talk to Lubos about putting all those who ‘deny’ climate change on the deniersberg glacier break-off.
There must be proper ways to justify making fun.
Dear lord,… unfortunately, willard, there is no ‘proper way’ of making fun. ;). In this case, I don’t even think ‘making fun’ is required. Markey did it himself. I even think what he said was a good joke, by the way. Only I think the warmth alarmists should be sent to the poles to cool their fa***** off during the summer every year.
The next thing, if enough people laugh at him, is for him to say that he as been misquoted(TM) and ask for an apology.
Bernie:
> “Do you really think skeptics like me or others who
> have posted on this thread are dumb or evil?
> “If you are not willing to try to persuade me, then it
> seems to me that you are ready to coerce me.”
Focus on the science. Listen to the scientists who are here trying to explain what they’re doing.
tempterrain: “The deniers are politically astute enough to magnify all and any differences they can identify in order to, as Judith well puts it, “˜dissipate political will for dealing with a problem’. They’ve convinced themselves there is no a problem.
So, it’s important to find time to simply say, whatever differences you might have scientifically, that you both do agree that the build up of atmospheric CO2 and other GHGs is a problem which needs to be addressed and that they cannot be allowed to increase out of all control.”
Suppression of authentic scientific discussion amongst climate experts has been essential to maintaining alarmist rhetoric. Hence, the deliberate interruption was essentially to inject invective spin and disparage political opponents by alluding to the Holocaust. Or is the established narrative dependent upon suppressing scientific truth?
Followed by:“‘m not particularly interested in arguing with climate sceptics on this blog ““ its usually a waste of time.
Then what was the point of the gratuitous insult?
I did contribute in the hope that I might find out from Dr Curry if she has changed her opinions in the last few years.
Judy Curry 2010 and Judy Curry 2007 sound to be quite different people!But I guess that I might not.
So your “contribution” is really what Gavin refers to as “playing gotcha?” Dr. Curry has repeatedly explained that her main purpose for blogging is to accurately communicate scientific uncertainty in order to create effective policy. The imposition of your particular political narrative on the science, has created the current crisis. The skeptics for the most part are walking on eggshells with Gavin, hoping he won’t abandon the conversation in a huff, like in the past. OTOH, the RealClimate-style assault on JC goes unabated. Unfortunately, the title set the tone.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agonistes The word Agonistes, found as an epithet following a person’s name, means “the struggler” or “the combatant.”
While polls demonstrate that over 40% of public opinion is skeptical of CAGW, the endless brow-beating with pejoratives is quickly becoming ineffective. If you’re too uncomfortable with transparent discussion between scientists, stick with blogs like Climate Progress and Deltoid. You’ll find epithets and vulgarity encouraged there.
Hank:
I do listen to scientists. I do carefully read what they write. I can and do analyze their empirical results – I have spent 35 years analyzing large data sets. What makes you think I do not?
Judith
Can you point to a book that you would recommend for a non-scientist to get a non biased understanding ?
Thanks
Shub,
There might not be “˜proper way’ of making fun, but I am quite sure there is a proper way of justifying fun making, otherwise mainstream media will have problems with some of their most popular shows.
> Markey did it himself.
Of course, **I didn’t Do It** is even more plausible. Or maybe you’d like to try *He was asking for it?**, a sub-game of **He Made Me Do It**?
By chance you have all these disarming smileys, Shub 😉
Laursaurus is not telling the truth. I do not encourage epithets and vulgarity at Deltoid.
“but I am quite sure there is a proper way of justifying fun making…’
But that is explaining how a joke works.
Anyway, you want a joke….Tim Lambert just told one. (insert disarming smiley here).
Let me tell you another joke.
Q: Where is the next Conference of Parties going to be held?
A: Here, on this street.
No, Shub, explaining how jokes work is not justifying fun making. The latter provides the means to tell jokes without getting sued, among other things.
JC writes:
> Kludged aerosol forcing using surface temperature information,
> that makes the attribution of the mid century cool period to
> aerosol cooling pretty meaningless
Please — some kind of cite for “kludged” here?
I find the word used — but not in the science papers, in stuff like
Feb 1, 2010 … “Aerosol cooling” always seemed like a bit of a kludge (Watts)
Feb 20, 2009 … If aerosols were really offsetting half or more of the warming, we should see …. The past can be kludged to fit the data … (climate-skeptic.com)
Nov 30, 2009 … If the drift were a result of aerosol cooling then the geographical pattern of ….. Another kludge. Another validation failure point. (joanne nova)
Citation needed please
This??
“emiss_inpt_opt = 3 (Kludge: Choose when running GOCART_SIMPLE but are using NEI type of emissions data. Not recommended)”
http://ruc.noaa.gov/wrf/WG11/FAQ.htm
(Atmospheric chemistry working group)
Hank for an exhaustive discussion of kludging in climate models, see Lenhard and Winsberg. This is a really important paper IMO
full citation is:
Winsberg, E., and J. Lenhard, (2010). Holism and Entrenchment in Climate Model Validation. In Science in the Context of Application: Methodological Change, Conceptual Transformation, Cultural Reorientation, Carrier, M. and Nordmann, A., eds., Springer.
J, the most unbiased book I’ve seen on climate change is by Claire Parkinson, entitled The Coming Climate Crisis? Consider the Past, Beware of the Big Fix. Claire is a mainstream climate researcher employed by NASA, was part of the early climate modeling efforts at NCAR.
willard, if someone made a joke about you and you sued and won at court, you think the judge would award you with a sense of humor, as punitive damages? 😉
Personally speaking though, I think I am morally bankrupt enough not to be outraged by any joke. YMMV.
Judith Curry,
For clarity…
Where you state that X shows that confidence is overstated, could you state whether you think that is because…
a) X is not factored into the estimate
b) X is factored in, but its impact on uncertainty is underestimated
c) something else
Where you talk of internal variability being underestimated, could you specify whether that is
a) the intrinsic variance of the process itself
b) a particular sample realization over a given period
c) some combination of the above
d) something else
Thanks.
Lazar, for your first question: all of the above. for your second question the answer is a).
Willard, it’s not about justification. How many times have you passed up a “straight line”?
Some comments are so silly that they are begging to be made fun of.
That is one of the bases of humour and satire.
Judith,
I can accept your argument that confidence levels expressed as expressed by the IPCC may be too high. I also fully agree with you that expressing confidence levels, and margins of error, are the correct scientific way to express results. Yes it would be better if we had better terms than ‘likely’ and ‘very likely’.
I’m not sure just how civil society can handle this approach though. If juries were to adopt the scientific method their verdicts might sound something like: “we find the defendant guilty to a probability of 76% with a error margin of +/- 10% !
However, while this might please politicians like Inhofe on the AGW issue who are more than eager to point out the uncertainties, this doesn’t sit too well with genuine politicians who need something better to say to their voters than ‘scientists think we may have a problem’ to justify measures needed to reduce CO2 emissions.
In any case, you seemed to understand the arguments on risks well enough when you wrote :
“But if the risk is great, then it may be worth acting against even if its probability is small. Think of risk as the product of consequences and likelihood: what can happen and the odds of it happening. A 10-degree rise in global temperatures by 2100 is not likely; the panel gives it a 3 percent probability. Such low-probability, high-impact risks are routinely factored into any analysis and management strategy, whether on Wall Street or at the Pentagon.”
Even the correct figure is a 5 degree rise rather than 10degrees I can’t see how your argument can be any different. So , yes, by all means speak out honestly on confidence levels but some repetition of what you were arguing for just a few years ago would be more than welcome.
> Some comments are so silly that they are begging to be made fun of.
So now not the persons, but the comments themselves are Asking for It. IMHO, this kind of sentence is not an explanation, but a justification. YMMV, I suppose.
And as a justification, it is silly. A more usual justification for satire is constructive social criticism. But nevermind.
I Did My Best 😉
Tempterrain, I have emphasized many times in this thread that I don’t think that we have adequately characterized the plausible worst case scenario. That said, it is not at all clear to me what is the best combination of policy options.
Tempterrain, it seems like society in the past has dealt with matters involving uncertainty without huge amounts of fuss. We have fought wars where the outcome was uncertain, settled frontiers, started farms and factories, and more.
We accept uncertainty in medical explanations of broad trends involving diet, drinking and smoking. We choose new candidates over old (maybe not enough…)
What specifically is it about climate change that requires scientists to state (or sometimes just imply) that something is pretty darn certain when in fact it is not?
I keep waiting for Jack Nicholson to tell me I can’t handle the truth…
#441
> a quick summary of the main issues I’ve raised in this with regards to IPCC AR4 in the context of 20th century attribution:
As stated above, the attribution statement is for the second half of the 20th Cemtury.
> global sea surface temperatures prior to 1950; error bars that are too small
Possible. But irrelevant for post-1950 attribution.
> Kludged aerosol forcing using surface temperature information, that makes the attribution of the mid century cool period to aerosol cooling pretty meaningless
Aerosol forcing uncertainty is large and well-acknowledged to be large. This precludes a clean constraint on climate sensitivity and/or net 20th C forcings. Not new, and not relevant to the specific AR4 statement you don’t like as comment #338 explores.
> Outdated solar forcing used in the climate models, that has a spurious trend in early part of the century
The early part of the century is not relevant to the AR4 statement, despite your erroneous characeterisation of it back in #177. But you are over-estimating the confidence we have in solar reconstructions – see Shapiro et al’s presentation at the last SORCE meeting for instance. They have a significantly larger trend pre-1950 than Wang et al (2005).
>Inadequate attention to the multidecadal ocean cycles as an explanation for the major trends. The IPCC states that for the NAO, the peak to trough NH T signal is 0.2C. and this is only one oscillation (and this is only one oscillation).
(Note you mean the AMO, not the NAO). Also 0.2 deg C over multiple decades is not sufficient to overturn the AR4 statement, and that is even accepting that there was any evidence for a trough to peak AMO event over that period – which there isn’t. (Correlations derived from surface temperatures are not independent of forced changes in surface temperature). Models have lots of different kinds of internal variability – including the AMO , the NAO or ENSO-like variability. This background is therefore included in attribution studies, and I know of a number of studies in review/in press that specifically include these modes as additional patterns in the attribution process. They don’t change the bottom line.
>Inadequate characterization of uncertainty, and biases that can arise in the context of consensus type expert elicitations (i.e. where the “very likely” comes from
You keep repeating this but don’t actually provide any evidence other than your feelings that there were any over-confident statements. Every time I’ve tried to dig down into what you *specifically* you are referring to, it ends up with nothing and you just saying that whatever it was we were discussing wasn’t the real issue at all. It’s pretty frustrating.
> With regards to your focus on the GISS model, I can certainly understand why you personally focus on it, but frankly nearly everyone I talk to is relatively dismissive of the GISS climate model, and focus more on the NCAR and GFDL climate models.
I try to talk about what I know about, and so when people talk about how modelling is done, I have some very relevant experience (related to the GISS model). You characterisation of ‘modelling’ was not accurate and I provided an example of what we actually do and the documentation to support it. You don’t appear to want to believe me, but that doesn’t change the underlying facts. Whether GISS is more or less referenced or respected than NCAR or GFDL is not really relevant to any of that. I don’t have any complaints about our influence or contributions, especially given our small size compared to the other US groups. But if you want start getting into subtle ad homs, go ahead.
I think we’ve got everything out this exchange that we can.
Gavin, I agree, I don’t see an exchange on this topic going anywhere.
The reason attribution prior to 1970 matters is to build confidence in the attribution for the later period. Without being able to convincingly attribute the causes for the earlier part of the century, your attribution for the latter part of the 20th century is not convincing, i.e. you might have have obtained your attribution for the wrong reason and with the wrong combinations of forcing.
If your main focus is the latter half of the 20th century, you want some sort of out-of-sample test for your methods. That is, any scientific hypothesis (such as the Ar4 attribution and its methodology) needs to be demonstrated on another period, either in the past or the future. Simply declaring victory based on model agreement for a single period (even tho those models have vastly different CO2 sensitivities and treatments of aerosol processes) just isn’t very convincing, and not worthy of “very likely” confidence level IMO.
I’d like to clear up a set of trivial mistakes, and reraise an issue of the tuning :
In #389, Gavin mistakenly (it seems) identified the gravity wave and threshold RH parameterisations as local effects, whereas they were tuned for their emergent effects (on stratospheric winds, and albedo and TOA fux respectively), as he pointed out on RC, mentioning that normally there are another four or so of these parameters, apart from the g.waves and threshold RH.
In #426, somewhat conditioned by Gavin’s #389 statement, I agreed with Judith that there was no discussion of tuning for emergent phenomena. I was mistaken in accepting both Gavin and Judith’s statement without verification, and I failed to identify the category of the two parameterisations (hopefully I’m more familiar with the concept now).
Judith made her mistake in #383 – having read more of the paper, I confirm that the authors did discuss the parameterisations and tunings at various points in the paper. Yet, once again, perhaps Judith ends up being right, even if wrong in the marshalling of the details.
She wrote in #383: “I for one think it would have been appropriate for Schmidt (2006) to discuss these tunings.”
If the phrase “in more detail” had been appended to her statement, I would be in agreement with her, since both of the ‘for emergent phenomena’ tunings would benefit from further explanation:
Gravity wave drag parameters are largely unconstrained, due to a lack of real-world measurements. Schmidt et al. tune these parameters to achieve more realistic stratospheric winds. However, this adjustment (imo) should only be applied if the modelling of stratospheric winds is considered to be (almost) correct, absent only the effects of the gravity waves. After all, it’s possible, arguably more likely, that the tuning would be correcting for a deviation arising from the shortcoming(s) of the model, in which case improving the model is preferable to manipulating a physical variable (even if it’s currently an unknown). The authors need to make a case for why the latter situation can be ruled out.
Unlike gravity waves, the second set of tunable parameters, threshold RH values (used in the calculation of cloud volume), are constrained by real-world measurements, yet the same (imo) unjustified action is taken by tuning the threshold RHs so that the albedo and TOA flux move towards desired values. Again, there needs to be a justification provided for why the threshold RH values can, or should, be adjusted to effectively correct, perhaps in part, the albedo and TOA flux: there’re other factors affecting these variables other than threshould RH – why does threshold RH get chosen as tunable ?
A couple more questions for Gavin :
a) Are threshhold relative humidities of water and ice clouds, and the gravity wave drag parameters the only parameters in the GISS ModelE tuned according to a consideration of their emergent effects?
b) What are other four or so tunable parameters in the emergent phenomena scale category, as mentioned in the RC FAQ?
#465
Another set of strawman arguments. Where did I ever say that no ‘out-of-sample’ tests were needed? That would be the exact opposite of what I have actually been quite aggressively pushing for (read Schmidt (2010) for some examples). Indeed, I think they are crucial – not only for attribution studies, but mainly for refining predictions into the future. It’s why I’m spending so much time on the PMIP component of the CMIP5 experiments for instance.
And where did I ‘declare victory’? I have merely been trying to see whether you have any actual basis for your complaints about a specific statement in AR4 (which I think was (and is) a justified conclusion). You brought up a series of issues which were just not relevant. If you wanted to discuss out-of-sample tests of models we could have done so (Pinatubo impact forecasts, Hansen et al 1988, mid-Holocene, 8.2kyr event, surf/msu, lgm tropics, etc.) but you brought up none of these issues.
When smart and informed people see basically the same information but come to different conclusions, I find that interesting since there might be something to be learned. I’m not interested in winning an argument with you, I’m interested in seeing whether there are issues that might not have been considered or where there might be new information that could be brought to bear. I am not here to play games.
Judith Curry,
“Kludged aerosol forcing using surface temperature information, that makes the attribution of the mid century cool period to aerosol cooling pretty meaningless”
Which studies attributed the “mid century cool period to aerosol cooling” and used “kludged aerosol forcing”? Do attribution studies which do not use “kludged aerosol forcing” get similar results? How much does attribution rest on either group? Which of the two groups of studies do we have more confidence in, are better replicated etc.?
AR4 9.4.1.4;
“Since the TAR, there has also been an increased emphasis on quantifying the greenhouse gas contribution to observed warming, and distinguishing this contribution from other factors, both anthropogenic, such as the cooling effects of aerosols, and natural, such as from volcanic eruptions and changes in solar radiation.
A comparison of results using four different models (Figure 9.9) shows that there is a robust identification of a significant greenhouse warming contribution to observed warming that is likely greater than the observed warming over the last 50 years with a significant net cooling from other anthropogenic forcings over that period, dominated by aerosols. Stott et al. (2006c) compare results over the 20th century obtained using the UKMO-HadCM3, PCM (see Table 8.1 for model descriptions) and Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) R30 models. They find consistent estimates for the greenhouse gas attributable warming over the century, expressed as the difference between temperatures in the last and first decades of the century, of 0.6°C to 1.3°C (5 to 95%) offset by cooling from other anthropogenic factors associated mainly with cooling from aerosols of 0.1°C to 0.7°C and a small net contribution from natural factors over the century of ““0.1°C to 0.1°C (Figure 9.9b)”
9.4.1.5;
“A significant cooling due to other anthropogenic factors, dominated by aerosols, is a robust feature of a wide range of detection analyses. These analyses indicate that it is likely that greenhouse gases alone would have caused more than the observed warming over the last 50 years of the 20th century, with some warming offset by cooling from natural and other anthropogenic factors, notably aerosols, which have a very short residence time in the atmosphere relative to that of well-mixed greenhouse gases (Schwartz, 1993). A key factor in identifying the aerosol fingerprint, and therefore the amount of aerosol cooling counteracting greenhouse warming, is the change through time of the hemispheric temperature contrast, which is affected by the different evolution of aerosol forcing in the two hemispheres as well as the greater thermal inertia of the larger ocean area in the SH (Santer et al., 1996b,c; Hegerl et al., 2001; Stott et al., 2006c). Regional and seasonal aspects of the temperature response may help to distinguish further the response to greenhouse gas increases from the response to aerosols (e.g., Ramanathan et al., 2005; Nagashima et al., 2006).
Results on the importance and contribution from anthropogenic forcings other than greenhouse gases vary more between different approaches. For example, Bayesian analyses differ in the strength of evidence they find for an aerosol effect. Schnur and Hasselman (2005), for example, fail to find decisive evidence for the influence of aerosols. They postulate that this could be due to taking account of modelling uncertainty in the response to aerosols. However, two other studies using frequentist methods that also include modelling uncertainty find a clear detection of sulphate aerosols, suggesting that the use of multiple models helps to reduce uncertainties and improves detection of a sulphate aerosol effect (Gillett et al., 2002c; Huntingford et al., 2006). Similarly, a Bayesian study of hemispheric mean temperatures from 1900 to 1996 finds decisive evidence for an aerosol cooling effect (Smith et al., 2003). Differences in the separate detection of sulphate aerosol influences in multi-signal approaches can also reflect differences in the diagnostics applied (e.g., the space-time analysis of Tett et al. (1999) versus the space-only analysis of Hegerl et al. (1997, 2000)) as was shown by Gillett et al. (2002a).”
Any of the following?;
Stott, P.A., et al., 2006c: Observational constraints on past attributable warming and predictions of future global warming. J. Clim., 19, 3055″“3069.
Santer, B.D., et al., 1996b: A search for human influences on the thermal structure of the atmosphere. Nature, 382, 39″“46.
Hegerl, G.C., P.D. Jones, and T.P. Barnett, 2001: Effect of observational sampling error on the detection and attribution of anthropogenic climate change. J. Clim., 14, 198″“207.
Nagashima, T., et al., 2006: The effect of carbonaceous aerosols on surface temperature in the mid twentieth century. Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, L04702, doi:10.1029/2005GL024887.
Schnur, R., and K. Hasselmann, 2005: Optimal filtering for Bayesian detection of climate change. Clim. Dyn., 24, 45″“55.
Gillett, N.P., et al., 2002c: Detecting anthropogenic influence with a multi-model ensemble. Geophys. Res. Lett., 29, doi:10.1029/2002GL015836.
Huntingford, C., P.A. Stott, M.R. Allen, and F.H. Lambert, 2006: Incorporating model uncertainty into attribution of observed temperature change. Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, L05710, doi:10.1029/2005GL024831.
Smith, R.L., T.M.L. Wigley, and B.D. Santer, 2003: A bivariate time series approach to anthropogenic trend detection in hemispheric mean temperatures. J. Clim., 16, 1228″“1240.
#466
In terms of tuning at the global level, we have three main cloud related parameters we play with (to get a reasonable global albedo, high cloud amount and radiative balance). For stratospheric circulation (which impacts strat-trop exchange, high latitude sea level pressure fields), we tune the GW drag. In the new models with interactive aerosol effects, there are a couple of parameters associated with effective radii that can be important. There are some rather broad constraints on these values from observations, but there is still a lot of scope for variations that have important effects. Pretty much everything else is set for local/process reasons. This means that our ability to globally tune to fit anything other than gross features of the climatology is impossible. We cannot tune for climate sensitivity for instance, even if we wanted to, nor can I force any particular metric to suddenly match much better to observations (I wish!). One thing to note is that differently-tuned versions of one model are almost always more similar to each other than they are to a different model, or even their AR4 ancestor.
#466 (cont).
I didn’t mention why the threshold rel hum is singled out. The reason is because this is not an easily observable function – it is very scale and situation dependent in the real world, and arises in modelling not as a fundamental constant, but as a necessary calculation. While at the smallest scales, the threshold rel hum is 100% (assuming enough CCN), at the grid scale (100 km or so), it must be less since there is enough (unresolved) heterogeneity to cause clouds to appear even if the grid box as a whole is undersaturated. There is still a relationship between the grid-box mean RH and the cloudiness, but it will be different in the presence of strong updrafts than it will be in the presence of strong stratification. It will be different in the boundary layer (lots of turbulence) than in the upper-troposphere etc. Thus the model has a complicated set of calculations to do to decide whether to make a cloud in any particular circumstance, and the tuning factors we use make that decision a little more or a little less likely on the whole, thus impacting albedo, outgoing LW, and net radiative balance. They don’t really affect where or how clouds are formed, but they do impact cloud amounts at the margins.
Judy;
The Linhard and Winsberg paper has been in circulation for a couple of years. It makes some pretty strong assertions. How has the modelling community responded to it? Presumably Gavin has a perspective?
It also seems to cast doubt on the notion that an ensemble of models somehow has more merit than a single model, i.e., the average of errors from unkown sources ==> zero
Gavin (#469-70)
Thank you very much. I was also puzzled by the low threshold values, now I understand.
I can’t say I’m comfortable with the tuning of physical parameters in this way. They may not be easily observable, but the tunings should ideally be justified by physical reasons (as is done in the tuning of the local processes), rather than solely by improvements in the subset of the model’s results under consideration.
If I may ask a couple more questions :
– Given these tunable parameters, what is the tunable range of the radiative balance ?
– What is the resultant tunable range of the model’s equlibrium temperature?
Gavin, yes this is the contradiction you are making. Apparently you are saying that out of sample tests are needed, and the point of the out of sample tests are to assess our understanding the model capability in terms of attribution, which you are saying doesn’t matter?
Like weather models, climate models are unable to predict the weather beyond a few days. (If they could, we’d be using them). As James Annan and William Connolly wrote at RC :
“[A]ll of our models have errors which mean that they will inevitably fail to track reality within a few days irrespective of how well they are initialised.”
At the same time, they asserted that :
“Although ultimately chaos will kill a weather forecast, this does not necessarily prevent long-term prediction of the climate. By climate, we mean the statistics of weather, averaged over suitable time and perhaps space scales [..].”
According to Gavin at RC :
“Fortunately, the calculation of climatic variables (i.e., long-term averages) is much easier than weather forecasting, since weather is ruled by the vagaries of stochastic fluctuations, while climate is not. Imagine a pot of boiling water. A weather forecast is like the attempt to predict where the next bubble is going to rise (physically this is an initial value problem). A climate statement would be that the average temperature of the boiling water is 100ºC at normal pressure, while it is only 90ºC at 2,500 meters altitude in the mountains, due to the lower pressure (that is a boundary value problem).”
It’s true that climate models are unable to accurately predict the weather in a grid cell, just as we’re unable to predict when a bubble will occur. Beyond that, the analogy doesn’t work. The climate model is evaluating weather (predicting bubbles) at each step, whereas the prediction of boiling temperature doesn’t involve any prediction of the distribution of the bubbles. It doesn’t matter whether our bubble predictions are correct, since the bubbles have negligable effect on the flows of energy into and out of the water system, or any on any other pertinent variable, whereas in the climate model, it does matter whether we get the predictions correct or not, because the state of the grid cell will influence the energy balance, and in general will influence the next step of the evolution of model.
If a model can’t predict the weather beyond a few days from the initial conditions, then it’s not trivially obvious why it should be able to predict the climate, which is calculated from the weather. In fact, such a result would be surprising (especially since the models are considered to be “analytically impenetrable.” (Lenhard and Winsberg))
Has this result been formally demonstrated? (And for which families of climate models ? )
Gavin, what I want is to have a discussion in the blogosphere. I am even prepared to jump into a discussion on a topic that I am not very knowledgable about, and ask questions. Your comments on the Montford Delusion thread and the way it was moderated, plus stating here that I am “flat wrong” when I am not, have the appearance of either trying to to win an argument or put me down. I don’t have a thin skin so it doesn’t really matter, but toning down the rhetoric and accusations helps promote an actual discussion
[…] Comments Judith Curry on The Curry Agonistesoneuniverse on The Curry AgonistesPascvaks on Foretelling the FutureMarco on Gavin’s […]
The tunings, particularly related to clouds, do influence the overall climate sensitivity to warming. The clouds are tuned to the current climate (period when satellite observations are available). This sensitivity that is influenced by clouds determines how much the atmosphere will warm in response to the increased CO2. So the clouds are tuned to the period where there is increasing CO2. The aerosol tuning occurs most heavily prior to 1980. To determine which IPCC AR4 models do what, go to Supplementary Material for Chapter 9, go to Table S9.1, look at the columns for DSU, ISU, BCA. It shows you which models included aerosol effects. The Key is on the next page, to find out which model actually used which specification of aerosols, they refer you to a llnl link, that is dead.
#472
We are able to tune the radiative balance by a couple of W/m2 perhaps, the albedo by a 1% etc. It can’t make a model that is hopelessly wrong suddenly work well. As for the model global mean surface temperature, we do not specifically tune for that, but we usually end up with values between 13 and 15 deg C.
Gavin, your statement “When smart and informed people see basically the same information but come to different conclusions, I find that interesting since there might be something to be learned. ” I absolutely agree with this. And this kind of disagreement is at the heart of the problem I find with the IPCC consensus approach to establishing confidence levels. When there is disagreement, lets understand it and sort it out, see what needs to resolved. Lets not declare a “very likely” confidence level, that is what I have a problem with.
Gavin
One of Dr Curry’s objections arise in the formulation of likelihood levels. Since the IPCC does not *explain* the meta-scientific logic in formulation of its consensus statements and how those likelihoods are derived, and they are certainly not mathematically derived anyway, how exactly is anyone going to refute/agree with her, arguing within the confines of the IPCC logic?
We need to take a step back.
Regarding the Betz article, I came across the citation in a submitted article by Mike Hulme. I checked google scholar, that is the only citation so far. I am citing it in a paper I have just submitted. Given that it is published in a rather obscure book (obscure at least to climate modelers), I don’t think people are aware of it yet. There is a growing literature on the epistemology of modeling complex systems, that is very relevant to climate modeling.
With regards to Schmidt (2006) paper, i did a word find for “tuning” and “calibration”, and only came up with tuning in the last paragraph.
In the overall course of a cooperative discussion, something like this can be easily sorted out. This discussion did not start out very cooperatively, if it can move in that direction, I am certainly in favor of this.
#477 thanks Judith.
(For the broken link, I found this . I don’t know if it’s actually the same page.)
# 478 thanks Gavin.
Should I take it that you think that my misgivings about the justifications for the tunings are unfounded?
#473
It is not contradictory to say that out-of-sample tests are needed but that period X or event Y is not a good example. For a good test of model skill you need some observed event (that’s easy). Second, you need a good hypothesis (or set of hypotheses) for what caused that event (including of course internal variability) (also relatively easy). Third you need a way to distinguish the consequences of each hypothesis (hard). If you have all three then you can start modelling. But these conditions are not satisfied for every wiggle or trend in a climate record. They are for a big volcanic eruption, they are for the mid-Holocene, they are for the 8.2kyr event, they are for the teleconnections associated with ENSO, etc. They are not for 1910-1940 (too many uncertainties in step 2 and step 3). They are satisfied for recent decades because we have a lot more information than just the SAT trend (ocean heat content rise, strat cooling, etc.).
Actually, I spend almost all of my (job) time trying to find good candidates for model-data comparisons and working to make the model output more congruent to what is measured (whether that is paleo-proxy or a satellite retrieval or by making improvements in how forcings are specified) so that model-data mismatches are not because of some in-between mis-interpretation. How this can be interpreted as some blind faith in existing models is beyond me.
#475
” but toning down the rhetoric and accusations helps promote an actual discussion”.
I think that is where I came in.
#483
Not completely unfounded, but in practice it makes much less difference than many people expect. Climate models are ‘stiff’ in that you can’t move them around a lot once you have decided how to model something. We’ve not been able to tune away the double ITCZ problem for instance. Tuning at this level is likely cleaning your car before you sell it. It helps, but it’s still the same car.
#482
Agreed. (“parameter” turned out to be a useful search term, by the way.)
re: the IPCC’s likelihood statements
The IPCC published a document “Guidance Notes for Lead Authors of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report on Addressing Uncertainties” :
“Likelihood may be based on quantitative analysis or an elicitation of expert views. ”
It would be good to know which of the likelihood statements were based on quantitive analyses (and more details on the elicitations). I haven’t looked in any detail at this, but my understanding was that the derivations of the individual likelihoods are not described in the IPCC report.
Oneuniverse, it was pretty much “judgement of experts.” This is stated in the footnotes of the summary for policy makers. Yes the experts will consider actual uncertainty analyses if they exist. Then, in plenary, the policy makers weigh in, and this sometimes changes the confidence levels, tho mostly in the direction of being conservative. So given the potential for bias and lack of pedigree for the judgement, perhaps you can understand why i am not too happy about this.
Here are some relevant papers that discuss all this:
Peterson Ch 7
swart recommends a pedigree analysis
there are others, but i’ve cited them elsewhere on this thread
Tom Fuller,
You ask “What specifically is it about climate change that requires scientists to state (or sometimes just imply) that something is pretty darn certain when in fact it is not?”
That’s what is called a loaded question! The level of certainty is higher than you claim. A good question is in there somewhere though! Id say it would be
“What level of certainty should be required before governments get serious about implementing CO2 reduction measures?”
Judith is criticicing the IPCC for being over-confident in their assessment. Terms like “very likely” are interpreted to mean a 90% confidence level.
Still the sceptics/deniers claim there is “no proof”. But say the IPCC agree with them and downgrade their confidence level to “possibly” or 50%. What then?
The sceptics/deniers will claim a victory saying that they had always said there was no need for action. The chances of getting any sort of meaningful international action will dip to just about zero.
However, would we get on a plane if there was a 50% chance of it crashing? If there was a 50% chance of our house burning down, even in the next 100 years, would we skimp on house insurance?
Three years ago Judith understood all these arguments well enough. I don’t think the 2007 Judith Curry would have come out with something quite so lame as “it is not at all clear to me what is the best combination of policy options.”
When scientists like Gavin and Judith do “come down out of their ivory towers”, as we all would like them to, they do have to recognise the political as well as the scientific implications of statements like these.
Politically, they will be used by many politicians to justify doing nothing. Judith is more than astute enough to realise this and that’s what is causing a lot of concern.
> the policy makers weigh in, and this sometimes
> changes the confidence levels, tho mostly in the
> direction of being conservative.
There’s your problem.
Speaking of policy people changing the science, this http://deepclimate.org/2010/08/03/what-have-wegman-and-said-done-lately/ has some amazing stuff toward the end.
Gavin (#485) :
Thanks. I guess we disagree on the appropriateness of that type of tuning. I don’t have much to add to what I wrote in #466, and I acknowledge that there’s a compelling-seeming reason for doing so (it seems to improve the model’s ability to create Earth-like weather or climate, or it improves hindcasting).
Perhaps explicit tuning ‘fudge’* factors could be introduced, rather than picking pre-existing parameters such as threshold RH for tuning. Once understanding sufficiently improves, the fudge factors can be replaced with modellings of the correct physical processes.
(* by fudge factor I mean terms that attempt to account for unknown or little-known processes, and errors of the model, for example in the radiative balance).
Judith (#487):
Thank you for the insight into the process, very interesting. The IPCC report should make it clear (or at least mention) that there are political and other non-scientific inputs present in the determinations of the likelihoods. The footnote you mention in the report only refers to expert judgements.
Many thanks for the links to the papers, which I hope to be reading this evening.
Finally, I’d greatly appreciate both Judith’s and Gavin’s comments (if you are still here, Gavin) on #474, which can be summarised as :
If none of the models can predict the weather beyond a few days, then how are they able to predict the climate, which is calculated from the weather ?
Has this surprising property of the models been demonstrated in the scientific literature? I’d be grateful for some references, if possible to the most authoritative treatment.
Oneuniverse, a big topic, but here is an attempt at a concise reply. Weather is chaotic, we can’t absolutely predict it more than a few days in advance. However, the chaotic uncertainty associated with uncertainties in initial conditions is addressed in weather models by an making an ensemble of forecasts (say 50 different forecasts) each with slightly different initial conditions. Such an ensemble of forecasts can do a pretty good job of bounding the weather at an actual location, often out for a period of 1-2 weeks.
So how can we have a reliable climate “forecast?” Well, climate is the average weather. So it doesn’t matter for climate exactly when that cold front passes through. But climate “forecasts” have their own challenges. The chaotic nature arises in the internal modes of natural oscillations, everything from the El Nino the North Atlantic Oscillation and beyond. Further there are chaotic elements in the earth system like volcanoes, and the sun is chaotic with plenty of surprises. Humans are the biggest wildcard in the climate system; even if we knew what the earth and sun were up to, we can’t predict what humans will do in terms of changing the earth’s landscape and the composition of the atmosphere.
So whereas climate models don’t need to simulate the day to day weather variations to provide a credible climate simulation, there are a host of other sources of chaos that get in the way. And BTW, if you want regional climate forecasts, the climate model has to do a credible job of simulating the overall statistics of the weather patterns, which is a shortcoming of many climate models
oneuniverse, re the “fudge factors”, which are variously referred to as parameter adjustments, tunings, kludges, or calibrations, some can be eliminated whereas others can’t. Combining submodels into a model of a complex system invariably introduces the need for fudge factors. Also, the impossibility of modelling climate at the scale of a cloud drop means that we will need parameterizations do deal with processes that happen below the gridscale of the model, and new parameter adjustments are needed everytime the grid resolution is changed
Oneuniverse,
Your question on how can scientists predict future climate if they can’t accurately predict the weather is a common one.
The best explanation of this is to liken predicting the weather to predicting the result of a single tennis point. Very hard. Predicting the result of a full game is easier. A set and a match is easier still. Predicting the top two or three players over the course of a season, barring injury, is really quite straightforward.
Does this answer your question?
oneuniverse,
“Tracking down the uncertainties in weather and climate prediction” by Steve Easterbrook
(h/t Ron Broberg)
tempterrain, thank you, unfortunately no – I was looking for a reference to the literature, or a fairly thorough explanation.
#494
Juidith, thanks. You’ve summarised many of the obstacles preventing a prediction of the weather beyond a few days. However, you didn’t actually say how the climate can correctly be predicted from incorrect weather (my question). You wrote as explanation :
“So how can we have a reliable climate “forecast?” Well, climate is the average weather. So it doesn’t matter for climate exactly when that cold front passes through. ”
So the average number of cold fronts over a long enough period will be correct, even if the timings aren’t ? What about cloud cover (and clouds for green-house effect) – do the acknowledged errors in predicting clouds similarly cancel out ?
If you know of a reference demonstrating that errors in model predictions of the timing of weather events cancel out over time, or are small and remain small, please let me know. It’s not an obvious result to me.
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010/07/the-engine-behind-climate-models.ars
“… various commenters have made comments to the effect of “If you can’t predict the weather, you can’t predict the climate.” To try and remind people why this simply isn’t true, we are reposting this article from 2006. Enjoy.”
Or any of many other discussions, e.g.
http://www.google.com/search?q=difference+weather+climate+models
#497 Thanks, Lazar. The article says :
“People frequently ask “If we can’t predict weather beyond the next week, why is it possible to make seasonal forecasts?” The reason is that for longer term forecasts, the boundary forcings start to matter more. [..] So if we know something about the forcing, we can forecast the general statistics of weather, even if it’s not possible to say what the weather will be at a particular location at a particular time.”
He links to this article for the explanation:
“For understanding climate, we no longer need to worry about the initial values [important for weather prediction], we have to worry about the boundary values. These are the conditions that constraint the climate over the long term: the amount of energy received from the sun, the amount of energy radiated back into space from the earth, the amount of energy absorbed or emitted from oceans and land surfaces, and so on. ”
The author misses that fact that weather errors such as getting the clouds or ice extent wrong will change the boundary conditions by changing the radiative balance, so errors in the weather domain will also affect the prediction of the climate. The question (from my position of limited familiarity) is what are nature and scale of the errors?
I’m afraid I’ve met too many gamblers who thought that they could figure out a “system” to the chaos in the long-term, if they could just keep playing. No matter how many adjustments and tweaks they made to their system, the house always wins because while the house fights with incomprehensible chaos, the gambler cannot resist placing trust in probabilities.
Until a GCM knows PRECISELY what card is coming out of the pack next, and WHY it is so, it will inevitably lose all of our money betting on a future it cannot predict.
oneuniverse #500 (congratulations!): “The author misses that fact that weather errors such as getting the clouds or ice extent wrong will change the boundary conditions by changing the radiative balance”
Precisely the problem. Errors are compounded, not resolved or averaged. Someone (I forget) said that a tennis game is easier to predict than a single point. I agree. But I don’t agree that the global climate can be compared with a tennis game, because unlike the climate, we understand the GAME of tennis. The rules are clearly defined with precise boundaries (yes you, Mr McEnroe!), the sequence of events through match-point are predictable (in that we at least know we will REACH match-point, no matter WHO is winning, and still achieve at least a 50% chance of predicting the outcome). The game of tennis does not relate at all well to climate.
@SimonH/oneuniverse:
If I may, a lay response (while I continued my science studies to 18, and have taken an interest since, I am a lawyer)?
As I understand it the thermodynamics are simple at the macro level. A body will tend toward radiative equilibrium – that is, it will seek to radiate away as much energy as falls upon it. The energy it radiates away is a function of its temperature; if the incident energy rises, or for some reason it radiates less, then the temperature of that body will rise to the point that radiative equilibrium is restored.
The Earth’s surface receives an awful lot of radiative energy from the Sun, which it radiates away. At the wavelengths at which the Earth’s surface re-radiates IR energy, GHGs absorb a significant proportion, and re-radiate it in random directions – so a tad short of 50% of it will be back-scattered, toward the surface. This reduces the outgoing radiation, so the Earth’s temperature rises to compensate. We know that this happens, and have done for a century and a half; we know that the Earth’s biosphere is roughly 30C warmer than it would be in the absence of an atmosphere containing GHGs.
We have dug up and put into the atmosphere in the form of the GHG CO2 gigatonnes of fossil carbon. About half of those emissions remain in the atmosphere In the absence of a previously non-effective feedback mechanism cutting in at this temperature level that tends to reduce incoming radiation, or increase the Earth’s effective radiative temperature without increasing the biosphere’s temperature, we know that the biosphere will heat up. The climatology is in a sense mere detail The prediction that we will warm does not derive from the climate models; it derives from the basic physics. The models seek to predict by how much by when and where.
(SimonH – I will reply to your post on the other thread).
SimonH @ 501: Where your analogy breaks down is that climatologists are the ones telling us that whatever happens, the house wins.
Deech #504: If that’s what modellers were saying, they’d be downing tools and walking away from their supercomputers. No, they’re saying “just a while more.. we nearly have this figured…”
Despite what modellers say (that they’ve almost got the system figured out and can predict the next 50-100 years), nature will present a different outcome. The reason I know this is because I know that the modellers don’t understand what’s happening.
But, perhaps more disconcertingly, I know that modellers KNOW they don’t sufficiently understand climatic influences, but STILL think they can accurately model outcomes and assert their results.
@SimonH #505:
“If that’s [whatever happens, the house wins] what modellers were saying, they’d be downing tools and walking away from their supercomputers.”
Are you aware of the restatement of the three laws of thermodynanics as “You can’t win; you can’t break even; you can’t get out of the game”? What is that but “The house always wins”?
@SimonH #505:
“Despite what modellers say (that they’ve almost got the system figured out and can predict the next 50-100 years), nature will present a different outcome. The reason I know this is because I know that the modellers don’t understand what’s happening.”
You claimed in the other thread that you were merely an observer, not a protagonist, and that your views are all evidentially based; so what’s your evidence for this view?
I should just like to register my admiration for Judith Curry, whose grace under fire has been extraordinary. To my mind, Schmidt and Romm and their supporters are shooting themselves comprehensively in both feet. Long may this continue!
I’m sure all you sceptics/deniers really don’t have the problem you are pretending to have in understanding why predicting weather is harder than climate. Judith gave you a sensible answer which makes complete sense.
But just in case you really are having trouble, maybe you can bring yourself to participate in a ‘thought experiment’? If the Earth was moved towards the sun we’d get warmer, on average , right?
Say we moved it enough to be 1degC warmer, on average. We can know that distance precisely by calculation but we still wouldn’t be any the wiser about what the weather would be in any one location the day afterwards. Would we?
Robin #507: Are you serious? You think that climate modellers have a full and comprehensive understanding of the climate system? That what might appear chaotic is actually fully comprehensible, and exists in a computer at GISS or the Met Office?
@SimonH # 510:
Reading my #503 and #507, and your paraphrase of #507 at #510, the astute reader will realise that one of these things is not like the others. I was entirely serious about what I actually said. Perhaps you should go back and read my comments again, for comprehension this time?
Robin, perhaps my pragmatism regarding the juxtaposition of climate modelling and the affliction of gambling addiction could indeed be seen as protagonistic, or perhaps even extrapolated to antagonism. My view is that a significant hindrance to recovery for gamblers from their addictions is the enabling effect of observers failing to communicate an objective view.
@SimonH #512:
I think perhaps your problem is not pragmatism, or communication of an effective view, but epistemological nihilism.
The fact that climatologists don’t know everything doesn’t mean that they know nothing. They know a very great deal, and while there remain unknowns, even considerable unknowns, they know from the thermodynamics at the macro level that there will be warming as a result of man’s use of fossil fuels.
#513:
For “effective”, read “objective”.
Evidence that climatologists know nothing?
epistemological nihilism?
Why not call it saying “I don’t know”?
Not all of us have the same deep yearning to ‘explain’ everything within the bounds of current available knowledge and methods.
I’m not suggesting they know nothing, Robin, and I rather think it’s laughable to try to frame me as an epistemological nihilist or to describe that as being my “problem”. That’s a pretty poor straw man, frankly.
I’m pointing out that, unless you understand all contributing components and their interactions in climate, you cannot effectively predict the future. I find it more than a little bizarre that you acknowledge there are many unknowns, even some of them considerable, but assert that despite these future predictions are robust.
@shub:
“epistemological nihilism?
Why not call it saying “I don’t know”?”
Because that isn’t SimonH’s position; his position seems to be “if we don’t know everything about something, we know nothing”. Strictly, this is perhaps conditional epistemological nihilism…
@SimonH #516:
“I find it more than a little bizarre that you acknowledge there are many unknowns, even some of them considerable, but assert that despite these future predictions are robust.”
The prediction of warming is robust whatever the state of the models; because it derives not (just) from the models, but from the basic thermodynamic principle that if you slow down the radiation of heat from a body while keeping the input constant, the body will heat up.
You suggested that:
“…I know that the modellers don’t understand what’s happening.”
If you modified that to :
“…I know that the modellers don’t understand everything that’s happening.”
I’d be with you; but (i) that wouldn’t lead to the conclusion you derive, namely that the models have no predictive capability whatsoever, and (ii) you chose to attack a strawman of my position, namely that I:
“think that climate modellers have a full and comprehensive understanding of the climate system? That what might appear chaotic is actually fully comprehensible, and exists in a computer at GISS or the Met Office?”
Modellers claim to to have a *good* understanding of climate, and a handle on the level of uncertainties where they exist. Within those uncertainties, they could make robust predictions; knowing that, for example, any model that suggested cooling as opposed to warming with reduced heat radiation from the Earth has to be treated with extreme scepticism.
Let me clarify then, Robin, since the two sentences you compare are differently nuanced. We know that modellers don’t understand everything that is happening. Reasonably, in order to predict future climate a hundred years hence, a modeller must understand both precisely the make-up of the climate and also how those different components interact over time. So the two sentences could be clarified as “I know the modellers don’t understand everything that is happening now” and “I know that modellers don’t understand enough of what is happening to predict the future”.
Whether modellers have, as claimed, a good understanding of climate, and whether or not they are aware of known unknowns and are acknowledging of the possibility of unknown unknowns, what they do not have is sufficient understanding of known and unknown unknowns to be able to accurately predict climate a hundred years hence, and it is perfectly reasonable to treat any claim of their robust conclusions with suspicion. There is no small difference between a climate model that attempts to mimic global climate behaviour with adjusted values in substitution of known unknowns and a climate model that effectively and accurately computes global climate behaviour. What we have is the former, not the latter, and in colloquial terms it’s a couple of cans short of a six-pack.
It’s like pouring gasoline into a wood fire, albeit slower — you don’t need to “understand both precisely the make-up of the climate and also how those different components interact over time” to understand what happens next.
PS — Dr. Curry is saying there’s _more_uncertainty_ about trouble.
That doesn’t mean there’s _less_ likelihood of trouble.
Hank thanks for emphasizing this point. The uncertainty cuts both ways: the plausible worst case scenario could be worse than we have imagined, but at the same time natural variability could end up dominating the climate of the next century.
“… if you slow down the radiation of heat from a body while keeping the input constant, the body will heat up….”
I genuinely do not know. Does “science” know that the Earth is radiating less heat now than in the past and that the input has remained constant? Or are those four separate facts (radiation in and out, now and in the past) inferred or modeled?
There is so much disagreement regarding even the current and paleo surface temperature records. Are there agreed, comprehensive measurements that have detected both the amount of incoming energy, and the amount being radiated? As well as a discernable historical record of those measurements showing that such changes are based on CO2?
Now that would be persuasive even to a lay conservative skeptic like me. But from Gavin Schmidt’s prior comment that we can’t accurately model for the past because we don’t have accurate measurements of all the variables, how do you know anything of the kind?
Hank, we know that time will pass and the climate will.. do things. If we set a light to a pyre, we know it will burn. It doesn’t take a modeller to figure that bit out.
The question is how will it burn? Will it burn out? Will it collapse on itself? Will it fall to the left, or to the right? This prediction requires comprehensive understanding of exactly what kinds of wood are burning, their dampness, their combustibility, their rate of heat transference to surrounding material, the height of their flame, and I’m sure thousands of other different and nuanced influences that we haven’t thought of or just don’t know, but which may have significant impacts on the pyre.
But yeah, it’ll burn, just as time will pass.
Judith #522 Precisely.
This was the point of the one query on Gavin’s thread that he failed to respond to (my#176 Gavins #179), …..Why are cooling scenarios and respective impacts seemingly not likewise quantified and discussed? What would the consensus community rate as the chance of a sustained (multidecadel) cooling in the present century, for presumably it is greater than zero, and how long would it need to endure before it is fully recognised as such and not dismissed as a “˜blip’ on a warming trend?’
That was intended as a serious question, for policy risk as well.
If you are advised to stake all on the favourite, in other words, what chance the wild card factor.
RichardJ, why not read some of the places that question is addressed, then ask if you don’t understand the answers already available? Examples:
http://www.google.com/search?q=cooling+trend+sustained+statistically+significant
will find you for example this paper (paywalled, so the pointer is to a blog quoting from it and citing it):
http://www.desmogblog.com/what-science-has-say-about-global-cooling
“Overall, they found that there was about a 5% chance of a negative decadal trend occurring during the 21st century; if they restricted their timeline to only the first half of the 21st century, the probability of a negative decadal trend rose to 10%.
Their simulations also demonstrated that, as greenhouse gas forcing increases, the percentage of statistically significant positive trends increases ““ from 26% for the first half of the century to 47% for the entire century ““ while that of statistically significant negative trends decreases….”
Can I please just point out that simulations don’t demonstrate anything. They may suggest something, but they do not produce actual data. They are not experiments, they are simulations. If this distinction is not made, the scientific method is directly compromised.
While I’m here, I’d like to point out that although I know my tone with regard to GCMs is extremely dismissive, this doesn’t mean that I believe they have no value. I think their results are interesting and in some ways I think their product can be useful. I just think it’s imperative to quantify their value with a bit of common sense. Actually, a LOT of common sense. Their results may be interesting, perhaps even with value, but they are not dependable. We cannot depend on models we know are flawed, and it must be recognise that they do not comprise evidence or give weight to anything.
Simon, by the same criteria, most experiments don’t produce data. Today we use all sorts of transducers to convert outputs to observations and very frequently simulations determine what we have measured. HEP (high energy physics) experiments at accelerators are an extreme example of this. And oh yes, in that regime, common sense doesn’t help at all.
#522, Prof. Curry, which way are you betting?
Eli, I’d be very surprised if you really couldn’t make the distinction between a transducer and a GCM. But that doesn’t mean I couldn’t be convinced. 🙂
Eli Re #522 and which way I am betting. I am not betting on the value of CO2 sensitivity. In terms of what happens 50-100 years from now with the climate, I am betting on both ends, against the middle (against 3C based on “likely” CO2 sensitivity). Natural variability, particularly of the unforced variety (but also solar), is a much bigger factor IMO than commonly recognized and factored into attribution studies. With regards to actual adverse climate impacts, I suspect that we will see some extreme events that we haven’t imagined yet .
Dr. Curry, your brief answer to my #493 question (contained in your otherwise informative #494), was, in its entirety : “So how can we have a reliable climate “forecast?” Well, climate is the average weather. So it doesn’t matter for climate exactly when that cold front passes through.”
This assertion, repeated by others on this thread, requires explanation – it’s not a self-evident property of climate models. I’m still waiting in hope for a reference to the peer-reviewed literature demonstrating the truth of the assertion. If this will not be forthcoming, please let me know, to save time.
oneuniverse, there are hundreds (thousands) of papers that address angles of this issue, and your question isn’t entirely clear to me, exactly what you topic for which you are looking for a published paper. There are papers on the history of weather and climate forecasting. I have no idea what your technical background is, whether you can read and understand papers with Navier Stokes equations in them, etc. Pls understand that I am not avoiding your question, it simply doesn’t make sense to ask me to identify a single silver bullet paper that addresses specifically your question in a way that you will understand it.
Try this paper by Lenny Smith.
Hi Judith,
Many thanks for the reference. My academic background is in mathematics, physics and computer science, only up to an undergraduate level. I didn’t leave the academic field due to a lack of abililty.
re: paper by Lenny Smith
So far, I’ve read up to the section “Difficulties of Modeling by Analogy”, and so far the paper is supporting what I said, that if a model cannot predict the weather, it will not be able to predict the climate (or if it can, it’s a non-obvious result that needs to be demonstrated). From the paper :
“Given a coupled nonlinear simulation, it is not clear that one can get the averages right without being able to simulate the details correctly.”
“Given the nonlinearities involved, it is not clear whether a model that cannot produce reasonable “weather” can produce reasonable climate statistics of the kind needed for policy making, much less whether it can mimic climate change realistically.”
The rest of the paper doesn’t resolve the issue mentioned in the two quotations above. Ensembles are shown to be useful in spotting the presence of short-comings in the models, but they are unable to solve this problem.
oneuniverse. with regards to actually predicting climate, that is a very complex issue. we can simulate climate. and a simulation of climate does not depend on predicting the details (but it does depend on simulating the details in a reasonable way). Even if we can simulate climate, we cannot predict it unless we know the forcing, which we do not (particularly solar, volcanoes). So if the question i was responding to was not really the question you were asking, rather I was addressing how we can simulate climate when we can’t predict weather beyond a few days. I agree with the perspective on this provided by Lenny Smith.
Lenny Smith’s view is that the models cannot be used to make accurate climate forecasts. From the abstract :
.
“Just as “chaos” prevents accurate weather forecasts, so model error precludes accurate forecasts of the distributions that define climate, yielding uncertainty of the second kind. Can we estimate the uncertainty in our uncertainty estimates? These questions are discussed.”
.
If the models are unable to produce accurate predictions about the future climate, then they’re of little use for the task at hand (w.r.t. concerns about future climate).
.
Lenny Smith: “A great deal of work has gone into testing and verifying the components that compose state-of-the-art models, yet in a very real sense, as coupled nonlinear models per se, they are not yet out of high school, at least not in terms of the questions their designers are asked to answer.”
With respect to estimating the uncertainties of the second kind, Lenny Smith says :
“we can investigate just how bad uncertainty of the second kind is by the contrasting distributions from various packages. When the experiment is repeated with ensembles over model structure, each package again yields its own distribution; uncertainty of the second kind is reflected in how much these distributions differ. The two extreme options are (i) that they are each rather peaked with little overlap or (ii) that they are rather similar. It seems we must aim for ii, at least when grouping packages over model structure. Our competing model structures must be so good that the details are irrelevant (within the rosy scenario).”
We know that the distributions of the different packages have large differences, and that these errors have not substantially improved in recent years (Knutti et al. 2008).
Oneuniverse, the epistemology of models of complex systems is just beginning to be understood. The IPCC 21st century simulations are scenario simulations, and the spread among models and their ensembles for a particular simulation should be regarded as a lower bound on the maximum range of uncertainty.
Note, Lenny Smith’s views are controversial among many developers and users of climate models, but IMO he is correct, and has substantial creds in nonlinear dynamics and statistics.
Climate models are useful for understanding the climate system and developing future scenarios of possible climates. That is how they should be used.
Note, climate models are being used to make useful forecasts on time scales of months (see ECMWF especially). But on longer timescales, the actual predictability is low.
Judith, it depends what you are predicting, surely? On specifics of regional details of new climate patterns — yes, certainly; the predictability is low.
On the prediction of precisely how much global indicators will change, temperature being the most obvious — it is not precise there either.
The problem seems to be that many people are confusing this with some rather more fundamental features, such as anthropomorphic influences at all, or whether global temperature anomaly will rise at all — rather than exactly how much. Some climate “skepticism” is a legitimate scientific skepticism about particular concrete details; I think most people are properly skeptical to some extent on such specifics which are very hard to predict. Other climate “skepticism” is not really skepticism but rather a naive refusal to deal with basics, like recognizing measurements that the planet is warming or the basic physics which means carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases have a significant effect.
On longer timescales, modelers do give large ranges of possible consequences with substantial uncertainty, while still consistently confirming these elementary and well established fundamentals that seem to be hard to communicate in the face of a concerted campaign of disinformation.
Hi Judith,
Your new paper is getting a bit of a beating at various cyberlocations. Want to talk about it?
Hi Tom, very limited time at the moment, working on response to willis over at WUWT.
The interesting issue is raised by Policy Lass. I have to question how WUWT is moderated. Some people here claim they have been barred from posting at WUWT. I’m an educator, and hold firmly to the adage that “there are no stupid questions.” Well, when ignorance and bias are laced with arrogance and insults, well i guess that speaks for itself regarding the questioner.
I really enjoy engaging with thoughtful skeptics, particularly those with the technical capability to understand the arguments (e.g. here, climateaudit, bishophill). I have received some really interesting emails from lurkers at WUWT (who knows, maybe they are barred from posting).
I maintain cordial relations with Anthony Watts, although we have little interaction. I glance at the headlines over there once per day, read about 2 posts per week, and find something of interest about once per month. The posts are getting much better than they were early on, but if Watts wants to be taken seriously, he needs to change his moderation policy, the comments on that thread that are being publicized elsewhere are making WUWT a laughingstock amongst people that actually think. Time for Watts to raise the level over there.
Judith, I share your concern with regard to moderation at WUWT. I propose that it’s reasonable to be less tolerant of stupid assertions than stupid questions, but I would be saddened if it transpired that the thing I reject at RC is alive and is kicking commenters at WUWT. I said as much over there.. or here… umm.. I said as much somewhere, anyway.
An inappropriately abusive comment by “Gaylon” towards Richard Telford – who appears to be guilty of one or two silly comments, but not much more – has been allowed to remain, while Telford’s response would appear to have been cut. This does not reflect well on WUWT and is disaffecting.
[…] there are rumblings of an unfair and heavily moderated thread at WUWT over this paper (see here and here, for example), so I thought I’d provide a vehicle for the disaffected or suppressed […]
I’m a volunteer moderator at WattsUpWithThat, and I snipped Richard Telford’s comment this morning. I won’t go into details, suffice it to say that Mr Telford dared to be snipped. I noted: “You get your wish,” and snipped one objectionable sentence.
I take full responsibility for snipping Mr Telford’s comment today, and I apologize for hurting his feelings. I did it on my own; Anthony Watts had nothing to do with it. I’ve also gone back and snipped the comment Telford was complaining about.
I’m not commenting here to argue about this, only to explain, and to give some background on the way comments are moderated on WUWT:
Unlike most blogs, there is an enormous amount of moderation activity at WUWT. The unwritten policy is to ‘moderate with a light touch.’ I leave over 99.5% of all comments exactly as they were written – and I never edit the language [although spelling and grammar mistakes are sometimes corrected for readability]. Commentators’ words and meaning are always left intact.
On average I make an in-line reply, or snip part or all of a post, less than once per 500 comments [with the exception of saying something like, for example, “Thanks, fixed,” when someone points out a typo in a new article].
On a really busy day [such as during the Climategate exposé] I personally moderate 800+ comments a day. On an average busy day, between 250 – 500. On an average day, always over 200. That’s just me; there are several other moderators.
‘
Also, there are a handful of individuals who are so out of control, obscene, etc., that they have ben banned after repeated warnings. The last I saw, the total was five. Commentators are given plenty of warnings before they are given even a time out. The vast majority are polite, and never have any problem posting their comments.
There is not a blog anywhere, that gets more than a few comments a day that does not ban a few commentators for repeated bad behavior. The fact that WUWT consistently allows all points of view, without the routine censorship common to certain other blogs is what sets it apart, and IMHO is what has resulted in the skyrocketing popularity of Anthony Watts’ site.
WUWT is already at a half a million comments, with more than 50 million hits ““ up from zero in only three years. WUWT is the winner of the most recent Weblog Awards for “Best Science” site, and the most recent Wikio Award for best in Science. WUWT is giving people what they want in a science site.
You can be sure that if your comment is polite, and not overly taunting, or completely off-topic, or grossly insulting, or obscene, it will be posted.
WUWT does not censor comments with a different point of view. I have posted close to two dozen comments at RealClimate and Climate Progress, written in as straightforward a manner as this one. None of them ever made it out of moderation. Not a single one.
Finding the right balance between an unmoderated free-for-all, and deliberate, one-sided censorship is a judgement call. WUWT has always leaned toward a very light touch in moderating comments; more than 99% of them are posted with no problem, and the comments cover the spectrum, from believers in catastrophic runaway global warming to folks who think nothing unusual or extraordinary is occurring. No one’s view is excluded. That is one of the primary reasons that sets WUWT apart: people want to read all points of view, and WUWT enables that kind of discussion.
Thank you for allowing me to clarify the moderating situation at WUWT. I wish you all the best.
Sincerely,
D.B. Stealey [“~dbs, mod.”]
WattsUpWithThat.com
I should support DBS there – I write comments at WUWT which are not popular with the commentariat, and sometimes get negative responses by Anthony. But I’ve never had problems with moderators.
Mr Stealey, thanks very much for clarifying! I know from my own experiences how difficult it is to moderate with an even hand. To do it, you have to be cognisant of all comments made, and that’s hard at best and impossible on a busy day. My understanding of WUWT moderation policy has always been as you describe. I very much appreciate your addressing the disparity in treatment between Gaylon and Telford.
It’s worth mentioning, since you make mention of RC, that the disappointment I expressed today about WUWT moderation should be juxtaposed with my view of RC moderation policy. I don’t vent my spleen about RC moderation daily any more simply because my expectations have hit rock bottom there. In stark contrast, my expectations of WUWT are far greater. I know it isn’t fair, but it’s a direct result of WUWT setting its own bar so high.
There remain those posting here who claim they cannot any longer post at WUWT. I cannot speak to their veracity but, though we are rarely in agreement, I’ve not witnessed any of the behaviour, here, that ought to earn a ban at WUWT. I appreciate that it’s an easy claim to make, if you intend to underpin your criticism of a blog’s purported secret biases but is it possible that Deech56 is not in fact one of the five banned visitors and instead experiences unidentified technical issues when posting?
Simon H,
Thank you for your kind response (and thanks to Nick Stokes, too).
I don’t have the time to go through over 500 comments here (or for that matter, the 145 comments posted by Deech56 at WUWT) to find out if anyone else is complaining that they’ve banned from WUWT. It has been a long time since anyone was banned ““ time outs, yes. Banned? Not in the past year that I’m aware of.
If anyone else here believes they can’t post on WUWT, please give it a try.
(My response to Deech56 is in your link to Gavin’s article, comment #556.)
Sincerely,
D.B. Stealey, moderator
http://wattsupwiththat.com
“Unlike most blogs, there is an enormous amount of moderation activity at WUWT. The unwritten policy is to “˜moderate with a light touch.’ I leave over 99.5% of all comments exactly as they were written ““ and I never edit the language [although spelling and grammar mistakes are sometimes corrected for readability]. Commentators’ words and meaning are always left intact.
On average I make an in-line reply, or snip part or all of a post, less than once per 500 comments [with the exception of saying something like, for example, “Thanks, fixed,” when someone points out a typo in a new article].”
Having read and commented at WUWT for several years the entire idea of “heavily moderated” is a joke. For “heavily moderated” you need to go to “Team” sites.
The difference is entirely philosophical. WUWT and Climate Audit begin with the premise that we do not know much about climate. “Team” sites are pretty sure they have the goods and anyone who does not buy in is scientifically illiterate, a troll, or oil funded.
When you begin with uncertainty you tend to give a wide scope to people whose view differ. When, on the other hand, you know the “truth”, differing views are simply irritating no matter how well researched or considered.
@GaryM #523:
(RL intervened)
“I genuinely do not know. Does “science” know that the Earth is radiating less heat now than in the past and that the input has remained constant? Or are those four separate facts (radiation in and out, now and in the past) inferred or modeled?”
Science knows – has known for 150 years – that if you add CO2 (and/or other gases wiuth similar properties) to an atmosphere, then all other things being equal you slow down outbound radiation. It’s called the “greenhouse effect”; you may have heard of it. It’s why we have a liveable average global temperature, some 30K above what it would be absent the effect.
Science knows that we have added significant quantities of CO2 to the atmosphere.
Science knows that since we’ve had satellites up there measuring TSI, there has been no significant increase or reduction.
Science knows that average global temperatures are increasing. If they aren’t, then the Arctic in particular hasn’t got the memo.
Robin,
“All other things being equal” was the point of my question. The fact that all other things are almost never equal is the primary reason economic and climate models do such a poor job of predicting the future.
Scientists clearly don’t yet know that “all other things are equal.” Just look at the IPCC’s ARs and the uncertainty as to many other factors, ie. aerosols, volcanic activity, etc. Therefore the question I actually asked was whether actual reliable measurements have been made to back up the claims made by some activists that the Earth is radiating less energy that it is taking in (ie. we warming because we are not in equilibrium) regardless of the cause.
Apparently you could have just typed “No” and saved yourself a lot of time.
You can tell when someone is speaking as an advocate and not a scientist when they substitute a question they want to answer for the question you actually asked.
@GaryM:
Your misapprehension is clear from these words:
“”All other things being equal” was the point of my question. The fact that all other things are almost never equal is the primary reason economic and climate models do such a poor job of predicting the future.”
Economic models are purely statistical; climate models represent known underlying physical mechanisms, with constraints upon unknown physical mechanisms from observations. Unlike economists, physicists have validated the principles upon which their models are built against tried and tested real world observations and experiments.
“Scientists clearly don’t yet know that “all other things are equal.””
Indeed; but for the denialists to be correct, there has to be a countervailing mechanism as yet unknown that just happens to kick in at the point we have reached. They are the ones betting on today’s climate being an optimum in the sense that the feedback mechanisms will tend to keep global temperatures at or around a figure of 30K above the temperatures that would exist in the absence of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. What is so special about that 30K figure – particularly since they also point out that in the past the Earth has been warmer still?
When I said “all other things being equal” I meant “assuming that the laws of physics as we know them don’t break down at current global temperatures”.
“Therefore the question I actually asked was whether actual reliable measurements have been made to back up the claims made by some activists that the Earth is radiating less energy that it is taking in (ie. we warming because we are not in equilibrium) regardless of the cause.”
Sorry? “Some activists”? Thermodynamics – it’s the law…
You can tell when someone is speaking as an advocate and not a scientist when they ask for specific measurements that are not taken, but which can be inferred from other measurements, and then declare victory.
We know that we are radiating less energy than we are receiving because the Earth is getting warmer. We have a demonstrated physical mechanism for that. The distribution of the increased temperatures is at the very least consistent with the hypothesis that it results from an increase in GHGs. What more do you want?
Robin,
Gavin Schmidt and Judith Curry recently had extensive discussions in this and the Gavin’s Perspective threads regarding levels of uncertainty, including with respect to climate models and the fundamental science. I had and have no intent to try to revisit the territory they are so much more qualified to discuss.
I asked a simple question 8 days ago. Since no one responded, I assumed the answer was no. After two long posts today, you essentially gave your answer: I had asked for “specific measurements that are not taken….” I take that, again, as a no. Thanks.
GaryM:
“Gavin Schmidt and Judith Curry recently had extensive discussions in this and the Gavin’s Perspective threads regarding levels of uncertainty, including with respect to climate models and the fundamental science. I had and have no intent to try to revisit the territory they are so much more qualified to discuss.”
Indeed; but note that the uncertainty to which they are referring is not whether AGW, but how much AGW.
I’ve just launched my new blog Climate Etc. Stop by and leave a comment, help me practice being a blog moderator. First technical article will be posted Monday.
Robin Levett writes: “Unlike economists, physicists have validated the principles upon which their models are built against tried and tested real world observations and experiments.” Really? For example…..
“Indeed; but for the denialists to be correct, there has to be a countervailing mechanism as yet unknown that just happens to kick in at the point we have reached.” Really? What point have we reached?
“We know that we are radiating less energy than we are receiving because the Earth is getting warmer. We have a demonstrated physical mechanism for that. ” Really? Sats who?
“The distribution of the increased temperatures is at the very least consistent with the hypothesis that it results from an increase in GHGs. What more do you want?” Is it? And quite a lot.
RW
[…] I have criticised Judy Curry for not knowing enough about what she has chosen to talk about, for not thinking clearly about the claims she has made with respect to the IPCC, and for flinging serious accusations at […]