“BUT the climate is warming and CO2 is increasing. Doesn’t this prove that CO2 is causing global warming through the greenhouse effect?
“No, the current warming period began about 1800 at the end of the little ice age, long before there was an appreciable increase of CO2. There have been similar and even larger warmings several times in the 10,000 years since the end of the last ice age. These earlier warmings clearly had nothing to do with the combustion of fossil fuels. The current warming also seems to be due mostly to natural causes, not to increasing levels of carbon dioxide. Over the past ten years there has been no global warming, and in fact a slight cooling. This is not at all what was predicted by the IPCC models.”
So explained William Happer, a professor of physics at Princeton University, to the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on February 25, 2009.
Professor Happer also said,
“I believe that the increase of CO2 is not a cause for alarm and will be good for mankind. I predict that future historians will look back on this period much as we now view the period just before the passage of the 18th Amendment to the US Constitution to prohibit “the manufacturing, sale or transportation of intoxicating liquors.” At the time, the 18th amendment seemed to be exactly the right thing to do – who wanted to be in league with demon rum? It was the 1917 version of saving the planet. More than half the states enacted prohibition laws before the 18th amendment was ratified. Only one state, Rhode Island, voted against the 18th amendment. Two states, Illinois and Indiana, never got around to voting and all the rest voted for it. There were many thoughtful people, including a majority of Rhode Islanders, who thought that prohibition might do more harm than good. But they were completely outmatched by the temperance movement, whose motives and methods had much in common with the movement to stop climate change. Deeply sincere people thought they were saving humanity from the evils of alcohol, just as many people now sincerely think they are saving humanity from the evils of CO2. Prohibition was a mistake, and our country has probably still not fully recovered from the damage it did. Institutions like organized crime got their start in that era. Drastic limitations on CO2 are likely to damage our country in analogous ways.
But what about the frightening consequences of increasing levels of CO2 that we keep hearing about? In a word, they are wildly exaggerated, just as the purported benefits of prohibition were wildly exaggerated. Let me turn now to the science and try to explain why I and many scientists like me are not alarmed by increasing levels of CO2.
The earth’s climate really is strongly affected by the greenhouse effect, although the physics is not the same as that which makes real, glassed-in greenhouses work. Without greenhouse warming, the earth would be much too cold to sustain its current abundance of life. However, at least 90% of greenhouse warming is due to water vapor and clouds. Carbon dioxide is a bit player. There is little argument in the scientific community that a direct effect of doubling the CO2 concentration will be a small increase of the earth’s temperature — on the order of one degree. Additional increments of CO2 will cause relatively less direct warming because we already have so much CO2 in the atmosphere that it has blocked most of the infrared radiation that it can. It is like putting an additional ski hat on your head when you already have a nice warm one below it, but your are only wearing a windbreaker. To really get warmer, you need to add a warmer jacket. The IPCC thinks that this extra jacket is water vapor and clouds.
Since most of the greenhouse effect for the earth is due to water vapor and clouds, added CO2 must substantially increase water’s contribution to lead to the frightening scenarios that are bandied about. The buzz word here is that there is “positive feedback.” With each passing year, experimental observations further undermine the claim of a large positive feedback from water. In fact, observations suggest that the feedback is close to zero and may even be negative. That is, water vapor and clouds may actually diminish the already small global warming expected from CO2, not amplify it. The evidence here comes from satellite measurements of infraredradiation escaping from the earth into outer space, from measurements of sunlight reflected from clouds and from measurements of the temperature the earth’s surface or of the troposphere, the roughly 10 km thick layer of the atmosphere above the earth’s surface that is filled with churning air and clouds, heated from below at the earth’s surface, and cooled at the top by radiation into space.
But the climate is warming and CO2 is increasing. Doesn’t this prove that CO2 is causing global warming through the greenhouse effect? No, the current warming period began about 1800 at the end of the little ice age, long before there was an appreciable increase of CO2. There have been similar and even larger warmings several times in the 10,000 years since the end of the last ice age. These earlier warmings clearly had nothing to do with the combustion of fossil fuels. The current warming also seems to be due mostly to natural causes, not to increasing levels of carbon dioxide. Over the past ten years there has been no global warming, and in fact a slight cooling. This is not at all what was predicted by the IPCC models.
The climate has changed many times in the past with no help by mankind. Recall that the Romans grew grapes in Britain around the year 100, and Viking settlers prospered on small farms in Greenland for several centuries during the Medieval Climate Optimum around 1100. People have had an urge to control the climate throughout history so I suppose it is no surprise that we are at it again today. For example, in June of 1644, the Bishop of Geneva led a flock of believers to the face of a glacier that was advancing “by over a musket shot” every day. The glacier would soon destroy a village. The Bishop and his flock prayed over the glacier, and it is said to have stopped. The poor Vikings had long since abandoned Greenland where the advancing glaciers and cooling climate proved much less susceptible to prayer. Sometimes the obsession for control of the climate got a bit out of hand, as in the Aztec state, where the local scientific/religious establishment of the year 1500 had long since announced that the debate was over and that at least 20,000 human sacrifices a year were needed to keep the sun moving, the rain falling, and to stop climate change. The widespread dissatisfaction of the people who were unfortunate enough to be the source of these sacrifices played an important part in the success of the Spanish conquest of Mexico.
The existence of climate variability in the past has long been an embarrassment to those who claim that all climate change is due to man and that man can control it. When I was a schoolboy, my textbooks on earth science showed a prominent “medieval warm period” at the time the Vikings settled Greenland, followed by a vicious “little ice age” that drove them out. So I was very surprised when I first saw the celebrated “hockey stick curve,” in the Third Assessment Report of the IPCC. I could hardly believe my eyes. Both the little ice age and the Medieval Warm Period were gone, and the newly revised temperature of the world since the year 1000 had suddenly become absolutely flat until the last hundred years when it shot up like the blade on a hockey stick. This was far from an obscure detail, and the hockey stick was trumpeted around the world as evidence that the end was near. We now know that the hockey stick has nothing to do with reality but was the result of incorrect handling of proxy temperature records and incorrect statistical analysis. There really was a little ice age and there really was a medieval warm period that was as warm or warmer than today. I bring up the hockey stick as a particularly clear example that the IPCC summaries for policy makers are not dispassionate statements of the facts of climate change. It is a shame, because many of the IPCC chapters are quite good. The whole hockey-stick episode reminds me of the motto of Orwell’s Ministry of Information in the novel “1984:” “He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future.” The IPCC has made no serious attempt to model the natural variations of the earth’s temperature in the past. Whatever caused these large past variations, it was not due to people burning coal and oil. If you can’t model the past, where you know the answer pretty well, how can you model the future?
Many of us are aware that we are living in an ice age, where we have hundred-thousand-year intervals of big continental glaciers that cover much of the land area of the northern hemisphere, interspersed with relative short interglacial intervals like the one we are living in now. By looking at ice cores from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, one can estimate past temperatures and atmospheric concentrations of CO2. Al Gore likes to display graphs of temperature and CO2 concentrations over the past million years or so, showing that when CO2 rises, the temperature also rises. Doesn’t this prove that the temperature is driven by CO2? Absolutely not! If you look carefully at these records, you find that first the temperature goes up, and then the CO2 concentration of the atmosphere goes up. There is a delay between a temperature increase and a CO2 increase of about 800 years. This casts serious doubt on CO2 as a climate driver because of the fundamental concept of causality. A cause must precede its effect. For example, I hear my furnace go on in the morning about six o’clock, and by about 7 o’clock, I notice that my house is now so warm that I have too many covers on my bed. It is time to get up. It would never occur to me to assume that the furnace started burning gas at 6 o’clock because the house got warm at 7 o’clock. Sure, temperature and gas burning are correlated, just like temperature and atmospheric levels of CO2. But the thing that changes first is the cause. In the case of the ice cores, the cause of increased CO2 is almost certainly the warming of the oceans. The oceans release dissolved CO2 when they warm up, just like a glass of beer rapidly goes flat in a warm room. If not CO2, then what really causes the warming at the end of the cold periods of ice ages? A great question and one of the reasons I strongly support research in climate.
I keep hearing about the “pollutant CO2,” or about “poisoning the atmosphere” with CO2, or about minimizing our “carbon footprint.” This brings to mind another Orwellian pronouncement that is worth pondering: “But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.” CO2 is not a pollutant and it is not a poison and we should not corrupt the English language by depriving “pollutant” and “poison” of their original meaning. Our exhaled breath contains about 4% CO2. That is 40,000 parts per million, or about 100 times the current atmospheric concentration. CO2 is absolutely essential for life on earth. Commercial greenhouse operators often use CO2 as a fertilizer to improve the health and growth rate of their plants. Plants, and our own primate ancestors evolved when the levels of atmospheric CO2 were about 1000 ppm, a level that we will probably not reach by burning fossil fuels, and far above our current level of about 380 ppm. We try to keep CO2 levels in our US Navy submarines no higher than 8,000 parts per million, about 20 time current atmospheric levels. Few adverse effects are observed at even higher levels.
We are all aware that “the green revolution” has increased crop yields around the world. Part of this wonderful development is due to improved crop varieties, better use of mineral fertilizers, herbicides, etc. But no small part of the yield improvement has come from increased atmospheric levels of CO2. Plants photosynthesize more carbohydrates when they have more CO2. Plants are also more drought-tolerant with more CO2, because they need not “inhale” as much air to get the CO2 needed for photosynthesis. At the same time, the plants need not “exhale” as much water vapor when they are using air enriched in CO2. Plants decrease the number of stomata or air pores on their leaf surfaces in response to increasing atmospheric levels of CO2. They are adapted to changing CO2 levels and they prefer higher levels than those we have at present. If we really were to decrease our current level of CO2 of around 400 ppm to the 270 ppm that prevailed a few hundred years ago, we would lose some of the benefits of the green revolution. Crop yields will continue to increase as CO2 levels go up, since we are far from the optimum levels for plant growth. Commercial greenhouse operators are advised to add enough CO2 to maintain about 1000 ppm around their plants. Indeed, economic studies like those of Dr. Robert Mendelsohn at Yale University project that moderate warming is an overall benefit to mankind because of higher agricultural yields and many other reasons.
I remember being forced to read Voltaire’s novel, Candide, when I was young. You recall that Dr. Pangloss repeatedly assured young Candide that he was living in “the best of all possible worlds,” presumably also with the best of all CO2 concentrations. That we are (or were) living at the best of all CO2 concentrations seems to be a tacit assumption of the IPCC executive summaries for policy makers. Enormous effort and imagination have gone into showing that increasing concentrations of CO2 will be catastrophic, cities will be flooded by sea-level rises that are ten or more times bigger than even IPCC predicts, there will be mass extinctions of species, billions of people will die, tipping points will render the planet a desert. A few months ago I read that global warming will soon bring on a devastating epidemic of kidney stones. If you write down all the ills attributed to global warming you fill up a very thick book.
Much is made about tropical diseases like malaria and yellow fever devastating the populations of temperate climates because of the burning of fossil fuels and the subsequent warming of the earth. Many people who actually work with tropical diseases, notably Dr. Paul Reiter, a specialist on tropical diseases, have pointed out how silly all of this is. Perhaps I can add a few bits of history to illustrate this point. One of the first military expenditures of the Continental Congress in 1775 was $300 to purchase quinine for the Continental Army and to mitigate the effects of malaria. The Continental Congress moved from the then Capital of the United States , Philadelphia, to my home town of Princeton, New Jersey, in the summer of 1783 for two reasons. The first was that the Congress had not yet paid many soldiers of the Revolutionary War their promised wages, and disgruntled veterans were wandering up and down the streets of Philadelphia. Secondly, there were outbreaks of malaria in cities as far north as Boston. The Congress knew you were less likely to catch malaria in Princeton than in Philadelphia. In 1793 there was not only malaria, but a horrendous outbreak of yellow fever in Philadelphia. Many thousands of people died in a city with a population of about 50,000. And I should point out that Philadelphia was a bit cooler then than now, since the little ice age was just coming to an end. Controlling tropical diseases and many other diseases has little to do with temperature, and everything to do with curtailing the factors that cause the spread – notably mosquitoes in the case of malaria and yellow fever.
Many of the frightening scenarios about global warming come from large computer calculations, “general circulation models,” that try to mimic the behavior of the earth’s climate as more CO2 is added to the atmosphere. It is true that climate models use increasingly capable and increasingly expensive computers. But their predictions have not been very good. For example, none of them predicted the lack of warming that we have experienced during the past ten years. All the models assume the water feedback is positive, while satellite observations suggest that the feedback is zero or negative.
Modelers have been wrong before. One of the most famous modeling disputes involved the physicist William Thompson, later Lord Kelvin, and the naturalist Charles Darwin. Lord Kelvin was a great believer in models and differential equations. Charles Darwin was not particularly facile with mathematics, but he took observations very seriously. For evolution to produce the variety of living and fossil species that Darwin had observed, the earth needed to have spent hundreds of millions of years with conditions not very different from now. With his mathematical models, Kelvin rather pompously demonstrated that the earth must have been a hellish ball of molten rock only a few tens of millions of years ago, and that the sun could not have been shining for more than about 30 million years. Kelvin was actually modeling what he thought was global and solar cooling. I am sorry to say that a majority of his fellow physicists supported Kelvin. Poor Darwin removed any reference to the age of the earth in later editions of the “Origin of the Species.” But Darwin was right the first time, and Kelvin was wrong. Kelvin thought he knew everything but he did not know about the atomic nucleus, radioactivity and nuclear reactions, all of which invalidated his elegant modeling calculations.
This brings up the frequent assertion that there is a consensus behind the idea that there is an impending disaster from climate change, and that it may already be too late to avert this catastrophe, even if we stop burning fossil fuels now. We are told that only a few flat-earthers still have any doubt about the calamitous effects of continued CO2 emissions. There are a number of answers to this assertion.
First, what is correct in science is not determined by consensus but by experiment and observations. Historically, the consensus is often wrong, and I just mentioned the incorrect consensus of modelers about the age of the earth and the sun. During the yellow fever epidemic of 1793 in Philadelphia the medical consensus was that you could cure almost anything by bleeding the patient. Benjamin Rush, George Washington’s Surgeon General during the War of Independence, and a brave man, stayed in Philadelphia throughout the yellow fever epidemic. He worked tirelessly to save the stricken by bleeding them, the consensus treatment of the day. A few cautious observers noticed that you were more likely to survive the yellow fever without the services of the great man. But Dr. Rush had plenty of high level-friends and he was backed up by the self-evident consensus, so he went ahead with his ministrations. In summary, a consensus is often wrong.
Secondly, I do not think there is a consensus about an impending climate crisis. I personally certainly don’t believe we are facing a crisis unless we create one for ourselves, as Benjamin Rush did by bleeding his patients. Many others, wiser than I am, share my view. The number of those with the courage to speak out is growing. There may be an illusion of consensus. Like the temperance movement one hundred years ago the climate-catastrophe movement has enlisted the mass media, the leadership of scientific societies, the trustees of charitable foundations, and many other influential people to their cause. Just as editorials used to fulminate about the slippery path to hell behind the tavern door, hysterical op-ed’s lecture us today about the impending end of the planet and the need to stop climate change with bold political action. Many distinguished scientific journals now have editors who further the agenda of climate-change alarmism. Research papers with scientific findings contrary to the dogma of climate calamity are rejected by reviewers, many of whom fear that their research funding will be cut if any doubt is cast on the coming climate catastrophe. Speaking of the Romans, then invading Scotland in the year 83, the great Scottish chieftain Calgacus is quoted as saying “They make a desert and call it peace.” If you have the power to stifle dissent, you can indeed create the illusion of peace or consensus. The Romans have made impressive inroads into climate science. Certainly, it is a bit unnerving to read statements of Dr. James Hansen in the Congressional Record that climate skeptics are guilty of “high crimes against humanity and nature.”
Even elementary school teachers and writers of children’s books are enlisted to terrify our children and to promote the idea of impending climate doom. Having observed the education of many children, including my own, I am not sure how effective the effort will be. Many children seem to do just the opposite of what they are taught. Nevertheless, children should not be force-fed propaganda, masquerading as science. Many of you may know that in 2007 a British Court ruled that if Al Gore’s book, “An Inconvenient Truth,” was used in public schools, the children had to be told of eleven particularly troubling inaccuracies. You can easily find a list of the inaccuracies on the internet, but I will mention one. The court ruled that it was not possible to attribute hurricane Katrina to CO2. Indeed, had we taken a few of the many billions of dollars we have been spending on climate change research and propaganda and fixed the dykes and pumps around the New Orleans, most of the damage from Hurricane Katrina could have been avoided.
The sea level is indeed rising, just as it has for the past 20,000 years since the end of the last ice age. Fairly accurate measurements of sea level have been available since about 1800. These measurements show no sign of any acceleration. The rising sea level can be a serious local problem for heavily-populated, low-lying areas like New Orleans, where land subsidence compounds the problem. But to think that limiting CO2 emissions will stop sea level rise is a dangerous illusion. It is also possible that the warming seas around Antarctica will cause more snowfall over the continent and will counteract the sea-level rise. In any case, the rising sea level is a problem that needs quick local action for locations like New Orleans rather than slow action globally.
In closing, let me say again that we should provide adequate support to the many brilliant scientists, some at my own institution of Princeton University, who are trying to better understand the earth’s climate, now, in the past, and what it may be in the future. I regret that the climate-change issue has become confused with serious problems like secure energy supplies, protecting our environment, and figuring out where future generations will get energy supplies after we have burned all the fossil fuel we can find. We should not confuse these laudable goals with hysterics about carbon footprints. For example, when weighing pluses and minuses of the continued or increased use of coal, the negative issue should not be increased atmospheric CO2, which is probably good for mankind. We should focus on real issues like damage to the land and waterways by strip mining, inadequate remediation, hazards to miners, the release of real pollutants and poisons like mercury, other heavy metals, organic carcinogens, etcetera.
Life is about making decisions and decisions are about trade-offs. The Congress can choose to promote investment in technology that addresses real problems and scientific research that will let us cope with real problems more efficiently. Or they can act on unreasonable fears and suppress energy use, economic growth and the benefits that come from the creation of national wealth.”
*******************
William Happer is the Cyrus Fogg Bracket Professor of Physics at Princeton University where his main areas of focus have been on atomic, molecular and optical physics. His professional work has been in studying the interactions of visible and infrared radiation with gases, one of the main physical phenomena behind the greenhouse effect.
The photograph of the sun rising near Bourke, western NSW, was taken by Jennifer Marohasy on May 5, 2005.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Fossil fuels – how the ignition of previously sequestered carbon sources is now deemed politically incorrect.
Provding the theory is correct.
Time for me to go pick cherries and prop up the straw men while I’m at it
Climate changes as water changes it’s physical state.
The Earth has been warming steadily since the last ice age and minus a few moments of a downward trend like the mini-ice age and the 1945 to 1980 level, it has continued to warm naturally.
As the poles melt, that change in state of ice to liquid will dramatically change the way the warming will continue.
It means more climate instability.
The fact that scientists tell us that our additional contribution of CO2 has speeded things up is unfortunate.
Society usually listens to scientists, and we are. Try not and let a few corporate interests cloud your thinking.
The earth is naturally warming. Man is speeding it up and poisoning himself at the same time.
Scientists today now argue the Permian extinction event saying a dead zone that used to be the tell-tale line no longer shows itself to delineate the extinction event.
Science will always redefine itself and what it believes as new evidence is presented.
Calling the Permian Extinction Event the biggest hoax of all time isn’t happening, so why call climate science a hoax?
For many decades we have tried to figure out if the antarctic ice sheet is increasing or decreasing in mass.
People will tell you that the ice sheet is gaining mass yet they have no idea how that conclusion was formulated.
Maybe they want to sound informed, and we all do. But my notion is that a warming globe will expand the volume of water in the oceans exactly as physics says.
What happens when you raise sea level? You float ice that used to be seated on land. What happens next? The ice sheets break off and melt. What happens when you remove the fringe of ice around a massive landbased sheet?
It slips into the ocean.
This isn’t rocket science, it is common sense.
Could the ice move faster than ever witnesses by humans? Sure. Will I be surprised? No.
Was Greenland once farmed by Vikings? Sure. Will it be ariable land in the future. Sure.
Sooner than we think? Possibly? Speeded up by CO2? That’s what they say.
Where will all the people go in the southwest USA when the drought continues for another 10 years?
North and east. Is there a solution to their water shortages? Other than massive desalinization, no.
Could cutting CO2 and black carbon out of our exhaust stop the natural warming since the last ice age? No way.
It would reduce the amount of warming being retained by the atmosphere and that really matters when you talk about living organisms surviving hot nights and dry days.
We question the accuracy of climate science, but not the missing WMD.
A very good article, at least the good professor started at the end of the LIA, because this is the only way to begin to make sense of this AGW fraud.
If as we are told the LIA caused the planet’s temp to drop by at least 1 c then an increase of .7c ( After it ENDED ) in the next 150–200 years is not the least bit unusual.
IN FACT IT IS WHAT YOU WOULD EXPECT. If the period from 1300 to 1800 was a colder period causing a 1c drop in temp, then if the warmer 200 years from 1800 to 2000 causes a .7c rise in temp we are in fact measuring only the most obvious conclusion, it had to happen.
BTW what caused the much higher sea levels around Australia only a few thousand years ago and why is the coastline of Roman Britain found so far inland today?
As we should understand, not many planes, cars and factories coughing out co2 2000 years ago, SO IT WASN’T CO2.
I think Jeremy C thinks he has refuted a lengthy and well-reasoned dicussion with an ad hominem attack. But I’m not sure because the comment is non-specific and hysterical.
Well reasoned and lengthy argument —> non specific and hysterical ad hominem response
Seems about right.
A good summary and indictment of the AGW scare-mongering; one of the most insidious elements of this scaremongering is the notion that carbon is a pollutant; in this respect this article is informative;
http://www.nzcpr.com/soapbox.htm#RobertC
Since humans are carbon life-forms one can only suppose that this campaign to villify carbon is being promoted by alien life-forms, perhaps silica based or machines; without naming names it is obvious that some commentators here are aliens!
Run along now Jeremy C, or you’ll miss your shift under the bridge.
Just more recycled alarmist denialism for drongos – ho hum.
yup – all the facts you continue to deny Luke.
“The number of those with the courage to speak out is growing.”
“Many distinguished scientific journals now have editors who further the agenda of climate-change alarmism”
“If you have the power to stifle dissent, you can indeed create the illusion of peace or consensus”
Just a few quotes that tend to paint the good prof as somewhat … paranoid perhaps.
Exactly who is driving this hidden agenda he alludes to? Who’s doing the stifling and to what end? Is the prof mistaking debate for persecution? How was it that these radical, agenda furthering editors came to control these journals? Was it because real scientists like the prof took their eye off the ball and allowed the other crowd in? Why is speaking out against AGW “courageous” does the prof have any proof to back his claims of a McCarthyist witchunt. I think the whole article is short on detail and long on rhetoric hence all the padding with references to prohibition and yellow fever. Next please.
“lengthy and well-reasoned dicussion”
Well the first point is ceratainly correct however the poster is unable to seperate reason from rhetoric. Perhaps some introductory law units are in order? Or maybe an invitation to join a public debating group.
Patrick B
Your post cannot be based on personal experience. A couple of years back I was the target of a group of climate changers in Australian academia who wanted me sacked as editor of the Australian Institute of Geoscientists News. They failed uttlerly.
So don’t start pretending that mainstream journals are paragon’s of academic even handedness – they aren’t.
As far as I am concerned the Australian McCarthyist’s tried and lost.
“A couple of years back I was the target of a group of climate changers in Australian academia who wanted me sacked as editor of the Australian Institute of Geoscientists News.”
Presumably you lodged a formal complaint outlining your greivances? Can you point to any evidence of the charges and your refutation of them? Were these attacks the result of your stance on climate change or were other factors involved? You see Louis you need to provide evidence not grumpy gestures, one swallow does not a summer make.
“As far as I am concerned the Australian McCarthyist’s tried and lost”
Presumably you can provide a lits of others who are vistims of the conspiracy? I mean McCarthy’s targets are well documented, where can a find a similar list of the victims of the Australian McCarthyists?
At any rate the prof whose opinion is reproduced here doesn’t seem to gave suffered too much, I presume he is still at Princeton?
“Exactly who is driving this hidden agenda he alludes to?”
No, not a grand conspiracy, but the natural behaviour of the media. Other examples:
“2KY”
Working in the software industry for a quarter century I happen to know that nearly everyone who had technical knowledge of the field were completely mystified as to why the media went berserk over this. Bugs get reported and fixed every day. This was always business as usual.
“Star Wars defence program”
“Imagine trying to shoot a bullet with a bullet…” and other quotes. I recall the media parading the opinions of the Union of Concerned Scientists and other “experts” to tell us the missile defence was impossible and a huge waste of money. Of course, missile defence systems are being quietly installed all over the world in strategic locations these days. I’ve seen some rewriting of history, but no retractions from the media.
“Greatest Financial Crisis Since the Great Depression”
There is no particular reason why economies around the world should be shrinking the way they are now. Most of these problems are now being caused by the media itself relishing in reporting the most negative news stories they can find.
If you have a leftist bent, you might enjoy reading Norm Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent, which is one view of how the media regulates and filters information. Not that I agree with much that Norm has to say, but he has ideas worth considering.
Patrick B,
I am savvy enough to know that lodging a formal complaint would have been a total waste of time – however the two academics were summarily told to F*** off, which they did with tails between legs and yes they wanted me out for my sceptical editorial position.
No names will be published either so you can make of it as you wish, but I care not for libelling people.
Will,
this is a nitpick but it’s Noam Chomsky. Norm Chomsky, already( to said in a Yiddish accent).
Well, it was a well referenced set of delusions, given that there were no references. Eli will give Happer that. Someone wanna tell me where he got
“With each passing year, experimental observations further undermine the claim of a large positive feedback from water. In fact, observations suggest that the feedback is close to zero and may even be negative.”
Recent publications by Soden and Dessler show this to be not even a wish or a hope.
To reply to Patrick B, Al Gore and Jim Hansen are driving it, and doing the stifling for political/religious reasons. The answers to the rest of your questions can be found here:
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/09/corrupted_science_revealed.html
Follow the links to Prof Lindzen’s paper.
Eli Rabett,
Go to Roy Spencer’s web site and have a read of some of his recent papers.
You mean THE Dessler, who in a press release was quoted:
“Using the UARS data to actually quantify both specific humidity and relative humidity, the researchers found, while water vapor does increase with temperature in the upper troposphere, the feedback effect is not as strong as models have predicted…”
http://meteo.lcd.lu/globalwarming/water_vapour/dessler04.pdf
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2004/0315humidity.html
Interestingly one interpretation of Dressler:
http://climatechangepsychology.blogspot.com/2008/11/andrew-dessler-et-al-water-vapor.html
suggests that water vapour feedback is likely to be in the 2 degree Fahrenheit range (unless this article is mistaken or is subject to misinterpretation).
Feedback may be positive, negative or close to neutral, but even Dressler’s current view of the subject is starting to align with the generally accepted ‘sensible sceptical’ position of a .5C to 1.5C warming for the next century (excluding natural cycles).
William Happer argues true to form that “Prohibition was a mistake, and our country has probably still not fully recovered from the damage it did. Institutions like organized crime got their start in that era. Drastic limitations on CO2 are likely to damage our country in analogous ways.”
I love a good analogy but how do you tell the good from the bad or the just plain ugly – pity they are frowned on in scientific writing. Using mistakes by the USA law makers as analogies opens up an enormous field. Some States of the USA even oppose the death penalty.
Anyway what would you expect from a Prof. whose speciality is the physics of spin-polarized atoms . Most of the postings here are spin designed to polarise.
“Al Gore and Jim Hansen are driving it”
Right, could we have your proof that it is simply the pronouncments of these two individuals that is causing governments worldwide to react as they have in policy terms? I mean that’s a lot of power for two men to command, surely there must be a reason for their authority?
“however the two academics were summarily told to F*** off”
Obviously Louis your policy for dealing with editorial complaints is somewhat outside the norm? Were these procedures (i.e. abusing people who disagree with you) something your developed in you spare time or were they the policy at the publication? Jen, I trust you’ve noted Louis’ approach and have considered it for the CIS publications arm?
I also note that the author of the opinion piece refers to IPCC reports and scientific reasearch regarding AGW not to media articles. Do you think this has any bearing of your comment which appears to focus exclusively on media reporting of topics other than AGW?
You gotta love eli in troll mode; Dessler and Soden; a great name for water issues; Soden by name, soden in content; Stockwell puts Soden in perspective;
http://landshape.org/enm/greenhouse-thermodynamics-of-water-vapor-and-the-ipcc/
And Spencer’s Febuary 21st post 2009 takes care of Dessler;
http://www.drroyspencer.com/
Stockwell on Soden refers to NOAA’s 60 year history of SH measurement which contradicts Dessler’s findings of increased atmospheric vapour consistent with AGW; NOAA’s records are however, consistent with Miskolczi. A good comparison is between Spencer and Braswell’s work on clouds [as a proxy for vapour] not being a +ve feedback because they aren’t a feedback to begin with, and Weaver and Ramanathan’s 1995 piece which concludes that “with an increase in surface temperature, if the water vapor content increases, the width of the window decreases an leads to positive feedback.” Which is unlikely given that the scale height of the vertical variation of the optical depth of water, Hr, can never be greater than the atmospheric scale height, H; which is why we have weather. Also of interest is Kump and Pollard’s paper on historical hothouse conditions due to reduced cloud formation.
Cohenite,
Dressler is a smart guy, Spencer is a smart guy. Regardless of who is right (since so little is concretely understood about feedbacks), my point is that even if the researcher favoured by the alarmist position is referenced and Spencer’s views ignored, the issue is looking increasingly less alarming as our scientific knowledge increases.
Cohers – you have to be kidding. The Stockwell that was told kindergarten style doesn’t you published in AMM. You do have yourselves on. Continue wanking.
Patrick B needs to quit asking for other people to do his homework for him and RTFM.
The acolytes for the dominant AGW dogma regularly demand the heretics submit the burden of proof against the grand suppositions made by the orthodoxy. The fundamental rules of scientific inquiry are turned upside down by the Warmists.
They believe AGW is an axiom of nature requiring no rigorously transparent reproducible proof. They really do believe that the burden is on the “denialists” to show that AGW isn’t the central driving force behind the Earth’s climate!
Eli, Patrick tell us where you think the burden of proof lies with the AGW hypothesis?
Normally, science works the other way around. And that’s, in part, why AGW isn’t a theory or a proper hypothesis but more akin to a hunch or an urban myth backed by massive political agenda and media support, which suppresses any ideas, data or theory that doesn’t fit their gestalt. Thus heat waves and cyclones are evidence for AGW in the media and ice storms and cold winters aren’t even mentioned. Of course, weather isn’t climate, but for the media some weather is evidence for climate trends, other weather is not.
Just try to pin the pompous troll Eli, who speaks of himself in the third person, to answer for any one of the basic assumptions, premises and predictions of the AGW hypothesis that can be shown to be false and watch him hurl a non sequitur URL or two, then log off to his bunny hole.
The warmists aren’t kidding when they say the rational debate is over. You might as well argue with a creationist!
Patrick B
“Obviously Louis your policy for dealing with editorial complaints is somewhat outside the norm? Were these procedures (i.e. abusing people who disagree with you) something your developed in you spare time or were they the policy at the publication? Jen, I trust you’ve noted Louis’ approach and have considered it for the CIS publications arm”.
Ah, another case of foot-in-mouth diesease – you assume I, as editor, wrote an abusive reply?
Wrong. It was handled at AIG Council level.
Looks like you just added another foot to your problem. Happens to the factually challenged.
Luke is another scientifically illiterate AGW evangelist who is confused about just who is responsible for the burden of poof of the AGW hypothesis or even what that burden entails.
Of course, Luke recently let it slip that he believed the Earth’s climate had sometimes been in stasis–an oxymoron tantamount to entertaining creationism. I was very disappointed in him, but it’s all part of the AGW theme.
Logically somewhere in the eco-morass of AGW mythology is the meme of the Earth existing in an ideal climate stasis before evil capitalists created the dreaded tautology of “climate change” through the infection of our atmosphere with the EPA registered toxin of “carbon pollution.”
Interestingly, the decline and fall from grace of nature and humankind is a theme at least as old as the old testament Genesis. Fits in well with Apocalyptic prophecy too. Surely, the Garden of Eden is the Climate Stasis that Greenpeace refers to when calls to “stop climate change now?”
Just another link between the AGW mythology and Creationism. The rational debate is definitely over and the inquisition about to begin.
The AGW evangelists can appropriate the language of science, but they can not abide by the method or they will be undone…
Will
“Dressler is a smart guy, Spencer is a smart guy. Regardless of w7ho is right (since so little is concretely understood about feedbacks), my point is that even if the researcher favoured by the alarmist position is referenced and Spencer’s views ignored, the issue is looking increasingly less alarming as our scientific knowledge increases.”
Especially when one goes to the underlying assumptions of the issue that some of us, scientically trained, sceptics have been advocating.
You, as an ignoramus, needs to be tolerated with politeness.
Geez, luke I don’t know what you are saying about Stockwell; anyway I’m sure you know what you mean;
Will; Dessler is a modeller with all the defects that entails; Spencer is a climate scientist with empirical runs on the board;
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2007/2007GL029698.shtml
Evaporation cools the surface; the vapor condenses as it rises either producing clouds and increased albedo or rain and the dissipation of the latent energy through uplift and precipitation; I’ve always been bemused by the argument that vapor is universally a +ve feedback as AGW demands.
“Of course, Luke recently let it slip that he believed the Earth’s climate had sometimes been in stasis–”
– no it’s just that Wes is a fuckwit.
Luke wrote on January 30th, 2009 at 12:14 pm:
“Records can be broken any time in a “stationary climate”. However if there is an underlying trend towards warming or cooling (for whatever reason – natural or anthropogenic) one would expect…”
http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2009/01/so-hot-in-southern-australia-and-in-1900/?cp=all#comment-82548
The concept of a “stationary climate” is perhaps the most revealingly notion ever posted in a comment on this or any other climate blog. It’s like imagining a stationary waterfall or perhaps a sudden stop in the rotation of the earth. It is profoundly anti-science, anti-rational, just as Creationism imagines all life to be stationary “objects” rather than a complex system of complex systems fractally ascending and descending in scale in both directions towards infinity.
Yet under-educated little AGW trolls deserve our sympathy, they’re pathetic victims of our failed school system. They can be forgiven for absorbing by osmosis the inherently eco-Creationist motif in the tautology of “Climate Change.” Luke was never taught how to think, only what to think and therefore cannot think for himself at all.
If climate change is bad then this assumes a perfect climate stasis in the past and a fall from grace for both nature and humanity. The impossibly radical discontinuity of a static Creation is naturally followed by that of an Apocalypse. Surprise, surprise, AGW’s core implication is its powerful prophecy of Apocalypse. Luke even claims that the best “evidence” for AGW is computer generated models, which are quite simply the hieroglyphic secret languages of a high priesthood unaccountable to anyone, much less to observed nature. The prophecies of these computer models is hardly empirical evidence of anything more than the assumptions of their creators.
Yet if you attempt to debate a Luke or an Eli you will be read URLs chapter and verse of dogma based on models whose validity cannot be challenged because they are simply the opinions of a priesthood whose method are not open for dissection. This is the same dead end one is greeted with when debating evolution with a Creationist. Rational scientific inquiry and methodology is simply countered with verses from the Bible whose validity cannot be challenged scientifically.
I apologize for using Luke’s personal illiteracy as an example, but he’s an excellent illustration of the sort of anti-Enlightenment ignorance the much reviled rationalism of the “Denialists” is up against. In another place and time Luke would be a valued foot soldier in the Stasis or a brown shirt burning crossing in some minority’s sanctuaries. The more things change the more they stay the same.
No doubt the rational debate is now over. But the science is hardly settled.
Yep and that load of additional drivel Wes makes you a double fuckwit. The comment is the context of statistical discussion on records which went right your head. The issue was that if climate was not being forced in a directional trend there appears to be a statistical argument that records would still appear in a system with some chaos. Actually make it a triple fuckwit for sheer stupidity if you think I was saying that the climate had a period of stasis in the “good old days”. These sort of comments show was a total fruitcake you are Wes.
The fact that you have not linked the realclimate link which was the point of my comment shows what a spiteful disingenuous prick you really are.
Luke, it isn’t about you, mate. Your rational dissonance is merely a handy example of quotidian AGW groupthink.
In fact, as William Happer points out it was the great climate master Michael Mann who sought to impose the anti-rational concept of “stationary climate” upon us. It was necessary to show that climate was in stasis in order to prophesise a properly grand apocalypse due, oh say, any day by now…
Every good apocalypse requires a Garden of Eden, a Golden Age of perfection from which humankind has DEvolved. The nonsensical concept of devolution is as important as the original state of perfection to set the stage for apocalypse. So are the twin concepts of Sin (transgression against divine law) and Guilt (self-loathing caused by perceived trespass against divine law.)
To be perfect is, by definition, to be in stasis… Then comes the decline or Fall from Grace. The end is always the same, with idiomatic twists, a great apocalypse must occur, sometimes with a saviour tossed in to lead a hand full of The Chosen out on an Ark or whatever.
(Obama is the saviour in the contemporary semi-conscious groupthink? Hard to imagine Rudd and Wong as anything more than bumbling wannabe apostles. But where’s his Ark? Perhaps parked at Area 51?)
Or as William Happer wrote above:
“The existence of climate variability in the past has long been an embarrassment to those who claim that all climate change is due to man and that man can control it. When I was a schoolboy, my textbooks on earth science showed a prominent “medieval warm period” at the time the Vikings settled Greenland, followed by a vicious “little ice age” that drove them out. So I was very surprised when I first saw the celebrated “hockey stick curve,” in the Third Assessment Report of the IPCC. I could hardly believe my eyes. Both the little ice age and the Medieval Warm Period were gone, and the newly revised temperature of the world since the year 1000 had suddenly become absolutely flat until the last hundred years when it shot up like the blade on a hockey stick…”
Naturally an empiricist like William Happer was surprised. But a student of the history of the collective unconscious would see a very familiar and anciently archetypal pattern graphically summarized in Mann’s Hockey Stick. And it has absolutely nothing in common with modern scientific method.
The truly curious thing is how did a mythological structure as old as the hills become unconsciously superimposed as the guiding gestalt behind a scientific hypothesis?
Littlewood’s Law?
All diversionary twaddle – I’m awaiting your apology for misrepresenting my position. Now ongoing.
Do you deliberately continually misrepresent the position of your debating opponents Wes ?
Luke, I provided a URL to your comments for all to fact check.
I seek not to misrep you, but to shed light on the epistemological origins of what you believe.
And how would you even be aware of what “position” you “represent” anyway? You can’t even maintain logical consistency with statements you made a month ago, much less grasp the political, cultural and historical contexts from which your anti-Enlightenment faith hails.
Comment from: Luke February 1st, 2009 at 10:16 am:
“The sheer idea that there are two sides to this debate and that the pseudo-sceptics actually deserve equal time for their nonsense is laughable.”
http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2009/01/no-balance-in-environmental-reporting-at-the-new-york-times-john-coleman/?cp=all
So the idea of a climate “debate” was laughable on Feb 1, but now you wish to be promoted to honourable “debating opponent?”
Uh, huh. Wouldn’t want to misrepresent our positions would we?
ROTFL
Dude, your “position” is a sociological specimen grown in petri dish of your own informationally impoverished sub-cultural niche to be dissected and analysed in order to help us all develop better intellectual antibodies to the particularly virulent morbidity your groupthink represents.
But please, by all means, comment heaps more, uh, “positions”…my droll little “debating opponent!”
Disappointing Wes.
I really enjoyed this article, it has been articles like these that had got me to question the so called consensus, it would have been nice to see some more citations but it seems to be targeting a less technical audience.
And thanks to Wes George, i have enjoyed reading your recent posts, LOL
Luke, I read your post. wes george accurately portrays a logical conclusion to your statements.
By claiming that temperature maximums and minimums are being exceeded (or not exceeded), you have certainly implied that historical climates were previous bound within the limits of such minimums and maximums.
How, therefore, can you now deny claiming acceptance of the “stationary climate” concept?
Well another ning nong. Did you read the associated RC link and think about it for more than a pico-second with one of your two neurons? Of course not. I was simply making the point that even in a climate not being forced (which is pretty well always the case) – the inherent system chaos would generate records. It’s a systems argument not a belief that there was a “golden age of climate stasis”. Wes’s take on the issue shows he’s stooopid as ! You may now join him.
OK for Wes and Blinky Bill
Do you think the climate would drift off into major epochs of warming and cooling if not forced e.g. by major volcanism, large asteroid impact, massive land use change, solar changes, orbital change or greenhouse changes?
Do you?
Luke,
I did read through the entire threads and associated links.
You can’t dispute that you were attempting to suggest that cool records were meaningless if outnumbered by warm records.
You stated:
“Records can be broken in the climate system all the time – but over time if AGW is correct we should expect to see an increase in warm extreme events and a decrease in the frequency of cold events. “over time”. More record hot spells than cold.”
That quote is NOT out of context. Everyone on that thread agreed that cool records were meaningless and Jennifer’s post didn’t suggest otherwise.
Therefore, the only issue remaining is your assumed period of record. If your period only covered back to 1950 (as two of your links do), then few would argue that “more record hot spells than cold” would likely suggest a warming trend during that period. While this seems like a useless point, I will gladly yield to you if it accurately reflects your thinking.
However, why would a short term warming trend support AGW (which you clearly mention)?
Your mention of AGW indicates that you were somehow suggesting that these hot spell records were absolute. In which case, wes george accurately portrays a logical conclusion to your statements.
I agree that it might not have been the point you were attempting to make, but it’s definitely a logical conclusion to your statements.
If I were to state, “the biggest apple ever was extremely red” then my point might be that the apple was extremely red. However, it would be logical for someone to conclude that I believed such apple was the biggest ever.
Blinky
Thanks – I have attempted to clarify my position with Wes before but he has gleefully ignored me.
“However, why would a short term warming trend support AGW ” ….
Well simply because the summation of our total understanding of forcings is such that one might expect some evidence from around the world that indeed more warmer records than cold were being broken for that period. And there seems to be some evidence to that end which has been discussed on blog.
Is it absolute evidence – nope – just supporting.
But an attempt to engage in a brief exchange on record-breaking concepts and statistics ends up with Wes totally misrepresenting my position and writing a dozen of his boorish rhetorical rants.
The point is that I have tried to explain to Wes what I was saying. Like a typical denialist scumbot he has taken what he wanted and ignored me.
To be honest, I’m a bit surprised by your response.
Are you seriously suggesting that a 50 year warming trend supports AGW in any way?
If you are, then I certainly think wes george is wrong about his conclusions about you. However, such a suggestion is downright silly.
Would a 25 year warming trend support AGW? Would a 10 year cooling trend support global cooling? I’d like to understand how sensitive you are to the period in question. Is 50 years your lower limit?
Blinky,
It’s not so much the absolute length of time but the attribution of causes – the modelling work that combines our best knowledge of all the forcings – solar, volcanic, aerosols and greenhouse does not reproduce the observed temperature increase of the last 20th century without greenhouse forcing. However I did ask someone from Hadley recently about the apparent stasis in global temperatures of late – his comment was that INDIVIDUAL GCM runs can have protracted periods like this. His comment was that you’d have to get to 15 years of zero warming or indeed cooling to be statistically worrisome.
To which Wes will just laugh about the models. But how else to you resolve multi-factor forces?
Anyway we’ll find out eventually won’t we. If temperatures start trending up again where will the contrarians hide?
I was also taken by Hadley’s multivariate analysis of SST and the independent NMAT data sets since 1850.
Essentially EOF 1 is the centennial warming signal by a long way. EOF2 is the IPO and just behind – EOF 3 is the AMO.
So the stats says the best explanation of two independent sea temperature data sets is that the world has warmed since 1850. Decadal influences follow.
And the best explanation for the warming signal is some changes in solar forcing and a major change in greenhouse forcing.
“”It’s not so much the absolute length of time but the attribution of causes – the modelling work …””
The models are still too primitive to matter. And, yes, my question regarding the length of time is germane. Please answer it.
“”But how else to you resolve multi-factor forces?””
Great question! Sorry, you can’t yet.
“”His comment was that you’d have to get to 15 years of zero warming or indeed cooling to be statistically worrisome.””
Why did you value his opinion? 15 years is much too short to believe that any temperature trend is worrisome.
“”So the stats says the best explanation of two independent sea temperature data sets is that the world has warmed since 1850.””
Even if it has? So what? Again, 160 years is much too short to be worrisome.
Do a comprehensive geological study someday. It’s obvious that this earth has been through MUCH greater temperature extremes that anything which has been observed over the past 160 years.
“”And the best explanation for the warming signal is some changes in solar forcing and a major change in greenhouse forcing.””
OK, but I hope you never fool yourself into thinking that the “best” is currently adequate for making any type of reasonable predictions.
“models too primitive” – well in your opinion
“why value his opinion” – oh he was just a domain expert in GCMs and things decadal
“15 year trend worrisome” – didn’t say it was worrisome – moreover whether it would be enough to indicate some serious issues with the models and/or theory
“geological” – oh pullease – yes the climate may have changed but most of the species didn’t make it through. Be very interesting to see how 6 billion humans going to 9 cope with the MWP droughts for example
“reasonable predictions” – oh dear – well you’re involved in climate risk management already so that’s a bit of a worry. Might help to know the likelihood the probabilty distribution having changed. You can flip a coin for your answer.
“”“”It’s not so much the absolute length of time but the attribution of causes – the modelling work …””
my question regarding the length of time is germane. Please answer it.
“”oh he was just a domain expert in GCMs and things decadal””
I know a statistician that claims to be capable of predicting the outcome of 5 year clinical drug studies after the first year. He is a domain expert and will certainly be right occasionally. But I don’t value his opinion.
I know a woman that’s a domain expert in astrology based stock investments. Her approaches might be sound, but I don’t value her opinion. She doesn’t have enough data to support predictive claims. If/when she does, I will value her opinion.
Now, why do you value his opinion?
“”didn’t say it was worrisome””
Actually, that’s the exact word you used, and you used it in that manner.
“His comment was that you’d have to get to 15 years of zero warming or indeed cooling to be statistically WORRISOME.”
“”yes the climate may have changed but most of the species didn’t make it through.””
At least you agree that non-anthropogenic climate changes exist. We can discuss species survival at a later date.
“”well you’re involved in climate risk management already so that’s a bit of a worry. Might help to know the likelihood the probabilty distribution having changed.””
Yes, it would “help to know.” It would help to know tomorrow’s lottery number, too. Just because a prediction desire/need exists doesn’t justify over-valuing inadequate prediction methodologies – even if such methodologies are “the best.” Ironically, you haven’t correctly identified the “best” prediction methodologies.
“”You can flip a coin for your answer.””
Yes, you are correct. A coin flip is undeniably a prediction methodology. In fact, given the infancy and secrecy of AGW models, I believe that a coin flip is a superior predictor of climate change.
Sadly, cross-correlation is realistically the “best” climate prediction methodology we have right now. In other words, last year’s actual climate is the best predictor of this year’s climate, the climate in 2020, and the climate in 2100.
“I believe that a coin flip is a superior predictor of climate change.” – well we already know your coin has problems.
Don’t get hung up on “predictions” – decadal prediction is indeed in its infancy but AGW “predictions” are little more than broad indicators of trend. Nobody has a prediction of what Jan 13 2050 will be and at this distance never will. A probability distribution of outcomes assuming certain constraints is about as good as you’ll ever get.
As for your length of time question – I don’t know – and don’t be so pushy. I’m happy enough to accept the broad IPCC AR4 findings of the reasons the current climate has warmed over the last 150 years or so. Longer term changes such as orbital effects or major changes in solar activity may occur on larger times scales. However getting through the next 100-200 years might also be important. If not 20-30 years in some places.
The GCM guys seem to like multi-ensemble 1000 year integration runs ( but hey that would get us back with our resident English headmaster Wessy Woo back on “climate stasis” issues – and he’d be off with another 10 page wankfest of rhetoric)
Like it or not – most of us in ENSO or semi-arid environments are already making risk management decisions – whether it be as farmers, water managers, policy types, or consumers of agriculture – so if you don’t have anything to help – excuse us while we try to muddle through. For some in the eastern Australian cropping zone – make money 3 in 10, break even 4 in 10, lose 3 in 10. Change that just a bit and you go broke. In Africa you die.
It’s not like the climate of the last 150 years has been benign and AGW will suddenly make it bad. The climate is already problematic – droughts, floods, hurricanes, heat and coldwaves.
I’m not a climate expert – but on progress with the models – one can only get a sense of progress and applicability by spending time with the practitioners – they’re well aware of the difficulties and issues – it’s part of the risk management decision to decide whether you’re going to put any weight at all on their progress to date.
So in the Australian region you already have a number of factors at work – a changing Walker circulation, changing Indian Ocean Dipole (maybe), changing sub-tropical ridge, changing southern annular mode, ocean currents and SSTs. And a recently changed PDP (~IPO) for some fun. Your coin is already wobbly.
So for your hypothetical management of our hypothetical grain farm in semi-arid eastern Australia – you can have your own forecast, go with persistence, flip a coin, use existing seasonal forecasts – and you can temper your long term view as to whether to invest, retreat, diversify, relocate from the AGW findings or not. And sorry “opting out” isn’t allowed in this game.
As for your “last year’s actual climate is the best predictor of this year’s climate” – well that’s where the simulation models of behaviour and real world anecdotes show you LOSE !
In a world going to 9 billion – food security issues are back !!
“”As for your length of time question – I don’t know…””
Fair enough. However, your inclusion of a link with 50 years of data indicates that you consider a 50 year warming trend an adequate indicator of causality.
So let me get this straight. On one hand, you tell wes george that he’s wrong about you. You tell him that you willingly acknowledge the fact that earth has experienced naturally caused temperature extremes far greater than anything we’ve observed over the past 150 years. However, you also willingly admit that you believe a 50 year warming trend could be evidence of unnatural causality? I don’t understand how you could rationally justify this dichotomy of beliefs.
“”Don’t get hung up on “predictions” …A probability distribution of outcomes assuming certain constraints is about as good as you’ll ever get.””
A probability distribution of outcomes is a prediction.
Also, you acknowledge that constraint assumptions can render such a distribution of outcomes quite useless for broad audiences. Constraint assumptions certainly aren’t universally applicable. Therefore, how could anyone justify making temperature predictions for the entire world?
“”…you can temper your long term view as to whether to invest, retreat, diversify, relocate from the AGW findings or not.””
What AGW findings? And how do you probability weight them?
I always afford zero probability to resultant outcomes from infant models with no track record, no success of replication, and no assumption disclosure. And you?
“”that’s where the simulation models of behaviour and real world anecdotes show you LOSE !””
I have no doubt that simulation models show I LOSE. I’ll weight that result at zero, also. Especially since I don’t know what constraint assumptions they’re using.
But guess what? I lost last night’s lottery, also. My failure isn’t evidence that alternative methodologies for predicting the winning number exist yet.
Keep telling those farmers to buy lottery tickets based on those bogus prediction models.
What claptrap – “50 year warming trend could be evidence of unnatural causality? I don’t understand how you could rationally justify this dichotomy of beliefs.”
well you see – there’s this thing called science which analyses causes and effects. I see you think the world’s temperature just changes for no reason? hmmmm revealing ….
The world’s temperature could change for a VARIETY of reasons which we might ASSESS.
“What AGW findings” – oh just a few 1000 papers and the a few IPCC reports. Nothing much.
“infant models – no track record” – what says Blinky Bill pers. comm. – ROTFL !!
Anyway – I see you’ve opted to not play the climate variability board game. Sorry – you just lost – you perished in a 10 year drought you didn’t contemplate. Bad luck. Next player.
BTW farmers buy lottery tickets regularly and in some respects every season is a lottery. I don’t think many will be attending your seminar “We don’t know nuttin’ about climate”.
(the simulation models were based on the 100 years of rainfall data and what decisions you would make … simple game theory)
100 years of existing rainfall data – games such as plant/not plant, fertilise or not, sell, buy or feed animals – a hindcast farm simulation)
“”I see you think the world’s temperature just changes for no reason? hmmmm revealing ….
The world’s temperature could change for a VARIETY of reasons which we might ASSESS.””
I see your disconnect. You think I believe that temperature changes for no reason. (Do you really think that?)
You are 180 degrees off course. Global temperature changes are based on many, many, many variables – some (maybe more than some) have yet to be identified. The inter-relationship between most of these variables is NOT understood (which makes modeling quite difficult.) Normally, I wouldn’t discourage the work of those attempting to model global temperature changes.
However, if I was the owner of an investment bank, I might have to put the smack down on modelers which lobbied the bank to make investments based on infant models which a) were based on secret assumptions; b) had no track record; and c) failed back testing.
If I was the owner of a sports team, I might have to put the smack down on modelers with the same faults lobbying to make drastic changes to our playbook.
If I was a defense minister, I might have to put the smack down on modelers with the same faults lobbying to replace a working weapon system with something not built yet.
Almost all of the world’s health ministries require years of actual clinical data prior to approving new drugs. They do this despite claims regarding phantom simulations and animal models. They do this despite the fact that, often times, MILLIONS, of lives could be saved. Do you know why they do this? Because the chemistry of the human body is TOO difficult to properly model effectively yet. Do you think GLOBAL climate is any further developed? If so, then lets discuss it. I would be happy to consider your arguments.
I can certainly give you more examples. And I don’t consider myself risk adverse – I’ve supported plenty of expensive decision which were based on very little data. Because, as you stated, sometimes those lottery tickets need to be purchased. Ethically, however, I always disclose the limitations of my predictions regardless of my personal biases.
So ASSESS all you want. I definitely support it. Just don’t ask me to support large resource spends until we all review your assumptions, backtest your model, and gauge it’s track record.
“””What AGW findings?”” – oh just a few 1000 papers and the a few IPCC reports. Nothing much.””
Wow. You really are sophomoric. Let’s try this again. What specific papers and what IPCC reports?
“”…you perished in a 10 year drought you didn’t contemplate.””
And you saved everyone by modeling CO2’s impact on global climate change? Puleeze.
“”BTW farmers buy lottery tickets regularly and in some respects every season is a lottery.””
By all means, provide the farmers with all the simulations, models, and probability distributions which have proven helpful. I never stated that such tools didn’t exist regionally. Frankly, I’m surprised that you thought overwise. (Reread my posts – in fact, many such tools are based on statistical derivatives of cross-correlation techniques that I mentioned.)
Overall, I applaud your efforts. It seems like the type of statistical work that I would enjoy. However, I urge you not to bias your tools by incorporating unproven CO2 models.
“”simple game theory”” – I LOVE GAME THEORY, but why keep it simple? 🙂
Well when you see the rainfall probability distribution changing before you – you want to know all you can.
Walker circulation changed, SAM changed, IOD changed, EAC changed, STR location changed. Tropics expanding.
You see you still don’t get it – you’ve opted out – that’s not how serious agribusiness decision making works.
“”You see you still don’t get it – you’ve opted out””
Yes, I’ve opted out of predicting global temperature changes. I’ve opted out of biasing regional climate predictions with such global temperature changes.
“”…that’s not how serious agribusiness decision making works.””
I have no problem with private enterprise weighting such models after receiving full disclosure. I do have a problem with government expending resources based on such models.
Same problem – you’ve styill opted out – you need government to allocate water from storage systems. On what basis – what’s happened before is changing.
How to do you construct an illogical sentence like “I’ve opted out of biasing regional climate predictions with such global temperature changes.”
You seem to have forgotten that you are already immersed in uncertain climate variability.
“”How to do you construct an illogical sentence like “I’ve opted out of biasing regional climate predictions with such global temperature changes.” “”
Sorry, I meant, I’ve opted out of biasing regional climate predictions with such global temperature change PREDICTIONS.
I assume that you’ll now acknowledge my point.
Err nope – the regional predictions and any rise in GMST are simply a product of the simulation. No intentional bias. The physics is either right/wrong – adequate/inadequate.