Bishop Hill Simon Singh's fairy tale
May 8, 2011 Climate: Surface Climate: WG3 Simon Singh has issued the next installment in his blog series about Fraser Nelson's position on climate change. I am somewhat in awe of this latest display, which is based around the idea that we should make policy decisions assuming a warming of 4°C/century.
Now, as readers here know, the IPCC's last forecasts of a 2°C/century warming are on the cusp of falsification (or even over it, depending how you calculate things), just over ten years since they were issued. Yet here is Dr Singh saying that we should base public policy decisions on the presumption of a warming twice as large!
One doesn't like to be rude, but who on earth bases public policy decisions on hypotheses that are already falsified?
Who bases life and death decisions on a fairy story?
Bishop Hill
Simon Singh tweets to say he and Fraser agree on the science and have moved on (!) Bob Ward says hi too.
See my Twitter page.
Bishop Hill
Doug Keenan's comment at Dr Singh's blog is interesting. He picks up on Singh's claim that "allowing for uncertainties in the observations, that last three decades have each been significantly warmer than the previous one."
Doug replies:
The quoted statement is false. I had a full-page op-ed piece in The Wall Street Journal last month which explained the statistics in layman's terms; see
http://www.informath.org/media/a42.htm
We do not know if there has been a significant warming. And that is regardless of the time span.I e-mailed Simon Singh about the piece on April 28th. Hence he is presumably aware that what he is stating is false.
The ending is a bit strong, I think. I'm sure Dr Singh gets a lot of fan mail and he has also been on a UK tour for much of the intervening period. That said, Doug has set out the reasons why he thinks the warming cannot be said to be significant and they certainly seem valid to me. It would be interesting to know if Dr Singh has anything to back up his opposite opinion. I fancy not.
Reader Comments (50)
The answer is...Simon Singh!!! :)
Regards
Mailman
The bigger questions are why would anyone believe him, and if so why?
The 5 questions that Singh asks are actually irrelevant or can be answered in the negative without fear of contgradiction. Singh does not appear to be very knowledgeable.
1. Do you agree that increases in CO2 and other greenhouse gases lead to an increase in the global temperature?
A1. No HOT SPOT. No cause and hence no effect. Further evidence of no effect - large divergence in Ocean Heat Content predictions and recorded data.
2. Do you agree CO2 levels in the atmosphere have increased from 280ppmv to 380ppmv (35%) during period of industrialisation?
A2. 280ppmv is an assumption. There is no record of pre-industrial levels of global CO2.
3. Do you agree that the Earth’s climate has warmed by 0.6 degrees in the last 50 years?
A3. No wrong, the change since 1961 is actually 0.4 degrees.
4. Do you agree human contribution to greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is a major factor in the warming over the last century?
A4. No HOT SPOT, no predicted increase in Ocean Heat Content. No cause, no effect.
5. Do you agree best scientific predictions estimate further rise of 1.1 to 6 C over 100 yrs based on good (not perfect) models?
A5. The models have been falsified.
Simple Simon (pun intended)!
"Now, as readers here know, the IPCC's last forecasts of a 2°C/century warming are on the cusp of falsification (or even over it, depending how you calculate things"
No, I didn't know that. And it sounds a pretty dodgy claim to me anyhow, either it's falsified or it's not. And surely you have to wait until the end of the century to find out. Any chance of somebody directing me to the supporting evidence before BBD gets abusive?
[BH: It depends on which temperature series you use. See Lucia's blog - she posts about it each month. You don't have to wait a century to falsify. It's just more difficult to falsify over shorter timescales.]
[Snip - venting]
"Any chance of somebody directing me to the supporting evidence?"
May 8, 2011 at 9:53 PM | Hengist McStone
[snip - venting]
Mac: I think you've summed up both sets of questions fairly succinctly.
PS don't forget to ignore the [snip - namecalling] troll.
For general consumption, may I recommend use of "refuted" or "disproved" rather than "falsified"? Don't know why Popper invented the term when there were perfectly adequate alternatives already in common usage.
Which one, Phillip? I was planning to ignore both this time. I've decided life's too short!!
[snip - response to namecalling]
2 trolls, ignore both
1. Do you agree that increases in CO2 and other greenhouse gases lead to an increase in the global temperature? A. We don't really know. It could. The real question is how much? And how important is CO2 in relation to natural factors, other anthropogenic factors such as land use?
2. Do you agree CO2 levels in the atmosphere have increased from 280ppmv to 380ppmv (35%) during period of industrialisation? A. How do we know that the pre-industrialisation level was 280ppm? Beck's numbers show wide disparity.
3. Do you agree that the Earth’s climate has warmed by 0.6 degrees in the last 50 years? A. We don't know. There has been a lot of messing with the temperature record, with many adjustments, all in the direction of warming. The population of temperature stations sampled has changed. There has been no real allowance for delta UHI effects.
4. Do you agree human contribution to greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is a major factor in the warming over the last century? A. We don't know. It certainly hasn't been proven.
5. Do you agree best scientific predictions estimate further rise of 1.1 to 6 C over 100 yrs based on good (not perfect) models? A. Only if you assume positive feedbacks. There are other scientific predictions that suggest the feedbacks are negative, which accords better with observed experience. Who says that the predictions of 1.1 to 6 deg C are the best?
On track with , ah a squirrel! Is the squirrel relevant? No, the squirrel is not relevant, but the Singhing is!
Ground controlled to Major Tom…..
Sorry, the squirrel has no financial interests with …
I found SS too smug and please with himself for words. After all Fraser is just a clever political journalist who disagrees with the solutions and not the science.
Maybe one day SS will write a book as good as THLS. At this rate it is looking unlikely.
[BH adds: It's kind of you to say so, but I don't think you can take SS's achievements in science writing away from him.]
Hengist and Zed
If we look at HADCRUT, GISTEMP, UAH and RSS global temperature anomalies 1979 - present (the full period of satellite observations), we get this.
Decadal trend (degrees C):
GISTEMP 0.16
HADCRUT 0.15
UAH 0.14
RSS 0.14
The lower bound for validating the multi-model mean projection used by AR4 is 0.2C/decade.
Sorry I meant "The Hockey Stick Illusion" (THSI) ! It's late.
1. Do you agree that a potential increase in global average temperature of more than 4C by the end of the century cannot be ruled out, and indeed the probability may be as high as 50 per cent, if greenhouse gas concentrations continue to rise at current rates?
A. This is wild conjecture, and not based on real science. Assumes that CO2 is the most serious problem, but this is not proven. What if sensitivities are neutral or negative? What about natural factors? What about other anthropogenic factors?
2. Do you agree that the potential economic and social costs of a warming of more than 4C could be so high that they should be avoided, even assuming cost-effective adaptation to some impacts were possible?
A. Even if the costs are high, how actually will you avoid them? What if CO2 is not the main factor in warming? Reducing CO2 emissions would therefore have minimal impact. Why not focus on finding out what the real factors driving climate change might be, and figuring out what to do about those? Also, if you are serious about avoiding very high potential economic and social costs, what are you doing about the cities built upon the San Andreas Fault, or the cities built in the path of hurricanes and tornadoes? Or floods?
3. Do you agree that taking cost-effective action to avoid a temperature rise of more than 4C means reducing global emissions over the next century by at least 50 per cent so that there is a 50 per cent chance of a warming of less than 2C, and thus only a very small chance of a warming of more than 4C?
A. This is fantasy land. Where has it been demonstrated that reducing CO2 emissions will lead to these outcomes? Flimsy base assumptions.
4. Do you agree with the economic estimates that such reductions in emissions could be achieved at a social and economic cost that would be much less than the potential impacts of unchecked climate change?
A. But what if the climate drivers are not dominantly CO2 emissions? What if they are natural? Or related to local and regional land-use factors as Roger Pielke Sr argues?
5. Do you agree that the best approach to climate change is through evidence-based risk management? A. Well yes. But it would be nice to see some! You haven't provided any evidence that I can see?
6. Do you agree that one of the main aims of successfully managing the risks of climate change is to limit the probability of reaching so-called tipping points, beyond which very severe impacts would become extremely difficult to stop or reverse, such as melting of the major land-based ice sheets on Greenland and Antarctica?
A. This is fantasy land again, based on naive assumptions that we know more than we do.
But...but...but global warming hasn't yet been proven to not exist! So it just might. And to prove it is possible that it does, here is sincere, first-hand evidence that other things you believed were non-existent, really are, so you're probably wrong about global warming, too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2h1OWKLsds
/sark²
@10:31PM
Sorry:
Should read:
I do not think Singh has understood Fraser's comments at all. Not about seeking to be a "voice of calm in the middle of a hysterical debate", not about "real science invites refutation", not about "the orthodoxy produced by intellectual fashions, specialization, and the appeal to authorities is the death of knowledge".
So Singh can write "Sorry, @frasernels & I agree on science & uncertainties & have moved on" even if they haven't moved on at all, in the sense that Singh is still asking questions that make no sense at all given Fraser's comments.
In all likelihood, Fraser will have no intention to elicit an more from the Bore.
I suspect the best response to Singh's questions is 'have you stopped hitting your wife?'
@Mondo
"3. Do you agree that taking cost-effective action..."
Yes, but SS may find my idea of cost effective, massively disappointing.
I agree about taking appropriate action, it's just that my idea of appropriate is investing in nuclear, thorium, shale and fusion...not living in a grass hut, or a yurt...sorry watermelons
So Singh can write "Sorry, @frasernels & I agree on science & uncertainties & have moved on"
this is a manipulative NLP "neuro-linguistic-programming" technique
basically;
don't worry, I agree with you, it's just that I know better and you are wrong. (yes, I know that this makes no logical sense, but your subconcious goes along with it). Please look up NLP - it is hideous, but it works, that's why politicians love it
See my Twitter page.
So that's where you've been spending your time away from the blog, working away on that twitter fad. And we thought you were writing a book.
BTW, your twitter page looks horrendous.
@Henqist
And surely you have to wait until the end of the century to find out.
You are joking, right?
That's easy. Most politicians, and especially those with a Leftist viewpoint, will happily make important policy decisions on a fairy tale, as long as it fits the ego vanity project which is their true lifelong occupation. AGW fits this narrative very well.
And this is the reason that so many policy decisions are so damaging -- not just useless, but creating worse conditions than the initial problem.
It is aptly said of the Green movement that they are forever warning of economic and social collapse, and that if we follow their policy prescriptions, that is exactly what we will get.
The tell is in the comment regarding 'agreeing on the science and moving on'.
That is pure crap, on the level of the old role game players agreeing on super powers for their characters in a particular round of game.
And these guys by now know it, at least at some level, but continue pretending their fantasies are a sound basis for policy.
ian dunlop, who, from 1998-2000 chaired the Australian Greenhouse Office Experts Group on Emissions Trading which, under the (rightwing) Howard government, developed the first emissions trading system design for Australia and who is a member of Mikhail Gorbachev’s Climate Change Task Force and the Club of Rome, came up with the same nonsense at the following meeting. "journo" paddy manning is shocked by the disbelievers!
7 May: Sydney Morning Herald: Paddy Manning: Corporate leaders in a climate of disbelief
Scepticism hung heavy in the air. At a packed Australian Institute of Company Directors lunch on climate change, the institute’s former chief executive, Ian Dunlop – a petroleum engineer who was a Shell executive and now is the deputy convener of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil – rose to put a question to keynote speaker, David Mortimer, the chairman of Leighton Holdings, the world’s biggest contract coalminer.
In full, Dunlop’s question ran for three minutes: ”The temperature increase we’ve seen so far is about 0.8 degrees Celsius. We’ve already seen a clear trend in extreme weather events related to just that increase. We probably have locked in already a temperature increase of around 2.4 degrees. If we were to follow the path that you’re suggesting in terms of continued fossil fuel usage to 2030, the likely outcome will be a temperature increase somewhere between 4 and 6 degrees. That probably means world population drops to a carrying capacity of somewhere around a billion people (you can argue 1 to 2 billion)….
http://www.smh.com.au/business/corporate-leaders-in-a-climate-of-disbelief-20110506-1ecgh.html
like louise grey, paddy manning is prolific when it comes to CAGW and money-making for the alarmists:
http://www.smh.com.au/business/by/Paddy-Manning
I had occasion to ask Simon Singh to point me to empirical proof tha CO2 is causing warming. I response he sent me an article from Skeptical Science that anyone with half a brain could drive a bus through. I don't believe he's on top of the science. For instance he doesn't appear to be aware that there is no discernible connection between CO2 levels in the atmosphere and temperature in the historical records. Except of course for the obvious one of CO2 rising after temperature increasing.
Hen gist and ZDB this is because the increase in temperature causes the oceans to degas.
Simon Singh gives every indication of being in thrall to a vague and ethereal offshoot of science which has more to do with personal hubris than the collection and examination of data which eventually allows one to reach a rational conclusion based on evidence.
ou might think that modern "warmist" popularizers restrict themselves to write about what the state of the science is, but in fact they still possess some quite wacky ideas. The fundamentalists argue that "warmist" climatologists can explain anything. And even the more moderate "warmist" popularizers have ideas above their station. Simon Singh claims that climatologists can help rescue Himalayan glaciers from disappearance, recover polar bears from the brink of extinction, avoid feeding problems to millions of people, save coastal communities from prolonged flooding, and we should all just sit down and listen and shut up and pay trillions to avoid 4C of warming, even though there is not a jot of evidence. He is the respectable face of the "warmist" popularizer profession and yet he happily promotes bogus claims.
Hengist
Well, you were wrong again, this time because observations are indeed on the cusp of falsifying the +2.0C AR4 multi-model mean. Predictably, I see no follow-up from you to my comments above (May 8 10:31pm; correction May 8 10:47pm).
In the last couple of days you have wrongly claimed that tropical cyclones are increasing in intensity, and deliberately misrepresented BH (and Keith Briffa) for your own ends.
I corrected your errors, but - tellingly - you have not even acknowledged them.
'Any chance' of an apology and an acknowledgement that all your recent comments have been incorrect or deliberately misleading?
Or are you going to carry on as if nothing happened, whilst insinuating that I am being unreasonable?
Hengist. I don't know where this theory of more tropical cyclones increasing in intensity comes from. I have tried to track down the source. But I guess your not a scientist, or an engineer, of any sort otherwise you'd challenge the notion that the can increase, and in fact they should decrease. There is a scientific reason for this, it's because as the world warms, it does so more at the poles than at the equator, this means that the temperature gradient between the poles and the equator reduces. ("temperature gradient" means that the difference in temperature between the poles and the equator). This should reduce tropical cyclones, not increase them.
"Moved on"
As if Fraser and he were cows (or bulls) grazing contendedly in the AGW pasture, and have moved on to the next pasture. "Hmmm.. what other secret of the universe do I not know? Hmmm...looks like the grass is greener and has grown back on the homoeopathy patch, let me move on over there".
SS asked his 'questions' the last time, provided no answers of his own, instead sending his readers on a wild goose chase at the skeptical website skepticalscience. Now he comes back rubbing his hands in satisfaction and moves on to '4C'.
Heh, moving on into a future even less real than their present. Bon Voyage, maties.
============
I also followed the link to a "debate" between Lawson and Bedington, which DSingh characterises as showing how ignorant of science Lawson is. It was a bizarre summary of a conversation where the 2 interlocutors were just talking past each other. Bedington tries to get Lawson to admit to some cherry-picked "facts" of the kind that are used on Skeptical science . com to make an argument...but he doesn't really make the argument. And he does not respond to Lawson's points, most of which are highly pertinent. I really start to wonder about the calibre of Singh's mind now since it seems his reading comprehension skills are so limited.
Take this exchange, for example:
"NL: The science of clouds…is one of the least understood aspects of climate science…Most existing climate models employed to predict future temperature levels treat clouds in a way that amplifies the warming effect of carbon dioxide, but this treatment is disputed.
JB: It is true that it is difficult to represent clouds in climate models (although there is no compelling evidence that they introduce a warm bias) and that both the response of clouds to climate change and the associated feedbacks are not fully understood. However, climate modellers are well aware of the uncertainties these issues introduce and factor them into the uncertainties associated with model simulations… The IPCC took these factors into account… the uncertainties certainly don't undermine this conclusion."
Is Bedington serious?
diogenese
Beddinton is serious, but oddly ill-informed re representation of cloud in GCMs.
BBD - if you follow the rest of the exchange, he seems oddly ill-informed on a lot of areas. It is as if he has had a briefing from Skeptical.science and cannot go outside the "evidence" presented there.
Bloody hell diogenes, give the chap a break. He's only the chief scientific advisor to the government.
Have we not been told - many times - that only climate scientists really understand climate science?
ROFL.
Singh will now appear to drag you to libel court for saying that. Then the skepticopaths will twitter-bomb the climate skeptics. Then there will be another 4:20 campaign, where the skepticopaths will overdose on some kool-aid (aka sugar water).
but BBD...my expertise is not a scientific discipline of any kind but I can recognise rthetorical patterns and misuses of rhetoric and my reading around the subject and discussions with people like you have enhanced my knowledge levels. I can see thqt folks like Singh and Bedington are out of their depth. So where is the "charlatan alert" function in the mass media?
diogenes
Third door on the left, behind the stuffed antelope.
@BH
It might impress Bishop Hill devotees but I don't know what Lucia's blog is and if that's the cusp of falsification I'll stick with hundreds of UN appointed scientists rather than just some blogger who claims to have disproved them.
Hengist
A small subset of the 'hundreds of UN-appointed scientists' you refer to were responsible for the models aggregated into the multi-model mean referenced by AR4.
Observations appear to confirm that the MMM is biased high. This is detailed transparently and honestly at the Blackboard. I know you will find the mathematics challenging, but that is no excuse for not making the effort before making stupid comments like the one above.
Oh, and by the way the proprietor of that blog believes in AGW... does that help things?
Oh, and so do I... did you know that?
It's just the little matter of constraining the value for equilibrium climate sensitivity to a doubling of CO2 properly that concerns some of us. Those of us who actually understand the science that is.
I've said it before, Hengist, but it clearly bears repeating: you are quite obviously out of your depth.
Hengist
The Blackboard is here:
http://rankexploits.com/musings/
The following examples of posts illustrate the deviation of observed global surface temperature anomalies and satellite TLT global anomalies from the MMM:
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2011/rss-april-anomaly-up-2/
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2011/hadley-march-anomaly-0-318c-up/
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2011/giss-march-anomaly-rose-to-0-57c/
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2011/rss-drop-from-0-052c-to-0-026c/
While this post compares major surface temperature anomaly data sets to see if there is significant disagreement amongst them:
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2011/which-observation-is-the-outlier/
Now do some reading. You have no further excuse.
@BBD I haven't misrepresented Briffa. And Im not going to get into an argument with you over what Briffa is or isnt saying . And I haven't wrongly claimed that tropical cyclones are increasing in intensity. Ive said if I remember correctly that's theory, a distinction you prefer to gloss over when it suits you. Thats what the scientists are saying. It is confirmed by reading this webpage http://www.skepticalscience.com/hurricanes-global-warming-intermediate.htm
Have a problem with that, take it up with SkS not me. In the meantime Im still waiting to see the evidence that IPCC predictions are on the cusp of being falsified. Oh yes Lucia says so.
Hengist
Your selective memory is borderline comical.
Here you are misrepresenting BH and Briffa:
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2011/5/3/me-at-nuclear-street.html
Here you are being wrong about tropical cyclone energy increasing:
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2011/5/5/more-on-disasters.html
Please note that the links I provide are to the work of a credentialled scientist, not Cook's site. Or is Maue a liar too? I bet you didn't even bother reading them, did you?
Just how stupid do you think readers here are? You shouldn't resort to nonsense like this; it makes you look awful.
As does your refusal to follow up the links to the Blackboard and discover that yes, observations are very close to falsifying the MMM. Observations, Hengist. Measurements of T. Not made-up stuff.
The only reason you won't 'get into an argument' with me on these topics is because you have already been shown to be wrong. The fact that you simply refuse to accept this is baffling and slightly sad.
Hengist - Lucia is a graduate engineer (I believe) and what she does is simply based on standard statistical techniques. Her audience contains a lot of academic scientists from all quarters of the global warming belief continuum as well as many lay scientist professionals. If you can spot a flaw in what she is doing, feel free to point it out to her. She accepts criticism very well.
diogenes
Hengist hasn't got the chops for that. It's all twisty rhetoric with him, never engagement with numbers. That's part (but only part) of his problem.