Gixxer

Once again, thanks.

RKS

I've responded to your content-free yapping the other thread. Clearly the message was too complex. Let's try again: say something substantive, or give it a rest.

Dec 3, 2011 at 8:14 PM | Shub

(Sorry folks, I've fallen a bit behind on this discussion, but will do my best to catch up)

Hi Shub,

Thanks for explaining your argument so clearly.

You are perfectly correct that if we relied on agreement between the models and past climate change as proof that the models were realistic, and then used the same model-data comparison in order to explain the observations, then that would indeed be circular reasoning and wrong.

However, fortunately, we don't rely on that!

I see you have cited FAQ8.1 from AR4 WG1. You cite two of the sources of confidence listed in that FAQ:

1. Basis on physical understanding
2. Success in simulating aspects of current climate

You suggest that these are not independent, and ask, quite rightly:

if you built a model that incorporates your understanding of the physics and interaction between the different climate system subcomponents, but it produced composite variables (like continent-scale precipitation trends and global temperature anomalies) that is completely unlike the observed variables, would you accept your understanding to be true?

Well, although we do have to tune some parameters in the models to improve the simulation of present-day climate, we do not force the models to violate basic physical principles in order to improve the simulation in comparison with observations. Examples would be conservation of energy and water - it is critical that the simulated planetary energy budget balances, otherwise any change in climate would be unphysical, and similarly the land water budget (precip - evaporation = runoff + change in soil moisture) must also balance. (Incidentally, this is one of my bug-bears with traditional impacts studies, which use offline hydrological models driven by "bias-corrected" climate model output which then ends up violating conservation, which is why I am unhappy with some previous WG2 conclusions, but that's another story....). So, I don't agree that we can only judge that the models are "based on established physical laws" if they agree with observations. We know that energy, water, carbon, momentum etc must be conserved so we don't go re-writing that basic knowledge even if the models don't agree with observations in some places.

You also say:

[3] Given the above, how does the IPCC conclude that the models it evaluate have passed the above two tests?

<Models can also simulate many observed aspects of climate change over the instrumental record. One example is that the global temperature trend over the past century (shown in Figure 1) ...>

[4] Thus, a model is considered 'successful' at the point it emulates a well-resolved global temperature trend.

No. Your point [4] is a misunderstanding of the IPCC statement you quote above - although to be fair, I can see why you think this, and it is probably the AR4 authors' fault for using that figure as a centrepiece of that FAQ as it does give the impression that emulation of a temperature trend is the key criterion for model evaluation. But it isn't!

If you read WG1 AR4 Chapter 8 itself (not just FAQ8.1) you'll see that comparison with the past trend hardly comes into it, if at all. The chapter is mostly about comparison with current climate, in terms of mean state, stastistics of variability and extremes, and emergent phenomena such as ENSO, monsoons and other modes of variability (incidentally, I still think it is remarkable that these phenomena just happen naturally within the models without pre-programming - they are an emergent property of a coupled ocean-atmosphere system on a rotating planet, both in the real world and the virtual one). There is other discussion of issues such as climate sensitivity and abrupt changes etc, but comparison with past changes doesn't really come into it, for precisely the reason you articulate, ie: it would be circular reasoning.

So when you say:

Now consider your proposition, namely that of model runs being unable to replicate present temperatures without the anthropogenic factors.

No, this is not my proposition. I was talking about the model runs being unable to replicate past trends without the anthropogenic factors. This is different to being unable to replicate the current climate state, so is independent from the model evaluation.

However, as I say, I accept that FAQ8.1 does unfortunately give the impression that comparison with past trends is key evaluation criterion. I think this should really be interpreted as a kind of "by the way, our models also reproduce the past trends reasonably well" and not as a fundamental, first-order validation.

As you know, I'm the first to agree that the models are a long way from being perfect, but they are not as flawed as some like to make out, and we don't rely on circular reasoning in order to try to prove them!

Finally your point:

The only acceptable test of climate model subcomponent function is therefore only a true prediction

This is of course difficult for long-term predictions, but the older models were used to make predictions which have since been shown to be broadly correct (see my point 1(b)(i) in the top post of this thread - indeed you'll notice it was first piece of evidence I cited!)

Also, in the shorter term, my point about the emergence of phenomena such as ENSO and monsoons counts for this (IMHO). We don't impose this behaviour as an input to the models (it's simply not possible to do that with such a complex, coupled system) - we just give the models the basic principles of how the atmosphere works, give them constraints such as solar irradiance, the shape of the continents and atmospheric composition, spin the Earth round and then let the models work out the rest for themselves.....and out drops all this realistic atmospheric circulation. Amazing! :-)

Dec 5, 2011 at 11:11 AM | Justice4Rinka

The binary call is a good point, but we judge the skill of our probabilistic seasonal forecasts through long-term statistics. ie: if (as a simplistic example) we suggest there is a 60% chance of (say) a warmer-than-average summer, then if this advice is correct then the real outcome would be a warm summer in 6 years out of 10. So in the case of seasonal forecasts then we can (and do) test them in this way.

Dec 5, 2011 at 3:37 PM | sam

Thanks for the discussion. John Kennedy's paper does indeed attempt to iron out some of the difficulties with earlier versions of HadSST, with the impacts on the post-WW2 dataset being important. Of course there are still uncertainties, but I don't agree with you that they are serious enough to invalidate my response to your Question 3. I'd encourage readers to look at the paper.

Incidentally, in our old building back in Bracknell, the shelves of one of the offices of Chris Folland's team were full of different styles of old buckets used for sea temperature measurements. This was an interesting by-product of the huge amount of detective work those guys did (and still do) in tracking back exactly how SSTs were measured, and how to account for the effects of different buckets etc. Interesting, the original "bucket correction" led to a reduction in the apparent SST warming over the 20th Century, because the apparently cooler early-20th Century SSTs were an artifact of the buckets being hauled up the side of the ship and giving the water half a minute or so to cool before the temperature was measure. So this is a nice example of objective science revealing a downgrading of past warming!

RKS

I've responded to your content-free yapping the other thread. Clearly the message was too complex. Let's try again: say something substantive, or give it a rest.

Dec 6, 2011 at 1:32 PM | BBD

By substantive do you mean like the yapping in the post below?

...........................................................................

Might I request that:

- you reduce the length of your comments by ~ 75%

- you reproduce ~ 75% less material from CA (which some of us do read)

- you only post on topics you understand

Thanks

Dec 5, 2011 at 8:01 PM | BBD

............................................................................................

Pots and kettles sunshine! I think you've proved the description to be aptly applied.

RKS

You are tiresomely confrontational and you never have anything to add to the debate. Please review this thread for examples of substantive commentary by myself and others.

Try and emulate them in future posts.

RKS

My interpretation of your post is that you're aiming that comment at BBD. If so, I think it is uncalled for. BBD might be many things but he is certainly no idiot. Nor could he be construed as a troll. His faith in certain estimates of the energy budget and RF might seem stubborn but try engaging him with some decent argument and civility would you, please?

I expressed surprise at some of BBD's outbursts a while ago, which he put down to personal attacks. He may have a point.

(If my interpretation is wrong, please accept my apologies.)

Dec 6, 2011 at 9:08 AM | Gixxerboy

No need to apologize, I speak as I find and my opinion, in this case, differs from yours.

Yesterday Dec 5 at 3:37 Sam produced a thoughtful and well presented post including methods of obtaining sea temperature data.

This was responded to by Richard Betts in a civil and interesting post at 3:34 pm today.

All our friend BBD could offer by way of response at 8:01 yesterday was as follows:-

Sam.............

Might I request that:

- you reduce the length of your comments by ~ 75%

- you reproduce ~ 75% less material from CA (which some of us do read)

- you only post on topics you understand

Thanks

Dec 5, 2011 at 8:01 PM | BBD

If that isn't trolling I don't know what is, and this kind of post is quite normal for BBD.

I've seen people trying, unsuccessfully, on many occasions to engage with him to debate his propositions. His response is to argue, quite rudely, that only his opinions are correct. It's all black and white to him. Good vs. bad, warmists vs. 'contrarians' ( is that a scientific term? ). Put simply, it is impossible to engage him in decent, civil argument.

You've never even tried. So stow the nauseating hypocrisy.

Mike Jackson

How I wish you would not get your 'information' from WUWT.

I'll begin at the end, I think. You can get over to die Klimazwiebel and bounce this off HvS:

von Storch resigned because he simply wasn't brave enough to take the heat.

This is rubbish that you have made up without a shred of supporting evidence. Have you got the balls to say this to HvS? I doubt it, but if you do, really, really good luck with that discussion.

And exactly what was the matter with Soon & Baliunas — except that The Team didn't like it?

HvS politely described S&B as a 'bad paper'. I'd go rather further: it is a strategic attempt by professional contrarians to downplay or even deny the climatologically significant role of CO2.

Otto Kiner, publisher of Climate Research, issued a statement singling out the core problem with S&B (2003). It is a simple one (emphasis mine):

The paper that caused the storms (Soon & Baliunas, Clim Res 2003, 23:89–110) evoked heavy criticism, not least in EOS 2003 (84, No 27, 256). Major conclusions of Soon & Baliunas are: ‘Across the world, many records reveal that the 20th century is probably not the warmest nor a uniquely extreme climatic period of the last millenium.’ (p. 89) and ‘Overall, the 20th century does not contain the warmest anomaly of the past millenium
in most of the proxy records which have been sampled world-wide’ (p. 104). While these statements may be true, the critics point out that they cannot be concluded convincingly from the evidence provided in the paper.

von Storch confirms this:

After a conflict with the publisher Otto Kinne of Inter-Research I stepped down on 28. July 2003 as Editor-in-Chief of Climate Research; the reason was that I as newly appointed Editor-in-Chief wanted to make public that the publication of the Soon & Baliunas article was an error, and that the review process at Climate Research would be changed in order to avoid similar failures. The review process had utterly failed; important questions have not been asked, as was documented by a comment in EOS by Mann and several coauthors. (The problem is not whether the Medieval Warm Period was warmer than the 20th century, or if Mann's hockey stick is realistic; the problem is that the methodological basis for such a conclusion was simply not given.)

This is a serious problem because S&B have collectively terrible form. Both are involved with the Heartland Institute, the George C. Marshall Institute and Pat Michaels (he's in tight with the Cato Institute; they are contributing editors to his contrarian World Climate Report site); Baliunas has worked for CFACT, Soon for the SPPI. And more besides, as if this were not enough.

In short, they are enthusiastic champions of the Right-Wing, Big Oil-sponsored disinformation machine. Doubtless these facts will upset people, but tough. It's all true. Either disprove it or keep quiet.

That's why there was a 'storm'. That's why Hans von Storch, Clare Goodess and Mitsuru Ando all resigned from the journal. That's why all this rubbish about de Freitas being a victim is so risible.

There was much, much more to this than simply upsetting Mann. But 'sceptics' are never able to see the big picture, are they? As Mooney says (read the lask link - it's good):

The scientific waters are muddied. The damage is done.

Hi Richard
Thanks for the response. I agree with how amazing it it, that models can show emergence of naturally observed large-scale phenomena (like monsoons). Though, I must add, there are still mismatches, I would partly attribute to less precise wording on my part (esp., in regards to present, past, and current). We could get into those aspects again, but I am doubtful that would be a fruitful exercise.

A few quick points:

[1] You state above about models: "but [models] are not as flawed as some like to make out, and we don't rely on circular reasoning in order to try to prove them!

I would like to draw the distinction between: a) modelers' validation for use of models and b) the use of models as part of a broader argument as your header post does (section (b)(ii)), and as indeed the IPCC does.

In both the latter cases, the (circular) line of reasoning is indeed employed: of comparing model runs with modified factors (lesser CO2), to model runs without such modification (validated by comparison to GAT) to explain the causative role of the same factor (CO2).

The circularity is therefore present in the larger attribution argument.

More later!

-S

Shub

So CO2 does not absorb and re-radiate LW? The 1.6W/m^2 value is wrong?

Or 1.6W/m^2 is correct, but negative feedbacks make it all go away - perhaps that's it?

But then we'd have a very low climate sensitivity which is incompatible with known past climate behaviour (eg glacial/interglacial transitions; MWP/LIA).

What to think?

BBD,
Maybe it is a variable 'sensitivity' system which persists in, and transitions between states...

Maybe, but in the Holocene all the evidence points to a climate sensitivity of ~3C. Maybe a red herring? Maybe not addressing the problem at all?

Which was that a low CS is incompatible with past climate behaviour, eg glacial/interglacial transitions and variability such as the MWP or LIA.

You can't have it both ways - if climate is insensitive it would not behave as observed. If it is not, RF from CO2 will cause GAT to rise.

And why the scare quotes? Again? Climate sensitivity is standard terminology.

Richard @ Dec 6, 2011 at 2:59 PM

Thanks very much for your clear response to Shub's post - very much appreciated as always. I have a few counter-arguments I'd like to put to you.

Firstly, the comments you make refer to short time scale processes; weather, ENSO and so on. I definitely agree that modern weather predictions are astonishingly good, no matter what the cynics say. You only have to monitor the BBC weather site for your area to see how true that is! And of course, I also accept that the models are based on fundamental physics, and that the quality of the weather/ENSO/monsoon predictions validates the models (as you say). I'd add another point demonstrating how good the models are, which is their ability to reproduce the spacial scaling behaviour of structures observed within the atmosphere - whirls within whirls, and all that good Richardson stuff!

But I also think that the improvements in weather modeling do not necessarily carry over into climate simulations. As I understand it, the two things are related but distinct. For example, weather models operate on spacial scales of 10 or 20 kms, whereas climate models operate at 100 to 200 kms. Weather models involve atmospherics, whereas climate models are coupled to ocean models and bring in details of carbon cycles, atmospheric chemistry, land use, cryosphere, sulphate aerosols and so on. Many key processes, such as clouds, thunderstorms and boundary layer turbulence occur within the climate model resolutions of 100 or so kms. As far as I know, such small-scale processes are represented within the models by heuristic parameterisations and are not derived from the fundamental laws of physics, even if they do obviously still satisfy the basic conservation laws you mentioned. I understand it is possible, by changing the parameterisations in physically reasonable ways, to vary the calculated change in surface temperatures for a doubling of CO2 across a whole order of magnitude, and with no obvious way to reject any values from this range! I imagine that ultimately, the reason for this uncertainty lies in the nonlinear character of the climate system.

I've no doubt you're right to point out that the validation of models derived from observations of current climate does not involve a circular argument. However, when Curry talks about circular arguments, she is talking about 20th century attribution studies; she is claiming that those arguments are circular. To my mind, the point about this is that the attribution studies operate on climate time scales, and so may involve processes not important to weather prediction. I don't think you have addressed Curry's claims.

In fact, as far as I know, when temperature series are analysed, scaling behaviour is found there as well; in other words, there is scaling in both time and space. Fluctuations increase rapidly with time scale over a range of days before settling down into a plateau in which fluctuations decrease with increasing time scale; the plateau extends out to perhaps 10 or so years. Apparently, the GCMs also do very well in simulating the fluctuations in both of these weather regimes! However, beyond the 10 year time scale, the fluctuations increase more sharply again, in fact right out to the scale of glacial/interglacial cycles. According to recent research, GCMs maybe don't do so well in this climate regime:

"... whereas the spectra from data (especially when globally averaged) begin to rise for frequencies below (10 yrs)-1, both the FIF and GCM control runs maintain their gently sloping plateau-like behaviours out to at least (500 yrs)-1 ... Similar conclusions for the control runs of other GCMs at even lower frequencies were found by (Blender et al., 2006) and (Rybski et al., 2008) so that it seems that in the absence of external climate forcings, the GCMs reproduce the low frequency weather regime but not the lower frequency spectrally rising regime which requires some new climate ingredient."

"This new understanding of atmospheric variability is essential in evaluating the realism of both atmospheric and climate models. In particular - since without special external forcing GCMs only model low frequency weather - the question is posed as to what types of external forcing are required so that the GCM variability makes a transition to the climate regime with realistic scaling exponents and at a realistic time scales."

From this, it seems to me that the GCMs hit problems of realism in exactly the regime where we would want them to be most reliable and robust! As I understand it, this issue must be closely related to the initial-value vs. boundary-value question raised by Roger Pielke and others; the suggestion being that if there exist long range fluctuations that cannot be averaged out over the time scale of the simulation, then unless the simulation is initialized to a particular state, you cannot expect to obtain reliable results from it over time.

I'm sure people with more experience and expertise than me would express these arguments more cogently, and would most likely come up with even more counter-points. But anyway, I'm still very interested to hear your response to these arguments at least.

Philip

An aside, not intended to get in the way of your question to RB, but do you argue that modelled projections of centennial trends are in some way invalidated? Could be me, but it's not clear from what you say, especially as you do not attribute the quote you provide. It's not Koutsoyiannis, by any chance, is it?

Yes, not Koutsoyiannis.

BBD,
On a related note, - could you please tell me if there is any specific reason why the CO2-forced signature is only discernible in the multicentennial timescale

.
Philip,
You state: "Many key processes, such as clouds, thunderstorms and boundary layer turbulence occur within the climate model resolutions of 100 or so kms. As far as I know, such small-scale processes are represented within the models by heuristic parameterisations and are not derived from the fundamental laws of physics, even if they do obviously still satisfy the basic conservation laws you mentioned."

I've thought about this as well. The 'ideal model' would have its clockspeed set to run at real-time (as in, 1 second in model-time=1 second in real-world).

BBD

Okay, let's say S&B are 'contrarians' - maybe even funded by 'big oil'. What they did was accumulate evidence for the MWP (and LIA):
a) having existed
b) being widespread
c) showing reasonable synchronicity and duration
d) exhibiting a significant anomaly (~C20th levels)

This was a meta study - they did not undertake any original research - drawing on the findings of 152 published proxy studies from the Arctic to Antarctica. It included work by Mann, Overpeck, Briffa and plenty more Team members.

Now, I have a serious problem with the whole area of paleo proxies for temperature. Everything I have read looks like a smiling triumph of hope over uncertainty. (Including that bloody useless sphagnum study you and I briefly discussed. There was no evidence for your saying we should trust the author's caveat that it probably overstated the MWP. It could equally have understated it according to his concern over the magnitude of signal - he was clearly keeping his academic nose clean.)

Anyway, let's put all that aside for a moment and assume that proxies can be found for paleoclimate. And of course some are better than others.

S&B draw upon 152 studies. Sure, some of them are not as good as others. But across them the pattern of a MWP and LIA is obvious. You quote HvS criticising the lack of a methodological basis for the conclusions. He's perfectly correct. S&B do not provide a 'methodology' for arriving at their conclusion.

However. You'd need to be as one-eyed as a Cantabrian not to admit their paper shows evidence for a MWP and LIA. It's as plain as the nose on your face.

They lacked a clear methodology and their assertions of relativity to C20 are unsubstantiated. But they almost certainly reached a correct conclusion overall:

"[C]onsidered as an ensemble of individual expert opinions, the assemblage of local representations of climate establishes both the Little Ice Age and Medieval Warm Period as climatic anomalies with worldwide imprints"

Now, witness the opprobrium heaped on Soon's and Baliunas's heads. The reason why is obvious. It undermines the meme that the climate catastrophists have been trying to establish: that the MWP didn't exist. Or it was confined to Europe. Or the northern hemisphere. Or it was unremarkable. Or anything, really, so long as they could engineer the claim that modern rises in T were 'unprecedented'.

S&B might have been a bit sloppy and overstated. But how can any sane, objective person rubbish them without dismissing Mann et all as a work of uncompromised fraud, fakery, and statistical nonsense. To follow your line of argument above, he's a well-known 'warmist' and funded by the 'green machine'.

Instead of relying on 152 studies, Mann's well established reliance is on wrong centering of data, a tortured Principal Components Analysis, and discredited types and samples of proxies. You can put in the sales of Perry Como LPs as data and still end up with a hockey stick.

Despite this, Mann et all is somehow defended and STILL the hockey stick is trotted out, like a zombie powerpoint, as if it has some kind of validity.

So come on, BBD. Jumping into the kicking of Soon, Baliunas and de Freitas is unbecoming. It might have been a weak paper, but it's nothing like as bad as Mann's.

>Philip

So who are you quoting then?

>Shub

could you please tell me if there is any specific reason why the CO2-forced signature is only discernible in the multicentennial timescale

Eh?

Are you confusing Bender (2010?) on the emerging CO2 signal in cyclones with other projections of the effects of CO2 forcing on global mean temperature?

>Gixxer

So come on, BBD. Jumping into the kicking of Soon, Baliunas and de Freitas is unbecoming. It might have been a weak paper, but it's nothing like as bad as Mann's.

Indeed. Corporate corruption for financial gain meets noble cause corruption. Unedifying from all angles, but keep the crucial facts in view: the stupid PR disaster of the Mannean Hockey Stick has no bearing on the fundamentals of climate science. That's a sceptic meme, and it is wrong.

Let me say this again for absolute clarity: showing the Mannean Hockey Stick to be ill-founded does not 'refute' AGW. It makes absolutely no difference at all.

S&B might have been a bit sloppy and overstated.

No, it was a deliberate attempt to suggest - incorrectly - that the dominant climate influence is natural variation. I cannot stress enough how unwise I think it is to make excuses for S & B. Or for de Freitas, come to that. Just research their backgrounds, affiliations and inter-relations.

Here's a spreadsheet of all the papers CdF edited for Climate Research. Note very surprising number by leading contrarians (eg Michaels, Balling, S & B, Idso Knappenberger, McKitrick). Note how the publications by these authors tail off after CdF leaves the journal.

Talk about pal review...

Now I hate to be a spoil-sport, but I have to get my head down. I'll check in tomorrow when I get a chance.

BBD

Linking to Desmoblog? There's some awful piffle on that. I found the Mashey article together with his spreadsheet and 'paper' on a subsequent page. So, non-alarmist ('contrarian') scientists found it easier to get published at Climate Research when Chris was editing? Excuse me if I am not surprised. Mashey's just mirroring what sceptics have been saying about 'Pal review' amongst the Team.

MBH 98 et al is not a 'PR disaster' that has 'no bearing on the fundamentals of climate science'. The 'hockey stick' it spawned is as much a poster child for global warming alarmism as Photoshopped polar bears. And its utterly spurious conclusions are still being defended like the evacuation of Dunkirk.

Fair enough, debunking The Stick does not refute AGW. On its own. But it makes the case for modern warming being unprecedented much more uncertain. And a huge amount of AGW-alarmist 'science' is a 'deliberate attempt to suggest that the dominant climate influence' is CO2.

I know your position on this, BBD, and we differ. My tentative conclusion is that CO2 is a significant influence on climate. But I am not as adamant as you about its overriding effect.

Citing the backgrounds, affiliations and interrelations of Chris dF, Soon and Salli Baliunas as reasons to reject the actual results is pretty poor form, BBD. One might equally reject MIke Hulme's because of his Marxism or anything by Mann, Trenberth et al becaue of their self-evident Leftism. Or anything that has the imprint of Houghton, the doyenne of alarmism.

Sleep well. Play tomorrow.

Richard Betts

Was The Boot your local? They did a decent pint of Morlands

@Philip Dec 4, 2011 at 7:53 AM

Possibly Richard prefers not to comment on the emails? Nonetheless, I remain very interested to understand why Mike Hulme let himself get involved with the de Freitas case.

Probably only Hulme could answer such a question. Although, he may have completely "forgotten", just as he claimed to have "forgotten" his involvement in crafting, drafting and recruiting "prestige" endorsers of a "Statement of European Scientists on Actions to Protect Global Climate" in 1997.

The additional evidence provided in CG2 suggests that one can have a high level of confidence that there is little (if any) uncertainty about Hulme's dedication to "the cause":

The climate consensus coordinators’ cookbook

Perhaps it was this same dedication to "the cause" that precipitated his involvement in the de Frietas case. Speaking of the S&B antecedents of which ... you might find a recent post at CA to be quite informative:

“Not Unusual”: AR5 and Climategate 2.0

Hi BBD

Philip is quoting from Lovejoy and Schertzer (in press). I'll try to respond properly on that later if I get time!

Gixxerboy

Was The Boot your local? They did a decent pint of Morlands

Yes it was actually! Nice pub.

@Philip Dec 4, 2011 at 7:53 AM

Possibly Richard prefers not to comment on the emails?

I'm quite happy to discuss any of the emails that were part of conversations I was directly involved in, if you find them sufficiently interesting!!