Discussion > Do computer models provide 'evidence'?
The only evidence that can be gained from the climate models is that there are some seriously flawed assumptions and inputs in the climate models. Is this the evidence they are talking about?
Radical Rodent
Radical Rodent: How did you get the gen on Chandra?
geronimo
I see you have all descended into an orgy or Raff assassination. Best thing when your fox is shot, perhaps.
Radical Rodent you "when in history these ... have NOT been happening" is SKS myth 1 and the other is myth 9. Try harder. And your "though, interestingly, none will ever be proved to have evolved in the interim" is daft. You only need to look at antibiotic resistance in bacteria or pesticide resistance in insects to see things evolve.
TinyCO2 your Spencer graph is like the one from the chap I called an amateur grapher up-thread. Except in Spencer's case he could be thought to know exactly what he is doing - shifting baselines to deceive. http://blog.hotwhopper.com/2014/02/roy-spencers-latest-deceit-and-deception.html
ANH1 sorry to hurt your feelings. Take it in payment for "You give me the impression that you think that somehow modern computers can think for themselves."
TheBigYinJames, given up on your proof=evidence equivalence theory then?
rhoda, you've gone all quiet. Out trying to spot feedbacks and watching clouds perhaps.
Anyone else if, I see you distancing yourselves from Ridley's use of Tol's models to justify this or that, then I'll take your "models don't provide evidence" more seriously. Before then though, I guess pigs will fly.
Raff
Raff, proof and evidence are the same thing, varying only in degree. Evidence is a fact which supports a theory, proof is a fact which supports a theory to the exclusion of all competing theories. Climate models are neither.
The fact that your only avenue of comeback is semantic hair splitting over an apparent discrepancy in whichever of the two I used in one or more posts is rather feeble, but then you're beaten here, even if you're too stupid to appreciate that fact.
Climate models are not evidence, and therefore they are not proof. If you have any serious problem with that, then by all means let us see it. I won't hold my breath.
TheBigYinJames
Raf "shifting baselines to deceive."
So where does it state catagorically where those model outputs should be based? Where are the official web sites for each model where they set out their baseline? Showing me a different blog has no more authority than my link. The IPCC mixes all the models into a grey paste and frankly could be fiddling with baselines too and we'd not be able to tell.
Will the models still be the same version next year and will old plots be discarded in favour of the new ones, adjusted to look more like reality? Will a plateau magically appear as if it was there all along? And anyway, the real temperature plots are adjusted on a regular basis so which version are they fixed to?
The continuing shifting sands of climate data and models doesn't make the results more robust, it just demonstrates how rubbish it is.
TinyCO2
Raff you have not hurt my feelings but it would appear that I have hurt yours. You just go on and on about a computer's 'power' as if it were greatly significant. Do you understand GIGO? It is the control program and the input data that matter, not how quickly the machine can process.
ANH1
Don't I even get a day off once in a while? You didn't answer the substantive points I made. You resort early to mocking to avoid such inconveniences. If you have a signal in which you claim there is positive feedback, and you can't point it out, and it is flat not at an extreme but at a level lower than the highest reached, you ought to look for something other than positive feedback. I can't see a valid claim for positive feedback. But that's just me, maybe you can find a signal-processing guru who can point out how it could be happening and on what timescale. I don't rule out positive feedbacks limited in scale and space and time in the weather, What is evident is that they do not dominate. When it gets hot the effect of H2O is to redistribute the energy faster.
What do the models say about it? Are there any verifiable predictions of positive feedback? How do such predictions match reality?
rhoda
Geronimo: to be fair to Chandra, it is all my suppositions based upon reading the many comments posted – sorry I have not made that clear.
Raff: you use SKS as your reference, and expect to be taken seriously?! Please look at a few facts: at the height of the last ice age, CO2 levels were around 10 times those presently causing you alarm. Some greenhouse gas, eh? Sea-level rises are diminishing, as the oceans catch up with the rest of the world after the last ice age (the engulfment of “Doggerland” has often been suggested as being actually visible, an ever-rising tide; the locals at the time having no time to establish more settlements as they retreated – now, try measuring a 3mm rise in your bath, then question how present sea-level rises are measured). Two countries that alarmists were warning were soon to be engulfed are the Maldives and Bangladesh; now, the Maldives are still there, with an expanding tourist industry, and Bangladesh is actually growing in area. Then, perhaps you believe that the air and sea temperatures were quite steady, and the sea-levels never changed until humans started burning fuels.
Your ideas of evolution are interesting, too. If you like chillies, you will find that, as you eat more, your ability to eat the hotter versions grows; you become more resistant to the heat of the chilli. Now, are you evolving (that is, becoming a new species), or adapting? Is a Chihuahua a different species from a Great Dane, or an adaptation of a single species (dogs, in case you don’t know)?
Let me reiterate what I have posted earlier, yet you seem to have overlooked: The only evidence that a model – whether 0s and 1s in a computer, or a real, solid model – can give is whether or not your ideas are correct; in doing that, they might induce further ideas to improve or amend them. As none of the climate models come anywhere near reality, the conclusion HAS to be that the ideas behind them are wrong, and a radical rethink is needed. But, no, we have apologists like Raff, and… so many others I cannot be bothered looking their names up, who insist that the models are so true that the evidence they present is close to scientific certainty and reality is wrong.
[…]
The only evidence that can be gained from the climate models is that there are some seriously flawed assumptions and inputs in the climate models. Is this the evidence they are talking about?
Radical Rodent
raff
Model next year's Epsom Derby for me, will you.
All the data you need to program your model is available now which is more than can be said for climate models which have repeatedly been proved useless at forecasting while their programmers can't even be relied on to include all the parameters. I will accept that you might want to wait until the Autumn 2-y-o races are concluded but apart from that you have the distance, the date, well over 100 years of weather conditions, breeding, pointers from previous races, trainers and jockeys' records.
One gets you fifty that even with all the relevant data you'll get it wrong.
And nobody in his right mind would think of risking more than a fiver on your conclusions. Which makes the profligacy poured out on the drivel from climate models all the more surprising.
Mike Jackson
Furthermore, your reference to “Myth 9”: For global records, 2010 is the hottest year on record, tied with 2005. So, when did “global records” begin? Certainly, historical records (originally amended downwards by NASA, but then amended back) show 1938 to be the hottest year on record. Now, whether you consider the records from those days to be “global” or not has to be a moot point – much like the polar ice-caps, “since records began” usually referring to satellite records (i.e. since 1979, when the dire warnings of the oncoming ice-age were dying down), conveniently ignoring the reductions recorded in earlier decades of the 20th century.
The rebuttal of Professor Bob Carter starts with, “No, it hasn't been cooling since 1998. Well, d’uh… the professor never even intimated at that idea; why refute it? What is quoted as him saying is: “It hasn't warmed since 1998 [sic]
For the years 1998-2005, temperature did not increase. This period coincides with society's continued pumping of more CO2 into the atmosphere.”
This statement – and the acknowledgement that the “pause” is continuing to the present day – is verified by NASA, NOAA, UKMO, IPCC; why is it wrong?
Now, before you go on a rant about, “Yeah, but there have been so many hot years this century…” this is what happens on a plateau; much of it is higher than the surrounding country. This does not mean that there will be greater rise in the future, so get scared; what it means is that there has been a cessation in the rise. We may be at the peak, and the future trend could be downward; or, we may be set for more rise. As there is no suggestion in ANY of the climate models that there would be, or even could be, a pause in the rise, no matter how much they have been tweaked and twisted, then the only evidence the climate models give is that the models are not correct. Why do you cling so avidly to them?
Radical Rodent
ANH1
You are ignoring Raff's valid point. although he didn't state it categorically, that increasing computer power will get you more of the GO part and much more quickly for the the same GI therefore you can increase the GI part and get even more GO. That's the wonderful thing about Moore's Law and GIGO.
SandyS
Is evolution held in the same low regard as climate science here? Or is Radical Rodent alone in pushing the envelope on willful ignorance? Evolution requires reproduction and however much you work at that you remain the same you. You cannot evolve. Bacteria, on the other hand, which can go through many generations in a day (and insects less so, but still vastly more than you) evolve quickly according to selective pressure (and even then a single bacterium cannot evolve). You can see it happen. You don't even need a model.
rhoda, I didn't deal with your "substantive points"? Like your ability to spot a feedback when you see it, you mean? I think it is clear that you cannot. As for your musings on flat signals, extremes and feedbacks, you should understand that positive feedback and noise are separate concepts - they can exist together in a system. Noise can swamp the short term effects of feedback. You need no signal-processing guru to design a simple circuit that demonstrate this.
"When it gets hot the effect of H2O is to redistribute the energy faster." And you know this how?
TinyCO2 you are an odd one. Not only do you claim that we are doing *so much* to combat CO2 (= hardly anything) that we have no spare resources to combat various infectious diseases, you now seem to contend that it is acceptable to mislead deliberately by plotting curves of data from UAH, HadCRUT, GISS, CMIP5, tree rings, ice cores and in fact anything against each other without regard for the use of differing baselines in each curve, because, well, because you don't know enough about CMIP5 baselines.
All, if you really believe that models don't produce evidence it should be clear that you cannot support any use of models by skeptics. For example those arguing that warming of up to 2C will be beneficial. So here's an offer. If each of you admits without artifice that there is not one iota of evidence that any degree of warming will be beneficial in any way and that people like Ridley and perhaps even our host are completely wrong to claim that there will be or to draw attention to model-based research that suggests it will, I will accept that models produce no evidence.
Raff
Raff, I posted the graph as an example of how they don't match each other or reality. It doesn't matter where the base line is. By manipulation by anybody, including the owners of the models they can be made to look more or less like the general trend of reality but they don't match the variability. The secret to climate modelling sucess is having so many plots that ANYTHING is covered by them. That is not predictive skill, it's carpet bombing.
I didn't write that we have no spare resources to combat various infectious diseases, I was pointing out that there are more potentially catastrophic catastrophes than AGW and we all make judgements on how much we wish to spend on the different problems. In other words the Precautionary Principle is a bust. Most people in the UK are reaching or have passed the limit of what they are prepared to waste on AGW. It doesn't matter how urgent YOU think AGW is, your fears are not the majority. That there are a great many politicians who are attracted to AGW propoganda is just a measure of how little they have to worry about energy bills or even personally cutting CO2.
TinyCO2
Raff: fair enough; my allegory was of the same-generation human, while you were talking about multi-generation evolution. Perhaps you can tell us of the new species of insects that have evolved specifically to be resistant to insecticides. Or are the cockroaches that are now Flit-proof the same species as those that were not, in the 1950s? (I think you will find that the answer to that begins with a “Y”.)
“When it gets hot the effect of H2O is to redistribute the energy faster.” A thunderstorm is a very good example of that process in action; did you not know that?
You obviously do not keep up with events, either, do you – things “we” are doing *so much* of to combat CO2… have you not seen the wind-eyesoresturbines going up? How about the ludicrous conversion of Drax from coal to wood-pellets? What about the acres of arable land now under solar PV? Do you really think that “= hardly anything”? Anyway, combatting CO2 is nothing but a fool’s errand; surely, the fact that CO2 has risen inexorably while temperatures have not should be a clue, there. Or are you blind to that, too?
No. The only evidence models produce is whether or not the assumptions and inputs are correct by comparing the results of the model with reality, something that climate “scientists” do seem to be reluctant to do. All sceptics doubt that the models produce any evidence at all as to why, where, how or when, or even if, the climate is changing. Evidence that warming would be beneficial (by the way, where is the base-line for your 2°C rise? Today, or some time in the past? If today, then you may be sorely disappointed, as we might not realise such a rise): richer plants, faster growth, greater drought-resistance (all of which is becoming more and more apparent, as the world greens); fewer cold-related deaths (each year, there are more deaths from hypothermia in the UK alone then those dying from heat-stress in the whole world); fewer tropical revolving storms – indeed, fewer catastrophic weather events in general. Need I go on? The doom and gloom with temperature rises lies solely in the camp of the alarmists.
If you can admit without artifice that there is not one climate model that has predicted the present “hiatus” in warming, and not one that has been developed since to explain it, we will accept that models can be useful in the development of climate science in producing some evidence of whether or not the assumptions and inputs during construction of the model were correct. I doubt that anyone other than you and yours will ever believe that models can produce any evidence other than that.
Radical Rodent
"= hardly anything" Radical Rodent.
Yes, we're spending plenty but the effect equals very small reductions in CO2. However Raff doesn't recognise the difference between reality and theory, so we cannot be spending on CO2 reduction or CO2 would be falling. Also for people like Raff, there are no limits of how much money belonging to OTHER people should be spent on their pet concern.
TinyCO2
Raff's primary technique seems to be to switch argument when he's losing. You must resist, pin him on the substantive argument of the thread (in this case computer models as evidence) and resist all temptation to take him up on his deliberately obtuse incendiary statements on unrelated areas.
TheBigYinJames
So right, TinyCO2. As for what appals me most about these schemes for wasting tax-payers’ money with absolutely no feasible return, a good example is that of Drax: this will not reduce any CO2 at all. No-one appears to have taken into account the prospect of shipping the wood in (from the USA, is the plan, apparently), with the fuel-hungry bulk-carrying ships (bulkers) – while nominally capable of carrying, say, 250,000 tonnes, there is the limitation of space; as wood is so much less dense than coal, do not expect this full bulker to be carrying 250,000 tonnes of wood chips. As wood has about one-fifth of the energy capacity of coal, for every 1,000,000 tonnes of coal, Drax would require 5,000,000 tonnes of wood chips as a replacement – at least 20 ship-loads; more probably, 25 or more ships. Is there the port infrastructure for handling that number of ships? Erm… I highly doubt it. The port time of this hypothetical bulker would be about 5 days, so, for 25 ships that would be 125 days of port time – just over one third of a year – and that is without taking into account delays caused by weather. Now, they are talking about Drax using wood to replace 9,000,000 tonnes of coal per annum – in other words, 45,000,000 tonnes of wood would be required, or more than three years of port time. Do we have the ports that can offer 3 years of continuous port time to large bulkers? Correct me if I am wrong, but I would say, “No!” The only port that I know of capable of handling that size of bulker is Teesport; while if might have 3 berths, it is still a long way away from Drax; how are the wood chips to be transferred? Magic? Teleportation? One train could haul perhaps 2,000 tonnes at a time (let us be generous); we would need 22,500 train journeys a year – 62 journeys a day. I can only conclude that no-one proposing this scheme has ever looked at the simple logistics involved.
(Odd. I posted this earlier... or so I thought. Where has the original gone? "I shot a comment in the air; it fell to ground I know not where..." Should you find it somewhere, let me know, or arrange its deletion.)
Radical Rodent
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/07/20/lewandowsky-and-oreskes-are-co-authors-of-a-paper-about-enso-climate-models-and-sea-surface-temperature-trends-go-figure/#more-113224
nobody does it better than Bob.
TinyCO2
Lest we forget people:
Posted by Oliver Morton on behalf of Kevin E. Trenberth
I have often seen references to predictions of future climate by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), presumably through the IPCC assessments (the various chapters in the recently completedWorking Group I Fourth Assessment report ican be accessed through this listing). In fact, since the last report it is also often stated that the science is settled or done and now is the time for action.
In fact there are no predictions by IPCC at all. And there never have been.</.b> The IPCC instead proffers “what if” projections of future climate that correspond to certain emissions scenarios. There are a number of assumptions that go into these emissions scenarios. They are intended to cover a range of possible self consistent “story lines” that then provide decision makers with information about which paths might be more desirable. But they do not consider many things like the recovery of the ozone layer, for instance, or observed trends in forcing agents. There is no estimate, even probabilistically, as to the likelihood of any emissions scenario and no best guess.
Even if there were, the projections are based on model results that provide differences of the future climate relative to that today. None of the models used by IPCC are initialized to the observed state and none of the climate states in the models correspond even remotely to the current observed climate. In particular, the state of the oceans, sea ice, and soil moisture has no relationship to the observed state at any recent time in any of the IPCC models. There is neither an El Niño sequence nor any Pacific Decadal Oscillation that replicates the recent past; yet these are critical modes of variability that affect Pacific rim countries and beyond. The Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, that may depend on the thermohaline circulation and thus ocean currents in the Atlantic, is not set up to match today’s state, but it is a critical component of the Atlantic hurricanes and it undoubtedly affects forecasts for the next decade from Brazil to Europe. Moreover, the starting climate state in several of the models may depart significantly from the real climate owing to model errors. I postulate that regional climate change is impossible to deal with properly unless the models are initialized.
The current projection method works to the extent it does because it utilizes differences from one time to another and the main model bias and systematic errors are thereby subtracted out. This assumes linearity. It works for global forced variations, but it can not work for many aspects of climate, especially those related to the water cycle. For instance, if the current state is one of drought then it is unlikely to get drier, but unrealistic model states and model biases can easily violate such constraints and project drier conditions. Of course one can initialize a climate model, but a biased model will immediately drift back to the model climate and the predicted trends will then be wrong. Therefore the problem of overcoming this shortcoming, and facing up to initializing climate models means not only obtaining sufficient reliable observations of all aspects of the climate system, but also overcoming model biases. So this is a major challenge.
The IPCC report makes it clear that there is a substantial future commitment to further climate change even if we could stabilize atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases. And the commitment is even greater given that the best we can realistically hope for in the near term is to perhaps stabilize emissions, which means increases in concentrations of long-lived greenhouse gases indefinitely into the future. Thus future climate change is guaranteed.
So if the science is settled, then what are we planning for and adapting to? A consensus has emerged that “warming of the climate system is unequivocal” to quote the 2007 IPCC Fourth Assessment Working Group I Summary for Policy Makers (pdf) and the science is convincing that humans are the cause. Hence mitigation of the problem: stopping or slowing greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere is essential. The science is clear in this respect.
However, the science is not done because we do not have reliable or regional predictions of climate. But we need them. Indeed it is an imperative! So the science is just beginning. Beginning, that is, to face up to the challenge of building a climate information system that tracks the current climate and the agents of change, that initializes models and makes predictions, and that provides useful climate information on many time scales regionally and tailored to many sectoral needs.
We will adapt to climate change. The question is whether it will be planned or not? How disruptive and how much loss of life will there be because we did not adequately plan for the climate changes that are already occurring?
Kevin Trenberth
Climate Analysis Section, NCAR
geronimo
You can't point out the positive feedback because it's hidden in the noise? Convenient.
Anyhow, if model output IS evidence, should all models be regarded as equal in authority when assessing the usefulness of what they predict? Are we right to reject extremes? On what basis?
rhoda
The only evidence a model – any model – can provide is whether or not the suppositions made in its construction are correct. Let’s take an example: early man sees the birds, and takes it upon himself to join them in the air – he wants to fly. From his observations, he sees that a bird’s wings are not too different from his own arms, just that there are feathers attached.
First model: stick feathers to arm, and leap off rock, flapping arms wildly.
Well, that didn’t work. The evidence gained from that model suggests that more feathers are needed. Next model: stick even more feathers to arm, and repeat experiment.
So, what evidence in now gained?
Right. Build an extension for the arm, stick feathers to them; repeat experiment.
Stick on yet more feathers, and repeat.
Notice that bats do not have feathers, yet still fly. Replace feathers with leather sheets.
All the models so far produced have shown that, so far, the ideas for flying do not work (though someone else may have come up with an idea for an A&E unit by now).
In fact, NO models will give evidence on how to fly, or what is involved in flying than you already know; ALL they will tell you is that your ideas are right or wrong. The same with climate models; all that can be done is to construct one, and see if its results compare with reality; if they do not, then either tweak the model (stick more feathers on it), or start again (try using sheets of leather). No climate model will ever give you more insight as to what is happening in the atmosphere, or how it is happening, or what the changes are going to be; it will only ever tell you that your suppositions are correct… or not.
At the moment, climatology is still sticking yet more feathers on the arm – they have made absolutely no real progress! We should not be surprised; to extrapolate what Lindzen has said, the clever scientists go into physics and chemistry, it is only the real dumb ones who select climate, and that is because that is all that is left for them.
Radical Rodent
Radical said, " my allegory was of the same-generation human, while you were talking about multi-generation evolution". Same-generation human evolution doesn't exist. It is oxymoronic nonsense. Evolution is just evolution. Adding "multi-generation" is meaningless. And evolution does not necessarily mean speciation.
TheBigYinJames suggests not getting sidetracked from the main theme - that models don't provide evidence. But people here are prone to making statements that they cannot justify without models.
Take Rhoda's claims about clouds and feedback or her suggestion that "When it gets hot the effect of H2O is to redistribute the energy faster". I'm not picking on Rhoda, others do it too. And I won't argue that these ideas are untrue. But to conclude that they are true you need a model that incorporates the known information about clouds, water vapour and so on. You use that model to tell you what happens, as evidence. It is not computer model in this case but a mental model. But it is a model all the same and you are using it as evidence to form conclusions about how the atmosphere works. I said this way back up-thread, but of course it bounced off like water from a duck's back. But you all use models all the time as evidence.
It is odd though that though you counter factually claim to believe that models don't produce evidence, not one of you is willing to renounce the use of models as evidence in forecasts of the future economic effects of climate change. Not one!
Raff
I treat economic models with at least the same degree of skepticism as I do climate models. Please stop making gross generalisations about 'all of us'.
michael hart
Raff, if Tol said his models are evidence of anything, then he's also wrong.
TheBigYinJames
Because; in matters of Faith, belief trumps evidence (or lack of).