Discussion > Let's get real about climate models
attp, you can answer however you wish. Whether you share my opinion on the credibility of models as evidence gatherers or not makes no difference to me. You either do, and don't want to say, because - as you so very rightly point out, it's a total "gotcha" (something you seem always to be looking to exploit in the text of others here, as part of your TROLOLOLL routine), or you don't.
But yes, it's an inescapable gotcha. But thanks for confirming. :)
Simon Hopkinson
Simon,
Firstly, you still haven't cleared up your mis-representation. Secondly, this is the epitome of the consequences of asking a loaded question
But yes, it's an inescapable gotcha. But thanks for confirming. :)
I'd say more, but there's not much point is there?
...and Then There's Physics
Simon says:
Is running a climate model, in your opinion, performing a scientific experiment? Is model output, in your opinion, observational data?
This comes back again to what I asked before. If there were no models, should we (a) write models to see what we can learn, or (b) not write models.
My dictionary says:
experimentSo can we make a discovery, test a hypothesis or demonstrate a known fact by running a climate model? If you answer 'yes', then you confirm that running a climate model is a form of experiment. If you answer 'no', you effectively answer (b) to my question - you think that we should just not write climate models. Even here, but definitely in the real world, most people would probably view that as crazy.
noun
a scientific procedure undertaken to make a discovery, test a hypothesis, or demonstrate a known fact
Raff
… those who invoke the sanctity of the scientific method…And who is “sanctifying” the scientific method? What I see is many saying that the scientific method is the best that we have, and should be maintained in spite of results being contrary to hopes or expectations. However, being human, it is a method that can be prone to faults; hence, we need to have a healthy scepticism with all facets of science. It is only when this is forsaken, with any questioning it being decried as “deniers”, do we start to move into sanctification; and now we have the devoted acolytes using the most bizarre, twisted logic in their defence of the High Priests of Climate in their invocation of the Holy Models (never question their veracity), and utter reverence of the Holy Hockey Stick. What makes all this even more insane is that those who will so readily point the finger and scream, “Deniar!” are in utter denial of these facts.
Radical Rodent
Simon Hopkinson 2:45, I can only assume this is the way climate science 'works'.
golf charlie
The issue is whether or not it is dominated by the initial conditions or the boundary conditions.
Jan 16, 2016 at 1:55 PM | Unregistered Commenter...and Then There's Physics
Attp - please would you say briefly what you mean by "boundary conditions" - I think you may be referring to something other than what I use the phrase for.
Martin A
I haven't actually read this yet, but it may answer your question.
...and Then There's Physics
attp:
Firstly, you still haven't cleared up your mis-representation.If there's any misrepresentation, it's in your words, not mine.
Secondly, this is the epitome of the consequences of asking a loaded questionWell I guess that depends on whether you can answer the question at all and retain dignity or integrity. They're basically rhetorical questions and a doozer of a gotcha, and you don't like it because there's no sleight of hand way of answering. That's fine by me, because the questions I asked were rhetorical. I didn't ask whether or not of climate models, I asked of your opinion. The questions in isolation are not unreasonable, it's just that for you the replies would be uncomfortable.
I'd say more, but there's not much point is there?Nope, really not. :)
Simon Hopkinson
Simon Hopkinson
What is the point of asking "Have you stopped beating your wife? type questions in a discussion about climate models?
Entropic man
…end up being climate change denialists.Which really shows us the bias of the author, I’m afraid. Perhaps you should look before you link.
Is the climate changing? For the UK, who can really tell? One of the features of the British climate is that it gives us so many unpredictable variables – two of which stand out since the 1950s being the winter of ’62-63, the other the summer of 1976. I also recall extreme flooding in the 1960s, and York suffered annual flooding for several years in the ‘70s(?); in the 1980s, there was a winter featuring unusual cold, with temperatures down into the -20s – there was even a report of workers at a meat freezing plant being warmer inside the freezers than outside! So, what can be pointed to that gives us definitive evidence that the climate of the UK has changed? Well, the winters do appear to me to be warmer than the bone-chilling ones I suffered in the school playground; however, the summers are neither as long nor as warm as I remember them. So, here is a simple, little challenge – give one example that can be categorically stated to be evidence of climate change in the UK.
Radical Rodent
Attp - please would you say briefly what you mean by "boundary conditions" - I think you may be referring to something other than what I use the phrase for.
Jan 16, 2016 at 4:52 PM | Registered CommenterMartin AI haven't actually read this yet, but it may answer your question.
Jan 16, 2016 at 5:07 PM | Unregistered Commenter...and Then There's Physics
Attp - Thank you but I don't see how an article that *you have not read* can tell me what *you* mean by "boundary conditions".
I have the impression that you use the term for something quite different from its normal use in maths and physics as constraints that the solution of a differential/partial differential equation has to satisfy. Am I surmising correctly?
Martin A
Simon Hopkinson
What is the point of asking "Have you stopped beating your wife? type questions in a discussion about climate models?
Jan 16, 2016 at 6:11 PM | Unregistered CommenterEntropic man
EM - Simon asked (Jan 16, 2016 at 2:09 PM):
. Is running a climate model, in your opinion, performing a scientific experiment?
. Is model output, in your opinion, observational data?
If you think that those questions equate to "Have you stopped beating your wife? type questions" then that implies that you yourself have grave reservations about climate models.
To me they look very reasonable questions.
Martin A
I couldn't be bothered to read aTTP's linked article either, but at the site, on the right side is a list of articles including "How to detect crap on the internet", those commenting are well worth reading.
golf charlie
So Simon wants to play the "can running a climate model be thought of as running an experiment" card. But he cannot bear to admit that the things that can be done with a climate model (make a discovery, test a hypothesis or demonstrate a known fact) are the same as those involved in an experiment. Of course it is an experiment.
Another thing that I imagine others can't bear to admit is that satellite temperature "measurements" involve a model. A model that has not been 'validated' for frack's sake! Now I know some people have a habit of saying that climate models can't be trusted because they are not validated. So lets take a poll. How many people no longer trust UAH and RSS now that they know their models have not been validated?
Raff
Alternatively, who trusts climate scientists and their extravagant and costly dependancy on models, that everybody else has to pay for?
golf charlie
Raff, I don't want to pre-empt attp's answers but you CANNOT test a hypothesis using a climate model. Exactly this is the thing we've been trying to get through to you. The model IS the hypothesis. It's like coming up with a hypothesis and then testing it by doing some really hard thinking about it. No. Just no.
Simon Hopkinson
Simon
It must be that Raff believes that the models are real and the world is fake. Is there any other explanation?
diogenes
And both satellite series are independent and are not wildly different from the surface series, so they look reasonable although not unproblematic. But then the surface series are problematic especially when it comes to the oceans. But all the series are fairly close. And then you get the GCMs...... They seem to describe another planet.
diogenes
Martin A
Certainly it is an impossible pair of questions.! Whatever combination of answers ATTP gives, Simon will say he is wrong,
Entropic man
Simon Hodgkinson
By your 9.04 answer to Raff you have answered mine.
You are thinking as a Popperian under the mistaken impression that AGW is an untested hypothesis being tested by climate models.
In practice the hypothesis testing is over. AGW is a now a well tested Kuhnian paradigm. Climate models are an investigative tool for further investigation .
Entropic man
EM - I am not sure about that. If attp said "no and no" I doubt that Simon would say he was wrong. But he might well point out that those answers were inconsistent with attp's previously stated viewpoint and beat him up for reversing his position.
Do you see Attp as Private Joker and Simon as the Senior Drill Instructor?
Martin A
Martin A
You see my point.☺
No and no is the Kuhnian answer, because climate models are not experiments to falsify AGW, but tools for examining the future implications of the paradigm. IAs a Popperian Simon disagrees with this view.
Yes and no. Simon would disagree because he does not regard models as experiments.
No and yes, yes and yes. Simon would disagree because he would insist that only observational evidence is valid, therefore models cannot provide valid evidence.
Entropic man
EM, I actually missed your Popper/Kuhn question, but I would have answered that I'm mostly Popperian in thinking, yes. However...
under the mistaken impression that AGW is an untested hypothesis being tested by climate models.
Absolutely I am not. In fact my point IS that climate models by their very nature CANNOT test AGW. Whether AGW is tested or untested is moot, since I don't dispute the proposition that AGW exists based on the information I have. However, while I don't wholly dismiss the value of Kuhn's work, I don't subscribe to Kuhnian "consensus" science because groupthink, echo chamber, group sex/mutual wanking... Between Kuhn and Popper, I think Popper's is less susceptible to errors and systemic failure. For evidence of this, I give you.. Kuhnian climate science. And Ravetz is as bad.
In practice the hypothesis testing is over. AGW is a now a well tested Kuhnian paradigm. Climate models are an investigative tool for further investigation .
I don't think there's any justification for claiming that the hypothesis testing is over. To make that claim would be to deny the past 20 years of exponentially increasing CO2 and an absence of significant warming. The debate about AGW is more about its magnitude and potential impact than its existence, and so it seems to me a strange claim given the last 20 years to state that the debate is ended. Rather it would appear that the debate is barely off the ground.
And you are right, only observational evidence is valid.
I have indicated that I do see value in climate models, but not for the purpose they're being abused. They are virtual manifestations of hypotheses and I maintain that it's an abuse of science to imbue them with the illusion of more than that alone.
Simon Hopkinson
I like the Private Joker/Drill Sergeant clip! :-D
Martin's right, if attp had answered no and no, I would have had respect for attp's honesty in this thread but I would have been shocked by it. I didn't expect him to answer. Because, well, yanno. For some people the message is more important than the truth of the signal.
Simon Hopkinson
Simon,
Actually, I suggested that you could try correcting your earlier misrepresentation before I answered your loaded questions. They are also almost certainly loaded, given that it's clear the answer that you regard as correct. Hence any other answer will almost certainly lead to you going "aha, gotcha". That's kind of the definition of a loaded question.
The other definition of a loaded question is the allowing yourself to infer something from the other person's reluctance to answer. Also, I don't think you get to use Mann and imply the other person is predictable.