Climate change - new view of the models?

[Michael Hardner]

I don't really care what they think. If they lack the integrity to look at a criticism and judge it by its merits rather than its source then I consider them to be buffoons pretending to be a scientist and judge their scientific claims accordingly.

But... they actually ended up responding to McIntyre et al with regards to one of the papers ?

[TimG]

But... they actually ended up responding to McIntyre et al with regards to one of the papers ?

Not really. Sometimes RealClimate will respond with the usual waldo tactics - ignoring most of what McIntyre says and rebutting things that McIntyre never claimed. The fact that the sniveling hacks that run that blog refuse to actually link to McIntyre's posts when they "rebut" them really illustrates the childish mindset of these so called "scientists". Why should I trust anything from a scientist who is too scared or too arrogant to link to critic's blog?

That said, the tactic (as dishonest as it is) has been extremely effective is confusing people like you who don't follow the details. You see a rebuttal and you simply assume that it was adequate. But if you actually understood the points being made you would realize that it was not a rebuttal at all. It is this kind of stuff that makes me really angry and this is the kind of stuff that leads me to having nothing but contempt for "climate scientists". At this point in time I have more respect for lawyers as a profession.

Edited January 14, 2013 by TimG

[Michael Hardner]

Not really.

What ? You don't recall this discussion:

Mann et al. replied that McIntyre and McKitrick "raise no valid issues regarding our paper" and the "claim that 'upside down' data were used is bizarre", as the methods "are insensitive to the sign of predictors." They also said that excluding the contentious datasets has little effect on the result.^[216]

That said, the tactic (as dishonest as it is) has been extremely effective is confusing people like you who don't follow the details. You see a rebuttal and you simply assume that it was adequate.

Yeah, I guess you don`t remember the long discussion we had on this topic. I read the criticism, the rebuttal and read as much as I could from both sides.

But if you actually understood the points being made you would realize that it was not a rebuttal at all.

There was only one point that was difficult to understand, from what I remember.

[TimG]

Mann et al. replied that McIntyre and McKitrick "raise no valid issues regarding our paper" and the "claim that 'upside down' data were used is bizarre", as the methods "are insensitive to the sign of predictors." They also said that excluding the contentious datasets has little effect on the result.[216]

Excuse me? This quote is a perfect example of "ignoring the points made and rebutting claims that were not made" tactic.

In any case, that was a response to a comment in the peer reviewed literature - I thought you were talking about responding to comments made outside of the literature.

Yeah, I guess you don`t remember the long discussion we had on this topic. I read the criticism, the rebuttal and read as much as I could from both sides.

Yes, and in the end you gave up and said that since you could not understand my point that I must be wrong. Sorry. There is no way anyone who understands the science can possibly side with Mann on this particular point. There are many other cases where the issues are more grey but in this case there is no doubt: Mann is wrong. The Tijander data cannot be used in his reconstruction and he is either incompetent or a liar if he says otherwise.

The fact that so many in the climate science scientific community take Mann's side is one of the reasons why I hold the climate science community in contempt.

Edited January 14, 2013 by TimG

[Michael Hardner]

Excuse me? This quote is a perfect example of "ignoring the points made and rebutting claims that were not made" tactic.

This is not ignoring - it is a response. They provide reasons and point out parts of the paper that address the criticism.

McIntyre and McKitrick (1) raise no valid issues regarding our paper. We specifically discussed divergence of “composite plus scale” (CPS) and “error-in-variables” (EIV) reconstructions before A.D. 1000 [ref. 2 and supporting information (SI) therein] and demonstrated (in the SI) that the EIV reconstruction is the more reliable where they diverge. The method of uncertainty estimation (use of calibration/validation residuals) is conventional (3, 4) and was described explicitly in ref. 2 (also in ref. 5), and Matlab code is available atwww.meteo.psu.edu/∼mann/supplements/MultiproxyMeans07/code/codeveri/calc_error.m.

McIntyre and McKitrick's claim that the common procedure (6) of screening proxy data (used in some of our reconstructions) generates “hockey sticks” is unsupported in peer-reviewed literature and reflects an unfamiliarity with the concept of screening regression/validation.

As clearly explained in ref. 2, proxies incorporating instrumental information were eliminated for validation and thus did not enter into skill assessment.

The claim that “upside down” data were used is bizarre. Multivariate regression methods are insensitive to the sign of predictors. Screening, when used, employed one-sided tests only when a definite sign could be a priori reasoned on physical grounds. Potential nonclimatic influences on the Tiljander and other proxies were discussed in the SI, which showed that none of our central conclusions relied on their use.

Finally, McIntyre and McKitrick misrepresent both the National Research Council report and the issues in that report that we claimed to address (see abstract in ref. 2). They ignore subsequent findings (4) concerning “strip bark” records and fail to note that we required significance of both reduction of error and coefficient of efficiency statistics relative to a standard red noise hypothesis to define a skillful reconstruction. In summary, their criticisms have no merit.

Yes, and in the end you gave up and said that since you could not understand my point that I must be wrong. Sorry. There is no way anyone who understands the science can possibly side with Mann on this particular point. There are many other cases where the issues are more grey but in this case there is no doubt: Mann is wrong.

Nobody who understands science could be wrong ? Then either climate scientists don't understand science or there is a conspiracy.

I did not in fact give up, I looked into it and although I found one part of Mann's analysis that warranted further analysis, I didn't think it impacted the overall conclusion.

[TimG]

Nobody who understands science could be wrong ? Then either climate scientists don't understand science or there is a conspiracy.

Most climate scientists don't look at the details of the debate. They simply accept Mann's claims because he is a scientist and his critics are not. Willful blindness is a better explanation - they dont look because they dont want to know.

I did not in fact give up, I looked into it and although I found one part of Mann's analysis that warranted further analysis, I didn't think it impacted the overall conclusion.

The argument I made was: the physics of the lake sediments define the relationship with temperature. Based on this physics the contamination in the last 100 years reversed the sign of of the relationship which meant the correlation algorithm used by Mann would choose the wrong sign for the sediments. If the correct sign is used the sediments are excluded and the reconstruction has no significance unless tree rings are included. This contradicts a major conclusion of the paper (that it provided a reconstruction without tree rings).

Most of the counter arguments were attempts at obfuscation based on a misunderstanding of how correlation works. There was an attempt to argue that Tiljander was wrong about the physics of the proxies and the incorrect sign was in fact correct except this argument was NOT advanced in the paper (where it would have to have been if Mann really believed that at that time). It was only brought out after Mann realized he screwed up which makes it a perfect example of how climate scientists make up data to suit their conclusions instead of drawing their conclusions from the data (i.e. evidence to support my claims about modellers tuning their models to produce the desired result).

Edited January 15, 2013 by TimG

[waldo]

A buffoon pretending to be a scientist would insist that there is no possibility that the models are wrong and "deniers" that express doubts must be ignored.

Guess what the MET office has been doing for the last 5 years? They are buffoons.

I don't really care what they think. If they lack the integrity to look at a criticism and judge it by its merits rather than its source then I consider them to be buffoons pretending to be a scientist and judge their scientific claims accordingly. At the end of the day models mean nothing - real data matters and the real data is saying that climate sensitivity could be at or below the low end of the previous estimates.

speaking of declared buffoonery... you mentioning climate sensitivity in the context of decadal predictions!

but hey now! In your world, just how do models advance within all your declared buffoon labeling?

[Guest]

If we had any sense, we'd shut down the TAR sands and disregard payed hacks like Bjorn Lomborg, who just say people will just have to adapt to 2, 4, or 6 or more degrees warming in the coming decades. There are a lot of human-created crises converging on us now, and nothing other than a complete, total overhaul of our economic way of life will ensure a future for any of the coming generations.

As for this piece from England that tar sands official house organ is trumpeting as proof that global warming doesn't exist and we can dump whatever crap we want into the atmosphere, oceans and the land -- it would make a lot more sense to err on the side of caution. But, people motivated by greed and avarice are not noted for a cautious approach, even when required.....BP's last two chief executives would serve as case in point. And, as usual, the Corporate Post is misrepresenting findings, in this case the Met Office Report to claim that it means global warming has stalled....which is not in that report....just the NP headline!

So, what we have with the Met Office Report is a forecast that decadal temperature increases (air temps) may not be as high as previously forecast....so does that mean Open the Sluice Gates and go gonzo on tar sands? No....not if you have any sense! Because, we do know that the worst environmental damage being done by increasing atmospheric CO2 levels may be the effects of carbon being absorbed from the atmosphere by the world's oceans. Even if atmospheric sensitivity to CO2 and other greenhouse gases is less than expected, warming will continue, ocean acidification will continue, species die-offs will continue, and that should provide lots of reasons for recognizing that the planet is headed towards disaster.

And atmospheric sensitivity doesn't mean a whole hill of beans when more than 90% of the heat being absorbed on planet earth is in the oceans. This is why thermal expansion is starting to raise sea levels significantly in many regions, and sea ice is melting so fast in the Arctic that we might see ice-free summers by the end of this decade. It should be noted that the extreme, volatile weather we are experiencing with these dramatic temperature shifts, is also connected to the loss of sea ice in the arctic. My only question is do you have to sign a pact with satan to become a national post columnist?

Yeah, let me know how I can contribute to that total overhaul of our economic way of life, would you? Does it have something to do with curly light bulbs?

This is why we most definitely do not want to shut down the oil sands. Doing so would make no difference at all to climate change, but it would sure make hippies happy. As good a reason not to do it as any.

Who said global warming doesn't exist? Can you find that assertion in the article I posted? All it says is that the models might not be as accurate as the banner hangers have insisted up to now.

Your last two paragraphs are preaching to the converted. Instead of telling me what's happening, tell me how to stop it. I mean realistically, as in, it could happen. No fantasy. Tell me how we can reduce the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere instead of just struggling to slow the rate of increase.

Or are you just gonna rant on about grandkids and Canada's only newspaper for grownups?

[Guest]

Here, this'll cheer you up:

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100197832/now-even-pravda-admits-the-global-warming-jig-is-up/

[jbg]

Welcome back Waldo ! What a great time to return - looking forward to reading your posts.

We need certain posters...like a lochenkop.

[waldo]

Here, this'll cheer you up:

.

http://blogs.telegra...ming-jig-is-up/

??? dropping links to British tabloid blog articles, particularly those authored from the likes of your referenced link

[WIP]

Yeah, let me know how I can contribute to that total overhaul of our economic way of life, would you? Does it have something to do with curly light bulbs?

The sensible response to a crisis would be to set the baseline at what needs to be done to avert disaster; not how can we tweak the dials of our present economic system to minimize the damage we're doing right now.....and that's where the light bulbs come on! Big Green responses to climate change and related environmental degradation, is to go the route of energy efficiency and build windmills and solar panels. If the core problem is that energy and resource consumption has to keep rising to feed economic growth ( more correctly it would be to feed the growing share that bankers and currency manipulators carve out....but, that's another issue), then all of the big green, feel good solutions won't amount to a hill of beans! At best, they will just delay the inevitable for a few more years.

What we have are two choices:

1. organize now to make the changes necessary to move towards permanent, sustainable human societies or

2. just keep doing what we're doing now, and wait for it to collapse.

Option Two, not surprisingly, is the most likely scenario. But, if that's our future, odds of individual survival in the coming decades are going to depend largely on expectation and preparation. In other words, the people who are really F#$%^& right now, are the ones who think the good times will never end.

This is why we most definitely do not want to shut down the oil sands. Doing so would make no difference at all to climate change, but it would sure make hippies happy. As good a reason not to do it as any.

and

Who said global warming doesn't exist? Can you find that assertion in the article I posted? All it says is that the models might not be as accurate as the banner hangers have insisted up to now.

make no sense combined in the same post, let alone following each other! If you acknowledge global warming, what sense does it make to advocate tar sands development? A source of petroleum that's more than twice as carbon intensive as conventional oil, and will leave behind huge, toxic tailing ponds for future generations to deal with. Just recently we learned:

Canadian researchers have used the mud at the bottom of lakes like a time machine to show that tar sands oil production in Alberta, Canada, is polluting remote regional lakes as far as 50 miles from the operations.

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

Smol says he worries that as the industry ramps up production, the contamination will get worse, and he's hoping that the industry will install more pollution controls to prevent this.

This pollution

wasn't picked up by the industry-funded monitoring program

that was supposed to track environmental risks from tar sands over recent decades.

http://www.npr.org/2...sands-pollution

Further evidence that the full extent of the damage caused by exploiting tar sands deposits won't be fully realized for years or decades into the future.

WELCOME TO MORDOR

Your last two paragraphs are preaching to the converted. Instead of telling me what's happening, tell me how to stop it. I mean realistically, as in, it could happen. No fantasy. Tell me how we can reduce the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere instead of just struggling to slow the rate of increase.

Really! You mean the converted want to dig up tar sands to recover the oil? I'd hate to know what the unconverted have in mind.

Realistically, the first step is carbon taxes, and nothing less than a serious tax on carbon will begin the shift away from carbon fuels consumption. The present system, which has allowed the growth of carbon fuels over the last 150 years, has been to externalize most of the pollution costs onto the commons, and 100% of the costs of increasing greenhouse gas levels is externalized without a carbon tax. If carbon taxes are punitive...which they will have to be to be effective...there will be a shift away from policies like moving to suburbs miles away from work, and shifting from private automobile use to mass transit.

There already is a shift in patterns for people who are among the working poor. Many of them have already had to give up their cars and take buses or trains to work. And that's why a civilized society should be planning to meet everyone's needs, not just the rich and the powerful! Because, those people who have become dependent on transit so far, have the least amount of economic and political clout in this system. So, local governments have no incentives to reduce the cuts they've made over the decades to transit, even as riderships increase.

The Big Green environmentalists who talk windmills and solar panels never get around to discussing the problem of transportation fuels. At best, there may be the odd comment about electric cars....which would presently add to the already strained electrical grids and have prohibitively expensive batteries made with large quantities of rare earths. The long term solution is going to require a shift away from the building of millions of cars and miles of highways, to mass transit and re-localization and de-globalization of economies. A lot of the solutions will be simply a matter of whether we can unwind alot of bad choices made when energy and resources were cheap...and were pushed through by lobbyists for oil companies and car manufacturers.

A permanent, sustainable economy will not be possible as long as we have the present banking and monetary systems. In brief, fractional reserve banking leads to the necessity of creating more and more debt by banks....which are payed back through continued inflation of the money supply....and that means economic growth is forced to increase or the economy stagnates....and the bankers earn their profits by seizing property and assets of borrowers, whether they be mortgage-holders or entire nation states! Governments have to get back into the business of creating and managing the money supply that they are ultimately responsible; and it has to be taken away from the banks.

Or are you just gonna rant on about grandkids and Canada's only newspaper for grownups?

Imagine if you were teleported 50, 100, 200 years in the future! In a world where the remaining ice has melted or will soon melt...accompanied by sea level rise that will eventually top out at about 270 feet; global average temperatures are anywhere between 5 and 9 degrees C warmer than now; the oceans are dying from the anoxic effects of the slowing of the thermohaline circulation, acidification and declining oxygen levels; the Earth's Tropic Zone is often averaging temperatures above 140 degrees F (which will be lethal to all plant an animal life in that zone); most of the world's animal species are extinct or endangered....including humans......what are you going to tell them about why it was so important to extract petroleum products from tar sands in 2013?

[Michael Hardner]

The argument I made was: the physics of the lake sediments define the relationship with temperature. Based on this physics the contamination in the last 100 years reversed the sign of of the relationship which meant the correlation algorithm used by Mann would choose the wrong sign for the sediments.

Wasn't there a different subset of data used ? That is my memory of why the sign changed. I also remember that that variable had low significance in the model, so it perhaps should have been used. I thought that a new model would have helped but... in the end it didn't matter to the model.

[TimG]

Wasn't there a different subset of data used ? That is my memory of why the sign changed. I also remember that that variable had low significance in the model, so it perhaps should have been used. I thought that a new model would have helped but... in the end it didn't matter to the model.

None of these things are remotely true. I summarized the issues in my post above and the data matters - the claims of the paper do not stand up once Mann's algorithm is applied correctly. If you don't understand that summary then you don't understand the problem and any opinion you have on the subject is uninformed and not useful.

I would offer to explain my but my last attempt ended with you simply saying that I must be wrong because you don't understand - probably because you don't want to understand if that means acknowledging that a high profile climate scientist not only screwed up - but he lied about and his colleagues said nothing.

Edited January 15, 2013 by TimG

[jbg]

I summarized the issues in my post above and the data matters - the claims of the paper do not stand up once Mann's algorithm is applied correctly. If you don't understand that summary then you don't understand the problem and any opinion you have on the subject is uninformed and not useful.

Mann's hockey stick will work far better tomorrow night.

[Michael Hardner]

None of these things are remotely true.

Mann used the exact same data in a model and got a reversed sign ? I thought he threw out some of the data, or used some data that was thrown out.

That explains how the sign could be changed in the model but doesn't explain which one is more correct. I thought that the criticism pointed out a variable that could be thrown out but that it didn't matter.

I summarized the issues in my post above and the data matters - the claims of the paper do not stand up once Mann's algorithm is applied correctly. If you don't understand that summary then you don't understand the problem and any opinion you have on the subject is uninformed and not useful.

If my points above are incorrect please confirm and I will look into this again.

[TimG]

Mann used the exact same data in a model and got a reversed sign ? I thought he threw out some of the data, or used some data that was thrown out.

Last time we discussed the hypothetical data set of telephone pole count. Prior to 1970 the number of telephone poles would be positively correlated with the wealth of a neighborhood. The opposite is true after 1970 as lines are put underground. It is simply not possible to use this dataset to estimate the pre-1970 wealth of a neighborhood if one only had the post-1970 neighborhood wealth data because the correlation changed. If one insisted on using it anyways one would get the 'wrong sign' for the pre-1970 correlation.

This is the problem with the lake sediments because of modern error contamination which means the sediments cannot be used in Mann's reconstruction. If the sediments are removed then the reconstruction has no significance if tree rings are also removed. This is significant because one of the claims of the paper is that it provided a significant reconstruction WITHOUT using tree rings. This claim is simply not true.

Edited January 15, 2013 by TimG

[Michael Hardner]

Last time we discussed the hypothetical data set of telephone pole count. Prior to 1970 the number of telephone poles would be positively correlated with the wealth of a neighborhood. The opposite is true after 1970 as lines are put underground. It is simply not possible to use this dataset to estimate the pre-1970 wealth of a neighborhood if one only had the post-1970 neighborhood wealth data because the correlation changed. If one insisted on using it anyways one would get the 'wrong sign' for the pre-1970 correlation.

Yes, and doesn't the fact that we were discussing this tell me that there were two different datasets in use ?

This is the problem with the lake sediments because of modern error contamination which means the sediments cannot be used in Mann's reconstruction. If the sediments are removed then the reconstruction has no significance if tree rings are also removed. This is significant because one of the claims of the paper is that it provided a significant reconstruction WITHOUT using tree rings. This claim is simply not true.

Tijander and Mann didn't use the same data points then, it seems to me.

[TimG]

Tijander and Mann didn't use the same data points then, it seems to me.

What are you talking about??? Tiljander IS one of the sources used to create Mann's reconstruction. There are no "different" data points to use. That said, Tiljander is 4 of 1200 series but it turns out that it has a significant effect on the result. You only find that out if you remove Tiljander from the reconstruction. Edited January 15, 2013 by TimG

[Michael Hardner]

What are you talking about??? Tiljander IS one of the sources used to create Mann's reconstruction. There are no "different" data points to use. That said, Tiljander is 4 of 1200 series but it turns out that it has a significant effect on the result. You only find that out if you remove Tiljander from the reconstruction.

Did Tijander use the modern data or not ?

[TimG]

Did Tijander use the modern data or not?

Tiljander is a series of measurements of sediment thickness over the last 1000 years. The modern part of the record is contaminated due to agricultural run off and cannot be used. Mann's algorithm requires the use of the modern part of the record which means it cannot use the Tijander data correctly. There is no excuse that can possibly justify the use of Tijander data in Mann's reconstruction. Edited January 15, 2013 by TimG

[Bonam]

Did Tijander use the modern data or not ?

From what I recall of when I read those papers:

Tijander presented lake sediment data over a long time period (many centuries). Tijander neither presented nor analyzed any temperature data, his paper was purely about the sediments in the lake. In his paper, he noted that there was significant contamination due to human activities over the last ~100 years, throwing off any correlations that may have existed between sediments and climate previously.

Therefore it is not correct to take the Tijander sediment data over the last ~100 years, compare it with the temperature record over that time period, extract a correlation, and then use that correlation to infer temperatures further in the past. This is what I believe Timg is saying Mann did, though I have not read Mann's paper. If Mann did do that, then it is clearly wrong.

Edited January 15, 2013 by Bonam

[TimG]

Tijander neither presented nor analyzed any temperature data, his paper was purely about the sediments in the lake.

Tijander made qualitative claims about the relationship between temperature and sediment thickness.

This is what I believe Timg is saying Mann did, though I have not read Mann's paper. If Mann did do that, then it is clearly wrong.

This is exactly what Mann did and he refused to acknowledge the issue when it was pointed out in a formal comment submitted to the journal. Edited January 15, 2013 by TimG

[Bonam]

Tijander made qualitative claims about the relationship between temperature and sediment thickness.

This is exactly what Mann did and he refused to acknowledge the issue when it was pointed out in a formal comment submitted to the journal.

In any case Tijander's data had an absolutely terrible signal-to-noise ratio, and any temperature reconstruction that relies heavily on said data would have absolutely gigantic error bars, even if such a fundamental mistake were not made.

Personally I think the strongest argument for climate change as a result of CO2 comes from simple physics. It is trivially easy to calculate how the Earth's albedo spectrum changes as a function of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, and to do the simple energy balance of solar radiation coming in and going out, and arrive at an equilibrium temperature as a function of CO2 concentration. It's about 1 W/m^2 per 100ppm, or 0.25 C global average temperature increase per 100ppm CO2 concentration increase. As someone who can easily do that calculation and knowing that all of the physics involved is some of the best supported science in existence, that's all I really need to know.

All the arguments about "climate sensitivity" are really secondary to the fundamental physics involved.

Edited January 15, 2013 by Bonam

[TimG]

It's about 1 W/m^2 per 100ppm, or 0.25 C global average temperature per 100ppm. As someone who can easily do that calculation and knowing that all of the physics involved is some of the best supported science in existence, that's all I really need to know.

Actually, what we really need to know is what effect warming will have. That is why sensitivity is the crucial argument. If sensitivity is low then the harms caused by warming will be much less than the harms caused by denying people access to fossil fuels. The reverse could be true if sensitivity is high.

Keep in mind that very few skeptics question whether temperatures will go up due to CO2. The real question is whether mitigation is the most appropriate policy response to the effect.

Edited January 15, 2013 by TimG