Arthur Smith is annoyed
Arthur Smith has read "Climate Sensitivity Reconsidered" by Christopher Monckton published in the APS Forum on Physics and Society Newsletter just a couple of months ago. Should someone of your acquaintance inquire, Arthur finds 125 errors. He separates them into
Errors or fallacies in the text are categorized and denoted under the following headings:
- Errors of fact: "Wrong"
- Irrelevant conclusions and non sequiturs: "Red Herring"
- Other errors of logic: "Nonsense"
- Errors of interpretation or misunderstanding: "Confused"
- Arguments that only work for specially selected data: "Cherry Picking"
- Other arguments that have no scientific validity: "Invalid"
- Statements that contradict or conflict with other statements in the text: "Inconsistent"
Also please note that simply itemizing errors in an article doesn't prove one way or another whether the central premise of the article is wrong or not (the "fallacy fallacy"). Monckton's central question is on climate sensitivity. The magnitude of that sensitivity is a central question of climate science as a whole, and in particular centers on the sign and magnitudes of various feedbacks to temperature increase in Earth's climate system. The most recent IPCC report (AR4, Working Group 1, 2007) presented a robust collection of evidence from physical modeling, paleoclimate, and observed recent response of the climate system for their conclusions of a temperature response to CO2 doubling of between 2 and 4.5 K, with a best estimate around 3 K. The substantial collection of errors in Monckton's article renders his arguments against this IPCC conclusion quite unconvincing.
Read the comments (one can hope)
Posts
87 comments:
MarkeyMouse says: Robust Climate Models? I think Lucia at rankexploits has pretty well debunked them. Their forecasts are all wrong. Observed recent responses of climate system are no temperature increase, completely the reverse of the so called "climate sensitivity". Paleoclimate shows no correlation between Temp and CO2, apart from a period where CO2 levels lag Temp by 600 years. The whole IPCC is completely discredited from top to bottom.
Markeymouse says. PS Is the the Arthur Smith, erstwhile vocal but not actual litigator DP manager on a mission who feels obligated to force his partizan views on his employers non partizan website? The one who only has to say something is wrong to make it wrong in fact. His own judge of the rightness of his own opinions? Pah.
MalarkeyMouse says: Robust Climate Models? I think Lucia at rankexploits has pretty well debunked them.
No, Lucia has fooled herself and her cheer-leading squad of 2, Steven Mosher and Roger Pielke (3 if you include MalarkeyMouse, who may be a sock puppet, at any rate) that they are wrong.
As James Annan (a mathematician involved with climate modeling) commented after reading one of Lucia's pieces related to the falsification claim:
"That post of Lucia's is nothing short of nutty."
(see comments below the post)
Annan's post dealt with the very issue (IPCC projected trends) albeit with Roger Pielke's claims and not directly with Lucia's (though it's hard to separate the two in that case)
I think that pretty well says it all when it comes to Lucia's claims to have "falsified IPCC" based on less than 8 years of data.
Nutty.
That's the opinion of those who actually know something about statistics and climate modeling.
Nutty indeed.
One of the older GISS models successfully hindcast years ago and the CMIP puts all model results on-line for all to see.
Perhaps the sack puppet can point out which models at the CMIP site are off and tell us why.
We'll all wait patiently for the tragicomic sack puppet to point out the errors for us (no linking to Lucia's site, as that is not peer-reviewed [shills don't count as peers]).
Best,
D
Oh, Markeymouse, your flavour of denial is sooo yesterday. Do you take ice with your drink? Denial has now reached the stage of a pathological condition amongst its devotees. Why don't you study climate science?
Affectionately,
no linking to Lucia's site, as that is not peer-reviewed
But wouldn't review by Steven Mosher count as "peer" review in that case?
After all, our justice system talks about the right to a fair trial by a jury of one's "peers", right?
So, in its broadest (most literal) sense, "peer review" would not have to be done by scientists, just by one's "peers".
Amateur peers.
If the blockbuster information on Lucia's site is so Galilean, she'll publish in the journals and we'll all watch the warmer paradigm crumble under the weight of her logic. And she'll get fat on the excellent catered food found on the Heritage Victory Tour, Co-sponsored by AEI/CEI, Cato, and the newly-regenerated Western Fuels Assn.
Best,
D
Please, less ad hominem snark in the comments here.
Lucia and Roger Jr seem quite confident in their analysis, which is not warranted by their results in my opinion. Ie "IPCC has been falsified".
But then, I don't know how the great public views them. Any engineer with some signal analysis background should have some red flags raised with Lucia's claims.
A noisy trend will have shorter time periods where you can compute an opposite short time trend. These don't falsify the existence of a longer term trend, but is completely expected and consistent with the longer time trend plus noise model.
Say if the world had a zero temperature trend, and you start measuring temperatures at some arbitrary time points, if you know the probability distribution of the yearly temperature measurements, there is a formula for the probability of a new temperature record for each year. The first year is both record cold and record hot. The second year is either record cold or record hot. The third year has some pretty big probability of being either. Etc etc...
Now if you instead don't have a real underlying flat trend but have a minuscule negative trend, you still get hot year records, especially at the beginning, because of the noise. With time the frequency of making these records goes down as probably the frequency of cold records as well, depending on the noise vs trend of course, until ultimately the noise is overpowered by the trend and you start making more records again. Of course, there are still regional hot records here and there even when the global trend is cooling. This is expected again because of the noise.
Same the other way around.
Since the yearly temperature variation is large compared to the global warming trend, you can expect records and short time trends to be quite all over the place and vary a lot when you pick different time points.
John V has actually plotted a picture of different trend windows sliding over the temperature record in time.
Of course, this is not even touching the uselessness of comparing a single year or month or even day now to one maybe 70 years ago. (It's now as cold/warm as it was in 1934 or something). You can find a counterpart for probably any short time or narrow area temperature in the past record. Or a short time or narrow area temperature trend as well. But still, somehow The Register thinks it's insightful.
Hi all - I see Tim Lambert at Deltoid has posted on this too, with a bit more info on the origins of the matter (a quoted letter from Gerald Marsh, who seems to have instigated the whole affair at Physics and Society).
Lucia's commentary on my list was based on a very preliminary version (about 80% shorter) and a misreading of a perhaps poorly worded phrase. Her interpretation of the "most" matter did not apply then, and I hope I have rewritten the phrase in question so it is clearer now why.
The point of including even such trivial examples of misrepresentation by Monckton is to demonstrate the degree to which, when he states something, it very frequently has a changed meaning from the original - sometimes far worse than this one example. Read on through the list of 125 for other instances of "Confused". One can certainly forgive one or two minor instances of confusion. It is the repeated pattern that is damning.
Here is John V:s image.
http://www.opentemp.org/_results/_20080515_lucia_7yrs/gistemp_7yr_and_22yr_trends.png
or
here
(hope either of the links work)
It's laughable to say when the red line dips below zero that a long term positive trend is falsified.
MarkeyMouse quotes: "...based on measurements since 2001, and the four statistical models described above the central tendency for projections communicated in the IPCC AR(4) falls outside the range consistent with real earth weather data."
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2008/ipcc-central-tendency-of-2ccentury-still-rejected/
MarkeyMouse enquires: PS, Got any proper statisticians in the house? Annan, Schmidt, Mann (I am not a statistician), JohnV? No, I thought not. They are all bumbling Statistical amateurs.
Malarkey:
it does not take a statistician to see the problem with Lucia's claims -- although she has obviously convinced you otherwise.
She is claiming based on less than 8 years of data that she has "falsified" IPCC projected trends (or at least the average of those trends) that were intended to represent the temperature development (under different emissions scenarios) for the long term (decades).
She is essentially comparing an apple (short term trend) with an orange (long term trend)
She's certainly entitled to her opinion, but others who know far more about this stuff (eg, Annan) are entitled to theirs.
And it really is rather ridiculous to be claiming "IPCC falsified" on a blog.
If you are going to make such a claim, at least have the professionalism to get it published in a journal. Otherwise, its just basically hearsay, since most of the people viewing the claims are not going to have the technical knowledge and ability to assess the validity of the claims.
Merely claiming something on a blog means next to nothing.
Merely claiming something on a blog means next to nothing.
I disagree. It means the residents of Simpletonia can go forth with "evidence" for their denialism.
Best,
D
Dano,
That's why I said "next to nothing" (to allow for such cases)
Sure, but for denialists/Simpletonians that is everything. Just saying it out loud.
Best,
D
Markeymouse has been markeymousetrapped.
MarkeyMouse says. None of you have the wit to take it up on Lucia's site. Sorry Dano, the Sierra Club watermelon politics game is over.
None of you have the wit to take it up on Lucia's site. "
Alas, malarkey it has far more to do with desire than anything else.
We (or at least I) have no desire to waste time arguing about nonsense.
Besides, as i indicated above, what is aid on blogs means very little.
Some still push the "Einstein was only a lowly patent examiner when he developed relativity" theme, but let's face it, Einstein was not the norm in any sense of the word.
Einstein may have done it, but you can't, I can't and I doubt Lucia can (sorry, but that's reality)
If Lucia were really serious about science, she would make the effort to get her claims (IPCC falsified and the rest) published. The fact that she does not means she is not really serious (afraid that it will be rejected?).
Lucia didn't falsify the IPCC or the models. She 'falsified' the central projection for the TAR. This is reasonable evidence to my semi statistical aware mind that projections from IPCC reports should not be taken seriously over an 8 year period.
(Although Tamino in recent blog posts indicates that Lucia uses incorrect noise model for her analysis).
But are IPCC projections meant to be taken seriously over 8 year periods?
Lucia has not falsified model projections made in the 80s and 90s that have had 20 or more years to be tested against. From the graphs I've seen comparing temperature history to these projections, these projections look pretty good.
So while you are at marking errors, have a dig at this “sceptic” (without losing you’re carrots).
Lucia didn't falsify the IPCC or the models. She 'falsified' the central projection for the TAR. This is reasonable evidence to my semi statistical aware mind that projections from IPCC reports should not be taken seriously over an 8 year period.
Actually, what is more. They were never intended to be applied to 8 year periods.
If you read the AR4, the language
For the next two decades a warming of about 0.2°C per decade is projected for a range of SRES emissions scenarios.
Actually, the precise number that Lucia has latched onto (and allegedly falsified) is neither an actual projection nor even an actual value given by IPCC. As you can see in the above quote, they say "about 0.2°C per decade".
Over decades, the normal "noise" associated with a collection (suite) of climate projections averages out and what is left with is essentially the underlying (mean) trend.
But over the very short term, the noise dominates and it is not possible to estimate the trend to within the error bars that she is doing.
One can do a simple thought experiment to see that Lucia is wrong in her approach.
If there were a major El Nino tomorrow, it would almost certainly increase the temperature enough to put the temperature trend over the past decade back up in significant positive territory. And El nino is part of the noise to be normally expected.
What do you mean Markey that none of us have the wit to take this to Lucia's place.
It has been addressed there. And at Roger Pielke Jr's as well. (What a hack with the stupid trick with that "helpful undergraduate". It's all theater.)
*You* brought that pile of dung here, disregarding the falseness and criticisms.
So it will be given here what it deserves. (Though I don't like some snark around here, people please...)
Of course, Lucia can always pull the "I'm only learning statistics" card, like Jennifer the "Socratic Irony", when they make wrong and stupid claims.
Actually, when Lucia began this whole "IPCC falsified" meme, it was based on even less data (just a little over 7 years, in fact).
One of the biggest criticisms I would make is that she has this "running conversation" on her blog where she keeps "updating" her arguments in the latest posts.
For example, if you go back to her very first blog post on the "IPCC falsified" meme, you will see that she does not say "IPCC central tendency of 2C/century falsified (rejected, etc)" (as she says now).
She added the "central tendency" terminology to her later posts.
To avoid criticism?
There are quite specific projections made by the IPCC in the AR4 (eg,for scenario B1 (central value =1.8C, lower bound 1.1C) for which the lower bound of the projection actually falls within the range(s) "trend + 2 sigma" that Lucia is claiming for the past 7+ years (based on her own analysis of most of the data sources)
There is a significant irony in the use of the terminology "central tendency" by Lucia;
Here's what the IPCC says about the SRES scenarios which are used to make the various trend projections in the AR4.
http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/sres/emission/142.htm
"None of the SRES scenarios represents an estimate of a central tendency for all driving forces and emissions, such as the mean or median, and none should be interpreted as such."
So, (according to IPCC) there is no "central emissions tendency", but apparently (according to Lucia) there is a "central projection tendency".
Even though the projections were based on the emissions scenarios.
Go figure.
And, despite claims to the contrary, one can not legitimately make the argument that "scenario B1 does not apply because the emissions assumptions were lower than what has happened since 2001".
It takes time (measured in years if not decades) for the global temperature of the climate system to respond to emissions increases.
So, for the first 7 years of the IPCC projection run, there will not be much divergence even between projections corresponding to scenarios that have significantly different emissions assumptions (ie, between one that assumes emissions go up a lot and one assumes that they don't go up much)
A significant divergence will not really show up until later on (perhaps a decade or more)
MarkeyMouse says: OK big shot. Show me one qualified statistician who disagrees with Lucia.
Show me one qualified statistician who disagrees with Lucia."
Markey, your appeal to authority is so unappealing -- and unbecoming.
The argument needs to stand on its own and it does not in this case.
If you don't know any statistics, that is not my problem.
Go to the library and check out a basic book
But let's ignore for the moment your obvious (over)reliance on authority to make your argument.
Much of the problem with Lucia's claims has nothing to do with statistics.
Her main (latest) claim "IPCC central tendency of 2C/century falsified" is essentially meaningless, because, as i indicated above,
"None of the SRES scenarios represents an estimate of a central tendency for all driving forces and emissions, such as the mean or median, and none should be interpreted as such." -- that according to the IPCC itself
But the IPCC projected trends all depend directly on these scenarios as inputs -- ie, namely, on the emissions assumptions of those scenarios.
So what does Lucia's claim "IPCC central tendency of 2C/century falsified" even mean?
What anonymous at 7.38 said.
Best,
D
MiniMouse asks about a qualified statistician who proves lucia's claims wrong. I think this guy seems to be qualified, and he shows that her claims are wrong when the trend+noise is modeled. Care to dispute his claims?
Of course lucia chimes in with noise claiming ENSO and vulcanism should be removed from the record, but they are just part of the noise model. She doesn't make any sense with this line of argument, claiming that you need to remove two sources of noise before you can model the noise properly... huh? Give me a break.
MarkeyMouse says: Rattus, you must keep up:
"Ian Jolliffe, a noted principal components authority, has posted a comment at Tamino's, which repudiates Tamino's (and Mann's) citation of Jolliffe as a supposed authority for Mannian PCA. He wrote to me separately, notifying me of the posting and authorizing me to cross-post his comment and stating that we had correctly understood and described his comments in our response here"
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=3601
To summarise, the expert Jolliffe said he couldn't understand what Tamino was on about.
PS. Dano. It's over. Find another Club. Play Golf....
Dr. Jolliffe criticized me (rightly) for confounding "uncentered" and "decentered" (or "short-segment centered") PCA, and incorrectly interpreting some of his work as legitimizing the use of decentered PCA. He also points out that this confusion is widespread. Finally, he made it clear that he does not endorse the use of decentered PCA.
But he certainly understood what I had done, and was sufficiently interested in some of my results that we are now in communication by email, with the possibility of collaborating on a publication.
MalarkeyMouses's claim that "Jolliffe said he couldn't understand what Tamino was on about" is the kind of rubbish that indicates staggering ignorance or deplorable dishonesty. Or both.
Lucia has taken statements from the IPCC report (like "about 0.2°C per decade") and portrayed them as ironclad predictions with no error range. She's also applied a mistaken model for the behavior of the noise in global average temperature. These issues are addressed here:
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2008/03/26/recent-climate-observations-compared-to-ipcc-projections/
This post is about Arthur Smith's comments on the work of Christopher Monckton. It appears that MalarkeyMouse would prefer to talk about anything but that. It would be nice if at least he knew what he was talking about.
Tamino
Of course lucia chimes in with noise claiming ENSO and vulcanism should be removed from the record, but they are just part of the noise model. ""
Actually she suggests cherry picking a period to model the noise that has no vulcanism, but nonetheless still has ENSO.
She did not call it that, of course, but that is what it is or perhaps it would be better termed "Noise picking". (My mother always told me it was a dirty habit)
And it does make sense in one regard.
Doing so (removing vulcanism but not ENSO from the noise used to assess the trend since 2001) tends to bolster her "IPCC Falsified" claim about the past 7 years.
Lucia us certainly not stupid.
MalarkeyMouse claims: "the expert Jolliffe said he couldn't understand what Tamino was on about."
Perhaps you would care to point out the precise place in his comments that actually says that.
You can't, of course, because Jolliffe never said such a thing.
You are mischaracterizing what he said.
Malarkey, you must be careful, lest people begin to think you are simply dishonest.
PS malarkey, most of the time i can't figure out what you are "on about" (or just "on" might be more apt)
Arthur says
One can certainly forgive one or two minor instances of confusion. It is the repeated pattern that is damning.
That's pretty typical of people who want to believe something, although sometimes people are not even fully aware of what they are doing -- because that is how they have always interpreted it themselves.
But when it comes to "fooling themselves", I have my doubts about Monckton.
He seems to be picking cherries and then painting them!
The more interesting thing IMHO is that CA seems to be missinterpeting the coment to...
MarkeyMouse says: Tamino is wrongly cited above as an "expert" statistician. He embarrassed himself spectacularly with PCA. See exactly what Jolliffe said,
".....but my main concern is that I don’t know how to interpret the results when such a strange centring is used? Does anyone? What are you optimising? A peculiar mixture of means and variances? An argument I’ve seen is that the standard PCA and decentred PCA are simply different ways of describing/decomposing the data, so decentring is OK. But equally, if both are OK, why be perverse and choose the technique whose results are hard to interpret? Of course, given that the data appear to be non-stationary, it’s arguable whether you should be using any type of PCA."
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=3601
Taminos post above is the usual gross distortion linked with the habitual nasty abuse. What part of "..I don’t know how to interpret the results when such a strange centring is used? Does anyone?" doesn't Tamino understand.
As Tamino deletes most opposing posts from his website, I'll spell it out here. Tamino's only expertise is finding new and unproven ways of getting 2 + 2 to not equal 4, because the obvious answer is disagreeable to him. Every point he has disputed with Lucia he has lost. Tamino is even stupid enough to associate himself with Mann, when he has been recognised by both sides of a US Congressional Committee as being a fraud.
From the Barton Committee, the Democrat said: "MS. SCHAKOWSKY. "...but your question wanted to reinforce the notion that this was based on this false or inaccurate Dr. Mann study ....""
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2335
Regrding noise and Vulcanism, Lucia has found a time period where Vulcanism is absent, and compared it to the IPCC forecast, and found the The IPCC forecast is statistically unlikely to become reality. The Models on which the IPCC is base don't include the effects of Vulcanism, they do include the effects of ENSO.
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2008/ipcc-central-tendency-of-2ccentury-still-rejected/
MarkeyMouse, have you looked at Taminos post above?
http://my.biotechlife.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/three_blind_mice_lg_nwm.gif
Which bit?
Malarkey says "Lucia has found a time period where Vulcanism is absent, and compared it to the IPCC forecast, and found the The IPCC forecast is statistically unlikely to become reality."
Lucia is a "noise picker" if ever there was one.
Rabbet:
can you do us a favor. Seeing you're an expert on models would you mind heading to NYC and check Lehman's, Citibank's, AIG's, Wachovia, Bear Stearn's financial models and explain to us why they didn't work. I'm sure that they're not as complex as climate models so it would only take you a few hours on each to come up with the reasons.
thanks
MalarkeyMouse is the one who fails to understand Dr. Jolliffe's statement "I don’t know how to interpret the results when such a strange centring is used." He was referring to the work of Mann, Bradley, and Hughes 1998, not referring to any inability to understant what I was "on about."
MalarkeyMouse accuses me of "habitual nasty abuse," then launches into a spree of abuse.
MalarkeyMouse's claim that "Tamino deletes most opposing posts from his website" is an outright lie, as anyone can see by reading my blog.
MalarkeyMouse has gone far beyond the point at which his hostility and ignorance make useful dialogue impossible. Therefore I won't dignify any more of his comments with a reply.
"Rabbet:
can you do us a favor. Seeing you're an expert on models would you mind heading to NYC and check Lehman's, Citibank's, AIG's, Wachovia, Bear Stearn's financial models and explain to us why they didn't work."
Ah, but they DID work -- and quite spectacularly.
How much money do you suppose the CEO's of those companies have "lost" due to the company "failures."
How much has George Bush lost? Dick Cheney?
Alan Greenspan?
Funny how the people who make the policies are never the losers, isn't it?
Tamino:
Malarkey is a bit unstable and has been known to lie on occasion (incessantly).
Based on his/her comments, I'd also have to say that it is very possible that malarkey is actually a sock puppet.
MarkeyMouse quotes Jolliffe: "It has recently come to my notice that on the following website, tamino.wordpress.com/2008/03/06/pca-part-4-non-centered-hockey-sticks/ .. , my views have been misrepresented, and I would therefore like to correct any wrong impression that has been given.
An apology from the person who wrote the page would be nice.
In reacting to Wegman’s criticism of ‘decentred’ PCA, the author says that Wegman is ‘just plain wrong’ and goes on to say ‘You shouldn’t just take my word for it, but you *should* take the word of Ian Jolliffe, one of the world’s foremost experts on PCA, author of a seminal book on the subject. He takes an interesting look at the centering issue in this presentation.’ It is flattering to be recognised as a world expert, and I’d like to think that the final sentence is true, though only ‘toy’ examples were given. However there is a strong implication that I have endorsed ‘decentred PCA’. This is ‘just plain wrong’."
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=3601
Tamino used decentered PCA in one of his misguided escapades, when called on it, he cited Jolliffe in aid, Jolliffe wanted an appology. Simple. Caught in a lie again Tamino. You really should stop digging. You are burying yourself.
Also,it's common knowledge that you delete posts which you are unable to cope with.
Lastly, read Taminos blog and see for yourself the nasty abuse he indulges in. Finally, I see you excused yourself from replying to the innevitable gotcha.
Anonymouse Commie wrote: "Funny how the people who make the policies are never the losers, isn't it?" Check who removed the 80 year old law preventing Banks from doing anything but Banking, and who removed the standard lending criteria for mortgage lending to minorities? Clue. It was an Administration with WJC in it.
Speaking of unstable, lying sack puppets, this
Also,it's common knowledge that you delete posts which you are unable to cope with.
is bullsh!t. Do we need to have the sack puppet spam comments any more?
Best,
D
Check who removed the 80 year old law preventing Banks from doing anything but Banking, and who removed the standard lending criteria for mortgage lending to minorities? Clue. It was an Administration with WJC in it."
I never said Bill Clinton was not also responsible, now did I?
As far as i can see, it really makes no difference what party these guys claim membership in.
They are all out principally (and un-principly) to make a fast buck (or million) for themselves and their friends.
Which, of course is why we have to have regulations -- to keep "Libertarians" and others in a position to make the policies from raiding the piggy bank while no one is looking.
And incidentally, anon at 12:06 PM
The change in the banking law that you refer to was a result of a bill sponsored by Phil Graham, a Republican Senator.
But as I readily acknowledged above, it makes little difference with most of these guys which party they belong to.
.
Who knows, perhaps Malarkey is even Steve McIntyre.
On second thought, I don't think McIntyre would be bale to dumb down his posts enough to pass as Malarkey.
anonymous wrote "Funny how the people who make the policies are never the losers, isn't it?" Check who removed the 80 year old law preventing Banks from doing anything but Banking, and who removed the standard lending criteria for mortgage lending to minorities? Clue. It was an Administration with WJC in it."
Well let's see. I presume that you are talking about the Gramm-Leach-Bliley_Act. Sponsored by Republicans (including Gramm, a former advisor to McCain). Passed in the Senate by a Republican majority including McCain, over Democratic opposition. Passed in the House by a veto-proof margin with support of 92% of the Republicans and 65% of the Democrats. Funny to blame only Clinton, but whenever the Republican chickens come home to roost, he seems to get the blame.
Anonymous writes: "Lastly, read Taminos blog and see for yourself the nasty abuse he indulges in. Finally, I see you excused yourself from replying to the innevitable gotcha.<"
I did read Tamino's blog, and found an interesting and quite polite discussion in which Tamino apologized for his misunderstanding/misstatement of Jolliffe's views, followed by an informative and courteous discussion between Tamino and Jolliffe, among others. Notably, while critical of Mann's statistical analysis, Jolliffe also comments that "my view is that the chance of all the climate models having got things completely wrong and that by 2030 the Earth is cooler than in 1950 is of the same order of magnitude as the chance that the USA will decide that independence was a bad idea and ask to be taken back as a British colony by the same date"
Anon 12:06 wrote Anonymouse Commie wrote: "Funny how the people who make the policies are never the losers, isn't it?" Check who removed the 80 year old law preventing Banks from doing anything but Banking, and who removed the standard lending criteria for mortgage lending to minorities? Clue. It was an Administration with WJC in it.
Actually, the people responsible for the latest "economic adjustment" (as Greenspan would call it) love saps like you.
Because no matter what they do to you and your family, you excuse it.
They could steal every penny from your retirement account (effectively what they have been doing) -- and leave you an old man on the street begging for a piece of bread -- and you would nonetheless STILL defend them.
Wake up and smell the coffee.
This ain't about communism vs capitalism.
It's about having one's life-long efforts stolen from you by unscrupulous criminals.
You may have no qualms with it, anon 12:06, but I don't like it when some criminal dirt-bag steals my retirement from me.
But by all means, keep your head in the sand (or in a darker, wetter place)
and by the way, anon 12:06
Isn't it ironic that your "capitalists" (the investment bankers that precipitated this mess) are the ones now asking for government bailouts to the tune of billions of dollars.
How funny is that?
The capitalists are capitalists until it comes time to pay the piper (the investors) and then they are the first with their hands out.
Typical Libertarian behavior.
They are against handouts for everyone but themselves.
And by the way anon:
Which " capitalists are making out from the AIG deal? The shareholders? Are you nuts.
The question was why would we rely on the climate models when the financial models have proved how useless they are in predicting valuation?
The question was why would we rely on the climate models when the financial models have proved how useless they are in predicting valuation?"
There is a huge (and obvious) difference between climate models and financial models.
It's basically the difference between, well, science and economics.
The one -- science -- is based on physical reality (ie, physics) and the other (econ) is based on virtual reality (ie, human perceptions).
If you actually believe that the two are the same, then you obviously have no knowledge of either.
tgibbs mentions
"Jolliffe also comments that "my view is that the chance of all the climate models having got things completely wrong and that by 2030 the Earth is cooler than in 1950 is of the same order of magnitude as the chance that the USA will decide that independence was a bad idea and ask to be taken back as a British colony by the same date"
Eli notes that the Queen is already taking action
To the citizens of the United States of America:
"In light of your failure to nominate competent candidates for President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective immediately."
"Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths, and territories (except Kansas ,which she does not fancy)."
"Your new prime minister, Gordon Brown, will appoint a governor for America without the need for further elections. Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire may be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed."
"Rabbet:
can you do us a favor. Seeing you're an expert on models would you mind heading to NYC and check Lehman's, Citibank's, AIG's, Wachovia, Bear Stearn's financial models and explain to us why they didn't work."
What goes up must come down. This has been another simple (but profound) answer to a simple question.
Re: the original content of this post - There is plenty to find wrong with Monckton's analysis, but I am not sure if the nitpicking done by Arthur Smith (e.g., "error#1") helps or hurts the cause. When you mix a bunch of trivial complaints in with more substantive issues, it becomes hard for the lay reader to separate the wheat from the chafe so to speak. Consequently, if the lay reader views several of the initially listed "errors" as nitpicky, he/she may discount the substantive issues with Monckton's "work".
Re: the meltdown of Lehman Bros. and other financial institutions - There is plenty of blame to go around on this, from wall street to mortgage lenders that "forgot" normal underwriting standards to the people that took out loans that they could not reasonably afford. However, it would be nearly impossible to say that one political party is more responsible than the other even though government as a whole was complicit in the problem. Further, although I am sure that Fuld and other top Lehman execs will have more than enough money to survive on, it is silly to imply that they have not suffered financially since much of their total compenstion undoubtedly came from options or restricted stock awards which are now worthless. Not that I necessarily feel sorry for them, but some of these people probably lost more than most of us will make in our lifetimes.
Finally, regarding Lucia's analysis (how this ended up the primary topic of this thread I do not know.) -- I definitely think that her use of the term "falsify" is too strong and think something along the lines of "the estimated global mean surface temperature record since 2001 is not currently consistent with the IPCC's projected trend of about 0.2C/decade for the first two decades of this century" would be the appropriate conclusion to draw from her analysis. This doesn't say that it couldn't catch up in the next 12 years, but that, as of right now, it ain't there yet. From the IPCC document, it is clear the 0.2C/decade (or slightly higher) is the "best estimate" for the first two decades of this century under all emissions scenarios. Further, IPCC stated that we are committed to 0.1C/decade for the first two decades of this century no matter what, even if GHG emissions were capped at 2000 levels (they weren't and have kept increasing).
Of course there is going to be interannual variability in the temperature record (dubbed by many as "noise"). However, IPCC did make a relatively specific projection (~0.2C/decade) for the first 2 decades of this century and also placed what could read to be an absolute lower bound on the trend
(0.1C/decade based on past emissions and warming "in the pipeline"). By my calculation we are almost 40% through the first two decades of this century. I don't think that 40% of the way through is too soon to start comparing the projections to the actual data no matter how "noisy" the data may be. If I projected my son would get an A in his chemistry class this semester and 40% of the way through the class he was getting a C-, I would carefully examine my projection even if it was mathematically possible that he could still pull off an A.
Rabbet:
It's isn't a question of what goes up and down, Eli. The issue is why did the models fail in valuing the embedded assets incorrectly. If models are able to this why are so reliant in your stuff. There are reasonable parallels to explore instead of mindlessly dismiss.
Perhaps you could ask Gavin Schmidt to come up with an answer see you're so close to him.
Previous anon:
No, the models valuing the CDO's are not economic models. Thanks for trying.
bob n said From the IPCC document, it is clear the 0.2C/decade (or slightly higher) is the "best estimate" for the first two decades of this century under all emissions scenarios."
perhaps you can cite the actual IPCC document and page where they say that.
You can't because they don't.
This is what the IPCC actually says in the AR4.
For the next two decades a warming of about 0.2°C per decade is projected for a range of SRES emissions scenarios.
As i pointed out about, the IPCC actually attached a caveat to their statement about emissions scenarios (upon which the projected trends are based)
"None of the SRES scenarios represents an estimate of a central tendency for all driving forces and emissions, such as the mean or median, and none should be interpreted as such."
But Lucia talks incessantly about the "IPCC Central tendency" (for projections) as if there is such a thing (which there is not)
There is a problem even with the claim that
"the estimated global mean surface temperature record since 2001 is not currently consistent with the IPCC's projected trend of about 0.2C/decade for the first two decades of this century" would be the appropriate conclusion to draw from her analysis"
The first and primary problem is that we are not even through the first decade yet! (and when Lucia started this whole IPCC falsified meme, we were barely through 7 years)
There is a reason the IPCC did not even say the following
For the next 20 years, a warming of about 0.02°C per year is projected for a range of SRES emissions scenarios.
The second problem (which is actually related to the first) is that in order to say that one trend is "inconsistent" with another, one has to have a way of deciding and statistics is the logical choice.
For that reason, Lucia has chosen 2 standard deviations about the calculated trend (the usual choice) upon which to base her decision.
So the error bars that one attaches to the trend calclated from the data since 2001 are critical.
But Lucia's error bars are simply too narrow.
As Tamino points out, she uses a model (AR1) that simply does not apply to the global temperature time series which results in an underestimate of the error on the calculated trend, which results in her "Falsified at the 95% level" claim.
But i will agree with one thing. "falsified" is certainly exceedingly poor terminology in this case, at any rate.
The following summarizes pretty well what is wrong with the current free-market (free-for-all?) system.
Reality Catches Up to the Free Market"
by William Pfaff
One of the key built-in assumptions of "free-market" capitalism is that, as Pfaff says
"Owners and managers will be rewarded according to the true value of what each contributes to the common interest. Otherwise they will lose business and fail.
Those last two clauses demonstrate how artificial this theory is. That
"That artificiality-that remoteness from how the real world functions-is why the market has to be regulated..."
Pfaff's comments about "realism" apply as much to the global warming issue as they do to the financial issue
"...public policy must be reconstructed on the basis of a historical understanding of how people actually behave rather than on theories about how they might be presumed to behave in the world of abstractions.
This understanding is called realism, and in American public affairs during the past two decades it has been scorned. However, one good thing about realism is that being realistic eventually turns out to be right"
/////end Pfaff quote
///////
It is high time that we dispensed with the virtual reality (and all the "speculators, swindlers, confidence men, guys trafficking in inside information, and criminal actors" peddling it) and started paying attention to the REAL reality.
MarkeyMouse says: Suddenly according to anonymous above, the IPCC, when challenged, haven't forecast any specific rise in temperature.
It all becomes a bit vague. The above justifications recall a petty criminals excuses:
They're suddenly not sure what was said, "Might have or might not, depends on who's doing the asking see...",
Suddenly not at the scene of the crime, "What me make a projection? No way Guv....I was watching telly with that Gavin and Tamino"
The IPCC have been caught red handed making demonstrably false projections, and using them to alarm the populace.
The IPCC have been caught red handed making demonstrably false projections, and using them to alarm the populace.
Ah. Malarkey has shown that the temp projections in 2050 are demonstrably false.
Saaaaay, Malarkey ol' buddy, pal, good friend o' mine! Buddy! Since you can see into the fyoocher, buddy, pal, you likely have looked at the Lotto numbers for next week.
Y'know, handsome devil that you are, I'd like to know what those winning numbers are! What say you, lady killer?
Best,
D
Shorter Dano just above:
If Malarkey didn't exist, we'd have to make up our own parody character.
Thanks for saving us the effort, Mr seeer-into-th'-fyoocher!
Best,
D
Malarkey says Suddenly according to anonymous above, the IPCC, when challenged, haven't forecast any specific rise in temperature."
What the IPCC projected is what the IPCC projected. Read the AR4.
When others claim something else, while they are certainly entitled to their opinion, that does not make it so.
You (Lucia, RP, jr, and others) can paint the IPCC apple orange and even inject it with orange juice, but that will not make it an orange.
Anon: "What the IPCC projected is what the IPCC projected. Read the AR4". Exactly, anon can't bring himself to say what the actual projection is, as that would leave it open to challenge. Instead we are urged to "read the AR4".
anon can't bring himself to say what the actual projection is,
That's because there is no "actual IPCC projection" (singular).
The IPCC made many different projections. They give the estimated trend for each projection for the 21st century (with error bars).
Each projection depends on a particular emissions scenario and, according to the IPCC
"None of the SRES scenarios represents an estimate of a central tendency for all driving forces and emissions, such as the mean or median, and none should be interpreted as such."
I am not going to reprduce the entire relevant section of the IPCC AR4 here (you can read it yourself by going to tjhe IPCC website)
But I will state here what the IPCC AR4 document does not say: what Lucia claims, "Central tendency of 0.2C/decade" or even "Central tendency of 2C/century"
Don't believe me?
Search the document.
It is clear to me that you have either
1) not read the AR4 document
2) read it and did not understand it
3) are dishonestly misrepresenting it.
If you persist in spreading nonsense, I, for one, will conclude that case number 3 (dishonesty) applies to you.
But then again ,if you are the same person telling the lies about Tamino above, it would not surprise me.
It is rather pathetic, really.
According to journalist Bill Moyers
"During the last five years of his tenure as CEO of now-bankrupt Lehman Brothers, Richard Fuld's total take was $354 million. John Thain, the current chairman of Merrill Lynch, taken over this week by Bank of America, has been on the job for just nine months. He pocketed a $ 15 million signing bonus.His predecessor, Stan O'Neal, retired with a package valued at $161 million, after the company reported an eight billion dollar loss in a single quarter. And remember Bear Stearns Chairman James Cayne? After the company collapsed earlier this year and was up for sale at bargain basement prices, he sold his for more than $60 million."
//end Moyers quote
The financial models have worked well indeed -- for some. But then again, that may be the primary ones they were intended to work for.
MarkeyMouse says: OK anon, I'll make it easy for you. Show a single temperature projection from AR4 which is materially different from 2C/century. If you can't I would guess you have:
1) not read the AR4 document
2) read it and did not understand it
3) are dishonestly misrepresenting it.
PS Please, please, please let us have some Temp projection, the whole Warmer World is hanging on your every word. Oue Alarming life cannot continue without our catastrophic projections.
Show a single temperature projection from AR4 which is materially different from 2C/century."
B1: +1.8°C (1.1°C to 2.9°C)
Taken from
AR4 WG-1 Report (Chapt 10, Executive Summary, p 749)
1.1°C is the lower bound for the estimate (at 95% probability level)
Lucia rather conveniently ignores the range on the actual IPCC projected trends (in addition to ignoring the actual trends, of course) when she makes her "IPCC Projections Falsified at 95% confidence" claim.
When one is determining whether a real trend is consistent with a projected one at the 95% confidence level, one must take into account the error bars on both trends, which Lucia does not do.
That's very basic statistics. Freshman level stuff.
And by the way, that B1 projection is consistent with the majority of the ranges Lucia gives for her trends since 2001. (in fact, even the 1.8C central value for B1 falls with the 95% range given by Lucia for several of the temperature data sources she analyzes, despite the fact that Lucia has underestimated the error for those ranges)
She can't falsify the actual trends IPCC gives (eg, B1), but instead creates an imaginary "IPCC Central tendency of 2C/century" and ignores the fact that, even if it did exist as an actual IPCC projection (which it does not), it too would have error bars attached to it.
Lucia's "argument" that she has "Falsified the IPCC Central tendency" (of projections) is a red herring.
There are so many different problems with Lucia's "IPCC projections continue to falsify" claim that it is really hard to address any one of them without addressing all the others.
Just some of the problems
1) she invokes a purely imaginary
"IPCC Central tendency" with no error bars that somehow "represents" the IPCC Ar4 projections, despite the fact that the IPCC itself warned that none of the emissions scenarios used to produce the individual projections represent a "central emissions tendency".
2) she ignores the fact that IPCC made quite specific projections albeit for the longer term (decade or more)
3) she uses a period of less than 8 years (barely 7 when she started making her claims) to "falsify IPCC projections" when the IPCC projections were clearly intended to apply to more than a decade (and are actually specified for the entire 21st century -- hint: that's why they are written as "per century")
4) she underestimates the error bars to be attached to the trend(s) for the data for the past 8 years (using the wrong model for climate noise)
Over the short term (< decade), the climate noise (due to El Nino, la Nina, etc) can have a very big effect on the calculated trend.
5) She ignores the advice of people like James Annan and Gavin Schmidt (who actually do climate modeling and understand what the IPCC projections in AR4 mean) when they try to explain what is wrong with her approach.
MarkeyMouse says, Let's see. Anon 1 says, "creates an imaginary "IPCC Central tendency of 2C/century" and ignores the fact that, even if it did exist as an actual IPCC projection (which it does not),", Anon 2 says; "IPCC made quite specific projections", some confusion here? No actual projection, OR a quite specific projection?
Lucia has already dealt with the data model choice here: "Climate blog-viating being what it is, readers interested in whether the current flat trend in data is consistent with 2C/century are reading terms like “ARMA(1,1)” ; those who have been reading my blog are aware that I have extended my hypothesis tests to include results we obtain if we use a statistical model called “AR(1)+ White Noise”. Some of you may be wondering, “Does the choice between these two models make much of a difference when testing the 2C/century trend hypothesis?” The answer is: Practically none."
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2008/arma11-and-ar1white-noise-compared/
IPCC AR4 says: "The future projections discussed in this chapter are based upon the standard scenarios
All models assessed here, for all the non-mitigation scenarios considered, project increases in global mean surface air temperature (SAT) (my comment, but B1 assumes no increase in CO2, therefore the actual projection chosen for falsification should be way higher than 2 Deg C)"
See Figure 10.4 Lines show the multi-model means, shading denotes the ±1 standard deviation range of individual model annual means.
and see Figure 10.29. For the IPCC's own error bars. "Projections and uncertainties for global mean temperature increase in 2090 to 2099 (relative to the 1980 to 1999 average) for the six SRES marker scenarios. The AOGCM means and the uncertainty ranges of the mean –40% to +60% are shown as black horizontal solid lines and grey bars, respectively. For comparison, results are shown for the individual models (red dots) of the multi-model AOGCM ensemble for B1, A1B and A2, with a mean and 5 to 95% range (red line and circle) from a fi tted normal
distribution...." Loads of PROJECTIONS and ERROR BARS.
http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/Report/AR4WG1_Print_Ch10.pdf
Lucia has already dealt with some idiot called Penguin Dreams who traise similar points to the ones above.
She says: "The report by the WG1 for the AR4 is chock full of things that can be construed as central tendencies for a variety of projections. These include discussions of the expected value for the rise in GMST over time, the expected value for precipitation in the future, and the expected rise in sea level. Anyone who knows the definition of “central tendency” should easily find all sorts of things that “could be construed” as a central tendency.
The dark lines on figure 10.4 can certainly be “construed” as central tendencies for the rate of increase in GMST. In fact, they indicate the average of GCM predictions used as the basis for the AR4 projections. Average is the most common use of “central tendencies”, so I should think anyone who knew the definition of “central tendency” could at least construe this as a central tendency for projected trend in GMST....." Read more at http://rankexploits.com/musings/2008/jonathan-asked-me-to-respond-to-penguindreams/
Ah yes! That idiot penguin dreams, aka Robert Grumbine.
There's only one idiot here: Malarkey Mouse. Prat extraordinaire. Guess whose CV the following is (and it's not mine)?
Cymraeg llygoden
----------
Education
1989 PhD University of Chicago - Geophysical Sciences
Thesis: Formation of High Salinity Shelf Water on Polar Continental Shelves
1987 MS University of Chicago - Geophysical Sciences
Thesis: Tidal analysis of currents in the Ross Sea, Antarctica
1985 BS Northwestern University - Applied Mathematics
Area of Application: Astrophysics
Honors Project: Glaciology
Professional Experience
1997-present Montgomery Community College - Astronomy
1997 Northern Virginia Community College - Physical Geology
1992-present Physical Scientist Ocean Modelling Branch, Environmental Modelling Center, National Centers for Environmental Prediction, National Weather Service
1990-1991 UCAR Postdoctoral Fellow in Ocean Modelling, At the Pennsylvania State University
1986-1989 NASA Graduate Student Fellow, University of Chicago
1985-1986 Research Assistant, University of Chicago
1983-1985 Programming Assistant, Northwestern University
Professional Activities, Honors, and Awards
1996-1999 Polar DAAC Advisory Group, Member
1996-2000 NCEP Liason to SHEBA (Surface Heat Budget of the Arctic) field experiment
1995-1997 Interagency SAR Working Group, Member
1994-1997 AMS STAC on Polar Meteorology and Oceanography, Member
1994-1995 RADARSAT Geophysical Processing System Advisory Panel, Member
1994 NSF Antarctic panel review
1994 Marquis Who's Who in Education
1994 Marquis Who's Who in the East, 25th edition
1993 NSF Antarctic panel review
1990-1991 UCAR Postdoctoral Fellow in Ocean Modelling
1990- Chi Epsilon Pi Meteorology Honor Society, Member
1986- American Geophysical Union, Member
1985- American Meteorological Society, Member
1985-1989 Chicago Chapter of the AMS, past Member
1986-1987 Secretary
1983-1990 IEEE Student Member
1984-1985 President Northwestern University Student Branch
1983-1984 Secretary Northwestern University Student Branch
1985 IEEE Chapter Leadership and Service Award
1984- Tau Beta Pi National Engineering Honor Society, Member
1984-1985 Corresponding Secretary Illinois Gamma Chapter
Selected Publications
Grumbine, R. W., Ocean Modeling Branch and the Web, OMB Tech Note 187, 13 pp., 2000.
Grumbine, R. W., OMB C++ Class Library Descriptions, OMB Tech. Note 186, 2000.
Grumbine, R. W., C++ for Ocean Modeling Branch Consideration, OMB Tech. Note 185, 23 pp., 2000.
Bromwich, D. H., R. I. Cullather, and R. W. Grumbine, An Assessment of the NCEP Operational Global Spectral Model Forecasts and Analyses for Antarctic during FROST, Weather and Forecasting, 14, 835-850, 1999.
Hines, K. M., R. W. Grumbine, D. H. Bromwich, and R. I. Cullather, Surface Energy Balance of the NCEP MRF and NCEP-NCAR Reanalysis in Antarctic Latitudes during FROST, Weather and Forecasting, 14, 851-866, 1999.
Grumbine, R. W. Virtual Floe Ice Drift Model Intercomparison Weather and Forecasting, 13, 886-890, 1998.
Randall, David, Judith Curry, David Battisti, Gregory Flato, Robert Grumbine, Sirpa Hakkinen, Doug Martinson, Ruth Preller, John Walsh, John Weatherly, Status of and Outlook for Large-Scale Modeling of Atmosphere-Ice-Ocean Interactions in the Arctic, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 79, 197-219, 1998.
Cullather, R. I., D. H. Bromwich, and R. W. Grumbine Validation of Operational Numerical Analyses in Antarctic Latitudes, J. Geophys. Res., 102, 13,761-13,784, 1997.
Grumbine, Robert W. Sea ice prediction environment: Documentation OMB Tech. Note 121, 34 pp., 1996.
Grumbine, Robert W. Automated Passive Microwave Sea Ice Concentration Analysis at NCEP OMB Tech. Note 120, 13 pp., 1996.
Grumbine, Robert W. NCEP Notes: Virtual Floe Ice Drift Forecast Model Intercomparison OMB Tech. Note 114, 22 pp., 1996.
Grumbine, Robert W. Sea Ice Forecast Model Intercomparison: Selecting a Base Model for NCEP Sea Ice Modelling OMB Tech Note 115, 15 pp., 1995.
Grumbine, Robert W. Inferring Sea Ice Thickness From Sea Ice Concentration, Oral Presentation, Fourth Conference on Polar Meteorology and Oceanography, January, 1995.
Grumbine, Robert W. NMC Notes: A Sea-ice albedo experiment with the NMC Medium Range Forecast Model, Weather and Forecasting, 9, 453-456, 1994.
Grumbine, Robert W. The thermodynamic predictability of sea ice , J. Glaciology, 40, 277-282, 1994.
Grumbine, Robert W. Abstract: Inferring Sea Ice Thickness from sea ice concentration, EOS, 74, p. 93, 1994. Oral Presentation, AGU Ocean Sciences Meeting.
Grumbine, Robert W. Sea ice prediction physics NMC Technical Note, NMC Office Note 396, 41 pp., 1993.
Grumbine, Robert W. The Thermodynamic Predictability of Sea Ice, Oral Presentation, AMS Third Conference on Polar Meteorology and Oceanography, 1992.
Grumbine, Robert W. A model of the formation of high-salinity shelf water on polar continental shelves, J. Geophys. Res., 96, 22,049-22,062, 1991.
Grumbine, Robert W. A model for polar continental shelf water mass modification, Annals of Glaciology, 14, 337, 1990.
Grumbine, Robert W. Model Study of Antarctic deep water formation during the last 20 ky, EOS, 70, 1990.
Grumbine, Robert W. Formation of high salinity shelf water on polar continental shelves, Ph.D. Thesis, The University of Chicago, 80 pp., 1989.
Grumbine, Robert W. Identification of significant oscillations in Ross Sea current meter data, M.S. Thesis, The University of Chicago, 41 pp., 1987.
G. Edward Birchfield and Grumbine, Robert W. "Slow" Physics of large continental ice sheets and underlying bedrock and its relation to the Pleistocene ice ages, J. Geophys. Res., 90, 11,294-11,302, 1985.
Selected Conferences (through 1996)
1996 Organizing committee and session chair AMS/NSF/NASA Workshop on Polar Processes in Global Climate, Cancun, Mexico, 13-16 November 1996.
1995 "Inferring Sea Ice Thickness From Sea Ice Concentration" Oral Presentation, American Meteorological Society, Fourth Conference on Polar Meteorology and Oceanography. Dallas, January 15-21. Session chair.
1994 "Inferring Sea Ice Thickness From Sea Ice Concentration" Invited, Oral Presentation, American Geophysical Union, Ocean Sciences meeting, San Diego, February 21-24. Session chair.
1992 "The Thermodynamic Predictability of Sea Ice" Oral Presentation, American Meteorological Society, 3rd Conference on Polar Meteorology and Oceanography, Portland, Oregon, September 29 to October 2
1991 "Deep Water Formation and Atmospheric CO$_2$ Changes During the Last 18 ky" Oral Presentation, International Union for Geodesy and Geophysics XX Meeting, Vienna, Austria, August 14-24.
1990 "A Model Study of Antarctic Deep Water Formation During the Last 20 ky" Oral Presentation, American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting, San Francisco, CA December 2-9.
1989 "A Model For Polar Continental Shelf Water Mass Modification" Oral Presentation, Ice and Climate Symposium, International Glaciological Society and American Meteorological Society, Seattle, WA August 14-24.
1989 "Formation of High Salinity Shelf Water on Polar Continental Shelves" Oral presentation, University of Chicago Geophysical Sciences Exposition, Convenor.
1988 "Climate and Deep Water Formation" Oral presentations, University of Chicago Geophysical Sciences Exposition, Member of Organizing Committee.
1988 "The Fluid Dynamics of C8H10N4O2 -- C3H6O3 mixtures at varying Grashof Number" (note - presented April 1) Oral Presentation, University of Chicago Geophysical Sciences Exposition, Member of Organizing Committee.
1987 "Tidal Analysis of Extinction Data" Oral Presentation, University of Chicago Geophysical Sciences Exposition, Member of Organizing Committee.
1987 "Causes of Oscillations in Ross Sea Currents" Poster presentation, International Union for Geodesy and Geophysics XIX Meeting Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. August 14-24.
He didn't know what a Central Tendancy is, (The Mean, Median and the Mode: The mean, median and the mode are summary statistics, they describe the central tendency of a set of numbers.) and shot himself in the foot.
Yes, that makes him an idiot.
Even NSF now limits CVs to two pages. . . Please, links are your friends
I agree it was long, but I thought long and hard about whether to link or not. I decided the commenter to whom it was directed probably wouldn't bother following the link but would have no option but to read through the CV.
However, since you've seen fit to raise the issue, please delete the previous post from me.
The CV of that "idiot" penguindreams (aka R. Grumbine) can be read here, Malarkey Mouse (aka King Prat).
Cymraeg llygoden
I'm beginning to think that
Malarkey = Lucia.
It would certainly explain a lot.
Malarkey/Lucia
If what you have done is so earth-skaking, why don't you publish in a journal?
Surely there must be at least one (backwater) journal that would publish your claims.
What about E&E?
They just love that kind of stuff (or at least their readership apparently does)
Or what about the Journal of Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamics.
I could be wrong, but if I recall correctly, they published something a while back that denies the very existence of a global temperature.
That's quite a bit more extreme than what you are claiming.
A late lunch and some odd surfing. Some even odder comments in the blog world. Oh well.
One thing I don't do is blindly assume that when a statistician says 'central tendency', I know which one of the infinity she means. Nor, when a statistician quotes someone else's document as saying that there's a 'central tendency' -- when they never use any of the terms which can be taken as that -- do I figure the number she attributes is necessarily correct.
Since there are an infinity of central tendencies, if a statistician wants to disprove someone else's work based on 'central tendency', she'd better a) define which one she chose and why or b) quote the original source to the effect. She did neither.
She and her fans then decide that my wanting some rigor is unfair, unreasonable, and means that I don't know what a central tendency is. hm.
Then she and they whine about it only being a blog (so she shouldn't have to say where she gets the statements she's 'disproving') a 'conversation' (so a bland 'we talked about that sometime before in history', is supposed to be taken as a reference sufficient that I should believe whatever they want at the moment) but nevertheless get ... annoyed ... when I observe that such things aren't what a rigorous (their term) work disproving peer-reviewed research would look like.
... Most recent anon:
I forget the location of publication, but the paper (if you're thinking of the same one I am) turned on exactly the business of there being an infinity of central tendencies. Their argument being that since there's an infinity (and, they asserted, no reason to prefer one over another) of such tendencies, you could only consider 'warming' to happen if all temperatures for all points in a time and space subset were higher than all temperatures in all points of the other time and space subset. This leads, among other things, to the conclusion that you can't tell that Chicago is cooler than Tampa. There are days (Chicago high summer) when Chicago is warmer than Tampa (the latter's low temperatures in winter). But I'm still pretty sure that Chicago is cooler than Tampa, even if the non-climatologists involved want to tell me that I can't say so.
penguindreams says I'm still pretty sure that Chicago is cooler than Tampa, even if the non-climatologists involved want to tell me that I can't say so."
In the specific case referred to above , I believe it was a mathematician, a physicist and an economist.
Mathematicians love to diddle with equations that have nothing to do with reality.
Physicists love to diddle with equations borrowed from mathematicians that have nothing to do with reality, to see if they can change them into a form that has something to do with reality.
Economists love to diddle (not necessarily with equations).
Malarkey says:
"creates an imaginary "IPCC Central tendency of 2C/century" and ignores the fact that, even if it did exist as an actual IPCC projection (which it does not),", Anon 2 says; "IPCC made quite specific projections", some confusion here? No actual projection, OR a quite specific projection?
The only confusion is yours, Malarkey.
The IPCC made many specific projections, but the "2C/century" ("Central Tendency") just did not happen to be one of them.
The closest the IPCC came to referring to what might be construed as a "central value" was their statement
For the next two decades a warming of about 0.2°C per decade is projected for a range of SRES emissions scenarios.
I would guess that to most scientists and engineers "about 0.2C" means anything from 0.15C to 0.24C. Not "precisely 0.2C".
malarkey continues
"Loads of PROJECTIONS and ERROR BARS."
You are very confused, Malarkey. That was precisely the point being made.
The IPCC specifies error bars for their individual projections (which, by the way are all CENTURY trends and CENTURY error bars)
So why does Lucia ignore all that when she does her analysis?
She assumes error bars only on the temperature trends based on data since 2001.
She takes her "central tendency of 0.2C/decade"
and sees if it falls within the calculated trend + 2*std deviation range. When it falls outside the range, she concludes that she has "falsified the IPCC projections".
That is simply nonsense. To determine whether a "projected trend" is consistent with actual temperature data, one has to take into account the error bars on both the data trend and the projection trend.
Your argument that Lucia can safely ignore scenario B1 in her "IPCC projections [plural] continue to falsify" because, as you claim "B1 assumes no increase in CO2" is just nonsense.
First, B1 makes no such assumption (you just made that up). It is a mitigation scenario, NOT a zero emission scenario.
Second, a certain amount of time is required for the temperature to respond to any emissions increase, so after such a brief period (7 years), even a scenario that assumes a fairly large emissions increase (over the entire century) will yield a temperature increase over the first few years that looks very much like that of B1.
Finally, the real problem with Lucia's approach is using a "central tendency" for temperature projections when there is no corresponding central tendency for emissions (by the IPCC's own caveat)
Lucia could rather easily have performed her statistics on actual IPCC projections, using actual IPCC error bars.
So, the real question is "why didn't she?"
malarkey said: B1 assumes no increase in CO2, therefore the actual projection chosen for falsification should be way higher than 2 Deg C)
malarkey, your claim is just absolute nonsense.
If B1 assumed "no increase in CO2" over the twentieth century, there is no way in hell that it could result in the 1.8C/century projected for it by the IPCC!
That is completely and utterly illogical.
You talk about "idiots". Well, I guess it takes one to know one.
There is warming in the pipeline but it sure as hell ain't 1.8C. Most estimates I have seen are about 0.5C, which would still leave 1.3C unaccounted for -- or 0.6C if you take the lower bound for scenario B1 (1.1C/century)
You are certainly thoroughly confused, malarkey. Of that there is no doubt whatsoever.
But even if we assume that you have misread the IPCC graphs and confused "increase in yearly CO2 emissions" with "increase in CO2" (a pretty stupid mistake in itself), you would STILL be wrong, at least for the period under discussion here (2001 - present). In fact, under the latter assumption, you would STILL be wrong for almost the whole first half of this century.
As anyone can see for themselves in Figure 3 of this IPCC document, under B1, yearly CO2 emissions are assumed to increase by about 40% between 2000 and 2040. Only then does the yearly increase (over the last year's emissions) stop (and reverse for the remainder of the century)
But over that same period, the total cumulative carbon dioxide emissions are about 400 Gt (about 10 Gt/yr for 40 years). And over the entire century, total cumulative carbon dioxide emissions are about 900 Gt. (shown in Figure 4 of the above document)
Only about half that stays in the atmosphere, but still, there is certainly no claiming that "B1 assumes no increase in CO2"
That claim is just dumb.
Here is a short list of Lucia's claims from her blog posts:
"IPCC Projections Continue to Falsify"
[which ones? all of them?]
"This month, the IPCC 2C/century projection [sic] was falsified using the averaged data..."
[the IPCC made no such single projection]
"IPCC central tendency of 2C/Century [sic] still rejected"
Nothing like settling on a single claim.
Interestingly, "IPCC Central tendency falsified" was NOT her original claim, although she continues to swap in the original "IPCC Projections falsified" claim now and again, as if the two were interchangeable.
Emissions decline fastest in the B1 family. http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc/emission/spm-3.htm
Anon 9:41: "Emissions decline fastest in the B1 family."
If you are not malarkey, you sure think/write like him/her.
No matter how you parse the words, it ain't going to help Lucia.
In the context of this conversation about Lucia's "IPCC projections falsified" (since 2001) claim, your statement is simply misleading, malarkey (misleading malarkey, too)
But on the outside chance that you missed the obvious:
This conversation is about the FIRST DECADE (not even!) of this century: Lucia has staked her claims on just the past 7+ years.
So let's focus on that, shall we?
As anyone can see from fig 3 in this IPCC document, yearly emissions do not even begin to "decline" under scenario B1 until around 2040 (and that's a decline in yearly emissions relative to the previous year's emissions, not relative to 2000).
In fact, up until about 2040, yearly emissions continue to INCREASE under scenario B1
********
Point of clarification for malarkey and others who may not be familiar with the English language: "increase" is the antonym of "decline" .
2nd Point of clarification for the same crowd: "antonym" means "opposite"
***************
For scenario B1, over the time period 2000-2040, yearly emissions actually increase (did i mention that "increase" is the opposite of "decline"?) by some 40%, and the rate of increase is greatest over the first part of the 21st century. CO2 emissions do not drop back down to even 2000 levels under B1 until around 2070 or so.
But what happens to emissions under scenario B1 over the last half (or even the second decade!) of the century is completely irrelevant to this conversation about Lucia's claims, which have to do specifically with the period 2001-2008.
More to the point: When you look at "total cumulative CO2 emissions" (shown in fig 4, in the same doc i just linked to) from 2001-2008 for the various emissions scenarios, you can see that there is virtually no difference between B1 and the scenarios which are non-mitigation scenarios.
The divergence between scenarios does not become significant until later on.
So, when it comes to projected temp change, there is also no significant difference between B1 and other scenarios over the first 8 years.
That is precisely why the IPCC was able to make the following general statement
For the next two decades a warming of about 0.2°C per decade is projected for a range of SRES emissions scenarios.
The whole idea that Lucia can completely ignore the scenario B1 projection because the emissions under B1 from 2001-present are somehow significantly different than for the other scenarios is ridiculous on its face.
But I suspect that Lucia actually knows that.
And I suspect that she also knows the following :
In order to "Falsify IPCC Projections" (plural) as she has claimed, Lucia has to "falsify" the B1 projection: 1.8C/century with a lower (95% probability) bound of 1.1C/century.
And in order to do that, she must use the lower bound for B1 --ie, she must take the error bar on the projection into account.
But she can't, because 1.1C falls within her specified "95% ranges" (ie, the ones she has used to "falsify")
But it really is a waste of time to even discuss it any further.
As i indicated above, if Lucia were the least bit serious, she would at get her claims published in a peer reviewed journal.
And for that, she would have to actually present her claims in a coherent form that actually makes sense (which might present a bit of a problem, in this case)
Most scientists could not even be bothered wading through all the crap on blogs.
The vast majority of it is simply not science. Not even close.
What Lucia actually says: "....based on measurements since 2001, and the four statistical models described above the central tendency for projections communicated in the IPCC AR(4) falls outside the range consistent with real earth weather data..." http://rankexploits.com/musings/2008/ipcc-central-tendency-of-2ccentury-still-rejected/
What Lucia actually says (from her blog, also quote above)
"IPCC Projections Continue to Falsify"
"This month, the IPCC 2C/century projection [sic] was falsified using the averaged data..."
"IPCC central tendency of 2C/Century [sic] still rejected"
I don't think Lucia herself even knows what it is that she is claiming.
yet another Lucia claim
"IPCC Projections Overpredict Recent Warming"
"Projections": that would be plural (as in , "more than one")
Incidentally, to anyone who does not believe she has actually made all the above claims, just do a google search on each of them (without the "[sic]" of course )
And to anyone who thinks it is OK to simply ignore the error bars on the IPCC projections when determining whether IPCC projections are consistent with observed temperature trends, you might read what Gavin Schmidt of real Climate says about this:
The IPCC has always published ranges of future scenarios, rather than a single one, to cover uncertainties both in future climate forcing and in climate response. This is reflected in the IPCC graph below, and likewise in the earlier comparison by Rahmstorf et al. 2007 in Science."
"Any meaningful validation of a model with data must account for this stated uncertainty [uncertainty for the projections, for the case under discussion]. If a theoretical model predicts that the acceleration of gravity in a given location should be 9.84 +- 0.05 m/s2, then the observed value of g = 9.81 m/s2 would support this model. However, a model predicting g = 9.84+-0.01 would be falsified by the observation. The difference is all in the stated uncertainty. A model predicting g = 9.84, without any stated uncertainty, could neither be supported nor falsified by the observation, and the comparison would not be meaningful."
//end Schmidt quote
stuff in brackets [] added by me
What that means is that it is NOT legitimate to use a single precise value (0.2C) with no error bars to somehow "represent" the "IPCC projections" and then simply see if that value falls within the range (trend plus or minus error) for the observed temperature trend(s).
One has to consider the errors associated with the projected trends (as noted above for B1) as well.
Post a Comment