A report released in a scientific journal, Climate Risk Management, analyzed the chances that factors other than human influence are driving global mean temperature change.
“December 2013 was the 346th consecutive month where global land and ocean average surface temperature exceeded the 20th century monthly average, with February 1985 the last time mean temperature fell below this value,” researchers noted in their abstract. “Even given these and other extraordinary statistics, public acceptance of human induced climate change and confidence in the supporting science has declined since 2007.”
They write, “The degree of uncertainty as to whether observed climate changes are due to human activity or are part of natural systems fluctuations remains a major stumbling block to effective adaptation action and risk management.”
The writers develop an approach “which provides a rigorous probabilistic statistical assessment of the link between observed climate changes and human activities in a way that can inform formal climate risk assessment.”
To do so, they construct a time series model of the temperatures to June 2010 and use the rate of GHG emissions as well as other causal factors such as solar radiation, volcanic emissions and El Niño.
They write, “When the effect of GHGs is removed, bootstrap simulation of the model reveals that there is less than a one in one hundred thousand chance of observing an unbroken sequence of 304 months (our analysis extends to June 2010) with mean surface temperature exceeding the 20th century average.”
They also show that one “would expect a far greater number of short periods of falling global temperatures (as observed since 1998) if climate change was not occurring.” They add, “This approach to assessing probabilities of human influence on global temperature could be transferred to other climate variables and extremes allowing enhanced formal risk assessment of climate change.”
One of the more interesting aspects of this report is that the researchers actually adopt a relatively straightforward time series regression model that is quite prevalent in social science, account for as many variables as they can that would explain climate change outside of human activity (represented by greenhouse gas concentration) and adapt it to determine the chance that the temperature increase would exist without the greenhouse gas concentration increase.
As they explain, “The approach used here allows us to make probabilistic statements about the likelihood of this anomalous warming occurring in the presence or absence of anthropogenic GHG emissions.”
It is worth noting that, according to their data, no one born after February 1985 has lived in a single month where global temperatures fell below the long-term average for that month. According to their analysis, the probability of getting the same run of “warmer-than-average months without the human influence was less than 1 chance in 100,000.”
“We identified periods of declining temperature by using a moving 10-year window (1950 to 1959, 1951 to 1960, 1952 to 1961, etc.) through the entire 60-year record. We identified 11 such short time periods where global temperatures declined,” they write. “Our analysis showed that in the absence of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, there would have been more than twice as many periods of short-term cooling than are found in the observed data.”
The findings simply tack on more evidence to go with the basic mainstream scientific consensus that global warming is in fact caused by human activity.
In June, the EPA announced that it will mandate power plants in the US to cut carbon emissions by 30% by 2030.
“Earlier this month, hundreds of scientists declared that climate change is no longer a distant threat, it has moved firmly into the present,” the President announced in June. “Last year I put forward America’s first climate action plan, this plan cuts carbon pollution by building a clean energy economy.”
The President argued that, while this is a good start, “for the sake of our children we have to do more. This week, we will.”
“Today about 40% of America’s carbon pollution comes from power plants,” he said. “But right now there are no natural limits to the amount of carbon pollution that existing plants can pump into the air we breathe. None.”
A year ago the President called on the EPA to address this gap in policy by coming up with common sense guidelines, along the lines of efforts already taken by many states, cities and companies.
He said, “These new commonsense guidelines to reduce carbon pollution from power plants were created with feedback from businesses, and state and local governments, and they would build a clean energy economy while reducing carbon pollution.”
Scientists believe that the planet has reach a critical turning point. Right now, nations have set a goal of limiting the warming of the planet to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit above pre-industrial temperatures. In order for that to happen, global emissions would need to peak by 2020 and then decline.
That does not appear likely.
The Times reports, “Today, emissions are not falling nearly fast enough in the West, and those reductions are being swamped by a rapid rise in the East. Experts say that a global peak in 2020 is exceedingly unlikely, if not impossible — and that will be true even if the United States and other nations manage to keep the pledges they made in 2009.”
They add, “Well into the 2020s, it will still be technically possible to meet the global warming target, but the longer nations put off taking bold action, the more expensive and disruptive it will be to do so once they finally get serious.”
—David M. Greenwald reporting
David wrote:
> Right now, nations have set a goal of limiting the warming of the planet to 3.6
> degrees Fahrenheit above pre-industrial temperatures. In order for that to
> happen, global emissions would need to peak by 2020 and then decline.
> That does not appear likely.
Since the US is just about 4.5% of the world population and Davis is about 0.01% of the worlds population we need to admit that while the climate may be “changing” there is nothing we can do about it.
If 100 people are pouring hot water in to a pool it is going to get warmer even if we kill 5 of them it is still going to get warmer.
Spending billions so 5% of the people pour “little less” hot water (aka buying a Tesla or LED light bulb) in the pool is not going to do anything to slow the rate of warming.
We need to get away from having the red team and blue team debating “IF” the earth is warming or cooling and do the math so we realize that replacing a (now Banned) $0.50 incandescent 60W light bulb with a $13 11W LED light bulb (or $30K Honda with a $90K Tesla) makes a lot of people rich but is has the same effect on the “climate” as dropping an ice cube in Lake Tahoe will have on the water temp.
“the same effect on the “climate” as dropping an ice cube in Lake Tahoe will have on the water temp.”
Yes that’s true, but it makes the person dropping the ice cube feel good.
BP wrote:
> Yes that’s true, but it makes the person dropping the ice cube feel good.
And it will make the people selling the “special” “stop global warming ice cubes” for $10 each very rich…
“In June, the EPA announced that it will mandate power plants in the US to cut carbon emissions by 30% by 2030.”
This will be great for the economies of China, India and many other foreign countries who will love having our businesses move there as our energy prices skyrocket. Worldwide net effect on carbon emissions=almost 0
Re light bulbs and Teslas. The cost to produce the bulb or the car has less impact than the life cycle cost of using the products. As far as light bulbs go, and cars for that matter, use less, turn off the lights, drive the car less. As far as those products making people rich, that is the name of the game for EVERY product you purchase, especially all those things you buy that you never knew you wanted you needed until advertising, much of it in the form of news stories about a hot new product and not a traditional advertisement, made you want to said new thing.
I am waiting for someone to mention our global population problem. We cannot sustain 7 billion, we can’t feed them now and crop yields are falling. At least climate change gets some press and scientific attention. No one will talk about the real elephant in the room– we are PLANNING for 10 billion while we cannot sustain. 7 billion. Before anyone does the economy will collapse dance, if you look you will learn the current winners in the constant growth model may suffer. (May peace be with them as it is certainly their turn) but sustainable heathy economies are possible without the cancer of constant growth.
DavisBurns
Wait no further. I am now done with work for today and could not agree with you more. The core issue here is too many people to feed. We can all argue over the best place to put the World Food Center, but until we admit that more is not only not always better, but is not sustainable we will be fighting a losing battle.
Addressing the root problem would mean providing highly reliable reversible contraception to all women who want it for free, not charging $ 500.00 per IUD. We know what works in population management.
Improve women’s economic status, improve infant and child health to the point where the woman can count on one or two children surviving to adulthood and provide her with voluntary free long acting contraception.
What we lack is the will and the focus to achieve this. Those of us who are writing here are not going to live to see the consequences of our stubborn refusal to face reality. Too bad for our children.
Why are progressives (liberals) so keen on telling other people how to live, and so gung ho about halting life?
TBD–you are living in a fantasy world if you think that world population can continue to grow at 80 million/year (births minus deaths) indefinitely. If we don’t take steps as responsible salient beings of planet earth to limit our numbers, mother nature will do so for us in far more ruthless ways–for example the current Ebola outbreak in Africa is likely to be small potatoes compared the growth of such an outbreak and resulting devastation if such an outbreak occurs during the next worldwide economic downturn, when immune systems among the poor will be more compromised due to worse malnutrition, and social conditions will be more chaotic and resources less abundant to manage and contain such an outbreak.
It is not a matter of one group of people telling another group of people what to do, but to encourage people to act responsibly, and that they play a role in the future conditions and prospects for civilization.
–oops, we may not be ‘salient’ beings; but we are certainly sentient beings (word I meant to use).
TBD
“Why are progressives (liberals) so keen on telling other people how to live, and so gung ho about halting life”
This was a laugh out loud moment for me.
First I am making the assumption that you were responding to my post.
If so, I would like you to consider the following.
In my career, I have delivered hundreds, if not thousands of babies. In my early practice prior to sub specialization, I helped many infertile couples conceive.
I have also helped many women who did not want to have any more children achieve that goal in the manner which they desired. In each case, I was helping the individual woman attain her desired goal.
Nothing in my post was about telling anyone else how to live their lives.
Nothing in my post was about halting life.
So what do I advocate ? I advocate providing highly statistical contraceptive means to those women who want them for free as a comprehensive strategy to improve the quality of human life by : 1) limiting the number of unintended and in many cases undesired pregnancies while further reducing the number of abortions which are very dangerous for women when they cannot be obtained in a medically appropriate setting 2) providing adequate food, shelter, clothing and medical care for the population that we already have.
I see this as a collaboration between the individual woman, the government / health care system of her country/ health care personnel/ reproductive device manufacturers/ scientists in the ag/food sector/ providers of safe, cost effective housing and business people and philanthropists interested in helping families live healthy sustainable lives rather than facing death from famine, disease, or exposure.
What could be more pro life than that ?
Tia, “improving the quality of life” is a subjective statement, right?
I’ve known so-called poor families with children, grandchildren, cousins, nephews, who had worked and shared life together in a wonderful messy way.
On this board we have numerous people who don’t want Davis to grow (or don’t want it to grow much), but they are perfectly happy, with their proposals and extension of logic, to add more immigrants, more illegal immigrants, more poor people to Fresno, Sacramento, Los Angeles or elsewhere.
I guess if what you’re really saying is you want to limit the birth rate in India and Africa, knock yourself out. But America is blessed with large land holdings and vast resources, so we have plenty of room for the right kind of growth, if we had the right policies.
I guess history might show us that California has had the wrong kinds of policies, going from number 1 in education to number 47 or 48 in a short period of time. Prices sky high, quality of life down in some (many?) regards, and our Governor hell bent on building a high-speed $100 Billion train to nowhere.
Tia, I think we will be alive to suffer the consequences. The Ebola outbreak, if not contained may be the first disease to kill massive number of people. The current drought is, in part, the result of global warming and in part because of how much water we use for agriculture. The primary way we export water is in the form of grain. When a foreign country doesn’t have enough water to grow grain to feed their people, they import grain we grow here adding to the depletion of our aquifers. We consider it a humanitarian effort to feed the starving but its like a finger in the dike. We deplete our aquifers, the ground subsides and the total storage capacity is permanently reduced. It is a losing game.
As far as our children suffering, my misfortune is my salvation. I had four children (oh no!) but my children have not/will not/ cannot reproduce. No grandchildren in my case is a blessing.
We just visited the Indian ruins in Arizona. The park service keeps asking “where did the people go and why did they leave?” to which the Hopi reply, “hey, here we are, we didn’t disappear, we just changed our way of life.” They went from a more complex culture to a less complex culture. That is an adaptive response to increasing environmental stressors, drought, overpopulation, breakdown in trade routes and maybe disease and famine. Folks who think we will be living in cities as the population increases because it is more efficient and leaves surrounding farmland in tact are not looking at the big picture or history.
I agree about how we stabilize population. What we need is more press, acknowledgement overpopulation is a problem and a concerted effort to ENCOURAGE people to have zero, one or two children. In my readings about population last year I learned that MANY of the population control/reduction groups are fronts for anti-immigration groups, many of them racist with very ugly hidden agendas. The Sierra Club is a prime example–they do not have a population platform because there were people elected to the board some years ago who also served on the boards of racist anti-immigration organizations as well as population organizations.
Just as I think Davis (and all cities) should put a cap on lumens per acre for street lighting because if we don’t we will obliterate the night sky, I think we need to openly discuss how many people the earth can support and have a goal to reach that number. There will be people who have too many children but most people want to ensure that their children and grandchildren will live in a stable world. Very few people suggest a one child policy because we know it doesn’t work.
The primary obstacle to stabilizing our population is the vested financial interests in the current economic model of constant, never ending growth. Economic stability and prosperity is possible without growth. Obscene profits and wealth are not.
But the US is at a basic no-growth TFR (total fertility rate), except for legal and illegal immigration. So if you’re contradicting yourself.
Beyond that, you’re the first I’ve read to now tie the ebola outbreak to global warming. Why don’t we get back to the basics, and when Americans abroad come down with ebola, keep them there as common sense and SOP would dictate. Isolate the outbreak.
A more factual and interesting title would read:
REPORT FINDS NEAR CERTAINTY THAT THE THEORIES OF CLIMATE CHANGE ARE LARGELY POLITICALLY MOTIVATED AND HENCE, FROM RELATED POLICY ENACTMENT, WILL MORE POTENTIALLY DAMAGING TO INDIVIDUAL AND COLLECTIVE HUMAN WELL-BEING THAN WOULD BE ACTUAL ANTHROPOGENIC GLOBAL WARMING IF IT EVEN EXISTS
That’s not what the analysis shows. It’s a simple yet elegant way to analyze the data. It’s way to measure the variance of each variable and show the impact of that variable on the dependent variable.
One thing I know about certain people heavily invested in the theories of man-made global warming… they are more likely wired to fear being made to admit they are wrong more than death itself. They are frantic with motivation to look at the data in anyway they can to help prevent their, what I think, inevitable day of reckoning for having to do just that… admit that they were wrong.
There are other ways of looking at the data to draw a conclusion that the predictive climate models are significantly flawed. With every year that the models are incorrect, the climate scientists that are so invested in maintaining that they are near perfect, make adjustments to correct for the imperfections but in a way that also protects their previous estimates. Where we are headed with this is that they will eventually run out of creative ways to tweak the models in a way that protect their previous estimates (alarms?). And then they will either have to lie or they will have to finally admit they were wrong.
We might already be there. There are more and more scientists jumping off the global warming alarm train every day.
Isn’t the current theory – on top of theory – that the Atlantic Ocean is magically storing some of the “missing heat”?
Yes. There is a lot of “magic” behind protecting the climate models.
The climate scientists protection of their climate models remind me of a stage mom unwilling to accept that her little darling cannot dance, cannot sing and is 20 lbs overweight.
But in this case they used a very specific but simple variable – average temperature by month over the last thirty years and then they correlate the variables that can account for that. You’re making a very general argument that doesn’t address the specific research.
Frankly (representing the red team view says):
> Yes. There is a lot of “magic” behind protecting the climate models.
Then David (representing the blue team view says):
> You’re making a very general argument that doesn’t address the
> specific research
Rather than debating the “climate models” we should be debating weather cutting in to the profits of (mostly read team donors) utilities by making them buy “green” products sold by (mostly blue team donors) suppliers will actually do anything to change the global climate.
If everyone in America “goes green” (making red team donors poorer, blue team donors richer and 99.9% of Americans that don’t give to either the blue team or the red team poorer) the overall GLOBAL effect on the climate will be about the same as the temp of a room with 100 people in it if we remove the 5 people who have a high fever and replace them with people who don’t have a fever.
But none of that addresses this specific analysis – which looks very sound to me in terms of methodology and application, so you’re basically spinning here unless you can explain the variance without GHG as the key explanatory variable driving the model.
David, can you please provide a link to the report?
Also, did they explain the global warming hiatus?
Frankly: One thing I know about certain people heavily invested in the theories of man-made global warming… they are more likely wired to fear being made to admit they are wrong more than death itself. They are frantic with motivation to look at the data in anyway they can to help prevent their, what I think, inevitable day of reckoning for having to do just that… admit that they were wrong.
It’s interesting how much psychological analysis you put on display.
I have personally met some researchers on this, and I think they would find it professionally interesting to be definitively proven wrong. In science, the best experimental designs involve trying to prove your hypothesis wrong and they know this.
I don’t think they would be tossed out onto the streets, because most have tenure at universities.
What scientific evidence do you note that leads you to conclude that theories of man-made global warming are wrong? Does it only come from your own psychological and political analysis of professional scientists?
Excellent question. Frankly?
Never trust an absolutist on topics afflicted with more variables and criteria than they can effectively know, analyze and synthesize.
Theories are fine, but we don’t make sweeping and profound policy based on theory… especially when are are significant negative consequences.
It’s interesting how much psychological analysis you put on display.
LOL! Apparently… pot, meet kettle.
Frankly (because I am) I don’t know enough about psychological analysis to know that I am putting it on display. Since you seem to recognize it, maybe you can explain it to me.
It is well known that the climate models are failing to accurately predict climate change. From a peer reviewed research paper on http://www.academia.edu “Can climate models explain the recent stagnation in global warming?”
Estimates of the observed global warming for the recent 15-year period 1998-2012 vary between0.0037 0C/year (NCDC)(1) , 0.00410C/year (HadCRUT4) (2) and 0.0080C/year (GISS) (3) . These values are significantly lower than the average warming of 0.020C/year observed in the previous thirty years 1970-2000. Can models explain the global warming stagnation?
The inconsistency increases rapidly with increasing trend length. A continuation of the current observed global warming rate for a period of twenty years or longer would lie outside the ensemble of all model-simulated trends. What do these inconsistencies imply for the utility of climate projections of anthropogenic climate change?
Three possible explanations of the inconsistencies can be suggested: 1) the models underestimate the internal natural climate variability; 2) the climate models fail to include important external forcing processes in addition to anthropogenic forcing, or 3) the climate model sensitivities to external anthropogenic forcing is too high.
I read where 40 of the most recent global warming models were proven wrong; maybe that’s why they’re having to come up with the magical sea phenomena holding heat under the ocean waters.
Maybe I can reply in as simplistic a manner as you seem to choose to post on this topic. How about this? If, as some evidence indicates, there is more heat being stored in the ocean than was previously thought, that’s great news! We have longer to plan for the inevitable increase in global temperatures and their adverse impacts.
Unless, of course, you believe the earth is going to get colder or something? If so, please let us know how you came to that conclusion.
Frankly, who are the scientists who are jumping off the global warming bandwagon? Are they climate scientists or just folks with a degree in science who have no experience in the field from which they are claiming expertise?
But this report apparently doesn’t address the global warming hiatus, which has now stretched on for over 17 years.
Los Angeles Times: Global warming ‘hiatus’ puts climate change scientists on the spot
“Theories as to why Earth’s average surface temperature hasn’t risen in recent years include an idea that the Pacific Ocean goes through decades-long cycles of absorbing heat.”
September 22, 2013|By Monte Morin
“It’s a climate puzzle that has vexed scientists for more than a decade and added fuel to the arguments of those who insist man-made global warming is a myth.
“Since just before the start of the 21st century, the Earth’s average global surface temperature has failed to rise despite soaring levels of heat-trapping greenhouse gases and years of dire warnings from environmental advocates.
“Now, as scientists with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change gather in Sweden this week to approve portions of the IPCC’s fifth assessment report, they are finding themselves pressured to explain this glaring discrepancy….”
http://articles.latimes.com/2013/sep/22/science/la-sci-climate-change-uncertainty-20130923
The politicians and ‘scientists’ on the Left also fail to address how this impacts the middle and lower classes, which – if their policies are enacted – will dramatically hurt their economic well being. When gas goes up $1.00 a gallon, and electricity rates increase 50%, it has little affect on the labor lawyer or well-paid community organizer, but it is devastating to the carpenter, painter, or single mother. It is this disconnect that causes some to refer to them as Limousine Liberals.
Besides, the electorate isn’t behind this push.
Gallup: In U.S., Most Do Not See Global Warming as Serious Threat
http://www.gallup.com/poll/167879/not-global-warming-serious-threat.aspx
Only in Davis
In our fair City we are encouraged to minimize our carbon output (strive for a “Mickey Mouse” sized carbon footprint), and yet are urged (through the installation of the City-wide Crown Castle cell-phone residential antenna system) to maximize our electronic input (strive for a “Goofy” sized electronic footprint). Out of towners will know of our Global Warming hypocrisy by our “limping!”
“But that’s not fair! We LOVE our cell phones! Waaaa!!”
DurantFan, is it accurate to label the installation of the Crown Castle system as representative of a “local urging” of the Davis citizens to maximize our electronic input? I certainly don’t see it that way. If Davis had had local control of the Crown Castle decision, Crown Castle would never have been approved. The City Attorney was very clear in her advice to Council that state laws trumped anything that davis might want to do at a local level.
Many comments on this site and others on this topic remind me of the old adage, “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.”
My question for all commenters is, “Are you proficient in, or at least do you understand the principles of chemistry and physics?” If not, why do you think you can negate evidence which contradicts your beliefs?
Can you elaborate on the different absorption spectra of carbon dioxide and methane? Do you understand the difference in heat capacity of air and the ocean? There’s 3 orders of magnitude difference, approximately.
Do you understand the difference between empirical evidence and explanations for those observations?
All of those few questions have a direct bearing on understanding the overall heat increase on our planet, and they are all grounded in facts, not “magic” nor politics. Most scientists I know are very apolitical, which I think is unfortunate from the point of view of communicating some fascinating stories about what we do. It’s clear to me that the poor critical thinking on this topic reflects the huge decline in scientific literacy in this country. I just read a story that pointed out that over 50% of Harvard graduates these days aim for a career on Wall Street. That’s really sad.
One reason I liked this article is that while I’m not able to elaborate on chemistry and physics, I understand regression and time series analyses. The simplicity of this study actually masks its elegance and I understand fully why the climate change deniers would want to discuss anything but this specific study.
David wrote:
> I understand fully why the climate change deniers would want to
> discussion anything but this specific study.
I’m not a “climate change denier” (everyone knows that climate changes all the time), I just want to change the debate to and ask “will spending all this money on say a carbon tax or LED bulbs do anything about the “climate” and not just make some people rich”. I would love to have a solar powered AC unit, but I’m not sure that if everyone in Davis paid Elon Musk $10K for a new solar powered AC unit (powered by batteries from the taxpayer funded non union Nevada “gigafactory”) if they would do anything to make Davis (or the “Globe”) any cooler in August (I do know that it would make Elon richer and even richer still if he got his friends that gave him all the tax breaks to “require” everyone in Nevada bought one)…
Generally, you can count on air conditioning to add to the summer heat and pollution. So, the simple answer is ‘No, running an air conditioner, even solar powered, will not make it cooler in August. It will make it warmer.”
Excellent point. Such analyses are used by scientists all the time to validate masses of data. You can’t be a good chemist or physicist, either, without understanding statistical concepts.
jrberg:
> I just read a story that pointed out that over 50% of Harvard graduates these
> days aim for a career on Wall Street. That’s really sad.
Since most (but not all) people will say what the people paying them want them to say you might as well get paid well by Wall Street while doing it… Can anyone think of even a SINGLE “expert witness” (a high percentage who are “Harvard Grads”) who got on the stand and said something the person paying them didn’t want them to say? Can anyone find a link to a SINGLE report from an oil or gas company that says they are causing global warming (or that fracking is bad)?
You can’t hire a kid for $10/hour to “elaborate on the different absorption spectra of carbon dioxide and methane” so EVERY report costs a lot to prepare and is funded by someone (and EVERY report I read from the red team says no problem keep buying gas, keep the lights on and keep fracking while EVERY report I read from the blue team says we are just about at the point of no return unless we start taxing the red team and/or buying the stuff from blue team donors like LED lightbulbs, Teslas and round solar panels).
I hate to harp but here i go. The “blue” team has many players. Many on that team aren’t in favor of LED lights even though they save money and reduce greenhouse emissions. (so does reducing lighting and turning lights off when not needed). Meanwhile, there are lighting designers, plain vanilla republicans and decorators who really hate LED lights for personal preferences and aesthetics.
Here’s a plug for Mark Jacobson of Stanford university. He has a plan to meet all our energy needs in California with renewable energy. Including transportation.
At what cost?
Solar panels don’t even create enough energy to power the plant that makes the panels! Note, I am not against solar power, but it is no panacea, and is expensive.
At least push all public utilities to have to pay homeowners if they produce “excess” energy that is contributed back to the grid; and simplify the approval process like Germany, which now puts everything needed on one regular page.
It isn’t what scientists know jberg, it is what they don’t know, that prevents them from qualifying as absolutists in many things. And global climate change is an area that covers many, many scientific disciplines including astrophysics and geology to name a few. Correlation is not causation. Evidence is circumstantial at best. And evidence is consistently proven flawed and tampered with.
The climate models used to predict global warming have failed in their accuracy over the last 20 years, so each year they are re calibrated to say they are reliable. How would that work for any other model? Economists have a better handle on all the criteria for modeling economic heating or cooling, yet if you ask 100 of them you will still get 100 different opinions for estimates and causes. And here we have something, global climate, with almost infinite possible cause criteria, and you say that, what… 90% of scientists agree 100% with the estimates and causes?
This is not science, it is politics.
Control the narrative of the media, control the curriculum of the education system, and control the platform of science… well then, don’t you pretty much control everything except common sense?
Please provide your evidence for this statement.
There are thousands of geophysicists working on the many feedbacks in the climate system, identifying and studying the uncertainties that lead to variable outcomes. Have you ever actually spoken to an atmospheric scientist or to a geophysicist who works on climate studies? We have several here at UC Davis. You are imputing a level of groupthink (to borrow your term) that doesn’t exist. It is true that the overwhelming majority of climate scientists agree that climate change is occurring (directly provable) and that human activities are a factor of some percentage of that change (provable by deduction). There are sharp and ongoing disagreements and discussions about the feedbacks and the degrees of confidence and the uncertainties. But that doesn’t mean that “the climate models have failed in their accuracy.” These researchers speak in terms of high or low confidence. You can’t simply say the models “have failed.” As with so many of your other discussions, you are applying a dichotomous view: they must be right or wrong, succeed or fail. And you are ascribing politics where it simply doesn’t exist. Research scientists in general are among the least political people I know. A very small number interact with the media (usually rather poorly). A very small number focus on big-picture theories. The vast majority work on small areas of research in great detail, adding to the complex array of published information in a manner that allows others to piece together a complicated picture.
Your last paragraph indicates that your conclusions result from your ideology. In all the years you’ve been discussing this issue on the Vanguard, that aspect has never changed.
Just Google climate model calibration and tuning and you will find many scholarly articles on the topic.
Again, I am not proposing sweeping environmental policy over these theories that are backed by these flawed models. It is you and your political ilk.
I think I need to go back to my psychology that wdf1 called out and point out how hard you are working to avoid a simple agreement that the climate models are flawed and constantly re-calibrated/tuned so they can retain their Co2 causation criteria. Then every year for the last couple of decades, they have failed to predict global temperatures within a very large deviation.
You could agree with this fact and then move on. But you don’t. And that is standard behavior for all your years posting on the VG.
What sweeping environmental policy am I proposing?
I agree that there are many variables involved in climate models. That doesn’t mean they are flawed.
I agree that ongoing research will affect the models (ocean heat sink, for example). That’s part of the process. It isn’t intended to “retain their CO2 causation criteria.” It is intended to cause the models to more accurately forecast based on new research.
When I took a class in greenhouse management, the first lecture was comprised of a model for greenhouse conditions that showed the variables that would affect the conditions and management. Each subsequent lecture focused on one of the aspects of that model. The model wasn’t the science, it was simply a tool for presenting the science in a coherent manner that showed the interactions and complexities. General circulation models are not the theory. They are tools.
There’s a big difference between a model that attempts to predict the future temperatures and one that seeks to analyze variables to explain the variance in past temperatures.
I wrote this in 2009 and posted some of it on the Vanguard somewhere (I only know this because I saved it as a document):
That trend has not changed since 2009. But it is important to note that there have been 17-year flat periods and downward trends in the overall temperature record over the last 100 years — yet the overall trend is inexorable. From Roy Spencer, a noted skeptic:
–
Here is Dr. Roy Spencer’s data of the actual temperatures through April 2014.
–
Note that it doesn’t show NO global warming over the last 17 years.
The rate of increase is lower than what the IPCC report models predicted.
And I’m still waiting for you to tell me what “sweeping environmental policy” I’m “proposing.” I think I’ve made it clear in the past that I believe we should focus on adaptation rather than mitigation.
Thanks, Don. You beat me to it, and I couldn’t have said it better myself. But I’ll add that Frankly keeps hammering on the models, which is not the point. The point is that models try to explain WHY the global warming occurs. The fact that warming is occurring is an empirical observation. CO2 level increase is an empirical observation. Is Frankly arguing that the facts are made up?
I would strongly encourage Frank and his fellow travelers to actually talk to a few scientists about how they pursue their studies and observations, and how they draw conclusions. Scientists are anything but absolutists. We are always looking for any evidence that will affect our conclusions. I personally would be happy to facilitate such communication.
Exactly the problem that Frankly is having here – he’s attempting to attack the models when this study isn’t about the models.
jrberg, I am a very simple-minded person. It is both my liability and my strength at times. If the climate models cannot accurately predict the climate change within some reasonable standard deviation (and they cannot), then how do we know that we won’t start experiencing global cooling? Or how do we know that the global rise in temperature is material enough to accept government policy that destroys the coal industry for example, and prevents energy exploration and production on Federal lands… and demands a percentage of job-killing expensive alternative green energy in new business and business expansion? How do we know that the increase in Co2 is as much of the cause in the recorded rise in global temperature, and not just a circumstantial data point… and that we are missing other causes of increased water vapor, etc?
The models are the basis for the argument that the planet will warm to the point of great material harm, and that premise is what is driving hyper environmental policy that destroys economic growth and activity.
No, Solyndra will not save the economy… that has been proven.
But the models have been proven significantly wrong over and over again.
My basic problem is that we are being fed this alarmist story to back government policy that benefits one ideological view over another, and threatens to cause even more shrinking of economic growth.
It is warming even though warming has significantly slowed and the earth has warmed before there were all these cars and factories and cows? Certainly it is warming. Will it continue warming? How much will it warm and how fast? Will green energy evolve fast enough without policy that damages economic growth? Will some catastrophic environmental event like a Yellowstone supervolcano make us all look like chumps while we fret away our final few days left alive on the planet? Or how about that rogue, previously un-tracked, comment that crashes into the Pacific and vaporizes us all?
Like I wrote, there is much more that we don’t know… and any scientist that pushes the anthropogenic global warming theory as anything more than just a theory gets a big lack of confidence from me.
That’s why we have a Vanguard Comment Policy. To keep the planet from getting vaporized.
” If the climate models cannot accurately predict the climate change within some reasonable standard deviation (and they cannot), then how do we know that we won’t start experiencing global cooling? ”
The answer is fairly easy – if GHG gasses can be shown in the past to have accounted for the vast majority of the recent heating and we project gas levels to continue to rise, then it stands to reason that the climate will continue to heat even if we cannot model exactly how much and when.
Damn… we need an edit feature.
That comet!
You know what I meant funny guy.
But your comet was funny.