Scientific Forecasting Methodologies and Man-made Climade Change

Lumi

Joe bastardi posted a link to this interesting paper earlier on his Twitter feed

Research to Date on Forecasting for the Man-made Global Warming Alarm


Basically it critiques the various forecasting procedures that have been employed to support the validity of man-made global warming and current governmental policy making in this area.

It takes a somewhat fresh approach to the debate in that it draws analogies between this 'alarm' and other historical scientific controversies. It also evaluates the effacy of these past governmental interventions and policy changes.

I've attached the full text of the paper below and would be interested to hear what others on the forum think about it

Sponge Bob

This came from the Heartland Institute who are Guns and Jesus and Fox TV are commies Nutcases of the highest order. So I won't bother commenting any further.

M.T. Cranium

The paper itself may fall short of ideal standards of academic inquiry, but it does try to answer a very important question, what are the current consensus predictions really based on? I think for the general public rather than professional scientist, this controversy needs to be boiled down to the following essential questions.

First, are the "computer models" that show large warming scenarios in the middle to late 21st century based on physics or on personal opinions sketched out in computer graphic form? The answer is probably a blend of both. Physics does suggest a progressive warming of the atmosphere as it acquires more carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases. However, the processes by which this warming continues, intensifies, spreads etc, are only vaguely understood and so personal opinion has to come into the programming. Assumptions are made about the spread of warming and feedback processes that follow. These assumptions could be completely wrong for all we know. Larger areas of open water in the arctic have, in past climate change episodes, been correlated with onset of glaciation rather than runaway warming. But that was in situations where there was not an external (i.e. human activity) source of carbon dioxide increase regardless of change in arctic climate. So we enter, even if we accept the AGW hypothesis, an area of almost completely unknown future processes. The honest answer is that we don't know what would happen if the arctic ocean lost its permanent ice cover.

In terms of what goes into the models, here again there is much room for debate about the "best fit" linear regression assumptions that are based on warming already logged since 1980 or further back if one prefers. The high variability of climate ensures that "best fit" will depend very much on the end points chosen and the importance assigned to recent data over less recent data. There has clearly been a flat-lining or slight downturn of the former increases since about mid-2007 in much of the global data, which is throwing the debate wide open as to whether this represents a disproof of steady warming, a demonstration of how a cold spell is now just a flat-line near normal interlude, or various other positions such as "here comes the altered climate from the feedback of the warm signal with the melting ice signal."

So what exactly is the altered climate? Will it evolve from this recent trend, will it involve alternating very warm and bland periods, will it evolve into higher variability, lower variability? Can the environmental circumstances really slow down or stop the North Atlantic Drift and if so, will that alone spell potential glacial downturns for Europe, or is that only possible if the hemisphere generally cools? And how much of what has recently happened would have been exactly the same without us and our greenhouse gas signal present?

This has always been a far more complicated scientific question than has been presented by either side in the evolving debate. I am convinced that we have no reliable way of knowing what, if any, part of recent trends or so-called "climate change" are down to human activity (our fault, or if you like the changes, our credit), and how much would be natural variability in a robust system that can handle our tinkering with relative ease. There is also the important but complicated side issue of particulate pollution and its effects on arctic ice and snow. We may be confusing signals in some of this research -- ice may be depleting more from changes in albedo than changes in ambient temperature. That of course feeds back to influence temperature. But it also feeds back to influence regional snowfall which then feeds back to influence air mass distribution.

Complicating things further (for me especially) are considerations of what causes atmospheric circulation. If the circulation is only a response to heat and moisture budget, then our greenhouse gas signal is clearly a potential circulation-altering factor. If circulation responds instead to external drivers and the set framework of a shifting magnetic field, then a different outcome is postulated, namely, the circulation is fixed by these external factors and any warming influence must be dissipated within the fixed circulation. What that would mean is more complicated, it would tend to set up more in terms of precipitation pattern shift than thermal pattern shift.

Now returning to the paper in question, which really does a superficial job of examining all of these questions about AGW hypothesis building, the reference to scientific "crises" of the past is interesting and perhaps a cautionary tale, but I disagree in part with their assessment. There was in fact considerable reality to the ozone hole and a lot of accurate diagnosis about how it was caused and what we could do about it (the problem is returning as third world countries expand into some of the banned technology that we were formerly using to create the ozone hole problem). The list also does not include acid rain, a problem that was correctly diagnosed and partially overcome through legislated change in air pollution standards. So the mere existence of a list of past failures of catastrophic theories would not really say much, if anything, about this episode.

Another factor that needs more discussion would be cost-benefit. Even if the theories are exactly right and we can reliably expect a 2 to 5 metre sea level rise through the 21st century, what will it really cost to prevent this, and can it be done at all? Should it be done? Are there alternatives? Are we stuck with the rising sea levels, or can we do something with the excess water over that long a period of time? After all, it won't all happen in one year. One possible answer there would be massive desalination projects for expansion of agriculture in Asia and Africa especially. If we took the combined military budgets of just the nations in those regions, let alone all countries on earth, surely we could construct massive desalination projects that could involve storage of sea water in specially engineered mega-holding-zones ... if you look at google earth and examine the terrain of Mauretania, for example, about half of that country is totally empty, just about at sea level, and could be transformed into an extension of the Atlantic with barriers and pumping systems regulating how much (if any, perhaps the problem will never materialize) excess water should be taken out of the world ocean. Then from that base, the Sahara region could be gradually transformed through large-scale irrigation and within two centuries it might be suitable for at least moderate agriculture and settlement. There could be room there for a billion people in what is now essentially a huge barren wasteland that straddles part of about ten countries (none are totally included in it so they would all benefit from these programs).

I think this would be a wise move even if we don't believe that AGW is real, because chances are at least 50-50 that a natural variability based rise in sea level is probable in the future. The Milankovich factors are very neutral for centuries to come and there is no real reason to suppose that glaciation will resume any time before at least 10,000 years into the future. While there is also no astronomical reason to suspect a warmer climate than the Post-glacial Optimal, we could get back to those levels, especially if human activity is worth a degree or two. A properly designed desalination project could handle changes in sea level but not be entirely dependent on them, so its own benefits could then be enjoyed regardless of whether they were helping avert sea level change or not.

Also, without going into details, I think that over two or three centuries it might be possible to engineer a more stable arctic climate even if the system appears to be heading towards a gradual meltdown of all northern ice and the depletion of the Greenland ice cap. The analogous problems in the southern hemisphere are probably much further removed in time, if they would ever happen at all, and also much less predictable given the role of regional ice sheet surges, etc. Greenland would likely just melt at about the rate of 2-5 cm sea level rise a year when it got to that stage. The Antarctic could theoretically alter sea levels in a much less regular and chaotic progression that could even include sudden surges of large proportions.

If I were the world's leading expert on this (or perceived to be) and it was just my call, I would say do nothing and see what happens, but start designing a massive desalination response. Except for the rise in sea level, global warming would probably play out mostly as global wetting. Not all of the changes would be harmful, some might be beneficial. The idea that change is always bad or potentially catastrophic, is something we have to allow to be exposed to critical scrutiny. Change is not always bad. The best point in the paper was this ... in 1830, it was observed that while we always get predictions that say things will get worse, in fact reality shows that things mostly keep getting better. So the whole paradigm of catastrophic change is flawed at its heart. And if you don't believe that, ask yourself this -- given the chance, but knowing you would have to stay, would you go back in time to any earlier part of human history? Sure you might say yes if you could get in the tardis and come back to 2011. I would like to go back to about 1975 and warn myself about a couple of things, but as for staying there, well only if I could be 26 again.

nacho libre

As a big 70s rock fan, i wouldn't mind being stuck in the early seventies:D

but seriously a very insightful post M.T. You have brains to burn.

M.T. Cranium

That's certainly the advice I get most frequently.

planetX

Love MTs post - but on whether the computer models are based on physics or personal opinion, I'd also add in the skewing effects of personal ambition. Negative results don't generally get attention in journals or conferences. There are a lot of nice careers being made by keeping up the hype, and coming up with ever more catastrophic models.