The godfather of global warming lowers the boom on climate change hysteria

Interesting choice of words "accurately" . How "accurate" do you want the models to be? Why don'y you give us some numbers and show us how "inaccurate" the models are instead of just making blanket statements?

 

It was not journalists making up global cooling in the 1970's. In my first post I included a quote about global cooling from a University of Wisconsin climatologist (1970's). If (a big if, I know) you read the National Geographic article, you will find it is full of data and quotes from scientists. Before you start dismissing the old global cooling scare, you should actually read some of these articles.

Certainly scientists know more about the climate than they did 40 years ago. That does not mean they know it all, or even know enough.

Over the past week, we have had a great example of the depth of knowledge of climatologists with Tropical Storm Debby. For 2 days, nobody knew where it would go. The computer models varied wildly. Seven models were used for Debby (you can find the models and the predictions at NOAA but a better site is http://www.wunderground.com/tropical/tracking/at201204_verify.html) . The models were wildly divergent, one model predicted it would move to the West (the European model, in fact), others North, South, East. So much for accurate computer models of the atmosphere.

And those hurricane models have been in development for decades, and tested and improved based upon experience with hundreds of hurricanes and tropical storms. They have been modified after the fact when almost perfect data is at hand. They are far more mature than the models used to study the global climate, yet the hurricane models are sometimes flat wrong, and many times all of these highly developed models don't agree with each other (as in TS Debby).

A hurricane is much simpler to model (and verify) than the global climate, but its still difficult and far from perfect.

So if climatologists are still learning to crawl, I don't trust them completely when they say they can run.

PS - the Australian Bureau of Meteorology typhoon track and intensity forecast accuracy is no better than the US hurricane accuracy.

 

You might want to take your own advice. As I have already pointed out, the NatGeo article was about uncertainty, not cooling.

Predicting where a hurricane will go is weather, not climate. And climate is easier to forecast than weather.

As an analogy use baseball. A batter with a batting average of .250 will get 25 hits for every 100 at bats; That is the climate. However, it is difficult to predict how many hits he will get every game; that is the weather.
So, no, a hurricane is not simpler to model (and verify) than the global climate.

 

it does no such thing, try reading the article before you make silly assumptions about what it says...

readers digest, time and newsweek are scientific journals are they? nooo, and Nat Geog made no claims to global cooling,NONE...

Also the March 1977 Readers Digest, "What’s Happening To Our Climate" by Samuel W. Matthews.

You can find the articles on your own.

Its interesting that scientists in the 1970's thought the cause of the global cooling was mankinds pollution. From Reid Bryson, then (1970's) director of the Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin:
[/QUOTE]I read them all in the 70's and even as a young kid I was smart enough to know it wasn't supported by the scientific community, it was a media driven story...even back then global cooling never had significant support in the scientific community, it was already global warming but the media wasn't interested in reporting that because a warmer climate wasn't a frightening story to the public and wouldn't sell magazines...

 

I have read teh National Geo article. The point is that climate cooling was a legitimate theory in the 1970's. All you have to do is go one step past teh NG article and look up the NG referenced papers and scientists.

Using the IPCC as a source in climatology is like using Sean Hannity as a source about Obama - neither are any good. The IPCC is a political organization with a political agenda. Using the IPCC is as ignortant as claiming there is unanimity in the scientific community regarding manmade global warming.

Here is a better article argueing that weather is easier than climate prediction - http://sciencepoliticsclimatechange.blogspot.com/2006/10/climate-models-vs-weather-models.html

Its full of holes but it gets your point across.

Unfortunately, there are 2 major problems with climate forecasting: lack of understanding; and lack of a statistical data base. Lack of understanding means there is not a good understanding of the climate, such as the full role of water vapor, sensitivity to radiative forcing (make a tiny error there and you go from global warming to global ice age), changes in cloud cover due to warming/cooling. Lack of a statistical data base is because we don't really know much about the climate more than about 200 years ago. There is various data samples from glaciers and such but that isn't complete.

Even if I agree that hurricanes (weather) are harder to model, the hurricane models should be superb and they are not. With a hurricane, tons of data is collected about the regions weather, cause and effect can be examined and the prediction models updated. With every hurricane and TS, knowledge is increased, models improved. Still we are far from understanding. Thats with almost perfect knowledge of hundreds of past storms.

So modeling the climate when there is not even one case of even remotely complete data, its largely speculation, I am not going to give a lot of credence.

 

Good for you that you were so smart in the 1970's. But your John Stuart Mill quote is still grossly in error (and you still have not corrected his name), I guess you were a scientific genius but a historical illiterate.

 

now that's populists pap!....even forty years ago global warming was the trend among scientists, of all the papers done from 1965-79 on the issue cooling was favoured by less than 10% of climate research and the case for warming now has overwhelming concensus...

more pap, it's not well understood by people such as yourself, because you can't comprehend it you assume no one else can either....

hurricane forecasting is weather that's the job of meteorologists not climatologists, you don't even comprehend the difference between weather and climate...

 

And if you had looked at MY graph - which you carefully cut from your reply - you would have seen that there was a proportion of scientists who were mooting a cooling cycle but the majority even then thought we were in for an increased warming.

Two more points 1. A single exemplar does not a scientific trend make - neither can it be used to "prove" anything. b) over what time and distance are you claiming for accuracy/inaccuracy? You will find that nearly everyone can be 95% accurate about forecasting if they are talking about the next 10 minutes - but if you are demanding 48 - 72 hours then no it will NOT be accurate - but then this sort of set up is usually done so that goal posts can be shifted later

 

I did look at your graph. I read all posts I respond to, and for the substantive ones go beyond the post and look at the actual sources before replying.

Because I do not repeat your entire message does not mean I ignored it. I normally do not repeat long posts when replying, its annoying, and unnecessary. Its only necessary to repeat enough to indicate to who and what I am replying. People that want to track back can simply click the reference to your post.

This is a forum with limited space. Complete responses are not possible or practical. All a person can do is put enough in a post to hopefully inspire some curiosity in the reader to pursue the subject on their own, hopefully with a mind that is a bit more open to foreign ideas.

TS Debby is a good example of poor forecasting because it is recent. It is not the only one. Its not supposed to be a definitive proof...see comment immediately above.

Prediction accuracy is quantitatively measured for 12, 24, and 48 hour predictions. You can find graphs such as http://www.bom.gov.au/cyclone/about/accuracy.shtml if you look. But you seem to be argueing that hurricane prediction is uncertain, which is my point. So maybe we agree on that item.

 

ewww strawman attack when you have nothing change the topic and make ad hominem attack ....mill quote and name was cut n' paste not mine and I don't even know if the quote is exact but I don't much care to correct it, if it annoys you so much the better I'll never correct it...and ya I'm evidently smarter than you I understand the difference between climate and weather, am I a genius? I have no idea, my kids are all of that level so maybe, I don't know or much care, I do know I have better critical thinking skills than you...my historical literacy ability? don't go there you'll be squashed...

 

lol, very good then. Your post says a lot about you.

 

That is a fine lucid theoretical argument. The problem is that the facts have contradicted your theory. While it is often the case the long term predictions are easier than short term predictions that is not an absolute and the final determination has to be made on a case by case basis. So far the data has proven that in the case of predictions short term weather of a hurricane vs. long term climate the short term predictions are more accurate than the long term predictions.

In the case of hurricanes they very rarely stray from the prediction cone. However in the case of long term climate prediction the models have come up empty with the original models failing to accurately predict the present climate.

Since climate science has failed to follow the usual rule of long term vs. shot term prediction perhaps there is an error in the initial assumptions used to make long term predictions in climate. Like say oh I don't know the temperature feedback of the earth.

 

We sure as heck know its getting warmer.

A thermometer will tell us that.
A rise in sea level will also tell us that.
A lack of sea ice will tell us .

Melting glaciers ...A lack of snow on top of mountains...growing deserts...shifting animal populations.

And above all....simple common sense.

Some joust with words but make no sense at all.

 

I see the denialists are still ignoring the smoking guns, those being the heat balance measurements, and the outgoing IR radiation decreasing in the greenhouse gas absorption bands.

http://spiedigitallibrary.org/proceedings/resource/2/psisdg/5543/1/164_1?isAuthorized=no

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2009JD011800.shtml

https://ams.confex.com/ams/Annual2006/techprogram/paper_100737.htm

Increased greenhouse gases explain these observations. If the denialists have an alternate explanation for it, they should present it. Attacking the messenger is not a scientific theory, but that's all the denialists do. They might want to try doing science instead. Propose a theory, make predictions based on the theory, and have those predictions come true. Mainstream scientists have done that over and over, so they have credibility. Almost all denialists refuse to even try, which is why they're considered political cultists instead of scientists.

(A few denialists have actually tried. And failed. For example, Svensmark proposed a cosmic ray theory, made a prediction, and ... the opposite happened. Thus, the cosmic ray theory was disproven. But give him credit for trying. At least he was attempting to do science, and trying and failing is part of that process.)

 

The problem is that a short term event is used to try to falsify a long term prediction. Last winter was a cold winter in Europe is a short term event which has no bearing on the long term climate prediction. "It has not warmed in 10 years" is a short term event which has no bearing on a long term climate event.

As a supposed expert on statistics, I am sure you know you need to define the accuracy required. You need to give us numbers on what the short term vs long term "accuarcy" is. If the prediction zone is large for hurricanes and small for climate, then the two cannot be compared.

And what is the "rule of long term vs. shot(sic) term prediction" that climate has failed to follow?

 

Yes and we have the projected range of climate models which is analogous to the cone of a hurricane forcast, including the newest and best IPCC model. Temperature has already moved outside of its range.

 

If this forum were as limited on space as you claim it would not have never ending "bar" threads - no this is an excuse to cherry pick. and a poor one at that

Depends on your definition of "accurate" If "accurate means "5 days from now the cyclone will be in your backyard and the winds will be exactly 195 kilometers per hour" then no we are NOT accurate but if we mean "There is a high degree of probability that the cyclone will cross the coast between 0700 and 0900 between Innisfail and Townsville" then yes there is an increasing accuracy in the models

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_cyclone_forecasting

 

I see - a link to yet another blog

And by the looks of it an anonymous one at that

Yep! I guess that is the only resource that can be used for a quote if you believe that all the real scientists are involved in a conspiracy to distort data

and it leaves me with the perennial question - why do people believe in the rantings of anonymous bloggers rather than the careful analysis of scientists and scientific institutes?

 

Com' on BB.....in 2000 the IPCC predicted climate disaster by now and it didn't happen.....that is a FACT. The failure of the IPCC models that the graph shows is a fact no less than the sun rises every morning, you cannot deny that. Just because a blogger posts the obvious does not make it no longer a fact.

 

What? Just like the Oregon petition is not a fraud? Show the the quote from the IPCC that predicts climate disaster by now (thinks to self "this will be entertaining since the TAR was actually released in 2001)

Now is this the bit you mean??

http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg2/pdf/wg2TARspm.pdf

Unless you have misplaced a zero and read 2010 for 2100 then I cannot see how you have come to the statement that "The IPCC predicted climate disaster by now"

If, however, you are talking extreme weather events then I think the recent floods seen throughout the world on an unprecedented scale just might fit that prediction at tad....................

 

Oh! And BTW - just because a blogger posts something does not make it factual either - see my signature

 

Where? I don't see any link to a blog.

I don't see any link to a blog. I do see a graph from a paper published in a reputable peer-reviewed atmospheric physics journal.

Strawman fallacy.

Please explain in what sense Prof Nicola Scafetta is an anonymous blogger, and the findings of his paper on the effect of harmonic astronomical cycles on climate are "rantings."

 

I guess if a disaster didn't happen in your back yard it didn't happen.

The desert is creeping up on the capital of China.
Cattlemen lost millions in Texas and New Mexico.
Australia had a flood the size of Poland.
Millions were displaced in Pakistan from flooding.
And the list goes on... this is just off the top of my head....didn't a bunch of people die in Europe because of heat related stress in 2004?

Just because people do not melt into a pile of goo on the sidewalk does not meant that global warming has no effect.

Check out the grain (corn and soybeans) forecast from June and compare it to the forecast for May.


The sun will continue to rise and you wll begin to dread seeing it come up.

 

You said you saw a link to a blog, not that someone with a blog also posted the same graph from Scafetta's paper.

I repeat: where is the link to the blog? You claimed Windigo linked to a blog. Where?

LOL! It appears you have some inkling of how La Carbonostra has turned a post hoc fallacy into a threat of global Armageddon by manipulating the presentation of data.