by Judith Curry
Our point is that the IPCC has bought into a very specific framing of “the problem” that has rendered climate policy ineffective and has foreclosed the possibility of public consent. – Silke Beck et al.
You may recall this previous paper by Silke Beck discussed at Climate Etc. Between Tribalism and Trust.
The journal Gaia has published a very interesting and timely paper by Beck and colleagues entitled Towards a Reflexive Turn in the Governance of Global Environmental Expertise: The Cases of the IPCC and IPBES. The authors are Silke Beck, Maud Borie, Jason Chilvers, Alejandro Esguerra, Katja Heubach, Mike Hulme, Rolf Lidskog, Eva Lövbrand, Elisabeth Marquard, Clark Miller, Tahani Nadim, Carsten Neßhöver, Josef Settele, Esther Turnhout, Eleftheria Vasileiadou, Christoph Görg.
The full manuscript is available online [link], below are some excerpts that I find to be particularly insightful:
As a response to the controversial release of climate scientists’ e-mails (the “climategate” affair) and arguments about errors in the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report (IPCC 2007), the alliance of national scientific academies – the InterAcademyCouncil( IAC) – was commissioned in March 2010 to conduct an independent evaluation of the procedures and processes of the IPCC. These events showed that in terms of public value it is the social practices and quality of knowledge making that matter as much as the content of the knowledge itself.
Although a perceived lack of public accountability can be regarded as one of the triggers of public controversy following “climategate”, there has been no evidence to date of any efforts to establish appropriate mechanisms of disclosure to address it. This narrowing of the outcomes of reform negotiations has been closely associated with the panel’s consensus-based decision-making procedures. Whenever matters of negotiation have been contested, consensus-based negotiations have led to a “lowest common denominator” – a minimum outcome accepted by all parties at that time. The requirement of unanimity and the orchestration of procedures, however (so runs the argument), leads to the fact that scientific findings and views deviating from the mainstream are systematically ignored or excluded. It is precisely those reform proposals that go beyond incremental revision of specific procedures and signal a need for structural adaptation, which remain highly contentious and have therefore largely been bracketed out of the intergovernmental negotiations, or else postponed. So far, no debate has ever taken place about the IPCC’s relationship to public policy and to its various global “publics” or about its normative commitments in terms of accountability, political representation, and legitimacy.
These difficulties also point to the more profound problem of how climate change issues are framed. The framing of climate change by the IPCC as a universal global risk reinforces the assumption that more and better consensual decision support will lead to public trust and political action. This assumption is not necessarily the solution, but might contribute to the problem of political inertia. If climate change risks were framed differently, then different forms of political action would open up – in relation, for example, to regional adaptation, local air quality, and energy services for the poor. Opening up the issue of climate change to different ways of framing is part of an enhanced reflexivity and social learning process.
Forms of integration and representation: Framing anthropogenic climate change as a global universal risk calls for particular scientific practices of up-scaling and a standardization of approaches. Continuing the quest for increasingly integrated and consensus-based decision support information may not be the most beneficial way to inform debates about diverse policy portfolios in politically contested fields such as energy supply and carbon dioxide removal. Here, cultural differences and preferences proliferate, and significant decisions can be taken at much smaller scales than the planet. Focusing on consensus, the IPCC becomes vulnerable to criticism relating to issues where no consensus exists (e.g., biofuels, solar radiation management technologies). Different protocols for expert deliberation across different knowledge domains may be needed as well as greater public transparency about how these protocols work in practice. This is one reason why the IPCC has to be “prized open” and re-constituted to reflect the changing political, social, and cultural worlds in which climate change now circulates.
Public accountability and participation: The events surrounding “climategate” demonstrated that public trust cannot be reduced to a function of the quality of science or the breadth and depth of consensus on science alone, as the IPCC had assumed. They showed that trust in science is related to the performance and persuasive power of the people and institutions who speak for science – and that not all countries interpret or trust the IPCC in similar ways. The IPCC’s chosen style of risk assessment and communication has also contributed to a unitary approach to representing scientific consensus as a single voice. Not acknowledging or inviting diverse voices to speak will fail to assuage the sense of mistrust.
From the Conclusions:
The argument we have made is twofold: first, as the IPCC experience shows, assessment panels must themselves change over time, sometimes radically; and second, those involved in each new domain for which an expert assessment body is convened must do the job of institutional design mostly from scratch – different assessment processes should be designed accordingly to address context-specific demands for knowledge(s).
This reflexive turn aims to generate a broad range of visions, pathways, and ways of responding that leave room for choice. For this reason we encourage experimentation with new forms and formats of governing expertise by bringing in largely neglected sources of knowledge, voices and options. The more perspectives are available to political actors, the wider the range of policy options that will be conceivable. A more reflexive and inclusive form of governing environmental expertise, based upon a more plural and participatory normative and epistemic framework, can make knowledge about environmental change more useful and increase politicians’ and the general public’s willingness to adopt new policies. Recognizing competing ways of seeing and knowing nature and society may contribute not only towards mapping out possible future trajectories of environmental change but also towards investigating a wider set of policy choices and constructing alternative framings and visions for society in the future.
I think there are some genuine insights in this paper, and I don’t disagree with a word that Beck et al. say.
Beck et al. provide some ideas on how to reform the IPCC. I have previously argued to Kill the IPCC. Personally, I don’t think it can be reformed, since the institution lacks the capacity for meaningful self reflection (not to mention the wisdom to change the organization in a meaningful way). Which leads us to the issue of ‘functional stupidity.’
Functional stupidity
I came across this paper published in Journal of Management via a tweet from Nasser Saidi: A Stupidity Based Theory of Organization, by Mats Alveson and Andre Spicer [link to abstract]. It provides some insights that are relevant to the IPCC particularly in light of the Beck et al. paper:
Abstract. In this paper we question the one‐sided thesis that contemporary organizations rely on the mobilization of cognitive capacities. We suggest that severe restrictions on these capacities in the form of what we call functional stupidity are an equally important if under‐recognized part of organizational life. Functional stupidity refers to an absence of reflexivity, a refusal to use intellectual capacities in other than myopic ways, and avoidance of justifications. We argue that functional stupidity is prevalent in contexts dominated by economy in persuasion which emphasizes image and symbolic manipulation. This gives rise to forms of stupidity management that repress or marginalize doubt and block communicative action. In turn, this structures individuals’ internal conversations in ways that emphasize positive and coherent narratives and marginalize more negative or ambiguous ones. This can have productive outcomes such as providing a degree of certainty for individuals and organizations. But it can have corrosive consequences such as creating a sense of dissonance among individuals and the organization as a whole. The positive consequences can give rise to self‐reinforcing stupidity. The negative consequences can spark dialogue, which may undermine functional stupidity.
From my perspective, the above description fits the IPCC to a ‘T’.
JC reflections
I regard the IPCC as an impediment to both the scientific and policy processes. Beck et al. provide a good diagnosis of the problem, but nature of a useful ‘cure’, and the process by which such a cure is actually implemented, remains elusive. Bringing the academic organizational management community into such discussions would at least be interesting, and possibly useful.
In the meantime, I will be personally encouraging any developments that I see that will break up the IPCC’s monopoly on climate knowledge.
Standard Models are inherently stupid orthodoxy.
Standard Models are code words for financially rewarding but inherently stupid orthodoxy.
Without code words, research workers might change models to fit observations, instead of changing observations to fit Standard Models.
Skeptics won the AGW debate. Now we need to help society accept that Standard Models were adopted to try to save the planet from nuclear annihilation in the closing days of WWII:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/10640850/CHAOS_and_FEAR_August_1945.pdf
To peacefully end sixty-nine years of scientific tyranny, we skeptics need to publicly admit that world leaders and nuclear scientists had valid reason to believe Earth’s atmosphere might be accidently ignited, and Earth changed into a star in the CHAOS following the first atomic bombing of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945.
“To peacefully end sixty-nine years of scientific tyranny”, …more accurately, 69 years of academically supported and propagandized tyranny. The scientific method itself does not support *any* particular type of government. However, the last 500 years have shown repeated instances of academic institutions selling opinions to governments donating large sums of money. This started no later than Henry VIII’s “gifts and donations” to several great universities in Europe, whose faculty then churned out opinions that his divorce from Catherine of Aragon was justified.
Today the Congressional Space Science and Technology Committee has a hearing of the UN’s IPCC: http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2014/05/29/gore-effect-strikes-washington-again/
Thank you, Professor Curry, for your courage and diligence in steadily deciphering the November 2009 Climategate emails and documents.
Did Stalin emerge victorious in the chaotic, but unreported events of August 1945?
In 1946, George Orwell started writing “Nineteen Eighty-Four.”
In 1949, Orwell prepared a list of prominent citizens in the West that he suspected of being Stalin’s communist agents.
==> “If climate change risks were framed differently, then different forms of political action would open up – in relation, for example, to regional adaptation, local air quality, and energy services for the poor. ”
I love it when confident conclusions such as this are formed, but smart, knowledgeable people, w/o sufficient evidence to support their confidence.
That isn’t to say that the status quo shouldn’t be reformed. What the hey. Reform away. But the conclusion stated above simply ignores the abundant evidence related to the causal relationship between motivated reasoning and the polarization seen in the climate wars.
So why do smart, knowledgeable people ignore abundant evidence to form confident conclusions for which the evidence is lacking? And why do self-described “skeptics” fall right in line with that kind of fallacious reasoning.
The fallacies in how people reason are works of art, and things of beauty.
You are an excellent example of that which you describe, Joshua.
Please elaborate, Tom – preferably if you can do so w/o insulting me.
Joshua. you ‘ignore abundant evidence’ that Judith Curry is trying to be a force for good in this debate. Has she made mistakes? Yes. Does that detract from her impact? Only with you and willard and those you reach on other blogs.
But nothing budges your motivated reasoning.
When will willard wonder well? When will the IPCC?
==================
Tom is right, Judith has the best of intentions.
Lest we forget that the Road to Heaven is also paved with good intentions. You just have to watch the road signs.
==================
” If climate change risks were framed differently, then different forms of political action would open up – in relation, for example, to regional adaptation, local air quality, and energy services for the poor. ”
“I love it when confident conclusions such as this are formed, but smart, knowledgeable people, w/o sufficient evidence to support their confidence.”
The examples have been around for a while Joshua.
Its called adaptive governance
Here is a book, Judith recommends it ( so you will surely hate it)
http://www.amazon.com/Adaptive-Governance-Climate-Change-Brunner/dp/1878220977
If you cant afford it I can send you a pre publication pdf.
dolt
“The book provides an alternative to the IPCC’s approach (on climate change) by suggesting an adaptation strategy, something that is now discussed by many scientists and policymakers. The first two chapters of the book provide a background on the UNFCCC and the IPCC and the ultimate objective to get an international agreement on GHG reduction. The emergence of adaptive governance in recent years at local and regional levels is described as an outgrowth of UNFCCC’s unsuccessful attempts to come to terms with developed vs developing nations on GHG targets. The adaptive governance approach is characterized as a ‘bottom up’ approach to climate change rather than the ‘top down’ approach taken by UNFCCC and its ongoing process of negotiating world-wide GHG targets.
This approach is further exemplified in chapter three using a case study for Barrow Alaska (located west of the Beaufort Sea at lat ~71N), a small community of a few thousand permanent residents. The climate change impact in Barrow and the North Slope is identified primarily through an intense storm of October 1963 and several other subsequent storms. This chapter, the longest in the book, discusses how the local and regional government initiatives helped develop adaptation strategies to minimize extreme weather impacts. The next chapter of the book provides a framework for developing adaptive governance as a decentralized approach to climate change with community-based initiatives. “
All climate is local.
========
Groundskeeper Willie begs for mercy and then exploits my name.
That’s great.
Hi Tom –
==> “Joshua. you ‘ignore abundant evidence’ that Judith Curry is trying to be a force for good in this debate.”
Not at all. I have said many times that I think that Judith is trying to be a force for good in this debate.
I think that Michael Mann is also. Same for you. For al neipris. For Anthony Watts and Christopher Monckton. For Oliver Manuel. I think that everyone here is “trying to be a force for good in this debate.”
I don’t see why recognizing that, and acknowledging that, should mean that critiques of reasoning should not be offered, whether it is a critique of Judith’s reasoning, or yours, or Bengtsson’s, or Olivers.
What’s interesting is how self-described “skeptics,” who pride themselves in being skeptical, clutch their pearls so because I deign to criticize Judith’s reasoning.
Why do you suppose that is, Tom?
==> “Has she made mistakes? Yes. Does that detract from her impact? Only with you and willard and those you reach on other blogs.”
Obviously, Judith has considerable impact in the climate wars (if not necessarily on the overall balance of public opinion).
What does any of that have to do with whether or not criticizing her reasoning is the same thing as “insulting” her, “attacking” her, blah, blah, blah?
I’m not really sure what “mistakes” you’re speaking about – I don’t really think of flawed reasoning as a “mistake,” but yes, my point has been all along that, IMO, Judith’s impact could be more productive than it is, if she weren’t so selective in how she applies her evaluative criteria to the “debate” aspect of the climate wars. I’m not in a position to comment on her science.
It’s just an opinion, Tom. Just a troll’s opinion.
Looks like my comment has landed in moderation. Let me see if I can find what was so offensive:
Hi Tom –
==> “Joshua. you ‘ignore abundant evidence’ that Judith Curry is trying to be a force for good in this debate.”
Not at all. I have said many times that I think that Judith is trying to be a force for good in this debate.
Mosh,
While I appreciate your message and book for Joshua and the rest of us, you could have thought about it and deleted dolt. Although he can get under ones skin he is no dolt. He often makes good arguments and usually engages those that respond. I know I can use my own advise … just saying.
I use the dolt on purpose.
He is given a choice:
1) attend to the argument and read the book (I’ve offered it to him before with no answer )
2. Focus on the insult.
Since Joshua always takes the easy way out, I offer it to him in a crystal clear manner. You could plead with him to read the science, you could buy him a book to open his mind, I bet you could offer to pay him to try to open his mind and he would still return to doing what he enjoys, willard too:
derailing Judith, being petty, spiteful, dishonest, quibbling, obtuse. etc
ordvic,
Mosher is only partly correct. He left off dishonest. One might argue against the dolt tag, but there is no questioning of the dishonest part.
> derailing Judith
This explains why we read just about the same stuff every three days or so for a few years already.
INTEGRITY ™ – est. 2010.
Willard:
Willard, if that is true then it does seem astonishing that you hang around… tastes differ, but I sure would not care to be someplace that was all about constant repetition…. but then I’ve only been here off and on for some months or so. There does seem to be a lot of new material for me to chew upon.
The material may differ, Skiphil, but the editorial line is about the same. Also note the “previously, at Judy’s” at the end of today’s commentary.
Non nova, sed nove.
–Michael | May 27, 2014 at 10:39 am |
Tom is right, Judith has the best of intentions.–
Yes, she on side of advancing the science.
That intention could be considered “normal” except
in regard to the pseudo science called, climate science.
One also say she is on the right side of history.- unlike a US president
who tend to use the phrase , “right side of history” in a different and misplaced context.
I made the perfect post and lost it! Dang!
Oh well since Josh admitted that his fallicious reasoning critique was just a trolls opinion we can get back to labeling since we practice it all the time and do so well with it. Willard , it may be monotonous but practice makes perfect.
Words of wisdom, ordvic, words of wisdom.
The almost complete rejection of the IAC recommendations was pretty much an institutional line in the sand for the IPCC. They don’t want people telling them how to do what they do. Well,I guess few people do.
Killing a bureaucratic entity is harder than it sounds. In the U.S and UK, many bureaucracies live long past their sell-by date.
The IPCC can be marginalized–it often seems to be working towards that end unintentionally. As I agree with your assessment of its utility, Judith, I think marginalization of the IPCC should be a strategy pursued by its opponents.
The current competing organizations have been tarred and feathered pretty completely, so something new is needed.I see possibilities in places like Climate Dialogue and Tamsin Edward’s blog.
I’d love to see this blog be part of it and I firmly believe you are trying to achieve that end. But there are too many xxx’s and yyyy’s running about. It’s not what they say here, of course, but they spread their accusations and innuendo throughout the blogosphere.
“The almost complete rejection of the IAC recommendations was pretty much an institutional line in the sand for the IPCC.”
Hmmmm.
‘Almost complete’ – sounds like a rhetorical excess* there Tom.
* more commonly known as a lie.
A few days ago the Bish sadly chopped up a lovely caricature William Connolley made of himself trying to call the Bish a liar. We now have a substitute, just as apt, but lacking in the sheer majestic magnitude of the original.
=========
Speaking of the IAC recommendations, does anyone have the drafts and the transcripts of the discussions?
no rhetorical excess, Michael — kindly review the IAC material to explain how many IAC recommendations were implemented by the IPCC.
http://reviewipcc.interacademycouncil.net/ReportNewsRelease.html
Guess we all missed out on noticing any “fundamental reform” but maybe you can point us to it. Strengthening of procedures?? Lip service offered but almost nothing of substance impoemented. And so on….
Despite a very softball approach to avoiding damning criticisms of the IPCC, the IAC report did list many steps which should be implemented.
I’d love to see someone’s idea of a “report card” which could indicate how the IPCC even took the IAC report seriously…. never mind actually implementing most of these recommendations, which did not happen:
http://reviewipcc.interacademycouncil.net/report/Chapter%205%20-%20Conclusions.pdf
I’d love to see a “report card” which could indicate how the report card underwriters implement the IAC report recommendations. I could not care less if they take it seriously or not, as long as they implement these recommendations.
Did the IAC follow its own recommendations?
Willard, you are certainly free to raise a different topic, but Tom, Michael, and I were discussing whether or not it was “rhetorical excess” (Michael also asserted it was a “lie”) to assert that the IPCC displayed an “almost complete rejection” of the IAC recommendations.
Whether or not the IAC should follow its own recommendations would require a thorough study of the current structure and procedures of the IAC, would it not?
If there is any hypocrisy in the IAC that might be interesting in its own right, but what does it have to do with evaluating the IPCC?
Tom, Skippy and kim could look here for a summary of all they need to know.
http://www.ipcc.ch/organization/organization_review.shtml
Tom’s rhetorical excess is in stark contrast to the details.
And Beck et al’s silliness.
Judith joined in for good measure.
Remember “almost complete rejection” ! – I know how the ‘skeptics’ have been so critical of the IPCC’s use of ‘likely’, ‘very likely’ etc. Perhaps Tom will step up and tell us exactly what “almost complete” is – 99%. 95%???
> Whether or not the IAC should follow its own recommendations would require a thorough study of the current structure and procedures of the IAC, would it not?
Actually, Skiphil, reading the IAC report should suffice.
You have read it, haven’t you?
willard (@nevaudit) | May 27, 2014 at 12:20 pm |
“Speaking of the IAC recommendations, does anyone have the drafts and the transcripts of the discussions?”
http://www.ipcc.ch/meetings/session32/ipcc_IACreview_decisions.pdf
Not a transcript, but a report of the initial discussions/decisions taken at the 32nd Session in response to the IAC report
Here you go, Michael:
http://planet3.org/2012/01/24/the-sopa-victory-and-the-quandary-of-sustainability/#comment-2988
Remember earmarks.
willard (@nevaudit) | May 27, 2014 at 7:48 pm |
yes, thx Willard, I have read the IAC report, which is why I do not know what you mean when you claim that the IAC report could be applied to its own organization in some straightforward manner. Many of the IAC’s recommendations seem rather specific to the IPCC, talking about the functions of Review Editors, Working Group reports etc. How can one know what is relevant to the operations of the IAC itself without reviewing quite a lot of detail about the IAC? If you are simply talking about broad principles such ad transparency, rapid and effective communication, more explicit qualifications for participants and more explicit procedures, all fine as general principles and recommendations for just about any modern organization with a public constituency, then fine.
But many detailed points in the IAC’s recommendations to IPCC do not apply in any obvious way(s) to the IAC, so far as I can see.
Anyway, why are we even talking about the IAC as an organization???
This is a remote tangent compared to the head post for this thread and compared to assessing the IPCC, which is what most of us are more interested in doing. If you want to worry about the IAC itself, feel free…. it is not very high on my own list of all the stuff in the world which can occupy my attention.
I’m sorry I was not clear enough, Skiphil:
> The review procedure and draft manuscript
remain confidential to protect the integrity of the
deliberative process.
Now, please tell me what this implies regarding the implementation of its recommendations by the IPCC.
Hope this helps,
Willard, ok, that quote definitely helps, thx. I thought you were referring to the entire IAC and all of its staff, committees, reports etc.
Yes, the IAC seems to be incapable of following its own types of advice on transparency, effective communication, etc. I don’t think that means their advice to the IPCC is bad, but it may suggest that many/all bureaucracies resist transparency and openness right down to the last gasp.
willard,
What happened to your participation in an exercise of critical thinking? Or were you just, shall we say, Joshin’?
willard,
I see.
GaryM –
willard can do what he wants, but I won’t tag him until you either reject or accept my challenge.
Turning it into a different challenge won’t work. That’s just ducking.
Oh,no freaking no! I am so disappointed in Gary. Little joshie challenged him to engage in some sort of foolishness and Gary ain’t playing fair.
> What happened to your participation in an exercise of critical thinking?
Which exercise, GaryM? Show me how we do that. You go first.
Oh. Was that appeal to pride a “neat trick” way to make me work for you again?
GaryM,
I thought you were coaxing me to reflect on the IAC’s “secrecy.” But now I know what you mean. You are referring to the mirroring exercise. That’s not really critical thinking for me. It’s more related to Bart R’s READ HARDER.
I call this mirroring because it has currency in psychotherapy. You say what the interlocutor just said in a way that you show an understanding of what is said and to acknowledge that interlocutor. People want to be heard and seen:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lF8ZP6bRo74
I’m onto a version 1.0. I’ll post it in the next open thread. I don’t promise something as good as Flintoff’s coaching.
Sorry for my misunderstanding.
> I don’t think that means their advice to the IPCC is bad, but it may suggest that many/all bureaucracies resist transparency and openness right down to the last gasp.
The IAC’s recommendations seem good enough to me, Skiphil. But I think that transparency should be balanced with the need to preserve the integrity of deliberative processes. I think it makes little sense to request that everything be aired public, including zeroth drafts. Of if you do, don’t do it at the expense of people who thought they were saying things privately for the sake of winning the weekly ClimateBall ™ hurly burly.
Plain common sense, if you ask me.
***
Even Wegman’s recommendations are good to me, actually. The usual problem with recommendations is how to implement them. See for instance:
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2010/litigation-copyright-fair-use-us-speech-and-debate-clause/#comment-54205
Seems that it’s more amusing to parse the word “truism” than to wonder how the hell we should implement the Wegman recommendations.
I look forward to Tom’s clarification, when he has time to drop in.
willard,
OK. Good timing too, You saved me from writing post explaining.
But to be clear, what I was suggesting was not what you call mirroring.
“You say what the interlocutor just said in a way that you show an understanding of what is said and to acknowledge that interlocutor.”
I am not talking about going to some skeptic site then repeating here what you read there. My initial offer to the ankle biter was that it be done without googling etc.
There are a whole host of topics that are the subject of regular debate, ECS, sea ice extent, feedbacks, attribution, GCMs, etc. The question was whether a warmist could state, fairly and fully, the skeptical position on any such topic. In return for which I agreed to set forth the consensus position, just as fully and fairly. And I agreed to go first, once whoever it was agreed to the format.
The question is whether you can articulate skeptical positions fairly on your own. Whether you understand the sufficiently, and can state them fairly. As opposed to the Skeptical Science straw man style caricature of skeptical positions.
That is why it would require critical analysis. You have to, yourself, make the argument that best exemplifies the weakness in your own position.
So if you want to wait for an open thread, great. Pick the topic, post it, and I will attempt to present the consensus position on that topic. You respond with the skeptical position.
The only cavet is if you want to use what I think you called a grand argument, you will have to go first so I know the scope of what you want to talk about. (It seems to me that Dr. Curry posited three “grand arguments” on the previous “The heart of the climate dynamics debate” thread.)
In any event, your choice. let me know when you are ready, and the topic.
Tom Fuller | May 27, 2014 at 9:12 am | Reply
“The almost complete rejection of the IAC recommendations…”
Indefensible, Tom?
I wonder if the IPCC’s struggles have anything to do with the fact that climate scientists can’t produce any evidence that mankind is changing the climate.
Andrew
That does not seem to matter to the leaders who determine what everyone else in the IPCC must believe.
We keep getting people who won’t go back and people who they won’t let come back. They get branded as not qualified. You cannot have more than 3% doubt and still stay a part of the process.
The IPCC is no reformable the way Judith or anybody else would like.
It was built with one purpose only–to address the “Concern[ed] that certain human activities could change global climate patterns, threatening present and future generations with potentially severe economic and social consequences…” The particular human activities are spelled out as “…continued growth in concentrations of ‘greenhouse’ gases…”
That’s from the UN’s General Assembly in 1988, when the ball was kicked off. There is little room for the IPCC to find anything different, since the IPCC seed already contains the conclusion: “…the effects of which could be disastrous for mankind if timely steps are not taken at all levels….”
Sure, this one sentence gets thrown in as an afterthought: “Recognizing the need for additional research and scientific studies into all sources and causes of climate change….” but it’s surrounded by “…[man’s] emissions of certain substances…” and “…greenhouse gases…” ensuring all that we are not talking about anything natural.
The IPCC is built for a mission, and like any good religion it claims absolute authority: “By endorsing the IPCC reports, governments acknowledge the authority of their scientific content.” (from the IPCC’s auto-referential organization description)
The world’s governments tasked the IPCC with finding certain foregone conclusions, then they ceded authority to the IPCC over whatever conclusions it would arrive at. For the IPCC to find anything different from CAGW would be a failure of the bureaucracy in its mission, and it would risk being (gasp!) shut down. Further, it would have to relinquish its massive authority, and maybe even give back its Nobel Peace Prize.
It will take one huge wooden stake to put down this beast. It will probably only happen when the remaining real scientists in the field begin to refuse collaborating with the IPCC. Rid it from within of any real authority.
A poisoned chalice. Oh, how the thirsty have sluiced.
===========
Yes the IPCC should be abolished. Natural Variability should be studied. Assume that when model output disagrees with actual data, then it is the data that is right and the Models must be wrong. If the model output does not have natural cycles that always go up and down then the Theory is missing something Important. The Theory and Models do not have the Polar Ice Cycles. It snows more when oceans are warm and thawed and it snows less when oceans are cold and frozen. Put that in the Theory and Models.
===> “The more perspectives are available to political actors, the wider the range of policy options that will be conceivable. A more reflexive and inclusive form of governing environmental expertise, based upon a more plural and participatory normative and epistemic framework, can make knowledge about environmental change more useful and increase politicians’ and the general public’s willingness to adopt new policies. ”
My fans at Climate Etc. will no doubt be aware that I am very much in favor of building participatory frameworks for decision-making and policy-making in response to the risks of ACO2 emissions. Yes, participatory processes are the way to leverage serious investment of participants and ownership over outcomes. But you can only make participatory democracy work when the participants are engaged in good faith.
Actually Joshua, your fans at Climate Etc. have reached quite a different conclusion about your goals with regards to climate change and the social and political structures needed to address it.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/11/AR2011031103810.html
==> “Actually Joshua, your fans at Climate Etc. have reached quite a different conclusion about your goals with regards to climate change and the social and political structures needed to address it.”
W/o evidence, Tom.
I contrast, I can provide you with myriad examples of my fans formulating inaccurate conclusions about my “goals” – no doubt you among them.
Certainly, your bud Steven is aware of this. Notice his comments in response to some of my comments about participatory processes to deal with climate change.
http://judithcurry.com/2013/09/21/politics-of-the-2c-target/#comment-384631
http://judithcurry.com/2011/08/23/climate-boomerangs/#comment-103751
And since my Climate Etc. fans like to discuss my comments at other websites:’
http://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2014/02/02/the-bbc-and-its-balance/
http://www.culturalcognition.net/blog/2013/5/21/cultural-resistance-to-the-science-of-science-communication.html
Joshua, “But you can only make participatory democracy work when the participants are engaged in good faith.” … and when you give them the benefit of their faith.
(btw, due to the link limitations, I only gave a representative sampling.) I can provide more links if you’re interested, Tom.
“My fans at Climate Etc. will no doubt be aware that I am very much in favor of building participatory frameworks for decision-making and policy-making in response to the risks of ACO2 emissions.”
The sad thing is I really think you believe this.
Bernd –
==> ” … and when you give them the benefit of their faith.”
Perhaps you were being sarcastic (“skeptics” often make reference to “religious zealotry” among “realists”). But I agree with that statement.
Joshua,
How’s the job search going?
Andrew
From Joshua’s link.
“The GOP plan would cut spending for NOAA operations by nearly 10 percent below the budget enacted last year.”
So… A 10% cut in funding from historic highs can ONLY mean we must stop all services that warn people about tsunamis and storms. The remaining 90% of NOAA’s budget simply couldn’t possibly be used for actual weather-related activities. No, no. We must cut those tsunami warnings because we must fund the next 50 studies of “ocean acidification impact on snails (an actual NOAA accomplishment according to their website)”
Because, you know, there’s no such thing as a government agency that could withstand a 10% cut without killing people. Do you guys really think anyone buys this argument or is it so reflexive at this point that you just can’t help yourselves?
Has Joshua yet to extend good faith to any of his interlocuters? Sure, it would have been easy for me to miss it.
=============
Tom
You have to realize that Joshua talks a good game with respect to participatory decision making.. but I think we need to judge people by
the bulk of their behavior:
Make a pile of every spiteful, petty, stupid distracting thing Joshua has said about Judith.
Make a pile of the 14 words he’s written about participatory decision making.
ya, he cares about it. The height of the pile tells you how much.
Joshua,
If everybody is so mistaken about your goals, maybe it is your communication that is at issue? Naaah!
What communication?
You have fans? Maybe fan and I’m not sure he counts.
Joshua,
Make a pile of spiteful, petty, stupid distracting ClimateBall ™ comments and blog posts.
Then bring me a cup of coffee.
IAC Report with key quotes from text summarised under six categories:
Political interference
Bias
Uncertainty
Conflict of interest
Management
Click on the red text to go to the text in the main document to see the excerpt in context.
For more breakdowns see:
2: IAC’s Report on the Processes and Procedures of the IPCC
http://tome22.info/Top/AnnotatedDocuments.html
Nature abhorring a vacuum, I think we should discuss first what would, could and should replace the IPCC before sending them off to retirement.
The only replacement available for the IPCC is the United States military.
@Tom Fuller, “what would, could and should replace the IPCC…? ” Nothing. The perverse conceit that the world is in need of an organisation devoted to the study of anthropogenic climate change is the better part of the problem. There are all sorts of phenomena, real or, like CAGW, imagined, for the study of which we have no international organisation. Their absence does not constitute a ‘vacuum’. That’s not to say that, once the CO2 obsession fades, it won’t be replaced with another bedwetting middle-class fantasy, but that will happen spontaneously – there’s nothing you or I can do about it.
Tom
A more interesting question might be whether such an organisation as the IPCC would ever have been set up in the first place if the impetus to do so had come any time but the early 1990’s. I suspect that a decade later it would never have got off the drawing board.
tonyb
A self-organizing tropical storm, now dying from lack of warming.
========
Tom, my vote is “nothing.” For the reason, see President Eisenhower’s farewell address. A “scientific elite” is likely to do a great deal of harm and very little good.
More sociological waffle.
“the institution lacks the capacity for meaningful self reflection … Which leads us to the issue of ‘functional stupidity.’ – Judith
Inanimate objects do tend to lack that quality – this statement is plain old stupid.
Well, Pachauri aside, I believe the members at IPCC do mostly have a pulse…
Most organizations these days do set time aside for self-reflection on their aims or mission and how they are succeeding… or not. Perhaps your blog personality is an indicator of inability to prosper within a modern organization. There are some a few centuries back that seem well-suited to your style.
And yet the IPCC has had reviews and sought feedback etc…..
Why the need to misrepresent?
Yes, why does the IPCC so badly misrepresent?
=============
What’s impressive about Beck et al (and it really is et. al.) is that upon peeling away one layer of waffle, there’s is another…then another.
It could be easily reduced to about 2 sentences without losing much, if anything. But Sociology is about talking as long as possible, to say as little as possible in the most complicated way possible.
It gets extra points for “Towards” and “reflexive” in the title.
“the institution lacks the capacity for meaningful self reflection … Which leads us to the issue of ‘functional stupidity.’ – Judith
“And yet the IPCC has had reviews and sought feedback etc–Micheal.
“observe the word meaningful” – mosher.
Micheal rather than just gainsay everything that Judith writes, you might engage in some thinking.
Question: Is the IPCC perfect?
Question: what would you do to improve it?
Question: can it be improved?
Question: has it engaged in meaningful ‘self reflection’ also known
as an internal audit.
Judith thinks it’s broken. So do others, Hulme among them. Its an open question. Not settled.
“And yet the IPCC has had reviews and sought feedback etc…..”
Having reviews and seeking feedback is only half of the process. Can you guess what the other half is?
Clue: Explore the idea of looking at the IAC recommendations as if it was an external audit situation. Would the IPCC be getting their certification?
Let me indulge in some mosherisms;
What does “meaningful” mean?
What is ‘broken’? – AR5 just come out so the IPCC is obviously functioning.
—————————————————-
” rather than just gainsay everything that Judith writes” – mosher
Hmmm. “everything”, deserves due diligence.
Is Judith / CE perfect?
What would you do to improve it?
Can it be improved?
I think it’s broken. Others do too.
It’s an open question.
My apologies for questioning, rather than White Knight-ing.
Why don’t we just start pronouncing it ‘Ipecac’?
==================
The world’s poor, just now tasting the fruits of fossil fueled development, are to be forced to vomit them back up?
==============
They’re all gonna die in Koldies’ upcoming Ice Age anyway, so who cares?
You have such a lovely way with words, kim.
Thanks, Bob, you are one of my inspirations.
No, Michael, more Techno-Optimists are born every day than Malthusian Doomsayers. The Doomsayers have to be created with a false narrative. I’ve said for years that if we are false-footed into mitigating a warming that isn’t coming, and may even be good if it does, instead of adapting to a cooling that is coming then there will be Hell to pay, a rodeo of apocalyptic horsemen.
==================
You mean the Ice Age that might be just around the corner….in about 20,000 yrs time??
At least one person is lying awake at night worrying about that.
That’s probably enough.
Keep it up.
I see the Holocene winging its way closer and closer to the glaciated attractor. Neither you nor I know when the moth touches the flame.
======================
You’re right, it could be as close as 10,000 yrs.
Don’t stop collecting bits of coal coal in that old sock.
Given slow, beneficial warming vs sudden cooling, I’ll choose the Lady and the Tiger.
=============
You underappreciate the value of AnthroCO2 at shielding the moth from the flame.
==========
Ipecac solves a problem. the IPCC does not.
This is another of those catchy little curves which illustrate the miscalculation of the alarmists. The higher the climate sensitivity, the more effective AnthroCO2 is at shielding the moth from the flame.
===============
pj, for the deep ecologists, and many of their fellow travelers, starving the poor of energy is going to solve a problem.
================
er…. CO2 is a trace gas with no significant effect… ECS is very low….there’s no such thing as the greenhouse effect….
Must be one long-lived moth.
Now you’re blithering, Michael. What’s your attraction to that?
==========
Instinct.
re: Ipecac
ohh I wish I’d thought of that one! Nice going, Kim!
It does suggest a new nickname for …. FOMI ….. Fan of More Ipecac
I don’t know why I never thought of it before, skiphill. They’ve nauseated me for years.
============
Exactly, that was blithering – ‘skeptic’ talk.
Even Koldie is learning.
No Michael, that is your misconception of skeptic speech. Stand, like Balboa, on the Peaks of Darien.
======
Kind of like what actors in old movies did to mimic a foreign language when they had no clue how to speak it. They hoped the audience did not either.
Kim is worried about falling even though there’s no hole in sight. Ignores the fact we are running towards a brick wall.
Hey if you want to worry about nearby holes at least contemplate the possibility that the hole is behind the wall. Longer drop.
Michael,
If the next Ice Age is 20,000 years away, it would almost certainly be a result of AGW.
With a 10 – 15 thousand year average, this particular inter-glacial is likely well into its “senior years” if not on its last legs.
Micheal,
What do you consider the optimum temperature for the earth and why?
I am not sure academia have the appropriate skills. The evidence on ‘The Converasation’ is that academia have become far Left extremists. They appear to appeal to authority (the IPCC and the 97% concensus) and are strongly ideologically partisan. They are gatekeepers who delete the comments that do not support their far left ideological agenda. https://theconversation.com/the-budget-shows-were-now-flying-blind-on-climate-change-26833#comment_380866
That’s a window into modern academia. I think they are at least as bad as the IPCC.
That’s not surprising Peter. If we are to buy Dr. Curry’s talking point premise there are “sides” and by implication morally, intellectually and ethically equal in the schism. “Politics”……..
It’s absurd but generally accepted and supported by many “skeptics”. Dr. Curry legitimizes what is illegitimate on the face of it, the AGW agenda treated as rational with “science” supports.
As for all the recent “position” introspection, about 25+ years late on the substance and they we have to accept the false equivocation of the dispute to boot. This isn’t contrition for great wrongs perpetrated in the name of “science”. It isn’t how it will read in any history book worth keeping in the future.
[I left out the main link in my previous comment. Here is the comment repeated with the missing link]
http://tome22.info/IAC-Report/IAC-Report-Overview-Short.html
IAC Report with key quotes from text summarised under six categories:
Political interference
Bias
Uncertainty
Conflict of interest
Management
Click on the red text to go to the text in the main document to see the excerpt in context.
For more breakdowns see:
2: IAC’s Report on the Processes and Procedures of the IPCC
http://tome22.info/Top/AnnotatedDocuments.html
‘These events showed that in terms of public value it is the social practices and quality of knowledge making that matter as much as the content of the knowledge itself’
If they walk like shysters, talk like shysters and act like shysters………..nobody will believe them..no matter how ‘Real’ they claim their work to be.
Send shysters, gats, and loot. We don’t need no stinkin’ knowledge.
=============
@kim
Shurely shome mishtake. You meant
‘Send shysters, models, and loot. We don’t need no stinkin’ observations’.
(Good to see that you’re an Oxonian – at least where it comes to commas)
Heh, GCMs are siege gats. As for the commas, those are the hoofbeats of the oxen over the bridge.
================
@kim
‘the hoofbeats of the oxen over the bridge’
The bridge. At Ox*ford*. Right. Maybe things are different in your country?
Oops, stumbled over submerged rocks.
=========
In science failed predictions are not failures but learning points.
If the IPCC would embrace its failures
(hockey stick, Himalayan glaciers, .2 per decade warming, overestimating population trends ) we would be closer to reality.
However, while politics are done by committee, science is not.
Ummm… won’t the relocated water simply evaporate or sublimate and end up precipitating back into the sea?
Oops, wrong thread. Sorry.
Regarding narrowly focused reasoning on one particular issue, sea-level rise, I did a quick calculation on the costs of simply pumping the sea water to a higher basin like you would if your pond level was too high. I’ll cross post my comment from another forum:
****
The calclations are pretty straightforward. The area of the Earth’s oceans are 361 million square kilometers, or 3.61e14 square meters, so the volume of a one meter increase in sea level is 3.61e14 cubic meters, with a freshwater mass of 3.61e17 kg.
You’re going to move this mass inland with a centrifugal pump that has a peak efficiency of about 85 percent, and if the water’s flow velocity is small (the pipe diameter is large), then almost all of the required energy goes toward unrecoverable head pressure (moving the water uphill and leaving it there). So you’re increasing the potential energy of the water according to PE=mgh.
Suppose your pumping it very far inland so you don’t have to deal with the returning ice flow for 10,000 or so years, and that you’ve picked a geological area where this requires 200 meters in elevation change (about 650 feet above sea level). With 85 percent efficiency, this requires 8.33e20 Joules of energy per meter of sea level change.
To pump that volume in a century (86400 seconds per day. 3.15576e9 seconds per century) would require a power output of 26,400 megawatts. That’s only 2.5 percent of the current installed capacity of US power plants, which is 1,063,000 megawatts.
So you run 26,400 megawatts for a century, which is 26.4e6 kilowatts for 876,600 hours, which comes to 2.31e13 kilowatt hours. At ten cents a kilowatt hour that would cost $2.314 trillion dollars, which is $23.14 billion a year.
The maximum rate of sea level rise we’ve seen thus far is 3.3mm per year, which is only a third of a meter per century, and you might find an area where you only have to pump the water 100 meters instead of 200, so the cost to stay even could be a sixth as much as the figure I gave.
Any college freshman in physics or engineering could do the calculations on the back of a napkin – instead of going to rallies where they’re told all our cities are going to drown.
****
I’d also add that baseline power can run as low as 2 or 3 cents per kWh, so the simple pump-it solution to sea level rise might come in as low as $1.5 billion per year.
Instead the IPCC stays focused on incredibly expensive and woefully ineffective mitigation measures, and that reminds me of something I read in a science-fiction work by Steven Bury (a pseudonym for Neil Stevenson) in “The Cobweb”, where the government officials don’t want to solve a problem, because then they’d eliminate the purpose for their own positions. Instead they want to manage a problem, making sure it remains a problem that needs to be managed.
George:
I have never heard of this idea before. This is really thinking outside the box and I think this is a great idea.
I wonder if we could use solar power to run the pumps?
I wonder if we could store the water in aquifers without getting salt into the land?
I wonder if we could pump, desalinate and then use the water for drinking and agriculture? If we could use solar (or wind) for all of that, could be a win win.
Great thinking George.
Another sea level rise idea is from a science fiction book called “Texas On the Rocks” by Daniel Da Cruz (1985). The idea is to tow ice bergs to Texas use the oil pipeline system to move fresh water inland. Your idea of moving water inland reminded me of this book (which is a fun read).
I would imagine that taking ice bergs out of the ocean would also lower sea level, the water is already desalinated, it makes the shipping lanes safer – so this could be similar to pumping salt water out of the ocean.
I wonder about the energy required to tow an ice berg, versus pumping the water directly out of the ocean. In the book, the author proposed a series of sea anchors with a tow line and winch system, passing the ice berg off from one anchor to another to the coast of Texas (any place with oil pipelines running to it on the ocean would work).
As I recall, the iceberg was wrapped in a sheet of plastic to keep the melt water from mixing with the salt water, so as not to waste the melted fresh water during the journey to the pumping station.
Could be crazy or it could be an outside the box idea like pumping salt water inland.
Now please, a foot off the ocean is what, three feet on every parcel of land? Or sumpin like that.
===========
Kim:
True. However, the water adding to the ocean level had to come from somewhere (at least the part not due to thermal expansion).
If we dump it back into the aquifers and back onto the glaciers, greenland and west Antarctica, (whereever it came from) – that would do the same thing – right? Assuming it all froze in place of course.
I know in the midwest we are constantly complaining about our acquifers being depleted and our lake levels getting lower – so there has to be plenty of places to dump water which would not result in 3 feet of water onto top of every foot of land.
California could also use some fresh water.
But maybe it is a crazy idea.
I just like the direct approach of solving the rising sea level problem.
Maybe we could take just 1 mm per year out of the ocean, and cut the rate of rising sea level in 1/2?
Kim:
I just realized – one foot of water is the amount pumped out in a century, not a year.
So is that really a big deal (3 feet of extra water on every foot of land per century.) I don’t know what the average number of inches of rainfall is in the USA – but 4 mm of extra rain on every foot of land per year doesn’t seem like that big a deal to me.
i’ve little doubt that aquifers could absorb some more water. But hey, sea level rise is easy to deal with. Break out the sulfides and we can freeze the water into glaciers and ice caps.
That brings up another point. Storing water in the ocean avoids storing it in glaciers, icecaps, and snowfields, thus keeping albedo such that we absorb rather than reflect the energy. Perhaps the most effective way to keep the moth from the flame of the glaciated attractor is to let the sea level rise.
============
Oops, where’s Herman Alexander Pope when I need him?
===========
Ummm… won’t the relocated water simply evaporate or sublimate and end up precipitating back into the sea?
http://basementgeographer.com/flooding-the-qattara-depression/
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/re-hydrating-of-australian-inland-seas-via-siphoned-ocean-water/
bentabou:
Sure. Just like the rainfall of today, which runs into a river and then the ocean.
All things being equal – pulling the top 1.9 mm off the entire ocean and dumping it into lakes and aquifers should help prevent sea level rise.
You should start with filling the Caspian Sea basin. You would have to dig tunnels from the Black Sea, but when complete, power will actually be generated on the 28 m elevation difference. Continue with the Dead Sea and the Danakil Depression. They won’t store much water but they can supply lots of energy.
This is a really good idea. Mother Earth does this. Every time oceans get warm and high, she melts Polar Sea Ice and sucks the water right out of the oceans and pumps it on land as ice and rain. She also removes the salt. Excellent Idea and Mother Earth thought of it first.
Kim, thanks for thinking of me.
Sure, Herman, love your mechanism, but there is a puzzle in there. Would higher sea level(more water in the ocean rather than in ice) keep the albedo such that we absorb rather than reflect, or would greater ocean cause greater ice and snow, thus working the opposite.
As usual, the answer is probably some of both.
===========
There is something in this albedo thermostat, just as there is something in the biomic thermostat. Just what, I dunno.
===========
The Polar Sea Ice Cycles are used to turn Snowfall on and off.
The Ice Extent that makes the critical difference to Albedo is the Ice Extent on Land.
There is more ice extent during a Little Ice Age and less ice extent during a Medieval Warm Period.
The more snow falls during the warm periods and then ice advances.
The less snow falls during the cold periods and then ice retreats.
Would higher sea level(more water in the ocean rather than in ice) keep the albedo such that we absorb rather than reflect,
Yes, but this occurs during the time period that water is being sucked out of the oceans so snow will fall on land. This warming when oceans are high and warm and wet, help the process. When there is enough ice on land, and it has advanced enough to cool the oceans to turn off the snowfall, the oceans will freeze and the Albedo will help with the cooling process that will continue until this new ice volume is depleted.
Thanks, Herman. Much to still learn, eh?
========
Kim – your questions and comments help me explain the Polar Ice Cycle in different ways. I think that more and more people will understand this as msny of us try to explain what we think.
Have you seen William McClenney’s piece on glacial inception over @ WattsUp?
===========
Popes Climate Theory said:
“The more snow falls during the warm periods and then ice advances.”
_____
And when is that suppose to occur exactly? The planet has been warming but the net total ice o n Earth and the summer snowpack (which must stick around to advance glaciers) has been declining. So when will the ice begin to advance, based on your theory?
–R. Gates | May 29, 2014 at 9:52 pm |
Popes Climate Theory said:
“The more snow falls during the warm periods and then ice advances.”
_____
And when is that suppose to occur exactly? The planet has been warming but the net total ice o n Earth and the summer snowpack (which must stick around to advance glaciers) has been declining. So when will the ice begin to advance, based on your theory?–
Since temperate region glaciers were advancing during Little Ice Age, one would seem one would need a period like LIA but longer, or a degree or two cooler than LIA.
“Since temperate region glaciers were advancing during Little Ice Age, one would seem one would need a period like LIA but longer, or a degree or two cooler than LIA.”
_____
Okay. So no time soon then.
Watch the Holocenic Moth wing its way closer and closer to the flame of the glaciated attractor. Watch Popeye open a can of AnthroCO2 and offer it to the moth.
===========
Sounds to me like the “Dilbert-ization of Science”. Makes sense in a sad and disheartening sort of way.
Climate Science needs more “Dilbert” class engineers with “the Knack”
Such as NASA’s moon-shot engineers and scientists at The Real Climate Stuff
and aerospace engineer Burt Rutan on Climate Change
I would not call it “stupidity”. IPCC abuses of the logical fallacy called cherry picking: they collect only the results that they want. In order to challenge this, what it can be done is to contact directly with these authors and show them the results that they did not want to include.
At the end of the day, science is THE useful tool for mankind’s progress.
Judith, thanks for another great post. Also thanks for the links to your article and previous related posts. Some of us newbies to CE need that kind of help to catch up.
It appears to me that the IPCC and its mandate have been hijacked by a group or groups with a political and social agenda neither articulated nor well understood by many but manifest in the IPCC’s behavior of suppressing dissent and marginalizing non-consensus thinking individuals.
The agenda is loosely viewed as a new world order with “sustainability” the catch word for: fewer people, fewer resources, fewer sources of controversy.
I have seen the “final withering away of the State” and its communist utopian manifest in my recent journey to Burma. I have seen the remnants of utopian religious societies, the Shakers and the Amish. I have seen all sorts of tribal behavior in the name of preserving the status quo for the hierarchy’s sustainability.
As messy and as violent, as dysfunctional and as humbling for societies having managed problems faced by the collective, I believe a free speech foundational democracy with transparent contracts and the rule of communal law as their guide posts is an altogether fitting and proper way to conduct the business of science. Science after all is a process of inquiry.
There is a fundamental miscalculation that warming is bad, and the tactics merely cover the grievous error, for now.
===================
They actual articulate their agendas well. Most can help but slip into the big oil or big coal demonetization. All of them focus on unrealistic upper extremes for motivational purposes. That was even admitted during the Himalayas fiasco. If they want the problem confronted they need to leave that crap at home and put on their big boy pants.
“It appears to me that the IPCC and its mandate have been hijacked by a group or groups with a political and social agenda….”
That was no hijacking. The IPCC is doing exactly what it was created, staffed and funded to do. Hijack? It’s a luxury cruise liner specifically built for unelected progressive bureaucrats, some of whom are called scientists. The targets of the real hijack the IPCC was built for are the wallets of the tax payers in developed western countries.
@ GaryM
“That was no hijacking. The IPCC is doing exactly what it was created, staffed and funded to do.”
Precisely!
It is humming along like a well oiled machine, producing ‘scientific justification’ for the implementation of progressive control over every aspect of your life, by taxing and/or regulating every activity that has a ‘carbon signature’. Which would be all of them.
In ALL branches of science (except climate?) there are annual conferences, in which “the great and the good” write and present review papers that everyone can comment on. Why not scrap the IPCC in favour of that kind of thing?
In MANY branches of science people are split into theorists and experimentalists, theorists generally respecting experimentalists, not so much the other way round. To me, climate science should be mainly about experimentalists and their current and/or reconstructed past data. Much less respect should be given to theorists, especially to those who claim to be able to predict the future.
Predicting the future should be like playing Russian Roulette, one failure means the game is over for you.
In the mathematics of Decision Theory, this situation is called Complete Ignorance Uncertainty. (See, A letter to the EPA)
Reblogged this on CraigM350.
“Personally, I don’t think it can be reformed, since the institution lacks the capacity for meaningful self reflection…”
Absolutely correct. Nails the basic problem. Explains why the IPCC just cannot get its mind around the ideas of criticism or science.
On the other hand, the ideas expressed in the articles are very interesting. More interesting is why these ideas were not at the forefront of debate about the IPCC five years ago. (As regards this blog, the more important ideas of meaningful self reflection have been at the forefront.)
(See, Environmental Engineering Newsletter, 26 May 2014
“The term “Complete Ignorance Uncertainty” does not apply to the entire AR5, which includes a great deal of excellent work.”
But it applies to way more than the SPM. The IPCC has not so much as countenanced criticism of computer models or their uses. The IPCC shills for the modelers, and conversely.
~climate heretic (Lennart Bengtsson: My View On Climate Research, 22/05/14)
Good quotations. Socrates’ specialty was investigation which revealed illusions of knowledge. He worked 2400 years ago. Maybe it is time for a revival of Socrates.
“I do not believe there is any systematic ‘cover-up’ of scientific evidence on climate change or that academics’ work is being ‘deliberately suppressed’ – Lennart Bengtsson
A stirring quotation to be sure, but “illusion of knowledge” is surely a form of ignorance.
… Ignorance of the limits of one’s insight and understanding, ignorance of the proper criteria for assessing one’s beliefs, ignorance of what genuine knowledge consists of, etc.
Sorry if this seems like a quibble, but the quotation does not make sense.
We are talking about the ‘enemy’ of knowledge, right? Admitting ignorance is the path to knowledge.
“I do not believe there is any systematic ‘cover-up’ of scientific evidence on climate change or that academics’ work is being ‘deliberately suppressed’ – Lennart Bengtsson”
I DID NOT have s*x with that woman.” -Bubba
Andrew
@Bad Andrew
“If you like your health insurance, you can keep your health insurance!” – Bubbles.
Whether or not the IPCC could be reformed, it should be done away with instead.
It is not a genuinely scientific organization; it’s very charter precluding natural variation prevents full scientific evaluation of actual (all) climate. That is a foundational reason it got caught out by the pause.
Second, it does no science. It does meta analyses of others’ science. That automatically enables selection bias, as shown in The Arts of Truth. And given the research, mitigation, and other agenda funding at stake so related influence pedaling, the selection bias extends into the non- scientific, even beyond grey literature. The Himalayan glacier goof triggering the IAC audit showed that. There are many others including the myths of constant UTrH, positive cloud feedback, and long tern utility of climate models.
Third, it’s output is just least common denominator ‘censensus’ as input to a single agenda political policy process. That agenda was set by UNFCCC in 1988. To the extent the agenda ‘succeeded’ (Kyoto) it has practically failed for perfectly obvious reasons ( the commons problem). More of the same won’t fix the fundamental that the UN does not dictate China’s energy policies any more that it dictates North Koreas nuclear policies or Syrias chem warfare policies or Russian annexation of Crimea, all far more related to the original charter of the UN.
The UN is impotent. The UNFCCC is impotent. The IPCC has sullied the reputation of science. Time for it to go.
Which, the IPCC, or the whole UN?
For such a short article, it seems surprising that there were sixteen authors.
While I’m a fan of geo-engineering contemplations, I was thrown by Mr. Turner’s proposal, if not his calculations. I assume he was talking about inland in Antarctica, as the dispersal point for the seawater being pumped out of the ocean, as where else at 100-200 meters would it be cold enough to take 10,000 years to return to the sea. The problem with this idea is highlighted by the size disparity of the world’s oceans (140,000,000 sq. miles) as opposed to Antarctica (5 million) Given that Antarctica is covered nearly entirely by an Ice Sheet averaging almost 2 kilometers thick, there is significantly less area that meets the parameters of his proposal as a low lying dispersal area.
Because of the at least several hundred to one ratio of the ocean to suitable dispersal areas we’d have an awesome mountain of ice rising quickly, with ever more energy needed to pump sea water to its top. It reminds me of the classic Lucille Ball, skit where she is working on a chocolate treat production line that speeds up too fast for her to do her job, so she tries to eat the excess. Those of you who aren’t old geezers will just have to use your imagination.
Still, the thought of the amazing ice sculpture that could be created with carefully controlled spraying of the pumped water makes me take one cuckoo off this particular geo-engineering flight of fancy.
John:
I had the impression he was proposing pumping (and storing) ocean water inland along every foot of coastline – not just in Antarctica.
Judith Curry
Re: To help “break up the IPCC’s monopoly on climate knowledge”
May I encourage you to Review and Compare evaluations by
the NIPCC, the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change.
e.g., Climate Change Reconsidered
and by NASA’s moon-shot scientists and engineers at:
TheRightClimateStuff.com
Including:
Anthropogenic Global Warming Science Assessment Report
The Right Climate Stuff Research Team, April, 2013
and
BOUNDING GHG CLIMATE SENSITIVITY FOR USE IN REGULATORY DECISIONS, A Report of The Right Climate Stuff Research Team http://www.therightclimatestuff.com
Lead Author: Harold H. Doiron, PhD, February 2014
Have the NIPCC and the Right stuff guys post their reviewer comments?
Oh wait, none of them had an open review which anyone could sign up for.
Just in terms of process the NIPCC and the right stuff guys got it horribly wrong.
While the IPCC has not yet implemented all the suggestions of the IAC,
the process of the NIPCC and Right stuff guys are several steps backwards to closed science with no open review full of grey literature compiled by self interested folk
Lets just start with the first stupid sentence from the astronauts.
“From such diverse interpretation of the data by climate scientists, one must conclude, with a high
assessed confidence, that the science of Carbon-based AGW is not settled.”
Huh. No. You don’t determined whether a science is settled by finding disagreement.
Next stupid sentence
“Recent relatively flat to decreasing global average temperature data trends of the last 15 years indicate
natural climate effects have prevented the hypothesized CO2 effects from warming the planet, and
therefore are also just as significant”
does not follow logically.
##########
next up selective and bad summary of the science.
read their section on GCR. pathetic.
Next up,
count the references to grey literature and blogs
Then there is this illogical statement:
“The threat of net harmful total global warming, if any, is not immediate and thus
does not require swift corrective action.”
The astronauts forgot one thing. Its called a red team. They forgot to have an open review period where people could point out their errors.
Thats the wrong stuff
Hmmm..
Rather inconvenient, I’d say:
So – I seem to recall Judith saying something on the order of she “doesn’t listen to” anyone who doubts the basic science of Carbon-based AGW, and that “no one in the room” has any such doubts.
So I guess she has crossed the NIPCC off her list…..
I will also note that when some “skeptics” aren’t saying that “skeptics” aren’t monolithic, they’re also saying that most “skeptics” don’t doubt the basic science of Carbon-based AGW. Well – the NIPCC doesn’t only doubt, they dismiss with high assessed confidence.
It almost makes me wonder how those “skeptics” measure the opinions of “skeptics.” I wonder what their metrics are. I wonder how they validate their evidence. I’m beginning to think that maybe they evaluate the opinions of “most skeptics” based only on their anecdotal experiences, and without any actual attempt at validation. I’m beginning to think that they are conflating fact with opinion.
But they self-identify as “skeptics,” so I must be wrong about that, of course. If they displayed such unskeptical behavior, surely they wouldn’t self-identify as “skeptics” would they?
You recall incorrectly. Anyone who is saying ‘the greenhouse effect doesn’t exist’ doesn’t get picked up on my radar screen. The science of carbon-based AGW is settled only to the extent that we understand the IR emission spectra of CO2.
Moreover, the triad of theory, observation, and dynamical simulation provide a unitary math-and-science appreciation that weather is chaotic yet climate is predictable, and further that Lewis Fry Richardson’s conflict theory explains why the least-conflicted path forward is to maximally extend — to planetary lengths-scales and centennial time-scales — the domain of public discourse.
Young scientists and young family-starting voters *ESPECIALLY* appreciate the ever-strengthening unitary force of these combined scientific, historical, economic, and moral considerations … which extend far beyond the IPCC’s too-narrow domain of discourse.
Don’t you observe these trends in your students, Judith Curry?
Because we can be entirely sure that *MOST* students are *NOT* blind to these ever-strengthening considerations!
Joshua,
I think it would be more accurate to say that Judy believes that fatigue is justified regarding skydragon type arguments about the greenhouse effect and second law of thermodynamics.
Please don’t misrepresent Judy.
“weather is chaotic yet climate is predictable”
Another silly, inaccurate Fan comment.
> Lead Author: Harold H. Doiron, PhD, February 2014
I thought Harold got his PhD eons ago.
OK – upon further review, it wasn’t the NIPCC anyway, and The Right Climate Stuff Research Team says is:
==> “Carbon-based AGW science is not settled. This refers only to the Carbon or CO2 role in induced warming.”
and
==> “Carbon-based AGW impact appears to be muted. ”
A muted impact is not non-existent.
So the reference is clearly not to the basic physics of the GHE.
Joshua
“So I guess she has crossed the NIPCC off her list…..”
the quote I supplied was not from the NIPCC.
READ THE FRICKIN DOCUMENTS.
my quote was from the “right stuff” astronauts.
READ THE DOCUMENTS.
See, you were so eager to lashout at judith that you forgot to read.
Kinda like what you did on climate audit the other day where you missed the link in the first sentence.
Be less eager to score points and more eager to learn
==> “See, you were so eager to lashout at judith that you forgot to read.”
Heh. Anyone else catch the beautiful irony?
”
The science of carbon-based AGW is settled only to the extent that we understand the IR emission spectra of CO2.
”
Leaving side the fact that one person with a PhD does not have the authority to make this sort of proclamation for the rest of the world, and leaving aside that fact that we understand the spectra CO2 (and CH4 and other GHGs!) quite well, the above statement elevates Dr Judith Curry to very near the top of my list of Very Stupid Smart People.
Congratulations, Dr Curry!
Little joshie has a pathological need to point out alleged irony. It’s amusing that he doesn’t how how ironic that is. At least it’s ironic in the common misunderstanding of the word that joshie uses.
Have you been back to CA, joshie? You should try your act there again. Maybe they have forgotten what a dope you made of yourself on your recent visit. They didn’t find you very amusing, or bright.
Ya Don,
Notice how Joshua trips along making boneheaded mistake after boneheaded mistake ( kind a like peter lang at one point) and yet refuses to own up to his mistakes and CHANGE his behavior.
read the science Joshua.
then comment on the science.
then explain why judith gets it wrong.
instead he plods along trying to manipulate the text in such a way that Judith is discredited, or show to be hypocritcal or whatever.
but read the science? never.
at least some of the 2 digit types at WUWT read the frickin science.
Joshua tried it out at Lucia’s.
that was funny.
Burt Mosher, didn’t joshie admit to/apologize for his silly error with one of his interminable dissertations that are designed to show how smart and virtuous he is? Oh, I remember now: little joshie said “My bad.” And tucked his tail between his legs…
Did I commit a typo, or do you sometimes go by Burt?
Joshua,
You need to change your behavior.
http://www.nipccreport.org/reports/ccr2a/pdf/Executive-Summary.pdf
Sky Dragon, out of the radar [1]. This is unsurprising, since argue that the uncertainty monster swallowed it [2]. Aerosol Lindzenianism, in the radar. What’s the status of what’s in between?
I seem to recall something about global electric circuit and magnetic field. But where?
Perhaps Don Don could help.
[1] http://globalpoliticalshenanigans.blogspot.com/2012/05/professor-judith-currys-letter-to.html
[2] http://rabett.blogspot.ca/2012/04/poof-goes-magic-sky-dragon.html
I don’t have time for your foolishness, willy. You go on without me. Or, you could try acting like you have got some sense. Emulate Pekka. Restore your reputation to what it was, before you became a cartoon character in the climate blog wars. Watch out willy, that anvil is about to fall on your head, again.
“Burt Mosher, didn’t joshie admit to/apologize for his silly error with one of his interminable dissertations that are designed to show how smart and virtuous he is? Oh, I remember now: little joshie said “My bad.” And tucked his tail between his legs…”
was that his tail?
Gosh, now willard needs reading lessons.
but Don notice this.
Hagen posts references to crap from the astronauts and NIPCC.
I point out some of the crap in the astronauts writings and point out that
the IPCC does a better job of having reviewers.
Even then willard and Joshua cannot help but find someway to make it about judith.
weird. in the middle of a criticism of crap science they cannot.
A) just butt the hell out
B) add to the argument against the skeptics.
instead, they must find some way to discuss Judith.
Looking at their behavior I’d say that taking down Judith was more important to them than confronting skeptics.
why would that be?
lots of theories
Mosher, they are inveterate anklebiters. Judith is famous and hated for straying from the reservation. She apparently has tasty ankles. She is very tolerant of the little gnawing varmints. Expect them to continue. Cartoon characters are indestructible, immortal and usually incoherent. I would provide a link to a tasmanian devil cartoon, but it’s not necessary.
> weird
Not really. It may be the first time I paid any attention to David L. Hagen’s comments. I started to read because a challenge by GaryM requires me to read the kind of documents he links in most of the threads. Was it not for the vulgar display of lukewarm power, I might not have noticed.
***
Joshua is big enough to wear boys pants on his own. What matters is that, in defense to his usual jab, Judy claims that:
This could mean that only those who deny GHGs are not picked up by Judy’s radar. In that case, we could wonder on which line was toed. This could mean that Judy’s a bit evasive as to where she draws the line.
Where does Judy draw the line, and why?
Whiteknighting won’t prevent this question from being asked.
” Anyone who is saying ‘the greenhouse effect doesn’t exist’ doesn’t get
picked up on my radar screen.
This could mean that only those who deny GHGs are not picked up by Judy’s radar. In that case, we could wonder on which line was toed. This could mean that Judy’s a bit evasive as to where she draws the line.
Where does Judy draw the line, and why? ”
I think she draws the line in a similar fashion as greenhouse effect theory draws the line. Which is quite vague, according to how wiki describes:
” By their percentage contribution to the greenhouse effect on Earth the four major gases are:
water vapor, 36–70%
carbon dioxide, 9–26%
…”
And is percentage of 33 K [or C]. One can guess it refers to “pre-industrial level” of some where around 280 ppm of CO2.
That means 280 ppm must cause about 3 C or about 8.5 C.
And if CO2 increases to about 560 ppm will increase average global temperature by about 1 C.
Some believers also think such increase in temperature would also significantly increase water vapor.thereby the about 1 C caused by higher CO2 levels does more than about 1 C.
So global water vapor is about 24 kg of water vapor per square meter of the area of Earth.
It’s not clear what the “pre-industrial level” of water vapor was suppose to be. But I don’t think anyone imagine global water vapor has lowered since the vague time of “pre-industrial”.
One could somewhat safely guess it somewhere more than global average 20 kg per square meter.
I would say it’s impossible to have global average of twice the currently level. So 48 kg per square meter on average is impossible if it’s less than couple centuries. Though it seems possible that sometime in last billion years earth may have had twice as much water vapor as we currently have.
Mosher said:
And what would that snide remark be referring to? Would it be your smart-ass bullying, such as telling me I am not permitted to ask questions of the great, pompous, arrogant, Steven Mosher?
I guess would would like to point out your frequent “boneheaded mistakes”, that are frequently pointed out to you, would you?
Hah, hah, willard. I could lay out the alarmist position without googling or following links, and I wouldn’t find a sky dragon in a cloud.
This is part of the problem. Alarmists have a sketchy view of what skepticism is all about. Even the good ones are at about the SKS level, erecting, then flaming, strawmen.
=================
More heh, willard. There is no cure but to become skeptical.
=======
How do you start?
Where do you go?
Who do you know?
willard, I josh with moshe that I really had this climate thingy all figured out, but you have to read the blogs; I’ve forgotten it since.
============
> I think she draws the line in a similar fashion as greenhouse effect theory draws the line.
Are you referring to the line that researchers or climateballers ought not toe to remain within Judy’s radar, gbaikie? Because that’s the line that I’m talking about.
Using the Skydragons to stretch the Overton window of climate politics might very not be reconcilable with lukewarm concerns about toed lines.
Koldie with another thorn on the side.
willard, you miss the whole point of the scuffle and ruckus. The CO2 Climate Control Knob is rapidly aging into an archaic concept, and Andrew Lacis encapsulates the senility. The climate alarmists really were Sorceror’s Apprentices, and yes, you are very afraid.
===============
I think because we’re on opposite sides of the argument, we sometimes fail to fully engage with our opponents at the level they’re hoping for. With that in mind, Willard,
You’re a meany-copter.
Your mother wears combat boots.
Your grandpa wears a girdle so he won’t look like a turtle
And in case you’re minded to reply, please remember that I am rubber and you are glue. Every thing you say bounces off of me and sticks to you.
With kind regards, etc.
Willard.
“Are you referring to the line that researchers or climateballers ought not toe to remain within Judy’s radar, gbaikie? Because that’s the line that I’m talking about.
1. what line is that, you need to be more clear if you are interested in communicating.
#######################
Using the Skydragons to stretch the Overton window of climate politics might very not be reconcilable with lukewarm concerns about toed lines.
1. Is that what you think Judith’s motivations are?
2. Taking notice of the skydragons doesnt stretch any window. The range of views on the science of the climate exists. Describing it doesnt stretch it.
3. The concerns about toed lines are not lukewarming lines. they are not even related to opinions about the science. they are concerns about free inquiry.
> The concerns about toed lines are not lukewarming lines.
Functional stupidity in action:
Irsome indeed.
There’s other wrong stuff
toe line connected to da foot line
foot line connected to da ankle line
ankle line connected to da leg line
No, I went too far. Who’s on anklebiting duty today? Wile e?
willard misreads again.
the toed line is about the social pressure brought to bear upon members of a tribe that fail to conform. Period.
the action of alarmists that construes lukewarmers as denialists is not about us toeing to their line. We are not members of their tribe to begin with.
If you want an example of line toeing and lukewarmers you would look at the fights over the 1.2C per doubling boundary.
jeez stop playing stupid, you dont play stupid very well
> the toed line is about the social pressure brought to bear upon members of a tribe that fail to conform.
Just like in “you’re a Skydragon, you’re out of my radar.” Just like in “you’re a “skeptic”, you’re out of my radar.” Just like in “you’re associated with the GWPF, you’re out of my radar.” Paraphrasing, of course.
Not unlike:
http://judithcurry.com/2014/05/24/are-climate-scientists-being-forced-to-toe-the-line/
The only difference is that this is on Judy’s radar.
Whatever metaphor we prefer, it’s identity politics all the way down.
***
There’s other wrong stuff.
again willard plays stupid
“Just like in “you’re a Skydragon, you’re out of my radar.” Just like in “you’re a “skeptic”, you’re out of my radar.” Just like in “you’re associated with the GWPF, you’re out of my radar.” Paraphrasing, of course.
Not unlike:
Very unalike
There is a difference, a social difference and a power difference, between
a group of collegues, co authors, friends, funders, editors, telling one of their own that there are out of bounds and an individual who has no social relationship with sky dragons that they are not on her radar. You of course can willfully deny it. but denial doesnt change anything except peoples perception of your good faith.
Further, you can see the difference by looking at the reaction people had to judith even talking to sky dragons, even allowing them to post.
Im surprised they let you come here, but I dare say that if you ever took a sustained effort to be fair that you’d get some nice little messages from the rest of the gang.
######################################
Whatever metaphor we prefer, it’s identity politics all the way down.
Well, it’s not identity politics all the way down. When you demonstrate that it is, rather than merely asserting it, then we can have a discussion. Until such time arguments of assertion are solidly met with counter arguments of assertion.
is too
is not.
nice communication willard. you’re as bad as brandon.
> I think she draws the line in a similar fashion as greenhouse effect theory draws the line.
–Are you referring to the line that researchers or climateballers ought not toe to remain within Judy’s radar, gbaikie? Because that’s the line that I’m talking about.
Using the Skydragons to stretch the Overton window of climate politics might very not be reconcilable with lukewarm concerns about toed lines.–
Lukewarmers are like political moderates.
There is nothing particularly admirable about moderates or lukewarmers, except in context of the witch burning tendencies and hero worship.
It is such religious fervor which is rational cause of conformity of lukewarmers.
Personally , I would regard myself as lukewarmer [even a political moderate]
but I have no interest in getting a lukewarmer membership card.
I don’t think doubling CO2 will cause as much a 2 C warming. I don’t humans and nature can cause 2 C or more warming, if one puts a time limit of century or so. I think the world would better if it was more than 2 C warmer, but I don’t think world would be better with higher 1000 ppm of CO2. I would against the idea lowering global CO2 below 400 ppm- assuming the cost to do so was zero costs.
Therefore I believe politicians have wasted trillions of dollars on trying to do something [and not being successful at what they claim they trying to do]
which wasn’t worth a nickel to do.
In terms politicians effort to control population, they have been successful at murdering easily over 100 million people due to general oppressive actions. So they have more successful at this goal. Or their efforts at reducing CO2, has only increased CO2 emission, and their effort at population control has not saved lives- so they have successful at doing stuff which has caused lots of human misery and generated many dead bodies they could count as success.
Obviously politicians could reduced human population without this mayhem and misery, but that would have required politicians to be better human beings- which is completely unrealistic.
“…but that would have required politicians to be better human beings- which is completely unrealistic.”
____
As long as being a “politician” is a career choice, as opposed to a short-term period of public service, then the vane, selfish, power-seeking and greedy will be attracted to being an elected government official. Term limits and campaign finance reform are the only tools to fight this– but of course, those in power have taken it the other way. Is that a surprise?
Not often I agree completely with R. Gates, but this is one of those times.
+100%
Wile e says:blah…blah…blah, it’s identity politics all the way down.
Mosher says:Meeep! Meep! and disappears in a cloud of dust.
Don’t try to catch him, wile e. It’s always ends badly for you.
> Lukewarmers are like political moderates.
At least that’s what they’re trying to sell:
Seems that gbaikie hears what the Archbishop of Lukewarmism can’t even acknowledge here. How functionally stupid, to say the least.
“Skeptics,” alarmists, lukewarmers. No lines not to toe there, of course. How to stretch the Overton window to its limit allowed by justified disingenuousness, and perhaps a bit beyond.
***
Now, which political orientation tries to portray itself as the moderates between Liberals and Republicans using the same Goldielocks narrative?
An interesting correlation.
***
More wrong stuff on the way.
Don,
I think willard’s absence puts him off his game.
On his game: pointing, observing.typically at the margin.
Off his game: motive hunting, asserting, whiteknighting for Joshua.
pays to stay in practice.
his game precludes him from making a coherent argument. pointing works for him.. argument?, he uses the tactics he formerly pointed at more often than not.
that;s one reason why he could never hang at Lucias; she demands coherent argument.
Wile e says: You are either with the Chicken Little fake consensus mob, or you are agin em. No disingenuous fence sitting. Yer ankles will get gnawed if you don’t…wait for it… toe the line.
Yes, willy has deteriorated. He used to be not too disagreeably clever and interesting. Now he is a slightly more sophisticated and less loquacious version of little anklebiter joshie.
Don Don,
The Archibishop of Lukewarmism proclaimed:
http://judithcurry.com/2014/05/27/ipcc-functional-stupidity/#comment-574338
You know what that means, Don Don. He’s the One to talk David Hagen down. He owns that sub-thread.
He’d tolerate Joshua’s presence in his subthread if Joshua helps him out whip the skeptic boy. Because, of course, the skeptic boy deserves to be whipped, not that he toed any line, but methods, etc.
What good is an alarmist such as Joshua (for, you know that it’s what he is, Joshua: an alarmist) if you can’t exploit his spite to bash at a skeptic, I ask you, Don Don?
***
And Joshua tries to make His subthread about Judy! The horror.
By chance Joshua toed a line: he made a mistake. You and the Archibishop can allow yourselves to keep shooting at him in the back. Honor is saved.
By chance you’re there, guys. One has to wonder what Judy could do without you.
INTEGRITY ™ Watch Your Back
Dr Curry wrote: The science of carbon-based AGW is settled only to the extent that we understand the IR emission spectra of CO2.
Yes, I have attended lectures by people on the various sides of this and people on various sides agree on the IR emission spectra of CO2. I accept that this is settled. Most of us accept this is settled.
The alarmists go further and say that it is settled that this will cause dangerous warming and sea level rise. That is what we disagree with. That is NOT SETTLED SCIENCE. That is just Climate Model Output.
Climate Model Output has not matched Actual Real Data and cannot be used to make important, expensive decisions.
We are not talking about whatever it is that is making you get all hysterical. Do you think this thread is still about what it was about, two days ago? We were recently, that is today, talking about your sad deterioration. And it’s just getting worserer by the minute. Watch out for those anvils.
We don’t shoot joshie in the back. We trample right over him. And I am pretty sure he likes it.
willard again playing stupid
“You know what that means, Don Don. He’s the One to talk David Hagen down. He owns that sub-thread.
########################
1. you dont observe me being the One. you observe me being one
2. you dont observe me owning the sub thread, you observe me
taking note of Joshua’s behavior which is invariant over all threads.
he and you have a choice. I observe that you two never talk
about the science. I observe that you two more often than not
will take any opportunity to derail a conversation to discuss Judith
EVEN WHEN that discussion is directly related to correcting skeptics.
you care more about marginalizing her than you do about anything
else.
######
He’d tolerate Joshua’s presence in his subthread if Joshua helps him out whip the skeptic boy. Because, of course, the skeptic boy deserves to be whipped, not that he toed any line, but methods, etc.
1. I tolerate Joshua just fine.
2. I suggest repeatedly that he BROADEN his game. you too willy.
3. you have choices. you can help sharpen the argument or not.
you chose not to. So does Joshua.
4. The skeptic does not deserve to be whipped. BAD ARGUMENTS
deserve to be corrected.
5. I do not suggest that Hagen toe to any line OR ELSE. If he wants
to write a paper with me he is welcome to. If he wants to visit
our meetings and speak his piece, he is welcome. If he joined the
Union of concerned scientists or greepeace or heartland or GWPF
it would make no difference to me. I care about his arguments not
his political affiliations or whatever. rest assured hagen, muller,
watts, hausfather, mcintyre, way, cowan, eschenbach, etc.. none
of them will here peep one from me because of their positions on
any issue, associations wit any group. If they make a bad argument
they hear from me. period. Gosh, how is it that I work with Anthony
and robert Way? how does one do that? how do I work with stokes
and work with eschenbach. how do I accept both RomanM and tamino
work and build on it? simple. there is a broader line to toe:
show your data, share your code, we can work.
##################################
And Joshua tries to make His subthread about Judy! The horror.
1. Joshua has two modes.
2. its not a horror. its effin boring.
###########################
By chance Joshua toed a line: he made a mistake. You and the Archibishop can allow yourselves to keep shooting at him in the back. Honor is saved.
1. its not the mistake. re harder.
2. yes, if you turn and run you will catch an in flight bullet in the back.
3. whiteknighting joshua is not what you do best.
By chance you’re there, guys. One has to wonder what Judy could do without you.
no, one does not have to wonder.
literally, you dont have to wonder. why would you?
Willard is playing stupid. We know that he is not stupid, but for some reason he is faking it. I keep trying to get him to redeem himself and regain his respectability. Emulate Pekka, I keep telling him. But he chooses to emulate little joshie. It’s sad.
==> “The alarmists go further and say that it is settled that this will cause dangerous warming and sea level rise. ”
What I see is some who are confident as you describe.
What I see is far more who are certain that there is a risk that ACO2 will cause dangerous warming and sea level rise.
I also see many who repeatedly mischaracterize those who say they are certain that there is a risk that ACO2 will cause dangerous warming and sea level rise, by claiming that they are saying that dangerous warming and sea level rise are certain.
What I find funny as that as stupid as I am, as dishonest and petty, spiteful, obtuse and quibbling as I am, as much as a dolt as I be, as many mistakes as I make, and as much as I turn and run and catch flak in my back,
It works every freakin’ time.
Poor wittle joshie. We are scared to give him flack when he is facing us, but as soon as he turns his wittle back to run away, we give it him. Did I get your sad story right, joshie? Would you be at all surprised if someone told you to pull up your nappy?
What a load of crap. Racehorse Haynes would be proud. Let’s return to Joshua’s first claim for the moment, if only to show GaryM a bit of my homework:
> So – I seem to recall Judith saying something on the order of she “doesn’t listen to” anyone who doubts the basic science of Carbon-based AGW, and that “no one in the room” has any such doubts.
Here’s Judy above:
http://judithcurry.com/2011/11/07/two-new-papers-vs-best/#comment-134210
Unless one can argue that the “IR emission spectra of CO2” is not “the basic science of Carbon-based AGW,” Judy has not shown that Joshua recalls incorrectly. In fact, disproving Joshua’s recollection might be tough since:
http://judithcurry.com/2010/11/30/physics-of-the-atmospheric-greenhouse-effect/#comment-17263
***
In Joshua’s claim, there’s the “no one in the room” seems to echo Judy’s observation that the Skydragons have been “marginalized”:
http://judithcurry.com/2011/11/07/two-new-papers-vs-best/#comment-134210
Notwithstanding the question if Ludecke’s paper challenges “the science of carbon-based AGW,” “the greenhouse effect and its magnitude,” neither or both, we can wonder what it would take to “marginalise” Ludecke. Cf. how Moshpit cricitized Hagen’s comment above.
***
So to debate “the greenhouse effect and its magnitude” seems kosher, but insofar as it exists, since “anyone who is saying ‘the greenhouse effect doesn’t exist’ doesn’t get picked up on my radar screen.” Debating the greenhouse effect is thus welcome insofar as we accept its existence. The conclusion that it exists falls outside Judy’s radar screen. More than that: those who believe so have been marginalized.
Compare and contrast with the way “skeptic” has been characterized in the Lukewarmist Bible.
***
There’s a problem with “the greenhouse does not exist.” There are at least two readings, depending on how we qualify the “exist.” So let’s distinguish two “Skydragon” claims:
[SD1] The greenhouse effect does not exist because its physical basis is unwarranted.
[SD2] While the greenhouse effect may be reproduced in laboratory, we have no accurate measurement of the greenhouse effect on the earth system.
The two claims do not seem equivalent. I think that Jim Cripwell and Girma would hold SD2, not SD1.
Also, it seems to me that only SD1 has been “marginalized,” for SD2 can be read in a way that is not incompatible with “the greenhouse effect exists.”
***
We thus conclude that Joshua’s first claim has been misread by Judy, that the lukewarmist’s trick to use Sky Dragons as a wedge is in effect in her response, and that the scope of her “radar” has yet to be delimited. Joshua’s claim has also been evaded by Moshpit, who simply focused on Joshua’s next sentence to marginalize his him.
As Joshua might say, same ol’ same ol’.
I read a small sample of your last comment, Willard. You really ought to think about what you are doing here. Discuss it with someone you trust.
I did, Don Don. And the sentence “The conclusion that it exists falls outside Judy’s radar screen” should read:
> The conclusion that it does not exist falls outside Judy’s radar screen.
Also, Jim’s reluctance to reject SD1 may be unjustified, as I now recall that he’s a verificationist. Since for a verificationist, what can’t be measured does not exist, there are chances he accepts SD1 too.
***
The TL;DR is that Judy only excludes from her radar those who reject the greenhouse effect on physical grounds, not those who reject it via other means. If you want to get on Judy’s radar, do not say “the greenhouse effect does not exist” but something softer, like “the greenhouse effect is insignificant”.
Of course, if you’re an alarmist (see her latest editorial for instance), then chances are you’ll get on her radar screen too. But that will be for another reason. Perhaps there’s another radar screen for her concerns.
Thus the rule of three still obtains: father Sky Dragon bear, mother alarmist bear, lukewarm Goldilocks.
Functional Stupidity is driven by the sin of pride. People think they are smart and we are not. We are at an intermediate level of evolution with very limited capacities for transcending our emotions and ideologies. Like an alcoholic, the first step is recognizing and admitting you have a problem.
In this case, people must approach problems assuming that we are morons who make mistakes all the time and jump to erroneous conclusions to satisfy our weak psyche’s. Having a more humble attitude invites a focus on the small details, double checking work, getting others to check your work. Admitting mistakes is absolutely essential for the moron to be able to accomplish goals and move the ball forward.
Recognition and evaluation of Uncertainty is another key component required for real (as opposed to academic) technical achievement. However, we cannot be paralyzed to act because we don’t know everything. Actions taken in an uncertain environment should be conducted in a step-wise progression rather than a giant leap.
For climate, bridge fuel. We can get off coal without too much economic pain. Considering the carbon black and particulate, polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbon pollution reductions, this has many other positive benefits. Infrastructure hardening (adaptation) is beneficial in all future scenarios. Using enhanced natural processes as suggested by Dyson. Technological innovation for energy generation and transport fuel should be encouraged by a combination of carrot and stick mechanisms.
Howard wrote: We can get off coal without too much economic pain. Considering the carbon black and particulate, polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbon pollution reductions, this has many other positive benefits.
We cannot get off coal without huge economic pain.
We can figure out natural variability and quit trying to end CO2 emissions and clean up the other, actual real problems, and use the coal to make our other fossil fuels last longer. This is what countries will do if they do want to compete in the world market.
WM Briggs explores the IPCC’s “functional stupidity” in:
IPCC Intensifies Search For Missing Global Warming
@ David L Hagen
One of Briggs readers provided this link:
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/may/27/americans-climate-change-global-warming-yale-report
I’m sure Gary M will be amused, but not surprised.
“Climate change” is commonly used as an equivocation. Such rhetorical logical fallacies do NOT sit well with me! – or other Americans.
Similarly see Bast & Spencer on alarmists’ misleading 97% “consensus”.
WSJ: The Myth of the Climate Change ‘97%’; What is the origin of the false belief that almost all scientists agree about global warming?
Rick A,
He writes “don’t have to deal with the returning ice flow for 10,000 years.” That pretty much eliminates everything but Antarctica, and even a vast majority of that doesn’t fit his 200 meters parameter. Pumping salt water into most of our aquifers, especially the enormous quantities involved here, would seem to be a bad idea to me. And dam building for surface storage is extremely expensive, hard to site in these quantities and not mentioned anywhere in his calculations.
Lennart Bengtsson tried to shine a spotlight on the functional stupidity of current climate science with the result that the community of Climate-Man Global Warming (CAGW) cultists responded as would be expected: with a renewed internal conversation of self-reinforcing persuasion emphasizing images and symbolic manipulation to repress doubt and give coherence to the CAGW narrative.
Indeed, he did. And, you know … I might have missed it, but in all the nastiness that followed his (now) short-lived decision to join the GWPF, I find it curious that none have even commented on Bengtsson’s (what I would call “red letter”) observations:
And:
FWIW, my own thoughts on this (IMHO) glaring omission:
“Can you even begin to imagine what might happen to the IPCC/UNFCCC edifice (not to mention the profits of publishers such as ERL), if Bengtsson’s “red letter” claims […] were to gain further hold in the higher profile discussions in the blogosphere and elsewhere?”
See: Something missing in the “critiques” of Bengtsson’s choice
Nothing would do more to sensitize the UN to real problems humanity faces than to move its headquarters to the 3rd World.
Er, I note that the useless if not meaningless expression “climate change” is employed in the usual manipulative way in the Beck article. And after the predictable conciliatory glasnost chatter, we are still getting that old warmie message, aren’t we? The language was so dense you might not have noticed, of course, Another study, another change of wrapping. Time to use “good cop” again on those persistent skepos and doubters.
Have no fear, trough-swillers. That “enhanced reflexivity and social learning process” (gulp) means the climate billions will continue to flow, though in slightly different directions; slightly different alarmists will continue to make jet-trails to choice destinations for confabs which will determine the need for more jet trails to more confabs.
This latest shift is to heap blame onto the old climatocracy and those unfortunate people who had their emails pilfered and used without context – all while shovelling the same old alarmist tripe at us dopy punters. (Am I the only skeptic not impressed by the climategate thievery? Are we truly just another herd?)
Essentially it’s the old Cool Hand Luke gambit: “What we have here is a failure to communicate.” Well, I agree with Luke. I just wish boss man would stop being so good to me.
I like ‘scepos’, mosomas. But i’m a purist about one line. There is no ‘a’ between ‘is’ and ‘failure’.
=============
kim, I’m sensing a coup within the climatocracy, with accusations of poor communication and calls for ‘a more plural and participatory normative and epistemic framework’ (whew). There’ll be some blood on the floor and then:
“The Pachauri-Gore is dead. Long live the Pachauri-Gore!”
@ mosomoso
” (Am I the only skeptic not impressed by the climategate thievery? Are we truly just another herd?)
Since everything ‘revealed’ by the climate gate emails was patently obvious (except for the specific, ‘nitty, gritty details’) BEFORE the emails were released, I guess you can put me in the ‘unimpressed’ category.
As for the thievery: Was it?
Bob, I detested the email business for the opportunity it gave to quote without context. Hostile people could use snippets to make a convincing case of their own choice. For me, no context, no quotes. I’m reminded of those trashy current affairs shows – including BBC and Australian ABC “investigations” which merely pretend to seriousness and standards but are just as trashy as their commercial competitors.
Climategate certainly smelled like theft to me, though I’m no lawyer. Like you, I found no surprises in what I read. The worst thing was that the scandal gave an opportunity to undermine an old guard of snobby warmists and replace it with a new guard of conciliators and communicators – who were warmists!
Personally I find attending to these communicators to be akin to swimming in molasses. Academese, management speak, intellectual fads and buzz words have replaced the mad professor antics of the old lot. I almost prefer the old lot. The message ends up the same, and the white elephant costs continue to soar.
What I’d really like is for the whole climatariat to pack up and leave. Come back when they actually know something about the insides of earth, the deep hydropshere etc etc. At present they don’t know (and I suspect as much about the sunspotters and coolists.) They just don’t know.
And when they leave, I want to at the last airport to hear: “It’s clear that the wrasslings of a few extra particulates and GHGs don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy climate – but we’ll always have Cancun.”
I tend to agree with the authors of that paper that the format of IPCC is outdated. Not because I would find WGI reports seriously biased, but because I don’t think they are successful enough in presenting the up-to-date scientific understanding. The state of science could be presented in much more readable and equally correct form by small groups of scientists. It would also be natural that such an approach would lead to several competing books that would balance the weaknesses and biases of each other.
Working groups WGII and WGIII improved significantly their reports from AR4 to AR5, but both groups have still major problems as the scientific basis is not nearly at the same level as that presented by WGI and as that leads unavoidably to extensive subjectiveness in the resulting text. Again the outcome would be better, if subjectively formulated text would not be presented as a well defined consensus.
IPCC could be transformed to a maintainer of literature and data databases on climate science and impacts of climatic changes, while writing books and other forms of summary reports would be distributed and in most cases done by independent competing groups of scientists and, in many cases, of other experts.
The IPCC should be expanded. I would like to see the authors and lead authors paid a salary for participating in the process that would encourage them to spend more time on the process.
The IPCC reports should be bought online and updated on a yearly basis so that the science is kept up to date rather than at four year intervals.
There should be no interference by governments in the process and no requirement for governments to sign off on it. Governments would be left to accept or deny the science, and for that be accountable to the UN and citizens of the world.
Alternatively they should be left more time for the actual scientific work by reducing the excessive efforts put into writing those heavy-to-read tomes.
Iolwot
You nearly gave me a heart attack. I thought I had clicked on Wagathon (immediately above you in the running order) and found myself reading;
“The IPCC should be expanded….”Most unwaggy like until I realised it was you.
Whilst I think the IPCC are by their sell by date and if they had been proposed as an entity in the last decade would probably never have got off the ground, we are where we are. That said, if we have to have the IPCC I think what you have suggested is perfectly reasonable with the caveat they need to spread their net wider.
tonyb
“The IPCC should be expanded. I would like to see the authors and lead authors paid a salary for participating in the process that would encourage them to spend more time on the process.”
I think we should just cede all authority to the IPCC. Put them in charge of the entire world, with the “voodoo science” railroad engineer installed as emperor of planet earth.
“There should be no interference by governments in the process and no requirement for governments to sign off on it. Governments would be left to accept or deny the science, and for that be accountable to the UN and citizens of the world.”
Wow. Just wow.
The first sentence is just funny, in a “your lobotomy scar is a gas” sort of way.
The IPCC, created, staffed and funded by governments, should be free of government interference. That’s like saying that Ford Motor’s Company’s PR department should not suffer interference from Ford Motor Company.
Presumably lolwot would still have the “governments” of western companies still taking taxes from the stupid voters and funneling it to Pachauri & Co.
The second sentence shows just how anti-democratic the progressive CAGW movement in general, and lolwot in particular, is.
Governments should not be accountable to their stupid voters. They should be accountable to the UN. Oh, and “citizens of the world,” whatever that means.
This is loony “one world government” stuff. It would be funny, if he weren’t serious.
“I do not believe there is any systematic ‘cover-up’ of scientific evidence on climate change or that academics’ work is being ‘deliberately suppressed’ – Lennart Bengtsson
He should know.
“….or that academics’ work is being ‘deliberately suppressed’ –
I found this to be a confounding assertion in light of his own reported experience.
By it’s very nature, leftist culture is “systematic”. Do think it is a conscious organized plan, at say the NY Times, to fundamentally agree with one another on most societal and political schisms? Yet, they all read from a very narrow and similar script. Systematic doesn’t equal conspiracy theory but the culture driving consensus AGW agenda setting, left-wing academic bias or the NYTimes are all systematic and tangible. Covering up for enclaves such as green related academic study areas, climate science certainly is one, isn’t a constructive process to the debate and Dr. Curry maintains this protocol routinely. We’re suppose to believe the narrative that most scientist are not activists or greatly influenced by the activist arm. Nonsense. I’m sure some were bullied but more often they culturally rolled over based on their general predispositions. Even if AGW is garbage in the “science” end redistributing authority from private to public, stacking up against carbon are populist even in academic communities that many mistakenly would think as “too professional” to be this corrupted by personal bias. These are “Earth Day” people and all the things that go with that.
If the silent majority of climate science aren’t directly corrupted by the loudmouth, uber left-wing activists there is still a pretty suspect reason for laying down like doormats the past 30 years and it explains the false equivalency preserved by Dr. Curry about “politics” and “sides”. I can’t think of any core of “skeptics” with comparable political power, academic bullying, political uniformity, sloth government funding, media appendages (with scaling) or any tactical unity at all. There is absolutely no common skeptic agenda compared to the government authority and policy meme found in left-wing communities regarding AGW expansionism. How can skepticism be equalized to jack-boot AGW conformity on the face of it?
If it’s all a person considers as a prism, leftist culture, it isn’t surprising Dr. Bengtsson can’t see what is obvious about his own peers. How he defined “systematic” might be completely corrupted. Skeptics or skeptical sentiments that can’t accept this reality are enabling the AGW advocacy culture and it may well be a conscious decision for complex social reasons. Effectively the skepticism is trying to be isolated so that personal politics and social viewpoints can be maintained within a community. It’s not truthful or likely even rational. You have to look at the whole movement from formation to this date, of course it’s systematic, cultural and politically cohesive. The “science” talking points always change but the solutions proposed are all uniform, state and academically administered within a very specific community. Media, academics, government with very similar cultural and political viewpoints. AGW advocacy is about as systematic as it gets, the bully factor is minor compared to the day-to-day political correctness, conformity and self-delusion so often found in leftist agendas. Of course Dr. Bengtsson can’t see it and Dr. Curry can’t admit it directly about her peers;
Why ‘Global Warming’ Is Scarier Than ‘Climate Change’
http://time.com/119517/global-warming-climate-change/
:: ))
A stupid stick exposed right away, it is Time magazine after-all;
has become the preferred term for scientists because it better describes the long-term changes in the planet’s climate, which go well beyond simple temperature increase. Scientists use it, and so have I, but most of the time I simply rotate the two terms for variety’s sake.
The whole article is about marketing and success of pitch words.Great “science” logic exhibited.
A bit of a quandary here. Judy terminally compromised my nom de guerre by publicly revealing my identity in the last post. I too such pride in it as well – especially the well merited field promotion from Captain Kangaroo to Generalissimo Skippy. I doubt that in the annals of the climate war that there has ever been a more treacherous betrayal. When at the end of the day – when the fog of battle has cleared and an account is rendered – this will certainly go down in the annals of climate war infamy.
I scanned this post earlier this morning – I tend to get a big picture overview and then contemplate my navel while getting about the day before – eventually – honing in on details. The first thing that struck was that this sort of stuff fills me with horror. It is almost totally unreadable. Let me summarise. The process favours the formation of a groupthink dynamic that has failed in it’s purpose. It’s time for a cultural revolution so that we can replace the jaded leadership with a new set of kleptocrats. No!!! Really???
The second thing I noticed was Joshua. The same words and pejorative characterizations – I wont dignify it by calling it an argument – repeated post after post. In fact merely a microcosm of the whole damn shebang. Shebang is my favourite word of the moment – did you know it’s first recorded use was by Walt Whitman? But – unlike Walt this is same words and blogospheric shorthand – lol – repeated endlessly until they lose all sense, meaning or purpose.
The Borg collective cult of AGW groupthink space cadets (BCCAGWGSS for short) can’t shift from it’s groupthink mediated position – on any little point. Although – my opinion is that they don’t really understand every little point and imagine that what they are babbling about is the consensus. The future is certain – we are inevitably constructing the petard on which we will be collectively hoist – it is all energetics – the oceans are warming – the climate equation is solvable with a bath tub allegory and a couple of acronyms. They can’t really be wrong because it is the consensus and – besides – being wrong would be catastrophic for this whole moral rectitude and intellectual astuteness construct. It is the Titanic’s relentless momentum guaranteeing that the iceberg will win in the end.
Waggy quoted Lennart Bengtsson again.
‘As a result of chaos theory, weather and climate cannot be predicted, and how future climate will turn out will not be known until future is upon us… This should be clear to anyone, simply by moving back in time and contemplating what has unfolded from that viewpoint.’
This is true without a doubt – but it leaves Wally Broecker’s wild beast – or perhaps it is Didier Sornette’s dragon-king – snapping at our heels. Which prompted JCH – lol – to posit cryptically – it’s how he rolls – that Wally was grabbing CO2 from the air. Yes Wally has grown a beard, donned sackcloth and in between living in a cave at the burning man festival practices pulling CO2 from the air with psychic powers. Not really. Only joking. He uses a net. Keep going Wally – you’re doing a great job – only a gazillion tons to go.
There is a middle position. Between dragon-kings and dinosaur thinking – and skirting the inchoate no mans land of blogospheric babble – is the true heart of the climate dilemma. The true heart is how we evolve as a global civilization this century to provide health, education, safe water and sanitation, sufficient food, security, opportunity and freedom from oppression. It is emphatically not this – http://judithcurry.com/2014/05/24/are-climate-scientists-being-forced-to-toe-the-line/#comment-569486 – frankly I’d send the lot to Minnesota and let God sort them out.
I sometimes describe myself as a climate catastrophist – in the sense of Rene Thom. Thom was a French mathematician who studied earthquakes and landslides. It is essentially an application of chaos theory. Chaos theory in climate implies a mathematically finite risk of catastrophic climate change in as little as 10 years. Just one possibility in a broad range.
This seems a bit cold blooded for our friends from the Borg collective. They need dramatic tales of impending apocalypse to sell a new and bucolic UNtopian nightmare in which families again wander across the savannah trying to avoid being lunch. Seriously – it’s in their vision statement. This requires – inter alia – the destruction of industrial society and the cloning of smallpox from infected victims preserved in glaciers. Articles 5 and 8 of the new economic manifesto.
The climate equation is thus.
Impact = population X affluence X (CO2 from fossil fuels + black carbon + tropospheric ozone + land clearing + loss of soil carbon + nitrous oxide + methane + sulphide)
One solution might be to increase the cost of fossil fuels so horrendously that affluence and population crash. Especially if the smallpox can be engineered in time – say the next 500 days.
Reminds me a bit of the sensei at my dojo.
Sensei: What do you do if someone grabs your shoulders?
Me: Push your hands though their arms – grab their shoulders – headbut – knee to the solar plexus – rabbit punch to the back of the skull.
Sensei: I see – that will work. Say – why don’t we try something a little less lethal?
Population pressures are the easiest to address. In principle the 8 Millennium Development Goals – http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/ – are in combination the best approach to constraining population growth. Ignore for a moment that this is a UN program and so doomed to failure. All of our western governments have committed to raising aid to 0.7% of GDP and this is probably best not sent off to the World Bank but used to supplement existing bilateral aid programs.
You may note that the eradication of extreme poverty is one of the laudable goals. This is in fact best achieved by free trade and the adoption of democracy and models of fair, transparent and effective market regulation. Perhaps it might be best not to use the US as a model. Affluence allows the moderation of most factors in the brackets of the equation – it is quite a good thing for people and the environment.
This is as good a starting point for actual progress on development and multi-gas mitigation as any – http://thebreakthrough.org/blog/Climate_Pragmatism_web.pdf
But other than returning the human race to a hunter gatherer state – the only thing that is going to moderate the burning of fossil fuels is technological innovation. This is not a quandary but an opportunity. I am proposing a billion dollar global energy prize stumped up by the UN. That should get people’s attention. Maybe Wally will win a prize. And no I don’t care that giving people cheap and abundant energy would be like giving a child a machine gun.
Eh – like everyone else here – I am just blowing smoke up my own arse. Perhaps – now that my cover is blown – I should stop before I start to enjoy it?
Robert I Ellison
Chief Hydrologist
Chief
I am bemused by this. I don’t know what Judith said in the last post but we have always known who you are as you have frequently told us. Wuwt?
Tonyb
Tony – part of the game of the nom de guerre was to neither confirm or deny. I am sure that you read more than I explicitly said. Now that I have returned to the gentler pursuits of natural philosophy – perhaps I should grow a beard and join up with Wally at the burning man festival. I’ve heard that’s where Bart has got off to.
Robert I Ellison
Chief Hydrologist
Chief, Generalissimo, whatever. A word of advice.
If you really want to be taken seriously, do not morph your avatars.
A facile disreputable out. Judith does not. ClimateReason does not.
My proposal is this. Use your own moniker, or pick one avatar. Stick with it. Thn you might become falsifiable. You would probably learn something, as opposed to wafting into the ‘Smoke’ which is the core subject of my forthcoming ebook. Not that you would deign to read it. But others might.
Thanks for the uncopyrighted extra example.
Ironically, I am on your side of this food fight. But in boxing, as my Golden Gloves Great Uncle Joe ‘ ‘ taught, there are also style points. You go figure the rest. He coached Olympic boxing in the 1930s. His lessons still apply.
Rud – . My name and moniker were known here since this – http://judithcurry.com/2011/02/09/decadal-variability-of-clouds/
The moniker was chosen really as a reminder not to take myself too seriously to have some fun what used to be the civilized esalon of CE.
Biosketch. Robert styles himself in the blogosphere as a Chief Hydrologist. ‘Cecil Terwilliger (brother to Sideshow Bob) was Springfield’s Chief Hydrological and Hydrodynamical Engineer. He opined that this was a sacred vocation in some cultures. The more I thought about this the more it resonated with me. I am an hydrologist by training, profession and (much more) through a deep fascination with water in all its power and beauty. Given the importance of water to us practically and symbolically, there is more than an element of the sacred.’
Generalissimo Skippy was a reaction to the emergent abrasiveness, aggression, abuse and intolerance – and was pretty much an open secret. It was a literary persona that deliberately took sides in the climate war – I don’t have a side. Both sides are equally stupid.
Let me give you some advice – in no sense do I agree with anything much that you say. Your simplistic, pedestrian and pedantic analysis doesn’t warrant you taking yourself overly seriously in this field. You’re right – in no way am I tempted to read any of your books. I don’t read blogs either. I read actual science.
I suggest that you should lighten up – not continually blow smoke up your own arse or at least be self aware -.and you might learn something.
Robert I Ellison
Chief Hydrologist
Chief
We all knew who you were all along – and we appreciate your valuable insight and opinions, which dissent from the IPCC consensus pablum.
Max
Thanks Max – one can be unloved and not give a rat’s arse – or appreciated and smile.
And Rud – one further word of advice – all literary expressions are automatically copyrighted.
Chief,
I recognize and appreciate a brilliant mind when I see one, despite my own considerable intellectual deficiencies.
+1
….just to add, I often find myself in disagreement with you, and am frequently turned off wrt to your tendency to personalize things.
Rud Istvan | May 27, 2014 at 6:14 pm |
”
Chief, Generalissimo, whatever. A word of advice.
If you really want to be taken seriously, do not morph your avatars.
”
Hi Guys!
I hate to intrude on the generous advice-giving and biographical-narcissism that passes for informed comments here – but I’d just like to point out that this is a blog. On the internet.
Morphing avatars are the least of your not-being-taken-seriously problems.
Get a life. No one who matters takes any of this dreck seriously!
Deep personal fascination with water notwithstanding, of course.
If you really want to be taken seriously, try publishing your results.
It all seems hugely personal – activists sniggering and bickering without substance at all. Essentially from both sides. It all just goes round and round till I get dizzy and fall over. It is all empty headed babble without much even to recommend it for wit and literary style. This thread starts with actual substance – in between games about avatars and – I like to think – an attempt at least at sophisticated word play. In creative expressions – especially attempts at humour – one can only try to fly and crashing and burning is always more likely.
The climate blogosphere is something like a modern cargo cult – wave some vaguely scientific thingy around and some of it might stick. I’ve described webby’s math – for instance – as homeopathic. Take a solution for standing waves in an elliptical bath tub and scale it to the SOI by waving acronyms over it.
It all seems a lot insane. But there is a certain type that drives me crazy.
“There were lot of fools at the conference – pompous fools – and pompous fools drive me up the wall. Ordinary fools are alright; you can talk to them and try to help them out. But pompous fools – guys who are fools and covering it all over and impressing people as to how wonderful they are with all this hocus pocus – THAT, I CANNOT STAND! An ordinary fool isn’t a faker; an honest fool is alright. But a dishonest fool is terrible!” Richard Feymann
What I try to do in a scientific way is inductive reasoning based on observation. I link ideas and data – and reference a wide range of original sources both of big ideas and big data. It is the synthesis process at the core of natural philosophy – central to attempting to understand in a big picture way. But at this stage there is really only thing that makes any scientific sense – predictability. Anyone who predicted the pause a decade or more ago has blog cred.
If you have a particular objection – Al – you will need to be a little more specific. For me it was always about trying to understand a particular problem in hydrology for no reason other than that I was intrigued. It turns out that it has implications for decadal – and longer – shifts in global temperature and for climatic risk that are not understood at all well. From this emerges the need for effective climate policy responses – and this is the only reason I have ever bothered to buy into the circus that is the climate war. The middle path I discuss above. It contains much that neither of the clown troops like – but should I care? The middle ground is for rational actors – and there seem very few if any amongst the climate warriors. The real problem is how to cut through the dreck to the real world to make substantive progress. How do we frame a song of tomorrow?
There is a middle position. Between dragon-kings and dinosaur thinking – skirting the inchoate no mans land of blogospheric babble – that is the true heart of the climate dilemma. The true heart is how we evolve as a global civilization this century to provide health, education, safe water and sanitation, sufficient food, security, opportunity and freedom from oppression.
“Judy terminally compromised my nom de guerre by publicly revealing my identity in the last post.”
____
Maybe you should just stick to one there Skippy Cheif Hydro Robert Ellison Generalissimo etc. etc. etc.
“Get a life. No one who matters takes any of this dreck seriously!
_____
+100
Best comment of the year. This is all just a lot of arguing between blokes at the pub– only there is no beer! It is a social outlet and a chance to talk about things that the majority of the population could care less about– so in that sense, this a very selective pub (without beer!) that the average person stays well away from!
Robert Ellison wrote: I am an hydrologist by training, profession and (much more) through a deep fascination with water in all its power and beauty.
I do hope you have read “The Fourth Phase of Water” by Gerald Pollack. If you have not, I recommend you do.
I don’t know how to include the fourth phase in my climate theory, but I am sure it plays an important part.
Full Committee Hearing – Examining the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Process
See Richard Tol: UN climate change expert reveals bias in global warming report
interesting group! I look forward to what they all have to say….
fwiw, I have been pawing at the central role played by Michael Oppenheimer and a very small care of activists getting the whole scare process going, from. 1987 on:
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/discussion/post/2352447
No conspiracist ideation needed, it is out in the open and Oppenheimer boasts of it in 2007 (see his blog article for the Environmental Defense Fund, linked at link above).
Some will yawn and say ancient history, but I find it interesting that Oppenheimer and a fairly small cadre (cabal??) of activists and scientists sought to create the template for all that followed with the UNFCCC and IPCC. Oppenheimer even boasts that his group of “activists” (his word) tricked the Reagan administration into supporting the creation of the IPCC…. although with George Schultz as Secretary of State, no trickery was needed… the relevant senior official was already onboard with the general plan of Oppenheimer et al. due to the work on the Montreal accord for ozone. Schultz has since written that he viewed both the Montreal accord, and also the prospect of action on “global warming”, as good “insurance”. (his word).
Anyway, Oppenheimer has been a core activist in the IPCC since before it was created (and one of the authors, etc.). It will be interesting to see where he is now in comments on the IPCC…..
Functional stupidity? Sounds like some kind of oxymoron to me.
Looking at the way government seems to operate these days, the term dysfunctional stupidity comes to mind.
When it comes to climate issue policy making, maybe we should be looking at the policymakers instead. It would seem logical that we would need rational policymakers in order to formulate a rational climate policy. But, in looking at the likes of Sen. James Inhofe and Congressmen Dana Rohrabacher, Joe Barton, and Paul Broun, ‘rational’ would not appear to be descriptive of the profound ignorance and cluelessness (e.g., climate science is a hoax) that they exhibit when it comes to anything related to global climate. We need competent people in Congress if we are to expect competent decisions on climate, or any other topic.
“IPCC . . . has rendered climate policy ineffective and has foreclosed the possibility of public consent” – Silke Beck? My reaction to this would be that Silke Beck probably has a congenital deficiency in her ability to understand technical matters. How on Earth could IPCC have rendered climate policy ineffective? Since when does IPCC make climate policy? Do we even have a climate policy?
Wouldn’t if be policymakers who are supposed to make policy. The fact that our policymakers are too incompetent to make climate policy should not be blamed on IPCC. But if you happen to like how our government is functioning, by all means, keep on voting Republican.
As for “having foreclosed the possibility of public consent”, where does that non-sequitur come from? IPCC is not in the business of controlling public consent. Rather, the IPCC Report serves a public information function. Nobody is being forced to read IPCC reports. If you don’t happen to agree with what is written in the IPP Report, you can always go and freely maintain your own opinion to the contrary.
As for “IPCC’s monopoly on climate knowledge”? Judy, surely you’ve got to be kidding. How can anybody have a monopoly on of all things,
climate knowledge, particularly when they have gone and made their report public for anyone and everyone to read, use, and criticize? If they had instead written their report, and then locked it up in some CIA basement to keep such sensitive information from reaching the public, then yes, we really would have something to complain about.
I have never contributed anything to the IPCC Report (apart from leveling some nasty review comments about a decade ago). But I do read the IPCC Report to get a better perspective of new developments in climate science. I simply do not have the time and energy to search for and read the thousand odd publications on climate research that get cited and evaluated in the IPCC Report.
The basic facts and physics as they pertain to climate, climate change, and global warming in particular, are all freely available in the public domain for anybody interested to do their own data analysis and climate modeling if they so choose. But for any of the conclusions reached to be acknowledged as being “plausible”, let alone “correct”, such conclusions must not violate the known laws of physics.
Andy, for the argument re monopoly on climate knowledge, read Richard Tol’s article that was linked in the main post
http://judithcurry.com/2011/06/16/ipcc-as-a-knowledge-monopoly/
Why are you just singling out the Republicans for being clueless. How about Obama, Kerry, John Holdren, Henry Waxman, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reed who maintain that the discussion is over, the science is settled and it’s time for economy wrecking ACTION.
Andy
I sincerely appreciate you engaging here, but wonder if you exist in a parallel universe when you say things like;
‘The basic facts and physics as they pertain to climate, climate change, and global warming in particular, are all freely available in the public domain for anybody interested to do their own data analysis and climate modeling if they so choose.’
Met office computer in nearby Exeter $50Million plus $1000 dollars a day to run climate models. My computer $500 from the local Dixons Electrical Chain and er…somewhat less powerful.
Quite how we are supposed to create meaningful climate models with that sort of disparity deserves to be the subject of your next post.
tonyb
Methinks he protesteth overly much.
=========
Andy
P.S. forgot to mention that many of the papers in ‘the public domain’ are behind pay walls. To carry out my private research for my own articles I buy about 300 dollars worth of pay walled articles per year and could easily spend very much more. The publicly funded met office scientists don’t have to buy them out of their own pocket. It’s hardly a level playing field is it?
Tonyb
If I were to tell my patients that Republicans are a bunch of idiots some percentage of my patient base would go elsewhere, ie cut my funding.
A. Lacis, This was an embarrassing comment. Already eviscerated by others here. Surely you do not wish to bring Google and Time Machine to bear also. Trying to turn a ‘scientific’ thing into a political ‘left right ‘ thing just positions you politically. Major fail. Sad. Had hoped you you’d do better.
“I do read the IPCC Report to get a better perspective of new developments in climate science.” Interesting. The IPCC-reports were actually never meant to give a better perspective of new developments in climate science (in general). They were meant as an aggregation hub of science supporting the AGW-view. So if you only stick to what is given in the IPCC-reports, then you surely, eventually, will become biased.
> apart from leveling some nasty review comments about a decade ago
That’s impossible, Andy.
You’re supposed to be a tribal scientist engaged in circling the wagons of a cargo cult. Unless you wrote these comments to cover up your institutional bias?
Denizens can see through your charade, Andy.
Fess it.
Well, the IPCC doesn’t have a monopoly on knowledge, but does have a monopoly on influence.
It is common knowledge that observed temperature trends are less than Hansen’s testimony and less than what even the IPCC4 predicted.
It is common knowledge that this is so because radiative forcing is less than expected.
It is common knowledge that this is because, in addition to CFCs declining, the population trend is less than even the B1 scenario.
But a conclusion of no problem doesn’t justify all the personal perks and prestige that come with being a world saviour.
andy,andy
It’s too bad your enlightened Democrats didn’t care enough to implement their climate policies when they had control of both branches of Congress and the White House way back before Climategate, when the pause was just a toddler. But they were too busy concocting a Rube Goldberg scheme to give us healthcare, which everybody had in one form or another already. Looking on the bright side, they could have screwed us royally with some looney climate policy instead. Andy, does the healthcare fiasco inform you at all on the competence of your Demos in getting big things done?
It’s only going to get harder, andy. Those nasty Republicans are going to take back the Senate.
Andy +100
Funny thing is, that in normal circumstances, people exhibiting the kind of politico-economic leanings (tending to libertrianism/conservatism) we commonly see here, would run a mile from this kind of waffling socio-babble, kumbaya-singing stuff.
Instead they seem quite pleased with it – I guess anything that appers to fit in with their anti-IPCC dogma is met with credulity rather than scepticism.
” Trying to turn a ‘scientific’ thing into a political ‘left right ‘ thing just positions you politically.”
Well of course it does. Lacis is an advocate of CAGW, decarbonization based on a potential catastrophic change in climate caused by ACO2. It is a political movement.
AGW – science
CAGW – politics
And it is a “left – right” thing, for those controlling the policy and funding levers.
Quick, name a genuinely conservative politician who supports decarbonization.
There may be a few progressive politicians who oppose it somewhere, but I can’t think of one.
Concern by A Lacis, demographics by FOMD.
Conclusions Denialism’s superannuated icons are exhibiting little or no capability to recruit young scientists and/or young voters.
So year-by-year, denialism is withering and dying.
That’s good news, eh Climate Etc readers?
Reasonable Question Should climate-change denialism be regarded as a disease of aging? Certainly younger science-students (and voters) can be forgiven for thinking so!
A Lacis: As for “IPCC’s monopoly on climate knowledge”? Judy, surely you’ve got to be kidding. How can anybody have a monopoly on of all things, climate knowledge,
That was going to be my point. The knowledge is in the public domain, with only particular language copyrighted. We have contrary opinions from GWPF, NIPCC, occasional reviews in Science and Nature, and the staff of Sen Inhoff. Besides that, I contribute commentaries to my Representative to the House. IPCC may want a monopoly, but it doesn’t have one. It might be the only “official” supplier recognized by some parts of some governments, but that doesn’t by itself make it a “monopoly” as long as there are plenty of other suppliers.
But for any of the conclusions reached to be acknowledged as being “plausible”, let alone “correct”, such conclusions must not violate the known laws of physics.
Well, there are a lot of gaps in the “known laws of physics”, not to mention simplifications of untested accuracy.
‘rational’ would not appear to be descriptive of the profound ignorance and cluelessness (e.g., climate science is a hoax) that they exhibit when it comes to anything related to global climate.
Gracious! I would add Nancy Pelosi, John Holdren, Barack Obama and lots of other Democrats to your list of the “clueless”, though perhaps Holdren knows at least a few of the “clues”.
a fan of *MORE*: climate-change denialism
Who denies “climate change”? Perhaps a few people deny that climate can change without anthropogenic CO2, but certainly not the denizens of Climate Etc or the Republicans in the national Congress.
A. Lacis
If IPCC report is “science” why is the “summary” created by government politicians to the least common denominator before the “science” is finalized?
See IPCC lead author Richard Tol on the IPCC process:
UN climate change expert reveals bias in global warming report
Judith Curry, a quote from Tol’s article: These authors are rewarded with prestige, networking opportunities, access to decision makers, and influence. As the incumbent, the IPCC offers plenty of each. A new entrant would offer little.
That may be true as far as it goes, but the commodity that is supplied by IPCC, review and commentary on science and policy, is supplied by others as well. IPCC might in a sense be the only “licensed” supplier, but it does not have an actual monopoly on the supply. And the IPCC has had less success recently in portraying its product as either the best or even passable. Support for the policies favored by IPCC in the past has declined, and its recent report acknowledged the importance of some claims by its competitors.
Tol does not make a strong case that IPCC is actually a monopoly; though obviously the IPCC tries to claim that its competitors’ products are inferior, it can’t prevent them gaining market share.
Real But Exaggerated: Well, the IPCC doesn’t have a monopoly on knowledge, but does have a monopoly on influence.
In the US there is no monopoly on influence (consider the Republicans in the House and Senate), and I doubt IPCC has great influence in China.
Then you are missing out on a large part of the new developments. That does not mean you cannot get them elsewhere, but the slant is so bad at the IPCC that it renders their ARs useless for anything more than bird cage liner.
House panel takes hard look at UN climate change process
THe hearing will be Webcast.
Well, I am somewhat convinced by andy’s convoluted assessment of the IPCC and the fawning praise by the usual sycophants. I believe that we need more IPs to help upper socialist gubmint muckety-muck apparatchiks formulate policies for our benefit on a wide range of issues. I am sure everyone could think of serious problems that could be sorted out by an array of agenda driven IPs. How about the evils of income inequality? IP on the Evils of Income Inequality. IPEII! Bang! Having just now proposed that idea, I hear that Nobel and far lesser leftwinged economists are already lining up to get a piece of the action.
Let’s think up a bunch more IPs. Remember andy said they don’t cost us anything.
Reblogged this on I Didn't Ask To Be a Blog.
A Lacis writes:
===================
How on Earth could IPCC have rendered climate policy ineffective? Since when does IPCC make climate policy? Do we even have a climate policy?
===================
The IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) is the body that creates the standards for Internet technology. As such, it is probably one of the most influential bodies in the word. a favorite saying of the IETF is “There is no IETF”. That is there is no corporate IETF but just a changing collecting of people who come together to formalize the standards. Except that everybody knows that there is an IETF. It is the in group which controls the process.
The same can be said of the IPCC. There is no IPCC in terms of policy. Except that the IPCC is not a corporate entity but a collection of people some of whom are far more influential than others. Some of these influential people make no secret of their policy preferences and some of these people actively work to exclude other policy preferences.
So the IPCC does not have a climate policy. Yet the IPCC has a climate policy.
The UNFCCC has climate policies. The IPCC works for the UNFCCC
The UNFCCC first DEFINED:
The change from “global warming” to “climate change” enforces this original redefinition by the UNFCCCd to justify massive “taxes” to “save” our planet – and perpetually fund massive ever increasing climate bureaucracies.
The IPCC officially defined:
However, in practice climate alarmists and politicians use the UNFCCC definition that “climate change” is anthropogenic – with 95% confidence!
Retired officers poised to profit after Pentagon’s alarmist climate change report
Retired military officers deeply involved in the climate change movement — and some in companies positioned to profit from it — spearheaded an alarmist global warming report this month that calls on the Defense Department to ramp up spending on what it calls a man-made problem.
The report, which the Obama administration immediately hailed as a call to action, was issued not by a private advocacy group but by a Pentagon-financed think tank that trumpets “absolute objectivity.” The research was funded by a climate change group that is also one of the think tank’s main customers.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/may/26/sponsors-of-pentagons-alarm-raising-climate-study-/
At one time I worked for a utility that ended up being purchased by Enron. Jeff Skilling and the rest of the management team could be the poster boys for functional stupidity.
Once I bought something from England.
I never got it.
Royal Mail is the epitome of functional stupidity.
tonyb –
The FORTRAN code for the GISS ModelE climate model is freely available to anybody who wants to download it from the GISS webpage. Some of our guys are running it on their laptops. The point that I was trying to make was that climate research is not some tightly held proprietary information, but rather, is a scientific study conducted in the public domain.
But as a practical matter, not many people have FORTRAN compilers on their laptops, nor are they prepared to spend the time and effort to learn how to run these models and how to interpret the model output. I might have interest in verifying the Higgs boson data, but setting up another Large Hadron Collider in my back yard is not an option. I just have to assume that the reports of their discovery are correct and that they actually did all the research as reported (and not just have made up the story while spending all their research money on beer, pretzels, and women).
Climate research has become a big science in the sense that doing cutting edge climate research requires a sizeable climate lab with large computers and dozens of research scientists to man the effort. Many nations have decided that it is in their national interest to set up and support such climate research institution. But, as you note, doing that is beyond the reach of individual scientists. So, in a sense, you are left with the less than satisfactory option of having to “trust” the climate research results that these climate centers report.
But you do have the ability to cross-check whether the research reports coming from the different climate centers agree with each other. If they all tend to agree on some point, then perhaps their finding is likely to be “correct”. You can also compare reported research results against a broad range of related climate data. And you can contemplate whether or not the research finding in question makes physical sense.
The point that I have been making about atmospheric CO2 being the LW control knob that controls global climate is not a “big science” item. Top-performance computers are not needed to come to that conclusion. A basic understanding of atmospheric physics and basic knowledge of the radiative and thermodynamic properties of the principal atmospheric gases is sufficient.
A Lacis
The point made in the lead post was not so much “that climate research is not some tightly held proprietary information, but rather, is a scientific study conducted in the public domain” (as you point out) but that the IPCC has outlived it’s usefulness, due to “paradigm paralysis” and the forced “consensus process”.
A second point.
You state that “basic understanding of atmospheric physics and basic knowledge of the radiative and thermodynamic properties of the principal atmospheric gases is sufficient” to come to the conclusion “about atmospheric CO2 being the LW control knob that controls global climate”.
Whoa, buddy!
If one construes the theory and loads the climate models to support that conclusion, one can certainly arrive at the conclusion using the theory one has construed and the models one has programmed.
But the actual empirical physical observations do not support this theoretical conclusion.
Almost one-fourth of all human CO2 has been emitted since the end of 2000, yet the “globally and annually averaged land and sea surface temperature” has cooled slightly.
So much for the “CO2 control knob”.
Max
If I were a climate scientist, I would spend every waking moment reflecting on how
such an elegant theory has proven to be such a miserable failure in projecting the future.
It doesn’t seem that any of what was expected 20 years ago has shown up in the
observational data. In another decade the public will begin to chant ‘put up or shut up”
A Lacis: The point that I have been making about atmospheric CO2 being the LW control knob that controls global climate is not a “big science” item. Top-performance computers are not needed to come to that conclusion. A basic understanding of atmospheric physics and basic knowledge of the radiative and thermodynamic properties of the principal atmospheric gases is sufficient.
That’s a bit much. Without CO2, the Earth might get much colder than it is or ever has been, by an amount that can’t be reliably computed because of inadequacies in the science of non-radiative transport within the system. Whether doubling CO2 will produce a 0.3% to 1% in global mean temperature can’t be known on present knowledge, and equilibrium thermodynamics is for sure insufficient to make a reliable prediction.
Matthew Marler, while we can be sure you don’t know these things, as with other skeptics here, you shouldn’t presume to tell scientists what they don’t know without knowing the process by which they come to their conclusions. Instead you should be asking them why they are so sure about specific points, and Lacis has often written lengthy pieces in layman’s terms that actually has a lot of basic physics behind it.
Is it the basic physics or the complex stuff that’s the problem? I always get that bit mixed up
Turns out that large forcing changes are not complex to understand. Individual decades have variability, and if you want to understand those wiggles in detail, you can make it as complex as you like, just like with weather events or El Ninos, but these average out in climate (30-year averages) making climate change just an energy budget. Bengtsson and Schwartz took that big-picture approach, as one recent example, when they came up with a sensitivity of over 2 C per doubling, and skeptics haven’t yet criticized (or praised) their new hero for this paper, or more likely have avoided reading it because its title was “Determination of a lower bound on Earth’s climate sensitivity”, which would be like a cross to a vampire.
Yes – one can run the GISS Model E.
Presumably, one will find similar results to similar runs 25 years ago.
Namely the rate of warming was exaggerated and is decelerating:
http://climatewatcher.webs.com/SatelliteEraTemperatures.png
Adherents to theory understand this because they know that radiative forcing peaked decades ago and has decelerated:
http://ej.iop.org/images/1748-9326/8/1/011006/erl459410f5_online.jpg
That only makes sense, because population trends are at or below the low scenario:
http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/sres/emission/images/ts3.gif
http://www.businessinsider.com/analyst-world-population-will-peak-at-85-billion-in-2030-2012-11
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/09/20/business/World-Population-Could-Peak-by-2055.html?_r=2&
Instead of saying ‘Great news!’ the same jive scare stories keep coming.
Those model runs don’t support the ‘Worse than expected’ that Hansen spews, nor do they support floods, droughts, and fires because as you noted, climate models don’t resolve weather and all the runs in the world of Model E won’t change that.
Jim D: while we can be sure you don’t know these things,
So tell me where something I don’t know has been presented in the published literature. I can attest that climate scientists know lots of stuff I don’t know, but much of what I say is “not known” is simply glossed over. Lacis writes of the equilibrium calculations that can’t be very accurate for a system never in equilibrium, and that is what he refers to as “basic physics”, or in some cases as “the physics” — frequently without even bothering to list the propositions that he calls the “physics”.
Jim D: Turns out that large forcing changes are not complex to understand.
Is a 3.7 W/m^2 change in forcing “large”? Over water, how much is converted to increased vapor and how much to temperature increase? Maybe not complex to understand, but not yet quantified — an unknown that is finessed by the “equilibrists”.
‘It is hypothesized that persistent and consistent trends among several climate modes act to ‘kick’ the climate state, altering the pattern and magnitude of air-sea interaction between the atmosphere and the underlying ocean. Figure 1 (middle) shows that these climate mode trend phases indeed behaved anomalously three times during the 20th century, immediately following the synchronization events of the 1910s, 1940s, and 1970s. This combination of the synchronization of these dynamical modes in the climate, followed immediately afterward by significant increase in the fraction of strong trends (coupling) without exception marked shifts in the 20th century climate state. These shifts were accompanied by breaks in the global mean temperature trend with respect to time, presumably associated with either discontinuities in the global radiative budget due to the global reorganization of clouds and water vapor or dramatic changes in the uptake of heat by the deep ocean. Similar behavior has been found in coupled ocean/atmosphere models, indicating such behavior may be a hallmark of terrestrial-like climate systems [Tsonis et al., 2007].’
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2008GL037022/full
CERES and MODIS data are showing that the 2006 correction for ERBS and the 2007 correction for ISCCP data are at least credible. Interesting relationships emerge when the data is combined.
In IR.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/Loeb2011-Fig1.png.html?sort=3&o=145
As albedo.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/cloud_palleandlaken2013_zps3c92a9fc.png.html?sort=3&o=107
One of the most significant ideas to emerge is that the feedbacks from changes in ocean and atmospheric circulation is an order of magnitude greater than changes in greenhouse gas forcing in the period.
It is consistent with changes in ocean heat content (IPCC s 3.54.4.1, Loeb et al 2012) – the abrupt shift at the turn of the century is captured by Earthshine.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/Earthshine-1.jpg.html?sort=3&o=139
‘Earthshine changes in albedo shown in blue, ISCCP-FD shown in black and CERES in red. A climatologically significant change before CERES followed by a long period of insignificant change.’
It suggests that the planet as a whole isn’t warming – and at least some of the ‘climatologies’ emerging from Argo agree. It is one more observation amongst many that shows climate shifts in ocean and atmospheric circulation at decadal scales. Don’t mention the ‘c….’ word – it just confuses things.
There seems a relatively small menagerie of scientists who are across this new paradigm. The great mass of unwashed warriors of the climate war struggle with the concept with little success – and merely lob old and rotten fruit across the front lines.
It all suggests that feedbacks are greater than the forcing – that climate is an emergent behavior of a complex and dynamic system. That seems fairly evident and it leaves Didier Sornette’s dragon-kings breathing fire down our backs. Both sides are wrong but keep battling in the hope that the tide of attrition will swing their way.
We will call that ‘argument x’ – just refer back to when the you have one of these seniors moments.
3.7 W/m2 is enormous. For scale, the LIA was caused by something like -0.5 W/m2. This is just the kind of question you should be asking the scientists, and don’t shy away from the answers such as those from Bengtsson and Schwartz or Lovejoy who don’t use models as a matter of principle, just data. Give them consideration, and the consequences too. We could be at 5 W/m2 by 2100.
Presuming that the LIA was caused by the Sun – is like thinking Dumbo can really fly by flapping his ears.
”… but the large natural variability in the Earth’s radiation budget due to fluctuations in atmospheric and ocean dynamics complicates this picture.’
We will call that argument y – let me know which bit if large you don’t understand.
Jim D: 3.7 W/m2 is enormous.
That’s a start. Now how about the other question?
–Matthew R Marler | May 28, 2014 at 2:51 am |
Jim D: 3.7 W/m2 is enormous.
That’s a start. Now how about the other question?–
“The atmosphere generally contains about 12 x 10^3 km 3
equivalent of liquid water, enough to cover the Earth’s
surface to a depth of about 24 mm (precipitable depth).
Given this storage and the global average precipitation
rate of 1000 mm year -1, the average residence time of
a water molecule in the atmospheric reservoir is about
9 days. ”
http://www.meteo.mcgill.ca/~huardda/articles/brubaker94.pdf
“The mean mass of water vapor is estimated as 1.27 x 10 ^16 kg and the
dry air mass as 5.1352 +/- 0.0003 x 10 ^18 kg”
http://acacia.ucar.edu/staff/trenbert/trenberth.papers/massERA40JC.pdf
So about 24 kg of water vapor per square meter.
The energy needed create 1 kg of water vapor is “Latent heat of evaporation – 2,270 kJ/kg. 2.27 million joules. Times 24 is 54.48 million joules. 3.7 joules per second creating water vapor in year of 31.5 million seconds totals 116.68 million joules.
So in any given moment, there is 24 mm of water and year 1000 mm is generated and it adds bout 50 mm to the year total.
But sunlight would be making most water vapor in tropics. So cut the world into 3 pieces so north and south hemisphere is one half of the world, and tropics including up to say 30 degree north and south latitude. This extended tropical region which is half of world, would as guess, be getting 800 mm of the 1000 mm global amount. The half of 50 mm, created in this tropical region would have little affect upon it’s yearly total made. And the north and south hemisphere which gets only about 200 mm a year, would having about 10% or more added to it.
So tropics will get wetter air and more rain, but not very much more, and North and south hemisphere would get considerable wetter. As these regions are currently very dry in comparison to tropics. And since southern hemisphere has highest percentage of ocean, it should also significantly increase it’s clouds and rainfall.
Assuming that this added 3.7 joules per second does actually warm the surface of the ocean or in some way increases evaporation of the ocean by
3.7 joules per second.
Suppose one were going to add 3.7 joules per second of heat per square meter. And one could add this heat at 1 meter below the surface, or 10 meter below surface, or 100 meters below the surface, or 1000 meters below the surface.
Does it matter at what depth one heats the ocean?
Anyhow 1 square km with 3.7 joules per second of heat per square meter
is an enormous amount energy, it’s 3.7 MW.
What if had a range a one watt/joule to say 4 watt/joule per cubic meter.
And at 100 meter depth one had 1 watt and at 1 meter to 10 meter depth it was 4 watts, then say 11 meters to 30 meters is was 3 watts per cubic meter. 31 to 50 meter it was 2 watts, and 51 to 100 it was 1 watt per cubic meter.
Total it: 40 plus 60 plus 40 plus 50 watts- 190 watts per square meter and total 190 MW per square km.
Lacis thinks that because climate models tend to agree with each other, they are right.
And he describes Tol as a clueless windbag!
In whose fantasy? http://climateaudit.org/?s=refuse+to+release+data
The only domain it is freely available in is the “team’s”. And that is a big part of the problem.
gbaikie | May 28, 2014 at 6:10 am |
Thanks for the comment, and the effort. I am aiming for a quantitative estimate of how much of the 3.7 W/m^2 is carried from the surface to the upper troposphere and radiated to space without warming the surface and lower troposphere; and how much actually warms the surface and subsurface of the water and land (very little subsurface, compared to water.)
Also thank you for the links. I have bookmarked them.
gbaikie, I wrote too soon: I downloaded the pdfs.
Matthew Marler, without models it is a bit difficult to find a comparison, because the last time we had those levels of CO2 was 20-30 million years ago. The models and paleo observations agree that this gets a lot warmer, sea level is a lot higher and Greenland ice is not supported by the time this level of forcing is canceled by the necessary surface heating.
Jim D, you do realise, of course, that the 3.7 W/m2 isn’t an actual flux, but simply an estimate of the imbalance at TOA caused by a step-doubling of CO2.
The actual energy flux, every second of every day, is two orders of magnitude greater.
jimmy, jimmy
Which is it, 20 million years, or 30 million years? If you can’t narrow the time frame down any better than that, what the f makes you think you know what the temperature was way back when and the coinciding CO2 level?
You regularly pontificate with pretensions of authority about this and that, but the reality is that you just parrot crap you read on SkS or some other alarmist website. You are just another anonymous blog cartoon character with an agenda. The least you could do is provide some pal reviewed publications to provide dubious support for your BS. You are tedious and irrelevant. You would do the cause a favor, if you found another cause. Women’s rights is popular. You might meet somebody.
Jim D: without models it is a bit difficult to find a comparison,
Is that supposed to be one of the things I don’t know? Gracious.
Besides the models, you need relevant experiments confirming the accuracy of the models.
‘This disagreement is further clarified by two recent comments from Climate Etc. regulars Robert Ellison (Generalissimo Skippy) and Fred Moolten…’ – The heart of the climate dynamics debate. Oh treachery thy name is JC
This difference is that I reference credible science whereas Fred specialises in almost incoherent narrative constructed on the flimsiest foundations and back of the envelope algebra.
I was one of James Inhofe’s original infamous 400 – on the basis of an American Thinker article. I have to say that I found the other 399 thin gruel indeed. The idea of the article I first discussed in 2003 with a leading Australian hydroclimatologist. The idea stands in 2014 – as far as it goes. In 2009 – late to the party as usual – I realized I was wrong. It is not cycles at all.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/11/enso_variation_and_global_warm.html
CERES and MODIS data are showing that the 2006 correction for ERBS and the 2007 correction for ISCCP data are at least credible. Interesting relationships emerge when the data is combined.
In IR.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/Loeb2011-Fig1.png.html?sort=3&o=145
As albedo.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/cloud_palleandlaken2013_zps3c92a9fc.png.html?sort=3&o=107
One of the most significant ideas to emerge is that the feedbacks from changes in ocean and atmospheric circulation is an order of magnitude greater than changes in greenhouse gas forcing in the period.
It is consistent with changes in ocean heat content (IPCC s 3.54.4.1, Loeb et al 2012) – the abrupt shift at the turn of the century is captured by Earthshine.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/Earthshine-1.jpg.html?sort=3&o=139
‘Earthshine changes in albedo shown in blue, ISCCP-FD shown in black and CERES in red. A climatologically significant change before CERES followed by a long period of insignificant change.’
It suggests that the planet as a whole isn’t warming – and at least some of the ‘climatologies’ emerging from Argo agree. It is one more observation amongst many that shows climate shifts in ocean and atmospheric circulation at decadal scales. Don’t mention the ‘c….’ word – it just confuses things.
There seems a relatively small menagerie of scientists who are across this new paradigm. The great mass of unwashed warriors of the climate war struggle with the concept with little success – and merely lob old and rotten fruit across the front lines.
It all suggests that feedbacks are greater than the forcing – that climate is an emergent behavior of a complex and dynamic system. That seems fairly evident and it leaves Didier Sornette’s dragon-kings breathing fire down our backs. Both sides are wrong but keep battling in the hope that the tide of attrition will swing their way.
Robert I Ellison
Chief Hydrologist
Chief
But you’ve got to admit that Fred Moolten is an expert at smooth language.
For example, on an earlier thread he opined that CO2 was the “control knob” among “many other things”.
As we are seeing now, the “many other things” have taken over the “control knob” from CO2.
The Earthshine data, to which you refer, points to changes in global cloud cover and resultant changes in reflected incoming radiation, which occurred at the same time as shifts in global temperatures. This is one good example example of Fred’s “many other things”.
Max
Fred is an expert at shifting the goalposts and ducking and weaving.
A Lacis,
You wrote –
“The basic facts and physics as they pertain to climate, climate change, and global warming in particular, are all freely available in the public domain . . . ”
Correct me if I’m wrong, but if I replace the word “climate” with its functional equivalent “the average of weather”, I discover that there are indeed freely available facts and physics relating to weather and its average. Based on past experience, the weather does, indeed, change.
Nobody appears to be able to predict the weather any better than you, I, or any reasonably intelligent 12 year old. The basic facts and physics, widely available, turn out to be of almost no use at all, compared with a naive forecast, purely based on what happened before. Of course, looking out the window probably helps.
That’s climate dealt with. On to global warming.
The basic acts and physics, as they pertain to global warming due to CO2, are self evident. The facts show that CO2 is rising, but the globe is not warming in line with the models. Either the models are are wrong, or the temperature recorders are inept.
The physics demonstrates the result of otherwise intelligent scientists confusing temperature, heat, irradiance and energy absorption throughout the entire electromagnetic frequency spectrum.
You don’t even have a clear idea of what it is you are trying to achieve, even less of an idea on how to go about it. Nature appears to be thwarting you at every turn.
How about learning more about the science of the atmosphere? It would seem that being able to predict the weather in a useful form would be be a valuable precursor to predicting the useful average of weather.
Live well and prosper,
Mike Flynn.
‘The basic acts and physics, as they pertain to global warming due to CO2, are self evident. The facts show that CO2 is rising, but the globe is not warming in line with the models. Either the models are are wrong, or the temperature recorders are inept.’
Well it really depends on which model you are looking at. At ENSO determines quite a lot of the global weather and temperature – it starts to be divinable be scientific means of decadal scales. The old saw of two wrongs – and Flynn is as wrong as it gets – do not make a right applies.
Anastasios Tsonis, of the Atmospheric Sciences Group at University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, and colleagues used a mathematical network approach to analyse abrupt climate change on decadal timescales. Ocean and atmospheric indices – in this case the El Niño Southern Oscillation, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the North Atlantic Oscillation and the North Pacific Oscillation – can be thought of as chaotic oscillators that capture the major modes of climate variability. Tsonis and colleagues calculated the ‘distance’ between the indices. It was found that they would synchronise at certain times and then shift into a new state.
It is no coincidence that shifts in ocean and atmospheric indices occur at the same time as changes in the trajectory of global surface temperature. Our ‘interest is to understand – first the natural variability of climate – and then take it from there. So we were very excited when we realized a lot of changes in the past century from warmer to cooler and then back to warmer were all natural,’ Tsonis said.
Four multi-decadal climate shifts were identified in the last century coinciding with changes in the surface temperature trajectory. Warming from 1909 to the mid 1940’s, cooling to the late 1970’s, warming to 1998 and declining since. The shifts are punctuated by extreme El Niño Southern Oscillation events. Fluctuations between La Niña and El Niño peak at these times and climate then settles into a damped oscillation. Until the next critical climate threshold – due perhaps in a decade or two if the recent past is any indication.
More typos than not.
Well it really depends on which model you are looking at. As ENSO determines quite a lot of the global weather and temperature – it starts to be divinable by scientific means at decadal scales. The old saw of two wrongs – and Flynn is as wrong as it gets – do not make a right applies.
The dysfunctional stupid are a concern as well;
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/prince-charles/10859230/Prince-Charles-reform-capitalism-to-save-the-planet.html
Reforming capitalism from a clown born to a throne? Settled science right?
The dysfunctional stupid are a concern as well!!!!!
Amen to that.
Judith Curry
This is an excellent post.
IPCC has, indeed, outlived its usefulness.
As you put it back in October:
Hits the nail on the head.
Max
Willard –
I was briefly hailed by Bishop Hill and WUWT as a hero of all climate deniers, until they finally realized that I was criticizing IPCC for being too wishy-washy in trying to hitch their conclusions about climate change and global warming entirely on some inadequate statistical analysis of an insufficiently long climate record, instead of simply taking into account the basic facts and physics as the principal basis for understanding what is happening with climate.
This is what Bishop Hill posted Feb 9, 2010.
Hansen’s colleague eviscerates AR4 Chapter 9 – Bishop Hill Blog
Bishop Hill Blog February 9 2010
While perusing some of the review comments to the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report, I came across the contributions of Andrew Lacis, a colleague of James Hansen’s at GISS. Lacis’s is not a name I’ve come across before but some of what he has to say about Chapter 9 of the IPCC’s report is simply breathtaking.
Chapter 9 is possibly the most important one in the whole IPCC report – it’s the one where they decide that global warming is manmade. This is the one where the headlines are made.
Remember, this guy is mainstream, not a sceptic, and you may need to remind yourself of that fact several times as you read through his comment on the executive summary of the chapter:
There is no scientific merit to be found in the Executive Summary. The presentation sounds like something put together by Greenpeace activists and their legal department. The points being made are made arbitrarily with legal sounding caveats without having established any foundation or basis in fact. The Executive Summary seems to be a political statement that is only designed to annoy greenhouse skeptics. Wasn’t the IPCC Assessment Report intended to be a scientific document that would merit solid backing from the climate science community – instead of forcing many climate scientists into having to agree with greenhouse skeptic criticisms that this is indeed a report with a clear and obvious political agenda. Attribution can not happen until understanding has been clearly demonstrated. Once the facts of climate change have been established and understood, attribution will become self-evident to all. The Executive Summary as it stands is beyond redemption and should simply be deleted.
I’m speechless. The chapter authors, however weren’t. This was their reply (all of it):
Rejected. [Executive Summary] summarizes Ch 9, which is based on the peer reviewed literature.
Simply astonishing. This is a consensus?
‘It is hypothesized that persistent and consistent trends among several climate modes act to ‘kick’ the climate state, altering the pattern and magnitude of air-sea interaction between the atmosphere and the underlying ocean. Figure 1 (middle) shows that these climate mode trend phases indeed behaved anomalously three times during the 20th century, immediately following the synchronization events of the 1910s, 1940s, and 1970s. This combination of the synchronization of these dynamical modes in the climate, followed immediately afterward by significant increase in the fraction of strong trends (coupling) without exception marked shifts in the 20th century climate state. These shifts were accompanied by breaks in the global mean temperature trend with respect to time, presumably associated with either discontinuities in the global radiative budget due to the global reorganization of clouds and water vapor or dramatic changes in the uptake of heat by the deep ocean. Similar behavior has been found in coupled ocean/atmosphere models, indicating such behavior may be a hallmark of terrestrial-like climate systems [Tsonis et al., 2007].’
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2008GL037022/full
If we look at CERES/MODIS – http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/CERES_MODIS-1.gif.html?sort=3&o=178 – minor warming in Argo last decade – if such can be distinguished from the competing climatologies – was dominated by cloud changes.
There is clearly an attribution problem here – and it doesn’t pop out of the cookie cutter.
The industrialization of the developing world bound and constrained to deindustialization of the developed world by sustainable AGstewardship will ensure that all hell will soon break loose.
‘We must make the building of a free society once more an intellectual adventure, a deed of courage. What we lack is a liberal Utopia, a programme which seems neither a mere defence of things as they are nor a diluted kind of socialism, but a truly liberal radicalism which does not spare the susceptibilities of the mighty (including the trade unions), which is not too severely practical and which does not confine itself to what appears today as politically possible…Those who have concerned themselves exclusively with what seemed practicable in the existing state of opinion have constantly found that even this has rapidly become politically impossible as the result of changes in a public opinion which they have done nothing to guide. Unless we can make the philosophic foundations of a free society once more a living intellectual issue, and its implementation a task which challenges the ingenuity and imagination of our liveliest minds, the prospects of freedom are indeed dark. But if we can regain that belief in power of ideas which was the mark of liberalism at its best, the battle is not lost. ‘ F. A. Hayek
The challenge de jour as always for the classic liberal is to not get too caught up in conservative backlash – but to win hearts and minds with a positive and inspiring vision for the future.
Robert I Ellison
Chief Hydrologist
Okay in simple terms … Here in Canada: The grills and deep fryers aren’t made in Canada. Manufacturing is taken offshore to save a buck and make a buck for the manufacturer. Yet more than that the people who cook and serve the food are now brought into the country as ‘Temporary Foreign Workers’. Ship in workers in the prime of their life so the restaurant can make more money by reducing the labor costs. When the the worker gets too old, they are shipped back to where they came from.
How does the Canadian consumer earn the money to patronize the restaurant?
If you don’t like it – read Hayek. That’s what democracy’s. Complaining about democracy is like complaining about the weather. I’m assuming that Canada is a democracy.
I really thought you had this sort of far left economic rhetoric in mind.
http://icpdbeyond2014.org/rights-development/view/8-environmental-sustainability
Is it possible to change this rhetoric to something that is positive for the environment and people? A truly positive agenda for the children. For God’s sake remember the children. And the Pandas.
“The paramount challenge of this century is to meet the needs of 7 billion human beings now – and the billions to come – while protecting the intricate balance of nature that sustains life”
Sorry but this is all wrong. Populations are aging and collapsing.
Malthus was wrong. We are k-selected growth. Sorry
Why would you bring it up with me? I was suggesting far left lunacy. Read harder.
But our carrying capacity is a function of technology. We will most likely hit 9 billion this century.
> to win hearts and minds with a positive and inspiring vision for the future.
Which is what Andy almost succeeded to do at Bishop’s, where every rejected comment disproves the consensus. Let’s hope the “silence of the lamb” or the “Omertà” were kept warm for another thread. They’re the best sellers.
Andy seems a natural at “value-based science,” which might explain why Denizens pile on him. This concept must be contrasted with “value-based politics, used by neoliberals around the world to pretend they’re conservatives.
As the alternative neo-UNtopian narrative involves wandering across the savannah trying to avoid being lunch and then catching smallpox – it doesn’t seem much of a challenge. Try harder – Space Cadet Willard.
“I was briefly hailed by Bishop Hill and WUWT as a hero of all climate deniers…”
I think not.
On the same post cited, Andrew Montford (Bishop Hill) actually wrote in response to a comment:
“I’m not suggesting for a minute that Lacis is a sceptic. He clearly isn’t. The point is that even within those who are comfortable with the idea of AGW being a danger, there are people who think the output of the IPCC is politicised.”
> I’m not suggesting for a minute that Lacis is a sceptic. He clearly isn’t.
Our beloved Bishop’s profiling was quick, since he wrote in his editorial:
I have never heard the term ‘functional stupidity’, and think this is probably not the optimum term to describe the phenomenon, which judging by the abstract is relatively well known. Cognitive capacities are not so much mobilised as ‘aligned’. This produces tremendous social power, despite having to carry some downside overheads of the alignment mechanisms (from a long-term evolutionary perspective, there is net gain overall). As the following part of the abstract indicates, those mechanisms are largely memetic: We argue that functional stupidity is prevalent in contexts dominated by economy in persuasion which emphasizes image and symbolic manipulation.
Without long-evolved sensitisation to aligning memes, e.g. as observed with religions, there would likely be no civilisation, and given this neccessity, plus an overwhelming universality of the phenomenon too, then ‘stupidity’ is not really an appropriate term. However, the mechanism does leave open the door for parasitic cultural entities, which is what the social phenomena of CAGW and it’s orthodox core, the IPCC, may amount to.
Given that Michael Oppenheimer of the Environmental Defense Fund was one of a small core of “activists” (his word) pressing for urgent action on “greenhouse gases” before the UNFCCC and IPCC even existed, given that he claims to have been one of a handful of people to shape the UNFCCC and IPCC at conception, and given that he about to testify before a US Senate Committee in two days (Thurs., May 29, 2014), it is worth paying attention to what he thinks the UNFCCC and the IPCC are all about. Although one can presume that he is much disappointed in how policy has been handled since Kyoto, here is what he thought the IPCC was all about, from prior to conception (1985-1987) to the Nobel Peace Prize (2007):
[it would be interesting to know if there are people here who think that Oppenheimer, et al. were deluded about what they thought the UNFCCC/IPCC. structures were created to do]
Oppenheimer (2007)
Oppenheimer et al. (1987)
Although some people love to try to blame stoopid Republicans/conservatives/libertarians for failures of the IPCC in relation to policy matters, it turns out that Democrats/liberals don’t really put up when it comes to doing any more than lip service:
a href=”http://news.sciencemag.org/2009/12/could-senate-ever-ratify-international-climate-treaty-sixty-seven-votes-not-sixty-might-be”>BOTH parties blocked Kyoto Treaty in advance, voting 95-0 in US Senate
Yes, that was ZERO votes for, no Democrats, when it came to putting one’s political prospects on the line with one’s mouth.
sorry for broken hyperlink, this should work, I hope!
BOTH parties in US Senate shot down Kyoto Treaty
Abolishing the IPCC doesn’t change the scientific consensus. The skeptics are still going to struggle with the number of scientists putting forwards explanations of the climate that have higher sensitivities and more implications for the future, with or without the IPCC. What would the skeptics target next? I suspect it would be all the journals and the scientific institutions themselves (which has already started). This entrains an inherent resentment of academia in some circles, and then the dialog gets dominated by hate towards universities and government labs in general, and we are still where we are now. The IPCC isn’t why we are in this situation.
Jim D
No, Jim – you’re wrong.
“Abolishing the IPCC” would change the need for a forced “consensus”.
It would open up the field to valid scientific opinions, which dissent from this forced “consensus” paradigm.
Our hostess has expressed it very succinctly back in October.
Max
Jim’s real problem is that the planet as a whole seems not to be warming – and at least some of the ‘climatologies’ emerging from Argo agree. Don’t mention the ‘c….’ word – it just confuses things.
There seems a relatively small menagerie of scientists who are across this new paradigm. The great mass of unwashed warriors of the climate war struggle with the concept with little success – and merely lob old and rotten fruit across the front lines. Just really the same ole same ole again and again. Mix up the song and dance a bit Jim.
Jim’s problem is science and the inability to shift from his groupthink mediated position – on any little point. Although – my opinion is that they don’t really understand every little point and imagine that what they are babbling about is the consensus. The future is certain – we are inevitably constructing the petard on which we will be collectively hoist – it is all energetics – the oceans are warming – the climate equation is solvable with a bath tub allegory and a couple of acronyms. They can’t really be wrong because it is the consensus and – besides – being wrong would be catastrophic for this whole moral rectitude and intellectual astuteness construct. It is the Titanic’s relentless momentum guaranteeing that the iceberg will win in the end.
Robert I Ellison
Chief Hydrologist
manacker, if it forces the policymakers to read the papers directly instead of having an SPM, that would be fine, but we know that the policymakers are not capable of that. They need a scientific summary. Should we keep WG1 and disband the other two WGs? How can a proper summary be done without a consensus appearing, if only implicitly, just by numbers of papers on each side? How would policymakers be able to judge impacts from WG1’s summary without WG2, or to judge possible courses without the options listed and quantified by WG3?
Rearranging the deckchairs won’t help Jim.
Skippy Ellison said:
“Jim’s real problem is that the planet as a whole seems not to be warming – and at least some of the ‘climatologies’ emerging from Argo agree. ”
——
Once more Skippy displays his complete disregard for the obvious paradox of how the sea level could be rising, Antarctica and Greenland losing net continental glacial mass, and the ocean heat content clearly increasing, and yet the planet as a whole “not warming”. Keep your children well away from any physics classes that should Skippy offer to teach.
Just saying that the fact of the clear majority view cannot be changed by removing the IPCC. It is reflected in scientific papers, professional society statements, and textbooks. Removing the IPCC does not help the minority view at all, but gives them one less thing to attack. A lot of the majority are upset at the IPCC too for being too compromising to special interests. This happens when certain countries oppose things being added in the SPM, or want qualifying phrases added that they can use to leverage minor points for the press or to their politicians. The IPCC’s SPM process leaves a lot to be desired and should not be influenced by the policymakers themselves. This method leaves a door open to policymakers to avoid being cornered by inconvenient truths, to coin a phrase. Having said that, many countries, and US states, are taking cutting CO2 emissions seriously, so even this dysfunctional process has had an effect, but I don’t think it is the IPCC alone that should take credit for this because the public and policymakers also have direct exposure to the science and that has as much effect on its own.
Jim D. I agree with you that the IPCC brings nothing scientific to the table. In fact, it is probably the biggest reason climate science is so politically charged. Getting rid of it will bring down the noise level so that people can better see the science for what it is.
jim2, You must be answering to someone else’s comment because that is not what I said. I said that policymakers in the process make the SPM a less than useful product. However, the scientific part is OK as a review, if a bit unwieldy for the average policymaker to grasp.
There are competing Argo climatologies that give different answer. I have been over it endlessly. It comes down to data handling and detecting small changes against large variability. Which applies to GRACE as well.
But I would assume there was some warming last decade as per von Schuckmann and Le Troan 2011. Who as well suggest a more saline ocean over the period. A loss of mass that is utterly inconsistent with GRACE over the same period.
Warming – however – seems to have been the result of less reflected SW.
e.g http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/CERES_MODIS-1.gif.html?sort=3&o=178
More recent of the competing Argo climatologies is showing negligible warming – e.g. 02mm +/- 0.8mm/yr steric sea level rise. .
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/ARGOGRACE_Leuliette2012_zps9386d419.png.html?sort=3&o=6
This is again consistent with the overall trend in net CERES to Jun 2013.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/HadCRUT4vCERES_zpse5107cfd.png.html?sort=3&o=60.
Randal persists in this based solely on eyeballing the usual sources. If I were to teach anything it would be environmental policy and data handling for water quality. I think the difference between our skill sets should be obvious.
To avoid this tedious and endless reiteration – let’s just agree that if Randal mentions ‘argument A’ – well it is the only argument he has – I will respond with ‘argument t’.
Robert I Ellison
Chief Hydrologist
Skippy said:
“There are competing Argo climatologies that give different answer.”
—–
No Skippy, the 3600+ ARGO floats measuring ocean heat content do not “give a different answer”, since their full deployment in 2007. The ocean heat content is increasing, and it is reflective of a climate system that is gaining energy.
‘Comparisons of global steric height trends based on different gridded fields of Argo in situ measurements show a range of 0–1mm/yr which can be lead back to data handling and climatology uncertainties. Our results show that GOIs derived from the Argo measurements are ideally suitable to
monitor the state of the global ocean, especially after November 2007, i.e. when Argo sampling was 100% complete. They also show that there is significant interannual
15 global variability at global scale, especially for global OFC. Before the end of 2007, error bars are too large to deliver robust short-term trends of GOIs and thus an interpretation in terms of long-term climate signals are still questionable, especially since uncertainties due to interannual fluctuations are not included in our error estimation.’ http://www.ocean-sci-discuss.net/8/999/2011/osd-8-999-2011.pdf
I have certainly quoted this to Randal several times. Consistent with hilariously misinterpreting it – he appears no closer to actually understanding. We will call it ‘argument m’.
Jim D
The “clear majority view” (to which you allude) exists precisely because the IPCC consensus process has forced it to exist.
It’s “cause and effect” at work, Jim.
Not all that complicated, really, even if Gates hasn’t quite caught on yet.
Max
Our hostess (a climate scientist) suggests: Kill the IPCC
On the other hand, Richard Tol (an economist) suggests that it should be drastically reformed.
Has the IPCC “become the problem rather than the solution to the problem”?
It was doomed to fail from its inception, IMO. There is no way it could ever have been a neutral and impartial arbitrator, given its brief, structure and political nature.
Max
Max,
Serf Award fer yew. Life is not a court room. We don’t need
no arbitrator. Personally we serfs have -had-it-up-ter-hear-
with top-down arbitrateurs sweeping volatility that gives us
INFORMATION and feedback under the carpet or down the
memery whole. Tsk!
I’m seriously thinking of revolting and Belinda too!
Trying ter turn something designed fer a specific purpose
into something else – well – goes against nay-chur, costly
surgery and still likely ter be a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
http://blogs.edf.org/climate411/2007/11/01/ipcc_beginnings/
In biology there is the study of behavioral mimicry. Mimicry involves three different roles which a biological agent can perform; model, mimic, or dupe.
We can extend this with very little difficulty to the roles various agents play in the climate change arena:
Actual scientific knowledge.
Misrepresentation of that knowledge.
Those that avidly glom on to the misrepresentations.
If the shoe fits ….
Many Climate Etc readers are familiar with the contributions to chaos theory of Poincare, Hadamard, Smale, and Lorenz … fewer readers appreciate that Lorenz’ work builds upon Andrei Kolmogorov’s scaling laws for turbulence (as ably surveyed this week by the great mathematician Terry Tao!) … and perhaps very few readers indeed appreciate that Kolmogorov’s work builds upon the work of the great Quaker meteorologist and fluid dynamicist Lewis Fry Richardson, author not only of numerous seminal works in meteorology and climatology, but also of the analysis (celebrated among statesmen, historians, and anthropologists) “The frequency of occurrence of wars and other fatal quarrels“
The essence of Richardson’s work is that larger issues are associated to lesser likelihood of “fatal quarrels.”
Richardson’s Corollary Climate-scientists can reduce the likelihood of “fatal quarrels” by framing climate-change issues in the largest possible context.
Hence scientists, historians, and leaders Naomi Oreskes, James Hansen, and Pope Francis find themselves fully in agreement with Silke Beck (et al) and Judith Curry in arguing that the IPCC has framed its message suboptimally, specifically in surveying too narrow a basis for climate-change action.
Of course, this is common-sense, per the maxim
Conversely, the ending of the atmospheric “pause”, and the continued rising of the seas and melting of the polar (without pause or obvious limit), now are signaling to all humanity that the stakes are large.
Conclusion To minimize conflict, the post-IPCC climate-change dialog should be framed in a larger scale (that is global), and encompass longer times (that is centuries rather than decades) … along the lines of the Vatican’s recent “Sustainable Humanity, Sustainable Nature: Our Responsibility” (2014).
Good on `yah, Naomi Oreskes, James Hansen, and Pope Francis, for adopting Lewis Fry Richardson’s sound scientific advice regarding the dynamics of conflict!
Good on `yah, Silke Beck (et al) and Judith Curry for publicly appreciating … as all scientists and most citizens are coming to appreciate … that the IPCC is arguing from a basis that is insufficiently broad!
And most of all, good on `yah, Lewis Fry Richardson, for providing the requisite mathematical foundations for appreciating how chaotic weather generates predictable climate, and for appreciating why the increasing scale and gravity of climate-change is making conflict steadily less likely, and effective global-scale decarbonizing action more feasible.
Framing the isdue in the largest possible context? Easy … There is NO PROBLEM
The mistake has been to focus on exponential growth and its resolution by sustainability.. It creates tremendous inflationary consumption.
No peak oil, no AGW, no need to consume it or lose it
Despite – or perhaps because of – FOMBS florid and quixotic style nothing quite adds up. Worthy as these people are – it doesn’t amount pioneering modern complexity theory. The theory of complex and dynamics systems undoubtedly originating with Lorenz in a happy chance in 1963 – power laws for turbulence notwithstanding.
There are a menagerie of scientists – dozens that I could name including the IPCC – who are less than optimistic about the prospects for climate prediction past the next few decades. It would seem that we are in cooling mode for decades. A chaotic climate – however – gives little comfort that greenhouse gases are not destabilising the atmosphere and that the next climate shift will not be abrupt and unpredictable. Unlike FOMBS and the scatterbrained links to this or that – this is where a proper appreciation of complexity theory as it applies to climate leads.
Practical approaches to the dilemma rely on effective near term action on energy innovation and on international development.
Below is perhaps the most reasonable response both to the endlessly looped scatterbrained and scattershot comments by FOMBS – of for practical and pragmatic solutions that are easily within reach of the global community. FOMBS currently is part of the problem and not part of the solution. If he want’s to get on board – I am sure he is welcome.
http://judithcurry.com/2014/05/27/ipcc-functional-stupidity/#comment-573000
Malthus is wrong FOMD. Humans are k-selected. Sorry
Populations are aging and collapsing. Consumption has matured and now dissipates.
Vacuous bafflegab by Chief Hydrologist, climate-data by FOMD/NOAA.
That’s obvious to *EVERYONE*, eh Climate Etc readers?
Overall the data would seem to suggest not FOMBS
Overall the trend from post the 1998/2001 climate shift – as hypothesized – looks to be consistent.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1979/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2002/trend
I address ocean heat here – perhaps you should designate this as ‘argument c’ for brevity – but who could really tell.
http://judithcurry.com/2014/05/27/ipcc-functional-stupidity/#comment-573364
•The combined average temperature over global land and ocean surfaces for April 2014 tied with 2010 as the highest on record for the month, at 0.77°C (1.39°F) above the 20th century average of 13.7°C (56.7°F).
•The global land surface temperature was 1.35°C (2.43°F) above the 20th century average of 8.1°C (46.5°F), marking the third warmest April on record. For the ocean, the April global sea surface temperature was 0.55°C (0.99°F) above the 20th century average of 16.0°C (60.9°F), also the third highest for April on record.
•The combined global land and ocean average surface temperature for the January–April period (year-to-date) was 0.64°C (1.15°F) above the 20th century average of 12.6°C (54.8°F), the sixth warmest such period on record.
Mad and desperate clutching at straws by FOMBS – sad and dismayed shaking of the head be me.
Where’s the “cooling mode” Chief? The
worldpelicans wonder!Blame the imminent geomagnetic reversal. Look what it’s done to FOMBS.
We are going to have to reverse all the maps. This puts Australia where it morally, intellectually and spiritually was all along. On top. Frogs are floating around all over here – you can’t move without swallowing one.
http://www.physics.org/facts/frog-really.asp
Fan,
http://www.pacificbio.org/initiatives/ESIN/Birds/BrownPelican/pelican_overview.htm
Can we think of other reasons why a few pelicans are breeding further North? Maybe there’s too many of them to the South. Might this be a healthy expansion or recovery?
“In the 19th and early 20th centuries, pelicans themselves were hunted for feathers and slaughtered en masse by fishermen who erroneously perceived them as competitors for commercially valuable fish.”
Isn’t the PDO in the anchovy mode?
Improbable clutching after straws – sometimes you just have to not take it seriously.
Short Answer No.
What is your next question, Ragnaar?
“Mad and desperate clutching at straws by FOMBS.”
____
As the data would support FOMBS, it is interesting that the “desperate clutching of straws” is precisely how many would characterize Chief Hydro Skippy Ellison’s complete denial of the clear ocean warming that’s been going on and other clear signs of energy accumulation in the Earth climate system.
I came across this paper…. A Stupidity Based Theory of Organization, by Mats Alveson and Andre Spicer [link to abstract]. It provides some insights that are relevant to the IPCC particularly in light of the Beck et al. paper:
Abstract……
From my perspective, the above description fits the IPCC to a ‘T’.” – Judith
Judith, I’m not convinced you’ve actually read this paper. Maybe just leaps of logic based on wishful thinking from a quick scan of the abstract?
Now THIS is functional stupidity.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/prince-charles/10859230/Prince-Charles-reform-capitalism-to-save-the-planet.html
“In a speech to business leaders in London, the Prince said that a ‘fundamental transformation of global capitalism’ was necessary in order to halt ‘dangerously accelerating climate change’ that would ‘bring us to our own destruction’”.
This is just too classic. A member of the old aristocracy, spoiled, rich progressive, living off mommy’s fortune (and the crown’s billions) wants to end capitalism as we know it, which has raised more people out of poverty than anything else in human history. All so he can feel safe as a member of the new, progressive aristocracy.
OK, maybe he’s not functional. Maybe he’s just stupid.
I think the Prince is becoming a bit unhinged as he realizes he’s unlikely ever to be King.
From a practical standpoint of course capitalism needs to evolve if it will survive. A purely consumption driven, “locust like” mentality can only end poorly. Fortunately, there are some very smart capitalists who get this and are looking at more sustainable models:
http://www.natcap.org/
Rgates
I see the book you cite (see I do read your links) is now some 14 years old. Do you know if it has become mainstream and been adopted by any associations or governments? If it was going to make waves I guess they will be sloshing round the political circles by now?
tonyb
Tony,
Natural Capitalism is only one example of a more broadly based trend in the largest companies in the world moving toward “sustainability” models, displaying quite clearly that capitalism and sustainability are not just compatible, but actually necessary and profitable. Some of the most successful companies in the world at this are reviewed here:
http://planetsave.com/2013/06/21/10-companies-with-eco-conscious-production-processes/
An OT note. Today the WUWT ENSO meter was over into El Nino territory. But now, it’s back to the line between neutral and El Nino. WUWT, anyway?
We need to disband the IPCC. Let climate scientists attend an annual symposium, present their work, discuss climate science with each other; then everyone fly home to their respective countries to disseminate the news. The government has plenty of scientists who are happy to inform them of the science – we just don’t need the IPCC at all. It’s a waste of global resources and not sustainable.
Here’s my suggestion for a body to replace the IPCC. The IPWC, which substitutes weather for climate.
Weather kills. Floods, droughts, tornadoes, hurricanes and the rest. If CO2 contributes to more severe fatal weather, then surely the scientific community, given a few hundred billion dollars, and a few hundred years, should be able to arrive at some useful conclusions which will benefit humanity. The impact of CO2 on climate will follow, as a matter of logic.
Unfortunately, there will not be as much scope for causing unnecessary alarm, as it will be hard to convince people to give their food money to the scientists if the scientists give nothing useful in return.
Alternatively, withdraw funding to the IPCC. When the funding runs out, so will all the so called climatologists, I suspect.
Live well and prosper,
Mike Flynn.
Say, why do we need a middle mann moderator?
beththeserf,
Obviously, because a moderate Mann would be a blessing. Unfortunately, the Mann you want may not be the Mann you get.
Live well and prosper,
Mike Flynn.
There is significant amount of literature on the management of innovation. That is how to bring ideas into an organization which will be disruptive to existing operations and purposes of the organization. As one would expect, a major issue in the management of innovation is how to protect the innovative idea and the innovative people from being excluded by the interesting infrastructure. One might think it surprising that a company would reject the ideas that are necessary to ensure its future. Yet that is exactly what happens.
This is an example of the “functional stupidity” described in the posting. The existing participants are not stupid. They are concerned with protecting and advancing the ideas that have made the company profitable. So as the article notes functional stupidity has advantages. it can allow an organization to focus and not be distracted by ephemeral developments.
I am having trouble with what “more reflexivity” means, as both these articles call for it. Looking it up, I find reflexivity is being more active in controlling your circumstances than passively letting things happen. What would the climate-change policy look like with a more reflexive approach?
It’s a fad term.
All the bright young sociologists strive to use it as much as possible.
Extra points for getting it in the title.
Controlling circumstances would be consistent with changing course. Adaption and mitigation. Controlling CO2 seems a bit more difficult, and might not provide an effective approach to controlling circumstances.
Would be interesting to see what people think this means;
” Towards a Reflexive Turn…”
Heh, that’s easy, ‘reflexive’ is ‘demented’.
===========
I point at this:
> Well, the IPCC doesn’t have a monopoly on knowledge, but does have a monopoly on influence.
And I point at this:
> And yet Judith is still here, still invited to speak, still invited to testify before Congress [1].
That is all.
[1] http://judithcurry.com/2014/05/24/are-climate-scientists-being-forced-to-toe-the-line/#comment-569289
Over and out – Space Cadet Willard.
Willard, that’s the best Joshua imitation I’ve ever seen.
Perhaps to Joshua you should stick, Poker.
Nevertheless, thank you for your kind words.
Willard …hard guy to fathom. In some respects…stylistically….you could be mistaken for a skeptic. Sometimes I get the feeling you decided to simply toss a coin to decide which side to take in the climate debate.
Now let’s see Ole Willy. Do you think Judith would be invited to speak before Congress if the Republicans didn’t control the house. Of course not, because there wouldn’t be any hearings in the first place.
May Gaia forgive me for agreeing with willard, but…
If the IPCC had a monopoly on influence, we would be much further down the road of decarbonization by this time.
What if nothing exists, Bob?
What if we’re all into Chief’s dreams?
That doesn’t seem fair. Willard inhabits a bizarro alternate reality and I’m sure it is very difficult for him – but why blame me?
Here’s bizarro:
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2014/05/criticise-ukip-twitter-you-could-get-visit-polic
IPCC’s “Consensus” corrupts the scientific method.
The scientific method requires validation against objective evidence. Science progresses by identifying differences between models and evidence, developing better models to fit the evidence, and comparing the new predictions.
The process of seeking “consensus” inherently ignores or hides such variations between predictions and evidence. e.g., the evidence that >95% of 34 year predictions by GWMs exceed subsequent temperatures was hidden by the IPCC which claimed 95% confidence in anthroprogenic warming.
Only massive funding of “red teams” to “kick the tires”, expose failures of models, and create new and better models and methods can seriously improve climate science in the near term. Otherwise we will have to wait untill all those on the “global warming gravy train” are retired or dead.
See The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn
David L. Hagen’s excellent idea, THIS GUY‘s fulfillment!
Top down platonists are subject ter what Nassim Taleb calls
‘The Soviet Harvard Delusion,’ an over confidence in their
ability to explain the science of complex interactive systems
and predict the future.
Institutions like the IPCC argue fer a consensus in lieu of
empirical evidence at great cost ter the plebs. (
http://beththeserf.wordpress.com/
Fan
An excellent idea to call for and implement full transparency.
: Pope Francis’ plan for reform: Convert the church
Exactly what the Interacademy Council recommended in its
Review of the IPCC
That’s Naomi Oreskes’ strategy too, also James Hansen’s strategy.
Conclusion Francis, Oreskes, and Hansen all have taken a lesson in strategic leadership from General William Joseph Slim’s celebrated work:
Conclusion Climate-change science has embraced Gen. Slim’s leadership principles.
Good on `yah Slim, Oreskes, Hansen, and Pope Francis!
“In the meantime, I will be personally encouraging any developments that I see that will break up the IPCC’s monopoly on climate knowledge.” – JC
Judith’s Quixotic, fantastic adventure.
If it’s already broke – don’t fix it.
It will be quite a challenge to breakup something that doesn’t exist.
Long live the Queen, from what he has said…
“Prince Charles has called for an end to capitalism as we know it in order to save the planet from global warming.”
“Judith’s Quixotic, fantastic adventure.”
Not bad. Always try to give the other side props for wit even if misguided.
Just don’t get many opportunities.
“It will be quite a challenge to breakup something that doesn’t exist”
Should have quit while you were ahead. Two worlds Michael. The real world and the bizarro climate world. In the latter there is in effect, a monopoly, or at least a monolithic institution with outsized influence.
Pokerguy,
Except it doesn’t produce any science itself -makes monopolizing, well, let’s be plain, impossible.
Tone down the rhetoric, and maybe there’s a point to be made somewhere.
What we have at the moment is ludicrous hyperbole for the purpose of advocacy.
Smell the INTEGRITY?
There might be more than one bizarro world, Poker:
http://climateaudit.org/2011/02/18/publishing-review-comments-the-crowley-incident/#comment-255939
“Tone down the rhetoric…”
Fine Michael, Fair point. And yet I’d be more appreciative of your wish for linguistic precision if I ever saw you objecting to the numerous examples of
rhetorical excess on the other side of the fence. It’s at junctures such as this that I begin to catch subtle whiffs of disingenuousness.
pokerguy (aka al neipris) | May 28, 2014 at 10:18 am |
“Tone down the rhetoric…”
“Fine Michael, Fair point. And yet I’d be more appreciative of your wish for linguistic precision if I ever saw you objecting to the numerous examples of
rhetorical excess on the other side of the fence..’
Did you have something particular in mind?
Funniest example of rhetorical excess is seen in a recent http://SkepticalScience.com post. Some denier named Thor set up an experiment with freshwater ice cubes floating in very salty water. He somehow claimed to “falsify” the premise of the post, but everyone that looked at the photos, including a pre-teen, could see that there was something fishy in the setup.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/news.php?n=1019#104437
Look at how the glass of water is moved relative to the napkin.
What adds to the hilarity is how indignant Thor became when challenged.
The denier world is a clown show.
The denier mindset is out-of-whack
In this paper we question the one‐sided thesis that contemporary organizations rely on the mobilization of cognitive capacities. We suggest that severe restrictions on these capacities in the form of what we call functional stupidity are an equally important if under‐recognized part of organizational life. Functional stupidity refers to an absence of reflexivity, a refusal to use intellectual capacities in other than myopic ways, and avoidance of justifications.
That sounds like “focus”, as when all the synthetic chemists in a Big Pharma devote themselves to creating many analogues of MK-801, or a new proton pump inhibitor, or a new serotonin re-uptake inhibitor. It sounds like the attitude that Steve Jobs enforced on Apple.
Judy –
I took a look at the Richard Tol article that seeks to promote the notion of IPCC monopolizing climate knowledge, that you flagged. Despite all his impressive titles of Research Professor and Professor of the Economics of Climate, the guy comes across as a clueless windbag who doesn’t really know much about climate research, how that climate research is done, or what even the basic findings of climate research are.
Tol seems to imagine IPCC to be some kind of top-down organization with some sort of knowledge monopoly, and that it “has used its monopoly power to branch out into scenario building”. Ludicrous and laughable. IPCC does not dictate “climate science” to anybody, nor is it in any position to set any kind of climate policy guidelines, nor does the IPCC dole out research funding (it doesn’t have any to give) to support its favored researchers.
As for branching out into scenario building? It is easy enough to stick into GCM climate simulations arbitrary radiative forcing scenarios such as the “business-as-usual” scenario of continued 1%/yr increases in atmospheric CO2 to see what would happen to global climate. Anything more complicated than that comes from somebody’s economic fossil fuel consumption scenarios, and that is not really a climate science commodity to control and manipulate.
Most of the heavy lifting climate research is done in the US and Europe. Global warming is a key climate research topic. Bert Bolin was a key founder of the IPCC, and he instilled an international flavor to IPCC since global warming is something that will affect all nations whether they like it or not, or whether they care to approve or not.
Tol makes the point that “at present, the people who control the IPCC are regularly replaced”. A more accurate characterization would be that people, as good climate science citizens, volunteer a couple years of their time to perform their ‘jury duty’ to IPCC. I know a number of scientists who have served on IPCC panels, and have done a very credible service in summarizing, assessing, and evaluating the current state of climate research accomplishments. Despite their significant contributions to climate science, very few of them volunteer to go back to IPCC for second helpings.
Tol appears to imply that IPCC operates against the public interest, and that the IPCC would perform better if it were regulated by an independent body. Maybe with Tol dictating IPCC procedures, IPCC performance would be more to Tol’s liking?
I see the IPCC are providing a very important public service of making complex and complicated research results of climate science more readily available and understandable to the general public (and also policymakers, if they happen to be interested).
But as for an IPCC conspiracy to monopolize climate knowledge, I know for a fact that Jim Hansen does not seek IPCC guidance as to how climate science should be presented to the general public. Nor does IPCC seek Jim Hansen’s approval as how they should present their climate research assessments, even they cite numerous Hansen et al. publications.
As I mentioned in my note to Willard upstream, I also once served as a reviewer of the IPCC AR4 Report, and submitted several hundred review comments, some significant, some trivial, some highly critical. So, I see no sign of any IPCC “knowledge monopoly”.
Simply put, climate science is not amenable to being coerced or manipulated by anyone. Science tells it like it is, and whether we like it or not, or whether we approve or not, neither adds nor detracts.
More good sense from A Lacis.
The ‘knowledge monopoly’ thing really is fatuous.
‘Prediction of weather and climate are necessarily uncertain: our observations of weather and climate are uncertain, the models into which we assimilate this data and predict the future are uncertain, and external effects such as volcanoes and anthropogenic greenhouse emissions are also uncertain. Fundamentally, therefore, therefore we should think of weather and climate predictions in terms of equations whose basic prognostic variables are probability densities ρ(X,t) where X denotes some climatic variable and t denoted time. In this way, ρ(X,t)dV represents the probability that, at time t, the true value of X lies in some small volume dV of state space.’ (Predicting Weather and Climate – Palmer and Hagedorn eds – 2006)
It is a bit like the ‘boundary value’ problem Andy. May I call you Andy?Model solutions diverge to a boundary defined by the trajectory of solutions determined by sensitive dependence to variable starting points and boundary conditions and by the topology of the global attractor for the particular set of equations. But hey – let’s call it a boundary value problem.
It is not true knowledge that is being questioned – but gatekeeping for a special brand of groupthink that has had entirely too much influence. That would be obvious from the context if you were not too far down the rabbit hole to notice.
Andy
I hold no opinion on Tol but would point out that Lord Stern,the economist favoured and much cited by the warm community, was merely a UK treasury advisor with no knowledge of climate. He was specifically asked by politicians to make an economic case that would demonstrate the beneficial impacts of taking action to reduce co2 and warming
tonyb
stay tuned, there is a House hearing on the IPCC starting at 11 a.m. today
Tol is one of the witnesses
http://science.house.gov/hearing/full-committee-hearing-examining-un-intergovernmental-panel-climate-change-process
In principle, science tells it like it is. In practice (i.e. when it is politicized like climate science), the self-correcting processes of science become ineffective. Stay tuned for a few more posts on this topic.
curryja | May 28, 2014 at 7:14 am |
“In principle, science tells it like it is. In practice (i.e. when it is politicized like climate science), the self-correcting processes of science become ineffective.”
Then all must be well – there was just a very recent example of an error being picked up and corrected.
Some economist, can’t remember his name, managed to turn negative economic impacts of AGW into positive ones by dropping the minus signs in his analysis of papers looking at economic effects.
Judith
I don’t know if you ever saw my comments regarding the Exeter Climate conference?
Clearly much of the audience wanted more political action-a view endorsed by several of the IPCC reviewers panel who were answering questions after making presentations. I would say that one of the scientists in particular was quite political.
tonyb
A Lacis,
You’ve just written yourself off as a clueless windbag with this stupid, ignorant comment:
I’d suggest you go off an spend a few years learning about what is actually relevant for policy analysis – because it certainly isn’t the stuff your interested in.
You can get an introduction here (download the book): https://sites.google.com/site/climateconomics/
today?? it says May 29
you are correct, it is Thursday. I am traveling too much to keep accurate track of what day it is :)
Damn Gremlins!
There is value in some monopolizing. There is political value in a narrative monopoly on climate science. So, here we are.
It’s ironic that the trust busters are the narrative monopolizers themselves.
===========
An interesting and on-going discussion of the statistical processes Professor Tol employed can be found here http://andrewgelman.com/2014/05/27/whole-fleet-gremlins-looking-carefully-richard-tols-twice-corrected-paper-economic-effects-climate-change/
The comments are particularly interesting.
According to andy, the IPCC has no power no money and it really doesn’t do anything. He shouldn’t object to losing it.
Louise –
Thanks for that. Indeed, the comments are beautiful.
Richard complaining that considered criticism of his analysis is b*tching, and that others should just take the data and work it out for themselves.
Unintentional irony that would make the Chief proud.
“Despite all his impressive titles of Research Professor and Professor of the Economics of Climate, the guy comes across as a clueless windbag who doesn’t really know much about climate research, how that climate research is done, or what even the basic findings of climate research are.”
They can only pretend to be reasonable people for so long…then the cracks begin to show. Don’t you realize you only damage your own credibility with attacks like this?
Mr. (Dr.? Professor?) Lacis, if you’re still reading the thread, what you say makes perfect sense and rings true to a good extent. However, those of us who have been burned by the ‘consensus’ (not scientists, but marketers and evangelists) know that people like Michael Mann and Ben Santer and others do fight the political end quite hard. There are many others who do the same, albeit in a gentler fashion. And they seem pretty much entrenched in the organization. And Pachauri is no bed of roses.
I do believe that most participants in the IPCC ordeal act in good faith and work to advance science. But I also believe that a few bad apples have done incredible damage to its standing and its ability to influence the public at large.
“It is easy enough to stick into GCM climate simulations arbitrary radiative forcing scenarios such as the “business-as-usual” scenario of continued 1%/yr increases in atmospheric CO2 to see what would happen to global climate. ”
Yes, it is easy to put in wrong numbers.
I may be wrong, but 1% of 400 ppm comes out to be 4 ppm.
Since actual CO2 growth is around 2 ppm, you’re only off by 100%.
http://www.columbia.edu/~mhs119/ForcingGrowth/dCO2+dTs+NinoIndex.gif
The second thing I noticed was Joshua. The same words and pejorative characterizations – I wont dignify it by calling it an argument – repeated post after post. In fact merely a microcosm of the whole damn shebang. Shebang is my favourite word of the moment – did you know it’s first recorded use was by Walt Whitman? But – unlike Walt – this is same words and blogospheric shorthand – lol – repeated endlessly until they lose all sense, meaning or purpose.
A Lacis
Before you call someone like Richard Tol “a clueless windbag who doesn’t really know much about climate research, how that climate research is done, or what even the basic findings of climate research are” look into the mirror.
Max
AL,
Ļoti labi teica
WHTneticuvaidumiekodaudzsaprata
Andy:
The IS92 and SRES scenarios were built by the IPCC. The RCPs/SSPs were built by a team that is just distant enough from the IPCC to avoid government approval.
The IPCC invested its Nobel Prize money in a scholarship fund.
The IPCC does dictate the science to the degree that papers that deviate from the latest report need to work harder to get accepted.
That is not what my paper is about. The IPCC monopolizes the science-policy interface. This is formally the case in the UN, and informally in many smaller countries. I understand that you are based in the US where the IPCC plays a smaller role, but if you go to, say, municipal climate policy in Austria, then the IPCC is the only source of scientific information.
Mr Lacis
This comment above from you shows your ignorance of the IPCC and its processes.
In general, you have a head-in-the-clouds view of science. Comes from having a fixed job doing ‘research’, I think.
It’s ironic that the trust busters are the narrative monopolizers themselves.
=======
No, shub; Andy needs to poke his head into the clouds. There are a Pandora’s Box full of explanations there.
===================
Richard Tol (@RichardTol) | May 29, 2014 at 6:38 am |
“The IPCC does dictate the science to the degree that papers that deviate from the latest report need to work harder to get accepted.
…. The IPCC monopolizes the science-policy interface. This is formally the case in the UN, and informally in many smaller countries. I understand that you are based in the US where the IPCC plays a smaller role, but if you go to, say, municipal climate policy in Austria, then the IPCC is the only source of scientific information.”
I think Richard just re-defined “monopoly” to something that isn’t a monopoly.
To comment further on Richard Tol’s remark, all one has to do is visit the EPA website here in the US. Take a guess on that reference sources it provides on its climate change page? IPCC? You got it. Care to guess on the others? I won’t hold my breath waiting, as there are no others.
Andy, you are either a fanatic or one of the functionally stupid to deny that the IPCC doesn’t dominate climate research.
timg56 | May 29, 2014 at 1:04 pm |
“To comment further on Richard Tol’s remark, all one has to do is visit the EPA website here in the US. Take a guess on that reference sources it provides on its climate change page? IPCC? You got it. Care to guess on the others? I won’t hold my breath waiting, as there are no others.
Andy, you are either a fanatic or one of the functionally stupid to deny that the IPCC doesn’t dominate climate research.”
Well imagine my surprise when the very first page I look at (Overview) on the EPA website on climate change cites the following sources – National Research Council, NOAA, NASA, USGRCP and , yes, IPCC reports.
And the site has a little link section down to bottom to – NRC, NASA, NOAA, USGCRP, National Academy’s,…..
Yes timg, fanatic or functionally stupid? ; excellent question.
And the IPCC does no, ZERO, climate research, so one wonders just how it manages to “dominate climate research”.
Tol is, however, a coordinating lead author of WGII Chapter 10 who has work with the economics of climate change since 1990s (his thesis of 1997 has the title A Decision-Analytic Treatise of the Enhanced Greenhouse Effect.
You know certainly much more on the physical science, he must know much more on the related economics, probably also on the decision-making processes.
All environmental economists do not agree with him, but in which field do all economists agree with each other? He is definitely one of the best known names in the field.
Andy’s very frightened, Pekka; many are.
===============
Thanks for your sanity, Pekka. It’s a relief after the BS from andy that the IPCC is powerless, moneyless and doesn’t do anything. And his attempted marginalization of Dr. Tol. Andy is a propagandist. You are a gentleman and a scholar.
kim’s right, Pekka.
Andy Lacis does appear very frightened.
And I can see why.
The “CO2 control knob” he has been touting has just dropped off into his hand and the climate is on auto-pilot.
Max
Well, yes, Max, no doubt there is outsized worry there. But I don’t mean to demean the fear many of these alarmists have. At the high end of sensitivity, and at a rapid rate of warming, we may face problems.
Reassure them with the fact that the higher the sensitivity, the more rapidly we would be naturally cooling now.
============
A Lacis,
You wrote –
“I took a look at the Richard Tol article that seeks to promote the notion of IPCC monopolizing climate knowledge, that you flagged. Despite all his impressive titles of Research Professor and Professor of the Economics of Climate, the guy comes across as a clueless windbag who doesn’t really know much about climate research, how that climate research is done, or what even the basic findings of climate research are.”
Damning words indeed. Unfortunately, your appellation could be equally applied to anyone who implies that climate is any more than the average of weather. Climate research? You must be joking! How many ways can you obtain the average of a series of numbers?
You also wrote –
“. . . global warming is something that will affect all nations whether they like it or not, or whether they care to approve or not.”
This is a grand statement – albeit completely useless to anyone at all, and untrue to boot, if the last 17 years or so are any guide. Where is the evidence of an increase of global temperatures? Surely scientists have instruments with which to measure temperature – or do they need vast climate labs to obviate the need for something as objective as a measurement? Maybe you can pretend that there is missing heat, and hope the average citizen won’t call your bluff.
You appear to imply that warming of any sort will be detrimental. I can only imagine the snorts of derision from the inhabitants of the colder parts of Siberia, or even Minnesota, come to that.
Having lambasted Richard Tol, I assume you do not intend to take refuge behind whatever qualifications you possess. I presume that even in the USA and the UK, degrees are not yet awarded for computing averages, so pretend climatologists have no entitlement to any more respect that economists, who at least belong to a field not dependent on self nomination.
If you can demonstrate any detriment that would accrue if every so called climatologist on the face of the Earth refused to do any more climate research, I would be surprised, to put it mildly.
Live well and prosper,
Mike Flynn.
Chief Hydrologist,
Thank you for for your kind but meaning free thoughts. I appreciate your use of temperate, restrained, and mild language.
Live well and prosper,
Mike Flynn.
Well at least the reply is not long winded and vacuous. Brevity is the soul of wit – and verbosity is the last refuge of witlessness. And it has the obvious colloquial meaning. I’d just rather be rude than waste much time on noisy vessels.
Just another tequila sunrise
Robert I Ellison
Chief Hydrologist
@ Mike Flynn
“If you can demonstrate any detriment that would accrue if every so called climatologist on the face of the Earth refused to do any more climate research, I would be surprised, to put it mildly.”
Thank you!
Of course it would be trivial to demonstrate the detriment that they have ALREADY caused by ‘doing climate research’, but I doubt that such demonstration is high on the media priority list.
Failure to distinguish critically important science from nonsensical climate war rhetoric is still failure.
e.g. http://archive.riversymposium.com/2004/index.php?element=Kiem
Chief Hydrologist,
I assume the link you provided is supposed to provide critically important science, in your view.
I’m not sure whether you consider a call to test model outputs critically important science – I think that confirming your theory is part and parcel of the scientific process. The following quote from your linked paper unfortunately suggests that the model be tested to ensure that it reproduces “the variability that would be in the observed record if it existed”.
Here’s the quote –
“In particular, hydrological models should be tested to ensure that the simulated output reproduces the natural variability evident in the observed record – or in the case of ungauged basins the variability that would be in the observed record if it existed. This is especially important when predicting the hydrological response under future climate scenarios.
Once again, the thesis that models can be partially checked against the outputs that the model provides, in lieu of non existent factual observations.
Critically important science? If you wish to believe it, I wish you well.
You opinion and mine obviously differ. I choose to believe facts over model outputs, if forced to choose.
Live well and prosper,
Mike Flynn.
One can’t expect Flynn to appreciate the richness and utility of our hydrological heritage if it conflicts with his ideological posturing.
Here’s a local study by the same guy – http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2002GL015992/full
Data validated models are the core of modern hydrological science – but big ideas are even better.
When you have lemons, make lemonade,
Robert I Ellison
Chief Hydrologist
Chief Hydrologist,
From the paper you linked to –
” Flood risk is a key hydrological variable in terms of social and economic importance. At present it is unclear whether the multi-decadal modes of sea surface temperature variability are an internal artifact of the ocean-atmosphere system, or forced by external variations in ultraviolet irradiance [Latif and Barnett, 1994; White et al., 1997; Reid, 2000; Franks, 2002a]. In either case, the data presented here might be used as a performance indicator for General Circulation Models that attempt to project the influence of anthropogenic factors on climate. If these models can successfully represent such historic variability in a key hydrological variable, then increased confidence might be placed in the simulation of future, anthropogenically forced climate.”
Conclusion – we don’t know. Too many ifs, maybes, mights, to be useful. Once again, models all the way down, firmly supported on a foundation of vague hope that something of value might eventuate, somehow, somewhere, some time.
Indeed it might. Let me know if and when it does. Until then, all you have are assumptions – of little practical import, at that.
Live well and prosper,
Mike Flynn.
That’s actually quite clever and leading edge stuff. Particularly UV forcing of Pacific circulation.
It is no coincidence that shifts in ocean and atmospheric indices occur at the same time as changes in the trajectory of global surface temperature. Our ‘interest is to understand – first the natural variability of climate – and then take it from there. So we were very excited when we realized a lot of changes in the past century from warmer to cooler and then back to warmer were all natural,’ Tsonis said.
You’re an over indulged, long-haired leaping gnome Flynn.
Honesty is the best policy. But insanity is a better defense.
Robert I Ellison
Chief Hydrologist
As clear as anything else from the ‘skeptics’.
Michael
‘Where to download Adonis Golden ratio’ is a well known warmist.
tonyb
Just while Andy is on another page talking safe topics like climate sensitivity.
Here’s a schematic of what happens in complex systems.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/bifurcations.png.html?sort=3&o=143
A small change in a control variable – μ – causes a nonlinear shift called a bifurcation in the system. This is what is known as sensitive dependence as it applies in both climate and climate models.
Here’s a very old – 1974 – global energy budget model.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/bifurcations.png.html?sort=3&o=143
It is a zero order model that follow the evolution of global surface-air temperature as a result of changes in the global radiative balance.
Details are in the paper – http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.303.1951&rep=rep1&type=pdf
The model is bistable with 2 saddle node bifurcation points – the transitions from the blue to red lines from above and below. The control function – μ – here is a normalized insolation value. The current position is μ =1 with a global temperature of 287.7 K . What it shows is that a decrease of a few percent in insolation is sufficient to cause a rapid transition to an ice covered planet.
Slightly below current insolation levels – or with higher albedo – there is tipping point. Climate sensitivity – γ – is the tangent to the curve – dT/dμ. Climate Sensitivity increases as you move down the upper curve to the left and becomes arbitrarily large as the system approaches bifurcation.
Climate sensitivity is large in the vicinity of tipping points but moderate otherwise. A variable sensitivity – as must be the case in such a finely balanced system – makes a nonsense of both low and high sensitivity constants worked out on the back of an envelope. They represent the wrong idea entirely about how the system works.
Sorry -here’s the model.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/Ghil_fig11_zpse58189d9.png.html?sort=3&o=91
More chaos-theory bafflegab emitted by TonyB!
• The real climate has (effectively) innumerable dynamical bifurcations … not two.
• The physical result is Kolmogorov scaling of turbulent features accompanied by sustained planetary energy imbalance.
• In consequence, predicable climate-change emerges from chaotic weather.
The science of climate-change is conceptually simple, eh Climate Etc readers?
Correction It’s “Robert I Ellison”, variously posting (apparently) as “Chief Hydrologist” and/or “Chief” and/or “Generalissimo Skippy” and/or “Captain Kangaroo” who emits chaos-theory bafflegab.
“TonyB” aka “climatereason” is *INNOCENT* of chaos-theory bafflegab!
And, thank you (again) for contributing a sense of humor, TonyB!
‘The Earth’s climate system is highly nonlinear: inputs and outputs are not proportional,
change is often episodic and abrupt, rather than slow and gradual, and multiple equilibria are the
norm.’ http://www.globalcarbonproject.org/global/pdf/pep/Rial2004.NonlinearitiesCC.pdf
Climate had many equilibria? How does that change sensitivity at bifurcations? Which was the point of the energy balance model from the Michael Ghil paper. Yet we can use Kolmogorov scaling of turbulent flow to model climate? And predictability emerges from the scientifically and mathematically incoherent rants? .
‘The climate system has jumped from one mode of operation to another in the past. We are trying to understand how the earth’s climate system is engineered, so we can understand what it takes to trigger mode switches. Until we do, we cannot make good predictions about future climate change… Over the last several hundred thousand years, climate change has come mainly in discrete jumps that appear to be related to changes in the mode of thermohaline circulation.’ Wally Broecker
FOMBS problem is that the science he doesn’t understand has moved on past his inability to shift from a groupthink mediated position. The future is certain – we are inevitably constructing the petard on which we will be collectively hoist – it is all energetics – the oceans are warming – the climate equation is solvable with a bath tub allegory and a couple of acronyms. They can’t really be wrong because it is the consensus and – besides – being wrong would be catastrophic for this whole moral rectitude and intellectual astuteness construct. It is the Titanic’s relentless momentum guaranteeing that the iceberg will win in the end.
There is so little that makes any scientific sense in much of the commentary on climate change – or in any of the gibberish from FOMBS. .
Golly, yet *ANOTHER* superannuated denialist speaks up!
Doesn’t this species *EVER* reproduce? Don’t they realize that they’ll soon be extinct if they don’t?
In the decade since Pielke’s 2004 screed, climate-scientists have followed his advice … specifically in “learning to identify the symptoms of nonlinearity” … concretely by focusing upon global energy-balance measures … and in so doing, climate-science has found *NO* substantial evidence of “episodic” nonlinearity. Instead:
• The sea-level rises without pause or evident “episodic” nonlinearity, and
• The oceans heat without pause or evident “episodic” nonlinearity, and
• The polar ice melts without pause or evident “episodic” nonlinearity.
Local “episodes” of nonlinearity are commonly observed (needless to say!) … but where are the *GLOBAL* episodes?
The world wonders … while denialism slouches toward extinction.
That’s increasingly obvious to *EVERYONE* — particular young scientists and citizen-scientists — eh Climate Etc readers?
a fan of *MORE* discourse: and in so doing, climate-science has found *NO* substantial evidence of “episodic” nonlinearity.
What is that about? Globally the rate at which energy is radiated is approximately proportional to T^4, a non-linearity everywhere. There are other non-linearities in the heat transfer processes.
And in case anyone really thought that Slartibartfast had dropped in – it was me. He he he.
‘Argument x’ – http://judithcurry.com/2014/05/27/ipcc-functional-stupidity/#comment-573492
‘Argument y’ – http://judithcurry.com/2014/05/27/ipcc-functional-stupidity/#comment-573364
FOMBS takes a name from a sizable list of authors – not even the main author and makes a dishonest point and then repeats his litany of scientific scraps and baubles. Why?
One could likewise wonder what Kolmogorov power laws for turbulent flow imply for the predictability of climate – but not for too long or a particular type of mathematical purist would go mad.
It’s something like a modern cargo cult – wave some vaguely scientific thingy around and some of it might stick.
Damn!
To further its solidarity with the perpetrators of CRUgate, Penn State should join the environmentalists, beginning with handing out a “family cloth” to graduates by printing their sheepskins on a “reusable” cloth to be used as a green alternative to toilet paper.
Sometimes, climate change ain’t all it’s cracked up to be.
I like data – a theory without data is a parable of the whining progressives. You know how that goes.
I am quite prepared to accept that there was some ocean warming last decade. Ocean heat is very variable – the error bound are the same order of magnitude are the changes being observed – and there are changes other than the nominal radiative forcing.
Nonetheless – http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/vonSchuckmannampLTroan2011-fig5PG_zpsee63b772.jpg.html?sort=3&o=131
You might notice that the freshwater content (OFC) of the oceans is decreasing over the period – possibly due to due decadal changes in hydrology.
This seems to have been caused by SW changes rather than IR. The anomalies are very accurate and quantify change and trend in reflected SW and emitted IR.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/CERES_MODIS-1.gif.html?sort=3&o=178
Which has certainly changed since – positive cooling.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/CERES_EBAF-TOA_Ed27_anom_TOA_Shortwave_Flux-All-Sky_March-2000toJune-20131_zpsd3c5a965.png.html?sort=3&o=57
And for balance IR – positive cooling.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/CERES_EBAF-TOA_Ed27_anom_TOA_Longwave_Flux-All-Sky_March-2000toJune-2013_zps64e01a6c.png.html?sort=3&o=58
The large natural variability of TOA radiant flux certainly does complicate things (Loeb et al 2012) – but it seems less likely that they are capable of subtlety than of rejecting reality and substituting their own.
How and when does this progress? Got me.
Robert I Ellison
Chief Hydrologist
“Climate is nothing but the sum of all weather events during some representative period of time. The length of this period cannot be strictly specified, but ought to encompass at least 100 years…” ~Lennart Bengtsson
ah… positive trend cooling…
Michael,
It’s seems you’ve fallen out of your tree. Or were you pushed?
I thought Sokal had unclothed the sociology relative-value emperor sometime ago….
Or is this Beck et al paper a covert Poe?
Wow! Richard Tol is a LEAD author!
Question Surely there can’t be too many IPCC authors with THAT credential?
Answer Only a thousand (or more, per page 20 of 47).
Moreover, Tol’s no scientist … he’s an economist who has no particular expertise in climate-change.
Who on Climate Etc appreciates these points?
Question Can a “lead author” also be a “clueless windbag”?
Answer Purely on the evidence, there’s *PLENTY* of room for debate regarding *THAT*!
—-
Question Are David L. Hagen, Pekka Pirilä, and Judith Curry shamelessly cherry-picking the unscientific, one-in-one-thousand fringe opinions of an obscure academic economist?
Answer Purely on the evidence, there’s *ZERO* room for debate regarding *THAT*!
—-
Conclusion Uncritically cherry-picking the unscientific opinions of obscure one-in-a-thousand “clueless windbag” economists contribute little or nothing to the rapidly evolving scientific debate regarding climate-change.
Prediction Neither Richard Tol nor any of his cherry-pickers are likely to have scientific or economic progeny.
Young scientists and/or young voters *ESPECIALLY* appreciate *THAT* practical reality, eh Climate Etc readers?
Butt out, fan; I’m the only one allowed to criticize Pekka.
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I hesitate to criticize Fred. He will ululate unctuously.
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FOMB (Fan of More Babble) should not help the expression “clueless windbag” to get any traction around here, we all know it epitomizes FOMB perfectly.
Refinement: “Co-ordinator lead author” rather than “Lead author”?
IPCC author brands upcoming climate report ‘alarmist’
“I hesitate to criticize Fred. He will ululate unctuously”
Thanks for the belly laugh, Kim. Too perfect.
Thanks for the twitter tip at the top, Judy; that Nate dude writes so as to be understood.
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“I hesitate to criticize Fred. He will ululate unctuously.”
Oh gawd, Kim – stop it :)
You’re spoiling my coffee
Bet Kim is good at scrabble!
Fred is a better man than his delivery, but he’s a caricature of bias.
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Fan
Your 8.13.
What on earth are you talking about now? I have never mentioned chaos theory. I suspect your barb was aimed at someone else. Perhaps Chief Hydrologist?
You can tell the difference between us as he is Australian and I am English and …er..we have totally different names.
your baffled English friend
tonyb
You are entirely correct, TonyB/climatereason … it’s “Chief/Chief Hydrologist” who emits chaos-theory bafflegab … not “TonyB/climatereason.” My apologies are extended!
Tonyb,
No worries, FOMB’s rant was perfectly representative of his m.o.
He doesn’t need to concern himself with ‘who’ he might be responding to, since he is not actually responding to anyone here. He merely snorts specks of comments like cocaine powder, which then sets him off on ever more delirious rants.
> He doesn’t need to concern himself with ‘who’ he might be responding to […]
Only a few ClimateBallers play the ball and not the man.
Only a few play the ball and not the man… and you’re certainly not one of the few, willard.
One could wonder what Kolmogorov power laws for turbulent flow imply for the predictability of climate – but not for too long or a particular type of mathematical purist would go mad.
It’s something like a modern cargo cult – wave some vaguely scientific thingy around and some of it might stick. I’ve described webby’s math as homeopathic. Take a solution for standing waves in an elliptical bath tub and scale it to the SOI by waving acronyms over it.
At this stage there is really only thing that makes any scientific sense – predictability. Anyone who predicted the pause a decade or more ago has blog cred.
Robert I Ellison
Chief Hydrologist
You should make a great effort to avoid coming across as self-righteous, willy. We know you too well.
I play the ball where it lands and how it’s being played on the field, Don Don, and thank you and Grounskeeper for your concerns.
In all this talk about playing the ball or the man, don’t lose track of the fact fan is the guy in the hot dog suit who runs around the field during the 7th inning stretch.
For all I know, willard could be the brat running alongside him.
Re: “playing the ball or the man”
TimG56 – you sure he is not the “fan” who interfered with the ball during the Cubs playoff game and cost them the series?
Glad you brought your pom-poms, timg.
” it’s “Chief/Chief Hydrologist” who emits chaos-theory bafflegab”
____
A new moniker seems appropriate for him.
Baron Von Bafflegab, distant cousin perhaps of the 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley? Both sharing the profound gift of bafflegab.
The three amigos of climate blogging – with wee willie playing the donkey.
We shall sit here smugly and see if anything actually comes of empty vessels – from either side of the inchoate no mans land of blogospheric inanity.
Go on webby I dare you to predict that the pause will persist for 20 to 40 years from 2002. You get scientific bonus points for predicting it a decade or more ago. Eh – who am I kidding they are all clueless as whack-a-moles.
The Cheef is very concerned that I am on to something with the ENSO modeling.
http://contextearth.com/2014/02/05/relative-strengths-of-the-csalt-factors/
He is so concerned that he brings my name up even though I haven’t participated in this particular thread. It’s a fallacious argument style called “poisoning the well”.
I don’t care if the Cheef wants to mention me every time he opens his yap. Everyone will realize he is skeert.
Naw – I want you to make a decadal forecast so we can see you fall on your face.
I have made mine – and you get scientific bonus points for doing it a decade ago.
The Cheef is as stoopid as a newborn.
ENSO as charaterized by the SOI will rise and fall about the mean value.
Globally averaged temperature will continue to rise.
How is that for a prediction?
That’s what we like to hear – admissions of cluelessness.
The cool PDO and enhanced La Nina frequency and intensity is likely to persist for 20 to 40 years from 2002 based on the theory of dynamical complexity in climate.
Stay tuned.
“Globally averaged temperature will continue to rise.
How is that for a prediction?”
Web, that’s great! Let’s check it in ~5 years. I predict no warming for over 20 years by then.
“ENSO as charaterized by the SOI will rise and fall about the mean value.”
No s***! That’s funny.
It seems more likely to stay predominantly below the line for a while.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/enso/mei/ts.gif
cheefie sickpuppet doesn’t seem to understand that ENSO is an oscillation.
This is an interesting recent paper using the same math that I developed to model ENSO but applied in a different discipline:
Shivamoggi, Bhimsen K. “Vortex motion in superfluid 4He: effects of normal fluid flow.” The European Physical Journal B 86.6 (2013): 1-7.
“… Mathieu’s equation describing the parametric amplification of Kelvin waves by the friction force. Equation (52) reveals again that the friction term associated with α influences the vortex motion in a qualitative way.”
The thinking is that the QBO is parametrically amplifying the ocean’s Kelvin waves in a similar manner, leading to ENSO. Remember that the physics and math do not change just because of the scale of the system.
http://contextearth.com/2014/05/27/the-soim-differential-equation/
You mean you can’t see that blue dominates to 1976, red to 1998 and blue again to date.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/enso/mei/ts.gif
Go figure – it is one of the best known facts about ENSO. Nothing to do with the QBO – which is at any rate an effect rather than a cause – the only thinking taking place is what he pulls out of his arse and the only thing parametrically amplified is his BS.
He should read some actually relevant literature. Does he google Mathieu function for standing waves in elliptical bathtubs – to find some homeopathic justification by waving it over his curve fitting? No matter how improbable the connection?
What are you doing here webby? Why don’t you just go away and play somewhere else? I suppose it is because your empty twaddle just gets deleted.
Bye webby – I have decided to ignore you again.
The actual front of the climate war;
http://dailycaller.com/2014/05/27/epa-to-unilaterally-push-cap-and-trade-on-carbon-emissions/
We should just call them “political” and try to find middle ground right?
The more accurate climate change synopsis;
http://ricochet.com/left-doesnt-really-believe-climate-change/
Without the usual euphemisms; “politics”, “sides” etc. etc.
Energy firms warned over communication about climate change
Strategy modelled after campaign against tobacco companies
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/energy-firms-warned-over-communication-about-climate-change-1.2657185
Judith Curry,
I suggest that the IPCC should be dissolved but only with a necessary pre-condition, there must be full disclosure of all its internal communications and process implementation documents for all five assessment reports. Its non-public forums logs are also needed. The IPCC’s fully detailed (sausage making) experience should be the protection against something like the IPCC from reoccurring in another ‘scientific’ alarm crusade based on another false a priori premise.
Nothing needs to be created or stimulated to replace the IPCC. Scientific collaboration on self-forming and voluntary basis creates an optimum participation without concern for confirmation bias being systemic to it. Scientific self-correction processes would be optimized in such a self-forming and voluntary collaboration. Such a self-forming and voluntary collaboration would tend to optimize private research funding as well.
John
Speaking of the IPCC, has anyone heard of any Pachauri replacement info?
Also, there was a town hall style meeting at the Dec 2014 AGU Annual Meeting in San Francisco sponsored / chaired by Thomas Stocker
(AR5 Co-Chair WGI) which focused on should AR6 be done per the normal interval or should it be scheduled differently (sooner or later or indefinitely held off until needed). There was also some hint of a discussion at the town hall meeting if there should even be another AR at all like the past 5 ARs.
So, I would think that even within the IPCC org there may be some question about whether to continue forth like it has for the last 5 assessment intervals.
Generally speaking, during the town hall, I felt a little frustration by speakers from the floor at the interval needed for any useful and unique new knowledge in an AR6.
John
OOPS, editorial correction to my comment.
Correction => Also, there was a town hall style meeting at the Dec
20142013 AGU Annual Meeting in San Francisco sponsored / chaired by Thomas Stocker (AR5 Co-Chair WGI) . . . .John
I notice the title of Towards a Reflexive Turn in the Governance of Global Environmental Expertise: The Cases of the IPCC and IPBES contains a reference in the title to the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). This appears to be a later-forming case of the same sort of organization as the IPCC, this time pointed at anything at all having to do with the world’s ecosystems. My earlier comment on this organization is here. The paper I used to highlight the problem has since vanished from the web (at least that part Google will show me), But I’ll reproduce the abstract copied from my earlier comment:
I provided links to the refs in my previous comment, all are working as of this time, although the final one is paywalled.
My previously expressed opinion of extending the “methods” of the IPCC to the IPBES:
By its policy of consensus right from the start, the IPCC ruled out good science policy. The result: the IPCC has failed to understand climate science well enough to predict future climate. Their models all grossly overrate global warming.
Penn State also is not being held accountable for bailing on their responsibility. Mark Steyn jumped on it — doing the job the liberal MSM fails to do — and, now Steyn is being sued by one of the perpetrators of CRUgate pseudo-science. The failure of academia is turning sheepskins into toilet paper.
Won’t stay green long.
Might if fertilized in moderation. AnthroCO2 will be a boon.
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Andy Lacis said:
Andy, how does your CV stack up against Richard Tol’s:
Have you started reading his online book yet? Have you started building the IAM he guides you through building in steps? https://sites.google.com/site/climateconomics/
How are you enjoying it? Pretty good, eh? Are you starting to recognise that the down-in the weed ‘science’ you are interested in is of little relevance for policy analysis? Are you starting to recognise how little you understand about what is relevant for policy analysis? Are you ready to retract your rather stupid comment yet?
At the bottom of this lines one simple reality , the IPCC is parasitic on AGW. Ask yourself this, if there was no longer any issue around AGW would there be any need for the IPCC?
Like any UN organisation its mains goals are to increases its power , finically wellbeing and above all ensure its own existence, everything else comes after that. So why would be expect them to behave in any other way than to produce reports which support those objectives.
Committee hearing taking place now, on IPCC, with Tol, Botkin, Oppenheimer, Pielke
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/hclive10