4 responses to “Of Cracks and Crystal Balls (5apr09 update)”

1. 

   Dr. Peter Gleick

   03 April 2009

   George, careful readers will indeed find flaws — but in your twisted logic.
   I was quite clear: if you have complaints about climate model results (which you do), take them to the modelers. Unfortunately for you, the modelers will set you straight. But that is for them to do, not me. But my unwillingness to argue with you about their models does not mean I don’t stand by our assessment, nor does it mean that I disagree with the models. On the contrary, if I thought the models were wrong, we wouldn’t have done the analysis we did. The logic of your argument is grossly flawed: it is like arguing that we shouldn’t develop methods to destroy incoming asteroids because the probability of an asteroid strike is low. Frankly, the probability of significant sea-level rise is probably pretty close to 1 and far higher in the coming century than an asteroid strike. It is the height of irresponsibility on your part to (1) misrepresent climate science; and (2) to tell people there is no reason to start to think about smart ways to reduce the risks of sea level.
   You also misrepresent the science in a classic way (it is called “cherry picking data” to say that sea-level in San Francisco has not risen at all, or much in the past eight years (not ten to fifteen) and to pretend that that is a trend, while ignoring two contradictory things: (1) the trend over the past 150 years (which is up); and the estimates of the best oceanographers and climatologists that say it will rise far more in the next century. Sea level is naturally variable, and by cherry picking a few years data you grossly mislead your readers.
   Finally, once again you mix science and politics and use ad hominem attacks when your science is weak. “agenda of global wealth redistribution”???? What is this? Some deep internal fear of yours that scientists who talk about climate change or environmental risks are, deep down, pursuing some other agenda?
   Go ahead, tell us what’s REALLY bothering you about climate change. Don’t pretend the science is bad.

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2. 

   John S

   03 April 2009

   Well, I’m glad the good Dr. gave his response. No problem George, I still think I agree with you.
   Not being a scientific guy I have tried to be objective about this AGW crap but cannot get around some real obstructions.
   They started out calling it “Global Warming” and not too long after that realized that would cause them some problems, if it cools then we have nothing. So they changed it to “Climate Change”. Now that includes everything, if the earth goes into an ice age its still global warming. Ok, bullet proof.
   Why do Democrats love and believe it, and Republicans (as a rule) don’t? You have a number of scientists thinking it is real, and another number that do not. If you believe it and you’re in the right position you stand to make a real return. If you don’t believe it you will pay the ones that do. And now that the Democrats control congress they are working overtime to create energy plans and everything else to tax the living hell out of everyone. Keep in mind though, these taxes won’t be part of the taxes our President said would not go up. IT’S ABOUT AS POLITICAL AS YOU CAN GET. And you cannot tell me that there is no agenda attached to it. Prostitution has come to our scientific community.
   And one last thing, why in the IPCC papers covering sea level rise and all of the other stuff associated with “Clinmate Change” do they use the word “uncertainty” a lot? But to all of the believers it’s certain. POLITICAL AGENDA. You can’t be uncertain about something and create a regulatory environment that effects everyone can you. You got to believe.

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3. 

   Russ Steele

   04 April 2009

   Dear Dr Gleick,
   I believe you are the one with the weak science. The global climate models that are used in your study are unable to produce any output that is verifiable. Your models have to refute the observations made by others and so far they have fallen short. The global temperatures measured by satellite refuse to follow the models. Details here in a guest post on Jo Nova’s blog by Dr. Evans who writes:
   There is no actual evidence that carbon dioxide emissions are causing global warming. Note that computer models are just concatenations of calculations you could do on a hand-held calculator, so they are theoretical and cannot be part of any evidence. Although the models contain some well-established science, they also contain a myriad of implicit and explicit assumptions, guesses, and gross approximations—mistakes in any of which can invalidate the model outputs.
   Perhaps your modeling team can explain why 30 years of observed temperatures have failed to validate the climate models. You sir, are the one using weak science to justify spending public funds to solve a problem that does not exist. Yes, temperatures have risen slowly, but there is physical evidence that they are not accelerating as you suggest in your study. The projected sea level rise is bogus if the temperatures are not increasing as the models have suggested. You have used the climate models as the foundation of your sea level projections and the foundation is weak and crumbling. You sir are the one using weak science to support a political view.

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4. 

   George Rebane

   05 April 2009

   Peter, thank you for your extended comment. And since your response to my post ranges so far afield from my initial analysis and conclusions, while defending unassaulted hills, that perhaps the best way for me to respond in turn is point by point.
   George, careful readers will indeed find flaws — but in your twisted logic.
   I was quite clear: if you have complaints about climate model results (which you do), take them to the modelers. Unfortunately for you, the modelers will set you straight. But that is for them to do, not me. But my unwillingness to argue with you about their models does not mean I don’t stand by our assessment, nor does it mean that I disagree with the models. On the contrary, if I thought the models were wrong, we wouldn’t have done the analysis we did.
   [gjr] Calling my logic “twisted” without pointing out the twists will not strengthen your case. The point I, Russ Steele, and other people have addressed is your use of tools that are flawed as has been pointed out by numerous investigators. In the science that I have been trained, the scientist is responsible not only for the results but the process he took to produce them. You seem to have copped a plea of ignorance about the tools under the banner of ‘everyone uses them’. The general circulation modelers have yet to “set” anyone “straight” on the matter. In fact the generation of large scale forward integration models is so complex that their longtime application in more staid areas like interplanetary space travel – once thought to be a settled piece of Newtonian physics – is now open to re-examination due to errors discovered in the trajectories of probes launched into the solar system some years ago.
   And when it comes to the politically laced issue of climate change (CC) – especially including the anthropogenic factor – large scale model making that influences public policy includes a socio-political dimension that has now become a legitimate field of academic study in itself – see for example here.
   No one has accused you of using models that you thought were “wrong”. On the contrary, the charge is that you put unwarranted faith in the models, and with them produced results which are questionable, and presented them in a framework (e.g. linear regression fits, and predictions of soon-to-be resumed acceleration of sea level rises) that abets a critical and disputable conclusion to an extremely important question. Your couching the conclusion conditioned on the correctness of the models only reinforces the concern about your work.
   The logic of your argument is grossly flawed: it is like arguing that we shouldn’t develop methods to destroy incoming asteroids because the probability of an asteroid strike is low. Frankly, the probability of significant sea-level rise is probably pretty close to 1 and far higher in the coming century than an asteroid strike. It is the height of irresponsibility on your part to (1) misrepresent climate science; and (2) to tell people there is no reason to start to think about smart ways to reduce the risks of sea level.
   [gjr] None of my comments about your sea level regression analysis even vaguely approached utility or decision theory. I have no idea how you link my comments to asteroid strike probabilities, or determining civilization’s response to same. However, if you want to open up that aspect of making climate change policy, then I will gladly accompany you and see where it leads us. Again, you may be confusing me with the other critics of your work.
   I did not make any claims about the future of “significant sea-level rise” nor even remotely compare such a probability with that of an asteroid strike. I have criticized the validity of today’s general circulation models (GCMs) as tools suitable for predicting long term climate changes. At that “height of irresponsibility” I am joined by published modelers who describe in detail the shortcomings in understanding both the fundamental physics and correct computational processes of certain atmospheric dynamics – e.g. the vertical circulation/exchange models are still an incomplete area of investigation and work. I have made no attempt to “misrepresent climate science”, and to the extent that I am not sanguine with its current use in railroading potentially disastrous public policy, I am joined by some distinguished names in the field which were recently published in leading newspapers across the land ( here). Finally, I have made no statements about “reason(s) to start” or to stop thinking about dumb or “smart ways to reduce the risks of sea level” rises. Again, your far ranging response to my remarks may have been motivated by your other critics.
   You also misrepresent the science in a classic way (it is called “cherry picking data” to say that sea-level in San Francisco has not risen at all, or much in the past eight years (not ten to fifteen) and to pretend that that is a trend, while ignoring two contradictory things: (1) the trend over the past 150 years (which is up); and the estimates of the best oceanographers and climatologists that say it will rise far more in the next century. Sea level is naturally variable, and by cherry picking a few years data you grossly mislead your readers.
   [gjr] I made no cherry pick of any data. I did take the displayed record and 109-year data window of sea level readings to which you had fitted a straight line, and argued that this was not only a simplistic but also inflammatory way to represent the trend. (I will submit any other sea level dataset over another window of time to the same analysis.) I further argued that the dynamics of sea levels have slowly varying higher frequency components that were apparent from visual inspection, and corroborated it through the use of more compliant regression functions than your straight line. I presented the 5th order polynomial regression function as an example, and without extended prognostications, gave an obvious interpretation of the resulting trend during the last 8-15 year period. That’s all. Your stating that I had not done a regression analysis, and then reversing yourself to say that the 5th order polynomial was “cherry picked” as the only higher order regression function that would expose such a trend, boggles the mind. Delving into your understanding of what does and does not constitute a regression analysis would indeed lead us into ad hominem reprisals, and I don’t want to go there.
   I have never disputed the assertion that sea levels have risen over the last 150 years, nor do I dispute that certain reputable oceanographers and climatologists believe that it will “rise far more in the next century”. What I do dispute is 1) the derivation of such conclusions from the current GCM models (if indeed that was their basis), 2) that the rise will be catastrophic and due to anthropogenic factors, and 3) that we understand the physical causes and control mechanisms to make correct public policy in our current state of knowledge. I have given a more detailed explanation of my concerns here. Please do not extend my comments nor their meaning beyond the limits within which they are presented.
   Finally, once again you mix science and politics and use ad hominem attacks when your science is weak. “agenda of global wealth redistribution”???? What is this? Some deep internal fear of yours that scientists who talk about climate change or environmental risks are, deep down, pursuing some other agenda?
   Go ahead, tell us what’s REALLY bothering you about climate change. Don’t pretend the science is bad.
   [gjr] Peter, nothing I have written can be construed to be an ad hominem attack on you – that would elevate your case and weaken mine. And, unfortunately, the politics and science of global warming and climate change got mixed together long before your report on sea levels. I have made no secret in these Ruminations that I believe politics has chartered, abetted, and embraced bad science. History is replete with more examples of this than in their recounting space and patience allow. If this is a foreign concept to you, then I am not the one who will attempt to change your mind.
   The tactic to attempt to position AGW skeptics as the lonely, the few, and the misguided has seen its day – refer again to the Cato piece, and the numerous publications and websites that now flood the media and internet. There is no need to pretend or contend that the science behind global warming is bad. Its quality is open to honest doubt for a number of reasons including the reason that other research funded by agencies who appear to have an ulterior motive is promptly called into question. If energy companies were the fount of funding for climate (or any other kind of) research, there would be a legitimate question about the results. Politically tainted government funding is equally questionable. It is inconceivable that your organization, or any other institution dependent on politically dictated public funding, could come up with conclusions that run counter to the now accepted wisdom on AGW. We all remember how large masses of people, led by politicians and ‘leading scientists’, cheered when Al Gore pronounced that “the debate is over”. What a misleading thing to say about such an all important and complex field of science.
   As I have pointed out here and elsewhere, after accepting CC/AGW, it can easily be shown to have transnational causes and effects. To the extent that they can be represented as cataclysmic, CC/AGW is indeed the moral equivalent of an impending asteroid strike, and the case can again easily be made that a transnational response (regulations, monitoring, enforcement) is required. To accomplish this will then require the adoption/launch of a pan-national government of the type long dreamt of by adherents of the UN – one that subrogates sovereign nation-states and has teeth. The global collectivists have long seen that as the greater and final solution to the manmade ills that plague the world. The dangers of such a global government are familiar and many to even the casual student of history. It is because of this that CC and its AGW variant need to be examined doubly before they are accepted and used to move us toward that collectivist goal.
   Many people of good will have now come to accept that a well-read scientist today cannot claim his/her science to be either independent or in any way isolated from its effect on civilization. Those days passed with the science of the Third Reich and the USSR. To many of us trained in the specific technologies used to proclaim the verity of the CC/AGW threat, today’s support for that threat assessment is based on inadequately known and/or dodgy science. And therefore such work does not support the panicky conclusions and remedies proposed by the political class to move us toward a social order that will beggar the world and make all objective science and environmental concerns moot.
   Finally, I personally believe that the overwhelming amount of work done in understanding the sub-processes of the atmosphere, extra-atmospherics, ocean, and land masses as they affect the various modules of the GCMs is excellent science. Unfortunately the nature, implementation, and interpretation of such models and, ultimately, their results are where the problems arise. And the fact – apparent to many scientists and at least a third of the country – that climate change is now being used as the perfect storm to advance the agenda of those who see a better world without sovereign nation-states, mires the whole investigation into this important, complex, and ongoing dynamic process we call the earth’s climate.
   I hope this lays all opinions, judgments, and agendas openly on the table, and that it clears up any confusion about my original assessment of that sea level dataset. And in the larger matter, I remain at your service.

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