Climate seminar, Prof Linzen

[carbonhed]

It would be a huge mistake to plan for one type of climate based on the past 30 years trends when the drivers of that climate have changed and we are heading in a totally different direction. One example of this is when Dr David Viner – Climate Research Unit claimed "... within a few years winter snowfall will become "a very rare and exciting event....Children just aren't going to know what snow is," he said.

Based on that the major british airports reduced their investment on snow clearing machinery, and many British counties reduced the number of snowplows and let their stockpiles of grit get low. Well, we all know what happened in 2010.

They changed the models?

[rainman]

I'm afraid that you are one who conflating science and a human process.

I'm not familiar with Feyerabend, but Kuhn does not make any claim that science can be carried out by concensus. My recollection of his work (I'm sure I have his book on scientific revolutions or similar here somewhere, but can't find it just now) deals more with showing how scientific knowledge develops. From memory he also argues against concensus as being science, and showed how paradigm shifts in knowledge occured against consensus.

I also don't suggest science can be carried out by consensus, but it's nothing if not a human process.

Kuhn:
"The resolution of revolutions is selection by conflict within the scientific community of the fittest way to practice future science. The net result of a sequence of such revolutionary selections, separated by periods of normal research, is the wonderfully adapted set of instruments we call modern scientific knowledge."

Science is much more than the "normal research" that he refers to. And science-informed policy has a whole other set of people dimensions, of course. More below.

In the case of climate science, one could regard the prevailing consensus as the old paradigm that needs shifting, but given the timescales that these revolutions unfold over I think it's more productive to see it as the shifting paradigm, with the old-school idea being the fossil-based science that gave us modern ag, chemistry etc. Either way, being pro- or anti-consensus does not make one right, of course.

Although empiricism is key to the progress of science it's also true that the sociological alignment of the science community is a large part of what drives us in new directions. This is frequently complained about by deniers/non-warmists (as "groupthink") but is in fact how it's meant to work.

Personally I think the Earths climate is biased towards stability and usually a lot colder than it is now. The feedbacks are low or even slightly negative. I also think that every cent of the billions upon billions piled upon billions that has been spent on this hysterical charade has been stolen from our future generations and ended up in the pockets of the usual suspects and strengthened the global beauracracies that we'll come to fear in the future.

All of this has been purloined mercilessly and with scant regard for thanks because I need a lie down but WUWT and Dr David M.W. Evans are your friends.

I won't go into a chart-for-chart refutation of your post because that way lies a discussion that I don't have time to sustain, and in general, two non-experts arguing in this area just generates heat and not light, however I'll make the following observations:
1. mises.org is not where I would expect to find good science
2. There is quite a bit of on-line argumentary saying Evans is cherry-picking his stats, and a cursory inspection of the data suggests his critics may have a case.
3. He's neither a climatologist or actually even a practising scientist, and doesn't appear to have any papers published in respectable peer-reviewed journals, so why should I pay him any more attention than any other nutbar arsehole with an opinion? I don't see why he would be my "friend" and in the search for truth, WUWT certainly isn't.

Why do you find this guy so appealing, anyway? And who are the "usual suspects" and "global beauracracies that we'll come to fear in the future"? Paranoid much?

I am currently researching this subject in some detail. I hope to have two papers published later this year, one early next year and a major one that is still around 6 years away. Although I'm looking more at a Climate/hydrological link temperature does come into it.

My research so far is indicating that what we are seeing is part of a long term cycle. I'm not looking so much at the causes of any cycles, but more the effects. However the mere fact that there are cycles does show that CO2 is not a major driver. I will not claim that increasing CO2 has no effect, but so far I'm picking that it's only 10 -20% of what the IPCC claim.

Cool, are you researching in the field through a university in NZ? Or is this private research? I thought you were an engineer. Will you post links to your papers when they are published? I'd like to read them. What journals are you aiming to be published in?

If you can substantiate that 10-20% claim with solid peer-reviewed science, then hopefully that won't be in your paper that's 6 years away - the world would be very keen to hear about that now, I think.

Your "effects not causes" comment is confusing - if you think we are in a long-term cycle then surely you need to prove that by identifying what causes such a cycle. Is the quality of data good enough to go back long term enough to prove a cycle of this nature reliably? What data sources are you using?

My opinion is that climate is always different today to the way it has been in the long term.

Eh? That statement makes no sense, or doesn't say anything.

Do I think that all presently observed phenomena are in line with well-understood trends and the cycles? No I don't, for the simple reason that not all trends and cycles are fully understood. Many are still being studied, and that is how science works.
...
climate change IS business as usual. The climate has always changed, and it always will. Mankind can best be served by investicating all causes and all cycles so that we can best adapt to changing conditions.

This is the problem with climate science - us little hairless apes don't fully understand how it works, and won't do so any time soon. But that gives us a problem: we know enough to know that the effects have long lags, so if we wait until we understand it completely it will be too late to fix. Also we don't have another planet to experiment on, so we can't do all the bits of traditional science we might ordinarily want to do to understand this.

I see it as being a bit like modern medicine: we don't fully understand the workings of the body but still manage to prescribe medicines to address conditions that we see as being risky e.g. statins for cholesterol problems. In most cases this either delivers benefit to the patient or does no active harm, in some cases there are some adverse effects. But the policy is better than doing nothing and contributes to human nett benefit.

If we act (intelligently) now to fix the climate issue, and find it actually isn't a big deal in 50-100 years, then no big deal, we have a better planet anyway. If we don't act because we don't know everything and it turns out as predicted or worse, we're fucked. Basic common sense says do the right things now. I listen to a podcast from time to time which has the tagline "helping you live a better life if times get tough, or even if they don't". Makes sense to me, moving from our current fossil-fuel based economy to a smarter one sounds like a clever thing to do for a number of reasons.

Of course some would say that it will be a big waste of money but we waste money on a massive scale every day, and besides it's really hard to tell the difference between that view and "I don't want to pay any more for the externalities associated with my lifestyle'. Oddly enough it's often the libertarians that hold that view; when it should be anathema to them.

It would be a huge mistake to plan for one type of climate based on the past 30 years trends when the drivers of that climate have changed and we are heading in a totally different direction.

What do you think is driving climate in a new direction?

[Jantar]

....Cool, are you researching in the field through a university in NZ? Or is this private research? I thought you were an engineer. Will you post links to your papers when they are published? I'd like to read them. What journals are you aiming to be published in?....

Up to recently almost all research I've undertaken has been work related and therefore not available for the public. However I have decided to return to University part time to complete some further post graduate study.

I am not, and have never claimed to be an engineer, although I have completed some work related engineering study. My initial university training was maths and physics, and after entering the elictricity industry I concentrated on Hydrology and over the past 15 years on Climatology. My research is in these areas and hence the need to return to university and gain post grad degrees in these fields. My first public research paper will be offered for presentation at the New Zealand Hydrological Conference in November and then for publication in that journal.

[Jantar]

.....
What do you think is driving climate in a new direction?

I'm not going to trap myself here. I am more concerned with determing what cycles are the primary drivers rather than what drives the cycles. My gut feeling is that the big yellow thing at the center of our solar system is the ultimate driver, but there are many more qualified people than I am who are working on that.

Just one question back to you: If CO2 is the primary driver then why has there been no significant warming over the past 15 years even though CO2 concentration has continued to rise?

[rainman]

However I have decided to return to University part time to complete some further post graduate study.

Good on you, we need more scientists.

I am not, and have never claimed to be an engineer

Never said you did, it was just an impression I had formed for some reason.

I'm not going to trap myself here.

No entrapment intended, it was a genuine question. You asserted that climate was possibly now being driven by different factors than before, so a change in policy was appropriate. I merely asked that most difficult of questions "Why (do you think that, what's the new driver)?"

My gut feeling is that the big yellow thing at the center of our solar system is the ultimate driver

And that is sort of an answer - but not to the question of why you think we are now entering a different phase of climate behaviour. We've had a sun for a while. The question isn't what drives climate, anyway, it's what factors account for the observed deviation from the long term trend? (With CO2 and friends being the most likely cause).

If you're just teasing longer and longer cyclic components out of the temperature record then I'd raise my eyebrows and ask about the quality of your data again. The "natural cycles" defence has lots of logical problems to do with causation. Explaining what put those cycles there is the tricky bit, and bloody hard to answer unless you are rather deity-esque.

Just one question back to you: If CO2 is the primary driver then why has there been no significant warming over the past 15 years even though CO2 concentration has continued to rise?

I think the canonical answer is "there has been" but I'm aware that there is some controversy about the adjustments and corrections that are required to draw this conclusion if one only looks at the last 15 years. A less satisfactory (but I suspect, still valid) answer is that it's just a minor blip in a long term trend - look at the last 100 years, for example, and the trend is clearer.

And I understand that looking at more than surface temps gives a clearer picture.

I suspect we don't understand the lags and leads and reinforcing factors in the climate by a long chalk yet. Perhaps a slow-down in the last decade will be matched by a double-up in the next? Hard to tell from where I sit, but once again, makes more sense to head off the risk than wait a decade or so to know for certain - unless you have slam-dunk science that proves the reverse.

[carbonhed]

I won't go into a chart-for-chart refutation of your post because that way lies a discussion that I don't have time to sustain, and in general, two non-experts arguing in this area just generates heat and not light, however I'll make the following observations:
1. mises.org is not where I would expect to find good science
2. There is quite a bit of on-line argumentary saying Evans is cherry-picking his stats, and a cursory inspection of the data suggests his critics may have a case.
3. He's neither a climatologist or actually even a practising scientist, and doesn't appear to have any papers published in respectable peer-reviewed journals, so why should I pay him any more attention than any other nutbar arsehole with an opinion? I don't see why he would be my "friend" and in the search for truth, WUWT certainly isn't.

Why do you find this guy so appealing, anyway? And who are the "usual suspects" and "global beauracracies that we'll come to fear in the future"? Paranoid much?

Meh. You asked what a sceptic thought. You got told. You couldn't cope.

The graphs compare model predictions from when they were made to NASA satellite data and Argo buoy data covering the same period. I'm sorry that's too hard for you.

Confirmation bias is part of the human condition. How do you cope with it? Of course there's always this other problem Noble cause corruption how's that working out for you?

Just stick to your strong suit... the drive by smear.

[rainman]

Meh. You asked what a sceptic thought. You got told. You couldn't cope.

Actually no, I asked why you thought it, or why you found it so appealing. (And at the beginning I asked what main points you had taken from Lindzen's loopy rambling). I know what you think, broadly - that's not the point. You could listen to the almost consensus view, or the maverick denier view, yet you chose the latter, and seem to hold it quite firmly. Would be interesting to get an honest statement of what the appeal is, that's all.

And Gleick? Yeah whatever - not like there isn't bad behaviour all over this thing. That's the problem: for every scientist you might claim is fudging research to keep their job, I can find you an oil co exec or shill doing similar things to preserve their profits. Never trust a man to tell you the truth when his livelihood depends on lying to you, and all that.

Would that we were all dispassionate scientists nobly questing for the truth, and we didn't have to ask about motives, but alas, humans are involved - and worse yet, lots of money. (As Mashy will tell ya, it generally does not make things better).

Good question about confirmation bias and how I cope with it. I am only human but find maintaining a good level of mindfulness (meditation is very useful), and not investing in or clinging too closely to any views, helps a great deal. I am able to be persuaded on almost anything - IF I am presented by a better argument than I currently have. (Although I do find it hard to completely let go of certain base rules, such as coherent logic, moderate affinity for the scientific method, skepticism of claims to authority, some base values and core views some may call spiritual, and the like - but such is the price of sanity I fear).

I'm not a died-in-the-wool "warmist" yet it seems the more plausible view (given the science is specialised and well beyond my pay grade - yours too, I suspect). I have yet to hear a good argument against following something like the Stern prescription of mitigation actions that will result in better outcomes for all of us whether the impact of climate variability is huge or not. So I continue to hold that view - such that it makes any difference.

[Ocean1]

Hindsight will provide a much needed baseline perspective, eh?

It certainly has done so far, with almost every widely accepted philosophical or scientific precept in history having been subsequently demonstrated to be wrong.

[rainman]

Hindsight will provide a much needed baseline perspective, eh?

It certainly has done so far, with almost every widely accepted philosophical or scientific precept in history having been subsequently demonstrated to be wrong.

Wow. Now that is an astoundingly revisionist view of progress. Clever, though, I'll give you that.

Although I'll wager your choice of things to play wait-ad-see with is likely to be a bit selective. As in the science behind antibiotics, water sanitation, internal combustion engines, computers etc. is fine here and now, but the science behind greenhouse gases and climate variability, or resource depletion, maybe not so much. Wonder why that is?

[Ocean1]

Wow. Now that is an astoundingly revisionist view of progress. Clever, though, I'll give you that.

Although I'll wager your choice of things to play wait-ad-see with is likely to be a bit selective. As in the science behind antibiotics, water sanitation, internal combustion engines, computers etc. is fine here and now, but the science behind greenhouse gases and climate variability, or resource depletion, maybe not so much. Wonder why that is?

Looking behind you can be enlightening. I sometimes find it difficult not to see the climate change arguments as being other than a modern incarnation of those that surrounded the observation of Martian canals, or phrenology. Certainly the damage to the dataset caused by so much corruption puts answers out of reach of any honest scientific method. Possibly the same effect caused the theory that horse hairs turned into worms during rainstorms to be quite as widespread as it once was.

As for wait and see? You’re right, I’ve selectively failed to admit that I’ll not wait for antibiotics, etc, ‘cause they're here, now, I can buy ‘em across the counter. Nobody has yet demonstrated to me that climate change as the result of evel human meddling is here. If I ever do find it's arrived I hope we haven't become a bunch of timorous wee beasties, because the one thing that would fix that is human intervention in a way and on a scale that only humans could achieve.

[rainman]

I sometimes find it difficult not to see the climate change arguments as being other than a modern incarnation of those that surrounded the observation of Martian canals, or phrenology.

Why? What do they have in common?

Nobody has yet demonstrated to me that climate change as the result of evel human meddling is here.

None so blind, they say, as those that will not see.

[Ocean1]

Why? What do they have in common?

They're all theories, universally accepted to be fact, and all based on unreliable data.

None so blind, they say, as those that will not see.

Dude, I looked years ago, and having seen nothing but poorly manipulated data and heavily contrived results I gave up. I look again every couple of years, but the agruements rage unabated, with, if anything even less light shed upon the issue.

In the meantime anything I do is going to do absolutely fuck all to help and is aproximately as likely to make it worse.

[oneofsix]

They're all theories, universally accepted to be fact, and all based on unreliable data.





Dude, In looked years ago, and having seen nothing but poorly manipulated data and heavily contrived results I gave up. I look again every couple of years, but the agruements rage unabated, with, if anything even less light shed upon the issue.

In the meantime anything I do is going to do absolutely fuck all to help and is aproximately as likely to make it worse.

Agreed. I fact the limited focus on Carbon means corporates, and people, feel free to create greater pollution else where in the name of 'carbon footprint reduction'.

[Jantar]

...
None so blind, they say, as those that will not see.

Pot, meet kettle.

I have gone beyond looking at other peoples results and reading scientific paper after scientic paper just to find the conclusions ridden with words like "may", "maybe", "might", "could" etc. Instead I have looked at the raw data in isolation and often found totally different results.

A prime example was Salinger's 7SS that showed massive warming in New Zealand. But when one looks at the raw data without any homogenization and treats changes in station sites or equipment as a new data set most of the warming just disappears. Yes there is still some, but that is mainly before 1960 and what has happened since doest pass a single statistical test of significance.

[rainman]

Pot, meet kettle.

Not quite what I was saying, but anyway...

I have gone beyond looking at other peoples results and reading scientific paper after scientic paper just to find the conclusions ridden with words like "may", "maybe", "might", "could" etc. Instead I have looked at the raw data in isolation and often found totally different results.

A prime example was Salinger's 7SS that showed massive warming in New Zealand. But when one looks at the raw data without any homogenization and treats changes in station sites or equipment as a new data set most of the warming just disappears. Yes there is still some, but that is mainly before 1960 and what has happened since doest pass a single statistical test of significance.

So get it peer reviewed and publish, sooner rather than later. Sounds like you have already done the work.

Edit: Or better yet, put a draft up here, at least of the data and calcs you describe.

Another thing I didn't pick up earlier. Of course there are words like "may", "might" etc. How could you write a credible climate science paper without these? Climate isn't deterministic, it's probabilistic (as I said earlier, so's much of medicine, doesn't stop them). There can never be a real scientific climate paper that says what "will" happen in the future with the degree of precision that you infer above.