tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9959776.post5910792725954912885..comments2024-02-15T04:42:41.606+00:00Comments on James' Empty Blog: Are you avin a laff?James Annanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04318741813895533700noreply@blogger.comBlogger33125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9959776.post-56383316310890409202008-05-20T01:43:00.000+01:002008-05-20T01:43:00.000+01:00Well, let me know what your estimate is and then w...Well, let me know what your estimate is and then we can find out how much faith you have in it by what it takes to make a bet on it "attractive".Tilo Reberhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12340317421180002978noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9959776.post-32319093205091745802008-05-20T00:50:00.000+01:002008-05-20T00:50:00.000+01:00I think about 0.2C/decade is a reasonably fair pre...I think about 0.2C/decade is a reasonably fair prediction, although I'm currently engaged in calculating my own estimate. I still don't find betting a significant sum of money on a 50-50 proposition attractive.James Annanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04318741813895533700noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9959776.post-69252067889421108652008-05-19T16:41:00.000+01:002008-05-19T16:41:00.000+01:00"Will you bet $10,000 on a coin toss?"It's not a c..."Will you bet $10,000 on a coin toss?"<BR/><BR/>It's not a coin toss in my mind, because it's not the gain or loss of money that is the primary objective. For me it is to see if Climate Scientists will ultimately stand behind their predictions with something other than the public's money. For a climate scientist it should be a wonderful opportunity to show that they are in fact sincere about their numbers.Tilo Reberhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12340317421180002978noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9959776.post-73965552265678524792008-05-19T16:35:00.000+01:002008-05-19T16:35:00.000+01:00"It's not my work."You certainly seem to be workin..."It's not my work."<BR/><BR/>You certainly seem to be working very hard to defend it.<BR/><BR/>But okay. In terms of the temperature trend of .2C per decade, if you don't stand behind that number, then what number do you stand behind. What number do you think represents a trend such that we will have a 50% chance of having a warmer trend and a 50% chance of having a cooler trend.Tilo Reberhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12340317421180002978noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9959776.post-61523181915728130042008-05-19T03:16:00.000+01:002008-05-19T03:16:00.000+01:00It's not my work.Will you bet $10,000 on a coin to...It's not my work.<BR/><BR/>Will you bet $10,000 on a coin toss? I don't think many rational people would (due to their nonlinear utility function - you can <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utility" REL="nofollow">look this stuff up</A> you know).<BR/><BR/>Yeah, I know there are compulsive gamblers who bet even when the odds are stacked against them. I'm an intelligent gambler who only bets (large sums) when I judge the odds to be in my favour.<BR/><BR/>HTH HANDJames Annanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04318741813895533700noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9959776.post-64003218292528921202008-05-19T03:04:00.000+01:002008-05-19T03:04:00.000+01:00Do you find standing behind your own work in some ...Do you find standing behind your own work in some meaningful way attractive?Tilo Reberhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12340317421180002978noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9959776.post-72433140972907354902008-05-18T13:58:00.000+01:002008-05-18T13:58:00.000+01:00I don't find the idea of betting $10,000 on a coin...I don't find the idea of betting $10,000 on a coin toss to be attractive. I see you've already had this explained out to you on Deltoid.James Annanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04318741813895533700noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9959776.post-39710073053306220442008-05-17T07:45:00.000+01:002008-05-17T07:45:00.000+01:00Hey James, are you going to take my bet?Hey James, are you going to take my bet?Tilo Reberhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12340317421180002978noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9959776.post-40374955542222975932008-05-16T18:04:00.000+01:002008-05-16T18:04:00.000+01:00> Don't careYour faith is unarguable.> Don't care<BR/><BR/>Your faith is unarguable.Hank Robertshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07521410755553979665noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9959776.post-91881365178453178542008-05-16T17:39:00.000+01:002008-05-16T17:39:00.000+01:00Hank: "Trends"Don't care. It's plain as the nose...Hank: "Trends"<BR/><BR/>Don't care. It's plain as the nose on your face. I gave you the plotted data. No warming for 10 years. Don't believe me, reproduce it for yourself.Tilo Reberhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12340317421180002978noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9959776.post-71897533898554525032008-05-16T15:52:00.000+01:002008-05-16T15:52:00.000+01:00http://julesandjames.blogspot.com/2008/04/has-glob...http://julesandjames.blogspot.com/2008/04/has-global-warming-stopped.html<BR/><BR/>TrendsHank Robertshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07521410755553979665noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9959776.post-11606758099369043212008-05-16T03:34:00.000+01:002008-05-16T03:34:00.000+01:00Just update to April. No warming for the last ten...Just update to April. No warming for the last ten years!<BR/><BR/>http://tinyurl.com/4de3v7Tilo Reberhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12340317421180002978noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9959776.post-90547960004111186852008-05-15T23:54:00.000+01:002008-05-15T23:54:00.000+01:00"over the 30 year time frame there will be strong ..."over the 30 year time frame there will be strong warming"<BR/><BR/>"Also, they don't just predict "upward march" but they also quantify it (~0.2C/decade for the foreseeable future)."<BR/><BR/>"Strong" is a handwave on your part. Are you willing to say that there will be .6C warming between 2000 and 2030? Since you believe that .2C per decade is correct, then we should have a 50% chance of .6C or greater by 2030.<BR/><BR/>50% odds one way or the other seems like a fair bet to me.<BR/><BR/>So here is my bet to you, James. If a linear regression trend line that is run through monthly HadCrut3 data from 2000 to 2030 shows .6C or more of warming I will pay you 10,000 dollars. If the trend line shows less than .6C of warming, then you will pay me 10,000 dollars.<BR/><BR/>Now that is pretty cut and dried. Do you believe in the models or don't you? Do we have a bet?Tilo Reberhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12340317421180002978noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9959776.post-53526768114604489782008-05-15T09:48:00.000+01:002008-05-15T09:48:00.000+01:00"Roger has repeatedly refused to say clearly what ..."Roger has repeatedly refused to say clearly what he is talking about,"<BR/><BR/>I used to think he just isn't very good at communicating what he means (actually, I still think that). <BR/><BR/>However, I've recently come to the conclusion that he doesn't actually understand, in at least some cases. <BR/><BR/>There are some posts of his though, where "not understanding" is possibly a charitable interpretation.<BR/><BR/>BTW I see that someone's already using his post as "proof" that climate scientists don't know what they're doing. See the comments at Stoat.skankyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14584908320777937193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9959776.post-90313506891024162632008-05-15T06:44:00.000+01:002008-05-15T06:44:00.000+01:00Hank,Roger has repeatedly refused to say clearly w...Hank,<BR/><BR/>Roger has repeatedly refused to say clearly what he is talking about, and indeed now admits that he doesn't actually know what he is talking about, so reverse-engineering what might be going on in his head is a bit of a lost cause IMO.<BR/><BR/>Tom, regarding LIA: given the current state of climate science, if we had known back then that solar output was going to go down, we'd have been able to predict the cooling pretty well. I don't know how well we could have predicted the solar output though. Analogously today, if we know how much CO2 we will produce over the next century, we can predict the temperature change pretty well. Of course the amount of CO2 produced is (to some extent) a matter of choice, and predicting it is socio-economic issue. We have it easy in some respects though: the current radiation imbalance, and near-term committed emissions in the world economy, are large enough that we can e pretty confident over 30 years at least (as I said, 0.2C/decade, plus or minus a bit).James Annanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04318741813895533700noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9959776.post-15811992059900619382008-05-15T05:54:00.000+01:002008-05-15T05:54:00.000+01:00Apologies for the nonsequitor, but I was just flic...Apologies for the nonsequitor, but I was just flicking through a compilation of questions and answers from the New Scientist Last Word column when I noticed a response from Hank Roberts of Berkeley to a question about runny noses.<BR/><BR/>Hank, was that you?Gavin McPhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12358419644841459212noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9959776.post-90309568830394561392008-05-15T03:54:00.000+01:002008-05-15T03:54:00.000+01:00Sanity check please, on the second image I asked a...Sanity check please, on the second image I asked about: <BR/><BR/>http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a2/Climate_Change_Attribution.png<BR/><BR/>The black line is the observation, the gray area is the confidence range for the model, and some observations fall outside the gray area. <BR/><BR/>Does it seem like that's the kind of gap Roger's talking about?Hank Robertshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07521410755553979665noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9959776.post-9919780825569155572008-05-14T22:24:00.000+01:002008-05-14T22:24:00.000+01:00It's one of many such "failures," Tom. It's odd t...It's one of many such "failures," Tom. It's odd that climate scientists consider such things successes, don't you think?<BR/><BR/>This is a bit like ignoring all those trapped children in China because earthquake damage models predicted that only half as many schools would collapse. IMHO you should be paying more attention to the fact of the phenomenon itself, and that the important thing the models are telling us is that the trend will continue. Is it not obvious to you that shifting climate zones and storm tracks driven by a warming atmosphere are just a bit of a problem?<BR/><BR/>Re the LIA/MWP, read the AR4 chapter on paleoclimate.<BR/><BR/>The assumption I was referring to is that you would blame the models for a failure to accurately model something like the LIA when the problem is actually uncertainty about the forcings and the parameters of the event itself. IIRC the models are perfectly capable of replicating the LIA (insofar as it can be described via proxy records and the very limited measurements that were taken at the time).Steve Bloomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12943109973917998380noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9959776.post-22533204714006353372008-05-14T21:29:00.000+01:002008-05-14T21:29:00.000+01:00Steve BloomYou wrote:"...your assumptions about th...Steve Bloom<BR/><BR/>You wrote:<BR/><BR/>"...your assumptions about the models with regard to the LIA are incorrect. If you can cite Koutsoyiannis, you can look this stuff up."<BR/><BR/>I'm sorry but I don't know what it is that I am supposed to look up. Which assumptions are incorrect? That there was an LIA? Did that get thrown out along with the MWP?<BR/><BR/>Regarding the paper you linked to, as far as I can tell the models failed spectacularly. That they failed in the same direction as recent warming does not provide any vindication.Tom Chttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11169660946573910095noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9959776.post-85117081520699762052008-05-14T20:29:00.000+01:002008-05-14T20:29:00.000+01:00Tom, FYI your assumptions about the models with re...Tom, FYI your assumptions about the models with regard to the LIA are incorrect. If you can cite Koutsoyiannis, you can look this stuff up. <BR/><BR/>Re the scorecoard issue, I would commend you to the AR4. While we're on the subject, here's a nice confirmed model <A HREF="http://jisao.washington.edu/JISAO_admin/newsarchives/naturegeoscience_12-05-07_WideningOfTheTropicalBeltInAChangingClimate.pdf" REL="nofollow">result</A> that should be getting a lot more attention (and arguably has not because denialists have nothing to say about it).Steve Bloomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12943109973917998380noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9959776.post-12025434893957215262008-05-14T19:56:00.000+01:002008-05-14T19:56:00.000+01:00Thanks for the three thoughtful replies. But let ...Thanks for the three thoughtful replies. But let me state the question in a different way. Were we to go back in time, would any of these models predict the entry into, or the exit out of, the LIA? I presume that this climate event would not be considered "internal variability" or "noise" or "weather". If the models would not have picked it up, they are fatally flawed and are no more than T = f(CO2) machines.<BR/><BR/>Regarding the other climatic aspects of rainfall, etc., I would think it fair at this point to have assembled a substantial "scorecard" to evaluate the maturity of the models. What Koutsoyiannis has done, rightly or wrongly, should be only a fraction of what should have been out there for public consumption long ago.Tom Chttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11169660946573910095noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9959776.post-13394597809171319752008-05-14T17:29:00.000+01:002008-05-14T17:29:00.000+01:00Tom's question is based on a common misunderstandi...Tom's question is based on a common misunderstanding of what the field is and does. I am not entirely happy with Mark's and James' answers. They are true as far as they go, but they leave a very crucial misunderstanding unanswered.<BR/><BR/>The implication is that we would stop modeling if, say, atmospheric composition stabilized. <BR/><BR/>The models are a crucial instrument for a science that would exist whether or not there was a policy question. Indeed I sometimes wonder whether both the science and the models would not be further along were it not for all the public attention.<BR/><BR/>Focusing only on the prognostic uses of these models, however important, contributes to common misperceptions about the field.Michael Tobishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08229460438349093944noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9959776.post-85887735256734068272008-05-14T03:13:00.000+01:002008-05-14T03:13:00.000+01:00Tom,What Mark said.Also, they don't just predict "...Tom,<BR/><BR/>What Mark said.<BR/><BR/>Also, they don't just predict "upward march" but they also quantify it (~0.2C/decade for the foreseeable future). They also predict finer details like more rainfall in total (but spatially heterogeneous), more warming over land and high latitudes...<BR/><BR/>In a nutshell, what the models tell us is that if we keep on pumping out CO2 in ever increasing quantities, then the warming will continue, and this will almost certainly bring other changes even though we cannot currently quantify these changes accurately on a regional scale.<BR/><BR/>As for what use they are...well that depends on whether we care about climate change on the 30 year and longer time scale. If we don't, then I suppose we might as well not bother doing any of this research. But even in that case, it would be hard to argue that it is actually less useful than lots of other scientific research like astronomy and high energy physics.<BR/><BR/>The models do tell us that the changes will not be devastating over that time scale (although they are already noticeable and will only become more so), which must be worth something, even to a denialist.James Annanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04318741813895533700noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9959776.post-62257043849703199862008-05-13T23:42:00.000+01:002008-05-13T23:42:00.000+01:00TomThe 3D atmosphere-ocean climate models predict ...Tom<BR/><BR/>The 3D atmosphere-ocean climate models predict a great deal more than a steady upward march of global temperature. They predict changes in atmospheric & ocean circulation patterns, changes in rainfall, regional changes in temperature, changes in stratospheric temperature. Some of these predictions can be verified (and some already have been) some cannot (or not yet). Some of these predictions could have been made with simpler models and some could not. That's the way it is with complex models.<BR/><BR/>Roger has shown what those familiar with the models already knew: that 8-year trends provide a very weak test of the models. He seems to find this surprising and significant. I find his surprise surprising.Markhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16914264739638166750noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9959776.post-27494885468868433292008-05-13T19:15:00.000+01:002008-05-13T19:15:00.000+01:00It seems to me that we taxpayers have forked over ...It seems to me that we taxpayers have forked over untold millions for climate models with millions of lines that essentially predict an upward march of temperature (smoothed over decadal scales) as a function of CO2 increase, but don't predict anything else except maybe periodic cooling from an eruption. So couldn't the whole thing be simplified to read T = f(CO2)? And, what use are the things if that's is the exent of the preditive capability?Tom Chttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11169660946573910095noreply@blogger.com