An article in the May 4 issue of Science shows that observed warming in the 16 years since 1990 is greater than predicted by models.
Perhaps models are underestimating future climate change. That would be bad news.
"Recent Climate Observations Compared to Projections"
We present recent observed climate trends for carbon dioxide concentration, global mean air temperature, and global sea level, and we compare these trends to previous model projections as summarized in the 2001 assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC scenarios and projections start in the year 1990, which is also the base year of the Kyoto protocol, in which almost all industrialized nations accepted a binding commitment to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. The data available for the period since 1990 raise concerns that the climate system, in particular sea level, may be responding more quickly to climate change than our current generation of models indicates.
Those who argue that great uncertainty exists in our knowledge of climate need to recognize that uncertainty cuts both ways -- things could be worse than we think just as easily as they could be better.
EPA affirms California’s right to set tougher automobile emissions standards
MoveOn asks members whether it should launch major campaign to strengthen climate bill
Comments View as Flat
JMG Posted 6:27 am
10 May 2007
Another plug for Pearce's book
ai-yai-yaii, I can see the headlines at the Competitive Enterprise Institute already: "Grist admits climate models no good."
But the very important point you make about uncertainty having two directions (better than most likely AND worse than most likely) prompts me to plug Fred Pearce's book "With Speed and Violence" again--it's a survey of all the factors likely to cause the uncertainty to break against us, rather than for us. It's a great book for helping people understand why the precautionary principle is so important, and why we can't afford to wait for an aggressive global heating response.
"An optimist is someone who thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. A pessimist is someone who is afraid that the optimist is right."
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DonnClark Posted 6:37 am
10 May 2007
Uh oh!
I've been taking note of predictions (not necessarily from models) for the past several years ... my general, not documented, observation is that the rate of change in the weather do to the warming inputs appears to excelerating greater than predicted each hear. If this is true, then the conductor on the diseaster train will be here to collect the fare in 15 to 20 percent of the time frame currently layed out.
Donn Clark
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fermiparadox Posted 6:43 am
10 May 2007
Link to the paper
The article at Science is behind a subscription wall. If you do not have a subscription, you can get it also here.
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astetica Posted 6:49 am
10 May 2007
yep
Every time the story is the same. We are consistently underestimating the speed with which things are changing. I find it very worrying...
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Andrew Dessler Posted 7:07 am
10 May 2007
Not surprising
I should note that conservatism is a hallmark of both science and in particular of the IPCC process. As a result, there are good reasons to expect that the IPCC represents a "lower limit" on reality.
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MarkUK Posted 7:37 am
10 May 2007
Models
Isn't it funny that our skeptics are always very certain that CO2 is no issue and yet also state that the models are uncertain. If these models are no good why don't these skeptical scientists construct their own models that show a different picture? Surely if all these models are junk you should statistically see a nice spread of models.
Yet what apparently happens is that models that have been verified using past data seem to point into one, rather bad, direction...
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WWAGD?! Posted 10:12 am
10 May 2007
The Models Are Wrong! Therefore, Trust The Models
The logic of this is:
a. The models incorrectly predicted the previous dataset.
b. Therefore, we should trust the models even more and believe that their predictions about the future are even more accurate.
This is so wrong at so many levels that I hesitate to comment, but here goes.
First, if they can't explain the past, they are incapably of predicting the future.
Second, there seems to be a confusion about the term "accuracy" here. To the Global Warming Advocates, "accurate" means "supports their opinion", not "closer to the actual" as most of the English speaking world defines it.
Third, what could it possibly mean to say that the "climate systems" respond to "climate change"! What kind of crazed tautologists are you?!
John Bailo, The "Denier Guy"
You Read It Here First
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Andrew Dessler Posted 11:15 am
10 May 2007
For lurkers out there ...
The models have demonstrated reasonable skill in hindcasting the last 150 years. This is well documented in chapter 8 (entitled "Climate Models and their Evaluation") of the latest IPCC report. Available here.
Why should you believe the IPCC report? Read this.
This is not say that the models are perfect. They are not. But it is incorrect to conclude that, because a model is imperfect, that it has no predictive value.
Overall, if you read what the scientific community has to say, you'll find much of what the skeptics say is simply incorrect.
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WWAGD?! Posted 11:28 am
10 May 2007
Multiply That By A Ten...
The point of the article was that they didn't predict the increased warming since 1990.
A real model would not merely predict the past 150 years...but the past 1500.
Is there such a model?
John Bailo, The "Denier Guy"
You Read It Here First
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Andrew Dessler Posted 11:55 am
10 May 2007
Clarification
My previous post said the models do a "reasonable" job of hindcasting. They are not perfect. The imperfections we do see in the models suggest that climate change is more serious than present generation models predict. Was that not completely clear?
As far as 1500-year hindcasts, that would be great. Unfortunately, we don't know what the temperature was back that far, so we really don't have anything to compare a model run against. (See last year's NRC "Surface temperature reconstruction ..." report. Click here.)
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WWAGD?! Posted 12:04 pm
10 May 2007
OSS Climate Models ?
Are any of the major climate models available in interactive form online?
As in a web page where I can "run the numbers" based on all the factors they consider?
I'd love to do some simulations using the best of the best models.
Even better -- are any of them Open Sourced?
John Bailo, The "Denier Guy"
You Read It Here First
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Zarkov Posted 12:55 pm
10 May 2007
Prediction !
I predict that "what y'all call climate change" (ie drought and clear skies) will increase, but hey, the maximum air temperatures will never be much more than "normal for a clear sky day", but soon your minimum temperatures will plummet. The temperature range will widen until all the clouds are dead.
Read all about in "The Death of Clouds" book, available now.
Good luck.. I will eat may Akubra Aussie Hat if this does not happen in the not too distant future.
omegafour.com
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Andrew Dessler Posted 2:29 pm
10 May 2007
Models are available
I don't know if all of the AR/4 GCMs are available, but many are. You can get the NCAR CSM here and the GISS model E here. You can probably find others by googling the model name.
There is also a version of the GISS model that they've produced for education. You can get it here, including builds for mac os and windows. It relatively low resolution, since most people don't have supercomputer time, and it includes a slick user interface.
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WWAGD?! Posted 5:22 pm
10 May 2007
Linux?
It's not open source and there's no Linux build.
Now I know you guys are funded by the powers that be.
Exposed!
John Bailo, The "Denier Guy"
You Read It Here First
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eriqa Posted 1:10 am
11 May 2007
hee hee
Because anything that runs on a given platform must necessarily be funded by the manufacturers of that platform!
How exactly does this process work? Can I just write a bunch of random programs that run on Windows and then wait for the checks to roll in from Microsoft? Cause if so... wow, this is an amazing new funding source! Student loan payoffs, here I come!
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Andrew Dessler Posted 1:21 am
11 May 2007
No Linux build?
Make your own! Go here.
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MarkUK Posted 2:18 am
11 May 2007
join us!
eriga,
I don't know how you get in... I sold my soul years ago to the secret world government. I started of with the hiding of the cure for cancer and have since worked on several projects. Hiding the car that runs on water, masking the lethal oil microlayer that covers our oceans and now on the indoctrination of the world population regarding global warming so the secret communist world government can take full control... hahaha!
Dr Dessler is merely an instrument providing us with evil models. Obviously the linux users are the last remaining resistance we will need to wipe out...
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blueberrysushi Posted 4:12 am
11 May 2007
Models
I have to admit that models give me the heeby jeebies. Scientifically-speaking. I do sociology stuff, pretty fluffy compared to model-building. I just sat through an economics class discussing a particular model and it makes perfect sense - this is where the math comes from, these are the assumptions, these are externalities. I've always thought that economists sacrificed accuracy for precision, but alas, they don't listen to me ...
To return to the subject of climate models, they seem to be pretty similar. You're distilling what is real, boxing it, putting parameters around it. It's inherently a simplification of nature. And nature is very complex. Models will never reflect reality, they are tools to assist with decision-making. Then the policy-makers come in. They say, "so you've got all these models, these are the limitations and assumptions, and these are our options." Looking at the climate models, using the data available, it appears that climate change/global warming/Al Gore's conspiracy Theory best explains the data. The fact that this particular model underestimated the magnitude of temperature change doesn't invalidate the theory. It means the model was imperfect. More correctly, it was inaccurate. We have more data now. Of course. Time has passed, we've been collecting data. Intimately related, you might say. The data we have accumulated since this model was created have supported the theory, not disputed it.
There you go. Models.
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WWAGD?! Posted 4:22 am
11 May 2007
Der Spiegel Speaks Out !!!
Finally, the mainstream media is fighting back and spewing common sense against the Climate Hoaxers:
Not the End of the World as We Know It
By Olaf Stampf
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,481684 ...
This article is being linked to in blogs and RSS feeds worldwide!
Al Gore is routed!
John Bailo, The "Denier Guy"
You Read It Here First
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blueberrysushi Posted 4:25 am
11 May 2007
models part deux
As an addendum, because my previous post was fairly incoherent, I just wanted to get across my own hesitations/doubts about models. It is dangerous to rely too heavily on models, to point to them and say "THIS IS REAL." Because it's not.
Other data are somewhat more tangible. Bark beetle irruptions, the die-off of Alaska yellow cedar - these phenomena are best explained by climate change. I know of these because I do forestry, but of course there are examples from every discipline.
Point is, and I do have one: models are very useful tools for displaying trends. Tangible evidence, like observable ecosystem process dysfunction (or change in function) is another way to support a theory.
Are we underestimating rates of temperature change? Maybe. I wouldn't use one model, or even a bunch of models, to support or refute that statement. Chaos and surprise are part of nature, and we can't model those. Not well, anyhow.
Okay. Models.
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WWAGD?! Posted 4:28 am
11 May 2007
Why This is NOT Science
When Einstein proposed his theories of Relativity, it was a decade later that verification came. Eddington went to Africa in 1919 to see if, during a total eclipse, the light of the stars "bent" due to the force of the Sun's gravity.
This was a true theoretical prediction, confirmed by data.
Climate models are the opposite, as the subject of this article shows. If they were real, the would have predicted the incorrect temperature readings of the 1990s in advance...and then later, now, we would correct those and say "oh, those models were right".
But this is not the case. The IPCC will simply increase the multiplier of some variable and say "all fixed".
John Bailo, The "Denier Guy"
You Read It Here First
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MarkUK Posted 4:36 am
11 May 2007
Fire!
Can someone provide a water hose here? All that straw dragged in here by jabailo is starting to build up...
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WWAGD?! Posted 4:38 am
11 May 2007
Springtime for Hilter
It's not just me...just check out what those Germans are saying:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,481684 ...
John Bailo, The "Denier Guy"
You Read It Here First
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blueberrysushi Posted 4:51 am
11 May 2007
oops
Another addendum: one of my links was to a model paper. Sorry. I meant to provide a link that was to "tangible" evidence and I didn't. I'm gonna have to go do work, so I'll link one later.
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MarkUK Posted 5:07 am
11 May 2007
yay!
Well, that settles it. If they thought higher temperatures were a good thing in April 1896 then why have all these poor scientists been working away for the last century and a bit?
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Andrew Dessler Posted 5:30 am
11 May 2007
For lurkers: A defense of models
A few things everyone should keep in mind:
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Andrew Dessler Posted 5:33 am
11 May 2007
How would you do it?
blueberrysushi-
You wrote:
The ultimate goal, of course, is not to determine whether models are underestimating future climate change, but rather to provide policymakers with our best guess about what future climate change will be. If you don't trust models, how would you estimate that?Permalink
gmunger Posted 6:02 am
11 May 2007
at a more basic level
Models are, by definition, imperfect representations of reality (past, present and future). Similarly, surveys or statistical samples are an imperfect representation of real populations.
Does that mean they are irrelevant? Hardly! Just ask any out-of-work politician who consistently ignored his/her poll numbers. Similarly, we ignore the climate models at risk of our peril. Of COURSE they're imperfect. But continued refinement makes them increasingly less imperfect and increasingly more relevant.
I find it interesting that so many of the same people who need more evidence before taking mitigative action in the face of GCC, are also some of the same people who pushed for war in Iraq based on sham evidence and hyperbole.
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Billhook Posted 6:11 am
11 May 2007
Why, Oh Why, accept the shills' agenda ?
Andrew -
So here's another long thread focussed just where the shills want it to be focussed -
on the reliability of the science that predicted GW, and has now thoroughly confirmed the accuracy of the prediction by observation,
rather than on just what we are going to do about it, how, when, and with whom.
The shills' owners (they are after all bought & paid for) presume that doing something about GW
will mean hacking the sales of their fossil fuel products,
and may well entail their inditement, trial and imprisonment for culpable mass homicide.
Is it any wonder the poor shills have to persist with such a tedious monotony of propagande?
What is a wonder to me is just why Grist feels the need to keep trailing its coat by posting invites for the shills' participation.
Regards,
Bill
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PBrazelton Posted 6:14 am
11 May 2007
Moderation
Didn't call for it earlier, but I stand corrected. This is a huge waste of time for everyone involved; it's the same recycled crap over and over.
Also, Andrew should be nominated for sainthood. The patience of a mountain...
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MarkUK Posted 6:37 am
11 May 2007
shills
Not everybody denying AGW is a shill. I personally know plenty of those people. Some just don't buy it.
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gmunger Posted 6:52 am
11 May 2007
shills' agenda
Although I agree wholeheartedly that it becomes tiresome, I'm not convinced that answering the critics is bad medicine.
In short (since this was beaten to death on another thread or two recently):
a) There ARE plenty of posts and threads on Grist that DO discuss in great detail what we can do to mitigate GW. Answering critics doesn't take that away.
b) There remain plenty of minds out there that need changing and CAN BE changed. Not to mention those who are simply unsure. Minds only change one at a time. And I'm talking about people who are generally silent on this forum, but, rest assured, are out there (hence Andrew's frequent addressing of "The Lurkers"). Further, there are plenty of folks (like me) who often forward links to some of the more enlightened and enlightening discussions that transpire on Grist. We forward them to friends and relatives who may not otherwise be exposed to some of these ideas and arguments. Friends and relatives who can be persuaded, using ideas of which many are very presuasive if not wholly correct. And folks like jabailo provide just the "talent" needed to play the role of the villain. Every story needs an antagonist.
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