Hutchinson on models: The Mathematical Menace

[LorenS]

Re: Hutchinson on models: The Mathematical Menace

Sorry, missed this. I'm sure your idea that global warming is political resonates with some folks but when 98% of all university certified climate scientists think it's a real problem your boys are looking a lot like the ones living on the edge of politics.

I find the concept of "university certified" to be a rather weak criteria for expertise. I attended the University of Michigan. At various times I was taught by university "experts" on subjects in which I had first hand experience. In many cases, the "experts" had apparently never actually put hand to tool because what they taught did not match with my experience.

If all you've experienced in life is high school, college professors probably seem to be great experts. If you've done a bit of living first, college seems a whole lot less credible.

I have been working with financial models for years as well as more technical models like SPICE. I've helped build revenue growth and P/L and ROI models. Even under the best of circumstances there is a conflict between model accuracy, model attractiveness to management and the long term vs short term results.

To imply that "university" stuff is not subject to politics and political influence is just not credible to me.

My reading of Hutchinson is that he is one of the few commentators who actually uses real world results to analyze the usefulness of proposed economic solutions. Most folks just care about the R or D attached to the ideas.

[santafe2]

Re: Hutchinson on models: The Mathematical Menace

It is amusing that the 97% or 98% number still gets bandied about - when in reality the actual support is nowhere near that number.

Please post your peer reviewed studies that prove this to be incorrect. Liars use words like "bandied about" to disrespect science. You sound more like the Catholic church in the dark ages than anything approaching reason.

You should stop reading Skeptical Science or whatever tunnel vision blog you get your information from; the latest SkS attempt to support the 97% consensus has exploded into flames - even outright CAGW believers like Richard Tol denigrate the 97% number and in turn was called a denier by the SkS believers:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/05/2...nsensus-paper/

I read peer reviewed papers. I read as much of the work as I can find time to read and understand in this area of science. You have an agenda and read a blog by a goofy weatherman and assume it to be science because it fits your political version of human life on earth. You should understand that I don't dislike you, I disrespect you. I don't get why a smart guy is so dumb when it comes to this issue. All of us humans should be taking a step back and asking ourselves what we hope to accomplish with this little blue planet. We own it. We can do whatever we want with it. Let's make some smarter choices.

[vinoveri]

Re: Hutchinson on models: The Mathematical Menace

All of us humans should be taking a step back and asking ourselves what we hope to accomplish with this little blue planet. We own it. We can do whatever we want with it. Let's make some smarter choices.

Sure, and we can all listen to John Lenin's "Imagine" while we do and convince ourselves we are doing good ... you're forgetting Human Nature and the Culture of Death that western civilization continues to devolve into -

[c1ue]

Re: Hutchinson on models: The Mathematical Menace

Please post your peer reviewed studies that prove this to be incorrect. Liars use words like "bandied about" to disrespect science. You sound more like the Catholic church in the dark ages than anything approaching reason.

Given that peer review seems to be more 'pal' review, it is quite unclear why peer review is so important. Oh right, because it confirms your bias.

On the other hand, your very own 'peer reviewed' data is conflicting with reality.

Who then is acting like the Catholic church in the Dark Ages?

Which side is the one which has lied - again and again - over all sorts of issues supposedly representing the 'consensus': glaciers, Kilimanjaro, hurricane strength and frequency, tornada strength and frequency, droughts, floods, colder than normal temperatures, warmer than normal temperatures, the list goes on and on and on and on.

I read peer reviewed papers. I read as much of the work as I can find time to read and understand in this area of science. You have an agenda and read a blog by a goofy weatherman and assume it to be science because it fits your political version of human life on earth. You should understand that I don't dislike you, I disrespect you. I don't get why a smart guy is so dumb when it comes to this issue. All of us humans should be taking a step back and asking ourselves what we hope to accomplish with this little blue planet. We own it. We can do whatever we want with it. Let's make some smarter choices.

How nice that you disrespect me. I consider that a badge of honor.

Perhaps you can outline what precisely my agenda is.

What exactly do I say about global warming in particular, and climate in general?

What precisely do I say should be done about it?

I'll further point out that I'm not the one working in a industry which utterly depends on government subsidies to survive - subsidies which arise directly due to the consensus.

Unlike you and your understanding of me, I understand quite well where you are coming from and what your position is.

I'll simply close with this - an excerpt from an interview with one of the few climate scientists on the 'consensus' side who isn't a liar, a crook, or a missionary in the Inquisition sense:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...-a-906721.html

SPIEGEL: Would you say that people no longer reflexively attribute every severe weather event to global warming as much as they once did?

Storch: Yes, my impression is that there is less hysteria over the climate. There are certainly still people who almost ritualistically cry, "Stop thief! Climate change is at fault!" over any natural disaster. But people are now talking much more about the likely causes of flooding, such as land being paved over or the disappearance of natural flood zones -- and that's a good thing.

...


SPIEGEL: Yet it was climate researchers, with their apocalyptic warnings, who gave people these ideas in the first place.

Storch: Unfortunately, some scientists behave like preachers, delivering sermons to people. What this approach ignores is the fact that there are many threats in our world that must be weighed against one another. If I'm driving my car and find myself speeding toward an obstacle, I can't simple yank the wheel to the side without first checking to see if I'll instead be driving straight into a crowd of people. Climate researchers cannot and should not take this process of weighing different factors out of the hands of politics and society.

...

SPIEGEL: Just since the turn of the millennium, humanity has emitted another 400 billion metric tons of CO₂ into the atmosphere, yet temperatures haven't risen in nearly 15 years. What can explain this?


Storch: So far, no one has been able to provide a compelling answer to why climate change seems to be taking a break. We're facing a puzzle. Recent CO₂ emissions have actually risen even more steeply than we feared. As a result, according to most climate models, we should have seen temperatures rise by around 0.25 degrees Celsius (0.45 degrees Fahrenheit) over the past 10 years. That hasn't happened. In fact, the increase over the last 15 years was just 0.06 degrees Celsius (0.11 degrees Fahrenheit) -- a value very close to zero. This is a serious scientific problem that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will have to confront when it presents its next Assessment Report late next year.


SPIEGEL: Do the computer models with which physicists simulate the future climate ever show the sort of long standstill in temperature change that we're observing right now?


Storch: Yes, but only extremely rarely. At my institute, we analyzed how often such a 15-year stagnation in global warming occurred in the simulations. The answer was: in under 2 percent of all the times we ran the simulation. In other words, over 98 percent of forecasts show CO₂ emissions as high as we have had in recent years leading to more of a temperature increase.


SPIEGEL: How long will it still be possible to reconcile such a pause in global warming with established climate forecasts?


Storch: If things continue as they have been, in five years, at the latest, we will need to acknowledge that something is fundamentally wrong with our climate models. A 20-year pause in global warming does not occur in a single modeled scenario. But even today, we are finding it very difficult to reconcile actual temperature trends with our expectations.

I won't even get into the utter ridiculousness of averaging a series of models to show accurate climate prediction.

[santafe2]

Re: Hutchinson on models: The Mathematical Menace

Given that peer review seems to be more 'pal' review, it is quite unclear why peer review is so important.

As I've pointed out, you're anti science, and anti scientist unless it supports your political and social view of life. The world is warming and changing quickly and you are living in the Dark Ages.

Which side is the one which has lied - again and again - over all sorts of issues supposedly representing the 'consensus': glaciers, Kilimanjaro, hurricane strength and frequency, tornada strength and frequency, droughts, floods, colder than normal temperatures, warmer than normal temperatures, the list goes on and on and on and on.

Scientists admit when they are wrong, you don't. Anti-science global warming denial is your religion.

How nice that you disrespect me. I consider that a badge of honor.

I disrespect your ideas with regard to global warming. It's not about you. There is no nice way to say it, these ideas are goofy. You should find an exit before it's obvious to everyone.

[c1ue]

Re: Hutchinson on models: The Mathematical Menace

As I've pointed out, you're anti science, and anti scientist unless it supports your political and social view of life. The world is warming and changing quickly and you are living in the Dark Ages.

Thank you for pointing out so clearly how your biases affect your perception of reality.

Nowhere have I ever said the world is not warming.

What I've said is - how much of the warming is due to man, and how much of this man-made warming is due to CO2? How much warming has there actually been - given that there is neither an easy nor consistent record?

What I've also said is that - fossil fuel usage has clear issues in the near future. The way to solve that isn't by throwing tons of money at outdated and inefficient present day alternative energy technology, but by incentivising innovators to achieve levels of efficiency which are competitive with existing fossil fuel energy. Throwing billions of dollars to install solar panels that are less than half of even near term achievable efficiency is pure crony capitalism. Equally is placing a high tax on energy - which amounts to a highly regressive tax on poor people all over the world. High fossil fuel derived energy taxes do nothing but force people into cutting down trees to burn wood and other 'renewable' resources.

So, you can ad hom all you want, but ultimately your own credibility is destroyed by an obvious fanatic belief system.

Scientists admit when they are wrong, you don't. Anti-science global warming denial is your religion.

How amusing. Storch is open to saying that the consensus is shaky at best, and is open to the possibility that it is wrong.

You, however, don't have this uncertainty. Who is the fanatic here?

I disrespect your ideas with regard to global warming. It's not about you. There is no nice way to say it, these ideas are goofy. You should find an exit before it's obvious to everyone.

I don't actually see the difference, nor do I care.

When someone calls you stupid, it really doesn't matter if it is personal or not.

In any case, your behavior is what defines who you are - and are not. Your consistent refusal to actually consider evidence, as opposed to your belief, says all there needs to be said.

Your ongoing efforts to attack people rather than ideas - the same.

[raja]

Re: Hutchinson on models: The Mathematical Menace

I'll simply close with this - an excerpt from an interview with one of the few climate scientists on the 'consensus' side who isn't a liar, a crook, or a missionary in the Inquisition sense:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...-a-906721.html

Thanks for the link, c1ue

I read the whole interview (which is not long), and sent excerpts so some of my friends.

[santafe2]

Re: Hutchinson on models: The Mathematical Menace

[QUOTE=c1ue;261485]In any case, your behavior is what defines who you are - and are not. Your consistent refusal to actually consider evidence, as opposed to your belief, says all there needs to be said. /QUOTE]
That you think there is evidence supporting your position is at best odd. There are almost no scientists who subscribe to your position. We're vacationing in Nova Scotia this summer and talking to local folks. What the older people remember is that one could walk across the coves in deep winter 30 years ago. Today, the coves don't even ice over. You and you're ideas aren't even skating on thin ice. Every thinking person understands that the world is warming.

[vt]

Re: Hutchinson on models: The Mathematical Menace

So where are these same scientists when the solution to reducing carbon, mainly a crash program to build a lot more nuclear plants, is proposed. The left destroyed nuclear power in the U.S., and now wants to do the same worldwide.

Now they have been pushing the global warming meme, which is a really a way to tax the worker even more.

Until the CAGW crowd comes out heavily in favor of nuclear power, their ideas are totally bankrupt.

[c1ue]

Re: Hutchinson on models: The Mathematical Menace

That you think there is evidence supporting your position is at best odd. There are almost no scientists who subscribe to your position. We're vacationing in Nova Scotia this summer and talking to local folks. What the older people remember is that one could walk across the coves in deep winter 30 years ago. Today, the coves don't even ice over. You and you're ideas aren't even skating on thin ice. Every thinking person understands that the world is warming.

That's because the people who can remember the 1930's heat wave are all dead whereas the well documented 1970s cooling is well within living memory.

I've previously posted all sorts of notes about how there are well documented examples of past extremes as high or higher than the ones seen in the past 30 years, so your anecdotes are frankly not of merit.

[ProdigyofZen]

Re: Hutchinson on models: The Mathematical Menace

That's because the people who can remember the 1930's heat wave are all dead.

The world has gone through many iterations of cooling and warming, I mean we wouldn't have had the ice age if the earth didn't cool and we wouldn't have the last 10,000 years of relative tranquility in global temperatures if the world didn't warm.

It seems to me that certain people will latch on to ideas to promote whatever theory they want to push on the people. Sure there may be slight global warming, a natural occurrence, but that doesn't mean it is 100% man made.

To believe that the world has natural micro cycles like fall, winter, spring and summer and not to believe that the world has longer macro cycles say 50,000 years or 200,000 years, or even millions of years apart would be naive.

Santa Fe, all Clue is saying is that the earth may be warming but you cannot attribute that to a man made reason and it is a dangerous political tool.

People and very intelligent people (in this case a friend of mine who got his masters in engineering and MBA from Wharton and is Indian) actually believe that one entire political party is out to "take away their minority rights."

Which with a preponderance of evidence I have gathered over the years has lead me to believe that naivety knows no bounds in most people especially when emotion is involved.

[c1ue]

Re: Hutchinson on models: The Mathematical Menace

Santa Fe, all Clue is saying is that the earth may be warming but you cannot attribute that to a man made reason and it is a dangerous political tool.

I've stated categorically that there is no question the earth is warming.

I've also stated categorically that humans do influence the climate.

The difference between my view and the Anthropogenic-CO2-Catastrophe view - i.e. Global Warming - is that I disagree that anthropogenic CO2 is the majority and/or primary driver of global warming. The evidence is poor at best, and the empirical performance with respect to accuracy literally since the beginning of climate modeling has been unquestionably bad.

My view is much closer to the warmist view: that the sum of all human impacts on the climate are due to multiple factors such as land use effects on albedo, irrigation effects on water cycles, CO2 intake/consumption effects from habitat destruction/conversion to farmland, fossil fuel CO2 (and other greenhouse gas) emissions, etc.

Of course, the corollary to this view is that you cannot fix all problems just be demonizing CO2.

[vt]

Re: Hutchinson on models: The Mathematical Menace

Or taxing CO2 to feed an inefficient and bloated bureaucracy.

[santafe2]

Re: Hutchinson on models: The Mathematical Menace

Until the CAGW crowd comes out heavily in favor of nuclear power, their ideas are totally bankrupt.

I can't speak for the CAGW crowd. I don't think I've ever advocated against nuclear energy. It makes a lot more sense than coal.

[santafe2]

Re: Hutchinson on models: The Mathematical Menace

The world has gone through many iterations of cooling and warming...

Of course, but the earth has not gone through any iterations while humans have been adding CO2 to the atmosphere over the last ~250 years. The laws of physics are clear. If 40%+ CO2 has been added to the atmosphere, additional heat will accumulate on earth. Where it accumulates is not as well understood as it will be. That it is accumulating is not questioned by serious scientists. That we are causing warming is also not in question.

Santa Fe, all Clue is saying is that the earth may be warming but you cannot attribute that to a man made reason and it is a dangerous political tool.

I can and I do attribute all warming to humans. There is no evidence for any other serious source of warming. That it will be used as a political tool is for the political tools to understand and to use. I've no real control over the politics of the issue. I get what you're saying, global warming will be used as a hammer to extract as much from the average person as possible but that doesn't mean it's not caused by humans. It only means evil humans will use it to make life that much worse for a lot of people. I'm sorry for that but it doesn't mean one can conflate politics and science. BTW, this is not a left, right issue. Evil only chooses party as a matter of convenience.