UK Government Chief Scientific Advisor - fundamental uncertainty in climate science

It is odd that when I point this out it is nonsense, but when you point this out it is a headline.

 

Right now, ice extent is slightly below where it was for the record-breaking 2006-2007 season. From the National Ice and Snow Data Center:




A clear downward trend has been evident for some time now. No surprise, given the warming of the arctic. (Well, warming if you believe NOAA, NASA or even the UAH data, but to those who don't believe the temperature data, then ... I guess the melting trend is a surprise.) Given the continued warmth in the arctic, there is little reason to expect this trend to turn around over the long term.





The December 2009 ice extent was about 2% above the all-time low for that month. That's some comfort, I guess.

There is such a high likelihood of further melt that the US Navy is planning on how best to deal with an ice-free summer arctic, possibly by 2030. From Stars and Stripes:

Navy?s role in the Arctic may change as icy lanes clear up | Stars and Stripes

And has been making those plans for nearly a decade now. So it's not like this is sudden.

http://www.natice.noaa.gov/icefree/finalarcticreport.pdf


Yet, two decades back, publicly predicting an ice-free summer Arctic by 2030 would have been, well, rare if not unthinkable. So uncertainty cuts both ways.

On the antarctic, well, the starting point there is to read this article, titled "Antarctica is Cold? Yeah, We Knew That". The antarctic isn't supposed to be warming up yet, much. Models of global warming have predicted little or no warming for Antarctica outside the west antarctic penninsula.

RealClimate: Antarctica is Cold? Yeah, We Knew That


Maybe its warming now, maybe its not. If it's warming, it's pretty subtle, and ditto for cooling. The point is that nobody who knows the issues expects the antarctic to behave like the arctic. It's not supposed to. So when I hear somebody talk about a cold Antarctica as a counterexample to global warming models, I say, nope, its a validation of the models. Just say "Antarctica is Cold? Yeah, We Knew That"

 

A a comment is needed regarding this question of open information. No scientist is going to waste their time responding to 100's of requests for clarifications and data coming from people whose goal is to waste said researcher's time.

Yes, it is that simple.

 

I'll ditto that.

My favorite model for this is what I term "CBO rules" (after the US Congressional Budget Office). The CBO is asked to create budget scores (cost estimates) for everything under the sun. These budget scores matter. Consequently they are constantly harassed by people who don't like this or that assumption or method.

Here's how you play by CBO rules: You don't like my estimate? Fine. Show me your estimate and we'll see whose is better. You don't get to p*ss and moan about what I did unless you can do better.

This is a really healthy model, in my opinion. Why? Because it excludes the dummies but not the people who actually have something to say. You can have an intelligent conversation.

In the case of CBO, I soon learned to come to the table with my estimate, fully worked out and documented as to source. If not, why should they take me seriously? And, on rare occasion, for the little-ticket items that I typically work on, they'll agree with (some version of) my estimate. Shoot, from their standpoint, inviting good outsiders in saves them time.

That's how I feel about the half-baked amateur analyses I see in this area. Some yoyo will take the temperature data, graph it up, get something different from NASA/NOAA/Japanese Meterological/British Met/ etc., and from this, claim that NASA etc. are lying. Really? How about we play by CBO rules: Get an expert panel together, and critique the NASA/NOAA/etc timeseries side by side with the amateur. I think that approach would clear up a lot of the noise you see passing for analysis on the internet.

 

f-r-a-u-d

The deception and fraud involved in the AGW movement goes beyond belief. Someone tell me what AGW evidence they know to be 100% correct. I own An Inconvenient Truth, so I watched it again. I wonder if today Al Gore could give that whole presentation with a straight face?

 

Feel free to quote me ever saying this, I never did. I did say we have been changing climate for 20,000 years. I did say we only have accurate records for 120 years. I did not say what you malign me with.

Infesting every climate thread is YOUR job and you dislike competition?

 

... unless doing so supports their ideology.

 

What is so difficult and time consuming about posting three links on a public web site? Nothing was said about a need for responding to 100s of requests for clarification in RP's post (bold added):

If code and algorithms are fully documented then there shouldn't be much need for 'clarifications'. And critiques of conclusions and hypothesis are the core of true science. The scientific method calls for findings to be independently reproducible. If you disagree, perhaps you might be interested in investing in my perpetual motion machine, eh?

[edit]Yes, it is that simple.[/edit]

 

Surprise - that's how peer-reviewed science also works.

You don't like the results of a paper? Fine! Write your own paper, get it reviewed, published and then we'll talk!

Unfortunately, the Internet gives anyone who can type a forum - and many people believe anything they read! For example - how many urban myth emails have you been forwarded? It takes 2 seconds to do a bit of research to see if it's true or not, but that doesn't keep people from forwarding those emails around and saying OMG!

 

In the interest of fairness, what is Penn State's official statement regarding this? I believe it's this.

http://www.ems.psu.edu/sites/default/files/u5/Mann_Public_Statement.pdf

Worth quoting in its entirety, I think:

"University Reviewing Recent Reports on Climate Information

Professor Michael Mann is a highly regarded member of the Penn State faculty conducting research on climate change. Professor Mann’s research papers have been published in well respected peer-reviewed scientific journals. In November 2005, Representative Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY) requested that the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) convene a panel of independent experts to investigate Professor Mann’s seminal 1999 reconstruction of the global surface temperature over the past 1,000 years. The resulting 2006 report of the NAS panel (Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years) concluded that Mann’s results were sound and has been subsequently supported by an array of evidence that includes additional large-scale surface temperature reconstructions.

In recent days a lengthy file of emails has been made public. Some of the questions raised through those emails may have been addressed already by the NAS investigation but others may not have been considered. The University is looking into this matter further, following a well defined policy used in such cases. No public discussion of the matter will occur while the University is reviewing the concerns that have been raised."