Global Warming Concensus Broken

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MSimon
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Post by MSimon »

If you ask - how can GCMs be constructed except as recent temperature curve-fitting the answer is:
(a) they are based on physics models
Actually they are not. They are based on a parameterized (black box) physics model due to the fact that the chunks (grid squares) are too large for the physics to be calculated by resorting to actual physics.

In other words they have to say that the "average" physics in a grid square works like this or that.

And this is not hidden. It is freely admitted.

Now what are the chances they will get the parameters even close if they leave out the effects of the PDO and other ocean circulations in computing the parameters?

A study of FEM is in order (because climate models are just a variation of mechanical or multiphysics finite element models). One of the things you learn is that if your mechanical model is not made of a sufficiently fine mesh your solution will either be wrong or it will not converge. The way you test that is to double (or half) the grid squares and see if the results are the same. So you might want to check and see if any one has done a mesh sensitivity analysis on a particular model.
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MSimon
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Post by MSimon »

Cosmic rays and stratospheric weather.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/01/22/c ... atosphere/

http://www.ncas.ac.uk/index.php?option= ... Itemid=249

Now the funny thing is that if cosmic rays predict stratospheric weather then CO2 effects can't be very strong.
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MSimon
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Post by MSimon »

The Wiki on FEM:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finite_element_method
For instance, in a frontal crash simulation it is possible to increase prediction accuracy in "important" areas like the front of the car and reduce it in its rear (thus reducing cost of the simulation); Another example would be the simulation of the weather pattern on Earth, where it is more important to have accurate predictions over land than over the wide-open sea.
Of course if your assumptions are incorrect (modeling the seas with a fine mesh is not so important) then your models will produce garbage.

There are a lot of pitfalls in FEM. And Mesh size is just one of them.
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MSimon
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Post by MSimon »

Nice comment:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-lag ... rature.htm
Needless to say that all of listed processes occur under strong non-isotropic turbulent conditions, and are way beyond the reach of any direct computer modeling. As result, either a hand-made parameterizations have to be used, or parameterizations of experimental data. Given the spatio-temporal complexity of atmospheric patterns, data from few weather balloons cannot be seriously considered as a good representation of average atmospheric structure. The reference to HITRAN/MODTRAN serves no purpose for this discussion since the code uses a pre-selected fixed MODEL of atmospheric profile. In MODTRAN, there are 84 different models for atmospheric profiles; each gives different result for amount of OLR and surface temperature. So, what would be your selection of models across the globe to include into a global greenhouse model? How objective or subjective it could be? As you see, the "fundamental physics" of absorption spectra or two-stream Schwarzschild equations are not all the sophistications you need to build a model of GH effect and calculate its amplitude.
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PolyGirl
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Biased Article

Post by PolyGirl »

Cyberax

Summary: The “news article” you linked to, is Biased.

The “news article” you pointed me to, was not what I asked for. However, the general idea “on what needs to be done”, is in this “news article” and will provide ideas for future peer reviewed “researched papers” in nailing down the “consensus” issue.

Problems with this "news article" are, but not limited to:
  • Only 3146 as stated in the “news article” completed the survey. Adding the 650 scientists to this total (yes there is the possibility of doubling up). Then the total percentage of scientists (note I am saying scientists) saying “agree on global warming is 81% (3146*100/3896). Therefore your statement “100% Climate Scientists” is still wrong.

    The percentage total of the various groups (geophysics, geochemistry, etc) only adds to 50%. What happened to the other 50%?

    The survey was only sent out to “mainly Earth Scientists”, what about meteorologists, climate statisticians, physicists and mathematicians. This is first major bias of the “news article”.

    The analysis states that 90% of the survey respondents were Americans. What about other institutions around the world and was the questionnaire written in just English or did it have the option for other languages. This is the second major bias of the “news article”

    The “news article” places emphasis on two primary questions the first is “When compared with pre-1800s levels, do you think that mean global temperatures have generally risen, fallen, or remained relatively constant? This is a leading question (or unremarkable one) because relative to the Little Ice age (1700s and to the early 1800s) the Earth has been warming and the “scientists” who were surveyed would know that the temperature has been rising to present day levels. I am surprised that it was not 99.99% instead of 90% as stated in the “news article”. This is the third major bias of the “news article”.

    The second primary question “Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?” The first critical part of this question is; what is meant by human activities? Is it deforestation, carbon emissions of all forms or some other type? How did the respondents interpret “human activity” and what was their understanding of human activities? The second critical part of the question is, what is meant by significant contributing factor? What is its metric and what guidance, instructions or information was supplied for the respondents to gauge how significant the various human activities are to the alleged global warming crisis as compared to the natural contributions to global climate. This is the fourth major bias of the “news article”.
I want to see research papers that have been conducted using “double blind studies”, why? Because of the constant, he said, she said, they said, we said. In addition to statements like, you are being paid by, an individual, corporation or even government body so you must be beholding to your masters, so therefore you must be corrupt or biased.

Until “double blinded studies" are carried I will remain highly skeptical of any article or even peer reviewed articles. One last point, did I mention that this is just an outline of what can and probably will be done (rebuttal, critique or constructive criticism) of the real submitted paper when it does appear.

Regards
Polygirl
Edit: Paragraph separated in list
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PolyGirl
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Australian Poll

Post by PolyGirl »

Cyberax you stated:
Cyberax wrote:Or maybe we should ask Australians? 80% of them support the idea of global warming: http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2008/07 ... t_that.php
Again misleading questions from the Australian Poll which are biased to begin with. Even I would have answered yes to this question. I leave it as an exercise as to why this Poll is biased.

Regards
Polygirl
The more I know, the less I know.

tomclarke
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Post by tomclarke »

Simon wrote: Now what are the chances they will get the parameters even close if they leave out the effects of the PDO and other ocean circulations in computing the parameters?
I don't see that PDO effects will lead to errors on atmospheric heat transport parameters. They may lead to small errors in global temp - but atmos heat transport parameters are not determined by fitting to global temp.

Anyway now the models are including ocean currents.

Tom

MSimon
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Post by MSimon »

tomclarke wrote:
Simon wrote: Now what are the chances they will get the parameters even close if they leave out the effects of the PDO and other ocean circulations in computing the parameters?
I don't see that PDO effects will lead to errors on atmospheric heat transport parameters. They may lead to small errors in global temp - but atmos heat transport parameters are not determined by fitting to global temp.

Anyway now the models are including ocean currents.

Tom
Tom,

The error is in attributing the heating caused by the PDO - which is rather substantial - to CO2. So far as I know it may have been corrected in one model but no new figures have been released to say what the latest estimate is.

On top of that - so far as I know - only one model has been run with the PDO and other ocean currents.

Suppose the PDO is responsible for 80% of the heating formerly attributed to CO2 + Water vapor multiplier. That would eliminate the need for the WV multiplier. And CO2 warming would become "interesting" vs "a problem".
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tomclarke
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Post by tomclarke »

Simon -

If you are right in this it is I agree a big issue. But if so then in any case as you say the GCMs are probably over-fitted & I don't trust them anyway.

But I do not believe that surface temperature is used in this way to determine AHT parameters. I think they use a whole load of other data.

proving this (or the reverse) will take me a while and I reserve judgement till then - except generally I have more believe in the integrity of the scientific community & publishing process (which does usually allow quality to triumph) than you.

Best wishes, Tom

MSimon
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Post by MSimon »

proving this (or the reverse) will take me a while and I reserve judgement till then - except generally I have more believe in the integrity of the scientific community & publishing process (which does usually allow quality to triumph) than you.
In the long run. In the short run there can be a lot of error. About $1.1 bn in the stimulus is going to climate "science". How much of that will go into looking into explanations that do not include CO2 as a driver?
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MSimon
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Post by MSimon »

Another denier. James Hansen's boss Dr. John Theon says:
Theon declared “climate models are useless.” “My own belief concerning anthropogenic climate change is that the models do not realistically simulate the climate system because there are many very important sub-grid scale processes that the models either replicate poorly or completely omit,” Theon explained. “Furthermore, some scientists have manipulated the observed data to justify their model results. In doing so, they neither explain what they have modified in the observations, nor explain how they did it. They have resisted making their work transparent so that it can be replicated independently by other scientists. This is clearly contrary to how science should be done. Thus there is no rational justification for using climate model forecasts to determine public policy,” he added.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/01/27/j ... r-muzzled/
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TallDave
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Post by TallDave »

Perhaps the final nail in the coffin for many people:
Today yet another scientist has come forward with a press release saying that not only did their audit of IPCC forecasting procedures and found that they not only “violated 72 scientific principles of forecasting”, but that “The models were not intended as forecasting models and they have not been validated for that purpose.”
..
Today, a founder of the International Journal of Forecasting, Journal of Forecasting, International Institute of Forecasters, and International Symposium on Forecasting, and the author of Long-range Forecasting (1978, 1985), the Principles of Forecasting Handbook, and over 70 papers on forecasting, Dr J. Scott Armstrong, tabled a statement declaring that the forecasting process used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) lacks a scientific basis.
Ouch.

MSimon
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Post by MSimon »

TallDave wrote:Perhaps the final nail in the coffin for many people:
Today yet another scientist has come forward with a press release saying that not only did their audit of IPCC forecasting procedures and found that they not only “violated 72 scientific principles of forecasting”, but that “The models were not intended as forecasting models and they have not been validated for that purpose.”
..
Today, a founder of the International Journal of Forecasting, Journal of Forecasting, International Institute of Forecasters, and International Symposium on Forecasting, and the author of Long-range Forecasting (1978, 1985), the Principles of Forecasting Handbook, and over 70 papers on forecasting, Dr J. Scott Armstrong, tabled a statement declaring that the forecasting process used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) lacks a scientific basis.
Ouch.
I blogged it in June 2007 with links to the documents.

http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/200 ... sting.html

Simon
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IntLibber
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Post by IntLibber »

MSimon wrote:
If you ask - how can GCMs be constructed except as recent temperature curve-fitting the answer is:
(a) they are based on physics models
Actually they are not. They are based on a parameterized (black box) physics model due to the fact that the chunks (grid squares) are too large for the physics to be calculated by resorting to actual physics.

In other words they have to say that the "average" physics in a grid square works like this or that.

And this is not hidden. It is freely admitted.

Now what are the chances they will get the parameters even close if they leave out the effects of the PDO and other ocean circulations in computing the parameters?

A study of FEM is in order (because climate models are just a variation of mechanical or multiphysics finite element models). One of the things you learn is that if your mechanical model is not made of a sufficiently fine mesh your solution will either be wrong or it will not converge. The way you test that is to double (or half) the grid squares and see if the results are the same. So you might want to check and see if any one has done a mesh sensitivity analysis on a particular model.
This is an excellent point, I was reading about one such study which halved the square size and resulted in half the amount of predicted warming.

icarus
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Post by icarus »

The validation of the turbulent modelling of Navier-Stokes part of GCM's is the best kept dirty secret of the GW cartel. The man who wrote the book on turbulence modelling has said so from the beginning and they refuse to address the problem or admit the models' limitations. Good luck "tomclarke" on your quest up that particular rat-hole.

The Kolmogorov length scale of the atmospheric turbulence is less than 1 km. When they can solve at better than the Kolmogorov spatial and temporal scales the horrible non-linearity of turbulence will manifest itself. The GCM's are so far off they are not even close to being wrong and in the game, yet. They are a huge fudge of global proportions.

Read Tennekes and get some humility for the complexity of nature.

http://www.sepp.org/Archive/NewSEPP/Cli ... nnekes.htm

"Popper would have been sympathetic. He repeatedly warns about the dangers of "infinite regress." As a staunch defender of the Lorenz paradigm, I add that the task of finding all nonlinear feedback mechanisms in the microstructure of the radiation balance probably is at least as daunting as the task of finding the proverbial needle in the haystack. The blind adherence to the harebrained idea that climate models can generate "realistic" simulations of climate is the principal reason why I remain a climate skeptic. From my background in turbulence I look forward with grim anticipation to the day that climate models will run with a horizontal resolution of less than a kilometer. The horrible predictability problems of turbulent flows then will descend on climate science with a vengeance."

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