Why Climate Models Lie

[Georgie]

This is a logical -no fanfare- rational, solid article..., expresses things just the way they are.
Again, all underlines in the text are mine.

Please read:


Why Climate Models Lie

Submitted by Doug L. Hoffman on Wed, 03/31/2010 - 13:43

It has come to light that a number of climate scientists have been less than truthful with regard to climate data. As shocking and embarrassing as this has been to the scientific community, it serves only to emphasize the huge blind spot that scientists have for their computer models. It is a career ending offense to knowingly falsify data, yet the entire climate science community engages in even worse deception without a second thought. This is because lies are generated for them wholesale by their faithful yet duplicitous servants: computer climate models.

In a guest post on Roger Pielke Sr.'s web site, Hiroshi L. Tanaka of the University of the University of Tsukuba in Japan, reported on the results of a new paper he published with his student, Masahiro Ohashi (see “Data Analysis of Recent Warming Pattern in the Arctic”). In it they state “it is shown that both of decadal variabilities before and after 1989 in the Arctic can be mostly explained by the natural variability of the AO not by the external response due to the human activity.” While this is an important finding in and of itself, that is not what caught my attention.

The implications of Ohashi and Tanaka's finding for climate modeling are even more dramatic, and even more damaging, for the climate alarmist cause. Why this new finding is so damaging goes to the heart of how modeling is done and how models are calibrated to reflect previously “known” conditions. Here is how Dr. Tanaka stated the implications of their research:

According to our result, the rapid warming during 1970-1990 contains a large fraction of unpredictable natural variability due to the AO. The subsequent period of 1990-2010 indicates a clear trend of the AO to be negative. The global warming has been stopped by natural variability superimposed on the gentle anthropogenic global warming. The important point is that the IPCC models have been tuned perfectly to fit the rapid warming during 1970-1990 by means of the ice-albedo feedback (anthropogenic forcing) which is not actually observed. IPCC models are justified with this wrong scientific basis and are applied to project the future global warming for 100 years in the future. Hence, we warn that the IPCC models overestimate the warming trend due to the mislead Arctic Oscillation.

This mildly worded warning belies the theory shattering implications it contains for all climate modelers who have depended on a strong ice-albedo feedback to calibrate their models. As the old computer programming saying goes, “garbage in, garbage out.” Tanaka has just informed the world's climate modelers that that have been basing their models on garbage. More specifically, what the modelers and climate scientists took for a strong anthropogenically influenced feedback, albedo change due to changes in ice cover, has been shown to be mostly attributable to natural variability.



Comparison of trends in surface albedo from satellite observations and climate models.
In an interview with the UK's Guardian, green guru James Lovelock took the climate science community to task for over reliance on models. As he explained, this blind belief in models, even in the face of contradictory empirical evidence, has been going on for some time now:

I remember when the Americans sent up a satellite to measure ozone and it started saying that a hole was developing over the South Pole. But the damn fool scientists were so mad on the models that they said the satellite must have a fault. We tend to now get carried away by our giant computer models. But they're not complete models...

If you make a model, after a while you get suckered into it. You begin to forget that it's a model and think of it as the real world. You really start to believe it.

As I explained in “Seven Climate Models, Seven Different Answers,” computer models are touchy, cantankerous tools at best. Even the smallest changes in configuration can cause wild changes in model output. Still, we are asked to trust them implicitly.

In 1997, two researchers from Argon National Laboratory published a paper that compared 108 studies of global climate change, each projecting a quantitative impact on global surface-air temperature due to a doubling of atmospheric CO2 levels. These predictions, documented between 1980 and 1995, were based primarily on climate modeling. Writing in Climatic Change, Kavita Kacholia & Ruth A. Reck, found: “[O]ver the past 15 years, the average (mean) temperature change projection due to doubled CO2 is +2.62°C, with a range of 0.16–8.7°C. General circulation models tend to estimate slightly higher values (2.98°C), compared with radiative-convective models (1.98°C) and energy balance models (2.54°C).”

Basically, 108 models yielded 108 different predictions, ranging from almost no change to almost 9°C, a much wider range than the current IPCC projections. Which, if any of them, was the correct? The answer is none of them. And climate models have not improved significantly since then despite a string of discoveries finding new factors or correcting old ones (see “Atmospheric Solar Heat Amplifier Discovered,” “Climate Models Blown Away By Water Vapor,” “New "Jelly Pump" Rewrites Carbon Cycle”and “Conveyor Belt Model Broken” for a start).

It has taken a public scandal—the revelations regarding data from CRU—to alert the media to the use of bad data in making climate change predictions. It should not have been surprising that some at the IPCC have played fast and loose with the data included in their reports (Himalayan glaciers melting, sea-levels rising, etc.). But more pernicious are the lies generated by climate models, models held up to be oracles of scientific truth—and nothing could be farther from the truth. The models lie because they are built on faulty assumptions, calibrated with inaccurate data and are, by their very nature, incapable of calculating “correct” answers.

If the lies being told by climate science were not threatening to cause major disruptions to environmental and economic policy world wide, most people would not care about the self delusional approach taken by climate scientists. This all comes back to the lack of professional integrity among many climate science practitioners, a sloth induced lack of ethical behavior. Letting a model do your lying for you is no excuse. Deception by proxy does not absolve those spreading the untruths anymore than saying “I didn't kill that person, the gun did!” With so much at stake, any sensible person would be skeptical of climate science's computer generated predictions.

Yet those brave enough to speak out about the incomplete theory, the questionable data, and the error prone computer models are called “climate criminals” and “sociopaths.” If the skeptics' response has seemed like denial it is because fools like James Cameron, who know little or nothing of the science yet are in the public eye, threaten to “call those deniers out into the street at high noon and shoot it out with those boneheads.” Rolling Stone magazine published a headline article identifying the 17 worst “Climate Killers” in the US. Fortunately, there are signs that the public has grown tired of these people, the aggressively ignorant, whose inability to explain why they believe in global warming only strengthens their conviction that they are right.

“We do need scepticism about the predictions about what will happen to the climate in 50 years, or whatever,” said Lovelock. “"It's almost naive, scientifically speaking, to think we can give relatively accurate predictions for future climate. There are so many unknowns that it's wrong to do it."” Not just an error, not just a mistake, but actually morally wrong. I say morally wrong because there are consequences to these actions—real harm can be done to real people. The whole anthropogenic global warming scare is based on a foundation of computer generated lies. With apologies to NotEvilJustWrong.com, knowingly passing computer predictions off as science fact is not just wrong, it is evil.

Be safe, enjoy the interglacial and stay skeptical.

[Wayne Hall]

There is no point in repeating here the argument at the Enouranois Greek-language forum.

The anti geoengineering/chemtrails cause does not benefit from sympathy for "climate change skepticism".

Currently "skepticism" and support for geoengineering are both growing.

[Georgie]

Irrelevant.
If you were a bit more carefull, you would have seen that i posted this article here 6 days before the other one on the Enouranois Greek-language forum, which you so easily call it an argument, after you converted it to an argument.

I will repeat the last paragraph of this article because it shows clearly why we have to
fight against chemtrails AND geoengineering or any disastrous combination of the two:

"We do need scepticism about the predictions about what will happen to the climate in 50 years, or whatever,? said Lovelock. ?"It's almost naive, scientifically speaking, to think we can give relatively accurate predictions for future climate. There are so many unknowns that it's wrong to do it."? Not just an error, not just a mistake, but actually morally wrong. I say morally wrong because there are consequences to these actions?real harm can be done to real people.
The whole anthropogenic global warming scare is based on a foundation of computer generated lies. With apologies to NotEvilJustWrong.com, knowingly passing computer predictions off as science fact is not just wrong, it is evil."

[Wayne Hall]

Lovelock supports nuclear energy and he is not someone with whose ideas I debate.

Given that you insist on discussing this subject, take this article, which I would otherwise not have posted because I am not interested in the conventional climate discussion.

www.worldchanging.com/archives/009784.html

Geoengineering and the New Climate Denialism
Alex Steffen, 29 Apr 09

GEOENGINEERING AND THE NEW CLIMATE DENIALISM
by Alex Steffen

The Idea of Geoengineering is Being Used Dishonestly

Though we spend our time here at Worldchanging focused on solutions to the planet's most pressing problems, sometimes the politics around an issue become so twisted that it's necessary to address the politics before we can have a real discussion about the problems and how to solve them. That's the case with geoengineering.

Some scientists suggest that certain massive projects -- like creating artificial volcanoes to fill the skies with soot, or seeding the oceans with mountains of iron to produce giant algal blooms -- might in the future be able put the brakes on climate change. These "geoengineering" ideas are hardly shovel-ready. The field at this point consists essentially of little more than a bunch of proposals, simulations and small-scale experiments: describing these hypothetical approaches as "back up options" crazily overstates their current state of development. Indeed, almost all of the scientists working on them believe that the best answer to our climate problem would be a quick, massive reduction in our greenhouse gas emissions.

None of this has stopped geoengineering from becoming part of a new attempt to stall those very reductions, though. The same network of think tanks, pundits and lobbying groups that denied climate change for the last 30 years has seized on geoengineering as a chance to undermine new climate regulations and the U.N. climate negotiations to be held at the end of the year in Copenhagen. They're still using scare tactics about the economic costs of change, but now, instead of just denying the greenhouse effect, they've begun trying to convince the rest of us that hacking the planet with giant space-mirrors or artificial volcanoes is so easy that burning a lot more coal and oil really won't be a problem.

Delay is The Carbon Lobby's Strategy

It's a central, yet often forgotten, fact in the climate debate that pumping greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere is incredibly profitable. For a small group of giant corporations (the coal, oil and car companies which we can collectively call the Carbon Lobby), business as usual is big bank. The difficulties of addressing climate change have much more to do with the political power of these corporations than with the technical challenges of building a carbon-neutral economy (a carbon-neutral economy being an engineering and design challenge that we already have the capacity to meet).

For the last thirty years, the Carbon Lobby's strategy on climate change has been to delay. Almost every informed observer knows, and has known for decades, that the days of fossil fuels are numbered, but how quickly and how completely we shift away from them makes all the difference to these industries. They have a huge investment in oil fields and coal mines and dirty technologies, and each decade they delay the transition away from coal and gas means literally trillions of dollars more profits. Delay = big bucks.

The best way for the Carbon Lobby to delay that transition has been to make regulations and treaties that limit the amount of CO2 emissions politically impossible, especially in the U.S., where the Lobby's influence is the greatest because of their hold over the Republican party.

That's why they put such emphasis on attempting to portray the science of climate change as inconclusive or hotly debated (despite the fact that their own scientists told them in 1995 that the science on climate "is well established and cannot be denied"). If they could make people feel uncertain, they could make it safe for politicians to actively oppose new regulations and treaties (a strategy laid out in the famous leaked "Luntz Memo"). Lying about the science made people uncertain; that uncertainty let the Carbon Lobby stall U.S. action; and by stopping the world's biggest polluter from participating, they stymied any real global deal on greenhouse gasses.

The strategy worked, up to a point. But now most Americans understand that climate change is real and that it demands action. Our new president advocates strong action on climate; business leaders from many industries back him, as do most labor and religious groups; and foreign nations are eager to negotiate (European conservatives are even competing to show leadership on tackling climate emissions, rather than denying that those emissions are a problem). This emerging consensus on the need for regulatory action and effective treaties threatens to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels much more quickly than anyone expected, so the Carbon Lobby is scrambling to find new reasons for delay.

How Geoengineering Becomes an Argument for Delay

Their new justifications for delay are simple. Taking advantage of the economic crisis, they call climate action a job killer. If the Right's anger and vehemence against the very idea of green jobs has shocked and confused you, well, understand that it's important that climate change be framed as a threat to the economy, and never an opportunity: the growing importance of clean tech industries and jobs to the American economy must be downplayed in order for this strategy to work (never mind that wind power already employs more Americans than coal mining). Look for this argument to increase in volume as Copenhagen draws near.

But to really make their case for more delay, they can no longer be seen as outright opponents of climate action. They've got to have their own plan. And that's where geoengineering comes in.

The biggest argument for strong actions taken quickly is that delay or weak responses may put us in a position of facing rapid, perhaps even runaway climate change. The longer we wait, the more dangerous our position becomes. The only certain route to safety would be rapid emissions reductions, including programs for ecosystem restoration and other forms of sustainable sequestration to help draw CO2 levels down.

But if we can be made to believe that megascale geoengineering can stop climate change, then delay begins to look not like the dangerous folly it actually is, but a sensible prudence. The prospect of geoegineering is the only thing that can make that delay seem at all morally acceptable.

In other words, combining dire warnings about climate action's economic costs with exaggerated claims about geoengineering's potential is the new climate denialism.

The Carbon Lobby Spins Geoengineering Instead of Emissions Reductions

The new climate denialism is all about trying to make the continued burning of fossils fuels seem acceptable, even after the public has come to understand the overwhelming scientific consensus that climate change is real. That's why denialists present geoengineering as an alternative to emissions reductions, and couch their arguments in tones of reluctant realism.

One of the earliest political calls for geoengineering was Gregory Benford's essay Climate Controls, written for the Reason Foundation (you can find out more about their links to the Carbon Lobby and their role in climate denialism here). Benford was explicit that he saw geoengineering as a way to avoid reducing CO2 emissions:

"Instead of draconian cutbacks in greenhouse-gas emissions, there may very well be fairly simple ways--even easy ones--to fix our dilemma. ...take seriously the concept of "geoengineering," of consciously altering atmospheric chemistry and conditions, of mitigating the effects of greenhouse gases rather than simply calling for their reduction or outright prohibition."

Benford is far from alone. One of the major proponents of geoengineering is the American Enterprise Institute. AEI has a long history of working to deny the scientific consensus on climate change. They have strong ties to the Carbon Lobby (ExxonMobil CEO Lee Raymond served on the AEI board of trustees, and $1,870,000 from ExxonMobil helped fund their anti-climate work).

Now AEI is working both sides of the new climate denialism street. They claim that climate action is too expensive (In a January paper, AEI's Willem P. Nel and Christopher J. Cooper argue that "The extent of Global Warming may be acceptable and preferable compared to the socio-economic consequences of not exploiting fossil fuel reserves to their full technical potential." In other words, "It's more profitable to let the planet roast."). They also house one of the few funded policy centers on geoengineering, the AEI Geoengineering Project.

The Geoengineering Project is run by Lee Lane. Lane is smart, and so he doesn't say outright that we should dump climate negotiations and trust in geoengineering, but you don't need to read too far between the lines to hear that's what he's saying.

In 2006, Lane specifically advised the Bush Administration to urge a greater focus both on debating carbon taxes (we know how Republicans like to "debate" taxes) and on geoengineering as "strategic measures" to "block political momentum toward a return to the Kyoto system." He continues to put forward geoengineering as an alternative to real emissions reductions anytime in the near future. As he said at AEI's recent geoengineering conference:

"I think in response to all of those difficulties that certainly I am not the only person to see, a growing number of experts are becoming increasingly concerned about the need to broaden the debate on climate policy. What I mean by broaden it is to expand what we consider as serious climate policy options from what has been a very narrow focus on greenhouse gas emissions limitations, and indeed rather steep and rather rapid greenhouse gas emissions limitations, to consider a much broader range of policies that go way beyond simply attempting to make short run reductions in greenhouse gases."

In other words, Lane wants us to believe that emissions reductions are politically impossible (never mind that he works at an institution which has labored mightily to sabotage emissions reductions treaty negotiations, and that he himself explicitly advised the Bush Administration on how to do the same), so we ought to be considering geoengineering as the "serious" option instead.

The Distortion of Geoengineering has Become Widespread

Turn over denialist rocks and you'll find political advocates for geoengineering a-plenty. For instance:

*The Cato Institute (denialists), whose senior fellow and director of natural resource studies, Jerry Taylor, says that if we end up forced do something about global warming, "geo-engineering is more cost-effective than emissions controls altogether."

*The Heartland Institute (denialists), whose David Schnare now advocates geoengineering as quicker and less costly to the economy than greenhouse gas reductions:

"In addition to being much less expensive than seeking to stem temperature rise solely through the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, geo-engineering has the benefit of delivering measurable results in a matter of weeks rather than the decades or centuries required for greenhouse gas reductions to take full effect."

*The Hudson Institute (denialists) advocates geoengineering as substitute for reductions:

"Successful geoengineering would permit Earth's population to make far smaller reductions in carbon use and still achieve the same retarding effect on global warming at a lower cost. The cuts in carbon use proposed by international leaders and presidential candidates would have a drastic effect on the economy, especially since substitutes for fossil fuels will be expensive and limited for a number of years."

*The Hoover Institution (denialists) is home to not only to senior fellow Thomas Gale Moore, author of "Climate of Fear: Why We Shouldn't Worry About Global Warming" but also nuclear weapons engineer and original SDI "Star Wars" proponent Lowell Wood. Wood has become an outspoken geoengineering proponent and co-authored a recent WSJ op-ed in which he warns "But beware. Do not try to sell climate geo-engineering to committed enemies of fossil fuels," thus revealing that the point is to be friendly to fossil fuels.

And, of course, denialists' allies in the media and the blogosphere have been quick to take up the call. Conservative columnist (and climate "contrarian") John Tierney thinks geoengineering makes superfluous emissions reductions ("a futile strategy") and wants "a geoengineering fix for global warming," to provide an alternative to the idea that "the only cure [is] to reduce CO2 emissions." Wayne Crews of the denialist site globalwarming.org (a project of the Carbon-Lobby-funded Competitive Enterprise Institute) likes geoengineering strategies as possible "options apart from carbon constraint," while climate treaty opponent and "delayer" Roger Pielke, Jr. finds it encouraging that geoengineering's getting so much buzz.

It would be easy to go on. But the point is obvious: the Carbon Lobby, no longer able to deny the reality of climate change, is hoping to use the idea of geoengineering to undermine political progress towards reducing climate emissions through sensible, intelligent regulations and international treaties. Big Oil, Big Coal and the auto companies want you to believe that reducing emissions is too expensive to work, climate negotiations are too unrealistic to succeed, but we can keep burning fossil fuels anyways because geoengineering gives us a plan B. If you think that, you've been spun.

How to De-Spin Geoengineering

None of this is to say that megascale geoengineering should be a taboo subject. We need a smart debate here, where we explore the subject honestly and without industry spin. Here are six suggestions for returning reality to the geoengineering debate in these critical months leading up to Copenhagen:

First, Demand that bold emissions reductions be acknowledged as the only sound foundation for any climate action plan. The Carbon Lobby thrives on half-truths and obfuscation. Ethical people -- whether geoengineering proponents, opponents or doubters -- all need to be extremely clear in saying that a strong, rapid movement away from fossil fuels and toward climate neutrality is non-negotiable. Many leading thinkers on geoengineering (such as Paul Crutzen and Ken Caldeira) already make clear that immediate action on reducing greenhouse pollution (on both the national and global levels) is the first step, period. We should follow their lead.

Second, Point out that a climate-neutral world is realistic. One of the public debate's biggest failures is the extent to which we've let people be convinced that a climate-neutral planet is some distant, improbable fantasy world. It's not. We know, already, right now, how to dramatically slash emissions using currently available technologies, and make a profit. Economists (like Lord Nicholas Stern, former Chief Economist at the World Bank) estimate that the total cost of pursuing climate neutrality could be as little as 1% of GDP (far lower than the anticipated costs of allowing climate change to worsen). But there may not even be a cost: a great many of the actions we need to take (like rebuilding our cities and using energy more efficiently) return greater economic benefits than they demand, and when something pays you money, it's not a cost, it's an investment.

Third, Be extremely clear about geoengineering's real possibilities and actual limitations. Journalists tend to sell the planetary engineering sizzle, rather than serve the heavily-caveated steak. Advocates need to continue to emphasize that geoegineering proposals are still extremely early-stage, experimental and surrounded with unknowns. (On the other side, even determined opponents of geoengineering need to acknowledge the good intent and sound reasoning of scientists who are doing their best to add new insight to an extremely important debate.)

Fourth, Get the order right: zero-out first, adapt next, engineer last.. We need to be clear that because of the experimental nature of geoengineering projects, their use should be a last resort, not a primary option. Megascale geoengineering should not yet be part of any national strategies for addressing climate change, or a part of any offset systems in carbon trading regimes. We need first to drive greenhouse gas concentrations down with proven methods, and then begin preparing to adapt to the climate change we know we've already set in motion. We should only turn to megascale geoengineering as a last resort.

Fifth, Keep a wary eye on the Arctic ocean and other tipping points. Last year, scientists conducting research in the Arctic made a startling discovery: what might perhaps be formerly-frozen methane was bubbling to the surface of the warming ocean in alarming amounts. Their work demands corroboration, but if confirmed, this should cause us all to worry. Methane is an incredibly potent greenhouse gas and huge amounts of it are trapped beneath frigid waters and frozen permafrost, waiting perhaps to be released by rising temperatures.That methane could set off runaway climate change. Even if their findings are refuted, though, potential tipping points need to be watched. If we find we've blundered into rapid runaway climate change, some forms of geoengineering, however poorly understood, may quickly move from "last resort" to "needed option."

Sixth and last, Continue outing the Carbon Lobby and its cronies, and reject their intervention in the debate. Legitimate debates about the possible uses of megascale geoengineering should not include people whose institutions have been consistently and intentionally dishonest about science and science policy.

The next two decades will have an almost unparalleled importance in human history, and the decisions we make during this time could have almost unthinkable impacts for millennia. The world in which scores of future generations will live -- its climate, the plants and animals that make up its biosphere, the material possibilities of its cultures -- will to an astonishing degree be influenced by the choices we make in the next score of years.

How we interpret the possibilities of (and understand the limitations to) large-scale geoengineering projects will help shape the clarity and velocity with which we act on reducing emissions and building a new, climate-neutral economy. These questions matter too much to allow them be twisted by a bunch of shills for fossil fuel industries.

We need to reclaim the debate about our planet's future, together.

[Wayne Hall]

Aug 15, 2010 11:50:27 GMT -5 Georgie said:

We have to
fight against chemtrails AND geoengineering or any disastrous combination of the two

Georgie I sent you a PM by e-mail. Why aren't you responding to it?.

[Georgie]

Yes, you did..., why now are you saying it in public...?

[Wayne Hall]

What would you do in my position if you wanted to send me a message and got no response?

[Wayne Hall]

Jul 27, 2010 11:14:28 GMT -5 Georgie said:

“We do need scepticism about the predictions about what will happen to the climate in 50 years, or whatever,” said Lovelock. “"It's almost naive, scientifically speaking, to think we can give relatively accurate predictions for future climate. There are so many unknowns that it's wrong to do it."” Not just an error, not just a mistake, but actually morally wrong. I say morally wrong because there are consequences to these actions—real harm can be done to real people. The whole anthropogenic global warming scare is based on a foundation of computer generated lies. With apologies to NotEvilJustWrong.com, knowingly passing computer predictions off as science fact is not just wrong, it is evil.

James Lovelock is just one more example of a "climate change sceptic" turned geoengineering advocate. Read his comments on the dust jacket of Jeff Goodell's "How to Cool the Planet":

"If climate change becomes unbearable, we may be driven to geoengineering." (Lovelock)

There is a whole chapter of "How to Cool the Planet" devoted to James Lovelock. Read it and see how worthy of admiration this person really is.