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Comment on Towards mass marketed electric vehicles by Tonyb

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Justin

Such vehicles over here would normally be the domain of those running a trade such as a small builder or landscape gardener who would throw heir equipment in the back.

It does reinforce the point however that electric vehicles need certain conditions in which to thrive and your gasoline at around 1.70 dollars a gallon must severely shackle their uptake. Your gasoline is around one quarter of ours and I think your heating energy is around 40 Percent of typical European costs.
Tonyb


Comment on Week in review by jim2

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But, the extra money to the consumer might not be spent. I heard something similar to this on CNBC.

From the article:

Americans are taking the money they are saving at the gas pump and socking it away, a sign of consumers’ persistent caution even when presented with an unexpected windfall.

This newfound commitment to frugality was illustrated this past week when the nation’s biggest payment-card companies said they aren’t seeing evidence consumers are putting their gasoline savings toward discretionary items like travel, home renovations and electronics.

Instead, people are more often putting the money aside for a rainy day or using it to pay down debt. That more Americans are saving their bounty at the pump comes as a surprise, because the personal savings rate, after rising during and after the recession, has declined steadily over the past two years.

“We haven’t seen the extra savings from lower gas prices translate into additional discretionary consumer spending,” said Ajay Banga , chief executive of MasterCard Inc., on a conference call Friday to discuss quarterly earnings.

The new data is perhaps the best indication to date that the pain of the recession remains fresh in the minds of many Americans, even as the economy picks up steam.

http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/peak-debt-at-work-savings-at-the-pump-are-staying-in-consumer-wallets/

Comment on Week in review by Matthew R Marler

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Jim D: <i>You can’t get an accurate long-term trend from a 15-year sample of the observations. </i> Where is the evidence that you can get (or have gotten) a long-term trend at all?

Comment on Questioning the robustness of the climate modeling paradigm by A fan of *MORE* discourse

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Climate Etc readers will be delighted to learn that Alexander Bakker’s thesis — which questions the scientific primacy of numerical general circulation models (GCMs) — has found strong support from James Hansen and a long list of collaborators, who represent strong climate-research groups from around the world!

An Old Story, but Useful Lessons
James Hansen, 26 September 2013

Introduction  International discussions of human-made climate change (e.g., IPCC) rely heavily on global climate models, with less emphasis on inferences from the paleo record. A proper thing to say is that paleoclimate data and global modeling need to go hand in hand to develop best understanding — almost everyone will agree with that. […]

There is a tendency in the literature to treat an ensemble of model runs as if its distribution function is a distribution function for the truth, i.e., for the real world.

Wow. What a terrible misunderstanding.

Today’s models have many assumptions and likely many flaws in common, so varying the parameters in them does not give a probability distribution for the real world, yet that is often implicitly assumed to be the case. […]

Conclusion  It is not an exaggeration to suggest, based on best available scientific evidence, that burning all fossil fuels could result in the planet being not only ice-free but human-free.

——
Q&A with James Hansen
13 December, 2013

Our paper [“Assessing Dangerous Climate Change: Required Reductions of Carbon Emissions to Protect Young People, Future Generations and Nature”] is based fundamentally on observations, on studies of earth’s energy imbalance and the paleoclimate rather than on climate models.

Although I’ve spent decades working on [climate models], I think there probably will remain for a long time major uncertainties, because you just don’t know if you have all of the physics in there.

Some of it, like about clouds and aerosols, is just so hard that you can’t have very firm confidence.

So yes, while you could say most of these [messages] you can find one place or another, but we’ve put the whole story together. The idea was not that we were producing a really new finding but rather that we were making a persuasive case for the judge.

Please note the long list of coauthors associated to these strong statements: James Hansen, Pushker Kharecha, Makiko Sato, Valerie Masson-Delmotte, Frank Ackerman, David J. Beerling, Paul J. Hearty, Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, Shi-Ling Hsu, Camille Parmesan, Johan Rockstrom, Eelco J. Rohling, Jeffrey Sachs, Pete Smith, Konrad Steffen, Lise Van Susteren16, Karina von Schuckmann, James C. Zachos.

And Naomi Oreskes too has long been a critic of over-reliance upon complex numerical models:

Naomi “Merchants of Doubt” Oreskes
Slams “Corrosive” Climate Change Skepticism

Our 1994 paper in the journal Science [“Verification, Validation, and Confirmation of Numerical Models in the Earth Sciences”] took a critical look at numerical simulation models.

It’s never been my view that we should trust science uncritically. I’ve always been interested in the questions: How do we know when to trust science? How do we distinguish between healthy and corrosive skepticism? In short, how do we judge scientific claims?

In climate science, the case for the reality of anthropogenic climate change does not rest solely (or even primarily) on climate models. If it did, I’d be a skeptic too.

I still believe what I wrote in 1994: models are a tool for exploring and testing systems. Their primary value is heuristic. But together with other lines of evidence they can be part of a persuasive scientific case. Or not.

Conclusion  General circulation models (GCMs) are not presently, and never have been, generally regarded as providing the strongest scientific evidence for the accelerating reality and harmful consequences of anthropogenic global warming (AGW).

To assert otherwise is — as Bakker, Hansen, and Oreskes all emphasize — “a terrible misunderstanding.”

Good on `yah Alexander Bakker … for joining James Hansen and Naomi Oreskes in publicly proclaiming this common-sense scientific reality!

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Comment on Climate psychology’s consensus bias by andywest2012

Comment on Questioning the robustness of the climate modeling paradigm by Steven Mosher

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Rud

“Parameter sets for CMIP5 were selected to give the best 10, 20, and 30 years hindcasts per the experimental design. See Taylor et. al. BAMS 93: 485-498 (2012) open acsess on line”

wrong.

Comment on Questioning the robustness of the climate modeling paradigm by David Wojick

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Joshua, I would say that both are true. The biases and shortcomings are routinely discussed in the technical literature on the models but ignored by the CAGW advocates. Note that the technical discussions are very technical hence very difficult to convey to non-experts.

Comment on Questioning the robustness of the climate modeling paradigm by Joshua

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Rob –

It is an interesting post based on an interesting paper. I’ve seen the issues discussed before, and based on seeing smart and knowledgeable people weigh in on different sides of these issues, I’m not inclined to use this one author’s opinion as dispositive.

At any rate, what do you think of the author’s suggested alternative strategies to cope with climate related risks?


Comment on Questioning the robustness of the climate modeling paradigm by Matthew R Marler

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Here is a humorous quote from the thesis: <i> In the few decades’ history of climate change assessments, a lot of effort has been invested in the construction and in the procedural aspects. Remarkably enough, these assessments are rarely evaluated (Hulme and Dessai 2008b; Enserink et al. 2013). This seems a little strange as the sparse evaluations of climate assessments all conclude that there is a huge gap between the provided information on climate change and the user needs (e.g. Tang and Dessai 2012; Keller and Nicholas 2013; Enserink et al. 2013).</i>

Comment on Week in review by Don Monfort

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Tony,
Monetary union was an opportunity for Greece, just as it was an opportunity for Germany and the other countries who joined voluntarily. Greece should have benefited more than Germany. The big flaw in the plan was that they forgot that to have a workable monetary union you have to have fiscal union. They counted on the various states to be on their best fiscal behavior and to actually collect taxes from their citizens to more or less cover their expenditures. Big mistake.

Greece needs to throw off the chains of Euro austerity, default and bring back the loveable old drachma. Print tons of them and scatter them across the new Hellenic Socialist Paradise. Le bonton roule, or whatever the Greeks say.

Comment on Questioning the robustness of the climate modeling paradigm by RiHo08

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Judith Curry

“I seriously doubt that such a thesis would be possible in an atmospheric/oceanic/climate science department in the U.S. – whether the student would dare to tackle this, whether a faculty member would agree to supervise this, and whether a committee would ‘pass’ the thesis.”

My query: At what time in academic and government funding priorities has NOT been driven by political correctness? From the earliest tomb of Ptolemy’s Almagest geocentric mathematical models that survived into the Middle Ages, to current tuned GCMs that survive learned societies’ (Royal, American Academy of Science, etc) scrutiny. I think Eisenhower’s farewell address was merely recapitulating what was obvious from the past as most military leaders have been students of history.

To me, Bakker’s most heretical statement is: “Then section 2.4 elaborates on the pitfalls of fully relying on physics.” Bingo!

I know Judith that you have a new edition of your atmospheric physics textbook coming out. However, if we knew all the physics that was relevant to making climate predictions and that physics were incorporated into the GCM’s and nothing more, we would all be talking about something else like: when are we going to achieve warp speed.

Time to trash GCMs, and start all over again; after all, we have learned a thing or two since: “The founding assessments of Charney et al. (1979) and Bolin et al. (1986) did see the great potential of future GCMs, but based their likely-range of ECS on expert judgment and simple mechanistic understanding of the climate system.”

Comment on Questioning the robustness of the climate modeling paradigm by Steven Mosher

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“The probability of them being able to predict climate months, years or decades ahead is zero, because of the exponential build-up of errors in such a model. ”

Wrong.

All GCMs are able to predict the climate.
every last one of them.
We can even test the predictions.
Look, the predictions are high.

One way to use this is simple.

If I have a model that starts in 1850 and predicts 2014 a little bit high
what can I do?
What can I say about its prediction in 2100?
Suppose it predicts 3C in 2100.

Well, That’s information. I might say, that +3C is an upper boundary.
Unless of course you want to argue that i should plan for MORE than 3C of warming.

And on the other hand I might just run a statistical model and it would say
1C of warming.

So I have one approached that is biased high, and another approach that will miss any acceleration.

Personally, I’d be happy using the high side estimate. Dont tell me I can’t cause I use high side estimates every day in business. every fricking day I use a model that is wrong to the high side. If my boss suggests a decision that is above the high side model.. I remind him that my best model, which is always biased high, is below the figure he wants to use.

GCMs can predict.
GCMs do predict
Whether or not you can use the prediction is a pragmatic decision.

pragmatic decisions cannot be made in a vaccum.
They are made in a space where alternatives are offered.

Unless you have an alternative, you dont get to play the game.
sorry.

Comment on Questioning the robustness of the climate modeling paradigm by R Graf

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And they take off the duck tape only to call men in white coats to analyze the poor soul’s illness.

Comment on Questioning the robustness of the climate modeling paradigm by Matthew R Marler

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Ah. It is done in the European style, and some of the work has already been published in peer-reviewed journals.

Comment on Questioning the robustness of the climate modeling paradigm by Joshua

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David –

==> “but ignored by the CAGW advocates. ”

When you use such undefined terms and make such broad characterizations based on them, I don’t know how to proceed.

I could easily say that recognition of the shortcomings in the technical literature are ignored by anti-mitigation advocates.

That does not seem like a way forward to me, but IMO, resembles identity-aggressive/identity-defensive behaviors.

What do you think of the author’s proposed alternative strategies?


Comment on Questioning the robustness of the climate modeling paradigm by R Graf

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Thus the need for the executive summary for mass consumption (AP wire).

Comment on Questioning the robustness of the climate modeling paradigm by KenW

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This is interesting, He was using GCMs to do real calculations for the real world but he didn’t have the option of adjusting the real world to fit the GCMs.

I expect that in the near future CGMs will become more widely used for just such practical applications. This thesis was therefore only a matter of time – but better sooner than later.

I applaud Judith for giving it the attention it deserves. There aren’t many venues where this can happen.

Comment on Questioning the robustness of the climate modeling paradigm by JustinWonder

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From the post:

“Model results that confirm earlier model results are perceived more reliable than model results that deviate from earlier results. Especially the confirmation of earlier projected Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity between 1.5″C and 4.5″C degree Celsius seems to increase the perceived credibility of a model result. Mutual confirmation of models (simple or complex) is often referred to as ’scientific robustness’.”

Looks like an example of the anchor bias.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring

Comment on Questioning the robustness of the climate modeling paradigm by JeffN

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Pielke Jr. makes a pretty good case that the world has already reached consensus on the topic of how “robust” GCMs are in the only way that really counts.
“While people will no doubt continue to enjoy debating about and witnessing to climate policies, the fact is, at the meta-level, that debate is pretty much over. Climate policy has entered its middle aged years.”

https://theclimatefix.wordpress.com/2015/02/02/future-trends-in-carbon-free-energy-consumption-in-the-us-europe-and-china/

Comment on Week in review by rogerknights

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Did those polls include scientists outside of govt. and academia?

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