Quantcast
Channel: Comments for Climate Etc.
Viewing all 147842 articles
Browse latest View live

Comment on Questioning the robustness of the climate modeling paradigm by Don Monfort

0
0

http://climate.calcommons.org/article/why-so-many-climate-models

“The above figure, which comes from the report High Resolution Climate-Hydrology Scenarios for San Francisco’s Bay Area, amply illustrates the conundrum facing all those who would make use of climate projection data. In this figure, 18 different climate models are represented, with temperature change values ranging from less than 1 degree to 6 degrees increase, and precipitation change values ranging from a 20% decrease to a 40% increase. With such a wide range, what value does one use for planning? Why is there such a plethora of models?”

“Despite the existence of a wide variety of climate models, there are conceptual problems in treating these as independent entities, amenable to statistical treatments such as averaging or taking standard deviations. To begin with, climate models have a shared history, or in other words a genealogy (Masson and Knutti 2011, Winsberg 2012). There is common code between many of these models. Technical knowledge moves from modeling group to modeling group as scientists relocate. At present we lack a detailed characterization of the shared history of climate models, and it is not at all clear what we do with such a treatment in a statistical analysis sense. It is certainly inappropriate to treat different climate models as randomly sampled independent draws from a hypothetical model space, which is what would be required by rigorous statistical analysis. (Winsberg 2012).”


Comment on Taxonomy of climate/energy policy perspectives by JeffN

0
0

There were two parts to his question, Steven. Plan of action and “realistic costs”
Read harder.

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

0
0

“You are a slow learner, Kim.”
“How can I help it? How can I help but see what is in front of my eyes? Two and two are four.”
“Sometimes, Kim. Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once. You must try harder. It is not easy to become sane.”

Comment on Taxonomy of climate/energy policy perspectives by QBeamus

0
0

Yes, let’s recall the fiasco that was the compact fluorescent government mandate. The government rushed in to force a change. The downsides of compact fluorescent bulbs made them a marginal improvement, at best, but the real tragedy was that the mandate delayed adoption by the market of LEDs, which are just plain superior. Centralized planning routinely blows these calls.

Comment on Questioning the robustness of the climate modeling paradigm by captdallas2 0.8 +/- 0.2

0
0

I thought Berkeley Earth had a land and oceans product. “no getty SST no getty climate.”

Comment on Taxonomy of climate/energy policy perspectives by Beta Blocker

0
0

Roger, the voting public in the US Northeast and in California consistently votes for politicians who make the adoption of renewable energy a central plank of their platforms.

It would seem to be in the best interests of all parties concerned that the politicians in both regions pay for a series of engineering-quality feasibility studies for each of their respective regions which can determine with some reasonable accuracy what it will actually take in time and money to reach their stated renewable energy goals.

Each study would use a conceptual design for a renewable-fed power grid architecture tailored for the specific geographic region, plus a conceptual project implementation plan which detailed the project phases and the estimated costs for achieving a specifically-enumerated list of renewable energy goals.

If the advocates for a renewable energy future in the US Northeast and in California aren’t proposing that such studies be done, then they are not truly interested in seeing a renewable energy future for their respective regions; rather, they are merely pandering to the environmentally conscious public in their state for votes.

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

0
0

mosh

You are clearly lumping all sceptics together as if we are one monolithic block who all believe the sane thing. Clearly the sceptical world incorporates all sorts of viewpoints.

As an example of wrongly seeing us all as the same you say;

‘Where is Willis demanding that other sceptics Denounce those who jumped to conclusions.’

Willis certainly does not speak for me. Neither does Antony Watts nor Heartland nor Christopher Monckton.

You SOMETIMES do. Judith SOMETIMES Does. The Met office SOMETIMES does. I often do…

But ‘I am not a number I am a free man.’

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061287/quotes

tonyb

Comment on Taxonomy of climate/energy policy perspectives by John Pittman

0
0

No, AK. You yourself once again state that the PV would have to be close to zero. That is the area of diminishing returns. That is an exponential increase in cost or advancement for a LINEAR return, but the costs of your proposed systems are going up exponentially. The costs likewise for research tend to go exponential, and the quality control definitely goes to exponential in this region. Engineers refer to it as “hitting the wall.”

Hydro does not solve this but makes it worse. Dams and their control, maintenance and decrease in volume due to silting are not cheap.

Once again, the problem is that what you state as available and economic is not. These advancements have not occurred. Your conclusion is falsified. If you want to state that I can’t know the future, well neither can you. You have presented a story about potential. Items that can be built are about capability and opportunity. At present, we do not have the capability of renewables at cheap prices. Your dams are not cheap, nor is there much opportunity. Note that attempting to build a dam just because there is water and a basin does not address the costs that will increase by putting dams in poor locations. These costs make the use of solar or wind less economical and less likely, not more.

Your level land ignores what has been learned about dams with broad shallow expanses. They drop sediment out. This should not be surprising, this is the principle of how water clarifiers work.The flooding may not be a problem for a few years, but depending on the sediment content, it can occur rapidly. Sediment free rivers are the exception and are generally small such as the “black” rivers through the southern ancient sand beds here in the US. They are short and small. Other rivers that go through either sedimentary or weathered igneous and metamorphic regions generate sediment.

You talk about “”how and why exponential trends operate; in nature as well as human economic systems.”” You don’t recognize when they can and will hit the wall. Engineers call it the law of diminishing returns.


Comment on Questioning the robustness of the climate modeling paradigm by David in TX

0
0

Parameterization.

In the real world of engineering we call those model parameters “fudge factors”. And do we change them in order for the model to perform better? It would be kind of stupid if we didn’t. Sometimes we have to invent fudge factors but we don’t know why Einstein had to invent something called the cosmological constant. Empiricism rules. Toy models drool.

Comment on Questioning the robustness of the climate modeling paradigm by Bob Ludwick

0
0

@ tonyb

Hi Tony.

“I have written a dozen articles on historic temperatures and the over confidence we ascribe to it, and said numerous times that the Global average (of almost anything) means that the important regional nuances are ignored.”

I know you have, and for a long time in fact you have been my ‘go to’ guy on the site when I need a dose of sanity.

But do you really believe this?:

“I think many have no historical perspective and aren’t aware of previous periods of cold or warmth or changing sea levels etc and therefore come to confident conclusions based on less than a full picture of the climate.”

That people with PhD’s in climate related fields who have worked for years, successfully, to advance to the pointy end of the climate science pyramid aren’t aware of the things you list above?

In your drive to present a ‘reasoned’ perspective are you willing to overlook the blatantly obvious fact that Climate Science writ large DOES coordinate efforts to suppress ANY dissension from the ‘party line’ and DOES do everything in its power to destroy apostates, personally and professionally, and DOES work closely with (exclusively) leftist politicians to provide ‘studies’ and ‘conclusions’ that will provide ‘scientific’ justification for policies that the leftists/progressives have been working for decades to advance?

Comment on Questioning the robustness of the climate modeling paradigm by David in TX

0
0

Rud Istvan | February 2, 2015 at 12:56 pm |

“anyone who says models aren’t tuned does not know what they are talking about”

Yup.

Comment on Taxonomy of climate/energy policy perspectives by Pooh, Dixie

0
0

This administration has a patent on disaster. It has proven very competent at creating it.

Comment on Questioning the robustness of the climate modeling paradigm by Mark Silbert

0
0

Don, thanks for persisting, watching the video and laying it out for Mosher.

I watched a portion of the video (and several others) and concluded that for the most part these are scientists in the weeds talking to other scientists in the weeds and the relation to policy making is virtually non-existent.

I guess that you have a history with Mosher that leads you to engaging in his pedantic posts and taunts. More power to you.

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

0
0

Bob

You said;

“In your drive to present a ‘reasoned’ perspective are you willing to overlook the blatantly obvious fact that Climate Science writ large DOES coordinate efforts to suppress ANY dissension from the ‘party line’ and DOES do everything in its power to destroy apostates, personally and professionally, and DOES work closely with (exclusively) leftist politicians to provide ‘studies’ and ‘conclusions’ that will provide ‘scientific’ justification for policies that the leftists/progressives have been working for decades to advance?”

This will make a fascinating article. You write it and I will keep an open mind and check your evidence.

As for my saying that many do not have an understanding of the historical context, I would point out that, as you see many tines here, it is often thought of as being anecdotal and that novel proxies, such as tree rings, are given unreasonable weight in the historic narrative.

The lack of historic context was unfortunately spelt out to me by a recent personal communication from the Met Office whose belief in the historic record stops at 1772 and who do not believe there is any great merit in using research funds to carry on the work started by such as Lamb.
tonyb

Comment on Questioning the robustness of the climate modeling paradigm by captdallas2 0.8 +/- 0.2

0
0

Here is another blast from the Berkeley Earth past.

That change in DTR slope.

Hmmm, a change in the tropical SST and land relationship? What could that be? Another of those mysterious tipping points?


Comment on Taxonomy of climate/energy policy perspectives by AK

0
0

That is an exponential increase in cost or advancement for a LINEAR return, but the costs of your proposed systems are going up exponentially.

No, they’re going down exponentially.

Hydro does not solve this but makes it worse. Dams and their control, maintenance and decrease in volume due to silting are not cheap.

You need to learn the difference between pumped hydro storage and regular hydro-electricity before anything you say will be anything but gobbledegook.

Comment on Questioning the robustness of the climate modeling paradigm by David in TX

0
0

Marler, with a seemingly serious intent, writes:

But all things considered, I do not find “tuning” in the sense most people understand it, but consideration of physics, standard physical constants, and other published literature.

Most people understand tuning as adjusting the tension of a string on a guitar so it makes the proper musical note when plucked. Or maybe for older folks turning the dial in a radio to get the channel you want. Stay tuned to this station!

So Marler, even you might be able to imagine the need in a climate model for a tunable parameter called albedo. The earth’s average albedo isn’t fixed, it isn’t well understood how/why/when it changes, how much it changes, or what it’s precise value is at any given time.

See here for more background on this very important fudge factor.

http://www.atmos.umd.edu/~zli/PDF_papers/94JD00225_Albedo.pdf

“Estimation of Surface Albedo From Space: A Parameterization for Global Application”

Given global albedo estimates are generally 35% +-3% what value does the modeler choose for it? After all, we’re talking about a range of 6% of the average solar constant (340W/m2 * 0.06)= 20.4W/m2.in the range of uncertainty. ALL human attributable forcings are estimated to be a mere 3.5W/m2 so the uncertainty in how much solar energy is rejected by reflection without ever effecting global climate is 6 times the total alleged human influence on climate.

Are you getting the picture, now Matthew? Listen to Rud. Ignore Mosher.

Comment on Taxonomy of climate/energy policy perspectives by Wagathon

0
0

 
Looking at the link to analysis of the paper in Nature, it is interesting that the Marotzke and Forster paper is so bad, Nic Lewis finds that, while the only valid conclusion they come to is that the GMST [global mean surface temperature] trend over the period [1900 and 2012] is dominated by internal variability, and there is nothing in the analysis that actually establishes that fact and there is nothing else in the analysis that is actually valid as it is all the product of circular reasoning.

Comment on Week in review by c1ue

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

0
0

Rud

Mark found the correct link. I just wanted to say that I actually lived through a major tipping point in the politicization of the university in the early 1980s. By that time, faculty tenure committees routinely selected candidates of a certain ideology in the social sciences. I don’t know if that was true in the physical sciences – I think it was not. I was disappointed by the absence of true political and philosophical debate that I had naively expected at a university. The thought and speech police were everywhere, it was oppressive. I heard an interview of the author in which he stated that he thinks most students are careerists that keep their heads low and avoid controversial topics – the go along to get along.

Viewing all 147842 articles
Browse latest View live




Latest Images