Niche Modeling - Latest Comments

Re: FOI009

kuhnkat — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 17:07:38 -0000

That would be consistent with CO2 fertilization!!!

Even with somewhat less moisture.

That also would NOT be consistent with Alarmist Memes!!

Re: Climategate

ecoeng — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:53:51 -0000

Yes.

At least from Down Under the catastrophist AGW movement appears to be working itself up into a 'Copenhagen Frenzy'. Their desperation for the 'new world order' is getting almost palpable.

I sure hope it burns itself out post-Copenhagen, otherwise 2010 could turn into a really nasty year.

Re: FOI009

davids99us — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 12:49:28 -0000

Interesting. The paper seems to show wheat yields increasing.

Re: Climategate

davids99us — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 12:22:08 -0000

Used to be quoting evidence was only grounds for being idnored, so now its grounds for being banned?

Re: FOI009

boyonabike — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 06:24:41 -0000

With regard to the email about the WWF pamphlets, I have tracked down a copy of them in Google cache at http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:http://www...

The WWF paid $US142,000 for them by the way - http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:http://mik...

The press release from the WWF back in 1999 is here:

http://www.worldwildlife.org/who/media/press/19...

I think I have also found the paper that is referred to in Nature - the one that caused the WWF to come knocking on Mike's door. It's here:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v397/n6721...

My problem is this - I do not have the skills to decipher the original paper in Nature and to compare it to the pamphlets in order to find what changes were made to suit the needs of the WWF for $142,000. Are you able to give it a go?

Re: Climategate

ecoeng — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 01:36:17 -0000

Hi Guys

Like you, I have been pouring over this CRU stuff. A very interesting archive!

Following up on Alex's point re Pierrehumbert's attitude to GCMs it is also clear that this year even Kevin Trenberth himself has been getting rather worried about the models/reality. In some ways this seems to be a reprise of Jones' own paranoia back in 2004 about the Kalnay and Cai paper. I note that Evgenia Kalnay is still publishing heavily on what appear to be, in effect, statistical tests of the faithfulness of GCMs to observed non-equilibrium effects..

It is interesting to note that even Trenberth himself now seem to be having doubts about the key issues of evaporation, clouds and albedo in the models. For those interested in this albedo/non-equilibrium thermodynamic effects stuff it is worthwhile revisiting Glassman's 'IPCC's Fatal Errors' on Rocket Scientist's Journal. Pity Glassman is a prickly loner - he is pretty smart IMHO and would make a great contributor to Niche Modeling.

On a lighter note, there is no doubt the revelations and ramifications of this CRU stuff is exacerbating a already widespread pre-Copenhagen angst amongst the Left 'warmerati'.

In the last few days I 'made the mistake' of quoting just a few of these CRU emails to illustrate certain points in blog threads of the Aussie online journal 'New Matilda'. This afternoon I had the honour of being 'phoned by its editor. She advised me in a dissembling and obnoxiously anal manner that I was henceforth banned from the journal. Given that the few sceptics (usual range extreme to mild) still persevering with blogging in Matilda had been struggling along under her 'moderation' in recent weeks, I informed her I was more than happy to 'high tail it outta there' (;-).

Re: Climategate

Scientific Mania — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 17:20:22 -0000

Scientific Doomsday Mania
by
Amitakh Stanford
22nd November 2009

There is a doomsday message that is swiftly gaining global acceptance. The new wave is clothed in acceptable clichés and has won over the support of many of the respected scientific communities.

Unlike most other doomsday messages, this one is supposedly based upon scientific evidence. The scientific “doomsdayers” wear masks and pretend that they are predicting calamities based on hard evidence. This lulls the unsuspecting public into absolute belief and acceptance of the doomsdayers’ ravings.

If the same message were given in a spiritual setting, the adherents would probably be encouraged to turn to God in preparation for the final days. Generally, scientists have sneered at and mocked spiritual predictions regarding the end times, and the same scientists have convinced the general public to do likewise. Further, governments of the world use their police powers to suppress, restrict, or even eliminate these spiritual-based groups. Scientists have now one-upped the spiritual believers by supporting their dire predictions of calamity with supposed scientific evidence. Using their scientific clout, they have now convinced most of the world leaders to meet in Copenhagen. The stated agenda of the gathering is to halt global warming with a unified and urgent approach.

People may remember that there have been similar gatherings to solve the global economic crisis. In those meetings, every leader attending was told to boost their economies by stimulus spending. By and large, the world leaders have dutifully followed those dictates. One might ask: Is the global recession over due to this unified approach – or is it deepening? Many thinking economists have finally realized the latter to be the case.

Re: Climategate

Alex Harvey — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 09:13:32 -0000

By the way, I totally agree, as an IT professional/sysadmin. It must be an ex-employee, or an insider. Only such a person would know that the material was there in the first place, to justify and assess the risks involved in pulling off the hack. There's too much risk to break into a system only to find that potentially there's nothing much interesting to find... My guess, for what it's worth.

Re: Climategate

Alex Harvey — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 08:55:40 -0000

I've started searching these files in anger and I seem to have found an interesting conversation reported by Trenberth.

No one else seems to have mentioned it so here goes:

FOIA/mail/0990718506.txt:

Trenberth in context of discussing why Lindzen's Iris paper is wrong reveals --

"3) Finally, I refer you to chapter 7 of IPCC which is a more balanced assessment. Lindzen was a coauthor of that with me and others. Lindzen wrote 7.2.1 and the same figure 1 in the BAMS article was included as 7.1 in chapter 7 along with similar ones from models, showing that these things are fully simulated in good models, although better with higher resolution. Anyway, his arguments were fully considered in chapter 7 and you can read it to see the result. The whole of 7.2.1, including 7.2.1.1. 7.2.1.2 and 7.2.1.3 was put together originally by Lindzen, Pierrehumbert and Le Treut, but basically the final version was rewritten by me to provide better balance. Pierrehumbert is an agnostic of sorts: disbelieves everything including models but seems to have faith in simple theories. Le Treut was
sound on the modeling. I did not change the substance of what they prepared, I did reshape it and polish and it ended up in a form they accepted.

Note at the end it clearly states: "the balance of evidence favours a positive clear sky water vapour feedback of
the magnitude comparable to that found in the simulations."

That's an interesting relevation, I think: Pierrehumbert doesn't believe in the models either!

Re: Climategate

Alex Harvey — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 08:54:37 -0000

Note at the end it clearly states: "the balance of evidence favours a positive clear sky water vapour feedback of
the magnitude comparable to that found in the simulations."

That's an interesting relevation, I think: Pierrehumbert doesn't believe in the models either!

Re: Climategate

kuhnkat — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 20:22:34 -0000

Cohenite,

I would suggest dropping the term HACK from this event, at least until it is determined that this is what it is.

Based on the apparent SELECTION of material, my guess is that this was an insider who would be more appropriately characterised as a WHISTLEBLOWER!!!

Re: Examples of Eviews Code

michaelnyong — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 16:13:46 -0000

Rose, I am experiencing the same problem as you. How do I incorporate Pesaran and Shin test in EVIEWS. I need it urgently for my research. Please help me if you already have the answer.

Re: Examples of Eviews Code

michaelnyong — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 16:08:09 -0000

You have similar problem with me. I have EVIEWS but I am finding it difficult to run unit root or cointegration test in the presence of structural break. Please can you show me how one can handle the problem in EVIEWS. Lumsdaine and Papell method is another test I would like the code to use under EVIEWS. Please If you already have the answer share it with me.

Re: Climategate

davids99us — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 14:49:53 -0000

Police would investigate deletions, and if so, charge him. There is plenty for this to keep festering. Its cut the legs out from the major alarmist talking points. Every time they say there are no publications, point to emails of collusion in the JGR. Everytime they say sceptics are in denial, point to doubts in the minds of the main players. Just the science.

One can see it is pointless trying to publish in any AGU journal anything the slightest bit anti-AGW (McLean got lucky?) as it will be actively opposed, whatever the merit. Even valid theoretical objections will be rejected when they do not show a substantive change in the result, just stack the review panel and get the right editors who know what to say. CR and E&E - way to go.

Re: Climategate

cohenite — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 08:07:26 -0000

Trends are emerging already:
1 The greater importance of the illegality of the hacking compared to any misfeance revealed.
2 The associated guilt of the anti-AGW commentators who are running the defamatory story; we see this issue raised at McIntyre's blog by a typically aggressive AGW supporter called ali baba.
3 The content of the e-mails are innocuous anyway
4 If the contents are misconstrued its because they have been interfered with
5 If the msm does not latch onto this the only way it will have legs is if is converted to a legal proceeding. In England the best legal option would seem to be contravention of FOI obligations. A simple legal context is always preferable to any wider 'public policy' based generality related to misrepresentation of scientific evidence, although the possible interference with peer reviewed process may have some potential; see SM and the Santer comment;

http://camirror.wordpress.com/2009/11/21/uk-whi...

Re: Climategate

sherro — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 08:03:19 -0000

Suggestion - Rewrite all the papers that used suspicious temperature data from CRU.

Re: Australian Drought Predictions

sherro — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 18:11:07 -0000

Yes, the science that comes through the hacked emails is not sophicticated. While there are some bright authors, the mangle mill of usual suspects reduces it to quite a mess. Recent science advances desperately need to be brought to the attention of emerging researchers. To the extent that blogging will help, that is excellent. The rambling email I quoted is far from the leading edge. I keep coming back to the concept of a series of neutral-ground conferences whose objectives are to mutually reveal where the cutting edge is and where the funds need to be directed. The tone of the hacks leaves little hope for that with the current generation of IPCC organisers.

Your example above using rainfall has some advantages over temperature, which is a more prevalent test bed. Rainfall is bounded at the lower end and observationally, if a rain gauge is not read for a few days the signal has accumulated, not disappeared, and can be spread with little error. Is there a way in which these 2 properties can be used to further refine the graphs (which you might label a bit more explicitly for us) or has that implicitly been done already? Measurement uncertainty at a site should be less for rainfall than for temperature and the signal should show better through the noise.

Re: Climategate

kuhnkat — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 17:36:54 -0000

Thank you for the link to the Mirror Site!!

Re: Climategate

kuhnkat — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 17:36:03 -0000

Depends on which side WE is on!! ;>)

I think those like yourself, Steve, Jeff Id, and many others certainly are entitled to say you were right!!

Re: Australian Drought Predictions

davids99us — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 06:00:09 -0000

Yes sure, lets talk about the science.

Straight answers to three questions:
1. How confident are we about the projected regional climate changes? [Not at all].
2. Is "model democracy" a valid scientific method? [No]
3. Does dynamical downscaling for regional climate change provide a robust scientific basis for action? [No]

Climate modellers have failed those who need climate forecasts most by chasing after a small human signal, that from the emails, they are not sure rises above natural variation.

Re: Australian Drought Predictions

sherro — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 05:43:50 -0000

David, the work you are doing here and the paper by Demetris Koutsoyiannis are streets ahead of the IPCC effort. If you are allowing quotes from the CRU hack (which Prof Jones has confirmed as accurate), then you can see in the following (long) post by a very experienced climatologist of the old school, the need for the type of analysis that you guys are doing. (I have removed an email mailing list of about 100 IPCC authors for brevity. There are about 10 Australians among them. One wonders why they should not have done better).

1202939193.txt
From: J Shukla <shukla@cola.iges.org>
To: IPCC-Sec <IPCC-Sec@wmo.int>
Subject: Future of the IPCC:
Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 16:46:33 -0500
Dear All,

I would like to respond to some of the items in the attached text on
issues etc. in particular to the statement in the section 3.1.1
(sections 3: Drivers of required change in the future).

"There is now greater demand for a higher level of policy relevance in
the work of IPCC, which could provide policymakers a robust scientific
basis for action".

1. While it is true that a vast majority of the public and the
policymakers have accepted the reality of human influence on climate
change (in fact many of us were arguing for stronger language with a
higher level of confidence at the last meetings of the LAs), how
confident are we about the projected regional climate changes?

I would like to submit that the current climate models have such large
errors in simulating the statistics of regional (climate) that we are
not ready to provide policymakers a robust scientific basis for "action"
at regional scale. I am not referring to mitigation, I am strictly
referring to science based adaptation.

For example, we can not advise the policymakers about re-building the
city of New Orleans - or more generally about the habitability of the
Gulf-Coast - using climate models which have serious deficiencies in
simulating the strength, frequency and tracks of hurricanes.

We will serve society better by enhancing our efforts on improving our
models so that they can simulate the statistics of regional climate
fluctuations; for example: tropical (monsoon depressions, easterly
waves, hurricanes, typhoons, Madden-Julian oscillations) and
extratropical (storms, blocking) systems in the atmosphere; tropical
instability waves, energetic eddies, upwelling zones in the oceans;
floods and droughts on the land; and various manifestations (ENSO,
monsoons, decadal variations, etc.) of the coupled ocean-land-atmosphere
processes.

It is inconceivable that policymakers will be willing to make
billion-and trillion-dollar decisions for adaptation to the projected
regional climate change based on models that do not even describe and
simulate the processes that are the building blocks of climate
variability. Of course, even a hypothetical, perfect model does not
guarantee accurate prediction of the future regional climate, but at the
very least, our suggestion for action will be based on the best possible
science.

It is urgently required that the climate modeling community arrive at a
consensus on the required accuracy of the climate models to meet the
"greater demand for a higher level of policy relevance".

2. Is "model democracy" a valid scientific method? The "I" in the IPCC
desires that all models submitted by all governments be considered
equally probable. This should be thoroughly discussed, because it may
have serious implications for regional adaptation strategies. AR4 has
shown that model fidelity and model sensitivity are related. The models
used for IPCC assessments should be evaluated using a consensus metric.

3. Does dynamical downscaling for regional climate change provide a
robust scientific basis for action?

Is there a consensus in the climate modeling community on the validity
of regional climate prediction by dynamical downscaling? A large number
of dynamical downscaling efforts are underway worldwide. This is not
necessarily because it is meaningful to do it, but simply because it is
possible to do it. It is not without precedent that quite deficient
climate models are used by large communities simply because it is
convenient to use them. It is self-evident that if a coarse resolution
IPCC model does not correctly capture the large-scale mean and transient
response, a high-resolution regional model, forced by the lateral
boundary conditions from the coarse model, can not improve the response.
Considering the important role of multi-scale interactions and feedbacks
in the climate system, it is essential that the IPCC-class global models
themselves be run at sufficiently high resolution.

Regards,
Shukla

Re: FOI009

davids99us — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 21:02:35 -0000

I tend to think there are actionable issues here. Perhaps Steve is busy. Fair comment at RC: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2...

"With all due respect, I have talked to a number of my friends who are active scientists in other fields, and they’ve all made it very clear that they have never seen anything like the content of these e-mails. Sure, there are reasonable explanations for the ‘trick’ comment, and it’s not unusual for people to comment on data and so forth, but many of these e-mails point to some very questionable behavior regarding the use of funds and responses to FOI requests. That’s the big issue here. Such a scandal doesn’t ‘disprove’ AGW, of course, but you’re not going to be able to simply go, “It’s no big deal.”"

I would also mention apparent collusion of editors and reviewers on the McLean/Foster papers, the influence IPCC and green groups have over the spin of the science, as well as at CSIRO. As above, this is a lot worse than I have seen in other fields, and that's one reason why its been be burr in my saddle for so long.

Re: FOI009

kuhnkat — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 17:50:00 -0000

There should be no rush that makes mistakes and muddies the waters further, BUT, there is definite need for expeditious proceedings!!

Re: Expected Changes from Global Warming

davids99us — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 16:49:50 -0000

Aslak,
I know there are a number of papers
using the same general assumptions,
though the details vary. From my empirical
perspective I have noted:

1. There little evidence for 'acceleration' of
sea level WRT temperature. Plot SL and T and
the best fit is a straight line, suggesting
empirical support is for SL = aT+c not
dSL/dt=aT , the rate related relationship
where sea level rises faster when as it gets
hotter.

2. The SL stopped increasing mid century
just when temperature stopped increasing.
This suggest at most a 10 year lag is
justified by the data. Could it also be that
the current low rate of SL increase is
because temperature has stopped increasing?
So if temperature does not increase much
then SL may not increase much either.

3. The estimates of 1m are based on IPCC
projections which are running way too high.
Current warming after subtracting out PDO
are about 0.5C Century. Anyway, if IPCC
projections are high side, the is sea level
will be too.

Re: Expected Changes from Global Warming

Aslak Grinsted — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 09:18:00 -0000

There is an error in the Siddall paper. According to this page a correction is in preparation.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2...

So, the projections of ~1m are (in my opinion) still the best. (Papers by Grinsted, Jevrejeva, Rahmstorf, and Vermeer all agree on this).