Hendrik Tennekes, retired Director of Research, Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, former Professor of Aeronautical Engineering at the Pennsylvania State University and internationally recognized expert in atmospheric boundary layer processes contributes another guest weblog today to Climate Science (see his first weblog on January 6, 2006). He has the professional qualifications and experience in climate science to comment on this issue. His guest weblog is given below
Seventeen years ago, I wrote a column for Weather magazine, expressing my concerns about the lack of honesty, integrity and humility of many climate scientists. “I worry about the arrogance of scientists who claim they can help solve the climate problem, provided their research receives massive increases in funding�, reads one line from my text. Unknown to me, my friend Richard Lindzen was working on his famous paper “Some Coolness Concerning Global Warming�, which appeared in the Bulletin of the AMS at the same time. This was early 1990. It is 2007 now, and I want to ring the alarm bell again. There is a difference, though: then I was worried, now I am angry. I am angry about the Climate Doomsday hype that politicians and scientists engage in. I am angry at Al Gore, I am angry at the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists for resetting its Doomsday clock, I am angry at Lord Martin Rees for using the full weight of the Royal Society in support of the Doomsday hype, I am angry at Paul Crutzen for his speculations about yet another technological fix, I am angry at the staff of IPCC for their preoccupation with carbon dioxide emissions, and I am angry at Jim Hansen for his efforts to sell a Greenland Ice Sheet Meltdown Catastrophe. Speaking of Hansen, Dick Lindzen and I wrote a lighthearted April Fools’ Day parody of his concerns, which was published on Fred Singer’s SEPP website (search for Greenland Green Again) last year (view pdf). I can go on much longer, but I will keep my anger in check.
I am more than a little bit worried about IPCC’s preoccupation with CO2. The scientific rationale behind this choice is obvious. Sophisticated climate models have been running for twenty years now. It has become evident that these models cannot be made to agree on anything except a possible relation between greenhouse gases and a slight increase in globally averaged temperatures. The number of knobs that can be twiddled in the parameterization of the radiation budget is not all that large. Seemingly realistic results can be achieved without much intellectual effort. I agree with IPCC that there is a likely link between fossil fuel consumption and increased temperatures. But this is where the much proclaimed consensus ends. Just one example: the models do not include feedbacks between changing farming and forest harvesting practices and the atmospheric circulation. Partly for that reason, they cannot seem to agree on precipitation patterns. It so happens that precipitation is far more relevant to the world’s food production than a slight increase in temperature. I owe this insight to my good friend Denny (Dennis W.) Thomson at Penn State. Like me, he speaks from decades of experience. Denny is the oldest son of a world-renowned arctic lichenologist. He and his wife had the good fortune to grow up on farms in southwestern Wisconsin. Still closely bound to the earth and its delicate ecosystems, they live on a 600-acre farm in Halfmoon Valley on the southeastern flank of Bald Eagle Ridge. A physicist/meteorologist, and former head of Penn State’s meteorology department, Denny has witnessed climate change in progress for most of his life. At the same time he is deeply concerned about the veracity of “physics-challenged� climate models.
Why is it so difficult to make precipitation forecasts fifty years into the future? Most precipitation in the middle latitudes is associated with low-pressure systems, which move along storm tracks carved out by the jet stream. The ever-shifting meanders in the jet stream occur at the edge of the slab of cold air over the poles. The specialists call this slab the Polar Vortex, and have christened the meandering behavior of the jet stream in the Northern hemisphere the Arctic Oscillation. Thirty years ago I worked with Mike (John M.) Wallace and his PhD student N.C. Lau at the University of Washington in Seattle on problems concerning eddy-flux maintenance in the North Atlantic storm track. It is evident to all turbulence specialists that the dynamics of very slowly evolving states is different from the dynamics of instantaneous states. So the moment one asks what keeps the jet stream going, one encounters the kind of problem that is at the core of all turbulence research. But the mainstream of dynamic meteorology refuses to study the slow evolution of the general circulation. It has become so easy to run General Circulation Models on supercomputers that most atmospheric scientists shy away from matters like a thorough study of the interaction between the Polar Vortex and the Arctic Oscillation. Mike Wallace mailed me a year ago, saying that there is not a beginning of consensus on a theory of the Arctic Oscillation. This was one of the highlights in an advanced senior-citizens’ class on climate change I taught a year ago. It was announced as “A Storm in the Greenhouse�, referring primarily to the increasingly bitter debates of the past fifteen years.
How does this problem affect climate forecasts? If there is not even a rudimentary theory of the Polar Vortex, much less an established relation between rising greenhouse gas concentrations and systematic changes in the Arctic Oscillation, one cannot possibly make inferences about changes in precipitation patterns. We do not know, and for the time being cannot know anything about changing patterns of clouds, storms and rain. Holland’s national weather service KNMI circumvented this impasse last year by issuing climate change scenarios with and without changes in the position of the North Atlantic storm track. It did not occur to the KNMI spokesmen that they should have been forthright about their lack of knowledge. They should have said: we know nothing of possible changes in the storm track, so we cannot say anything about precipitation. But it is entirely consistent with the IPCC tradition to weasel around such issues. One of my contacts at KNMI recently explained to me that their choice was based on the increasing agreement between simulations run with different GCM’s. I had to answer that the IPCC spirit of consensus apparently was invading their supercomputers as well. It is bad enough that computer simulations cannot be checked against observations until after the fact. In the absence of a robust stochastic-dynamic theory of the general circulation, one cannot even check climate simulations against fundamental insights.
Actually, the monopoly of GCM’s in the climate research business is an interesting object of inquiry, and not just for sociological reasons. A GCM is a weather forecasting model in which the coefficients and parameterizations are tuned so as to obtain long-term results that have an air of realism. The model is then run for several tens of years. There are no penetrating studies of the way slight software mismatches might affect the average values of key output parameters fifty years from now. A forecasting model can make do with relatively crude parameterizations because the short-time evolution of the atmospheric circulation is primarily governed by its internal dynamics. Sloppy representations of boundary conditions, clouds, convection, evaporation and condensation do not mess weather forecasts up all that fast. But the long-term evolution of the general circulation is to a large extent determined by boundary conditions. This realization struck me with some force when I discovered last year that a simple algorithm for inversion rise above the daytime boundary layer I conceived in 1973 is still in wide use today. How can one be sure that an ancient forecasting algorithm is capable of performing the task assigned to it in climate models? At times it seems that no one in this business has learned about Karl Popper’s falsifiability demand. This is why I cringe at WCRP documents promoting Forecasting at All Time Scales. The obvious purpose of such propaganda is to defend the monopoly position that GCM’s have enjoyed for so long. It is strategy, not science. A whole generation of meteorologists is growing up with the idea that this is the only way to go. They were not exposed to Lorenz’ WMO monograph on the General Circulation, their faces turn blank when the terms Available Potential Energy and Eddy Kinetic Energy are used. Since they are offered no alternatives, they join those who claim that they need higher resolution and bigger computers. The job of having to think on one’s own feet is too hard to contemplate.
All of 2006 I have been corresponding with Tim Palmer, a leading scientist at the European Center for Medium-range Forecasts. The apparent focus of our discussion was the dynamics of vortex filaments around blocking highs. Palmer intuited that thin sheets of positive relative vorticity around a negative-vorticity core may serve to prolong the life of a high-pressure system. I felt this was an interesting hypothesis. For many years I have ridiculed the phraseology in which blocking highs are said to divert storms coming their way. More than once I have explained to a reporter that it would be equally appropriate to state that diverging storms sustain a blocking high.
Then came the rub. Thin vortex filaments can be simulated on a supercomputer only if the horizontal resolution is much improved. With the current mesh size of the ECMWF model at 40 kilometers if I am not mistaken, simulation of the vorticity microstructure in the troposphere would require a 10,000-fold increase in computer power. So this is how the propaganda for petaflop computing emanating from WCRP comes about, I thought. One hundred computers of the generation following the next would indeed generate the desired increase. This in turn would require a facility on the size of CERN, ITER, or the preposterous Superconducting Supercollider.
Is this what John Houghton, Bert Bolin, Martin Rees, the IPCC staff and the like are aiming for? I have parted the company of these power brokers many years ago, so I cannot begin to imagine what they are up to this time. Palmer has convinced me he is not their puppet, fortunately. We continued our correspondence. “So you’re really lobbying for a massive computer facility�, I wrote, “you participate in the same song and dance that has annoyed me for so long�. In my years as Director of Research at KNMI, the scientists around me honestly felt that my only job was to promote the early purchase of the next supercomputer. They were eager to collude behind my back with the hardware crowd at KNMI and salesmen from computer manufacturers. This often resulted in seemingly attractive discounts being offered around October, just when the salesmen had heard through the grapevine that a budget surplus would soon be reported to the Management Team.
I might have been sympathetic to Palmer’s ideas if he had argued in favor of a much better representation of ocean eddies, or the atmospheric boundary layer, or the climatic effects of changing farming practices. The dynamics of storm tracks and blocking highs is only one of many interactions demanding more research. It is certainly not appropriate to focus much climate computer power on just this one issue. That can be done better on specialized computers. In the case of blocking highs, a forecasting computer would fit best, because it is dedicated to the internal dynamics of the atmosphere. In my mind, a sense of balance was missing in Palmer’s appeal.
I want to lobby for decency, modesty, honesty, integrity and balance in climate research. I hope and pray we lose our obsession with climate forecasting. Climate simulations are best seen as sensitivity experiments, not as tools for policy makers. I said it in 1990 and I am saying it now: the constraints imposed by the planetary ecosystem require continuous adjustment and permanent adaptation. Predictive skills are of secondary importance. We should stop our support for the preoccupation with greenhouse gases our politicians indulge in. Global energy policy is their business, not ours. We should not allow politicians to use fake doomsday projections as a cover-up for their real intentions. If IPCC does not come to its senses, I’ll be happy to let it stew in its own juices. There is plenty of other work to do.
In 1976, Steve (Stephen H.) Schneider published a book entitled The Genesis Strategy. It made quite an impact on me at the time, primarily because Schneider did not promote technological fixes, but a global strategy of what is now called Adaptation, an idea reluctantly and belatedly embraced by IPCC. Those were the days of Nuclear Winter, weather modification, Project Stormfury, stratospheric ozone destruction, and the sick idea of seeding all Arctic ice with soot to prevent the next ice age. In the preface to his book, Schneider quotes Harvey Brooks, then Harvard dean of engineering:
“Scientists can no longer afford to be naïve about the political effects of publicly stated scientific opinions. If the effect of their scientific views is politically potent, they have an obligation to declare their political and value assumptions, and to try to be honest with themselves, their colleagues and their audience about the degree to which their assumptions have affected their selection and interpretation of scientific evidence�.
I rest my case.
Professor Tennekes: Thank you again for boldly speaking out. One thought in reading your comments.
It occurs to me that there is now a unique opening for some innovative researchers to break new ground in the science of weather and climate. The GCM craze will continue to gather a mob of adherents for a while. This is how we humans behave. Why join the crowd? Why rehash the same old rote line of research that the mob is following? Money in research is sometimes over-rated. What counts is a great hypothesis, a smart scientist, and the tenacity to pursue the idea with perseverance. It seems like a great time to begin knocking over old paradigms in the field of climate and weather in fundamental new ways. In the long run, the worst result of the current IPCC philosophy may be that it served as a temporary distraction to real scientific progress. Its now time for some new ideas!
Comment by Bryan Sralla — January 31, 2007 @ 2:27 pm
An eloquent essay explaining GIGO.
Bigger models using faulty and incomplete algorithms run on faster computers will have the ability to produce garbage… faster.
Comment by Bruce Hall — January 31, 2007 @ 4:28 pm
Re #1: I’m all ears!
Comment by Steve Bloom — January 31, 2007 @ 4:36 pm
It’s a problem of “crying wolf!” too many times. Journalists don’t mind contradicting themselves from one day to the next, but the public will eventually get tired of the wildly flailing irrational hysteria that typifies most climate pronouncements in the public media.
When it becomes clear that serious errors have been made in the computer models, will the public and elected representatives be in a mood to listen, after all the hype?
Comment by Stephen Blum — January 31, 2007 @ 4:45 pm
Dear Dr Tennekes,
Please publish this also in dutch.
Hans Erren
The Netherlands
Comment by Hans Erren — January 31, 2007 @ 6:54 pm
Re #3: Gosh Steve, I’m sure you would agree it would be nice if the NASA’s GISS MODEL E didn’t need to solve some of their computational difficulties by introducing unphysical longitudinal diffusivity for the velocity poleward of 80 degrees latitude. Right? (Particularly since the unphysical diffusivity can be as large is 10**7 m**2 s**-1, which is only, oh, 12 orders of magnitude larger than the actual kinematic viscosity of air).
The need to introduce that particular unphysical patch appears to be motivated by numerical considerations only.
But wouldn’t it be nice if the GCM codes didn’t need to rely on closures that didn’t gloss over poorly understood physical processes either?
The fact is, the closures used in GCM codes appear to be comparable in sophistication to the types of closures commonly used in 1980’s era CFD codes which were (and sometimes still are) widely used in the engineering community. Doubtless the current GCM models “work”, in the same sense that late 1980s to mid 90s era CFD codes “worked.”
Doubtless the codes can hindcast — the way 80-90s era CFD codes could hindcast.
But why would people familiar with both the good and bad points of 80s-90s era CFD codes be confident in detailed predictions spit out by codes containing 80s-90s era closures and parameterizations?
I for one would like to see code prediction checked both against the available data and against the behaviors we expected based on fundamental insights about climate dynamics. Checking code predictions against behaviors expected based on fundamental insights has always been one of the most effective ways to test codes. Why should we dispense with it now?
Comment by Margo — January 31, 2007 @ 9:40 pm
Hear here.
What amazes me is the degree to which the carbon traders would hobble the economy, and how unaware climate scientists are of how much they are being taken advantage of.
Re #3, You don’t get it.
Comment by Timothy Clear — January 31, 2007 @ 11:05 pm
Hans Erren (#5), I was civil enough to mail an advance courtesy copy of my essay to the Director of KNMI. I trust he will be civil enough to have his staff translate my essay and publish it on the KNMI website. You may wish to lobby with the PR staff at KNMI that this be done.
I have also mailed advance copies to a few prominent Dutch science reporters (Karel Knip and Simon Rozendaal). As far as media publicity is concerned, the choice is now theirs.
Comment by Henk Tennekes — February 1, 2007 @ 4:27 am
re 8:
thank you
re 6:
Is CFD computational fluid dynamics?
I get a bit worried when I see the global annual temperature ensemble model run for the 20th century ending up warmer than the observations, and this then being accepted as a valid model.
See my discussion on the ccsm3.0 model at climateaudit.
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1103
(The site is having difficulties due to strong hit rate)
Comment by Hans Erren — February 1, 2007 @ 9:07 am
Steve (#3) and Margo (#6), allow me to add a few words to your dialogue. The diffusivity used in weather and climate models is not intended to replace the kinematic viscosity of air, but the eddy viscosity of the subgidscale motion. This is pretty primitive, but better than nothing. The main advantage of this approach is that the dissipation of kinetic energy by small-scale motions can be crudely simulated. The main disadvantage, however, is that destabilizing feedbacks between the subgridscale stuff and the large-scale motion are not represented at all. In fact, the knobs of the diffusive parameterization often are turned up quite a bit, just to make sure that the simulations do not run out of hand. A GCM does not operate in air, but in syrup.
Incidentally, you can find a comprehensive exposition of the stochastic dynamics of a very much simplified atmosphere in my 1977 J. Atmos. Sci. paper “The General Circulation of Two-dimensional Turbulent Flow on a Beta Plane”. You can download it for free from the AMS website.
Also, some of the problems associated with having to deal with subgridscale motion are described in my 1978 Bulletin AMS paper entitled “Turbulent Flow in Two and Three Dimensions”.
Comment by Henk Tennekes — February 1, 2007 @ 9:38 am
Re 9: Yes. CFD is computational fluid dynamics. Sorry for not being explicit.
Dr. Tennekes: Thanks!
When I was commenting on the “unphysical” aspect of some model, I wasn’t really worried that eddy diffusivities might be used. Yes, those aren’t perfect– but I can deal with eddy diffusivities provided somene tries to come up with a suitable velocity scale (u’) and length scale (l’) to create a diffusivity (D ~ C , with C some sort of fiddle factor. )
I didn’t really elaborate on what I meant by “unphysical”. I’ll do so now. I’ll be refering to some stuff in a paper available here: (http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abstracts/2006/Schmidt_etal_1.html)
On page 159, you will see text discussing modeling compromises used to deal with numerical problems associated with the poles. Then, you’ll read this:
Now, what I’m seeing here is a diffusivity that is introduced not for physical reasons, but solely to eliminate numerical instabilities. The diffusivity is not based on any length scale of velocity in the flow — it’s based on the Courant number in the grid box. The diffusivity ranges from really big to whopping enormous. Is 10^7 m^2/s syrup or tar?
I could possibly even deal with this non-physical fudge — if I saw text to explain why one knows it’s of little importance. (And if I believed the explanation.)
Anyway,that’s what I meant by “unphysical”.
Out of curiosity though, do you know if there are any “theory manuals” for some of these codes? The peer reviewed papers I’ve found so far are light on describing the actual physical models. They point to other papers that are similarly light… and so on. Presumably NASA has theory manuals, which, you would think would be cited in the peer reviewed papers, but I’m either not seeing or not recognizing the relevant citations. (In fairness to the code guys, I haven’t looked far and wide. I’m just hoping you might point me in the right direction.)
Thanks.
Comment by Margo — February 1, 2007 @ 1:32 pm
Margo (#11): I am sorry, but I can’t help you there. The peer reviewed literature abounds with papers that make no mention at all of the codes employed. And I have never seen papers that discuss the pros and cons of the various parameterizations (this is why the wide-spread use of my 1973 inversion-rise algorithm made me so uneasy). Most often, the authors merely borrow one of the big models from NCAR, GISS, Hadley Center or so, and base their papers on simulations run with software made by others. As a scientist raised in ancient times, I find this indigestible. How can one do science without having intimate knowledge of the tools employed? Denny Thomson put it succinctly in a recent e-mail: “I oftentimes feel that our modern model mechanics are filling their toolboxes before they know whether or not the task before them is one of carpentry or car repair”.
Perhaps someone else participating in this dicussion can help us out. Anyone out there?
Comment by Henk Tennekes — February 1, 2007 @ 2:15 pm
Henk,
I’m in my 40s, and I also don’t know how you can do science or engineering without knowledge of the tools employed.
I’m also a bit puzzled reading these papers in J. Climate and Weather because, for the most part, if similar papers were appearing in J. Fluid Mech. or Phys Fluids, or any of the Journal published by any engineering society (like AICHE, ASME, AIAA etc.) we’d likely see some equations describing mathematical representations of the physical processes that are actually contained in the codes.
If you don’t include equations, how in the heck do the peer reviewers even know what you did?
Is there some great leap that says when codes are used by climate modelers it’s ok to just say nothing more than ” The runs described here use a second-order scheme for momentum equations” and nothing more about conservation of momentum?
Comment by Margo — February 1, 2007 @ 3:09 pm
Here, a link for LMDZ (French model, Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique, used in AR4 I guess). Some files are codes, but infortunately, the chapter “physical parametrisations of LMDZ4″ (filetype: phylmd) is still under construction. I don’t think it will be helpful, but who knows? (Climate computing is not my cup of tea, I probably misrepresent what you search).
http://www.lmd.jussieu.fr/~lmdz/manuelGCM/main/node1.html
Comment by Charles Muller — February 1, 2007 @ 4:34 pm
Professor Tennekes,
I applaud your stand. I got my introduction to boundary layers at a short-course you participated in teaching back in the 1970’s. I am embarassed by the lack of courage on the part of our profession for not standing up to the foolish confidence displayed in the IPCC, the over the top statements by ecologists, and the ingratiating comments of some of our peers fawning over Al Gore and his fantasy world.
I don’t understand why real atmospheric scientists, who must have been humbled like I have been throughout my career on the complexity of the behavior of even simple atmospheric systems(e.g. McNider et al 1995 J.Atmos.Sci., can tolerate this confidence.
Your mention of Lorenz’ Monograph brings to mind the orginal reasons for GCM’s - they were constructed to see whether a computer model could capture the first order behavior of the global circulation system. Could they reproduce the mean circulation? Could they replicate the eddy flux and support the indirect circulation of the westerlies? They were not meant to be tuned to reconstruct an observed (and suspect) global temperature time series at the expense of all the other things we might learn from such a tool.
While you emphasize the shortcomings of models with good cause(I am a modeler), the observed surface temperature record and its use in detecting climate change is fraught with concerns. I helped spur the satellite temperature record produced by Spencer and Christy. Our original reason for trying to develop another and perhaps more robust measure of the global temperature was spurred by a consideration of all the difficulties of making maesurements near the surface. Surface temperature observations can be influenced by the many things that impact the local surface energy budgets and the associated turbulence around surface sites. You cannot begin to imagine the personal and professional attacks this data set(which shows only modest warming) has generated by the keepers of the surface data set and the global warmers who use this contaminated and non-representative data set to advance their cause.
I hope your essay can be given wide distribution but I am skeptical that the keepers of the journals will let it pass. However, your stand is timely and I hope it will spur me and others to write similar discourses and stand up for our profession.
Comment by Richard McNider — February 1, 2007 @ 8:25 pm
Thanks Charles! Qualitatively, that’s the sort of thing I’m looking for. As you note, the closure page is “under construction”. Since it’s dated 2004, I’m not expecting anything to appear any time soon.
Still, it looks promising. Maybe that LMD will have a pdf version of the theory manual. Thanks!
Comment by Margo — February 1, 2007 @ 9:48 pm
Thank you for your encouragement, Richard (#15). I am sure you are aware that Roger Pielke also feels the globally averaged surface temperature is a poor metric for global warming. I agree.
As to a wide distribution for my essay, I have submitted it to Steve Schneider for publication in Climatic Change. Schneider decided to publish the papers by Hansen and Crutzen, after all.
Your remarks on the original idea of using GCM’s as a tool for investigating the stochastic dynamics of the General Circulation are very much to the point. It was in that spirit that I wrote my 1977 paper on the general circulation of two-dimensional turbulence (see # 10). That paper has an exciting genesis. My turbulence class at the University of Washington was attended by most of the atmospheric science faculty there; the graduate students got a first-hand experience of professional debate with power houses like Jim Holton, Dick Reid, and Mike Wallace. I had invented the model as an educational tool, but still felt is was worth publishing.
The principal shortcoming of my simplistic GCM is that it does not have a plausible analogue for concepts such as Available Potential Energy or Potential Vorticity. You are a modeler: dare I challenge you to find an alternative? If nothing else, it would soon find its way in all general-circulation courses worldwide.
Comment by Henk Tennekes — February 2, 2007 @ 1:57 am
Professor Hendrik Tennekes anger is balsam for many having difficulties with the performance of IPCC. I have high sympathy with his constraint in putting too much believe in the capability of improved computers, but wonder that he seem to have done little to look for cases to proof the modellers ‘naïve’. During the last century occurred ample ‘climatic events’, all fairly well recorded. The freaks on computer modelling have to prove their capability on such events. Recently I raised the point as follows:
With some interest I followed the discussion on: “‘calibrate’ the model � with data from past climate, wondering whether it is worth to argue about it a lot. It will not work. I have mentioned above frequently (#53 etc) the large ‘field experiments’ by naval war during WWI and WWII. If ‘models’ are not able to handle such very confined and decisive events (winter season in semi enclosed seas), they can surely not handle slowly ‘creeping’ events. If they cannot simulate the “swirling about in a baby pool�, #33, neither model why “the WWI and WWII war winters in England had been the snowiest since observation�, #16, nor model the big warming at Spitzbergen in winter 1918/19, #41, there is no need to try calibration of models with previous ‘climate’; see: #77 http://climatesci.colorado.edu/2007/01/01/a-breath-of-fresh-air-in-the-media-on-climate-an-interview-and-article-by-andy-revkin
Asking IPCC to demonstrate that they are able to run models on recent climate events and explain the ‘natural physics’ behind the forcing is a very promising way to get them ‘back on earth’.
Comment by Adrianne M — February 2, 2007 @ 3:24 am
A few observations from my very limited experience with models and attribution of causes using them.
The capabilities of computers have grown fast. The availability of computer power has grown as well. I started my studies of physics engineering in 1992 and since then what used to be “big number crunchers” are dwarfed by PC’s.
This is a good thing in general for science, as tedious work like computing transformations of data, doesn’t take as much time as it used to. I’ve noted some side-effects as well.
Some of my former colleagues used CFD models to try and figure out what was going on in laser systems. I remember that there were many discussions at the computer screen when the results came in. What astonished me was the wide variety of output as a result of different “gridding” of the areas of interest, and the almost-but-not-quite arguments that resulted from this lack of robustness.
What stuck in my mind though was that computers output is often considered as “truth”, and one easily forgets that it is just the outcome of a set of assumptions about the (modeled part of the) world.
Another thing that stuck in my mind because of this and other experience is that one easily loses track of basic fundamental theory if one has access to computer power and large datasets. Note that one can generate results that look passable by running a sufficiently complex model and not mentioning what the fundamental principles and assumptions are that govern the equations solved.
So it seems that I’m a equation fundamentalist. Prof. Tennekes seems to be too as thinking on your own two feet is only possible by letting go of computers (even if just for a while) and looking at what the system is really like.
Then again, I don’t know anything about meteorology, climatology, forecasting, atmospheric science or computational fluid dynamics…
Comment by Florens de Wit — February 2, 2007 @ 4:26 am
The House on the Sand went…..
WIth prolonged fanfare the UN panel on global warming IPCC, has finally released the 21 page “Summary for Policymakers”. After telling us what to do, then sometime this summer they will explain why in the rest of 400 page report. Insiders say there….
Trackback by rob — February 2, 2007 @ 8:55 am
My personal view is that every morning, before they start work, every climate modeller should take the time to spend a few minutes looking at the view of the earth from space. They should, for example, log onto the EUMETSAT website at http://www.eumetsat.int/Home/Main/Image_Gallery/Real-time_Images/index.htm and run the Image Gallery Real-time Images 24 frame, 3 hour time lapse movie.
Here they can watch the vertical sun point “the solar pole” as it burns its way west though the atmosphere at supersonic speed, defining the seasonal locus of the ITCZ. Notice how the Andes, the world’s largest meridional barrier, blocks the westward progress of the afternoon cumulonimbus storms as they ceaselessly make their vain attempt to catch up with the speeding sun. Observe the bow shockwave tracks of the tropical jets as they define the upper-tropospheric exhaust trajectory emanating from the trapped storm systems in Amazonia.
They should notice how the cold polar air acts like a dynamical atmospheric wall that blocks to northward progess of the mid-latitude cyclones. Observe too how this same cold polar air regularly bursts equatorward as a basal surface density current, generating a complementary pair of gyres, cyclonic on its eastern flank, and anticyclonic (the so called blocking high) on its western flank. Observe how in Eurasia the latitudinal mountain belts of the Alpine - Caucasus - Himalayan chain block this equatorward flow and accentuate the gyres in a positive feedback loop. Notice too the vigorous katabatic outflows from the icecap, freeze drying the Norwegian Sea and morphing into the polar maritime air mass that carries winter cumulus south into Europe.
Then they should stop and think. This complex, dynamic variable system is the basis for all the world’s climates. Is my hubris really sustainable? Should I not do everyone a big favour and pull out the electrical plug?
Comment by Philip Mulholland — February 2, 2007 @ 10:41 am
RE: #21 - For anyone, who like myself, truly loves the Earth in a way that is not artificially buoyed by the quasi religious froth of Gaia worship, Philip’s words here bring a tear to one’s eye. Bravo! Some of the best descriptive scientific writing I’ve seen in a very long time!
Comment by Steve Sadlov — February 2, 2007 @ 2:18 pm
Philip Mulholland (#21), in my mind your eloquence equals that of the author of the Old Testament book of Job, where the Lord himself gives the poor guy a thundering lesson in humility:
“Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me if you have understanding! … Have you entered the storehouses of the snow, or have you seen the storehouses of the hail, which I have reserved for times of trouble? … Has the rain a father, or who has begotten the drops of dew? … Can you lift up your voice to the clouds, that a flood of waters may cover you? … Who has put wisdom in the clouds?
These are fragments from chapter 38, RSV. Not all that much has changed in 3000 years. Scientific hubris clouds the issue. We have not the foggiest idea of the prediction horizon of climate models. With globally averaged temperatures slowly declining since 1998, the Doomsday hype may soon be over.
Comment by Henk Tennekes — February 2, 2007 @ 8:42 pm
The IPCC is pulling out all the stops. In their new report they say “The carbon dioxide radiative forcing increased by 20% from 1995 to 2005, the largest change for any decade in at least the last 200 years”.
How’s that for a lack of integrity? “At least the last 200 years” throws the anthropogenic concept out, and discounts that 280 ppm had any ghg effect. The carbon traders are getting desperate.
Comment by Timothy Clear — February 2, 2007 @ 11:52 pm
#23’s reference �Tell me if you have understanding�, brought back to my mind a 14 years old article concerning IPCC, which is timely due to the gathering of IPCC in Paris now, and hopefully finds a wider interest:
WARMING UP–SCIENCE OR CLIMATE
The climatic change issue has recently become one of the most serious challenges facing humankind. As L.O.S. Lieder insists on brevity, even though this issue deserves to be discussed at length, I beg your forgiveness for formulating my thesis directly and perhaps somewhat dramatically: climatic specialists and those people who have contributed to recent debates are ‘possibly as much of a threat to the climate as the pollution caused by industrialization. For almost one hundred years, science has failed to realize that climate and the oceans are one and the same thing. As a result, the 1982 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, the only true treaty dealing with climatic change issues, was thwarted the moment it came into effect over ten years ago.
Although climate should long ago have been defined as “the continuation of the ocean by other means,” the Framework Convention on Climate Change of June 1992 came up with an alternate definition: “The totality of the atmosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere and geosphere and their interactions.” What this all boils down to is that climate is nature working in all its forms — a nonsensical definition and useless as a basis for legal regulations.
As recently as 1990, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) came to the conclusion that CO2 was altering the climate and that “understanding and detecting the earth’s climate system must surely be the greatest scientific challenge yet to be faced by humankind. It is a worthy banner under which the nations of the world can unite” (IPCC, Working Group I, p. 328). Certainly not a bad thing for science. The 1992 Earth Summit resulted in an unprecedented success for the scientists working in the climatic area, forcing politicians to listen to them and paving the way for greater financial backing in an effort to understand and come to terms with the climate system.
Yet, what is good for scientists is not necessarily good for the climate. The simple fact of the matter is that meteorology has never been particularly inter¬ested in climate except for statistical purposes, defining it as the average weather over a given period of time. On the other hand, there are the mathematicians, physicists and chemists, who do little more than apply their laboratory findings, theoretical conclusions and abstract calculations performed on greenhouse gasses to a real natural system with little regard for the true essence of climate.
But while the seas continue to influence the climate, science is staring into the air (or, to be more precise, the atmosphere) in an attempt to find out what makes the climate tick. What is more, scientists have misled the international community of nations by claiming that greenhouse gases are the actual cause of climate change. This may yet prove to be the real tragedy of the climate change issue. After all, the oceans are still the part of the world about which the least is known. There is neither an “inventory” of the oceans nor an observation system. What is even sadder is that climate is still far from being acknowledged as the blue print of the oceans.
So beware of IPCC’s call for unification in its attempt to come to terms with the climate. The climatic change issue is far too serious a matter to leave to those who should have known better for many decades and who were not interested in or aware of matters relating to the oceans. It is high time to enforce what is by far the best convention for under¬standing and protecting the climate—the 1982 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea—before it is too late. After all, it is the first global constitution and would therefore compel humankind to ensure that the planet remains a place worth living in. There is no need to “detect the earth’s climate” and even less is there a need for a banner to serve IPCC’s “greatest scientific challenge.”
Text by Arnd Bernaerts, in: Professional correspondence from the Law of the Sea Institute William S. Richardson School of Law, University of Hawaii, LOS Lieder #28 Vol. 6, No. 5, January, 1993 (available at http://www.oceanclimate.de)
Comment by Adrianne M — February 3, 2007 @ 6:41 am
Oh my God, Adrienne (#25), you’re so right!
A few more quotes, now starting with verse 1 of Chapter 38:
“Then from the heart of the tempest, God gave Job his answer: Who is this, obscuring my intentions with his ignorant words? … I am going to ask the questions, and you are to inform me. Where were you when I laid the Earth’s foundations? Tell me since you are so well-informed! … Have you been right down to the sources of the sea and walked about at the bottom of the abyss?”
This episode ends in the first few verses of Chapter 40, where Job replies:
“My words have been frivolous: what can I reply? I had better lay my hand over my mouth. I have spoken once, I shall not speak again. I have spoken twice, I have nothing more to say”.
These quotes are from the New Jerusalem Bible, which I purchased today since my old RSV is coming apart. For those of you not raised in the Judeo-Christian tradition, the book of Job contains a long, circuitous, multi-layered discourse on crime and punishment, worthy of Dostoevski. That dialectic is abruptly replaced by the dialectic between hubris and ignorance. High drama indeed, exactly the drama that now is playing in the climate change theater.
All of you who participate in this discussion: now you know the ultimate source of my humility essay.
Comment by Henk Tennekes — February 3, 2007 @ 11:07 am
“Re #1: I’m all ears!
Comment by Steve Bloom”
No you are NOT Steve. But try this on for size anyway.
http://graemebird.wordpress.com/2007/01/27/continental-layout-and-ice-ages/
Comment by Graeme Bird — February 3, 2007 @ 2:07 pm
Prof. Tennekes-
Bravo, and God bless you!
Comment by George Taylor — February 3, 2007 @ 2:55 pm
I thoroughly enjoyed reading the debate on this blog. I am impressed the way the contributors communicate. I regularly read the discussions on RealClimate.org and dislike their self-righteous or nasty tone (the sarcastic comment by Steve Bloom, is a typical example of that). As a (retired) geologist I cannot follow all of the arguments presented by Dr Tennenes but get enough of an impression that the science is complex and that the consensual conclusions of the IPCC have to be treated with suspicion.
I have noted that there are many scientists that over the years have disagreed with the IPCC reports, how then is it possible that the IPCC can come up with conclusions that are a display of widespread consensus? Who is responsible for selecting the scientists that contribute to these studies. For instance I have yet to come across a geologist who is not sceptical of all the alarmist predictions. I guess, geologists are used to a timescale beyond that of the normal human horizon.
Who are the geologists that the IPCC is relying on? Is the IPCC at all concerned about the frequency and recurrence of ice ages? Who are the astronomers that advise the IPCC on other cause of possible climate change (sun spots or earth’s elliptical orbit, tilt and wobble of its axis) so as to ascertain that we are not just experiencing a normal trend related to interglacial warming or variation in solar radiation?
As a Dutchman living in Australia I have been fortunate enough to have several of my letters to the editor on the subject of climate change published in the national newspaper The Australian. It is a newspaper with a good reputation and open to arguments from both sides of the climate change hypothesis divide. I believe that an op-ed submission by Dr. Tennekes would be highly appreciated.
Comment by Chris Schoneveld — February 3, 2007 @ 10:36 pm
Chris - Thank you for your contribution to the Climate Science weblog.
On your excellent question
“I have noted that there are many scientists that over the years have disagreed with the IPCC reports, how then is it possible that the IPCC can come up with conclusions that are a display of widespread consensus? Who is responsible for selecting the scientists that contribute to these studies”;
the answer is that the same relatively small group are selecting, writing and reviewing the assessments. The process has become so inbred that I do not think many of the IPCC scientists even realize the blatant conflict of interest that exists. This has prevented truely independent assessments of the role of human climate forcings by the IPCC and other climate assessments, such as I have documented in
Pielke Sr., Roger A., 2005: Public Comment on CCSP Report “Temperature Trends in the Lower Atmosphere: Steps for Understanding and Reconciling Differences”. 88 pp including appendices.
Comment by Roger Pielke Sr. — February 4, 2007 @ 12:13 am
Chris Schoneveld, I have a response to your suggestion. My comment #27 in the discussion following Roger Pielke’s blog of 18 January is a ready-made op-ed piece as it stands. You are welcome to submit it to the Australian on my behalf. You could also use it as a lengthy quote inside another op-ed piece by your own hand. I grant you permission to act as you see fit.
Also, thanks for your friendly words. I agree with you: the discussion here is civilized, courteous and mature.
Comment by Henk Tennekes — February 4, 2007 @ 12:20 am
Chris.
The IPCC doesn’t even use a solar forecast in their predictions. They don’t have a computer model that backtests. They don’t seem to entertain any geological analysis into what leads to ice ages and warmer periods…. But other then that and their other handicaps in the looks, competency and character departments, they appear to be an alright bunch.
Good to see such a plain-speaker as yourself from my country.
Comment by Graeme Bird — February 4, 2007 @ 12:52 am
[...] February 5, 2007 | I want to lobby for decency, modesty, honesty, integrity and balance in climate research. I hope and pray we lose our obsession with climate forecasting. Climate simulations are best seen as sensitivity experiments, not as tools for policy makers. I said it in 1990 and I am saying it now: the constraints imposed by the planetary ecosystem require continuous adjustment and permanent adaptation. Predictive skills are of secondary importance. We should stop our support for the preoccupation with greenhouse gases our politicians indulge in. Global energy policy is their business, not ours. We should not allow politicians to use fake doomsday projections as a cover-up for their real intentions. If IPCC does not come to its senses, I’ll be happy to let it stew in its own juices. There is plenty of other work to do. Hendrik Tennekes, retired Director of Research, Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute [...]
Pingback by Climate Humility : Jay Currie — February 4, 2007 @ 7:18 pm
Henk, I will give it a try. Thank you for allowing me to do that.
Comment by Chris Schoneveld — February 5, 2007 @ 5:10 am
There are a few other points I wish to make.
Somewhere around 1980, Ms. Neelie Kroes, now EU Commissioner for Fair Trade but then Assistant Secretary of Transport here in Holland, presided over a ceremony by which the Dutch weather ship Cumulus was sold to the Brits for the symbolic sum of one English pound. She was being cornered by a dozen newspapermen, who interrogated her on numerous newspaper stories in which I had said that the practical forecast horizon of weather forecasts was limited to five days, even with unlimited computer resources. She saw me standing in another corner of the room and made a gesture asking me to come to the rescue. I did as asked. Ms. Kroes said: “Professor Tennekes, would you please explain to these gentlemen why the forecast horizon, in your opinion, is finite?” I consider myself a slow, plodding thinker, but that time my mind was lightning-fast. I stepped in: “God’s supercomputer, by definition faster than any human-built, doesn’t run any faster than the evolution of Nature itself. More than five days ahead, even God does not know the weather”. That stopped the reporters cold. I fancy that Ms. Kroes still remembers the incident that got them off her back.
In support of Adrianne’s contribution (#25), I want to add some observations on ocean modeling. I have to start with the atmosphere, however. Extratropical cyclones are the transient eddies in the atmosphere that sustain the poleward heat flux and, by eddy flux convergence, the momentum of the jet stream. These eddies have diameters of a few thousand kilometers. Modeling them on a numerical grid evidently requires a mesh size of a few hundred kilometers at most, else the representation of the poleward fluxes of heat and momentum in a GCM is fatally compromised. Now the ocean. The transient eddies in the Gulf Stream have diameters of at most a few hundred kilometers. The mesh size in the ocean model then has to be less than a few tens of kilometers if a better than extremely crude representation of the oceanic fluxes of heat and momentum is desired. In terms of computer power required, this is at best far into the future. In terms of verification and falsification, the task is more horrendous yet: the programs for ocean observation do not come close to the resolution required to check the model against past and present data.
In support of Rob (#20), who rightfully refers to Matthew 7:24-27, I want to add this:
Indeed, a GCM is a house built on sand. It is based on a very large number of patched-together software codes, incredibly complicated but full of software corrupted by lousy parameterizations and ad-hoc fixes for countless numerical instabilities. The preposterous amplification of the numerical viscosity at the poles to which Margo refers (#11) is just one of a horde of technological fixes that are needed to make a GCM run halfways “realistically”.
“Floods rose, gales blew and struck the house. It fell, and what a fall it had!” (Matthew 7:27).
Comment by Henk Tennekes — February 5, 2007 @ 5:38 am
I just came across the following text, issued today by Dr. Madhav Khandekar, who was commissioned by the Canadian group Friends of Science to assess the climate change issue. This assessment is in line with Denny Thomson’s emphasis on precipitation. Read with me on the simulation of the monsoon season:
“These authors examine prediction of the Indian monsoon for 2004 made by empirical as well as by dynamical models and conclude that the skill in forecasting the Indian summer monsoon variability has not improved in the last fifty years or so when some of the empirical models were introduced. The skill of dynamical models was found to be even worse. In comparing observed monsoon rainfall totals with simulated values from 20 state-of-the-art GCM, the authors found that none of the dynamical models were able to “simulate correctly the interannual variation of the summer monsoon rainfall over the Indian regionâ€? The authors lament the fact that after so many years of climate model development, the models are still not able to simulate one of the largest and regionally the most important atmospheric phenomena, the tropical monsoon and further question the validity of many GCM for simulating the impact of anthropogenic GHG forcing on future projections of the earth’s climate. In another study the impact of Atlantic and global SST patterns on African rainfall changes for the twentieth century is investigated using five coupled GCM as part of the IPCC fourth (2007) assessment project and it is found that the Sahel region drought from 1950-2000 period was not influenced by the GHG forcing, indicating that the Sahel drought conditions were likely of natural origin. The same study further concludes that natural variability will continue to be the primary driver of Sahel region’s low frequency rainfall variations during the next century. In another similar model inter-comparison study, precipitation characteristics of eighteen coupled climate models were examined by analyzing monthly and 3-hourly precipitation output and it is found that most models produce too much convective and too little stratiform precipitation over most of the low latitude regions. The same study further concludes that considerable improvements in precipitation simulations are still desirable for the latest generation of the world’s coupled climate models.”
This paragraph is in evident support of the statements on precipitation I made in my humility essay.
Comment by Henk Tennekes — February 5, 2007 @ 12:06 pm
Re #28: “I guess, geologists are used to a timescale beyond that of the normal human horizon.” Chris, the following summarizes why the climate discussion needs some good geologists:
“Geologists inhabit scenes that no one ever saw, scenes of global sweep, gone and gone again, including seas, mountains, rivers, forests, and archipelagos of aching beauty, rising in volcanic violence to settle down quietly and forever disappear—almost disappear”
John McPhee
Annals of the Former World
Henk Tennekes has quoted scripture from the Bible. The Lord spoke unto Job, but he has apparently not been been chatting with the IPCC authors lately. Maybe this is why a few good geologists are now needed.
Proverbs 1:7 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.
Comment by Bryan Sralla — February 5, 2007 @ 1:11 pm
Ray Pierrehumbert over at RC made a statement to the effect of “the rate of oceanic CO2 fixing is X.” To which I retorted “using which experimental procedure have you determined that?” To which another frequent poster there replied with a list of abstracts regarding measurements of detritus and the like. There is a clear issue with many orthodox climate scientists - they do not understand what constitutes a proper experimental procedure to characterize a process while it is happening. Of course after-the-fact measurements help but are not a direct experiment vis a vis the process in question. It’s a serious and systemic issue.
Comment by Steve Sadlov — February 5, 2007 @ 4:00 pm
orthodox climate scientists…do not understand what constitutes a proper experimental procedure to characterize a process while it is happening.
Almost all natural processes are happening. Down to the atomic and chemical level, all processes are happening. This is why one defines scale.
But do you mean to imply that climate scientists don’t know processes are happening as we speak, or do you mean the results they read are products of other disciplines that do not know that processes are happening as we speak?
Comment by Dan — February 6, 2007 @ 9:07 am
RE: #38 - For example, if I make a claim of a rate of diffusion across a boundary, then it may be a non trivial excercise to truly measure that rate in situ in a large setting such as across the atmosphere - ocean boundary. And yet, Ray Pierrehumbert claims to know definitively what that rate is. I have a real problem with that.
Comment by Steve Sadlov — February 6, 2007 @ 2:50 pm
“But do you mean to imply that climate scientists don’t know processes are happening as we speak…”
‘Science Workers” Dan. You meant to say “Science Workers”.
Of course authentic climate scientists have a good understanding of the workings of nature.
But we are talking about a handful of lunatics keeping this embarrassing frenzy going in the midst of looming problems with energy.
Like your buds over at realclimate that keep a lock-down on that particular Bubbleworld.
And your pals over at Gristmill. And the roving Mr Rabbet who moonlights as Deltoid bully-boy.
Comment by Graeme Bird — February 6, 2007 @ 6:22 pm
So, a question for this esteemed group: Do GCM’s calculate CO2 changes based on mass, or on moles? Or do they just parameterize them?
Comment by Steve Hemphill — February 6, 2007 @ 11:39 pm
40:
I don’t understand. Where in your reply does it state that RP doesnt know how to create/understand/reflect upon/recognize a proper experimental procedure to characterize a process while it is happening? I don’t think being confident of a rate means he does not know how to create a proper experimental procedure to characterize a process while it is happening.
41:
I don’t read Gristmill, Graeme, nor do I know anyone at RC; why do you choose to employ this rhetorical tactic to try to gain advantage? Aside from the name-calling making it difficult to follow your argument, you don’t provide context or evidence upon wihch to base your argument.
Can you provide any examples that back your ‘lunatics’/'frenzy’/'Bubble’/'bully’ name-calling claim that certain people we don’t like misunderstand natural processes, presumably by misstating something [e.g. what would that something be]?
Comment by Dan — February 7, 2007 @ 7:09 am
Re: 43, Dan,
The issue that Steve brought up has to do with validation of assumptions, not how well one understands natural processes. If “Ray Pierrehumbert claims to know definitively what that rate is” then he should be able to provide some scientific basis for the rate of mass transfer of CO2 into sea water under the varying conditions of the oceans’ surfaces. This is not a simple problem. Although one could estimate a mass transfer rate, it would require a number of assumptions, each of which would introduce error into the resulting estimate. In order to validate such an assumption, one needs empirical data. To answer a request for such validating data with armwaving indicates to most observers that there are no validation studies. Lacking validation studies, Ray Pierrehumbert’s rate is nothing more than his assumption.
If this were the only incident where a climate science issue is based on non-validated assumptions, it would be only an interesting anamoly. Sadly, I have read a number of other articles which are likewise based on non-validated assumptions. Examples are the assumption that tree rings are linear temperature proxies; that the improvement in data collection over the past 150 years has had no significant impact on tropical cyclone annual count or intensity records; and that the urban heat island has had little or no effect on long term instrument records. I have yet to see the validation studies for these, however the IPCC appears to accept these assumptions as facts.
Comment by Brooks Hurd — February 7, 2007 @ 11:13 am
Re: 44
Please do not infer from my post that my three examples include all the non-validated assumptions in climate science. There are many more.
Comment by Brooks Hurd — February 7, 2007 @ 11:23 am
I’m mighty suspicious of this “Validation” talk.
I mean I’m not faulting what you are saying exactly Brian.
But how long has all this ‘validation’ talk been going on?
It looks like a real piss-weak concept to me.
Like the ethics of the soft-left encounter-group or organic-food-co-operative invading the hard (and formerly hard-headed) sciences.
I see some institutional rot in the sciences.
Thats why I like coming here. Just to remind myself that some of the older guys have still got the moxie to do things the right way.
Comment by Graeme Bird — February 7, 2007 @ 3:06 pm
“Can you provide any examples that back your ‘lunatics’/’frenzy’/’Bubble’/’bully’ name-calling claim that certain people we don’t like misunderstand natural processes, presumably by misstating something [e.g. what would that something be]?”
HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN FOLLOWING THIS DEBATE?
You should come out of the closet and use your full name Dan. There must be a lot of Dans around and you are liable to be mistaken for one of the others.
Comment by Graeme Bird — February 7, 2007 @ 3:13 pm
44:
Brooks,
The original claim was:
orthodox climate scientists…do not understand what constitutes a proper experimental procedure to characterize a process while it is happening.
and my follow-up question was:
[D]o you mean to imply that climate scientists don’t know processes are happening as we speak, or do you mean the results they read are products of other disciplines that do not know that processes are happening as we speak?
I must confess I don’t understand what, Bryan, this reply:
The issue that Steve brought up has to do with validation of assumptions, not how well one understands natural processes.
has to do with the original understand[ing] what constitutes a proper experimental procedure to characterize a process while it is happening or characterization of processes.
If this doesn’t have to do with how well one understands natural processes, what does?
47:
Thank you GMB. That’s the answer I thought I’d get.
Comment by Dan — February 7, 2007 @ 6:56 pm
Dan,
If you look at post 38, the entire quote from Steve’ it says: “Ray Pierrehumbert over at RC made a statement to the effect of “the rate of oceanic CO2 fixing is X.â€? To which I retorted “using which experimental procedure have you determined that?â€? To which another frequent poster there replied with a list of abstracts regarding measurements of detritus and the like. There is a clear issue with many orthodox climate scientists - they do not understand what constitutes a proper experimental procedure to characterize a process while it is happening. Of course after-the-fact measurements help but are not a direct experiment vis a vis the process in question. It’s a serious and systemic issue.”
The issue is not understanding a process, but rather characterizing it and validating one’s assumptions. Understanding a process and setting up an experimental procedure to charaterize it, or to validate assumptions are quite different than having an intuitive understanding of the process.
I know that burning fossil fuels provide the energy to propel my car down the road. I understand intuitively how it works, however characterizing the burning rate, octane, maximum temperatures reached and the thermodynamic efficiency of the engine require setting up exeprimental procedures and carrying some rather intricate experiments.
Comment by Brooks Hurd — February 8, 2007 @ 1:06 am
Yep. Great answer isn’t it.
And may I ask you why are you on the wrong side of this debate given that there is no evidence whatsoever for the likelihood of catastrophic warming?
Comment by Graeme Bird — February 8, 2007 @ 1:54 am
49:
Thank you Brooks,
I still don’t see how the anecdote you relate shows that “orthodox� climate scientists (what is a heterodox climate scientist? One that doesn’t use the scientific method?) are unaware of what constitutes a proper experimental procedure to characterize a process while it is happening.
So one person describes a rate of change. This does not allow us to argue that: 1. Because one person may be incorrect that ALL persons are incorrect, and/or 2. Because we have given an anecdote that presumes that because a person has not personally performed a procedure therefore that person cannot possibly understand how to design a procedure therefore that person is wrong, 3. it is perfectly fine to characterize an entire discipline as not knowing what constitutes a proper experimental procedure to characterize a process while it is happening. I must also point out no one here has given the proper rate of change to show the person is incorrect.
But really, it’s quite simple: I’m pointing out the premise is incorrect, therefore the conclusion is too. The conclusion [assertion] being, of course, “orthodox“ climate scientists…do not understand what constitutes a proper experimental procedure to characterize a process while it is happening. [scare quotes added]. The premise being that one person being incorrect makes all persons incorrect. The systemic issue has not been established at all.
Hope this helps.
Comment by Dan — February 8, 2007 @ 1:19 pm
Re: 11
Texas A&M has a website with multiple links to various model home pages. Some are better than others regarding documentation and source codes.
http://stommel.tamu.edu/~baum/climate_modeling.html
One of the better documented with source codes, manuals, output files etc. on the above list is:
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/csm/index.html
Good luck
Comment by Stephen Harelson — February 8, 2007 @ 1:38 pm
” still don’t see how the anecdote you relate shows that “orthodoxâ€? climate scientists (what is a heterodox climate scientist? One that doesn’t use the scientific method?)”
Its the orthodox climate scientists that haven’t been using the scientific method.
Do try and keep up 007.
Comment by Graeme Bird — February 8, 2007 @ 3:59 pm
RE: #51 - Ray is an archetype. And an apt one. The majority of so called climate scientists (e.g. the climate science orthodoxy) exhibit similar systemic abuse of the scientific method. Furthermore, they abuse general logic as well. A very common abuse is the classic “it preceded it therefore it caused it.” And many more.
Comment by Steve Sadlov — February 8, 2007 @ 5:24 pm
53:
Steve,
You confuse results that may be found to not be robust with abusing the scieintific method. And you confuse the possiblity that someone stated an incorrect rate with abusing a method.
I also note that you must offer an archetype in place of examples of methodologies that don’t follow the scientific method, or examples of preferred heterodox methods.
Comment by Dan — February 8, 2007 @ 7:56 pm
RE: AGW fanatics who also happen to pose as scientists shy away from experimental rigor. For example, they don’t want to know the reality of the actual average moles / square km / hour of CO2 being taken across the atmosphere - ocean interface using actual physical measurements. It is, admittedly, a non trivial exercise. A good start might be something in a chem lab. How many climate scientists are involved in even the lab version of this difficult experiment? Dan does not get it (or maybe he does and is just being difficult).
Comment by Steve Sadlov — February 9, 2007 @ 2:47 pm
56:
Steve, I’m no longer confused about what your continual digressions have to do with your unattributed and as-yet unsubstantiated claim that I’m (obviously fruitlessly) seeking clarification on (way up @ 39).
Why am I no longer confused? I’ve put my confusion aside and instead I’m acting on the premise that now, with your most recent irrelevancy, I should stop reading your comments with the expectation that you will show how climate scientists do not understand what constitutes a proper experimental procedure to characterize a process while it is happening , because you have no evidence for your assertion.
Comment by Dan — February 9, 2007 @ 5:55 pm
You’re confused alright.
We are in the severist phase of an ice age that there has been in half a billion years and yet you are so confused you are worrying about WARMING.
Confusion however is the least of your handicaps.
Comment by Graeme Bird — February 10, 2007 @ 2:44 am
I live in Pennsylvania. I like it. About 10K years ago it
was partly permafrost and partly a mile high of snow. There
were probably fewer trees then and I don’t think I would
have liked it then.
Poking around the web for a change of the current tree
line in the northern hemisphere, I think some people have
suggested maybe a yard or two, but they are not sure because
the climate is so miserable there. Come back in a couple
decades, they suggest and recheck.
The doomsayers don’t bother to suggest that Canada might
become a nicer place to live. Or maybe Africa will get
more rain. Or people might be able to live on the south
pole. (or closer at least). Or trees might grow where they
can’t now.
Comment by Not Gore Fan — February 10, 2007 @ 2:31 pm
Dr. Tennekes,
Thank you for this fascinating article.
I know very little about climate science. My own degree work was in anthropology/prehistoric civilization, but that was an avocation. My career work has been in computers; I’ve been involved with them, in one way or another, since 1966. Ie: I have seen the generations of machinery arrive and grow, and KNOW what computers can and can NOT do.
I have been an anthropomorphic global warming skeptic for some time, and the reason I have been so is because of the climate models. When I first heard that much of the belief among scientists is based upon the predictions of climate models, my jaw dropped open and I gasped, “You’ve got to be kidding!”
I have never seen a computer that can take a half-baked theory, questionable parameters, and programming by someone highly motivated to prove a point… and actually come up with a correct solution. Computers have to be told exactly where to place every decimal, how to distinguish every trend, and how to analyze every exception. The person programming a model is going to use his or her personal belief system to do this, and will create an impressive-looking gee-whiz display of his or her personal opinion, not a scientifically valid tool. Before I heard about climate models, I had a naive notion that scientists understood a few things about computers… such as the fact that they can’t come up with correct solutions unless ALL of the parameters are solidly sourced, correctly understood, and locked down. But the details of what may or may not be correct in climate science is still being argued by some impressive persons.
In time, we may come to understand more of what is involved in our complex climate, but for now, we just don’t have enough of the parameters locked down well enough to do this.
Comment by Theresa — February 10, 2007 @ 6:15 pm
LOL! “Anthropomorphic”=anthropogenic, of course!
Although, come to think of it, some of the AGW advocates ARE behaving as if CO2 was a living, breathing dragon to be slain!
Comment by Theresa — February 11, 2007 @ 2:44 pm
More evidence of the Tower of Babel - This shows how Realclimate does not understand the difference between neutrons and muons:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/02/nigel-calder-in-the-times/
Comment by Steve Hemphill — February 12, 2007 @ 11:37 pm
RE: #62 - Interestingly, vis a vis Dan’s bashing of my use of the term “orthodoxy,” Calder used exactly this term to describe the now enraged and stampeding herd who appear to be an odd mixture of science and ecotheological neomarxism.
Comment by Steve Sadlov — February 13, 2007 @ 10:36 am
RE: #63 - Of course Calder had his own moment of confronting the orthodoxy when he wrote “The Restless Earth.” At that point, there were still people clinging hopelessly to uniformitarianism. Then, a mere 10 years later, I took Plate Tectonics as a required course!
Comment by Steve Sadlov — February 13, 2007 @ 10:46 am
Theresa (#60): thank you for your compliments. Like me, you’re not so young anymore. Clearly, you too have studied for many years what happens beneath the surface. Yes, these software types produce impressive-looking displays of their personal opinions. They produce virtual reality and sell it as if it were real, and threatening, and of global dimensions. I wouldn’t mind if they would package their forecasts as computer games, or as sophisticated versions of 007 movies. No, they want to rule the real world as well.
Incidentally, Theresa, did you also read my blog of 6 January 2006, which describes my skeptical view of climate models?
Steve Hemphill (#62), your Tower of Babel rings a bell. You’ll do yourself a favor by looking up what I wrote on Dan Sarewitz’s CSPO website a year ago. I’m not familiar with urls and things, but Google will bring you there in an instant if you enter the search words Tennekes and Hermetic-Jargon. Just to entice you, I wrote there: “The Temple of Science has become a Tower of Babel”.
Theresa, another thing to keep in mind is this: global climate modellers use terms like “tuning”. That is an unintended giveaway. They are engaged in engineering, not in science. They call themselves Physicists or Scientists, but that is a cover to lend them an air of respectability. They are engineers, but without the training needed. Licensed professional engineers have a better toolbox, but also a honed sense of civic responsibility. I would not hesitate a moment to take the licenses of these climate software types away from them if I had the authority to do so.
Comment by Henk Tennekes — February 13, 2007 @ 8:27 pm
Hi,
Thanks for this site. I’m fairly new here, been lurking for a couple of months. Alhough the political discussion had been getting ever crazier, I still thought that the scientific discussion must surely be proceeding along in an objective, balanced, modest, etc. manner. Then last fall I attended about half of these Global Climate Change public lectures. Some of the lectures were, I thought, balanced. But others! There were precipitation patterns that could fairly be described as plausible scenarios, but were instead presented as established facts.
Thirty-some years ago I was an undergraduate, one of a few taking Professor Tennekes’ class. Most were graduate students, and some days there were even a few meteorology professors sitting behind me. I sure felt modest. But I learned valuable lessons, including the fact that the answer is not always to be found in a calculator.
Comment by Jim Toth — February 13, 2007 @ 10:00 pm
Henk -
Yes, same observation. in 1995 I was doing some hydrological research, and became a “believer” in global warming. As I got into it, I noticed a distinct lack of harmony in the dogma. When I tried to resolve it, the response was hostility. Your hame for it - “hermetic jargon” is appropriate.
You are correct that a P.E. has an obligation - something that is missing in the computer models that are the new realm of computer gamers of a decade ago. They (along with the carbon traders - strange marriage there) feel no responsibility to consider that CO2 is the base of the food chain, and politicians calling for “cap and trade” have apparently never seen how the other half of the world lives - which is at the base of Maslow’s pyramid. Consider what we do know about increased CO2 (my favorite link of late):
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2003/0530earthgreen.html
Now, I have a question for you. As I understand it, radiation and convection are the two primary ways energy leaves the surface of Earth through the troposphere. The lapse rate is the moist adiabat, and I think it’s because convection maintains that. I am wondering if increasing CO2, rather than increasing the lapse rate, mostly just increases convection. Ghg’s are different than other forcings like solar, black carbon, and land use changes in that ghg’s primarily increase convection, where others primarily increase the amount of heat on the surface. Would that be a possible assessment?
Thanks -
Comment by Steve Hemphill — February 13, 2007 @ 10:47 pm
Jim, you make me blush (#66). Thanks!
I remember you only vaguely, but I sure do remember how Professor Panofsky would engage me in professional discourse, to delight of the graduate students and the faculty members who had dropped into my turbulence class. It was Aerospace 412, if I remember correctly. All of us got first-hand training in courteous but pointed scientific debate. I wish this kind of interaction could be restored today. Climate science needs it badly enough.
Comment by Henk Tennekes — February 14, 2007 @ 2:49 am
I came across this discussion from a post and link on http://www.smalldeadanimals.com The reference that CO2 was a dragon that had to be slain reminded me of a post on that site in favorites called THe WEREWOLF EXTINCTION.Maybe we havent progressed after all.CO2,the 21st century Werewolf.
Comment by spike 1 — February 14, 2007 @ 11:32 am
RE: #67 - “They (along with the carbon traders - strange marriage there) feel no responsibility to consider that CO2 is the base of the food chain, and politicians calling for “cap and tradeâ€? have apparently never seen how the other half of the world lives - which is at the base of Maslow’s pyramid.”
Meditate on that for a moment, if you will. There may be a specific strategy at work. And if so, it is sicker than sick.
Comment by Steve Sadlov — February 14, 2007 @ 11:48 am
There may be a specific strategy at work. And if so, it is sicker than sick.
There’s that unsubstantiated ‘may’ again.
What is this sicker than sick ‘may’?
Do share substantiation.
Comment by Dan — February 14, 2007 @ 6:42 pm
All this in a thread entreating for ‘modesty, integrity and balance’:
They …feel no responsibility to consider that CO2 is the base of the food chain, and politicians calling for “cap and tradeâ€? have apparently never seen how the other half of the world lives - which is at the base of Maslow’s pyramid.â€? …Meditate on that for a moment, if you will. There may be a specific strategy at work. And if so, it is sicker than sick.
Can you provide, either Steve, evidence that ‘they’ feel no responsibility to consider that CO2 is the base of the food chain? What evidence do you have that a a specific strategy may be at work?
And can Sadlov explain how accusing, without evidence (let us wager that there is none, please) that these unnamed ‘they’ are sick is modest, balanced, and subject to umbrage under the rules that Roger wants to enforce?
Thank you all in advance for helping me to understand this conundrum.
Comment by Dan — February 14, 2007 @ 11:27 pm
Odd. I didn’t see my 6.42 when I composed my 11.27.
Comment by Dan — February 14, 2007 @ 11:28 pm
Roger, would you please respond to Steve Hemphill’s question (#67)? That part of the climate problem is not within my reach. Thanks!
Comment by Henk Tennekes — February 15, 2007 @ 5:52 am
The concept, of course, is that there are some who are consciously attempting to benefit from the potential starvation of billiions. Since there are thousands of them, the question is not *if* there are some who realize they could be trying to limit the base of the food chain, but *how many* there are.
Comment by Tim Clear — February 15, 2007 @ 8:37 am
Steve- Henk asked me to reply to your question,
“I am wondering if increasing CO2, rather than increasing the lapse rate, mostly just increases convection. Ghg’s are different than other forcings like solar, black carbon, and land use changes in that ghg’s primarily increase convection, where others primarily increase the amount of heat on the surface. Would that be a possible assessment?”
There is no evidence that adding CO2 increases convection. Indeed, each of the climate forcings that you list result in complex feedbacks within the climate system, as has been discussed on Climate Science and summarized in the 2005 National Research Council Report. These feedbacks, moreover, occur not just at the surface but throughout the climate system.
Comment by Roger Pielke Sr. — February 15, 2007 @ 8:43 am
Dan and Steve- In order to enforce the rules for courtesy on Climate Science, please focus only on the science issues and not the motives of anyone. Future comments must be within the requirements for courtesy of Climate Science or they will not be posted.
Comment by Roger Pielke Sr. — February 15, 2007 @ 8:46 am
DEBATE OVER?…
Yes, the debate over global warming is over according to this FAQ at Global Warming 101. Now, I am more than happy to listen to the climate change message and also more than willing to support measures that will reduce……
Trackback by Peaktalk — February 15, 2007 @ 12:23 pm
Roger and Henk,
If the lapse rate is the moist adiabat and increasing CO2 increases the lapse rate, then either the lapse rate was the moist adiabat before or is the moist adiabat now. If it is staying at the moist adiabat while CO2 increases it, then either convection or conduction must be increasing. Since conduction is negligible, does that not mean convection is increasing?
Thanks
Steve
Comment by Steve Hemphill — February 15, 2007 @ 6:11 pm
For all those who are interested there are discussions about AOLGCM models, methods, and software over at http://danhughes.auditblogs.com
All corrections and comments are appreciated.
Comment by Dan Hughes — February 17, 2007 @ 4:20 pm
The debate IS over.
We live in a pulverising, brutal ice age. And the information we have gotten back is that negative feedbacks to CO2-warming are so powerful that it is all that we can rightfully hope for to be given a second stay of execution from the 100 000 year curse of the White Witch of Narnia.
The idea, therefore, that we face imminent catastrophic warming is a total fantasy. Full spectrum drooling idiocy.
It is being thrust upon us by the most tawdry grubby ludicrous bunch of charlatans, lunatics, marxists, dwarves hoaxers statists and extremists seen anywhere on this planet outside of the Middle East.
Comment by Graeme Bird — March 2, 2007 @ 4:34 pm
Graeme - maybe we are nearing a tipping point, specifically back to the Pliocene, when our branch of hominoids emerged from the background noise(?) I’m not sure how that can be bad - except maybe to those with very flat and heritable beachfront property. Maybe.
I agree longer, colder winters would not be a good thing…
Comment by Tim Clear — March 2, 2007 @ 6:18 pm
Of course its a bad thing.
Its a catastrophe.
Your reasoning is totally out. We emerged from the background BECAUSE OF the pumping holocausts of the periodic return of the white death.
It was this relentless series of white-death holocausts that caused intelligent life to emerge and it is this which makes us different from the other animals.
We don’t need another holocaust. And the fact that we evolved rapidly during this time does not speak to the idea of a pleasant and comfortable world.
Quite the opposite.
The Pliocene is within the longer ice age, In fact it incorporates the latter part of that ice age which is a particularly nasty phase of it.
” I’m not sure how that can be bad…”
You really have to think this one through a little bit more or you’ll not get the magnitude of the warming hoax.
Comment by Graeme Bird — March 2, 2007 @ 8:55 pm
RE: #83 - Consider the confluence of demographic and geopolitical events with the climate. In my estimation, climatologically, we are situated to enter into a period where even a modest increase in dust and / or aerosols could set the ice into motion. What would another world war do? And how would a weakened, declining West (some of the weakening due to self hatred and self imposed ecotheological dirigiste economics) exacerbate the forces which would lead to world war and hence, possible return of the ice sheets? And it may be that we need to consider more than just dust and aerosols - what would substantial release of ionizing radiation, via mass EMP attacks, among other events, do?
Comment by Steve Sadlov — March 5, 2007 @ 3:53 pm
You all seem to be convinced that the software calculations in the present GCM aren’t terribly reliable and therefore it isn’t clear what is happening. I would like to introduce into the conversation a driver of climate change, also not included in the calculations, that is easy to understand and can be clearly checked as a mechanism. I am a particle physicist so the picture of cosmic rays as ionizers of aerosols which then attract and seed water droplets and therefore clouds is particularly attractive. Nir Shaviv and others, as I assume you know, have put together an analysis which concludes that most of the temperature change we see, small as it is, can be due to such a mechanism. They then test the mechanism by relating enhanced cosmic ray fluxes as earth goes through an arm of the galaxy with major ice ages. Works like a charm.
I have written a lot of code following high energy particle cascades through an iron absorber, for example, and can only shake my head at the complexity of the GCM package.
I feel the undertow of suspicion about the sudden appearance of employees of various new companies on National Public Radio advising people how to trade carbon credits. Another business: Reduce your salt intake, even though very large studies have found no correlation at all with hypertension. Once the subject becomes a business, it’s very hard to change opinions.
Comment by Charles Jordan — March 5, 2007 @ 10:06 pm
Professor Tennekes: Thank you again for boldly speaking out.
I think that many people share your anger at the degredation of science that is being pushed in the name of climate change. Global warming has become a political band wagon that enviromentalist are using to gain political power and politicians are afraid to stand up to.
I was looking at some books in my study and came across two that I’ve read to my Children and now my grandson, It stuck me that one was the global warming political bible “The kings new cloths” and the other was their technical book ” Chicken Lickin”
But really it is quite frightening that future generation may see us as belivers in fairy tales rather than scientific fact.
Comment by Robert L English — March 10, 2007 @ 4:31 pm
84.
Yeah I hear ya.
I mean I don’t know the scope of the effect of our actions and have my own estimations.
But what I DO-KNOW is that, in this time period, the planet has a one-way-cooling-bias.
Funny about what the kids are into.
Comment by Graeme Bird — March 12, 2007 @ 3:41 am
Methinks Dr. Hennekes is selective in his anger. I don’t see any hint of anger at the likes of Pat Michaels, Richard Lindzen, Robert Balling and other prominent climate change sceptics for receiveing big amounts of money from the fossil fuel lobby. This lobby, which doesn’t give a damn for ‘truth’ as elusive as that is in science, has invested millions of dollars over many years to bolster a pre-determined worldview and to debunk the science they hate. Where is your rage against these people Dr. Hennekes?
Comment by Jeff Harvey — March 29, 2007 @ 5:01 am
Re #88,
This money you talk about going into skeptics pockets is relatively non-existent, that’s why. The real money going into pockets is to people who create fear.
Comment by Harry Haymuss — March 29, 2007 @ 6:07 am
RE: #88 - Can’t you come up with something more creative than the now well worn barbs about skeptics being, as you might put it, fossil fuel industry shills? How predictable.
Comment by Steve Sadlov — March 29, 2007 @ 11:01 am