Climate Change models

[Felch]

Disclosure: I believe that the climate is changing, but I am skeptical that it is a catastrophe. My belief is that slightly warmer temperatures are a good thing, and that colder temperatures would be bad. I am willing to change this opinion, but only if I can be rationally persuaded. Someone telling me I'm a selfish ****wit piece of **** isn't going to change my mind. I already know that. What I also know is that more people go to Florida for vacation than Finland. So apparently people like warm more than cold.

Does anybody know where to find information that tests climate models that the IPCC has used against observations made since their publication? It seems to me that the only fair basis for a model is to see if it matches with reality. I couldn't care less about the expertise of the scientists who build these models if they don't accurately predict what they claim to predict.

I found this IPCC document, but it's full of big words and doesn't actually tell me which models were most accurate. Some of the information was nicely presented (page 600 has a cool graph), but I was hoping to find this information more clearly expressed.

Is this information considered proprietary? Is it therefore impossible for someone who is interested to educate themselves about this topic?

[Wezil]

I know nothing of science so won't even try to determine if man-made climate change is valid theory however...

If it is real I think we are all screwed. Kyoto was marginalized by the non-participation of several large emitters (and was ignored by countries like Canada that signed). The Copenhagen conference is already being described as DOA even before it begins. If the problem is as urgent as some say then I'm afraid we won't change behaviour quickly or seriously enough to rescue things.

[DinoDoc]

Given the failiure if climate models to predict that the global tempreture hasn't increased in the last 11 years despite the rise in CO2, I'm not exactly sure you should be putting much stock in any of them so far Felch.

[Ramo]

From the page you mentioned:

Some climate
models, or closely related variants, have also been tested
by using them to predict weather and make seasonal forecasts.
These models demonstrate skill in such forecasts, showing they
can represent important features of the general circulation
across shorter time scales, as well as aspects of seasonal and
interannual variability. Models’ ability to represent these and
other important climate features increases our confidence that
they represent the essential physical processes important for
the simulation of future climate change.

No, these models are not proprietary. If you dig through the appendices or google scholar, you can probably find something.

[rah]

From the morning paper

In the next few weeks we'll be relentlessly scrubbed with eyewash, brainwash and hogwash, all designed to cleanse us of any doubts that global warming is a proven menace to mother Earth.

First, there's the Democratic global warming legislation rushing through Congress with a denouement expected soon. Second, the rush to pass the legislation is fueled by the upcoming United Nations meeting on global warming next month in Copenhagen. President Barack Obama and Democrats want to be able to go there with a goody basket of economy-busting measures that will show the world that America is with it.

Too bad, because the alleged "scientific" evidence of a coming man-made apocalypse is incomplete at best and, more likely, manipulated for political reasons.

That's obviously not the conventional wisdom. According to climate alarmists, only "skeptics" or "deniers" would ignore the "scientific consensus" that the planet is doomed without draconian acts of economic self-immolation. We know this because Al Gore, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and European smarties have told us so.

That's also the view of the United Nations-sponsored Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group-1 -- the climate alarmist's bible. It contains, they allege, all the evidence you need to justify their frenzy.

Is that so?

Inconveniently, that study itself has been studied by an independent group of scientists who concluded that the IPCC bible is wrong. They said the IPCC document "is marred by errors and misstatements, ignores scientific data that were available but were inconsistent with the authors' pre-conceived conclusions, and has already been contradicted in important parts by research published since May 2006, the IPCC's cutoff date."

To back up the conclusion, the independent group, called the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), published its own analysis in a tome called "Climate Change Reconsidered." The 856-page, nearly two-inch-thick volume did what all good science requires: check the work of fellow scientists to see if it stands up to a rigorous review of the available research, data and conclusions.

What they found is stunning. For example, the IPCC claimed that "most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely (at least 90 percent certain) due to the increase in anthropogenic (man-made) greenhouse gas concentrations" (Emphasis in the original.) Wrong; the opposite is true. Blame it on natural causes, the NIPCC said.

The IPCC claims that global warming will wreck humanity and the Earth. Wrong. The NIPCC concludes -- using the data and science available to the IPCC -- that a "warmer world would be a safer and healthier world for humans and wildlife alike."

The IPCC relies on complicated computer climate models to reach its dour conclusions; the NIPCC rips the methodology, challenging the reliability of models to make such cosmic predictions. The NIPCC reveals that the IPCC failed to consider naturally occurring "feedback" factors that reduce the impact of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Reviewing the empirical data, the NIPCC finds no evidence that climate change in the last century is unprecedented. Nor do the data demonstrate an anthropogenic effect on climate change. Nor is there evidence that anthropogenic factors are melting glaciers, raising sea levels or precipitating other catastrophic weather or climate changes. The IPCC ignored research probing solar activity as a cause of climate change. It ignored research showing that rising carbon dioxide levels actually increase plant growth to the benefit of all mankind and the planet. It ignored research that global warming will improve, not harm, human health and increase, not decrease, biodiversity.

Climate change alarmists will condemn these findings as unspeakable and unthinkable. They will point to who is doing the research or who is paying for it, while ignoring the substance of the research. They won't bother contacting Chicago-based Heartland Institute, the report's publisher, to get their own copy.

An honest examination of the science will reveal perhaps the only indisputable fact in this entire argument: The science is not settled and claims of a scientific consensus are an exaggeration, if not a deception. A scientific consensus -- if such a thing even exists -- would be surprising for any issue that is as complicated as this, involving so many different branches of science. As a layman struggling to comprehend this avalanche of science, I was struck by one truth: Beware of any "science" that claims to fully describe in single theory any phenomenon as complex as global climate change. Trying to tie it all up in such a neat package, as climate alarmists do, is a trap for the simple-minded.

Dennis Byrne is a Chicago-area writer and consultant. He blogs at chicagonow.

Yeah, he's biased but that doesn't change some of the facts.

[Felch]

From the page you mentioned:

No, these models are not proprietary. If you dig through the appendices or google scholar, you can probably find something.

I saw that chunk, but I was actually hoping to find something more concrete. A table listing the models they used, and some gauge of how well they matched with empirical data (maybe different figures for matching temperature, precipitation) would be what I'm looking for. I found a table that listed the models, and what country they came from, and some other stuff, but it wasn't numeric.

I find it hard to believe that there's all this interest, by all these scientists, and nobody has bothered to crunch the numbers and show which model has done the best at matching observations. You'd think this would be pretty easy to find. Frankly I'm not happy with how either side carries on the debate. The skeptics drum up specious arguments that are probably half-truths at best, while the believers are just ignoring the debate and rushing to spend hundreds of billions on hare-brained schemes. The shortage of facts bothers me, especially when it should be pretty simple to check the models.

[Jon Miller]

One of the central issues is a lack of data. This is actually common in observational science.

JM

[Lorizael]

One of the central issues is a lack of data. This is actually common in observational science.

JM

Yup. This is something most non-scientists don't really understand. And yet somehow scientists still manage to reach conclusions. It's only because this particular scientific issue has become political that people are concerned. Non-scientists should really just let the scientists do their work.

Oh, also, the non-scientists should stop giving a damn about the climate. Things will either drastically change or they won't, and we'll either adapt or we won't. *shrug*

[Felch]

I'm down for that. Honestly, shotguns and LSD are the only things I actually care about.

[Ramo]

From page 626

8.4.11 Shorter-Term Predictions Using Climate
Models
This subsection focuses on the few results of initial value
predictions made using models that are identical, or very
close to, the models used in other chapters of this report for
understanding and predicting climate change.

Weather prediction

Since the TAR, it has been shown that climate models can be
integrated as weather prediction models if they are initialised
appropriately (Phillips et al., 2004). This advance appears to be
due to: (i) improvements in the forecast model analyses and (ii)
increases in the climate model spatial resolution. An advantage
of testing a model’s ability to predict weather is that some of
the sub-grid scale physical processes that are parametrized in
models (e.g., cloud formation, convection) can be evaluated
on time scales characteristic of those processes, without the
complication of feedbacks from these processes altering the
underlying state of the atmosphere (Pope and Stratton, 2002;
Boyle et al., 2005; Williamson et al., 2005; Martin et al., 2006).
Full use can be made of the plentiful meteorological data sets
and observations from specialised fi eld experiments. According
to these studies, some of the biases found in climate simulations
are also evident in the analysis of their weather forecasts. This
suggests that ongoing improvements in model formulation
driven primarily by the needs of weather forecasting may lead
also to more reliable climate predictions.

Seasonal prediction

Verifi cation of seasonal-range predictions provides a direct
test of a model’s ability to represent the physical and dynamical
processes controlling (unforced) fl uctuations in the climate
system. Satisfactory prediction of variations in key climate
signals such as ENSO and its global teleconnections provides
evidence that such features are realistically represented in longterm
forced climate simulations.

A version of the HadCM3 AOGCM (known as GloSea) has
been assessed for skill in predicting observed seasonal climate
variations (Davey et al., 2002; Graham et al., 2005). Graham
et al. (2005) analysed 43 years of retrospective six-month
forecasts (‘hindcasts’) with GloSea, run from observed oceanland-
atmosphere initial conditions. A nine-member ensemble
was used to sample uncertainty in the initial conditions.
Conclusions relevant to HadCM3 include: (i) the model is able
to reproduce observed large-scale lagged responses to ENSO
events in the tropical Atlantic and Indian Ocean SSTs; and (ii)
the model can realistically predict anomaly patterns in North
Atlantic SSTs, shown to have important links with the NAO
and seasonal temperature anomalies over Europe.
The GFDL-CM2.0 AOGCM has also been assessed
for seasonal prediction. Twelve-month retrospective and
contemporaneous forecasts were produced using a six-member
ensemble over 15 years starting in 1991. The forecasts were
initialised using global ocean data assimilation (Derber and
Rosati, 1989; Rosati et al., 1997) and observed atmospheric
forcing, combined with atmospheric initial conditions derived
from the atmospheric component of the model forced with
observed SSTs. Results indicated considerable model skill out
to 12 months for ENSO prediction (see http://www.gfdl.noaa.
gov/~rgg/si_workdir/Forecasts.html). Global teleconnections,
as diagnosed from the NCEP reanalysis (GFDL GAMDT,
2004), were evident throughout the 12-month forecasts.

[Ramo]

I should add that the IPCC puts out estimates that have the broadest consensus possible. Most climate modelers are less optimistic.

[Felch]

I saw that chunk, but I only read the bolded parts. The rest of it is just a mishmash of gibberish. "Since the TAR, it has been shown that climate models can be integrated as weather prediction models if they are initialised appropriately."

Why can't science majors write sentences clearly? Here's how I interpreted that: "Since the TAR, we have seen that climate models can be used for weather prediction if they have the correct starting conditions." Did I miss something? Did I completely miss the point? I always thought that climate models and weather models were two completely different beasts, but this seems to say otherwise.

[KrazyHorse]

What's wrong with the original sentence, other than their BS use of the word "integrated"?

[Ramo]

What's gibberish? Both model solve the conservation of mass, momentum, and energy equations in the atmosphere and ocean. Climate models use larger time and spatially averaged variables than weather models.

[Felch]

Did I correctly interpret it?