SkepticLance

One example of the less than perfect knowledge held by climate modellers is the cooling of Antarctica. When the first models were created, it was confidently predicted that the main continental land mass of Antarctica would warm at a rate about 3 times the global average, as has been seen with Greenland and the Antarctic Peninsular. However, observations showed a long term cooling trend instead. Since then, several hypotheses have been created to 'explain' the cooling. At this point in time, no-one knows which are correct, or if all are correct, and if so, to what degree. The modellers are easily able to compensate for the cooling effect without understanding it fully, but this prevents them from being able to predict future changes in climate pattern as regards Antarctica. Computer models cannot simulate small scale climate effects, and this has been ascribed to lack of computing power. However, models have not always been accurate on the larger scale either. Arctic sea ice melting is my favourite example, with 100% error factors. In the last few months, several slow moving oceanic currents have been discovered, which are large enough in scale to affect climate. Obviously, these were not part of global climate models. Are there other unknown climate influencing oceanic currents? Maybe. Only time will tell. We know that the world is warming, and over the last 30 years this warming is primarily of anthropogenic origin. Knowing this is happening and making simple predictions from this knowledge is easy. I can do that. However, a global climate model, run on a supercomputer, and costing mega millions, should be able to do far more. I still have not seen proper scientific evidence that this is happening. Simply posting a whole lot of references, as iNow likes to do, showing a range of 'expert' opinions, is not the answer.

All models are based on physical laws which HAVE to be obeyed. The problem is that we do not always understand the laws or the detailed way they are applied. Even economic models are based ultimately on physical laws which work through an immensely complex way to drive different human behaviours. Your statement does not in any way demonstrate that global climate models are correct within reasonable error limits. I suspect that there are a number of unknown elements that render climate models less than reliable. Sadly IA, you are misquoting me. I have not said that models are no better than a ruler. When people respond to my posts with such a serious lack of understanding of my view, it makes me reluctant to try to answer them. Such misunderstandings make communication difficult, to say the least. Let me try to lay this to rest. I made the point that I could predict warming using a graph and a ruler. And I can. Warming is a long term trend that shows clearly on even simple graphs. That is all the claim I made, and I am getting annoyed about people who accuse me from that simple statement of making claims that are ridiculous. I have asked for something very simple. I have asked for proper scientific evidence that global climate models are producing correct outcomes. To do that requires data, not opinion, or quibbles about rulers, or pointing out that models, like people can readily achieve 20:20 hindsight. Good science people!

iNow You put up a bunch of references that expressed lots of opinions. That does not impress me. You need to find something that represents objective and empirically derived data that represents good science. Mere opinion does not cut it.

Let me cut through a lot of the nonsense over the last few posts. I put up a legitimate query. If megamillion dollar computer models simulating economic change can fail so badly, why should we have faith in megamillion dollar models simulating climate change? At this point, no-one has answered that query in any manner approaching satisfactorily or convincingly. Instead, as always, I get a bunch of opinions, quibbles, and history. If you are serious about this, then look at the outcomes of those models as science. What evidence is acceptable from a scientific viewpoint? What new data is being produced by those models that can be, and has been tested using empirical methods? The reason I can ask this question, and annoy so many people, is that the answers are simply not available. We get swansont, iNow, and bascule getting irked with me - not because I have done anything wrong - but because they have no solid answers. What I want is good data. Not opinions or interpretations. Data that shows that model outcomes predict things that cannot be predicted in other ways, and do it accurately. I don't mind if the precision is not great, and I don't mind if there is a significant error factor, as long as it is quantified. But I do not want to see anything obvious, like "the world is warming". Gee, I already knew that! Show me good data, on something produced by these models, that could not have been obtained in another way.

To Mr Skeptic I can be convinced, but so far the evidence offered seems to fall within one of two categories, both most unconvincing. 1. Opinions expressed by 'experts'. 2. Historical reconstructions. As I said before, it is easy to have 20:20 hindsight, and achieve this by tweaking models, often without actually understanding why the adjustment must be made. Better evidence is to make a prediction of a novel event before the event happens, and have it prove correct. Trivial and obvious predictions do not count. Simply predicting a warming is insufficient, since I can do that with my graph and ruler, as I pointed out before. To provide a more robust example : currently Greenland is warming and the main body of Antarctica is cooling. If this were reversed, it would be an unexpected and novel event. If a model were to predict this ahead of time, against all 'common sense', it would be powerful evidence of the validity of that model.

Mr Skeptic I suggest you re-read your first paragraph. It is most unhelpful. You said : "I think that all science is based on unproven models. I've yet to see any model or law of physics that is 100% accurate and 100% precise, nor any that is given 100% confidence." There are many models that are so close to 100% accurate and precise that any difference is so trivial that it is not even worth mentioning. For example : models of planetary orbits are extraordinarily accurate and precise. They have also been tested by prediction, and novel observation to check those predictions. However, models of global climate - like economic models - have not, as far as I have seen, been so 'proven' by predictive test, and are neither accurate or precise. And their reliability remains very debatable.

Swansont When you suggest I am objecting to science, you are misrepresenting my position and promulgating a lie. I have said that I am sceptical of global climate models. And yes. It is all models. I have not seen clear cut evidence that any are truly reliable, accurate or precise. And this is not objecting to science, or even climate science. It is scepticism of climate models. If you think that an unproven model is science in its totality, it is you that needs educating. Science requires all hypotheses and models to be tested. The standard test system is to make a novel prediction based on the hypothesis or model, which is testable, and then run the test using novel experiment or observation. If any or all climate models are to become genuine science, they must pass this process. That is : They must make a novel prediction, which is tested empirically, and fail to be falsifed. Ideally, this process should be repeated several times to reduce uncertainty. Swansont, you are fully aware of this process. If you are aware of this being done for any or all climate models, please supply particulars.

Swansont I get misquoted so often by those who do like like my arguments. You are no exception. Please do not suggest that I am in any way objecting to science. Instead, I am merely pointing out flaws in a certain set of computer models. If you want to oppose my arguments, that is fine. But please do not ascribe to me opinions I do not hold and have not expressed.

big I agree with you. The whole point of my argument is that models are not particularly reliable. I have not claimed that the fundamental basis of models is wrong, and I have not claimed that anthropogenic global warming is not happening. All I have claimed is that we have no good evidence to suggest that global climate models are reliable, accurate or precise. Mr. Skeptic. Re your comments on post 38. Please re-read my earlier statements. You are so off the mark that you are firing at the wrong target.

Insane alien Let me repeat myself. The analogy of ruler and graph versus model was an exercise in irony, in order to illustrate the silliness of certain posts suggesting that predicting warming proves a model is true. Do you need me to provide a definition of irony? I am still waiting for any convincing evidence that climate models are somehow immune to the errors that creep into over-complex models that do not take into account all variables. That is : models that seek to simulate that which is not fully understood. YT has suggested that economic models fail because they cannot take into account the phenomenon of chaotic behaviour. We all know that weather is another phenomenon in which chaos plays a very big part. Is it not possible that chaos is part of climate also? If so, does not this also indicate that modelling climate is likely to be highly unreliable?

iNow We have been down this road before and you already know the names. People like Dr. Patrick Michaels, Dr. Robert Balling, Dr. Augie Auer, and many others. And to any person reading this, please do not take this as an invitation to attack those scientists and accuse them of corruption, as I have seen various people do in the past. Attacking and insulting people who hold contrary opinions to yourself is not a sign that you are a reasonable person or a good scientific thinker. Quite the contrary. Debaters who descend to those tactics reveal their true nature, and it is not pretty.

IA The idiocy came from those who implied that the fact that models predicted warming means they are right. I am poking fun at those statements by saying that my ruler is just as potent as their models. I trust that you are astute enough to see that is irony. Swansont said : "What would your prediction have been in 1988, when you didn't have a three decade baseline to use? What would happen if you retrodict with your "model"?" I would have been wrong. And so would any model set up at the time. I am not suggesting I am better than climate models, or that I know more on the subject than climate scientists. In fact, if climate scientists were all in total accord, I would slink into my corner and not debate this at all. A big factor in my thinking is based on the fact that climate scientists are not all in accord. This shows that the science is uncertain, which is what I have been saying.

I made the comment earlier that I could make predictions using a graph and a ruler. The examples of prediction from climate models that iNow and insane alien are also examples that can be predicted the same way. Temperature increase over the last 30 years averages at 0.08 C per decade, excluding short term fluctuations. I predict, with my ruler, that the world will warm, on average, by about 0.08 C over the next decade (with an error factor of plus or minus 0.03 C). Does this make me a computer model? Predictions that are just plain bloody obvious have no scientific value. For a global climate model to 'prove' itself, it needs to make an unexpected prediction and be shown to be correct.

Economics modelling is not science - true. Neither is climate modelling. Science requires predictive testing. Climate models must make predictions that are testable. Until they do, and until those predictions are tested, then there is no science.

iNow I have told you of climate models that showed serious errors before, such as 100% error in predicting sea ice loss in the Arctic. Since you ignored those points, not a lot to be gained going down that track again. I am not terribly surprised that current models track history reasonably well. The first models in the 1980's did not. However, over 25 years of tweaking to make the models track history better leads (surprise) to models that track the past a lot better. 20:20 hindsight! It is their ability to predict the future that is the clincher. So far, they are predicting nothing more than I can achieve by running a ruler up a graph. Like a good hypothesis, accurate prediction is the test. The example of Arctic sea ice was a failure at predicting. Earlier predictions of Antarctic continental warming proved to be a failure. Interesting that the true cause of the continent of Antarctic cooling is still not fully understood, in spite of several different hypotheses, yet the current models track it quite well. That does NOT come from understanding. Just from a fudge factor. If the models would predict a change in Antarctic continental land mass cooling changing its pattern, and then seeing it happen for real, that would be more impressive.

To DH As I have always said, the problem is that the models are highly complex with many unknowns. Economic models fail when some factor that has not been accounted for plays a role. Climate models likewise.

Estimating generations would be difficult and have a very big margin or error. A generation for a micro-organism can be as little as 20 minutes (bacteria in nutrient agar at 37 Celsius) up to a thousand years (slow living bacteria deep under ground). However, if we assume 10 generations in a day as an average, we can come up with a guesstimate. The first 3 billions years of life on Earth was microscopic. Thus, at 10 per day, about 11 trillion generations. The last 500 million years relates to higher organisms with much longer generation times. If we assume an average generation time of a month, we get 6 billion generations. In total about 11.5 trillion generations. Not accurate, and the plus or minus factor is massive, but it may serve to give you an idea.

Ultimately, though, both sets of models depend on the average actions of large numbers, and are treated statistically. Individual human actions cannot influence the economic models in any significant way, just as minor weather events will not affect climate models. Both sets of models are immensely complex. Should we not regard both as 'waiting to fail'?

I cannot see how we can get anywhere close to knowing the answer to that question. The human genome contains about 30,000 genes. That is : lengths of DNA that code for specific proteins. The simplest micro-organism may have had only hundreds of genes. However, that does not mean there were 30,000 mutations. It is probable that genes mutated many times over the eons that led from micro-organism to human. Thus, a lower limit would be something like 100,000 mutations, but may have been many more.

An article in New Scientist points out a problem with certain computer models. http://www.newscientist.com/channel/being-human/mg19926754.200-the-blunders-that-led-to-the-banking-crisis.html I quote : "Banks pay enormous sums to lure researchers away from other areas of science and set them to work building complex statistical models that supposedly tell the bankers about the risks they are running. So why didn't they see what was coming?" The answer given is that the models were unsuited to the type of extreme event that just happened. However, it still remains that mega-millions of dollars have been spent to create economic computer models that could guide the financial world to avoid such crashes as just happened. In spite of all the expertise and all the money invested, these models totally failed to predict exactly the event they were set up to predict. I have always expressed scepticism at the reliability, accuracy/precision of global computer models of climate. After the example of the failure of global economic models, how can anyone have confidence in global climate models?

To npts If you restrict your observations to the current Ice Age - meaning the last million years approximately, we have about 10 glacials and 10 interglacial periods. Warming leads to interglacials, and cooling to glacial periods. Over that time, the pattern of warmings has been for initial temperature increase to precede CO2 increases by about 800 years. Obviously the current (last 30 years) warming is different. Interglacial peak temperatures have been slowly rising over that million years. The last one, 120,000 years ago, reached a maximum about 2 to 3 Celsius warmer than the temperatures we are currently experiencing. If our current interglacial follows the long term trend, it will peak out at, or higher, than that.

Depends on your definition. My own definition would be to call them 'mad', but with a madness that is shared by most of the human species.

This question, like so many others, boils down to semantics. What do you mean by 'mad'? Psychological illnesses vary enormously - from mild anxiety to full blown psychosis. And each level has many different varieties. If we ask the question about someone who is 'mad', the question is meaningless, since there are so many different kinds of 'madness', and each will involve a quite different response. My own experience suggests that, in most cases, the 'mad' person will respond exactly as if he/she was quite normal. It usually takes more time with such a person to elicit their unusual behaviours.

First, my two small challenges have been defeated. Sisyphus is correct about the red light. I am sure it was a parachute flare. JohnB is close to correct. The two white lights at night were car headlights. The only thing is that they were reflected off low cloud, making it seem as though they were wide apart and moving extremely rapidly. I observed the road they were moving down the next day when the sun came up. A night later, I saw the event repeated, and with hindsight, the cause was obvious. At the time, it was a very strange observation. I am convinced in my own mind that a great many UFO sightings are simple hoaxes. I am reminded of the 'fairies at the bottom of the garden' hoax. A group of young girls, early in the 20th Century, set up drawings of fairies on cardboard, propped up at the back of a garden, and took photos with an old black and white camera. These photos were taken as 'proof' of the existence of fairies for many decades. Only when all the girls except one had died of old age did the truth come out. The survivor, who was now in her 90's, admitted the hoax. In exactly the same way, and along with hoaxes of Big Foot, Loch Ness monster, strange wheat field patterns, and other weirdnesses, hoaxes of UFO's will be common. And the thing about a hoax, is that if it is clever, it is really hard to debunk. Re Stonehenge. There is no reason to assume they did not use cranes. Ancient Roman cranes could lift 100 tonnes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loader_crane#Ancient_Roman_cranes Those cranes were made from simple materials, which the Stonehenge engineers could well have built. A group of cranes working together could have lifted even more.

To Want2know It is never necessary to assume ancient astronauts helping our ancestors. Take Stonehenge. The old Romans had cranes. They built them from timber, ropes, and pulleys, and powered them with human muscle power to lift staggeringly massive loads, including multi-tonne stones. There is no reason to believe that the Stonehenge builders could not do the same, since they had access to all the same materials that the Romans used. Just takes a smart engineering mind. If the stone is hanging from a crane, then twisting its position to align with whatever we choose is easy. Why do we value gold? Easy to explain. Gold is beautiful, does not tarnish (incorruptable) and very rare. Perfect for jewellery. And humans did not evolve rapidly. It took many millions of years to become human, after leaving the ancestral ape line. Civilisation began with the ending of the last glacial period, about 12,000 years ago. For 100,000 years before that, those living in what we now call temperate regions could not have used agriculture, and agriculture was crucial to civilisation. Thus, we see human tribes eeking out an existence until the glaciers retreated, and then developing a better way of life once the climate permitted. After that point, development was steady. We tend to measure it according to major break-throughs such as the discovery of bronze and iron - but in reality it continued at a steady slow pace throughout. And Sumeria was not the greatest civilisation. it was the first to develop writing, but that was of limited value since no paper existed then. After papyrus, development increased, and the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans created more advanced civilisations, as did the Chinese and the Indians.