The Global Warming Challenge

Solar physicists Galina Mashnich and Vladimir Bashkirtsev, of the Institute of Solar-Terrestrial Physics of the Siberian Division of the Russian Academy of Sciences, believe the climate is driven by the sun and predict global cooling will soon occur. The two scientists are so convinced that global temperatures will cool within the next decade they have placed a $10,000 wager with a UK scientist to prove their certainty. The criteria for the $10,000 bet will be to “compare global temperatures between 1998 and 2003 with those between 2012 and 2017. The loser will pay up in 2018,” according to an April 16, 2007 article in Live Science.

When the situation is complex and there is uncertainty about causal relationships, forecasting principle 6.6 dictates that forecasters should “Use few variables and simple relationships”. The opposite approach was used in the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change models, and there have been calls (1 , 2) for even more money to enable modelers to create models that are even more complex. Patrick Frank, in an article in Skeptic (2008, 14:1) titled “A climate of belief”, showed that a very simple model with CO2 as the only causal variable and using the IPCC assumptions about the direct and indirect effects of changes in atmospheric CO2 concentrations makes predictions of global average temperatures that are closer to the IPCC’s “ensemble average” of complex model forecasts than are those of any of the individual complex models. In other words, putting aside whether the forecasts are accurate or not, there is no need to have complex models in order to make those forecasts.

Frank’s simple model illustrates part of the purpose of principle 6.6; namely to aid understanding and reduce forecasting costs. We aren’t sure what the cost of the complex relative to the simple modeling efforts were but, given the number of people and computer time involved in the complex models, a ratio of 1 million to 1 is a conservative guess. Frank’s simple model is simple enough for anyone to understand. That’s a good thing, because the modeler’s assumption are clear and can be tested and disputed, and the disputation can be understood by others. This makes it easier to reject a false model and thereby to advance scientific understanding. Thus the use of simple models reduces mistakes, another purpose of the principle.

The primary purpose of many of the forecasting principles is naturally enough to improve accuracy; principle 6.6 is no exception. Frank demonstrates that the IPCC grossly under-reports the cumulative uncertainty of the model forecasts. The figure below from Frank’s article shows that, when proper allowance is made for uncertainty about the effects of clouds and greenhouse gases on global average temperatures, the complex IPCC models cannot legitimately tell us better than that the temperature change by the end of the century will be somewhere between +120-degrees-C and -120-degrees-C. It would be foolish indeed to base public policy on forecasts from such models.

Patrick Frank’s article is available from the Skeptic site.

Read this article and more at PublicPolicyForecasting.com.

Dr. Art Robinson’s Petition Project (Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine) lists over 31,000 scientists that have signed, rejecting claims of human-caused global warming. 9,021 of the scientists hold PhDs. Covered on May 16, 2008 in the National Post, “32,000 deniers“, by Lawrence Solomon features the history of the Kyoto Protocol and the Petition Project’s objective:

“E-mails started coming in every day,” he explained. “And they kept coming. “ The writers were outraged at the way Al Gore and company were abusing the science to their own ends. “We decided to do the survey again.”
Using a subset of the mailing list of American Men and Women of Science, a who’s who of Science, Robinson mailed out his solicitations through the postal service, requesting signed petitions of those who agreed that Kyoto was a danger to humanity. The response rate was extraordinary, “much, much higher than anyone expected, much higher than you’d ordinarily expect,” he explained. He’s processed more than 31,000 at this point, more than 9,000 of them with PhDs, and has another 1,000 or so to go — most of them are already posted on a Web site at petitionproject.org.
Why go to this immense effort all over again, when the press might well ignore the tens of thousands of scientists who are standing up against global warming alarmism?
“I hope the general public will become aware that there is no consensus on global warming,” he says, “and I hope that scientists who have been reluctant to speak up will now do so, knowing that they aren’t alone.”
At one level, Robinson, a PhD scientist himself, recoils at his petition. Science shouldn’t be done by poll, he explains. “The numbers shouldn’t matter. But if they want warm bodies, we have them.”

To read the full text of the petition and more about the project, please visit the Petition Project website. The site also includes the list of signers.

There are 19 forecasting principles that provide guidance on identifying, collecting, and preparing data to be used for forecasting. These principles include 3.3 Avoid biased data sources, 3.4 Use diverse sources of data, 4.1 Use unbiased and systematic procedures to collect data, 4.2 Ensure that information is reliable and that measurement error is low, 4.3 Ensure that the information is valid, 4.4 Obtain all of the important data, 4.6 Obtain the most recent data, 5.1 Clean the data, and 5.4 Adjust for unsystematic past events. While some of these principles at least may appear to be common sense, they are nevertheless often violated in practice with the consequence that forecasts are poor or even invalid. The Climate Audit site reports the findings of the often painstaking detective work required to determine whether the data used by climate scientists are consistent with these principles.

Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne announced on May 14, 2008 that he is accepting the recommendation of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dale Hall to list the polar bear as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The listing is based on the best available science, which shows that loss of sea ice threatens and will likely continue to threaten polar bear habitat. This loss of habitat puts polar bears at risk of becoming endangered in the foreseeable futures”. See the U.S. Department of the Interior website for the full announcement.

This extraordinary announcement is at odds with evidence that the polar bear population is currently thriving, and is based on false assumptions and unscientific forecasting procedures. The forthcoming Interfaces paper by Armstrong, Green, and Soon, provides evidence that the “best available science” does not support a listing.

Green and Armstrong’s paper “Global Warming: Forecasts by Scientists versus Scientific Forecasts,” found that the IPCC reached its conclusions about global warming despite the lack of a single scientific forecast. How could scientists do this? Tim Ball, an eminent climatologist, explains that the IPCC process was political rather than scientific in his article “How UN structures were designed to prove human CO2 was causing global warming.” An excerpt is available below.

The IPCC is a political organization and yet it is the sole basis of the claim of a scientific consensus on climate change. Consensus is neither a scientific fact nor important in science, but it is very important in politics. There are 2500 members in the IPCC divided between 600 in Working Group I (WGI), who examine the actual climate science, and 1900 in working Groups II and III (WG II and III), who study “Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability” and “Mitigation of Climate Change” respectively…They accept without question the findings of WGI and assume warming due to humans is a certainty. In a circular argument typical of so much climate politics the work of the 1900 is listed as ‘proof’ of human caused global warming. Through this they established the IPCC as the only credible authority thus further isolating those who raised questions.

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The Competitive Enterprise Institute presented three videos by climate and forecasting specialists. Among the three are: Dr. Joseph D’Aleo, a former meteorology professor at Lyndon State College in Vermont and the first director of meteorology at The Weather Channel; Dr. Kesten Green, of the Business and Economics Forecasting Unit at Australia’s Monash University, and: Dr. Jim O’Brien, State Climatologist of Florida and director of the Center for Ocean Atmospheric Prediction Studies.

All three videos are available at GlobalWarming.Org. Kesten Green, adviser to this website, is featured below.

Kesten Green claims that the IPCC climate models incorporate just 15% of the principles and procedures appropriate to scientific forecasting. Many IPCC scientists seem to be unaware of forecasting methodology as a scientific discipline, he adds. Instead, the Monash University specialist charges that the models’ elaborate mathematical formulas reflect the IPCC staff’s own opinions at both the input and output stages.

One senior scientist and author with the IPCC ducks the charge of unscientific methodology, according to Green, by saying the UN climate models do not constitute forecasts or predictions. However, the specific words “forecast” and “prediction” reoccur many times in IPCC reports and they’re viewed that way by the public. If the IPCC in fact hasn’t made scientific forecasts, the Australian queries, what reason is there to be worried about climate change at all?

(From DOB Magazine Online)

“Scientists and researchers in climate and related fields, economists, policymakers, and business leaders, assembled at Times Square, New York City, participating in the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change” have listed their names to endorse the Manhattan Declaration on Climate Change. View the full text of the Manhattan Declaration and endorsers by visiting the International Climate Science Coalition website.

They declare:

That current plans to restrict anthropogenic CO2 emissions are a dangerous misallocation of intellectual capital and resources that should be dedicated to solving humanity’s real and serious problems.

That there is no convincing evidence that CO2 emissions from modern industrial activity has in the past, is now, or will in the future cause catastrophic climate change.

That attempts by governments to inflict taxes and costly regulations on industry and individual citizens with the aim of reducing emissions of CO2 will pointlessly curtail the prosperity of the West and progress of developing nations without affecting climate.

That adaptation as needed is massively more cost-effective than any attempted mitigation, and that a focus on such mitigation will divert the attention and resources of governments away from addressing the real problems of their peoples.

That human-caused climate change is not a global crisis.

Michael Goldfarb’s article “The Polar Bears Are All Right” in the Weekly Standard questions the current push to have polar bears listed as a “threated species” as a policy implemented under climate change. Below is an excerpt, full text available.

Polar bears, on the other hand, are expected to see few benefits, even if the threat they face from warming is a matter of dispute. Lindzen flatly describes worry over polar bears as “gibberish.” “Polar bears are going up in number,” he says. “They’re not worried; they can swim a hundred kilometers.” The notion of threatened polar bear populations was recently challenged by J. Scott Armstrong, a professor at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. In an article for the journal Interfaces, Armstrong and his coauthors argued that a series of complex and “erroneous assumptions” undergird much of the research showing polar bears at risk, and they offer compelling evidence that the animals have survived far warmer conditions in the past.

Still there is a push to have the polar bear officially listed as a “threatened species.” Hugh Hewitt, who practices natural resources law in addition to hosting a radio show, explained in a recent column that the move would clear a path for environmentalists to “argue that every federal permit that allows directly or indirectly for increased emissions of hydrocarbons is a federal act that might impact the polar bear.” Such permits would thus be subject to a new range of environmental regulations affecting all manner of industry.

April 15, 2008

J. Scott Armstrong

I have been working on a book on persuasion for the past 14 years. Having reviewed the evidence, I concluded that rational arguments are not effective in leading people to change strongly held opinions—especially not in the short term. This intransigence is a problem, because if peoples’ opinions are at odds with the facts, they are likely to act and vote in ways that cause harm to themselves and others.

There is a solution, however, and that is to persuade oneself. In other words, in order to reduce the risk of making bad decisions each of us should identify what information would, if it existed, lead us to change our opinion about important issues—such as whether humanity is faced with a problem of dangerous manmade global warming.

My own self-persuasion journey on the topic of global warming started more than a year ago. Needing a featured talk for the International Symposium on Forecasting in June 2007, I discussed possible topics with Kesten Green. We concluded that global warming was an important issue that hinged on long-term forecasts. As it happened, Kevin Trenberth, an IPCC lead author, was a keynote speaker at the symposium. I sent him a cordial note and asked him if he would share his slides with me prior to the conference. He said “no.” This experience was repeated in my contacts with other people who warn of dangerous global warming. When I have asked for evidence, data, or published papers to support their position (such as the statement that all scientists agree that global warming will occur in the future), I have typically received either no reply or a refusal. Such behavior is strange for scientists. In contrast, global warming skeptics have been anxious to make their papers and the data available.

My review of the evidence led me to become a skeptic. Indeed, we were unable to find a single scientific forecast of global warming despite contacting over one hundred global warming advocates directly, and also issuing our request in talks, on email lists, and on web sites. We kept the global warming advocates informed of our research and asked them for suggestions and peer review. In return we received mostly silence although there were some nasty comments and some people who asked that they be removed from our mailing list.

My conclusion is that the scientific evidence clearly favors the skeptics’ position. In addition, I believe that the global warming advocates have violated many of the tenets of the scientific method; the global warming advocates say that it happens on both sides, but that has not been my observation.

So I have made a decision based on the evidence that I needed to convince me. In addition, in our papers, we have also described the information that would change our minds yet again—in effect, proper forecasts would convince us. We are hoping to do some of this forecasting ourselves, but it is costly and so far we have not obtained funding. Our two papers to date (available at http://publicpolicyforecasting.com) have been written with no funding.

The problem is essentially a forecasting problem. Those who are forecasting global warming have demonstrated little knowledge of how to forecast. This is unfortunate as there have been many useful (and often surprising) findings from the research on forecasting that have been published, especially over the past half century. Moreover, global warming advocates tend to become upset when the research findings are pointed out and they claim that different principles apply to them. We have replied by asking them to tell us which principles differ and to provide the evidence for their assertions. They seldom reply, and when they do, they do not provide evidence; at least, not yet.