Not very often, it isn’t.
Typical FX nonsense post. It never ends: provide out-of-context quotes with no explanation which, taken at face value without context or understanding, lead to entirely incorrect conclusions. I assume this is the intent because all the quotes are all uniquely about the alleged failures of climate models, but such a broad conclusion would reflect a basic lack of understanding of what models do and how they are used. More importantly, it completely ignores the whole point of the article. Facts, you see. Facts require context and understanding, as was already said in this thread by the poster himself, the one who provided the quotes without any context, explanation, or understanding. Irony indeed.
Climate models work well at projecting global forced variations like the global energy balance and global temperature under given emissions scenarios over decadal timescales. They don’t generally do well at fine levels of grid resolution for many reasons, some of which are explained in the article, although they’ve improved substantially in that respect since the article was written. Some regional models do, but they have entirely different purposes. Global models may also not do well on climate aspects that have discontinuities or extreme non-linearites, like circulation changes or the hydrological cycle. The article is a plea for the importance of continuing research in these areas. And the research is important for the reason stated near the end:
A consensus has emerged that “warming of the climate system is unequivocal” … and the science is convincing that humans are the cause. Hence mitigation of the problem: stopping or slowing greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere is essential. The science is clear in this respect.
… We will adapt to climate change. The question is whether it will be planned or not. How disruptive and how much loss of life will there be because we did not adequately plan for the climate changes that are already occurring?
We very likely will adapt to climate change, but the article is certainly right that the longer we procrastinate and continue to deny the basic statements that were just made above, the more damage, disruption, and loss of life there will be. Posting out-of-context quotes to try to imply that we don’t know enough about the problem to be actionable (because climate models don’t work, or something) is not helpful.
None of the models used by IPCC are initialized to the observed state and none of the climate states in the models correspond even remotely to the current observed climate. In particular, the state of the oceans, sea ice, and soil moisture has no relationship to the observed state at any recent time in any of the IPCC models. There is neither an El Niño sequence nor any Pacific
http://blogs.nature.com/climatefeedback/2007/06/predictions_of_climate.html
That was in 2007. Since then the model projections have become completely out of step with observed conditions, in all kinds of ways. Most notably the observed trends noted extensively by Cohen and others. These are facts.
They won’t matter of course.
The key there is “regional” and that is weather, not climate.
And speaking of leaving important quotes out:
In fact many times it was pointed out that the resolution climate models had has only recently increased enough to deal now with those regional concerns.
As pointed before, People like Cohen are just figuring out how this piece of the puzzle of the pole and mid latitude weather in a warming world is going to land next to the many other items that experts do think we will likely face in the near and far future.
The few scientists FX can point at as supporting his idea are not in reality in favor of what he is trying to by undermining past theories or that a new theory for polar and mid latitude weather means that the theories that he hates are discredited. Cohen and researchers that do work with him like Jennifer Francis do not think so:
(In the video here Jennifer Francis that worked with Cohen uses the data from scientists like Mann and others that FX has called them "nobodies" in the past. Yet it matters to people like Cohen and Francis)The only “fact” that is evident here is that you clearly have no idea how climate models work. Global climate models are used to study climate response under any desired set of conditions and scenarios. They’re initialized to whatever initial conditions are desired for the variables that they model. They don’t “become out of step” with anything. I have a GCM right here on my desktop and it can be initialized with a comprehensive observations database, or else with half a dozen other kinds of initialization files. It also takes as input boundary condition definition files for topography, vegetation, and radiation, definition files for ocean models, for forcings of CO2 and four other greenhouse gases, solar luminosity and orbital parameters, and trend settings for all of the preceding forcings by various factors or numerically from a data file. Its input database is absolutely huge, and it’s a fairly simple model.
The article is talking about the issues of modeling regional phenomena either with GCMs or with RCMs, it amounts to the same thing. I already said that GCMs have been weak at modeling regional changes, but they’re getting better with increases in computer power. A GCM used to typically operate on grids 200 km per side which gave it very poor “vision” for climate phenomena on relatively small scales, like the polar jets and precipitation changes Cohen was looking at. This is where the article says we need more work, and we do. Precisely because climate change is so important and we need better spatial accuracy to predict regional impacts. But your [mis]interpretation of Cohen was thoroughly discredited in the other thread; it’s laughably wrong and you don’t do yourself any favors by continually bringing it up and trying to imply that not only do models not work, but the greenhouse gas theory is wrong. It’s a lot like your “water vapor isn’t a feedback” meme. That ship has sailed, the train has left the station, Elvis has left the building, and the horse you’re flogging is dead. Give it up.
When it comes to measuring the average temperature, and plotting data as an anomaly to the mean, it’s pretty self evident. You can see it in the sat data for sea ice extent, and you can see it for global average temperatures. (if you assume none of the measurement s are accurate, then we have nothing at all to work with)
Global land temps show the warming signal for boreal summer.
Most people can look at a data plot and see the warming, it’s a fact based situation.
They can check BEST and see it It’s obvious.
Same for looking at the coldest part of the NH winters (boreal winter)
It shows up globally, and it certainly shows up looking at just the NH data. These are obvious facts. What it “means” can be argued, or denied, or anything really. But sometimes something actually is obvious.
Unlike a fact based presentation of actual data, an opinion is worthless for arguing. People who agree with you will applaud, throw popcorn and laugh, but it is worthless for changing anything.
This is true for everyone. It’s why facts don’t matter.
I think truth is self evident but people misunderstand the nature of truth because of language. Truth is usually a simple concept stated simply. It is factual and logically organized to apply to a loimited set of concepts or objects.
Where it fails is that “truth” always applies only from a given perspective. This perspective can be broad in four dimensions or very narrow in any.
The problem with “truth” isn’t that it doesn’t exist but that it can’t be stated in our languages.
With all due respect, why should I accept this as true, given that you wrote it using language?
The contention is that it can be true from some perspective not that it is the “truth”. Within the confines of logic and my definition of the words it is true to my knowledge and from my perspective.
Your results may vary and you may have no reason to even accept my definition of terms. But the fact is many people do see truth in statements and sometimes great truth. I find most of these quite “truthful”;
Your mileage may vary.
In order for many people to percieve truth there must be some meaning that stands up to logic and known science so why not mine?
But you just said that truth can’t be stated in language. Now you’re pointing to truths that are stated in language.
You aren’t making a lot of sense, at least in English.
- Glancing through those, I have my doubts as to their origin in “ancient Egypt”, but
- If you are willing to buy that this website has gotten them all down accurately, then pay attention to their page on ancient Egyptian beliefs about religion and the afterlife.
I have some doubt as well about their legitimacy, authenticity, and translation. I can accept them at face value conditionally.
At the risk of taking the topic off track, I believe Egyptian “beliefs” were transformed at some point and this change is invisible to us.
It depennds on your perspective. Even tautologies are false from some perspectives and one plus one doesn’t always equal two since one female and one male can equal to three.
My contention is nothing can be said that is true from all angles and perspectives. If this statement is untrue from your perspective then it wouldn’t have to be surprising.
It’s not. Many atrocities have been committed in a sincere belief that they were truly done for what was truly good.
Truth
Now that would be a fantastic Great Debate topic.
It is not really so much off topic as it is a very good example of what we are talking about.
Thing is that it could be true. 
IMHO what it needs to be done is to get a lot of those angles and perspectives right.
This talk of angles and perspectives reminded me of science writer Peter Hadfield, he made once the point (applied to human induced climate change) that a similar progress in the understanding of an issue happens regarding how true maps are in cartography through the ages.
He then showed many maps from the past that did draw the American continent with many areas that were incomplete or just plain wrong, however maps got better and while one should not give old maps their complete trust, it is clear that after a certain time a lot of the shapes and general placement of features in the map of the Americas are agreed upon or are accurate and closer to their true shape, it is true that even modern maps are not going to be 100% accurate but it is clear that nowadays not relying on them in the vast majority of occasions would be unwise.
The point here is that there could be people that would trust a map in their possession that tells them “here there be dragons”, and it could be that it is useful enough for the place the owner lives in. But eventually it (and the owner that does think that the old map is the truth) has to be tested against reality and against other people that will have an advantage of having more up to date maps or guides.
That Lamberts blog post is truly scary, the way I’m sure FXMastermind meant it to be.
It just convinces me even more that the world is out of its mind.
Don’t you know, you must NEVER EVER try to persuade anyone by drowning them out with opinions? You must always ALWAYS try to persuade people with facts; that is the only good way. The other way is evil, not just some minor part of evil, that’s one of the fundamental definitions of evil. Forcing opinions down someone’s throat and foregoing the process of proper persuasion is tyranny. Why is tyranny wrong?
Tyranny is rule by might and NOT rule by right.
All civilizations have as their backbone the rule by right, even if that road to righteousness is really fucked up with some religious nonsense. In this game, you get a lot of points for trying. All the laws and all the constitutions in all the empires and all the nation-states and all the long forgotten tribes that have ever been passed down in the history of mankind, even though I haven’t read the vast majority of them, represent attempts to persuade people to do something by dint of fact, and as such, are conscious efforts to stave off attempts to persuade people by force. No matter how silly, no matter how wrongheaded or corrupt, laws are written to fight tyranny.
If you can get someone to do something by screaming at them, why bother with law? Why bother with justice?
Tyranny is one of the essential aspects of injustice, and therefore of evil too.
Man, the minute everyone thinks it’s OK to drown out other people with their own opinions, that’s when the world really will end.
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I think an important thing got missed somehow. The blog post is from Kevin E. Trenberth, it was posted by somebody else, for him. His name is at the bottom of the post.
See? He was calling a link and quotes from Kevin E. Trenberth “nonsense”.
It’s from Kevin E. Trenberth.
Maybe, but Trenberth is pretty direct about what he is saying about the IPCC.
I tend to agree with much of his scientific criticisms of the current state of the science.
He is sort of wrong about the predictions, because at some point they changed the wording to “projections”, rather than prediciting anything at all.
In any case, the prediction that a billion people would run out of water by 2035, stated in the 2007 report, turned out to be total crap. It wasn’t even based on science. It’s a good reason to be skeptical about extreme claims about the future.
Nope, that is really bullshit, what the IPCC reported was that:
https://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg2/en/ch3s3-5-1.html
There is a lot of deniers out there using that billion number, the IPCC referred to the number of people that are likely to live under an increased risk of water stress, not that will run put of water. The report then points that storing the water on the increased runoff on rainy seasons can be a solution, but of course there are countries and companies that are looking to not help pay for the cost of being prepared, or that have many in their governments that deny that there is a problem.