Is global warming falsifiable?

[FXMastermind]

@Kimstu

the energy-balance and radiative-convective basics of all these models are pretty much indisputable

The problem with that, is it doesn’t actually mean anything. He described the “basics” by using “energy-balance and radiative-convective basics”, which is meaningless, especially so since the dispute is over NH winter predictions.

All the models predict the most warming in the boreal winters. That’s a basic fact, noted several times by Cohen et al

It’s exactly why the papers and theories about the trend not being like that are even published. Those who are still standing around saying “well, we don’t know if the winters will continue to warm, or this colder trend will continue”, that is exactly what is wrong with the supposed consensus.

Anybody can say that. Just as anyone can predict “climate change will make it get warmer in the winters, some places, but colder other places, but we can’t say what will happen”, or “extreme will become more extreme”. These are meaningless claims.

[GIGObuster]

@FXMastermind

So there will be some implications.

Just try and show that prediction is wrong, I bet you can’t do it.

So, as the scientists at NASA/GISS are not coming forward to support you I would expect that that you will publish to show the error of their ways and gain accolades.

Not holding my breath for that one. ANd I’m not expecting that FX will deal with his complete failure at finding anyone from NASA/GISS that ignores the three other seasons.

[Kimstu]

@FXMastermind

For example, from the 2013 TS

TS.5.8.5 Annular and Dipolar Modes of Variability
Future boreal wintertime North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO is very likely
to exhibit large natural variations as observed in the past. The NAO is
likely to become slightly more positive (on average), with some, but not
very well documented implications for winter conditions in the Arctic,
North America and Eurasia

[…] that means the NH winters for some places might get warmer, but the implications for the NH high latitudes is … something. It might get warmer, or it might not.

Pssst: already covered in post #394:

@Kimstu

That summary explicitly states that regional winter trends are not conclusively determined by climate models. E.g., this discussion on p. 108:

Future boreal wintertime North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO is very likely to exhibit large natural variations as observed in the past. The NAO is likely to become slightly more positive (on average), with some, but not very well documented implications for winter conditions in the Arctic, North America and Eurasia.

In other words, the models as they currently stand indicate that AGW is likely to encourage a positive trend in boreal wintertime NAO, which is likely to be associated with warmer wetter winters, but nowhere is it claimed that the theory definitively or conclusively predicts such a result.

Emphasis subtracted. And since you seem a bit puzzled about the “implications” referred to, they’re discussed in more detail in the report itself, particularly Section 11.3.2. Note particularly the caveat about the projected NAO increase on p. 988:

However, there are reasons to be cautious over these near-term projections. Although models simulate the broad features of the large-scale circulation well, there remain quite significant biases in many models (see Sections 9.4.1.4.3 and 9.5.3.2). The response of the NH circulation can be sensitive to small changes in model formulation (Sigmond et al., 2007), and to features that are known to be poorly simulated in many climate models.

@FXMastermind

The austral summer/autumn positive trend
in Southern Annular Mode (SAM) is likely to weaken considerably as
stratospheric ozone recovers through the mid-21st century with some,
but not very well documented, implications for South America, Africa,
Australia, New Zealand and Antarctica.

Just try and show that prediction is wrong, I bet you can’t do it.

It’s not a “prediction” in the sense that you’re trying to imply. You keep thinking of “scientific prediction” in a sort of formal textbook sense, where the assumptions of a mature deterministic theory like, say, the theory of gravity definitively imply a very specific result. And if that result doesn’t occur, then we have conclusively shown that that deterministic theory is incomplete or wrong.

But that’s not how scientific theories about complex nondeterministic systems like climate work. You can’t just pick a particular single weather event or even a short-term series of weather events and say “What does AGW theory predict these events will be?” There are implications and likelihoods: there are not deterministic predictions.

And the more specific and restricted you choose your “test phenomena” to be, the farther away you’ll be from getting any hard-and-fast deterministic prediction for them out of the theory.
Which makes the OP’s query “Is global warming falsifiable?” an excellent and interesting question. And the answer is “Yes, but not by testing it against ‘predictions’ of specific weather events.”

So your complaint about the IPCC “projections” never seeming to come right out with a clearly testable “prediction” for any of the very restricted sets of observed data you want to use to “test” them is really just a reflection of your own misunderstanding of the basics of scientific theories of nondeterministic systems.

If you want to know what kind of phenomena we could validly look at to get a strongly testable prediction for falsifying the theory of AGW, why don’t you ask wolfpup to help you identify one? He clearly knows a lot about the science.

[Kimstu]

@FXMastermind

All the models predict the most warming in the boreal winters.

No. No, they do not. As I noted above, this simply reflects your misunderstanding of the concept of “prediction” in this context.

@FXMastermind

That’s a basic fact, noted several times by Cohen et al

But you did not understand what they were talking about. Let’s look at their remarks in more detail in Cohen et al. 2012:

Abstract:

The most up to date consensus from global climate models predicts warming in the Northern Hemisphere (NH) high latitudes to middle latitudes during boreal winter. However, recent trends in observed NH winter surface temperatures diverge from these projections.

Gosh, that certainly sounds like an incorrect prediction falsifying a theory, doesn’t it? Ha-ha, we’ve got those weaselly IPCC scientists now, surely!

Well, no. This is the problem with just reading and quoting snippets of abstracts, which inevitably oversimplify the article findings. Let’s see what Cohen et al. were specifically referring to when they said that the “consensus” of the “models” predicts NH warming during boreal winter:

Coupled climate models attribute much of this warming to rapid increases in greenhouse gases (GHGs) and project the strongest warming across the extratropical NH during boreal winter due to ‘winter (or Arctic) amplification’ (Holland and Bitz 2003, Hansen and Nazarenko 2004, Alexeev et al 2005, Langen and Alexeev 2007).

But these are the exact same models (in addition to some others) that the IPCC report means when it points out that

[…] there are reasons to be cautious over these near-term projections. Although models simulate the broad features of the large-scale circulation well, there remain quite significant biases in many models (see Sections 9.4.1.4.3 and 9.5.3.2). The response of the NH circulation can be sensitive to small changes in model formulation (Sigmond et al., 2007), and to features that are known to be poorly simulated in many climate models.

What Cohen et al. 2012 did was not to “contradict” or “undermine” AGW theory, but simply to point out and attempt to explain a particular consequence of biases and flaws in certain models that researchers in general already knew about.

@FXMastermind

Just as anyone can predict “climate change will make it get warmer in the winters, some places, but colder other places, but we can’t say what will happen”, or “extreme will become more extreme”. These are meaningless claims.

Welcome to the physics of nondeterministic systems. I can tell you’re not going to like it here.

[FXMastermind]

@Kimstu

This is the problem with just reading and quoting snippets of abstracts, which inevitably oversimplify the article findings.

No, and since I’ve linked to the entire paper multiple times, as well as quoted extensively about all these issues, and more, that is a little bit disingenuous.

I plainly stated no models, nor the theory, predict cooling for the boreal winters, based on greenhouse forcing.

Since no climate model either models/explains the observed behavior of the complex system, Cohen et al, among others, is researching this, proposing theory, looking for knowledge about it.

You still haven’t produced a shred of evidence for your claims. Not that I expected any.

While it veers slightly off topic, it’s worth noting some things, in regards to some popular myths.

@Trinopus

I have pen-pals who still say, “This last winter saw heavy snowfall in Chicago, so I guess global warming is debunked.”

If that was actually true, and once in twenty years there was an unusual heavy snowfall, or even a very cold winter, then certainly it’s either humor or stupid to claim weather is climate. (ignore that a heat wave is used in exactly that way by alarmists)

But in the case of Chicago, or Atlanta, or a large area of the US, there actually is no warming. Of course this generates only frantic handwaving and goal posts are pulled up and put on trucks. By non scientists that is.

@Trinopus

Well…we just came out of a record-breaking hot summer, here in California, so, by their standards, global warming is proven! !

If it was just one summer, of course that is nonsense of the most stinky sort. It’s why climate is long term, not just one season, or an anomaly year.

@Trinopus

The key difference is that I know that a single data-point is a really poor basis for demonstrating a trend, so I wouldn’t use such a weak argument! The other guys never seem to get tired of it.

Since nobody in this topic is arguing that, it’s a strawman, and useless.

@Trinopus

Really cold in Chicago? Yeah…and bloody damn hot in Australia. What part of “average” don’t they get?

OK that is a really bad idea, since the global average, an almost meaningless figure at times, isn’t rising, even with record heat (maybe) in one part of one country.

It’s exactly that focus on “the annual global mean” as some sort of metric for climate change that has come back to bite the predictions, and hard. In the sensitive parts.

Now that you can’t point to that as an indicator, along with a huge increase in sea ice, massive snowfalls, and a bunch of other impossible to ignore shit, the scare over global warming is really having a hard time.

[GIGObuster]

@FXMastermind

But in the case of Chicago, or Atlanta, or a large area of the US, there actually is no warming. Of course this generates only frantic handwaving and goal posts are pulled up and put on trucks. By non scientists that is.

[snip]…

OK that is a really bad idea, since the global average, an almost meaningless figure at times, isn’t rising, even with record heat (maybe) in one part of one country.

It’s exactly that focus on “the annual global mean” as some sort of metric for climate change that has come back to bite the predictions, and hard. In the sensitive parts.

Now that you can’t point to that as an indicator, along with a huge increase in sea ice, massive snowfalls, and a bunch of other impossible to ignore shit, the scare over global warming is really having a hard time.

Nah, it is the denier sources the ones that are not being taken seriously. The global average continues to rise, the truth is that scientists do the proper thing and do look at the long trend, not just the last few years and they do look at the oceans, that last I checked are still part of the global picture.

2014 on Track to Be Hottest Year on Record

Just days after NASA data showed that August 2014 was the warmest August on record, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration confirmed the ranking and raised the ante: There’s a good chance 2014 could become the warmest year on record.

“If we continue a consistent departure from average for the rest of 2014, we will edge out 2010 as the warmest year on record,” said Jake Crouch, a climatologist with NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center, during a press briefing Thursday.

Specifically, if each of the remaining months of the year ranks among the top five warmest, 2014 will take the top spot, he said.

The news may come as a surprise to those living in the eastern portion of the U.S., which has seen a relatively cool year so far, with a frigid winter followed by a near-average summer (which seemed extremely mild compared to recent steamy summers). But the global picture shows that the East was “pretty much the only land area in the globe that had cooler-than-average temperatures,” Crouch said. (The western U.S., on the other hand, has been baking.)

For the year-to-date, the globe has measured 1.22°F above the 20th century average of 57.3°F, which makes January-August 2014 the third warmest such period since records began in 1880. The record-hot August marks the 38th consecutive August and the 354th consecutive month with a global average temperature above the 20th century average, according to the NCDC.

The Bad Astronomer - Phil Plait already explained also the ice in the poles misrepresentation too.

[Kimstu]

@FXMastermind

No, and since I’ve linked to the entire paper multiple times, as well as quoted extensively about all these issues, and more, that is a little bit disingenuous.

I never said you didn’t link to the paper. What I said is that it’s clear you don’t understand what the paper’s saying. And your most recent posts just make that all the more evident.

[QUOTE=FXMastermind]

I plainly stated no models, nor the theory, predict cooling for the boreal winters, based on greenhouse forcing.

[/quote]

And that’s because the models don’t make “predictions” about specific series of weather events of the sort you’re trying to claim. I explained this in my most recent posts.

@FXMastermind

You still haven’t produced a shred of evidence for your claims.

Yes, I have, as per the links in the previous two posts: the problem is that you don’t understand what evidence means in this context.

You keep trying to force climate science theory into a simple deterministic roll-the-ball-down-the-inclined-plane-and-predict-how-long-it-will-take-to-fall paradigm, and complaining that you can’t get a straight answer for the predicted number of seconds. But models of nondeterministic systems just don’t work that way.

[FXMastermind]

It’s unlikely that your argument, which consist of either making something up, or stating something that is impossible for you to support with evidence, is going to sway anyone.

@Kimstu

The trouble with your arguments, FXMastermind, is that you have read some oversimplified popular science journalism

That is illogical, and of course there is no way for you, or anyone, including myself, to prove it is true. It’s what makes it a useless argument.

@Kimstu

you have read … a few snippets of abstracts and conclusions of a few research papers,

Once more, you are just making that up. Not only do you zero evidence, it’s actually impossible to support that with any evidence at all.

@Kimstu

The trouble with your arguments … and jumped from that to a bunch of wholly unjustified conclusions about the state of the science as a whole.

And again, that’s just rhetoric, and it’s a fallacy. It doesn’t mean anything in a science debate.

[Kimstu]

@FXMastermind

It’s unlikely that your argument […] is going to sway anyone.

This is the fundamental problem with your approach to this whole debate: your real focus is not on understanding or explaining the actual science, but just on sounding “sciencey” enough about it to “sway” other ill-informed readers.

You are not going to give up your mistaken and irrelevant insistence on specific “predictions” about specific weather patterns, because you think it makes you sound sciencey and impressive to demand narrowly focused predictions and then jeer at the theory for not providing them.

[SmartAlecCat]

The theory is the only explanation we have that fits the facts.

The models keep getting improved and refined to better fit the observations.

To falsify the theory, you’d have to come up with some other explanation (a better explanation) that better fits the facts.

Saying “It must be a hoax.” is not an alternative theory that fits the facts.

[Kimstu]

@SmartAlecCat

To falsify the theory, you’d have to come up with some other explanation (a better explanation) that better fits the facts.

Exactly. And the thing about nondeterministic systems is that there are a lot of facts that no theory is ever going to fit, such as a period of N unusually cold winters in region Y. No prediction of specific narrowly selected phenomena is going to be better than guesswork.

No matter how good climate models get, there’s always going to be an infinite amount of observed data that the models are wrong or inconclusive about, because nondeterministic effects have unpredictability built in.

The people most at fault for spreading misinformation about this IMO, besides the actual deniers and conceited ignoramuses, are the journalists who can’t seem to resist writing headlines like “Hottest April on record attributed to global warming” and the like. Nope, no individual weather event, no matter how extreme, can be directly attributed to global warming. They’re all just perturbations in the flow.

[Budget_Player_Cadet]

@Kimstu

This is the fundamental problem with your approach to this whole debate: your real focus is not on understanding or explaining the actual science, but just on sounding “sciencey” enough about it to “sway” other ill-informed readers.

Yes, and I daresay he’d be better off doing it on virtually any other forum. Dunno if he noticed how few takers he’s getting here.

[FXMastermind]

@Kimstu

What is meant by “the fundamental principles of AGW”?

Well, my own candidate for an accessible description of the science in answer to that would be the Technical Summary of the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report on Climate Change.

Got a problem with that? And if so, what?

@FXMastermind

And once again, you and wolfpup avoid answering direct questions about the topic at hand, the theory of global warming.

@Kimstu

And I gave you a straightforward answer

No, and in fact you did exactly what I said happens, when you ask a straight question about the theory, or the basics of the theory.

@FXMastermind

So unless we can know with certainty, with a scientific understanding, what is meant by “the fundamental principles of AGW”, it’s impossible to resolve this.

And this is where the OP has nailed it. In science, a question like this, “what exactly do you mean by your statement?” is followed by a lengthy scientific explanation, with sources and documentation, if it’s scientific, this is easy to do.

Anything else, and you know you are up against some woo woo or religious beliefs, something, but not science.

This goes double if all you get is a link to some enormous web site, no direct link of course, with the demand you go and read all of it.

Instead of clearly stating, in your own words, your understanding of the basics, the fundamentals, in regards to the topic under debate, you link to an enormous IPCC report, that does not even contain the term, much less is a discussion of the basic science.

Obviously this was no surprise, since I actually described what would happen in advance.

@FXMastermind

There you go again, you keep using a term, but you refuse to define it, explain what you mean, or provide a single source to support you definition. But then, you didn’t provide any definition.

So you want to keep debating a topic, but you don’t know what the subject of the topic means.

And this is where the OP has nailed it. In science, a question like this, “what exactly do you mean by your statement?” is followed by a lengthy scientific explanation, with sources and documentation, if it’s scientific, this is easy to do.

If it is not science, or the participants are not knowledgeable on the topic, you get instead, excuses, avoidance, and of course just a link to a huge document, which isn’t about the theory at all.

Priceless.

[GIGObuster]

@FXMastermind

Instead of clearly stating, in your own words, your understanding of the basics, the fundamentals, in regards to the topic under debate, you link to an enormous IPCC report, that does not even contain the term, much less is a discussion of the basic science.

No, what it is not a surprise is that this very silly idea is still pushed by FX.

As pointed before the non use of an specific term does not mean that the subject is not being talked about. It is exactly the same as a fan of Mystery Science 3000 claiming that because there was no riff, or joke about Battle star Galactica in the movie “Space Mutiny” (Footage of the original Battle Star Galactica was reused in a B movie production) that therefore the classic episode of MST3K that ripped that movie apart was the “worse episode ever”.

[GIGObuster]

And of course as NASA has already made reference for the terms as they are understood nowadays, the demands of FX are just a classic tactic of demanding an opponent to explain in their own words only with the idea to reinvent the wheel and nitpick the opponent with his/her shortcomings, the purpose is precisely to not deal with and to wilfully ignore what the experts are reporting. It is just stalling to keep ignorance afloat.

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/climate_by_any_other_name.html

To a scientist, global warming describes the average global surface temperature increase from human emissions of greenhouse gases.

Within scientific journals, this is still how the two terms are used. Global warming refers to surface temperature increases, while climate change includes global warming and everything else that increasing greenhouse gas amounts will affect.

During the late 1980s one more term entered the lexicon, “global change.” This term encompassed many other kinds of change in addition to climate change. When it was approved in 1989, the U.S. climate research program was embedded as a theme area within the U.S. Global Change Research Program.

But global warming became the dominant popular term in June 1988, when NASA scientist James E. Hansen had testified to Congress about climate, specifically referring to global warming. He said: "global warming has reached a level such that we can ascribe with a high degree of confidence a cause and effect relationship between the greenhouse effect and the observed warming."4 Hansen’s testimony was very widely reported in popular and business media, and after that popular use of the term global warming exploded. Global change never gained traction in either the scientific literature or the popular media.

But temperature change itself isn’t the most severe effect of changing climate. Changes to precipitation patterns and sea level are likely to have much greater human impact than the higher temperatures alone. For this reason, scientific research on climate change encompasses far more than surface temperature change. So “global climate change” is the more scientifically accurate term. Like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, we’ve chosen to emphasize global climate change on this website, and not global warming.

[FXMastermind]

@GIGObuster

And of course as NASA has already made reference for the terms as they are understood nowadays

More avoidance. When somebody uses a term (that appears nowhere else), and you ask them what they mean, and the avoid just telling you, it isn’t science.

@Kimstu

What is meant by “the fundamental principles of AGW”?

Well, my own candidate for an accessible description of the science in answer to that would be the Technical Summary of the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report on Climate Change.

The question was not asked, “What do you mean by the accessible description of the IPCC science?”, it was in regard to a claim made by wolfpup, which I clearly quoted.

During a debate, if you make a claim, especially when you say “You have not shown” before the claim, and you refuse to state what you mean, it’s obfuscation.

My claims are from the IPCC, which makes this latest avoidance

Priceless.

[GIGObuster]

@FXMastermind

More avoidance. When somebody uses a term (that appears nowhere else), and you ask them what they mean, and the avoid just telling you, it isn’t science.

Why, I guess FX just admitted that he avoided himself, never mind that he himself pointed at those definitions in this thread.

@FXMastermind

The question was not asked, “What do you mean by the accessible description of the IPCC science?”, it was in regard to a claim made by wolfpup, which I clearly quoted.

During a debate, if you make a claim, especially when you say “You have not shown” before the claim, and you refuse to state what you mean, it’s obfuscation.

My claims are from the IPCC, which makes this latest avoidance

Priceless.

And the point stands, the idea of complaining about the specific words you want as not being in a report by experts is a very silly one. The avoidance is done by not wanting to read why the scientists are concerned about this issue and it will not be falsified by just screaming “worst episode ever”

[FXMastermind]

@Kimstu

That is, the theory of AGW does not extend to predicting circulation perturbations like which winters in a particular geographical region are going to be severe and which are going to be mild.

Goal post shifting. The question is about what DOES the theory predict, because unless it predicts anything (other than ‘it gets warmer’), it’s not a theory, much less a scientific issue.

[FXMastermind]

@wolfpup

Modern science proceeds by evidence-based methodology, and if one is going to challenge an established body of evidence then one had better have a correspondingly persuasive body of evidence of one’s own, proportional to the body of knowledge that one is trying to contradict.

Assuming for the sake of argument, that such a claim is actually true, then asking the person claiming something, to explain what they mean by “an established body of evidence”, and more importantly, what that evidence means in regards to the theory being claimed, is fundamental science. Not answering, or worse, trying to sidetrack and obscure the matter, is something else completely.

@wolfpup

If you can do that on a big enough issue, you’re in line for the Nobel Prize.

The issue is global warming theory. It’d not that complicated.

@wolfpup

If you can’t, then you’re just a babbling fraud.

I would agree, except the fraud would be the person who won’t, or can’t, clearly state what it is that they claim is true.

“Despite appearing as part of a natural climate oscillation, the large increases in wintertime surface temperatures over the continents may therefore be attributable in large part to human activities,” Dr. Shindell said. “The impact of greenhouse gases on climate through surface wind changes may be as large as, or in some areas larger than, the more direct impact of global warming.”

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/pr/96_99/19554.html

If the NH winters were still warming, this discussion would be far different. It’s that things changed, and quite a bit, that makes it a debate.

[GIGObuster]

@FXMastermind

Goal post shifting. The question is about what DOES the theory predict, because unless it predicts anything (other than ‘it gets warmer’), it’s not a theory, much less a scientific issue.

No, the point Kimstu made is clear, the real goal post change was made by you by continuously going over the cliff like Elmer Fudd by not stopping to ponder with the erroneous view that cold weather in an area = no global warming due to human activity. There are other issues that they did consider more likely happen as a result of humans releasing global warming gases and post #4 showed scientists have found evidence for several of the predictions made early.

You are just beginning to notice like Elmer that there is no ground under you.