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Wednesday, September 05, 2007

AGW Model Sanity Check

I'm particularly annoyed that the climate models being used to support global warming estimates aren't being made available for general consumption. There's many good "Sanity Check" questions that I'd like answered. Here’s a good question posed by Kurt Cogswell, Head of the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at South Dakota State University:
[Have] any of the models Gore tells us about ever predicted that the world will cool dramatically at some point? That has been the pattern for more than a million years whenever the earth has gotten anywhere near as hot as it is now. The magnitude of the new CO2 source, human activity, is not of sufficient size to override this repeatedly observed cooling phenomenon. If that is never predicted by these models then they are incomplete in a serious way and there usefulness as long-term predictors has to be questioned. That’s not a political issue, that’s a data-driven mathematical modeling issue.
Cogswell's views are further elaborated in a speech by Freeman Dyson:

The first of my heresies says that all the fluff about global warming is grossly exaggerated. Here I am opposing the holy brotherhood of twilight model experts and the crowd of diluted citizens that believe the numbers predicted by their models. Of course they say I have no degree in meteorology and I am therefore not qualified to speak.

But I have studied their climate models and know what they can do. The models solve the equations of fluid dynamics and do a very good job of describing the fluid motions of the atmosphere and the oceans. They do a very poor job of describing the clouds, the dust, the chemistry and the biology of fields, farms and forests. They do not begin to describe the real world that we live in.

The real world is muddy and messy and full of things that we do not yet understand. It is much easier for a scientist to sit in an air-conditioned building and run computer models than to put on winter clothes and measure what is really happening outside in the swamps and the clouds. That's why the climate model experts end up believing their own models.

There's no doubt that parts of the world are getting warmer, but the warming is not global. The warming happens in places and times where it is cold, in the arctic more than the tropics, in the winter more than the summer, at night more than the daytime.

I'm not saying the warming doesn't cause problems, obviously it does. Obviously we should be trying to understand it. I'm saying that the problems are being grossly exaggerated. They take away money and attention from other problems that are much more urgent and important. Poverty, infectious diseases, public education and public health. Not to mention the preservation of living creatures on land and in the oceans.

The first of my heresies says that all the fluff about global warming is grossly exaggerated. Here I am opposing the holy brotherhood of twilight model experts and the crowd of diluted citizens that believe the numbers predicted by their models. Of course they say I have no degree in meteorology and I am therefore not qualified to speak.

But I have studied their climate models and know what they can do. The models solve the equations of fluid dynamics and do a very good job of describing the fluid motions of the atmosphere and the oceans. They do a very poor job of describing the clouds, the dust, the chemistry and the biology of fields, farms and forests. They do not begin to describe the real world that we live in.

The real world is muddy and messy and full of things that we do not yet understand. It is much easier for a scientist to sit in an air-conditioned building and run computer models than to put on winter clothes and measure what is really happening outside in the swamps and the clouds. That's why the climate model experts end up believing their own models.

There's no doubt that parts of the world are getting warmer, but the warming is not global. The warming happens in places and times where it is cold, in the arctic more than the tropics, in the winter more than the summer, at night more than the daytime.

I'm not saying the warming doesn't cause problems, obviously it does. Obviously we should be trying to understand it. I'm saying that the problems are being grossly exaggerated. They take away money and attention from other problems that are much more urgent and important. Poverty, infectious diseases, public education and public health. Not to mention the preservation of living creatures on land and in the oceans.

That the models are not sufficiently detailed is an important limitation. Personally, my main issue with the whole modeling thing is that the models are probably still very buggy. Both of these problems can be reduced by releasing the models to the public. If the models are not released, they should be ignored.

22 comments:

erp said...

... "they should be ignored." Totally right.

Dyson, however, has drunk some of the Kool-aid. "They take away money and attention from other problems that are much more urgent and important. Poverty, infectious diseases, public education and public health. Not to mention the preservation of living creatures on land and in the oceans."

Yeah, what we need is to throw more money at academics to solve these "problems."

Bret said...

erp,
You're probably right about Dyson's perspective, but note he didn't say that government should throw more money at academics or otherwise solve these problems.

It is true that by wasting money on AGW, there is less money, private or otherwise, to spend on everything including his list of "urgent and important" problems.

I usually can't stand Dyson's economic and foreign policy inputs. Not one of his strong points in my opinion. But that fact that he's generally pretty leftist and meddling makes his anti-AGW statements all the more remarkable.

Harry Eagar said...

erp, who do you think is going to come up with new approaches to, say, infectious diseases?

So far as I'm aware, most effective approaches to infectious diseases have come from academia.

Bret said...

Harry Eagar wrote: "...most effective approaches to infectious diseases have come from academia."

"Have" is not the same as "must" when looking toward the future.

Harry Eagar said...

So, that isn't an answer to my question: If not academics, who?

Bret said...

Harry,
There are many possible answers. I'll propose one possibility by first further quoting Dyson from the same speech:

"Every orchid or rose or lizard or snake is the work of a dedicated and skilled breeder. There are thousands of people, amateurs and professionals who devote their lives to this business. Now imagine what will happen when the tools of genetic engineering become accessible to these people. There will be do-it-yourself kits for gardeners who will use genetic engineering to breed new varieties of roses and orchids. Also kits for lovers of pigeons and parrots and lizards and snakes to breed new varieties of pets.

Genetic engineering, once it gets into the hands of housewives and children will give us an explosion of diversity of new living creatures, rather than the monoculture crops that the big corporations prefer. Designing genomes will be a personal thing—a new art form, as creative as painting or sculpture.
"

If Dyson's prediction is correct (I find it plausible), then just as people currently hack away at Linux and Apache, people of the near future, with their personal sequences handy, will hack away at a wide range of things including cures for infectious diseases.

erp said...

Academe has had a terrible track record at solving any problems aside from getting more grant money for themselves.

By infectious disease, I believe Dyson was referring to AIDS and just mouthing the party line that Bush has done nothing to find a cure... blah, blah, blah.

He's the academy's Carter, always opining on issues far a field from his area of expertise.

Harry to answer your question. Anywhere and everywhere capable of doing scientific research, foundations, independent labs, governmental facilities. Perhaps even in some young genius's garage.

Oroborous said...

Academe has had a terrible track record at solving any problems aside from getting more grant money for themselves.

That's a bit overstated.

Academe split the atom and gave us computers, the electron microscope, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI scans), Positron Emission Tomography (PET scans), and was essential to the industrial production of penicillin, to barely scratch the surface.

Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

erp said...

That was then. Things have changed since PC took over.

Bret said...

erp,
I think that the liberal arts and possibly soft science portion of academia are worse than worthless. However, the engineering and science portion do provide a return on investment. One could argue whether or not it is an optimal return on investment, but at least in robotics (I live, eat, and breathe robotics these days), the Universities do fine work and have produced a lot of technology that has formed the basis for a lot of what we do. As I wrote here,
I'm pretty happy with the Universities as far as robotics is concerned.

erp said...

I'm delighted that some of my taxes are being well spent. BTW - which university are you working at?

Bret said...

I don't work at a University. I work at Vision Robotics Corp. However, we use the published research that comes out of many Universities, especially CMU and Stanford.

Harry Eagar said...

Ah, the Micawber effect.

Just to stay on the subject of infectious diseases, although there are other fields that would serve as well, we're a long way past the time that finding a spoiled orange in a market was a breakthrough.

I am not an infectious disease specialist, but I've read some of the clinical reports, and some (not all) of the problems today require a long formal training even to describe, much less address.

That's why we have schools, so we don't have to discover what's already been discovered. A jillion monkeys typing on a jillion typewriters are not as likely to create a Shakespearean play as one educated Shakespeare.

Howard said...

That's why we have schools, so we don't have to discover what's already been discovered.

And for the free exploration and exchange of ideas. That's why Larry Summers got such a fair hearing... oh well, better scratch that last one.

Actually a few hundred years ago there were some monks with scientific backgrounds who acted as communications hubs amongst the scientists and inventors of Europe.

erp said...

Bret, your company sounds wonderful. I'd love a robot around here to do the chores inside and out and wish you all the success in the world. Perhaps in my dotage (arriving on the fast track), I will come to rely on one of your PRA's. Do you have a more user friendly name for them?

To all: I love school, I love learning and I love the idea of brilliant minds sharing ideas and information. What I don't love is what these former shining towers on the hill have become.

Oroborous said...

I love school, I love learning and I love the idea of brilliant minds sharing ideas and information.

Yes, that's a given. It's inherent in your choices of which blogs to frequent ;-).

erp said...

Brilliant minds think alike.

Bret said...

erp asked: "Do you have a more user friendly name for them [the PRA]."

No. We'll wait till we get closer to launching it as a product before we pick a catchy name. Do you have any good ideas?

erp said...

Are you thinking male or female names, technical terms like R2D2?

I'll put it on back burner and let you know if an inspiration boils up.

Bret said...

As you can tell from the less than inspirational name "PRA" we haven't been thinking about it at all.

Oroborous said...

...pick a catchy name. Do you have any good ideas?

Hired Girl.

erp said...

Wow, bret, you still think robotics a safe pursuit?

I'll continue to seek inspiration for a catchy name, but Heinlein is a hard act to follow.

Our cat didn't like inclement weather either and would go from door to door looking dry conditions. When she didn't find them, she would turn to us and gave us a withering look as if to say, I ask for so little, am so long-suffering ... she truly was the empress.