One of the most curious aspects of the climate debate is that almost no one insists on mathematically rigorous tests of the major hypotheses that are involved. This is true among the warmists, of course, but is often true among the skeptics as well. Why the skeptics do not do so is beyond me. But most skeptics do not appear to do so. This often takes the form of endorsement of both natural and man-made sources of global warming, often with the view that the skeptics believe the man-made effects are minor. One of many examples is Benny Peiser, the Executive Director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation in London, probably the leading climate skeptic group in Britain. He has done many useful things for the skeptic cause, but endorsing the concept of man-made global warming is not one of them.
Peiser is a social anthropologist–a discipline that may not widely use the relevant rigorous statistical methods in their work. Peiser has stated that climate change is due both to natural and man-made causes. But there is no rigorous evidence for the latter offered by Peiser or anyone else. So why is it advantageous to skeptics to support the opposition for a belief that has not been rigorously supported using the most appropriate mathematical techniques?
This may be crucial to the outcome of the debate here in the US since a legal case can be made that even a minor human effect is sufficient to invoke the Clean Air Act (CAA), assuming that the Act is even applicable to climate as the courts (but not Congress) have ruled. Now the US CAA is not applicable in Britain, so perhaps Peiser can be excused for not understanding the implications in the US, but the result is the same.
However, everyone needs to use the mathematically proper tools that are readily available, particularly in a controversial topic like climate. This is particularly true given the enormous, totally unnecessary costs involved if the current “consensus” on climate science has in fact no rigorous proof of its validity. The principal “evidence” offered by the warmists is not really evidence at all. Their elaborate mathematical climate models prove nothing except that they make a lot of assumptions, and the results reflect the assumptions they have made. Many billions have been wasted on this “research,” perhaps because some people actually believe in this sophisticated nonsense since all General Circulation Models (except the Russians’) get similar results.
The Merits of an Econometric Approach Compared to Climate Models
Regarding the merits of the methodology discussed here versus that used in developing the climate models relied upon in EPA’s Endangerment Finding and in the IPCC publications, a quote from Congressional testimony by Dr. John Christy is useful here:
- “The advantage of the simple statistical treatment discussed here is that the complicated processes such as clouds, ocean-atmosphere interaction, aerosols, etc., are implicitly incorporated by the statistical relationships discovered from the actual data. Climate models attempt to calculate these highly non-linear processes from imperfect parameterizations (estimates) whereas the statistical model directly accounts for them since the bulk atmospheric temperature is the response-variable these processes impact. It is true that the statistical model does not know what each sub-process is or how each might interact with other processes. But it also must be made clear: it is an understatement to say that no IPCC climate model accurately incorporates all of the nonlinear processes that affect the system. I simply point out that because the model is constrained by the ultimate response variable (bulk temperature), these highly complex processes are included.
“The fact that this statistical model {typically} explains 75-90 percent of the real annual temperature variability, depending on the data set, using these influences (ENSO, volcanoes, solar) is an indication the statistical model is useful. This result promotes the conclusion that this approach achieves greater scientific (and policy) utility than results from elaborate climate models which on average fail to reproduce the real world’s global average bulk temperature trend since 1979.”
Warmists Like Some Econometric Methods but Not Others
Although the warmists are all for using econometric methods to tease out the smallest possible indication that pollutants (e.g., NOx, XOx, ozone, etc.) cause adverse economic or physical effects, they seem adamantly opposed to using mathematically proper econometric techniques to determine what impact CO2 have had on Earth’s temperatures. The point is that the proper mathematical methods must be used in both types of analyses. And the proper conclusions produced to date are that actual pollutants above various concentration levels can cause adverse medical and economic effects, but the effects have unfortunately sometimes been exaggerated, but that increasing CO2, including human-related emissions, have not resulted in statistically significant increases in temperatures in the real world.
Unfortunately, many climate skeptics have not accepted these econometric findings and continue to rely on general statements that the effects of increasing CO2 concentration levels have only minor effects on temperatures. But from a US legal viewpoint and the Clean Air Act this may turn out to be a critical issue. There is simply no basis for believing that increasing atmospheric CO2 has had any significant effect in the real world on temperatures and skeptics need to raise this point at every opportunity. The issue is not whether there may be theoretical effects of CO2 on temperatures, but rather whether any significant such effects actually occur in the real world. It is important to point out that there is no basis for climate extremism’s basic tenet. They will no doubt be attempts to ignore this fact, but sometime, somewhere, people might actually pay attention to what the science actually says.
Most, if not all, models are inconsistent with observations – still, they rely on the average of them.
That is not science.
One of the things that has to be addressed or overcome, is the psychological mindset of risk aversion. The govt and the ecology activists have taken the mindset that if there is even the slightest chance of risk, an activity must be prohibited, even if the original assumptions are in error…. a zero risk mentality. Unfortunately, that has the rather damaging side effect of eventually bringing all technological advancements and economic activity to a screeching halt, because all human activity involves risk of some sort.
A more reasonable tack is to employ risk management. If an activity has a 1% chance of injury, you wouldn’t want to regulate it or ban it, but would instead teach people how to responsibly conduct the activity to avoid injury. In contrast, if an activity had a 40% chance of injury, you might want to regulate or even prohibit that activity. The climate warmists have not proved that the climate is warming. All they have shown is that their models show catastrophic warming, and those models have not verified with reality.
In the scientific world, emotion should not factor into policy decisions. A scientist makes an observation, comes up with a theory to explain the observation, then builds a model to test the theory. If, after a selected period of testing the model, the results don’t match subsequent observations, then the scientist has to conclude that his theory and assumptions are invalid and he needs to scrap his theory and start over with a different explanation for his observations. The climate warmists have not done this. They developed their theory, made their model, observed the results, and concluded that significant action needed to be taken to prevent the results predicted by the model. When subsequent observations failed to even faintly correlate with the model forecast, the warmists didn’t scrap the model and come up with a different theory to explain the observations, as responsible scientists should do. They instead continued to push their agenda and started modifying the data to fit the model rather than the opposite of modifying the model to fit the data. They also redefined their definitions to fit their worldview. When the atmosphere didn’t warm the way they expected, they redefined the problem to be climate change. Now everything that happened outside the norm became an effect of increased CO2. Local Heat wave? Man-caused climate change. Record snow? Man-caused climate change.
This has got to change. We need to insist on an honest evaluation of the situation rather than the emotional “the-sky-is-falling” reaction of the global warmists.
If something as absurd as climate change being caused by photosynthesis qualifies as science, then there no longer is such a thing as the scientific method.
Climate change is just international socialists smoking dope, hyped by the Fake News, Hollywood, and Silicon Valley lemmings.
Fortunately there was one lonely Eco crat who blew the whistle on the infernal scam!
Thanks Doc ?
Alarmists spout a lot of data. Some find that impressive and assume there has to be some merit to the case for man made warming.
I find the mountain of evidence profoundly unconvincing. There are alternative and smarter explanations for all data sets than man made warming.
Accordingly people whose judgment I trust include Senator Inhofe, Doc Carlin, and professor Happer. In contrast, Al gore, Barry Obama , governor moonbeam, and the CIC are hoaxers and charlatans. They spout propaganda and nonsense.
Doc Carlin has helped me to appreciate warmism is not just poppycock but economically harmful. I realize it is not just stupid but goes beyond this to represent insidious evil, owing to economic costs.
Doctor carlin is justified to criticize those who find a middle ground between alarmism versus hoax. There is zero evidence that convincingly suggests man made warming on a global basis and that this nonexistent man made warming is caused by co2 emissions.
If Benny Peiser is a middle grounder, the good news is he is less deluded than Obama and Merkel, but the bad news is he is still wrong.
Very good article, Alan.
Also, those who argue that “warming is good” do not help the skeptics cause because the argument assumes human CO2 causes warming.
We have good arguments that show (a) human emissions add only 18 ppm to atmospheric CO2, and (b) increases in atmospheric CO2 cause very little warming. The Porto climate conference on September 7-8 included several papers that supported (a) and (b).
For example, my paper supported (a) and Monckton’s paper supported (b). Readers can review my slides on my website here:
https://edberry.com/blog/climate-physics/agw-hypothesis/why-human-co2-does-not-change-climate-slide-show/
I think we sceptics have to be very careful in our choice of words. I am from the UK and Benny Peiser and the GWPF are highly regarded here. There are some scientists who do not accept the idea of Greenhouse gases at all. This approach puts them right on the fringe of the debate, going against the whole of prevailing science. Most scientists accept that the effect of water vapour and to a lessor extent CO2 causes the atmosphere to be around 30 Celsius warmer than otherwise. That is what Benny has said he accepts, and I believe John Christy also believes (certainly Roy Spencer does). If that is accepted then if CO2 increases then the Greenhouse effect must increase due to anthropogenic emissions.
It is quite possible to accept this and still be sceptical of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming, because that relies on a number of positive feedback processes. That is where the “mainstream” debate lies – that these feedback systems are not occurring.
Credibility is vital if the public are to believe what sceptic organisations say. Accepting mainstream science gives greater credibility. The testimony of John Christy is good evidence that there is no catastrophic warming despite rising levels of CO2.
The Heartland Institute could try to recruit a panel of statisticians and data analysts to design a study to examine the strength of the relationship between carbon dioxide gas and temperature.
There is a strong relationship between summer and warm temperatures. This suggests the Suns rays are a factor. I wonder why Al Gore and his followers think co2 is more important than the sun?
Hard to fathom why so many people with college degrees can profess to believe such an absurd hoax. They should all wear dunce caps.
Dr. Carlin
I agree that information must get to the public and the policy makers. Have there been any responses to the Wallace papers that attempted to disprove them? Do you know if Will Happer has reviewed the Wallace work? Does the president or the head of the National Security Council have authority to task Will Happer with getting this and other climate truth out in the form of official communications like press releases or videos? In my opinion this would almost force the warmers to respond and the result would be much like the debate they have dodged so far.
Thank you for your hard work to set this right.
There must be philosophies about how to build mathematically expressed simulations and simplifications of real world conditions, called models.
It’s hard to imagine models should include variables that are unrelated. If co2 is unrelated to temperature, co2 does not belong in a model to forecast temperature.
I would have guessed co2 has some modest correlation to temperature, because crucial to trees, crops, and all life on this planet. Vegetation abundance may affect temperatures as seen in urban heat island effects.
However if in the real world co2s contribution is dwarfed by solar intensity or other temperature influences then there may be no discernible contribution. Well designed analyses of sufficient data could shed light on this question.
I agree with Dr Carlin that skeptical scientists may graciously give too much acceptance to the hypothesis that co2 drives climate. I am further unsure the climate is reliably known to be growing warmer or more extreme. There are many studies and strong opinions, but all studies have uncertainties, especially given a large and complicated topic like climate all around the globe. Alarmist scientists are full of sound and fury, but all their earnest endeavors may signify nothing.
It’s not surprising that you are processing an idea that may be inspired from Dr. Christy. I believe he may be involved with satellite collected data.
If there are instruments that are sophisticated enough that from the heights of an orbiting a satellite they can look down to measure elevation, co2 concentration, and temperature, then those instruments can collect a massive amount of real world data.
It seems plausible all that data could be statistically crunched and analyzed to consider if correlation between co2 and temperature can be discerned.
If there is little or no correlation, this would Justify a conclusion that the hypothesis of global warming can be rejected, based on actual measured conditions in lieu of the unreliable forecasts of models.
Nice!
I very much like your vein of thinking. It appears fruitful and powerful.
Are you suggesting there is little or no correlation between co2 in the atmosphere and temperatures, based on real world data?
If this kind of clearcut finding can be data justified, based on suitable analysis, this would make alarmism look even more amazingly foolish than it already abundantly is on many other grounds.
The advantage of this kind of finding would be bottom line clarity. A lot of technically educated people understand that correlation alone does not prove causality, that if hypothetically co2 and temperature were to covary closely, this by itself does not prove they genuinely interact and a correlation might be mere coincidence.
However if there is no real world measured data that shows even the appearance of correlation between these two variables, this would seem a clear and telling indicator. They are genuinely unrelated and irrelevant to one another.
If a correlation between co2 and temperature could be found, in measured real world data, and not just in the imaginary realm of models, then would not alarmists routinely offer such a finding in support of their cause? Maybe there is no such bottom line real world correlation that can be found and this absence explains the silence of alarmists? And why they altered their cause from warming to undefined climate extremes, so as to make statistical comparisons all the harder and more unclear.