prognosticating
You have ever been a herald of woe. Troubles follow you like crows, and ever the oftener the worse. I will not deceive you: when I heard that Shadowfax had come back riderless, I rejoiced at the return of the horse, but still more at the lack of the rider; and when Eomer brought the tidings that you had gone at last to your long home, I did not mourn. But news from afar is seldom sooth. Here you come again! And with you come evils worse than before, as might be expected. Why should I welcome you, Gandalf Stormcrow?
Being a climate scientist right now really sucks. Most people have heard about the questionnaire sent to the US Environmental Protection Agency, but I can't imagine anywhere that climate scientists are having a good time right now.
Neil T, on Neven's Sea Ice Forum says it well -- Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season Reply #1330 on: December 12, 2016, 02:49:17
"Guys, before I came here, in fact before there was a "here" to come to, I spent a lot of time at RealClimate and I got a feel for what the climate scientists are trying to do with their assessments.
In short the statements above seem to lead us to believe that the scientists are deliberately misleading us for some reason. After all it's blindingly obvious that it's not going to be the latter half of the 21st century before the ice goes.
But, in fact, it might just need a scientist and especially a climate scientist, to fail to see that.
Over and over again, during the debates, Gavin Schmidt has been seen to say that these annual variations must be ignored if we are to see the larger picture. And he's right, the larger picture is 100 to 1,000 years.
So what they do is bury the annual variations in decadal averages and then bury them again in multi decadal averages. Truth be told, if you take the 30 year running mean, we're pretty much on target. When you look at the 2000's averaged out. Even the 2010's, when the decade is done, will be averaged with the previous two decades to create the 30 year running mean.
The problem with this methodology, which is used by all climate scientists when they report to the IPCC, is that it fails to anticipate, or even detect, step changes when they happen. In fact it's designed to do exactly that, remove them.
The major problem with that approach is that what is happening to the Arctic is massively driven by annual variations and those variations are getting larger as every decade goes by. By the time that the 2010's annual variations are released from the 1990's, it will already be blindingly obvious to everyone that they are out of touch. Also the model will mitigate to tone down even those effects.
In reality the 30 year running mean has been a wonderful ruler for measuring future change over the last 5 decades. It' was extremely useful in the denialist rantings in the aftermath of the 97/98 nino and the return to the norm which happened there. It forced the denialists to take out the 97/98 as a baseline and then their entire assertions fell apart.
So, I think, when railing at the "Scientists" for not predicting what we are seeing now, I respectfully submit that their models and their projections are specifically designed to ignore it. Because, so far, by ignoring it, they have been more right than wrong.
Honestly I feel that an ice free arctic in 2022 will force them to reassess that. Because the possible forcings created by the black swan event are enough to overwhelm the 30 year running mean and to continue with it would be foolish. They would need to create a new baseline and then run a parallel comparison and draw conclusions that way.
Getting scientists to throw away long held and very good baselines will take an extreme act. The same extreme act we see evolving before us in an unprecedentedly warm winter with unprecedentedly low ice volume and extent.
What I'm saying is "Don't allude motives to the Climate scientists just because they are not monitoring the same thing you are". Because, in the end, these people have been in the firing line for a long time and the vast majority of them are both honorable and extremely thick skinned. But, believe me, they have feelings too."
And this follow-up -- Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season « Reply #1339 on: December 12, 2016, 12:24:36 PM »
Ninebelowzero December 12, 2016, 09:42:52 AM
Whatever the scientific approach scientists, regardless of whoever is paying for the research, should stop talking to politicians in terms of 'mitigating' change and just tell them what we need to stop doing however politically painful it is.
For reference to how well that works, have a look in the RealClimate posts around the time of the Copenhagen climate summit. To paraphrase the scientists, they told the politicians what their certainty meant, how it worked and what should be done.
The politicians looked at the figures and said, paraphrased
"Come back and tell us when you are 100% certain but you'll have to have EVIDENCE mind. then you can tell us what we need to do!".
Can you imagine how they felt? They had, in some cases, spent years on this, some intruding heavily into their family lives to do so.
Essentially the politicians said "When the roof falls in tell us what to do". Of course the answer is "Put your head between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye".
Many of those scientists involved in Copenhagen refused, ever, to have anything to do with a climate summit again.
Originally posted to Dreamwidth, were there are
comments. Dreamwidth comments
Being a climate scientist right now really sucks. Most people have heard about the questionnaire sent to the US Environmental Protection Agency, but I can't imagine anywhere that climate scientists are having a good time right now.
Neil T, on Neven's Sea Ice Forum says it well -- Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season Reply #1330 on: December 12, 2016, 02:49:17
"Guys, before I came here, in fact before there was a "here" to come to, I spent a lot of time at RealClimate and I got a feel for what the climate scientists are trying to do with their assessments.
In short the statements above seem to lead us to believe that the scientists are deliberately misleading us for some reason. After all it's blindingly obvious that it's not going to be the latter half of the 21st century before the ice goes.
But, in fact, it might just need a scientist and especially a climate scientist, to fail to see that.
Over and over again, during the debates, Gavin Schmidt has been seen to say that these annual variations must be ignored if we are to see the larger picture. And he's right, the larger picture is 100 to 1,000 years.
So what they do is bury the annual variations in decadal averages and then bury them again in multi decadal averages. Truth be told, if you take the 30 year running mean, we're pretty much on target. When you look at the 2000's averaged out. Even the 2010's, when the decade is done, will be averaged with the previous two decades to create the 30 year running mean.
The problem with this methodology, which is used by all climate scientists when they report to the IPCC, is that it fails to anticipate, or even detect, step changes when they happen. In fact it's designed to do exactly that, remove them.
The major problem with that approach is that what is happening to the Arctic is massively driven by annual variations and those variations are getting larger as every decade goes by. By the time that the 2010's annual variations are released from the 1990's, it will already be blindingly obvious to everyone that they are out of touch. Also the model will mitigate to tone down even those effects.
In reality the 30 year running mean has been a wonderful ruler for measuring future change over the last 5 decades. It' was extremely useful in the denialist rantings in the aftermath of the 97/98 nino and the return to the norm which happened there. It forced the denialists to take out the 97/98 as a baseline and then their entire assertions fell apart.
So, I think, when railing at the "Scientists" for not predicting what we are seeing now, I respectfully submit that their models and their projections are specifically designed to ignore it. Because, so far, by ignoring it, they have been more right than wrong.
Honestly I feel that an ice free arctic in 2022 will force them to reassess that. Because the possible forcings created by the black swan event are enough to overwhelm the 30 year running mean and to continue with it would be foolish. They would need to create a new baseline and then run a parallel comparison and draw conclusions that way.
Getting scientists to throw away long held and very good baselines will take an extreme act. The same extreme act we see evolving before us in an unprecedentedly warm winter with unprecedentedly low ice volume and extent.
What I'm saying is "Don't allude motives to the Climate scientists just because they are not monitoring the same thing you are". Because, in the end, these people have been in the firing line for a long time and the vast majority of them are both honorable and extremely thick skinned. But, believe me, they have feelings too."
And this follow-up -- Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season « Reply #1339 on: December 12, 2016, 12:24:36 PM »
Ninebelowzero December 12, 2016, 09:42:52 AM
Whatever the scientific approach scientists, regardless of whoever is paying for the research, should stop talking to politicians in terms of 'mitigating' change and just tell them what we need to stop doing however politically painful it is.
For reference to how well that works, have a look in the RealClimate posts around the time of the Copenhagen climate summit. To paraphrase the scientists, they told the politicians what their certainty meant, how it worked and what should be done.
The politicians looked at the figures and said, paraphrased
"Come back and tell us when you are 100% certain but you'll have to have EVIDENCE mind. then you can tell us what we need to do!".
Can you imagine how they felt? They had, in some cases, spent years on this, some intruding heavily into their family lives to do so.
Essentially the politicians said "When the roof falls in tell us what to do". Of course the answer is "Put your head between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye".
Many of those scientists involved in Copenhagen refused, ever, to have anything to do with a climate summit again.
Originally posted to Dreamwidth, were there are
comments. Dreamwidth comments