Simpler Climate Models - A Boon To Climate Researchers - And Also a Way To Screen For Cranks and Nitwits

Clockwise from top left, a satellite view of Earth, a complex Earth system model depiction, a simpler aquaplanet configuration, and the simplest dynamical core. This hierarchy of models is now being supported by the Community Earth System Model project. Satellite image: NASA; design by B. Medeiros.

An ongoing problem with climate science modeling concerns: 1) the high level of complexity of most models, and 2) the intrusion of quacks and climate know- nothings. The latter set includes Steven Milloy with his "Junk science" site when he is the one peddling it (see e.g. 'The EPA Cleans Up Its Science', WSJ op-ed, March 27). I argue the two are connected because with the complexity of too many climate models, the opportunistic interjection of quacks and nitwits is almost assured. (Milloy himself is an attorney - not a climate researcher or even physical scientist).

Let's note here that thirty years ago,  the development of so-called Earth system models (ESMs) was still decades away. One of the earliest climate researchers to conceive of these advanced system models was Prof. Gunter Weller of the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, e.g.

By late 1986  Weller had shown the abnormal heating of the Arctic to be some 5 - 7F greater than the continental U.S.  The ice cores available at Dr. Weller's  Atmospheric Physics lab were extracted from Arctic ice at depths corresponding with geological time frames dating back over 80,000 years. His results showed that the greatest ambient temperatures corresponded to the highest CO2 concentrations recorded in the ice cores.  What he envisaged was an advanced Earth model to integrate these results but the computers of the time were not up to the task.

Today, the .vast majority of computing  resources for climate modeling are dedicated to potential use in ESMs.  These are constructed to numerically simulate Earth’s climate with the greatest possible faithfulness, so are designed to include the most comprehensive range of physical, chemical, and biological processes that can be handled on today’s powerful computing systems. The problem is not all academic sites have such systems.. 

For reference, Isaac Held alerted the climate science community to a widening divide between simulating and understanding the climate system more than a decade ago. He noted that a gap had developed between idealized models, which can sometimes be thoroughly understood, and the complex, high-end models (such as ESMs) that comprehensively simulate the climate system but cannot be completely understood because of their complexity.

This gap is particularly problematic for many researchers and students, who often have to work with limited computational resources. Furthermore, simple climate models are key to educational activities in university classrooms and as part of graduate research: They provide an entry point that enables students to master modeling techniques and concepts before moving on to more complex methods.

The complexity of these ESMs arises from the need to generate the most accurate projections of climate change in the coming decades. These projections play a crucial role in the assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; they also inform climate-related decision-making in a wide variety of sectors. It's important to recognize here that while ESMs may be good for simulating the climate system they may not be as valuable for understanding it.  This was Isaac Held's contention, and it was also Gunter Weller's major concern as early as 1986 when he himself was limited to numerical models based on FORTRAN code.

This computing resource bifurcation has motivated climate researchers to add a new set of tools within the Community Earth System Model (CESM) project: a hierarchy of simpler models to foster better understanding.  An added benefit of such simpler models would be to more easily expose climate cranks like Milloy, as well as more familiar climate denier culprits such as Willie Soon- whose arguments ought to be more easily exposed for review and critique in the simpler context.

For example,  Milloy's WSJ op-ed was subsequently skewered in a follow- up WSJ letter by Brian Combs ('Getting the Science Right For EPA Regulators', WSJ,  Mar. 31- April 1, p. A14.)  Combs first noted Milloy's being only an attorney (like EPA arsonist Scott Pruitt) and also the spurious ploy of trying to tie mortality from (small) particulate pollution  to death certificates. Milloy stated in his WSJ  op-ed that "I found in 2012 I could get California death certificate data in electronic form" and it was :scrubbed of all personal identifying and private medical information".  He then claimed (ibid.): "Some of my colleagues used this data to prepare a 2017 study which found PM2.5 (dust and soot smaller than 2.5 microns in diameter) was not associated with death.."

But as Combs pointed out, the nature of the data for PM2.5 as well as on the death certificates was simply "too minimal  to draw any significant conclusion." So Milloy's efforts make about as much sense as trying to tie close Martian oppositions to increased UFO sightings on Earth.  Combs also noted the failure of Milloy to provide any reference for his study on his JunkScience.com website.  Hence, "readers can't evaluate its conclusions or  whether it was published in a peer-reviewed journal".  But clearly, if the data sets were too "minimal" to reach a satisfactory statistical conclusion, there's no way they'd be published in any serious climate journal.

Milloy boasts that the "best thing is if you d0n't believe the result you can get the same data for yourself and run your own analysis".   But why would anyone do that? Why extract the same low signal (high noise),  minimal data to replicate a meaningless result? Has Milloy ever heard of  the old computer saw:  "garbage in, garbage out"?  My lack of belief is tied to his inability to get a paper based on these results published in a proper climate  journal. It isn't contingent on replicating his same junk analysis and getting the same junk result.

But as I've stated time and time again, this is the hallmark of the classic climate crank: making bold or bald assertions with no citations or references from peer-reviewed papers in real climate science journals. This as opposed say to biased fluff appearing on the website of the conservative George C. Marshall Institute. Say from the likes of climate babblers  Will Happer, or Sallie Baliunas.  Happer himself is a "physicist "at Princeton  - which kind of destroyed my image of that venerable institution and its allegiance to academic quality. I mean what does it say about a place that happily entertains climate hacks?

Anyway, in the U.S. the CESM project is now the natural choice for building a solid hierarchy of climate models. The models,  made available under the CESM project,  are developed, maintained, and documented specifically to serve the entire community of climate scientists. That means that even climate frauds like Willie Soon, Sallie Baliunas and Steve Milloy can take advantage of the resources - as can climate hack Will Happer at Princeton.

Quality assurance is also applicable to the CESM project. It has a wide user base given all released model versions are thoroughly tested and routinely ported to the latest machines available. This is an arduous task not easily accomplished by individual investigators in a typical university setting. Crucially, the CESM can be freely downloaded and used by anyone. Again, that includes climate contrarians like Will Happer, Steve Milloy, Steve Koonin and others.

In the meantime, the AGU personnel promoting wider participation (e.g. L. M. Polvani, A. C. Clement, B. Medeiros, J. J. Benedict, and I. R. Simpson)are requesting contributions to  work already underway for so-called single-column configurations, i.e.  of both  atmosphere and ocean models.   For those interested in cooperating in "filling up levels of the models' hierarchy" they recommend the following guiding principles for moving forward:

1) There should be a clearly demonstrated need for a simplified model.

2)The community members spearheading each effort need to pair up with one or more partners at the National Center for Atmospheric Research to collaborate in the model development.

3) Project leaders must assess the resources needed to develop the new simpler model and identify some avenue for funding the development. 

4) Developers of simpler models should submit scientific papers to the peer-reviewed literature, explaining the rationale for the usefulness of the new models and describing what novel understanding of the climate system is to be gained from using these simpler models.

Got that, Messrs. Milloy, Happer, Koonin et al?

The above cited Eos authors add:

"Ideally, these activities would be coordinated across the community to avoid duplication of efforts."

It would be terrific to see the likes of Milloy, Happer, Koonin et al cooperate in such a  CESM venture but I don't anticipate it any time soon. They are all too enthralled by the fake power embodied in their contrarian stance and the extra column space garnered in op-ed sections - like the WSJ's.

Which merely shows me that none of these pretenders is interested in doing serious climate science.

Update:  4/ 9:

In a letter ('Obama EPA Correct About Deadly PM2.5  Pollutants') published in the WSJ today, in response to Milloy's op-ed, Prof. William Barker (Univ. Of Rochester) responds:

"As a public health  scientist seeking a broader perspective, I consulted a January 2016 Journal of Thoracic Diseases review of over 50 peer-reviewed epidemiological and experimental studies - virtually all of which find significant evidence of increased mortality and of pathological lung damage associated with exposure to PM 2.5 particles."

Once Again, "Super Freeze" Doesn't Mean No Global Warming

Scene of melting permafrost near Fairbanks, AK as reported on Univ. of Alaska website.

Once again, almost like clock work, the dummy brigade has emerged to point to the bitter sub-zero temperatures in the north eastern U.S. and arguing there's really no global warming, no climate change. Even Dummy Dotard mockingly tweeted yesterday "we could use some of that global warming they keep talking about".  You wish, Dotard.

In fact, there is no contradiction at all. The Arctic dip or vortex in the east doesn't affect record breaking high temperatures here in Colorado (up to 60 degrees today), or 25 degrees higher than expected.  And, as I've noted before,  Arctic waves intruding into the U.S. or the "polar vortex" are actually signs of Arctic atmospheric instability tied to extraordinary heating in that region.

To the denier contingent, of course, there are no such things as any climate change records, because they are convinced it's all some grand, convoluted conspiracy by government and climate scientists. To these mostly brainwashed fools climate change is just an elaborate hoax. Never mind that, as I noted in my Dec. 18th post, human algorithms for monitoring temperature changes in certain locations of the Arctic are already out of date since they cannot encompass actual data outliers - such as Barrow, Alaska. 

In the 17 years since 2000, the average October temperature in Barrow has climbed 7.8 degrees. The November temperature was up 6.9 degrees. The December average has warmed 4.7 degrees The Arctic is warming faster than any other place on Earth, and Barrow is in the thick of it. With less and less sea ice to reflect sunlight, the temperature around the North Pole is spiking upward.

Scene of mostly barren landscape near Barrow, AK last month. More dark surface area means lower albedo (less reflectivity), and more infrared radiation absorbed.

According to the NOAA Report issued earlier this month, which ought to awaken even the most comatose climate change denier zombies:

“The current observed rate of sea ice decline and warming temperatures are higher than at any other time in the last 1,500 years, and likely longer than that,”

This Arctic heat emphasis, for example exposed in the January , 2016 zonal temperature map :


dovetails with Prof. Gunter Weller's predictions (from the mid -1980s) - based on his ice core analyses- that future warming would be greatest in the Arctic.  This is  a phenomenon known as "Arctic amplification".  He pointed out that a much warmer Arctic also means a much more unstable polar region with more frequent intrusions ("waves")  of the polar vortex,  leading to frigid temperatures in parts of the U.S. such as we've seen the past few years.

The warming onslaught is now exacerbated by the rapid melting of permafrost. Vast expanses of former  Arctic permafrost have been reduced to mud, and also in the process of warming released methane - perhaps the Greenhouse gas which is most potent.  See e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2017/03/more-rapid-permafrost-melting-triggers.html


As reported by the University of Alaska -Fairbanks Arctic Research site:

In 2016, the latest year of complete records, the majority of Arctic observation sites reported the highest permafrost temperatures on record.

This comports with the NOAA report of anomalous heating at Barrow, for example.

The takeaway is that these sub-zero super freezes we're seeing with Arctic air intrusions are likely to become more frequent in the future, not less. The deniers and climate dummies would do well to learn more about this phenomenon and why they should be fearful, not wise ass snarky.

Another Intertel "Genius" Exposed As A Global Warming Denier Fool

Global warmin' just a ploy for socialists to take over!

In a recent essay appearing in 'Port of Call' (Intertel Region VII's NL) Jeffry R. Fisher  devoted considerable space to ideas for enhancing our nation's economic growth and efficiency.   For example, in one segment he proposed moving the current capital (in Washington, D.C.)  to "a more central location" - say "on the border between Nebraska and Colorado." This is his alternative "better solution", instead of giving the citizens of the District of Columbia two Senators and a House rep.  Besides, the new central location would then have:  "adequate highways, more interstate access, airport, commuter and distant rail locations".

Yeah, right,  Fisher's going to go for a more central geography at the expense of the very identity of the nation's capital.  Or....maybe down the line he will also propose moving the capital's historic landmarks, including Capitol Bldg., Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument, Jefferson Memorial etc. to the Nebraska - Colorado border?  Methinks just giving D.C. representation would be a far easier - and much more practical - solution!

Having read this nonsense one can imagine what his solution for better policy on global warming would be.  According to Fisher:  "We need to rethink the way we research 'Global Warming' (climate change)".   WHY?  The way we research it currently (thousands of peer-reviewed papers in professional journals)  is just fine and has brought us to a much better grasp of how the climate is changing. This is from Prof. Gunter Weller's work on the rapidly thawing Arctic, to the enhanced role of methane as the permafrost melts, to the acidification of the oceans  - and the increasing moisture content of the atmosphere. (See my previous post).

But this isn't good enough for Fisher because well, "there are so many political axes to grind, there's no way a collegial system of peer review can function correctly."  

Says WHO?   In fact, the existing system of peer review functions just fine for  dozens of professional journals and thousands of climate scientists - real ones, not paid hacks or frauds.  These journals  still dictate the highest professional standards and adherence to empirical data and consistent models, as opposed to wishful thinking and pseudo-scientific, quasi-political bull crap.

To Fisher and his suspicious cohort in the "HI-Q" societies - who fancy themselves critical thinkers and debunkers - peer review is all about giving global warming proponents a leg up over their contrarian colleagues. Of course this is total rubbish, and in fact shows a serious lack of critical thinking. Scientists - from fields as diverse as anthropology to astronomy  - like professionals in other fields (e.g. finance, economics, history etc.), actually compete for scarce resources.  They are not about to help a competitor - say with a competing model or theory - be published merely because they propose global warming models.  Thus, if anything,  peer review is likely to be even more brutal than for deniers.

What Fisher is really saying here is:

"There are so many political and economical axes to grind by my skeptic side that we can't get our stuff published in the current system!"

I concede Fisher has good reason to think or believe this given virtually no denier  papers are published in peer-reviewed professional climate science journals. They are generally dismissed precisely because they lack the basics of scientific authority - including: proper data selection, bias-free  analysis, consistent interpretation of data, and appropriate mathematical techniques. Hence, their papers are tagged as the opposite of  authoritative science.

Fisher's objection is really that  the peer review process poses too formidable an impediment for denier ("skeptic")  codswallop.  He instead wants any old trash to see publication to further bamboozle the masses who may never have taken a thermal physics course. By contrast, those without any ulterior political or economic agenda are willing to subject their research to rigorous peer review. They  don't cry and whine about "bias" or "propaganda" when a paper is rejected. They act like adults are supposed to and carefully go through the referee's criticisms and seek to correct the errors.

So what does this genius want to do instead? Well, he wants to ditch the peer review process entirely.  What does he want to replace it with?  Well, he wants to have basically two  teams go at it in an "adversarial system" - say like two teams of lawyers would in court.

The dope doesn't even grasp that such a stupid system is not based on scientific data or its merits at all, but subjective arguments. Still he claims the opposite,  as when he writes:

"Each side has a no-pretense partisan advocate backed up by staff doing research.  All sides meet periodically in a battle royal - preceded by a discovery phase in which each side published its claims, its methods, its data, its methods, its models' source code etc.  All sides cross examine each other's witnesses."

Can others also see why this is fulsome twaddle, and science - properly done- cannot be carried out like in a court room?    Why not? Well, because we base physical science (of which climate science is a sub-discipline) on existing well- accepted principles that best describe the objective phenomena under investigation,  as well as models that comport with those phenomena.  We also adopt the models and analytical methods that best reflect the principles.  This is not a matter for courtroom grandstanding, debate - even in "a battle royal."  There can be no "battle royal" if all parties agree on what the objective phenomena are and how they are measured from the outset. The problem is that the denier brigade doesn't agree because they know that to do so undermines their true premise: that it is the capitalist economy which trumps all.

What Fisher is really proposing is a kind of academic cage match as when he writes:

"At the end the battered sides retreat to their respective labs to lick their wounds, improve their models and methods and prep for the next meeting."

To what end? Just to go round and round with deniers and real scientists (weighted the same by Fisher's false equivalence)  going back and forth with no ultimate resolution?   Fisher likely can't even see this is the very essence of the agnotology that the denier side has been invoking since day one.  To refresh people's memories -  agnotology,- derived from the Greek 'agnosis', is a PR category to promote culturally constructed ignorance. It is achieved primarily by sowing the teeniest nugget of doubt in whatever claim is made.

It shouldn't take a near genius I.Q. to see the ideal way to achieve this is to set up a fictitious, straw man ("skeptic") side to oppose the genuinely scientific side - and have them go head to head in endless debates.   After all, there's just so much "uncertainty"!  How can you not go to the fabled adversarial model?  Let each side try the other's case and the one that does the best prosecution wins. (Interestingly there is no 'judge' to adjudicate the "battle royal".)  What could be wrong?  

Well, everything, because that's not how science works! Science progresses by incremental steps, which we call successive approximations. Basically then, each new datum is integrated into the existing model(s)  to enhance them in order to predict new data - which are then compared to what we actually observe. This has led us to the present understanding of our warming planet and that includes insights such as:  the current CO2 concentration is 403 ppm, every increase in CO2 concentration by 2 ppm increases the radiative heating effect by 2 W/ m^2, and, the planet's heat balance currently being out of kilter by  0.6 W/ m².

Opposed to this is Fisher's prescription for  adversarial agnosis but now in the guise of court room proceedings with each side engaged with the other in a series of "battle royals".  No, you can't make this stuff up.  (But neither could one make up the notion of moving the nation's capital to the Nebraska-Colorado border!)

Fisher's arguments in defense of this "adversarial"  system are even loopier, e.g.

"If my strategy is sound then each cycle of research and confrontation will force the sides to converge on something approaching "truth". In addition, all of us on the sidelines can gain confidence that what we eventually get is in fact the truth and not somebody's dogmatic propaganda."

But clearly the two sides can never ever "converge in something approaching truth" because genuine science can make no compromises with pseudo-science. We don't see Darwinian biologists allowing for theologic creation in certain species, any more than astronomers allow some planets - like Earth - to be flat and others spherical. It is total bollocks, so Fisher is wallowing in self-delusion.

 He then claims it's important we (e.g. in the US of A) do this because "the rest of the world is committed to climate alarm propaganda".  In other words they embrace at least some lowering of carbon emissions, as prescribed by the Paris Climate Treaty.

Which is total nonsense.

Of course, Fisher's adversarial strategy has already been shown not to work given his skeptic, actually pseudo -skeptic side- have been consistent losers. It is, after all, HIS side that has failed to get their papers published in respected journals because they have not met even minimal standards as I have described earlier.  For example, Willie Soon's bunkum, e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2015/02/another-climate-scientist-fake-exposed.html

Ignoring clowns like Willie Soon, there are few others with whom Fisher can stack his pseudo-skeptic side, so why even waste the time? The matter for all intents has been settled whether Fisher and his clique of HI Q deniers like it or not  As noted by P. T. Doran and M. Kendall-Zimmerman(Eos Transactions, Vol. 90, No. 3, ,p. 24) :

“The debate on the authenticity of global warming and the role played by human activity is largely non-existent among those who understand the nuances and scientific basis of long-term climate processes.”

The problem, as we know, is that those like Fisher have no clue concerning the underlying physical principles - even basic thermal physics.  Hell, I defy Fisher or any one of his "climate alarm" conspiracy compadres to get even 50 % in this basic thermal physics test:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2009/12/thermal-physics-test-for-skeptics.html

To be sure, this denier lot hurl up science smokescreens because they are averse to embracing real climate science. This is because they are all about ideology!   We now know, thanks to the research of Yale prof Dan Kahan,  that "strategies" like the one espoused by Fisher are determined by deep-seated political values and cultural identities. Thus, a white libertarian member of  Intertel, for example, will see REAL global warming science  (as validated by peer review) as a dire threat against his precious conservative economic values and capitalist system.

This threat is then attributed to "global warming alarmism" which is tied to "dogmatic propaganda". Fisher proves my point that he'd never accept the real climate side anyway when he babbles at the end:

"So eliminate all funding for any and all orthodox view climate scare mongering and give all that money to iconoclasts and skeptics"

In other words, give it to the fraud side. Note before this he even acknowledges the need to stack his mock climate court, i.e. "even if the truth is close to the orthodox view" etc.  Yeah, even if the truth is close we will "eliminate any funding for the orthodox view".  (By which he really means the consensus view - since these climate change dolts....errrr....deniers,  are unable to accept there can be such agreement on real climate science and real climate change. Why not? Because they don't know anything!)

 In fact, according to Dan Kahan's theory, these high IQ skeptics don't really have the time (or inclination) to evaluate the global warming evidence that comes before them (say ice cores containing CO2) so they basically punt.  Instead of rationally and objectively evaluating the existing evidence they imbibe specious and spurious refuse  -generated by fakes like Willie Soon. They use their arguments to try to trash the climate science consensus - which they mislabel the "orthodox view" - that human induced warming is real, e.g.

http://sciencepolicy.agu.org/files/2013/07/AGU-Climate-Change-Position-Statement_August-2013.pdf

At a deeper level, the pseudo skeptics like Fisher understand that stopping actual climate science is the highest priority for their warped economic system to prevail. Otherwise, it must be discarded for a system with emphasis on collective action and welfare. Nowhere has this been better articulated than by Naomi Klein in her recent book, 'NO Is Not Enough - Resisting Trump's Shock Politics'.   She writes (p. 81):

"Climate change, especially at this late date, can only be dealt with by collective action that sharply curtails the behavior of corporations such as ExxonMobil and Goldman Sachs. It demands investments in the public sphere - in new energy grids, public transit, light rail, and more energy efficiency....and that can only happen by raising taxes on the wealthy and corporations.

In short, climate change detonates the ideological scaffolding on which contemporary conservatism rests."

I believe Fisher and his misguided ilk are smart enough to grasp that Naomi Klein has distilled their position to a tee. It is not about science so all this balderdash about pairing adversaries against each other - with opposing "data, methods, models, code"  etc. - is total bullshit.  It's bullshit because there is only ONE set of data, of models, etc. that matters.  The other side's is as phony as a 3 dollar bill, and I suspect Fisher already knows that.

In effect, Fisher's lot grasps that the issue really is about "detonating the ideological scaffolding" of modern day economic conservatism to which they are committed and they can't have it. They can't tolerate it.  Fair enough, then at least be honest!  Drop the pseudo-scientific baloney and admit once and for all that this is about protecting the capitalist economic system. Then, instead of wasting their time and ours by creating fabulist versions of climate science,  talk straight about the real concerns, and how we might work together to ameliorate them. 

But don't hold your breath.