How should we allocate resources for climate modelling if the goal is to improve climate-related decisions? Higher resolution, machine learning and/or storylines? A call for a deeper discussion on how we should develop the climate modelling toolbox.
Guest post by Marina Baldissera Pacchetti, Julie Jebeile and Erica Thompson
The need for “km-scale” models able to resolve fine detail at the scale of kilometres has been the subject of discussion both on this platform (see here and here) and in recent publications in peer reviewed journals (Slingo et al., 2022; Hewitt et al., 2022; Nature editorials; Stainforth and Calel, 2020). The core of the debate centres around the question of whether there should be large investments in improving the resolution of global models to the km-scale, and the extent to which these would benefit the societal response to a changing climate.
This debate has so far primarily touched on two things. Firstly, the benefits (or lack thereof) of having a more fine-grained representation of the physics. A km-scale model would have more topographical resolution and represent more physical processes, but key parameterizations are still necessary at the km-scale. Secondly, the technical feasibility of a very large model running on an exascale computer in a reasonable timeframe. This debate reflects what we call the current modelling paradigm, that focuses on increasing the resolution and complexity of GCMs in the hope that it will increase process understanding and, in time, lead to reliable fine-grained projections.
The assumption here is that more detailed GCM data will lead to better decisions, an assumption that has been disputed – especially in the context of climate services (Findlater et al., 2021) and assessing financial risks in the climate system. Moreover, it has been argued that the deluge of climate data already available needs to be assessed for quality, especially given the limitations that predicting climate change poses. Since funding on climate change research has so far been primarily channelled to the physical sciences (Overland and Sovacool, 2020), it is worth examining whether further investments in the hundreds of millions to build an exascale GCM would really allow for better decision-making.
We think that the current debate misses important fundamental aspects of how and why we do (climate) science. In a paper we recently published in BAMS (Baldissera Pacchetti et al. ,2024), we argue that funding a plurality of climate modelling strategies would better serve the decisions that need to be made in the face of climate change.
Different modelling strategies prioritise different methodological aims: for example, the “paradigm” approach described above prioritises empirical agreement with past data, realism of assumptions about the system represented, and comprehensiveness of the processes that are represented in a model, with the expectation that doing so will result in a model which is better able to predict physical climate outcomes.
But not all modelling approaches share these same aims, and different decision questions may require different types of information than physical climate outcomes. Diversifying modelling strategies therefore diversifies the type of information about the climate that is produced and the types of decision that it can support.
Machine Learning (ML) – one of the strategies we describe in our paper – for example, does not prioritise realism of assumptions, while still valuing empirical agreement, which could lead to a different perspective on model uncertainties and sensitivities to initial conditions and model structure. Users of ML approaches might find them more useful to inform decision questions relating to short-term trends and variability, and less useful for long-term physical transitions, extreme events, or the bounds of physical plausibility.
Storyline approaches – another of the examples we discuss — also differ in the aims they prioritise. By focusing on describing a causal chain of events, they prioritise intelligibility. Storylines have also been described as a “bottom up” approach to generating decision-relevant information, identifying relevant information by starting from real world events (what were the impacts? What meteorological and climatic conditions caused them?) and thereby also including the human dimension. While in many cases storylines still rely on GCM output, they can also be developed through expert elicitation. When using GCMs, there is an emphasis on better using the information that is already there with the aim of improving its intelligibility. Storyline approaches are suited to decision questions which require social or political approval or where decisions need to plan for robustness across a very wide range of possible outcomes.
In the paper, we use the metaphor of a toolbox. Machine Learning and storyline approaches are examples of modelling strategies that have different methodological aims than GCMs and also different strengths in terms of the decision questions they are suited to inform. We argue that since there are many different kinds of decisions that need to be taken in the light of climate change, providing a range of more diverse modelling tools will better address the informational needs of climate-related decision making.
Importantly, we are not proposing that GCM development should be stopped. Physical modelling of the system is needed, along with other modelling tools, because many decision questions would benefit from more accurate knowledge of future physical climate outcomes. We are also not proposing that funding should be divided equally among different approaches. Equitable funding would seek to support a range of approaches, acknowledging that some require greater investment than others, for example in computational resources. The current “paradigm” is also very resource-intensive; as such, it will be possible to achieve significantly improved diversity with relatively little diversion of funds. We are also not proposing that machine learning and storylines are the right alternatives to fund; these are simply two that we have chosen to highlight here. Ecological and sociopolitical models, Integrated Assessment Models, indigenous knowledge and climate literature are some further examples of modelling strategies which could be developed to inform different decision questions and which may communicate more effectively with different decision-making groups.
We would like to see a wider discussion about the quality and value (to different stakeholders) of different kinds of climate information, and for this to be used to support more careful decisions about what kinds of climate modelling strategies should be followed.
References
- J. Slingo, P. Bates, P. Bauer, S. Belcher, T. Palmer, G. Stephens, B. Stevens, T. Stocker, and G. Teutsch, "Ambitious partnership needed for reliable climate prediction", Nature Climate Change, vol. 12, pp. 499-503, 2022. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41558-022-01384-8
- H. Hewitt, B. Fox-Kemper, B. Pearson, M. Roberts, and D. Klocke, "The small scales of the ocean may hold the key to surprises", Nature Climate Change, vol. 12, pp. 496-499, 2022. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41558-022-01386-6
- "Think big and model small", Nature Climate Change, vol. 12, pp. 493-493, 2022. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41558-022-01399-1
- D.A. Stainforth, and R. Calel, "New priorities for climate science and climate economics in the 2020s", Nature Communications, vol. 11, 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-16624-8
- K. Findlater, S. Webber, M. Kandlikar, and S. Donner, "Climate services promise better decisions but mainly focus on better data", Nature Climate Change, vol. 11, pp. 731-737, 2021. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41558-021-01125-3
- I. Overland, and B.K. Sovacool, "The misallocation of climate research funding", Energy Research & Social Science, vol. 62, pp. 101349, 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2019.101349
- M. Baldissera Pacchetti, J. Jebeile, and E. Thompson, "For a Pluralism of Climate Modeling Strategies", Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, vol. 105, pp. E1350-E1364, 2024. http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-23-0169.1
Weather prediction is a good application of machine learning. Machine learning relies on having history of past behavior. The predictions are mostly useful over the range of past behavior. Weather is almost completely doing things it has done before. Yes, there are record highs and lows, and record rainfall. The systems that generate these are likely to be just slightly different that earlier systems that had less extreme outcomes. These are just a few points, most of the predicted points are inside observation points.
Climate change is going beyond the range of past observations. Not just on a few outlying points, but for most of the points. As a result, much of the training data isn’t useful for prediction.
As someone who worked with neural nets before retiring, I would have a lot of skepticism about the results of a machine learning climate model.
I do think that machine learning can be a good tool with many applications in weather prediction – if used carefully for what it is good at. However, as a retired weather forecaster, I think you’re missing some important issues.
You are correct that most forecasts amount to history at least rhyming with itself, in terms of evolving weather patterns. However, the most consequential forecasts are generally those for the relatively rare events that produce extremes. These tend to overwhelm human expectations and human-built infrastructure. They frequently produce fatalities and severe economic disruption. They also can combine several factors, such as unusual fire danger. Human forecasters can and are trained on past extremes through case studies, etc. The training period for machine learning will typically not be long enough to capture some of the historical variability. Human forecasters frequently underestimate the worst events, but they often can get across the message that something unusually bad is coming, even if the details are wrong. Models tend to be biased to either over or under forecasting. Neither type of error lends confidence to the forecast of a rare extreme event. The former cries “wolf” too often. The latter will misidentify the real wolf as a puppy.
John Pollack said:
Machine learning for numerical pattern matching is good at finding nonlinear relationships that can fit essentially any N-dimensional manifold. So for something like fluid dynamics, where one has highly nonlinear 3D waveforms, it is tempting to apply. I have experimented with NN here, finding that yes it readily matches waveforms but prefer to use the physics-based nonlinear formulation one can derive from the primitive equations of fluid dynamics. So instead of fitting a NN which is impossible to invert, one can watch the fit naturally evolve from the linear state to a nonlinear waveform following a physical mechanism.
However, no one does it exactly this way. The ML-applied-to-climate field is crowded with people that only have experience with naive ML, or those with climate knowledge dipping their toes into ML. That balance will change over time as the physics-informed ML algorithms enter the scene. At some point I will supercharge my approach with machine learning elements, but I still make progress so feel less of a need for ML right now,
The pure pattern-matching to historical data is the other application of ML. Like John Pollack says, it won’t reveal extreme conditions that don’t occur in the historical data. That’s the difference between physics-aware ML that can reveal emergent behavior vs historical ML stuck in the constraints of expected behavior.
You have experience with weather models based on physics. Such models have bias. A machine learning model of weather, perhaps a neural network, will be different than physics based weather models that you have experience with. As the ML model is “trained” to past events, the forecasts it presents should be statistically very similar to past weather, and assuming that weather statistics are stationary(1) should be very close to the future weather statistics. So there will be equal numbers of “wolf” and “puppy” “calls”, or the ML model will be unbiased.
That doesn’t mean that a ML model is always correct, of course.
The quality of the forecast will degrade if the future weather to be predicted is outside the training data range. No question.
1) weather statistics are changed due to climate change. This presents a problem. If there were two hundred “wolf” and two hundred “puppies” in the training period, and climate has changed so that three hundred “wolf” results are expected, the result will be biased as the ML model predicts as if weather hasn’t changed. And weather has changed. This limits how long of a training data period is useful. The faster the climate change, the shorter the useful training data, and the more likely the future weather will be outside of the training data.
Truly emergent machine-learned behavior will occur when some set of known inputs is configured in some (non)linear combination to correctly map to historical data and predict future data. That is the gold standard of success in AI — searching through all potential sources of data/information and applying every conceivable combination to arrive at a solution.
I was fortunate in having studied and applied pattern recognition and expert systems since school days, so have always used these kind of tools in conjunction with whatever I was researching. There have been cases where I’ve found a model concurrently by pen-and-paper evaluation and grinding away at a symbolic regression algorithm (Eureqa), or by manual equation derivation concurrently checked by an equation solver (Wolfram).
Might want to call that a force multiplier, as it extends the capabilities of a single person working a problem. The beauty is that if you do find a solution by machine learning and reverse engineer it to a physics explanation, you don’t have to necessarily admit to it. All that matters is the results. Like food products, you often don’t want to see how the sausage was made. Thus, the success of machine learning is exemplified when it gets subsumed in a product and it no longer gets called AI, such as voice recognition and autofocus in cameras.
But the enduring problem with general purpose AI systems that are seeking to discover emergent behavior, such as with climate, is that of the closed-world hypothesis. This is best expressed by the idea that if some source of information is missing from the back-end knowledgebase, the AI system will never get to use it. IMO, that’s the issue with climate systems modeled with ML/NN approaches, in that they are continuously busy trying to find patterns by self-inspection, whereas it’s also likely that much of the climate behavior is coming from external forces that have never been added/linked to the knowledgebase.
Most people assume Machine Learning = Neural Networks, however there are many other techniques that maybe address (or at least acknowledge) some of the issues raised around “ML”. Various Bayesian approaches (Gaussian processes, etc), which arguably fall more into ‘applied statistics’, can allow for expert-informed priors to be included, and can provide estimates of uncertainty — so if it seems like conditions are far from the training data, a model would, ideally express large uncertainty. However all this goes only so far, and I would worry that a model trained on historic data will fail as things change (the problem of ‘dataset-shift’) — again this is a well known problem in ML — but harder to deal with.
And, as a lay-person, having skimmed the Summaries for policy makers, etc — I feel like the part that has the most uncertainty seems like the impacts side (maybe this is driven by uncertainty in e.g. rainfall, but I also feel like feedbacks in biological systems, such as the Amazon, seem somewhat unclear/uncertain? Maybe more needs spending on that side of things? [I might be really wrong about that — it’s just my perception, but based on limited knowledge]
Yes, there are many approaches to machine learning including symbolic regression, which often uses genetic algorithms to spin-off combinatorial solutions. As you mentioned the “dataset-shift” problem, it’s straightforward to include time as an input variable and see if it factors in to a fit. I’ve experimented with TuringBot, PySR, and Eureqa so far.
And machine learning also includes all the auxiliary algorithms used during the training, such as the cross-validation approaches to eliminate over-fitted solutions. That is perhaps an aspect that anyone that does any kind of model-fitting can benefit from.
Best of luck with that. It seems quite reasonable. It also seems very, very expensive.
Thanks Tom for providing an entry point for my worry point.
High-end computing is problematical. The expense represents an expenditure of energy which is going off the deep end. I don’t have a solution, but our surrender to mechanical dominance has a reality check problem.
One way I can illustrate my anxiety about the direction we’re taking is to suggest people imagine what happens when the power goes out, as it is doing, increasingly, for many people. Data centers are energy hogs at the highest level. They also divide the haves from the have nots to extremes.
That said, I would hate to lose satellites and communications. But the energy solutions we have are not adequate to the task unless we all pull together, which I don’t see happening in the foreseeable future. It seems that these demands, as demonstrated by crypto (for which there is not even the excuse of being useful or honest), are causing refurbishment of energy sources which were due to be retired, dirty and exploitative. [the imaginary dreams of fusion are still far away and also currently resource hogs]
The idea that machine brains are so superior that we must sacrifice ourselves at their altar is almost blasphemous. The fact that they are objective and actually do stuff at the highest level makes them higher than the gods, but the concept of abdication seems not entirely inapposite.
In terms of scientific analysis, converging independent measures provide the most basic supports possible in a non-experimental area.
Sadly, said multiple independent measures are usually a bit divergent as well which is of course fertile fodder for faux “facts” on the part of our resident deniers.
Short of controlled experiments, that’s a requirement. It all goes under the category of cross-validation — applying as many different perspectives on the data as possible. Machine learning is another “non-experimental” discipline, and that would not have advanced as far as it has without cross-validation support.
Actually, for any mature scientific discipline, the foundation is built on multiple independent measures that corroborate one another. If one leg on the foundation requires a different interpretation of physics or a different model than another leg, that makes the foundation shaky. I think there’s another RC thread that is suggesting that the physics is changing with AGW. That doesn’t make sense, as the physics won’t change.
So in the context of the weirdness happening right now — is it the physics changing, or perhaps the limitation of the models emerging? Definitely the latter, with perhaps AGW having something to do with it.
Former chief scientist at NOAA (briefly under Trump), Ryan Maue observed:
One positive aspect is that Maue has changed his tune and is less a climate change skeptic than he has shown to be in the past.
Thanks for the new post! It’s highly germane to something we’re talking about in the Aug. UV thread, especially this five year old PNAS Perspective by Tim Palmer and Bjorn Stevens. Regulars on RC at the time pretty much agreed more computing power was needed to model local and regional climate change at the resolution needed by policy makers at those scales. In fact, collectively we chased off the ideological denialist who stumbled into the lions’ den. He apparently didn’t read the PNAS Perspective he waved at us, and didn’t grasp the gist of it! Meh. Deniers ought to know better than to peddle transparently motivated BS here. Alas, those that learn are replaced by those who haven’t yet.
Mal said:
Yup, I just ranted on that thread that throwing more compute power on a problem isn’t always the way to a solution, as it instead may just get you to a wrong answer …. only much faster, wasting power in the process. Tim Palmer in his recent book states that modern supercomputers use “some tens of megawatts” apiece.
I have ideas on how to model climate behaviors smartly, based on fundamental fluid dynamics math and observations from signal processing on oceanic & atmospheric indices. I still do iterations to solve nonlinear equations – using multicore parallel processing as appropriate – but nowhere near supercomputer wattage levels (no supply of refrigerated coolant to keep the workspace from overheating in sight!).
My results are promising, yet I was rebuffed from presenting at the US CliVar workshop earlier this year:
The context of the workshop was underlined as ”If inconsistencies exist, can we relate this to deficiencies in the representation of forced trends or of internal variability and understand the origins of the problem? “
Alas, that was the topic of my abstract.
There are other ways to try to add value. For example, PubPeer has generally been used to expose fraud in scientific papers. But it can also be used to foster discussion on potentially incorrect models, as I do here with a Tim Dunkerton paper: https://pubpeer.com/publications/E27F0929E64D90C32E9358889CC80F
Read it so you can see how I model natural variability via a forcing,
Tim Palmer said in the PNAS paper “Unfortunately, many in the community—notably those in charge of science funding—have no idea how significant and widespread these inadequacies are.”. We will just have to keep hammering away at this issue.
The use of the word “pluralism” in your title invites cognitive dissonance in North American readers insofar the text and its references suggest unanimity of purpose in subordinating the advancement of climate science to the ends of climate and social policy.
For example, your policy-forward categorisation of ‘Machine Learning (ML)’ it :
” does not prioritise realism of assumptions,… Users of ML approaches might find them more useful to inform decision questions relating to short-term trends and variability, and less useful for long-term physical transitions, extreme events, or the bounds of physical plausibility. ”
in viewing “Storyline Approaches” you likewise emphasize :
” a “bottom up” approach to generating decision-relevant information, identifying relevant information by starting from real world events (what were the impacts?… When using GCMs, there is an emphasis on better using the information that is already there with the aim of improving its intelligibility.
Storyline approaches are suited to decision questions which require social or political approval or where decisions need to plan for robustness across a very wide range of possible outcomes.”
While these have long been considered Best Practices in the empirical world of political lobbying and public relations, it seems at best problematic to sacrifice model resolution and parametric factuality to the cause of promoting public unanimity at the expense of public understanding of the difficulties of modeling when parameters as important as doubling sensitivity remain crudely defined.
“…it seems at best problematic to sacrifice model resolution and parametric factuality…”
As I read the post, they do not advocate such a sacrifice–or, at least, not more than to the minimal extent that some funding of less-expensive alternatives would crowd out some hi-res model funding. They seem to think that the opportunity cost would remain marginal.
Hey Russell, are you still holding out for convergence of ECS estimates among CMIP models? I agree it would be nice, and would offer scientists assurance they understand the global-scale physical mechanisms of climate pretty well. IMHO more model convergence is not, however, important for national decarbonization policies, which should already be “as quickly as politically possible!”
Who is the “we” who makes the decisions to allocate resources for climate modelling?
It is not the people writing these papers (Baldissera Pacchetti et al. ,2024; Slingo et al., 2022; Hewitt et al., 2022; Nature editorials; Stainforth and Calel, 2020). nor reading this article.
Who is the responsible “we” which have the power and authority to make improved climate-related decisions? Again, it is not those people mentioned above.
Who is the “we” to have a deeper discussion on how “we should” (?) develop the climate modelling toolbox? What is their level of influence and likely success with the two groups above who actually have all the power to make the decisions?
Generally: Who is in charge? Who makes the decisions? Or runs the meetings? Who has the power and authority to organize and decide anything any where?
Meanwhile the very same people in power ‘controlled by’ the economic drivers, inertia and systems in place will be making the same kinds of extraordinarily bad decisions this elite powerful group have been making for decades.
Past performance is indicative of future performance. Nothing mentioned in the article or in the papers listed and no GCM or climate modelling will ever make a real substantive enough difference to improving climate-related decisions.
Humanity, already knows everything we need to know about what needs to be done. Take actions to return as fast as possible towards 350 ppm CO2; and stop destroying and polluting the environment and ecosystems.
We have already proven beyond all doubt we cannot and we will not do what needs to be done.
The climate science community is not going to suddenly change that now, or they would have long long ago.
It is an academic sideshow of no importance or consequence. A waste of time believing anything else will come of it.
https://www.startpage.com/do/dsearch?q=leadership+by+committee+fails+every+time&cat=web&language=english
“Take actions to return as fast as possible towards 350 ppm CO2; and stop destroying and polluting the environment and ecosystems..”
To return towards 350 ppm CO2 will require the permanent geological storage of massive amounts of CO2. Taking out just one ppm means storing 7,8 gigatons.. Making it all the way back to 350 from the current 420 ppm would mean storing 546 gigatons. Current global storage is only ~40 million tons annually. Clearly, even one ppm is not going to help and will be energy intensive and expensive.
Broadlands: To return towards 350 ppm CO2 will require the permanent geological storage of massive amounts of CO2. Current global storage is only ~40 million tons annually.
Why do you assume we need to get there … in one year?
Second, only 50% of the currently emitted CO2 stays in the atmosphere. Sure, most of the uptake on way down won’t work on the way down, still some of them may still work – increased C uptake by boreal forests and soils, uptake by the rock erosion, BTW – the latter has been proposed as another way to remove CO2 that is not included in your “the permanent geological storage“.
Whether it would be possible to get back to 350 ppm in a reasonable time? Don’t know, but I don’t think this should frame the discussion – because it’s one of the “ all or nothing” fallacies, which breed the apathy and despair – if the target is too hard to reach – then there is no point in doing anything (“ even one ppm is not going to help“) and we may just enjoy our consumption while it lasts (“After us, Deluge!”).
But what science tells us it that – it’s not ALL or nothing – the world with 600 ppm would be much worse to live in than one with 450 ppm. So I don’t think your “ Clearly, even one ppm {per year! – P} is not going to help. ” is as “clear”, as you think.
I did not assume we need to get there in one year. The IEA says that from all sources, including bioenergy, we need to do it by 2050. The total amount they calculate is 7,600 million tons. That’s not quite one ppm. As to the bioenergy part, uptake by plants is of course temporary because when plants die or are burned their sequestered carbon is recycled back to CO2 and water by some of the oxygen they helped create. Putting CO2 into carbonate rocks is even worse quantitatively and much more costly. There simply is no way to get rid of atmospheric CO2 enough to affect the climate, regardless of funding. .
Broadlands: I did not assume we need to get there in one year.
Sorry, my bad, I misread your “annually”.
B: uptake by plants is of course temporary because when plants die or are burned their sequestered carbon is recycled back to CO2
I was talking about the NET uptake, i.e. = the gross uptake – (death+fires). If assume that only 50% of emitted CO2 stays in the atm. and the ocean takes up 30% – then 20% goes to land – to the enhanced plant growth by longer growing season and CO2-fertilization in moisture-limited areas and to the erosion of carbonate and silicate rocks .
Putting CO2 into carbonate rocks is even worse quantitatively and much more costly.
Care to put numbers behind your claims ? I.e. showing with numbers that, say, grinding carbonate rocks and spreading it in coastal waters, or increasing carbon storage in, and reducing carbon loss from, the soil, by regenerative agriculture and forestry practices – is “ even worse quantitatively and much more costly” than massive concentrating of CO2 and pumping it into rocks”?
And this would apply only to my aside (“BTW; the latter has been proposed as another way to remove CO2 that is not included in your “the permanent geological storage“). The main point – was the natural uptake of CO2 by carbonate and silicate rocks. Which costs us exactly ZERO
There simply is no way to get rid of atmospheric CO2 enough to affect the climate, regardless of funding
I believe I have already addressed it in the post you are replying to.
====
P: “I don’t think (the reduction to 350 ppm) should frame the discussion – because it’s one of the “all or nothing” fallacies that breed the apathy and despair – if the target is too hard to reach – then there is no point in doing anything, and we may just enjoy our consumption while it lasts (“After us, Deluge!”). It’s not ALL or nothing – the world with 600 ppm would be much worse to live in than one with 450 ppm.
That’s why I don’t subscribe to your self-fulfilling defeatism: “ There simply is no way to get rid of atmospheric CO2 enough to affect the climate
CJ said “Take actions to return as fast as possible towards 350 ppm CO2;”
I can’t see much point in doing this. While 420 ppm CO2 and 1 degree of warming is already causing some problems, they are not at dangerous levels. . Its warming above 1.5 degrees thats considered dangerous and should be stopped. Getting back to 350ppm will require huge resources even if its spread out over time.
Studies show the current levels of atmospheric CO2 and the roughly 1 degree of warming above preindustrial has either prevented or will greatly reduce the next ice age, which would be very beneficial for future generations. Refer:
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-35307800
https://theconversation.com/climate-explained-why-we-wont-be-heading-into-an-ice-age-any-time-soon-123675
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2012/jan/next-ice-age-delayed-global-warming
William Ruddimann argues that farming and deforestation starting 10,000 years ago raised atmospheric CO2 levels and this created the unusually warm stable holocene that has been so beneficial to human development. The point is we are already a product of our own accidental climate change.. I suggest the sane objective should be to stop DANGEROUS, destructive self imposed levels of climate change.
Broadlands, Piotr, others,
Came across this today (courtesy of the invaluable Skeptical Science site) and thought I’d put it on the storage discussion table:
.
The feasibility of reaching gigatonne scale CO2 storage by mid-century
Zhang, et al
Published 28 August 2024
.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-51226-8
.
https://static-content.springer.com/esm/art%3A10.1038%2Fs41467-024-51226-8/MediaObjects/41467_2024_51226_MOESM2_ESM.pdf
.
.
Much hangs on the actions (or lack of) of the United States between now and 2050.
I’ll add this DAC news story courtesy of ClimateWire, one of Politico’s publications that’s a part of their E&E focus:
.
https://www.eenews.net/articles/project-bison-fails-whats-next-for-the-carbon-removal-megaproject/
No.
https://rmi.org/wp-content/uploads/dlm_uploads/2024/06/RMI-Cleantech-Revolution-pdf.pdf
None of that technology can be realistically done without using fossil fuels for the majority of the transportation involved…conventional ICE vehicles. The same applies to the delivery and installation of solar and wind farm projects. There are no EVs doing any of that kind of work…yet. That means more oil will be needed and used, at least until the energy transition is close to completion.
B: None of that technology can be realistically done without using fossil fuels for the majority of the transportation involved…conventional ICE vehicles. The same applies to the delivery and installation of solar and wind farm projects. There are no EVs doing any of that kind of work…yet. That means more oil will be needed and used, at least until the energy transition is close to completion.
BPL: Over their life cycle, renewable energy and EVs do significantly better than fossil fuel energy and transportation.
Broadlands said:
False. Virtually all of it can be done with EVs. (And it would appear that you didn’t peruse the report very thoroughly, either, because there is discussion of transportation, and specifically the exponential growth we are currently seeing in EV adoption.)
However, with regard to commercial trucking, up to and including long-haul, there is already significant movement, and much promise. People in the industry simply do not agree with what you wrote:
https://www.truckinginfo.com/10224083/the-economics-of-transport-electrification
Now, as the quote implies, it is true that much of the transportation need consequent to the building, installing, and maintaining renewable energy generation is still being supplied by ICE tech–but as both the RMI report and the story linked here indicate, that is rapidly changing.
And of course, as BPL pointed out, even with their current carbon footprint, these technologies are still a serious improvement over the former status quo when it comes to emissions. There’s a virtuous circle in play: as more RE is deployed, the emissions from generation drop, including the emissions associated with charging EVs. And conversely, as EV deployment takes off, the emissions associated with RE decrease, too.
There’s a reason that–again as shown in the RMI report–we are already long past peak fossil use across much of the developed world. And it isn’t mostly because of offshoring manufacturing, either–though that is a factor.
Broadlands wrote: “The same applies to the delivery and installation of solar and wind farm projects. There are no EVs doing any of that kind of work…yet.“
I can’t speak about solar farm projects, but Broadlands is correct regarding wind farms at least as I’ve recently witnessed. The equipment needed for the site prep, foundations, delivery of the primary components, construction and erecting, digging for/laying of export lines, etc was done with ICE equipment.
Given capital requirements for the change over of the equipment involved, creation of support systems to maintain, plus the need for an existing charging infrastructure to support new versions, I suspect the transition to electrical powered heavy construction equipment (if/when available) is still down the road. Transportation will likely transition comparatively faster; though still dependent on the rate of buildout of an adequate charging infrastructure imo.
Looks very positive and promising, but ultimately I will feel we are finally getting somewhere when global CO2 emissions and biodiversity loss start falling significantly year-on-year.
RMI-Cleantech-Revolution
Thanks for the lies, distortions and propaganda production number. No doubt you and everyone else here believe all 87 pages of it. I particularly liked the page 8 “THE AGE OF RENEWABLES = Eternal” lie.
It’s up there with the worst Cults. But if that is what you must believe to sleep at night while pretending you are doing something ‘useful’ when you get up every day, then who am I to judge?
CJ wrote: “RMI-Cleantech-Revolution – Thanks for the lies, distortions and propaganda production number. No doubt you and everyone else here believe all 87 pages of it. I particularly liked the page 8 “THE AGE OF RENEWABLES = Eternal” lie.”
Instead of nastiness, can you offer evidence to support your claim?
Regarding the group think/cult diatribe, anyone willing to spend a little time here at RC will find an array of thought and thus discussion/disagreement. Be it our hosts and their postings or the commentators here in the comments. Put aside the insults.
DAVID says- Instead of nastiness, can you offer evidence to support your claim?
Regarding the group think/cult diatribe, anyone willing to spend a little time here at RC will find an array of thought and thus discussion/disagreement. Be it our hosts and their postings or the commentators here in the comments. Put aside the insults.
………………………….
Obviously CJ was speaking to the RMI-Cleantech-Revolution document
CJ gave one specific example, which is clearly a lie / disinformation because “renewables” are NOT ETERNAL, and so neither will the ‘age of renewables’ be eternal.
So CJ was obviously dissing that document and their flawed assumptions.
Did you even read it?
It is full of falsehoods, unfounded assumptions, distortions and PR propaganda and marketing spin.
CJ said nothing about RC or yourself.
So what is your problem? Put aside your ‘baseless complaints’ and go read what CJ actually said and what the document says. It’s Pollyanna fantasy stuff.
Escobar, re your comment: https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/08/the-need-for-pluralism-in-climate-modelling/#comment-824262
CJ’s comment that I addressed was a response to Kevin McKinney: https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/08/the-need-for-pluralism-in-climate-modelling/#comment-824010
CJ as clearly replying to Kevin when CJ said: “No doubt you and everyone else here believe all 87 pages of it (the RMI document).” “You” = Kevin, “everyone else here” = all the RC commentators. Thus my ‘group think’ remark. Seems straightforward. Yes, I found that inaccurate and nasty.
Continuing, yes I did reread CJ comment. I see now that he was calling RMI “a cult,” not the commentators here at RC. I was incorrect and thus wrong to make that association. I apologize for that error. He’s incorrect though labeling RMI a cult imo based on what I have learned about them since Kevin first introduced the document here several months ago.
You asked: “Did you even read it?” Yes, I’ve read it in its entirety twice with notes to boot. If memory serves, I briefly commented on it here at RC previously.
I find it interesting yet imperfect, with several meaningful issues I’d address if I was asked by RMI. However, it’s not the “Magna Carta” nor a physics paper! Nor is it “Pollyanna fantasy stuff“ as you claim. It is marketing! Why you and CJ are so emotive about it escapes me.
If it was me, I’d start with the disastrous image they chose for the front cover which shows a scene of beautiful forested foothills, except for several in the foreground where there is NO forest, ONLY solar panels from bases on up. Terrible message that image conveys given the thrust of the title “The Cleantech Revolution.”
Off topic, Escobar, are you and CJ separate people? Yes or no?
CJ: Who is the “we” who makes the decisions to allocate resources for climate modelling?
It’s the same “we” that made the decisions to allocate resources to the coupled GCMs already in use, duh. In the US those decisions happen in multiple steps, ultimately beginning with the voters. Broadly speaking, Democratic voters are more supportive of spending tax money on public goods like science, than Republican voters are. Consequently, if Democrats are in power in the Legislative and Executive Branches, along with additional decarbonization policy initiatives, we can expect more funding for climate modeling than if Republicans are in power. This November, if you live in a swing state, and you vote for anyone but Harris/Walz, or no one at all, you are voting to deny climate science regardless of computing power. IOW, if you’re a US voter, you make the decision!
CJ: We have already proven beyond all doubt we cannot and we will not do what needs to be done.
C. Hitchens: What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.
Monty Python: “Now go away, or I shall taunt you some more.”
CJ: We have already proven beyond all doubt we cannot and we will not do what needs to be done.
Mal: C. Hitchens: “What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.”
Monty Python: “Now go away, or I shall taunt you some more.”
;-).
But given CJ’s psychological payout – if most can’t see what I see then I must be really really smart – the French taunt may not be enough. Like with most doomers and deniers – you may need to deal with them like with the Black Knight …
HA! Black Knights. I noticed that as well re TK and JCM…
A question to Radge Havers, with respect to 28 Aug 2024 at 12:03 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/08/the-need-for-pluralism-in-climate-modelling/#comment-824075
Dear Radge,
I tried to find out what I share with Black Knights by inspecting the respective Wikipedia page
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Knight_(Dane_Whitman) ,
but I quickly gave up, because the text revived in my thoughts an quite unpleasant experience with a similar stuff.
Specifically, I was really shattered by the final scene from one piece of a movie series “Transformers”, which I watched accidentally many years ago. In this scene, US Marine Corps landed and successfully fought on a sea shore located at the foot of the pyramids in Giza. Obviously, when one wants an impressive story, reality does not matter – but I strongly dislike such an approach.
For this reason, I desisted from perusing the complicated story about various Black Knights further, and would like to ask directly the following simple question instead:
Is the treatment which I, in your opinion, deserve, represented e.g. by the recent Piotr’s thread following my post of 19 Aug 2024 at 3:33 AM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/08/unforced-variations-aug-2024/#comment-823836
which Piotr finalized by this statement:
—
Kalisz Aug. 27:
Are you sure that your transcription of my sentence,
– “This seems to indeed suggest that the situation might be more favourable now, at least as regards the discussed threat of the rapid multi-metre SLR.” [as]
– “This seems to indeed suggest that the situation might be more favourable now [for] the rapid multi-metre SLR.” ,
which you take as a basis for your objections, is equivalent to my original?
Yes, I am sure – “at least as regards the discussed threat” is just a chaff that changes nothing.
—
In other words, have “evil denialists” to be fought by all means, perhaps including similar methods as super-heroes of American comics face from the respective villains?
Thank you, Radge, in advance and best regards
Tomáš
Black Knight; mentioned in the context of Monty Python. To wit:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRwCPUEND1U
From Monty Python and the Holy Grail (4 minutes)
Enjoy!
in Re to Radge Havers, 29 Aug 2024 at 10:58 AM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/08/the-need-for-pluralism-in-climate-modelling/#comment-824111
Dear Radge,
Many thanks for the link, it is a funny scene indeed :-)
As regards Piotr’s paraphrasing of this scene in his parallel post of 29 Aug 2024 at 9:50 AM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/08/the-need-for-pluralism-in-climate-modelling/#comment-824108 ,
it is quite funny, too.
I am afraid that in reality, Piotr could be indeed portrayed as the brave King Arthur asking visitors of this discuission forum to join him in his quest for Holy Grail of GHG mitigation. He then, however, mercilesslyy cutts into pieces anyone who looks reluctant, irrespective whether the person came armed or not.
The King becomes especially mad if someone dares to say that there could be further causes of the observed AGW that may act independently from GHG but also in accord therewith, and therefore might deserve an attention as well.
Greetings
T
TK: The King becomes especially mad if someone dares to say that there could be further causes of the observed AGW that may act independently from GHG but also in accord therewith, and therefore might deserve an attention as well.
BPL: No competent person disagrees that there are other processes at work. However, CO2 accounts for 85% of the variance of temperature over the last 170 years, so the other causes are all fighting for the 15% remaining share.
Thomas Kalisz said:
“I am afraid that in reality, Piotr could be indeed portrayed as the brave King Arthur asking visitors of this discuission forum to join him in his quest for Holy Grail of GHG mitigation.”
In my view you have that wrong and completely backwards. Piotr has advocated an approach combining several different mitigation strategies in combination, and acknowledges none of them are perfect, in comments on this website that Ive read. This is the exact opposite of a search for the holy grail. He has frequently argued against perfectionism. I’m responding because I’m also suspicious of perfectionism / utopian sounding solutions. So its not clear by what thought process / evidence did you arrive at the idea Piotr is on a quest for the holy grail, or maybe you are just trolling.
“He then, however, mercilesslyy cutts into pieces anyone who looks reluctant, irrespective whether the person came armed or not.”
He does, but you ask for trouble. If you post crazy ideas they will be cut down especially if you are proud and stubborn and persist with them, despite being frequently shown a veritable mountain of evidence they are crazy.
I suggest watch the Monty Python dead parrot sketch on youtube or the Blackadder TV series. Especially Baldricks “cunning plans”.
.
Re: Tomas Kalisz Aug.30:
I am on this forum to learn new things about climate change and/or learn something about others or myself. You are obviously unwilling to learn anything about climate change that does not conform to your a priori opinions, so perhaps at least you can learn something about yourself:
TK [Like King Arthur, you are] then, however, mercilesslyy cutts into pieces anyone who looks reluctant, irrespective whether the person came armed or not.
Playing for sympathy, Tomas? Posing as an innocent and defenseless victim, at the mercy of a ruthless brute? You are neither.
– you are not innocent – by pushing the deniers narrative “Anything but GHGs” – you help the fossil fuels interests to delay life- and civilization-saving reductions in GHGs – and therefore ethically – like them – you have the blood of the victims of the delayed action, on your hands.
– nor you are defenseless – everybody here is armed with the same – a sword of their intellect and an amour of their integrity. So when I “cut you to pieces” – it is not because your are unarmed, but because your intellect and integrity are wanting: like the Black Knight – your are a victim of your own ego and lack of self-awareness – your inability to admit of being wrong, your inability to evaluate critically your ideas and value system, and your inability to change in view of such self-examination.
Thus like the Black Knight – you are left a pathetic corpse of a man – not because of me, but because of you. Reduced to shouting toward the people who by-pass you:
“ Oh, oh, I see! Running away, eh? You yellow bastards! Come back here and take what’s coming to you! I’ll bite your legs off!“
In Re to Nigel, 30 Aug 2024 at 5:08 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/08/the-need-for-pluralism-in-climate-modelling/#comment-824176
Hallo Nigel,
Depicting Piotr as the King Arthur on the quest for the Holy Grail of GHG mitigation is not mine. I borrowed it from Piotr’s transcript of the Monty Python scene:
“King Arthur: I seek the bravest and the finest knights in the land who will join me in my fight to mitigate GHGs to avert the worse of AGW!”
As regards Piotr”s criticism regarding impracticality of my example with watering Sahara, I am fine therewith. What I see counter.-productive is
a) the narrow focus of this criticism on this practical aspect, which is in my opinion (at least from the broader perspective of our understanding to the role of water cycle in global climate regulation) possibly the least important one, and
b) unnecessary recurrence of this narrow criticism,
because both together still effectively prevent a reasonable discussion about further aspects of my example – e.g. whether or not anthropogenic landscape changes during several previous millennia could (or could not) have a similar effect, only with the opposite sign.
Greetings
Tomáš
Tomas Kalisz,
“Depicting Piotr as the King Arthur on the quest for the Holy Grail of GHG mitigation is not mine. I borrowed it from Piotr’s transcript of the Monty Python scene:”
OK my bad. I accept that Piotr does seem to cast himself as King Arthur in search of the holy grail. In my defence I hadn’t read Piotrs version of the Monty Python version of King Arthur tale. It’s amusing. I saw the original movie a million years ago. Big monty python fan.
But I suggest I’m right in what I said in principle: Piotr’s not really the sort of person obsessed with holy grail solutions, as in singular, simple, perfectionist solutions to the climate problem. Neither am I. This is why I get frustrated with Killians ‘simplification’ solution, of massive rapid de-industrialisation, which does have the virtue of simplicity in a sense, but it has huge downsides as well that Ive outlined previously.
With you I’m never really sure what solutions you believe in, because you dont state plainly and simply what you believe. This makes you look sly and like a denialist and it gets discussion locked into a repeating loop.
I like to be upfront. I think we have to do a range of things including renewables, electrified transport, reduce our per capita energy use as much as practically possible but not at the scale Killian promotes, and suck CO2 out of the air using the most plausible approaches which IMHO include tree planting, rock weathering, and regenerative agriculture. All have limitations and are not silver bullets – but a combination might be meaningful.
Like you I have my doubts about DAC, but its the nature of capitalism that someone is going to try this and its just possible that a way might be found to make it genuinely cost effective, but I wouldn’t be betting money on that.
Ok thats a huge digression, and a bit of a rant, so back to the issues at hand that you raised: For me irrigation schemes to cool the planet look so limited in impact, so expensive and required so long term and have so many side effects its not worth the effort. Ultimtately we have to rank things in order of overall feasibility, and irrigation is well down my list.
I understand your point that its still important what effects human changes to the water cycle have had on past climates. If you want Piotr to discuss this you are going to have to admit you were wrong about certain things and do so candidly and fully and without self pity. Just giving you some well menaing advice, having also been a victom of Piotrs criticisms.
.
I struggle to believe that historical human changes to the water cycle would have been very significant for similar reasons to Piotr. Deforestation has been huge starting from about year 1600 onwards causing a reduction in evapotranspiration, but this has clearly been countered to a significant extent by crop irrigation, especially from groundwater, which is why Im not seeing a huge issue. It’s a big job to calculate exactly how much its been countered, but the onus is really on you to show its significant. I suspect there are formal studies and numbers out there if you look carefully.
Kalisz Aug.31: complains about “ the narrow focus of this criticism of his …. “practical” (;-)) Sahara irrigation scheme
That’s because that’s the envelope of potential effects on T – the MAXIMUM effect proposal you and other “water boys” could come up with – increasing current global desalination 1000-FOLD and running it for 1000s of years to ,perhaps approach 0.3K net cooling.
Any less expensive water cycle project would accomplish proportionally LESS.
TK: whether or not anthropogenic landscape changes during several previous millennia could (or could not) have a similar effect, only with the opposite sign.
No point discussing it again since it has already been shown to you, many time, using the numbers from your own source Lague et al. – that they had a similar or smaller effect to your absurd Sahara scheme – caused a net warming of a fraction of a fraction of 0.3K, further reduced by cooling from the agricultural irrigation.
So this parrot is dead too. Passed on! Ceased to be! Expired and gone to meet ‘is maker! ‘E’s a stiff! Bereft of life, ‘e rests in peace! ‘E’s off the twig! ‘E’s kicked the bucket, ‘e’s shuffled off ‘is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin’ choir invisible!! THIS IS AN EX-PARROT!!
In Re to Piotr, 31 Aug 2024 at 5:31 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/08/the-need-for-pluralism-in-climate-modelling/#comment-824217
Dear Piotr,
I am afraid that your reply only confirms your narrow focus that I have objected – on a single and possibly least important aspect, which prevents you from dealing with anything else.
If you are interested in a discussion rather than in fighting with your dead parrots, I would like to remind you of just one from the bunch of my reasons for the opinion that your bold conclusion that you made on the basis of Lague 2023 – that human interferences with terrestrial hydrology cannot (and could not) substantially influence global climate – is not justified.
This objection was very simple. Do you think that you can draw QUANTITATIVE conclusions about the real size of the global mean temperature response to an anthropogenic perturbation in terrestrial hydrology on the basis of Lague’s model experiment?
In other words, you take the 8K difference in global mean temperature between the “desert land” and the “swamp land” as a reliable basis for your estimation. If so, could you, on the basis of the data provided in the article, specify a statistical certainty of this estimation (and of your “negligible” 0.3 K derived therefrom)?
Greetings
Tomáš
Tomas Kalisz: Seot. 1 Dear Piotr, I am afraid that your reply only confirms your narrow focus that I have objected
Don’t feel bad (“I am afraid”) Tomas, I care only about opinions of people whose intellect and ethics I respect. So no harm done.
As for the subject of your afraidness – my focus on the discussion at hand – what you present as a fault – I see as the necessary condition of any productive discussion – not moving on to tangential subjects until the original subjects are fully resolved and lessons learned from them
In this case, you made two points, I answered both of them, you unable to counter
(as Zebra noted: “Deniers never answer the question”) – try to portray may answering your claims as something I should be ashamed of ( “Your narrow focus”) and try to move the discussion goalposts onto the new questions I have no interest to discuss UNTIL you honestly own up to your EARLIER claims. Otherwise it’s whack-a-Tomas game, amusing initially while, but not long-term.
Here are your ORIGINAL claims and my falsifiable answers to them – until you address them in an honest way, I don’t see the point in following you into other topics:
========
1. Kalisz Aug.31: complains about the narrow focus of this criticism of his “practical” (;-)) Sahara irrigation scheme
Piotr Aug 31: “That’s because that’s the envelope of potential effects on T – the MAXIMUM effect proposal you and other “water boys” could come up with – increasing current global desalination 1000-FOLD and running it for 1000s of years to ,perhaps approach 0.3K net cooling. Any less expensive water cycle project would accomplish proportionally LESS.”
which of the above is unclear to you?
2.Kalisz Aug. 31: “whether or not anthropogenic landscape changes during several previous millennia could (or could not) have a similar effect, only with the opposite sign.”
Piotr Aug 31: “NO POINT of discussing it again since it has already been shown to you, using the numbers from your own source Lague et al. – that they had a similar or smaller effect to your absurd Sahara scheme , i.e. [“your anthropogenic landscape changes during several previous millennia”] caused a net warming of a fraction of a fraction of 0.3K, further reduced by cooling from the agricultural irrigation.
So this parrot is dead too. ”
=================
And sorry, but your “ Dear Piotr, I am afraid that your reply only confirms your narrow focus that I have objected” does NOT make the parrot undead and pinning for the Moravian forests.
TK: “you take the 8K difference in global mean temperature between the “desert land” and the “swamp land” as a reliable basis for your estimation”
I have answered this several times already.
in Re to Piotr, 1 Sep 2024 at 3:19 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/08/the-need-for-pluralism-in-climate-modelling/#comment-824248
Hi Piotr,
I am not sure what you mean under the two of my points you already replied to.
Anyway, let us try to skip it and assume that Lague 2023 proved the following:
Switching Earth from the hypothetical state with all ice-free land providing unlimited water for evaporation to the hypothetical state with all ice-free land providing no water for evaporation (or vice versa) will cause the difference in global mean surface temperature 4 K, with an uncertainty +- 4 K.
This way, it appears quite sure that any anthropogenic interference with water availability for evaporation can hardly influence global mean temperature, exactly as you concluded.
Could you now explain how you further extrapolated this conclusion the way that human interferences with water availability for evaporation cannot measurably influence global CLIMATE?
Thank you in advance and greetings
Tomáš
TK [to Piotr]: I am afraid that your reply only confirms your narrow focus that I have objected – on a single and possibly least important aspect, which prevents you from dealing with anything else.
BPL: How familiar are you with analysis of variance?
There are many, many factors which affect climate. But *for the present global warming,* carbon dioxide is the elephant in the room. It accounts for 85% of the variance of temperature since 1850. That means that, at least during that time period, everything else only accounts for 15%.
Of course, global warming is not the only ecological crisis facing us. But temperature is a good basic index for what’s happening with global climate. For instance, for our geological epoch, a mean global annual temperature of 282 K indicates we’re in an ice age, whereas 287 K means we’re in an interglacial.
“CO2 accounts for 85% of the variance ”
Comparing Mauna Loa CO2 data annually against GISS Land-Ocean temperature shows that approximately 90% of the variance can be accounted-for using a linear regression model.
The same value 90% is achieved when plugging in land use change data from Our World in Data, after patrick O’s lead, against GISS temp.
This is because they all follow the same hockey stick shape, (or at least the blade part for Mauna Loa). Loads of human related disturbances follow the hockey stick shape.
In my view, this variance analysis doesn’t reveal anything particularly insightful.
I’m not interested at all discussing statistics, but it seems like this was worth pointing out.
Tomas Kalisz: 1 Sep 2024
I am not sure what you mean under the two of my points you already replied to.
If you can’t understand a simple answer to your claims, what are you still doing here?
===
1) Kalisz Aug.31: complains about the narrow focus of this criticism of his “practical” (;-)) Sahara irrigation scheme
– Piotr Aug 31: “That’s because that’s the envelope of potential effects on T – the MAXIMUM effect proposal you and other “water boys” could come up with – increasing current global desalination 1000-FOLD and running it for 1000s of years to ,perhaps approach 0.3K net cooling. Any less expensive water cycle project would accomplish proportionally LESS.”
which of the above is unclear to you?
2.Kalisz Aug. 31: “whether or not anthropogenic landscape changes during several previous millennia could (or could not) have a similar effect, only with the opposite sign.”
Piotr Aug 31: “NO POINT of discussing it again since it has already been shown to you, using the numbers from your own source Lague et al. – that they had a similar or smaller effect to your absurd Sahara scheme , i.e. [“your anthropogenic landscape changes during several previous millennia”] caused a net warming of a fraction of a fraction of 0.3K, further reduced by cooling from the agricultural irrigation.
So this parrot is dead too. ”
===
Since you are either unable to understand, or pretend to not understand, the above STRAIGHTFORWARD answers to your claims, I am not interested in your attempts to change the subject:
TK “ let us try to skip it and assume that Lague 2023 proved the following
since the outcome – you unwilling “to understand” the answers that contradict your apriori conclusions would be the same.
FIRST own up to your earlier claims and actions, ONLY THEN we could move on to different subjects.
In Re to Barton Paul Levenson, 30 Aug 2024 at 1:03 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/08/the-need-for-pluralism-in-climate-modelling/#comment-824164 ,
and 2 Sep 2024 at 12:04 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/08/the-need-for-pluralism-in-climate-modelling/#comment-824281
BPL: How familiar are you with analysis of variance?
There are many, many factors which affect climate. But *for the present global warming,* carbon dioxide is the elephant in the room. It accounts for 85% of the variance of temperature since 1850. That means that, at least during that time period, everything else only accounts for 15%.
TK: Hallo Barton Paul,
I admit that I am completely unfamiliar with variance analysis. If you are, you could perhaps answer following question.
Let us assume that there is a parameter of climate system that itself does not directly influence global mean surface temperature, however, it still has an influence on climate sensitivity towards other forcings, such as GHG atmospheric concentration.
Let us assume that in parallel with CHC concentration, humanity changed also this “GHG sensitivity driving” parameter. Will variance analysis in such a case reveal a contribution of this parameter to the observed climate change (e.g., in % of the observed global mean surface temperature increase)?
Thank you in advance and greetings
Tomáš
In Re to Piotr, 3 Sep 2024 at 10:50 AM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/08/the-need-for-pluralism-in-climate-modelling/#comment-824313
Dear Piotr,
If human interferences with terrestrial hydrology in fact CONTRIBUTED to climate change – irrespective how and when – then your approach to this dispute guarantees that we will never arrive at the correct conclusion that such an effect could be possible.
It is because you arbitrarily set the effect on global mean surface temperature as the necessary and sufficient condition for such a conclusion, and refuse the view that your arbitrary definition of the problem may not be the right one.
I proposed assuming that Lague et al have not proved any effect of the radical change in terrestrial hydrology on global mean surface temperature, and asked if it can be considered as a sufficient evidence that anthropogenic interferences with terrestrial hydrology could not influence global CLIMATE – e.g., in terms of precipitation distribution between land and sea. I do not think so.
It appears, however, that with your approach, we should say that the problem is already resolved. I understood your insistence in your cropland example the way that you suppose that that if there was/is no proof of any influence of human interferences with terrestrial hydrology, then everything is clear and a discussion of any other aspect is superfluous and unnecessary.
I tried to explain why I think that this view may be false. I think that instead of facilitating the discussion and leading it to the right outcome, your insistence on “concluding on my first point first” may prevent us from the correct conclusion.
I still think that this conclusion is different from yours. I still think that even if Lague’s modelling would have failed to show any effect on global mean surface temperature, such a result would have still not justified your bold assertion that studying human interferences with land hydrology does not make sense anymore (because it was already proven that there cannot be any relationship between these interferences and global CLIMATE).
Greetings
Tomáš
Tomas Kalisz If human interferences with terrestrial hydrology in fact CONTRIBUTED to climate change – irrespective how and when – then your approach to this dispute guarantees that we will never arrive at the correct conclusion that such an effect could be possible.
Climate science is NOT on whether something is “ possible“, but whether it has a significant influence and therefore may offer an actionable advice to the society.
To illustrate it – your farting “CONTRIBUTES” to climate change (via emission of CH4, and CO2), but that contribution is NOT SIGNIFICANT, and therefore as a society we shouldn’t build our AGW mitigation around containing your individual flatulence.
Similarly, we have shown to you and JCM many times, using the numbers from YOUR OWN SOURCE (Lague et al 2023), and using the general scale analysis of the water cycle – your “ human interferences with terrestrial hydrology are TO SMALL to be significant, and much too small to offer realistic (i.e. cost-effective) way of mitigating AGW.
And countering JCM claims about human’s effect on hydrology being a “powerful forcing for climate”, and contrasting this with the role of GHGs
So much for your assurances, how it is not you, but me who “ will never arrive at the correct conclusion“.
JCM “In my view, this variance analysis doesn’t reveal anything particularly insightful.
That’s a …. self-fulfilling prophecy – since you used WRONG time scale – no wonder that results were not “particularly insightful”.
We had this discussion before. The variance analysis has to have the timescale corresponding to the timescale of the processes it investigates. For climate change – we are talking at least several decades, not “annually” as you have done. On _annual_ time scale temperature is dominated by short term NOISE – oscillations in atmospheric and ocean circulation. For instance, during EL Nino the equatorial upwelling weakens or shuts down – so El Nino years have warmer oceans, and therefore warmer atmosphere, while CO2 in those years is affected by the balance of the warmer water degassing CO2 and less upwelling bring CO2 rich deep waters to the surface,
So any correlations at annual time-scale apply to the underlying processes at those short time scales. On the other hand, the warming effect of GHGs on CLIMATE manifests itself over the scale of DECADES.
As for your saying that “The same value 90%” WAS BOTH for CO2 vs. T and for “land use change data” vs. T – it does not prove that these two equally strongly influence on the climate
1, assuming (since you didn’t state it) that the landscape data was also “annual” – then timescale was equally inappropriate to assess CLIMATIC impact as annual avg. of CO2.
2. correlation does not prove causation – hence in climate science in ADDITION to the correlation on the proper timescale – one ALSO HAS TO SHOW plausible physical mechanism:
– the GW potential of CO2 is well documented (radiative forcing of CO2)
– the GW potential of changes in land use – are not. Lets split it into a) changes in hydrology and b) changes in GHG emissions/uptake from landscape
It’s the ” a)” that has been JCM main claim to fame to this group over many months? (years?). Unfortunately for him – we have used his OWN SOURCE (Lague et al. 2023) against him – to show that human changes in hydrology have a completely negligible effect on global T over the timescale of AGW.
b) as the effect of landscape via emissions of CO2 – it actually … plays for the other team (team “GHGs”) in the JCM’s Cup that pits the “ mindboggling” and “ profound forcing to climates” of the changes in hydrology from deforestation vs. “artificial fixation and overemphasis [on] a trace gas“.
JCM: ” it seems like this was worth pointing out”
Couldn’t agree more … ;-) .
TK: Let us assume that there is a parameter of climate system that itself does not directly influence global mean surface temperature, however, it still has an influence on climate sensitivity towards other forcings, such as GHG atmospheric concentration.
Let us assume that in parallel with CHC concentration, humanity changed also this “GHG sensitivity driving” parameter. Will variance analysis in such a case reveal a contribution of this parameter to the observed climate change (e.g., in % of the observed global mean surface temperature increase)?
BPL: I would need a time series of that factor, and to regress temperature anomalies on both factors at once. I might need a log transform, since one variable is (presumably) affecting the regression coefficient of the other.
TK (to Piotr): If human interferences with terrestrial hydrology in fact CONTRIBUTED to climate change – irrespective how and when – then your approach to this dispute guarantees that we will never arrive at the correct conclusion that such an effect could be possible.
BPL: I think we all agree such an effect is not only possible, but quite real. If I am reading Piotr correctly, his position (and mine) is that the effect is of small magnitude compared to that from greenhouse gases.
in Re to Barton Paul Levenson, 5 Sep 2024 at 3:49 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/08/the-need-for-pluralism-in-climate-modelling/#comment-824392 ,
and 5 Sep 2024 at 3:52 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/08/the-need-for-pluralism-in-climate-modelling/#comment-824393 .
Dear Barton Paul,
Many thanks for your explanation regarding the variance analysis!
Are you aware of a reference in the IPCC reports to such an analysis quantitatively evaluating the contribution of human interferences with water availability for evaporation from the land to various parameters of the observed climate change?
I think that if you have not found any such reference yet, it may be well possible that no such analysis does exist yet.
Should this be indeed the true state of our knowledge, then I still think that your and/or Piotr’s assessment (that the effect of human interferences with water availability for evaporation from the land on Earth global climate is of small magnitude compared to that from greenhouse gases) is merely your subjective opinion, not yet supported with a solid scientific evidence.
I do not think that Piotr’s argument based on relatively small effect of a huge change in water availability for evaporation from the land on global mean surface temperature, as it can be derived from Lague 2023
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/acdbe1/pdf ,
can serve as a sufficient support for very bold extrapolation made by Piotr (and you as well?) in the sense that the effect of human interferences with terrestrial hydrology on any other aspect of Earth climate must be also small (in comparison with the effect of anhropogenic changes in atmospheric GHG concentration).
Greetings
Tomáš
NIgel to Tomas:
“If you want Piotr to discuss this you are going to have to admit you were wrong about certain things and do so candidly and fully and without self pity. Just giving you some well meaning advice, having also been a victim of Piotrs criticisms.”
Nigel, I see you believe “you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar” (biologically incorrect – flies are most drawn not to vinegar nor honey, but to feces and rotting meat)
by suggesting some common ground with Tomas (“being victim of Piotrs criticisms.”). I don’t think this is accurate nor necessary.
This not accurate, because while I may have on occasion questioned some of your arguments or conclusions (“Amicus Plato sed magis amica veritas“), but I have questioned, nor had any reason to question, your integrity, intellectual quality, or openness to change your mind if convinced. I.e. the very attributes I do question, based on his posts, in Tomas.
And it is not necessary – after 100s of posts in which Tomas failed to take responsibility for his words and stuck to his a-priori opinions, facts be damned – it is clear that Tomas can’t change. So all is left is to remind his refuted claims (e.g. reminding him that his own source has shown that human impact on water cycle is many times too small to matter in mitigation of AGW) and calling him what he is – as a denier of the absolutely central role of GHGs to AGW: a “useful idiot” of Russia and Saudi Arabia, who ethically has the blood of the victims of the delayed/weakened action on GHGs on his hands.
Kalisz: “ Are you aware of a reference in the IPCC reports to such an analysis quantitatively evaluating the contribution of human interferences with water availability for evaporation from the land”
A poorly thought-through idea in a desperate search of relevance?
The onus of proof, Mr Kalisz is on you, not on us or IPCC.
And you have failed to do so, and in a spectacular way – the results of your and JCM’s OWN SOURCE (Lague et al 2023) have CONTRADICTED your and JCM claims about the “ mindboggling” and “ profound forcing to climates” of the changes in hydrology from deforestation, and have shown what JCM denouncements of “artificial fixation and overemphasis [on] a trace gas “ are worth.
After we have shown you that – both of you unable to face it – dismissed your own source. Then JCM wandered off onto tangential topics, while you have been fishing ever since for another post or paper that you could misrepresent as supporting your claims, while refusing to acknowledge that not only your Lague source, but also the elementary water budgets available in the literature for many DECADES tell the same story – the possible increases in evaporation by humans CAN’T HAVE A SIGNIFICANT effect on the mitigation of AGW, and as such can be promoted only by the “anything but GHGs” deniers like you, JCM, and Shurly.
“ Now go away, or we shall taunt you some more“
In Re to Piotr, 11 SEP 2024 AT 3:23 PM, https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/08/the-need-for-pluralism-in-climate-modelling/#comment-824465
Dear Piotr,
I think that the situation is exactly opposite as you present it. Barton Paul asserted that your bold extrapolation of Lague 2023, in the sense that past human interferences with water availability for evaporation from the land could not contributed to the observed climate change, has a support in IPCC reports.
Due to absence of a specific reference, I expressed doubts about validity of this claim, and asked Barton for the source of this information. I explained why your perpetual argument by Lague 2023 alone is totally insufficient for your extraordinary generalization. In absence of any further support, your assertions must be dismissed. The onus of the proof for your bold generalizations is on your side, not mine. I therefore still insist in the opinion that your assertions are unsupported and untenable.
Best regards
Tomáš
Tomas Kalisz Sept 13. “ I think that the situation is exactly opposite as you present it.
Which only illustrates …. the quality of your thinking. Despite your protestations, the onus of proof of YOUR thesis – that we can significantly mitigate AGW by increasing evaporation) is on YOU, not on me or BPL.
I have responded to YOUR claim above, and have shown it to be false WITHIN YOUR own argument – using the ONLY source that YOU and your JCM could muster in support to YOUR claims – Lague et al. 2023. And once patrick and I have done it – you unable to accept this fact – chose to …. attack the value of YOUR ONLY source: you that it is just one paper, and JCM by attacking the climate modelling in general as “ imaginary process mechanisms” with “ rules about how things ought to be [according to their authors]“.
.
Neither you nor JCM could not find ANY OTHER PAPER that would allow to quantify your claims, and you in fact asked … your opponents to find you the sources that could prove … YOUR thesis.
And after all that …. you have the hutzpah to characterize my disproving of your claim using your own source … as “ totally insufficient for your extraordinary generalization. In absence of any further support, your assertions must be dismissed.” ????
You really don’t see how applying this rule would render RealClimate practically Kalisz-free ?
Maybe something Gavin should consider… ;-)
TK: Barton Paul asserted that your bold extrapolation of Lague 2023, in the sense that past human interferences with water availability for evaporation from the land could not contributed to the observed climate change, has a support in IPCC reports.
BPL: Um, when did I do that?
In re to Barton Paul Levenson, 14 September 7:22 AM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/08/the-need-for-pluralism-in-climate-modelling/#comment-824509
Hi Barton Paul,
I referred to your post of the September 1, 7:08 AM
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/08/unforced-variations-aug-2024/#comment-824236
If I misunderstood you and your post has in fact not pertained to my dispute with Piotr, I apologize.
Best regards
Tomáš
TK: In other words, have “evil denialists” to be fought by all means
BPL: All ethical means. Yes.
to Tomáš Kalisz
You have zero chance of any success at being heard accurately (in context, in kind) or being treated with respect here by anyone.
Escobar: to Tomáš Kalisz You have zero chance of any success at being heard accurately
Now, what does it tell you, Tomas, that your only defender here is a denier troll?
And your Escobar got it wrong – with your inability of self-reflection – we have to explain to you the implications of your own posts.
Escobar: or being treated with respect here by anyone
Respect here has to be earned. With your deniers cliches, aggressive ignorance and contempt to those who are showing you wrong – I wouldn’t hold your breath.
Now go away, or we shall taunt you a second time!
In Re to Escobar, 30 Aug 2024 at 6:37 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/08/the-need-for-pluralism-in-climate-modelling/#comment-824181
Dear Sir,
I respectfully disagree. I have already obtained helpful feedbacks from many people herein.
I could perhaps name MA Rodger, Kevin Mc Kinney, Nigel, Barton Paul Levenson, Ray Ladbury, Patrick o Twentyseven, and even Piotr, to mention those who are still active herein. And, of course, I should mention lot of insight into broader ecological perspective from JCM, to name someone who shares similar concerns as me.
Therefore, my view is that even though the discussions may be sometimes difficult, they generally help me improve my knowledge and gain information that I would have sometimes hardly gained otherwise.
Best regards
Tomáš
Gavin et al.,
I respectfully suggest that Escobar be boreholed. He brings nothing to the forum but insults and false statements.
to Tomáš Kalisz says: “I respectfully disagree.”
My Bad. If you are happy here ok then.
and “improve my knowledge and gain information”
That is a surprise to me because I have not seen any improvement in your knowledge or gaining anything since arriving and focusing on your minutia issue. Comments by others indicate the very same observation.
I also do not see you as a ‘black knight’ in python either. What I see here daily is a frog in a blender on high speed. But again, if you enjoy this, I will butt out. I wish there was a block sender function so I did not need to see this depressing display.
To Barton Paul Levenson
I am at a loss to understand why you have so much trouble understanding what I (and many others) say, and continually see the worst. I have said things here the same or very similar climate scientists have said, including those who run RC.
there is nothing pgeo said that would lead an objective observer to assume he’s a denier or being critical either. Climate scientists have said the same things themselves for years, nay decades.
Maybe it is a “if all you have is a nail” problem. I don;t know, but it is impossible to say anything here and not be attacked and declared a denier or ‘evil troll’.
Believe what you want. You already do and do not care in the least about others. If the moderator wants to ban me based on your complaints, fine by me. I know I have done nothing wrong.
TK: “ Dear Sir, I respectfully disagree. I have already obtained helpful feedbacks from many people herein.”
Mr Kalisz, If you really believe that “Escobar” and “pgeo” are here to learn, and that they are thoughtful individuals, who go where the facts lead them, then I must take this opportunity and ask you something. You see, I am a Nigerian prince, and I recently inherited an equivalent of USD 10 mln, Unfortunately, while visiting my relatives in a small town near Abuja, I have been in a car accident, and ended up in a hospital. The health care is not very good – and the private hospital in which I ended up refused to release me until I pay my outstanding bills in full. So If you be so kind to wire me USD 10,000, to cover the hospital costs. As soon as I get out of the hospital, I will drive to Lagos and access my funds, I would be happy to return your kindness with a USD 100,000 cheque in recognition of your friendship and trust.
I believe that Tomas and I have communicated in a mutually respectful manner. (I don’t think I’m the only one who can make that claim, either, but I prefer to speak for myself.)
So, if that perception of mine is correct, you are once again making stuff up in a context (I presume, charitably) of ignorance.
Tomas Kalisz 9 Sept. “{ still think that [BPL’s] and/or Piotr’s assessment […]is merely your subjective opinion, not yet supported with a solid scientific evidence.”
The onus of the proof of YOUR CLAIMS is on you, Genius, So far you haven’t been to support it with ANY evidence, to the point that you asked … your opponents to help you find any papers that may support your claims.
Even though we didn’t have to – we have used the ONLY relevant source that you and your JCM were able to muster, Lague et al. 2023 – and … showed that it CONTRADICTS your claims. As an independent line of argument, I have used an elementary scale analysis of hydrological cycle, and it ALSO contradicted yours and JCM’s claims.
And after ALL THAT – you still have the gall to lecture us ” of not supporting with a solid scientific evidence” ???
Radge Havers, 28 Aug “ HA! Black Knights. I noticed that as well re TK and JCM…
Slightly modified from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmInkxbvlCs
========
King Arthur: You fight with the strength of many men, Sir JCM.
[ [the Black Knight doesn’t respond ]
King Arthur: I seek the bravest and the finest knights in the land who will join me in my fight to mitigate GHGs to avert the worse of AGW!
[no response ]
King Arthur: You have proved yourself worthy. Will you join me?
[ no response ]
King Arthur: You make me sad. So be it. [attempts to get around the Black Knight]
Black Knight: None shall pass.
King Arthur: What?
Black Knight: None shall pass! “The planet’s land degradation and loss of native ecologies [are due to] an artificial fixation and overemphasis [on] a trace gas”!
King Arthur: I have no quarrel with you, good Sir JCM. But I must mitigate AGW.
Black Knight: Then you shall die.
King Arthur: I ask you again, stand aside!
Black Knight: I move for no man.
King Arthur: So be it! [they fight until Arthur cuts off Black Knight’s arms off]
Using your OWN source (Lague 2023), Sir Patrick O’27 showed that the conversion of forests to agricultural land has lowered global T by merely a FRACTION of 0.3 K!
Now, stand aside, worthy adversary!
Black Knight: [ looking at his armless shoulders]” ‘Tis but a scratch! [ and proceeds to blame his own sword, Lague et al., ]: It’s only a model! Imaginary process mechanisms [reflecting the author’s preconceptions] how things ought to be!
King Arthur : A scratch? Your arms are off! Lague was YOUR source!
Black Knight’s Squire, Patsy (Tomas K.) joins in, with his support of his Lord:
No, they aren’t! If we irrigated Sahara we could cancel out the radiative forcing of GHGs!
King Arthur [pointing to the arms on the ground] Well, what’s that then?
Black Knight: I’ve had worse. [ proceeds to blame his Patsy ]: I have never supported Tomas’ desert irrigation schemes!
[ Armless Black Knight attempts to kick King Arthur]: Deforestation is “mindboggling” and “profound forcing to climates” !
King Arthur: You are indeed brave, Sir JCM, but the fight is mine!
Black Knight: Oh, had enough, eh? Chicken!
King Arthur [cuts Black Knight’s legs off]: You have no leg to stand on! The numbers from your own source imply that even if all agricultural land was created by deforestation and if it had evaporation of a desert – it would have warmed Earth by less than 1K, and most of it would be countered by cooling from the human irrigation of the agricultural land,
Black Knight: All right, we’ll call it a draw.
King Arthur [moves past the armless and legless JCM]
Black Knight: Oh, oh, I see! Running away, eh? You yellow bastards! Come back here and take what’s coming to you! I’ll bite your legs off!
[the Holy Grail’s music theme on]
Dang! I should have read this before I also posted the link!
Love it!
I looked at that RC thread from a few years ago, and it was a commenter named John Williams that first asked why Gavin used the word “elide” , suggesting that “the writer knows a word that ordinary people don’t” . This got a discussion going and I then mentioned the pretentious use of that word as an excuse to joke that there was an “elide” key on higher priced PC’s that replaced the “delete” key.
That apparently was the extent of my attack on Gavin.
Outstanding, Piotr! Laughter is the best medicine for depression, and satire the best medicine for frustration with dogmatists of any color, who seem to possess confidence in direct proportion to how mistaken they are.
Thanks Mal and Radge. Sometimes humor is the only response to those types.
That, and farting: M. Sidoli: “Farting as a defence against unspeakable dread”, 1996, Journal of Analytical Psychology., 41: 165-178.
See also the French knights: “ I fart in your general direction!”
Or if everything fails: “ Fetchez la vache!”
======================
P.S. But be careful with the literary adaptation – sometimes they backfire:
– when I adapted my favourite Czechoslovak song: Jožin z bažin” to make Tomas into the title swamp monster, Tomas … thanked me profusely for reminding him his youth.
Or when Paul Pukite’s attacked Gavin:
– Paul Pukite: “[Gavin’s] word “elide” is a long-known pretension indicator.”
– Steven Sullivan: “‘Elision’ and ‘elide’ aren’t peculiar or pretentious words to literate people”
I joined in with an adaptation (the beloved American classic (orig. on the right)
me original
There once was a man from Nantucket There once was a man from Nantucket
Who kept his elides in a bucket. Who kept all his cash in a bucket.
But his old reviewee, X. Chen, But his daughter, named Nan,
Traded elides for a hockey stick with Mann Ran away with a man
And as for the bucket, Paul Pukite! And as for the bucket, Nantucket
… only to having to explain the joke to Paul …
King Arthur [cuts Black Knight’s legs off]: You have no leg to stand on!
LOL. Makes me think of my favorite folk witticism, busier than a one-legged man at an ass-kicking contest.
[crickets]
I guess you had to be there.
Luckily, I was.
A somewhat less violent version: Busier than a one-legged river dancer.
Or more earthy: Busier than a 3-legged cat trying to bury a turd on an icy pond.
Stakeholders need to be informed on the adundance of data quality issues inherent to the meteorological data that drives the climate sciences. Educating stakeholders on the assumptions, llmitations and uncertainties of future climate state “guesstimates” is totally lacking.
pgeo Aug. 27. “the assumptions, llmitations and uncertainties of future climate state “guesstimates” is totally lacking.”
Don’t extrapolate your ignorance onto others. Local weather (measured with “meteorological data”) is NOT the same as global climate. As a result, the “ abundance of data quality issues inherent to the meteorological data” – does not amount to much to the accuracy
of global climatological trends. Since you don’t know it, here is why:
– random errors of the instant point meteorological measurements – pretty much cancel each other out when averaged spatially and temporarily (climatological time- scale: ~ 30 years). If you are tossing a coin 3 times – the frequency of heads, may randomly differ quite a bit from 50%; if you toss it 30,000 times – unless you use a denier’s coin, the outcome would be PRETTY CLOSE to 50%. Hence the uncertainty of a individual tosses is of no consequence.
– systematic errors are mostly accounted for by using not global T, but global T anomaly :
example: say, we used the measurements of T to calculate for period 1900-2000 global T = 16C, In year 2020 we calculated the global T=17C. Then famous prof. P. G. Eo announced that he discovered a systematic error in the temp. measurements of all thermometers in the world, of, say, – 0.5C.
This would obviously affect our estimate of the global T (16.5C instead 16C; 17.5C instead of 17C). It would NOT change the global T anomaly : 17.5C -16.5C= +1C, AND 17C-16C= +1C.
Therefore, systematic errors may affect the accuracy of our calculation of global T anomaly (a.k.a. Global Warming) ONLY, if these systematic errors were large, and were themselves CHANGING systematically over time.
BTW, you are inventing a square wheel here – there is entire branch of climate science devoted to investigating and minimizing plausible sources of the long-term DRIFT in the systematic error of the data used to calculate global T anomalies.
To Adapt from Python Mal: Now go away, pgeo, or we shall taunt you a second time!
pgeo said: “Educating stakeholders on the assumptions, llmitations and uncertainties of future climate state “guesstimates” is totally lacking.”
Not correct. One example. Uncertainties on climate projections into the future are already fully revealed in the IPCC reports. These reports indicate that climate warming this century at business as usual emissions could vary from about 3 degrees to 5 degrees c because of uncertainties (some of this related to climate sensitivity). Please note that the IPCC evaluations tend to be conservative leaning because such is the nature of science, and properly so, but it means things could be worse than 5 degrees. The IPCC reports can be downloaded for free, and so whether people get educated is therefore up to them. Maybe you need to read them judging by your assertions. Refer
https://www.ipcc.ch/reports/
Climate projections on the future climate are not guesstimates, and you know it. So quit the trolling. They are based on complex modelling that accounts for the various factors driving climate, and the models developed and run decades ago have proven to be reasonably accurate at predicting warming trends in recent decades. Please refer to the model data comparisons on this website. Making good predictions is obviously a very good validation of the theory underpinng the modelling. Modelling is not perfect but its sufficient, and its giving a clear indication we are heading towards big trouble.
nigelj: Climate projections on the future climate are not guesstimates, and you know it. So quit the trolling.
Thanks, Nigel! Excellent, pointed rebuttal to the persistent, gratuitous irritant pgeo. Leave scientific reticence to the scientists. We’re allowed to say what we really think, ovah heah 8^D! Most gratifying, my friend.
Thanks Mal. I have often contemplated the right tone to use when replying to denialiists comments. Name calling and blatant insults probably wont convince the denialists, or anyone else reading because we are generally taught such things are bad and it does make most of us defensive. But painfully polite is sleep inducing. Polite but a little bit pointed seems like a good approach. However the right tone may also depend somewhat on the context. .
I like your rebuttals in terms of content and style and seldom see a need to add much to them.
Mal, nigelj, Climate projections on the future climate are ‘guesstimates,’
Please don’t deny the obvious that Climate projections on the future climate vary significantly.
Please don’t deny the obvious that Climate projections on the future climate are based upon unproven unknowable assumptions.
Please don’t deny the obvious that the many Climate projections on the future climate include some constraints and data, mixed with various assumptions while ignoring others and making different assumptions.
Different Models calculate different things and therefore vary significantly in their calculated outputs aka in everyday language as ‘guesstimates.’
Please don’t deny the public admissions that these projections are ‘guesstimates’ that lack certainty and are unproven and unreliable the further into the future they project.
Synonyms of guesstimate
: an estimate usually made without adequate information (aka Data)
When Data is lacking uncertain or unknown then ‘estimates’ are used as a replacement. Those estimates are known as ‘assumptions’ in the climate science modelling field.
There is no need to deny these things. Be honest instead and detail all the assumptions and estimates being made at all times, while acknowledging the output represents best practice based on a limited knowledge.
Please note: In Canada, false environmental claims are now illegal. Under legislation passed in June, companies may be penalized for making representations to the public about their products’ ability to mitigate climate change without being based on an “adequate and proper test.” It was a success for environmental groups who spent a year and half working on the antigreenwashing law.
https://jacobin.com/2024/08/climate-disinformation-green-transition-workers
It’s a shame this doesn’t apply to the UNFCCC COP Meetings, US Govt Policy like the IRA, and the IPCC Net Zero and 1.5C ‘theories’; and GCMs output.
E: Please don’t deny the obvious that Climate projections on the future climate vary significantly. . . . Please don’t deny the obvious that Climate projections on the future climate are based upon unproven unknowable assumptions. . . . [etc., etc., etc.]
BPL: What makes you think the “assumptions” going into global climate models are “unknowable?” Please name a specific example and explain why it’s “unknowable.”
Escobar, I don’t accept that climate model projections into the future are ‘guesstimates’. A guess is formally defined as using no or very little information. Climate model assumptions use plenty of information, regardless of whether the assumption relates to appropriate use of physics laws, most plausible values, etc,etc. For example we have a reasonable idea of most likely population trends going forwards, and remaining reserves of coal and oil. We dont know these things for certain, or with high accuracy, but they clearly better than just “guesses”.
Im 95% certain you have used several different names (and ok people have their reasons for this, thats not the issue) and you have argued we are facing catastrophic levels of warming and you have supported Hansens catastrophic take on things, and you have supported that we are at or near peak oil, all while telling us projections on warming are just guesstimates and models are useless. So you sound confused and contradictory to me.
I suggest you should get your story straight, or clarify exactly what you mean with some context. Right now you are spreading denialism, whether you intend to or not.
Why do amateurs always think they can see that one critical bit of info that invalidates whole fields. No essential difference between such comments here and the validity of drunks at a sports bar criticizing “bad decisions”.
Stunning complaints, while on the other page Gavin says things like:
Sensitivity, Schmensitivity
First off, we need to be crystal clear about what our definition of climate sensitivity is: It is the change of global mean temperatures expected after a doubling of CO2. However, we frequently assume that some things remain constant. For instance, the standard ‘Charney Sensitivity’ or Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS) assumes that ice sheets don’t change. The broader concept of Earth System Sensitivity (ESS) allows for responses in the ice sheets, vegetation etc. Responses in atmospheric composition (dust, ozone, aerosols etc.) are sometimes included (or not!). Indeed, one can define a whole series of climate sensitivities depending on what feedbacks are included and over what time-scale:
and
There are often somewhat heroic assumptions made in deriving paleo atmospheric CO2 from molecular markers, but the overall results (see left hand figure) – that CO2 went from 650 ppm 15 Million years ago (Ma) to 280 ppm in the most recent data point (close to the long term pre-industrial average), is not dramatically different from other recent compilations
and
Huge if true! Fortunately these numbers should not be taken at face value, but we need to dig into the subtleties to see why.
and
Of course, there are significant uncertainties in all of this that need to be taken into account, so the constraints are not as tight as one might like (and I haven’t mentioned the possibility that ESS/ECS might be varying as a function of the base state…).
……………………………..
Everywhere, in every one of the dozens of new climate science papers published daily there are UNCERTAINTIES and everyone in the filed acknowledges these and the difficulties of CONSTRAINING THEM and the ASSUMPTIONS being made and those KEY ITEMS being INCLUDED or EXCLUDED – eg The Andes and Plate tectonics and how they impact the ATMOSPHERE.
in my view, the anti-science emotive rhetoric in the personal attacks upon others here is off the scale and unworthy.
E: in my view, the anti-science emotive rhetoric in the personal attacks upon others here is off the scale and unworthy.
BPL: Who wants to bet he doesn’t see it?
Why is it when you call out a drunk spouting their sports “knowledge” at a sports bar they double down and Gish Gallop out piles more garbage?
jgnfld : “Why is it when you call out a drunk spouting their sports “knowledge” at a sports bar they double down and Gish Gallop out piles more garbage?”
Its because they are drunk, and this seems to amplify their already considerable natural arrogance.
jgnfld says
31 Aug 2024 at 8:25 AM
Why do amateurs always think they can see that one critical bit of info that invalidates whole fields.
………………..
My question is: Why do you see things in pgeo’s comment that do not exist?
You can’t tell the difference between pgeo and my response below where you are conflating two people as the same person in a “sports bar’. pgeo responded to the ‘complaints’ too. he’s no ‘amateur’ nor a drunk, while he and I added something useful.
Folks – comment was towards the authors of the piece and considerations when talking the ‘stakeholders’ about climate information. Collectively your responses include some useful climate information and resources to help educate ‘stakeholders’ on the climate sciences. Beyond that is much unneccessarities.
Re pgeo
You won’t weasel out of this one – you have based your attack on climate science and reality of the climate change on the claim:
pgeo: the adundance of data quality issues inherent to the meteorological data that drives the climate sciences.
“Our responses collectively” proved that you have no idea what you were talking about – no idea which data climate sciences uses, how it uses, and that almost all short-term local uncertiances cancel each other out wehn averaged over global and multidecadal scale. And that you have no idea that there is entire branch of climate science that works to minimize any systematic “issues” with global T over climatological timescales.
Which renders everything you based on your ignorance how climate science works – irrelevant. Garbage in, garbage out..
Data -> Information -> Knowledge -> Wisdom. Uncertainty is present throughout the chain (that is why, as you describe, an entire branch of climate sciences is tasked to minimize it). Educate the ‘ ‘stakeholders’. on how uncertainty is deal with when producing climate “information”. To quote Niels Bohr: “Prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future”….which is right in line with “garbage in, garbage out”…yet another concept for the authors of the piece to familiarize ‘stakeholders’ with.
pgeao: Aug. 31 “Data -> Information -> Knowledge -> Wisdom. Uncertainty is present throughout the chain”
Wrong chain. Yours was :
“ adundance of data quality issues inherent to the meteorological data that drives the climate sciences ”
Local weather is not global climate, hence your “ adundance of data quality issues” affects local weather forecasts, not simulations of global climate, for the reasons already explained to you:
==== Piotr Aug.28:
“Don’t extrapolate your ignorance onto others. Local weather (measured with “meteorological data”) is NOT the same as global climate. As a result, the “ abundance of data quality issues inherent to the meteorological data” – does not amount to much to the accuracy
of global climatological trends. Since you don’t know it, here is why:
– random errors of the instant point meteorological measurements – pretty much cancel each other out when averaged spatially and temporarily (climatological time- scale: ~ 30 years). If you are tossing a coin 3 times – the frequency of heads, may randomly differ quite a bit from 50%; if you toss it 30,000 times – unless you use a denier’s coin, the outcome would be PRETTY CLOSE to 50%. Hence the uncertainty of a individual tosses is of no consequence.
– systematic errors are mostly accounted for by using not global T, but global T anomaly :
example: say, we used the measurements of T to calculate for period 1900-2000 global T = 16C, In year 2020 we calculated the global T=17C. Then famous prof. P. G. Eo announced that he discovered a systematic error in the temp. measurements of all thermometers in the world, of, say, – 0.5C.
This would obviously affect our estimate of the global T (16.5C instead 16C; 17.5C instead of 17C). It would NOT change the global T anomaly : 17.5C -16.5C= +1C, AND 17C-16C= +1C.
Therefore, systematic errors may affect the accuracy of our calculation of global T anomaly (a.k.a. Global Warming) ONLY, if these systematic errors were large, and were themselves CHANGING systematically over time.
BTW, you are inventing a square wheel here – there is entire branch of climate science devoted to investigating and minimizing plausible sources of the long-term DRIFT in the systematic error of the data used to calculate global T anomalies.
Now go away, pgeo, or we shall taunt you some more!
Beats me pgeo, the people attacking you here are endlessly tried to “Educate the ‘ ‘stakeholders’. (visitors/voters/deniers/the gullible) on how uncertainty is deal with when producing climate “information” – but when you say it it becomes a crime.
Gavin did ted talk on educating people on climate models and uncertainity but they are still ‘useful’. Mann goes to Congress to educate ‘stakeholders’ there, but when you say it is failing – and it is clearly look around anywhere – and Mann says it;s been failing for years (people believe denier garbage) you are the ‘evil troll’ here.
Every one here attacking you have been calling for more education of the public and stakeholders (incl the media and the public) about climate and the sciences forever. It’s the primary purpose of this site iirc.
The reaction to your comment, makes zero logical sense.
It’s really likely pageo is a denialist troll. He emphasises uncertainties confuses weather and climate, snide comments about guesstimates, no indication he accepts humans are main cause of recent warming trend. This is classic denialist rhetoric. This is materially different from Gavin discussing specifics about uncertainty.
Nigelj says
31 Aug 2024 at 10:40 PM
I think that is what paranoia looks like on a good day.
pageo (sic) is a denialist troll.
emphasises uncertainties
confuses weather and climate
snide comments about guesstimates
no indication he accepts humans are main cause of recent warming trend
classic denialist rhetoric
different from Gavin about uncertainty.
Given the extreme reactions of so many, maybe Gavin should now require all contributors to undergo a CIA polygraph test before posting so everyone knows their deepest beliefs about climate and science are socially acceptable.
You know, like what ‘supposedly’ happen in China but don’t.
Did N see this yet I wonder?
Obsessing Over Climate Disinformation Is a Wrong Turn
https://jacobin.com/2024/08/climate-disinformation-green-transition-workers
When everything is ‘a nail’ ……………….
OK my series of posts is over. Do your worst.
Love from the Ghost of Escobar the Columbian Drug Lord and ‘evil drunk drug addled climate science denier and liar’ apparently.
E: OK my series of posts is over. Do your worst.
BPL: Who wants to bet he’ll be back in short order? I’ve never seen one of these “You were mean to me so I’m going home” posts that wasn’t followed by more posts within a couple of days.
Of course, he may come back under a different name.
It’s really likely pageo is a denialist troll. He emphasises uncertainties confuses weather and climate, snide comments about guesstimates, no indication he accepts humans are main cause of recent warming trend. This is classic denialist rhetoric. This is materially different from Gavin discussing specifics about uncertainty.
Escobar 1 Sep “ that is what paranoia looks like on a good day.
You should know…. ;-)
Hint: Nigel PROVES his opinions – list deniers claims that pageo exhibits:
– ” emphasises uncertainties
– confuses weather and climate
– snide comments about guesstimates
– no indication he accepts humans are main cause of recent warming trend .”
and BASED on that CONCLUDES: “It’s really likely pageo is a denialist troll”
I can see why this process confuses you – unable to muster any proofs of your claims – you use these claims INSTEAD of the arguments.
Escobar: “ maybe Gavin should now require all contributors to undergo a CIA polygraph test before posting so everyone knows their deepest beliefs about climate and science are socially acceptable.
“All contributors to undergo a CIA polygraph” – like little Escobar imagined the big bad US…
Escobar: are socially acceptable. You know, like what ‘supposedly’ happen in China but don’t.
Author, author! “‘Walt’ the Chinaman” or Sabine?
pgeo: Educate the ‘ ‘stakeholders’. on how uncertainty is deal with when producing climate “information”.
Well, that’s sound enough advice. Do you think NASA, a US government agency with a mission to educate the public on multiple scientific topics including climate change, is ignoring it? Try Rising Seas, Unknown Future: How to Communicate Uncertainty.
Then there’s the joint publication of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the U.K. Royal Society, titled Climate Change: Evidence and Causes:
18. What are scientists doing to address key uncertainties in our understanding of the climate system?
You can read the whole thing online for free, at the link. The NAS was founded by Congress in 1865, to advise it and the President on scientific matters in front of them. The RS was chartered by King Charles II in 1660, out of the same need.
No. You can lead a ***** to culture, but you can’t make them think. The poor progress of the US economy toward carbon-neutrality isn’t due to the failure of science to communicate the uncertainties of climate change. The underlying issue is the long, lavishly-funded campaign of disinformation and undue political influence by US-based fossil fuel producers and investors, i.e. “stakeholders”, seeking to thwart collective intervention in their profit streams, which reached a record-breaking $250 billion in the last three and a half years. I’m not going to link any sources for the disinformation campaign, since probative documentation is in the public record. If you’re so clueless as to insist, I’ll provide a couple of entry points. The long-term, pervasive campaign of bespoke deception isn’t a secret, nor is it illegal, at least not since it succeeded in packing the SCOTUS; so you’d scarcely call it a conspiracy. To evade unwelcome scrutiny, it’s always relied on deflection and misdirection: “Al Gore is fat! Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!” An economist would call it a “free-market failure”. At the least, it’s been a demonstration of concentrated carbon capital working the levers of power. By any name, if not for that infamous suborning of government science-denial for decades, we’d be well on our way to a carbon neutral economy by now. IMHO, of course.
Drilling down even further: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it” (Upton Sinclair, though he wasn’t the first to express that ancient wisdom). IMO it’s more difficult with Americans, due to our national myth of entitlement to socialize our private costs.
Tomáš,
Are you still actively pursuing historical global precipitation data? Or have you discontinued that pursuit and moved on to both the group long term sea level rise forecast discussion, and JCM et al soil/carbon cycle discussion? If you have discontinued your precip search, that’s of course cool.
If not, I’ve had time today to do some digging looking for historical land precipitation reconstructions; Using 500 years as my block size. The last comment I remember you saying here was you couldn’t find anything that went further back than 150 years in your searches. I saw potential reconstruction candidates for basically most of the land (exception being Antartica) before I sauntered off to do other things. The starting points I used are:
.
https://data.noaa.gov/onestop/collections?q=Global%20precipitation%20500%20year%20reconstruction
.
And:
.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00382-005-0090-8?
.
.
The NOAA data site has literally thousands of data collections to peruse, dependent on search terms used. And you can always contact them to ask for help, which I think was a suggestion I made a couple of months ago.
Good luck :-)
P.S. – If you have moved on to other subjects, please disregard this comment.
in Re to David, 2 Sep 2024 at 8:04 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/08/the-need-for-pluralism-in-climate-modelling/#comment-824296
Hallo David,
It is amazing that NOAA collected so many partial precipitation reconstructions for vaious regions and time spans. It gives a hope that a team of qualified scientist couldd be able to synthesize a global reconstruction of terrestrial precipitation – which could perhpas already give a hint if there may or may not be any global trend in ocean-land precipitation partition.
I am certainly not the right person therefor. I will try to ask the NOAA people if they run a such project or are aware of any other team doing so.
Greetings
Tomáš
This is a paper under review related to the pluralism topic “Moving beyond post-hoc XAI: Lessons learned from dynamical climate modeling” where the X stands for eXplainable Artificial Intelligence, of which I had alluded to upthread a week ago — i.e. take a machine learning result and “reverse engineer it to a physics explanation”
Several months ago, I did review the paper quite extensively as a community comment CC1 — yet the authors totally ignored my comments with no acknowledgment at all (and now the review period has expired — a common trick). This is perhaps because I am but a lowly community commenter, not one of the 3 assigned reviewers, but one that has years of experience in the field of artificial intelligence. Why should anybody spend time reviewing and providing feedback if its all wasted effort?
So I got somewhat upset by this but had a look at what the authors’ response to the other reviewers was. In one section, directly citing the authors (Pacchetti, Jebeile, and Thompson) of this top-level RealClimate post, they state:
Now, what kind of mumbo-jumbo nonsense is this? Can barely process the jargon — avoid realism because it brings in metaphysics? Huh?
The lead authors are from a Philosophy department. Which must explain it. I guess I did waste my time.
Be certain of what they mean by “realism.” I think it may be a technical term, as opposed to the popular usage, if these guys are philosophers.
Quite correct, BP.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/realism/
I had hoped this post might lead to an interesting discussion, but as usual it was hijacked and devolved into the usual nonsense back-and-forth.
I thought the “storyline” concept had merit…. I have always used the term “causal narrative”, which I think is along those lines. John Pollack, in the second comment on the thread, points out that meteorologists can be trained with extreme events which would not be useful to the machine because of their rarity.
Paul, in Physics, we can have useful equations that make excellent predictions, but is how we describe what’s happening “real”, or is it a projection/analogy that fits with our sensory experience?
This is entering Sabine territory but there was an interesting Twitter thread on perception and alternate mathematical worlds earlier this month: https://x.com/WHUT/status/1830170373158998437
These mathematical worlds a la Robert Rosen and Roger Penrose may not have been discovered yet Rosen) or accessible by different sensory input (Penrose). Take up the discussion there.
Here is another paper under review related to climate modeling pluralism — “Potential for Equation Discovery with AI in the Climate Sciences”
https://esd.copernicus.org/preprints/esd-2024-30/#discussion
This paper essentially deals with the category of Symbolic Regression, which is the search for mathematical expressions that match observations, such as in time-series data. I provided a community review here:
https://editor.copernicus.org/index.php?_mdl=msover_md&_jrl=430&_lcm=oc108lcm109w&_acm=get_comm_sup_file&_ms=122669&c=272394&salt=495745332971987263
An admission they make is telling:
Which to me sounds like they’re suggesting it’s easier said than done. I say it can’t hurt to try, and that’s the message in my review. The hard work will only start when you find something that works — because it will not readily get accepted by others. That’s where patience and due diligence is needed; do as much cross-validation as you can do, and then do more. That’s my mantra.
Hilarious! (kind of not)
“realism … commitment to a particular scientific worldview”
face palm head desk
We have only one world to live in, and we must do better.