Climate Change – Evaluating the Evidence

Roger Pielke Jr. reports here that the Australian Prime Minister proposes to form a citizens’s assembly on climate change. She says

And so today I announce that if we are re-elected, I will develop a dedicated process – a Citizens’ Assembly – to examine over 12 months the evidence on climate change, the case for action and the possible consequences of introducing a market-based approach to limiting and reducing carbon emissions.

 

Pielke finds problems with the last part. My problem is with examining the evidence on climate change. Given that the climate science is highly polarised, with a lot of complex arguments, this is not something that your average citizen can pronounce upon. Also, given that on one side you have a consensus of experts pronouncing the science is settled, with it being widely promoted that the opposition are just spokespeople for the fossil fuel lobby, there will be a vast majority in support of action and a small minority of dogged skeptics.

The only way for a consensus to be formed objectively is for the panel to act as a jury, with

  1. Clear guidelines as to what constitutes evidence, and levels of evidence to sort out the facts and strongly-verified science, from the, weak circumstantial evidence, and hearsay.*
  2. For a clearly defined barrier to establish the need for action. Like in a criminal trial under English common law, where you have to establish beyond reasonable doubt. The barrier may be set lower (like in civil cases), but it still needs to be there.
  3. To clearly separate the science from the policy. That is to clearly take into account the costs, benefits and risks of policy changes.

 

*To be clearer, the levels of evidence in decreasing order are.

  1. Facts
  2. Established or independently verified (& not rebutted) science.
  3. Peer-reviewed statistically verified science.
  4. Other peer-reviewed science based on circumstantial evidence.
  5. Papers by advocacy groups.
  6. Hearsay. E.g. “The vast majority accept…..”
by Kevin VS Marshall (Manicbeancounter) on 24/07/2010  •  Permalink
Posted in Global Warming, Science & Non-science
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Posted by Kevin VS Marshall (Manicbeancounter) on 24/07/2010

https://manicbeancounter.com/2010/07/24/climate-change-evaluating-the-evidence/

Tamino v Montford on the Gaspé series

Have just finished reading A.W. Montford’s (alias Bishop Hill) The Hockey Stick Illusion. Although I thought it excellent, and agree with the reviews (e.g. Air Vent), I thought I would look for contrary opinions, to allow me to compare and contrast the different sides. It just so happens that Tamino has posted a critical review at Real Climate blog on July 22nd. Bishop Hill has responded.

In the spirit of allowing you to make up your own mind, let me present one aspect, which does not need a scientific background to evaluate.

Tamino claims that McIntyre rejects Gaspé because

 “This particular series doesn’t extend all the way back to the year 1400, it doesn’t start until 1404, so MBH98 had extended the series back four years by persistence — taking the earliest value and repeating it for the preceding four years. This is not at all an unusual practice, and — let’s face facts folks — extending 4 years out of a nearly 600-year record on one out of 22 proxies isn’t going to change things much.”

 

I would agree with Tamino, if that was the only problem with Gaspé. But other problems Montford recounts.

  1. It had the biggest hockey stick of any of the 112 series. 1975 was 3.05 standard deviations from the series mean. Only 12 others had any sort of hockey stick shape. (p.75)
  2. It was included twice in the proxies – once as part of the North American PC series and once on its own. (p.140).
  3. It did start in 1404, but until 1421 relied on a single tree, and two up to 1447. The original authors “had not used the early portion of the series at all in their own reconstruction”, but Mann had. (p165.)
  4. Mann’s own claim for its’ inclusion was that the study represented the northern treeline. But Gaspé was well south of the treeline. As a sensitivity analysis, McIntyre replaced Gaspé with the Sheenjek River Series in Mid-Alaska. It was further north and had more trees. When this was replaced, the medieval warm period re-appeared. (p.166).*
  5. McIntyre showed “that you could only get rid of the Medieval Warm Period by using the Gaspé series twice and by including the unreliable early portion, and by extending this highly dubious data back to the start of the fifteenth century.”
  6. An updated study was done taking the data to 1991, instead of 1982. There was nothing like the same growth spurt in recent times. The data went unpublished, and the author claiming to have lost the location. So the results could not be independently replicated. (p.174).
  7. Montford says in reply to Tamino

“The observation that “McIntyre argued that the entire Gaspe series should be eliminated because it didn’t extend all the way back to 1400” is wrong. MBH had its steps starting at 50-year intervals. Gaspe should therefore have been in the 1450 step not the 1400 one.”

 

From my simple view, the criticism of the Gaspé proxy series is multilayered. It was used inappropriately; there was a better proxy available (or an update); it was clearly an outlier; and was used twice.

Finally, Steve McIntyre has already criticised Tamino on Gaspé here. McIntyre makes the additional point

“The Gaspé series is a cedar chronology. There is no botanical evidence that cedars respond linearly to warmer temperatures. World experts on cedar are located at the University of Guelph, Ross McKitrick’s university. Ross and I had lengthy discussions with these cedar experts about this chronology – they said that cedars like cool and moist climate.”

 

* Gaspé is around 49o North (same as Paris), Sheenjek River 65o North. (same as Iceland).

by Kevin VS Marshall (Manicbeancounter) on 24/07/2010  •  Permalink
Posted in Climate Change, Global Warming, Hockey Sticks
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Posted by Kevin VS Marshall (Manicbeancounter) on 24/07/2010

https://manicbeancounter.com/2010/07/24/tamino-v-montford-on-the-gaspe-series/

Tackling Fuel Poverty OR Tackling Climate Change

John Leech, MP for Manchester Withington makes a valiant, but failed, attempt to reconcile tackling fuel poverty with combating climate change. The reason’s why such an attempt will always fail are as follows:-

  1. Reducing carbon emissions by 80% will mean moving into zero-carbon fuels. Nuclear power is the cheapest alternative, but still more expensive than fossil fuels, especially when decommissioning at the end in taken into account. Other alternatives – wind and solar – are not only astronomically more expensive per unit produced, but also increase the unit cost of back-up fossil fuel power stations.
  2. Then we have the carbon trading schemes. These act as a cost to pollute. They will only become effective if they are made much scarcer and therefore much more expensive.
  3. For the poor, we could then give them huge grants to insulate their homes and get more fuel-efficient heating systems. However, although some gains can be relatively cheap (loft insulation and thermostatic controls on radiators), the costs mount steeply to gain large reductions. Replacing boilers and radiators, putting in new doors and windows, or cavity wall insulation, are all highly expensive. The payback period is many years, or in some cases not at all (with interest costs taken into account).
  4. The elderly are disincentivised to reduce consumption by the winter fuel allowance. Yet rising fuel costs will lead to calls to increase this subsidy as well.
  5. Whilst in the UK we pay through the nose for non-fossil fuels, oil prices will continue to rise as demand from developing countries continues to increase.

 

Fuel poverty will only reduce substantially if fuel costs come down. That will only happen if someone comes up with a cheaper, clean alternative to fossil fuels. That will not happen for a generation or more. Subsidising alternative energy sources that will always be much more expensive than oil is currently may divert attention away from that search. It is the poor who will suffer from most.

by Kevin VS Marshall (Manicbeancounter) on 15/07/2010  •  Permalink
Posted in Climate Change, Liberal Democrats, Manchester
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Posted by Kevin VS Marshall (Manicbeancounter) on 15/07/2010

https://manicbeancounter.com/2010/07/15/tackling-fuel-poverty-or-tackling-climate-change/

Muir Russell & unpicking Global Warming

If you believe that the science is settled on Global Warming is settled, listen to Roger Harrabin’s comment at the end of this clip from Radio 4 this morning on 7th July. To Quote

“98% of scientists believe that humans are warming the planet, the question is by how much”

The is a distinct change from just 9 months ago, pre ClimateGate. Is it a case of “We are all Skeptics Now?”.

Following on on from Tim Worstall’s recommendation of the Stoat’s summary of the Global Warming case.

For an empirical science, maybe a distinction between science and non-science is to admit to the limits of the certainties, something that the IPCC consensus has been at pains to avoid.

by Kevin VS Marshall (Manicbeancounter) on 07/07/2010  •  Permalink
Posted in Climate Change, Global Warming, Science & Non-science
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Posted by Kevin VS Marshall (Manicbeancounter) on 07/07/2010

https://manicbeancounter.com/2010/07/07/muir-russell-unpicking-global-warming/

Global Warming – a simple summary unpicked

Tim Worstall points readers to a moderate view of global warming from the Stoat at scienceblogs.com.

Unlike most libertarians, Worstall accepts the basic science behind global warming, but disagrees with the policy implications.

William Connolly (Stoat) quotes a list of the main points he made in 2004.

The main points that most would agree on as “the consensus” are:

1. The earth is getting warmer (0.6 +/- 0.2 oC in the past century; 0.1 0.17 oC /decade over the last 30 years (see update)) [ch 2]
2. People are causing this [ch 12] (see update)
3. If GHG emissions continue, the warming will continue and indeed accelerate [ch 9]
4. (This will be a problem and we ought to do something about it)

These are in descending order of certainty. Further

 

In the years since I wrote that nothing has come along to overturn any of that, and much has come in to buttress it. 1, 2 and 3 are now strong enough to be considered “essentially true”; the arguments that claim any of them are false are now dull and uninteresting and without scientific validity. Pretty well all of the meaningful scientific skeptics have now given up trying to argue that.  

 

Let me get really dull and uninteresting, and try to access the scope of scientific validity.

  1. The earth got warmer in the last century. It got warmer in spurts, followed by periods of stability.
  2. People are highly likely to be contributing this to some extent. It could account (though unlikely) account for greater than 100% of the warming. Certainly, the planet is over 30oC warmer than it would have been without the natural greenhouse effect, consisting mostly of water vapour. However,

–                 The recent rise in the total level of anthropogenic greenhouse gases has probably added less than 2% to the total, for a 2% rise in temperature. A physicist would expect diminishing temperature rises for incremental rise in the greenhouse blanket, not increasing ones.

–                 Furthermore, then temperature rises have been in spurts – from 1914 to 1940 and from 1977 to 2000. In between global temperatures did not rise. If you look at global growth rates, there was low growth in the inter-war period (with the Great Depression in the middle), high growth from 1945 to 1973 (the year of the oil crisis) and lower growth to 1998, then the greatest level of growth in world history for the next decade. If there is any correlation, it is negative.

–                 The Hockey Stick episode. The great effort that has been put into eliminating the medieval warm period, to demonstrate that the twentieth century warming is unprecedented, should provide strong circumstantial evidence of the doubt that the data engenders. Compare the arguments of the climate sceptic Steve McIntyre (McIntyre S, 2008b is a readable introduction.) with a 2005 consensus view. This is basically a cross-check. If there have been large fluctuations in recent, pre-industrial history. In particular, higher temperatures a few hundred years ago, and an unusually cold period in the 17th to early 19th centuries, then it would be more likely that the most of the 20th century warming was natural.

3. If greenhouse gases keep increasing, then temperatures will, ceteris paribus, also increase. However, that they will accelerate because of positive feedbacks (water vapour – the principle greenhouse gas – is forecast to rise as a result of the temperature rise brought about by the rise in CO2) may contradict, the limited, observed data (Lindzen and Choi 2009 pdf).

 

The science is much more nuanced. There are large uncertainties in the data and still bigger ones in the forecasts. So a huge range of conclusions is valid. The appointed leaders cover this with dogmatic certainties and untenable forecasts, along with being quick to doubt the motives, competence or even sanity of anyone who stands in their way. Further they still do not see a problem when biased analysis and broken procedures are revealed. Nor manipulation of the data to get the desired results. Nor attempts to block adverse science from being published. Their very lack of humility and dogma is opening the door to those who say it is all a conspiracy or a scam.

by Kevin VS Marshall (Manicbeancounter) on 05/07/2010  •  Permalink
Posted in Climate Change, Global Warming, Science & Non-science

Posted by Kevin VS Marshall (Manicbeancounter) on 05/07/2010

https://manicbeancounter.com/2010/07/05/global-warming-a-simple-summary-unpicked/

Towards Public Consensus on Climate Change

 

John Redwood posted the following under heading “How a Prime Minister Loses his Job”

The outgoing PM in Australia serves as a warning to incumbents. If you combine unpopular climate change legislation with a big tax increase, you lose your job. The legislation was defeated, and the tax increase on mining has now been abated.

Just posted on  blog comments

This illustrates the importance of carrying people with you through difficult and necessary decisions. On tackling the problem of the deficit the government is being brave and honest about the gravity of the problem. The Coalition is also making attempts to minimise the impact on service provision.

On climate change, we have had many dogmatic statements about the collective opinions of experts and the science being settled. This is accompanied with wild allegations on the motives of critics (in the pay of oil companies) or their very sanity (flat-earthers, or equivalent to holocaust deniers). To carry the majority forward, the scientific case needs to be made more clearly. That means opening up the black box of climate models to independent investigation and subjecting empirical studies to full statistical tests. Conflicts of interest should be stated and recognised. Like in a court of law, when people can see the robustness of the case, then the doubters will be the silenced and sacrifices willing made for the sake of our descendant’s futures.

We have been delivered with a fait accompli, with no reasonable person being able to question. It is not just the basic science that we are unable to question, but also the policy perscriptions. This is alien to an open society.

by Kevin VS Marshall (Manicbeancounter) on 04/07/2010  •  Permalink
Posted in Climate Change, Global Warming
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Posted by Kevin VS Marshall (Manicbeancounter) on 04/07/2010

https://manicbeancounter.com/2010/07/04/towards-public-consensus-on-climate-change/

Climate Tipping Points – The Real Conclusion beneath Scientists Opinion

The Independent reports on a new paper about the likelihood of a climatic tipping point being reached by 2200. How did they achieve this? Have they come up with a new wonder-model? Or by achieving a fundamental refinement of the existing models? No, the answer is more mundane. They interviewed 14 leading scientists on climate change, asking them some sophisticated (but leading) questions. It is an opinion poll, with a biased and insignificant sample. But it is revealing about the quality of climate change “science”.

  For instance consider the following from the abstract.

 

Quote 1

“The width and median values of the probability distributions elicited from the different experts for future global mean temperature change under the specified forcing trajectories vary considerably.”

 

   I thought statistical results could only come from statistical analysis, not experts reviewing the literature.

 

Quote 2

“For a forcing trajectory that stabilized at 7 Wm-2 in 2200, 13 of the 14 experts judged the probability that the climate system would undergo, or be irrevocably committed to, a “basic state change” as ≥0.5.”

 

   In science, a probability can only be calculated from the data, and can be subjected to a battery of tests for robustness. In common parlance probabilities are used as an expression of opinion. Like the IPCC forecasts for temperature the distinction is blurred. In this case it appears to be the latter, so should be clearly stated as such in a scientific journal.

   A second problem is the forcing trajectory being stabilised at 7 Wm-2. That is on top of the existing 324 Wm-2, a 2% rise (See IPCC AR4 page 96). The current greenhouse effect makes average global temperatures of 14oC up to 33oC higher than they would have otherwise been. If the effect were a linear one, then I would expect this impact to be 0.7oC. However I would expect the relationship to be a non-linear, with a diminishing marginal impact for each successive increase in the greenhouse forcings. To get to the median IPCC predicted increase of 3.5oC for this century would require huge increasing impact. Maybe climatologists are too lost in their consensus to see the bigger picture provided by data analysis.

 

Quote 3

“Finally, most experts anticipated that over the next 20 years research will be able to achieve only modest reductions in their degree of uncertainty.”

 

Do you want some accurate, scientific, analysis of the climatic instability that will be brought about by rising temperatures, in turn caused by rising CO2? The best experts cannot see this being achieved until long after they retired.

 

The Real Conclusion

The top climate scientists tacitly acknowledge that there is no robust, scientific basis for the climatic instability forecast.

Hat tip: Richard North at EU Referendum

by Kevin VS Marshall (Manicbeancounter) on 30/06/2010  •  Permalink
Posted in Climate Change, Science & Non-science
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Posted by Kevin VS Marshall (Manicbeancounter) on 30/06/2010

https://manicbeancounter.com/2010/06/30/climate-tipping-points-%e2%80%93-the-real-conclusion-beneath-scientists-opinion/

Dear Boris, You have the England’s football malaise wrong.

Our youthful Mayor of London has misidentified the major causes of England’s lack of football prowess.  Whilst one might concede that the lack of competitveness is a minor contributor to England’s failure to progress far at the World Cup, it is far from being the major one. We have some of the finest footballers in the world. Speaking to some German and Danish colleagues, they both thought our players far superior to theirs. Rooney, Gerrard, Lampard and Terry and others would feature in many a pundits European or World fantasy team. But England lacks a National Identity. Where is the English parliament, the English leader, the English Law, the English way and the English Language? We suffer from nationalist schizophrenia.

 It lacks players who see the World Cup as the pinancle of their careers. And with so many players actual playing in the English Premier League, the top in the world, many spend most of the year seeing their English team mates as rivals.

Yet it is the English spirit that is wrong for the game. We see out own faults and the advantages of others. We share our culture and are open to diversity. So the World Game of Football is Englis; the parlimentary system of the leading nations is English Liberal Democracy; in most countries fought between the English political philosphies of Liberalism, conservatism and moderate socialism; the langguage of the world is English, the system of law in many nations is based on English Common Law. Flipping to the other side of nationalist schizophrenia, we can say much of modern science is British, as is economics and many of the leading inventions.

So whilst we navel gaze on why we cannot win right to display a small trophy for four years, we forget that this small island determines the rules of the game in a much broader sense than Football.

(an Update of yesterday’s post)

by Kevin VS Marshall (Manicbeancounter) on 28/06/2010  •  Permalink
Posted in Football, World Cup
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Posted by Kevin VS Marshall (Manicbeancounter) on 28/06/2010

https://manicbeancounter.com/2010/06/28/dear-boris-you-have-the-englands-football-malaise-wrong/

England is too great to win the World Cup

I find it painful to watch England playing football. As a country they always underperform. Today was a prime example. We had world-class players making the mistakes of a championship side on freefall to relegation. Why is it that we have world class players doing worse than they would do for their own clubs?

Consider the following points.

  1. For many of the English players the game of today was not the game of their lives. For Rooney, Gerrard or Terry, that is the Champions League or a crucial game I winning the Premiership. These games are the culmination of the games played for their club, in the top domestic competition in the world. Playing for their country is a nice extra, but not the pinnacle of their careers. For most other countries, most of the players do not reach those heights in their domestic competitions. They have lesser competitions are home, or play in a foreign league. For them it is like playing in Division 1, and having a once-in-a-career opportunity to play for
  2. We suffer from nationalist schizophrenia. I consider myself British, vote for a British Parliament and hold a British Passport. England is a historical curiosity. For many like me, it is only in sport that we have the nation of England. But for the Scots and Welsh, it is something different.
  3. Parts of the British culture are support for the underdog, diversity and the culture of the generalist. The intense focussed competitiveness required to win is not there. Instead, we see the other point of view, and learn how to compromise. That is why we have not had a pitched battle on British soil for Culloden in 1746, and English soil since Bosworth Field in 1483 (excluding the odd friendly game of Rugby). Instead, the ability to see the other point of view gives us some of the greatest minds of all time. The British invented football (and a host of other sports), a host of peaceful ideologies and produced some of the greatest minds of all time.

 

English football is incapable of gaining the focus to win. We just bequeath the rules of the game, whether in sport, or politics. We also provide the language in which it is spoken. These are trophies far greater, more enduring than a 10 inch gold one to place on the mantelpiece for four years. Question is, what greater victories are there to come?

 

Update – On Boris Johnson’s take in the Telegraph here

by Kevin VS Marshall (Manicbeancounter) on 27/06/2010  •  Permalink
Posted in Football, World Cup
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Posted by Kevin VS Marshall (Manicbeancounter) on 27/06/2010

https://manicbeancounter.com/2010/06/27/england-is-too-great-to-win-the-world-cup/

Cutting Government by Rules of Thumb

Over at the Admin Smith Institute Blog Dr Eamonn Butler has a short paper “Rebooting Government”. Just six pages long it looks at short, medium and long-term measures to reduce the deficit and keep it low. Well worth a read.

However, in evaluating what governments should do I advocate more general rules of thumb.

  1. Proportionality. Rather than trying to evaluate the relative worth of policies, try to see if the cost is anything like proportional to the benefit. That is a quick analysis to cull those policies where costs vastly exceed the benefits.
  2. Despinification of government. Cull those policies or regulations that where introduced as knee-jerk reactions, or on the basis of “research” that was discredited. This may include changing the language of government, with reports stating conclusions clearly and how they were reached, not waffling on for pages but saying nothing of substance.
  3. Temporal diminishing returns. Many initiatives have some initial benefits or successes, but later those benefits diminish for various reasons. (Not to be confused with diminishing returns to scale). The initial effects wear off. The organisation solidifies, the most needy processed first, or people get used to, or by-pass the intiative. Much the same way shock adverts only work being more graphic than the last one, or congestion charging only reduces traffic until people can adjust their budgets to afford the extra cost.
  4. Changing from direct provider to provision enabler. For instance, from providing schools to providing education vouchers (with many shades in-between).
  5. From detailed management to general objectives. A failure of government has been conformity to detailed standards by form-filling and inspections, whilst failing in the bigger picture. Social Services Departments, or General Hospitals that fall significantly shortly after having scored highly in performance evaluations. Or regulators who missed banks failing, despite receiving detailed and regular information about their operations.
by Kevin VS Marshall (Manicbeancounter) on 10/06/2010  •  Permalink
Posted in Government Spending

Posted by Kevin VS Marshall (Manicbeancounter) on 10/06/2010

https://manicbeancounter.com/2010/06/10/cutting-government-by-rules-of-thumb/

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