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“There is a huge discrepancy between the data and the forecasts.”
In what realm do you think this “huge discrepancy” exists? The financial markets? Politics? Pharmaceutical research?
Given how bad humans are at predicting the future, this discrepancy could exist just about anywhere. But the above quote, from the University of Alabama-Huntsville climate scientist Roy Spencer, is talking about computer models that predict global warming:
Data from NASA’s Terra satellite suggests that when the climate warms, Earth’s atmosphere is apparently more efficient at releasing energy to space than models used to forecast climate change may indicate, according to a new study.
The result is climate forecasts that are warming substantially faster than the atmosphere, says Dr. Roy Spencer, a principal research scientist in the Earth System Science Center at The University of Alabama in Huntsville.
The previously unexplained differences between model-based forecasts of rapid global warming and meteorological data showing a slower rate of warming have been the source of often contentious debate and controversy for more than two decades.
In research published this week in the journal Remote Sensing, Spencer and UA Huntsville’s Dr. Danny Braswell compared what a half dozen climate models say the atmosphere should do to satellite data showing what the atmosphere actually did during the 18 months before and after warming events between 2000 and 2011.
“The satellite observations suggest there is much more energy lost to space during and after warming than the climate models show,” Spencer said. “There is a huge discrepancy between the data and the forecasts that is especially big over the oceans.”
Not only does the atmosphere release more energy than previously thought, it starts releasing it earlier in a warming cycle. The models forecast that the climate should continue to absorb solar energy until a warming event peaks.
This being climate science, Spencer’s research was immediately turned into a political football. (“I cannot believe it got published,” one critic said of Spencer’s paper.) Of all the challenges in the modern world, it’s hard to envision one that is harder to forecast than the climatic future, given the fantastically complex and dynamic elements at play. While the spectacle of climate scientists shouting each other down may be unseemly, perhaps it’s the best path to arriving at useful understanding of the benefits — and limitations — of their models.
(HT: Eric M. Jones)
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I always found it funny that we as a society accept that weathermen as one of those most inaccurate and unreliable professions, yet so many are willing to gamble trillions on weathermen with much greater scales of uncertainty (and worse track records)
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Climatology != meteorology.
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What I find morbidly hilarious is that we plan to change the environment, a system we barely understand, by modifying the economy, a system we barely understand.
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You know, I’ve actually found the weather forecasts (at least for my part of the country) to be pretty accurate, enough so that people remark when they’re wrong.
In any case, as the other James said, weather isn’t climate. It’s (since this place seems to like lotteries) the difference between buying a few lottery tickets, and running the lottery.
So you live in either Seattle or San Diego, right?
Nope, northern Nevada. Nor is the weather here consistent: it’s not particularly unusual to see snow and temperatures in the 80-90 degree range in the same week.
Also, the accuracy of weather forecasts are pretty good these days. It depends greatly on how ‘accuracy of the forecast’ is defined, but typical numbers are in the mid 70% to 80% range.
For this non-scientist…what the heck did Spencer say? Can someone bring it down to my 5th grade level?
He said essentially that the Earth is cooling itself more efficiently than our models predicted. See, those of us who work with data and forecasts realize that prediction is very difficult, especially when we’re trying to predict the future. You always start with unknowns and there are always holes in the data. You predict, you observe the actual results, you modify your predictions based on your actual observations. That’s science. Only in business and politics is there no room for error. Scientists learn from theirs and that’s why it makes a better predictor of reality than business or politics, where error is not allowed and you can never, NEVER change your mind!
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Some of the criticism of the article stems from the simple models used by Spencer. Also, his data only extends over a small period, which makes any climatological argument less powerful.
Climate scientists shouting at each other I don’t mind. Politicians joining the discussion without understanding it is more irritating.
Marcus – the climate scientists have been predicting that the earth will heat up at the rate of a certain number of degrees per year. The earth has been getting warmer, but not as fast as they expected it would. Spencer found what may be one reason for this – he says that the earth releases some of the heat into space, like an oven giving off heat when it cools down, and that the heat released that way is more than we previously thought.
That make any more sense?
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thank you.
More specifically, the paper is saying that the hotter the oven gets, the more energy escapes and more difficult it is to heat, so it heats more and more slowly as it warms up. It may also cool off faster once warmed up.
sigh. I get so frustrated when I see scientists talking so poorly about an issue that affects us all so much. I’m a communications specialist, and my WORST clients are scientists. They have no idea how to translate their scientific vocabulary, which focuses on caution and nuance, into everyday human language, which needs certainty and enough concrete information we can visualize and understand. This is why the climate skeptics have such an easy job — the scientists are making it so easy for them,
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The whole problem with the issue is that “communication specialists” and politicians have created certainty where none exists. So we rush about trying to fix something that we don’t even understand. We generate fear and re-allocate resources based on questionable data; in 50 years we may find out that we need to undo what we have done!
Perhaps communication specialists should learn how to state nuance in a way that is easily grasped. Communication isn’t accomplished by distorting facts to make for an easier sell, it is accomplished by understanding complex issues and then presenting that complexity in a careful, reasonable, and logical way.
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I think Teresa makes a great point. Climate change is one instance where there is a consensus among the scientific community, but that consensus is not clearly communicated to the public. There may be a debate about whether the change is caused by human actions, but there is no debate about whether or not the earth is warming, and this new finding doesn’t change that. Yet any time it snows people take to the airwaves and internet to claim that global warming is a hoax. This is precisely because scientists haven’t been able to explain even the basics of weather versus climate to laymen (myself included.)
The same can be said of other topics where there is a huge gulf in understanding and a large divide between the scientific consensus and public opinion (e.g. evolution.)
Hot debate. What do you think?
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“Climate change is one instance where there is a consensus among the scientific community”
I can assure you Nate that this is not the case. We meteorologists all agree that the earth has warmed, but we fight like cats and dogs about everything else.
“All scientists agree” is the great lie of the political left and “Global warming is a hoax” is the great lie of the political right.
Most scientists that earn their living or reputation from climate change or work for taxpayer funded organizations consistently sound the alarm. Those of us atmospheric scientists who forecast operationally or work in the private sector or who have no personal stake in the fight tend to be very skeptical of the catastrophic global warming alarmism.
While the public slogs through a very low level, highly politicized debate over whether of not global warming is happening, the debate is very different in the science community. The earth has obviously warmed and most of us agree that humans are driving this but we argue over the forecast and the implications and the severity and the cures. On these points, there is little agreement.
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“This is why the climate skeptics have such an easy job — the scientists are making it so easy for them”
You are assuming that scientists aren’t counted among the skeptics. I’m an atmospheric scientist and I’m very skeptical of catastrophic global warming. Sure the earth has been warming. Humans are probably the primary driver of this warming. However, the science is in it’s infancy and there is so much that we don’t know and can’t forecast that I oppose any drastic, expensive actions. I’m by no means alone in the science community.
My real fear with the climate debate is that one side gets the ear of policy makers, who like the government action demanded.
But given such discrepancies, it seems to me that advocating policy is a bit premature.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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I would agree with you except that the policy, even if anthropogenic climate change were to be proven false, gives us cleaner air and extends our primary energy resources. Both are worthy of pursuit in their own right.
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Worthy pursuit, yes. But at what cost? If we misconstrue the benefits, we may misconstrue our costs.
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So far, the net cost seems to have been a profit, if you consider how improved energy efficiency affects bottom lines.
That there are differences between the predictions of some models and the actual data should come as no surprise and this short blog post should not be taken as any sort of blow to science of climate change. I don’t mean to say that Dubner is suggesting otherwise, but readers may come away with the wrong impression. Predictions about future climate trends are always given as ranges exactly because of unknown variable like the amount of energy that is radiated into space. None of this changes the fact that the differences between climate model predictions and actual data has narrowed significantly over the last 20 years (i.e. despite the suggestions of this post, models are getting increasingly more accurate). Additionally, the actual data – not the models – could not be more unequivocal. The planet is warming and this giant heat engine is creating significant changes in the climate.
We also need to keep in mind that the climate is a near-equilibrium system. Such systems are not static entities – energy is constantly being exchanged. That energy is being released into space before a warming maximum is reached makes perfect sense but the important point to understand is that the NET exchange of heat favors the atmosphere, not space. It’s like filling a bucket with a hole in it. Some water may be coming out the bottom, but the rate of filling the bucket exceeds the rate at which water is escaping from the hole. Yes, there is release of water, but the net change is that the bucket is still getting filled.
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The best response is to prepare for the worst, but expect the usual. Don’t blow the budget on carbon reduction technologies that are of dubious value, but perhaps spend a few tens of billions on some Geoengineering strategies.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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In all other sciences, if you can’t make a correct prediction, your theory is proven wrong.
Is Climate Science a science, or is it a religion?
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In all sciences, if you make a prediction that is inaccurate, you try to find the cause of the inaccuracy and (like a parameter whose value is different than you thought) and adjust your theory to take it into account. This happens thousands of times every day all over the world.
What’s different about climate science is the presence of a well-funded lobby and a nearly universal status-quo-bias that doesn’t want certain result to exist and enthusiastically pounces on everything that casts doubt on those, causing the people getting those results (and those who believe something has to be done about them) to act defensively and exaggerate their certainty.
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Or perhaps that exaggerated certainty came first (with the help of a well-funded lobby and conflicts of interest) and that is why those who have a status quo bias pounce on things that cast doubt.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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Which lobby wants to exaggerate the certainty of climate change? The electric car lobby? The organic food industry? If you say that it’s the scientific community itself, then I know for certain that you’re a conspiracy theorist.
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How about:
1) The Political lobby which sees this as a way to exert increased control over the economy.
2) The 3rd World lobby which sees this as a way to transfer money to poorer countries.
3) The Al Gore lobby who sees this as a way to stay relevant and make some $$$.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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Yeah… conspiracy theories. More implausible and unfounded ones than usual, even.
You do realise that “lobbies” and “lobbyists” are real actual things, right? It’s not something you can just invoke whenever you think there’s someone out there who vaguely may have something to gain by a certain policy.
“1) The Political lobby which sees this as a way to exert increased control over the economy.”
Except that to any thinking person, the result of applying CO2 reduction strategies is to give certain groups LESS control over the economy, while giving more only to individuals. For instance (ask your survivalist friends for confirmation) if you live in a house that’s solar heated, and off the grid, you aren’t controlled by utilities or oil/gas suppliers, and you’ve reduced the power of their lobbying groups. (Why do you think oil & coal companies funded all those denialist groups, out of a disinterested spirit of scientific inquiry?) Drive an electric car charged by those solar panels, and you’re not controlled by anyone in the gasoline supply chain. And so on down the line.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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