Comments on: Rahmstorf 7 Finale

By: Niche Modeling » Recent Climate Observations: Disagreement With Projections

Niche Modeling » Recent Climate Observations: Disagreement With Projections — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 10:41:30 +0000

[...] the ’slide and eyball’ approach. I engaged with Rahmstorf at RealClimate and wrote a number of articles on the uncertainty, until he told me in effect to ’sod off and publish’. But rather than try to diagnose a [...]

By: Niche Modeling » Fishery Predictions of Global Warming

Niche Modeling » Fishery Predictions of Global Warming — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 05:44:08 +0000

[...] mentioning both sides of the uncertainty distribution. Although they do cite a piece of flotsom called Rahmstorf et al. 2007. There is considerable uncertainty regarding climate model predictions, in both time and space. [...]

By: Niche Modeling » Global Warming Statistics: OET (ordinary eyeball test).

Niche Modeling » Global Warming Statistics: OET (ordinary eyeball test). — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 00:48:22 +0000

[...] Experience has shown that it produces reliable results in almost every situation. Moreover, these results are very convincing. So convincing was the OET known as the Hockey Stick that it was used in press releases of Third Assessment Report by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2001 report, featured in the award winning movie “An Inconvenient Truth”, and is still widely used throughout government and science. It has rendered yeoman service in garnering acceptance for the false notion that temperatures are the highest they have been for a million years. Figure: Example of the Ordinary Eyeball Test (OET) from Rahmstorf et al. 2007. One of the most recent examples of the OET is in the publication by seven IPCC lead authors (the Rahmstorf7) of Rahmstorf et al. 2007 in Science. Here it was used as the main scientific support for the notion of a present ‘runaway warming’ using a classic OET method to demonstrate that “the climate system is responding faster than our current generation of models suggest”. So convincing was this OET that on this piece of evidence alone, the Australian Garnaut commission determined that “Developments in mainstream scientific opinion … suggest that the world is moving towards high risks of dangerous climate change more rapidly than has generally been understood”. Recent economic modeling shows that implementing a 90 per cent reduction in carbon emissions by 2050 would alone require closing 3 out of 4 coal fired power stations, and building new clean power stations at a cost of $50 billion dollars. Unfortunately the OET is vulnerable to attacks from the numerate, particularly the claim that uncertainty has not been properly accounted for. Some of the curve has been taken off the Hockey Stick with his studies, but this has not prevented it from remaining in widespread use. The OET must be valid as these papers have been accepted by reviewers in Nature and Science. Some concerns have been raised in a submission to the Garnaut commission pointing out more arcane part of the methodology stems from the same person who developed Hockey Stick (Michael Mann) and that it advocates an even more extreme position than the already quite extreme global warming consensus of IPCC. On questioning about the uncertainty in the OET of the Rahmstorf7 at RealClimate.org, Rahmstorf seemed confused about the operation of the methodology itself, and suggested it concerns be taken to peer review. It never pays to look too closely at an OET. There are a few of the opinion that even papers that have passed Science and Nature’s peer-review processes, and scientific reports such as the IPCC approved by more than 100 governments, could benefit from review of the methodology by at least one expert statistician. But then the statistical deficiencies would be brought to wide public notice and much of the effectiveness of the OET would be lost. [...]

By: davids

davids — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 15:51:32 +0000

Peter,

That looks good. Perhaps there is a need to put in the actual links as they will scroll off the blog.

http://landshape.org/enm/rahmstorf-7-finale/ for summary.

http://landshape.org/enm/rahmstorf-et-al-2007-ipcc-error/ for discussion.

Regards

By: Peter Gallagher

Peter Gallagher — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 12:32:57 +0000

Damn! The link to the letter does not work. Please find the draft at: http://www.petergallagher.com.au/files/SSAI_letter.pdf

By: Peter Gallagher

Peter Gallagher — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 12:31:03 +0000

My apologies, Ian, for the misplacement of the apostrophe in your name. Peter.

By: Peter Gallagher

Peter Gallagher — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 12:29:47 +0000

I have just seen Ian Castle’s suggestion about a letter to the President of the SSAI. I have drafted this letter that makes the points he suggests. I will email the letter in the next day or so. If readers of this website have any comments to add, meanwhile, please email me using the link on my website.

By: admin

admin — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 22:52:12 +0000

Ian, I like your idea the more I think about it. Given this is the only paper cited in Garnaut as supporting accelerated warming, it is unacceptable that this is merely regarded as a ‘difference in opinion’ and it should be a resolvable question. Is this paper a statistical shocker or not? Stefan’s doesn’t want to talk about it, preferring to refer it to the ‘court of peer review’. Independent review is the next step.

By: admin

admin — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 21:27:10 +0000

It would be ideal to have an ongoing, but independent critical input from statistical consultants. One problem with Inhofe Committee was that it ended. It is unacceptable that:

the (Garnaut) Review is in no position to adjudicate on the relative merits of various expert scientific opinions.

By: Ian Castles

Ian Castles — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 11:31:31 +0000

Peter, I don’t know any of the officebearers, either in the Environment Section or the Executive Committee (the President is a professor at UNSW, I think that I noticed). I think that it might be best to go directly to the President – I doubt if the Environment Committee could consider taking this forward on their own bat anyway. My first thought was to take this up through the Australian Bureau of Statistics but on reflection, and bearing in mind the sensitivities, I’m inclined to think that that might be putting them ‘on the spot.’

Would you consider writing to the President of the SSAI to make this proposal? You could refer to your submission to the Garnaut Review and to the correspondence that we’re now having. You could note David’s credentials as the author of ‘Niche Modeling.’ And you could say (if you agree with this) that any review should preferably be undertaken by expert statisticians outside government. It does seem to me that the Garnaut Review’s uncritical use of this paper provides the SSAI with an opportunity to intervene in this matter in the national interest.