CERN: 'Climate models will need to be substantially revised' CERN's 8,000 scientists may not be able to find the hypothetical Higgs boson, but they have made an important contribution to climate physics, prompting climate models to be revised. The first results from the lab's CLOUD ("Cosmics Leaving OUtdoor Droplets") experiment published in Nature today confirm that cosmic rays spur …
Firstly CERN has other projects it could be spending its time on, and will get research funding for.
Secondly, if they were in it for the cash, they'd just saddle up with BP and Shell and say there's no such thing and cash their cheque. There's more money in denial than in confirmation.
Citation needed.
The most recent survey of researchers (in the US under the previous government) showed that researchers were _more_ likely to get funding for research that challenged the current consensus on climate change. And the average funding and salary figures for climate-related research weren't even in the top five.
The climate gravy train is a complete myth. If you want to get on a research gravy train then you go into pharmaceuticals, geology (for fossil fuel funding) or mathematics (for market modelling).
You're trying to tell me that a company with annual revenues in excess of 300 billion USD and at risk of losing pretty much all of it if we stop using so much oil doesnt have the cash to fund competing climate research. This is just Royal Dutch Shell.
Come on, we all know thats nonsense. The real money is in denial - Don't do any work, just say what the big companies that will "go away" if the pro warming science takes hold, cash cheque.
Its not like it will be the first time this has happened - or did you believe the cigarette companies when they said that smoking doesnt cause cancer?
you really need to check out who funds :
WWF
Greenpeace
UEA CRU
you will find all the big oil companies in the lists of donors.
However all AGW proponents boast about relieving funding from Governments (demonstrable biased in favour of CAGW) and those well know advocate groups like Greenpeace and WWF; Terri and many 'progressive' (translated means luddite) advocacy anti science organizations. Does this fact then automatically disqualify CAGW scientist from being allowed to report their research and findings; after all they are funded by organisations with massive interest in getting the 'right' result ?
It's an experiment that supports a theory that has been largely ignored or dismissed by climate scientists, and that in itself is significant. Of course the experiment doesn't *prove* anything - yet. But it lends support to the idea that there's more than one influence on climate, and that the 'consensus' don't yet have it all mapped out, despite assurances from the IPCC.
My main concern is that the theory that anthropogenic CO2 is the only significant driver of climate change has, like the big banks, become too important to be allowed to fail. There are too many politicians, scientists, corporations and NGOs that have nailed their colours (and our money) to the AGW mast.
It will take a lot of evidence overturn the consensus, But that's how it should be.
"My main concern is that the theory that anthropogenic CO2 is the only significant driver of climate change has, like the big banks, become too important to be allowed to fail. There are too many politicians, scientists, corporations and NGOs that have nailed their colours (and our money) to the AGW mast."
That is my feeling as well - too many vested interests receiving too much money BUT only if they /support/ the anthropogenic CO2 angle.
icon is for the narrow minded "it must be CO2 and nothing else brigade"
Oooh conspiracy theories! Yay!
There's a vast amount of short-term profit to be derived by some people from *denying* anthropogenic climate change. Fossil fuel companies, politicians who want to soft-soap their electorate into believing droughts and hurricanes are the work of a gay-hating God (or something), that sort of thing.
Not many real scientists stand to make $$$$$$ from confirming/refining the current climate change models. They might make $$$$$$$$$$ from Big Business if they deny it. Otherwise, they just earn their salaries like everyone else.
It is saddening to see the Reg, usually fairly sensible, on the side of denialists.
It's not about supporting fossil fuel companies, it's about keeping electricity affordable for people besides the wealthy, so that more can partake of the benefits of civilisation. If you climate change believers have your way, the only sources of power will be wind, hydro and solar - which will NOT generate enough power to service anyone other than millionaires. Already in Australia electricity prices have become so prohibitive that there are now around 18,000 households (not people, *households*), that cook on open fires and light their homes with oil lamps and candles because they cannot afford electricity any more. That's the world you AGW faithful are creating.
Add to that the increasing body of evidence that climate change is continuous throughout Earth's history and that our contribution to it is minimal at best, and the claims of the climate change believers begin to wear increasingly thin.
"Already in Australia electricity prices have become so prohibitive that there are now around 18,000 households (not people, *households*), that cook on open fires and light their homes with oil lamps and candles because they cannot afford electricity any more."
WTF is this rubbish. As someone who actually lives in Australia, I can tell you the rise in electricity prices is almost entirely due to privatisation and lack of investment in new capacity -- we have no carbon tax/emissions scheme (yet).
And as for those 18,000 households cooking on open fires, I suggest you subtract out the 140,0000 NT/WA aborigines. Generation cost has nothing to do with it, living in the middle of nowhere does.
As for the substance of the article, I'm still waiting for someone to show that cosmic rays have actually increased in the last 150 years. Until then you can't draw any conclusions either way.
From the blog referenced in the article:
Personal rivalries aside, the important question is what the new CLOUD paper means for the Svensmark hypothesis. Pick your way through the cautious prose and you’ll find this:
“Ion-induced nucleation [cosmic ray action] will manifest itself as a steady production of new particles [molecular clusters] that is difficult to isolate in atmospheric observations because of other sources of variability but is nevertheless taking place and could be quite large when averaged globally over the troposphere [the lower atmosphere].”
It’s so transparently favourable to what the Danes have said all along that I’m surprised the warmists’ house magazine Nature is able to publish it, even omitting the telltale graph shown at the start of this post. Added to the already favourable Danish experimental findings, the more detailed CERN result is excellent. Thanks a million, Jasper.
-=-
The point is that besides this experiment there were other earlier experiments that also indicated that there were other non-man made factors which had a greater impact on the earth's climate.
While I would love to see less man made pollutants in the atmosphere, I never bought in to the theory that short of nukes, man was responsible for global warming. (Detonating nukes in an effort to create the same effects that a volcanic eruption would have.)
So to your point, yeah we do. But climate gate was all about bending the scientific research in an effort to get man to stop polluting the atmosphere.
"It’s so transparently favourable to what the Danes have said all along ... Added to the already favourable Danish experimental findings..."
What? All the Danes or just a few people who happen to be Danish. Or do you have a fetish for Danes?
Sheesh! And that's my response to the more coherent part of your commentary.
"However, at this stage, there is absolutely no way we can say that they do"
Of course all the religious fanatics will jump on this phrase. What it means is that REAL scientists don't just say "yep that's how it works" until they have proper scientific data and experiments to support that. Correlation doesn't imply causation and all that.
You can tell the global warming religion isn't real science because they make claims that are not based in rigorous scientific fact. Not to mention the faked data and "models" that give whatever output they designed them to.
What part of "absolutely no way" don't you understand?
The religious fanatics are the climate deniers and their sun-worship who are all over the web spinning this study as proving some kind of cloud link to recent warming, even though the author is very clear that's wrong in the quote you disparage. There are several steps missing, just as there were before this paper.
What part of "absolutely no way" don't you understand?
It's always as sad as it is amusing to watch someone who's got the wrong end of the stick gleefully waving it around :p
I read it as a jibe at 'scientists' who take the ball and run with it without looking, not realising they've actually picked up a turd; AGW-types, for instance.
Apart from the complete absence of fake data and the rather important point that models are designed to explain the *existing* data. If a model can't predict the past, it is not a good candidate for predicting the future.
I have an open mind on the subject of anthropogenic warming, but it is clear that there has been an active, well funded campaign to rubbish the idea, and that campaign does sometimes stray into being anti-science in general. No creationism here please!
"But quote-mining people out of context is the mark of a Creationist."
Fair enough - although I thought the inference in the remark was directed at, inter alia, scientists who rely on reporting like this to maintain funding to continue their research - including the scientists behind this (rather interesting) report.. so I dropped the rest of the sentence, considering the remainder to be very much in context... but you make a good point. To emphasise the science bit, would this be better ?
----%< ----
"Good job I don't believe anything spouted by scientists ... who's funding & existence tends to rely on spouting it..."
What - like this research ?... or just those things you disagree with..
----%<----
Cheers
Re-read "g e"'s post, this time look at the full sentence.
The important bit was "who's funding & existence tends to rely on spouting it"
Aside from the poor grammar, the point is very important.
If your livelihood depends on you agreeing with a pre-determined result, then you are very likely to ignore any evidence to the contrary, or even fudge the data and/or methodology to give the pre-determined answer.
Such fudging could be deliberate or a subconscious bias, but that doesn't really matter - the result is the same.
To give a trivial example:
The ASA requires that all adverts have 'evidence' to back up the claims made in the advert.
If a cosmetics company asked you to test a new cosmetic face cream for them, are you more likely to get paid and/or re-hired later for saying "This face cream is great" or "This face cream is the same as all the other face creams"?
So, unsurprisingly all these face cream tests done to support the advertising campaigns always deliberately fudge the methodology to make an "It's great" result more likely - eg no comparisons to other products, vague and leading survey questions (Is your skin softer now?) etc.
- If you've ever taken part in a street survey of a product you'll easily spot the way the questions are phrased to give the answer they want.
Back to the original context:
The majority of research into Climate Change is being done by groups who are being paid by organisations with a clear vested interest in one particular result. (This bias does swing both ways)
I don't think anybody seriously thinks that the climate isn't changing - the historical record is very clear on that - the bit that is contentious is the idea that humanity is a significant factor in causing it.
Personally, I'm very much in the "Not Proven" camp for the hypothesis that human-action is significant.
None of the published model results are believable (for or against), if only for the simple fact that none of them have error bars.
The world climate is known to be a chaotic system - therefore, to make a useful prediction you need to vary all the starting conditions in both directions and re-run the model for the full range of likely starting conditions, and the same again for any inputs that might change during the run (human CO2 output for example).
(Measuring chaotic systems is more complicated than that, but you get the general idea)
If you don't do that, you'll get one *possible* outcome, but have no idea of how probable that outcome actually is.
Nobody seems to be doing that - or at least, nobody seems to be publishing results showing the range and probability map of predictions their models make.
If you know where one of those is, I'd be really interested to see it.
"Re-read "g e"'s post, this time look at the full sentence.
The important bit was "who's funding & existence tends to rely on spouting it"
Aside from the poor grammar, the point is very important."
Indeed - and my comment remains - see my reply to Preece further down.
"If your livelihood depends on you agreeing with a pre-determined result, then you are very likely to ignore any evidence to the contrary"
Absolutely - which is why robust analysis of things is very important. I think, despite the hysteria and politico-economic meddling, that this *is* happening as far as the science itself is concerned. The IPCC spokespersons, in particular, have done absolutely no favours to anyone in playing with ridiculous headlines and portraying the current research as written in stone - there is a consensus, but there is also a lot of debate - that's the way it should be. I really don't buy into the "all climate science is tainted by greed" view of the world - I think that's particularly naive and disingenuous to most of the scientists involved. There will be die-hards in any debate, on any side, and those who wish to profit - science isn't a great place for the latter but there are some, I know from experience - but the situation is far from the simple black-and-white some folk would see it painted.
"The world climate is known to be a chaotic system .... (The world climate is known to be a chaotic system - therefore, to make a useful prediction you need to vary all the starting conditions in both directions and re-run the model for the full range of likely starting conditions, and the same again for any inputs that might change during the run (human CO2 output for example). Measuring chaotic systems is more complicated than that, but you get the general idea)"
I do indeed, a fair chunk of the end of my bachelors was spent looking at it them. My understanding of the analytical modelling is that it is the statistical measure of the (presumably non-pathological) outcomes - exactly as you discuss - but i'd have do dig into some papers to verify that on a case by case basis, so I can't back that up or use it as an solid argument at the moment - so let us just say for now that I would agree with you if the outcomes presented are the result of only single runs, but sincerely hope no-one is that stupid.
Thanks for that, however you might want to read some of the papers listed instead of throwing a hissy fit.
The top result is rather telling:
Sensitivity analysis of the climate of a chaotic system - DANIEL J. LEA et al. TELLUS A, Oct 2000
To put it succinctly, that paper is in fact saying that a fair bit of the climate science is bollocks, due to misunderstandings of chaotic systems.
Which is pretty much what I said above.
It's a widely cited paper from 2000.
You claimed that nobody was doing this kind of study when in fact it has been studied for at least 10 years. You were talking nonsense when it would have taken a five minute google scholar search to check your facts. I'm not sure why my pointing this out qualifies as a hissy fit, but if you'd rather interpret it as that instead of simply taking it as an attempt to improve your knowledge then that's your choice.
I asked if anyone can point me to something that shows the error bars/probability maps of the model predictions.
Instead, you used some rather abusive language to point me to a paper from 2000 that is some research that proves the point I made. For all you knew that could be the paper I was referring to.
Maybe I should rephrase the question:
I would like to see some *results* that have taken that and/or similar papers into account, and thus clearly show the error bars and probability map for their models' predictions.
Even after 2000, all the published works I've seen show a simple, clean 'this will happen' curve, with no indication of the likelihood of this particular curve.
The worst part is that these then get used to claim that humanity is fully responsible - despite no comparison whatsoever to a "without" or "reduced humanity" set of model results.
If you can point me towards something that does either, that would be most helpful.
Note that as a layman I don't actually have access to full academic papers as published in Nature, Tellus etc, and Google Scholar usually only finds the abstracts.
Of course, most of this is partially irrelevant due to many politicians using the AGW hypothesis to justify all kinds of crazy schemes would not actually reduce our environmental impact anyway.
As a layman, the most sensible and honest approach to any given subject is to acknowledge that the experts know more than you do. Given that 95% of the relevant experts accept the essentials of anthropogenic climate change, why do you think you know better? Why do you think that your failure to do a rudimentary web search and your misundertsanding of basic mathematics (error bars != chaos) is worth more than millions of hours of research by hundreds of experts?
And please stop whining about offensive language. You're not a child and I'm not your wetnurse.
Those Google Scholar results include both papers on the general applicability of chaotic or deterministic systems to climate prediction _and_ papers on climate prediction that include the error bars that you claim are ignored. Rather than prevaricate and whimper about corruption and conspiracies, how about you actually read them?
I'll donate one hundred pounds to the charity of your choice if you have the dignity to admit that your original post was nonsense. Never. Gonna. Happen.
"If your livelihood depends on you agreeing with a pre-determined result, then you are very likely to ignore any evidence to the contrary, or even fudge the data and/or methodology to give the pre-determined answer."
"I don't think anybody seriously thinks that the climate isn't changing - the historical record is very clear on that - the bit that is contentious is the idea that humanity is a significant factor in causing it."
'Good job I don't believe anything spouted by scientists and quango's who's funding & existence tends to rely on spouting it...'
Does this maxim also apply to say oncologists? seismologists? virologists?
The Daily Mail forums are next on the far right.
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