Comments on: Gavin on McKitrick and Michaels

By: Climategatekeeping: Schmidt 2009 « Climate Audit

Climategatekeeping: Schmidt 2009 « Climate Audit — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 18:31:52 +0000

[...] discussion of Schmidt 2009 have taken place at RC here, at CA here here and by Nicolas Nierenberg [...]

By: Nicolas Nierenberg

Nicolas Nierenberg — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 06:37:19 +0000

Thanks for the comments from all. mondo I’m sorry it is just blogspot I guess I need to call Eric Schmidt and complain .

By: mondo

mondo — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 03:41:53 +0000

Nicolas,

I went to your site and reviewed your work. It is largely beyond my pay level, but I do appreciate the dispassionate and professional approach that you have adopted. I tried to leave a message of appreciation at your site, but your signing requirements defeated me.

By: Ryan O

Ryan O — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 03:28:51 +0000

I was following this over at RC, too, Nicolas. I’m interested to see what Tamino has to say about it (and Gavin), if they say anything at all.
.
Thank you for running this . . . very much cool. I will have a look at it in more detail later.

By: bender

bender — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 03:14:52 +0000

Re: Nicolas Nierenberg (#330), Those are the correct conclusions. Thank you for posting your results and code so that they can be checked by an independent investigator. There is nothing wrong with being "slow" when you are meeting this level of due diligence. Good, reproducible work takes time. To wave your hands about (as in S09) takes no time at all.

By: Nicolas Nierenberg

Nicolas Nierenberg — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 22:58:04 +0000

I know I am way too slow for the blog world as everyone has moved on. Anyway I have written an analysis of spatial autocorrelation as it relates to S09 and MM07. My conclusion is that the primary result in MM07 was not affected by spatial autocorrelation, which is in line with Dr. McKitrick's follow up paper on the subject. In addition I am able to explain the spurious results found in S09 using Model E data by showing that it is caused by spatial autocorrelation. This was Dr. Schmidt's theory in that paper. Through this process I show that the results of S09 while interesting don't contradict the findings of MM07. The post can be found here. I look forward to comments, suggestions, and criticism.

By: Ron Cram

Ron Cram — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 19:35:22 +0000

Re: John F. Pittman (#327), Okay, so you were referring to negative feedbacks. I thought perhaps so but was not sure. Re: William Hughes (#325), Steve, regarding the IR specta visible from space, do you have a link to an image? It would be interesting to compare an 1960s era image with a 1998 image with a 2008 image. If the differences are really that great I would think it would get more press.

By: William Hughes

William Hughes — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 15:58:51 +0000

A sample study – released due to American public policy on transparency – on a relatively modest wee project:

http://www.investfairbanks.com/documents/H329817-RPT-CA01-10005_R0-10-30-ReportMainlocked.pdf

By: John F. Pittman

John F. Pittman — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 13:04:45 +0000

Re: Ron Cram (#326), Sorry it was shorthand for where "temperature increases cause negative effects from formerly positive effects." On the range of climate sensitivities, that is what an assessment should do. It should state, and show why it is stated that further work and WHAT work needs to be done in order to be successful. Contested only means that by providing the basis of your selection, that your work is not wasted. If done correctly with modern computing systems, the original document may cost $10 million. If later it is discovered that the sensitivity is wrong, then to re-do it will cost about 10% or 1 million. As typical for one of these endevours, the assessment is about 5% of cost. So a 0.5% incresae to get it right is insignificant. One of the great things about a structured assessment is that you do not waste monies. A complete change caused by 0.5C versus 5.0C can be done while conserving the majority of the work, and avoid ing costs. The IPCC does not do this. It is obvious that the major fault of the IPCC assesssment is the lack of structure due to the fact it is not an assessment that engineers would be doing (basis and assumptions are not in a structured format). Of course one of the problems is that with such a large spread of possible sensitivities, an engineering assessment would be basically one meaningful paragraph...costs are indeterminant, needs more investigation. This often happens in environmental clean-ups, and a structure for this occurance is already outlined by the State of Florida in their leaking underground storage program requirements. Now to do a structured assessment of global warming would at least triple the cost. However, looking at even a $100 million for a project expected to take on the order of $10 trillion is getting it done on the cheap.

By: Ron Cram

Ron Cram — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 23:14:08 +0000

Re: John F. Pittman (#324),

In Steve’s comment he referred to “an engineer” who would do the work. It seems to me no one person has all of the domain knowledge necessary for such a task. Although we have some engineers who are regulars here who are learning climate. I would trust them over any of the IPCC lead authors.

The result you arrive at will have a great deal to do with which papers you select as trustworthy. If you trust MBH98 and clone papers to accurately portray past climate variability, you will get one answer. If you reject MBH98 and trust the temp reconstructions by Loehle and McCullough and/or Ababneh, you will get a different view of natural climate variability. The same is true for every contested area of climate science. And they are all contested.

When it comes to climate sensitivity, you can trust the IPCC range of 3-7C. Or you can trust Schwartz at 1-3C. Or you can trust Spencer at 0-2C (or thereabouts). All of these vary depending on their view of feedbacks.

I did not understand your comment about “where temperature would start becoming negative.” But I do agree about IPCC handwaving. The appeal to climate models is nothing more than an appeal to experts.