Causes of differences in model and satellite tropospheric warming rates | Hacker News Reader

Causes of differences in model and satellite tropospheric warming rates

nature.com

26 pointskevitivity21 comments

The original title of the webpage/paper is "Causes of differences in model and satellite tropospheric warming rates".

The current title, "Climate models still don't reflect whats observed," seems rather heavily editorialized.

It also changes the meaning of the paper completely. The authors were likely very careful and deliberate about how they chose that title.

>We conclude that model overestimation of tropospheric warming in the early twenty-first century is partly due to systematic deficiencies in some of the post-2000 external forcings used in the model simulations.

WOW. And one of the authors is "Hockey Stick" Michael E. Mann himself. These guys can actually admit they were wrong? I honestly never thought I would see the day.

There are a number of misconceptions regarding 'hide the decline':

1) The "decline" does not refer to a "decline in global temperature" as often claimed. It actually refers to a decline in tree growth at certain high-latitude locations. This decline began in the 1960s when tree-ring proxies diverged from the temperature record.

2) "Mike's Nature trick" has nothing to do with "hide the decline". "Mike's trick" refers to a technique by Michael Mann to plot instrumental temperature data on the same graph as reconstructed data over the past millennium.

3) The divergence of tree-ring proxies from temperatures after 1960 is openly discussed in the peer-reviewed literature and the last two IPCC assessment reports.

That is the difference between religion and science. It is the very fundamental base of science to be able to be falsifiably wrong. What I do wonder is what it would take for climate change deniers to admit being wrong?

And what would it take for a climate alarmist to admit they are wrong? With respect, this sort of questioning is tedious and only serves to try and shutdown discussion.

Mann's name against this synopsis is really remarkable given his relentless and unyielding rejection of anything that contradicts his held position on climate change being dangerous and imminent. Specifically this very claim that models to not replicate/overstate warming that is observed is something he has spoken out on often. e.g. a paper he co-authors (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2015GL064888/abst...) seeks to square the circle between models and observations. I wonder to what extent the synopsis captures the content of the paper itself or if it is another paper that seeks to explain variation according to Mann's strong preference towards a more aggressive characterisation of climate change effects & impacts.

>What I do wonder is what it would take for climate change deniers to admit being wrong?

Mann is the fundamental reason "deniers" exist. He produced a model that produced hockey stick graphs with random data. Instead of distancing themselves from Mann, the community (IPCC) fanatically attacked anyone who pointed out the emperor had no clothes. The term "denier" popped out of that politicized controversy. You're still fighting the lost cause by using it. Mann is admitting he was wrong. You're unable to do the same.

He should have just said "Oops" in 2003. He had a bug in his program. While it would have been a bit of egg on his face (and the IPCC for publishing), we all understand bugs in code. Instead, he clung to it, hoping observations would match his predictions anyway. This gave his political enemies all the ammunition needed to properly smear the entire scientific community who backed him.

We fixed CFCs. We fixed acid rain. Mann, and the IPCC's refusal to disavow him, is the reason there is even a debate anymore. Dogma is the enemy, not the skeptics. Skeptics are a healthy part of the scientific process.

"That is the difference between religion and science. It is the very fundamental base of science to be able to be falsifiably wrong."

Correct. Keep that in mind the next time you hear someone say "the science is settled".

Is that news? This isn't Fox, it's Nature.

From the paper: In conclusion, the temporary ‘slowdown’ in warming in the early twenty-first century has provided the scientific community with a valuable opportunity to advance understanding of internal variability and external forcing, and to develop improved climate observations, forcing estimates, and model simulations. Further work is necessary to reliably quantify the relative magnitudes of the internally generated and externally forced components of temperature change. It is also of interest to explore whether surface temperature yields results consistent with those obtained here for tropospheric temperature. Our analysis is unlikely to reconcile divergent schools of thought regarding the causes of differences between modelled and observed warming rates in the early twenty-first century. However, we have shown that each hypothesized cause may have a unique statistical signature. These signatures should be exploited in improving understanding. Although scientific discussion about the causes of short-term differences between modelled and observed warming rates is likely to continue19, this discussion does not cast doubt on the reality of long-term anthropogenic warming.

"All models are wrong, but some are useful." -George Box

That is true. Now we have to see if this model or these models are useful. Are there other models that provide a better answer?

The new model still only changes the timeframe by a few years if accurate...

What "new model"? The abstract makes no mention of such.

Science does have all the answers. The problem is we don't have all the science. -James Morrow

Not a huge amount of experience with models this big, but a common problem I see in Ecology is a bit of a misunderstanding of how models can be used - they're only really useful as a representation of what is going on and a way of trying to look at a few variables.

A lot of the time models are seen as a kind-of black box, where you stick data in and get the right data out - doesn't quite work that way!

Why is this flagged? Are HN readers sanitizing scientific papers they don't like?

People are undoubtedly flagging it because this topic has become a religious issue for them.

The title violates hacker news rules - should be the name of the paper.

Seems to be one of those rules that gets applied unevenly. There are at least three unlfagged articles that fail this rule on the front page at present.

Yeah, crowd-sourcing your rules enforcement is going to create some inconsistencies - this one was politically fraught and actively misleading, so getting more aggressive scrutiny on that front seems appropriate to me.

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