Modeling a planet is difficult.- Technology Information

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published in 2009-10-18 06:50:00

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In defense of Super FreakonomicsA commenter on their blog:I am a paleoclimatologist and can only say FINALLY. Someone with economics background understands the difference between reality and a mo ...

In defense of Super Freakonomics

A commenter on their blog:

I am a paleoclimatologist and can only say FINALLY. Someone with economics background understands the difference between reality and a model for reality.

Al Gore Jim Hansen Paul Krugman and many on this page want us to base public policy on models claim to predict the future of the climate even though they do not model cloud formation correctly do not incorporate the Sun and do not model the biosphere feedback at all (just for starters). This is not (necessarily) a criticism of modelers. Modeling a planet is difficult; many things will be left out of a model. It is likewise not surprising that these models have failed to predict anything (that is say in advance what is going to happen). Not hurricanes not El Nino not the cooling of the past few years. Nor do they “retrodict” things from the past that the modelers did not know about and therefore did not parameterize into their models. Not the Pliocene warming. Not the Ice Age terminations nothing.

Those of us who work with models are not surprised by this at all. We are still crawling in climate modeling and one must sprawl before one walks. The only surprise is that politicians should have become so fixated so strongly on science that is just not there.

Jim Hansen had an interesting hypothesis; that feedback cycles that amplify CO2-caused increases in temperature might overwhelm feedback cycles that damp this perturbation. Maybe. Any good scientist would consider it as a hypothesis. But it is clear now that it is a poorly supported hypothesis and is certainly no grounds for determining public policy.

The problem arises because Al Gore declared Hansen’s hypothesis “a winner” made a movie and won a Nobel Peace Prize. And so non-scientists (including many people writing on this page) think they have “settled science” in their pocket. This is not the first time that science has been corrupted by politicians selecting a winner. Stalin re. Lysenko; and back to the Pharaohs.

On this page we have people who splay none of the critical thinking required for science who nonetheless think that their opinion is “scientific”. Gecko thinks that the European heat wave means something (no weather is not climate). Tom Olson is certain that your chapter is “flawed” (It probably is but does Tom have a clue why?). Nell is certain that “virtually all climate scientists and … governments understand that global warming is … happening faster than predicted.” No we do not and no it is not. Bart Verheaggan is convinced that “CO2 is the major culprit in the warming.” The preponderance of the evidence opposes that.

Crf also thinks that science is based on “virtual consensus” and asks scientists to defer judgment to a government panel the IPCC. Science begins as Feynman points out “assuming the ignorance of experts.” Also scientists have agendas like every other human being. The agenda of the governmental IPCC is known; it is different from the agendas of Pearson (racial Darwinism of the 1930’s) Stalin (Lysenko) and other examples from our politico-scientific past back to the Pharaohs but the IPCC is just as obstructive of the scientific process as any of these historical examples. Which is why researchers are couching their observations inconsistent with the anthropogenic CO2 hypothesis in cover language; they fear political reprisals from the Gores Krugmans and Obamas of the world.

Decades of bad science education and here we are. What a sorry state.

— Steven too

For the criticism of Super Freakonomics go to Climate Progress and search for Super Freakonomics. Tons of posts against Steve Levitt’s book.

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