[BartSimpson]

AGW just isn't working out the way the alarmists wanted it to.

http://www.dailytech.com/Global+Warming ... e11471.htm

Quote:

Author of the theory that global warming breeds stronger hurricanes recants his view

Noted Hurricane Expert Kerry Emanuel has publicly reversed his stance on the impact of Global Warming on Hurricanes. Saying "The models are telling us something quite different from what nature seems to be telling us," Emanuel has released new research indicating that even in a rapidly warming world, hurricane frequency and intensity will not be substantially affected.

"The results surprised me," says Emanuel, one of the media's most quoted figures on the topic.

The view that global warming has limited impact on hurricane strength has been previously reported in numerous DailyTech articles.

Emanuel, professor of Atmospheric Science at MIT, is the author of numerous books and research papers on climate change. For over twenty years, he has argued that global warming breeds more frequent and stronger storms. In fact, his 1987 paper is often cited as the first appearance of the theory itself.

His 2005 research -- published just one month before Hurricane Katrina struck -- made world headlines, and was heralded as the "final proof" that Global Warming was already having severe impacts on daily lives. Overnight, Emanuel became a media darling. The following year, Time Magazine named him to their "100 People Who Shape Our World" list.

In 2006, Al Gore used an image of a smokestack spawning a hurricane to promote his movie, An Inconvenient Truth.

Emanuel's newest work, co-authored with two other researchers, simulates hurricane conditions nearly 200 years in the future. The research -- the first to mesh global climate models with small-scale high-resolution simulations of individual storms -- found that while storm strength rises slightly in some areas, it falls in others -- and the total number of worldwide storms actually declines slightly.

Emanuel's reversal is certain to reverberate through political circles as well; many politicians and candidates are using the hurricane threat to compel action on climate change.

[N_Fiddledog]

Took him long enough. It isn't like the big names in hurricane research such as Landsea, and Gray haven't been saying this all along.

[BartSimpson]

Makes me wonder when the rest of the vaunted computer models will be similarly questioned.

Props to Kerry Emmanuel for being man enough to say he was wrong.

[sasquatch2]

BartSimpson

Quote:

Makes me wonder when the rest of the vaunted computer models will be similarly questioned.

You mean how long before Hansen and Mann recant?

[BartSimpson]

None of the AGW true believers weighed in on this guy recanting his 'faith'.

I bet that his retraction won't stop them from insisting that AGW will make hurricanes more powerful just to keep scaring people.

[commanderkai]

"The models are telling us something quite different from what nature seems to be telling us,"

God that sounds like the rest of the Global Warming wetdream.

[Blue_Nose]

Working with models is tricky business... they're great for interpolation and usually shitty for extrapolation unless you're extremely confident of the validity.

Suppose my model works over the range of the alphabet (as opposed to the range of CO2 concentrations, for example). If I have a model that predicts known results at 'F' and 'I', I can be pretty confident of the models validity in predicting the results at 'G' and 'H'. I can still be fairly confident in its prediction of 'E' and 'J', but there's really no reason to think it'll work for 'M' or 'S', especially in extremely complex scenarios.

Considering they often can't accurately predict the frequency or severity of storms months in advance, a model that considers storms for the next 200 years seems ridiculous.

[sasquatch2]

My position on these models is proving out.

They are artifacts produced with a computer rather than pencil and paper or brushes and oils.

[mixedfarmer]

He has discovered that storms wont be more frequent . And storm will be less in some areas and stronger in other possibly. this is good news and shows he is actively researching. This is science and the future research will find out more in time. Myself personally think that with increased temperatures will also mean more evaporation of ocean water and make coastal regions see more rain . I am not sure if interior regions will be dryer or if the moisture will carry inland. Co2 highest level ( i think) was close to 300 ppm and now are about 400 ppm. But this doesnt change my stance on reducing co2. Creating better fuel consumption and other energy sources just makes good sense environmentally and economically. Last i checked crude oil is trading at 112 a barrel and gas at the pumps here is at 127 a liter.

[BartSimpson]

Blue_Nose wrote:

Considering they often can't accurately predict the frequency or severity of storms DAYS in advance, a model that considers storms for the next 200 years seems ridiculous.

[hr]

There ya' go.

I don't know about Canada, but here in Sacramento the weather people will sometimes announce a "STORM WATCH" and what we get is a little rain and a little breeze. Then on the other side of it, we had a very serious set of thunder storms (in 2003/4) complete with very rare tornadoes and the weather people in town were adamantly denying there were any tornadoes until video of the tornadoes came in.

The other thing about the computer models is that they typically cannot describe weather or global climate for past years. This has been a long-known issue in the computer techie community.

I right now work for an investment bank and if the climate models were any good we'd be investing serious effort adapting the algorithms to projecting market conditions.

But we're not.

And the very best market models that work in real time with real time data are still flawed which is why there are all sorts of manual safe guards in the market to prevent the computers from blowing the economy to pieces.

In all of this I hope you see why from the very get-go I have never had any faith in the computer models because I work with computer models every day.

[N_Fiddledog]

Models are getting to be good for a chuckle, but little else.

Even the true believers who used to support them are like rats deserting a sinking ship.

IPCC bigwig Kevin Trenberth recently came out with a statement saying models aren't a prediction tool. This is the same Kevin Trenberth who made the idiotic press release, prediction of a coming intense hurricane season based on models for 2006. 2006 was not a season of intense hurricanes. Nor for that matter was 2007.

Here's one people should be paying more attention to. RealClimate.org, the left-wing funded, true believer bible of the internet came out with a statement last week saying models were useless for forecast.

Here's what happened that led the true believers to reject models as support for the global warming religion. About 2007 it was becoming too evident the models were just plain wrong.

This temperature plateau and drop we've been experiencing since 1998 wasn't supposed to happen according to the models. Even left-wing funded science was coming back from the Antarctic showing the models were wrong. Model predictions on hurricanes were shown to be junk.

So now they're jumping ship. Now the official story is, "well we never said models could be used to forecast".

Wait a minute though. I personally have had spirited discussions on this very board with true believers who made the preposterous claim model forecasts were being proven correct by real world climate. Unfortunately they were making claims based on what was happening 7 years ago, and they could be easily revealed to be blowing smoke out their asses, by simply saying to them "show me".

Here's something to think about though. The present hurricane forecast for the upcoming 2008 season is this will be a bad one. This comes from experts who are not necessarily model driven. It could happen. If it does you know these same rodents who are now rejecting models as a forecasting tool will be re-puffing themselves up, and saying, "See. We told you all along". Remember to remind them 2008 has been a cold year.

[Blue_Nose]

Quote:

models aren't a prediction tool

Umm... yes, they are.

That's precisely what a model is for - to predict something based on knowledge of other related observations. Otherwise we'd never use a model for anything - you'd just use the observation you already have.

The problem is that modelling something as complex as global climate is ridiculously difficult. The fact that a model doesn't predict something is a flaw in the model itself - something not accounted for, something under/overestimated, some observation misinterpretted - not modelling in general. The hypothetical 'perfect' climate model would predict climate change correctly for all time, but since we're dealing with limited observations and necessary simplifications, it's always going to be something less than perfect. The knowledgable researcher will know, though, what those limitations are, and therefore when and how their model can be applied.

Computer models are nothing more than a method to quickly crunch through a large number of calculations, so saying they're inherently flawed is like saying geometry or calculus is inherently flawed.

[mixedfarmer]

They've developed a new technique for inferring hurricane activity from global climate data, which doesn't itself contain hurricanes. When applied to the past twenty-five years data, it is a startling confirmation of his findings of three years ago; hurricane power has increased by about 50% over the last thirty years. Applying that to hundred-year forecasts under a scenario of increased carbon dioxide output, they see increased activity in their models but not nearly as much as if they simply extrapolate the past thirty years forward.

[N_Fiddledog]

Blue_Nose wrote:

Quote:

models aren't a prediction tool

Umm... yes, they are.

That's precisely what a model is for - to predict something based on knowledge of other related observations. Otherwise we'd never use a model for anything - you'd just use the observation you already have.

That's what I always thought too, but apparently, according to Kevin Trenberth, and also the red scourge over at RealClimate the definition has changed. Here's what RealClimate says now.

Quote:

“A scenario only illustrates the climatic effect of the specified forcing - this is why it is called a scenario, not a forecast. To be sure, the first IPCC report did talk about “prediction” - in many respects the first report was not nearly as sophisticated as the more recent ones, including in its terminology. “

“One should not mix up a scenario with a forecast - I cannot easily compare a scenario for the effects of greenhouse gases alone with observed data, because I cannot easily isolate the effect of the greenhouse gases in these data, given that other forcings are also at play in the real world.”

MixedFarmer you'll have to offer a link. Right now the best response I can come up with is "Huh?"

[mixedfarmer]

http://www.newshounds.us/2008/04/15/mit ... _rumor.php


FOX and Friends First host Alisyn Camerota was pumped about a segment that would put another global warming scientist on the FOX side of skeptics and deniers this morning 4/15/08. But her guest, Kerry Emanuel of MIT, promptly burst her bubble and exposed the propaganda in the FOX production.

Camerota said that the next guest had changed his mind about a previously declared link between global warming and increased hurricanes, over chyrons that read

GLOBAL FLIP-FLOP; Warming doesn't cause hurricanes
and
SCIENCE OF STORMS: Global Warming 2nd thoughts
and
REVERSED SCIENCE: Scientist changes warming position.

Introducing him, she gushed that he is one of THE most influential scientists when it comes to global warming and its link to hurricanes; he used to think that climate change caused more tropical storms but now, he's changed his mind. Three years ago he published very alarming findings that established a link between global warming and hurricane activity, and a few weeks later Katrina hit.

Emanuel responded that the reports that he's changed his mind have been "greatly exaggerated." (ROFL.) They've developed a new technique for inferring hurricane activity from global climate data, which doesn't itself contain hurricanes. When applied to the past twenty-five years data, it is a startling confirmation of his findings of three years ago; hurricane power has increased by about 50% over the last thirty years. Applying that to hundred-year forecasts under a scenario of increased carbon dioxide output, they see increased activity in their models but not nearly as much as if they simply extrapolate the past thirty years forward.

Camerota and Doocy did damage control, summing up that the models are forecasting "something different than what nature is showing us" and "we just don't know" whether global warming and climate change are making hurricanes more intense. Emanuel replied that the bulk of the evidence says they're getting more intense, we just don't know by how much.

Doocy said "Gotcha," a dismissal when the guest is not saying what they'd expected, and ended the segment.

I just love it when the expert they call in does not suit the agenda, like this.