Malone – I have bets specifically designed to challenge those who claim we can’t predict future temps. See, e.g.:

http://backseatdriving.blogspot.com/2006/01/i-will-bet-that-temperatures-will-drop.html

The reason I brought up my plane analogy is to show that a consensus of risk amongst experts should not be ignored.

The whole point of bringing up planes is to show that consensus science just doesn’t exist and that to rely on a consensus is to admit that things are not clear. To want to the whole world to do what you want them to based on consensus science (ie. confusion) is something I have no time for.

PS. I’m not willing to bet that I know what will happen, i’m betting no’one knows.

How much longer do you suggest we keep postponing measures to curtail our emissions? Will you ever be satisfied that we gathered enough evidence? You wouldn’t board the plane (in my example above), yet you’re willing to continue this world-wide experiment in the face of (what most scientists consider to be) compelling evidence that it’s changing the climate. Strange. My comparison to boarding the (deemed unsafe) plane is about acting in the face of an uncertain, yet probable risk. As such, it entirely flies.

You state that you “would bet large sums climate forecasts will NEVER be successful”. I know of some people who would be quite willing to take you up on that, e.g.
http://julesandjames.blogspot.com/2005/06/betting-summary.html
The only bet taken up so far (at $10,000 hopefully a large enough sum for you) is about a comparison of global surface temperatures in 1998-2003 with those in 2012-2017 (6 year average in both cases). Your bet is also eagerly awaited at http://backseatdriving.blogspot.com/2005_05_01_backseatdriving_archive.html#111700433898143899
Good luck. I hope you win.

But it’s just so boring and long-winded to write like that. It’s more fun to just say they’re useless ie. that they have never made a prediction worth bothering with. Ok, my bad.

I’m sorry to be direct – you seem like a nice polite person and all – but I just don’t know where to start with what you said, it’s all over the place. You’re making things far too complicated. The “precautionary principle”? And what the engineers “tell me”? And an economist? You’re completely and totally missing the point. The fact that there are 10,000 flights a day – all according to broadly similar standards and principles – which result in a handful of crashes each year is what you go on, what people SAY in the face of such evidence is largely irrelevant.

And if, as you suggest, a flight engineer says something is wrong and this is outside what would normally be deemed acceptable, then you don’t ask the engineer for his opinion on what will happen – HE DOESN’T KNOW. He might think he knows but planes are unbelievably complicated – he doesn’t, he’s only at best guessing. Would I board the plane? No, of course not. Complex systems are ALWAYS SURPRISING YOU and, further, the gulf in complexity and understanding of aeronautics and climate science is so large that comparing flight engineers to climate scientists and acting or not acting to me boarding the plane is just not going to, erm, fly. The models should concentrate on bridging this gap (although I for one would bet large sums climate forecasts will NEVER be successful).

What you’re doing is taking the fact that human generated CO2 in the atmpsohere is the (as you say in statistics) null hypothesis ie. assuming it is true, and trying to show that what we know is consistent with this.

However, the null hypothesis is really that things are fine. I want some evidence before we start saying that CO2 emissions are going to cause problems. I think we should cut our dependence on fossil fuels and recycle and in general keep a close eye on the chemicals released into the environment, because they are good things to do. But thus far I have seen precisely zero evidence that CO2 has a MEASURABLE effect on the temperature. Sure, it’s a greenhouse gas and will have some. But the point is, there are so many other factors that have a larger effect, that trying to measure the influence of CO2 is trying to measure something which is smaller than the noise ie. fundamentally impossible, not to mention pointless.

Why is this the null hypothesis? The situation now is that there are no problems, there is nothing dangerous about current temperatures. The danger is in the future, is predicted – so the null hypothesis is that there is nothing wrong and you must demonstrate that something is afoot. If there is evidence for this, I am yet to see it.

I have used an airplane analogy in a previous post (http://ourchangingclimate.wordpress.com/2008/06/14/how-do-we-know-theres-a-consensus-and-why-does-it-matter/):
“If a plane technician tells you that there is a 75% chance that the plane you are about to board will crash, would you board the plane? Would your action (presumably of not boarding) change if an economist points you to some screws in the wing of the plane that are perfectly in place, telling you that he therefore concludes that he regards it as totally save to board the plane? What if 99 engineers tell you it is unsafe and one tells you it is safe?”

You mention that the effects of new drugs have to be accurately predicted before they are let loose on the market, though wouldn’t you acknowledge that these predictions are imperfect? It won’t take you long to find examples of drugs that later, sometimes long after their market introduction, were found to have serious side effects. That doesn’t make the predictions useless; we’d be worse off without them. But there is room for improvement, and the known imperfection of the prediction should actually make us more (not less) careful in allowing the potentially dangerous substance or activity.

What, if not models, would you suggest we use to inform ourselves about the likely outcome of current and future activities? Or would you suggest that we don’t change the course of our activities until we have models that reach a certain level of accuracy? Even if climate scientists say that the models are good enough to predict that such a business as usual scenario is going to be extremely problematic? In terms of my airplane analogy, would you board the plane, and if so, why? Are you into taking large risks or do you have good reason to believe that those 99 engineers (read: 99% of climate scientists) are entirely wrong?

Re Swindle: CO2 is not the only climate forcing, so you can’t expect a one to one relationship between CO2 and climate. Claiming that climate scientists say that it should is simply false.

Global warming hasn’t stopped in 1998. See the previous point: there are multiple factors influencing climate, and even more that influence the weather over timescales of a few years (El Nino, volcanoes). See eg http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/01/uncertainty-noise-and-the-art-of-model-data-comparison/langswitch_lang/en

“The role of CO2 in current warming is dominant, and its role is likely to increase rather than decrease (in a business as usual scenario that is).” Many others have this point of view – that of CO2 as the dominant factor – and so I find it hard to see the problem with Swindle concentrating on CO2 (especially when those who are responsible for the most carbon can be casually referred to as “culprits”).

“I am not aware of evidence that the models of the past 25 years have faield miserably.” Sorry, but this is an absurd statement. How many of the proponents of AGW had models that predicted temperatures would level off from 1998 to now? We both know the answer is none, that they all predicted much more warming, the boy who cried wolf etc…

What you call “quite clear” and “that simple”, is perhaps so in theory, but it is not as simple to assess. It’s not an all-or-nothing kind of game. When something is not worth bragging about, should it then automatically be ignored? Of course not. Models can be imperfect, yet still useful. I am not aware of evidence that the models of the past 25 years have faield miserably. I have seen evidence however that their predicitons have by and large come true. How else than by using models can we assess the likely consequences of our current and future actions?

I checked out the site. Better than most but still fundamentally missing the point. The situation with the models is in reality quite clear. Either they (or at least one) are predicting what will happen in the future with statistically significant accuracy, in which case they have earned the right to be listened to, or they’re not, in which case they should be IGNORED.

People like to obfuscate this issue, but it really is that simple. None of the models from the 80s, 90s or early 2000s have made any predictions worth bragging about, so they are all to be ignored. Maybe the ones today are all 100% correct but we’ll only know in 10 years. But I know where my money lies.