The past couple of weeks have brought more studies claiming we must quit CO2 cold turkey today or the planet is pretty much doomed. One such dire warming comes from a climate model study out of the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology that states that we must totally quit releasing CO2 now to stop increased warming within 500 years. But are these climate models simply trying to prove the "Butterfly Effect"?

Ragnar previously wrote that we're already doomed and that it is time to by purchase guns and future coastal property in Kansas (see "We're All Doomed, Conservation is Futile. It's time to lock and load!") but the gloom and doom computer model studies continue. ScienceDaily is reporting yet another study that states we must reduce our CO2 releases to ZERO now to stop global warming and save the planet from destruction. Climate scientists Ken Caldeira and Damon Matthews of the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology authored a study appearing in the Geophysical Research Letters titled "Stabilizing Climate Requires Near-zero Carbon Emissions". This study states that even if we completely stop CO2 releases now the climate will continue to warm for the next 500 years. Of course no one associated with this study will be around in 500 years to be proven wrong and in the mean time they'll claim any fluctuation in temperatures were also predicted in their model. The deck is stacked in their favor in any argument since they've made it nearly impossible to prove them wrong unless you unless you want to hang around 500 years.

This study is based on computer model predictions of the future with very little historical data of the past to test their model. We've never had CO2 releases proceed warming before, historically CO2 increases have always followed warming (by 800-1500 years). Lets reemphasize this - warming has always caused CO2 increases, not the other way around. The Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) crowd generally accepts the historic evidence, but they claim that man is artificially releasing CO2 this time around. They claim that lab studies and computer models show that CO2 can also cause warming. There is no historic evidence to support there theory. Volcanic eruptions cause massive CO2 releases but proxy records indicate that such eruptions have always caused cooling, not warming. To be fair volcano eruptions also block out a lot of sun light (new studies show that this solar dimming effect may not linger as long as the CO2, so why didn't the earth quickly warm as the skies cleared?).

Computer models are increasing being used improperly as "evidence" when they should only be used to show a range of possibilities, and possibly to rule out possibilities. There are literally hundreds of climate computer models in use, each with thousands of poorly understood variables, each producing different results. There are even publicly open projects for testing models and variables. One of the largest is at ClimatePrediction.net:

"By running the model thousands of times (a 'large ensemble') we hope to find out how the model responds to slight tweaks to these approximations - slight enough to not make the approximations any less realistic. This will allow us to improve our understanding of how sensitive our models are to small changes and also to things like changes in carbon dioxide and the sulphur cycle. This will allow us to explore how climate may change in the next century under a wide range of different scenarios." - About ClimatePrediction.net

It turns out that these very "slight tweaks" can make a huge difference. Results from the same climate model can change dramatically over time with just the smallest change to one or more of the variables. Often the same model shows dramatic cooling if variables are 'tweaked' just slightly. These tweaks, or adjustments, are well within the boundaries of natural variability as verified using historic proxy records (e.g. ice cores, tree ring studies, etc.).

What you end up with is computers being used to prove the "Butterfly Effect". The Butterfly Effect theory basically refers to the idea that a butterfly's wings might create tiny changes in the atmosphere that ultimately, over a long period of time, can cause a dramatic change to the environment. When you consider that man's contribution of CO2 in to the atmosphere accounts for only 1/4 of 1% of greenhouse gases (99.75% is natural) you begin to understand the Butterfly Effect analogy. Many scientists have already concluded that this minuscule CO2 input is causing climate warming so they spend a lot of time, effort and money adjusting their models to prove it. If you fed the effect of a butterfly flapping its wings in to a computer model and then adjusted all the other climate conditions around it to produce the perfect conditions you can also prove that a butterfly flapping its wings can, over time, cause climate change. You can also add a frog belch at just the right moment in time at the right place to the model and completely wipe out the effect of the butterfly.

Scientists use these computer models for much more than trying to compute the effect of minuscule increases of CO2 over time, they also vary thousands of other variables. As each variable is tweaked slightly and run through the model over time it ends up having either a positive or negative effect on warming. Variables can include something as simple as a single volcano eruption occurring on one date verses another date, or what if the oceans absorb 1% less CO2 than what we think, or what if water vapor has a greater effect than what we think, etc. etc. All of these variables effect each other and each can enhance the effect of another.

Most of the computer models start their clock at a period in the near past where there is data to compare the results of the model. In other words if they start the model with a set of variables at 1920 and 1998 comes out extremely cold (rather than its real world warmer than normal temperature) they discount the model as invalid and discard it. One would think this would be a desirable control. If the model can not predict the past how will it reliably predict the future? But scientists admit that they have a very poor understanding of many of the input variables and how they relate to each other. They also do not know if other influences that they haven't included may effect the climate. With thousands of variables, millions of variable combinations, and each model handling them differently over time it is very easy to keep testing the combinations until you find one that fits recent climate history. But that is no indication that it will be able to predict the future. Models that can seemingly predict the future by looking at how they've done over the past century may actually be no better at predicting the future than those that failed that test.

It is a modern version of the classic fable The Blind Men And The Elephant where each blind man touched a different part of the elephant and came to a different conclusion as to what it was they were touching. In our modern computerized world we simply don't know what these models are showing us or how well we've fed them with information. We're still very much feeling around blindly looking for correlations with what we're seeing.

It should be noted that scientists admit to not understanding several important climate modifiers. Chief among them are the influence of weak and strong solar cycles. The historic record is clear that solar cycles influence the climate but the mere irradiance values do not seem to be able to cause these these climate swings. Other factors such as stronger radiative strength at certain wavelengths or increased magnetic influences may be at play but many do not have good proxies available to test theories over long periods of time. The influence of water vapor, the most prominent greenhouse gas, is also poorly understood. We have no way of knowing how much water vapor was in the atmosphere on a time-line matching proxies for CO2. Therefore computer models start off crippled and many values fed in to the models are pure guesses.

Before we get to actual quotes from participants in the Climate Prediction computer modeling program it should be noted that many of these people are amateurs and have little influence over how the model runs. But comments from the administrators and visiting scientists make it clear that they too have a preconceived outcome in mind.

Quotes from the ClimatePrediction.net forum

Cold Model:

"I watched the graphics and it looked normal but suddenly the earth turned to an iceball."

"...that is as cold as I have seen. You have the OH scaling parameter which does cause cold models and they tend to stay cold."

"...which would cause a large amount of sulphate cooling as this parameter is finally being used by the new code (really just one line out of a million was changed!). So that's why things look cooler" - by a Site Admin

"Super Fast Iceworld. he model is totally blue and there are no pressure areas or areas of rain.

"Certainly not a hot model (the original subject of this thread), pretty chilly in fact!"

Warm Model:

"Very much a steamy hot-house world...Double the usual amount of volcanic activity (usually a cooling effect)...Reduced greenhouse gasses compared to the standard forcing (less warming in the later phase of the model)

"The very hot one that RRodway christened "Oven" is still visible though, and I've yet to see anything hotter!"

General Quotes from Participants:

In regards to glacier melting... "Absolutely, and that's why we need to take firm action now!"

"Constant usage of fossil fuels can effect the climate by increasing the levels of carbon dioxide, which can trap more heat."

"One can understand why a filibuster-proof Democrat majority in the Senate is a virtual necessity by reviewing the votes cast to defeat a 2003 Senate amendment of a bill addressing global warming"

Least their be any doubts the the global warming crowd want to use politics to do their bidding - "Here are the names of the 20 Republican Senators who are up for re-election in 2008. These are the people who stand between us and properly addressing global warming. We could win a thousand other battles, and they would not achieve anything substantial unless most of these Republicans are replaced with Democrats"

So much for objectivity - "My agenda is not hidden; Like many others throughout the world, I'm trying to help create a world that offers the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. During this century and into the next, the major threat to the welfare of the world is global warming. I must defend this forum as a very appropriate place for proposing political strategies that can be useful, or are in fact necessary, to properly addressing global warming. The scientific debate over global warming is, for the world's scientific community, already over. The next global warming debate is clearly political."

By manipulating a number of the variables used in the climate model in very small amounts, amounts that could occur in nature or unlikely to draw criticism, they can produce nearly any outcome they want. In science if you start off believing in an answer inevitably your research will end up confirming your belief. This is why in medical research computer models to test test new drugs are not relied on at all in the FDA approval process. Assumptions are verified through years of independent testing and double blind clinical trials. By contrast climate change researchers rely on submitting their work only to like minded scientists for rudimentary peer review. Sort of a 'you scratch my back, I'll scratch your back' good ol' boy system.

Climate change models, no matter how powerful, can never give a precise prediction of how greenhouse gases will warm the Earth...Ultimately, the papers also illustrate the limits to which models, even those produced by powerful supercomputers, can help politicians make decisions. -- NewScientist.com summary of a study appearing in the scientific journal Science "ATMOSPHERE: Call Off the Quest"

Additional References:

• "Car travel 'cut by 80 per cent'" - “The car is doomed..Prof Honnery said not even a huge surge in the use hybrid cars was enough to lower emissions enough. “Our calculations show that not even the best combination of fuel efficiency, hybrid and electric cars, alternative fuels and car pooling could provide the reductions needed to meet the 2050 targets for avoiding dangerous climatic change,”
  
• ClimatePrediction.Net
  
• "The increase in global rainfall associated with global warming may be three times greater than currently predicted" - So which is it? More droughts? More rain? More rain has a cooling effect on the atmosphere. These models vary by so much no one knows what's going on. Predicting next months weather is more accurate.
  

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