Leading Expert Modeler Tells Why Climate Models Hardly Better Than Hocus Pocus: “Welcome To Wonderland”!

If you still don’t believe climate models cannot be trusted to predict the future, then watch the following video of a presentation made with humor added by leading expert modeler Prof. Christopher Essex earlier this year. Absolutely worth viewing!

Hat-tip: DirkH

On scientific consensus

Essex quotes a cartoon: “Then we are agreed nine to one that we will say our previous vote was unanimous“.

On Mann’s phony hockey stick

The hockey stick thing was wrong on so many levels, problematic on so many levels…”

Search for “smoking gun” began already in early 1980s

In the early 1980s Prof. Essex got a post doc at the Canadian Climate Center with the general circulation model group who had a desire “to do some definitive things“. Essex recalls:

Some big wheels there sat me down in this room and said we want you to come up with the smoking gun that will prove global warming.”

So clearly, from the very beginning, this was all about putting mankind on the dock.

“Welcome to wonderland”

But Essex told them it wasn’t possible. Indeed it is not only Essex who believes models cannot describe the complex climate system. At the 7:35 mark he quotes the “ultimate skeptic position” – from the IPCC!

In climate research and modeling, we should recognize that we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore that long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.”

Even the IPCC admitted in 2001 that models were nothing but “wonderland”. Over the course of the presentation, Essex explains why this is so.

At the end of the presentation his comments in the Q&A session are most interesting.

“It’s running out of gas”…”just craziness”

On how long policymakers can continue this “Welcome to Wonderland” climate modeling, Essex thinks “it’s running out of gas” and called some of the things going on in climate science and reactions to legitimate academic inquiry “just craziness”. He thinks that  a lot of people have their lives and careers invested in it but that it will eventually run its course.

I think the overall momentum is gone and they aren’t going to be able to gin it up again quite the way they had.”

What’s going to replace the climate modeling madness?

Some new madness. Yeah. We’re dealing with humans here, you know, I mean, haha, okay.”

Essex is right. But will it be possible to top the madness we’ve seen with the global warming scare? Let’s hope not.

Related reading: wattsupwiththat.com/uninformed-troll100055.

 

7 responses to “Leading Expert Modeler Tells Why Climate Models Hardly Better Than Hocus Pocus: “Welcome To Wonderland”!”

  1. John Shade

    Good find.

  2. 4TimesAYear

    Love it. Must have watched it half a dozen times in the last 2 months 😀

  3. Welcome To Wonderland | Frank Davis

    […] Came across climate modeler Prof. Christopher Essex giving a fun talk about the unsolved mathematical and computing problems of climate simulation models: […]

  4. Lorne50

    Thank you it was fun to see him take down Dr. Fruitfly a bit too all in all I learned some new things .

  5. Dr Norman Page

    It is now perfectly obvious that the IPCC climate models are useless as guides to future temperature trends and as a basis for climate and energy policy. A new forecasting paradigm is required. For forecasts of the coming cooling based on the recognition of quasi periodic and quasi repetitive patterns in the temperature and driver data see the series of posts at
    http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com
    here is a summary of the conclusions of the latest post
    ” I have combined the PDO, ,Millennial cycle and neutron trends to estimate the timing and extent of the coming cooling in both the Northern Hemisphere and Globally.
    Here are the conclusions of those posts.
    1/22/13 (NH)
    1) The millennial peak is sharp – perhaps 18 years +/-. We have now had 16 years since 1997 with no net warming – and so might expect a sharp drop in a year or two – 2014/16 -with a net cooling by 2035 of about 0.35.Within that time frame however there could well be some exceptional years with NH temperatures +/- 0.25 degrees colder than that.
    2) The cooling gradient might be fairly steep down to the Oort minimum equivalent which would occur about 2100. (about 1100 on Fig 5) ( Fig 3 here) with a total cooling in 2100 from the present estimated at about 1.2 +/-
    3) From 2100 on through the Wolf and Sporer minima equivalents with intervening highs to the Maunder Minimum equivalent which could occur from about 2600 – 2700 a further net cooling of about 0.7 degrees could occur for a total drop of 1.9 +/- degrees
    4)The time frame for the significant cooling in 2014 – 16 is strengthened by recent developments already seen in solar activity. With a time lag of about 12 years between the solar driver proxy and climate we should see the effects of the sharp drop in the Ap Index which took place in 2004/5 in 2016-17.
    4/02/13 ( Global)
    1 Significant temperature drop at about 2016-17
    2 Possible unusual cold snap 2021-22
    3 Built in cooling trend until at least 2024
    4 Temperature Hadsst3 moving average anomaly 2035 – 0.15
    5 Temperature Hadsst3 moving average anomaly 2100 – 0.5
    6 General Conclusion – by 2100 all the 20th century temperature rise will have been reversed,
    7 By 2650 earth could possibly be back to the depths of the little ice age.
    8 The effect of increasing CO2 emissions will be minor but beneficial – they may slightly ameliorate the forecast cooling and help maintain crop yields .
    9 Warning !! There are some signs in the Livingston and Penn Solar data that a sudden drop to the Maunder Minimum Little Ice Age temperatures could be imminent – with a much more rapid and economically disruptive cooling than that forecast above which may turn out to be a best case scenario.

    How confident should one be in these above predictions? The pattern method doesn’t lend itself easily to statistical measures. However statistical calculations only provide an apparent rigor for the uninitiated and in relation to the IPCC climate models are entirely misleading because they make no allowance for the structural uncertainties in the model set up.This is where scientific judgment comes in – some people are better at pattern recognition and meaningful correlation than others. A past record of successful forecasting such as indicated above is a useful but not infallible measure. In this case I am reasonably sure – say 65/35 for about 20 years ahead. Beyond that certainty drops rapidly. I am sure, however, that it will prove closer to reality than anything put out by the IPCC, Met Office or the NASA group. In any case this is a Bayesian type forecast- in that it can easily be amended on an ongoing basis as the Temperature and Solar data accumulate. If there is not a 0.15 – 0.20. drop in Global SSTs by 2018 -20 I would need to re-evaluate.”

  6. Leading Expert Modeler Tells Why Climate Models Hardly Better Than Hocus Pocus: “Welcome To Wonderland”! « Dr Alf's Blog

    […] via Leading Expert Modeler Tells Why Climate Models Hardly Better Than Hocus Pocus: “Welcome To Wonder…. […]

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