Bishop Hill Another bind for Bob Bind
Aug 16, 2014 Climate: WG2 ...all the projections of climate models are becoming observable facts.
So says Bob Bindschadler, a retired NASA ice sheet specialist. Stop sniggering at the back.
Readers may recall Dr Bindschadler from his 2011 appearance in Horizon, when he got himself into a bit of a pickle over the relative ratios of anthropogenic and natural carbon dioxide emissions.
This new quote, remarkable as it is, comes from a long interview in a publication called Truthout (a title that is vaguely reminiscent of 'Pravda' in my opinion). The whole article is worth a read, covering Dr Bindschadler's knicker-wetting over sea levels in the twenty-third century, his cruise to the Antarctic with James Hansen and Al Gore, and his excitement over changes to glaciers in Antarctica in recent years. In view of his problems during his Horizon appearance I was also amused by this photo caption:
Bindschadler believes one of the things scientists must learn to do better is communicate the information they produce.
Amen.
Reader Comments (35)
' ... got himself into a bit of a pickle over the relative ratios of anthropogenic and natural carbon dioxide emissions.'
And let's not forget that Royal Society President Paul Nurse didn't know enough about the basics to correct him.
What's in a name? Looking at the Herr Doktor's, from memory, one meaning of "bind" is a sling you wear to protect for instance a broken arm, and schandler looks to be the profession variation of "schade", usually translated as damage or injury, but nowadays more commonly used as in wie Schade - meaning what a pity.
So, he becomes Dr Damage Control.
Pronouncing the diverse prognostications of all the models as becoming observable facts, is straight into electric monk territory.
Pointman
The combination of 'truth' and 'out' is also worth a spin in the park. To the old tune of
but in this case delivering on their promise in every issue.
Since all the projections of all the models are totally different, it is difficult to comprehend how all the projections can be observed simultaneously.
Just waiting for AcTivisTP to come along and tell us that Bob is a scientist
H2O,
Hmmm, I thought it was obvious, but - okay - he is a scientist :-)
Ice now.
Nicht "Pravda" aber "Trud", meinherr.
Phillip
"Since all the projections of all the models are totally different, it is difficult to comprehend how all the projections can be observed simultaneously."
Indeed, although I suppose that as they are all different, there is a slim chance that one might be right. Like religion, in fact...
he has a science degree (given gratuitously nowadays) and a science career at nasa (leftwing enough i suppose)
apart from that:
Being a "scientist"
is like being a "believer" , a "prayer" , a "writer" a "lover" a "homo"
Is just true BECAUSE of some historical anecdotes and our interpretation of that, and might as well be completely FALSE now. I would bet the house this leftwing cardboard character is NOT doing science now
Paul the Wuss
If he believes that any of the model predictions are coming true then he is certainly not doing science.
He may be doing semantics in the sense that the predictions themselves are observable facts but they don't in any way relate to anything other than themselves.
Ridicule seems the only proper way to deal with this piece of idiocy.
Climate science sets a very low bar and so is unlikely to appeal to the really gifted. In a field where the dizzy heights of mediocrity are rarely achieved, the least gifted (or so it seems) turn to the role of advocacy, where their lack of talent is sorely exposed in the glaring light of public scrutiny. And then they whine about their inability to communicate. Science deserves better. A lot better.
THe interesting thing to me is not Bish's post itself, but the linked pair of papers just released the post ultimately leads too, which claim that "“Today we present observational evidence that a large sector of the West Antarctic ice sheet has gone into irreversible retreat,” Dr. Rignot said in the NASA news conference. “It has passed the point of no return.”
This is not a conditional statement, dependent on models, CO2 levels, circumpolar winds, or anything else for that matter. It says that it is certain based on hard observational evidence that the west Antarctic Ice Sheet has started to collapse, and relatively soon, and that there is nothing that anyone can do about it.
That's a pretty strong position, and perhaps we should be looking at its credibility, rather than that of Dr Bindschadler.
Tony.
I am beginning to find it difficult to distinguish, in my mind's eye, some climate scientists from performing seals. It's just that an image of a seal keeping a ball up on the end of its nose keeps popping up ever since I read these words of Timothy Wirth, the US politician who picked Hansen out to star in a congressional hearing in 1988:
'So we called him up and asked him if he would testify.'
'. ... We had introduced a major piece of legislation. Amazingly enough, it was an 18-part climate change bill; it had population in it, conservation, and it had nuclear in it. It had everything that we could think of that was related to climate change. ... And so we had this set of hearings, and Jim Hansen was the star witness. '
'...What we did it was went in the night before and opened all the windows, I will admit, right? So that the air conditioning wasn't working inside the room and so when the, when the hearing occurred there was not only bliss, which is television cameras in double figures, but it was really hot. ...
So Hansen's giving this testimony, you've got these television cameras back there heating up the room, and the air conditioning in the room didn't appear to work. So it was sort of a perfect collection of events that happened that day, with the wonderful Jim Hansen, who was wiping his brow at the witness table and giving this remarkable testimony. ..'
'Oh, Hansen went a long way. This was a very, very brave statement. He was on the edge of the science and almost 20 years younger than he is today, so he's relatively new in the field. He's working for the federal government, and certainly this was not cleared far up the line, what he had to say. So the summary of what Jim Hansen had to say that year, plus the fact that it had gotten so much attention from the [press] -- it was on every channel, Hansen was widely reported. He went as far as anybody could possibly have expected him to go, I think. Again, it was a very brave thing for him to do. '
So, a good result for the ringmaster. He was pleased with the performance he'd helped to stage-manage. The quotes are from an interview in 2007 (see above link).
And of course for Wirth and other political zealots, the science doesn't really matter - it just provides a convenient opportunity for them:
'We've got to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing, in terms of economic policy and environmental policy. " - Timothy Wirth quoted in Science Under Siege by Michael Fumento, 1993
What he can't have imagined way back in '88 was that so many
sealsclimate scientists would come forward to perform all by themselves in the years that followed.And today children, Sesame Street's Magic Number is the Number Seven.............
You got that Paul? Goooood..........
This man's on drugs - must be.
Easy money, if you can get it.
Phillip Bratby said:
Since all the projections of all the models are totally different, it is difficult to comprehend how all the projections can be observed simultaneously.
You have forgotten to take into account the theory of parallel universes. If you take any prediction from any climate model there will be a universe in which that prediction is an observable fact!
Then by inference, all the IPCC climate models are out of this World!
Good joke turnedout but special thanks to Anthony Ratliffe. The lack of weasel words in the statement of Dr Rignot at NASA is refreshing in its own way. Irreversible retreat of a large sector of the West Antarctic ice sheet it is. That sounds to me like it can be tested over the next few years.
Bob Bind does not seem to be much of a scientist to me. From the interview:
"So I would be quoted in the paper making a rather bold statement and a colleague would call me out and say, well you didn't mention the uncertainty factor, and sounds like you know more than you know you do. But you have to consider the audience. If all you do is lace it with uncertainty, it gives them reason to do nothing."
Stunning.
Does "truthout" mean it's been discarded?
"...all the projections of climate models are becoming observable facts."
N-n-n-no, they're not. Even if the models were right they wouldn't be. This is only 2014. The bad stuff is not due to happen for a few years yet.
I was a bit disappointed about this article. I thought it was about "THE" Bob...not this pretend Bob!!!
Mailman
Since all the projections of all the models are totally different, it is difficult to comprehend how all the projections can be observed simultaneously.
Aug 16, 2014 at 11:01 AM Phillip Bratby
You average them and that gives the correct projection.
So, again, what is it that I have to say in order to qualify for this luxury tour of the Antarctic?
from the truth-out link -
"As more ice sheets come into play, there is enough ice in all the ice sheets to raise sea level 80 meters.
Every time the earth has gotten warmer, there is less ice and higher sea levels. So those mega-facts are hanging out there and they don't change. So it's against that backdrop that you have to look at the decade and century time scale change and know that that is just the beginning of a longer sustained trajectory of continued ice loss.
Greenland itself has enough ice to raise sea levels five meters, and West Antarctica about the same size."
so we learn to live with the "mega-fact" & adapt or drown, as allways, you alarmist so&so (what a prat)
marin how do you average model's runs?
you have the uncertainty of the models...
same set of parameters in the models and see the range of the result... but you can add models...and change the range of results...
you have a more meaningful uncertainty
you run one model for any point of the multidimensional paramater domain agreeing with the hindcast...and see the range of the result....
you have another one you run a model with one set several point of a set of parameter wittin a error bar of each parameter.. and see...
and so on...
of course it is silly but doing this for a long time you can be convinced that you checked all the possibility...as long as the basic assumption you made ine the model is right....if not all your work is crap...
I am no expert but it is my opinion...where am i wrong?
the more weird to me is you look at the beautifulspagheti graphs in ipcc report and think to yourself...if any university rsity comes with a new model...it will change all the results...all the uncertainty.sound crazy to me..
People accpet the idea that it is not a problem if you have several models for the problem, so what is the criteria to add models as long they hincast not that badly????
when they say the models give....the very point is" the models"is not defined at all....redo history and they would chose other models may be close but different and have other results...
Typical radical left media, no resemblance to reality. Claim to be "unbiased" because they have no "corporate links". From About Truthout:
Our Mission
Truthout works to spark action by revealing systemic injustice and providing a platform for transformative ideas, through in-depth investigative reporting and critical analysis. With a powerful, independent voice, we will spur the revolution in consciousness and inspire the direct action that is necessary to save the planet and humanity.
For Richard Drake. Your suggestion of a testable forecast "over the next few years" is as vague as my "relatively soon" time horizon. Reading the press release again, it is obvious that the authors are talking "geological time" here, with lots of error bands to be counted in decades and/or centuries. I would like them to try to tighten their forecasts up a bit, so that us old fogies can hope that we may be able to examine the observations, confirming or otherwise, in our lifetimes.
I suspect that my wish is unrealisable, so that we just have to keep the worst case scenario in the back of our minds while life continues on.
Tony.
Tony: geological time, eh? Thank you for that :)
Eric Gisin
That Mission Statement registers at 19.6 on the Gunning Fog Index (the number of years of formal education that a person requires in order to easily understand the text on the first reading) and 17.34 on the Flesche Reading Ease scale (0-100; higher the better).
For a comparison, Anthony Ratliffe's post below yours rates at 13.68 & 55.31!
There comes a point where complex sentences and polysyllabic words (other than highly technical documents with scientific terminology) are designed either a) to make the writer and his organisation appear more important than they really are or b) to obfuscate or c) both.
Take your pick!
Eric: foggy and incomprehensible text in my experience are often an accurate reflection of the mind of the writer.
Re: West Antarctic ice sheet collapse--IIRC they were talking about a timeframe of many centuries for the collapse, as if human societies are able to even plan for events 500 yrs from now. rubbish
Eric: foggy and incomprehensible text in my experience are often an accurate reflection of the mind of the writer.
Re: West Antarctic ice sheet collapse--IIRC they were talking about a timeframe of many centuries for the collapse, as if human societies are able to even plan for events 500 yrs from now. rubbish
"Since all the projections of all the models are totally different, it is difficult to comprehend how all the projections can be observed simultaneously."
If you don't like parallel universes, I suppose n projections can be reconciled in a n-dimensional space. Or 2n perhaps.