UK Met Office Overstating Global Warming. Official.

[mistermack]

Expert reviewer for the IPCC accuses the Met of misrepresentation.

The British Met Office has issued ‘erroneous statements and misrepresentations’ about the pause in global warming – and its climate computer model is fundamentally flawed, says a new analysis by a leading independent researcher.

Nic Lewis, a climate scientist and accredited ‘expert reviewer’ for the IPCC, also points out that Met Office’s flagship climate model suggests the world will warm by twice as much in response to CO2 as some other leading institutes, such as Nasa’s climate centre in America.

The Met Office model’s current value for the ‘equilibrium climate sensitivity’ (ECS) – how much hotter the world will get each time CO2 doubles – is 4.6C. This is above the IPCC’s own ‘likely’ range and the 95 per cent certainty’ level established by recent peer-reviewed research.
Lewis’s paper is scathing about the ‘future warming’ document issued by the Met Office in July, which purported to explain why the current 16-year global warming ‘pause’ is unimportant, and does not mean the ECS is lower than previously thought.
Lewis says the document made misleading claims about other scientists’ work – for example, misrepresenting important details of a study by a team that included Lewis and 14 other IPCC experts. The team’s paper, published in the prestigious journal Nature Geoscience in May, said the best estimate of the ECS was 2C or less – well under half the Met Office estimate.
He also gives evidence that another key Met Office model is inherently skewed. The result is that it will always produce high values for CO2-induced warming, no matter how its control knobs are tweaked, because its computation of the cooling effect of smoke and dust pollution – what scientists call ‘aerosol forcing’ – is simply incompatible with the real world.
This has serious implications, because the Met Office’s HadCM3 model is used to determine the Government’s climate projections, which influence policy.
Mr Lewis concludes that the Met Office modelling is ‘fundamentally unsatisfactory, because it effectively rules out from the start the possibility that both aerosol forcing and climate sensitivity are modest’. Yet this, he writes, ‘is the combination that recent observations support’.
The Met Office said it would examine the paper and respond in due course. -- David Rose

http://judithcurry.com/2013/09/14/nic-l ... the-pause/

http://judithcurry.com/2013/09/25/nic-l ... et-office/

[macdoc]

and???
there is a range of outcomes - mostly dependent on how much emissions ....
the core situation remains the same even if shifted a decade or two nearer or farther....

it's getting warmer
we're responsible

until YOU get to that.....anything you post is facile self stroking and you know what that leads to

[subversive science]

Nic Lewis may be on the IPCC; however, his background is in finance. And, he is a well known "climate change skeptic."

So...

it's getting warmer
we're responsible

until YOU get to that.....anything you post is facile self stroking and you know what that leads to

[mistermack]

Nic Lewis may be on the IPCC; however, his background is in finance. And, he is a well known "climate change skeptic."

Utter rubbish. Lewis has a degree from Cambridge in Mathematics, with a minor in physics. It's an absolutely ideal background for assessing the validity of computer models. Computer modelling is also widely employed in finance.
His credentials were good enough for the IPCC, I doubt if you could say the same.

In any case, it's the argument, not the man, that is of interest to me. You clearly didn't read the links I provided.
Doctor Slingo from the Met Office replied to his piece, and actually took issue with very little of it, so by implication it's fair to assume that what they didn't deny was true :

Before commenting on what Dr Slingo’s letter says, I will point out what it doesn’t say. In my commentary on the 3rd Met Office July report, I made a number of allegations that it contained a variety of misrepresentations and erroneous and misleading statements. Dr Slingo’s letter barely touches any of those points, save that concerning methods of estimating transient climate response (TCR). In effect, the Met Office has implicitly accepted those criticisms. Yet I have seen no sign that it proposes to correct or withdraw that July report.

I've provided the links above for the full version.

Basically, he's not a climate sceptic, he's a scientist. They are MEANT to be sceptical. He's talking about the degree of warming that comes with CO2 increases, not the principle. And he wrote this piece because he took exception to the Met misusing and misrepresenting a study that he put his name to. And also because he could see the complete bollocks that the Met have been peddling. And there are few people better qualified to make that judgement.

If the Met are predicting DOUBLE the warming sensitivity that NASA and others are, then SOMEONE has got it seriously wrong.

And it's not just an academic question. The UK government uses models from the Met to calculate green levies.

[pErvinalia]

and???

Global warming is obviously a conspiracy. Duh.

[subversive science]

Nic Lewis may be on the IPCC; however, his background is in finance. And, he is a well known "climate change skeptic."

Utter rubbish. Lewis has a degree from Cambridge in Mathematics, with a minor in physics. It's an absolutely ideal background for assessing the validity of computer models. Computer modelling is also widely employed in finance.
His credentials were good enough for the IPCC, I doubt if you could say the same.

In any case, it's the argument, not the man, that is of interest to me. You clearly didn't read the links I provided.
Doctor Slingo from the Met Office replied to his piece, and actually took issue with very little of it, so by implication it's fair to assume that what they didn't deny was true :

Before commenting on what Dr Slingo’s letter says, I will point out what it doesn’t say. In my commentary on the 3rd Met Office July report, I made a number of allegations that it contained a variety of misrepresentations and erroneous and misleading statements. Dr Slingo’s letter barely touches any of those points, save that concerning methods of estimating transient climate response (TCR). In effect, the Met Office has implicitly accepted those criticisms. Yet I have seen no sign that it proposes to correct or withdraw that July report.

I've provided the links above for the full version.

Basically, he's not a climate sceptic, he's a scientist. They are MEANT to be sceptical. He's talking about the degree of warming that comes with CO2 increases, not the principle. And he wrote this piece because he took exception to the Met misusing and misrepresenting a study that he put his name to. And also because he could see the complete bollocks that the Met have been peddling. And there are few people better qualified to make that judgement.

If the Met are predicting DOUBLE the warming sensitivity that NASA and others are, then SOMEONE has got it seriously wrong.

And it's not just an academic question. The UK government uses models from the Met to calculate green levies.

He is not a scientist, and he is most definitely not a climate scientist. A minor in physics does not give him the background to diagnose complex general circulation models—he admits as much in his comments, as he defers to the expertise of a modeler in an attempt to diagnose the Met Office findings—though I'm sure his mathematics background and participation in the IPCC give him more insight than a layman. However, if he takes issue with the findings of the Met Office report, he is more than welcome to commission or perform a scientific study that challenges the report and submit it for peer review. This includes comparing the results of a number of models while trying to resolve the differences in the models due to the various underlying assumptions of climate response.

Lewis' dismissal of peer review is telling. Scientific discourse and debate take place through peer reviewed journals, not on a blog. If the analysis that Lewis has performed is solid, let the scientific community decide. It will be much harder for the Met Office to ignore a published paper.

[mistermack]

He is not a scientist, and he is most definitely not a climate scientist. A minor in physics does not give him the background to diagnose complex general circulation models—he admits as much in his comments, as he defers to the expertise of a modeler in an attempt to diagnose the Met Office findings—though I'm sure his mathematics background and participation in the IPCC give him more insight than a layman. However, if he takes issue with the findings of the Met Office report, he is more than welcome to commission or perform a scientific study that challenges the report and submit it for peer review. This includes comparing the results of a number of models while trying to resolve the differences in the models due to the various underlying assumptions of climate response.

Lewis' dismissal of peer review is telling. Scientific discourse and debate take place through peer reviewed journals, not on a blog. If the analysis that Lewis has performed is solid, let the scientific community decide. It will be much harder for the Met Office to ignore a published paper.

You really didn't look very far, did you ?

http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate ... ition.html

http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10. ... 12-00473.1

[subversive science]

I did not say that he would not publish. I was criticizing his rebuttal in which he offers red herrings in response Dr. Slingo's request that he submit his analysis for peer review. As for the paper you cite, that is not a publication of the analysis that offers on Curry's blog, it is an analysis of observational data that he references in support of his thesis.

There are number of factors that contribute to the uncertainties in both model- and observation-derived TCR and RCS, yet he seems to believe that observationally derived sensitivities are superior. Yes the RCS and TCR numbers for HadCM3 seem high, but they are still within the bounds of the Otto study and within the bounds (roughly, ECS is a bit high) of CMIP5. When looking at projected warming, HadCM3 performs much closer to the mean on all estimates. I don't' see how the UK Met Office misrepresents the Otto study, as Lewis contends. Moreover, while HadCM3 produces higher estimates of warming, these results are not typically viewed independently. The output of various climate models are averaged together to give multimodal projections which, as Dr. Slingo states, are used to inform policy.

So no, the Met Office is not overstating warming as the title of this thread contends.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/store/10 ... 00a713ce18

[mistermack]

You said ''Lewis' dismissal of peer review is telling. Scientific discourse and debate take place through peer reviewed journals, not on a blog.'' Now you're blogging against his peer reviewed paper.
Why don't you take your own advice, and produce a peer reviewed rebuttal ?

You said he's not a scientist. You said he's most definitely not a climate scientist. Now it appears he's getting climate science papers published in peer reviewed papers by the American Meteorological Society. Which was something you said he dismissed. And he's on the IPCC. All of that makes him a serious climate scientist by any measure.
You haven't got much right about him, have you? Instead of tackling his argument, you just launched some false ad-homs without checking.

Why is that I wonder? Is it because if someone isn't a hundred percent behind the most alarmist version of AGW, then it's good to rubbish them? Without any checking? You make my point for me. People are treating AGW like religion, and instinctively attack anything that smells of heresy.

If the Met Office are not overstating climate sensitivity to CO2, then NASA must be understating it by a silly amount, as the Met Office figure is more than double that of NASA. Or are you going to argue that they are BOTH right?

And it's revealing, as he states, and as I pointed out earlier, that Slingo didn't address his main points, or rebut them, if they were so wrong.
While everybody else is taking note of the sixteen years of no surface warming, the Met Office is just blundering on regardless, in the face of contrary evidence.

[pErvinalia]

MM... I think subversive science is part of the global one world government marxist climate conspiracy.

[subversive science]

MM... I think subversive science is part of the global one world government marxist climate conspiracy.

Sshh. Don't tell anyone.

[subversive science]

You said ''Lewis' dismissal of peer review is telling. Scientific discourse and debate take place through peer reviewed journals, not on a blog.'' Now you're blogging against his peer reviewed paper.
Why don't you take your own advice, and produce a peer reviewed rebuttal ?

You said he's not a scientist. You said he's most definitely not a climate scientist. Now it appears he's getting climate science papers published in peer reviewed papers by the American Meteorological Society. Which was something you said he dismissed. And he's on the IPCC. All of that makes him a serious climate scientist by any measure.
You haven't got much right about him, have you? Instead of tackling his argument, you just launched some false ad-homs without checking.

Why is that I wonder? Is it because if someone isn't a hundred percent behind the most alarmist version of AGW, then it's good to rubbish them? Without any checking? You make my point for me. People are treating AGW like religion, and instinctively attack anything that smells of heresy.

If the Met Office are not overstating climate sensitivity to CO2, then NASA must be understating it by a silly amount, as the Met Office figure is more than double that of NASA. Or are you going to argue that they are BOTH right?

And it's revealing, as he states, and as I pointed out earlier, that Slingo didn't address his main points, or rebut them, if they were so wrong.
While everybody else is taking note of the sixteen years of no surface warming, the Met Office is just blundering on regardless, in the face of contrary evidence.

If you read my last post, then you would see that I did address his argument directly. Or was that inconvenient to your little tirade.

[pErvinalia]

MM... I think subversive science is part of the global one world government marxist climate conspiracy.

Sshh. Don't tell anyone.

Damn! I forgot the first rule of global one world government marxist climate conspiracy club: "Don't talk about one world government global marxist conspiracy club"...

[mistermack]

If you read my last post, then you would see that I did address his argument directly. Or was that inconvenient to your little tirade.

That post said practically nothing, except '' I don't see ''.
What you don't see is meaningless. And your link doesn't work.
You say that their model is just one of many. That doesn't make it any less shit.

You ignored the vital point that the Met Office has contrived to arrive at a climate sensitivity figure that is double that of NASA.
I can't take your posts seriously when you go for false ad homs, and dodge the main question.

[subversive science]

You seem to have missed the part where I put the Met Office model in context with other models, included the projected warming due to the various sensitivities and feedbacks. I even included a reference. But, acknowledging the facts doesn't suit your rant.

Nothing I have said is false and nothing was a personal attack. Nic Lewis' interest in climate does not make him a climatologist, but if he takes issue with the Met Office report, he may follow the standard path of scientific discourse which is peer review. Otherwise, he is spewing hot air that no one will put to practical use. As for my comments on the matter, I was merely responding to a something that YOU posted, something that I thought was a strawman attack based on the data that I found and referenced. Also, I am not attacking peer reviewed literature or official reports.

Finally, what is this NASA model of which you speak? I assume you are talking about the MIT 2D climate model, which is a modified version of the GFDL model. I still haven't found any comparisons of the MIT model with others, so I can't comment on the results.