
Causes of differences in model and satellite tropospheric warming rates - kevitivity
https://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ngeo2973.html
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yongjik
The original title of the webpage/paper is "Causes of differences in model and
satellite tropospheric warming rates".

The current title, "Climate models still don't reflect whats observed," seems
rather heavily editorialized.

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zamalek
It also changes the meaning of the paper completely. The authors were likely
very careful and deliberate about how they chose that title.

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danjoc
>We conclude that model overestimation of tropospheric warming in the early
twenty-first century is partly due to systematic deficiencies in some of the
post-2000 external forcings used in the model simulations.

WOW. And one of the authors is "Hockey Stick" Michael E. Mann himself. These
guys can actually admit they were wrong? I honestly never thought I would see
the day.

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beefield
That is the difference between religion and science. It is the very
fundamental base of science to be able to be falsifiably wrong. What I do
wonder is what it would take for climate change deniers to admit being wrong?

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geekpowa
And what would it take for a climate alarmist to admit they are wrong? With
respect, this sort of questioning is tedious and only serves to try and
shutdown discussion.

Mann's name against this synopsis is really remarkable given his relentless
and unyielding rejection of anything that contradicts his held position on
climate change being dangerous and imminent. Specifically this very claim that
models to not replicate/overstate warming that is observed is something he has
spoken out on often. e.g. a paper he co-authors
([http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2015GL064888/abst...](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2015GL064888/abstract))
seeks to square the circle between models and observations. I wonder to what
extent the synopsis captures the content of the paper itself or if it is
another paper that seeks to explain variation according to Mann's strong
preference towards a more aggressive characterisation of climate change
effects & impacts.

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stillbourne
From the paper: In conclusion, the temporary ‘slowdown’ in warming in the
early twenty-first century has provided the scientific community with a
valuable opportunity to advance understanding of internal variability and
external forcing, and to develop improved climate observations, forcing
estimates, and model simulations. Further work is necessary to reliably
quantify the relative magnitudes of the internally generated and externally
forced components of temperature change. It is also of interest to explore
whether surface temperature yields results consistent with those obtained here
for tropospheric temperature. Our analysis is unlikely to reconcile divergent
schools of thought regarding the causes of differences between modelled and
observed warming rates in the early twenty-first century. However, we have
shown that each hypothesized cause may have a unique statistical signature.
These signatures should be exploited in improving understanding. Although
scientific discussion about the causes of short-term differences between
modelled and observed warming rates is likely to continue19, this discussion
does not cast doubt on the reality of long-term anthropogenic warming.

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aabaker99
"All models are wrong, but some are useful." -George Box

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virmundi
That is true. Now we have to see if this model or these models are useful. Are
there other models that provide a better answer?

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AstralStorm
The new model still only changes the timeframe by a few years if accurate...

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Turing_Machine
What "new model"? The abstract makes no mention of such.

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steanne
Science does have all the answers. The problem is we don't have all the
science. -James Morrow

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sghi
Not a huge amount of experience with models this big, but a common problem I
see in Ecology is a bit of a misunderstanding of how models can be used -
they're only really useful as a representation of what is going on and a way
of trying to look at a few variables.

A lot of the time models are seen as a kind-of black box, where you stick data
in and get the right data out - doesn't quite work that way!

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IanDrake
Why is this flagged? Are HN readers sanitizing scientific papers they don't
like?

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itsdrewmiller
The title violates hacker news rules - should be the name of the paper.

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IanDrake
Seems to be one of those rules that gets applied unevenly. There are at least
three unlfagged articles that fail this rule on the front page at present.

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itsdrewmiller
Yeah, crowd-sourcing your rules enforcement is going to create some
inconsistencies - this one was politically fraught and actively misleading, so
getting more aggressive scrutiny on that front seems appropriate to me.

