Secondly, the forecast models evaluated in the study are from the likes of James Hansen, William Nordhaus, and the IPCC (in other words, authoritative sources). So at the very least this adds weight to the hypothesis that the models published by the IPCC are accurate and methodologically sound. Sure, there is some probability that the models and reality corresponded by random chance, but that probability is made ever more diminishingly small as evidence accumulates.
So, I don’t think any of the comments in this thread that accuse the authors of retrospective cherry-picking of climate models are anything but embarrassing examples of pseudo-intellectual contrarianism and/or confusion over basic statistics.
The models considered by the study, their predictions, and the methodology used are all located here and were easily found after 30s of digging: https://github.com/hausfath/OldModels
In many of these cases, it's clear that the commenters have done no background reading, and have no climate science background. Their comments thus consist of simple armchair speculation (your "lowest of the low-hanging fruit").
In these comments, I have found people with strong opinions on the lack of seriousness of climate science, who have no idea we have gravimetric measurements of ice sheet mass. This is a dataset going back almost 20 years that has revolutionized geoscience. HN commenters have expressed strong opinions about melting ice, with no knowledge of this data and what it means.
I have found people who think that climate science consists of having a stable of models each with a host of knobs, and the research method is to turn the knobs or choose new models until the results look dramatic enough to publish.
The gap between the firmness of these claims and the knowledge to back it up just boggles the mind.
The most basic step people could take to fix this is to read the executive summary of the IPCC AR5 report, or (even better/easier) the executive summary of the NCA (https://science2017.globalchange.gov). This report was specifically written by people who really know this stuff, for people like us.
There's no indication that the authors are cherry-picking their models but the comments above are assuming this (without reading the original paper to get a sense of the care of the analysis). It's really easy to find supposed gotchas in this way - basically any analytic step can be questioned.
If you live in the Bay Area, AGU is next week at Moscone Center. It's the biggest one-stop-shop in the world for geoscience research. Maybe it's worth paying a one-day admission fee to see some of this in person?
--> It's a word coined by pg that's sort of a term-of-art for the depressing tendency of the top HN comment to be something which pooh-poohs the company/topic/idea in the submission, doesn't add anything to the discussion, but (crucially) is worded convincingly enough to not just end up on the bottom of the thread.
--> e.g. "Lol that suckz because Google can steal ur passwerdz!" would not end up at the top of the thread. We wouldn't be terribly worried if someone actually said "Wait, I just audited NativeClient and it turns out you can achieve arbitrary code execution. Maybe you should avoid this software." The danger zone is comments which sound like the second but, on reflection, only tell you about as much as the first.
I love the first reply:
"Ironically the concept of a "middlebrow dismissal" seems to me to enable what it condemns--e.g. HN'ers can now just post "hey that's a middlebrow dismissal" instead of a detailed statement of why a particular response falls short. Basically I think pg made it worse by giving it a catchy name."
- something which pooh-poohs the company/topic/idea in the submission [Invalid]
- doesn't add anything to the discussion [Invalid]
- We wouldn't be terribly worried if someone actually said "Wait, I just audited NativeClient and it turns out you can achieve arbitrary code execution. Maybe you should avoid this software." [If you'd have read more closely, and less tribally, perhaps you might have noticed something along these lines]
> There's no indication that the authors are cherry-picking their models
My comment wasn't that they are cherry picking their models, it was that it is (as worded) not entirely clear that they are not. I also explained why this is may be harmful.
> but the comments above are assuming this
Mine weren't assuming anything.
> basically any analytic step can be questioned
Perhaps. But survivorship bias isn't a conspiracy theory.
> If you live in the Bay Area, AGU is next week at Moscone Center. It's the biggest one-stop-shop in the world for geoscience research. Maybe it's worth paying a one-day admission fee to see some of this in person?
I'm satisfied enough with the science to support doing something about climate change. My interest in this conversation is the apparent unwillingness of similarly minded people to consider weaknesses in their persuasion campaign. How do you foresee getting past the current impasse we find ourselves in?
Why don't you demolish me with your science and facts? Does that question even register?
Would you like to try? The authors of the paper seem unwilling, perhaps you'd like to give it a shot.
What GP wants is transparency around how many possible models were there over the last decades from which they chose the 14. This gives the reader a better understanding of whether 14 is a lot or a little. It is a fair point IMO regardless of their overall stance on the issue.
It says something.
> They looked at 17 forecasts drawn from 14 models.
It does not say this. What you have written is your uncritical interpretation, what I wrote is a literal quotation, which allows for (satisfies) the conspiratorial possibility that I raised.
> You are the one who implicitly believes they are lying about that
You are speculating. Speculation is fine, but it's best to realize (and state explicitly) when you're doing it.
Know how I know you're speculating? Because while you only believe you can read my mind, I can actually do it, and I do not "believe they are lying". I was only pointing out that as written, they could be lying.
And I even told you the reason why I wrote that comment: "Articles written in this style provide rich fodder for conspiracy theorists..."
If you truly want to change minds, you might want to learn how the minds you want to change work. Go spend some serious time in conspiracy forums, I suspect you might learn something useful.
And rather than largely ignoring the actual words of someone who's trying to help out your cause, treating them as an enemy rather than someone who may have some insight you lack, it might be helpful to keep a more open mind. Perhaps if those with knowledge severely lacking in the mainstream discourse weren't rate limited, some here may find some new ideas to consider.