Bet the world, but not my superannuation on our climate models says modeler Prof Andy Pitman

By Jo Nova

Warn the bankers, our climate models are not something to invest in say the modelers

A group of top climate modelers have come together to warn bankers that climate models are wonderful but basically useless for predicting things that financial models need — like the trends in the hottest, wettest or windiest weather in any city on Earth. Often the expert models can’t even agree on the sign. Will it get bigger or smaller? It’s that bad.

The raw truth of just how unskilled these models are is laid bare in the graphs. The modeling team chose London, Mumbai, New York and Beijing and picked the nearest 100km x 100km “square” on the map. They ran about 37 models on 3 scenarios and achieved something that looks like a painting done with a jet engine.

The modelers can’t say if the hottest maximums in Beijing will get hotter. Even if the world warms 2 degrees (by random happenstance), Beijing’s hottest-days might actually get cooler. The rainiest days of the year could be more extreme unless they’re less extreme. And the windiest days will definitely be stronger, weaker, or about the same.  Get it?

The quote of the century is from Professor Andy Pitman to Graham Lloyd:

Lead author Andy Pitman, ­director of the ARC Centre of ­Excellence for Climate System Science, told The Weekend Australian: “Climate models are very valuable tools for many applications but they are not something I want used to decide investment strategies for my superannuation.

The Australian,   Climate models ‘a global bank risk’

So climate models are not good enough for his superannuation but it’s fine to bet the national economy on? Should we transform our entire energy network, change our vehicles, our crops, and eat crickets for breakfast? Why not. More to the point, all around the world people are blaming individual floods and storms on “Climate Change” but modelers know that isn’t true, and they are staying very quiet. While people are selling homes, farmers are planting different orchards, and councils are thinking about sea-walls, the truth is that we don’t even know if heavy rain will increase or decrease in any one location. Wind farm owners (and the hostage public) are building wind farms in places that may not get windier. The list of potential economic damage is vast. Why do only the bankers matter? (Because they can afford lawyers..?)

And why is every two-bit attention seeking celebrity mayor or high school drop-out promoted on TV to say things that are patently scientific voodoo while our billion dollar national institutions sit mute?

“We show that GMT [Global Mean Temperature] provides little insight on how acute risks likely material to the financial sector (‘material extremes’) will change at a city-scale.”

 

Modeled change in temperature of the hottest day of the year in Beijing  (the index TXx )

We get an idea of the uncertainty involved. Note the zero line runs through the middle.  That’s a range of plus or minus 6 degrees Celsius for every scenario up to 3 degrees warmer.

Pitman, Financial models, climate risk, graph.

And this below is the change in the  amount of rainfall occurring on New York’s wettest day of the year ( R1X)

The wettest day might be 25mm less, or 35mm more, or about the same. And it’s even true in a world three degrees warmer. (Well, true in the models).

Pitman, Financial models, climate risk, graph.It’s true to say that one of the models will be right, we just don’t know which one.

Like there will always be one guy who is brilliant at tossing coins, but no one knows who he was til after the game.

And the models are skill-less with wind as well

This is 37 models, 3 scenarios and millions of lines of code. Imagine starting with this kind of scattergun uncertainty and then multiplying it by the unknowns in economic model forecasts for the next fifty years. We’d get the perfect cloud. Call it a fog.

Click to enlarge, not that it matters whether you look up close or far away…

Pitman, Financial models, climate risk, graph.

Click to enlarge

It’s presented as an eclectic modeling issue of importance to financiers, but the raw truth is that it rather blows away the idea that the hottest, wettest or windiest days now or in the next fifty years can be blamed on “climate change”.

Are there two kinds of science?

Professor Pitman said attempts to use dynamical downscaling to get far higher resolution data was “excellent science but not science designed for the financial sector”.

The laws of science used to be universal, now we need a new science to help people make money. Excellent science must be good for propaganda campaigns, but people who want to make money need the other kind of science — the one that works.

We lost that somewhere.

No wonder the climate modelers are nervous about the financial risk

Admire the detail. Here are the trends in hottest and wettest days in four hand-picked cities with a combined population of about 70 million people. Remember these graphs every time you hear about the hottest ever day or the worst flood, or that a “rain bomb” was caused by climate change.

Pitman, Financial models, climate risk, graph.Pitman, Financial models, climate risk, graph.

Pitman, Financial models, climate risk, graph.Pitman, Financial models, climate risk, graph.

The paper drily notes no link, and no statistical significance (These eight graphs above are all “Figure 1”)

…Figure 1 demonstrates no strong link between GMT [Global Mean Temperature] and the amount of rainfall on the wettest day of the year (RX1). For London, the largest increases occur under the lowest emission scenario, and none of the regression lines are statistically significant (the highest R2 value is only 0.08). Results are very similar for the other cities. Note, for each city, increases in GMT can be associated with decreases in RX1 for many of the models, and the sign of the change does not become clear for any emission scenario until GMT exceeds 2 ◦C.

Gone is the guarantee that a higher Global Mean Temperature means a hotter, wetter and winder city.

Curiously one of the new risks to worry about is called a compound event. It involves odd combinations of weather which are not extreme just extremely-expensive:

However, material extremes could also include events that are not ‘extreme’ in a statistical sense, especially if they occur concurrently as compound events (Zscheischler et al 2018, Ranger et al 2021). One example is the possible shift in climate towards long periods of low wind and cloudy conditionsa material extreme to a renewable energy provider and a potential risk to a national economy via disrupted energy supply, a problem that has already occurred in Europe (Bloomfield 2021)

Wouldn’t it be good if modelers could have warned us about how climate change causes low wind and cloudy conditions before people built energy systems based on wind and solar power?

Wouldn’t it be good if modelers could predict the climate. Most of the hottest and wettest days have something to do with large oceanic cycles that we can’t predict more than a few months in advance.

Even the modelers say the models are for telling stories, not for making predictions:

They just don’t say it so simply:

Using climate models to inform scenarios, storylines (Shepherd 2019, Jack et al 2020) and stress testing, or using climate models to modify the statistics represented in current-day catastrophe modelling can all help break the false assumption that the numerical precision in climate models equates to accuracy at a granular level. In many ways, this echoes guidance from Schinko et al (2017) to consider models as tools to explore a system as distinct from predicting a system, or Saravanan (2022) who explores the need to take climate models seriously, but not literally.

What’s the difference between serious and literal? Should we salute the modelers but not spend billions of dollars on their storylines?


REFERENCE

Pitman, A et al (2022) Acute climate risks in the financial system: examining the utility of climate model projections, Environ. Res.: Climate 1 025002

CAPTION Figure 1:  (The TX and R1X scatter graphs).

Figure 1. Change in TXx (left column, oC) and RX1 (right column, mm d−1) as a function of the change in the global mean temperature for three emission scenarios from CMIP6 model simulations (low/SSP1-2.6: blue circles; medium/SSP2-4.5: green squares; high/SSP5-8.5: red triangles). The change in the global mean temperature is calculated for each 20 year period from 2000 to 2100 for each model using the mean over 1961–1990 as baseline. The change in TXx is then calculated for the same 20 year period for a grid point coincident with each city. Since 20 year time periods are used, there are four data points for each model. Note that the scale on the y-axis varies between panels.

TXx (index) is the temperature of the hottest day of the year (annual maximum temperature)

R1X is the amount of rainfall occurring on the wettest day of the year (annual maximum precipitation sum).

9.9 out of 10 based on 72 ratings

126 comments to Bet the world, but not my superannuation on our climate models says modeler Prof Andy Pitman

  • #
    Anton

    He sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous – Matthew 5:45.

    170

    • #
      Ted1.

      That has been my observation. And it doesn’t fit too well with other stuff they tell us.

      As for computerised climate “models”. If just one of them was sound, they wouldn’t need two.

      160

    • #
      StephenP

      One of my father’s quotes:
      The rain it raineth every day upon the just and unjust fellers, but chiefly upon the just because the unjust steal the justs’ umbrellas.

      120

  • #
    David Maddison

    Basing economic predictions on faulty and fundamentally fraudulent “climate” models will (and is) result(ing) in economic disaster.

    E.g. look at the huge diversion of otherwise productive capital, financial, intellectual, management and government resources (as well as many others) away from productive engineering, economic and research endeavours toward useless, wind, solar and Big Batteries and all the economic destruction that brings to Western Countries (noting that the already-advanced country of China, a nuclear and space power and almost superpower, is exempt from such economic impediments). (India is also exempt, another emerging superpower.)

    460

    • #
      ColA

      That would be a compounding error David??

      150

    • #
      Tarquin+Wombat-Carruthers

      The Climate Change zealots are terrified of a molecule of carbon dioxide, ignoring its role as plant food. They attribute weather events to its dastardly power. Listen to their responses to Hurricane Ian’s encounter with south Florida. They exhort us to redouble/triple/quadruple our ineffective spending to maintain our historically-imperceptible effect on the planet’s climate via CO2 reduction. But there are other equally-implausible explanations for climate change, all because of their greater prevalence. Among them are, in no particular order: tattoos, especially those using coloured inks; electric cars; hybrid cars; bigger television screens; solar panels; wind turbines; consumption of smashed avocadoes; the internet; the mainstream media; protest marches; royal commissions; gender fluidity; preferred pronouns; veganism; and so on. But what if it is brave little CO2 molecules that, rather than causing Climate Change, actually reduce the harmful effects of one, or more, of the potential culprits listed above? Could investigation of this conundrum lead to Tarquin’s Law of Equivalent Implausibility?

      90

    • #
      Saighdear

      Yes, I think we need to get / have / use an extreme cure for Blindness, Deafness and then Idiocy. THe Shakers and pushers includes , in this context,( promoting the models) just about all the MSM and Journo’s of those relevant topics. Peep above the parapets …..
      As you rightly say , so much Effort and money is wasted on the planet …. democracy? take a vote, anyone? If you’re well educated and informed with good ethics, it is very difficult. Dammit we even get the hypocrisy of it all rammed down our throats by the MSM in Documentaries in the form of Edutainment. …. how our great reformers “may” have been knocked off because they were seen as a threat to the Status Quo. …
      Only again last night in the “All Creatures great & Small” episode: flashbacks to end of WW1, disposal of the horses, etc. …. and it all ties in. SOme poor farmer gave their horse for the cause ( lost itto the cause ) and the Country did not even have the decency to return it at the end. Talk about Materialistic. Save the Planet! ? save a life, save spending and wasting so much…. because you are affluent enough to do so!

      00

  • #
    Robert Swan

    No matter how good a model of a double pendulum you have, you can’t predict where the real double pendulum will be in a few swings’ time. Who thinks the weather is more predictable than this?

    230

  • #
    Popeye26

    My superannuation has lost THOUSANDS this week alone.
    I have been adding the legal amount of cash to my super for the last three financial years but not anymore as its lower than when I started these self-contributions.

    So, the bank interest is abysmal, super is a fraud – what do we do now to protect our cash assets and increase our and protect our money?

    Cheers,

    320

    • #
      David Maddison

      So, the bank interest is abysmal, super is a fraud – what do we do now to protect our cash assets and increase our and protect our money?

      I think about those questions a lot Popeye, and have no real answers.

      Some say crypto currencies. I don’t believe in those personally but they are good for others. I see them as vulnerable and possibly would be wiped out by a global “super” computer virus.

      Physical gold is another thing I get told a lot, but inconvenient.

      The Elites make a lot of money “investing” in unreliable energy production and harvesting money in the form of taxpayer subsidies from government and the electricity bills of regular consumers. That’s not an investment option for me as I regard it as immoral and almost, if not actually, a form of organised crime. (It might be “legal” but it’s based on a fraud, so surely it’s a crime?)

      390

    • #
      Mike Jonas

      Popeye26 – It’s probably too late to protect your money. I suggest keeping a reasonably large amount in cash so that you can ride out any market downturn, even a long one. You could try having some of your investments in consumer non-discretionary as a hadge against volatility, and in energy especially coal. Coal stocks in particular have risen a long way (in Australia at least) so the time to invest was last year (as usual), but it looks like there’s still some upside. It may also be worth looking at gold – physical gold or gold miners (though thecminers might get hit by rising costs).
      Disclosure: I have much more held in cash than I used to, and I own shares in energy companies, including gas uranium and coal producers, and in consumer non-discretionary (IXI.AX). I used to own shares in physical gold (GOLD.AX) and in gold miners (GDX.AX) – since I sold them physical gold has gone up (in $A) and gold miners have gone down. I won’t touch anything ‘green’ or ‘ESG’.

      180

      • #
        Steve of Cornubia

        Physical gold and silver can arguably serve two purposes, one as an investment (or store of value) and the other as ‘prepper money’. The latter is what interests me most, providing a potential means to pay my way in a real SHTF scenario, when the banks close, the lights go off (ergo the internet), Woolworths shuts down and people turn to private trades. Bartering would come back, but of course one has to have a skill or good that other people need when the world has effectively gone back to pre-industrial times. Few of us do these days, at least not in a relatively primitive world.

        Lots of people recognise the utility of precious metals in such a world and ‘stack’ accordingly. My advice to those considering accumulating metals as ‘prepper money’ is to diversify in type (gold AND silver), also size/denomination, because having a couple of kilo bars of gold isn’t very fungible if all you need is five litres of diesel or a kilo of rice – unless of course we go so far back that ‘hack silver’ becomes a thing again …

        90

      • #
        Tel

        If you keep large amounts of physical cash there’s a risk of theft, or even potentially police confiscation where they simply accuse you of dealing drugs and you get to figure out how to prove yourself innocent.

        If you keep it in the bank, you don’t really have cash, what you have is an electronic IOU note from the bank which they often do honour, but not always if bail-in provisions activate.

        Either way, inflation steadily erodes what you can buy with that money.

        140

      • #
        John in Oz

        Keeping cash has some issues, 2 being:

        Governments can make cash worthless by printing new notes –

        The Bank of England will be withdrawing legal tender status of the paper £20 and £50 notes after 30 September 2022

        and, from not that long ago in Oz –

        On Tuesday morning, Stephen Koukoulas – independent economist and former economic senior adviser to then-Prime Minister Julia Gillard – tweeted about a “policy I like”.
        “Issue banknotes with a use by date,” he said.

        Our betters are always looking at more ways to control us

        130

    • #
      Earl

      “So, the bank interest is abysmal, super is a fraud”

      But wait we had a royal commission into the banking and superannuation industries back in 2018. Surely that wasn’t just all a show to appease the peasants until their limited attention span waned and they were left with a vague warm fuzzy feeling that action had been taken and everything had been fixed? Oh, and let us not get into how all these industry based super funds expressly designed to benefit members seem to also be benefiting the associated unions given that most have never had as much money in their coffers despite a massive drop in member fees.

      130

    • #

      Buy good shares now while they are down. NAB, CSL, RIO, IFL, WES, STO, IAG etc

      10

      • #
        Tel

        I agree with you on Rio Tinto. I have put some money into that, might do more.
        https://www.google.com/finance/quote/RIO:ASX?window=1Y

        They have been volatile and trending down lately, but 10% dividend could be good and there’s some general trend towards growth. I think they will turn around in about a year. Dividends are always nice.

        I would be pretty darn nervous about those financials IFL and IAG. Also Santos is a good company overall, but their price is not really much down right now … hardly in bargain territory. Maybe the fact that they have not dropped much is a good sign, or perhaps only because they are well known they pick up the people who dunno what else to invest in.

        00

    • #

      Buy a small Farm. You will soon need the food.

      90

      • #
        Grogery

        Just not in the “state” of victoria where chairman dan’s jackboots can come in without a warrant and destroy your food in the name of bio-security.

        50

    • #
      KP

      Popeye, I’m thinking of buying a ton of copper ingots… One thing that will rocket up in value until we give this madness up is copper, and it will only get more expensive to mine in the next decade. A ton is only 5 or 6 20L plastic buckets in volume, I could easily store 10tons under the house. Buying a ton would cost $7600, just keep adding them..

      20

  • #
    Peter Fitzroy

    Prof Andy Pitman, director of the Australian Research Council’s Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes, said regulators were relying on models that are good at forecasting how average climates will change as the planet warms, but were less likely to be of use for predicting how extreme weather will imperil individual localities such as cities.(ARC press release)

    It appears that ‘The Australian’ (lead reference in the post) does not understand the difference between weather and climate

    That’s for highlighting that Jo

    121

    • #
      Tel

      The models predicted that Southeast Australia would be permanently drier and hotter, the dams would not fill and we needed to build desalination plants.

      What happened was those desalination plants have spent a decade in mothballs, and we had three years of floods … the warmists turned on a dime and claimed these floods were caused by Global Warming.

      That’s not my idea of a good model, that’s outright fraud. If we had spent the same money that went to desalination plants on more dams, water pipelines and other infrastructure then we could have protected people from the floods and made better use of the water.

      400

      • #
        Peter Fitzroy

        which models? when? do they still make the same prediction? pls read guide for comments

        222

        • #
          el+gordo

          We could go back a long way to illustrate how the models have failed, but this short abstract was written just before the triple La Nina. Their models (junk in junk out) are simply wrong.

          It would have been better to build more dams during the drought.

          https://www.researchgate.net/publication/269701190_Long-term_water_supply_planning_in_an_Australian_coastal_city_Dams_or_desalination

          130

        • #
          Tel

          which models? when?

          IPCC TAR 2001, page 229, Figure SPM-3

          do they still make the same prediction?

          Yeah, the link is still online for everyone to see. Of course once the report is published it will keep saying the same thing … what would you expect? You can clearly see the areas supposed to be hotter and drier. As the caption explains this result comes from an ensemble of the best models they had at the time.

          https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/03/wg2figspm-3.jpg

          pls read guide for comments

          Acting smart doesn’t really work for you, does it? If you have a point then make your point. Show me the model that predicted the recent years of flooding. You claimed that models are good at forecasting average climates but you gave no reference … so deliver something specific then.

          170

          • #

            You’re on fire today Tel. Thank you.

            110

            • #
              Tel

              As if someone could deny the predictions of drought along the Southeast Australian coast … also they predicted drought for that little Southwest corner near Perth which is the most fertile area … whatever you call that bit.

              So I looked up the IPCC page, but anyone can do that. Heck, it wasn’t the only prediction along those lines … we have seen this over and over.

              https://media.bom.gov.au/releases/805/state-of-the-climate-2020-shows-continued-warming-and-increase-in-extreme-weather-events/

              Australia’s changing rainfall pattern is another key observation documented in the report, with contrasting trends being observed across the north and south of Australia.

              “In the southwest and southeast of Australia we are seeing drier conditions, particularly in the cool season months of April to October. In southwest Australia, for example, cool season rainfall has decreased by around 16 per cent since 1970. These trends are projected to lead to more time spent in drought in the coming decades,” said Dr Braganza.

              They were still playing the OMG it’s so dry there will be bushfires tune … that was dated November 2020 after there had already been floods near Sydney in February of the same year!

              Then they earnestly tell you, “Floods huh! Now do you believe in Climate Change? We warned you!!”

              For that matter, as you already documented, there is no long term rainfall trend around the Southeast … they adjusted the flipping data with their Acorn methodology. We get wet periods and dry periods … it’s ESNO and their predictions have not been good. Go back to the old data and what you see is big variation and no trend … the answer can only be water storage, which is the thing the Greens hate more than anything else.

              140

      • #

        And those ‘mothballs’ represent a lot of money. Those Desalination Plants cost millions and millions to maintain while producing nothing. A very expensive nothing.

        120

    • #
      GlenM

      Some time ago at this site, Jo and Pitman engaged in a series of discussions. My strong recollections were that Pitman relied on modelling and supposition in making his case. I thought it a poor effort on his part which did absolutely nothing to persuade others. Like the science is settled but can’t quite settle climate sensitivity.

      100

      • #
        John in Oz

        Maybe ban the use of could, maybe, possibly, perhaps and all other get-out terms from all papers and prognostications based on ‘settled science’.

        And/or, place financial penalties on whoever makes a wrong statement that the government take as the basis for expenditure, starting with Flim Flammery.

        110

    • #
      b.nice

      There are NO climate models that are good at forecasting ANYTHING !

      80

  • #
    DMA

    Pitman has produced proof that Pat Frank was right when his error propagation analysis told us the model output had no useful information about the future.

    210

    • #
      Graeme#4

      Yes, Frank did a excellent job of pointing that how the many assumptions in climate models generated errors that expanded their error range over the years, to the point where the error range exceeded the actual value range.

      50

  • #
    GlenM

    Is this science? Chaotic and senseless more like it. 30 or more years of climate alarmism and in all that time nothing notable has changed in the Earths climate system. Always shifting goalposts and kicking the ball down the track.

    180

  • #
    Ronin

    Now we’ve got Christina Figueras saying that the Hurricane Ian was caused or at least exacerbated by climate change, as if the southern US has never had a big hurricane before.

    260

    • #
      Richard C (NZ)

      >”..the Hurricane Ian was caused or at least exacerbated by climate change [- Christiana Figueres]”

      TVNZ went one better (or worse). TV1’s One News US correspondent Anna Burns-Francis:

      “This IS climate change”

      Here she is in Biden-Harris campaign mode, which was a little awkward given the lack of crowds.

      These two examples typify “reporting” by our Govt owned media outlet, soon to be amalgamated with radio (RNZ) which also abandoned objectivity long ago – website is a steady diet of Reuters BBC AP when a certain narrative is required e.g. Italian far-right leader Giorgia Meloni claims election victory (from BBC). They just had to allude to fascism but at least they quoted Meloni: “Yes to the natural family, no to the LGBT lobby, yes to sexual identity, no to gender ideology… no to Islamist violence, yes to secure borders, no to mass migration… no to big international finance… no to the bureaucrats of Brussels!”. Apparently translates to “far right” fascism.

      I used to be a MSM news junky before the internet, now I force myself to check in on the MSM to keep up with the latest propaganda – I’m seldom disappointed.

      130

    • #
      GlenM

      Predictions. The only correct prediction was that the usual suspects would out the climate-change signal in the lead up to Ian’s landfall. Predictable.

      50

    • #
      Terry

      ‘Christina Figueras saying that the Hurricane Ian was caused or at least exacerbated by climate change…’

      And no ban or de-personing for “misinformation” by the big-tech/big-government Cartel?
      Colour me shocked!

      50

  • #
    Honk R Smith

    A bit late.
    Haven’t we already bet the farm.

    ‘Models’ have been excellent for their most used purpose, and for what has become the Prime Directive of the Science Establishment …
    politics.

    110

  • #
    Steve B

    I recall a meteorologist a few years ago pointing out to the host of the Country Hour on ABC radio, when discussing the upcoming growing season, that weather models were not a prediction nor a forecast, merely a “guidance”. He then pointed out, models could not be relied on for accuracy, due to changing conditions. On another occasion on the Country Hour I heard a Climatologist speaking about long term rainfall models associated with climate change. They had released some 20 models reaching out to the far off future with varying rainfall potentials, and when the host asked how farmers were to prepare or interpret these models for such changes, the climatologist responded that as time went on, one model or another would be the most accurate. As I listened to that interview, I was reminded of the old joke – “meteorology was invented to give credibility to astrology”.
    The fact anyone gives any credibility to climate models still bewilders me, especially when the modellers themselves point out the lack of accuracy.

    220

    • #
      Earl

      Reporter doing street news broadcast notices a man carrying an umbrella in a leather gloved hand while the other hand is bare. Curious to find out why he stops the man and asks why he is carrying an umbrella in his gloved hand on such a hot day. The man responds that he is just following the weather forcast. Totally confused the reporter asks just how is it that a weather forcast would make anybody wear a single glove and carry an umbrella. The man replies that the weather forcaster had said that the day should be warm and dry however, on the other hand, it could turn cold with some showers.

      170

    • #
      wal1957

      the climatologist responded that as time went on, one model or another would be the most accurate.

      That’s “science” for you.
      Science ignores that the other 19 models were wrong.
      It’s not science, it’s a religion.

      170

  • #
    Neville

    Of course Prof Christopher Essex explained the problems about models years ago and he and Prof McKitrick tried to get the loonies to understand but alas they were too dense.
    Why have we abandoned proper science that’s found through the scientific method, yet we always seem to prefer to frolic with the fairies instead?
    This video shows why Prof Essex is very dubious about the so called science of their so called climate change.

    141

  • #
    Richard C (NZ)

    >”the ARC Centre of ­Excellence for Climate System Science”

    Heh. Gets me every time.

    130

    • #
      David Maddison

      Yes. What do they actually excel at which is actually based on evidence-based science and involves testable predictions?

      Nothing of which I’m aware.

      100

    • #
      Terry

      Not the only bastion of mediocrity that adorns itself with lavish titles of false credibility for material gain.
      Check out most Australian government departments (Federal, State, Local. Doesn’t matter). They’re bound to have at least one, but probably many:
      “Stupendously Awesome Centre of Excellent Excellence for Marvelous Fantasies and Useless Prognostications”…
      …all getting very busy with the very important work of producing nothing of value while consuming vast swathes of government largesse (stolen from real taxpayers).

      70

  • #
    Gerry

    “Climate models are very valuable tools for many applications but they are not something I want used to decide investment strategies for my superannuation.” — The Australian, Climate models ‘a global bank risk

    So what are the applications the models are valuable tools for ?

    120

  • #
    exsteelworker

    As soon as I hit preservation age, my super is coming out,I will piss it up against the wall instead of the super fund giving it to billionaires.

    120

    • #
      Earl

      In this day and age of gender fluidity (50+ genders) and men being able to have babies, both of which authorities are happy to accept and recognise I have often wondered why, when it comes to super, people accept “preservation age” as a set in stone single unmoveable (unless your the government) target.

      For years the “experts” in the science of personal health have commented, even made tv series, on how everybody has a time age AND a physical age. If you have too much of a good time in your younger years then your physical age increases ie damage to liver, clogged arteries etc. Sooo everyone in their 50s should get their physical age measured by a doctor and when this “expert” confirms that the vaccine is safe it is in a state equivalent to a 66+ year old apply for your super.

      Best of both worlds since the government want people to work longer you can keep your job while using your nest egg.

      20

  • #
    exsteelworker

    What will happen ,not if but when the renewables investment crashers and burns. All of Australians super funds disappear. Everyone needs to go on the pension. Enjoy your poor desolate future climate strike kids.Dumb and dumber.

    130

    • #
      KP

      “All of Australians super funds disappear.”

      They’re all dead in the water already. Govts are so far in debt they will never get out, soon enough it will crash, taking the banks, the depositors and the funds with them. Generally a war is the answer as far as the Govt goes, ideal for making power absolute and having a big reset of debt and currency.

      If you don’t have your money in your hand, its not your money.

      30

  • #
    David Maddison

    No one ever asks the obvious question.

    What have these “models” ever accurately forecasted (or even hindcasted when the result was known)?

    Back in the day models always had to be validated before being used and even then they were constantly tested and re-validated.

    It seems that what they call “models” today no longer require validation. They are therefore not scientific constructs but political tools and weapons.

    250

    • #
      RickWill

      no longer require validation

      You would not have a climate model unless it produces warming. That is the validation. CO2 is going up so the planet is warming (except where it isn’t) and the models simply need to reflect that belief. No model exists beyond the day it forecasts cooling anywhere. At that point it is invalidated.

      110

  • #
    b.nice

    The warming in the models is built-in by design and agenda.

    Even then, the models are more like a sneeze on a screen… meaningless.

    How the western world ever went along with this anti-science nonsense is a puzzle that will make for great psychological studies in the future.

    How we can overcome this non-science agenda, and get back on track… is the big question we need to answer.. asap !

    If the attack on reliable energy supplies, (and many other facets of civilised existence), cannot be halted very soon, it will destroy the future for at least the next few generations.

    As it is, repair will not happen over night.

    70

  • #
    Ross

    Pitman must be up for retirement soon and basically has no fear of being cancelled. Here was his previous comments re. drought in Australia. (19/6/19, Sydney Environment Institute.) “Professor Andy Pitman:
    “…this may not be what you expect to hear. but as far as the climate scientists know there is no link between climate change and drought.
    That may not be what you read in the newspapers and sometimes hear commented, but there is no reason a priori why climate change should make the landscape more arid.
    If you look at the Bureau of Meteorology data over the whole of the last one hundred years there’s no trend in data. There is no drying trend.  There’s been a trend in the last twenty years, but there’s been no trend in the last hundred years, and that’s an expression on how variable Australian rainfall climate is.
    There are in some regions but not in other regions.
    So the fundamental problem we have is that we don’t understand what causes droughts.
    Much more interesting, We don’t know what stops a drought. We know it’s rain, but we don’t know what lines up to create drought breaking rains.” Why didnt we listen to Pitman and not Flannery?

    170

    • #
      Neville

      Sorry for the repeat Ross you beat me by 2 minutes. But Jo’s 2019 coverage is still worth a read.

      20

      • #
        Ross

        No worries, Nev. It was an obvious comment, which I’m sure most people on this blog had heard before. But, for every person that has heard it, there’s usually someone who hasn’t. 🙂

        30

  • #
    Neville

    Jo covered another bombshell dropped by Dr Pitman back in 2019 and this time he ruined the left wing loonies claims about our so called scary droughts.
    He came under a lot of pressure after Andrew Bolt highlighted his honesty and what we really understand about droughts.

    Of course he was correct and the Flannery donkey etc were wrong. Droughts in Australia are more likely during El nino events plus positive IODs and changes in the SAM.
    We had a very severe drought in 2019 and since then we’ve had more heavy rainfall events for the last 3 years. Check the data for yourselves.

    https://joannenova.com.au/2019/08/prof-andy-pitman-admits-droughts-are-not-worse-and-not-linked-to-climate-change/

    130

  • #
    STJOHNOFGRAFTON

    An interesting article from AIER (American Institute for Economic Research)
    (my bolds/italics)

    Conclusion
    Climate modeling has arguably been worse than nothing because false information has been presented as true and “consensus.” Alarmism and disruptive policy activism (forced substitution of inferior energies; challenges to lifestyle norms) have taken on a life of their own. Fire, ready, aim has substituted for prudence, from science to public policy.

    Data continue to confound naïve climate models. Very difficult theory is slowly but surely explaining why. The climate debate is back to the physical science, where it never should have left.
    https://www.aier.org/article/climate-models-worse-than-nothing/

    110

  • #
    David Maddison

    No activity has done more to stop the ongoing progress of mankind than the anthropogenic global warming fraud.

    190

  • #
    el+gordo

    The modellers say the Greenland ice melt is happening faster than their models predicted, they have the fingerprint and the situation is irreversible.

    On the other hand, its comforting to know that CO2 is not in the frame.

    ‘Past interglacial CO2 levels of only 280 ppm were associated with a “nearly ice free” Greenland and the presence of flora and fauna in subarctic terrestrial environments 1000 km northwards of where they can survive today, implying “at least 5°C higher temperatures” (Bennike and Böcher, 2021). Summer sea water temperatures were as much as “7-8°C higher than at present”. (Notrickszone)

    90

  • #
    Mike+of+NQ

    Excuse my ignorance, but with respect to Science, how does a warmer world result in more wind – ever? To my understanding, it is temperature differentials that drive wind, not temperature itself. In a warmer world, I can only see that these differentials will reduce, because the polar regions will increase in temperature at a much faster rate than the equatorial region. As the Earth heats, air expands, and can therefore hold more moisture, usually meaning more rain. In others words, in the equatorial region, humidity will cap rising temperatures, while in the polar regions, it will be the lack of humidity that drives faster warming.

    70

    • #
      Kalm Keith

      Good point, but the system can be quite reactive to thermal input.
      The daily solar push is very strong; as the Sun rises it warms and lifts the air which draws colder air to the East at ground level. At sunset the air in the West is lifted and the cooling air in the East is drawn westward.

      On top of that is the bigger cycle you’ve outlined.

      30

  • #
    Peter Qualey

    Ok, so now I’m seriously but not literally confused.
    Whatever, that seriously but not literally, warmed the cockels of this awd geezer (it’s all out of warranty and I can’t take it back).
    Cheers, Jo

    [Delighted to hear. 🙂 – Jo]

    10

  • #
    Kalm Keith

    The term Model, as currently used, is nothing but an advertising gimmick used in the theatre of Klimate Science.

    As stated previously, these climate creations are not models and their only function is to entrap the minds of those targeted. Proper models would have a primary basic link between the atmospheric CO2 levels and corresponding atmospheric temperature.

    Models? VaXXines?
    But, really and truly, Politicians Are honest and doing their absolute best to Save us all.

    41

  • #
    Neville

    From around the world there are many studies that show SLs were much higher for thousands of years during our much warmer Holocene climate optimum.
    And even their clueless ABC admitted that east coast Aussie SLs were 1.5 metres higher 4,000 years ago.
    Of course much cooler temps and lower SLs today.
    https://notrickszone.com/2017/08/21/10000-to-5000-years-ago-global-sea-levels-were-3-meters-higher-temperatures-4-6-c-warmer/

    50

    • #
      Kalm Keith

      Some good graphs in there.

      A number of the newer studies report lower sea levels in the past than noted in earlier work.

      I remember earlier work which mentions 4 metres above present but the recent works only show 2, but maybe it was necessary to homogenise things to conform to modern standards.

      40

    • #
      Furiously+Curious

      That list is stunning. I guess they can say that this is only a small % of thousands of climate research papers, but it is daunting to skim through.

      30

  • #
    RickWill

    It is fascinating to see how deep their incompetence runs.

    The charts show an abscissa with different global temperatures, all apparently due to increasing CO2, but there is no idea of what that means for any specific location. It is quite evident they get the required political answer then try to fudge models to give the same answer.

    At some point these clowns will realise that CO2 does zip.

    Taking Baijing as an example, its summers will be trending warmer. This is April insolation for last 500 years and next 500 years:
    -0.500 375.423566
    -0.400 375.813785
    -0.300 376.204330
    -0.200 376.594883
    -0.100 376.985132
    0.000 377.374769
    0.100 377.765110
    0.200 378.154160
    0.300 378.541432
    0.400 378.926421
    0.500 379.308615
    Beijing is far enough south to experience monsoon. These conditions will extend for longer periods each year.

    Beijing winters will be colder. This is September sunlight:
    -0.500 383.294801
    -0.400 382.833919
    -0.300 382.371685
    -0.200 381.908469
    -0.100 381.444628
    0.000 380.980510
    0.100 380.514968
    0.200 380.049860
    0.300 379.585685
    0.400 379.122948
    0.500 378.662161

    Sunlight is the dominant factor in surface temperature at this latitude but there are local conditions such as industrial activity, denuding or greening that can alter the local climate.

    50

    • #
      el+gordo

      ‘Sunlight is the dominant factor in surface temperature …’

      What about marine heatwaves?

      30

      • #
        RickWill

        In mid latitudes, the correlation between sunlight at the top of the atmosphere and the surface temperature is 97+%. That is highly correlated and, in this case, sunlight is the cause of the temperature; no CO2 needed.

        As an example, Beijing has a median monthly temperature range of -3 to 27C. The monthly sunlight ranges from 164W/m^2 to 479W/m^2. So 315W/m^2 for 30C swing, about 10.5W/m^2 for each 1C change. The diurnal range averages 9C so highly responsive to sunlight.

        The 3% error in prediction ability of the regression is all the other factors that come into climate. But if the sun was on trial for causing a surface temperature then the defence would have an uphill battle no matter how many climate scientist came out and said it was CO2.

        10

        • #
          el+gordo

          ‘ … no CO2 needed.’

          That is agreed.

          Imagine a large blocking high pressure over the North Pacific, there will be increased solar radiation and a marine heatwave develops. Inside the high there is little wind, so this reduces vertical mixing in the waters where its anchored and accelerates sea surface warming.

          So it seems that reduced mixing, along with increased solar radiation, cause marine heatwaves.

          Note I didn’t mention undersea volcanism.

          10

          • #
            RickWill

            The top of the atmosphere solar radiation only changes through orbital variation. It is not a function of clear skies or cloudy skies.

            One of my recent observations for a tropical moored buoy is the amount of EMR that gets absorbed in the column is significant. The link is for a Western Pacific moored buoy regulating at 30C surface temperature over a 17 day period.
            https://1drv.ms/u/s!Aq1iAj8Yo7jNhGPDMx9W7O7evvAg?e=sBH1Yf

            The ToA EMR was 459W/m^2. 341W/m^2 was thermalised but only 200W/m^2 reached the surface. That leaves 141W/m^2 absorbed power by the column. The tallest columns actually take in latent heat from mid level convergence so that adds to the upper level divergence power output of the column giving a total of 190W/m^2 for this convecting cell. This is the heat that is exported from the tropics to higher latitudes.

            Your blocking high is just one of the 3% factors that cause weather. Top of the atmosphere EMR is the driver of the surface temperature outside the tropics. Once the ocean surface temperature reaches 27C the correlation becomes negative and is only weakly correlated because it is relying on cloud processes. In high latitudes, sea ice and condensing cloud tend to keep heat in but also slow warming. The correlation between ocean surface temperature and sunlight is still high but the response is heavily damped – 198W/m^2 change to shift the Southern Ocean surface 1C..20X more sunlight than Beijing for the same temperature change.

            10

  • #
    John+Raat

    Computer models .Is that like gazing into a crystal ball and predicting the future?

    50

  • #

    Just as you could use a monkey and a dartboard to select the stocks/shares to invest in then maybe try that technique with predicting the weather (Temperature, rainfall, etc.). From the look of all of those Graphs, it looks to me as if they have already tried it with the monkeys. Would have been a lot cheaper I guess.

    40

  • #
    John R T

    UK, this Spring: banker Kirk lost his job for saying what Pitman continues saying, but not so politely.

    20

  • #
    Dennis

    I watched an interview with the acting CEO of AGL on Sky Business recently, and the general discussion points were revealing including the share price now and how low now is compared to past glories. The acting CEO was asked if he was manoeuvring to become CEO and did not impress me with his response, in short he is.

    How publicly listed companies, senior executives and boards of directors can ignore the real reasons for the energy crisis overseas, notably the German wind transition adverse impact on the economy and cost of living and threatening lives because of electricity shortages and high prices I do not understand. How they can turn away from coal mining and coal fired power station funding is another mystery, woke climate hoax influences aside. Business should be about obtaining the best returns on investment for the shareholders.

    Also taking notice of wealthy opportunist activists who take advantage of cheap share prices and use their investment influence to manipulate business activities.

    60

  • #
    Dennis

    To highlight my comment about AGL consider the Morrison Coalition Government proposals for 4 gas fired generators, 2 in NSW and 1 each for VIC and QLD, so far only 1 approved for a Kurri Kurri NSW site and being built for Snowy Hydro, now a Federal Government owned private company since State shareholdings were acquired. Also proposed was an HELE coal fired power station for NTH QLD but that project has not been approved by QLD Labor.

    The Federal Government proposal included the government underwriting the funding of the power station for a private sector investor because banks now decline from funding fossil fuel based projects.

    40

  • #
    Richard C (NZ)

    Climate researcher: Methane emission effects have been overstated by up to four times
    https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/mike-hosking-breakfast/audio/dave-frame-climate-change-researcher-says-methane-emission-effects-have-been-overstated-by-up-to-four-times/

    Well known climate scientists Adrian Macey and Dave Frame have been looking at our climate change policy in relation to the rest of the world.

    What they’ve found is that by using a more accurate metric to replicate what methane does to warming, we see that effects have been overstated by more than three or four times the actual damage.

    When it came to introducing the new more accurate metric to climate change advisers within the Government they were either passive or dismissive of it.

    Its a contagion.

    50

    • #
      Ross

      Or as some commentator ( who is not a “climate ” person) said the other day- “How can cows eating green grass cause climate change”. Which to me , pretty well summed it up.

      40

  • #
    Dennis

    And in The Australian today …

    Who will fund AGL’s green vision?
    The company will need $20bn to enact its new strategy, but some in the market say Mike Cannon-Brookes’ influence over the energy major will leave other investors wary.

    50

  • #
    Richard C (NZ)

    Study: Climate Skeptics Tend To Have ‘High Analytical Abilities’
    https://climatechangedispatch.com/study-climate-skeptics-tend-to-have-high-analytical-abilities/

    “Sharman does admit to one thing she got wrong: she says she didn’t expect this,” he [Andrew Bolt] said.

    “Says it’s contrary to our predictions, but, oh, people with high analytical abilities were even more likely to be skeptical.”

    Mr. Bolt said Dr. Sharman did not question why “people who are great at analyzing things are more skeptical of global warming preachers.”

    “She says we’ve seen ‘predictions not becoming reality’ and ‘climate change alarmists’ predictions being completely false,” he said.

    “Spot on.”

    It does make sense when you think about it.

    70

  • #
    Rupert Ashford

    Follow Gina Reinhardt’s investment strategy – invest in Coal, Oil, Gas and Iron Ore.

    60

    • #
      RickWill

      You cannot go wrong with resources. NutZero is god’s gift to mining. Miners will inherit the earth as morons try to make useful energy from wind and solar.

      40

  • #
    Serge Wright

    Pitman is obviously nervous about future lawsuits from financial institutions or their customers that lose money from decisions that used his climate models. This is further proof, following on from climate gate, that those behind the science know it’s flawed.

    60

    • #
      RickWill

      I can easily imagine class actions against the modellers. Look at the problems facing Germany. Total reliance on Russian gas and now nothing.

      Now if USA can get China and India to stop sending money to Russia they may have a chance of stopping Putin through economic sanctions.

      The modellers will be scrambling to distance themselves from the resulting decisions.

      How is it possible for Germans to die of the cold in a warming world?

      70

      • #
        KP

        Lol! Like the Yanks with Germany?? “Give up Putin’s gas and buy ours at five times the price..” How far will that go with any of the BRICS?

        No, I think Mr Putin is quite safe economically, the Yanks will be tearing their hair out at their sanctions failure, while anyone from South Africa of the 1970s knew what would happen all along. Europe however, with their ruinables in full swing…
        I figure a lifestyle based on 1950, a washing machine, a stove, a fridge, one car per family, hardly any heating and certainly no aircon. No international holidays, a censored internet where you only get Govt propaganda, a KiloWatt limit per person and the knowledge that Big Brother loves you. Sort-of the next level WEF have ready for us.

        10

  • #
    Richard C (NZ)

    >”What’s the difference between serious and literal?”

    According to the NZ PM belief is the overriding criterion:

    New Zealand’s PM Is The Kindly Face Of 21st-Century Big Brotherism
    https://climatechangedispatch.com/new-zealands-pm-is-the-kindly-face-of-21st-century-big-brotherism/

    Tyranny has had a makeover. It’s no longer a boot stamping on a human face forever. It isn’t a gruff, gurning cop dragging you into a cell for thinking or expressing a ‘dangerous’ idea. It isn’t a priest strapping you to a breaking wheel.

    No, authoritarianism is well-dressed now. It’s polite. It has a broad smile and speaks in a soft voice. It is delivered not via a soldier’s boot to the cranium but with a caring liberal head-tilt. And its name is Jacinda Ardern.

    New Zealand’s PM, every online liberal’s favorite world leader, has gone viral over the past 24 hours following the circulation of the shocking speech she gave at the UN last Friday.

    Before the assembled leaders of both the free world and the unfree world, Ms. Ardern raised the alarm about a new ‘weapon of war.’

    It’s a ‘dangerous’ one, she said. It poses a grave ‘threat’ to humankind. It threatens to drag us headlong into ‘chaos’. We must act now, she pleaded with the powerful so that we might disarm this weapon and ‘bring [the world] back to order.’

    What is this terrible weapon, this menacing munition, that Ms. Ardern so passionately wants to decommission? It’s freedom of speech.

    [Snip]

    So at the UN, Ms. Ardern gave climate-change skepticism as an example of one of those ‘weapons of war’ that can cause ‘chaos’.

    ‘How do you tackle climate change if people do not believe it exists?

    Implication of that last line is that without belief climate change doesn’t exist i.e. it’s not a thing.

    40

  • #
    Richard C (NZ)

    >”authoritarianism is well-dressed now”

    “When fascism comes to America, it will not be in brown and black shirts. It will not be with jack-boots. It will be Nike sneakers and Smiley shirts…”

    ― George Carlin

    George was wrong – Ardern’s ensemble at NY UN was sombre boardroom chic: Video

    30

  • #
    John Hultquist

    I needed a good chuckle just before bedtime.
    Thanks Jo — well written.

    10

  • #
    David Maddison

    There are enormous amounts of money to be made from the anthropogenic global warming fraud, including research grants.

    President Eisenhower famously warned about government (i.e. taxpayer) funded science.

    https://www.acsh.org/news/2017/12/26/eisenhowers-less-famous-warning-government-controlled-science-12219

    QUOTE

    Eisenhower’s Less Famous Warning: Government-Controlled Science

    [..]

    Ernest Lawrence, whose name is now on both Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and Lawrence Livermore National Lab, ushered in the era of academic Big Science. He found that if you did what government wanted, they would throw money at you. And then you could use some of that money to do what you wanted.

    [..]

    Most famous of the concerned about this new control of basic research by the government was President Dwight David Eisenhower – “Ike.” Ike was someone so concerned about keeping politics out of strategic resources he refused to vote while he was a military officer. To him, it was a conflict of interest because he was paid by the government. His concern only grew while he was president during the bulk of the 1950s and government took more and more control of science funding. As politicians funded more of it, he believed, academia was going to self-select for those who also believed in big government and it would no longer be non-partisan. And corporations were going to control academic science by controlling politicians. Academics who “play the game” were going to get more funding and head up grant committees and panels. (4)

    [..]

    END QUOTE

    20

  • #
    TdeF

    I am lost. What is Climate Change? Is it Global Warming? And how does the trace gas carbon dioxide produce more and stronger hurricanes? And can you have more droughts and more floods at the same time?

    And as for casting auspices for the future, can these computer models accurately reproduce the past? I doubt it. There are fewer variables in horseracing.

    50

    • #
      Ross

      Mate, get with the program. It’s not Global Warming or even Climate change any more. It’s a Climate catastrophe , it’s an existential threat. Or whatever the alarmists will call it next week.

      41

  • #
    Murray Shaw

    Strewth, Andy Pitman needs to ring Mike Cannon-Brooks who is about to take AGL and it’s other shareholders over a cliff using Andy’s Superannuation money, and a lot of other peoples as well.

    50

  • #
    David Maddison

    “Get woke, go broke.”

    When these funds inevitably lose money and fail because they accepted bad and fraudulent advice concerning the fraud of supposed catastrophic anthropogenic global warming, I hope they don’t expect government (i.e. taxpayers) to bail them out.

    Due diligence at anytime since the anthropogenic global warming fraud has been promoted would have easily revealed it was fraudulent.

    20

  • #
    David Maddison

    Are there any super funds that specifically avoid all investments related to the anthropogenic global warming fraud?

    20

  • #
    Rod W

    Is the “Cool Futures” fund/strategy still a thing?

    If not, might need to be revived.

    10

  • #

    Giorgia Meloni,

    It has been said that fools admire and intelligent people approve.

    I have been inspired by and agreed with that.

    Untill now.

    Anyone can ridicule me if they want to and I will care less.

    Your speech bought the well of tears to my eyes.

    I admire you.

    Let anyone call me a fool then I will know who the idiots are.

    21

  • #
    UK-Weather Lass

    Pascal’s original quincunx bagatelle which eventually gave rise to probability theory assumed all the data (the bagatelle balls) entered from the same point thus leading to a bell curve. However, in Nature, how many events assume such an entry constraint? Humans are not at all able to comprehend ideas like infinity and randomness even when we try very hard to fake them, and scientists are human.

    In the forensic science of fraud it is the unexpected behaviours which are hidden in the normal patterns that alert the investigators to something unsual going on. That is how we should be approaching an understanding climate science but we are so far away from having the quantity and resolution of data required to know what is normal let alone what is abnormal.

    50

  • #
    Geoff Cooney

    About 150 years ago my Grandfather was born in Tumut, he grew up and worked around western NSW probably as a shed-hand, eventually becoming a blade-shearer. He turned out to be very good at it shearing 200 a day. He ended in SW Qld in the Paroo river country at Eulo, he entered a ballot for country there and drew a block of 20000 acres running sheep, did well, married, obtained more country, reared a family of 5 boys 2 girls, educated them at the Eulo state school and over the years put 5 sons and 1 daughter onto the land all became successful. My father was one of the sons, he put me onto the land some 70 yrs ago. Now the reason for this story is that for a lot of that time and during my grand-dads time (who by the way retired to Brisbane at Kangaroo Point a very wealthy man) we watched the weather like a hawk, we endured everything that climate could throw at us, droughts,floods,bushfires,dust storms,heatwaves,cold snaps. Some of the family still on the land at Eulo. The climate change zealots spend too much time looking at a computer and not enough time looking at the sky ouside, it’s still doing exactly what it has done for the last couple of hundred years.

    50

  • #
    Saighdear

    Well put. Hmm, years ago as student when we ‘didn’t know’ but already knew a llittle , so didn’t ask too many questions, thought this was all cut n done, we accepted all that. Now as you rightly state that the balls come in ‘biased’ The REAL science is in the understanding of ‘fraud’ or non-natural occurrences. Remember – as I often state, that when a ‘butterfly beats its wings in China, strange things happen over here’ .. ………

    00

  • #
    Curious George

    “one of the models will might be right”

    10

  • #

    […] Bet the world, but not my superannuation on our climate models says modeler Prof Andy Pitman […]

    10