Empiricism creeping into the AGW debate

I am an environmentalist. I am also a management consultant with a specialization in complex decision-making under conditions of uncertainty. I have long had a deep skepticism of the anthropogenic global warming orthodoxy, with a position similar to that of Bjorn Lomborg in his The Skeptical Environmentalist. My characterization of Lomborg's position is that he advocates for more evidence based environmental action and views the extreme anthropogenic global warming position as being detrimental to pragmatic environmental actions. AGW is an extreme claim requiring extreme evidence.

I generally agree but had a somewhat complementary position. AGW holds that human emitted carbon dioxide is a primary driver to ineluctable global warming and that only carbon reduction will forestall catastrophe.

Climate is a complex system subject to multiple interdependent natural and man-made processes (solar cycles, weather cycles, ocean currents, water cycle/cloud formation issues, land use practices, etc.) AGW is a conceivable scenario, but not the only one. There are four frequently omitted challenges to the orthodoxy. System complexity, percentages, off-sets, and data robustness.

System Complexity - Climate is conceptually not all that different in forecasting challenge to the economy of any sociological system. They all are characterized as dynamic and evolving multi-interdependent chaotic non-linear systems with non-obvious feedback and homeostatic mechanisms. These are inherently difficult to forecast and, indeed, in none of them do we do a good job of precise or accurate forecasting. These are the wicked system equivalent of wicked problems.

Percentage - Say the model forecasts a one degree rise in temperature in a hundred years. Hold all debates about model validity to the side for the time being. Also hold aside all arguments about whether carbon functions in the manner being assumed. A pertinent question, given solar cycles, etc., is what percentage of that one degree rise is due to carbon emission? All the other processes remain in place and have been driving rising temperatures in the past five hundred years. If carbon is only responsible for a 0.1 degree rise on top of the already forecasted 0.9 degree rise from natural processes, then the cost benefit equation for intervention is dramatically different.

Off-sets - Lomborg touches on this. Global warming is disruptive but it is not uniformly negative, and in fact it is entirely conceivable that it might be a net positive under various scenarios. Increased atmospheric carbon is forecasted to facilitate plant growth and reforestation as well as improved agricultural environments in what were earlier marginal areas. The negative changes have to be balanced against the positive challenges in assessing what to do.

Data robustness - This is to me one of the greatest sources of skepticism aside from the various climategate revelations. Our temperature records are recent, patchy, incomplete, with gross margins of error. Vast stretches of the world have no temperature records before 1950. Our satellite measures frequently do not jib with aero temperature measures, ground based measures, or reconstructed measures such as the dendrological record. All the existing records are subject to significant revision to adjust for known issues such as metropolitan heat sinks, adding an additional avenue of error.
Forecasting dynamic evolving complex systems requires deep, consistent, long duration, high quality data of material precision. We simply do not have that sort of data.

So for all the venal blathering about settled science, I view the complex system of climate forecasting as far more underdeveloped than is represented. Scientific American has long been an AGW enthusiast. Interesting to see this article from them, Should We Chill Out about Global Warming? by John Horgan.

A couple of passages.

In his Breakthrough essay, Pinker spells out a key assumption of ecomodernism. Industrialization “has been good for humanity. It has fed billions, doubled lifespans, slashed extreme poverty, and, by replacing muscle with machinery, made it easier to end slavery, emancipate women, and educate children. It has allowed people to read at night, live where they want, stay warm in winter, see the world, and multiply human contact. Any costs in pollution and habitat loss have to be weighed against these gifts.”

Pinker contrasts the can-do ecomodernist spirit with “the lugubrious conventional wisdom offered by the mainstream environmental movement, and the radicalism and fatalism it encourages.” We can solve problems related to climate change, Pinker argues, “if we sustain the benevolent forces of modernity that have allowed us to solve problems so far, including societal prosperity, wisely regulated markets, international governance, and investments in science and technology.”

The bulk of Pinker’s essay consists of documentation of how we've handled environmental threats. We have reduced our rate of population growth; made agriculture, transportation and other key industries more energy-efficient; and increased the acreage of marine and terrestrial preserves.

[snip]

Boisvert notes that “when we think harder about the specific problems global warming poses—problems of water management, agricultural productivity, cooling and construction—the threat becomes less daunting. Our logistic and technical capacities are burgeoning, and they give us ample means of addressing these problems.”

Much of the content of the essay is old hat for those who have been paying attention but it is striking for it to appear in Scientific American. I hope it is a harbinger of a coming to senses after a prolonged fit of perverse obscurantism.