Arguments
Matt Ridley Risk Management Failure Deja Vu
Posted on 22 December 2012 by dana1981
Matt Ridley has published another article in a mainstream media source, this time the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), which has a long history of publishing climate contrarian nonsense. This article is not very different from his previous piece in WIRED magazine, and has already been debunked quite effectively by Climate Progress and Media Matters. However, there is a very simple explanation as to where Ridley has gone fundamentally wrong; it's the same mistake he made in WIRED and in his professional banking career — Ridley still fails to understand basic risk management and wants to wager the future of the Earth's climate on a flimsy argument.
Ridley Makes a Weak Case
The crux of Ridley's article is that he believes climate sensitivity (the total amount the Earth's surface will warm in response to the increased greenhouse effect, including amplifying and dampening feedbacks) is low. To support this argument, Ridley references a few studies which find that climate sensitivity is on the lower end of the range of likely values published in the most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, as well as a blog post written by financier Nic Lewis. We may examine Lewis' argument in a separate blog post, but since it has not been subjected to the peer-review process or published, it is not a very credible or convincing reference.
That's really all there is to it. Ridley believes that climate sensitivity is low based on a couple of cherrypicked studies (and what his financier friend wrote on some blog), and therefore the planet will not warm too terribly rapidly over the next century, and therefore we have nothing to worry about.
Ridley's Rose-Colored Glasses
Unfortunately if the worst case (or even most likely case) climate scenario comes to fruition, there will be nobody to bail out the planet.
It is certainly possible that climate sensitivity is on the low end of the possible range of values (discussed in more detail below), although we would still have to take serious steps to prevent human greenhouse gas emissions from rising so much that even a low sensitivity scenario would result in extremely dangerous levels of global warming. However, only considering the best case scenario — which is precisely what Ridley is advocating for in WSJ and WIRED — neglects the scenarios in which climate sensitivity is not low. If we proceed under the assumption that the best case scenario is true, but it turns out that climate sensitivity is actually not near the lowest possible values, then we will be on a path for catastrophic climate change.
This approach is very similar to the one Ridley took as the non-executive Chairman of Northern Rock, a British bank that, in 2007, was the first in over 150 years to experience a run on its deposits. The bank had allowed itself to become extremely over-leveraged, with debts more than 50 times its shareholder common equity. Ultimately Northern Rock was bailed out, borrowing £3 billion from the Bank of England over the span of a few days in 2007. Ridley was unprepared for the worst case scenario when it came to fruition. Unfortunately if the worst case (or even most likely case) climate scenario comes to fruition, there will be nobody to bail out the planet.
Ridley Cherrypicking
Knutti and Hegerl (2008) presents a comprehensive overview of our scientific understanding of climate sensitivity. In their paper, they present a figure which neatly encapsulates how various methods of estimating climate sensitivity examining different time periods have yielded consistent results. As you can see, the various methodologies are generally consistent with climate sensitivity in the range of 2 to 4.5°C global surface warming resulting in response to a doubling of atmospheric CO2, with a most likely value of 3°C.
Figure 1: Distributions and ranges for climate sensitivity from different lines of evidence. The circle indicates the most likely value. The thin colored bars indicate very likely value (more than 90% probability). The thicker colored bars indicate likely values (more than 66% probability). Dashed lines indicate no robust constraint on an upper bound. The IPCC likely range (2 to 4.5°C) is indicated by the vertical light blue bar.
These results include a variety of different approaches, including studies looking at past historical climate changes, recent changes, and climate model simulations. A project called PALEOSENS recently published a paper in the journal Nature which estimated climate sensitivity based on climate changes over the past 65 million years. Their results are similar to the range in the Knutti and Hegerl study, as well as the IPCC, with a likely range of 2.2 to 4.8°C global surface warming in response to a doubling of atmospheric CO2.
Ridley's case is based on a climate sensitivity of even less than 2.2°C, which means that it is a very optimistic and very unlikely scenario. He has essentially cherrypicked a few studies with the lowest climate sensitivity estimates, and brought in some unvetted blog 'science' by a financeer, while ignoring the vast majority of the body of peer-reviewed climate sensitivity literature.
Ridley Deja Vu All Over Again
Ridley's WSJ piece repeats many of the same mistakes in his WIRED piece — cherrypicking the best case scenario, ignoring the enormous risks if his climate optimism is misplaced, and defending his position with wrong arguments (e.g. claiming that the water vapor feedback is weak, when we know from empirical observational data that water vapor provides a strong amplifying feedback). The failure to take a prudent risk management approach is also a repeat of Ridley's mistakes in the banking industry. Reading Ridley's WSJ piece is like deja vu all over again.
Ridley has simply cherrypicked the most convenient scientific papers to support his optimistic view, ignored the vast majority of the scientific literature, and essentially argued that if we are very lucky, we may avoid catastrophic climate change.
It's true that if climate sensitivity is toward the low end of possible values, and if we manage to successfully reduce human greenhouse gas emissions, we may avoid very dangerous climate change. But what if climate sensitivity isn't on the low end? It is at least as probable that it could be on the high end of possible values, as a recent study by Fasullo and Trenberth (2012) suggests may be the case. If we bank (pardon the pun) on Ridley's optimism and it turns out to be unfounded, we will be on a path headed towards catastrophe. This is a scenario which Ridley consistently refuses to consider, despite the fact that this approach has previously come back to bite him.
A prudent risk management approach involves considering all possible scenarios and preparing for the worst. The worst case scenario here results in climate catastrophe, and we must try to prevent this scenario from occurring by reducing human greenhouse gas emissions. Ridley's approach is an ill-advised gamble, and boils down to one simple question — do you feel lucky? And even if you do, are you willing to gamble with the well-being and security of future generations?
And we're supposed to take his advice on how to run national or global economies with regards to climate?
No thanks. Stick a fork in Ridley-as-climate-advisor. He's done.
Q406 Mr Fallon: But you were wrong?
Dr Ridley: We were hit by an unexpected and unpredictable concatenation of events.
Except that the events were predicted by some analysts. With respect to climate change, just because there are uncertainties does not mean that terrible outcomes are unpredictable or unexpected. Wishful thinking is not an admissible defence against gross negligence.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Ridleyriddle3.html
In his guest post at WUWT Forest Mims makes this claim, by citing one sentence from an article on the NASA NVAP global humidity dataset. Had he quoted the entire paragraph, not just one sentence, the message would haven been that the authors did not try to study the water vapor trend.
They did not do so because the dataset is currently only suited to study "seasonal to interannual variability" due to inhomogeneities in the dataset. For example, because the types and number of satellites changed during the observation period. But Mims knows better than the authors and does not feel the need to say that the authors of this paper do not agree with his original science without arguments.
Furthermore, this dataset is only 23 years long and thus not interesting for trend analysis as the uncertainty would be huge anyway, even if the dataset would not be biased.
Another clear piece of misinformation.
It appears that Ridley has learned little from the failure of his optimism at Northern Rock, and is now applying it to climate science.
On a slightly related note, it has been found that the presence or absence of optimism in people diagnosed with cancer does not affect their outcomes. However the presence of hope does lead to more positive outcomes. One hopes it will work for climate change as well.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b017mrbd
I've noticed that most of the 'more sophisticated' sceptics have dropped denial of warming and its anthropogenic origins and now base all their arguments around the climate sensitivity issue. So 'it wont be bad' seems to be the 'meme du jour'. Ridley fits the mould perfectly.
To John Brookes: "...optimists... [are] ...generally healthier and happier than pessimists..." They are until overtaken by events they didn't foresee due to their irrational optimism. It's interesting that there are so many optimists around -- I'd have thought that, thanks to evolution, we'd have lost them all to lions hiding behind rocks.
The Ridleys of this world (especially given his financial background) tend to fall optimistically into the 'short-termist' camp. It's also a more general failing. I was struck by this graph the other day showing longer timescales than we usually see. If the concern is future generations, rather than our own self-satisfaction, the cherry-pickers need to think a little more deeply.
If it should turn out that there are assumptions in NL's work which bias its conclusions, then a reference page here would be extremely valuable.
My sense is that the more sophisticated contrarians are going to run with this.
The full illustration of interest from Knutti and Hegerl 2008 is Figure 3a:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/bams-state-of-the-climate/2009-time-series/humidity
HadCRUH data download link here:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcruh/
Tamino looked at this data here:
https://tamino.wordpress.com/2010/08/08/urban-wet-island/
In the same week fake skeptic and denier web sites have touted two hypotheses that are completely at odds with one another.
First, they rehash the long debunked Galactic Cosmic Ray hypothesis. Second, the trot out another favourite that climate sensitivity is low.
Well, if GCRs play a big a role as fake skeptics and those in denial claim, then the climate system has to be sensitive to very small forcings, in other words climate sensitivity must be very high, not low.
Scientists at SkS are looking into the blog article written by financier Lewis. However, like grading/evaluating any bad paper, it takes time to separate the (little) wheat from the copious chaff.
I'm sorry even to have to suggest this extra workload, especially the *weekend before Christmas*. Unfortunately, it looks as though it needs to be done, and to halt the nonsense, done properly.
If it makes anyone feel any better, just consider how much time and effort went into constructing NL's analysis. So very, very carefully.
But I'm sure Ridley will be fine. He was born into the 1%.
My sense is that the more sophisticated contrarians are going to run with this.
Indeed.
Joe, thank you for your nice words. Everyone has permission to reprint any post.
I must honestly say, that I do not see it as a special post. Anyone with access to the literature could have written it. We need more open access publishing to make the life of the climate ostriches more difficult.
I am just amazed as the boldness of the climate ostriches and hope that the post helps to speed the demise of this PR circus a little and the word "climate sceptic" will again be reserved for sceptical people.
The discussion on the best response to climate change is difficult enough without misinformation.
Fortunately, someone has invested the time to look closer at the curios claims made by Ridley and Lewis. It seems the more "sophisticated" the fake skeptics are, the more skilled they are at deluding themselves and anyone who will listen or take them seriously.
A post by ThingsBreak titled "Matt Ridley and the Wall Street Journal misrepresent paper cited in Ridley column" exposes just how "creative" and sly Lewis et al. had to be to force their desired narrative.
"Ignoring the two main findings of a paper for values that you’re either estimating from a curve or are creating yourself based on data not used by the paper will be seen by at least some people to be misleading. Claiming that ECS cannot be estimated by paleo data is absurd, especially when so many are aware of efforts like the PALAEOSENS project and various paleoclimatic intercomparison groups."
So yet another alleged "nail in the coffin of AGW" is, pardon the pun, vapourized. Water vapour is not our friend in this situation, I'm inclined to call it "Darth Vapour" ;) Physics cares not one iota for the shenanigans of fake skeptics....
This year in the UK we started with drought, now we have to much water everywhere and we are no where near seeing the worst of climate change!
There are businesses really suffering as well as home owners.
The risk is clear in the UK, do nothing and the costs are going to be astonishing.
This reminds me of Douglas Adams' observation on the phenomenon, which most people blithely assume is simply a comic instrument:
This is analogous to the deniers flying. They will point to one instrument and say all is good. If that one changes they will find another that tells them all is OK. They then put absolute trust in the balance centre in their ear (natural cycles) . They then ignore that their airspeed is increasing, engine revs are increasing, they are losing height and the artificial horizon looks 'stuck' at some impossible angle. The heading is varying a bit but that is due to the wind! All is fine until you hit the deck at a velocity higher than V never exceed for your aircraft.
This chap Ridley has crashed a bank and he now knows how to drive a planet! Bert
It is an excellent analogy. The only difficulty I can see is that you need to have taken flying lessons to really understand the significance.
A bit like the various sciences associated with climate change, in some ways...
I wish this article would've discussed this further (maybe another article?). The deniers conveniently ignore that we're on pace to possibly quadruple atmospheric CO2 levels in the next century, complicated by the potency of methane as we move more towards natural gas, so we're still screwed even with an unlikely low sensitivity.
I've only been at the process of combating climate misinformation for a few years now (to which this site has proven indispensable), so other will certainly have seen the transformation you mentioned more than I, but in this time I have noticed the outright denial that warming is occurring start to drop and their arguments have changed.
I remember when several deniers in the Canadian blog/news/literature circles I follow were aboard the "greenhouse effect violates the 2nd law of thermodynamics" train. It seems positions such as that have been (more the time being) all but given up for the arguments of low sensitivity or it's not anthropogenic.
Slowly but surely, progress is being made.
@Bert,
I remember going through a similar exercise about 6 years back. Fantastic analogy, I wouldn't have thought to compare the two
Attacks on the messenger but the message escapes unscathed. Rightly so becuse he stuck to facts. Although Ridley is not a botanist his botanical arument was totally correct.
Hi Roger @30,
Care to put some detail into that claim? Given all of the nonsense Ridley has spouted in the past, I would be surprised if he got something right, but it's always interesting to hear the argument.
Leto.
Ridley's initial claim is that the earth is getting greener and he presented good evidence for that. Do you wish to dispute that point?
He also claimed that the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide contributed to that greening arguing, on correct botanical grounds, that carbon dioxide is plant food.
Do you wish to dispute that point? Are there any point in his talk that you would like to dispute? If so what are they?
Ferns, cycads, horsetails and the like evolved in palaeozoic times with far higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Most of the evolution of the angiosperms, at least to generic and family level, had taken place before the end of Jurassic times, also in an atmosphere much richer in carbon dioxide. The level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere today is sub-optimal for most plants. This is of course a fact well known to the operators of commercial greenhouses. It is no surprise really, and to be expected, that the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide in recent decades has stimulated plant growth.
Should the inane pleas for reduction in atmospheric carbon dioxide actually succeed plant growth will slow and starvation will become the norm in much of the third world. Should we be entering a mini ice age, which is a distinct possibility given the lacl of warming for over a decade and the low level of sunspot activity, we might just need all the carbon dioxide we can get into the atmosphere!Roger Dewhurst @ 33, your claims seem to be extraordinary and require extraordinary proofs. For a quick review, I recommend having a look at the following articles here:
Hi Roger,
When I asked for details, I was wondering whether Ridley had mounted any sort of sophisticated botanical argument of relevance to the science of climatology. If you can't answer without mentioning fears of a mini-ice age and mass starvation on the back of "lacl of warming for over a decade", or without dismissing concerns about AGW as "inane", it does give me some idea of the audience he is pitching to, at least.
Comment policy on this site prevents me from saying much more of what I think, so I'll leave it at that. Some of the more patient folk here at SkS might be ready to discuss your ideas with you.
I'm not sure you've done Ridley any favours here.
Leto.
Roger Dewhurst - your comments are on the wrong thread. See: Ridley, Murdoch and Lomborg Attempt to Greenwash Global Warming.
Given the prior analyses of satellite greening show opposing trends what is so special about the latest as-yet-unpublished study? See you over at the other thread.