The Global Warming Challenge

Track 2: Climatology (4:00-5:30pm)

Kesten C. Green, Ph.D.
Senior Research Fellow
Business and Economic Forecasting Unit
Monash University, Australia
Scientific Forecasting and Climate Change

In connection with J. Scott Armstrong’s earlier talk on polar bear population forecasting, Kesten Green focused broadly on the scientific forecasting of climate change, and the forecasting principles that should be applied to better forecasts. As shown in the audit of Chapter 8 of the 2007 IPCC report, the work repeatedly “contravenes” key forecasting principles that have been established over 70 years of forecasting work shown to improve forecasting. Perhaps the overarching principle as applied to climate change is that one should be conservative when uncertainty is high, or choose to the naïve no-change model as Armstrong has done in his Global Warming Challenge. Public policy should be based on scientific forecasting, and Green referred to Monckton’s words “we should have the courage to do nothing.”

Anthony Watts
Chief Meteorologist, KPAY-AM Radio
Founder, SurfaceStations.org
A Hands-On Study of Station Siting and Data Quality Issues for the United States Historical Climatology Network

Anthony Watts introduced to the audience his work on documenting the inconsistencies of surface stations across the United States and the world – the same surface stations that measure local temperature. A wide variety of issues plague these surface stations, from the changing of paint used to coat the outside, to surface stations being placed on roofs, near sewage treatment plants, next to cars and air conditioners. Only 12% of these surface stations recorded so far have been placed in areas that meet all the guidelines. With nearly half of all the surface stations already documented and listed on the site surfacestations.org, the data from Watts’ work certainly puts the very measurement method under question.