Article Tags: Doug L. Hoffman
Recently, a number of papers have surfaced that use advanced statistical methods to analyze climate data. The techniques involved have been developed not by climate scientists but by economists and social scientists. These new tools belong to the field of econometrics. The use of statistical break tests and polynomial cointegration to analyze the relationships between time series data for greenhouse gas concentrations, insolation, aerosol levels and temperature have shown that these data are non-stationary. The implication of these findings is that much of the statistical analysis applied by climate scientists is flawed and potentially misleading. So strong is the statistical evidence that a couple of economists are claiming to have refuted the theory of anthropogenic global warming. This, on top of everything else that has recently transpired, may indicate that a climate change paradigm shift is imminent.
The source of most climate predictions are general circulation models (GCM) that attempt to computationally simulate the physical processes found in nature. But GCM are not the only way to model the behavior of Earth’s climate system. I have previously commented on the use of the Chow test in time series analysis to test for the presence of a structural break. This statistical model predicts no temperature rise until 2050 and only a slight increase of 0.2°C between 2050 and 2100. Those interested can read “Stat Model Predicts Flat Temperatures Through 2050” or, for the more mathematically adventuresome, the paper by David R.B. Stockwell and Anthony Cox, “Structural break models of climatic regime-shifts: claims and forecasts.”
The world suffers from no shortage of future climate predictions so the addition of one more really did not cause much of a ripple in climate change circles. But now, a new paper that mounts a direct assault on the theory of anthropogenic global warming has emerged. The most controversial aspect of this new work is that its methodology comes, not from climate science or a related field, but from econometrics.
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Source: theresilientearth.com