[Osx-nutters] Forecasting

[David Cake]

At 7:00 AM +0100 17/8/07, Stefano Mori wrote:
>If we want to make a forecast about something, not just about the 
>weather or the climate but in any field, it makes sense to do 
>research on forecasting itself. Can we see from experience of 
>forecasts and their outcomes, what are the factors that tend to make 
>for reliable forecasts, and which factors tend to lead to wrong 
>forecasts? What can we learn from experience, and formalise as 
>empirical knowledge about forecasting?
>

	Good an interesting so far.

>About the International Institute of Forecasters:
>
>"Develop and unify forecasting as a multidisciplinary field of 
>research drawing on management, behavioral sciences, social sciences,
>engineering, and other fields."

	But when you hear that the research discipline is primarily a 
combination of management, behavioural sciences, social sciences... 
and other fields, you might begin to think that its not exactly what 
we are looking for here. Management, behavioural sciences, social 
sciences all have relatively limited application to the climate, 
which stubbornly resists being managed, or prediction by the rules of 
psychology or sociology.
	Now, human reaction to predictions, constructing appropriate 
plans, etc is an important part of the debate, but not the part of 
the debate we expect the IPCC to deal with.

>  > In 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Working 
>>  Group One, a panel of experts established by the World 
>>  Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment 
>>  Programme, issued its Fourth Assessment Report. The Report included 
>>  predictions of dramatic increases in average world temperatures 
>>  over the next 92 years and serious harm resulting from the 
>>  predicted temperature increases. Using forecasting principles as 
>>  our guide we asked: Are these forecasts a good basis for developing 
>>  public policy? Our answer is "no." To provide forecasts of climate 
>>  change that are useful for policy-making, one would need to 
>>  forecast (1) global temperature, (2) the effects of any temperature 
>>  changes, (3) the effects of alternative policies, and (4) whether 
>>  the best policy would be successfully implemented. Proper forecasts 
>>  of all four are necessary for rational policy making.
>>

	And here we see the issue demonstrated exactly.
	They say that the IPCC report isn't a good basis for public 
policy, but their primary reason is because the IPCC report doesn't 
include the effects of temperature changes (and I think there is an 
implicit 'including cost, economic and otherwise' when you are 
talking public policy), and details alternative policies, etc. In a 
report whose brief clearly isn't to report on these things, but only 
on the trends of global temperature.
	In this I think their point is both spot on, and foolish, 
simultaneously. Is it reasonable to expect that we need this other 
information if we are to formulate public policy? Yes. Is it 
reasonable to expect all this information to come from climate 
science? No. Is it, frankly, idiotic to criticise a report for 
providing only the part of the answer that its contributors are both 
well qualified for and asked to answer? Yes.
	Given this straight forward idiocy, I'm disinclined to take 
the rest of their critique seriously. Their major complaint seems to 
be that the IPCC haven't paid enough attention to their field (which 
doesn't surprise me at all, I'd be pretty disinclined to pay 
attention after reading this), so they decided to do a hatchet job. 
There are certainly other parts of what they say that has a similar 
level of stupid (ie the complete absence of any mention of 
straightforward underlying physics when they bag the IPCC for relying 
on regression testing alone).
	We have limited information at this point, not enough to be 
sure of our response. We are still trying to work out what our 
response should be. Climate science can help identify the problem, it 
can't provide everything we need to know to formulate our response. 
Calculating the economic costs of both ignoring the problem, and big 
changes to emissions, is part of the problem - the Stern report is a 
good start, but we've only begun to really seriously look at that 
problem, and to produce good policy, the two processes of 
economically counting the costs, and science formulating strategies 
to deal with the issue, will have to proceed together.

	IMO we have enough information to make it clear that reducing 
CO2 is almost certainly a good idea, but its also fairly likely that 
a realistic level of CO2 reduction will be insufficient by itself to 
deal with the problem.

	Anyway, the forecasters have seriously got the wrong end of 
the stick, and if your representation of their view is accurate, have 
sacrificed much credibility thereby - the IPCC should not be telling 
us what to do (as they criticise it for not doing). It should be 
telling us the problem we are facing, and climate science should be 
only one of many disciplines involved in formulating a policy 
response.

	The issue is that to get the necessary funding and resources 
for disciplines like economics and political science (and yes, the 
forecasters, though hopefully not the same ones you quote) to help 
formulate a global response (not to mention the actual necessary work 
by diplomats etc), requires accepting that the IPCC is most likely 
correct that there IS a problem and we need to look at what our 
response should be. The denialist lobby has fought long and hard to 
attack that basic conclusion, and finally appear to be in retreat.

	Regards
		David