Re: Christopher Booker: "2008 Was The Year Man-Made Global Warming Was Disproved"
- From: James Beck <jdbeck11209@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 02 Jan 2009 21:25:57 -0500
On Thu, 1 Jan 2009 20:31:47 +0000 (UTC), Paul J Gans <gans@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
James Beck <jdbeck11209@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Wed, 31 Dec 2008 14:23:49 -0600, Robert Grumbine
<bobg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
In article <o6ednRHHoNGWOMfUnZ2dnUVZ_v7inZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxxx>, Renia wrote:
Robert Grumbine wrote:
In article <2_Wdnen0zcMRG8fUnZ2dnUVZ_gsAAAAA@xxxxxxxxxxxx>, Renia wrote:
Raymond O'Hara wrote:
"Renia" <renia@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:Fb6dncUtvdpkfMXUnZ2dnUVZ_hydnZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I didn't say man doesn't affect the environment. Of course he does. I justhow stupid are you.
don't believe man can affect the way planetary systems work. Man isn't
that important. He's a flea in the scheme of things.
the whole point is if we don't change we'll destroy ourselves.
okay, we understand you don't care about that but the rest of us do.
Planetary systems isn't the same as the earth's own environment. Sure,
man is trashing earth and its wildlife with free-range plastic bags and
more rubbish than is needed to build islands off Dubai.
But that's not what I mean at all. I mean I don't think silly little man
is powerful enough to affect earth's weather systems.
What scientific evidence lead you to that conclusion?
Man himself.
"Because Renia said so" isn't a scientific argument, or
scientific evidence.
On the other hand... climate modelling isn't *quite* science in the
same sense that most people studied it in school, either. Nor are
warmer temperatures evidence that the global warming assertion is
true, per se. The global warming assertion is also not experimentally
falsifiable in the expected way.
If I visit a seminar, I will hear a fair amount of metaphysics and see
a good deal of epistemological hand-waving about some opinions being
better than others, but at base the 'results' of climate models will
always be consistent with their assumptions. Assumptions aren't
*science* either, though some are better than others. 'Consistent
with' makes climate *science* sound more like sociology or economics
than like physics.
At the end of every day, there is exactly one history of earth's
climate of which we've been keeping track for only a very short time.
Statistical inference is never at its best with a sample size of one.
[...]
This is a very common problem in many sciences. There is only
one geologic history and only one evolutionary history, not
to mention only one astronomical history. Yet these are
accepted as "sciences" without quibbles.
Perhaps, but with different reservations in each case. We don't, for
example, see a great many predictions of what, say, rhesus monkeys
will evolve into, or for that matter that any particular organism,
will evolve at all. Evolutionary biologists are *very* circumspect
about their predictions. Likewise, cosmologists exercise a good deal
of caution in 'predicting' both the early moments of the universe and
its end.
At first glance, geology probably strikes people as unassailable, but
the earliest prediction that we would run out of oil (by1878) was made
by a geologist in 1874. I'm sure you're aware that it's not just oil,
either. There is plenty of bad science, junk modeling and crappy
software in hydrology, volcanology and seismology, etc. too.
However, if I have to build something important, I am *still* going to
talk to geologists and engineers. More to the engineers of course.
They both tend to be arrogant and condescending, but the engineers are
more likely to build a survivable solution, IME, even if the extra
factors of safety significantly increase the cost. Regardless, I would
prefer not to build on the wrong sort of porous flow-through media.
Even so, I expect that we will all be crossing our fingers together
(I'm told that that helps, too).
I did a longish post a couple of days ago on all this. It
may not have made it out because even the usual sources haven't
complained about it.
One of the points I made is that opponents of global warming
have to explain why things such as the increase carbon dioxide
concentration in the atmosphere will NOT increase temperature.
Why is that difficult? A number of mechanisms have been proposed in
which warming triggers (sometimes catastrophic) cooling, so one
rational question might be: Increased temperature over what time
period? Turning Earth into a Venusian desert is generally bad, but
being a couple of degrees warmer in a future ice age may be good.
Likewise, warming isn't necessarily bad for everyone. It's been good
for population growth so far.
Not to mention that there are 'climate scientists' out there
recommending that we actually *pay* the Chinese to burn more coal,
presumably to stop the next ice age, or the myriad claims about the
'predicted' evolution of the system, allegedly based on climate models
that weren't set up to make such predictions, at all. Eventually,
people notice that there is a difference between 'science' and 'based
on scientific principles,' between 'is' and 'seems consistent with.'
That has nothing to do with the assumptions in atmospheric
modelling. It has primarily to do with basic physics.
Baloney Sandwich. Basic physics gives rise to devilish complexity and
any policy recommendations stemming from predictions about global
warming are heavily dependent on the order that events are assumed to
occur.
And by the way, our climate models are not so much hampered
by lack of understanding the basic science (though there is
some of that) as they are by our inability to do the complex
computations needed to arrive at answers.
I'm sure the non-quants in the group will find that information very
helpful. They might also be interested in knowing how long it might
take to get a definitive answer. I've heard estimates as high as 10^34
years of supercomputer time to estimate a reasonably 'complete'
climate model of say, 5,000,000 factors. Long before we are *that*
certain, a meteor will hit us, or a major volcano will erupt. Who
knows? Maybe a cloud of thawing Siberian (or Canadian) methane will
explode. It would be even more unfortunate if, by that time Natural
Selection has transformed man into a gaseous, methane-based lifeform
that thinks Prometheus got off easy.
It's a red-herring anyway. Most of the information is captured by
simple models. Besides, it's not the basic conclusions that attract
the red flags in any event. It's the house of cards built on top of
them.
.
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