Moderated Global Warming Discussion

[CapelDodger]

'Scuse me? Of course thermometers interact with the thing they measure. Thermometers interact with air just as much as they interact with a roasted turkey. Mobile molecules in the medium imnpart energy to molecules in the glass and in turn to the mercury or alcohol in the tube.
Again, you appear to be a reflexive critic.

Again you appear not to understand what you said (which is, I'll agree, understandable). You said that the presence of CO₂ affects the way thermometers interact with the air. It doesn't. Your exact words were "That's not how CO2 affects the relation between sunlight and shaded thermometers in open air".

It may be that you're confusing temperature with thermometer. They are quite different things. The presence of more or less CO₂ in the atmosphere does affect temperature but not thermometers.

 

[aleCcowaN]

Here's another example: the switch from 24 chromosome pairs in apes to 23 chromosome pairs in humans. For the gross mutation to survive even one generation, some mutant male had to reproduce with a mutant female (i.e., a sibling). That is, a large change occurred in one leap. Unusual, but not impossible, obviously. It happened.

Who told you that chromosome 2 couldn't attract chromosomes 2A and 2B to the right places in the beginning (besides all the different ways of heterozygocity)?

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

...The presence of more or less CO₂ in the atmosphere does affect temperature but not thermometers.

CO₂ => air temperature => mercury (in thermometer) temperature. We are not disputing facts here, only the meaning of "affects".

 

[Acleron]

No. He said he didn't understand the details of the models.No, for reasons we have already discussed. Some people in this forum asserted that the AGW conclusion follows from "basic physics", and Dyson is certainly expert in basic physics and much more. Furthermore, if Dyson observes that the models make questionable assumptions (i.e., as "parameters", not variables) about the strength of various feedbacks, then the details of how the computation proceeds are irrelevant. That's my impression of Dyson's position. He further maintains that various sequestration methods would be less disruptive than the wrenching dislocations involved in emission reduction. Again, that's my impression of Dyson's position.

It's been fun, but I have work to do. Thanks.

Dyson states quite clearly that he does not know the technical facts. Your impression is flawed.

 

[CapelDodger]

I find it saddening, to think that someone presumably went through the hard, continuous-learning-and-humiliation process you mention, and yet still managed to come out with a big ego. That so much arrogance could even still be there... almost as if those lessons never stuck.

One plausible conclusion is that Dyson's ego is, and always was, utterly impervious to anything (including self-doubt). "Narcissist" might be an appropriate term, but I'm no psychologist.

I suspect someone deliberately lured him into the denier cult just as McIntyre seems to have ensnared Curry, and Uri Geller spied Brian Josephson's value in the Twilight Zone. Or not, whatever. The tell-all insider revelations of life inside the climate denial bunker are probably a decade or more away.

 

[CapelDodger]

CO₂ => air temperature => mercury (in thermometer) temperature. We are not disputing facts here, only the meaning of "affects".

Well there are two schools of thought on that. On the one hand there's your meaning, and on the other there's everybody else's.

"That's not how CO2 affects the relation between sunlight and shaded thermometers in open air" is pure gabbleflab. If your meaning is that more or less CO₂ in the atmosphere affects the temperature you can just say so. That's the greenhouse effect put to bed then : it's real, and you accept that. This is progress in mutual understanding.

OK, onwards to the Sun.

 

[CapelDodger]

Your point is well made, but I'm not sure that it will ever be eliminated. We don't find competition in the physical arena obnoxious, the sometimes brutal demonstration of physical superiority is often appreciated. But somehow, we find the same traits in the mental sphere distasteful.

Sorry to hear that, but I'm afraid it's in my nature. I was never a sporty boy, you see, so I took to the intellectual arena as well. Where I got beaten up horribly on occasion as the price of improvement .

I've met some very bright people who are extremely arrogant, but it didn't affect their judgement. Often I felt the arrogance was an expression of impatience and frustration. The points they were making were obvious to them but required detailed explanations to others.

Perhaps more frustrating is the way others often tell them "No, no, you're wrong there, this guy up the pub, knows all about this stuff, says it's against the Second Formula of thermo-whatsits, and stands to reason, dunnit?".

 

[Acleron]

I wrote:...I was aware that Chinese observers had seen sunspots some time ago. I was not aware it was 800 BC. That's (roughly) 280 sunspot cycles, if records are complete. They are not.

So hundreds become thousands.

I'd be interested if anyone can cite a study that relates sunspot cycles or solar flux to chemical signatures in rocks or ice cores.Note the passive voice. Where do I make any assertion about evolution that you dispute? As to "evolution is not directional or quick": this depends. Consider the evolution of antibiotic resistance. Certainly it's both directional (in the sense of "predictable") and quick. Here's another example: the switch from 24 chromosome pairs in apes to 23 chromosome pairs in humans. For the gross mutation to survive even one generation, some mutant male had to reproduce with a mutant female (i.e., a sibling). That is, a large change occurred in one leap. Unusual, but not impossible, obviously. It happened.

You have had a reference to the solar radiation and ice cores.

You asserted that oceanic sequestering organisms would evolve to take up more CO2.

Evolution is not directed. Even in the example you have produced, the mechanism of antibiotic resistance is not the same in all species. All you have is that the organisms that have survived are the organisms that have survived. If the acidity of the oceans becomes a limiting factor there is no direction predicted by the ToE in forming a mechanism that will cope. About the best you can do is predict that the simplest mutation that increases survival rate will probably be the most likely. As I suggested, they may equally survive by ditching the CO2 sequestration. But then again they may not survive.

What makes you think that chromosome fusion means large changes? All the same genes will initially be present.

Chromosome fusion recipients have to meet somebody with the same fusion to be fertile?

I'd give up on biology and evolution if I were you.

 

[CapelDodger]

Who told you that chromosome 2 couldn't attract chromosomes 2A and 2B to the right places in the beginning (besides all the different ways of heterozygocity)?

It obviously did because here we are, and we're hardly the only example of speciation by chromosome count. Incest would not be obligatory.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

Dyson states quite clearly that he does not know the technical facts.

"Facts"? No. "Details". He rendered judgment on the models anyway. That implies (to me at least) that he considers those details to pale in significance compared to wild assumptions about feedbacks.

Your impression is flawed.

Crushing.

 

[Reality Check]

He rendered judgment on the models anyway.

So now you agree with us and Dyson .
Dyson rendered judgment on the models from a stance of ignorance about the models!
Dyson in an interview by Yale Environment 360

On March 3, The New York Times Magazine created a major flap in the climate-change community by running a cover story on the theoretical physicist Freeman Dyson that focused largely on his views of human-induced global warming.

Basically, he doesn’t buy it. The climate models used to forecast what will happen as we continue to pump CO2 into the atmosphere are unreliable, Dyson claims, and so, therefore, are the projections.
...
I don’t claim to be an expert. I never did. I simply find that a lot of these claims that experts are making are absurd. Not that I know better, but I know a few things.

And the NYT interview: The Civil Heretic

So what reasons does Dyson list to show that climate models are unreliable? None other than his personal opinion !
And repeating climate change myths, e.g. CO2 is plant food

The effects of enhanced CO2 on terrestrial plants are variable and complex and dependent on numerous factors

Basically ignoring these other factors makes the argument invalid.

What do climate scientists publish about the reliability of climate models? A lot and backed up by actual evidence instead of gut feeling and ignorance !
How reliable are climate models?

While there are uncertainties with climate models, they successfully reproduce the past and have made predictions that have been subsequently confirmed by observations.
...
Predicting/projecting the future
... Nevertheless, the major forcings that drive climate are well understood. In 1988, James Hansen projected future temperature trends (Hansen 1988). Those initial projections show good agreement with subsequent observations (Hansen 2006).
...
When Mount Pinatubo erupted in 1991, it provided an opportunity to test how successfully models could predict the climate response to the sulfate aerosols injected into the atmosphere. The models accurately forecasted the subsequent global cooling of about 0.5 °C soon after the eruption. Furthermore, the radiative, water vapor and dynamical feedbacks included in the models were also quantitatively verified (Hansen 2007).

Uncertainties in future projections
A common misconception is that climate models are biased towards exaggerating the effects from CO2. It bears mentioning that uncertainty can go either way. In fact, in a climate system with net positive feedback, uncertainty is skewed more towards a stronger climate response (Roe 2007). For this reason, many of the IPCC predictions have subsequently been shown to underestimate the climate response.
...
Similarly, summertime melting of Arctic sea-ice has accelerated far beyond the expectations of climate models.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

Chromosome fusion recipients have to meet somebody with the same fusion to be fertile?

Not inevitably. In general, an unpaired chromosome is bad news (uncovered recessive genes). Horses and donkeys produce offspring, but these are infertile. If there's no problem with an unpaired chromosome, why didn't that unpaired chromosome survive? Where are the people with 47 chromosomes? Of course, it had to have happened that some ancestors lived to reproduce with a 23 chromosome gamete from one parent and a 24 chromosome from the other. The mated pairs that had matching numbers seem to have had an advantage over pairs with different chromosome number, and the proto-humans with 23 pairs appear to have had an advantage over their contemporaries with 24 pairs.

But that is by the way. Sometimes significant change happens rapidly. That's the point.

This relates also the the extinction rate. If the adaptation that a gene pool makes to changing conditions (say, from browsing to grazing, or from amphibious to fully marine) is sufficiently slow, the death rate (per unit time) at the level of the individual (plant or animal) need not be unusually high. Species "go extinct" when they disappear, even if normal numbers of individual members of the species left descendants that survive today. Eohippus (hyracotherium) is extinct. This is probably why people who write about "extinction events" count lost genera and not lost lost species.

 

[Acleron]

"Facts"? No. "Details". He rendered judgment on the models anyway. That implies (to me at least) that he considers those details to pale in significance compared to wild assumptions about feedbacks. Crushing.

Facts, as you appear to have forgotten Dyson's actual words.

Quote:
Freeman Dyson: It’s difficult to say, “Yes” or “No.” It was reasonably accurate on details, because they did send a fact-checker. So I was able to correct the worst mistakes. But what I could not correct was the general emphasis of the thing. He had his agenda. Obviously he wanted to write a piece about global warming and I was just the instrument for that, and I am not so much interested in global warming. He portrayed me as sort of obsessed with the subject, which I am definitely not. To me it is a very small part of my life. I don’t claim to be an expert. I never did. I simply find that a lot of these claims that experts are making are absurd. Not that I know better, but I know a few things. My objections to the global warming propaganda are not so much over the technical facts, about which I do not know much, but it’s rather against the way those people behave and the kind of intolerance to criticism that a lot of them have. I think that’s what upsets me.

Facts not details. So your thesis that climate scientists are wrong is based on comments, not even a paper, from an individual who admits he is not an expert and states he doesn't even know the facts. Wow, a truly solid foundation you have there.

Not inevitably. In general, an unpaired chromosome is bad news (uncovered recessive genes). Horses and donkeys produce offspring, but these are infertile. If there's no problem with an unpaired chromosome, why didn't that unpaired chromosome survive? Where are the people with 47 chromosomes? Of course, it had to have happened that some ancestors lived to reproduce with a 23 chromosome gamete from one parent and a 24 chromosome from the other. The mated pairs that had matching numbers seem to have had an advantage over pairs with different chromosome number, and the proto-humans with 23 pairs appear to have had an advantage over their contemporaries with 24 pairs.

First off not all horse-donkey matings are infertile. But there is a difference between mating with a fusion individual and a different species with a different chromosome count. You might begin to understand the difference if you answer the next question.

What makes you think that there are unpaired chromosomes after mating of a fusion event?

But that is by the way. Sometimes significant change happens rapidly. That's the point.

Lenski's experiments with E. coli showed a single significant change over 50,000 generations and these only required 2 changes in the genome. More changes simply means change to the phenotype is slower. But no predictions of the rate can be made in advance without knowing the precise genome changes required. You have no idea in which direction evolution would go in response the the increase in CO2 so you have no idea what the rate will be. Considering the catastrophe facing us to place your faith in some unfounded speculation appears complacent to say the very least.

This relates also the the extinction rate. If the adaptation that a gene pool makes to changing conditions (say, from browsing to grazing, or from amphibious to fully marine) is sufficiently slow, the death rate (per unit time) at the level of the individual (plant or animal) need not be unusually high. Species "go extinct" when they disappear, even if normal numbers of individual members of the species left descendants that survive today. Eohippus (hyracotherium) is extinct. This is probably why people who write about "extinction events" count lost genera and not lost lost species.

What does this have to do with the fast changes occurring today?

 

[bit_pattern]

I'm sure everyone here probably look at SkS these days but thought this was worth sharing:

Otto and Donat Weigh in on Human Contributions to Extreme Heat

In Hansen's New Climate Dice - Hot, Loaded, and Misunderstood, we examined Hansen et al. (2012), which investigated how human-caused global warming has shifted temperature distributions and made extreme heat events more likely to occur. In that post, we also briefly looked at two complementary papers, Donat and Alexander 2012 (DA12) and Otto et al. (2012). Like Hansen's paper, DA12 examined changing temperature distributions, while Otto et al. examined whether the 2010 extreme Russian heat wave could be attributed to human influences. In this post we will examine these two papers in greater depth.

 

[lomiller]

"Facts"? No. "Details". He rendered judgment on the models anyway. That implies (to me at least) that he considers those details to pale in significance compared to wild assumptions about feedbacks.

What it should imply to you is that his opinion on climate models is uninformed and therefor of little value to the conversation.

Crushing.

Indeed

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

Facts, as you appear to have forgotten Dyson's actual words...Facts not details. So your thesis that climate scientists are wrong is based on comments, not even a paper, from an individual who admits he is not an expert and states he doesn't even know the1 facts. Wow, a truly solid foundation you have there...
First off not all horse-donkey matings are infertile.² But there is a difference between mating with a fusion individual and a different species with a different chromosome count. You might begin to understand the difference if you answer the next question...What makes you think that there are unpaired chromosomes after mating of a fusion event?³
Lenski's experiments with E. coli showed a single significant change over 50,000 generations and these only required 2 changes in the genome. More changes simply means change to the phenotype is slower. But no predictions of the rate can be made in advance without knowing the precise genome changes required. You have no idea in which direction evolution would go in response the the increase in CO2 so you have no idea what the rate will be. Considering the catastrophe facing us⁴ to place your faith in some unfounded speculation appears complacent to say the very least.
What does this have to do with the fast changes occurring today?

1. The problem here is "the" facts. Dyson certainly understands many facts about basic physics (and more). If a cursory glance at the models indicates that the modelers assign the status of "parameter" to values like the strength of physical (clouds) feedback or biological feedback (natural sequestration), he sensibly would not bother with "technical facts".
2. They routinely yield offspring, mules. Mules are routinely infertile.
3. The article I read on the genesis of the reduction of chromosome number from apes to humans.
4. Whether a catastrophe faces us is the subject of our larger argument.

 

[aleCcowaN]

With today's acknowledgement of a new Arctic sea ice extent record low of 3.41 million of square kilometres (3.396 according to other sources) and Arctic sea ice being the poster boy of AGW, the whole subject is in the limelight again and much press exposition will come with all its mistakes, misinterpretations and also the expected tantrums of the usual suspects. For instance, we have this press article mainly around the opinions of Peter Wadhams. I suggest start making critical review of these articles without waiting for the cacophony of sirens to post about it first.

For instance, how little ice is "ice-free" and how expectable is a year with much ice following an "ice-free Summer".

 

[aleCcowaN]

<snip1>
3. The article I read on the genesis of the reduction of chromosome number from apes to humans.
<snip2>

Then, read a better article or read better the article. About chromosomes 2 and 2a/2b, you are considering that every mismatch ends up necessarily in a translocation.

<snip1> Dyson's motivations are irrelevant to the subject at hand
<snip2> It doesn't matter that you say we don't pose a climatic risk to you, as you pose a climatic risk to us.

 

[Acleron]

1. The problem here is "the" facts. Dyson certainly understands many facts about basic physics (and more). If a cursory glance at the models indicates that the modelers assign the status of "parameter" to values like the strength of physical (clouds) feedback or biological feedback (natural sequestration), he sensibly would not bother with "technical facts".

Which does not change the fact that Dyson states quite clearly he doesn't know the facts about the technical aspects of climate science. Therefore his ability to comment on the sensitivity of a model is similarly deficient. And again, if that is all you have to rely on then you haven't anything at all.

2. They routinely yield offspring, mules. Mules are routinely infertile.

If by changing your quote from 'are infertile' to 'are routinely infertile' and if you mean routinely to equate to usually then fair enough. However fertile offspring of horses and donkeys have been observed.

3. The article I read on the genesis of the reduction of chromosome number from apes to humans.

Get a better book then. Your comments sounded straight out of a creationist
misunderstanding of evolution.

4. Whether a catastrophe faces us is the subject of our larger argument.

It's not our argument, it's yours. The science is well founded, the predictions are being fulfilled. But we still have denialists telling us that temperature isn't rising, that the hockey stick is an artifact, that some guy's opinion, who can't even be bothered to examine the facts, somehow is more important than all the scientists who have extensively worked in the area, that undirected evolution will take care of the problem or most laughable of all that some colossal conspiracy of all the climate scientists from all the different countries involved are making it all up for the quite miserable research grants.

And here is all the evidence for those denialist claims

ETA Sorry aleCcowaN you got there first

 

[Reality Check]

4. Whether a catastrophe faces us is the subject of our larger argument.

What the science says is that there will be large negative impacts and some positive impacts of global warming. A "catastrophe" happens at about 4°C increase: Positives and negatives of global warming

The consequences of climate change become increasingly bad after each additional degree of warming, with the consequences of 2°C being quite damaging and the consequences of 4°C being potentially catastrophic.

So the argument is not whether there will be a catastrophe because given a large enough temperature increase there will be a catastrophe!
The result is that if we continue as is then there will be a catastrophe. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions can aviod the catastrophe. Whether that will happen is more politics than science.