Global Warming

[Diamond]

Science uses mathematics and modelling, as does engineering. The recent tour of the solar system by a space craft was entirelly planned and modelled before it even left the earth, and it was known exactly where it would land, five years later. The models are using well known physics, and have made predictions that can be tested. Eg, South Atlantic hurricanes, the Atlantic Ocean multi decadal ossilation.

Questions:

1. The models that enabled spacecraft to tour the solar system had Newtonian assumptions only. Deviations from those assumptions were dealt with by in-flight programming. No chaos theory was involved. Now what is that got to do with predictions of a loosely coupled chaotic system like the Earth's climate? (If your answer is anything other than "none" then please show your working)

2. How many South Atlantic hurricanes have there been and which climate model predicted a South Atlantic hurricane (ie made the prediction well before the event), bearing in mind that climate models do not contain any weather in them?

3. The North Atlantic Oscillation is a natural phenomenon strongly correlated to the solar cycle. What this has to do with man-made global warming?

 

[Geckko]

The models are using well known physics, and have made predictions that can be tested. Eg, South Atlantic hurricanes, the Atlantic Ocean multi decadal ossilation.

That seems to one of the issues the signatories to that letter seem to have. It seems the predictions when tested fail.

 

[a_unique_person]

Evidence?

 

[Geckko]

Evidence?

Did you leave a smiley off that post?

The evidence that the signatories believe that current climate models fail to accurately predict real life is the fact that they wrote that in the letter.

 

[a_unique_person]

Sorry, missed the link. None of them appear to deny the basic science behind the theory. Obervational evidence appears to confirm the models are on the right track, IIRC. I would like to know why they believe otherwise first.

For example, as warming would predict, weather patterns are moving south (or north, depending on your hemisphere). That has been observered. South Atlantic hurricanes have been predicted, and observed. The AMO Atlantic multi decadal occilation was predicted by models, and, on looking back at past records, observed.

Informed debate is welcome, of course, but if a scientist finds the scientific method leads him to a certain conclusion, this is what he will say. The peer review process is pretty tough.

Climate change in Australia is a real concern, it means that all majory cities and many country towns are suddenly seriously short of water. Rising seas would wipe out many of the worlds biggest cities. Dykes could be built, but then all the ports have to be rebuilt. As New Orleans demonstrated, the maintenance would be problematic. Species would be wiped out in many areas, because where they formerly could just move North or South as needed, now huge cities block their way.

 

[a_unique_person]

5. The Kyoto Protocol, even if fully participated by everybody, would make a reduction in the modelled rise of 0.07C. Medical thermometers for humans have a bigger error than that, never mind the Earth's atmosphere! What a waste of resources!

This is where you lose me completely, as you have been told numerous times why Kyoto is only trying to achieve that much change. You have been told, so there is no point telling you again, except to note that you are being wilfully pig headed.

 

[a_unique_person]

This statement makes me question the bona fides of the signatories to that letter.

We believe the Canadian public and government decision-makers need and deserve to hear the whole story concerning this very complex issue. It was only 30 years ago that many of today's global-warming alarmists were telling us that the world was in the midst of a global-cooling catastrophe. But the science continued to evolve, and still does, even though so many choose to ignore it when it does not fit with predetermined political agendas.

It is a mendacious, wilfully misleading statement about the event. Scientists investigated an interesting idea, the press made a bit of fuss about the issue, it was investigated, and found to be not occurring. The whole issue was over in a few years. Global warming as an issue has been around for about 20 years, and isn't going away. More and more science confirms it as fact.

Also, don't look at the list of signatories too closely. If they would let a well known crackpot like Dr. Art Robinson, founder, Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, Cave Junction, Ore. on their list, then they have rocks in their heads. The OISM is a basically a one man right wing wacko survivalist cult. He is the publisher of the http://www.oism.org/oism/s32p31.htm OISM petition, that has been discredited numerous times.

His statement "The global warming hypothesis has failed every relevant experimental test. It lives on only in the dreams of anti-technologists and population reduction advocates. The United States is very close to adopting an international agreement that would ration the use of energy and of technologies that depend upon coal, oil, and natural gas and some other organic compounds." is simply wrong. Everyone agrees the world is warming, just about, so one of the most basic premises of global warming is correct.

 

[varwoche]

I haven't posted a "litany of falsehoods" but you have demonstrated that you're not going to let a few inconvenient facts get in the way of your religious beliefs.

Note that I haven't stated my beliefs. This is just another example of you knee-jerking to a conclusion.

Here's a brief summary of your false/misleading statements:

Unfortunately most of what you linked to has been debunked in the last 5 years.

Empty words, seeing as the only refuting evidence you've cited consists of:
1) An op-ed piece (not peer reviewed of course)
2) Analysis performed by non-scientists M&M -- an oil industry businessman and an associate professor of economics -- that has in turn been refuted, and even if correct M&M refute only one of the twenty citations.

I'll pick a few because I can't be bothered going through them all

Yet even though you can't bother going through them, you have no problem proclaiming them debunked.

It has made a claim that Antarctica is warming (or at least the atmosphere has), but uses weasel words to describe the effects as
"The rapid surface warming of the Antarctic Peninsula and the enhanced global warming signal over the whole continent shows the complexity of climate change," Turner says. "Greenhouse gases could be having a bigger impact in Antarctica than across the rest of the world and we don't understand why."

Weasel words? Besides that this is an awfully shallow critique, it reminds me of ID proponents who dismiss evolution based on gaps in scientific knowledge.

Oh I 'm terribly sorry I thought you were going to admit that Steve McIntyre is not a "fossil fuel salesman". Silly me.

Besides that this is diversionary, a forum search will reveal that you fabricated this quote. Fabricating quotes is the epitome of intellectual dishonesty and only diminishes your argument (such that it is).

I am not replying to the substance though readers are welcome to view the documentation I posted here.

a study that had yet to be written, let alone peer-reviewed, let alone published.

Patent falsehood.

And Ammann and Wahl's reply was rejected by Geophysical Research Letters (this was the second time of asking).

Thank you for pointing this out. It is my understanding that it is still in process but nonetheless it is a valid point.

Here's a link to a peer-reviewed refutation of M&M.

Speaking of peer review, where does this leave the op-ed piece you cited?
____________

And while on the subject of M&M, bearing in mind that they (claim to) refute only one of the twenty cited sources, here is some additional (non peer reviewed) information for readers to consider:

Here it is documented how McKitrick confused degrees with radians, the type of inane mistake an associate economics professor is apt to make when delving into a topic area where he is clueless.

And here McKitrick acknowledges that he converted missing readings to readings of zero degrees, including in areas of the world where it never reaches zero, invalidating a particular analysis.
____________

(I was going to summarize your unsupported statements except they are too copious.)

 

[Jimbo07]

Oh no...

Remember what I said about the proposed alternatives being to 'do nothing?'

Read it and weep:

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNe.../environment_cuts_060413/20060413?hub=SciTech

Let's hope these really are just preliminary documents, and that any formal statement is ultimately less disastrous.

 

[a_unique_person]

Cutting funding on research? Ignorance is bliss.

 

[lenny]

I would just like to throw this into the mix and see what people think about it:URL="http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/story.html?id=3711460e-bd5a-475d-a6be-4db87559d605"]Sixty scientists call on Harper to revisit the science of global warming[/URL]

this is an interesting letter, but was its aim to inform or to motivate:

While the confident pronouncements of scientifically unqualified environmental groups may provide for sensational headlines, they are no basis for mature policy formulation

recent headlines state that Prof Sir David King, the UK government's chief scientist announced a 3 degree increase in global mean temp; i do not really know what he means by that, but he hardly comes from a "scientifically unqualified environmental group".

If, back in the mid-1990s, we knew what we know today about climate, Kyoto would almost certainly not exist, because we would have concluded it was not necessary.

this is perhaps a give-away; while there is a sense in which our knowledge of the uncertainties have increased, our confidence in the basic science that lead to Kyoto (and 16 years of obs since!) has neither decreased nor changed direction. so this statement seems simply false. it would be interesting to see how they would argue for it.
the next IPCC report just went out for its second expert review (and first government review) last week; King has seen this, and although no one is allowed to cite or reference it, it seems unlikely that he would have walked further out on the climate limb if, in fact, it indicated "Kyoto" was "not necessary".

permitted to hear from experts on both sides of the debate in the climate-science community.

this should set off alarm bells. all arguments for "both sides" are suspect: argue your scientific case. this is esp if they use true statements which mislead; for example:

there is no "consensus" among climate scientists about the relative importance of the various causes of global climate change

which may well be true, but note the "relative":

suppose you are on an urgent errand driving at high speed in total darkness; everyone in the car agrees that you cannot see any trees. there is some dispute about the relative risk of trees, rivers, and other speeding vehicles without lights. so what?
what does this detail have to do with the discussion as to whether we should slow down while fumbling for the light switch? or changing the fuses?

there is no simple answer here. it would be painful to slow down, the errand truly is urgent; but to present to situation as clear cut (either way) is to mis-represent the situation. that is no excuse for inaction.

our current models do not represent expected feedbacks, that is no reason to assume our models are over-estimating impacts, they may well be underestimating impacts! all difficult decisions are made under uncertainty, and given the current information we may choose not to act, but there is no case for failing to act merely because of the uncertainty itself.

 

[chipotle]

And in turn M&M were refuted here and here.

As you and Diamond noted, the Amman and Wahl comment on M&M was rejected by Geophysics Review Letters. Another A&W paper submitted to Climatic Change includes a substantial vindication of M&M. The validation R2 statistics calculated in A&W's replication of MBH were very low, indicating a weak relationship.

The A&W paper rejected by GRL is actually sited by the CC paper to develop the significance test for the RE statistic. The RE stat that has to be used because the R2 is so low. I would feel more comfortable if it was a statistician writing about significance tests and when to use them rather than a domain expert as it comes off as special pleading.

 

[kalen]

Alright, I have a question about global warming. I want to know if it is fact as serious as all the environmentalist people keep saying it is. Listening to all of it makes me skeptical, it sounds like a lot of alarmist ********.

However, truthfully I've never really studied it, and I'm afraid if I do a google search I'll just end up reading environmentalist websites that will be far from unbiased on the issue.

So I am asking, is it really that serious? Is the Earth warming up? I'm wondering if it is as doomday as they say it is, or is my gut feeling right that there is really nothing to worry about, or at this point there is not enough known to be sure about it.

Without looking at any other posts, I will say that global warming is a reality. Blame whoever, but things are changing climate-wise.

 

[Godmode]

Do we really need the spectre of global warming to convince people that polluting the environment is a bad idea???

THANKYOU!!!
I've been saying this all along. Whether or not global warming is caused or increased by humans is almost a non-issue. Surely we can all agree it's better to live someplace where the air smells clean, the water is safe, and we don't have to worry about increased health problems from pollution??
It's about living in a better environment. As in... a better LIVING ENVIRONMENT.

 

[chipotle]

THANKYOU!!!
I've been saying this all along. Whether or not global warming is caused or increased by humans is almost a non-issue. Surely we can all agree it's better to live someplace where the air smells clean, the water is safe, and we don't have to worry about increased health problems from pollution??
It's about living in a better environment. As in... a better LIVING ENVIRONMENT.

What does pollution have to do with global warming? The main GW policy debate is over curtailing CO2, which is at historically low levels in the atmosphere and is not harmful (even beneficial) to plants or animals at concentrations much higher than today. CO2 is not pollution unless
a - it's responsible for global warming and
b - that's a bad thing.

 

[Jimbo07]

What does pollution have to do with global warming? The main GW policy debate is over curtailing CO2, which is at historically low levels in the atmosphere and is not harmful (even beneficial) to plants or animals at concentrations much higher than today. CO2 is not pollution unless
a - it's responsible for global warming and
b - that's a bad thing.

c - CO2 is emitted alongside other pollutants (CO, NOx, etc.), and solutions aimed at clearing one affect the others, sometimes in inverse ways (adding oxygenates to a fuel would create less CO, in favour of CO2 (due to more complete combustion), for example).

Often, solutions aimed at solving particular issues like energy consumption, ground level ozone, etc. have secondary effects, good or bad, on CO2. What we consistently fail to see from Climate Change opponents is any willingness to address (in anything other than a hand-waving way) any other environmental concerns. The government here wants to shift focus from Global Warming (citing poor science ) to pollution... well, what exactly are they proposing to do about pollution, then? It's a verbal smokescreen to do nothing.

 

[varwoche]

I've been saying this all along. Whether or not global warming is caused or increased by humans is almost a non-issue. Surely we can all agree it's better to live someplace where the air smells clean, the water is safe, and we don't have to worry about increased health problems from pollution??

I disagree. If it's caused by humans then it's more likely that humans can do something about it, whereas there's not much that can be done about solar storm cycles (for instance).

 

[Deus Ex Machina]

Q6. If you don't accept global (human induced) climate change, at least accept that regionally, desertification continues in Africa. They have a right to be concerned about the next growing season!

Well yeah desertification continues but what is the connection with global warming? Sam Bingham, who a proponent of Savory's Holistic Land management, has been out to Mali and Burkina Faso several times to advise on grazing practices which, according to Savory's theories, are the main cause of desertification.

 

[a_unique_person]

Spain is experiencing the same problem. The deserts are heading north, too.

 

[ungoliant]

the thing global warming reminds me of is Y2k.

the sky is falling!

so much has happened to humanity and here we are. at one time there were around a thousand or less people. and here we are.

i'm not worried.