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Arkane posted:Great quote from him: "Consensus science is not science. This consensus stuff is about politics. That's why I said, for example, run [the climate model] out for 10 years, and let's see them show [it working]. If your model is good for 100 years, let's see it run for 10." Sadly he passed away before that point. Having studied science in college I have an issue with this statement. I too used to think that the consensus provides no value as there is always a truth. What does it matter what most people think when you can just be right? The classic anecdote would be Galileo and the Earth revolving around the sun rather than vice-versa. However, after actually studying and working in the field, reading primary literature, understanding the way data is evaluated... I am firmly now in the other camp. Consensus is a big part of what matters in science. A topic like climate change has countless factors that have an impact. For one individual to fully evaluate the sum evidence and make a conclusion or develop a model is unfeasible. Thus, one scientist/group puts out data detailing impacts of current climate on coastal marine environments while another details nitrogen limitation of net primary productivity in terrestrial ecosystems. Now multiply that by 1000's. Only when the consensus of all those data are considered can one determine the net effect of an issue as large as climate change. The same goes for evolution. The consensus provides great value in evaluating evidence for that (ridiculously) controversial topic. There are more independent, repeatable, verifiable, predictive lines of evidence than for just about anything else in science. The consensus of all that evidence thus provides a strong argument for its veracity. There is no silver bullet for topics like these. Thus, the value of a consensus must be weighed.
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May 11, 2014 20:26
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Cya Earth. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/13/s...0088400000&_r=1quote:The finding, which had been feared by some scientists for decades, means that a rise in global sea level of at least 10 feet may now be inevitable. The rise may continue to be relatively slow for at least the next century or so, the scientists said, but sometime after that it will probably speed up so sharply as to become a crisis.
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May 12, 2014 23:57
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You know, I was kind of sort of proud of myself for going to that Reject and Protect rally thing on the National Mall, but now it seems like things are hosed any way. May as well
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May 13, 2014 00:54
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And the deniers will say "see, there's nothing we can do now, might as well party while we can!" and their strategy of deliberate obfuscation and delay will finally have paid off.
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May 13, 2014 01:25
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The article says that we're not likely to see anything drastic till the next century so I doubt anyone in the thread will be affected by it.
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May 13, 2014 01:30
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shrike82 posted:The article says that we're not likely to see anything drastic till the next century so I doubt anyone in the thread will be affected by it. edit: is it 2 miles per gallon that's really bad I can't remember your funny measurements
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May 13, 2014 01:32
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A 10 foot rise in sea level is bad, but I fully expect that we will have committed to worse before we finally rein ourselves in. It is hardly the end of the world.
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May 13, 2014 01:35
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Lead out in cuffs posted:A 10 foot rise in sea level is bad, but I fully expect that we will have committed to worse before we finally rein ourselves in. What isn't? The West Antarctic Ice Sheet collapse, or anthropogenic climate change in general?
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May 13, 2014 01:37
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That story is really a perfect example of how science can be distorted to alarm. And it isn't necessarily the fault of the reader, because the omission of key facts (that makes the story far less dramatic) preys on ignorance. Revkin has a good primer on this. First of all, as already pointed out, it will take hundreds of years. The paper in question predicts that the collapse could begin in 200 years when the contribution of sea level rise from WAIS could be as high as .04 inches per year. As pointed out by the authors, there are physical limitations on how fast the massive ice sheets can melt (that stretch these processes out for very long periods of time). Secondly, the authors have reasoned that the primary cause is a natural upwelling of warmer water (that MAY have been due to contributions from winds that may have been affected by human climate change), among other factors. Finally, it is focused on WAIS specifically, but the much larger and unmentioned EAIS is gaining ice mass quite rapidly as we see from the GRACE satellite. And that gain is accelerating. On balance, the continent IS losing ice mass at a rate of 1 inch of sea level rise per century, with slight acceleration. This is known and has been known for a few years via satellite measurements. The acceleration of WAIS ice mass loss is partially offset by the acceleration in EAIS ice mass gain. To add to that, the loss of ice mass is an incredibly slow process. Antartica melting is not something that is plausible on any timescale of importance to humans.
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May 13, 2014 03:14
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Inglonias posted:What isn't? The West Antarctic Ice Sheet collapse, or anthropogenic climate change in general? Yes.
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May 13, 2014 03:16
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Hitch posted:Having studied science in college I have an issue with this statement. I too used to think that the consensus provides no value as there is always a truth. What does it matter what most people think when you can just be right? The classic anecdote would be Galileo and the Earth revolving around the sun rather than vice-versa. However, after actually studying and working in the field, reading primary literature, understanding the way data is evaluated... I am firmly now in the other camp. Consensus is a big part of what matters in science. I don't think there is a problem with assigning much of what we know about climate change to a consensus, and I agree with much of what you say here. We can reasonably assume, based on quite a lot of evidence and a wide breadth of evidence, that humans impacted the globe in numerous ways during the 20th century, temperature being one (through GHGs). Where the application of consensus is misleading (and where Michael Crichton had a big problem with it) is when applied to what is projected to happen in the future. The climate model projections are based on assumptions, everything from economic assumptions to technological assumptions to albedo assumptions to land change assumptions to cloud assumptions to carbon emission assumptions etc. etc. etc. etc. As another for instance, all of the climate models forecast that changes in clouds will be a positive feedback on climate. Every single one. Yet, this is a known unknown, pointed out by the IPCC and very recently by NCAR. We do not understand enough about clouds to make an accurate prediction one way or the other; I have seen studies claiming a positive feedback and studies claiming a negative feedback (saw one claiming a negative feedback earlier this week). So that type of unanimity in favor of one rather than the other should lead one to question the degree to which a balanced picture on future possibilities is being painted. Secondly, and in line with the previous comment, most of the climate models assume high sensitivity. That is to say, an amplification in warming of each molecule of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (in contrast to the fact that each new molecule of CO2 in and of itself has an ever-diminishing warming effect). This is another unknown known, something that we are essentially testing on the fly (and sensitivity approximations dropped between AR4 and AR5, and based on recent papers, have dropped further still). Finally, there is the recent brouhaha over the ocean becoming a heat sink for what appears to be large amounts of energy. It is certainly plausible that this could be a natural reaction of the planet to increased atmospheric warming, and it is certainly something that the climate models do not take into account. All of this is to say that the climate models are about as far from consensus as it comes, yet are frequently alluded to with an air of conviction as if their predictions were scientific inevitabilities. And if nothing else, one should look at the recent temperature data and at least be SKEPTICAL of the climate models ability to forecast the future given their performance so far. I also think the application of consensus towards our understanding of temperature prior to records (i.e. 0AD to 1850 AD) is another area where the application of consensus is misapplied because the field essentially recycles the same two data sets over and over with each "new" study. But that's a different debate, and I am rambling at this point. Arkane fucked around with this message at 03:37 on May 13, 2014 |
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May 13, 2014 03:35
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Arkane posted:Michael Crichton, very well educated guy, was investigating climate change for a book and found the climate models to be incredibly lacking. Great quote from him: "Consensus science is not science. This consensus stuff is about politics. Science requires consensus: Mathematics is logical because it allows deductions to be made because it is solely involved with axioms and identities. You can have a formal mathematical proof as a result. Science is not logical because its conclusions require inductive leaps - typically inferring causation or generalising observations from the past to the future. These are not logical, but for reasons of sanity scientists short circuit logical defects with eg Occams Razor and Hume's Fork to allow generalised conclusions. Given that the belief in the conclusion is based on application of these short cuts, and not logical deductions, scientific consensus has always been part of the scientific method. ie Theorisation and the failure of falsification (proof is not a part of the scientific method) lead to the formation of new scientific consensus. It is interesting though that this consensus part is political in its nature - one example of the politics was when Newton made some comment re light being a particle around which scientific consensus was formed (because Newton was Newton), locking out those who were investigating its wave-like properties. Arkane posted:Nate Silver, a well-respected statistics guy, wrote a chapter about climate change in his recent book, looking at climate models, and found them to be lacking. He hired Roger Pielke Jr. for 538, which was a big middle finger to alarmists. Nate's argument summarised here: http://www.skepticalscience.com/nate-silver-climate-chapter-review.html It is that correlation is not causation without physical connection. If you want to site Silver, then site his conclusion that: "Uncertainty is actually a reason to reduce greenhouse gas emissions because the worst climate scenarios cannot be ruled out." Silver also supports the basic tenants of the IPCC report stating that "The Greenhouse effect is not rocket science". The issue that Nate Silver addresses is that climate models are too complex to provide short reliable short term modelling results. This unreliability is based on the noise in their parameters. This is a feature of all models adopting uncertain data - the longer the term of the prediction the more data that is added to the model, the more averaging out and the more accurate the prediction. The interesting thing is if you correlate (a) predictions being different with actuals with (b) the model is broken; you still need to bring the physical connection. In the analysis in the link attached there is no physical connection: the difference is explained by (a) old models having outdated sensitivity variables and (b) revised emission scenarios - ie the level of emissions has not grown as fast models predicted because people actually took heed of the models and politicians took steps to cut emissions. ie the difference between old model predictions and observed data is explained in the form of input variables being wrong not that the models are broken. This no doubt formed part of Silver's overall recommendation - ie take notice and act. Hypation fucked around with this message at 04:09 on May 13, 2014 |
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May 13, 2014 03:45
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How the gently caress do you people even read arkane's posts
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May 13, 2014 03:51
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zapffe vapen posted:Hi Arkane. Here's the salient part of my post. Confidence intervals don't have anything to do with what I was talking about. I gave a random year (2025 for a round number), and a model mean figure of ~.52C. ~.52C is the modeled mean or just about, regardless of the CI. Obviously there is +/- there, but that wasn't the point, and it's implicit in the tilde in mathematical terms that I am making an approximation. The question was a thought experiment on the reaction to 25 years of bad modeling. As a for instance, .15C in 2025 versus .52C for the models. Or if you want to think about it another way, .15C in 2020-2029 versus .52C for 2020-2029. The time frame is beside the point. The questioned was geared towards sussing out when a white flag would be raised on the failings of the otherwise infallible climate models. I would hope that it would come many years before that, as soon as perhaps right now. Someone responded that ".3-.7C warmer in the 2016-2035 window" was what the IPCC claimed, as if that was different than what I said but it was not. They didn't put any CIs either, which was fine, because I knew that it was implicit. The models are noisy:  But you can derive information from the difference between the observations and the modeled mean to test the models for fidelity. Especially when your observations and expected results are going in different directions. If you want to make some argument about climate, please feel free. I am not going to engage you anymore with your minutia bullshit that is geared more towards your invisible (& imaginary) grandstand of lookie loos. A "gotcha" on CIs, which is perhaps something you just made up on the spot to find something wrong with the post, is just sad.
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May 13, 2014 04:03
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JAY ZERO SUM GAME posted:How the gently caress do you people even read arkane's posts One must do one's duty where one can. That and if I didn't I'd probably post on AusPol and get banned again. As well as it being easy to spot the errors. Hypation fucked around with this message at 04:52 on May 13, 2014 |
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May 13, 2014 04:07
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I like how Arkane happens to choose a chart that plots temperatures relative to the mean temperatures between 1986 and 2005, so as to make the 201x temperatures conveniently close to 0, when most other charts actually show the temperature changes relative to the 1950-1980 means. Granted, both choices are implicitly "biased" in their own way (using an earlier mean is necessarily going to show a larger, baked-in, climb when the period up to 2000 didn't feature the climatic shifts we're seeing now), but at least taking a mean over the range 1950-1980 and plotting back to the 40s/50s acknowledges that global warming isn't some "crazy idea that just suddenly started in the year 2000."
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May 13, 2014 04:37
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CSM posted:"I made up some numbers, you can do so too."  Punch the numbers into here boss; they'll be exactly the same as what I posted: http://www.skepticalscience.com/trend.php Maybe they're in on it. Elotana posted:No, that's absolutely what he's saying. At first I thought your interpretation was what he was arguing too, which is why I posted the UAH trendline screenshot in the original argument that chased him off for a while. But the post I quote below makes it absolutely clear that what he's arguing is even more breathtakingly stupid. He's incrementing all the "missing" increases from the depressed period and saying that Rahmstorf's methodology is a failure because, when the factors return to neutral, the observations do not jump all the way back to where they would have been as if the 15 years of flat trend had never taken place. I'll bold the part that makes this clear. You're right that that is exactly what I am saying, although chasing me from the thread is pretty lol. I do things like work and travel! I read your post right before I responded. Anyway, you're really thinking you're right on this when you are in fact wrong. The models are, to put it very simply, predicting how much additional heat will be trapped in our atmosphere by carbon dioxide (and other GHGs). A radiative imbalance in favor of warming. We're in agreement, yeah? The argument put forth by Rahmstorf is that short-term fluctuations in primarily ENSO can drown out our ability to notice this radiative imbalance predicted by the models. Plausible! BUT, in the absence of an ENSO that depresses temperatures via cooler oceans, in the absence of a solar depression, and in the absence of sulfates from volcanoes, the exact same amount of warmth should still be trapped in the atmosphere in accordance with the models, unaffected by those countervailing (or contributing) forces (all things being equal). The model predicts the "normal" mean state outside of natural variations; it predicts the excess heat that has been trapped via GHG absorption of OLRs. There would be no lag or catch-up in those numbers, because the OLR is trapped and radiated back at an every increasing rate (with ever increasing GHGs). It is definitely not me who is misunderstanding how climate models work. Also, the implication is not that Rahmstorf's methodology is a failure, but that his methodology applied to the past three years would likely have temperatures much higher than they are. And you would see that his "fix" doesn't really address much of anything. And also I will remind you again (although I dropped the argument earlier to engage you) is that all of these factors are already in the climate models. The climate models are able to hindcast with accuracy, and hindcasting involves ENSO fluctuations, volcanoes, and solar variations. The idea that they suddenly need corrections is along the lines of the Romney Unskew.
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May 13, 2014 05:04
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ComradeCosmobot posted:I like how Arkane happens to choose a chart that plots temperatures relative to the mean temperatures between 1986 and 2005, so as to make the 201x temperatures conveniently close to 0, when most other charts actually show the temperature changes relative to the 1950-1980 means. Also interestingly it shows that all models plus actual point to higher temperatures - it shows a rising trend over the longer term of the graph. Arkane posted:Where the application of consensus is misleading (and where Michael Crichton had a big problem with it) is when applied to what is projected to happen in the future. [Cut] This post is basically sensible, wrong but not worthy of 9/11 trutherism nutcase status wrong. The issue that data analysts and Bayesian statisticians and scientists have to work out all the time is precisely the issue of how to form a consensus view when everyone has a different understanding of the future. You are right to say there is no consensus provided that your definition of consensus requires scientists to make the same short and long term calls. This means presenting an argument to the effect of: "Since scientists don't agree among themselves as to the precise results of climate change over the short and long term there is no consensus" This kind of argument is what I take issue with. If 5 guys give answers that are: 3, 4, 4, 5, 6; then you have a consensus that the range is between 3 and 6. Notwithstanding this consensus each individual would be saying they are right and others wrong. Climate scientists are like that too - there is commonality between them and it is easy to see their consensus viewpoint - particularly when examining predictions further into the future. This notwithstanding, each model and each scientist may criticize others while defending their work against attacks. This is all to say that you can divergent views and disagreements as to the degree of change but still end up with a common consensus. Hypation fucked around with this message at 05:23 on May 13, 2014 |
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May 13, 2014 05:10
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You know, this thread is a goldmine for lurkers that really don't understand any of the math involved in the subject, especially when you guys break it down into tiny lumps. But sometimes it feels a bit all take and no give, and that makes me feel guilty. Now someone's finally brought up something lowbrow enough that I can comment on it: Arkane, mentioning Michael Crichton in tones of anything other than point-and-laugh is ludicrous, even merely as 'someone who is smart and shares my opinion' rather than an informed expert. Specifically citing Michael Crichton's opinions on science with approval and admiration goes beyond ludicrous and into farcical; the man was a compulsive contrarian that largely produced airport fiction in ~300 page chunks by picking random science buzzwords and writing the same story over and over ('what if scientists MISUSE THIS SCIENCE?!'), with the odd digression into such diverse subjects as the double standard where predatory women accuse men of rape and get away with it, how the evil that is Japanese business culture will definitely threaten the US and why this must be stopped, and 10th-century Viking fanfic where Beowulf kills Neandertals (putting that bachelor's of biological anthropology to good work). The book in which he expressed his views on global warming, which you seem to approve of, was lambasted widely as uninformed propaganda by basically everyone with any specialist knowledge of the subject and most specifically by the very researchers he 'cited' for it, who said he was deliberately distorting their results. This information is not hard to find, in fact, it's the opposite of hard to find in that it's right there on Wikipedia, practically infested with citations. Speaking of Wikipedia, also easily findable there is this fun bit of trivia on one of Crichton's more erudite defenses of climate denialism: quote:In 2006, Crichton clashed with journalist Michael Crowley, a senior editor of the liberal magazine The New Republic. In March 2006, Crowley wrote a strongly critical review of State of Fear, focusing on Crichton's stance on global warming.[79] In the same year, Crichton published the novel Next, which contains a minor character named "Mick Crowley", who is a Yale graduate and a Washington D.C.based political columnist. The character was portrayed as a child molester with a small penis.[80] The character does not appear elsewhere in the book*.[80] The real Crowley, also a Yale graduate, alleged that by including a similarly named character Crichton had libeled him.[81] Based on his debate techniques as illustrated here, Michael Crichton was clearly a Arkane posted:very well educated guy And I can tell he's smart because his argument for trusting him involved calling my GP a needle-dicked child molester. (Seriously though, someone criticizes your sources and you namedrop Michael Crichton as credible? You'd have been better off with Stephenie Meyer) Drakyn fucked around with this message at 15:01 on May 13, 2014 |
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May 13, 2014 05:48
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Arkane posted:There would be no lag or catch-up in those numbers, because the OLR is trapped and radiated back at an every increasing rate (with ever increasing GHGs). 
Elotana fucked around with this message at 08:37 on May 13, 2014 |
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May 13, 2014 07:55
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Arkane posted:Confidence intervals don't have anything to do with what I was talking about. Arkane posted:I gave a random year (2025 for a round number), and a model mean figure of ~.52C. Arkane posted:But .15C in 2025 would be 70% lower than the IPCC's climate models (temperature is supposed to be ~.52C warmer at 2025...remember we're almost at almost 0C right now). Arkane posted:Someone responded that ".3-.7C warmer in the 2016-2035 window" was what the IPCC claimed, as if that was different than what I said but it was not. They didn't put any CIs either, which was fine, because I knew that it was implicit. IPCC posted:The projected change in global mean surface air temperature will likelybe in the range 0.3 to 0.7°C (medium confidence). Arkane posted:But you can derive information from the difference between the observations and the modeled mean to test the models for fidelity. Especially when your observations and expected results are going in different directions. zapffe vapen fucked around with this message at 10:48 on May 13, 2014 |
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May 13, 2014 10:45
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With news that West Antarctic Glacier Loss Appears Unstoppable the response from some quarters has been unfortunately predictable. From Forbes quote:If Antarctic Melting Has Passed The Point Of No Return We Should Do Less About Climate Change, Not More As I understand it the complete melting and sea rise is still a ways off, so there's some amount time to at least prepare for some aspects of the inevitable consequences, but to do nothing at all? Won't that just lead to more inevitable consequences beyond the one mentioned in the article? Where's the economist's thinking about trying to head off those costs?
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May 13, 2014 15:32
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Rip Testes posted:With news that West Antarctic Glacier Loss Appears Unstoppable the response from some quarters has been unfortunately predictable. Yes, the collapse of WAIS is unstoppable, but that doesn't mean we've lost quite yet. It just means things will become a little more hosed up. Using this as an excuse to do nothing is like justifying not changing one's diet because the doctor says your current eating habits have a 75% chance of causing type-2 diabetes in the next two years. You wouldn't exactly be at the peak of health one way or the other no matter what you do, but you would probably want to change those habits, yeah? That's pretty much where we are. Our changes won't fix climate change completely (barring a miracle) and so we're left with doing the best we can with what we have. Things can always get worse on this front if we don't act.
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May 13, 2014 15:43
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Rip Testes posted:As I understand it the complete melting and sea rise is still a ways off, so there's some amount time to at least prepare for some aspects of the inevitable consequences, but to do nothing at all? Won't that just lead to more inevitable consequences beyond the one mentioned in the article? Where's the economist's thinking about trying to head off those costs? Who lines your pockets for thinking about that?
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May 13, 2014 15:43
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Rip Testes posted:As I understand it the complete melting and sea rise is still a ways off, so there's some amount time to at least prepare for some aspects of the inevitable consequences, but to do nothing at all? Won't that just lead to more inevitable consequences beyond the one mentioned in the article? Where's the economist's thinking about trying to head off those costs? The response to climate change is proof that the current method of industry is a sham. Businesses are waiting for climate change legislation to come down, but voluntarily doing something about it is completely against their fiduciary responsibilities in the short term. If energy legislation can't come from on high (as I understand it, America just hosed that one up again today or yesterday while lucking into nixing Keystone XL), then short of a technological marvel it's not likely we can even defeat the ancillary effects of climate change before sea level rise becomes an issue. I was reading some apiarist warnings about how bees in Canada have suffered over the winter, and how the unreasonable swings in temperature were affecting the population. This is just one of the things we have to be worried about.
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May 13, 2014 15:46
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Rip Testes posted:As I understand it the complete melting and sea rise is still a ways off, so there's some amount time to at least prepare for some aspects of the inevitable consequences, but to do nothing at all? Won't that just lead to more inevitable consequences beyond the one mentioned in the article? Where's the economist's thinking about trying to head off those costs? It's like surrendering in a battle because you broke a nail.
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May 13, 2014 16:01
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They say it's essentially unstoppable, but that doesn't mean it can't be slowed to some extent. Or sped up. Those colossal dumb fucks.
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May 13, 2014 16:34
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I feel it might be important to recognize when someone looks like they are arguing about the science, but it is not actually the case. Arkane has a political view prior to the science. He is very invested in that view for whatever personal reasons he has not chosen to share. He is arguing for that and dresses it up as an argument about the science. Because that is his reality he also thinks everyone else is also doing the same thing. In order to maintain his point of view it is necessary for him to imagine that the massively peer reviewed findings are the result of a complex political and financial conspiracy, which he has said up thread. He must delete or distort findings that fall outside of the range of support for his previously held belief. It is this sort of thing that is the actual basis for his arguments and conclusions, not the science. Remembering this alters his arguments a great deal. In his world how does he account for the massive gap, or how he is related to in a thread like this? He must make attributions about anyone with whom he is talking that disqualifies them from the conversation in so far as their view does not allow him to maintain his previously held world view. This extends to findings in general. From his own point of view it will not seem to him that he is actively doing this in order to keep that world view in tact. Instead it will seem self evident to him that the weight of consensus is misinformed or corrupt and that anyone else persuaded in any way is stupid, deluded or part of the conspiracy he vividly imagines taking place. His posts are useful because this is very transparent with him and that is not always the case.
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May 13, 2014 17:23
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ComradeCosmobot posted:I like how Arkane happens to choose a chart that plots temperatures relative to the mean temperatures between 1986 and 2005, so as to make the 201x temperatures conveniently close to 0, when most other charts actually show the temperature changes relative to the 1950-1980 means. I like how he quoted Michael Crichton, a loony republican these days, who's only famous for writing a few decent fiction novels 30 years ago. efb by that nice effortpost. got any sevens fucked around with this message at 17:52 on May 13, 2014 |
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May 13, 2014 17:48
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Rip Testes posted:With news that West Antarctic Glacier Loss Appears Unstoppable the response from some quarters has been unfortunately predictable. OP: "Help! HELP! I'm stuck in a well!!!" Goons1-4: "Climb! Climb up and take our hands!" OP: "I'm thinking I should dig... should I dig?" Goon5: "NO! I was trapped in a well, and digging is a bad idea! Climb out!" Goons6-8: "We're lowering ropes! Take hold of a rope!" Goon9: "I've even tied a harness to the end of this one!" OP: "I can feel the ropes, but I don't want to hold onto them... should I dig?" Goon10: "No! If you dig, you'll hit water, and then you'll be proper hosed. I should know, I almost drowned." OP: "I dug a little bit just now, and I haven't hit water. I'm gonna keep digging..." Goons11-18: "No! Climb! Climb out!" OP: "Guys, I'm seriously stuck in this well! Help! HELP!!!" Sogol: "I was trapped in a well once. It took me two years, but I managed to build a climbing machine that pulled me to safety out of a well bucket and a pocket watch. I'm dropping the blueprints, extra buckets, and an assortment of pocket watches." Goon20: "I've engineered a jet-pack that will rocket you to safety. Stay where you are and we'll lower it down!"" OP: "Thanks for your help, guys. I'm gonna keep digging. I'll find the Mines of Moria and I'll just walk to the surface." **Goons1-20 piss in the well** Goon21: "Guys, seriously... stop peeing in the well.""
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May 13, 2014 22:49
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I don't understand Goon21
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May 13, 2014 22:52
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effectual posted:I like how he quoted Michael Crichton, a loony republican these days, who's only famous for writing a few decent fiction novels 30 years ago. Crichton is dead.
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May 14, 2014 00:30
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Drakyn posted:The book in which he expressed his views on global warming, which you seem to approve of, was lambasted widely as uninformed propaganda by basically everyone with any specialist knowledge of the subject and most specifically by the very researchers he 'cited' for it, who said he was deliberately distorting their results. This is also an accurate description of the portion of Nate Silver's book where he expresses his views on global warming.
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May 14, 2014 02:12
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Crichton's book was chock full of denialist tropes that were hoary even in 2004, like "all scientists agreed on global cooling in the 1970s" and slagging Hansen's 1988 models based on "Scenario A" exclusively. I'd accord his thoughts on climate change less than zero weight.
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May 14, 2014 02:42
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quote:Meteorologist Lennart Bengtsson has long been considered a cool head in the often heated conflict over global warming. In an interview, he defends his decision to join an organization that is skeptical of climate change. Is Lennart Bengtsson important or something? Some 'skeptic' groups are touting this as a 'major win'
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May 14, 2014 06:55
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pillsburysoldier posted:Is Lennart Bengtsson important or something? Some 'skeptic' groups are touting this as a 'major win' You could dismiss this casually with a 'any +1 they get at this stage is a major win' comment. But Bengtsson has a point in making his criticisms. Input sensitivies are too high in the models to account for actual results (fair point re early models) and you guys are crazy when you take modelled outcomes and map it to extreme short term secondary effects (eg fires, large increase in sea levels etc) because the data does not support those scenarios with a strong degree of confidence. quote:I am immensely concerned by the overemphasis on climate model taxonomy, whereby scientists write papers analyzing the output of the IPCC climate model simulations, and infer future catastrophic impacts, and it seems far too easy for this kind of research to get published in Nature and Science. In the meantime, the really hard research problems are all but ignored, such as fundamental research into ocean heat transfer, multi-phase atmospheric thermodynamics, synchronized chaos in the coupled atmosphere/ocean system, etc. Not to mention the more manageable problems such as careful consideration of the attribution of climate variability during the period 1850-1970. Hopefully the ‘pause’ will stimulate research into natural internal variability of climate; He is also upset with the level of politicisation and the tarring of the 'us' vs 'them' that goes on. quote:However, because of the strong public interest we are now facing a dilemma as the public and the political community have become too much involved in the climate change debate influencing the actual science and this not necessarily in a positive way as it implies an arbitrary selection of priorities and preferential issues. http://judithcurry.com/2013/05/13/lennart-bengtsson-on-global-climate-change/
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May 14, 2014 07:13
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Lennart Bengtsson posted:I do not believe it makes sense for our generation to believe or pretend that we can solve the problems of the future. Seems like he gave up.
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May 14, 2014 07:20
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petrol blue posted:OP: "Help! HELP! I'm stuck in a well!!!" Every time I see this someone has added on an extra bit that manages to make it less funny. Tanreall posted:http://www.thegwpf.org/climate-change-debate-a-famous-scientist-becomes-a-skeptic/ Isn't that the group Nigel Lawson set up? He was in the news a bunch a while back pushing a really flimsy lukewarmer position. It was kind of sad really he mostly just embarrassed himself in debates with actual scientists.
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May 14, 2014 08:11
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The New Black posted:Isn't that the group Nigel Lawson set up? He was in the news a bunch a while back pushing a really flimsy lukewarmer position. It was kind of sad really he mostly just embarrassed himself in debates with actual scientists. So is Lennart Bengtsson unqualified, being paid or senile?
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May 14, 2014 09:59
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Illuminti posted:So is Lennart Bengtsson unqualified, being paid or senile? I'd say pissed off - he has a particular legitimate issue with some of the climate groups and went against them. This issue seems to be over the politicisation of science plus making tenuous / unsupportable secondary conclusions from the results of climate models.
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May 14, 2014 10:17
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