Climate change wankers
G'day barley,
I think the reason scientists get cranky is because you often see apparently skeptical people making mistakes in their read of science, but declaring that they're right and the scientists are wrong based on their own mistake. They fail to apply their alleged skepticism to their own thinking.
A clear example is with sheepdog and the map from NOAA. He's convinced NOAA has made a mistake about the winter in Vic based on that map. They clearly haven't made a mistake, and a clear reading of the accompanying notes for the map shows that, but he's still convinced that they're wrong about the winter just gone.
Watching a blogger make an obvious error in their logic or even a simple misunderstanding of the science, and then declare with absolute certainty that they know better than the science community and then go further and fail to apply the degree of skepticism they demand to their own thinking when their mistake is pointed out to them, is funny and boring. I'm not just referring to sheepdog here, it's been happening for ever.
Skepticism is absolutely brilliant, but the funny thing is you won't find someone more skeptical than a scientist and you won't find someone less skeptical than a blogger who thinks they're right and the scientists are wrong. The irony is fucken painful, ridiculous and kind of funny too in a dark way.
Remember the first person who actually picks apart the science on this, if the science community is indeed wrong about climate change, will get a Nobel prize. The science community don't go beserk when something is actually picked apart properly, they celebrate.
Sadly no internet blogger has managed to achieve that yet.
"Skepticism is absolutely brilliant, but the funny thing is you won't find someone more skeptical than a scientist and you won't find someone less skeptical than a blogger who thinks they're right and the scientists are wrong. The irony is fucken painful, ridiculous and kind of funny too in a dark way."
Couldn't have been put better!
"@Benski you've just proved how any person on either side of any debate and especially relevant to climate science can gather or manipulate information to benefit their argument."
No I haven't.
"One is colder than average and one is warmer than average. Who is more right or who is more relevant or both?"
As I said, both are right and both are relevant. One is colder than the average of the past 40 years and the other is warmer than the average of the past 130 years. They're both developed to show something different, one how the year looks compared to the very recent past and the other to the slightly more distant past. They weren't designed to be looked at together, they were made by separate agencies for different purposes. But neither one shows the other is wrong or irrelevant.
What I have shown is that you've got to look closely at what you're reading before jumping to the conclusion about something. You wonder why people don't trust the science....clearly they can but it's their own responsibility to know what they're looking at before jumping at a shadow that isn't there. Someone jumping to a conclusion based on a misunderstanding is the fault of the person not the science.
Either way its kinda water off a ducks back to me..its not me that you guys have to convince.
Do you think the current outcomes being put foward are achievable?
Will it stop the world from warming or the climate changing?
I suspect the answer for the latter would be no?
Blowin wrote:Sheepdog....don't follow your comments with emoticons.
It diminishes the impact of what you have to say.
It's either your opinion or it's not.
Don't tell me how to write.... Who are you? The blog police?
No one has to convince anyone now, that debate closed several years ago. A few with a vested interest and their lackies clamber on but they are really just underlining their irrelevance.
Getting our shit together to do something about it is another issue, but technology is moving very fast now and the driver of pollution being consumption-capitalism is starting to look a little sickly. The next tech boom is in efficiency and shared resources, followed by worker replacement and technological unemployment. Correspondingly, renewable efficiencies are approaching parity and carbon capture - reuse is gaining traction.
A market pricing mechanism for carbon usage externalities would only speed this up.
barley, I'm not interested in the debate about how to reduce emissions. I don't have any expertise in it and haven't looked into it so I don't really have a strong view one way or another. I'd go with the advice of the legitimate experts on it.
Gotta convince the governments mk1..lookout if trump gets in!
If its soo urgent how come noones goin after it?
No money in renewable industries thats the crux of it.
Makes ya wonder when the money value will come back into oil iron ore lots of leases postponed but not lost
"A clear example is with sheepdog and the map from NOAA. He's convinced NOAA has made a mistake about the winter in Vic based on that map."............
Wasn't I just talking about Sydney?????? Pretty sure I was talking about Sydney........
"Benski, I didn't accept your explanation.... The map is wrong... For example, """""SYDNEY""""" is pixelated for the month of July as "MUCH WARMER THAN AVERAGE"...... Now we can play semantics, we can "blame pixels".... or we can accept the fact that the map is inaccurate (which is a polite word for "wrong")...
So lets just look at July, which the NOAA map is about..... Let look at the BOM stats for """"SYDNEY"""" in July... NOAA has """""SYDNEY""""" "MUCH WARMER THAN AVERAGE"..... Not just WARMER than average.......... But BOM has July as the coldest in nearly 30 years... Minimum Temps were BELOW average... Maximum temps were BELOW average....
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/month/nsw/archive/201507.sydney.shtml
So, the NOAA map is midleading, and therefore under BB's plan, NOAA should face the law..... I, however, am far more lenient than BB..... :p"
Stop playing tricks, Benski....
Have you read any of my posts about those maps sheepdog? Or just the first one where I mused about the pixels and different resolutions of the data?
Sydney or Melbourne (which was what prompted your original post last month), my point is the same. You're wrong to say the NOAA map is misleading or wrong. The NOAA map is CORRECT and so is the BOM. If you wanna understand why, read any of the three posts in which I address it.
In order of decreasing detail you can go to the posts dated:
Wednesday, 2 Sep 2015 at 8:52pm
Tuesday, 13 Oct 2015 at 2:28pm
Tuesday, 13 Oct 2015 at 5:02pm
My guess of how a successful climate outcome might arrive
- Market outcome is not unlikely through technology increasing efficiencies x improving renewable tech.
- Re-arrangement of the capitalist model within 15 years resulting in a reduction in competitive, low cost, high return, finance aspiration driven culture.
- Air born carbon recognised as a resource through technology improvements
- Government assisting these technologies be realised
Having said that, economics is a human institution and as such is changeable, by the right ideas at the right time.
Not saying I like the odds but somethings are more important than what their odds say.
"Watching a blogger make an obvious error in their logic or even a simple misunderstanding of the science, and then declare with absolute certainty that they know better than the science community and then go further and fail to apply the degree of skepticism they demand to their own thinking when their mistake is pointed out to them, is funny and boring. I'm not just referring to sheepdog here, it's been happening for ever."
The BOM link I supplied was not for the last 40 years.... It was since records started... 100 years....So I don't have a clue where you got the "last 40 years thing" in your head...
Mean temp stat definition from BOM;
"Mean maximum temperature (°C)
The average daily maximum air temperature, for each month and as an annual statistic, calculated over ALL YEARS OF RECORD."........... http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/cdo/about/definitionstemp.shtml
Now, from the BOM link i provided earlier re' Sydney/July, where I cannot find anything about the stats only being for the last 40 years;
"Temperatures were below average across Sydney during July, with the coolest mean minimum temperatures at Observatory Hill since 2002"...... AND;
"Maximum temperatures were also below average across most of the city, including the coolest July since 1998 at Richmond"... http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/month/nsw/archive/201507.sydney.shtml
So.. To summarize, We have BOM stating that max mean temps are calculated over ALL YEARS OF RECORD..... That's 100 or so years....
And we have BOM stating that "Maximum temperatures were also below average across most of the city" re' Sydney/July......
And we have NOAA releasing a map showing Sydney in the month of July to be MUCH WARMER THAN AVERAGE...... Not wamer than average ..... MUCH warmer than average.......And your argument is that NOAA is using Data from the past 130 years????? Well BOM have been taking records for 100 years.... So that's pretty close, Benski..... And the 30 years previous that NOAA is using, well...... Maybe they got the Sydney temps from Ned Kelly, cos BOM wasn't recording them.....
This is why people are skeptical, benski..... This and "scientists" relying on government money.... Scientists are just people.... They're just like doctors or politicians.... You got good ones, crap ones, dedicated ones, shonky ones....
the earth is flat and spherical, thats the beauty of life as we perceive it.,
it allows us to look at it how u want, which means the whole SELF gets a more informed understanding.
Its all good, but its all still thought, meaning it's it's all made up.
concentrate on IN breathe, let all thoughts flow past like clouds.
put focus on gap in between eyebrows and hear breath, may see blue dancing flame
no matter if dont, put your main interest there , in gap between eyebrows, listen to breath
sleep if u have to, but answer will help u and others.
i have tried all of the above ways, always relativity plays, good and bad, but this way, all ways good.
THe true answers lie within the in breath rather than the maps, thats why they call the in breath INSPIRATION may u hold it close to u at all times, be happy friends, life loves you!!!!!!!.
mk1 wrote:My guess of how a successful climate outcome might arrive
- Market outcome is not unlikely through technology increasing efficiencies x improving renewable tech.
- Re-arrangement of the capitalist model within 15 years resulting in a reduction in competitive, low cost, high return, finance aspiration driven culture.
- Air born carbon recognised as a resource through technology improvements
- Government assisting these technologies be realisedHaving said that, economics is a human institution and as such is changeable, by the right ideas at the right time.
Not saying I like the odds but somethings are more important than what their odds say.
Rearrangement of the capability model within 15 years !.....huh?
What does that entail exactly ?
Besides someone dictating how I should live my life ie a meddling socialist transnational unelected body politic
well dave, turns out its just another mindless Swellnet shit fight ..... strike them Centurion, very roughly
Blowin wrote:mk1 wrote:My guess of how a successful climate outcome might arrive
- Market outcome is not unlikely through technology increasing efficiencies x improving renewable tech.
- Re-arrangement of the capitalist model within 15 years resulting in a reduction in competitive, low cost, high return, finance aspiration driven culture.
- Air born carbon recognised as a resource through technology improvements
- Government assisting these technologies be realisedHaving said that, economics is a human institution and as such is changeable, by the right ideas at the right time.
Not saying I like the odds but somethings are more important than what their odds say.
Rearrangement of the capability model within 15 years !.....huh?
What does that entail exactly ?
Besides someone dictating how I should live my life ie a meddling socialist transnational unelected body politic
You tell me how you want it arranged but its coming either way. We might find that Marx was about a century and half before his time.
floyd wrote:well dave, turns out its just another mindless Swellnet shit fight ..... strike them Centurion, very roughly
now floyd, u have subjected me to some serious philosophocal understandings.
You have made me see that i am not the man i think i am, i no longer have an anxiety disorder about my big nose or my biggus diccus and and feel anxious about any argument room/forum i encounter.
However it is just a flesh wound and i shall soldier on but without humour and dedicate my self one per cent to the seriousness of all discussions/ conclusions. and as such whatever u may throw at me, i shall, always look on the bright side of life> u were singing, dont bullshit me, i could hear u.
Mk1- I want it arranged so that I'm left alone to do what I believe is right if that's ok with the rest of the world.
Fuck communism/ socialism/ collectivist dictatorships.
individualism is over rated ;)
sheepdog, the short answer is, you're still wrong and you're still coming to a conclusion based on a misunderstanding of the data you've got. It's just a different misunderstanding from what I thought before. The long answer as to why, and an explanation of my reference to 40 years, is below.
In your original post you linked two articles about the winters in Sydney and Melbourne compared to the last 26 years. Carpetman then linked data from BOM comparing the recent winter to the past 40-50 years. That's where my 40 year reference came from.
Now today, you've linked through data from the BOM which reference the full years of record. So that's quite different from what got you riled up about the NOAA map in the first place. And I see that as you say, they describe this past July as below the 100 year average (back to 1858 incidentally at one of the Sydney observatories). So, what gives? Surely you've discovered a hole in the NOAA map and it shows we can't trust the science.
Fortunately for the rest of us, you haven't. You're not comparing apples with apples. The BOM data you're referring to is LAND ONLY temperatures The NOAA data you're referring to in the map is a combined LAND AND SEA temperatures. They clearly aren't the same thing. And as craig pointed out, the Sydney pixel is quite likely affected by the ocean temps. So if you want to nail NOAA to the wall, you've got to compare land only temps with land only temps. Otherwise you're doing what I described earlier as making a simple misunderstanding but concluding that you're right and the scientists are wrong.
So what happens when you compare land temps with land temps? You'll find they're consistent (though again compared to a different time period). That is NOAA's land temps map for July 2015 shows south-east Australia as having below average temperature for the month. See for yourself.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/service/global/map-land-sfc-mntp/201507.gif
So I'll say it again, you need to apply the same degree of skepticism to your own conclusions that you seek to apply to the scientists and their findings. Because as this example shows, often it's not the science that can't be trusted, but sometimes it's the judgement of the blogger that can't be trusted.
Wouldnt that rule the data inconclusive if its inaccurate enough for the pixels not to differentiate between land and sea?
Barley, I'd say probably not if the map is a combined land and sea temp map bit I don't know what they're using the data for. Before I dismissed it as inaccurate I'd look into it further and find out what its purpose is and how it was developed. Maybe it's functioning exactly as it's designed, and it's just not a purpose you and I are aware of, or understand yet.
Sheepdog, any thoughts on the map from noaa that I linked above?
benski ,
the problems are far more compex than that NOAA chart shows . If anything its a bad example of what shouldn't be used as dictorial of a message that an organisation is trying to convey to " the masses " .
First problem is that Sydney had the coolest NIGHTS in 26 years , and Melbourne was coolest day time temperatures . Due to land sea interactions you will have totally different effects coming to the fore . And as such they should not have shown the mapped borders beneath .
The next issue is that when it suits who ever in this debate ( Climate Science not Swellnets' debating team ) is that all data is skewed or cherry picked if you like . And this is typical of any debate as ultimately debaters will be trying to sway combatants or none believers .
When one side wants to look at or dispel a cooler anomaly they extend the baseline to include natural temperature rise , as over time population increase along with coming from a mini ice age will do .
And vica versa .......
The two Melbourne and Sydney parallels are fed off the same circumstance , and infact influence each other . And the effect will be completely opposite come this summer time . When both will produce higher than average temps , but most likely more anomalous in the opposite , ie day night .
The resultant will confuse the short term recollection of many and smooth the yearly trend . But thats not going to lend weight to either sides arguments .
And before people start banging on about how the weathers weird and its a flip flop year yada yada .....
Its all normal , HOT Summers and Cold Winters are a natural combination . When and if it all smoothed into one long year season i would worry .
Now who's being pro active and saving their sheckles for an EV .?!
Forget AGW , its the way of the future .
Southey that's not the point here. Sheepdog has been arguing noaa made up data because he found map of combined land and sea data and it conflicted with BOM land only data. He accused noaa of misleading the world and declared you can't trust science. That's quite wrong as he was comparing the wrong data. The map of land only data from noaa, which is the appropriate comparison, matches the BOM data exactly.
The point in this partitxular discussion is one of bloggers making a mistake of interpretation and blaming the science for their error. That speaks to your point though, and highlights my argument that all these so called skeptical bloggers need to apply that skepticism to themselves for a change.
OR everyone could just get pro active , forget the science and do what they can to mitigate .......
here we go again that negative word " mitigate " .......... time to move forward .
The digital age is upon us , so if you don't move with the times you'll get left behind .
Australia at the moment is clearly not the clever country . It disheartens me that the US is leading us in this field . Its time people got proactive and engineered out all these old world problems .
Technology will solve our problems , not putting taxes on gases , or creating another monetary market for fraudsters to operate within . We are all consumers at every level , time to push the next thing in energy .
That's not a discussion I find interesting so I'll leave you to argue that out with others. But I'll never forget about any science as that's the source of the tech that, as you say, will most certainly get us out of this mess.
Benski, I've been flat out, but meaning to get back here..... however, having just read your last few posts, it's probably best we just drop it, because you have now put words in my mouth on multiple occasions... How have put down your "interpretation" of of what I've said... You have minced my words.... You have glossed over my questions in a similar way to Blowin....
**You stated to one and all I was recently referring to Melbourne when i was clearly referring to Sydney.. I gave you the proof I was referring to Sydney.... No "whoops, sorry mate"........ You just marched on after being proven wrong...
** You walk down the semantics line re' 26/40/100/130 years... The reason i investigated it further was because of your initial defence of NOAA... Yes my original links were for short term, but upon more investigation, which is the scientific way, I discovered mean BOM records were for ALL recorded data, therefore throwing your original argument out with the trash... I proved the July sydney data to be compared to all data... It was colder than average.... Plain and simple...... No ifs.... No buts....
** You wrote "Sheepdog has been arguing noaa made up data"...... No I didn't...... I said the map is incorrect...... I didn't say they "made up" the data....
** You write "The NOAA data you're referring to in the map is a combined LAND AND SEA temperatures. They clearly aren't the same thing. And as craig pointed out, the Sydney pixel is quite likely affected by the ocean temps"...... Well that's all well and good..... But the July 2015 average water temp off Sydney was 19.1'.... Woolongong was 18.8'.... Newcastle was 19.2'........ Norfolk Is was 19.5'... Now..... I'm finding it difficult to locate a long term average sea temp for these spots..... But lets hypothetically say the are above average.... The fact is that the whole pixilated land area over NSW and Victoria was WELL below average..... So how a reading of "MUCH warmer that average" was arrived at is absolutely questionable... They should've cancelled eacthother out.....
So Benski, I'll drop it with you.... I'm an agnostic.... I want the truth..... And as Southey said, " a bad example of what shouldn't be used as dictorial of a message that an organisation is trying to convey to " the masses " ........ The map is crap..... And your dogged defence of the indefensible makes a mockery of the scientific practice of "always question", and "science is never settled"....
Scientists are never wrong
You cant blame the science
Sheepdog you compared land only data to combined land and sea data, found a difference and declared it's why people don't trust the science. Compare land only from BOM with land only from noaa and what do you find? No difference. Colder than average winter reported by both agencies. Hope you can see that.
I'm not defending noaa, there's nothing to defend, I'm calling out your misinterpretation. That's all. We should question the science all the time but do it properly. Comparing the data from each agency properly shows there's no problem. This example shows we should also question ourselves when we question the science.
And I'm not putting words in your mouth at all. You did start by asking if and implying that noaa make up their data.
edit: And apologies for not apologising but I didn't think you "proving" that you mentioned Sydney only when you provided links about Sydney and Melbourne was such a big deal. The substantive issue is the data you're referring to so I put in some further investigation, as you said the "scientific way" ;-) and found you were quite right about the time frame of the data No ifs....no buts....(as you'll see I acknowledged). But you were wrong about the comparison, you interpreted the noaa map incorrectly by comparing it to the wrong BOM data...no ifs and no buts. And what do I get, no "whoops sorry mate" as you expect from me, just some rubbish about how the land and sea data should cancel each other out and that you'd like to drop it now. Crikey you're worse than me! ;-)
Sheepdog, since you arrived on this site carrying on about your genuinely impressive forecasting skills (I still remember your early descriptions of the formation of a weather bomb for the sunny coast, you have remarkable understanding of the weather), you would delight in jokingly rubbing it in Ben and Don's face when they were a foot or two out in a forecast and you got it right. You're expecting me to apologise for misreading your post about Sydney and Melbourne, despite you providing links to articles about both cities. And yet, when I prove to you that you're misinterpreting the data as your basis that we can't "trust the science", you carry on about how the land and sea temps should cancel each other out as though you understand the methodology noaa should have used better than them. That's of course a separate issue from your initial misunderstanding (and another kind of debate that would be informed by understanding the model behind the combined data), but I thought you might have said, "whoops sorry mate".
Sorry if I was too harsh mate but don't expect me to go easy on you when you make claims about "the science" when you appear to have made a mistake and it turns out you have made one (just not the one I originally thought ;-) ).
And here in lies the conundrum. The recent blogs argue about the interpretation of the science (rightly or wrongly, take your pick). As Southey states - 'time to push the next thing in energy'. That is where the debate needs to be. If there is truely a critical issue then that's what we need to focus on. Given your statements Benski, it is surprising that you don't have thoughts on the 'next thing in energy'.
Tonybarber, my interest is science because it's what I do (though a different field from climate) and I get fed up with people proclaiming they know the scientists got it wrong or are misleading us when they themselves have made an error of method, obvious or otherwise. Of course we have to critique science, the field itself is about finding out where we currently have it wrong. But the critique has to be logically and methodologically valid.
It's boring correcting people's understanding and I haven't engaged in this kind of forum for years because it's fairly pointless. People who have made up their mind have done so for different reasons and generally aren't interested in understanding if and why they're wrong. But sometimes I have the energy for it. Sheepdog is a smart bloke so I thought he might see the logical gaps in his conclusion despite sharp delivery. Generally when people dismiss the work of scientists without reading the supporting information that explains the chart or map, they make a mistake. It's just a matter of figuring out what that mistake is (and here it took me a couple of rounds but we got there...no ifs no buts ;-))
So that's my interest and why. We need to use science and the public should critique science but the public need to get it right themselves and understand when they get it wrong. Then it works best for everyone.
As for moving on to the next phase, sure that's a necessary discussion but it's hard to convince people to make a change if they don't accept the basis for the change. Most of the world understands this isn't some bullshit conspiracy, but there's just a few grumpy old men holding out, largely in Australia and the US. But the conversation of what we can do to facilitate the change is a political one and one that I don't have the expertise to debate about. I don't know enough about economics or politics to have an opinion I'm prepared to argue about. I have an opinion that we should reduce our emissions but no idea and no strong opinion as to the best way to do that collectively.
nice work there benski, I like to think I'm a grumpy old man who hasn't made his mind up. and while I generally agree with all you say, I don't know how you can have such confidence in the science when it moves around so much. personally my yearning for change has little to do with the climate change argument, so I think if science presented a more holistic argument we might get past arguing about pixals and semantics. so disagree there, there's much more going on that needs to be addressed, but hey I'm in the minority there.
about the science moving around and models. this thread has clearly shown models are for different purposes and can be interpreted differently. surely it would be in the movements interest to have an accepted model that can display day temps or night temps or combined temps, or at least agree on how to display an average. standardisation is rarely a good thing but it seems everyone is tweaking their own models to make any given point, not good for making a cohesive argument.
also I'm not sure how much you've followed this site but way back one of those mick dudes posted a catalyst link that sought to explain why recent year temperatures have plateaued. their explanation was they overlooked incorporating heat storage from the oceans. now I may be wrong but a lot of climate science is still theory, whereas the law of thermodynamics is pretty much accepted as concrete solid. if scientists overlooked putting one of the few bits of science that are widely accepted (law of thermodynamics) into their models that doesn't give me a lot of confidence, especially when we're decades into this argument and the modelling.
this also goes for feedback loops, how micro do you go incorporating feedback loops. as this influences which feedback loops could trigger bigger unforseen events. it is way complicated and one little oversight could mean we don't see that ocean current change or whatever that changes the whole dynamic.
I'm not looking to debate or argue as I appreciate you have pretty well explained what the dog sniffed out. I'm just wondering how you can have such confidence in the models, when many have different purposes, there have been some major oversighrs, what you put in the model can vary outcomes widely, how you display data is often confusing, and there seems to be no standard model or accepted ways of displaying data.
thanks for taking on the tedium
If this is truly 'the great moral, environmental and economic challenge of our age ' then it is up to the scientists to provide the scientific solutions which can then be engineered to solve this challenge. Blaming 'grumpy old men' is naive and negative. For example, I think the royal Commission in SA on energy is a constructive process. Let's see.
nuclear all the way hey tony?
Tones you really are a backwards looking bumpkin. On this and other forums you routinely sing the praises of nuclear and coal and argue against renewables .... and thereby supporting the do nothing argument.
Good work benski, you are showing remarkable tolerance here and I strongly encourage you to continue.
If we could manage nuclear fusion then that argument becomes compelling. Again, if this is truly a 'challenge of our age' then is it not fair to put all the cards on the table ? Sure mankind has made mistakes, major ones at that and not only in the nuclear energy area either hence where do we go from here.
big IF tony
mistakes in other areas don't take hundreds of year's to clean up like a nuclear meltdown, you're gambling with the unknown.
pretty sure those in fukushima have had enough of the US backing nuclear horses on their track
@sypkan, sure the Fukushima incident was bad, still is. But note that Japan has turned on more nuclear plants. I am sure Japan and the nuclear industry in general learnt from that. Note, I am not necessarily a proponent of nuclear although I believe fusion has its attractions. But if again we are at this great 'dilemma' then where to next. that is the challenge. That is why I believe the Labor Premier in SA called for a Royal Commission.
japan reluctantly turned on old nuclear plants that were turned off due to the obvious danger. the japanese people didnt want them turned back on but the government had to because the US made japan dependent on nuclear power with their little post war 120 million people science experiment.
gross profits and an always basket case economy are why SA labor called for a royal commission, desperation in a word, as jay weatheral frantically searches for something to prop up the SA economy now manufacturing and mining are a distant memory.
SA has barely gotten over it's maralinga reputation and has slowly built up a clean green wine and food industry, similar to NZ, along with the high end foodie tourism industry as middle class yuppy types desperately try to differentiate themselve from the lower classes with their supposed food sophistication., we used to call them snobs, yuppues, snobs, whoever they are they bring a lot of money because of a clean green high quality reputation
to make SA the world's nuclear waste dump now would be really silly.
with your positively positive outlook tony I guess one could justify the collateral damage of hiroshima as well as nothing significant, all is sweet because we "learned something"
fuck your world
x2 Tones
G'day sypkan,
Nice post. I don't have confidence that the state of science as it stands today, in any field not just climate, is the final answer. The very nature of the process of figuring stuff out has shown us that it is always under constant refinement. As a result of that, it is built into the scientific process. Actually it defines the scientific process. But, I know there are areas where we have a good enough understanding of things to make some solid conclusions and statements which won't vary too greatly with the refinements and of course there are areas where they will change substantially. My arguments here are about the use of data and how examination and interpretation of data needs to be done right. That's a huge area of research in itself.
Now as for my confidence in climate science, there are things I'm confident about and things I'm not. The basics of climate science, that we have an atmosphere made up of different gases and those gases trap radiation of certain wavelengths on the way back out to space (after coming in from the sun at different wavelengths and bouncing off the earth to head back out), is established. If you like, to use the phrase, that element of the science is settled. That's basic physics, and embodies the laws of thermodynamics. It's so uncontroversial it's been established for a century or more. Without the atmosphere we'd have no greenhouse effect and the earth would be on average -33 degrees cooler or something. I forget exactly but it's something like that. So we'd be cactus without it obviously.
Adding some of those gases to the atmosphere gives that layer more capacity to trap heat. There's data of the wavelengths of radiation getting out to space and the specific wavelength that is absorbed by CO2 is getting trapped at a greater rate (think about it in the context of light under water. Certain wavelengths make it deeper into the water so colours dim the deeper you go. Different gases block different wavelengths of radiation. The radiation comes in at one wavelength (short form memory) and bounces off the earth as the opposite (long wave if I was right about it coming as short wave) and some then gets trapped). So we have observational data that shows the enhancement of the greenhouse effect by the increased CO2 in the atmosphere. This is observed. Nothing theoretical about it. It's under scientific debate of course, as it should, but it's been observed. The core of climate science is physics and there isn't anything hypothetical or theoretical about it. It's a body of scientific theory but that has a different meaning from how lay people use the word theory. The theory summarises the current state of knowledge.
Now, where things spread out is what are the implications of the knowledge we have based on the physics of particles in the atmosphere preventing certain wavelengths of radiation getting out. Where will that heat go. Regarding the heat getting trapped in the oceans, that's clearly an area of ongoing research and refinement. The law of thermodynamics says that the radiation that doesn't make it back out to space will stay here and warm the planet. That's fundamental and obviously understood. The models used to forecast temperatures (the future implications of the trapped radiation), didn't account for the degree to which the oceans would store heat at the depths. That's not because the scientists ignored thermodynamics, rather they didn't know the capacity for the oceans to hold and retain heat. It's understandable they didn't know, since this is the first time we've put so much CO2 in the atmosphere in its current form, and while we've been monitoring.
So they weren't wrong about the heat getting trapped and warming the place (thermodynamics) just inaccurate about where the heat would be stored and how. But it has to be said, no one pretends the forecasts are exact, which is why they forecast a range, of temps depending on the scenario of human development. There are a bunch of future scenarios the international science community have dreamed up based on socio-economics and CO2 emissions. The forecasts are made for each scenario and a range is presented. The range of possible temps because the models are uncertain...by their very nature, they're models.
So I have confidence in the basic physics. And I have enough of an understanding of models to know that they are a mathematical representation of the best understanding we have of the system. That means they include all of the laws of thermodynamics as they apply to the climate system. They are of course a simplification of the world - that's what a model is. But we can build our best knowledge into them and make predictions.
A lot of people get upset about models and refer to climate science as "just modelling", which is an ignorant statement (and I don't say that as an insult) because it misunderstands what a model is. Firstly as i said, it is a mathematical encoding of what we know. Secondly, the climate models they use can only hindcast the observed warming we've seen when they include a CO2 component. So with all the physics we know, when they run the models without increased CO2, the hindcast temperatures don't increase. The models only predict the observed warming when the CO2 element is included. So that gives some confidence in the models, with the caveat that there's more to learn and they can be refined. The science community recognises this and states it all the time. And it's why there is so much research into improving the empirical understanding as the basis for including the models.
So...with all of that said. I will defend science against criticisms based on misunderstandings, misrepresentations or misinterpretations. That's what you see a lot of. The actual scientific debate occurs in journals and it's genuinely ongoing. An example is there are scientists who have said the warming of the oceans will stop the gulf stream leaving western Europe to get much colder. Others have evidence to say that's not likely. It's ongoing and it's occuring live in journals. But you need to understand the technical side to get in on that debate. I don't know the details so I'll wait til that is sorted out before reading the lay summary. But that's where it's going on. I have big confidence that the process of science will get to the bottom of it in time. Whether we know exactly already, I'm not confident.
As for the representation of data and model outputs, sadly this isn't semantics. Or if it is, semantics are extremely important. The analysis of data needs to have a valid basis. If you're comparing a time series of 50 years with a time series of 100 years and declaring them different, that's invalid. It's not semantics to say so, it's just not a valid comparison. The same applies for spatial problems, via pixel sizes.
Unfortunately it's extremely difficult to standardise methods across different agencies and problems. The standardisation that does occur globally is why we see such large pixels on global maps. You can zoom in on a pixel and find more high res local data but they need to standardise spatially to account for sparsely observed areas (like Africa etc), so they go to a coarse spatial resolution. As for methods and data output (land only, land and sea etc), each agency has a different funding source which means a different raison d'etre. That means they approach problems differently. To make an analogy with surfing, it's the same reality of a surfboard shaper in Sydney making use of a different template from one in the Pacific North West. Different conditions needs different approaches to shaping. It's an imperfect analogy but hopefully you see what I mean. It's just a difficult thing for agencies with different terms of reference to aggregate their data to suit the potentially different needs of other agencies in other countries. It's up to us to understand the basis for a piece of work if we're going to criticise it.
Following the surfboard analogy to finish, if someone picked out a 5'10" high performance board shaped by JS and took it out in 2 ft Waikiki and declared JS is a hoax cos the board went shit, it would be hard to take them seriously. My arguments about science amount to this. Compare the science against what it's supposed to be used for and not against something else. Take an old Takayama out to Waikiki and paddle out at Snapper with that JS...then talk about the shapers and their quality, always remembering your own capacity to surf and how the shaper might have designed it for someone who's not an old man with a dodgy knee and a crook shoulder (like myself).
Sorry for the incredibly long post, just tried to download my thoughts on as much of your post as I could.
Benski, great post!
IMO, you've put down the most measured, informed and reasonable post so far on this thread.
Cheers!
That would be because this thread has Fleas . Most posts are wrapped up in vitriol .
yeh nice one benski
thanks for that, I get it
but really? all those oversized brains and we can't even agree on what average means?
I'm being facetious.....no answer required
Verbal diarrhea..must be a scientist?
barley wrote:Verbal diarrhea..must be a scientist?
Can you dumb it down a bit Benski? Looks like you've lost Barley.
I understand it stuey but its just dribble oh and a dig at sheepo
Cheers fellas. Sorry it was too long for you barley. Not sure I can simplify it further so maybe try reading it a couple of times and you might be able to understand it.
I get it benski but what i dont get is if models are just models why are all you guys banging on and altering course of our way of life through inaccurate mathematical encodings?
Its easy when you sit behind a computer all day.
http://principia-scientific.org/supportnews/latest-news/163-new-discover...
Now to all you fruit loops. This is the end to the biggest load bullshit of all time. The government know's it (but still won't say it ), the smart people like me know it. When will you clowns please apologise to me for your un-educated attacks.
To all the man made global warmest alarmist's suck shit losers.
Now go and do something worthwhile fuckwits.