Climate change wankers
What an interesting synoptic that is Sheepdog.
Vegetation down here is drying out in the hotter conditions, then being given 2-3weeks more growth in 24 hour downpours... it just keeps on topping up.
I'd convinced myself we'd see endless hot cloudless days of northerlies, and 2-3ft swell - but maybe that's more for January-February. Have heard fuel loads are seen as similar to summer leading into Ash Wednesday year.
Just a long rambling note on models after batfink’s comment to blindboy.
One thing I would love to dispel is this idea that you can dismiss models as though they’re separate from science and somehow inferior. The fact is, in most cases they are science. You can’t have one without the other. A model is simply the framework within which a scientist makes predictions based on their knowledge. And you’re not doing science if you’re not making a prediction to be tested subsequently. The model can take many forms, mathematical, statistical, conceptual, graphical and probably others.
If you’re a dietician analysing how changing a person’s diet will impact their blood pressure, you make a prediction of the expected outcome from the diet change using a model. If you’re a weather forecaster analysing how likely it is that above median rain will fall in a certain location for a certain period of time, you make a prediction using a model. If you’re a doctor prescribing a certain chemo drug for a certain cancer patient, you make a prediction of the likelihood of success and additional life years gained by the patient, you make a prediction using a model. If you’re an ecologist trying to estimate the impact of a newly arrived invasive species, you make a prediction using a model. Same if you’re a climate scientist predicting the future.
All of those people would use different kinds of models of course, but the point is modelling is inherent to the scientific process and basically always has been. An important point to note here is that a flaw in one model prediction (due potentially to poor understanding of the system, flawed data, random change or any other cause) does not invalidate the predictions of other models. If they did, you’d be mad to get that chemo treatment for cancer because the weather forecaster got it wrong last week. But fortunately for us, they’re separate things.
The differentiation among model types, scientific disciplines, and outcomes is very relevant in the present discussion given the common conflation of weather forecasting and climate forecasting. They are clearly related but two very different scientific endeavours and as such use related but different models. Without having any expertise in either field, I would guess that neither predictions are easier or harder, they’re just different.
One thing I can say is that predicting long term, broad spatial scale, outcomes (like climate forecasts) does benefit from the smoothing effect that occurs when you scale up, in either space or time. Whereas, weather forecasting would have more short term stochasticity involved. This manifests by the fact that given my own previous experience I can confidently say that the average temperature for next July in a certain location will probably be 10 degrees. But I would have much less confidence in forecasting the maximum temperature on July 12th. Since the average monthly temperature integrates data over 31 days, it smooths out the day to day variations that can happen for specific localised reasons.
When dealing with climate forecasting, there are long term patterns and cycles that come into play, like enso, the wobble in the earth’s axis, solar activity, seasonal variation and of course the composition of the atmosphere. Making a very long term forecast that integrates very long term patterns, at a very coarse scale means a lot of the day to day dynamics are smoothed out and almost irrelevant. In the same way a single day to day temperature fluctuation within the month of July is almost irrelevant to the average for the month. It gets averaged out.
On a slight tangent, when I tapped out of this thread a week or so ago, sykpan you said something about being fed up with all sorts of scenarios being presented to the public. I understand the confusion the scenarios bring but they’re a necessary evil. Blindboy has raised this in part, but basically the climate science community (as with many others) have to use scenarios for the future because the predictions change depending on what we do. If we magically stopped all CO2 emissions tomorrow, we’d have a different outcome from the scenario we’re we stop all in 2050. So the scenarios that are presented represent a range of possible societal decisions. This gives us the power to say, if we do this, then the outcome will be most likely that. But if we do this other thing, then the outcome will be most likely that other thing.
The scenarios that are under development now fall into two categories, the representative concentration pathways (RCPs) and the shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs). Each of the scenarios has an actual narrative storyline that describes in words a certain world in the future in terms of emissions, socioeconomic development and so on. These have been developed by several groups collaborating on global scientific questions. Blindboy can probably correct me if I’ve got this a bit wrong but from there, those scenarios are turned into quantitative scenarios (i.e. numbers for the emissions levels, socioeconomic development etc in each hypothetical future), and these can be fed into the climate models for forecasting (other kinds of models too). That’s really powerful because we can say, if the world looks like scenario A in 2050, we expect to see a temperature rise of X, but if the world looks like scenario B in 2050, we expect to see a temperature rise of Y. Ignoring the scenarios and only providing one forecast would be pretty unhelpful because it doesn’t give us any idea of what effect the use of different policy instruments might have.
I dig that it becomes a nightmare to follow it all, and those with an agenda will tell you the prediction for the worst case or best case scenario, depending on their agenda. But if anyone is interested in the science and/or the policy implications this is another time where it’s incumbent on them to read up a bit and suss out what the scenarios are and how the world might look. If you dismiss the model forecasts as rubbish without doing that, you’d be dismissing the work without understanding anything about it, and that’s wasting your own and everybody else’s time.
There are other reasons different forecasts might be made too, like model uncertainty, they’re less interesting but no less relevant. One of the ways to account for that is to run all seven (I think there are seven) general circulation models and look at the range of climate forecasts from all models under a given scenario. Again, it’s more scenarios but you’ve got to look at all possible outcomes otherwise you’d be making an assumption that a single model is right and we know enough to know that every model is at least a little bit wrong, but useful ones are mostly right. A line you often here from smug scientists (maybe like me) is from a famous statistician called George Box who said, “…all models are wrong but some are useful.” Climate models are really bloody useful, and since without the CO2 emissions in the models they don’t hindcast the already observed warming but with them they do, they’re not too far wrong either.
I’ll leave it at that for a while I think. Cheers everyone.
OK crew, you may have already discussed this when the news broke (I've just had time to read more about it all) so please excuse my late contribution to this "debate".
Couple of quick quotes to set the context:
"There is no strong evidence, that global warming is caused by human activity. The study of deuterium in the Antarctic showed that there were five global warmings and four Ice Ages for the past 400 thousand years. People first appeared on the Earth about 60 thousand years ago. However, even if human activities influence the climate, we can say, that the Sun with the new minimum gives humanity more time or a second chance to reduce their industrial emissions and to prepare, when the Sun will return to normal activity”
and ...
"It is known, for example, that a change in the total quantity of the electromagnetic radiation by only 1% can result in a noticeable change in the temperature distribution and air flow all over the Earth."
Taken from here: http://astronomynow.com/2015/07/17/diminishing-solar-activity-may-bring-...
Which as you may recall, links to the "headlines" which appeared in the mainstream media around the world after the "National Astronomy Meeting" (http://nam2015.org/) at which Professor V. Zharkova (Northumbria University) presented information regarding the forecasting of sunspot activity.
I guess time will tell whether the reduced sunspot activity aligns with reduced global temperatures. We know from history the reverse has been true. If it does align in the reverse, I'll bet the climate change scientists and governments all take claim due to "their" action in helping to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
benski wrote:Hey sheepdog, nice work. But I have to say I'm not interested in what a politician says about anything in these parts. Surely you'd do yourself a favour and ignore them.
I don't know where those sites you mentioned are (as I said I plucked stations from the most far eastern corner of the state) but for sure it looks like they got above median. But that's not unexpected because as you know the forecast was for a certain chance of above median rain. And it wasn't far west where that chance went up to 50%. That's an each way bet from the bureau so hard to say they got it wrong.
In any case, as you said the enso cycle causes generally drier/wetter conditions depending on when and where. That's what the bureau's forecast reflected, because they know that too and would be the basis for the forecast, and it was pretty reasonable. A bunch of stations came in under, some well under, and a bunch over, some well over.
Some politician putting their spin it is irrelevant and best ignored. And certainly doesn't diminish the work of the scientists.
A - He's not a politician.... He's the head honcho for Emergency Management Commission and head of the CFS.... So you got that wrong...
B - If you don't know where Lakes Enttrance is (or even Corryong - a town between Falls Creek and perisher) , but you know where Gelantipy and Mount Nowa Nowa are, then something truly is awry with this discussion.... All those sites I mentioned are within a bees dick of the sites you mentioned...
Now come on, Benski.... You've heard of lakes entrance.....
Sheepdog, misunderstanding, I see a senior bureaucrat as a politician. Not elected politician of course but a professional one, that's what I meant. He's got an agenda to push so his input doesn't contribute anything to the forecasts and shouldn't be conflated with them and the accuracy of them. The point is, and still stands, that the forecasts were not inaccurate like you characterised, regardless of what any person says. You gotta ignore the politics and look at the data. The inherent inaccuracies of month long forecasts is the most likely reason they only made each way bet forecasts.
As for my knowledge of the region, I've genuinely got no idea where any of those places are except where I got them from on the map tool at the BOM website. it really doesn't matter whether I know the region because as I said, I plucked those 8 stations from the east of the state, roughly in the area that that had a 35-40% chance of below median rainfall in the original map you provided. I was surprised that out of the first 8 stations I clicked on only two were above median, but that's how it went. I know that seems like a selectively chose them but it's not the case. Anyway, it's not really relevant to the data.
Is Lakes Entrance worth a visit? Not sure I'm down with cold water surf anymore though. If I'm heading south I'd rather be putting on some skis and skins!
Hey wingnut,
The issues with those claims made about the implications for global warming of a cooling of the sun were explained at skeptical science. Essentially the researcher made claims that are not supported by her research and even if the sun does go into a grand minima it's not likely to save us from enhanced warming.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/no-sun-isnt-going-to-save-us-from-global...
Sypkan, this is relevant to the question you asked about if the quality of the science is so good, we should be able to debunk the skeptics claims more easily. Aside from the truism that it's hard to dispel a simple lie with a complex truth, most of the claims are debunked with explanations of the science at that site. The contributors, many of whom are practicing scientists, have become more snarky after beginning around 2005 with very measured tones. I think they have gotten tired of repeating the same arguments over and over when the mainstream media laps up the latest "controversy" but ignores the scientists earnest explanations of why it's not quite so.
On page 10 of the ipccs 2014 Synthesis Report Summary for Policymakers the report notes a curious caveat regarding predicted surface temperatures from 2016–2035: “This assumes that there will be no major volcanic eruptions …or unexpected changes in total solar irradiance.” Despite the position of the ipcc that solar variation has an insignificant effect on global warming.
here is an interesting article on the subject from nasa...http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2013/08jan_sunclimate/
Another driver that is poorly understood?
Tim, that quote you give from the ipcc just means that the given projection being discussed is based on a future scenario where there is no change in those processes. It doesn't mean they haven't accounted for them in the model, or don't know how they affect the outcome, just that the forecast is made with that assumption. That's different from not understanding the driver.
Maybe they do understand it well, maybe they don't. But that quote doesn't tell us anything either way. You'd be better off reading some of the reports about the physical basis for the forecasts where they explain what processes are included in the models and why. If you take a look at the skeptical science link in my reply to wingnut, the first plot on that page shows forecast temperatures out to 2100 assuming current solar radiation levels and one assuming the solar grand minima.
The nasa article, and I could cite many others, are saying precisely that the effects of solar radiation on climate are not well understood. So wether these drivers are included in the modelling or not, either way it illustrate the tenuous nature of the modelling. Thanks for your input btw benski :)
what do you think about cowspiracy facts benski?
The modelling isn't tenuous though. It's uncertain, sure, but that's why they include error bars and the like around the forecasts. That acknowledges the uncertainty that comes from model error as well as random chance. This is standard practice in science. If you make a prediction based on your findings, you provide a range of possible values above and below that (depending on the model type it might be called a confidence interval, a credible interval, confidence envelope etc), and that's what they do for the forecasts but specifically for solar radiation. Importantly, when you look at the assessment of the science done by the IPCC, they assess the level of understanding (LOSU) of the effect of solar irradiance as low (top of second part of Table 2.11, http://ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch2s2-9-1.html).
They aren't trying to hide these things, they're very up front about what they understand well and what they don't.
Now this is a subjective judgement but I don't think that makes the modelling tenuous. It shows a real strength in the process that they identify what the climate community knows well and what it doesn't.
No idea what cowspiracy facts are. I'm really not into this debate beyond having a good idea about models, how they work and how they should be applied and presented. And to continue my personal agenda of hassling people to read the science and outputs from scientists (including their lay summaries), not rely on filtered versions in the media or from politicians or bloggers with anti-science agendas.
Anyway I really gotta get to work. I've had the morning free and this is doing my head in checking this bloody website all the time.
Tenuous = uncertain, I'm not claiming that ipcc or whoever is trying to hide something. A strength in process doesn't translate into more accurate modelling nessecarily, a model relying on poorly understood variables is till going to be less certain than a model relying on well understood variables. A strength in process in this sense describes a level of confidence in the modelling. Unfortunately once the information has filtered down to the general public this is lost and we are left with statements such as, "5m sea level rises are locked in"
So you are thinking of repealing the first law of thermodynamics eh tim. The reason that it is locked in is that 3.3m of it are going to come from the melting of Antarctic ice below sea level, the leading edges of which are already in contact with sea water. Remind me, what happens when ice comes in contact with liquid water, oh yeh, It melts. The statement you consider as filtering down to the general public is a prediction based on well established observations. The only "modelling" involved is in the calculation of how long it will take, pretty tricky without a time machine to establish future emissions. Oh and the 5m is probably a conservative estimate, it will almost certainly be more by the time sea levels stabilise at some far distant point in time.
And if you want to discuss models why not Google "validating climate models" and do some reading?
So is the statement based on modelling or not bb?
Is it locked in or is it probably, almost certainly?
It's difficult to follow your logic when you continue to contradict yourself. The funny thing is I agree with a lot of what you say and certainly your motivations but it is frustrating having to endure your silly little digs.
benski wrote:Sheepdog, misunderstanding, I see a senior bureaucrat as a politician. Not elected politician of course but a professional one, that's what I meant. He's got an agenda to push so his input doesn't contribute anything to the forecasts and shouldn't be conflated with them and the accuracy of them. The point is, and still stands, that the forecasts were not inaccurate like you characterised, regardless of what any person says. You gotta ignore the politics and look at the data. The inherent inaccuracies of month long forecasts is the most likely reason they only made each way bet forecasts.
As for my knowledge of the region, I've genuinely got no idea where any of those places are except where I got them from on the map tool at the BOM website. it really doesn't matter whether I know the region because as I said, I plucked those 8 stations from the east of the state, roughly in the area that that had a 35-40% chance of below median rainfall in the original map you provided. I was surprised that out of the first 8 stations I clicked on only two were above median, but that's how it went. I know that seems like a selectively chose them but it's not the case. Anyway, it's not really relevant to the data.
Is Lakes Entrance worth a visit? Not sure I'm down with cold water surf anymore though. If I'm heading south I'd rather be putting on some skis and skins!
He's not a " career bureaucrat", Benski.... it's just a mouse click away.... 30 years hands on experience in dealing with the worse nature can throw....
After 6 years in Tasmania, these S.A/Victorian waters are like Bali lol....... Btw, all the sites I highlighted are in exactly the same region you highlighted.... Central thru eastern Vic...
Lastly, I got into some rough and tumble ages ago in BB's old thread, which has sadly gone the way of the Tasmanian Tiger..... In that thread, i stated that the rusted on "global warming advocates" need to stop targeting agnostics like myself with names like "denier" etc, and start looking at the trojans in their own camp.... I said this whole thing is a scam, and that alot of lentil munching soy latte sippers will be horrified when they realize they are simply pawns for the big end of town, with that big end of town using "science" and "scientists" to bring in nuclear power.... And I stand by that.... And alot of you climate change devotees are the ones bringing us closer to a world so toxic, it'll make coal look like the "good old days"....... So instead of arguing with me, I suggest to all hardcore warmists, you better get a grip of your "movement" before it's too late.... Labor is currently having a commission in S.A on nuclear power and it's future re' global warming..... And THE WE HAVE THIS!!!!!! Listen carefully to Chief Scientist Alan Finkel..... LISTEN!!!!! Listen to Turnbull!!!! LISTEN!!!!!!!!
http://www.abc.net.au/insiders/content/2015/s4343038.htm
In fact, the whole show is worth watching.... Check interview with Greg Hunt on Nuclear power..;
http://www.abc.net.au/insiders/content/2015/s4343056.htm
sheepdog, you're missing the point on the bureaucrat. It doesn't matter who he is. Nothing he says has any relevance to the accuracy of the forecasts of the bureau. You keep conflating what this guy said with the bureau forecasts. And when he's running the show at a government agency, he's got an agenda to keep funding coming his way. He's playing the political game to keep his mob in funds. That makes him a political player in his own way. Again though, it's beside the point. You gotta stop conflating politicians with science.
But more broadly, you're missing my whole motivation. I ain't no global warming advocate. I'm a science advocate. I've pulled you up on two misreads of the data. You're making statements that these agencies are getting forecasts and hindcasts wrong but you're making mistakes in your assessments. They're not wrong, you have been and I've explained to you why. I imagine you won't like me being blunt but that's the case I'm afraid. You've not compared the data accurately so you've drawn inaccurate conclusions. It's not about global warming at all.
Thing is, I'm not debating global warming with you. I couldn't give two hoots what you think about that. My interest here is the accurate assessment of data and the genuine understanding of science. It happens to be related to climate change, and in particular global warming, because this threads about that and it happens to be one of the most common scientific debates people engage with. As I've said several times, everyone should critique the science, but everyone who wants to should do it from an informed point of view not from an ignorant one.
Also, on a side note that I don't care very much about....I've never heard someone claim to be agnostic about something in one sentence and then say it's a scam in the next. Doesn't sound very agnostic to me man! ;-)
PS. Pretty sure none of the stations I highlighted were central Vic. Only eastern because that's where the forecast probability for above median rainfall was lowest (down near 35%, as you highlighted to craig). Once you got to central Vic, from memory it was 50% and above, so if you've got stations from central Vic that are above median, that's not surprising given the forecast there was an each way bet.
Sheepdog's thoughts seem to be fair ones. Certainly, he is entitled to his dislike or lack of trust for 'nuclear'. But from a solutions point of view and from the points raised by Benski ('I ain't no global warming advocate'), the science is way too complex for the average person to understand or even comprehend. To call those that are trying to understand the process let alone the outcomes 'ignorant' or 'idiots' tends to indicate where this debate has headed. Hence the challenge is now - what to do about it. Finkel has and does support nuclear and suggests it should be on the agenda. Sure he hopes we can have more renewables but he knows of their limitations. When we start to look at the coal emissions lets not forget that of the approximate number of 1200 coal plants world wide, China and India have about 800. Aus has about 24. We also need to acknowledge that more being built as we speak. Just as important for most of us is the fact that our boards are sourced from coal and petroleum.
Tonybarber, as I've said before I don't use the term ignorant as an insult. As I've also said before, if someone dismisses a scientific finding that they don't understand, they do it from an ignorant stance. Surely you agree that if not ignorant, it's certainly dumb to claim something is incorrect when you don't understand it?
As I've also said before in this thread, no one is expected to understand the science behind all this, I certainly don't, but if you claim it's incorrect or rubbish, a scam or even just questionable, then you owe it to yourself to get fully informed so you've got a solid basis to form your opinion. Otherwise, you're keeping yourself ignorant. Not an insult just an observation.
And believe me, scientists want us all to be better informed. It's why they spend so much time writing lay summaries of their work.
Oh and one other thing, if a person responds to sensible and informative posts with lame insults like, verbal diarrhoea, that person is in fact worthy of the label, idiot.
Also, there's no doubt many of sheepdog's thoughts and contributions are excellent. He's a freak when it comes to understanding the weather. Amazing. I'm only critiquing a couple of misinterpretations of data and subsequent conclusions he's come to.
Sheepdog wrote:This is why good swell forecasters like Ben and Craig, and hacks like me disregard any chart beyond 10 or so days, unless it's slapping me in the face like Ron Jeremy........
Anything beyond that is "off with the pixies".....
Thats gold Sheepio.
Hey I must've got slapped on the forehead by Ron's big skanky aid ridden cock then.
Cause this August 20th, 14 days before on Metvuw was spot on champ and it stuck right to the day.
60cms of the freshest you could ever ask for in that little country across the ditch.
Maybe winter storms are easier to predict!
Must say I'm enjoying reading all the banter above by everyone, keep it up;)
Benski... Ohh I'm a science advocate too.... Good science... Not clairvoyance... And as far as "pulling me up" on those "2 points".... Nice try... If you wish to believe that, then hey, cool.... But, The NOAA map, which is a disgrace, should be torn up... It looks like something printed out of a very early 1970s "video game".... They should be ashamed publishing it.... I'm sure there are far more accurate maps than that.. And when i presented you with the water temps, you bailed.... So you walked once the final nail was put in the NOAA map coffin.. ;)
Now the second point you say........ The october readings you gave were selective and therefore non scientific , even if by mistake... Once adding the extra readings I supplied from the same region, The median stat would've risen quite substantially.. Of more interest is the fact that the stats both you and I dug up for central eastern Vic (month of October) correlate perfectly with one BOM rainfall map, but do not with BOM % of average rainfall map..
So Benski, let's all can catch up on this, and just have a quick look at the map where both you and I got our october rain stats from;
Ok... From that, around the Snowy mountains region, South and South east of Albury, and east of Wangaratta, there are a bunch of BOM sites; Corryong, Hunters Hill, Dartmouth, and Upper Edi... All of these sites, over a decent area, received WAAAAAAY over the median rainfall for October. I have listed the stats, they are on the BOM site, but I will do it again; For October;
Dartmouth median - 89.1mm, but got 132.3mm
Hunters Hill median - 71.4mm, but got 144.8mm
Corryong median - 76.4mm, but got 152.4mm
Upper Edi median - 63.6mm, but got 149.4mm
They are big numbers, Benski..... Ok...... Now here is the "crystal ball map" printed back at the end of Sept.... Note the rather large region I am talking about is coloured in as "40 to 45% chance of exceeding median rainfall, and even a small part of the region coloured as 30 to 35%.... Also note one of "your sites", Combiembar (median 79.8, got 114) and Lakes Entrance (53.2 80.2) are in the 35 to 40% zone....;
So the prediction was wrong..... The stats say it's wrong.... they didn't even give it a 50/50 chance....
But, Benski, here's what's even more alarming..... Let's just run through look back up at that map to refresh where those "snowy mountain" east and central sites are, and whilst there, refresh on how much more rain those sites got above the median, eg upper edi got 149.4 but only averages 63.6...... Now freekn explain this %map for me.... This is the BOM % map for October2015... It says that region only got 0 to 60%!!!!!! Please explain it to me Benski....;
So ya taking 10 day forecasts then Sheepio
That's what I'm saying and it worked champ, for me at least;)
Hit me please with your Ron's cock.
sheepdog.... when they forecast a 35-40% chance of above median rainfall that means the forecast expects some chance of seeing above median rainfall, not none. If above median rainfall turns out to be the case, that doesn't make the forecast wrong because they suggested there was a 35-40% chance of it happening.
If they'd said zero chance of above median rainfall for October then yeah you'd have a case that they got it wrong. But they didn't so you don't. 35-40% is pretty close to an each way bet, and much of the state was 50/50 which is a complete each way bet. The four sites you listed above were in the 40-45% chance of above median. That's not no chance, that's 3/2 odds of it happening there! So ease up man, they didn't rule it out at all.
There's no doubt it's not a very helpful forecast because it's not very definitive (probably deliberately so since it's a month out and any weather forecast of more than 10 days is usually highly uncertain, as you know ;-) ), but you're interpreting it as though they suggested below median rain was a certainty. Clearly they didn't.
As for noaa, remember I bailed because it's clear you didn't understand the map from the start because you compared it to the wrong data twice (did you ever look at the land only map noaa made? It matched the bureau's data exactly). I'm not gonna waste my time figuring out how they combine their water and land temp data for you because I'm not the one questioning it. The fact that you don't know how they did combine the data sources shows you don't understand it, that's ok of course but if you're going to dismiss something as rubbish that you don't understand, well I'm going to leave you to it.
Well, who would have believed it ! A women jockey wins the Melbourne Cup. I have got more chance in picking the swell direction more than 10 days out with those odds. Maybe its significant that climate change since is 99% accurate and not 100% ?
And on another subject, who was the fuckn clown who decided to call this the "GODZILLA" El Nino?? Was it the self proclaimed "Prophet of California climate", Bill Patzert?
August 13, 2015; "“This definitely has the potential of being the Godzilla El Niño,” said Bill Patzert, a climatologist with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge"
The Hercules storm... The Godzilla El Nino.......
Waiting for the "The Terminator Winter"........ "I'll be back".........
STOP SCARING THE CHILDREN!!!!!!!!!
sheepdog, regarding the last map you showed above asking me to explain why it doesn't jive with the stats we've been throwing around for each station, it's because you and I are discussing median values. That map is the % of the mean values. Means and medians are different things. Mean is the average, median is the middle number or 50th percentile of the data. Both measures of central tendency of a distribution of data but they are often very very different numbers.
It's conceivable that a station could get more than its median rainfall but less than its mean rainfall. So I dunno for sure as I haven't looked at the mean values for the stations I highlighted the other day, only the medians, but that could be why that map shows less than the mean rainfall?
"The Terminator Winter"
Funny man you.
Ronnies cock will hit me smack bang on the nogging again then eh.
Sheepdog wrote:And on another subject, who was the fuckn clown who decided to call this the "GODZILLA" El Nino?? Was it the self proclaimed "Prophet of California climate", Bill Patzert?
August 13, 2015; "“This definitely has the potential of being the Godzilla El Niño,” said Bill Patzert, a climatologist with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge"
The Hercules storm... The Godzilla El Nino.......
Waiting for the "The Terminator Winter"........ "I'll be back".........STOP SCARING THE CHILDREN!!!!!!!!!
You'd better believe it Sheepdog, this country is so desperate to be American, complete with media hyperbole such as you've mentioned.
WTF....
It is interesting to note that this 'Godzilla' of El Ninos ranks behind the one in 1982. So there was a 'large' El Niño well before China's modernisation. Given the extent of China's development and energy use (hence emissions ), this tends to remove the correlation between el Ninos to climate change.
I think the lay climate debate is unique among scientific discussions because of the way studies and events are presented by both sides of the lay debate. The "controversial" debate in the public sphere lags about 30-40 years behind the scientific community in this area so the issues debated on pages like these (humans are responsible. No they aren't! CO2 causes global warming. No it doesn't!), was settled and isn't really under discussion in the scientific community. That level of physics was sorted out ages ago, but the degree of interest the public has in this area and the appearance of a debate fostered by certain elements of the media has created a unique situation where individual studies are given far greater weight in the public eye than they should.
The way natural science tends to progress these days is through many researchers doing many similar, but typically ever so slightly different, studies. Over time, the findings tend to coalesce on a consistent result. When there are inconsistencies (i.e. contradictory results), further studies identify why and how and even if these inconsistencies do exist and the method comes to the best understanding we have. That's the exciting part. Basically we learn what the physical processes are by the process of trial and error across multiple studies. It's how it's always been in one form or another.
The process followed by the IPCC is to integrate all these into one coherent story. The IPCC reports are simply a synthesis of the findings of the scientific community at a given time. That body doesn't do any of their own research at all, they simply summarise and synthesise what the research community has found and predicts. That means that all of the studies done over a certain period are integrated and reviewed and included. There are literally thousands of papers that go into the docs. The reports themselves are reviewed by, I think around 10000 reviewers, before being published. So any single study doesn't have so much weight over the others because it's one of many.
Now remember, the basic physics are established. CO2 is a greenhouse gas, without it in the atmosphere we'd be freezing our bums off. Add more to the atmosphere and you add more heat. Not controversial, laws of physics. But the multitude of studies of the other processes are where things get a bit more uncertain. Not tenuous tim foilat, just uncertain - which is a very different thing.
The reason I'm rabbiting on about this is that when you see the latest study that shoots down the climate change scam, it's presented in the media as the be all and end all. You could read the NASA link velocityjohnno provided and conclude it's all ok, Antarctica's growing not shrinking (that would mean you didn't read the full article though). But it's just a single study among literally thousands. If there's something to be investigated, the baton is taken up and work is done to figure out if it's just a poorly conducted piece of work leading to dodgy conclusions through to something groundbreaking and game changing. But on its own, unless a study comprehensively disproves a basic hypothesis (imagine if it showed CO2 isn't a greenhouse gas), generally speaking it doesn't show too much in isolation. We need, and so far have, multiple lines of evidence across multiple observational platforms. With these findings from NASA, we know a little bit more, which is really cool.
The same is true with a single observation. So tonybarber, to suggest that a single el nino event in 1982 being bigger than this one somehow removes a correlation between el nino and climate change is a bit silly. It's a single observation and a single observation doesn't undo a correlation. I gotta say, I don't even know if there are claims there is a relationship between the two (I always thought they were separate processes) but your observation reminded me of this stuff. A single observation, a single study, doesn't prove a great deal on its own. We need more evidence than that.
This whole charade rests on a shedload of research studies, all coming to remarkably similar conclusions, so it's gonna take something fundamental or something greater than a single study or observation to change it. But rest assured, if a scientist does manage to do that in this field, crikey that's a Nobel prize right there.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tenuous
I'm happy with uncertain if that works for you benski :)
Benski do you think science can be influenced by politics or funding?
Sheepdog wrote:And on another subject, who was the fuckn clown who decided to call this the "GODZILLA" El Nino?? Was it the self proclaimed "Prophet of California climate", Bill Patzert?
August 13, 2015; "“This definitely has the potential of being the Godzilla El Niño,” said Bill Patzert, a climatologist with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge"
The Hercules storm... The Godzilla El Nino.......
Waiting for the "The Terminator Winter"........ "I'll be back".........STOP SCARING THE CHILDREN!!!!!!!!!
You been reading the WZ ENSO forum today ..... ALOT of prattle over there on the same subject today !
haha! Touche ya bastard. But this is what I'm getting at...
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/science/certain...
This is a neat quote that summarises the difference "To most of us, uncertainty means not knowing. To scientists, however, uncertainty is how well something is known."
It looks like not a bad article actually. It goes on to highlight what is known about climate change with greater certainty and what is known with less certainty - but still not tenuous!!
Do I think science can be influenced by politics and funding?
In some ways yes but in most ways no. Individual researchers can be influenced but that is caught pretty quickly. In the climate change world Richard Muller is a good example. He was skeptical of the findings of the climate science community, so with funding from a range of sources including a bunch of right wing fellas (led by the Koch brothers from memory) he established a research group at UC Berekely to go through the data and see if it really is all crap. He went to work with their money and actually changed his mind and concluded that the planet is warming and it's almost entirely because of human activity. A fella who was totally not influenced by his funding source.
But that quaint example aside, I think individuals can be swayed by politics and cash, but I don't think an entire community would be. The goal of science is to prove the other person wrong. That's how you get notoriety. We don't remember the scientists who found results consistent with Einstein, we remember him because he changed the way we do things. The race is on to carve out your niche and prove the other people wrong. So in sum, that means the temptation to take some cash and deliver a certain result might exist for one person but it'll be over run by the rest soon enough.
I see a common accusation that climate scientists are worried about their jobs and they look for problems cos if there aren't any they'd lose their job, or whatever variation on that theme. Then you'll hear people say, look they don't like us questioning them because they're afraid we'll uncover the scam (read back over barley's responses to my posts imploring people to question the science but from an informed point of view. He shrugged and said I don't like the science being questioned).
The fact is, so much of the basics that is argued in the public domain isn't even up for debate anymore so scientists get shirty because they're tired of addressing the same old questions that have been settled ages ago. Especially when they get accused of group think or trying to cover up something. It'd be like accusing shapers of group think because I think a single fin is better for high performance surfing.
Of course there's plenty to still be debated....the "uncertain" parts...and that's what is live in the scientific literature. That makes for some cool debates but the powers that be in the media don't go there yet because so many punters seem to want to lap up some controversy that really doesn't exist.
Well played benski :)
Southey... Nope.... Never taken part in that site or even visited it.. Swellnet forum is enough bullshit for me to handle lol.....
Wellymon..... I aint Ron Jeremy... But it sure looks pretty bahaha.... And where's Davo??
Benski... mate, we all know that there is not much difference between median and mean... i really didn't think I needed to go back into the stats and dig up all the mean figures, which btw are directly next to the median figures...... But you already know that.. ;) ... Of course there's a difference between median and mean.... But we are now nit picking and being somewhat pedantic, for the sake of "science", or should I say "reliance"..... Reliance on computer models... Coz that's all these charts and crystal ball predictions are.... Stuff punched into machine.... Machine goes ping.... Machine says "dry November coming up".... "Scientist" prints out machine gospel and does a Parrot..... Go and look at a ants nest mate, or what the birds have been doing here in the last 3 weeks... Stop relying on JUST ONE thing - a computer program.... That's why I have a grip on what's going down far more than most nerdsters saying "but the computer says no rain"!!!! Go spend some time with the custodians of the bush....
But to satisfy you, here are the MEAN stats for the particular area, and the repeated amount for what thy actually got....
Corryong - mean 80.2... Got 152.4
Edi upper - mean 78.7... Got 149.4
Hunters hill - mean 86.9... Got 144.8
Dartmouth - mean 97.9.... Got 132.3
Yet this map has that whole region getting between 0% and at the most 60% of mean rainfall.... In fact the Corryong region is between 0% and 20% , yet it got 152.4mm when it only averages 80.2mm !!!!!!!
And Hunters Hill they say got 20 to 40% of mean rainfall when it's average is 86.9mm but it got 144.8mm!!!!!
Explain away.... Tell me why the computers are right...... And tell me why most weather "experts" haven't even noticed the influx of birds to S.E Australia over the past week......
SD just had a quick look into one of your data points.. Hunters Hill..
Says it got 41.2mm for Oct not 144.8?
Also Dartmouth 39.9.. Not 132.3
Edi Upper 51.2 Not 149.4
Corryong 11.6 Not 152.4
Looks like you've got your data mixed up mate? And the chart is correct..
Yeah that's weird.
Quick edit cos it looks like Craig's covered the strange data issues.
sheepdog, if you think a median is no different from a mean in practical terms, you don't know as much about this stuff as you think you do. Come on man, give me a break with the "semantics" bullshit. That's weak. You're way off you think these kinds of things are irrelevant because they're semantics. You might as well say someone who weighs 150lbs is heavier than someone who weighs 100kgs. Pounds, kilos it's just semantics you computer nerds! If you're gonna throw around accusations that it's all a scam you undo any credibility you might have with arguments that the details are irrelevant semantics.
And remember I don't need to go outside and look at an ants nest or whatever because I'm not "relying" on anything here, I'm making no claims one way or the other. I'm just calling you out on what appear to be dodgy readings of the data. You're the one making claims that weather and climate forecasting is bogus but you're consistently using bogus readings of the data to "prove" it.
Now it's quite possible that the map you've linked here is rubbish. Given the numbers you've cited it looks that way. But following Craig's links to the bureau's data, maybe the map is ok. We have a curious case on our hands. How bout you do some research and find out what the story is instead of demanding I explain everything to you all the time ;-)
Yeah, my fuck up.... And first to admit it, as always.... " catastrophic Human error" lol.... Looking at wrong column.... But now I've been to the optometrist, Take a look at for example Falls creek.... Would you say it is in the 40 to 60 % zone? It got 94.2mm.....
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/dwo/201510/html/IDCJDW3027.201510.shtml
It's mean is 113.9mm..... What % of 113.9 is 94.2??
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/averages/tables/cw_083084.shtml
Benski - thanks for pointing out that this is well and truly settled in the scientific (and political) community. This isn't a debate, even though a lot of punters still want to flop around on it like it is.
Sorry Benski, as much as I have respect for scientists and great thinkers, I just cant see how we can say that we know this planet and how it works to such detail to be able to predict its temperature movements and more, the amounts of these movements, in 100 years from today.
A tuff ask. But we are grappling with solutions.
Tony, check if that is "cant see" or "dont want to see"
As Benski has stated, this is past the debate stage.
tonybarber wrote:Sorry Benski, as much as I have respect for scientists and great thinkers, I just cant see how we can say that we know this planet and how it works to such detail to be able to predict its temperature movements and more, the amounts of these movements, in 100 years from today.
A tuff ask. But we are grappling with solutions.
Tones, please do some reading instead of leading this thread in circles - again, the evidence for is overwhelming, the evidence against is virtually non-existent i.e. "semantics", clutching at straws (such as comparing local weather to global climate) and being (mis)led by the political party of your choice.
Reminds me of Big Tone's Syndrome "Damn it, I'm a guy, I've been around for X years, when I talk, people listen, And I tell you, I reckon climate change is BUMPKIN!"
Response "Uhm this is pretty much a lock, its not about what you reckon"
Reply "BUMPKIN!!!"
Response "Here's the reports, here's the analysis, here's the methodology, there's some refinement to do on the eventual impact but its beyond doubt that this is where we are heading"
Reply "Did you not listen? I SAID BUMPKIN!!!"
Tony Abbott couldn't recognise an onion and munches on it like an apple, and fools believe he knows about climate change.
He gets punted by his own party and will now hopefully fade away into obscurity , laughingstock and worst PM ever. Good riddance Tone ya jackass.
Craig;
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/data/index.shtml?bookmark=136&zoom=3&lat=-...
Bald hill mean - 64.1.... Got 73.6.... (I hope I read that right lol)
http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/cdio/weatherData/av?p_nccObsCode=139&p_dis...
Halls - mean 86.1, got 71.4
http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/cdio/weatherData/av?p_nccObsCode=139&p_dis...
This data is yet to be fully quality controlled.. But it does that this map above is still questionable, considering these stations have been marked in the 20 to 60% zone..... But hey, maybe my eyes have failed me again bahaha
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.