climate science rap

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If the cause of the warming is external to human activity then we will be sacrificing for naught. We will impoverish ourselves, restrict ourselves and the temperature may go up anyway.

Before I take a hit on my standard of living, I want to make sure that the basis is sound. So far I am not convinced.

That being said, I am all for replacing the burning of hydrocarbons pronto. Not because of global warming (which may be a matter to consider) but to reduce our energy dependence on nations which are hostile to the U.S.

I want to see the U.S (nay, all of North America) paved coast to coast with breeder reactors which will make so much electricity that we will not need oil except to make plastics.

ruveyn

Only the intellectually deficient think the issues you mention are uniformly tied to preventing climate change.

For example, wood is a renewable energy resource, but the resulting deforestation likely increases rather than decreases global warming. Similarly, diesel engines are slightly more energy efficient than gasoline engines, but the resulting diesel particulates are the primary cause of arctic ice cap melting.

Two points:

You've moved the goal posts here. I was responding to your views about government attempting to increase control over our lives. Your petititon doesn't address what these skeptics and denialists believe climate scientists are up to (eg, increased government power).

Secondly, as I said earlier, petitions are a creationist tactic. Seitz put out the first one and he's both a creationist and a denialist. If non-specialists want a vote, they can make an effort to write a paper and get it published. Good luck to the local weathermen. If they were scientists, they'd know how science works.

Here is one of the many creationist petitions. This one has over 500 "scientists" saying that evolution is bunk. Including some biologists. I guess it's curtains for evolution.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/21/scien ... 1peti.html



Which is put forward by Roy Spencer who wrote a paper on clouds affecting warming. He's also a...wait for it... creationist. You sure have a lot of faith in the reasoning power of creationists.

Last edited by simon_says on 23 May 2011, 10:26 pm, edited 2 times in total.

There's just not enough wood to put a dent in our energy needs. I should have been specific, and said clean, efficient, renewable energy sources... But then again I did say reduce pollution and promote sustainability... so I don't know if it was necessary. I think I made my point. The thrust of what I was saying should have been readily apparent.

Burn ecology, not wood.

ruveyn

More than 97% of climate scientists accept that climate change is at least partly anthropogenic in origin. If that level of consensus is not acceptable to you, quit bandying numbers around because numbers are meaningless to you.



Well, at least you've moved on to criticizing the models rather than using blatantly bad logic. However, don't you think that climate scientists would have to be pretty f*****g stupid not to account for orbital variations, solar activity, clouds, cosmic rays, etc. in their studies? It's like a creationist accusing an evolutionary biologist of failing to take into account the fact that most mutations are harmful.
What we know about cosmic rays, for instance, is that any correlation between them and temperature breaks down in the early 70's.

Variations in axial tilt would affect which parts of the planet were warm, but not total average global temperature.
Orbital variation occurs over tens of thousands of years, and would not account for the current rapid rise in global average temperature.

I have stated from day one that my reluctance is not about whether there is a warming era (there is). The question, and I have stated it from day one, is whether human activity is the MAIN driver of warming or the ONLY driver of warming.

You say partly? O.K. ten percent? twenty percent? fifty percent? seventy five percent? one hundred percent? None of the model quantify that in an evidence based manner. So far no one has made the case to eliminate the other possible drivers of global warming. I say eliminate. Before I give up my comfort and prosperity I want it PROVED that that is the ONLY way to stop the warming trend. Until I see that PROOF I am not about to take an oath of poverty for the environmentalists.

I have also said, I wish to see heat generation by burning hydrocarbons reduced and replaced by other technologies, primarily nuclear fission (usining safer design breeder reactors) and geothermal heat. Going to these technologies would reduce our dependence on hostile foreign powers. It would also reduce CO2 production which is a nice side effect.

Right now Climate Models are built on junk science and they have too many parameters that can be fiddled. If the models can be fiddled, they will be fiddled by people who want to provide a pretext for even more government regulation than we have now.

When climate science is as well founded as quantum physics, I will be happy to pay attention to the conclusion of climate scientists (then they finally become real scientists) just as I am happy to listen to quantum physicists who have proved their mettle for nearly one hundred years and have helped to produce the technology that has made us prosperous. When the climatologists earn their spurs I will let them ride the horses that pull my wagon.

ruveyn

Which models? CESM? MATCH? GFDL CM2.X? Could you be more specific? Or is this just a general criticism based on paranoid fear of government control, and not sub-standard scientific modeling? Your previous statements about how climatologists haven't even considered cosmic rays lead me to believe your actual knowledge of climate modeling is quite lacking.

the best scientific theory (or model, if you will) ever constructed is the Standard Model of Particles and Fields. It has 22 parameters (physical constants) which are determined empirically. How many parameters to the climate models have?

The standard model predicts to 12 decimal places reliably. How accurately or precisely do the climate models predict? When the climate models are as good as the standard model, then I might consider giving up my standard of living to Save the Planet.

ruveyn

Accurate prediction is quite a different thing from "fiddling with the models." Yes, there are a lot of variables. Some smaller and more specific models, like radiative-convective models, have much greater accuracy, but when you add it all up sure, errors can and do occur. Much like weather, you can't look at a single day of bad forecasting and say "why bother, weather is obviously completely unpredictable." Instead, scientists look at the whole picture, determine what went right and what went wrong and then work at improvement.

Interestingly, the climate models that clearly failed were the ones that natural forcing alone:



Figure 4: Simulating the Earth's temperature variations, and comparing the results to measured changes, can provide insight into the underlying causes of the major changes.
A climate model can be used to simulate the temperature changes that occur both from natural and anthropogenic causes. The simulations represented by the band in (a) were done with only natural forcings: solar variation and volcanic activity. Those encompassed by the band in (b) were done with anthropogenic forcings: greenhouse gases and an estimate of sulphate aerosols, and those encompassed by the band in (c) were done with both natural and anthropogenic forcings included. From (b), it can be seen that inclusion of anthropogenic forcings provides a plausible explanation for a substantial part of the observed temperature changes over the past century, but the best match with observations is obtained in (c) when both natural and anthropogenic factors are included. These results show that the forcings included are sufficient to explain the observed changes, but do not exclude the possibility that other forcings may also have contributed. The bands of model results presented here are for four runs from the same model. Similar results to those in (b) are obtained with other models with anthropogenic forcing.

You've already demonstrated quite clearly that this demand on your part is a double standard.
also, here:

No sir. A single standard. I prefer quality to sh*t. Climate Model is an exercise in sh*t (so-called) science. It ain't physics.* Anything that is not physics is either tiddly winks, stamp collecting or nonsense.

ruveyn

*physics includes chemistry and molecular biology as sub-sciences.

No sir. You are displaying irrational biased thinking while claiming to be above that sort of thing.

Here is a critique of the current climate models. You might find it interesting:

http://www.marshall.org/pdf/materials/225.pdf

ruveyn

Blatant.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=George_C._Marshall_Institute