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What's Really Warming the World?

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Re: What's Really Warming the World?

#121

Post by RyanZAG »

linkregister wrote: post #111
RyanZAG wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While that's true, there is another issue here. If global warming went away tomorrow -- as in, it were to be completely proven to not exist -- every single climate change scientist would be out of a job. They'd literally have to start over their entire professional career from scratch with almost zero chance of getting any kind of funding. This includes everyone who peer reviews the papers too. Meanwhile if Agile is…

Why would any climate scientist be out of a job? The climate is constantly undergoing changes that include more than temperature. Air and water currents, precipitation, movement of glaciers, etc. I don't agree with the down vote applied to your post. However, the rhetorical device of claiming an opponent has ulterior motives is frowned upon on HN.

From a cursory glance into the grants and money devoted to climate science research from the UN and others, nearly all of it directly relates to climate change. There is a market for general studies into planetary climate, but they're minuscule compared to the amount of funding provided by the fear of climate change.

To deny the financial link here is purposeful blindness, in my opinion. If all of the studies showed that no climate change was occurring, and all of the studies were funded by oil companies, you'd no doubt be agreeing with me. Actually the studies that are funded by oil companies do show far less climate change, while those funded by the UN show the most. Coincidence? Not a chance.

> I don't agree with the down vote applied to your post. However, the rhetorical device of claiming an opponent has ulterior motives is frowned upon on HN.

Fair enough, but I literally got down voted 5 seconds after pressing submit. I've never seen that before, and I have a feeling I was downvoted by someone without even having my post read fully. It was more of a personal anecdote to myself that there's more here than meets the eye.

Re: What's Really Warming the World?

#122

Post by mememachine »

euyyn wrote: post #112
mememachine wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Im not making an accusation that climate scientists wouldnt calculate this, because its not something thats in the content of the paper were discussing. My accusation is that you (or whoever i replied to) didnt have that data. At the same time I wouldn't be surprised if there were climate scientists who chose to avoid these sorts of calculations. Also, the p-value might tell you whether or not an event like this woul…

I don't have the data, and it'd be a cool trivia to know. I don't think corradio said "incredibly unlucky" because he just flipped a coin. Rather because if the probability weren't so, global warming, as an unprecedented thing, wouldn't be discussed outside of scientific circles yet.

>Rather because if the probability weren't so, global warming, as an unprecedented thing, wouldn't be discussed outside of scientific circles yet.

Heres where we disagree.

Re: What's Really Warming the World?

#124

Post by RyanZAG »

jjoonathan wrote: post #120
RyanZAG wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While that's true, there is another issue here. If global warming went away tomorrow -- as in, it were to be completely proven to not exist -- every single climate change scientist would be out of a job. They'd literally have to start over their entire professional career from scratch with almost zero chance of getting any kind of funding. This includes everyone who peer reviews the papers too. Meanwhile if Agile is…

> If global warming went away tomorrow -- as in, it were to be completely proven to not exist -- every single climate change scientist would be out of a job. Your mental model of how grants get distributed to scientists is incorrect.

As someone who has received a number of grants, I don't think I'm entirely incorrect here. Although I was exaggerating, the field would shrink dramatically, departments would be shut down or merged, journals would stop carrying articles on a wide range of subjects which would force the researchers to publish into new fields they have no prior experience in. That puts them in a position of competing with researchers already in those fields. With most institutions requiring their researchers to get into journals, you can hopefully see how this would have a very big impact on everyone's career.

I don't think there is actually a prior example of this ever happening as I don't know of any other field of study where everything is based off a single issue. And if that issue were false (yes yes, I know it isn't -- but if it was!) then the entire field would collapse. Something to think about.

Re: What's Really Warming the World?

#126

Post by euyyn »

RyanZAG wrote: post #99
euyyn wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're talking about a pile of papers that have been accepted at Nature and Science over a span of decades, not a paper about how Agile is the best programming methodology.

While that's true, there is another issue here. If global warming went away tomorrow -- as in, it were to be completely proven to not exist -- every single climate change scientist would be out of a job. They'd literally have to start over their entire professional career from scratch with almost zero chance of getting any kind of funding. This includes everyone who peer reviews the papers too. Meanwhile if Agile is…

> every single climate change scientist would be out of a job

That's very flawed reasoning: Do you think these scientists didn't have a job before?

> I was also thinking about the papers on Agile vs global warming, and the Agile papers generally read as far more balanced and generally go into much deeper detail than any global warming paper.

Where are you getting your global warming papers from?

Re: What's Really Warming the World?

#127

Post by vectorjohn »

jjoonathan wrote: post #101
bunderbunder wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're criticizing what you consider to be an oversimplification, and your criticism is itself based on an oversimplification. It seems you're implying that the argument being presented is basically just, "The world is getting warmer, aaaa!!!" There's much more to it than that. In fact, even the article you're criticizing provides a more nuanced justification than that, which opens you up to criticism for constructin…

You'll see someone like this in every global warming discussion that happens with an educated audience. They'll put on all the plumage of reasonable dissent: "I don't think that the argument for AGW takes into account ." In an audience of non-experts, they will go unanswered, and appear to have a point, until you spend an hour or two digging through the relevant IPCC reports and discover that not only has been invest…

I like the response peer review or STFU. Maybe PRoSTFU.

What is that technique the fake-reasonable argument makers use? It's like a Gish gallop but slower. Maybe that's the best description of it.

Re: What's Really Warming the World?

#128

Post by RyanZAG »

euyyn wrote: post #126
RyanZAG wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While that's true, there is another issue here. If global warming went away tomorrow -- as in, it were to be completely proven to not exist -- every single climate change scientist would be out of a job. They'd literally have to start over their entire professional career from scratch with almost zero chance of getting any kind of funding. This includes everyone who peer reviews the papers too. Meanwhile if Agile is…

> every single climate change scientist would be out of a job That's very flawed reasoning: Do you think these scientists didn't have a job before? > I was also thinking about the papers on Agile vs global warming, and the Agile papers generally read as far more balanced and generally go into much deeper detail than any global warming paper. Where are you getting your global warming papers from?

> That's very flawed reasoning: Do you think these scientists didn't have a job before?

A huge percentage of them didn't actually. Most of the current researchers into climate change have always worked as researchers in this field. You have to remember the field has been around since the 60s, but has rapidly begun to attract PHD students and others because of the vast amounts of grant money devoted to it in recent years.

> Where are you getting your global warming papers from?

Nature and Science. Where are you getting your Agile papers from?

Re: What's Really Warming the World?

#129

Post by conistonwater »

RyanZAG wrote: post #128
euyyn wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> every single climate change scientist would be out of a job That's very flawed reasoning: Do you think these scientists didn't have a job before? > I was also thinking about the papers on Agile vs global warming, and the Agile papers generally read as far more balanced and generally go into much deeper detail than any global warming paper. Where are you getting your global warming papers from?

> That's very flawed reasoning: Do you think these scientists didn't have a job before? A huge percentage of them didn't actually. Most of the current researchers into climate change have always worked as researchers in this field. You have to remember the field has been around since the 60s, but has rapidly begun to attract PHD students and others because of the vast amounts of grant money devoted to it in recent ye…

> has rapidly begun to attract PHD students and others because of the vast amounts of grant money devoted to it in recent years

I think you are very likely wrong about the causal link there: the way science organizations allocate money is that they decide what is important to study, so it should make sense that important fields are the ones that attract money and people. And there's a general scientific sense in which some fields are more important to the progress of science than others. But that's just how it should be, and less important fields should have less money. So you observe the expected behaviour (important fields get more research effort), but you think you're seeing a pathological behaviour instead. After all, what evidence would you accept that climate science deserves that particular level of funding?

Re: What's Really Warming the World?

#130

Post by linkregister »

RyanZAG wrote: post #121
linkregister wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would any climate scientist be out of a job? The climate is constantly undergoing changes that include more than temperature. Air and water currents, precipitation, movement of glaciers, etc. I don't agree with the down vote applied to your post. However, the rhetorical device of claiming an opponent has ulterior motives is frowned upon on HN.

From a cursory glance into the grants and money devoted to climate science research from the UN and others, nearly all of it directly relates to climate change. There is a market for general studies into planetary climate, but they're minuscule compared to the amount of funding provided by the fear of climate change. To deny the financial link here is purposeful blindness, in my opinion. If all of the studies showed…

What resources do you use to look into the funding sources and scope of climate science studies?

I've seen quite a few articles here on HN based off of NOAA and NASA studies regarding other interesting climate topics, such as variation in jet streams and ocean currents, changes in rainfall (especially California), and the development of storms. That's just my haphazard exposure, certainly not a definitive answer.

Are climate scientists so specialized that they can't pivot to another discipline within meteorology?

Do climate scientists even stay within the field more than other academics? I was under the impression that the vast majority of post-docs and PhD candidates perform laboratory work for a few years, fail to get tenure, and then work in private industry in a tangentially related field for much better compensation. Post-docs and PhD candidates are also notoriously underpaid. Wouldn't tenure follow from a groundbreaking study that disproved mainstream scientific belief, instead of boringly replicating existing findings?

Of course there is an economic link to everything. You still haven't established the link in a meaningful fashion. "I'm just asking questions" isn't good enough to present a convincing argument.

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