95% of climate models agree: the observations must be wrong • Hacker News Board

Re: 95% of climate models agree: the observations must be wrong

#81

Post by xenophanes » Sat, Feb 15, 2014, 4:09 AM UTC

freshhawk wrote: post #70

corresation wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people, once they've established a position, become incredibly "biased" in their views. Skeptical Science, which I mention because it is referenced some dozen times in here, is the sort of site that proselytizes to the converted. It has driven a stake in the ground demarcating its position, and everything has to be relative to that stake.

True in the broadest sense I suppose. I'm personally fine with driving a stake into the ground at "the consensus opinion of scientific experts". That's a different type of bias than driving the stake into a specific conclusion because the other stake moves. Frequently. To be fair, I think this only because it agrees with my pro-reason bias.

How is "the consensus opinion of scientific experts" determined? Does that mean majority view, unanimous, or what? Is group voting really a good way to decide such things? But if you aren't talking about a type of vote, what do you mean?

And who decides who qualifies as a "scientific expert"? Isn't that problematic?

Re: 95% of climate models agree: the observations must be wrong

#82

Post by danellis » Sat, Feb 15, 2014, 4:11 AM UTC

nl wrote: post #16

Let's just link to the debunking and move on. https://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-stopped-in-1... https://www.skepticalscience.com/The-Oceans-Warmed-up-Sharpl... https://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-models.htm https://www.skepticalscience.com/skeptic_Roy_Spencer.htm

"International Climate and Environmental Change Assessment Project (ICECAP)"

Clever.

Re: 95% of climate models agree: the observations must be wrong

#83

Post by 001sky » Sat, Feb 15, 2014, 4:15 AM UTC

virtue3 wrote: post #59

nerfhammer wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

see http://blog.hotwhopper.com/2014/02/roy-spencers-latest-decei... (courtesy ovis below)

I clicked the comments just to see this. Thank you :). I had a sneaky suspicion something was up when it was just some casual mention of data and not really providing sources or demonstrating a thorough understanding of the data. "If the deep ocean ends up averaging 4.1 deg. C, rather than 4.0 deg. C, it won’t really matter." He must be blissfully unaware of how badly the oceans are being affected right now by our im…

He must be blissfully unaware of how badly the oceans are being affected right now by our impact.

This sentence really needs to cite actual data. "The oceans" are a pretty big place. And "localized" and "average" data are not comparable in any relevant sense given the scale.

Even if you could measure the energy in the ocean to that level of precision (unlikely) your time series data would be so limited so as to present caution in its reference, when discussin the context of global climate history.

It wasn't that long ago when John Muir was fighting the academic climate orthoxy over the sources of Yosemite valley. Its not a partisian or intellectual issue, its merely that data talks and bullshit walks. Muir did alot of walking to get his data, and argued alot with people that sat around theorizing talked alot of bullshit.

Its always worth a little bit of perspective.

Re: 95% of climate models agree: the observations must be wrong

#84

Post by eagsalazar2 » Sat, Feb 15, 2014, 4:19 AM UTC

gruseom wrote: post #45

eagsalazar2 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you. What we are seeing here is nothing more than a rationalization and opportunistic bolstering of his preexisting belief system. In the end global warming might be better than we're expecting but it is the political and social inferences, like in the quote you included, that belie his true intent.

nothing more than a rationalization and opportunistic bolstering of his preexisting belief system Whose behavior does that not describe?

Fair.

Re: 95% of climate models agree: the observations must be wrong

#85

Post by TheEzEzz » Sat, Feb 15, 2014, 4:28 AM UTC

yummyfajitas wrote: post #76

danieltillett wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with doing net present value calculations on climate change is the possibility of "infinite" cost events. Sure it might make more sense from a NPV perspective to spend a given number of dollars on say improving the water treatment in poor countries rather than stopping GHG emissions, but only if we know the maximum cost of climate change. The problem becomes how do you do a NPV calculation on the possibil…

I assume for this reason you also have become religious to avoid a small probability of burning in hell for an infinite amount of time? (See pascals wager.)

These are very different. There is evidence for the possibility of future catastrophic climate change. There is no evidence for the existence of hell.

There are also arguments against Pascal's wager that do not apply to climate change. For example, you can postulate an anti-Christianity Hell, where only non-Christians are spared. This poses a new Pascal wager. There's no reason to think this wager has any different odds than the original: they have the same prior, hence cancel out in an expected value calculation.

Re: 95% of climate models agree: the observations must be wrong

#86

Post by patrickg_zill » Sat, Feb 15, 2014, 4:34 AM UTC

I admit to being amused, in that he is implicitly buying into the assumption that there is a mathematical model (which can then be run through a computer) that can describe "how climate works" on Earth.

As if there is some huge Excel spreadsheet in a supercomputer and the jerks just keep on putting in wrong numbers to scare us.

There isn't, and there won't be for (my estimate) at least another century - we don't even understand the Gulf Stream well enough to accurately model and then predict its behavior, much less everything else, including atmospheric dust.

Re: 95% of climate models agree: the observations must be wrong

#87

Post by TheEzEzz » Sat, Feb 15, 2014, 4:35 AM UTC

jessaustin wrote: post #54

danieltillett wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with doing net present value calculations on climate change is the possibility of "infinite" cost events. Sure it might make more sense from a NPV perspective to spend a given number of dollars on say improving the water treatment in poor countries rather than stopping GHG emissions, but only if we know the maximum cost of climate change. The problem becomes how do you do a NPV calculation on the possibil…

...the possibility of "infinite" cost events. Never having taken place, thinking about such events would seem to challenge to both frequentist and Bayesian schools of thought.

A charitable interpretation of daniel's comment would assume "infinite" meant "very, very, very large", for example: the extinction of humanity. There have been similar events to the extinction of humanity (past mass extinctions), so there is every reason to assign non-zero probability to human extinction from both frequentist and Bayesian perspectives. There are actually a multitude of events that happen in this universe with non-zero probability (from both probability philosophy perspectives) that could eradicate humanity.

Catastrophic climate change may very well be one of them. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Venus#Evolution

Re: 95% of climate models agree: the observations must be wrong

#88

Post by beatpanda » Sat, Feb 15, 2014, 4:36 AM UTC

xrange wrote: post #73

markmassie wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. There are two major questions: either the models are right or they are wrong, and either we successfully curb emissions on a very large scale (action) or we do not (inaction). This gives us four outcomes: 1. Models are Right + Action = huge spending on energy but we save the planet 2. Models are wrong + Action = huge spending on energy that otherwise would be spent on defense, etc. but we are left with a ren…

It is nice to see such innocence in this day and age. Regardless of whether or not we can manage to do anything about the problem, the fear people have is the vast amounts of power and wealth we are transferring to select groups of people based on political considerations, rather than market forces. Maybe we can select the perfect "leaders" to do this job justly. Prudence would dictate that you should imagine your po…

"the fear people have is the vast amounts of power and wealth we are transferring to select groups of people based on political considerations"

Ah, yes, like we do now, with the oil companies.

Re: 95% of climate models agree: the observations must be wrong

#89

Post by beloch » Sat, Feb 15, 2014, 4:40 AM UTC

Climate change models are based on data. Old data, but real data. The concept wouldn't have even occurred to us had real, physical phenomena not suggested it. The deviation of recent data from predictive models does not indicate that nothing is going on an everything is tickety-boo. It merely indicates we don't fully understand what's going on and our models still don't have much predictive power.

So, if we don't fully understand what's going on, what do we do? Nothing? That's idiotic. It's utter paralysis. Would you invest in a tech company that refuses to do anything unless it fully understands the outcome? Sadly, human existence is lived in a perpetual state of trial and error. What we can do is weigh the consequences our actions could have based on our current, best understanding of the situation and then make the best choice we can.

Climate change might not fit our models, but our limited understanding of what's going on indicates there could be dire consequences if we do nothing. Action always has a cost, however. If indeed efforts against climate change have caused poor people to starve (evidence please!), how do we weigh this against massive famines that may occur in the future because of climate change?

Dr. Spencer is jumping to conclusions far more spurious and unsupported than any of the climate scientists he derides. We would do well do ignore him. As such, I am flagging this article. If this is an abuse of the flag feature, please let me know and I will unflag it.

Re: 95% of climate models agree: the observations must be wrong

#90

Post by marze » Sat, Feb 15, 2014, 4:41 AM UTC

Expected CO2 increases would modify the Earth's albedo by 0.4%. Clouds modify it by > 25%.

We can't predict clouds more than five days in advance, under our well-studied present climate conditions.

It is difficult to see why climate modelers are confident they can predict average cloud cover in the future when different climate conditions are in effect.