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

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

#91

Post by nickff »

TheEzEzz wrote: post #85
yummyfajitas wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

>"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. "

Could one not also postulate that we are approaching a new ice age, and that carbon emissions are keeping the world from freezing over?

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

#92

Post by gwern »

anigbrowl wrote: post #47
jbooth wrote: post #4

I don't know enough about meteorology to comment on the article, but this quote bugged me: "And if humans are the cause of only, say, 50% of the warming (e.g. our published paper), then there is even less reason to force expensive and prosperity-destroying energy policies down our throats." No, there's the exact same amount of reason. This isn't a morality play, who's "fault" it is doesn't matter. If there were a met…

prosperity-destroying energy policies Ever notice how climate change skeptics implicitly claim perfect economic foresight? They may not buy that the Earth is warming or what the cause is, but they're absolutely certain that trying to weatherproof our civilization is going to result in collective bankruptcy. Oh yes.

> but they're absolutely certain that trying to weatherproof our civilization is going to result in collective bankruptcy. Oh yes.

? This is hardly a deep economic forecast. If you force people to engage in expenditures they were otherwise never going to make, it's a pretty safe bet they're not going to be better off. After all, if they were better off for it, why weren't they already going to do it? We can maybe imagine a few scenarios to do with personal health and things like that where paternalism works, but nothing to do with global warming looks like that. Working against global warming is going to be expensive, there's no question about that; the question is whether working against global warming is less expensive than not.

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

#93

Post by ramblerman »

beloch wrote: post #89

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 ful…

You can flag what you want, but I'm unconvinced by your arguments. You concede that he makes a point and we have no predicitive power when it comes to the climate.

After that you don't really win me back.

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

#94

Post by yummyfajitas »

TheEzEzz wrote: post #85
yummyfajitas wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

Sure there is some evidence - the existence of a guy claiming to be god's son, a bunch of people claiming miracles occurred, etc. These things are weak evidence in favor of christianity - similarly, there is weak evidence in favor of islam, mormonism, etc.

Given that there is no similar evidence for the Anti-Christianity you postulate, the odds don't cancel.

Another interesting result of this line of thinking: a rational Buddhist/Hindu should convert to Islam/Christianity. If Christianity is correct then you avoid burning in hell forever. If Buddhism is correct you reincarnate and get another shot at enlightenment.

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

#95

Post by auctiontheory »

jbooth wrote: post #4

I don't know enough about meteorology to comment on the article, but this quote bugged me: "And if humans are the cause of only, say, 50% of the warming (e.g. our published paper), then there is even less reason to force expensive and prosperity-destroying energy policies down our throats." No, there's the exact same amount of reason. This isn't a morality play, who's "fault" it is doesn't matter. If there were a met…

would we reason against sending Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck to stop it

Yes, because Tom Cruise could stop it better.

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

#96

Post by auctiontheory »

nazgulnarsil wrote: post #13
jbooth wrote: post #4

I don't know enough about meteorology to comment on the article, but this quote bugged me: "And if humans are the cause of only, say, 50% of the warming (e.g. our published paper), then there is even less reason to force expensive and prosperity-destroying energy policies down our throats." No, there's the exact same amount of reason. This isn't a morality play, who's "fault" it is doesn't matter. If there were a met…

If we're only the cause of 50% of the warming that implies curbing our behavior only has half the impact that it would if we caused 100% of the warming. Granted, geoengineering projects that impact total warming are different.

If we're only the cause of 50% of the warming that implies curbing our behavior only has half the impact that it would if we caused 100% of the warming.

No, it does not imply that, not unless we know of a linear relationship between "warming" and "impact." From what I understand, the relationship is far from linear, i.e. our changes can have disproportionate impact.

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

#97

Post by d4vlx »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #94
TheEzEzz wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

Sure there is some evidence - the existence of a guy claiming to be god's son, a bunch of people claiming miracles occurred, etc. These things are weak evidence in favor of christianity - similarly, there is weak evidence in favor of islam, mormonism, etc. Given that there is no similar evidence for the Anti-Christianity you postulate, the odds don't cancel. Another interesting result of this line of thinking: a rati…

> the existence of a guy claiming to be god's son

Why doesn't such a person show up in Roman records or any one else's records besides Christians then? This is not evidence.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Evidence_for_the_historical_exi...

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

#98

Post by waps »

beloch wrote: post #89

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 ful…

The problem is exacerbated by the fact that we have no idea what effect the policies have. They could be good, BUT they can also have bad results. I mean bad beyond just the economic implications. Since the climate system has been working a certain way for ~10000 years, I'd say the default position should be that nothing is going to change.

What's missing from your reply is an answer to the data he's showing. A long time criticism of the IPCC is that, well, they're wrong. In the sense that if you compare their numbers with reality, their predictions turn out to be a pile of crap. In a truly absolute sense of the word. The IPCC's 95% certainty bands it gave for 5 years out have been violated EVERY single time (5 times) they made a prediction (for the 6th prediction, the jury is still out until the end of next year. However, it's not looking good).

If they really were 95% sure, that means they had a once in 16 MILLION years streak of bad luck (1/0.05^5 * 5 years) (and unless that 6th prediction works out, and global temperature rises by at least 1.2 degrees in about a year and a half, that will be a once in 320 million years streak of bad luck). That is significantly less believable, in my humble opinion, than the theory that they're just pulling numbers out of their ass (not necessarily intentionally), no matter how unflattering that claim may be to the many smart people working that field.

So in short : yes, I think doing nothing is the correct answer. You can't hope to do a better job doing something versus not doing something in this case, so the best course of action (least cost/maximum benefit) can only be to not do anything. So yes, nothing.

Either that, or switch to climate engineering (ie. change the question : no longer about how to restore "natural" climate, whatever that is. The question becomes : how do we fully bend the climate to our will. That and related questions, like what do we actually want the climate to be (I doubt the answer will be as simple as people think)).

So I don't agree with your flagging this, no. Yes, the article's author is probably not the right person to believe this claim from. But he's right (well, the first few paragraphs). And science is all about what is right, not who.

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

#99

Post by adam-f »

IANAS but it never made sense to me that global warming would be linear with amount of CO_2, at some point, I figured 95% of the available IR would be absorbed by the atmosphere and doubling the CO_2 would only get us to, like, 97.5%. Then again, we are experiencing some crazy weather patterns recently.

Other effects of CO_2, like ocean acidification can be seen through both direct chemical measurement and by the observed environmental effects on coral reefs.

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

#100

Post by x0054 »

beloch wrote: post #89

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 ful…

Well, for one the rules directly state: "If you flag something, please don't also comment that you did." Further, the rules also state that one should flag things which are "spam or offtopic." The list of flag worthy offenses isn't extensive, and I am sure there are other reasons, but something tells me that flagging something simply because you disagree with it is NOT ok.
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