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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

#131

Post by dredmorbius »

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?

Believe it or not, there are people who consider evidence, logic, and consequences, and base their understanding off of that.

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

#132

Post by sanxiyn »

001sky wrote: post #128
sanxiyn wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We actually do have more than 3000 robots spread across the world's ocean measuring temperature. These robots have clever mechanisms to change their own density so that they can move from shallow depth to deep depth (up to 2000 m). Conceived in 1999, this program has been running for more than 10 years now and we do have precise measurements of the energy in the ocean. We also do have less precise measurements before…

While you have to start somewhere, this illustrates the larger point. Some basic facts about the scale of the problem remain: "The total volume is approximately 1.3 billion cubic kilometres (310 million cu mi)[7] with an average depth of 3,682 metres (12,080 ft).[8]" > 3x10^8 cubic miles vs 3x10^3 instruments > Instrument cannot reach even ~average depth > 10 years of data Certainly, it is a start. But... There is a…

Yeah sure. All I am saying is that we now have better handle on the heat content of the upper ocean than before, and not locally so, but globally. I probably shouldn't have omitted "upper" qualifier.

I also think, while imperfect, our information is good enough to support "Earth is heating, the heat is mostly(>90%) going to the ocean" claim.

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

#133

Post by 001sky »

sanxiyn wrote: post #132
001sky wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While you have to start somewhere, this illustrates the larger point. Some basic facts about the scale of the problem remain: "The total volume is approximately 1.3 billion cubic kilometres (310 million cu mi)[7] with an average depth of 3,682 metres (12,080 ft).[8]" > 3x10^8 cubic miles vs 3x10^3 instruments > Instrument cannot reach even ~average depth > 10 years of data Certainly, it is a start. But... There is a…

Yeah sure. All I am saying is that we now have better handle on the heat content of the upper ocean than before, and not locally so, but globally. I probably shouldn't have omitted "upper" qualifier. I also think, while imperfect, our information is good enough to support "Earth is heating, the heat is mostly(>90%) going to the ocean" claim.

Data is always a good start, and I think most of the debate is centered more on presumptive undestanding or framing of the data themselves. Land surface temps, Sea Surface temps, are different pieces of data. So are actual in the absolute scale. To the extent the ocean is a heat-sink (for example), the latter may be quite relevant.#

[#] In general, a useful thought experiment is consider the same way that the fin's on an air-cooled ICE are relevant to the thermal dynamics of the cylinder of a 4s motor. In other words, an air-cooled ICE and a water-cooled ICE with a busted radiator are going to do different things going forward from the same datapoint. That forward looking understanding presumes the mechanic has a handle on what type of engine his thermostat is hooked up to. None of this is intended to belittle the value of the data. But to emphasise the meaning of context and actual expertise in how it is used.

We all know politicians and scientific data tend not to mix objectively.

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

#134

Post by danieltillett »

TheEzEzz wrote: post #87
jessaustin wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...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 uni…

Yes. I really don't know how to do NPV calculations on any event that involves the extinction of humanity, but with any NPV calculation where the cost is more than three orders of magnitude greater than benefit it doesn't really matter how much greater the cost is.

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

#135

Post by theg2 »

DanBC wrote: post #127
x0054 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

We shouldn't upvote crap links. Unfortunately many people will upvote crap. The only way to keep garbage off the front page is for some people to flag it.

Otherwise known as the Reddit hivemind syndrome. Don't agree with someone's opinion? Flag or bury it? How about instead you rebut it in the comments and help inform those "crap voters".

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

#136

Post by Tycho »

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 I'm willing to bet that this graph will reappear all over the internet. People in this thread spent a lot of time debating the evidence and logic surrounding it, and posting links to rebuttals. Since you've flagged this topic and it's disappeared from the front pages, it just makes it more likely that this graph will spread round the internet unchallenged.

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

#137

Post by DanBC »

theg2 wrote: post #135
DanBC wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We shouldn't upvote crap links. Unfortunately many people will upvote crap. The only way to keep garbage off the front page is for some people to flag it.

Otherwise known as the Reddit hivemind syndrome. Don't agree with someone's opinion? Flag or bury it? How about instead you rebut it in the comments and help inform those "crap voters".

Because with things like climate change denialism there is very little point in having that conversation.

People either listen to the vast majority of scientists (global change is happening; global change is almost certainly driven by human activity) or they can listen to scientists who do not work in climate and who have been paid by industry to create FUD - some of these scientists are the same people who ised to work for the tobacco industry.

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

#138

Post by glenra »

x0054 wrote: post #108
waps wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Climate engineering scares the shit out of me. I think this article is right, we do not fully understand global warming. We know something is happening, we do NOT know exactly what OR why. But we have the fucking hubris to assume that we can make it better (through climate engineering)!? Without even fully understanding the problem. That said, we can still work on improving the world and cutting down CO2 emissions AN…

> Global warming or not, no one can argue with the fact that air quality in large cities in US, India, and China is atrocious.

You can argue with that for the US. "atrocious" compared to what? It's certainly a lot better than it used to be.

> And that pollution is 100% man made, no argument about that.

Not 100%, no. Some of our pollution is nature-made. Los Angeles was smoggy before there were any cars there - the Chumash indian tribe called Los Angeles basin "the valley of smoke". It has environmental conditions conducive to collecting particulates in the air - even pollen and dust and wood smoke from natural fires will collect and form a lingering haze there.

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

#139

Post by freshhawk »

xenophanes wrote: post #81
freshhawk wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

To oversimplify a fair bit, when the vast majority of people who have spend years studying a subject and have the respect of the other people doing the same agree that's "consensus". There are plenty of subjects that do not have a consensus opinion, plenty of times a consensus fractures into multiple camps, etc.

Who's an expert? Anyone who can convince other experts they are also an expert in a culture that glorifies reason and evidence and where the most status can be gained by disagreeing with everyone and then convincing them you were right all along.

You definitely seem to want an algorithm for this kind of thing, but there isn't one. It's an exercise in applied philosophy involving building an artificial culture made up of irrational human beings. It's incredibly problematic from your perspective I suppose. People are inherently problematic from that perspective, as is dealing with the unknown. From my perspective I'll take it until there is something better, because right now this is the way to get the best chance of being right about any subject.

If some cell biologist came in here and told HN that GOTO's were the only control structure you needed for programming, although he had never programmed anything but that doesn't matter because he's smart and he reads about programming a lot, people would tell him he's wrong and that this is pretty well established and universally agreed upon. If he responded with "What did you guys do? Vote on it? Who gets to vote?" you would see that there is a pretty big disconnect between reality and how this biologist thought the culture worked.

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

#140

Post by gruseom »

dredmorbius wrote: post #131
gruseom wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Believe it or not, there are people who consider evidence, logic, and consequences, and base their understanding off of that.

There may be a few, but there are countless more who falsely believe this about themselves. Therefore it is wiser in most cases, especially one's own, to presume that this belief is self-deception. Self-observation quickly reveals how often the emotional reaction precedes and conditions the cognitive one.
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