350

[Flyfisher]

But it's not quite that simple is it?

Firstly, I have some small experience, many years ago, of publishing in peer-reviewed journals and am under no illusion that papers published in such journals are beyond dispute. Indeed, a paper rejected by one journal will often be accepted by another - so what conclusions can be drawn from that? My experience was in the fields of biochemistry and pharmacology; perhaps climate science is different, but I doubt it. The scientific literature is full of papers that have since been shown to be incorrect, even though they were peer-reviewed and represented state-of-the-art science at the time. Things change.

Secondly, Pachauri might be the top man in the game but two years ago he was promoting a 450ppm CO2 target yet now he is promoting 350ppm. Fair enough, things change. I don't presume to question his integrity or knowledge but I do think this rate of change suggests that the scientists don't understand things as well as they'd like us lay-people to believe. That may be because they are still homing in on the true facts of the matter, or it may be that their models are all over the place and that the subject is too chaotic and the datasets too sparse for effective models to be constructed. Lovelock is very critical of climate models and the CRUs 'loss' of their original raw data puts a question mark over using new and improved analytics to re-verify, and possibly reinforce, existing models.

It seems to me that the science is becoming secondary to the 'faith'. You've obviously seen the light but I'm still struggling with my agnosticism.

 

[biffvernon]

Some things are simple, others not. That the world is warming because of man's emissions to the atmosphere. Simple. How much, how fast, who dies first, what to do about it. Complicated.

Of course crap papers get published. But they get discredited fast enough. No great problem. Of course things change. We know Newton was 'wrong' about gravity and think Einstein may have been 'wrong' about gravity. (Doesn't stop Newtonian mechanics being good enough for interplanetery navigation.)

Pachauri promoting 450 two years ago? Remember he is chair of the IPCC, which is subject to realpolitic. Speaking personally last week, he supports 350.

Be careful about what a model is. If this then that. Don't award models with undeserved powers and then criticise when they don't live up to the false expectation.

Lovelock has always been on the doom side of the science. He may turn out to be right and we will all be toast. Let's hope he's wrong.

Do stop going on about the data loss. It was a trivial affair. (No need to take my word for it - it's all out there.)

Science becoming secondary to 'faith'? Eh? Science and faith are non-intersecting paradigms.

Nice to see that the world's top politician, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, is doing what he can http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8230921.stm
But what will it take to get Flyfisher on board?

 

[Pford75]

Nice to see that the world's top politician, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon,

Ban Ki-Moon is not a politician, he's a bureaucrat/diplomat. He is completely unaccountable to the populace...apart from that, the UN as an organisation has a reputation for corruption, nepotism and lack of transparency

 

[Lime]

Do stop going on about the data loss. It was a trivial affair.

That demonstrates belief but it is not science.
It is nonsense to say that lost data on which predictions are based is trivial.
It is fundamental.
The truth is that the lost data was not considered important at the time nor was the present extrapolation from it ever envisaged.
What "adjustments" were made on the figures at the time were made with no thought to the purpose they now serve.
That is the problem.

Climate change/global warming is not unlike the Galileo earth-round-sun or sun-round-earth quandary.
Both arguments had the same information but interpreted the information differently.
Galileo "proved" his argument by predicting the future accurately again and again... but even he had difficulty believing the results.
To his opponents he was dangerous and an idiot.
They also had a huge collection of documents "proving" they were right.

Therein is the problem.
If the "science" of climate change hinges on prediction and extrapolation when are they going to predict the future accurately again and again?
So far they have done little to prove anything yet and while the "models" totally ignore the real problem, overpopulation, their problems will mount.

 

[Penners]

the world is warming because of man's emissions to the atmosphere. Simple.

Hmmm... you see that's where I start to have these small, nagging worries.

Is man emitting large quantities of carbon into the atmosphere? Yes.

Is the climate warming? Yes.

But is the one the consequence of the other? As I said above, my broad conviction is yes. But I can't help a smidgin of scepticism about it. After all, if 98% of people with ingrowing toenails eat potatoes, does that mean that potatoes cause ingrowing toenails?

 

[biffvernon]

Why is it that non-climate scientists won't believe what climate scientists say? Ok Penners, you told us earlier that you knew how phones worked. I don't. My son, who is a telecoms engineer, says that the radio architecture he works with requires an understanding and application of quantum mechanics. I haven't a clue what he's on about but if I manage to press the right buttons in the right order something useful (sometimes) happens. I don't tell t'lad that I'm not really sure he's got it right and that it's all down to cosmic rays or summat unknown. I have faith in his understanding and application of theoretical physics. I also have faith in the understanding and application of theoretical physics by a large number of climate scientists. And since I do know a little about that subject I should be able to have even more faith in their work that in that of telecoms engineers.

Lime, don't make the mistake of thinking that science ever proves anything. Proof is a useful concept in maths and logic but is not part of science.

Part of the scientific process sometimes involves the repeatability of experiments and observations. Climate change does not lend itself to this approach as a whole since it's a one time experiment. Get it wrong once and we are toast. Of course the underlying physics is all based on the observations of repeatable experiment.

 

[biffvernon]

Nice to see that the world's top politician, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon,

Ban Ki-Moon is not a politician, he's a bureaucrat/diplomat. He is completely unaccountable to the populace...apart from that, the UN as an organisation has a reputation for corruption, nepotism and lack of transparency

Yeah, whatever, but Ban Ki-Moon is a good bloke.

 

[Moo]

I'm with Penners on this, but that doesn't mean that the whole thread isn't absolutely riveting. A bit like watching a boxing match between two world champion heavyweights. Absolutely no hope of surviving even a few seconds in the ring with either of them, but really edifying to be a spectator.
Keep up the argument, gentlemen (and I use that word advisedly - the courtesy being demonstrated on both sides is a rare example to us all).

 

[biffvernon]

Oi, who you calling heavyweight, young lady? I tell you I'm perfectly trim.

 

[Moo]

Oh dear. Can I borrow your tin hat, please?

 

[MdB]

But is the one the consequence of the other? As I said above, my broad conviction is yes. But I can't help a smidgin of scepticism about it. After all, if 98% of people with ingrowing toenails eat potatoes, does that mean that potatoes cause ingrowing toenails?

Ah, the great "correlation doesn't mean causation" statement. So many people just don't get this. Fortunately there is a great graph that explains it quite well:

As you can see, as global temperature goes up, the number of pirates (*) goes down. If we therefore all wear eye patches and say "Arrrrghhh", we should be able to reduce global temperatures. (Remember it is talk like a pirate day on the 19th Sept.)
There is a whole religion based on this idea.

Silly idea yes, but it has a serious point. Just because there is correlation in a set of data does not mean that there is causation. From my reading of the literature, my feeling is that there is a likely causation of human activities creating climate change but like Pennars, I am not 100% convinced.

(*)Pirates with cutlasses and parrots. Pirates with machine guns and rocket launchers don't count

 

[biffvernon]

Spot on. Recall how the physics behind global warming was worked out in the 19th century and that predictions of global warming were made long before observations demonstrated the expected outcome of man's influence.

 

[bower1]

Why is it that non-climate scientists won't believe what climate scientists say? Ok Penners, you told us earlier that you knew how phones worked. I don't. My son, who is a telecoms engineer, says that the radio architecture he works with requires an understanding and application of quantum mechanics. I haven't a clue what he's on about but if I manage to press the right buttons in the right order something useful (sometimes) happens. I don't tell t'lad that I'm not really sure he's got it right and that it's all down to cosmic rays or summat unknown. I have faith in his understanding and application of theoretical physics. I also have faith in the understanding and application of theoretical physics by a large number of climate scientists. And since I do know a little about that subject I should be able to have even more faith in their work that in that of telecoms engineers.

I still don't feel the telecoms analogy is particularly helpful. Whether I have faith in the telecoms engineers doesn't affect whether the phone works, and they often don't work. Maybe the engineers know why (not enough masts, interference etc) or maybe they don't understand it. I don't know. But I know they do sometimes and don't others. I wouldn't tell them how to do their job, but equally I have no particular faith in them doing their job. Its just easier to see whether they are right or not.

But, on a similar point, do I trust that the interference from radio transmission has no effect on my health. Now thats a much more difficult point. Do I trust the experts on the subject? To a point, but certainly I don't have faith in them. And I think thats more like the global warming issue for me.

 

[Lime]

Ah, the great "correlation doesn't mean causation" statement. So many people just don't get this. Fortunately there is a great graph that explains it quite well:

As you can see, as global temperature goes up, the number of pirates (*) goes down. If we therefore all wear eye patches and say "Arrrrghhh", we should be able to reduce global temperatures. (Remember it is talk like a pirate day on the 19th Sept.)
There is a whole religion based on this idea.

Silly idea yes, but it has a serious point.

Indeed it does.
It is obvious to me that the extra warmth has made pirating much less popular.

 

[MdB]

Indeed it does.
It is obvious to me that the extra warmth has made pirating much less popular.

Yep, grog needs to be served cold.

 

[worms]

Wait a minute, the pirate graph doesn't even have the X-axis in numerical order!

Coming back to Penner's toenails and potatoes, again this doesn't work - unless there is only one person and one potato-based diet! We are ignoring the fundamentals of the statistical difficulty - there is one planet and one time-series. We don't have the luxury of a controlled trial or an immediate cause-and-effect that is open to experimental manipulation, which is why most of us can only really be spectators on the debate between those who are studying the influence of different factors on the observed change in temperature.

 

[biffvernon]

But, on a similar point, do I trust that the interference from radio transmission has no effect on my health. Now thats a much more difficult point. Do I trust the experts on the subject? To a point, but certainly I don't have faith in them. And I think thats more like the global warming issue for me.

That's quite an interesting analogy. Happen my lad was responsible for his company's H&S compliance with respect to emf radiation. It's an issue for the workers on live masts. The energy density in three dimensions has to be modelled, mapped and kept within legal limits. The job involved keeping abreast of all the scientific research in the subject. (And there's been a great deal of it.) What is quite clear is that there is no scientific basis on which to conclude that the use of mobile phones damages user's health. Is that the same as saying that all use of mobiles has been proved to be harmless? Like I said, there's no such thing as proof in science. Still, most folk are happy to use phones and telecoms companies are confident that they operate within the compliance regimes set by governments.

 

[Flyfisher]

Why is it that non-climate scientists won't believe what climate scientists say? . . . . . I have faith in his understanding and application of theoretical physics. I also have faith in the understanding and application of theoretical physics by a large number of climate scientists. And since I do know a little about that subject I should be able to have even more faith in their work that in that of telecoms engineers.

That's the point I was shot down for earlier; it is a faith issue. You seem to have absolute faith in the models and predictions of the climate scientists, and therefore can't understand why non-climate scientists won't believe what real climate scientist say, whereas I have somewhat less faith.

But I agree with Bower1 that the phone analogy is not a good one. Regardless of your faith in the telecoms engineers, you can pick up and use a telephone, test its performance and satisfy yourself that it works, or not. You can't easily do that with a theoretical climate model, if at all.

 

[Penners]

I also have faith in the understanding and application of theoretical physics by a large number of climate scientists. And since I do know a little about that subject I should be able to have even more faith in their work that in that of telecoms engineers.

I also have considerable faith in the understanding and application of theoretical physics of climate scientists. I even have a sizeable chunk of faith in your judgement in this matter.

But let's never lose sight of the fact that, as soon as we stray into the field of "faith", we have wandered out of the field of empiricism.

 

[FamilyWiggs]

This is a fascinating thread, and although only just linked to period property, it is a great example of how wonderful this forum can be - we occasionally have heated threads; next time we do, we should all come back here and remind ourselves... well done too the key protagonists.

Now, can I just point out that I have consisently linked the disparate elements together (pirates, potates and AGW) by advocating that we should all be stockpiling guns, food and sandbags?