Our Oceans are Under Attack

Climate models are not secret. Their code is open for any and all to see and critique. There have been plenty of skeptical climate scientists who have had the opportunity to offer guidance in how the models are built.

Just a few weeks ago I referenced the work of skeptical climate scientist Richard Muller who thought that the way surface temperatures had been analyzed was flawed. So he got a bunch of funding, both from mainstream sources and from skeptical sources, to re-analyze the historic temperature record. What he determined was that all those conniving scientists actually had done a pretty good job.

You can read a little about the General Climate Model here, the General Circulation Model here, the Coupled model intercomparison project here, and the Atmospheric Model Intercomparison Project here.

I see no reason to believe that climate scientists are not being above board (with a few embarrassing lapses), or that they are not using generally recognized techniques and practices for their disciplines. And remember, there are a wide range of disciplines needed to examine global climate: geologists, chemists, physicists, oceanographers, biologists, archeologists, etc. It beggars belief that they are all part of a massive conspiracy to "cook the books" so that they can all reach the same predetermined conclusion.

That being said, both the data and the models are improving, so it is not surprising that some of the latest estimates are different from those made in the early days of research. But in general even the earliest models are at least trending in the right direction, even if they weren't totally accurate in every respect.

 

Do any of these models omit CO2 as a causal factor driving climate?

 

The missing heat they can't find. How do they know there is heat missing?
I could see feeling mystified over high temperatures you didn't understand the cause of.
But mystified over lower temperatures? Lower than what?

Lower than the climate models projected temperatures! The model CAN'T be wrong, can it, so the heat is hiding. right? right!
Why doesn't somebody get smart, put their AGW agenda aside, and make a double sided model. All data goes into a single data registry sourced by both sides of the model.
Any tweaks or inputs affects both models precisely the same.
One side includes a CO2 calculation, other side ignores CO2. Otherwise, models identical.
Then see which model is more accurate reflecting actual measurements.
I'd bet money, the CO2 side, just like now, would infer temperatures were hiding somewhere, and the model ignoring CO2 would be near slap on observed temperatures data.
Want to bet?

 

Ok, just catching up here. There are some outright misconceptions in your post, quite apart from the subjective differences of opinion.

Personally, I would say that YEC's getting their timelines wrong by a factor of almost a million is a bit more than a "minor detail". It's a bit like using a 0.000001" diameter bolt when you should be using a 1" diameter bolt. However, if you wish to regard it as a minor detail I suppose that is your choice. Just don't be surprised if many people disagree.

Anyway, I wasn't referring to YEC doctrine as such, just to the general style of argument and tactics they tend to employ.

Your use of the word "random" indicates you are stuck with some common misconceptions about evolution. The short version is that mutation is largely random, while natural selection (which is what drives evolution) is largely non-random. This is an important distinction that is often missed.

I say "largely" in both cases to be strictly accurate. Mutations are more common at some points of genomes than at others, meaning the process is not entirely random, in the sense that it is exactly as likely to occur anywhere. Also, natural selection can be influenced by random events. The dinosaurs being clobbered by an asteroid is a good off-the-cuff example. It doesn't much matter how well adapted you are if a dirty great rock drops on your head.

Still, the idea that evolution is "purely random" is definitely a misconception. Anyone making that claim is simply demonstrating that they have no understanding of the subject. However, since this is not a thread about evolution I'll leave it there for the moment.

Ideally, yes, but certainty is often not possible in real life. In those cases the question becomes: how do you assess the risk?

The wonderful thing about being insulted is that anyone can claim it, at any time, on any pretext whatsoever. I could certainly make such a claim about several things that have been said in this thread. I'm not going to bother though, because I don't see such a claim as containing any useful information in itself, or doing anything to progress the discussion.

And right there is a good example. Anyone concerned about AGW could claim that you are being insulting here. They'd have as much justification as you have. We could then have a great little thread about who was more insulted than who, and why, and what should be done about it. My 2c is that we should give all of that crap a miss.

The faulty assumption there, IMO, is that you are thinking the situation now is the same as the situation in the past. It isn't. Obviously back before humans were around, climate change had nothing to do with humans. For a long time, human population was fairly small. These days there are almost seven billion humans doing stuff. They do quite a lot of stuff too, since they're the dominant species on the planet.

I have no opinion on Maurice Strong. I regard him as irrelevant to this discussion.

Then you should be aware of Godel's work regarding the limits of pure logic. That is basically why we need empirical evidence.

What about climate science, specifically, do you regard as being "against the scientific method", and why?

Actually it does, in informal situations. It's common to say things like that. I'm sure any scientist worth his or her salt knows that such statements are not strictly accurate if you want to get picky, but what they are referring to is a situation where although a certain thing could in principle be falsified, the evidence required to do that seems vanishingly unlikely to ever eventuate, because the evidence for said thing is so overwhelming and contains so many interwoven threads.

An analogy would be gravity. You can say it is settled, and that there is a scientific consensus that apples will fall downwards rather than up, and will do so at a certain predictable rate. This would be acceptable in conversation even though, in principle, if you want to get really picky, you can never be absolutely certain that the next apple won't fall up.

No, it's nothing to do with the Holocaust. I've never know anyone to use that term in an attempt to evoke the Holocaust when the topic is climate science. I think you are reading too much into a term which simply indicates denial of climate science.

Disagreeing in science is fine, as long as you can support your disagreement under scrutiny. If you can't, then you're probably just making stuff up.

Umm, no. It started with observations of CO2 levels and measurements of temperature. The early data came first. The modelling came later, after it became clear that something interesting was going on and merited closer inspection.

Well hang on a second. If the climate is changing, and if CO2 is driving some of that change, then it's inevitable that some events will be linked to this.

No. What is required is that it must be falsifiable in principle. You cannot have half a dozen real Earth's available to half a dozen teams of scientists to screw around with for several centuries. It's impossible. That doesn't mean that climate science is impossible. We have to work with what we've got.

What experiments do you want them to do? Do you have a bunch of spare planets stashed in your garage? No? Well then, doesn't collecting and analysing real world data seem like a good idea? It sure does to me, if I want to know what's going on. Scientists are supposed to collect data and analyse it. It's a large part of their job. To protest about them doing that aspect of their job is ridiculous.

The data is available, if you make the effort to get it. Ditto the models. Alternative interpretations are fine if, and only if, you can support them.

Yes, and to me they seem very weak.

 

I haven't read the article yet, but I do have some comments on your response to it.

I assume you would regard me as a "liberal". I can't claim to speak for every person you would regard as a liberal, but I think I can make some observations which are likely to be shared by a fairly broad group of such people.

I can assure you that my interest in climate science is pragmatic. I consider that the desire to not have my arse fried is pretty damned pragmatic. I'm not sure how you would present it as being touchy/feely, unless perhaps you think that liberals spend their time constantly touching and feeling their arses to make sure that the temperature of their buttocks is within acceptable limits.

Liberals, in my experience, do not actually do this. Actually, liberals tend to be quite unconcerned about how arses behave. If anyone is going to be spending their time checking that the behaviour of arses is strictly within the boundaries of tradition, it's going to be a conservative. Liberals don't care. Liberals just want arses to be free, but conservatives sure do worry about what those arses might be getting up to.

Which brings up another point: freedom. You seem to think conservatives are the guardians of "freedom". The funny thing here is that liberals are quite happy to grant other people some freedoms that conservatives would like to deny them. So, sometimes liberals are the "guardians of freedom" and conservatives are the ones standing against it. The world is not as clear cut as you would like it to be.

So obviously you would strongly defend an individual's right to shout "Fire" in a crowded theatre, and would fight to the death against anyone who wanted to restrict that individual's freedom for the common good of the other people in the theatre. Right?

Yeah, right. I deliberately chose that example because earlier you used it as an example of behaviour you wouldn't accept. You know as well as anyone that a functioning society requires compromise. Fundamentalist sound bites don't work. You need more than than slogans. You need balance.

You like firm rules? So uncertainty makes you uncomfortable? But life is full of uncertainty. There's no way around it. And firm rules may not suit all situations. Whatever rule you think of, it's probably possible to think of a situation where it wouldn't or shouldn't apply.

And frankly I don't care about your constitution. It's got nothing to do with me, or with most of the world for that matter.

Although that's not the topic here, it is relevant to your claims about pragmatism. If you bother to talk to most people who support legalised abortion, you will find that they do so not because they think abortion is a good thing. They will usually agree that it is not a good thing, as such. They will usually not base their support for it on ideological grounds. They may cite ideological principles as additional backing, but it's generally not the main reason for their support of legalised abortion.

The main reason is quite simple, and it is pragmatism. What evidence is available indicates that, when all factors are considered, legal abortion results in less harm in total than having it made illegal. Therefore, if you wish to minimise harm, the pragmatic course is to go with legalisation regardless of the fact that abortion is distasteful.

The bottom line here is that many of the people you call liberals are quite capable of being pragmatic.

 

You are asking the wrong question. The important question is "can an accurate climate model be created that does not include CO2?" So far, the answer is No. Data drives the models, not philosophy.

Scientists can measure how much heat is coming in from the sun. They can measure how much heat the earth itself is generating. And they can measure the amount of heat being radiated from the earth. If the inputs don't match the outputs, then temperature ought to be going either up or down.

If the temperature isn't moving according to the model, then clearly the model isn't accurate. So they start looking for what isn't accurate. Climate science is extremely complex. Scientists have had to tweak their models many times as new data has become available.

But that's the important point. They are adjusting the models to fit the data, not to fit their preconceived point of view. I'm sure they often do have a preconceived point of view, and I'm sure they try and make the model fit that point of view. But if they can't make the model fit the data, then they have to throw out that model.

Clearly, the model was wrong. Or at least part of the model. The big gap in understanding right now is the part the oceans play in the global climate system. That's where a lot of recent data collecting has been (buoys and satellites), and where a lot of recent analyzing has been happening.

The data is available for anyone to make a model. But to be taken seriously the model MUST utilize ALL the data. No cherry-picking. And yes, I'll be happy to place a bet -- and in fact, by spending so much time on AGW-threads, I have made a pretty substantial bet time-wise.

 

to noeyedeer.
I bolded or highlighted in the liberal article how "messages that FEEL RIGHTEOUS to liberals...ect".
Do ideas or hypothesis FEEL righteous to you? If so, you are probably a liberal.
If instead you THINK about them, as I'm confident you do, you are probably a conservative at heart, according to American definitions.
That's what I meant by touchy/feely, a phrase that may be uniquely an Americanism.
On a thinker/feeler scale, thinkers are mission objective oriented. Can we achieve the goal with an acceptable loss of troops.
Feelers are more harmony oriented. Let's include everybody in, make sure everybody is comfortable together, everybody in agreement, and no loss of troops acceptable.
We call those touchy feely types. Kind will impulsively touch your hand to help make a point, thinking or rather feeling that physical contact equates with mental connection.

The conservative talking points, weren't intended to push or explain conservative ideas, just give short examples of some. As opposed to FEELS RIGHTEOUS.

As to importance of our constitution, we won't subjugate it to any earthly power. Not to the UN. Not an alliance of all the nations against us. Not to a one world government. To most Americans, the constitution is the highest authority on the planet. To us only, granted.
But if you want the USA to co-operate with you, understand where we draw the line. The UN is NOT going to tax us for carbon. The UN is NOT going to control our guns. The UN is NOT going to dictate squat to the USA.

 

As to your concerns about a horrible future in store.
I just don't get it. Maybe I AM ignorant or unperceptive...though I don't believe those things about myself...but...WHY do you think it's going to be so horrible, and WHEN?

Recent RECORD HIGH temperatures were only 1.3 degree F higher than twentieth century AVERAGE. and there were temperatures throughout the 20th century nearly equal to this new RECORD high temperature.

If my body temperature rose 1.3 degree F, I would drink some water, and take an aspirin, maybe rest a bit. I wouldn't even think I was ill unless it got close to 3 degrees higher than normal. At least 101 degree F instead of 98.6 degree F. A temperature of 103 degree F, I'd go to bed and consider I had an infection or the flu and take some medicine. wouldn't bother seeing a doctor unless it climbed to 104, more than 5 degrees above normal.

What's the big DEAL? You act like the earth was going to spontaneously combust or something.

 

how do we convince somebody, to down play the CO2 influence in a climate model, to see if that makes model projection more in line with measured data.

I am highly suspicious of CO2 playing a dominant role, but you probably guessed that.

 

"Then you should be aware of Godel's work regarding the limits of pure logic. That is basically why we need empirical evidence."

I'm much in favor of empirical data and evidence.
I don't consider computer climate models empirical evidence. Do you?

And Gödel gave me heartburn in college. Do we HAVE to discuss Godel?
He was a genius, no denying, and so was economist John Nash. Both NUTS.
I stopped at a BS in Math so I WOULDN'T go nuts.

But i'll share this:
Logic MUST be consistent. Everything MUST be true or false. Nothing is permitted to be BOTH true and false.
Gödel said in a complete set of axioms, some would be unprovable, and some undeterminable as true or false.
Godel also predicted, If you make an axiom of an unprovable, more unprovables arise as a result.
Axiom:=a statement of fact (accepted unproved truth) Statement of fact isn't fact but a claim that it's to be treated as a fact.

So if you make an axiom of the unprovable $CO2 drives climate is true$, you end up with lots of unprovables like $CO2 causes drought$, $CO2 causes storms$, $CO2 causes hemorrhoids$. and if you make axioms of THESE unprovables, you get mired deeper and deeper in uncertainty.

And you cause inconsistencies such as CO2 is dry, CO2 is wet. Both can't be true as they are antithetical.
ERGO, since inconsistency is not permitted, the original axiom, $CO2 drives climate is true$, is illogical.

 

History of climate change science | Wikipedia

History of Climate Science | OSS

 

Though 33 climate models exist today, the IPCC is planning to limit its next report's "modeling" section to just three.

Choosing just three models means 30 modeling groups will be ignored. Each employs dozens of people, who are left to explain to their funders and employers--government officials and university presidents among them--why their work is being ignored.

One of the models not chosen by the IPCC is a new one from the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). The NCAR model is one of the most "transparent" available, accessible to any and all researchers with sufficient funds to work with it.

The NCAR model predicts just 2.3 degrees C of warming if atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are doubled, and just 1.3 degrees C of warming over the next century if realistic greenhouse-effect changes are modeled.
http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/1999/04/01/ipcc-raise-warming-forecast-exclude-us-model

That translates to increase of 4 degrees F.... if CO2 doubles to 800ppm from 400ppm. but based on actual CO2 level expectations, realistically only 2 degrees F over next century. So are they expecting 600ppm CO2 in a century?
Anyone see cause for panic here?

Something is spontaneously combusting!

The pants of IPCC climate terrorists
pants on fire, forget the first line. Oh yeah, liar, liar

 

You have introduced a logical fallacy here.

A global climate system is complex. Changing one variable will create a different sequence of events. There are too many variables to consider only direct actors. One part of the globe might have flooding while another has droughts. Not everything will be linear. And it is much more complex than one change = one effect.

 

It's not a quote, it's a fabrication.

The Climate Denier List
a list of scientists, real or imagined, pundits and loud mouths

see also
Maurice Strong's website

Maurice Strong on climate 'conspiracy', Bilberberg and population control | an interview by THE GUARDIAN

 

Like I said, I have no opinion on Maurice Strong and regard him as irrelevant to this discussion.

I might be persuaded to express an opinion on those who fabricate stuff and try to pass it of as truth.

ETA: Not that I'm suggesting our old friend Barnacle did any fabrication, but he certainly feel for it. Barny old son, I regret to inform you that some of your favourite sites tell lies.