Slashdot Mirror
Climatologists Wager on Global Warming
coflow writes "The Guardian is carrying a story about a $10,000 bet that a pair of Russian scientists have entered with British climate expert James Annan. According to the article, the Russians believe the world will be cooler in 10 years. "If the temperature drops Dr Annan will stump up the $10,000 (now equivalent to about £5,800) in 2018. If the Earth continues to warm, the money will go the other way.""
Obviously inspired by the 10-year Julian Simon/Paul Ehrlich wager of 1980.M Simon had Ehrlich choose five of several commodity metals. Ehrlich chose 5 metals: copper, chrome, nickel, tin, and tungsten. Simon bet that their prices would go down. Ehrlich bet they would go up. Simon won.
Robin Hansen has been trying to set up markets in this sort of thing for a while, but with little success. It seems that, for the most part, people get more than a little conservative*, and not only don't want to bet, but also don't want to see the odds.
*I'm using that in the general sense, not the current flame-fest sense.
I forget what 8 was for.
We all know about global warming, but there is also the theory of "global dimming", which been backed up by extensive research. The global dimming theory says that the true extent of global warming is being masked by pollution particles, which block out UV rays and therefore prevents them from warming the planet. The cruel irony is that if we move to a %100 renewable, non-pulluting energy existance, these UV blocking particles will dissipate back to natural levels, thus allowing more UV to bounce around in the greenhouse, and exposing us to the full effect of global warming!
The greenhouse particles exist for greater than 100 years, meaning the only solution would be to remove both the greenhouse particles and the UV blocking particles, how that may be achieved is unclear.
Well, first off, the vast majority of glaciers is not in the south pole. Antarctica simply has monster ones. There are glaciers spread throughout the world. Greenland, Canada, and Russia are loaded with them. In addition, all the ice at the south pole have been shrinking except for at the pole itself. Now, glaciers normally go through growth and shrink over several decades. Most of these have been here since the last ice age. But for the last 20-30 years, ALL glaciers except for those at the poles have been shrinking. Here in Colorado, we will probably lose all of ours in the next 10 years, just as Africa, Europe, Asia, and South America are losing theirs. But this is not normal. Yes, with the addition of new evidence, scientists had to modify the global warming hypothesis.
Actually, most models were not changed. The already showed that this what would happen.
Thats because unlike settled fact (under which you apparently try to classify global warming), Actually, global warming is a fact. The global temperatures are increasing. The ocean temperatures are rising. ALL Glaciars, except at the extremes of the poles, are melting. That is by definition, global warming. To deny otherwise would be akin to saying that earth is flat or that all of the heavens revolve around the planet.
Now, the questions are:
The models are simply ways of trying to figure out what is going on.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
"You do realize that just because a majority of people believe one thing does not make it true, right?"
Your belief, and anyone else's belief is irrelevant to science in regards to a "scientific conclusion". Let me explain it to you historically with one of your own example, "At another, people thought atoms consisted of a proton with electrons orbiting around it."
This is not true, because it is inaccurate. No scientist thought or believed that atoms consisted of electrons orbiting atoms. It is more accurate to say that at one time, the best theory, which had the fewest weaknesses and was based upon empirical data and scientific methodology, was the model that electrons orbited protons. Yet even then, this theory was known to have weakeness, like the electron radiating because it was accelerating, but there was no better theory so this was the "scientific conclusion".
Now we physicists have gone even further, down to the level of quarks and leptons. The physics that describes this is "quantum field theory", and the model is called the "standard model". No scientist believes that atoms are made out of quarks and leptons becuase this believe is unnecessary. It is more accurate to say that scientists have concluded based upon empirical data and scientific methodology that the best theory with the fewest weaknesses is the standard model. Yet even now, without a better theory, this theory is known to have weakenesses. For instance, it can explain neither mass, nor neutrino oscillations, nor gravity.
One of the hottest topics in physics is the search for the next best model to describe the atom. Would physicist's be so eager to search for something they did not believe in? The answer is neither 'yes' or 'no', but rather 'belief is unnecessary in science to scientific conclusions'.
Similarly, no scientist believes in global warming. Their belief is irrelevant. It is more accurate to say that the best theory that describes the climate and the recent climate changes, is a climatological theory which includes the theory called "global warming", because this theory has the fewest weaknesses and is based upon scientific methodology and empirical data. To dispute this, you must show, using the scientific methodology of climatologist's, that there is a theory that better fits the empirical data and has fewer weakness than the previously prevailing theory, "global warming". Even though I am a physics graduate student in an accredited PhD program, I do not possess the scientific background that includes the scientific methodology and empirical data of the climatologists. Thus, I cannot dispute this. I will hazard a guess that neither can you, nor can 'certain politicians' (even if they right fancy books and news articles) nor anyone else who is not trained in the scientific methodology of the climatologists and their empirical data.
All you have is your beliefs, which you are free to have, so long as you are aware that they are both irrelevant and unnecesary to the scientific discussion of "scientific conclusions".
~Kevin