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Bastardi's Wager
DesScorp writes "AccuWeather meteorologist Joe Bastardi has a challenge for climate scientists. He wants one or more of their rank to accept a bet about temperature trends in the coming decade. Bastardi is making specific predictions. 'The scientific approach is: you see the other argument, you put forward predictions about where things are going to go, and you test them,' he says. 'That is what I have done. I have said the earth will cool .1 to .2 Celsius in the next ten years, according to objective satellite data.' Bastardi's challenge to his critics — who are legion — is to make their own predictions. And then wait. Climate science, he adds, 'is just a big weather forecast.' Bastardi's challenge is reminiscent of the famous Simon-Ehrlich Wager, where the two men made specific predictions about resource scarcity in the '80s."
Hypothesis followed by observation... admittedly, it cannot be repeated, but it is, at the very least, a step in the right direction. All too often people let their emotions / politics / media-lust get in the way of doing actual work towards understanding the planet we live on. Is it showmanship for him to do it this way? Sure. But at least it is showmanship with a useful point.
For the record, meteorologists are not climatologists. This is little different than engineers imagining themselves as physicists.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Would have to precisely define "objective satellite data" to a specific measuring methodology, technology, and sensitivity.
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
I'd be more interested to see if sea level rises follow the 67% average acceleration figure, or trend towards the more ambitious 300% that thas been bandied about. Or just stay constant.
The problem with betting on small inspecific variations is you can often fit the data the prediction as many have on both sides of the fence. Rather than arguing over degrees I think we need to examine if there have been changes. Given the weird weather patterns that have been happening worldwide there's little doubt there's been change. The likely cause is all that is being debated. See which model matches best what is happening in the world and odds are that's what we are facing. I'm not taking a side here just saying let common sense rule the day rather than playing a sides game.
So this is a meteorologist who studies short-term phenomena claiming to be better at short-term prediction than people who study long-term phenomena. Wowee, zip de-doo. If a climatologist accepts his bet and loses, what does it prove? That a climatologist isn't a meteorologist, and I think we knew that already.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Another weatherman who thinks what he's doing is climatology. He's a little like a 2D character in Flatland that doesn't understand 3D. I hope someone takes him up on his wager, as long as there's a disinterested 3rd party to judge the result and hold the cash.
The sample is way too small to conclude if either position was correct by chance or because it's actually the right idea. This challenge is like the ubiquitous "security" challenges: "Hack our system and get a pittance! See, nobody hacked our system, so it must be secure." By that standard, we could just as well call Nostradamus a scientist. Being right about something is not enough to support a theory.
I have faith in the civility and objectiveness of slashdotters, even on climate change issues.
The Earth gets hotter, the Earth gets cooler.
But do WE have an impact on this variation. That is the question.
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I am a programmer. I am paid to produce syntax not grammar. Deal with it.
That Bastardi!
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cmb-faq/anomalies.html
I like to go where the science is being done, rather than the claims from either side on what I should think based on a dare, er, I mean bet. Not a dare, a bet. That's so much more scientific. ;)
This is the NSA, we're gonna geet U h@x0r5! Also, what is a h@x0r5?
Indeed. I also believe in Santa Claus.
(Yeah, I'll admit that it's the fat guy down at the mall in December, not one at the north pole with magic reindeer.)
Climate is what you expect, weather is what you get.
meteorologists are not climatologists.
That is correct. Meteorologists are not foolish enough to pretend they understand climate well enough to predict what the climate will do for the whole earth over an extended period of time.
They are also actually judged by results instead of claiming any result obtained verified what they were claiming.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
John Coleman, the founder of the Weather Channel who is a complete skeptic about global warming. Ironic that's all.
2. Those that know the climate is getting warmer, but are being paid to say otherwise. They won't bet you.
3. Those that are too stupid and too poor to have any money to bet. They can't bet you.
4. Those that are too stupid but by shere chance have cash. These people will most likely not have enough money to pay off the debt when it comes due (but just wait, they assure you, as soon as a certain nigerian transaction is complete, they will be able to pay you off). If they by random luck have money then, they won't remember the bet/will deny they ever made it. They won't pay you.
Zero chance of getting your money back.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
...that he would offer this wager after the warmest year on record. A more reasonable wager would be on whether or not 2020 will be above the historical average for the past century. Smart money says "yes".
Claiming that all Joe Bastardi ("JB") cares about is accuracy is ludicrous. He is known to hype more than any other weather forecaster. From what I've observed, his main motivations are 1. Ego 2. Profit
If he's gives 1:1000 odds then maybe he can convince Richard Lindzen to take that bet and put his money where his foot is.
One wonders if the guy knows something about the trends in that one data set that make him confident enough to make this wager. It'd be much more interesting to see him suggest a statistical analysis of multiple lines of evidence, the way the real scientists (and, to their credit, the reputable skeptics) have been doing it.
It better not become a flamewar. Considering flamewars effect climate change it will influence the results.
Check out the list of "adjustments" made to this data.
While I'm sure the intentions were good, making a ton of adjustments to data based on a bunch of formulas and best-guesses is *not* a good scientific process.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/ushcn/ushcn.html#QUAL
Well good luck with that retard!
=P
Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
If you argue with a fool, you end up looking like one.
... it must be admitted that the man is prepared to put his money where his mouth is.
Doesn't a wager normally involve an ante?
If Bastardi wins the wager what does he gain, karma points? There will be big wins all around for individuals, businesses and governments.
If Bastardi loses the wager he loses what? It appears if we wait and Bastardi turns out to be wrong we will be behind by one more decade on addressing the issue and a heavy price will be paid by everyone.
And while he has some valuable points as far as the accuracy of climatologists making predictions his analogies seem a bit off.
He claims they are using recent trends but does not define "recent" while the trends I have seen go back several decades or centuries. In geologic time centuries are recent trends but is this what he means? I suspect not because then he questions the use of data in longer trends.
And in another analogy he compares a 0.06% change in your weight form 175.0 lbs to 175.1 lbs over a decade to a 0.6% increase in global temperature from the mean of around 57.563 F to 57.923 F. While the increase in temperature over a decade doesn't look significant his comparison is off by an order of magnitude and that is ignoring the irrational comparison of the complexities of an individuals body weight to that of global temperatures.
Anyhow, it is good to bring up questions but this wager and some of the comments seem rather dubious.
Climate science is very different from meteorology. Sure, they utilize a lot of the same data, but the models have little to do with one another. The fact that Bastardi is making this stupid claim is a pretty big red flag with the words "PANDERER TO IGNORANCE" written on it.
=== "Some people see the glass as half-empty. Others see it as half-full. I see the glass as too big." -G. Carlin.
The only thing I've not really been able to figure out from the entire climate discussion is what is meant by "average temperature" in the first place.
The idea of taking some temperature measurements at various geographic locations and then averaging those values doesn't seem to make much physical sense to me, because there is no meaningful method by which to perform an average. Consider using an "area based average." This sounds reasonable: put your measurements in some regular grid, assume the temperature varies continuously between those points, and compute an average. I would argue that's a terrible method, because temperature is not a continuous quantity: if you put two temperature probes any distance apart, there is no meaningful way to estimate the temperature variation between those points. It could be linear between them, it could be nonlinear such that the temperature is higher between the two points, it could be nonlinear such that it is lower between the two points.
I am much more willing to look at other parameters which do have a better "average" information content. Sea level, snow cover (both max and min amounts, as well as time spent at those amounts) because those are inherently continuous phenomena that are not subject to interpolation errors.
Actually, a question and it may actually convince me to accept the concept of "average temperature": do thermal satellites have the capability to do a true area-continuous temperature measurement?
I have other questions as well, for instance, is average temperature really the critical parameter or is it median temperature? Actual max vs actual min? Is it something more related to the square of the deviation from the mean ("signal power")?
I have a hard time believing that an area-average temperature is an adequate parametrization of climate. Or, perhaps what I'm asking is, what climate effects are actually correlated so strongly with the mean temperature (how statistically significant is that correlation)? And how geographically dependent is that correlation?
"There are a dozen opinions on a matter until you know the truth. Then there is only one." - CS Lewis (paraprhase)
Whatever you think of it's relevance for the theory of AGW, Bastardi has made a specific prediction and challenged anyone to take him up on it. If those climatologists who are believers in AGW are true scientists they should be able to make a specific prediction that we can come back to in 10 years and either say, "Way to go, your prediction is correct" or "Sorry, back to the drawing board on your theory, your prediction is wrong."
The last major AGW prediction I can recall was that England would not have snow in winter any more. Of course, now that England has had a very snowy winter, those same AGW guys are telling us, "Well, yes, that is what you can expect from Global Warming." I would put a lot more credence into the latter statement if they had told us we could expect a snowier winter in England instead of telling us that England would be getting less and less snow every year.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
I like how Bastardi is not grinding any political axes. What he says sounds logical. If you look at the wikipedia entry on him there's mention (but no link) of Bastardi's long-range forecast for this winter, that was released by AccuWeather last October. It has already been shown to be very far off the mark of what has happened the last couple of months. So this guy's track record isn't any better than any other "weather man".
AccuWeather isn't above trying to aggrandize themselves, either. They tried to get the government to close down the National Weather Service and halt the distribution of weather satellite data to the public a few years ago.
Saying that climate science is just a big weather forecast is like saying that newtonian physics is just a lot of quantum mechanics. Doing 5 day forecasts isn't enough to qualify someone to forecast climates. Yeah, it may help, but it's not enough.
How is this even a testable prediction? Even if the temperature does decrease by .1 or .2 C over the next decade, that doesn't mean the long-term trend isn't still up. And if you read the article, he also argues that the methods for measurement are not reliable. So even if the temperature DOES rise over the next decade, he'll just argue that it's because the methodology for measuring it was wrong.
And this guy's arguments are bizarre. He claims that the climate is a stable system that resists change, and has a steady-state equilibrium. Excuse me...ever heard of ice ages? We had one not too long ago. We've also had recent periods where it's been much warmer than it is today (Younger Dryas for example). If anything, that shows that climate is HIGHLY susceptible to change.
There would never be an agreement on how to even read the numbers after 10 years, so nobody would ever concede loosing the bet after the 10 years. Yes they would come up with terms now, but a technicality would appear between now and then. Such as: Why yes satellite averages, but since a new one was added in 2011 yadda yadda yadda.
And if it does get cooler, Obama will make a victory speech that his administration was the reason.
The reality is that long before climate change destroys what we know as the modern world, it will crash and burn because of policies unrelated to climate. The United States throws out more food each day then can feed the entire world. The amount of garbage we produce is so great that it has already created thousands of square miles of floating debris in the world's oceans. If you take the top five most famous proponents of Climate Change, their combined daily carbon footprint exceeds literally thousands, tens of thousands, or more likely millions of third world families.
Nothing will ever change unless there is money to be made. Al Gore is a millionaire because he has heavily invested in industries that would benefit by the theories on Carbon Dioxide as a pollutant. Personally I’m comfortable in saying that this world is screwed either economically or politically long before the oceans rise at all.
It reminds me of a comment that Charles Manson made to Geraldo Rivera when he was asked about being crazy. He said, "I was crazy when it meant something." Hypocrisy has become so common that it doesn't mean anything anymore.
If you had no electricity for a week, how screwed would you be? Just saying.
You really should be linking to NASA as well. They're the other major body that studies climate change. And it's likely one of the reasons why it's always being targeted for budget cuts by the GOP. A lot of what NASA does is keeping tabs on changes going on our planet from space.
Showmanship is fine. After all, the Randi foundation has used the showmanship of its million dollar prize for a while now to punch holes into all kinds of quackery. But as I read through Bastardi's claims and comments, I was disappointed to see nothing new and some pretty standard failings.
“The [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] says this is the warmest decade ever — well, that’s like you wake up every morning and weigh 175 pounds, and one morning you wake up and are 175.1.”
No, it's more like weighing 175 lbs in the last decade, and then discovering that your average in the current decade has been 176. And that your weight has been increasing for the last 5 decades.
We started using objective satellite data in 1978.
He must have missed all the commotion about satellite data that revolved around what satellites are measuring, how they're measuring it and how their data fits into all the other data that's been collected. Specifically: a temperature station on the ground that produces a different reading than that of a satellite looking at infrared emission for that geographic area isn't (necessarily) wrong. It is measuring something completely different, and merging the two is hard.
Carbon dioxide is a trace gas, a tiny gas, part of this huge system. You’re trying to tell me that’s going to control the system and influence the energy of the system? When you have things like the sun, which is obviously the greatest contributor to the world’s energy? It almost defies common sense.
I started to lose confidence at this point. It's a standard argument from incredulity: I don't understand this, therefore it can't be true. He also confuses what's causing global warming: it's not only the energy input that controls how much warming occurs, but also how much energy is lost to space. And the problem that everyone's been talking about is that less energy is lost to space than before.
CO2 is still increasing, and the overall temperature has leveled off.
Because CO2 isn't the only thing that controls the Earth's temperature. If he had actually read the research and would understand climate science, he'd know that, and he'd know that this bit of info is widely known. My personal prediction 5 years ago was that we'd be getting back to a regular warming schedule in the next 1-3 years, based on nothing else than knowing that the sun was entering a quiet period then.
That’s not how the atmosphere works — for every step it takes away from the norm, the more likely it is to turn back
I don't know if he was misquoted, but that's not how the atmosphere works. There is nothing in the atmospheric cycle that regulates CO2 movement. Oceans absorb CO2, plants consume it, but that's not the atmosphere. Finally, he is not providing any numbers for his belief that the atmospheric CO2 content is controlled by negative feedback loops. Historic data on CO2 concentrations would actually indicate the opposite - that there can be wild fluctuations.
Fifth, today’s weather exhibits no unique patterns that require a unique explanation. They’re nothing we haven’t seen before
Now we're getting into weather. If he's going to lecture people on climate patterns and predictions, he should stay on topic.
And that’s just Bastardi’s point. It’s disingenuous to say we have conclusive proof of the future of such a torturously complicated system.
Ok, not something he said, but still - another lame argument from incredulity. There's plenty of complex systems out there, and many have been understood - just not by everybody.
Whereas a significant portion of today’s climate scientists are politically motivated, Bastardi has only one incentive in his job: accuracy. He
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
We don't know anything about climate change. Does that mean we should not pursue the science? Of course not. But it does not take a scientist to see that the earth is warming with a strong signal at the poles. Could this be part of a natural pattern. Of course. We honestly do not know. But given the fact that we are pumping ever greater amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere would lead anybody to believe that there could be a correlation. The science of greenhouse gases and their role in radiative transfer is sound. And why the poles. Well the tropics are dominated by ocean so it has twice the heat capacity of the poles. The midlatitudes are dominated by the conflict of warm and cold air (cyclones) so a steady signal is tough to detect.
IANA climate scientist, but I suspect that three things will happen:
1. As this is a complicated subject, nobody can predict exactly what will be happening in 2010. Some will be right.
2. Some will be wrong.
3. Supporters will claim victory for the first group.
4. deniers will claim victory due to the second group.
5. Ten years will have passed, and we will still be arguing about whether we should do something about the issue.
I'm gonna take that bet and purposefully drive up my greenhouse gas emissions, just to raise the temperature and win that bet!
It'll be Taco Bell, all day every day for the next decade!
Er, what's the bet worth, anyway? He doesn't say..
Isn't this a golden opportunity for climatologists to make some $$$?
Scientists tell us to spend a crapload of money to "save the planet", but can't be bothered to place a few grand on a bet? Either they don't really believe it, or it is a scam.
Show me the hundreds of people accepting the challenge!
, 'is just a big weather forecast.'
sure, just like weather forecast is just a big coin toss forecast.
And auto engineering is just a big oil change.
Moron
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
...with a guy whose name sounds so much like "bastard"? With your luck he would turn out to be Satan in disguise and would use his powers to manipulate global temperature and win the bet, then claim he'd won the right to turn Earth into an inferno (metaphorical, he already owns the literal one) for all eternity.
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
"There is not debate" is what the people drinking the coolaid say now to refute anyone who denies global warming. Rarely does anyone point to data. The guy in this article is supported by large corporations who are willing to bet large sums of money on what he predicts. In other words, they put their money where HIS mouth is. I don't see anyone betting on Al Gore other than publishers who can profit from his rhetoric right now. If I could bet real money, I'd raise this guy .1 degree C and say temps will decrease 0.3C in ten years (but that has to be hedged for the rise in air traffic in China).
I'm imagining myself so in love with physics that I could never imagine the possibility that I might want some money some day, or even provide well for a family. I'm imagining myself being suckered into a decade of grad school and postgrads by a professor who is on a decent salary. I imagine him telling tales of professors and the occasional 6 figure making physicist in order to excite the grad students, while glossing over the realities of the number of professorships and 6 figure salaries available compared to the number of grad students/PhDs. I imagine myself perfecting the raised eyebrow along with the expression and voice to make disparaging remarks about working for industry, and especially - (holds nose, dramatic pause;) engineers. I imagine myself buying into the hype for the first few years, and then spending the rest of my life wondering what I was thinking while either continuing to drink the koolaid or making the eventual break for freedom. Am I close?
If I have seen further it is by stealing the Intellectual Property of giants.
I don't think it even helps. Meteorology isn't really applied climatology, or really even a subset of climatology. Climate is not weather.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I was looking at property on lake Huron, and the water levels are down over the last 10 years leading to some undesirable things (nice sandy beach with 200 feet of marsh and then water). Some blame global warming, some blame dredging, and the agent tells me "it will be great when the lake level returns to normal. All the while I'm thinking "It's been receding ever since the glacier melted, what makes you think it's coming back?". We haven't even measured temperature the same way for 40 years.
Who cares what some fruitball who could only get community college courses to be a weather man thinks?
Just because you're on TV and Fox News doesn't mean you're right.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I can flip that coin over and over, and with each flip my confidence in the assessment grows stronger.
Every day's a rerun... Fascinating
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
"Hypothesis followed by observation"
That isn't real science. If you're right in that case you can't eliminate some coincidence. Real science requires tests. Meteorology is climatology in the very, very near future. Climatology is the sum of a lot of meteorology, it cant exist without it. The only way for climatology to sufficiently graduate to a real science to be able to exceptionally accurately predict weather, temperature, etc. one year, one solar cycle out. Once you accomplish that you have as close to a control as you'll ever get, even though it really isn't. Then you can make a prediction of what will happen if you alter the parameters, and then actually alter the parameters and see if you're right. Climatology does not use the real "scientific method", it has no experiments, there is no test or control. That doesn't mean climatologists are wrong, it just means there drawing a trend lines on data we're gathering.
So somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but what I _think_ I've heard from the AGW proponents once you get past the ad-hominems (on both sides!), is that yes, we are between ice ages, and yes, the planet does naturally warm as you come out of an ice age (duh!), and yes, the planet has been warmer in the distant past, but AGW is about the global average temp increasing _faster_ than it should be naturally. Is that close?
So am I wrong in seeing "this was the warmest decade recorded"-type headlines lately and thinking "yeah, so?"? What happened to the rate-of-change bit? How is that trending compared to what they think is supposed to be natural?
IANACS...
Bastardi hasn't given enough details to make a bet concrete enough for a bookie to accept. But just to be definite, let's say he's talking about MSU T2LT data, averaged over 12 month intervals. He predicts this will decrease between 0.1 and 0.2 degrees over the coming decade.
It so happens that we already have 30 years' worth of that data, and have been arguing about climate change for at least that long. Here are the chances that Bastardi would have won his bet, had he placed it any time between 1978 and 2000:
He would have won his bet 3% of the time (basically, only if he'd placed it in 1983.)
He would have bet too *high* 7% of the time (temperatures dropped by more than 0.2 degrees in a couple of years)
He would have bet too *low* 90% of the time (temperatures actually rose, or dropped by less than 0.1 degrees, 29 out of 32 years.)
This is a stunt bet which Bastardi is almost certain to lose. Even if you thought global warming was a myth, and believed change in temperature over 1 decade was *totally random*, it would be an idiotic bet because this measurement varies over a 1.0 degree range from year to year. Picking a decrease in the range 0.1-0.2 in this case is like betting that you'll roll a 5 on a pair of dice.
At this point, it should be clear that Bastardi's bet is not based on any scientific data, or even on savvy oddsmaking: it's just pure blind faith. SO. I will take the bet, and I will even offer 2-to-1 odds: I'll pay $100 if temperature change is inside his range; he'll pay me $50 if it's outside that range, either high or low.
Can someone explain to me how a small temperature decrease over ten years is meant to disprove global warming? If I understand it correctly, the argument is that man-made co2 is contributing to a warming effect of the planet. We might still have cooling periods, but we are warmer overall than we would have otherwise been. It's like if you have the flu, you can go stand out in the cold to decrease your temperature a bit, but you're still running hot.
or else!
I will bet that the cooling or warming tracks the solar output within 5% when normalized in scale. Had this bet been placed since both metrics have been accurately measured it would win each decade.
- Tjp
I am in wallow with my inner money grubbing capitalistic pig. ... Oink!
Physicist flatter themselves that such is the case, but the reality is a bit different.
http://xkcd.com/793/
As any honest citizen knows, all dissidents are paid by the enemies of the state, of the leader, or of humanity at large. Seriously, rolling this out as your first argument does not look good.
There is a debate. Statisticians, for example, have been pointing out that the statistical methods used by "climatologists" range from weak to just plain wrong once one stops being selective about data. Physicists have their complaints, etc. They are all excluded from the debate, because, you see, they are not "climatologists", they just make their living by using the tools "climatologists" are supposed to rely on for their results to make any scientific sense.
> The people who actually know the science are largely in agreement about the conclusions.
This, in fact, is quite typical of inbred pseudo-sciences. Scientific truth is not a matter of consensus of self-selecting practitioners, it is a matter of methods and models that have real predictive power.
A group of politically well-connected quacks that manages to take over the peer review process in a relatively small community can easily stifle debate and exclude critics. Just look at "science education": there is no lack of Ph.D.s awarded, new "revolutionary" methods, or "research publications", but math and physics teaching in the US public schools is a disaster.
And, BTW, "carbon reduction" is a multi-million dollar industry by now if not more, and it has no compunctions about promoting itself and paying scientists.
For a while, Bastardi was showing up on CNBC quite regularly -- this was 3 or 4 years ago. After he became semi-regular he made a big stink about how much snow was going to fall over the ensuing month or two. This was based on "hi-tech" scientific methodogy, according to Bastardi. He talked the announcer, Joe Kernan, into a fairly big bet. Kernan wasn't really interested in betting but Bastardi made quite a stink about it. Anyway, Bastardi ended up being completely wrong -- he was so discredited they stopped inviting him on the show.
RM
To win his bet, he will loads of Narrativium. And, of course, be the hero of the (hi)story and not the comic relief. The universe don't need to behave in such way to make him win the bet, things will happen, just because he said so. But if you win,don't forget to name your grand granddaughter Teela.
The problem is simply that they don't -at all- have confidence in their methods. There are several basic problems :
Climate is chaotic. In fact, mathematical chaos theory *is* the original climate theory. Literally. Chaos theory started out as an analysis of long-term weather trends over Britain, and all collected British weather data (quite a lot, given the activities of their fleet, accurate data spanning all continents and seas, several hundred years). There was a tiny little problem : weather data did not obey the law of large numbers, making the basic assumption of statistics invalid. Temperature turned out ... not to have an average. Not to have a standard deviation. Whoops.
That means that, mathematically speaking, AGW could be 100% accurate today, and that still doesn't give you one iota of predictability. Weather, and long term climate could still become totally unresponsive to CO2 overnight. More specifically in a given chaotic system *any* prediction (within certain limits) *will* happen, just not known when.
In a chaotic dataset, there is *no* way to predict the future, no matter the amount and accuracy of the available data, nor can the quality of the system help you (except - if you're God and know *everything*. By that we mean the position of every last atom, photon and neutrino in the universe. This is often joked about - if a person can't give the lotto outcomes for the next 100 years, he can't give you the weather -or climate- in 100 years either.
It's a joke similar to the butterfly flapping it's wings in the amazon. You miss one butterfly ...
Second : climate scientists are not total idiots in the math department. They use prediction rules in the form of differential equations, then they simulate them with lots of data. What these equations do is essentially : given the situation at x(t = 0.000001) they allow you to "jump ahead" and determine the situation at x(t = 0.02).
The problems are simple. Either you work with very small jumps in timing, or you work with big jumps in timing. Very small jumps in timing mean relatively small errors, but you accumulate a LOT of them. The error margin grows exponentially, so you can imagine that even with a tiny error, before a few days pass in your prediction, there's a lot of error. Or you work with big jumps in time, but then you can't accurately simulate "the little things" (the effect of smaller variations in geography for example). So you have a big (and unknown) error margin, but, because you don't accumulate so much of them, it is *assumed* you can predict further out (this is not actually true, but we don't have any other method to do this, so we merrily assume this won't blow up in our faces - despite, obviously, this having blown up in quite a few faces already and is well known. Scientists, like real people, are quite tolerant of imperfect methods when there's no alternative)
You know when the error margin on the best climate models exceeds 100% (ie. there is more error than prediction) ? After 5 days. Obviously, knowing this full well, scientists are *very* wary of making predictions 10 years out.
And rightfully so : if you track the IPCC's predictions you will find that the current situation is actually outside of the 95% error margin of *ALL* IPCC climate reports, except the last one. In all 3 cases, we're below the predicted value : it is a *lot* cooler today than scientists predicted 2010 would be in 1990 and 2000 (*lot* as compared to the scientists own specified error margin). For both IPCC reports we're outside the 95% confidence interval (and for the 2010 one, we're not all that far from the edge either, heh, "next year in jerusalem" as they say).
Again, scientists know perfectly well that this is so (there's published papers about this, lots of discussion and consternation about them, big egos, lots of screaming, before everything settled down and everyone basically decided to ignore them after a few scientists were fired). So, surprise, surpris
Carbon dioxide is a trace gas, a tiny gas, part of this huge system. You’re trying to tell me that’s going to control the system and influence the energy of the system? When you have things like the sun, which is obviously the greatest contributor to the world’s energy? It almost defies common sense.
I started to lose confidence at this point. It's a standard argument from incredulity: I don't understand this, therefore it can't be true. He also confuses what's causing global warming: it's not only the energy input that controls how much warming occurs, but also how much energy is lost to space. And the problem that everyone's been talking about is that less energy is lost to space than before.
If you think a measly 300-400ppm of CO2 can affect the climate, how about taking a few minutes for some back-of the envelope calculations. Compare a 300K blackbody spectrum with CO2's absorption spectrum, see what bands are anywhere close. Find a molar absorptivity or something for the bands, and see how much of that light even gets scattered by the top of the atmosphere.
I admit that I'm impressed by someone being willing to put his money where his mouth is, rather than a politician being willing to put MY money where HIS mouth has been.
ask tom skilling about this!
I'm confident that if you had this chart in 1909 you would be calling for the next ice age.
Since when is Bastardi oil company backed? He makes a living giving forecasts. People pay him for forecasts because other organisations (like the UK Met Office) have their heads so far up Global Warming's arse, their medium and long term predictions are no better than chance. If his forecasts were crap, he'd be out of a job and his company would have folded. These other tax-payer funded organisations have no such worries, which is why they can afford to spend their time spreading propaganda, rather than actually coming up with good forecasting models.
RealClimate (some of whom were the target of the so-called "Climategate" emails) has done this, or covered betting markets several times.
In 2005, they compared the rhetoric of a sceptic to the odds they were willing to bet on. Take a guess as to whether they were consistent.
In 2008, they proposed a bet on a specific paper with specific scientific reasons. Guess what? No takers. And they would have won.
So somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but what I _think_ I've heard from the AGW proponents once you get past the ad-hominems (on both sides!), is that yes, we are between ice ages
Actually, we are in an ice age, we are between glacial periods.
When we don't have extensive ice sheets on land in both the northern and southern hemispheres (the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets), we'll be out of the ice age that we've been in for the last ~2.5 million years (i.e., more than the entire existence of humanity.)
but AGW is about the global average temp increasing _faster_ than it should be naturally.
Nope, anthropogenic global warming -- like any scientific theory -- doesn't take any stance on what should happen. Its about cause-and-effect, specifically that specific human actions, principally through increases in atmospheric CO2 and other greenhouse gases, are producing a rapid and accelerating increase in global temperatures.
It isn't central to the theory whether or not the earth would be warming without those changes (IIRC, the calculated amount of change due to other sources has meant that in some parts of the warming period, the change due to sources other than human activity would be positive, in others it would have been negative.)
So am I wrong in seeing "this was the warmest decade recorded"-type headlines lately and thinking "yeah, so?"?
You are almost never long in seeing any popular media headline on any scientific issue and saying "yeah, so?". You usually need to read beyond the headline and, even more than that, beyond what is in the popular media to get to the significance.
Take a look at http://theclimatebet.com/ to see an earlier example. A similarly (un)qualified guy offered to bet that temperatures would be unchanged over ten years. He tried to get Al Gore to bet, of course without success. So he started this website to track who would have won. At first it looked good for him and he updated regularly, crowing about his success. But then things changed and started warming up. Now the website is abandoned. He didn't have the guts to document his failure. I imagine much the same will result from this new bet.
If he can accurately predict the trend over one percent of the time range for New York City. That should be easy to do.
Fandroids hate facts.
the massive and persistent wars that WILL break out between the refugees and those who occupy the higher ground. It's the starvation, violence and sheer depravity the human race will engage in for individual survival. If there are large displacements of people in a world with 6 billion there is going to be violence of the scale that makes WWII look like a minor conflict. No doubt nuclear weapons will end up used, and I personally would be surprised if biological weapons were deployed as well. Entire countries and even continents will be devastated by those seeking the resources contained within.
Dude, what have you been smoking? Even if there will be floods eventually (there will always be floods if you wait long enough), the changes will take a long time to happen (climatologists say decades are a too small timescale, remember?). Land prices will drop. Property will change hands. There will be government driven programs, some innovative engineering, renewal of old infrastructure, jobs created, et cetera, that sort of thing. Some people will lose money, some people will make money, in that kind of timescale it's not really certain beforehand if there will be an overall loss. And hopefully those areas will be richer/more stable than they are now before that happens, so think Dubai and the Netherlands.
How do I get in on the bet. I need to stake a climatologist. Seems better than my 401k.
Climate science is an oxymoron. There is no climate model that has been tested with scientific scrutiny and shown to accurately predict climate. At this point in time it is all speculation. That is why it is safe to move from weather forecasts to climate forecasts. Neither one is predictable beyond a few days.
Reminds me of this anecdote about the stock market I found while reading about brownsian motion: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_walk_hypothesis. Another interesting read is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brownian_motion Since climate studies ultimately involve the interactions of fluids, "brownian motion" may not be far from the truth.
The problem is simply that they don't -at all- have confidence in their methods. There are several basic problems :
Climate is chaotic. In fact, mathematical chaos theory *is* the original climate theory. Literally. Chaos theory started out as an analysis of long-term weather trends over Britain
Long term weather isn't climate, Mr. Bastardi.
Fandroids hate facts.
the self-refuting position that Bastardi is taking: "cagw position is flawed. we don't know enough about the earth's climate for cagw to be taken seriously." then he goes out and makes predictions like that. don't get me wrong. I'd listen to Bastardi before Gore.
Yes, the rate of change is the more important concept. After all, if temperatures stayed constant but higher than the 20th century average, maybe you could say "Hey, the planet is hotter than it's ever been", but it still wouldn't be warming. There is a minor amateur blog industry involved in comparing climate model predicted warming rates to observed warming rates.
Frankly, this is very difficult to do right. To compare trends you have to be careful about statistical significance (are the predicted and observed trends "significantly" different), which means getting the error bars on the trends right. This in turn means having an appropriate statistical model of random temperature fluctuations. And if you're looking at short term trends, the results are sensitive to what you pick for the starting year of the trend (does it happen to be unusually warm or cold). There are also questions of how to deal with climate model uncertainty: if different models make predictions of different rates, how do you judge the general question of "what climate science predicts". This has to involve comparing models, some of different quality.
Even if you get past the statistical problems, there are other problems involving the assumptions made to produce the predictions. If you make a prediction with a model you have to predict the warming agents right (how much CO2 and other greenhouse gases will there be in the future). How much of the error in model is attributable to climate prediction error, and how much to greenhouse gas prediction errors? Also, short-term predictions are very vulnerable to errors in the initial state. Climate models are usually not initialized or calibrated to the exact current state of the atmosphere-ocean circulation. Over the long term this doesn't matter too much, as dependence on the initial state averages out, but on decadal scale, it matters.
Long story short, you're asking the right question, but I don't know a good answer if you're asking about something as short term as, say, a 10-year warming rate.
All the predictions made so far by the AGW community have so far been totally wrong
There is no uncontrollable warming.
If early predictions are wrong, the whole model is wrong, it's not going to magically get better in later years.
Ehrlich said back in the 70's that "England will not exist in the year 2000". Obviously he was wrong. But his web page had this little gem:
So Ehrlich says that "famines of unbelievable proportions" will occur, "hundreds of millions of people starving to death" "England will not exist in the year 2000". Then Ehrlich has the audacity to say Simon is spreading inaccurate information. I don't give a damn how smart you believe you are or how many "Genius Awards" are given to you. If you're wrong you're wrong. Ehrlich is so stubborn that if you read his page you would have thought that _he_ won the bet. He (or whoever wrote the page) makes no attempt to defend the idiotic (and now demonstrably false) statements Ehrlich made, but just goes into nuance of "how things could have been worse but for...". They were not, and that was Simon’s whole point, people react to the world they live in, we are not a growth in a petri dish. Ehrlich makes all these excuses as to "why he was wrong" without saying he was wrong, because he still believes that he was right. He still believes he was right and only because those damn snooping kids did England continue to exist past 1999.
Just read Ehrlich’s page, he does more disservice to himself than anyone else could ever do. The AGW people are cut from the same mold as Ehrlich. AGW cannot be wrong as a matter of pride. It has nothing to do with science, if it did there would be a way to falsify the theory. As it stands now, you cannot. Anything that points to AGW being wrong (e.g.: No uncontrollable warming) is always countered with “OH! Didn’t you know? That’s because of global warming!” It sounds more and more like Ehrlich.
But what speaks to the heart of this issue is that the AGW supporters don’t hope beyond hope that the skeptics are right. They hope the skeptics are wrong because it is a matter of pride.
Since nobody can accurately forecast climates and nobody and accurately forecast weather, I'm curious what magical knowledge you would impart to these undereducated meteorologists that would allow them to understand climate. What university would you send them to where they teach the "proper" climate forecasting method. What otherworldly scholar do you know of that fully understand our complex weather system?
Since nobody can do it with any accuracy I really don't see how you can claim that someone is qualified or not.
Ars Technica has a very good article on the difference between weather and climate from a mathematical/modeling perspective and why climate modeling can be much more accurate than weather modeling.
and yet instead of a counter prediction, all the Global Warming supporters can do is criticize the person making the prediction....
First of all, it’s not useful to dismiss this guy because he’s not a climatologist. As an R&D engineer who works with everyone from technicians to theoretical physicists and mathematicians, I can tell you that the biggest difference between equally talented minds is not in the job they do, but the mindset of the person doing the work. There are plenty of theoretical engineers and practical physicists. Titles don't really have as much meaning as we tend to give them when it comes to the credibility of a source.
Secondly, I would argue that there are many, many hard problems that we must deal with as a society this century. They include (in no particular order):
I’m sure I’m missing some important ones. These are just generalized root causes that give rise to many particular problems such as the historically-high potential for, and ongoing cost of disease epidemics (e.g. AIDS, malaria), due to population density and the mis-allocation of wealth.
We are living in a small, dense, interconnected world where economic borders are vanishing for the wealthy but growing for the poor and middle classes. We have to confront these problems not as nations but as a whole human society. We’re nowhere near that level of integration, but big social and technological changes can happen quickly, which can drive big economic and political changes.
The cost of dealing with climate change is enormous. It’s greater than several years of worldwide economic output. This points to the fact that to best deal with the problems we confront, we’re going to have to balance costs and benefits. We have to live in the real world and prioritize our goals.
I, personally, doubt that we will survive the next century without incurring massive disastrous losses, perhaps catastrophic losses (Disaster is when a large-scale failure occurs. Catastrophe is when failures result in large-scale losses of life). I won’t go as far as saying that all civilization will end. But I believe that billions of lives will be lost and tens of billions more will be oppressed unnecessarily due to our own lack of coordination and abundance of short-sightedness.
The bottom line is that I don’t think that solving the climate change problem is either practical or desirable as a goal by itself in the context of the many other problems which are of greater consequence. These problems must be dealt-with in concert rather than individually if we have a hope of avoiding catastrophe.
Finally, I will say that the complexity argument is not hollow. I have not seen evidence that climate is a less chaotic system than weather. By their nature, chaotic systems cannot be modeled beyond a short horizon. In climatology 100 years is indeed a short horizon, but these models are also supposed to make a lot of predictions which don’t seem to be verifiable except by waiting. Running the models with varied inputs and seeing a statistical convergence doesn’t prove that they model reality, only that the models produce convergent results. Running them backwards doesn’t really produce meaningful results either. We have constructed useful weather models by testing them aga
Predicting climate is not the same as predicting weather. One deals with average global temperature over a long period of time, and the other deals with local variations on a short timescale. "climate" is basically an indication of the total amount of thermal energy in the earth system, whereas "weather" describes exactly how that energy is distributed at any given time.
Actually, the model output has been quite successful:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/12/updates-to-model-data-comparisons/
Reality is the final arbiter. Too bad sometimes we are too late to know what it is.
Holy crap - deal? Where do we sign up?
That means that, mathematically speaking, AGW could be 100% accurate today, and that still doesn't give you one iota of predictability. Weather, and long term climate could still become totally unresponsive to CO2 overnight. More specifically in a given chaotic system *any* prediction (within certain limits) *will* happen, just not known when. In a chaotic dataset, there is *no* way to predict the future, no matter the amount and accuracy of the available data, nor can the quality of the system help you (except - if you're God and know *everything*. By that we mean the position of every last atom, photon and neutrino in the universe. This is often joked about - if a person can't give the lotto outcomes for the next 100 years, he can't give you the weather -or climate- in 100 years either.
A subtle but important distinction, but chaotic systems are ones in which if you did know the position of every last atom, photon and neutrino in the universe you could predict the system's behavior, the basic problem is that we can't and small deviations in any of the initial conditions will produce drastically different outcomes. Chaotic systems are deterministic by definition but hypersensitive to their initial conditions. From wiki:
This happens even though these systems are deterministic, meaning that their future behavior is fully determined by their initial conditions, with no random elements involved.
What this means is that while accurate long-term predictions are impossible, it is possible to analyze trends to some degree of accuracy. You can perform sensitivity analyses looking at how alterations in some parameters ultimately influence the trajectory of the entire system. I think this is a pretty sensible way of going about it and the interpretations presented under this light are a great deal more accurate and enlightening than global temperature projections. The most reliable thing we can say so far is that all long-term models show that increasing CO2 will likely cause increasing mean temperature in the long run and more extreme weather in the short term.
All too often people let their emotions / politics / media-lust get in the way ... Is it showmanship for him to do it this way? Sure.
If you can predict the weather 100 years from now you had better be able to predict the weather 100 days from now. If your prediction of weather 100 days from now is not 100% accurate you can bet 100 years from now it will be totally wrong.
People were rightfully skeptical in the 70's when some scientists predicted (despite then declining temperatures) that CO2 would become the driving factor for climate and force the globe to heat. They have been right every decade since. At some point even the most skeptical person must concede that those guys in the 70's were probably on to something.
He's making a 10-year prediction. I think that'd be more "climate" than "weather".
In general, I think you would be right, but the issue here is anthropogenic climate change (Bastardi's own quotes make it clear that this is the issue on his mind.) In this context, ten years is short-term. It is quite possible that, after ten years, Bastardi will be proved right on the bet while being even more clearly wrong on the big issue. This bet, therefore, is a piece of theater, a distraction intended to get some attention. Not that there is anything wrong with that, so long as no oil-interests-owned politician uses it in another hyperbolically irrational attack on knowledge...
If you can predict the weather 100 years from now you had better be able to predict the weather 100 days from now. If your prediction of weather 100 days from now is not 100% accurate you can bet 100 years from now it will be totally wrong.
Every time there's a discussion on climate change, there are dozens of people bringing that same boring, old, refuted point up over and over and over and over again. For thousands upon thousands of times it has been pointed out that Climate And Weather Are Not The Same Thing, but apparently these people are blind and deaf.
If early predictions are wrong, the whole model is wrong, it's not going to magically get better in later years.
Apparently you haven't even HEARD of statistics.
Let's toss a die. Our assumption is that all numbers have an equal probability to appear.
After the first 6 tosses, it is actually quite unlikely that you get a full set, instead, some numbers will appear twice, or even thrice, and some numbers not at all. SEVERE disparities between our expectation and the results.
After the next 6 tosses, there's probably a good chance that all the numbers have appeared, but there will likely still be significant differences between the numbers' appearances and our expectations.
After the next 6 tosses the differences will even out further, but will still be significant.
... And after 100 tosses, the differences will have evened out, and it is clear that each number indeed has essentially the same probability to appear. Of course, you left the building, scoffing indignantly, after the first 6 tosses were so far off, and you KNOW the results will only be getting worse.
Coolhand: Another LIE from someone who's never taken a science course. A weather forecast and a climate forecast are not the same thing. Because the a WEATHER forecast cannot accurately predict more than a week in advance doesnot mean that a climate forecast cannot tell you how much warmer July in the northern hemisphere will be compared to January in the Northern hemisphere.
Please at least learn to read before you make a bigger @$$ out of yourself
So they would have won a non-existent bet? The question is whether they are going to take this actual bet or not.
Ok, let me fix it:
If you can predict the climate 100 years from now you had better be able to predict the climate 100 days from now. If your prediction of climate 100 days from now is not 100% accurate you can bet 100 years from now it will be totally wrong.
Even if it were so, correlation != causation. You need to show how your theory works and make it falsifiable. If you cannot do that you should start to ask yourself why you believe it. In the next 10 years is there any force of nature that would cause you to question your faith in AGW?
They have been wrong every decade since. They have predicted uncontrollable warming. This has not come to pass. Even Phil Jones conceded there has been no warming in the last 15 years. Ehrlich, an AGW proponent, said in the 70's that "England would not exist in the year 2000". You can't really believe that "they" have been right every decade since. I'm going to need a citation of a AGW proponent in the 70's that predicted the climate we have today. And while you're at it explain how you, or anyone, knows with any certainty how the climate works. I'm anxiously awaiting your reply.
"Saying that climate science is just a big weather forecast is like saying that newtonian physics is just a lot of quantum mechanics"
Dude, you do realize that Newtonian physics IS exactly what you describe. It's the large model of the overall effects of the smaller. I've heard the comments by profs that all physics at the Newtonian level is quantum averaged out; take away the quantum, and there wouldn't BE Newtonian physics to speak of.
And Newtonian physics, for what it is, is remarkably accurate.
I don't see the problem with his proposal. This is science. It's suppose to be an accurate predictor. Bastardi's track record notwithstanding, an accurate prediction IS what we should be holding climatologists accountable.
No, but I can certainly say that in six +12n months it's going to be colder* here than it was before.
*I live in Australia, you insensitive clod.
You still don't get it. The term 'climate' is defined as the average global weather over a period of 30 years. Now, you can argue about the 30 years, and while it is certainly useful to look at averages over shorter periods of time, the expression "climate 100 days from now" cannot be interpreted in any way that makes sense.
You can ask about average global temperatures in 100 days. This cannot be predicted accurately, because we cannot predict ocean currents, and therefore we don't know how heat will be distributed between atmosphere and oceans.
It has been proven that C02 follows temperature increases not the other way around. Even though the AGW theory flies in the face of this fact the AGW faithful are not dissuaded
You are absolutely right! (Except for the last part which doesn't quite follow) Higher temperatures means more CO2 will be released into the atmosphere from the oceans. This is one of the (many) positive feedbacks that have scientists worried.
You need to show how your theory works and make it falsifiable.
It is basic physics. Crack open a university textbook and this will be explained. This has been well understood since 1824. Fourier was the pioneer in this field.
They have been wrong every decade since. They have predicted uncontrollable warming. This has not come to pass.
Warming has been consistent with a forcing of 3C/doubling of CO2. This is the expected warming.
Even Phil Jones conceded there has been no warming in the last 15 years.
I'm sure you understand that statistical significance in a noisy signal cannot be obtained over a short period. This does not mean that the last decade was not warmer than the previous one - it was. The trend is clear.
Ehrlich, an AGW proponent, said in the 70's that "England would not exist in the year 2000". You can't really believe that "they" have been right every decade since. I'm going to need a citation of a AGW proponent in the 70's that predicted the climate we have today. And while you're at it explain how you, or anyone, knows with any certainty how the climate works. I'm anxiously awaiting your reply.
If you really want to understand a scientific field you would do well to ignore what any one person says and focus on the literature. You would also do well to ignore any one paper and focus on the picture that emerges from the sum of the findings.
I get it, I really do. There are simulations created by climate scientists that predict what the climate will be like 100 years from now. The bad part about these simulations is that they cannot accurately predict the climate 100 days from now. If you're making a simulation using differential equations your error (distance from accurate measure) will only grow the longer you run the simulation. In other words, if you can't get the first 100 days correct your outlook 1000 or 10,000 days from now is going to look absolutely alien.
Look at Ehrlich's predictions: "England will not exist in the year 2000". It may upset you but he is an AGW proponent and said that back in the 70's. There have been many other outlandish claims made by other "experts". "Coastal cities will cease to exist." "Drinking water will become scarce.". And these are the predictions of "experts" more than 30 years ago. What happened? Why were they wrong? Where is the uncontrollable warming? Even Even Phil Jones conceded there has been no warming in the last 15 years. The simulations and predictions call for uncontrollable global warming. By now, 15-20 years after the original prediction, you must concede as Phil Jones did, there is no warming. Certainly no spiral out of control as predicted.
You say I don't get it, but how many times will you listen to these false prognosticators? They have been wrong 100% of the time. Is that really the sort of track record you feel you can rely upon?
I would like to know what has you convinced. What did you read that made you say “ah ha, these predictions must be true”? Lacking any strong deductive evidence I refuse to buy into the AGW theory/religion/whatever.
That is not just a cop out, it's an admission of defeat. There is no textbook that explains how the climate works. Nobody knows how the climate works and all predictions have proven themselves false. There were tons of outlandish claims made more than 20 years ago about how there would be no more coastal cities in the year 2000, no drinking water, no food. They all proved themselves to be absolutely wrong.
So predicting climate is basic physics now? Well shoot, everyone should know what's going to come next! Why all the simulations? What's with all the uncertainty? Why did they get it wrong 20+ years ago if it's just basic physics? The answer is that it is not just basic physics and nobody including you, including textbook writers, knows how the climate works. The greenhouse effect works... in a greenhouse! That's it! There is no evidence that C02 causes warming in the earth’s atmosphere. If it did, increasing levels would bring increasing temperatures, they have not. As the C02 levels have risen over the last decade we have seen a leveling off of the temperature, not a positive feedback loop AS WAS THE PREDICTION . We can see the levels have increased, but no positive feedback is occurring! What part of that do you not understand? The simulations are incorrect.
This should be the nail in the coffin for the AGW theory, but it perpetuates itself with excuse after excuse: “Didn’t you know?! Snow storms are because of AGW silly skeptic!”. And when a skeptic says "who’s' that guy behind the curtain?" "Why exactly do you believe this stuff?" we are giving insulting responses like "It's basic physics!". No it is not basic physics, you don't understand it, and that you're sitting there telling me you do understand it really speaks volumes of you.
I asked that you explain your theory and make it falsifiable. Your trite response is that I should read a textbook, as if the answer to AGW were in a damn textbook. Please, state your theory, and state what event would falsify your theory, in any scientific theory; there must be a way to falsify it. In the AGW theory there is no way to falsify it and that makes it unequivocally junk science.
There were tons of outlandish claims made more than 20 years ago about how there would be no more coastal cities in the year 2000, no drinking water, no food. They all proved themselves to be absolutely wrong.
That was not the consensus view. I'm not convinced that there were any papers predicting this. You need to stop putting too much stock in the outlyers - pay attention to the the aggrigate of our understanding. The consensus view was that temperature would rise 3C with a doubling of C02. The temperatures have tracked this prediction.
The greenhouse effect works... in a greenhouse! That's it!
You are mistaken. The greenhouse effect has nothing to do with greenhouses. I understand the confusion - it probably could have been better named. The radiative properties of C02 are very well understood. If you are interested in this topic you really should crack open a physics text book and find the answer. I'm not going to try to write a textbook for you here on slashdot.
There is no evidence that C02 causes warming in the earth’s atmosphere. If it did, increasing levels would bring increasing temperatures, they have not. As the C02 levels have risen over the last decade we have seen a leveling off of the temperature, not a positive feedback loop AS WAS THE PREDICTION .
The 70's were 0.03C wamer than the 60's. The 80's 0.18C warmer than the 70's. The 90's 0.12C warmer than the 80's. The 2000's 0.24C warmer than the 90's. This is exactly consistent with the theory.
I asked that you explain your theory and make it falsifiable.
The problem is that the radiative properties of C02 are just very very well understood. If radiative physics was wrong then things like guided missles wouldn't work. (They do.) Temperatures wouldn't rise with increased C02 (They have). Every decade since the 70's skeptics have predicted global cooling. Every decade since the 70's they have been wrong. Now we have another vocal skeptic making the same bet that has been made every decade for the last 4. I'd take him up on it in a heartbeat. I'd also be willing to bet against anyone who thinks the Generals are due to win against the Globe Trotters ;)
No, I guess the consensus view then was that the globe was uncontrollably cooling due to man's pollution.
From EPA.GOV
That was easy. Greenhouse effect is a unproven theory that lies at the heart of AGW. I'm telling you it's just a theory just like AGW is, and you should avoid calling it fact when it is not.
You actually quoted me and then went on to not answer the question? You cannot falsify it, can you? Doesn't that make you question the theory? Why not answer that simple question?
Citation please.
And then the warming stopped?
Fact of decreasing N. American temperatures over the last decade
decreasing European temperatures over the last 8 years (Compare Seasonal Averages) 2001 - 2009
decreasing Australian temperatures over the last decade
But really, you need to provide links to the sources of your information, I'm not going to just take your word for it. If you can't do that than this is sort of pointless.
No, I guess the consensus view then was that the globe was uncontrollably cooling due to man's pollution.
In the face of predictions of global cooling, scientists predicted that CO2 would become the driving factor in global temperatures. It looks like they were right.
Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere behave much like the glass panes in a greenhouse. That was easy.
I don't think the EPA has done you any favours by dumbing it down like this. Greenhouses work by preventing convective heat transfer. The greenhouse effect works because the atmosphere is partly opaque to ultraviolet and infrared while it is transparent to visible light. It was shown in 1906 that the greenhouse effect is not primarily responsible for heating greenhouses. Based on your misunderstanding, I can see why you were skeptical.
Greenhouse effect is a unproven theory that lies at the heart of AGW. I'm telling you it's just a theory just like AGW is, and you should avoid calling it fact when it is not.
There are technologies based on the radiative properties of CO2. The theory has not been successfully challenged for 180 years. You will need to show that the theory is flawed and that giants like Fourier were wrong. Simply repeating "there is no such thing" is not sufficient given the mountains of evidence supporting it. You have shown that you don't understand what 'it' is by assuming that it is responsible for heating greenhouses. You are a long way from understanding it let alone proving it false.
You actually quoted me and then went on to not answer the question? You cannot falsify it, can you? Doesn't that make you question the theory? Why not answer that simple question?
If temperatures had gone down instead of up then the scientists in the 1970's who said that CO2 would become the driving factor in global climate would have been provably wrong. It turns out they were not.
Citation please.
Sure thing. I see by the link you provided that you are confused between US temperatures and global temperatures. For global temperatures you will need to go here: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt. You will need to sum the monthly anomalies for each decade and divide by 120. Warming didn't stop in the last decade. The last decade was 0.24C warmer than the one before it.
But really, you need to provide links to the sources of your information, I'm not going to just take your word for it. If you can't do that than this is sort of pointless.
The data is available. I encourage you to leverage it. There are certain special interest groups on both sides that would cherry pick in order to present a picture that confirms their preconceptions. You seem to be vilifying the special interest groups on one side and accepting the other. My advise would be to ignore them both and go straight to the data. Don't listen to the WWF or the think tanks, listen to the science. The truth is in the middle.
Conduction and convection makes the anomalies move. So why are you "still not sure I'm convinced in the first principles analysis even using anomalies"
since there is a physical mechanism that would force all anomalies to move together.
I'd buy 10 grand at 10-to-1 that the decade average for the next 10 years is not cooler than this present one by 0.1C. He gets to keep the extra cooling and odds in his favour.
Unless he's talking the weather in 10 years and not the weather "over the next 10 years". Just because it's 10 years in the future doesn't change it from weather if done 1 year in advance.
Read a little further, troller. He says that in 20 years, snow will cause chaos because we won't be used to it.
If he's supposed to be saying there's no more snow, how can snow cause chaos???
And if he's wrong, it was that he was too optimistic: 10 years after that statement and the UK has chaos caused by snow we weren't prepared for.
I have some bad news for you: Newtonian physics may well be just a lot of quantum mechanics.
That's exactly why the analogy works. Newtonian physics is a lot of quantum mechanics. And climate forecasting is a lot of weather forecasting. And yet, because of the huge difference in scale, you have to use very different models to predict each one. Just because you understand elastic collisions doesn't mean you know anything about electron tunneling, or vice versa.
That's the citation I was talking about, not what you have given me. Find me anyone in the 70's talking about AGW. Would be even better if you could produce a study predicting this as you claimed.
Insulting me does not change the fact that you were wrong. I know how the greenhouse effect works, I also know it was analogized with the effect a greenhouse produces (trapping heat). EPA is simply an authoritative source that defines this analogy.
Sorry, I can read, I understood what the greenhouse effect was long before conversing with you. My point in saying it only works in a greenhouse is to say: it does not work in the atmosphere. I would contend that the lack of cyclic warming is proof enough of that. Or how about the fact that C02 concentrations were manifold higher in the past than now yet the planet didn't turn into Venus? These facts should do something to dissuade you from your argument. No, I’m sure you’ll find some reason why super high C02 concentrations didn’t uncontrollably warm the planet via the greenhouse effect in the past, then state it as if it was a well established fact.
I understand that nobody understand exactly how the earth’s atmosphere and climate work. That’s what makes me skeptical of people making dire predictions hundreds of years in the future. I know that nobody knows exactly how the "greenhouse effect" works. For instance, consider radiative cooling, something not considered in the greenhouse effect, yet we know it exists. How can you leave radiative cooling out of any equations? Or solar cycles? Volcanic activity? The list goes on and on. To claim that because we understand how gases behave in the lab means that we know how gases behave in the atmosphere is naive. It seems that you and other AGW proponents believe that "All that can be known is known", and anyone contradicting your "facts" are idiots and should be treated as such. And now the obvious question, since all scientific theory must be falsifiable (I know you hate that) please tell me what would falsify 'greenhouse effect'. Or did you just conclude that it could not be falsified?
for the past 15 years there has been no 'statistically significant' warming. - Phil Jones
Does that do anything to falsify it then?
No, I didn't think that would dissuade you.
First, I gave you raw temperature data for many regions not just the U.S. and all show a decrease in the last decade, why this does nothing to even shake your resolve is troubling. Then you give me this junk from Hanson and have the audacity to call it raw when you very well know it is not? You tell me I’ve sided with some unnamed special interest and you go to the center of the controversy to find your data? It's the most widely publicized fraudulent report in the history of science! I refuse to accept Hanson's work. This man has done more disservice to sci
Find me anyone in the 70's talking about AGW. Would be even better if you could produce a study predicting this as you claimed.
How about Ramanathan & Coakley (1978)? This is a cornerstone paper. If you are interested in the subject it is one that you really should read. Looking for something earlier? how about The 1970 SCEP report? This predicted a 2C warming with doubling of CO2.
My point in saying it only works in a greenhouse is to say: it does not work in the atmosphere.
The radiative properties of CO2 are different in the atmosphere than they are everywhere else? This is a bold theory indeed. By what process do you suppose this change comes about?
I know that nobody knows exactly how the "greenhouse effect" works. For instance, consider radiative cooling, something not considered in the greenhouse effect, yet we know it exists. How can you leave radiative cooling out of any equations? Or solar cycles? Volcanic activity? The list goes on and on. To claim that because we understand how gases behave in the lab means that we know how gases behave in the atmosphere is naive.
The climate is not simple. Luckily neither are we. All of the things you mention are considered. I'm rather shocked that you think you have come up with a half dozen items that the scientists somehow missed.
Please tell me what would falsify 'greenhouse effect'. Or did you just conclude that it could not be falsified?
Here's an idea. What if we took an infrared camera and measured the observed opacity of the atmosphere? If it didn't line up with the theoretical value then we would know something was wrong with the theory. What if we measured incoming and outgoing long wave radiation? What if we measured it over time to see if the delta matched the predicted value? Darn! If only scientists had thought to do this! Then we wouldn't have to be arguing about radiative physics 101!
href="http://wizbangblog.com/content/2010/02/14/climate-scientist-phil-jones-no-global-warming-since-1995.php">for the past 15 years there has been no 'statistically significant' warming.
You mentioned this before. I pointed out that it doesn't mean what you think it means. You will need to study statistics for this one. Any first year textbook should do it. Ok, for the next few paragraphs you descend into conspiracy theory territory. I'm not going to follow you there and you would do well not to stray there yourself. You may end up sounding a little nutty. Let's stick to the facts.
You ignore the raw data from NOAA, met office, calling them “Cherry picked”
I didn't say that the NOAA data was cherry picked. It's just not in a format that I think you will be able to process. It's available here: ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ghcn/v2. I encourage you use it to investigate the decade over decade increases. Note that the rate of increase is accelerating. Also note that the change for each decade is greater than that found in the NASA data. This is because NASA adjusts for UHI. This adjustment decreases the rate of warming.
The first report says in the forward that it leaves out many of the variables I listed. The second report forecasts both cooling, maybe due to particulates and warming, maybe due to C02, and also implicitly leaves out many of the variables I listed, explicitly in many cases. So I guess the second report would be right no matter where the temperature goes, but as vague as they are I'll concede that at least the second report predicted warming as well as cooling.
Yes, that's the idea. There's this near vacuum called space that adds some still unknown variables, the sheer size of the planet and lack of any reliable temperature data going back more than 20 years. The lack of any working models, none of the models correctly predict past climate changes, which should be enough to give anyone pause. None of these things are taken into account. You are keeping in lock step with the characterization "All that can be known is known" though.
Your statement is demonstrably false. Every single one of the things I mentioned are either left out implicitly or explicitly left out with a note reading "This model is not reliable for predicting climate because we are leaving these things out." So how you can say "All of the things you mention are considered" if you read any of these papers? Either you didn't read the papers and are just going off of what someone else said, which in my opinion is most likely. Or you're just making things up and hoping I won't read any of your citations, I just really hope it’s the former and not the latter.
What are you talking about?
I think Hanson and Jones needs to study statistics, at least that was the finding of the investigation of the CRU. I however understand perfectly what no 'statistically significant' warming means. It means that the rise or fall of temperature does not exceed the noise present in the system. Why doesn't that trouble you when the predictions made are for cyclic warming? Let reword it so stupid old me can understand it better: There has been no detectable warming in the last 15 years.
Ya, Science Daily, real lunatic fringe stuff: ...the debate is growing ever more contentious in light of the recent disclosure of e-mail messages suggesting that some scientists supporting the human activities scenario tried to suppress publication of opposing viewpoints.
And that's the "light" version. They don't even talk about the effort to delete emails to avoid FOA requests. They don't talk about "loosing" the raw data. They do talk about suppressing other scientists who disagree with them. Real hero's you have there! Sounds like a real unbiased source that’s out to find the truth no matter what that might be. And this is the source of information you use.
This is how the "consensus" was won,
The first report says in the forward that it leaves out many of the variables I listed. The second report forecasts both cooling, maybe due to particulates and warming, maybe due to C02
The first is a paper that focuses on the effects of CO2. The second is a report that attempts to account for many factors and concludes that there will be a 2C temperature rise with doubling of CO2. Both are valid. You criticize one for not including confounding factors and the other for including them.
What are you talking about?
Basically we can measure incoming radiation and outgoing radiation. As you are aware the greenhouse theory predicts that with increased greenhouse gasses we should see greater incoming. The impact of this will be obvious to anyone who has used an infrared BBQ. This test has been performed. It confirms the theory. If it did not then the theory would have been falsified.
You mentioned this before. I pointed out that it doesn't mean what you think it means. You will need to study statistics for this one.
Let reword it so stupid old me can understand it better: There has been no detectable warming in the last 15 years.
That's not exactly it. "We cannot prove that the warming is not random noise" is closer, but not exactly correct either. In fact, even if the trend was statistically significant we still would not have proven this. Here is the subtlety: saying "there is a low probability of finding our specific measurement if our system would just produce noise" is not the same as saying that "there is a low probability that the system just produces noise."
Ya, Science Daily, real lunatic fringe stuff:
It comes down to this: You can choose to ignore the people you disagree with by ascribing nefarious motivations. I can do the same (and I'm sure you have seen people on this side who have). We will end up with very different realities. The fact is there is only one reality. We need to focus on the facts and the science if we are to make sense of this world. Similarly, you can find people who disagree with you that have committed logical fallacies and use that to conclude that global warming isn't testable. It is. It has been tested. Let's focus on the facts.
It's just not in a format that I think you will be able to process.
Heh, Ad captandum, or is that Ad hominem? My poor brain! I’m too stupid to be able to understand things the way others can! Or did you mean I couldn’t open it in excel :)
It's not in a format that can be opened in Excel. To further confound things, it is not gridded (but does include coordinates). As you are aware, taking the average of the temperatures will not give you the average temperature of the globe, it will only give you the average of the temperatures. If you would like I can point you towards some code. Alternatively I can show you how to use the sources you provide to look at the decade over decade increase. Either way you will see that the last decade warmed much more than the one before it. It almost looks like the warming is accelerating, but it is too early to tell.
I didn't criticize either. Neither one includes "confounding factors" as you put it. One does not predict warming, it's just describes a theoretical climate model. The other predicts warming and cooling. Both papers explicitly left out many the variables I listed and then some. Variables you assured me were accounted for, and even made fun of me because I thought they were not included. The first report explicitly states that it should not be used as a tool to predict climate because it leaves out many of the variables I mentioned. I pointed that out, but you are just ignoring me, that little problem isn't going away.
All this does, at best, is measure the concentration of certain light absorbing gases. This does nothing to tell you: what gases are present, why the gases are present, how the gases will affect the climate. It does not prove the greenhouse effect as you state. It does not prove global warming. You are committing the same fallacy, post hoc ergo propter hoc, again. And worse you're stating it as if were well established fact and it is not.
I thought you would argue that, that's why I gave you a link to the definition, but I guess you believe your definition is better. Still, if there was uncontrollable cyclic warming you would need to assume that the warming would be more significant than the noise. It is not. Why won’t you address that?
You're acting as if it's a conspiracy theory still. It's well established fact. The emails were real. The shit code they used to aggregate the raw data is real. The fact they deleted emails to avoid FOA requests is real. The fact that they colluded with other scientists to prevent theories contradictory to their own from being published is real. The fact that they colluded with politicians to promote their theories is real. The fact that while choosing which data to source they always went with sources that agree with their theories and actively avoided sources that might cast doubt on their theories (e.g.: the now infamous and discredited hockey stick graph, even the soft CRU investigation found this graph to be a fraud). Phil Jones now famously said “Why should I give information to you when all you want to do is find something wrong with it?” This is not science! These are the people YOU side with.
This stuff is real. You choose to ignore it because the people who commit these heinous acts are proponents of AGW. That’s the very same thinking that got these climate scientists in trouble in the first place: “I have a righteous cause so I can use any means to achieve my goals, even if that means stretching the truth, ignoring contradictory data, and blasting others whom I disagree with.”
As far as the “people I agree with”, well I’m not sure if Immanuel Kant really counts, but I don’t think he colluded with other logisticians to create ‘faked’ reason and keep other logisticians from publishing their papers. If in my ranting I’ve committed a logical fallacy please point it out, but my thoughts are my own, not the product of an anti-AGW focus group. My point is, I can invalidate the theory a priori, just sitting here. I don’t need “people whom I agree with” although I know the number of people who agree with me is only growing as i
One does not predict warming, it's just describes a theoretical climate model. The other predicts warming and cooling.
Umm, no. It evaluates various forcings. Some of those are negative, some are positive. It predicts a 2C warming for doubling of CO2. This is 1970, remember? When nobody was talking about global warming?
Basically we can measure incoming radiation and outgoing radiation.
All this does, at best, is measure the concentration of certain light absorbing gases.
Wow, not even close. Measuring whether an increase in incoming radiation tracks an increase in greenhouse gasses is not a useful way to determine what gasses are present. You need to know what gasses are present in order to determine whether the increase in radiation is tracking the gasses according to theory. What this tests is the greenhouse effect. It proves that the theory can correctly predict the increase in incoming radiation based on the increase in greenhouse gasses. You don't appear to understand what the theory is but you are certain it is wrong and cannot be proven. This is the theory. This is what it predicts. This can be measured. The measurements provide the proof.
That's not exactly it. "We cannot prove that the warming is not random noise" is closer
I thought you would argue that, that's why I gave you a link to the definition, but I guess you believe your definition is better.
If you are arguing against my definition then you are arguing that p(M|N)=p(N|M). This is not something I would have expected from a master of logical fallacies.
Still, if there was uncontrollable cyclic warming you would need to assume that the warming would be more significant than the noise. It is not. Why won’t you address that?
WTF is 'uncontrollable cyclic warming'? Why would I need to assume that the warming over 15 years would be more significant that the noise? This is laughable. You can't disprove a theory by inventing a condition and asking people to assume something (that doesn't follow) based on the invented condition. None of this is in the literature. You still really don't know what 'it' is or what 'it' predicts.
You're acting as if it's a conspiracy theory still. It's well established fact. The emails were real. The shit code... This stuff is real. You choose to ignore it because the people who commit these heinous acts are proponents of AGW.
Oh dear... Look. This is all a side show. They may be the devil. They may eat babies. It doesn't impact whether what they say is right or not. I'm not going to dismiss Mr X just because he is an oil industry shill. I will dismiss or accept him based on the quality of his work. Let's focus on the facts and the science and leave the personalities and conspiracies aside.
Let me take this argument down to its root:
You have just spend a great deal of time showing that you really don't understand the root of the argument, what the greenhouse effect is, or how one would go about proving it. Here are some questions for you: If the current warming is driven primarily by the greenhouse effect, where should we expect the most warming? Poles or equator? Night or day? Winter or summer? Where are we seeing warming? Likewise, if the current warming is driven primarily by increased solar output, where should we expect the most warming? Poles or equator? Night or day? Winter or summer? Where are we seeing warming?
As a skeptic all I need to do is kick back and poke holes in it using my logic stick.
Skepticism implies more than just saying 'nuh uh!'. It implies a certain amount of curiosity. This curiosity should lead the skeptic to a basic understanding of what it is he is skeptical about. Otherwise he is not really being skeptica