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1981 Paper's Predictions for Global Temperatures Spot-On
Layzej writes "The Register reports on a paper published in Science in 1981 projecting global mean temperatures up to the year 2100. 'When the 1981 paper was written, temperatures in the northern hemispheres were declining, and global mean temperatures were below their 1940 levels. Despite those facts, the paper's authors confidently predicted a rise in temperature due to increasing CO2 emissions.' The prediction turns out to be remarkably accurate — even a bit optimistic. The article concludes that the 1981 paper is 'a nice example of a statement based on theory that could be falsified and up to now has withstood the test.'"
Care to cite one? Since it sounds like you're so well-informed.
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No, because the multiple predictions are not random, the way thrown darts are. This is Science 101. Multiple models are proposed to explain and/or predict an observable phenomenon. The model that makes the the most accurate predictions gains credence over the others.
"Don't blame the log for the fire." --Andrew Ratshin
There's a difference between a scientific theory that ends up correctly modeling reality for a long period of time and me just making wild guesses. However, a lot of people will conflate the two, saying that all those scientists were doing was making wild guesses that happened to pan out. This is the same kind of thing that creationists say, when they point out that evolution is "just a theory". It also allows them to create their own competing "theory", consisting of a bunch of mythological stories.
Science is not just a bunch of old guys with wild hair who sit around, pulling shit out of their ass, and saying, "Hey, this sounds good. Let's go with this wild guess. The public will eat it up, and we'll get more grant money!"
So, in yesterday's story about predicting the collapse of civilization, multiple posters snarked about how convenient it is to make predictions about what will happen 30 years from now, 'cause no one will remember you made those predictions--so you'll never be called to account for your oh-so-incorrect doomsday predictions.
I now calmly await for yesterday's posters to issue "I can see now that I was wrong" statements.
"Don't blame the log for the fire." --Andrew Ratshin
Like people who used phones hooked to walls and paid 300$ for a walkman cd players would know anything about science or the climate.
I'm not commenting on the climate one way or the other
Sure you are. You're argument in a nutshell, goes like this:
1. Premise: There were hundreds of predictions about what would happen to the climate over a 30 year period.
2. Premise: One prediction was demonstrably right.
3. Inference: because 99.9% of the predictions were wrong, the one that was right must be due to pure chance.
4. Final conclusion: I can safely ignore any other prediction about climate from anybody, because the only way it can be right is by pure chance.
Well, that's not how science works. The logic of science works more like this:
1. Premise: There were hundreds of predictions about what would happen to the climate over a 30 year period, each using different models and ideas to arrive at that prediction.
2. Premise: One prediction was demonstrably closer to right than the others.
3. Inference: The models and ideas that produced the correct prediction are closer to the truth than those that didn't correctly predict a result.
4. Final conclusion: When making the next prediction, start from using those models and ideas and you'll get pretty close to the right answer.
Here's a similar problem from physics:
Model A: Acceleration due to Earth's gravity near the ground in a vacuum is ~10 m/s^2, so the ball should fall 100 meters in 4 seconds.
Model B: Acceleration due to Earth's gravity near the ground in a vacuum is ~5 m/s^2, so the ball should fall 100 meters in ~5.8 seconds.
Time for a ball to fall 100 is slightly over 4 seconds. Ergo, 10 m/s^2 is less wrong than 5 m/s^2.
In the words of Isaac Asimov, Model A is wrong, Model B is wrong, but if you think that Model A is as wrong as Model B, then your view is wronger than both of them put together.
I am officially gone from
From the Hansen study:
"Political and economic forces affecting energy use and fuel choice make it unlikely that the CO2 issue will have a major impact on energy policies until convincing observations of the global warming are in hand."
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Exactly why the "controversy" is political and not scientific.
If the arguments were scientific, the conclusions would not be divided among party lines - yet they are. That should tell you something.
"a nice example of a statement based on theory that could be falsified and up to now has withstood the test."
Just wait till we finally reach a double of atmospheric CO2 values, at which point we'll get to see if the predictions Svante Arrhenius made in the late 19th / early 20th century pan out.
If the quantity of carbonic acid in the air should sink to one-half its present percentage, the temperature would fall by about 4 degrees; a diminution to one-quarter would reduce the temperature by 8 degrees. On the other hand, any doubling of the percentage of carbon dioxide in the air would raise the temperature of the earth's surface by 4 degrees; and if the carbon dioxide were increased fourfold, the temperature would rise by 8 degrees.
Although the sea, by absorbing carbonic acid, acts as a regulator of huge capacity, which takes up about five-sixths of the produced carbonic acid, we yet recognize that the slight percentage of carbonic acid in the atmosphere may by the advances of industry be changed to a noticeable degree in the course of a few centuries.
No it gained credence over other models that didn't get things right.
That in itself says nothing about whether it is actually correct in itself just whether it makes good predictions. A simpler model that makes exactly the same predictions would be prefered - that's what Occam's razor actually says after all. If the models make different predictions we don't need the razor we just see which one (if any) matches reality.
I see no evidence that you even read this paper. All you are doing it spouting the standard denialist memes: it's cherry picked; it's not science; it's not falsifiable, etc. You say there is no error analysis, but does that mean that they gave a single temperature prediction? No, even just looking at the graph in the article you can see there is quite a wide range to their prediction with different areas based on what the human response to this problem was.
You say some of the assumptions are false? Which ones? Why did you not include even a single example of how they got it wrong? And here is the my biggest problem:
You can't simply say, "It will get warmer", be off by as much as 30% and get credit for good science.
I did a search in the article for the text "It will get warmer" and could not find a match. It seems that the scientists behind the paper agreed with you, and so they didn't just make a single proclaimation without showing any supporting evidence.
Climate change *could* be a serious thing but it gets washed up with politically driven junk from activists. They are doing more harm than good.
Surely it is the skeptics that are doing the most harm. You know the ones. They have claimed over the past decade that global warming is false because it is actually getting cooler (although they have had to change this to claim that the temperature has remained steady once it became obvious that it was not getting cooler). They are the ones who make claims about climate changes without providing any supporting evidence, but will also deride scientists (who do actually show their working and their data) as doing the same.
I'm not a denier, but you're not really countering his point. If 500 scientists make 500 predictions, and one is right but 499 are wrong you can't really point to that one (possibly lucky) guy and say "see, we knew it!".
What if I come up with some new crackpot theory tying the price of tea in china to the average incidence of Herpes amongst 19-22 year olds and then predict the price in 5 years based on that theory. I then get lucky, and the price matches my prediction. Have I totally kicked ass with my new theory of Herpes-driven tea prices?
Like I said, I do believe in man-made GW, but the "other side" can easily find one loon who happened to be right and point to him as proving their point. We need broader theory and broader, more often repeatable tests.
I'm sorry, you're clueless.
"Climate" means 30-year average in this context. Being able to predict next year's specific temperatures has nothing to do with climate.
Think of the stock market. "Climate" is the 30-year graph and the ability to say "from 1982 to 2012 the trend is ever increasing". http://www.google.com/finance?chdnp=0&chdd=0&chds=0&chdv=1&chvs=maximized&chdeh=0&chfdeh=0&chdet=1333730258898&chddm=4050760&chls=IntervalBasedLine&q=INDEXDJX:.DJI&ntsp=0
"Weather" is saying "last year was up and down". http://www.google.com/finance?chdnp=0&chdd=0&chds=0&chdv=1&chvs=maximized&chdeh=0&chfdeh=0&chdet=1333730383316&chddm=98923&chls=IntervalBasedLine&q=INDEXDJX:.DJI&ntsp=0
You're confusing "long term trend" with "what will it be like this weekend". They are two distinctly different things.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
If you can predict the climate, publish your predictions for each and every weather station so we can compare predicted values to actual values. (Oh, and yes, I do know the difference between weather and climate.) But no, we get some hazy predictions for something in 100 years, yet nothing for next year.
It's funny. You claim that you know the difference between weather and climate, and yet you repeatedly mix up the concepts the rest of the time. If you know the difference, why do you want to be given a prediction for a specific location? If you know the difference, why do you want to be given a prediction for the coming year?
The bizarre thing is that if you look at the graph you can see what they thought it would be next year, and indeed all years to the end of the graph. As it gets further into the future then the error range gets bigger because they can't know what the human response to this problem would be.
Moronic arguments about weather vs. climate are not science.
And moronic arguments that get weather vs climate wrong are also not science. This doesn't change merely because you keep mistakenly claiming that you do know the difference.
Well, that is a nice example of "proof by anal extraction". Care to actually cite the thousands of not-useful ones? I mean, like, doing science and stuff? Or do you just create your reality by decree ex cathedra?
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.