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Scientists Explain Why Chairman of House Committee On Science Is Wrong
Lasrick writes "Michael Oppenheimer and Kevin Trenberth take apart Rep. Lamar Smith's (R-Tex.) Washington Post op/ed on climate science saying: 'Contrary to Smith's assertions, there is conclusive evidence that climate change worsened the damage caused by Superstorm Sandy. Sea levels in New York City harbors have risen by more than a foot since the beginning of the 20th century. Had the storm surge not been riding on higher seas, there would have been less flooding and less damage. Warmer air also allows storms such as Sandy to hold more moisture and dump more rainfall, exacerbating flooding.'"
Man, I certainly can't think of any better candidates for the chairmanship of the House Comittee on Science, Space, and Technology than a lawyer without any technical or scientific background, a big fan of SOPA, expanding the DMCA's restrictive elements, and PCIP. Just as icing on the cake, the guy is a Christian Scientist, so he probably has a worse-than-average relationship with medical science.
Honestly, how do we end up with these jokers?
Six official investigations have cleared scientists of accusations of wrongdoing.
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/global_warming_contrarians/debunking-misinformation-stolen-emails-climategate.html
I'll quote Feynman on this one, because I couldn't say it any better:
"I would like to add something that's not essential to the science, but something I kind of believe, which is that you should not fool the laymen when you're talking as a scientist. . . . I'm talking about a specific, extra type of integrity that is not lying, but bending over backwards to show how you're maybe wrong, [an integrity] that you ought to have when acting as a scientist. And this is our responsibility as scientists, certainly to other scientists, and I think to laymen."
We have centuries of data, and - most importantly - from different sources. Yes, the accuracy deteriorates the further back you go, but with things like dendrology you can improve the accuracy by making comparisons with samples from different regions, as well as comparing ancient patterns with recent ones. Also, ice cores from both the poles and from glaciers give very long timescale information.
We know due to lots of stuff, like tree rings and lake sediments. While they all have margins of error, they are all in broad agreement that the temperature rises in the last century have been exceptional. We also have CO2 data from ice cores that shows that for 0.5M years CO2 levels varied between about 180 and 280ppm, in step with the ice ages and Milankovitch cycles, while in the last 100 years it has risen suddenly to 400ppm.
This is a classic tragedy of the commons situation. If everyone pollutes everyone looses. If only you pollute and no one else does.... you win. If you dont pollute and everyone else does... you really loose. If no one pollutes everyone kind wins.
I have no idea why tards on the right who get all huffy about free market economics would not recognize this economics 101 situation. Given a free market situation we will always turn to the WORST possible outcome. Since it is always better for the individual to pollute the Nash equilibrium is achieved when everyone chooses to pollute.
Now how to deal with this flaw in the free market solution is more up to debate. But in general this is the EXACT situation where governmental regulation is needed and will produce the most net surplus. The free marketer solution is that every single potential polluter gets together and negotiates who gets to pollute..... I like to call this solution a "government". But repubs get all pissy about that name for some reason. They think every individual entity should negotiate... They seem to forget there are a thing called transaction costs which make this completely crazy in the real world.
There is broad consensus in the scientific community that there is no connection between severe weather like droughts or hurricanes and gay marriage.
If the "threatening" now-faster-rate of sea level rise is on the order of a 3.3 mm/year, then how is it that the sea levels in NY harbors have "risen more than a foot since the beginning of the 20th century (which would be 1900AD.)
1000mm / cm ...we're talking 30 centimeters.
2.54 centimeters / inch
12 inches / foot
Wikipedia (linked above) says the *current rate*, which is *faster* than previous, is 3.3 mm / year. 113 years (since 1900) is 372.9 mm if we count 3.3 mm / year for EVERY year since then. That's a total of 3.72 cm (isn't metric easy?) or between one and two inches.
And actually, Wikipedia reports sea level rise this way: "Between 1870 and 2004, global average sea levels rose 195 mm", which is less than an inch.
So, a foot, how? [grumble]
There are only 10mm in 1 cm. So that would be 37.2cm, or 14.68 inches, since 1900. I think you'll find thats more than a foot.
the short answer is that sometimes CO2 trails temperature increase, sometimes it doesn't.
Usually when CO2 trails climate, it's because of orbital forcing, but interestingly, sometimes that temperature increase will increase ocean acidification and amply carbon feedbacks.
Hey, the carbon/feedback cycle is complex, no doubt about it. But carbon is a forcing -- no doubt about it, and right now GHG are responsible for the lion's share of the present and future temperature increase.
Here's deeper discussion of this issue: http://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-lags-temperature-intermediate.htm
Here's a video that responds to the CO2 trails climate meme https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQ3PzYU1N7A
Robert Nagle, Idiotprogrammer, Houston
Both sides can make their claims. But unless someone can do a proper experiment with a control planet, and make that experiment repeatable while you're at it, its all speculation. Not proper science.
You can't be that dense. By your reasoning, just about every aspect of science is "speculation".
Almost all non-trivial physics models are simulations. This includes everything from CFD's to weather and climate models. These simulations are built upon physical equations the describe the phenomena. These models are run against KNOWN CONDITIONS to see if the are accurately modelling the phenomena.
In the case of climate models, the models are initialized with pre-industrial conditions (with various small tweaks to the initial conditions to create what is known as an ensemble). Then the models are run forward to present day to see how well they modeled the KNOWN conditions that happened over that time period. And, not surprisingly, the climate models do a pretty good job. Keep in mind, these models are not STATISTICAL models. These are PHYSICAL models, i.e. modelling the actual physical dynamics of the earth's climate.
And even then, the models are just tools. The research used to the develop the models are based upon real world observations (historical as well as current). And this research has been ongoing since Fourier first proposed greenhouse gas theory back in 1824.
Speculation is someone saying "The moon is made of cheese!". Science is someone showing objectively that it isn't. Idiocy is looking at the science and disregarding it as nonsense since it goes against your belief that the moon is made of cheese.
~X~
The alarmist models have largely failed to model both the past and ongoing present situation, and are therefore useless in predicting the future.
This is a big steaming pile of bullshit.
Ezekiel 23:20