The top 1% is > $394,000. Given how right-skewed income distribution is, I think everybody in the 1% who isn't there only transiently can afford a Tesla.
"Right - actual science happened, and it was wonderful. Publishing into an echo chamber of people who all agree with you gives only minimal vetting of your ideas. Believable science happens when some calls BS on your ideas, repeats your experiment to show how wrong you are, and instead convinces himself you were right. That is the most critical part of the scientific method, and "consensus science" sabotages it."
Why do you believe this doesn't happen in climatology research?
If I publish a physics paper it can be criticized for all sorts of reasons. However, an assumption that quantum mechanics is true will not be criticized. There's a reason for that.
"First, is this a surprise to climatologists? I've heard talk of heat maybe getting lost in the ocean, I've also heard about ice caps melting. If the climatologists are shocked by this finding I'd be nervous, not enough to seriously jeopardize my belief in AGW, but enough that I'd be a bit more skeptical of their regional projections. But if this is something they largely suspected but didn't know how to properly measure I wouldn't mind too much."
No it's not a surprise at all. By contrast it means that the improved observations match the predictions from underlying physical models even more closely than before. In some data analyses previously the magnitude of surface heating appeared (naively) to be less than that predicted (in a naive model) by the basic greenhouse forcing, but it wasn't quite statistically convincing however.
Now, new observations have shown that the ""missing"" heat is found in areas not well covered by the previous data sets used to make the prediction: deeper underwater and in Arctic regions.
The experimental observations match the theory very well now and confidence in predictions made from the theory should have even higher confidence. It also means that we are not missing any substantial causal influences not included in the models (for at least the 500 year and less timescale).
Here's what's important to understand: when you can make predictions from fundamental laws of physics (and global warming is a consequence of indisputable atomic physics), they are very reliable and powerful. When data analysis and collection is difficult and tricky, then yes often you should believe the theory more than the data contrary to a naive understanding of how science works.
Yes the IPCC predictions are conservative. From one session to the next the usual pattern has been that the evidence for warming increases and the confidence thereof increases. There have been many fewer "oh not as bad as we previously estimated" updates vs "worse than we previously estimated".
Scientists who criticize the IPCC process usually believe that the actual facts and prospects are more alarming than the IPCC consensus document.
Explain precisely how are the scientists used as pawns. Was Roger Revelle being used as a pawn 45 years ago? Explain, with evidence, how the large mainstream of scientists are manipulated (like Soviet Lysenkoism) into publishing results which they know are untrue.
| If you want to discuss Dunning-Kruger, then please explain to me: why is it that you think a 100% error in the basic quantity (temperature) that this whole discussion is about, is not a problem with the existing "science"?
It's an error in the magnitude of a change. The basic physical quantity as you put it is temperature on the Kelvin scale, so it's something of the size of 0.5-1 degree divided by 300K.
The existing science was very well aware of the dearth of non-satellite measurements in the Arctic, which is one reason that the investigators of this paper performed the analysis that they did.
What's the problem with the existing science?
It would be better still if we had a large network of calibrated measurement instruments in addition to the satellite data, but that costs time and money which is not being allocated sufficiently to solve this problem.
Of course if scientists ask for the money to do this they get accused of fantastical self-dealing conspiracies.
Really, the point about Dunning-Kruger is that almost everybody except the climatologists who do this for a living do NOT know enough about the quality of the data, the quality of the models and the validity of the predictions to make major valid criticisms.
| Because we love formats which are impossible to convert into any other format; which require complicated, ugly tools to perform even basic formatting,
This is a feature, not a bug. It's not just a feature, it is THE feature.
I'm very serious. Plenty of times an 'editable' PowerPoint is substantially garbled when it's opened up on a different version, or some Office configuration changed, or it's on somebody else's installation or it's 3 years old, or it needed an equation plugin, or the fonts are whatever...
If I have an important presentation---"save as PDF" is essential. I want to be able to give away (and use) poorly-editable copies which Microsoft programs will NOT do anything to.
That is an essential feature.
| and because we desperately need a format which essentially displays graphics and text to require weekly updates to remove the latest batch of exploits.
PDF isn't the problem. Adobe is that problem. MacOS and other software display PDF fine.
So a peer-reviewed paper doing superior reconstruction from improved satellite processing methodology is "shenanigans" and "BS" because...why? You called it?
| Fucking drama queens actually think insignificant humans have that kind of power over things.
I wonder why isn't East Texas producing oil from 200 ft wells like it did in 1903? Obviously humans are insignificant compared to geology so it can't possibly be that human influence sucked up the available petroleum. Must be the gays.
And look at those millions of buffalo, them stampedes through Downtown Chicago are just so smelly.
| Yet we pump billions into the defense against terrorism, but we keep bickering on whether or not Global Warming may or may not happen. Anyone able to explain the sense in that?
There are people who's monetary income is threatened by doing something about global warming so they pay people to bicker over the unbickerable.
| Like millions have died from the 7.7 inches that has already happened.
as in large scale storms and floods? Bangladesh? Phillipines? It isn't the mean level that matters day to day it is the combined effect of erosion and what happens in a cyclonic storm surge.
| Saying that the Earth has warmed in the past 40 years doesn't really address the issue at all...
Correct. Believe it or not, scientists who work on this for a living have done much more.
That's why there are extensive measurements of the underlying physical drivers (greenhouse gases & aerosols & sun) and detailed measurements of where and how the planet has been warming, such as the fact that it's warming the most in polar regions and at night, which supports the greenhouse gas mechanism and not others.
|There are valid questions about all this so I feel the whole "global warming" thing is a bit over blown. Advocates of global warming have been pretty bad at forecasting what's going to happen in the past.
There are no "advocates" of global warming any more than doctors are advocates of cancer.
In truth, the scientists who have been studying this have turned out to be quite good at predicting what's going to happen. (Try to find a major prediction from the IPCC WG1 which later turned out to be completely wrong).
For example, take a paper by James Hansen (one of the leading climatologists on this problem) from 1981, when much less was known, and there was no clear warming signal in the available data.
| Advances in those fields could solve global warming quite easily.
Too bad about the laws of physics. In practice, we know quite a bunch about fusion power and photovoltaics. There's been 50 years of research at least. There's no magic 100x gain physics yet to be exploited avaialble to rescue the planet.
We have to go with what we know works. Consider that fission was discovered in 1938, and large-scale industrial reactors (Hanford) were operating by 1945. Why? Because the physics worked out.
R&D in fusion and solar is a diverisionary side-show to make people feel good about "doing something" instead of actually doing somethings much more painful but which might actually work.
Build a tremendous amount of standardized fission plants, butch up about the cost and waste, and shut down every coal plant on the planet and tax petroleum like heck.
Yes. One model predicts global warming using atomic physics and electromagnetism which is extremely secure and validated.
A second model guesses as the surface temperatures in places where there are no thermometers by using satellite data in a superior way than the previous methods and finds global warming. The second model confirms the first.
| More to the point, if it was found that the last 15 years was really warming, we are told it's significant. If the last 15 years have not warmed or cooled, then we are told it's not enough time to understand the trend.
Well, suppose it was 1 standard deviation below expectation, and now with the new estimate it's zero. It's not contradictory.
The previous low warming estimate wasn't low for long enough time to seriously challenge theories. This is true. It would have to be substantially longer.
Now there is no low estimate.
The Bayesian posterior probability that there is any problem with the theory is even lower now.
| I have been convinced that the Earth is in a warming phase. | I have been convinced that humans should reduce the output of greenhouse gases.
I have also been convinced that most of the carbon credit and associated businesses that have been started to support it are, shall we say, powered by less then altruistic motives.
So? Must any company which makes catalytic converters to reduce pollution be a non-profit operated by ascetic barefoot monks in burlap?
| I have been convinced that some politicians and business leaders are making significant amounts of money or adding to their power and influence by evangelizing the push to blame all global warming on human influence.
Who? Numbers. Who specifically is making money?
Who might be making money by evangelizing the push to not blame appropriate global warming on human influence?
| I wouldn't really consider this data as findings so much as creations of data. Funny how the created data only always points in one direction. Whenever I collect real data, sometimes it is higher than what I expect, sometimes it is lower.
Maybe there's a reason for the difference? Like the biased nature that there are almost no climate stations in the Arctic and the physics of greenhouse effect predicts the most effect in polar regions?
No, what happened now is that a better analysis of the data which does a better job of extrapolating into polar regions using satellite data shows that the actual warming is closer to what the original models predicted would happen, and the recent "concern" about measurements showing less warming than the models turned out to be premature.
This also means that the mainstream climatologists' predictions of climate sensitivity are probably right or a little low. The models are right. It's going to get bad.
| The solution is to stop trying to force people to stop using fossil fuels. Instead, give them a better alternative
There isn't one. Forcing people to stop using fossil fuels is the only way out because fossil fuels are very cheap with current technology and there is enough of them (especially coal) to cause a major climate disaster.
There are less worse alternatives, but the problem really is that people are encouraged to indulge in their selfishness by the shrill right-wing denialist types.
And these alternatives take a very long time to develop and deploy, during which the pollution which has thousand-year lifetimes continues to accumulate and damage occurs.
The actual solution which is actually a solution and not a diversion from a solution is to lower fossil fuel use.
Ah, so scientists use their "massive" (??????) funding they're getting to perform additional comprehensive data collection and analysis. And then you question if they have "any clue about what's really going on?" as a result of the research done to get additional clues about what's really going on?
Or is it that you don't like the answer.
Global warming comes from fundamental physics which cannot be ignored---it is not a surprise that superior data collection and analysis results in answers which agree better with the predictions from physics. That is how it's almost always been.
And why does climatology have to fight with desalinization plants for Sahara---you can do it now. Find the money and the energy, and compare quantitatively to climatology funding.
| How many times do the "experts" have to be wrong, inconsistent, caught in suppression of dissent, caught distorting statistics or in blatantly political activity before you, erik, admit that the "experts" are pushing an agenda, not science?
The Heartland Institute and Fox News? They're already there.
So far, the regular climatologists have been right about nearly everything scientific.
| Observe the behavior. Trying to de-legitimize dissent by declaring that skeptics either don't exist or are corrupted by "private funding" or are outliers fighting against some "consensus" about "settled science" is a tactic of political activists, not of scientists.
| This doesn't mean I don't believe in AGW, but it also doesn't mean I blindly support the deindustrialization of the western world without, you know, a little more investigation.
There's been tremendous investigation over 50 years. Enough.
And it doesn't mean the deindustrialization of the western world---in fact it would have been easier had we started when the science was good enough to motivate action (early 1990's) by any sane criterion but there's been a large campaign of anti-scientific dissembling and propaganda stopping it for selfish pecuniary motives.
Slashdot Mirror
Ah, so socialized medicine is evil---because it isn't enough socialism?
The top 1% is > $394,000. Given how right-skewed income distribution is, I think everybody in the 1% who isn't there only transiently can afford a Tesla.
Then the problem is civil service rules.
"Right - actual science happened, and it was wonderful. Publishing into an echo chamber of people who all agree with you gives only minimal vetting of your ideas. Believable science happens when some calls BS on your ideas, repeats your experiment to show how wrong you are, and instead convinces himself you were right. That is the most critical part of the scientific method, and "consensus science" sabotages it."
Why do you believe this doesn't happen in climatology research?
If I publish a physics paper it can be criticized for all sorts of reasons. However, an assumption that quantum mechanics is true will not be criticized. There's a reason for that.
"First, is this a surprise to climatologists? I've heard talk of heat maybe getting lost in the ocean, I've also heard about ice caps melting. If the climatologists are shocked by this finding I'd be nervous, not enough to seriously jeopardize my belief in AGW, but enough that I'd be a bit more skeptical of their regional projections. But if this is something they largely suspected but didn't know how to properly measure I wouldn't mind too much."
No it's not a surprise at all. By contrast it means that the improved observations match the predictions from underlying physical models even more closely than before. In some data analyses previously the magnitude of surface heating appeared (naively) to be less than that predicted (in a naive model) by the basic greenhouse forcing, but it wasn't quite statistically convincing however.
Now, new observations have shown that the ""missing"" heat is found in areas not well covered by the previous data sets used to make the prediction: deeper underwater and in Arctic regions.
The experimental observations match the theory very well now and confidence in predictions made from the theory should have even higher confidence. It also means that we are not missing any substantial causal influences not included in the models (for at least the 500 year and less timescale).
Here's what's important to understand: when you can make predictions from fundamental laws of physics (and global warming is a consequence of indisputable atomic physics), they are very reliable and powerful. When data analysis and collection is difficult and tricky, then yes often you should believe the theory more than the data contrary to a naive understanding of how science works.
Yes the IPCC predictions are conservative. From one session to the next the usual pattern has been that the evidence for warming increases and the confidence thereof increases. There have been many fewer "oh not as bad as we previously estimated" updates vs "worse than we previously estimated".
Scientists who criticize the IPCC process usually believe that the actual facts and prospects are more alarming than the IPCC consensus document.
Explain precisely how are the scientists used as pawns. Was Roger Revelle being used as a pawn 45 years ago? Explain, with evidence, how the large mainstream of scientists are manipulated (like Soviet Lysenkoism) into publishing results which they know are untrue.
| If you want to discuss Dunning-Kruger, then please explain to me: why is it that you think a 100% error in the basic quantity (temperature) that this whole discussion is about, is not a problem with the existing "science"?
It's an error in the magnitude of a change. The basic physical quantity as you put it is temperature on the Kelvin scale, so it's something of the size of 0.5-1 degree divided by 300K.
The existing science was very well aware of the dearth of non-satellite measurements in the Arctic, which is one reason that the investigators of this paper performed the analysis that they did.
What's the problem with the existing science?
It would be better still if we had a large network of calibrated measurement instruments in addition to the satellite data, but that costs time and money which is not being allocated sufficiently to solve this problem.
Of course if scientists ask for the money to do this they get accused of fantastical self-dealing conspiracies.
Really, the point about Dunning-Kruger is that almost everybody except the climatologists who do this for a living do NOT know enough about the quality of the data, the quality of the models and the validity of the predictions to make major valid criticisms.
| Because we love formats which are impossible to convert into any other format; which require complicated, ugly tools to perform even basic formatting,
This is a feature, not a bug. It's not just a feature, it is THE feature.
I'm very serious. Plenty of times an 'editable' PowerPoint is substantially garbled when it's opened up on a different version, or some Office configuration changed, or it's on somebody else's installation or it's 3 years old, or it needed an equation plugin, or the fonts are whatever...
If I have an important presentation---"save as PDF" is essential. I want to be able to give away (and use) poorly-editable copies which Microsoft programs will NOT do anything to.
That is an essential feature.
| and because we desperately need a format which essentially displays graphics and text to require weekly updates to remove the latest batch of exploits.
PDF isn't the problem. Adobe is that problem. MacOS and other software display PDF fine.
So a peer-reviewed paper doing superior reconstruction from improved satellite processing methodology is "shenanigans" and "BS" because...why? You called it?
| Fucking drama queens actually think insignificant humans have that kind of power over things.
I wonder why isn't East Texas producing oil from 200 ft wells like it did in 1903? Obviously humans are insignificant compared to geology so it can't possibly be that human influence sucked up the available petroleum. Must be the gays.
And look at those millions of buffalo, them stampedes through Downtown Chicago are just so smelly.
There is no land in the Arctic.
| Yet we pump billions into the defense against terrorism, but we keep bickering on whether or not Global Warming may or may not happen. Anyone able to explain the sense in that?
There are people who's monetary income is threatened by doing something about global warming so they pay people to bicker over the unbickerable.
| Like millions have died from the 7.7 inches that has already happened.
as in large scale storms and floods? Bangladesh? Phillipines? It isn't the mean level that matters day to day it is the combined effect of erosion and what happens in a cyclonic storm surge.
| Saying that the Earth has warmed in the past 40 years doesn't really address the issue at all...
Correct. Believe it or not, scientists who work on this for a living have done much more.
That's why there are extensive measurements of the underlying physical drivers (greenhouse gases & aerosols & sun) and detailed measurements of where and how the planet has been warming, such as the fact that it's warming the most in polar regions and at night, which supports the greenhouse gas mechanism and not others.
And there are far far more.
|There are valid questions about all this so I feel the whole "global warming" thing is a bit over blown. Advocates of global warming have been pretty bad at forecasting what's going to happen in the past.
There are no "advocates" of global warming any more than doctors are advocates of cancer.
In truth, the scientists who have been studying this have turned out to be quite good at predicting what's going to happen. (Try to find a major prediction from the IPCC WG1 which later turned out to be completely wrong).
For example, take a paper by James Hansen (one of the leading climatologists on this problem) from 1981, when much less was known, and there was no clear warming signal in the available data.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2012/04/evaluating-a-1981-temperature-projection/
In 1981, the basic physics was generally already known and has not been substantially invalidated.
| Advances in those fields could solve global warming quite easily.
Too bad about the laws of physics. In practice, we know quite a bunch about fusion power and photovoltaics. There's been 50 years of research at least. There's no magic 100x gain physics yet to be exploited avaialble to rescue the planet.
We have to go with what we know works. Consider that fission was discovered in 1938, and large-scale industrial reactors (Hanford) were operating by 1945. Why? Because the physics worked out.
R&D in fusion and solar is a diverisionary side-show to make people feel good about "doing something" instead of actually doing somethings much more painful but which might actually work.
Build a tremendous amount of standardized fission plants, butch up about the cost and waste, and shut down every coal plant on the planet and tax petroleum like heck.
Yes. One model predicts global warming using atomic physics and electromagnetism which is extremely secure and validated.
A second model guesses as the surface temperatures in places where there are no thermometers by using satellite data in a superior way than the previous methods and finds global warming. The second model confirms the first.
And this is science.
| More to the point, if it was found that the last 15 years was really warming, we are told it's significant. If the last 15 years have not warmed or cooled, then we are told it's not enough time to understand the trend.
Well, suppose it was 1 standard deviation below expectation, and now with the new estimate it's zero. It's not contradictory.
The previous low warming estimate wasn't low for long enough time to seriously challenge theories. This is true. It would have to be substantially longer.
Now there is no low estimate.
The Bayesian posterior probability that there is any problem with the theory is even lower now.
| I have been convinced that the Earth is in a warming phase.
| I have been convinced that humans should reduce the output of greenhouse gases.
I have also been convinced that most of the carbon credit and associated businesses that have been started to support it are, shall we say, powered by less then altruistic motives.
So? Must any company which makes catalytic converters to reduce pollution be a non-profit operated by ascetic barefoot monks in burlap?
| I have been convinced that some politicians and business leaders are making significant amounts of money or adding to their power and influence by evangelizing the push to blame all global warming on human influence.
Who? Numbers. Who specifically is making money?
Who might be making money by evangelizing the push to not blame appropriate global warming on human influence?
| I wouldn't really consider this data as findings so much as creations of data. Funny how the created data only always points in one direction. Whenever I collect real data, sometimes it is higher than what I expect, sometimes it is lower.
Maybe there's a reason for the difference? Like the biased nature that there are almost no climate stations in the Arctic and the physics of greenhouse effect predicts the most effect in polar regions?
No, what happened now is that a better analysis of the data which does a better job of extrapolating into polar regions using satellite data shows that the actual warming is closer to what the original models predicted would happen, and the recent "concern" about measurements showing less warming than the models turned out to be premature.
This also means that the mainstream climatologists' predictions of climate sensitivity are probably right or a little low. The models are right. It's going to get bad.
| Think the various factions actually care either way about the science?
Yes. Scientists cared about the science for many decades (when global warming didn't become a political enemy) and they continue to care.
| The issue is rather that the science is being used to justify policy changes and those policy changes are politically contentious.
Yes. It doesn't mean the science is wrong, any more than the science showing harm from smoking and asbestos is wrong.
What if the actual science does show a serious problem which requires policy changes?
| The solution is to stop trying to force people to stop using fossil fuels. Instead, give them a better alternative
There isn't one. Forcing people to stop using fossil fuels is the only way out because fossil fuels are very cheap with current technology and there is enough of them (especially coal) to cause a major climate disaster.
There are less worse alternatives, but the problem really is that people are encouraged to indulge in their selfishness by the shrill right-wing denialist types.
And these alternatives take a very long time to develop and deploy, during which the pollution which has thousand-year lifetimes continues to accumulate and damage occurs.
The actual solution which is actually a solution and not a diversion from a solution is to lower fossil fuel use.
Ah, so scientists use their "massive" (??????) funding they're getting to perform additional comprehensive data collection and analysis. And then you question if they have "any clue about what's really going on?" as a result of the research done to get additional clues about what's really going on?
Or is it that you don't like the answer.
Global warming comes from fundamental physics which cannot be ignored---it is not a surprise that superior data collection and analysis results in answers which agree better with the predictions from physics. That is how it's almost always been.
And why does climatology have to fight with desalinization plants for Sahara---you can do it now. Find the money and the energy, and compare quantitatively to climatology funding.
| How many times do the "experts" have to be wrong, inconsistent, caught in suppression of dissent, caught distorting statistics or in blatantly political activity before you, erik, admit that the "experts" are pushing an agenda, not science?
The Heartland Institute and Fox News? They're already there.
So far, the regular climatologists have been right about nearly everything scientific.
| Observe the behavior. Trying to de-legitimize dissent by declaring that skeptics either don't exist or are corrupted by "private funding" or are outliers fighting against some "consensus" about "settled science" is a tactic of political activists, not of scientists.
What if the above is actually true?
| This doesn't mean I don't believe in AGW, but it also doesn't mean I blindly support the deindustrialization of the western world without, you know, a little more investigation.
There's been tremendous investigation over 50 years. Enough.
And it doesn't mean the deindustrialization of the western world---in fact it would have been easier had we started when the science was good enough to motivate action (early 1990's) by any sane criterion but there's been a large campaign of anti-scientific dissembling and propaganda stopping it for selfish pecuniary motives.