Stay behind after class and write 100 times: "AGW predicts nothing."

Perhaps it will finally sink in. Like walking on yesterday's
permafrost.

_____________________________________
So AGW does not predict the earth will continue to warm if we increase our
CO2 emissions?

 You shown you're right up there

"Chris L Peterson" <c...@alumni.caltech.edu> wrote in message
news:dhbve5pn41d01vs4dlaj7scqbf45ei11rb@4ax.com...

You have obviously never looked at a climate model.

Let me explain how they work.

There are typically some hundreds or thousands of "constants" that are
actually treated as variables, and their values are reverse-engineered to
align with historical data.

For example, the heat transfer rate between different ocean layers is not
known with any accuracy by anybody. So the model will assign this some
nominal value, which is believed to be more or less accurate. Nobody knows
exactly how fast glaciers move as a function of temperature, physical
dimensions etc, so some first order approximation is used, such
v=k+h*f(T,V), etc. Nobody really knows the full range of effects of
different vegetation types, so functions are estimated which link things
like albedo, growth rate, CO2 concentration. These all have "constants"
which will be ultimately "refined".

There are, as I said, typically hundreds or thousands of these estimates
made, none of them known by virtue of the underlying physics, and none of
them experimentally verified or even verifiable to any accuracy. Not just
constants, whole equations are estimated - heat transfer functions, mixing
between hemispheres, etc. Again, these involve unknown constants.

There is then a process undertaken which is generally called "refining the
model". Actual historical data is fed into the program, and the numerous
"constants" that exist in the model are "tweaked" until the model agrees
with the historical data.

I guess they call it "refining the model" because it sounds better than
"curve fitting".

BTW, this provides a very easy explanation of why AGW models are becoming
increasingly accurate in predicting the past. Basically, as you make the
models more complex - as inevitably occurs - then you introduce more unknown
constants that need to be (or can be) refined. With a larger pool of
"constants" that can be tweaked, you can match the observed data more
accurately. For example, my own AGW model has 200 such constants which I
have refined, and fits the last 200 years of observed data perfectly. Had I
only 100 such constants to refine, the match would not have been nearly as
good.

I think you want to pull out for the same reasons the few people I know with
an interest in astrology will not discuss astrology with me.

They tend to not believe in the scientific method, either.

_________________________________________________

If anthropogenic global warming were a theory that someone came up
with yesterday, so that the only "evidence" we had of it was that some
people had climate models which predicted global warming, and the only
validation of those climate models was that, gosh, before the
scientists made them public, they were tweaked to match climate in the
past, then you would be right to point out there is a problem.

But that isn't really an accurate picture of the situation.

The blackbody radiation curve has been established for quite some
time. So we know that our Sun, at a temperature of 6,000 degrees
Celsius, emits radiation which peaks in visible light, and the Earth's
surface, on the other hand, radiates heat in the form of very long-
wave infrared radiation.

We know that "greenhouse gases" let the warming rays of the Sun in,
but are warmed by the long-wave infrared radiation which normally
escapes into space, thus cooling places on the Earth at night.

We know that since the Industrial Revolution, we have been burning a
lot of fossil fuels; this is something humans have chosen to do, thus
it is in addition to any natural cycles. And we know that the level of
carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased over the last several
decades.

Climate models represent an attempt to study the details of the
outcome of this. And modelling climate is perhaps a science in its
infancy.

Right now, due to the el Nino/la Nina oscillation, the next few years
are not going to be unusually warm in certain highly-populated areas.
But that shouldn't obscure some very significant observations that
have been made:

Various areas of the Earth, such as Russian peat bogs, and the ocean
floor, that have the potential to release greenhouse gases under
unusually warm conditions, are starting to do so.

The concentration of carbon dioxide dissolved in the ocean, something
that compensates for other factors that put more carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere, has increased to the point where some major coral reefs
are threatened. Coral reefs are valuable to many important forms of
marine life.

The arctic polar ice cap has retreated so much that it is now felt
that very little of the Arctic will remain covered by ice all summer,
which is very much unlike the situation familiar over the past hundred
years.

If your house was on fire, would you demand scientific studies to
prove you should consider getting out of there?

It's true that environmentalists have, in the past, made exaggerated
claims, and do seem to have a political agenda.

It's also true that going back to the days of horse-and-buggy, or
riding bicycles to work, would seem to be too much of a sacrifice to
many simply to keep a few bugs out of Florida and Texas, to prevent a
crop failure in Borneo, and the loss of perhaps one or two coral reefs
in the middle of the Pacific.

Do we really know the consequences of global warming will be bigger
than that; like a sustained failure of the monsoons in India, the
death of the Great Barrier Reef, unprecedented mega-hurricanes
battering the Eastern Seaboard, a new Ice Age triggered by the
collapse of the Gulf Stream, and so on?

And in any event, China seems to be intending to go away from the days
of everyone riding bicycles to work, and they look like they have no
intent to go back.

Given all this, it's not surprising that people have questions about
global warming. However, while before a few isolated environmentalists
were making sensational claims that were widely reported in the news
media, but which were not accepted by others, the seriousness of the
global warming threat is generally accepted by the world scientific
community. There are people with scientific credentials who argue
otherwise, but they're very few in number - even before you subtract
those in the pay of vested interests such as the oil industry.

The world scientific community is not some kind of vast left-wing
conspiracy to hoodwink the rest of the world. No, you didn't say that,
but that IS what someone would have to believe to claim that global
warming is nothing to worry about. It doesn't surprise me that the
same radical-right climate in which global warming skepticism is taken
seriously is that in which Creationism is treated with respect. That,
too, requires a belief that those "scientists" are up to no good.

If our only choices were:

- accept whatever consequences there are from global warming, and hope
for the best (since we don't have hard proof of how bad it will be) or

- drastically cut down our own industrial production, leading not only
to a worsening of poverty in our own country, but even worse, a loss
of our own ability to defend ourselves, so that Russia or China ends
up taking over the world...

putting up with the bad consequences of global warming might indeed be
the least bad choice.

But we don't have only those two choices.

We don't need to accept on faith claims that we could get along just
fine with a little energy conservation, with long-distance power
lines, and wind and solar farms - such as were prominently featured in
the latest Scientific American.

We have another choice. We can produce as much reliable electrical
energy as we need, for existing electrical uses, for home heating, and
for producing hydrogen to fuel cars - and in any location, not just
those suited to hydroelectric dams, or to wind, solar, or geothermal
power.

As much as we need understates it. While claiming "as much as we want"
would not be accurate either, because we might desire more energy than
the Sun's total output, we can produce just as much energy as we're
using now, and significantly more as well, without significant carbon
dioxide emissions.

Because there's such a thing as nuclear power. And if we use our
natural resources of nuclear fuel efficiently, without waste, by
ensuring that we convert the U-238 to nuclear fuel as well instead of
letting it go to waste, we have enough resources to last for several
decades.

We do not have to play games with world climate to keep our way of
life, to remain able to defend our freedom. We have a course open to
us that avoids the catastrophic possibilities of *both* of the courses
that usually get offered in the public debate.

Of course, even with the Thorium breeder brought into the mix, it is
true that fuel for fission power won't last forever. But a century of
technical progress will give us the time to build solar power
satellites, to unlock the mysteries of fusion power, and therefore
build a sustainable energy future of abundance instead of scarcity.

Of course, even with the Thorium breeder brought into the mix, it is
true that fuel for fission power won't last forever. But a century of
technical progress will give us the time to build solar power
satellites, to unlock the mysteries of fusion power, and therefore
build a sustainable energy future of abundance instead of scarcity.

John Savard

_______________________________________
A reasonable and thoughtful post, with a positive ending. Hallelujah to
that. The only thing I found completely unreasonable was your attempt
earlier to link creationism and AGW skepticism. That is completely
unjustified by anything I have said; I have no doubts whatsoever in the
correctness of the theory of evolution by natural selection.

What you have provided in defense of AGW are plausibility arguments. I am
very, very aware that complex systems do not necessarily behave in the most
plausible manner, so these plausibility arguments are speculations at best.

The next "layer" in the AGW case is trying and prove that these plausible
arguments are true arguments by the use of computer models. These I do not
accept, for several reasons:

1. The obvious use of curve fitting; the whole mechanism of these models is
to refine the earth's temperature model over the last 50 or 100 years by
plugging in historical data and adjusting the model until it correctly fits
known data, and then it is judged a success if the model then fits the data
that was used in its design. As I have previously pointed out, this is plain
and simple curve fitting. It says exactly zero about the validity of the
underlying physical model, because you get exactly the same sorts of
characteristics (and far better predictions) from a least squares polynomial
fit to past data, and whatever the temperature equations of state the earth
may be I doubt they are a simple polynomial. So there is absolutely no
feedback loop which indicates if the physical models are even vaguely
correct. The more complex the model, the more degrees of freedom in the
curve fitting; the match to past data will get better even if the model is
completely wrong.

2. Having written computer/mathematical models for quite a number of much
simpler physical systems (eg 3 and 4 body systems in dynamics), it is very
difficult to know that the models will work when presented with novel data.
Even in a 500 or 1000 line program errors accumulate over successive
iterations, there are logic errors, certain data sets can cause
instabilities manifested as infinite loops or cycles, blah blah ... these
aren't 500 or 1000 lines written by one guy who thinks he knows the relevant
physics, they are a million lines of code, hacked together by 20 different
people guessing at major chunks of the physics, and completely untested on
the data sets they purport to model (ie those with higher temperatures than
today). And they all work right first time? Gimme a break!

I see no evidence - none at all - of any bad climactic changes over the last
100 years that we have had coal fired electricity and motor cars. Or over
the last 30 years, or last 10 years for that matter. None. We constantly
hear about the many, very terrible things that will shortly happen, but you
have to admit, as far as all the historical evidence goes, earth is doing
just fine climactically.

Creationists, though, can vote. And they might well find global
warming skepticism easy to accept. After all, they already believe
that the scientific community can be wrong.  And the idea that human
beings could bring about the end of the world before it comes up on
God's timetable is repugnant to them as well; they believe that all
will be well if individuals simply obey God in their daily lives,
remembering that they are in charge of their own behavior, and God is
in charge of the "big picture".

So it would be highly irresponsible to present arguments against
global warming that are not really sound from a scientific standpoint
to the public, because there are people out there who would believe
those arguments, and be influenced in their voting behavior because of
them.

In any case, there is abundant evidence that things are now happening
that hadn't happened in the last 50 to 100 years which are bad. You
might be able to view the death of the Great Barrier Reef with
equanimity.

Emanuel, K. Environmental Factors Affecting Tropical Cyclone Power
Dissipation, 2007 Journal of Climate
DOI: 10.1175/2007JCLI1571.1

The other papers posted suggest a decrease in the frequency

 Vecchi, G, and T. Knutson, On Estimates of Historical North Atlantic
Tropical Cyclone Activity, 2008, Journal of Climate DOI:
10.1175/2008JCLI2178.1

Simulated reduction in Atlantic hurricane frequency under twenty-
first-century warming conditions, Nature Geoscience, doi:10.1038/
ngeo202

'Tilt' is an effect of a rotating sphere and in itself 'tilt' does not
cause anything,the seasons are due to the specifics of daily rotation
and orbital motion,an intelligent person should know this even before
considering the difference between weather and climate.I care enough
about the original explanation of Copernicus which raised the
hypothesis of no tilt/no seasons to allow people to become familiar
with the modification which takes a modern approach using planetary
comparisons -

"..the equator and the earth's axis must be understood to have a
variable inclination. For if they stayed at a constant angle, and were
affected exclusively by the motion of the center, no inequality of
days and nights would be observed." Copernicus Chapter 11 De
Revolutionibus

A person who recognises the actual role of 'tilt',goes on to consider
orbital characteristics as the dynamic behind the seasons will have an
entirely different perspective on climate and weather than the 5th
grade understanding you and your colleagues stick with.I would truly
believe that the physical considerations inherent in the time lapse
footage of Uranus would have sparked interest in making planetary
comparisons and coming to a better understanding of climate
climate,the astronomical seasons and what have you but I am
exasperated that nothing has  happened -

http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/1999/11/video/b/

____________________________
I didn't claim he believed in astrology, I compared the underlying
scientific evidence.

Creationists, though, can vote. And they might well find global
warming skepticism easy to accept. After all, they already believe
that the scientific community can be wrong.  And the idea that human
beings could bring about the end of the world before it comes up on
God's timetable is repugnant to them as well; they believe that all
will be well if individuals simply obey God in their daily lives,
remembering that they are in charge of their own behavior, and God is
in charge of the "big picture".

__________________________________
Just to get this completely straight. This litle rant about creationists,
and about how some creationists are AGW skeptics. This has nothing directly
to do with what we are discussing, does it? You know that I am not a
creationist, and you are not a creationist, and nobody else in this thread
is a creationist, right? So an extensive discussion of the beliefs of
creationists is off-topic, given none of us in fact are creationists, and
nobody else mentioned creationism? Its like saying that many devout Hindus
are AGW skeptics; it may or may not be true, but as this thread is
completely befeft of devout Hundus and nobody has mentioned Hindu beliefs,
completely irrelevant.

For about the 500th time, I am a firm believer in evolution through natural
selection.

I don't care what creationists think about the age of the earth, the fossil
record, epidemiology or AGW, any more than I care about what Hindus think
about the age of the earth, the fossil record, epidemiology or AGW. I am not
a creationist or a Hindu; my arguments in no way involve religion, they
involve the scientific method. Discussing what creationists believe is as
relevant to a discussion of the validity of AGW science as a discussion of
what Zoroastrian's believe about Special Relativity.

Indeed, if you were trying to provide evidence that SR was a valid
scientific theory, would you feel it was reasonable to launch into a
discussion about how many Fundamentalist Zoroastrians disbelieve SR, because
the infinite descent of turtles on which we live provides a priveleged
intertial reference frame?

Argue with me, if you like, but if you want to use creationism as an
argument, at least one of us better believe in it or it is completely
irrelevant. As far as I can tell, neither of us do.

So it would be highly irresponsible to present arguments against
global warming that are not really sound from a scientific standpoint
to the public, because there are people out there who would believe
those arguments, and be influenced in their voting behavior because of
them.

__________________________
Of course, I haven't done that, and nor has anybody else in this thread,
have they?

In any case, there is abundant evidence that things are now happening
that hadn't happened in the last 50 to 100 years which are bad. You
might be able to view the death of the Great Barrier Reef with
equanimity.

John Savard

____________________________
Yeah, right, the death of the GBR.

Typical pro-AGW extremist beat-up. I have dived the length and breadth of
the GBR for over 30 years. Here are some facts:

1. The primary anthropogenic threat to the GBR by a long way is fertiliser
(more generally nutrient) run-off from the QLD coast. This is quite real.

2. The physical extent of the GBR is not constrained by ocean temperatures.
In the south, its extent is limited by sand, which is why it starts just
north of the world's largest sand island (Fraser Island). Off the coast,
where there is no sand, coral reefs survive a long way further south (eg
Lord Howe Island). To the north, it would go to the equator, if not for the
nutrient flow from Papuan rivers (the Fly River in particular). The GBR's
extent is not defined by temperature, but by geography. Global warming won't
change that.

3. Contrary to popular belief, corals grow quite quickly, as there is
competition pressure to colonise new areas. Reefs completely destroyed 20
years ago by cyclones often have 50 cms hard corals. They grow far, far
faster than projected rates of sea level increase.

4. Coral reefs survived and flourished when the world's CO2 concentration
was many times higher than today.

Of course, the administrators of the reef stick their hands out for money
because of global warming, but so does everybody else.

But the scientific basis for this claim is almost non-existent.

__________________________________
They are overstating their case; they want more money. There is bugger-all
illegal fishing on the reef. Chemical run-offs are a problem, as long as you
define fertilisers (particularly phosphates) as "chemicals". The GBR is in
very good health, because the GBR MPA manages it very aggressively -
including pressuring the government to give it more money, partially
accomplished through continually saying what terrible condition the reef is
in and how it needs more money. Its actually in very good condition; it is
easily the best managed coral reef system in the world.

I would hate to see the GBR go, andt there are immediate measurable
problems to be fixed first.  Martin Rees says we need to cut CO2
emissions by 50% in 40 yrs to protect the oceans.  How much do you
think we need to reduce to save the reef?

Emanuel, K. Environmental Factors Affecting Tropical Cyclone Power
Dissipation, 2007 Journal of Climate
DOI: 10.1175/2007JCLI1571.1

The other papers posted suggest a decrease in the frequency

__________________________
Not the IPCC 1992 report, or NOAA's web site. So they are both wrong?

 Vecchi, G, and T. Knutson, On Estimates of Historical North Atlantic
Tropical Cyclone Activity, 2008, Journal of Climate DOI:
10.1175/2008JCLI2178.1

Simulated reduction in Atlantic hurricane frequency under twenty-
first-century warming conditions, Nature Geoscience, doi:10.1038/
ngeo202

As I keep saying there is little debate as to whether hurricane
intensity and rainfall amounts will increase with global warming.  An
increase in frequency is at best tenuous and certainly still being
researched.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kepler_Mars_retrograde.jpg

The 17th century 'modelling' of Newton is based on trying to exploit
the calendar based Ra/Dec conventions, such as those which 'predict'
eclipses, and pass it off as a basis for planetary dynamics ,an
elaborate scheme that would be childish in the extreme if it were now
so dominant and damaging.The idea is that Kepler's tracking of Mars is
geocentric while heliocentric modelling is sticking the Sun at the
center and the retrogrades disappear -

http://www.fas.org/irp/imint/docs/rst/Sect19/history_2.jpg

Hence -

"For to the earth planetary motions appear sometimes direct, sometimes
stationary, nay, and sometimes retrograde. But from the sun they are
always seen direct, " Newton

This framehopping observer is a figment of the imagination,it doesn't
exist and is creating havoc between planetary dynamics and their
terrestrial effects,one of which is global climate and the seasons.I
do not appeal to those who will follow Newton's distortions but to
those who can escape them and enjoy matching Kepler's tracking of a
planet against the stellar background in our common orbits around the
Sun by time lapse footage and direct observation rather than a
'framehopping' observer -

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0112/JuSa2000_tezel.gif

"Chris L Peterson" <c...@alumni.caltech.edu> wrote in message
news:asv1f5llaqku44c6eo18bl4tt705vhudb5@4ax.com...

How do the AGW models explain this huge discrepancy between theory and
observation?

Right now, most of the system is fixed (or only changing very slowly),
and the one variable that is being tweaked hard is CO2 concentration. So
the temperature is rising.

It's really very simple.
_________________________________________________

Quoting from Science (Oct 8, 2009)
The last time carbon dioxide levels were apparently as high as they
are today — and were sustained at those levels — global temperatures
were 5 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit higher than they are today, the sea
level was approximately 75 to 120 feet higher than today, there was no
permanent sea ice cap in the Arctic and very little ice on Antarctica
and Greenland,"