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Albatross at 07:02 AM on 15 April 2011Christy Crock #3: Internal Variability
Gilles @71, I'm sorry, but you are talking though your hat. Actually scientists and modellers do know what they are doing.....I'm looking for a suitable book to refer you to read on the subject. But modelling weather versus modelling climate is not the subject of this thread. Christy's misinformation and deception is. Did you see my question to you and others here? -
Albatross at 06:55 AM on 15 April 2011Monckton Myth #16: Bizarro World Sea Level
Daniel @63, Now you are seriously referring us to a web page by McLean? Sorry, yet another source with dubious credibility. He is not much better than the much discredited Monckton in fact. if you are going to try and make compelling arguments please use citations from reputable scientific journals. Daniel, it is OK to say Monckton and Morner got it wrong, that is what a true skeptic would do. And we could then move on to discuss the science in goofd faith. But if you will not recognize the most obvious egregious errors/distortions on their part, then we are wasting our time. And please do not try and advertise yourself as speaking for the majority of lay people or tax payers or the masses, you clearly do not-- that is another 'skeptic' meme that is doing the rounds. Fortunately most people are open minded and do not have ideological or political barriers or have a propensity to entertain fictitious conspiracy theories when interpreting the science. Heck, even the crickets and plants and everything in the ocean blue get it. -
Gilles at 06:54 AM on 15 April 2011Christy Crock #3: Internal Variability
I'm sorry but you have to start from an initial condition anyway, and you cannot choose an initial condition in 1880 with a day randomly chosen in 2010, since the state is of the Earth is supposed to have changed (you think it has changed don't you ?) - you seem to answer as if you know GCM computations, but it's obviously not the case- so why don't you say simply "I don't know "? -
Philippe Chantreau at 06:50 AM on 15 April 2011Muller Misinformation #2: 'leaked' tree-ring data
Perhaps he's trying to regain his lost popularity at WUWT... -
NewYorkJ at 06:25 AM on 15 April 2011Christy Crock #3: Internal Variability
Albatross (#65), You're absolutely right. We shouldn't take anything a tabloid-quality source prints at face value (even a direct quotation) and I haven't a seen a reliable source report on it. The first quote is clearly at odds with his published work, and is rather silly. Contacting Tsonis would be the only way to confirm it. If he's been misquoted, I would think a lawsuit would be in order. -
daniel maris at 06:19 AM on 15 April 2011Monckton Myth #16: Bizarro World Sea Level
Dikran and others, You have to remember that, whatever the science, it's taxpayers and consumers who will fund carbon reduction measures and who have to be convinced of their necessity - unless that is you are suggesting we should move from democracy to a kind of Wellsian Scientific Dictatorship. If this is the way you communicate with the non-scientific, then Gawd help us. It seems to me perfectly reasonable for the public to want to see some good evidence that things are changing for the worse and that carbon reduction will address the issue. Michael Sweet - You've visited Tuvalu. You haven't lived there for 40 years. What do you make then of this scientific evidence? - http://mclean.ch/climate/Sea_Level_Tuvalu.htm -
Rob Honeycutt at 06:09 AM on 15 April 2011It warmed just as fast in 1860-1880 and 1910-1940
KR @ 57... Exactly! I've tried to say the same thing several times. If you do one small experiment and remove the accumulated radiative forcing from century scale temperature trend you get a very different picture. The difference is AGW. Us. -
It warmed just as fast in 1860-1880 and 1910-1940
Adam - "KR I have never claimed that CO2 is the only driver of climate change. Could you please point out where in my comments I said that?" Every single time you claimed or plotted CO2 versus temperature, and asked "Why don't they correlate?". Temperatures correlate extremely well with the set of forcings, one of which is CO2. That CO2 forcing is becoming more and more dominant now; we would be seeing declining temperatures, about 0.8C cooler globally, without the CO2 forcing. But by claiming that a lack of exact correlation between a single forcing and temperatures disproves CO2 forcing, you are posing a strawman argument, claiming that CO2 is the only driver. It isn't that simple. If you don't understand that, I despair of you understanding most of climate science. -
Dan Moutal at 05:18 AM on 15 April 2011How I lived through a carbon tax and survived to tell the tale
On the phone again @gilles "it would really be that simple if the carbon tax were much more than the natural rise of prices" Yes. Which is what I have already said is needed for the carbon tax to be significantly reduce GHG emissions. Well sort of, since the carbon tax is an increase in price in addition to other factors. A modest tax won't achieve very much. Obviously. Jaccard's calculations indicate upwards $200 per tonne of emissions is ultimately needed. -
Alec Cowan at 05:16 AM on 15 April 2011It warmed just as fast in 1860-1880 and 1910-1940
@Albatross #55 Yes, indeed! -
Albatross at 04:49 AM on 15 April 2011Christy Crock #3: Internal Variability
Dikran @68, "The initialisation is important for weather forecasting, not climate modelling" You are right. Modelling climate is not an initial value problem (numerical weather prediction though is), climate modelling is a boundary problem. This is pretty basic knowledge. -
Dikran Marsupial at 04:45 AM on 15 April 2011Christy Crock #3: Internal Variability
Gilles: Yes I did answer that question, in the post immediately following the one in which you posed it! Using the observations for a randomly chosen day would be one method, but as it happens, after the "burn in" phase, the model is statistically independent (i.e. in terms of long term trends and averages) of the intialisation, so it is pretty irrelevant. The initialisation gives rise to the difference between the model runss, but the variabilty of the model runs (i.e. the spread) is essentially independent of the initialisation. Those long term averages and trends are what we call "climate". I pointed out the statistical independence in the post immediately preceding the one in which you posed the question! This suggests you should spend less time posting and more time reading on these threads. The initialisation is important for weather forecasting, not climate modelling. If you understood climate modelling, you would understand why that is the case. -
Albatross at 04:43 AM on 15 April 2011It warmed just as fast in 1860-1880 and 1910-1940
Muoncounter, Maybe Adam is Poptech ;)
Moderator Response:[DB] No.
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muoncounter at 04:42 AM on 15 April 2011It warmed just as fast in 1860-1880 and 1910-1940
Adam#51: This discussion belongs on the cosmic ray thread. "See here" Thanks, you've confirmed my suspicions with your link to our old friend PopTech. -
Albatross at 04:42 AM on 15 April 2011It warmed just as fast in 1860-1880 and 1910-1940
Adam, "The radiosonde data shows a lot less warming over the past 30 years than the surface station data." That statement was and is simply false. I find it astounding that you can so easily dismiss data from NCDS/NOAA. You also seem to be focussed on tropical temperatures, when we are dealing with an increase in mean global temperature. Cherry pick much? You are deluding only yourself Adam. Re the reliability of the various temperature records. Each and every dataset has issues-- yet they agree remarkably well. You claim that radiosonde data are more reliable, and they agree very well with the NOAA data, as do the satellite data, and the re-analysis data....
[Source]
Moderator Response: [DB] Classic goal-post shifting by Adam. First (on the Greenland/Zebra thread) it was Arctic/Greenland temps. Then various layers of the atmosphere. Now a retreat into the tropics. What next, the tropospheric hot spot & Spencers "Clouds-cause-ENSO" pet toy? Or perhaps a resurrection of the Iris-thingy? The convolutions & contortions are fascinating... -
Adam at 04:39 AM on 15 April 2011It warmed just as fast in 1860-1880 and 1910-1940
Dikran I am not cherry picking. There is a huge difference in the rate of warming showed in the satellite temperature data and the surface station data. Satellite data is much more reliable at measuring global temperature. Therefore all the evidence would suggest that the surface station data is unreliable at actually monitoring temperature changes.Moderator Response: [DB] I'm glad you feel satellites are reliable. Because once again, Tamino's graph is based on satellite data and surface data, which (as those with eyes that see can plainly see) agree. Glad that's settled. BTW, you must have missed the preliminary news release from BEST, which showed virtually no issues with the surface station record. May want to note that in your Poptech links. -
Adam at 04:33 AM on 15 April 2011It warmed just as fast in 1860-1880 and 1910-1940
Muoncounter, I have already read your cosmic ray article, and most of it I think I can indeed answer. Look, Svensmark's cosmic ray theory is supported by dozens of peer reviewed papers. See here and look in the cosmic ray section. I also suggest you watch the documentary 'The Cloud Mystery', which explains about his work. Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5Moderator Response: When someone points you to a more relevant thread, you must not only read the original post there; you must also continue your comments there. This comment of yours is off topic here. -
Gilles at 04:30 AM on 15 April 2011Christy Crock #3: Internal Variability
DM : I think neither you nor anybody answered my question here: how is determined the range of random initial conditions used by numerical GCM computations, such as those used in the Easterling and Wehner paper (that I indeed read) ?Moderator Response: [DB] Fixed html. -
muoncounter at 04:28 AM on 15 April 2011Christy Crock #3: Internal Variability
Gilles#58: "Your life is threatened by an average 0.015 *C/yr," Try again. Global average 0.14 deg C/decade; but northern hemisphere (Europe) closer to 0.3, Canada 0.5, Arctic >0.6. There are threads here that substantiate all that, but you're hardly impressed by actual data. -
Albatross at 04:28 AM on 15 April 2011Christy Crock #3: Internal Variability
NewYork @63, I agree, but only if that is what Tsonis actually said. Remember, this is an article in a British media outlet with a less than credible history on this file, not to mention it is written by a discredited "journalist" (Davis Rose) who has recently been shown to do an awfully good job of mangling the science and misrepresenting scientists. Anyhow, let us not get distracted what is circulating on contrarian blogs. I am far more concerned about the likes of Christy knowingly misleading congress and the general public. Really, Christy's actions border on scientific misconduct. Sadly contrarians and "skeptics" seem to be uncritically accepting his misinformation. -
Adam at 04:28 AM on 15 April 2011It warmed just as fast in 1860-1880 and 1910-1940
"Tamino's graph is based on removing exogenous factors like volcanic eruption effects and cyclical things like the NAO or El Nino or the AMO (since oscillations have no NET effects). " But once again Tamino's graph used surface station data. Satellite and Weather balloon data have been shown to be much more reliable. Albatross, the dataset you use is from NCDC. That isn't the one used in their paper. The radiosonde data used was HadAt2. Your graph doesn't really present the temperature anomalies clearly, but the graph I showed did. You will also see that weather balloon data, also matches up with the satellite data. http://img136.imageshack.us/img136/9021/hadat2rsstropics.pngModerator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] Cherry picking again. -
Stephen Baines at 04:28 AM on 15 April 2011Monckton Myth #16: Bizarro World Sea Level
Daniel If silt builds up on the bottom near a tide gauge, it does not raise the water level above it. It also does not affect the position of the gauge itself as the silt builds up around the gauge. Siltation is a very different phenomenon from subsidence. It could have large effects on tidal amplitudes, but none on sealevel proper. "A tidal gauge is certainly not a scientific instrument." If used properly, anything that measures something else effectively can be a scientific instrument. That includes thermometers, rulers, and, yes, tide gauges. -
Dikran Marsupial at 04:23 AM on 15 April 2011Christy Crock #3: Internal Variability
Giles: If you agree with me that you can only disprove, not prove, it is hardly surprising that I misunderstand you if you keep going on about proving stuff! "All the game here is whether alternatives have been really disproved or not." That is part of it; however two (or more) competing hypotheses are not equally plausible just because neither has been disproven. The "game" of climatology is primarily about relative plausibility as short term natural variability is greater in magnitude than the long term trend, which makes it difficult to definitively disprove either theory. Shame you dismissed the Easterling and Wehner paper, if you grasped that, you would have a much better idea of the issues. "It is not epistemologically correct to say it is impossible ! It *is* without doubt possible - the only question is if it has really been done !" Nobody is saying it is impossible, in fact I have been asserting the exact opposite, namely that it is all that is possible (in terms of certain knowledge). It is proving that is impossible, not disproving, sadly you can't prove a hypothesis by disproving all of the alternatives for the simple reason there may be alternative hypotheses that you haven't thought of. Nobody is ruling out natural variation as impossible (certain knowledge), just implausible (uncertain knowledge). There is a difference. The observations and theory are stacked against "natural variability" - for a start nobody has a causal mechanism for this "natural variability". Ask Spencer what causes cloud cover to change for his hypothesis and whether there is any unambiguous experimental or observational support for it. -
NewYorkJ at 04:20 AM on 15 April 2011Christy Crock #3: Internal Variability
Tsonis loses quite a bit of credibility with (as noted in #10): "Man-made warming is balanced by the natural cycles" How does something that persistently leads to warming get "balanced" by a cycle, which has no inherent trend? In searching for that quote from Tsonis, I also found: "These models cannot be trusted to predict the weather for a week, yet they are running them to give readings for 100 years" Readers of SkepticalScience know the fallacy behind that statement. Hard to believe serious scientists would engage in this sort of rhetoric. -
Albatross at 04:20 AM on 15 April 2011Christy Crock #3: Internal Variability
I'm curious, Gilles and Cadbury, do you stand by Christy's demonstrably false statement? -
muoncounter at 04:19 AM on 15 April 2011It warmed just as fast in 1860-1880 and 1910-1940
Adam#47: "The correlation only ends when you use surface station data. Cosmic rays still correlate with radiosonde temp data and ocean temp data." And in your view, that is somehow valid? A correlation which doesn't fit a significant part of the data is no correlation at all. If you're getting your information from the same site that provided the graph you linked in #33, did you miss the obvious nonsense (see Sphaerica#39)associated with the lower graph? Your link in #45 is to motl's blog; that's not a credible source. See the 'its cosmic rays' thread before you go on touting Svensmark. Please stop claiming you've proved something simply because you've repeated it several times. One other poster tried that, resulting in a thread of over 800 comments. -
Dr. Jay Cadbury, phd. at 04:18 AM on 15 April 2011Christy Crock #3: Internal Variability
Thanks for the explanation Rob. -
Albatross at 04:10 AM on 15 April 2011It warmed just as fast in 1860-1880 and 1910-1940
Adam @45, "The radiosonde data shows a lot less warming over the past 30 years than the surface station data." That is incorrect. They in fact show a slightly higher rate of warming than some global SAT products. And the radiosonde data rate 2010 as the warmest year on record, warmer than 1998 even.
Svensmark has a GCR hypothesis, hardly a fully fledged theory. I doubt very much that the paper you linked to demonstrates "Cosmic rays can indeed still be the major cause of warming of the past three decades". But I'll have a look.
I do not understand why you insist on repeatedly making demonstrably false statements.
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Rob Honeycutt at 04:09 AM on 15 April 2011Christy Crock #3: Internal Variability
Gilles @ 58... Yes. That is correct. Welcome to the science of climate, as opposed to weather. -
Rob Honeycutt at 04:08 AM on 15 April 2011Christy Crock #3: Internal Variability
Jay @ 55... Yes. Absolutely. Life can exist, and has existed, in much warmer climates than today. Everyone understands that. But go back and look at the Siberian Traps. Rapid changes in global climate have disastrous results on the existing life of that time. I always like to say: You know, the planet is going to be just fine. It's going to still be here in a million years, and in a billion years, and several billion years beyond that. Survival of the human species has nothing to do with survival of the planet. -
Adam at 04:08 AM on 15 April 2011It warmed just as fast in 1860-1880 and 1910-1940
muoncounter, read the paper and link I provided. The correlation only ends when you use surface station data. Cosmic rays still correlate with radiosonde temp data and ocean temp data. Read also the link I provided.Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] Results that are only valid if you select the "right" dataset is what is known as "cherry picking". Results that hold true regardless of which dataset you use are described as "robust". -
Gilles at 04:05 AM on 15 April 2011Christy Crock #3: Internal Variability
"So if you average that out, it comes out to 0.01 per year. This makes it seem as though the warming is minor but I feel like my discovery is a misleading number? " No it's the correct order of magnitude. Your life is threatened by an average 0.015 *C/yr, despite the natural "weather" variability of the local temperature of where you're living, even averaged on one year, is probably one hundred times this value or so. Welcome to climate science :). -
muoncounter at 04:03 AM on 15 April 2011It warmed just as fast in 1860-1880 and 1910-1940
Adam#45: "Cosmic rays can indeed still be the major cause of warming of the past three decades. " No, they cannot. See the thread 'Its cosmic rays'. -
Rob Honeycutt at 04:02 AM on 15 April 2011Christy Crock #3: Internal Variability
Jay... The problem with that thinking is that we fully understand the radiative forcing of CO2 in the atmosphere. It's one of the well understood aspects of the climate change issue. The uncertainties in the climate's response to increased concentrations of CO2 (climate sensitivity) are less certain and a very hot topic of research these days. But we have many studies that look to find out what the climate responses have been in the past. That's where the IPCC comes up with the 1.5C to 4.5C with 3C being a best fit for a doubling of CO2. If you are looking back in history to when concentrations were 3000 ppm you're also looking at a vastly different planet than today. Life evolved during that period and was adapted to that global climate. Pushing our current climate up to 3000 ppm would quite literally be end of game for live that has evolved and is adapted to our current climate. I'm not making stuff up here. This, as I understand it, is the consensus of the broader scientific community. -
Gilles at 03:59 AM on 15 April 2011Christy Crock #3: Internal Variability
DM : it seems that you also persistently miss my point. As you said (and I agree) models can only be disproved. But the important thing is that sometimes, alternative hypothesis are *indeed* disproved; classical mechanics is disproved by the motion of Mercury,by the relativistic phenomena that occur routinely in particle accelerators, or by all types of quantum effects that are in fact necessary to explain all the usual features of our world (starting with very simple observations as the color of objects, the finite size of matter, the existence of chemical reactions). So they are plenty of situations were theories have indeed been disproved. All the game here is whether alternatives have been really disproved or not. It is not epistemologically correct to say it is impossible ! It *is* without doubt possible - the only question is if it has really been done ! In my opinion, the answer is *no* in a significative number of issues - including the possible existence of long term oscillations, the possibility of unindentified back-reactions, etc.. It is not unusual in science that several hypothesis are still debatable - what is unusual - and disingenuous - is to pretend that it is not the case, when it is the case. -
Dr. Jay Cadbury, phd. at 03:54 AM on 15 April 2011Christy Crock #3: Internal Variability
@Rob I just want to make sure I understand what you are saying. From 1850-present, you're saying that the temperature has been warmer in the more recent years of 1850-present. The context I was speaking of was the GAT of the last 600 million years. Honestly, I am a history major so with pretty much every subject I go back as far as I can into history. So I've seen that temperatures and atmospheric co2 levels have been much higher so I automatically assume that the earth can sustain itself at those levels again. Now, this could be a very bad way of forming my conclusion. For example, I know that humans were not around for much of that time so we don't know how the higher GATs would affect us. So I am pretty happy to be able to ask these questions here because I think the moderators are very fair and try hard to answer the questions. -
Dikran Marsupial at 03:54 AM on 15 April 2011Christy Crock #3: Internal Variability
Jay@53 Try a more specific case, "how can a forest fire be attributed to a carelessly discarded cigarettes when it has been cause by lightning before". That is an argument of exactly the same form, but in this case the answer is pretty obvious. It is almost (but not quite) as obvious for temperature as well. If you think CO2 will only be dangerous at levels in the thousands of parts per million, perhaps you would like to explain the evidence and theory that justify that position. -
Adam at 03:53 AM on 15 April 2011It warmed just as fast in 1860-1880 and 1910-1940
Okay I'm back. KR I have never claimed that CO2 is the only driver of climate change. Could you please point out where in my comments I said that? Sphaerica you are completely misunderstanding what the authors did in the paper I provided. The top graph is of tropspheric temperature compared with changes in cosmic rays. The radiosonde data shows a lot less warming over the past 30 years than the surface station data. The bottom graph is the removed effects of el nino, volcanoes and the NAO. The removal of the effects caused the slight warming trend to disappear. You completely misunderstood what they did. They didn't get rid of the warming for no reason. The removal of those effects (natural forces) simply effected the total trend after they were removed. Daniel Bailey, once again blog posts are not published. Tamino didn't really provide proper evidence that the AMO was the result of the warming. In Chylek's paper they theorised that Arctic temperature was caused by the AMO which makes much more sense. Albatross, once again the graph you showed is ignoring Svensmark's cosmic ray theory and using surface data. Cosmic rays can indeed still be the major cause of warming of the past three decades. Read Svensmark and Friis-Christenson's paper. See also here Sphaerica I think you're the one who needs to read papers more carefully, since you completely misunderstood what it did.Moderator Response: [DB] Tamino's graph is based on removing exogenous factors like volcanic eruption effects and cyclical things like the NAO or El Nino or the AMO (since oscillations have no NET effects). Tamino's comments showed that the changes reflected in the AMO IS the global warming signature BECAUSE the warming is non-linear. So a detrended AMO still has the global warming signal in it. -
Dr. Jay Cadbury, phd. at 03:46 AM on 15 April 2011Christy Crock #3: Internal Variability
Well here is how I am thinking in my head. "How can the recent temperature increases be attributed to human activity when it has risen naturally before?" Ultimately, I think that the truth of our climate will be a combination between what both sides think. I think that carbon dioxide will cause warming but I think it will only be dangerous at levels in the thousands of parts per million, probably 3,000ppm. Also, I looked at wikipedia and it states "The data from these stations show an average surface temperature increase of about 0.74 °C during the last 100 years." So if you average that out, it comes out to 0.01 per year. This makes it seem as though the warming is minor but I feel like my discovery is a misleading number? -
Alec Cowan at 03:45 AM on 15 April 2011More wind, bigger waves, changing marine ecosystems
@Berényi Péter #5 Add 24 dollars and you'll get Manhattan too. I'm gonna ignore the complete lack or relation between your question ("Hey, any idea why high latitude storminess is increasing while it's decreasing in the tropics?") and the figure you placed below it. My answer to your question is "Does it?" and "set a value for a latitude to be high", so you have to provide yet some information about storminess variability depending on latitude in order we can give the answer you're looking for. About the figure, please explain the y-axis and its unit. Then explain why its a valid unit of accumulated cyclone energy (why a thousand of two-day 25 knot storms should not be there). Maybe as a result we'll be able to send an email to the editor of Geophysical Research Letters to tell why they should/shouldn't publish it. -
muoncounter at 03:44 AM on 15 April 2011Monckton Myth #16: Bizarro World Sea Level
#58: "All river mouth and harbour areas are subject to silting" Really? Do you think that perhaps the people who study these things know that? And how does it change sea level measurement -- which is not measured relative to channel bed elevation? "A tidal gauge is certainly not a scientific instrument." Really? Tell these guys or these guys. -
Dikran Marsupial at 03:42 AM on 15 April 2011Monckton Myth #16: Bizarro World Sea Level
daniel maris@58 I told you earlier in the thread that I am not going to discuss things with you any further until you state your position on the Telegraph article. If you are going to ask questions, then it is very rude to completely ignore the answers and ask another one, without any attempt to find out the answer for yourself. Especially if you then respond to an honest attempt to help you find the answer with open suspicion and an accusation of "reverse trolling". as it happens I have already posted a link explaining the solution to the "tendency of objects to sink into muddy harbour bottoms" problem already on this thread but you appear to have missed it. -
ClimateHawk at 03:42 AM on 15 April 2011Monckton Myth #16: Bizarro World Sea Level
Sea levels revisited: For a more complete picture, we combine results from 2 different sites. First: http://sealevel.colorado.edu/current/sl_noib_ns_global.jpg and then: http://tinyurl.com/4xgop85 (courtesy of "Fiction" on HuffPo)Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] hot linked URLS, there was something wrong with the first one, I hope I have fixed it correctly -
Rob Honeycutt at 03:40 AM on 15 April 2011Christy Crock #3: Internal Variability
Cadbury... "It's been warmer in the past..." Can you provide some context? Are you talking century, millennial or millions of years ago? You ask about 1850-present. On that time scale we are clearly warmer today than at any period in that time frame. Easy one, right? So, what we're discussing here is whether internal variability can account for that warming. The research is very very clear on this. Internal variability can NOT account for the current century scale warming we see. This is pretty much undisputed science except for a very small number of climate scientists (Christy being one of them). -
Stephen Baines at 03:37 AM on 15 April 2011Christy Crock #3: Internal Variability
On line with DKs very proper epistemological stance, I should have said past variations in climate are "consistent" with natural variability in GHE forcings given our understanding of the associated physics. -
daniel maris at 03:36 AM on 15 April 2011Monckton Myth #16: Bizarro World Sea Level
Dikran - I think I was referring more to the tendency of objects to sink into muddy harbour bottoms through the impact of their own weight. Up and down the Thames I see lots of buried boats. But that also raises the other issue: silting. All river mouth and harbour areas are subject to silting. Silting of a few cms. might not be noticed. I don't know, but it's another variable which might be of some importance at a river mouth. A tidal gauge is certainly not a scientific instrument. -
Dikran Marsupial at 03:33 AM on 15 April 2011Christy Crock #3: Internal Variability
Jay@47, if natural variability means that any climate within the bounds that the Earth has ever seen can be attributed to "natural variability", then it is an unfalsifiable theory, as nothing we could possible observe would disprove it. That means it isn't a scientific theory (Popper), a scientific theory must make restrictions on what we could observe, otherwise it is no different to astrology. That doesn't mean it might not be true, just that it isn't science. -
muoncounter at 03:31 AM on 15 April 2011How I lived through a carbon tax and survived to tell the tale
Gilles#226: "The fact is that they made high profits precisely because they didn't all spend this money for finding and starting the exploitation of new fields. That's why a new oil shock is impending - and why production didn't increase that much" Gilles, that's just silly. No company spends their entire profit in exploration and development; there are things called 'budgets' which are determined earlier in a given fiscal year and not necessarily changed because of an oil price spike. Oil companies like an environment of slow and steady price growth. You are also making the typical mistake of assuming there's an immediate bump in production as a result of new exploration; even in the best of times, it can take years. You made the same mistake here in #222: "Theory says : increase of prices -> more accessible resources -> more production. " Your 'theory' is nearly as incomplete as your understanding of the oil business. Perhaps some time away from the economic textbooks and peak oil blogs would provide you with some actual insight. -
Stephen Baines at 03:31 AM on 15 April 2011Christy Crock #3: Internal Variability
@ Cadbury...you are confusing natural variability in forcing and natural variation due to internal non-linear dynamics. The former are the cause of the paleo climate changes and are consistent with GHE and AGW, the latter are the subject of this article. This seems to be a common confusion here. I don't think Christy is subject to it, but those listening to him clearly are. -
Dikran Marsupial at 03:28 AM on 15 April 2011Christy Crock #3: Internal Variability
Gilles@45 "It is not because all models agree together that they're proved to be true" There you go waffling on about proof again, it is almost as if you are deliberately ignoring my repeated statements that nothing can ever be proven, only disproven! No, of course the models agreeing doesn't prove anything, but the logical conclusion is that the projection is most likely to be due to the forcings rather than variability given our current understanding of climate physics as encoded into the model. The final caveat applies to all models, we all know it, it isn't news. The output of any model is contingent on its modelling assumptions. Gilles wrote "I'm just trying to remind carefully what we know and what we don't know for sure." we don't know anything for sure, and we never will. This goes back to Hume, who proved that you can never obtain certain knowledge of causal relationships by purely empirical means (i.e. you have to make some assumptions or have some hypothesis). We all know this, and it is the height of arrogance for you to keep "reminding" us of something we all know already, and indeed have told you so repeatedly. In that context it becomes "trolling". Bon appetit, I assume you are now replete.
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