On Mar 21, 2:01*pm, "Ed Huntress" wrote:
"Joseph Gwinn" wrote in message

...





In article ,
"Ed Huntress" wrote:

"Joseph Gwinn" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Ed Huntress" wrote:

[snip]

You're talking about one measurement path, a Great Circle, which may
or
may
not cross numerous currents, the initiation site for El Nino, and so
on.
From that you're trying to draw a conclusion about global warming. You
don't
know if the pattern between here and NZ is pro-cyclical or
counter-cyclical
to the earth's temperature as a whole. You are talking about a
measurement
taken over a short span of years, while the data being looked at by
serious
scientists is data from decades at least, and hundreds of years in
some
cases.

Well, I don't have a dog in the debate from which this is taken, but I
will add
that it is not impossible to disentangle all those things. *What is
done
is the acoustic equivalent of computerized tomography.

Here is a random article dredged up by google:
http://jjap.ipap.jp/link?JJAP/40/5446/.

Joe Gwinn

Joe, I'm going to skip the article, because there are 2,000 or 3,000 that
I'd have to read first.

Not if the intent is to understand the method.

I'm interested in the conclusion. It's so easy to be misled by the methods.
Most of the pontificators here do exactly that.







*One can "disentangle" the currents, but there is
still fundamental debate about the influences that initiate the El Ninos,
for example. So you can separate some effects but now you will have
experts
arguing over the causes -- and reading one article or two or a hundred
won't
tell you the full story behind those causes.

Well, it *is* an active research topic for sure, but they are figuring it
out.
And this is their tool. *My point was that such a tool does exist.

For us non-experts, it's like searching for the golden fleece.

So, there is no reason to believe either side, and therefore no reason to
believe or to do anything at all? *That's the obvious conclusion, because
the
alternative is to choose on faith alone which of the warring groups to
believe.

Joe Gwinn

As Ranger and others have pointed out, the best use of our abilities on
impossibly complex topics like this is to use the usual tools we have for
judging which experts appear to know what they're talking about, and are
honest and sane.

It's like understanding cancer research. I wouldn't even try it. But I have
reason to believe the experts who speak through certain institutions. It
doesn't mean they're necessarily right, but experience shows that they're
the most likely to be so.

Anything else is self-delusion.

--
Ed Huntress

And that doesn't mean choosing the scientists who are arriving at
conclusions that suit your political agenda. It means setting aside
your preconceived notions, and asking yourself whether the scientist's
work is believable. A large part of this judgement includes taking a
look at the company the scientist keeps - as Ed said, you'd be more
likely to believe scientist who speak through certain institutions.

For instance, I'd be more likely to put stock (on this subject) in a
scientist working for the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory than I
would put in a scientist from the Heritage Foundation.