On 03/12/2011 12:45, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
I trained as an engineer, not a scientist, so I am much more open to
practical propositions than to either abstract theory or belief
systems unconnected with reality.
Theory is not abstract. A theory is based on a hypothesis that
explains current observation and that can make *testable* predictions.
Relativity is a good example of this.
But AGW is not testable.
We don't have a spare planet to run as a control. That in a philsophy se
sense makes it less scientific and more metaphysical.
On that basis neither theory of relativity is really a theory either.
Oh, but that is testable in a laboratory.
You dont need a whole planet.
You can prove that the speed of light is a universal constant in a
laboratory? How?
So whilst there's no denying that it got warmer between 1960 and 2000,
and the CO2 in the atmosphere increased dur8ing that timem, thats really
the limit of the testable FACTS and we cant say that it was due to any
given thing with certainty.
At best we can say that having elminated a lot of things it almost
certainly wasn't (largely) due to, there is a large signal and the only
explanation so far put forward is CO2.
That CO2 is a greenhouse gas is certainly testable.
That is more sleight of hand.
AGW is not solely dependent on CO2 being a greenhouse gas.
In fact AGW doesn't fit the facts if you JUST assume CO2 is a greenhouse
gas.
That's your take on the situation and your take also includes denying
that there is any positive feedback to be taken account of.
IF it is down to that and ONLY down to that - and those are in real
terms pretty sizeable IFS. THEN even so, the numbers dont add up without
a multiplier. Which is held to relate to some noumenous mechanism that
has never been pinned down.
Given your denial above why should your other conjectures be taken
seriously?
Oh dear. You don't know the difference between a conjecture (inductive
logic) and deductive logic.
Ask someone who KNOWS about AGW what is core assumptions a You will
find its more than 'CO2 is a greenhouse gas'.
And there was you somewhere in the recent past complaining that the
models used were '****e'.
You shouldn't be relying on such unreliable people you know. They might
in the end convince you that the way mankind has messed with the planet
since the start of the industrial revolution has indeed had a marked
effect on the climate.
That is not a conjecture, that's an agreed fact.
I am not sure what you claim to be an agreed fact or indeed who it is
agreed by.
That's where I get bothered. We have tow big IFS followed by an AND ALSO
before the thing matches the reality of the past 50 years. Ok, we can
run with that, BUT if we then extend the multiplier back in time, we get
nonsense figures for - say - the last ice age.
That is while IPCC are spectacularly successful at fitting a curve to
the last 50 years, they are average to completely crap in the greater
historical picture, depending on what data sets you take.
So you say but even if that were true everything prior to the keeping
of accurate records is based on secondary derived data where the
margins of error are much wider.
I think you can reasoanbly be certain that if ice came down as far as
Paris ore whatever, it was in fact a lot colder overall.
I certainly would but it is really no more convincing than CO2 being a
major player in AGW.
Of course tree rings are a lot more dodgy. Sunlight and water make trees
grow, not just temperature. AFAICR the IPCC prefers tree rings.
CO2 concentrations are, al other things being equal, reasonably easy to
work out from disallowed CO2 concentrations in things that are still there.
Do you remember the huge row engineered by the deniers last year based
on a leaked e-mail about a trick used to conclude a temperature
sequence. The deniers take of course was that this was prima facie
evidence that the climate scientists were falsifying the data to delude
the public when the reality was that the secondary data that that
particular sequence related to (which was I think tree ring data but
could have been something else) didn't match the actual temperatures
known to have been correct. So which to believe - direct temperature
measurement or derived temperatures? No contest really although they
would have been wiser to admit earlier that there was a particular
problem with the tree ring data.
However, you make a curiouspoint. You say you cant refute AGW because no
one knows what the data was 10,000 years ago. Doesn't that make it a
very dodgy theory?
Not at all. It is just you have to make due allowance for the fact that
you have no direct evidence of either temperature or date in the
geological record so you can't just say that any variations that don't
absolutely fit the theory are proof that the theory is wrong. On the
Milankovich page you referred me to one of the problems is the apparent
reversal of cause and effect. Something that could be explained by a
dating error.
And really that's all AGW is - a curve fitting exercise on the best
guesses as to what drives climate. Or that's what it WAS till it become
political, and there common sense caution and good science flew out of
the window, and hundreds of BILLIONS of our money have been spent on the
assumption that it was in fact broadly correct.
Well that is the committed deniers position.
I am sorry it is a FACT that industries riding on the coat tails of
climate change are worth around a trillion dollars in taxcp[ayers money.
As has already been pointed out to you there is a lot more pressure
coming from those who business is most at risk from the acceptance of AGW.
Something for you to get your teeth into TNP but don't get all excited
by the title of the link:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-...man-caused.htm
Not what you expected so no comment.
Can you imagine what it would do to the green economy, and the careers
of politicians and people who have supported it to the hilt and beyond,
if it became fashionable to believe that something else was in fact
happening?
Can you even imagine what you have done to the remains of your
reputation by espousing the deniers cause so strongly?
I am not denying it does something: Your argument is so very much teh ad
hominem - you insist I am a denier. I am not allowed in your book in
your closed mind, to raise any points at all, if I do, I am it seems a
denier.
If the cap fits wear it. You state as fact many of the key points in the
deniers armoury and deny any validity to the central plank of AGW - that
CO2 is the main driver behind global warming.
You remind me of the man who said to the German at the dinner party 'You
murdered 6 million Jews"
"No we did not" replied the german.
"You are a holocaust denier"
"No, I was merely pointing out that in fact we murdered six and a half
million jews, and a lot of romanies, russians p[oles ..."
The flaw in that particular argument is that you can't get your number
of murdered Jews up to 6.5M without passing 6M on the way.
Do you REALLY believe they are going to say 'gosh, sorry, all those
solar panels and windmills, and all these climate change awareness focus
groups are a complete waste of time and money, so basically we will all
resign and go and do something more socially useful' ?
Politicians almost without exception are in permanent denial about
anything that doesn't fit their current message.
So, it seems, are third rate scientists.
It seems us 'third rate scientists' (not that I am a scientist) are in
good company:
"The danger is that global warming may become self-sustaining, if it has
not done so already. The melting of the Arctic and Antarctic ice caps
reduces the fraction of solar energy reflected back into space, and so
increases the temperature further. Climate change may kill off the
Amazon and other rain forests, and so eliminate once one of the main
ways in which carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere. The rise in
sea temperature may trigger the release of large quantities of carbon
dioxide, trapped as hydrides on the ocean floor. Both these phenomena
would increase the greenhouse effect, and so global warming further. We
have to reverse global warming urgently, if we still can."
Unlike you with the likes of Lawson and Monckton as associated thinkers.
(I use the term thinkers very loosely in referring to Lawson and Monckton).
The only problem they
have with a U-turn is accepting that it is a U-turn rather than a
continuation of their policy by other means. (With apologies to
Clausewitz for taking him out of context).
What gives you the idea that science has anything to do with belief
systems unconnected with reality?
What gives you the idea that AGW is a scientific theory?
In Popper's terms its borderline pseudo science because it is almost
irrefutable as its predictions are so broad, and there is no possibility
of running a control.
I wonder what Popper would have had to say about your very curious
brand of logic.
Ask him. IIRC he is still alive, and still concerned.
I don't move in the same circles as real philosophers.
Its probably nearer creationism in that respect, than physics.
Keep on wallowing in the gutter. You have plenty of company there with
other closed mind deniers.
I am afraid there is only one closed mind here, and its not mine.
I didnt expect to find a full blown warmist apologist here, but thanks
for showing how the IPCC and its little friends play the game.
Mirror, mirror, on the wall ...
As such you take it on trust, or you don't. That's faith and belief, not
fact based irrefutability.
And in reference to your own question "What gives you the idea that
science has anything to do with belief systems unconnected with
reality?" the answer is 'a pretty intensive study of metaphysics and the
philosophy of science will enable the understanding that all ontologies
are based at some level or other on untestable assumptions: In fact that
may be said to be their defining feature, and there are sound logical
reasons to to with recursion and reflexivity why this is necessary, and
this can be seen in the particular case of mathematics and formal
ontologies through Godel's incompleteness theorem, and in the case of
algorithmic analysis Turings completion problem, and I strongly suspect
on qauntum physics in the observation problem.
In each case the problem arises when an ontological system is used to
analyse itself for correctness or for some other quality. It gives rise
to infinite feedback..science is such a system It cannot in the end know
whether the ontology of which it is a study - and a careful meticulous
study - is in fact anything like a 1:1 mapping with reality - the
'whatever is the case' of Wittgenstein.
However that has no bearing on the actual AGW theory: we must take the
premises of the physical world as out starting point, in order to do
science at all.
The why mention it at all other than to attempt to baffle the opposition.
To make the basic point that you talk the talk, but you really dont
understand much about science.
Seems to me that you are talking about yourself. I am much more
interested in the practical aspects that the dubious rationale that you
use.
I guess its all parrot fashion received wisdom in your case.
You cant think critically, you dint know the difference between
induction and deduction, you are not even aware of the ontology and
metaphysics on which science is based.
You just dribble on about this and that that you read somewhere, without
ever really understanding what it says, or means, and call me a denier
when you are in danger of looking like an idiot, and that makes you look
even more foolish.
You don't accept the basic premise on which the theory is based and put
up all sorts of vague objections to dispute it but what it comes down to
in the end is that you accept none of the scientific work that has been
done as having the slightest relevance to the problem at hand.
The question of just how scientific a theory AGW is, is in the end
extremely open to question.
You must apply Popper's test, and ask yourself 'what conditions would
amount to its refutation, and how may we proceed to demonstrate that
whatever we do, it is never refuted?
It is easy enough to set laboratory experiments to test various
aspects on the theory.
Yes. But that is not relevant is it?
So you say but how do I distinguish that from the ranting of any other
denier?
yu can test the nuts and bolts on your car, but that wont help if the
tyre burst..
But it would stop the wheel coming off which is really what has happened
with your prolonged attack on the integrity of both mainstream climate
science and the scientists who have been researching climate change for
decades.
Well its stopped getting warmer since 2000, whilst C02 has increased,
but that, apparently, is not enough.
No it hasn't stopped getting warmer since 2000. Even ignoring the
effect of ENSO you would need to take 2005 as your high point but
climate year on year is so variable that it will be a decade or more
before we can look back with any certainty to see where 2001 - 2010
fits on the temperature graph.
Sorry. I dont know how ou work that out,. Anyoine can look at te graphs
That's because you don't want to see what I mean. Just transport
yourself back to say the 1950s. There has been a steep drop in average
temperatures towards the end of the preceding decade, the short lived
bounce back soon falters, as does the next and the next. Short term you
would be forgiven for thinking that the temperature had peaked in 1944
and global warming wasn't the threat it was going to become. Looking
back now we seen that the major anomaly was actually in the period 1935
to 1945 rather than in the decades that followed WW2. What will the
first decade look like from the perspective of the fifth or even the
forth in this century.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/rel...al-temperature
of temperatures since 2000 and see that the upward trend has, at least
for that decade totally ceased.
You see what you want to see. The two warmest years on record are 2010
and 2005. In another posting I pointed out that the first half of the
decade is marginally warmer than the second half before taking ENSO into
account but that is not particularly obvious just looking at the figures.
Last winter was the coldest for 49 years. That, apparently, is not
enough.
Now you are just being incredibly stupid. The autumn just gone has
been either the warmest or second warmest on record for one or other
of the countries that make up the UK but that, like your coldest
winter, was a minor local event which contributed comparatively little
to the global average temperature. 2010 itself was one of the warmest
years since records began.
Ther you go. is temperature global or local then? 10 years of almost no
real change in global temperatures is just 'weather'. Lets say the next
100 years are colder due to 'weather'.. But of course AGW 'is still
happeniong'
What are you on? The smoothed average might show up as reasonably
straight in say another ten years time but considerable year on year
variability is still there this decade as it has been for every decade
since 1850. Carry on by all means with your non sequiturs designed to
cover up appalling gaffs but ignoring the distinction between weather
and climate just makes you look like an uneducated prat.
Do we then actually CARE?
Well you certainly don't appear to care.
All we want is the sea stays where it is, and our towns dont become
uninhabitable,. and te crops still grow.
The seas will only stay where they are in the long term if global
temperatures don't rise. In the short term there may be a bit of relief
as warming the Antarctic will lead for a period to increased
precipitation on Antarctica to compensate for the increased melt. As to
whether the crops will continue to grow that will depend on whatever
weather climate change brings in its wake.
Let's say we crash build loads of nuclear power stations and it doesn't
get any warmer? would that 'prove' AGW?
You would need to suggest what effect that would have on the
increasing concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere before anyone could
make a prediction. Incidentally there is at least a suggestion that if
the CO2 levels had not been climbing the global temperatures would
actually be falling year on year.
Why? Its not anywhere in the IPCC model that I can see,
But as you haven't read the IPPC report how would you know.
Let's say we don't. renewable energy fails utterly as it must to make a
dent in CO2 and it goes up another 50% and in the next ten years, it
doesn't get any warmer..would that 'disprove' AGW?
Well for a start it has only gone up by a little over 20% in the last
40 years so 50% seems outside the realms of possibility given normal
progression. Since that seems as unlikely as the rest of your argument
it doesn't seem worthy of an answer. Should anything unexpected happen
over the next 10 years then of course the events would lead to a
modification to the theory but that is a very different animal to
completely disproving it. Einstein didn't totally disprove Newtonian
concepts with his theories of relativity.
I don't think it would, to its promoters.
It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that your 50% increase in
CO2/no increase in global average temperature could occur but it would
take a very noticeable event such as the overdue eruption of the
Yellowstone's super volcano to produce such an effect in the short
term. In the long term we are overdue for another Ice Age
How can we be? Wharts dtives ice agdes? AGW and rthe IPCC dont seem to
have any explanationm for them.
See that page you referred me too.
They just as you said earlier say 'we cant really rtell; waht was going
on that long ago'
We know roughly what went on and roughly when (always assuming there
isn't some lacuna in the science just like that which you continue to
allege is in the climate change theory).
Presumably during the ice age when CO2 was at say 1300AD levels, the
world was also just as warm?
What about hysteresis?
if AGW doesn't
trigger a meltdown first.
What justification have you for suggesting that it even might?
Our climate is only stable between certain limits. Breach those limits
and it will quickly (relatively speaking) find a new level be it down in
an Ice Age or up there in an ice free world. Once there it will take a
major perturbation to make it move again.
I am sorry, it looks this way to me
'we are extremely uncertain about AGW'
You are. The scientific community by and large are as certain about it
as they can be and only uncertain about the degree to which some
elements interact with others.
'That's all right we turn that around to say 'really bad **** COULD
happen: That's basic marketing. play to your strengths and play your
weakest point as if it was a killer blow'
Don't forget that by criticising me you are implicitly rubbishing the
work of the vast majority of climate scientists some of whom will be a
good deal cleverer that you or indeed me when I was in my prime and I
would be the first to admit I can't think as clearly now as I could when
I was young.
But I expect you haven't been exposed to marketing on the inside..
You believe what lots of people say if it comes in a nicely printed
brochure with pretty pictures on it.
If I did I would no doubt be a slave to consumerism like most people
these days.
I must dig out the Seroxat brochure my wife worked on...It's broadly
similar to any 'green' brochure. But examined critically, it is
virtually a criminal exercises in misdirection and misrepresentation.
But it fooled thousands of doctors into prescribing a very expensive
drug that no one needed and did many of them an awful lot of harm,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paroxetine
That's commerce for you.
That is the point when I would say it passes completely from science to
metaphysics and becomes what is known as 'pseudo science'. It is no
longer an analytic of an ontology, it is the basis of a new ontology.
First put up your strawman. Then knock it down again. How clever is that?
I must have learnt it from you, then. If it were true, but I see that
its gone straight over your head again.
A pure act of faith.
You could say that about your entire rant.
ou could, you wouldn't be right, but I cant stop you.
Its a shame you haven't really done anything expcept parrot the third
rate trash straight out of et ''big green handbook of Climate Change,
made easy for Politicians and other simple peopel'
I had hoped you actually knew something about it.
I could say the same about you.
--
Roger Chapman