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Merrick 2148 posts |
Edited Dec 04, 2009, 01:36
Dec 04, 2009, 01:26
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Firstly Jshell, good luck with finding a new job. jshell wrote: I give you the Left Wing blogger Monbiot to counter that: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2009/nov/25/monbiot-climate-leak-crisis-response If Monbiot's back-tracking, then there's something credible here. However, he's not backtracking. Once again, you overstate the content and importance of the leak. Why would you be doing that? Show me where in that piece Monbiot says anything that undermines the premise that climate change is being driven by human activity. Maybe we have different understandings of language, but the only criticism I see Monbiot making of those responsible for the content of the emails is directed against the deletion of data wanted under a Freedom of Information request. This si a serious charge, but I don't understand how it is a 'backtrack' on anything at all. Most of the piece is Monbiot lambasting environmentalists response to the leak and the slant that's been given to some of the story. He has further criticism of those responsible in another article. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cif-green/2009/nov/23/global-warming-leaked-email-climate-scientists However, he is clear on what it's not. Monbiot wrote: But do these revelations justify the sceptics’ claims that this is “the final nail in the coffin” of global warming theory? Not at all. They damage the credibility of three or four scientists. They raise questions about the integrity of one or perhaps two out of several hundred lines of evidence. To bury manmade climate change, a far wider conspiracy would have to be revealed. He then goes on with a mock email showing what that conspiracy would need to have been. jshell wrote: Every story has 2 sides, and particularly this one. Er, no, this one less than most actually. I ask you the same thing that I ask DarkMagus; do you have the same position on other two-sided issues with a similar balance of evidence and consensus such as evolution/creation, the link with tobacco and cancer, and the link with HIV and AIDS? jshell wrote: The CRU data was one of the corenerstones of global climate science, that stone is shaky now, and as a Massive % of global work That overstatement's still not out of your system yet is it? Go on, put a number on that percentage you claim. what proportion of global work on climate change came from the CRU (even including those not involved in any of the dodgy stuff)? jshell wrote: It's interesting as a subject on it's own, that if you follow global temperatures v's atmospheric CO2, that CO2 follows temp, not temp following CO2. Again, rather like your earlier assertion that it's unproven that CO2 has an effect on global temperatures (it's actually provable in a lab), you're simply wrong with your grasp of the science. Temperature and CO2 levels rise in tandem; they tend to feed one another. Warmer temperatures lead to less sea ice, melting permafrost, forests drying out. Less sea ice means the matter on the ocean floor warms (releasing methane), permafrost melts (releasing methane), dead forests burn (releasing their carbon), this increases the greenhouse effect, leading to warmer temperatures, leading to greater emissions, etc. It's called 'positive feedback', and the tipping point for it to start feeding itself in a way we cannot stop is widely held at 2 degrees above pre-industrial temperatures. This is why the carbon cuts made now are so important. Waiting until we see more widespread evidence of climate change will be too late. I strongly recommend Mark Lynas' book Six Degrees, which takes an overview of scientific evidence of what changes we can expect at each of the first six degree temperature increases. jshell wrote: Do you trust our Govt and the un-elected European govt? I fucking don't. Totally with you on that one. their carbon reduction targets are inadequate and contrary to what the science demands, and their strategies for achieving those targets are practically designed to fail. jshell wrote: There are $$$billions at stake here. Exactly. Which is why the fossil industry and their government puppets spent so long having people tell us there was no climate change, then there was but it wasn't humans, now it's all about learning to adapt to it rather than prevent it. jshell wrote: The Russians wonder WTF is going on coz they're predicting a cooling trend and can't comprehend what we're up to. Can you give me any source for this and explain how it tallies with their planned carbon cuts? jshell wrote: funding of $000,000,000's, unbelievable numbers in fact. Now there's a ripe irony, as if it's about getting money. The climatologists and meteorologists are largely saying that the time for research into global warming is over, they are urgently saying the funding needs to go into action strategies.
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Merrick 2148 posts |
Dec 04, 2009, 01:33
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DarkMagus wrote: Interesting how absolutely no-one has actually refuted anything regarding the code & Harry Read Me file. Ah mate, how much of it have you actually read? Loads of it's way over my head, and what isn't is almost entirely boring as fuck. And there's a lot of it. But I agree with you. I don't doubt the authenticity, I believe that they are evidence of trying to cover up data and skew the peer-review on a couple of papers. I completely agree that we should have open access to their work. And I'll go you one further, that we should have the same for the scientists who refute them, and the fossil companies who run the denier campaigns too. Why do you find that 'interesting'? I'm quite happy to see people who kink the science exposed, we need to move towards the truth. I haven't taken issue because, as I've said, I agree. I resent and reject the inference that this is some sort of smokescreen. DarkMagus wrote: Just the same old same old CO2 blah blah That's because Jshell said the leak threw doubt onto the whole science of climate change then made a brace of wrong assertions about the basic science. DarkMagus wrote: right wing blah blah That's because we need to be clear about the bias of our sources, something you say you have trouble with discerning. DarkMagus wrote: peer review blah blah That's because it's one of our best guides as to whether science is trustworthy or not.
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DarkMagus 170 posts |
Dec 04, 2009, 11:12
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Glad to see some signs of open mindedness. Good. I have read a fair bit of the information myself. For some background, I have worked with computer models and have had the dismal task of sorting out horrendous, poorly documented and maintained code such as that produced by CRU. Thankfully, not quite THAT bad! I genuinely feel sympathy for "Harry" who seems to have been put in an impossible situation. Kudos to all the people who are voluntarily reverse engineering the model right now, it's challenging work. With all the main players closely linked & sharing data, we need to know how the data was generated. The suspicion that the model was being fixed to give the desired results has some credence so far. I am very curious as to why the Guardian, Independent and BBC are taking a head in the sand view. Why the left/right split, this is supposed to be science?? At least the BBC last night finally gave some coverage on Newsnight, which I thought was reasonably balanced. The choice of quotes from the documentation did seem to be be intended to scapegoat the programmer when some of his other comments could squarely have pointed to more fundamental issues with the data: garbage in, garbage out. Maybe they were keeping their powder dry. I don't know how this will all pan out in the end. For all our sakes I hope AGW is bullshit (which I suspect, but confess not to knowing for sure). All the attempts to close down debate "the science is settled" goes completely against the scientific method. Science is never settled. If it was we'd still think (or be told to think) the sun rotated round the Earth & Newton had all the answers on gravity.
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DarkMagus 170 posts |
Dec 04, 2009, 11:43
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Hahaha! Comparing global warming with cancer/smoking & evolution/creationism is poor stuff indeed. With the latter two it is possible to actually conduct controlled experiments to demonstrate the processes. People have done this. Mind you, we can't prove or disprove that some old guy with a beard designed the whole world & is controlling things. It does seem more likely that evolution is what happened. With global warming we have theories and computer models with massive assumptions which apparently need constant tweaking to produce the desired result. Note I said desired result. Show me a climate model that has actually predicted anything succesfully. The last ten years for example. No? Oh dear it doesn't match up with what we're seeing. Fiddle around some more. Repeat at regular intervals... Perhaps AGW has more in common with creationism than evolution! This goes back to my previous analogy of global warming as religious belief.
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stray 2057 posts |
Edited Dec 04, 2009, 12:08
Dec 04, 2009, 11:59
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DarkMagus wrote: With the latter two it is possible to actually conduct controlled experiments to demonstrate the processes. Really ? No, actually. Not as regards the cancer/smoking link. There is a positive correlation, thats the evidence, that is good enough cos the correlation is very positive. Understand ? There is no scientific causal explanation of why smoking causes cancer, just a really strong indication that people who smoke have higher incidents of cancer. Climate models work the same way, in that there seems to be strong correlations between global temperatures and CO2 emissions etc. The creation/evolution example you gave is dumb, and is something to discuss philosophically, metaphysically bascially, and definitely not scientifically. I mean if you know of a 'controlled experiment' that disproves the existence of god I'm all ears. What I'm saying is, speaking as someone who actually has a history of analysing complex datasets, you don't really know what you're talking about and I suggest that you try to learn something about data analysis and..well.. scientific method before you go off on one as if you do 'get it'. Have you ever looked through any papers describing the analysis methods applied to climate models ? If so, please tell us where you see the flaws in the approaches used. There are many approaches, and many different datasets available that have to be... well.. conflated to some extent. If you think that having many aproaches to analysing the datasets is indicative of 'fiddling the data' or 'tweaking' then you really don't get science or analysis. Edit : Oh and btw. Some of the leaked emails from Hadley CRU are actually pretty horrifying. As in, the emails from the developer about the state of the data and the code are pretty fucking shocking and a cause for concern. Thing is though, its not the only place with a climate model is it ? Also other models are run a lot better than that one. It's Science guvnor, you don't just use one model you know.
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DarkMagus 170 posts |
Dec 04, 2009, 13:15
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Funny I thought I said you couldn't prove or disprove the exisence of god. As for science, you can't prove beyond doubt. Theories are always up for refutation. That is the basis of scientific method. An example I gave elsewhere of Newton and gravity is a case in point. That was believed by many to be the end of the story, but further layers of complexity come to light as to what's going on. AGW appears to be pseudoscience at best. It's up there with archeology in the guesswork and assumptions required to draw conclusions. Only nobody is setting policy based on archeology. If you think my experience is restricted to IT, you are mistaken. My use of models relates to the sciences in which I am trained and work. And not one of the wooly sciences or zoology I should add. Here's an example of my understanding of data. Say I'm using temperature records in a computer model taken from sites that have seen a change in urbanisation and therefore ambient temperature due to local man made influences. How do I correct for that with any degree of certainty? Do I pick a number that fits the trend I want to see? How do I know I'm right? I can't. Also, say cloud cover is a bigger influence on temperature than CO2, how do I model cloud cover for the last 100 years say? Where's the accurate data for that? You have to make something up. Only you couch it in some nicer language. Getting the picture? We simply do not have reliable data over any significant period of time. When I do any measurements, everything is traceable to national standards & therefore has some chance of validity. Can you say that of the temperature measurements from around the world for the last few centuries? I doubt it. Then factor in weather stations moving & the fact they are measuring at individual points, not integrating over wide areas & the picture starts looking even more unreliable.
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Merrick 2148 posts |
Dec 04, 2009, 14:57
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DarkMagus wrote: Hahaha! Comparing global warming with cancer/smoking & evolution/creationism is poor stuff indeed. No, it is a position agreed on by 99% of scientists in the field with one or two dissenters. DarkMagus wrote: With the latter two it is possible to actually conduct controlled experiments to demonstrate the processes. No it is not. That's why I made the comparison. You are simply wrong there. DarkMagus wrote: People have done this. No they have not. Who's demonstrated evolution in a laboratory? i'd love to see that one. DarkMagus wrote: Mind you, we can't prove or disprove that some old guy with a beard designed the whole world & is controlling things. It does seem more likely that evolution is what happened. Bingo! Thankyou for the instant retraction, and now perhaps you get the point. That the overwhelming evidence points us towards one conclusion. Why does 'more likely' suit you for evolution, yet having any dissenters at all undoes confidence in the science of climate change? DarkMagus wrote: With global warming we have theories and computer models ...and massive evidence that only one idea explains, and predictions based on it that have come to pass. DarkMagus wrote: Show me a climate model that has actually predicted anything succesfully. James Hansen's paper in 1988 http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abstracts/1988/Hansen_etal.html included, amongst other things, a graph (figure a, page 9347) It had three lines showing different possible atmospheric temperature rises, based on (A) large emissions growth, (B) moderate growth and one large volcanic eruption, or (C) emission reduction and a volcanic eruption. What's happened is somewhere between the first and second lines, as you'd expect if Hansen was right. Since 1988 there have been many more powerful and accurate models built. Other stuff that's been predicted since the early 90s - warming of the troposphere, warming of ocean surface waters, cooling of the stratosphere, an imbalance between incoming sunlight and outgoing infrared radiation, greater warming in the Arctic than elsewhere - it's all happening.
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Merrick 2148 posts |
Dec 04, 2009, 14:58
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DarkMagus wrote: Funny I thought I said you couldn't prove or disprove the exisence of god. DarkMagus wrote: Comparing global warming with cancer/smoking & evolution/creationism is poor stuff indeed.
With the latter two it is possible to actually conduct controlled experiments to demonstrate the processes.
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DarkMagus 170 posts |
Dec 04, 2009, 15:47
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Evolution has been demonstrated in fruit flies for fuck's sake! See, the difference is given a species with a short lifecycle you can observe changes over generations and make accurate observations. Where is the experiment for global warming? There isn't one, there are only theories and models based on them & suspect data which fail to make accurate picture. Where is the second Earth for us to experiment on? Evidence points to a conclusion but does not prove it in terms of science. Scientific theory states that theories are there to be disproved. This is basic fundamental stuff. Some things e.g. existence of god and in my opinion global warming, are outwith the realms of meaningful science as we currently know it. I see I'm wasting my time. 99% consensus does not make something right. Remember Galileo?? Maybe things will change & the world view will swing back to that of the Catholic church several hundred years ago regarding the solar system. We're in about the same place as far as climate science is concerned... I say again, any right thinking person should be hoping AGW is bullshit.
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DarkMagus 170 posts |
Dec 05, 2009, 16:00
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Oh dear, it gets worse. It looks like the code "Harry" was trying to fix, as described in Harry read me.txt, was written by a PhD student! That's right folks, the climate change model was entrusted to a student who has since left the field & is now a student at a seminary. Bizarre. Judging by what Harry says there is no traceability in what was done with the model code. He is seen to be floundering trying to reproduce what went before. Doesn't sound too reliable to me. I'm starting to suspect this won't be a flash in the pan. Funny how Al Gore (he of the factually inaccurate documentarty) has pulled out of the talk he was scheduled to give at Copenhagen. Maybe he's decided to spend some more time with his money!
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