Manmade Climate Change Discussion

[Alan Robinson]

I'd just like to contribute that I don't care a fig for "peer reviewing".

 

Though I haven't posted here for a while, my experience of peer reviewing has recently been enhanced considerably; and in my opinion, many contributors cannot express themselves properly in their own language, let alone English which is the established common language of academics across the world. They have suitably skilled people review their own work and help them express their often counfounded ideas, as they are themselves incapable.

 

Moreover, I stress that while PhD studies involve an element of research, PhD is widely considered University Lecturer Training. PhD students might well have to lecture 800 hours during their 3 year project, and moreover, participate in conferences here, there, and everywhere across all continents.

 

With regard to even higher academic rankings - well - who knows what finincial interests motivate people to express an opinion; and concerning man made climate change, my view is that academics need a good dose of humility, and that science needs to revert to being scientific rather than metaphysical. Who knows what the next definition of "the scientific method" will be?

 

Pah.

[knocker]

New analyses find evidence of human-caused climate change in half of the 12 extreme weather and climate events analyzed from 2012

 

Human influences are having an impact on some extreme weather and climate events, according to the report “Explaining Extreme Events of 2012 from a Climate Perspective†released today by the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. Overall, 18 different research teams from around the world contributed to the peer-reviewed report that examined the causes of 12 extreme events that occurred on five continents and in the Arctic during 2012. Scientists from NOAA served as three of the four lead editors on the report.

 

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2013/20130905-extremeweatherandclimateevents.html

Edited September 8, 2013 by knocker

[knocker]

A personal observation from Santa Fe.

 

http://m.santafenewmexican.com/opinion/my_view/article_72c418ba-35f5-5c5b-af58-7b5abad8f7dd.html?mode=jqm

[Methuselah]

Apparently - don't ask me! - this ( http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/t2lt/uahncdc_lt_5.5.txt ) busts another global warming myth!

 

http://forum.netweather.tv/topic/76448-scepticism-of-man-made-climate-change/page-23

Edited September 10, 2013 by A Boy Named Sue

[knocker]

Attacks on Scientists

http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/campaigns/global-warming-and-energy/polluterwatch/Dealing-in-Doubt---the-Climate-Denial-Machine-vs-Climate-Science/Dealing-in-Doubt-The-Attacks-on-Scientists/

[knocker]

Glacier National Park Prepares for Ice-Free Future

 

Of the 150 glaciers in Glacier National Park in 1910, the year the park was founded, only 25 remain

Edited September 10, 2013 by knocker

[knocker]

Hottest Days in Some Parts of Europe Have Warmed Four Times More Than the Global Average

 

Sep. 11, 2013 — Some of the hottest days and coldest nights in parts of Europe have warmed more than four times the global average change since 1950, according to a new paper by researchers from the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science and the University of Warwick, which is published today (11 September 2013) in the journal Environmental Research Letters

 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/09/130911120752.htm

Edited September 11, 2013 by knocker

[knocker]

Astronomer royal calls for 'Plan B' to prevent runaway climate change

 

Lord Rees appeals for research into geoengineering technologies in case efforts to curb carbon emissions fail

 

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/sep/11/astronomer-royal-global-warming-lord-rees?CMP=twt_gu

Edited September 13, 2013 by knocker

[Alan Robinson]

 

Astronomer royal calls for 'Plan B' to prevent runaway climate change

 

Lord Rees appeals for research into geoengineering technologies in case efforts to curb carbon emissions fail

 

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/sep/11/astronomer-royal-global-warming-lord-rees?CMP=twt_gu

 

Geoengineering is one of the most controversial ideas I've ever come across. What gives a few people the right to take such drastic and dangerous action without first getting the entire world's consent? Because what they propose affects the entire planet.

 

And controversial, because it is certain that there will be no world-wide consensus. Deary me, we cannot even get consensus on an internet debating site, let alone at the UN.

 

I still cannot grasp why politicians haven't publicly connected the climate change arguments with peak oil. Surely it makes sense for those who are convinced of manmade climate change to argue that the remaining oil reserves ought to be eeked out for as long as possible; this is because all alternative energy technologies are utterly dependent on hydrocarbons. When there is no more oil and gas, we cannot make steel, cement, glass, composite materials for wind turbine blades, electrical cable insulation, paint, we cannot get what little copper there is left out of the ground to make cables, we cannot make tyres for vehicles. Eeking out the remaining oil reduces emmissions, and allows the inadequate alternative technologies longer life.

 

It is about time someone respectable began telling the world that the only way ahead is for everyone to switch things off and consume less energy. Irrespective of climate change, going on as we are will only bring unavoidable and substantial changes sooner rather than later.

[knocker]

Campaign against jargon!

http://oncirculation.com/2013/09/12/campaign-against-jargon/

[Gray-Wolf]

I tend to think that some folk become put off the subject when the words meanings escape them? No wonder they are so gleeful at the merest hint that the science is incorrect? it frees them from looking/feeling inadequate and affords them better reasons to 'distrust' science other than their own personal inadequacies?

 

How many times , when folk have been pressed for 'reasons', or links to the papers they gained their understanding from, have folk been met with obfuscation or direct assault on the discipline under scrutiny?

 

Sometimes it is not that the subject is full of 'Jargon', just that the methodology is beyond some folks belief/understanding...... do we not see this all the time when 'proxies' are discussed? From where I sit we have only had one small data set brought into question ( and that was not ever a proven 'wrong'?) yet every method of obtaining insight into paleo climate/atmospheric make up appears tarred with the same brush?

 

If folk would only take the time to discover the wonderful and ingenious ways folk use to get close to past climates ( and the atmosphere that enabled them) they would find themselves rightly proud of our scientists and just how innovative they can be!

[knocker]

Gavin Schmidt

 

Some thoughts on what inevitable mismatches between models and observations actually mean

 

 

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2013/09/on-mismatches-between-models-and-observations/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Edited September 13, 2013 by knocker

[Methuselah]

I tend to think that some folk become put off the subject when the words meanings escape them? No wonder they are so gleeful at the merest hint that the science is incorrect? it frees them from looking/feeling inadequate and affords them better reasons to 'distrust' science other than their own personal inadequacies?

 

How many times , when folk have been pressed for 'reasons', or links to the papers they gained their understanding from, have folk been met with obfuscation or direct assault on the discipline under scrutiny?

 

Sometimes it is not that the subject is full of 'Jargon', just that the methodology is beyond some folks belief/understanding...... do we not see this all the time when 'proxies' are discussed? From where I sit we have only had one small data set brought into question ( and that was not ever a proven 'wrong'?) yet every method of obtaining insight into paleo climate/atmospheric make up appears tarred with the same brush?

 

If folk would only take the time to discover the wonderful and ingenious ways folk use to get close to past climates ( and the atmosphere that enabled them) they would find themselves rightly proud of our scientists and just how innovative they can be!

I think that quite a few folk get put-off the subject - when they get preached at?

[Alan Robinson]

I tend to think that some folk become put off the subject when the words meanings escape them? No wonder they are so gleeful at the merest hint that the science is incorrect? it frees them from looking/feeling inadequate and affords them better reasons to 'distrust' science other than their own personal inadequacies?

 

How many times , when folk have been pressed for 'reasons', or links to the papers they gained their understanding from, have folk been met with obfuscation or direct assault on the discipline under scrutiny?

 

Sometimes it is not that the subject is full of 'Jargon', just that the methodology is beyond some folks belief/understanding...... do we not see this all the time when 'proxies' are discussed? From where I sit we have only had one small data set brought into question ( and that was not ever a proven 'wrong'?) yet every method of obtaining insight into paleo climate/atmospheric make up appears tarred with the same brush?

 

If folk would only take the time to discover the wonderful and ingenious ways folk use to get close to past climates ( and the atmosphere that enabled them) they would find themselves rightly proud of our scientists and just how innovative they can be!

 

The Scientific Method has changed time and again through the centuries. What once passed for science is replaced with new ideas.

 

At one stage not all that long ago, it was held that science and philosophy had gone their separate ways. The key element of science at that time was that experiments proving or disproving hypotheses must be reproducable pretty much anywhere and everywhere so that everyone could see for themselves the results, which should always be pretty much the same.

 

These days it seems to me that much of what is called science is in fact metaphysics. In particular, cosmology is a sinner, though I have my private suspicions that sooner or later, relativity and quantum physics will also be scoffed at for being as preposterous as earth, wind, fire and water. Not everyone will agree with me about this, but perhaps it explains why "some people get put off the subject when the words meanings escape them" as you put it. There is a huge distinction between discovery and invention, and the debate on what is real goes all the way back to Plato and Aristotle. In that connexion I give you complex numbers; mathematicians invented the imaginary parts and entertained themselves with surfaces and heaven knows what, but it took electrical engineers to find any useful purpose for them.

 

People are also skeptical when science is so complex that either just a very few people grasp the matter in question, or if elaborate instrumentation and infrastructure is required. Under those circumstances, science becomes a matter of believing someone else, which I am sure you will acknowledge would have been laughed at in Newton's time.

 

With respect to the meaning of words, perhaps it would benefit what passes for science these days if people would stop using theory when what they in fact mean is  hypothesis  or conjecture. 

Edited September 14, 2013 by Alan Robinson

[VillagePlank]

 In that connexion I give you complex numbers; mathematicians invented the imaginary parts and entertained themselves with surfaces and heaven knows what, but it took electrical engineers to find any useful purpose for them.

 

I think that that's a little unfair.

 

Algebra is (supposed to be) a system of logic that is irrefutable; ie that one can derive proofs that withstand the test of time. It has certain rules associated with it, such as if you multiply two numbers of the same sign the answer will always be positive (-1 x -1 = 1, and 1 x 1 = 1) It also requires that for everything you can do, you also do the opposite, so sqrt(4) = 2, and 2² = 4. All well and good, we all learnt this when we started secondary school (I hope) Problems start to happen when we want to find the answer, say, to the square root of a negative number, perhaps: sqrt(-15). Since any number when squared must be positive (if it is negative it is a negative multiplied by a negative etc) there is no number when squared that can be -15. It doesn't exist. It can't exist, otherwise the axioms collapse.

 

Descartes after a long line of mathematicians eventually said 'Neither the true nor the false [negative] roots are always real; sometimes they are imaginary' Of course, by 'real' he means numbers with decimal points (putting it ever so slightly too simply) and the imaginary comment is a pun. Nevertheless, after Euler's superb work, the term imaginary persisted even into the literatue such  that we define a complex number as z = a + bi, where i = sqrt(-1), and the heritage of i is straight from Descartes.

 

I see this quantity as no weirder than using vectors to reduce the components of the wind, direction and speed, to one quantity called wind (see my latest blog, here) Whilst vectors must have been invented at some point, I don't think that they were invented to be the plaything of theorists, rather the necessity of describing the natural world. And whilst the impetus for the development of complex numbers is rooted in pure mathematical theory (making sure the axioms hold for non-negative integers) it's clear that the solution was to produce a  more complete version of a theory that was being used to describe the universe around us. In that respect the engineers saw the problem, and the mathematicians solved it for them.

 

The problem on fora, like this, is that there are enough posters who are inadequetaly versed in theory, so subsequently 'big-up' their posts with obscure terminology. The talent, of course, is to put difficult ideas in layman's terms. I am certain I will spend a lifetime learning how to do that, and, somehow, I doubt I will ever succeed, although my blog is an attempt at bringing some mathematics to people without high-end technical grounding.

 

Ever profession has it's own language, I guess: climate change, engineering, computing - the whole lot of them. Whilst they all have rather esoteric terms - I am dealing with a computer programmer who insists on putting the word asymptotic in what appears to be every sentence, and it's driving me mad. I am his audience, I understand it without the extra flowering, thank you - somewhat contradictory, mathematics underpins all of it. It is the modern language of the world.

Edited September 14, 2013 by Sparkicle

[Alan Robinson]

I think that that's a little unfair.

 

 

I don't. For well over a thousand years people were bound hand and foot by Euclid. It was simply inconceivable to do anything that seemed to contradict Euclid. I seem to think it was Georg Cantor and David Hilbert who really upset the applecart, but De Moivre and the others in Newton's time were very enthusiastic about doing away with the old.

 

Until the Renaissance there were only what we call real numbers, and with them of course positive * positive = positive and negative * negative = positive. No real number multiplied by itself gives a negative number. But in that age of invention, thinkers said "but what if there was a number which when squared gives a negative number?". They were bold enough to disregard tradition, and they declared that i^2 = -1. The fact is, imaginary numbers ARE an invention, every bit as much an invention as Einstein's so-called thought experiments with trains passing through railway stations at close to the speed of light. And furthermore, these brain games stretch all the way back into antiquity and Plato's realm of concepts, where there is a perfect version of everything we can imagine. And it was Aristotle that turned out to be the more influential of the two, because Plato's world of concepts played second fiddle right the way up to the Renaissance.

 

No doubt too that academics can have a field day debating why real numbers are called real, but it seems pretty clear to me that because all the rationals can be written as a ratio of the natural numbers (that we use for counting), real is a very clear distinction to imaginary numbers, which as far as I know have very limited practical application with electrical engineers finding phase angles. What mathematicians do with imaginary numbers is beyond my scope, but I suspect it is just more mind games like Relativity.

[VillagePlank]

No doubt too that academics can have a field day debating why real numbers are called real, but it seems pretty clear to me that because all the rationals can be written as a ratio of the natural numbers (that we use for counting), real is a very clear distinction to imaginary numbers, which as far as I know have very limited practical application with electrical engineers finding phase angles. What mathematicians do with imaginary numbers is beyond my scope, but I suspect it is just more mind games like Relativity.

 

Not at all. In 1859 Berhnard Reimann put forward a hypothesis of a pattern to the prime numbers. That's to say, the building blocks of natural numbers. Within his research, he defined the prime numbers on an imaginary map, and, much to everyone's surprise, he found that the prime numbers all followed a line in the zeta function landscape.

 

Prime numbers are everything in mathematics and more than everything in this modern age, having, as you say, a zen like importance to the world of cryptography etc etc. From an engineer's persepective it's like knowing that copper conducts electricity,  but not knowing why, just accepting it, and moving on; if everyone felt like that the age of ceramics would certainly not be upon us.

 

And figuring out phase angles is so boring ....

Edited September 14, 2013 by Sparkicle

[Methuselah]

What about the inescapable fact that mathematical/scientific predictions, that can only be arrived at by using imaginary numbers, are very often found to be true?

[VillagePlank]

I think the argument is about the usefulness of pure mathematics insofar as that it exists for itself. Nothing to do with climate per se (although I would argue it is everything to do with understanding climate), so I'm sure Alan will open up a new thread somewhere if he wants to continue.

Edited September 14, 2013 by Sparkicle

[Alan Robinson]

What about the inescapable fact that mathematical/scientific predictions, that can only be arrived at by using imaginary numbers, are very often found to be true?

 

I'm guessing that you refer to quantum physics. They are guessing too when they have to resort to probability. Sorry, but I am stuck in the dark ages as far as scientific method goes, because in my view, scientific theory should allow us insights into natural phenomena, not give us something to bet on. As an engineer I'll stick with my Newtonian stuff, because as people use what we make, we cannot afford to make things that might work.

[Alan Robinson]

I think the argument is about the usefulness of pure mathematics insofar as that it exists for itself. Nothing to do with climate per se (although I would argue it is everything to do with understanding climate), so I'm sure Alan will open up a new thread somewhere if he wants to continue.

 

Well no. I entered this debate by criticizing peer reviewing, which seems to have become fashionable. I then renounced geoengineering, and highlighted the way in which The Scientific Method has changed so dramatically over the years. I criticized the modern tendency to playing mind games such as relativity and cosmology, preferring the classic approach of experimentation being performed pretty much anywhere and everywhere, and always ending in near enough the same results - which is clearly not the case with mind games. I put that science seems to me reconvenging with philosophy by becoming increasingly metaphysical.

 

In all this I brought up imaginary numbers, which I claim are a human invention rather than a discovery, and as it happens, Dr Jackie Stedall of Queen's college, Oxford is on the BBC radio archives saying exactly the same thing, that imaginary numbers are exactly that, namely a human invention. I haven't questioned pure mathematics, but my view is that it has much in common with philosophy, in that both are primarily directed towards intellectual satisfaction. As mentioned, while mathematicians fiddled with complex numbers (as you rightly put), it took engineers to find a use for i.

 

I'd just like to add that perhaps peer reviewing is a feature of the contemporary Scientific Method; but I deplore the likes of the American Psychiatric Association, who incredibly hold conferences where specific cases are presented, and the delegates vote, yes VOTE upon whether or not there is talk of mental disease. If weight of numbers is the backbone of science these days, then heaven help science.

 

No, I am content to leave relativity and quantum physics up there on Planet Zog, and I'll stay down here with my Newtonian ideas. After all, engineers have to make things that people use, and we cannot leave things to chance.

[Methuselah]

I'm guessing that you refer to quantum physics. They are guessing too when they have to resort to probability. Sorry, but I am stuck in the dark ages as far as scientific method goes, because in my view, scientific theory should allow us insights into natural phenomena, not give us something to bet on. As an engineer I'll stick with my Newtonian stuff, because as people use what we make, we cannot afford to make things that might work.

I know what you are saying, Alan...But, for mundane applications like microwave ovens, for example, the predictions made by quantum physics are amazingly precise; the inherent uncertainty is infinitesimally small...Indeed, if you apply QP, or relativistic physics, to everyday problems, their results agree with Newtonian mechanics...Which, I think, is as it should be?  

[Alan Robinson]

I know what you are saying, Alan...But, for mundane applications like microwave ovens, for example, the predictions made by quantum physics are amazingly precise; the inherent uncertainty is infinitesimally small...Indeed, if you apply QP, or relativistic physics, to everyday problems, their results agree with Newtonian mechanics...Which, I think, is as it should be?  

Pete, I don't think for one minute that what we know as QP had anything to do with the development of microwave ovens. Microwave technology is an offspin of the development of radar, which in turn developed out of 19th century radio technology, predating Max Planck's quantum hypothesis of 1900. However, it is gratifying to read that science confirms the engineers got it right.

Edited September 14, 2013 by Alan Robinson

[Methuselah]

Pete, I don't think for one minute that what we know as QP had anything to do with the development of microwave ovens. Microwave technology is an offspin of the development of radar, which in turn developed out of 19th century radio technology, predating Max Planck's quantum hypothesis of 1900. However, it is gratifying to read that science confirms the engineers got it right.

I thought has just occurred to me, Alan...What have quantum physics, Newtonian physics or imaginary numbers got to do with manmade climate-change? I think we are all going off-topic???

[VillagePlank]

Well no. I entered this debate by criticizing peer reviewing, which seems to have become fashionable. I then renounced geoengineering, and highlighted the way in which The Scientific Method has changed so dramatically over the years. I criticized the modern tendency to playing mind games such as relativity and cosmology, preferring the classic approach of experimentation being performed pretty much anywhere and everywhere, and always ending in near enough the same results - which is clearly not the case with mind games. I put that science seems to me reconvenging with philosophy by becoming increasingly metaphysical.

 

In all this I brought up imaginary numbers, which I claim are a human invention rather than a discovery, and as it happens, Dr Jackie Stedall of Queen's college, Oxford is on the BBC radio archives saying exactly the same thing, that imaginary numbers are exactly that, namely a human invention. I haven't questioned pure mathematics, but my view is that it has much in common with philosophy, in that both are primarily directed towards intellectual satisfaction. As mentioned, while mathematicians fiddled with complex numbers (as you rightly put), it took engineers to find a use for i.

 

I'd just like to add that perhaps peer reviewing is a feature of the contemporary Scientific Method; but I deplore the likes of the American Psychiatric Association, who incredibly hold conferences where specific cases are presented, and the delegates vote, yes VOTE upon whether or not there is talk of mental disease. If weight of numbers is the backbone of science these days, then heaven help science.

 

No, I am content to leave relativity and quantum physics up there on Planet Zog, and I'll stay down here with my Newtonian ideas. After all, engineers have to make things that people use, and we cannot leave things to chance.

 

What a load of tosh. Mathematics is an invention. Did you ever think that differentianation was God's will? Didn't think so. Just say thanks to the purists and move on. x

 

EDIT: can we get back to how the climate commentators onhere don't know what they are talking about? It's much more fun!!!

Edited September 14, 2013 by Sparkicle