Climate Change - The Scientific Debate

[109er]

Have been dipping in and reading this debate on and off for some time. Now, in yesterdays paper
a weather man using everything at hand admitted that they cannot say with certainty what the
weather would be like in 2-3 days time. The 'author' of the letter then stated 'If the powers that be
with all their equipment, records and charts cant forecast the weather with certainty 2-3 days ahead,
how can some of these so called 'experts' claim to say/tell what it will be like in 20-30 years time'.

I myself think he has a valid point

[IainT]

109er said:

Have been dipping in and reading this debate on and off for some time. Now, in yesterdays paper
a weather man using everything at hand admitted that they cannot say with certainty what the
weather would be like in 2-3 days time. The 'author' of the letter then stated 'If the powers that be
with all their equipment, records and charts cant forecast the weather with certainty 2-3 days ahead,
how can some of these so called 'experts' claim to say/tell what it will be like in 20-30 years time'.

I myself think he has a valid point

It's only a valid point if the underlying mechanisms that generate long-term trends are poorly understood and that understanding fails to produce models that reasonably mirror reality.

Short-term weather and long-term 'climate' should not be linked in terms of viability of prediction if we can view it in the light of the above.

[KareemK]

109er said:

Have been dipping in and reading this debate on and off for some time. Now, in yesterdays paper
a weather man using everything at hand admitted that they cannot say with certainty what the
weather would be like in 2-3 days time. The 'author' of the letter then stated 'If the powers that be
with all their equipment, records and charts cant forecast the weather with certainty 2-3 days ahead,
how can some of these so called 'experts' claim to say/tell what it will be like in 20-30 years time'.

I myself think he has a valid point

Analogy

I cannot tell you the result of Saturdays match between Chelsea and Swansea (indeed Swansea might pull off a shock and get a win or draw) but I can reliably forecast that Chelsea will be in the top 6 (of 20 teams) come the end of the season.

[rovermorris999]

IainT said:

It's only a valid point if the underlying mechanisms that generate long-term trends are poorly understood and that understanding fails to produce models that reasonably mirror reality.

So it is a valid point by your tests as they aren't and they don't.

[jet_noise]

Dear All,

I hesitate to put this in the science section but that's what is purported to be reported (poet; don't know it):

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/geoffreylean/100...

The shark is not just jumped but orbited.
Should really be in the joke thread I laughed so much,

regards,
Jet

[IainT]

rovermorris999 said:

So it is a valid point by your tests as they aren't and they don't.

Got it in one

[wc98]

jet_noise said:

Dear All,

I hesitate to put this in the science section but that's what is purported to be reported (poet; don't know it):

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/geoffreylean/100...

The shark is not just jumped but orbited.
Should really be in the joke thread I laughed so much,

regards,
Jet

anything that mentions callum roberts is toilet paper. he is sensationalist liar.this is the man that declared cod would be gone from the north sea in ten years around 2002,and said there was less than 100 mature cod in the north sea a few weeks prior to a scottish trawler skipper catching his biggest ever haul of cod in 30 years commercial fishing ,see post 27 in the link for images and background.http://www.trawlerphotos.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?5300-The-Real-Fish-Fight-Support-Our-Fishing-Communities/page3

i believe this article stems from this paper http://people.duke.edu/~ksv2/articles/29_Nye_etal_... ,which owing to the fact the marine world moves at a far faster pace than climate science, is essentially out of date. now we are in the negative phase of the north atlantic oscillation ( cycle linked to the amo in the paper )which is generally associated with a colder trend in land and sea temperatures ,the trends observed in the paper for uk waters ,particularly the north sea have already begun to reverse.
this can be seen by ices (the international council for the exploration of the seas) who provide advice for commercial catch limits advising catch limits for bass set over 80% below current limits as a result of poor recruitment in recent years.

the bass is nearing the limits of northern distribution in the uk ,so spring water temperatures below 9c are not conducive to good recruitment. basically the bass prefers the opposite conditions to that of the gadoid species in uk waters as was seen in a large increase in bass stocks at the same time as stocks of gadoid species declined.

in recent years ices have underestimated stocks of cod,mackerel and haddock by between 2-400% (it would appear fisheries stats are similar to their use in climate science) ,these stocks do not appear from thin air,the correct natural conditions are required ,in the case of uk waters,the exact opposite of the conditions during the positive phase of the nao described in the article, and paper i believe it stemmed from.

[wc98]

plunker said:

wc98 said:

plunker said:

I see Watts has rushed to repeat the hockeyshtick article adding the word 'BOMBSHELL:' to the headline - but the paper in the article was published in 2011. Must be one of those slow-fuse jobbys.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/08/05/bombshell-st...

by that response i will assume i have interpreted the results of this paper correctly

That assumption is unsafe and your originality claim is suspect

wc98 said:

...it must just be terribly unfortunate that out of all the possible locations on the planet they happened to choose one of the few where the exact opposite of what is posited by the agw hypothesis is occurring .

Perhaps that's why this one paper of measurements of a small area (relative to the globe) 'happens' to have been brought to your attention. In other words, maybe it's a cherry-pick?

[OldandGrumpy]

Another slice of revisionism that will go unreported by the Watermelons

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/08/14081...

[mybrainhurts]

That sun thingy is proving a touch irksome for the carbon dioxide zealots, eh, what?

[Variomatic]

mybrainhurts said:

That sun thingy is proving a touch irksome for the carbon dioxide zealots, eh, what?

And for wildlife (again), it seems:

http://www.chicoer.com/breakingnews/ci_26357771/em...

AP said:

Workers at a state-of-the-art solar plant in the Mojave Desert have a name for birds that fly through the plant's concentrated sun rays — "streamers," for the smoke plume that comes from birds that ignite in midair.

Federal wildlife investigators who visited the BrightSource Energy plant last year and watched as birds burned and fell, reporting an average of one "streamer" every two minutes, are urging California officials to halt the operator's application to build a still-bigger version. [...]

[plunker]

mybrainhurts said:

That sun thingy is proving a touch irksome for the carbon dioxide zealots, eh, what?

The instant yee-hahing of 'sun thingys' by so-called sceptics shows them up as no such thing.

Edited by plunker on Tuesday 19th August 11:52

[Jinx]

plunker said:

The instant yee-hahing of 'sun thingys' by so-called sceptics shows them up as no such thing.

Huh? Sorry plunks this is the science thread what are you talking about?

[plunker]

Jinx said:

Huh? Sorry plunks this is the science thread what are you talking about?

Sorry to confuse you - I've added some context to my post to help you out.

[Jinx]

plunker said:

Sorry to confuse you - I've added some context to my post to help you out.

Cheers - still though you are assuming that the "sceptics" are embracing the "sun what won it" meme rather than celebrating the evidence that obviously the science is definitely not settled and that CO2 influence on climate must be much less than previously advocated.

[dickymint]

OldandGrumpy said:

Another slice of revisionism that will go unreported by the Watermelons

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/08/14081...

"The study also shows that the various solar processes need to be included in climate models in order to better predict future global and regional climate change," said Dr Muscheler"

But of course they wont be included if it results in cooler predicted temps

[Variomatic]

Jinx said:

Cheers - still though you are assuming that the "sceptics" are embracing the "sun what won it" meme rather than celebrating the evidence that obviously the science is definitely not settled and that CO2 influence on climate must be much less than previously advocated.

You're probably wasting your fingers, Jinx.

Plunker, like most True Believers, subscribes to an over-simplistic One True Cause belief system where CO2 is the One True Cause. Given that starting point, they assume that everyone else must do the same. That's why they genuinely believe that:

All sceptics say CO2 has no effect, when in fact all he serious ones accept happily that it does.

All sceptics grasp every new development as "proof" that AGW isn't real, when what they're really doing is saying "look! (even) more evidence of problems with the theory"

All sceptics are consipracy theorising, right wing creationists. Which is odd because I'm an AGW sceptic and I'm about as right wing as Marx (Karl, not Groucho) and haven't bothered with god-bothering since prayers in junior school assembly because that's when I grew out of imaginary friends.

But it's natural and understandable for them to believe these things because they themselves aren't capable of grasping subtleties like "maybe it's lots of little things rather than One True Cause".

Which is why debating them is generally about as productive as trying to explain to a 2 year old why they shouldn't touch the gas ring instead of just keeping them away from it.

[hairykrishna]

Variomatic said:

All sceptics say CO2 has no effect, when in fact all he serious ones accept happily that it does.

Many of the 'skeptics' on here, or at least some of the prolific posters, don't accept that at all or maintain that the effect is entirely insignificant.

Similarly if various posters don't want to be thought of as right wing nutjobs they should probably stop implying that anyone who thinks that CO2 is a major climate driver is some kind of closet communist.

Obviously it's a lot of contributing effects that drive climate. I'm pretty sure that plunker more or less subscribes to the IPCC view.

[deeen]

IainT said:

It's only a valid point if the underlying mechanisms that generate long-term trends are poorly understood and that understanding fails to produce models that reasonably mirror reality.

Short-term weather and long-term 'climate' should not be linked in terms of viability of prediction if we can view it in the light of the above.

Great. So if the "underlying mechanisms" are understood now, why did the Earth go into the Ice Ages? And why did it come out of them?

[Variomatic]

hairykrishna said:

Many of the 'skeptics' on here, or at least some of the prolific posters, don't accept that at all or maintain that the effect is entirely insignificant.

True, but that's no reason to hold those people up as representative of all sceptics. To be fair, that doesn't happen all that much on here but it certainly does in the MSM and the various AGW ringleaders are quite happy to encourage it.

hairykrishna said:

Similarly if various posters don't want to be thought of as right wing nutjobs they should probably stop implying that anyone who thinks that CO2 is a major climate driver is some kind of closet communist.

Yeah, that is kind of foolish. If it was true then all those people developing and deploying renewables would be doing so for a fair living wage and a belief in saving the world rather than profits for their shareholders

hairykrishna said:

Obviously it's a lot of contributing effects that drive climate. I'm pretty sure that plunker more or less subscribes to the IPCC view.

The problem with the IPCC view is that it places CO2 firmly above all of the other factors (known, "known unknown" and "unknown unknown") which have, between them, created plenty of examples of greater and more rapid climate change than we're experiencing now.

Given that there are unknown factors involved - even the IPCC admits some of the "known unknowns" - that's not terribly scientific!