Thread: Global Warming - the Final Word

Originally Posted by AntRobertson

You've just contradicted yourself. There's no money in it for governments but we have to pay green taxes!?

I think you know what I meant, but I'm refering to governments who aren't making any money out of this racket.

First

Originally Posted by Dr Zaius

this myth

Then we progress to

Originally Posted by Dr Zaius

the evidence...is compelling, no doubt

but unfortunately we then slide back to

Originally Posted by Dr Zaius

it's all a load of balls

Well which is it? And if it's the last, kindly explain the incontestable recent warming.

They are all the same answer as none of them assertain certainty, which is what I'm talking about.

If I had to choose though, I'd go for balls.

The 'recent' warming, as you put it, is no more than a repeat of something that has happened millions of times since before life on earth was even created. We've only been measuring these things for fifty or a hundred years & on the back of that everybody thinks we've got this all figured out. It's arrogant, at best.

Who knows what mother nature has got in store for us?

Originally Posted by Dr Zaius

Who knows what mother nature has got in store for us?

A sandstorm, perhaps:

1. You cannot describe a 'myth' as something for which there is 'compelling evidence' so, no they are not all the same.

2. What - exactly - is the mechanism which is causing the warming? You said that your opinions were formed a long time ago so, if it's not CO2/methane/CFCs/etc, you must have an idea of what is to blame for the warming. What is it?

Originally Posted by attaboy

Originally Posted by DrB0b

Originally Posted by attaboy

It wasn't until people investigated and began pushing back that the touts of climate models admitted that global warming is a natural event exasperated by humans. If we don't question the lazy "experts" they will continue to feed us slop passed off as science.

Rant deleted, forget it, I'm going home now

^ I knew that was coming. I'm making a general statement saying I reserve my right to question authority. I wasn't specifically addressing the info in your posts or some of the links I followed. I can site Al Gore's movie and "slop" science would apply.

As Gero stated we can identify the media for sensationalizing blame. I see it as a dual force of government and media laying on the guilt trip while science remains silent. Science loses credibility associating itself with liars.

I'm home now, and still not ranting, see Al Gore's a twat not a scientist, though the two aren't mutually exclusive. I don't care what Littlejohn says, I don't care what Al Gore, Michael Crichton, George Bush, Bugs Bunny or any of that lot say. I don't even care what scientists say if they're expressing personal beliefs or disbeliefs which are not borne out by the data. I only care about the data and the evidence, and that's compelling.

Your right to question authority is unquestioned (and using it is laudable) but who's playing the authority here, the pundits telling you what to think, Gore and Littlejohn being two sides of the same coin, or honest researchers saying "here's the data, make your own mind up"?

Originally Posted by Dr Zaius

The holocaust is a prime example. Let's not discuss that now.
?

nice try

Originally Posted by Dr Zaius

The holocaust is a prime example. Let's not discuss that now.

Oh dear. Friend of kerux's, per chance?

Originally Posted by Dr Zaius

How do I know? I could band theories & speculation around like you guys but I won't.

By 'theories & speculation' do you mean links to in-depth research such as has been posted by DrBob or a link to a Daily Mail aritcle. By Richard Littlejohn.

I'm inclined to go with DrBob's above assessment on this one, I think you're trolling.

I suggest you do some reading before coming out with such strident opinions in future. You say that climate change is 'a load of balls' yet can offer neither an alternative theory nor any kind of coherent critique. This is a joke.

Originally Posted by Dr Zaius

They are all the same answer as none of them assertain certainty, which is what I'm talking about.

Then you're not talking about science. Certainty is for children and the religious, it doesn't exist anywhere else.

Here's some basic background if you want to talk about science in future.
Introduction to the Scientific Method



The scientific method is the process by which scientists, collectively and over time, endeavor to construct an accurate (that is, reliable, consistent and non-arbitrary) representation of the world.
Recognizing that personal and cultural beliefs influence both our perceptions and our interpretations of natural phenomena, we aim through the use of standard procedures and criteria to minimize those influences when developing a theory. As a famous scientist once said, "Smart people (like smart lawyers) can come up with very good explanations for mistaken points of view." In summary, the scientific method attempts to minimize the influence of bias or prejudice in the experimenter when testing an hypothesis or a theory. I. The scientific method has four steps

1. Observation and description of a phenomenon or group of phenomena.
2. Formulation of an hypothesis to explain the phenomena. In physics, the hypothesis often takes the form of a causal mechanism or a mathematical relation.
3. Use of the hypothesis to predict the existence of other phenomena, or to predict quantitatively the results of new observations.
4. Performance of experimental tests of the predictions by several independent experimenters and properly performed experiments.
If the experiments bear out the hypothesis it may come to be regarded as a theory or law of nature (more on the concepts of hypothesis, model, theory and law below). If the experiments do not bear out the hypothesis, it must be rejected or modified. What is key in the description of the scientific method just given is the predictive power (the ability to get more out of the theory than you put in; see Barrow, 1991) of the hypothesis or theory, as tested by experiment. It is often said in science that theories can never be proved, only disproved. There is always the possibility that a new observation or a new experiment will conflict with a long-standing theory.
II. Testing hypotheses

As just stated, experimental tests may lead either to the confirmation of the hypothesis, or to the ruling out of the hypothesis. The scientific method requires that an hypothesis be ruled out or modified if its predictions are clearly and repeatedly incompatible with experimental tests. Further, no matter how elegant a theory is, its predictions must agree with experimental results if we are to believe that it is a valid description of nature. In physics, as in every experimental science, "experiment is supreme" and experimental verification of hypothetical predictions is absolutely necessary. Experiments may test the theory directly (for example, the observation of a new particle) or may test for consequences derived from the theory using mathematics and logic (the rate of a radioactive decay process requiring the existence of the new particle). Note that the necessity of experiment also implies that a theory must be testable. Theories which cannot be tested, because, for instance, they have no observable ramifications (such as, a particle whose characteristics make it unobservable), do not qualify as scientific theories.
If the predictions of a long-standing theory are found to be in disagreement with new experimental results, the theory may be discarded as a description of reality, but it may continue to be applicable within a limited range of measurable parameters. For example, the laws of classical mechanics (Newton's Laws) are valid only when the velocities of interest are much smaller than the speed of light (that is, in algebraic form, when v/c << 1). Since this is the domain of a large portion of human experience, the laws of classical mechanics are widely, usefully and correctly applied in a large range of technological and scientific problems. Yet in nature we observe a domain in which v/c is not small. The motions of objects in this domain, as well as motion in the "classical" domain, are accurately described through the equations of Einstein's theory of relativity. We believe, due to experimental tests, that relativistic theory provides a more general, and therefore more accurate, description of the principles governing our universe, than the earlier "classical" theory. Further, we find that the relativistic equations reduce to the classical equations in the limit v/c << 1. Similarly, classical physics is valid only at distances much larger than atomic scales (x >> 10-8 m). A description which is valid at all length scales is given by the equations of quantum mechanics.
We are all familiar with theories which had to be discarded in the face of experimental evidence. In the field of astronomy, the earth-centered description of the planetary orbits was overthrown by the Copernican system, in which the sun was placed at the center of a series of concentric, circular planetary orbits. Later, this theory was modified, as measurements of the planets motions were found to be compatible with elliptical, not circular, orbits, and still later planetary motion was found to be derivable from Newton's laws.
Error in experiments have several sources. First, there is error intrinsic to instruments of measurement. Because this type of error has equal probability of producing a measurement higher or lower numerically than the "true" value, it is called random error. Second, there is non-random or systematic error, due to factors which bias the result in one direction. No measurement, and therefore no experiment, can be perfectly precise. At the same time, in science we have standard ways of estimating and in some cases reducing errors. Thus it is important to determine the accuracy of a particular measurement and, when stating quantitative results, to quote the measurement error. A measurement without a quoted error is meaningless. The comparison between experiment and theory is made within the context of experimental errors. Scientists ask, how many standard deviations are the results from the theoretical prediction? Have all sources of systematic and random errors been properly estimated? This is discussed in more detail in the appendix on Error Analysis and in Statistics Lab 1.
III. Common Mistakes in Applying the Scientific Method

As stated earlier, the scientific method attempts to minimize the influence of the scientist's bias on the outcome of an experiment. That is, when testing an hypothesis or a theory, the scientist may have a preference for one outcome or another, and it is important that this preference not bias the results or their interpretation. The most fundamental error is to mistake the hypothesis for an explanation of a phenomenon, without performing experimental tests. Sometimes "common sense" and "logic" tempt us into believing that no test is needed. There are numerous examples of this, dating from the Greek philosophers to the present day.
Another common mistake is to ignore or rule out data which do not support the hypothesis. Ideally, the experimenter is open to the possibility that the hypothesis is correct or incorrect. Sometimes, however, a scientist may have a strong belief that the hypothesis is true (or false), or feels internal or external pressure to get a specific result. In that case, there may be a psychological tendency to find "something wrong", such as systematic effects, with data which do not support the scientist's expectations, while data which do agree with those expectations may not be checked as carefully. The lesson is that all data must be handled in the same way.
Another common mistake arises from the failure to estimate quantitatively systematic errors (and all errors). There are many examples of discoveries which were missed by experimenters whose data contained a new phenomenon, but who explained it away as a systematic background. Conversely, there are many examples of alleged "new discoveries" which later proved to be due to systematic errors not accounted for by the "discoverers."

In a field where there is active experimentation and open communication among members of the scientific community, the biases of individuals or groups may cancel out, because experimental tests are repeated by different scientists who may have different biases. In addition, different types of experimental setups have different sources of systematic errors. Over a period spanning a variety of experimental tests (usually at least several years), a consensus develops in the community as to which experimental results have stood the test of time.
IV. Hypotheses, Models, Theories and Laws

In physics and other science disciplines, the words "hypothesis," "model," "theory" and "law" have different connotations in relation to the stage of acceptance or knowledge about a group of phenomena.
An hypothesis is a limited statement regarding cause and effect in specific situations; it also refers to our state of knowledge before experimental work has been performed and perhaps even before new phenomena have been predicted. To take an example from daily life, suppose you discover that your car will not start. You may say, "My car does not start because the battery is low." This is your first hypothesis. You may then check whether the lights were left on, or if the engine makes a particular sound when you turn the ignition key. You might actually check the voltage across the terminals of the battery. If you discover that the battery is not low, you might attempt another hypothesis ("The starter is broken"; "This is really not my car.")
The word model is reserved for situations when it is known that the hypothesis has at least limited validity. A often-cited example of this is the Bohr model of the atom, in which, in an analogy to the solar system, the electrons are described has moving in circular orbits around the nucleus. This is not an accurate depiction of what an atom "looks like," but the model succeeds in mathematically representing the energies (but not the correct angular momenta) of the quantum states of the electron in the simplest case, the hydrogen atom. Another example is Hook's Law (which should be called Hook's principle, or Hook's model), which states that the force exerted by a mass attached to a spring is proportional to the amount the spring is stretched. We know that this principle is only valid for small amounts of stretching. The "law" fails when the spring is stretched beyond its elastic limit (it can break). This principle, however, leads to the prediction of simple harmonic motion, and, as a model of the behavior of a spring, has been versatile in an extremely broad range of applications.
A scientific theory or law represents an hypothesis, or a group of related hypotheses, which has been confirmed through repeated experimental tests. Theories in physics are often formulated in terms of a few concepts and equations, which are identified with "laws of nature," suggesting their universal applicability. Accepted scientific theories and laws become part of our understanding of the universe and the basis for exploring less well-understood areas of knowledge. Theories are not easily discarded; new discoveries are first assumed to fit into the existing theoretical framework. It is only when, after repeated experimental tests, the new phenomenon cannot be accommodated that scientists seriously question the theory and attempt to modify it. The validity that we attach to scientific theories as representing realities of the physical world is to be contrasted with the facile invalidation implied by the expression, "It's only a theory." For example, it is unlikely that a person will step off a tall building on the assumption that they will not fall, because "Gravity is only a theory."
Changes in scientific thought and theories occur, of course, sometimes revolutionizing our view of the world (Kuhn, 1962). Again, the key force for change is the scientific method, and its emphasis on experiment.
V. Are there circumstances in which the Scientific Method is not applicable?

While the scientific method is necessary in developing scientific knowledge, it is also useful in everyday problem-solving. What do you do when your telephone doesn't work? Is the problem in the hand set, the cabling inside your house, the hookup outside, or in the workings of the phone company? The process you might go through to solve this problem could involve scientific thinking, and the results might contradict your initial expectations.
Like any good scientist, you may question the range of situations (outside of science) in which the scientific method may be applied. From what has been stated above, we determine that the scientific method works best in situations where one can isolate the phenomenon of interest, by eliminating or accounting for extraneous factors, and where one can repeatedly test the system under study after making limited, controlled changes in it.
There are, of course, circumstances when one cannot isolate the phenomena or when one cannot repeat the measurement over and over again. In such cases the results may depend in part on the history of a situation. This often occurs in social interactions between people. For example, when a lawyer makes arguments in front of a jury in court, she or he cannot try other approaches by repeating the trial over and over again in front of the same jury. In a new trial, the jury composition will be different. Even the same jury hearing a new set of arguments cannot be expected to forget what they heard before.
VI. Conclusion

The scientific method is intricately associated with science, the process of human inquiry that pervades the modern era on many levels. While the method appears simple and logical in description, there is perhaps no more complex question than that of knowing how we come to know things. In this introduction, we have emphasized that the scientific method distinguishes science from other forms of explanation because of its requirement of systematic experimentation. We have also tried to point out some of the criteria and practices developed by scientists to reduce the influence of individual or social bias on scientific findings. Further investigations of the scientific method and other aspects of scientific practice may be found in the references listed below.

^^^^

No, no at all. People describe the holocaust as the most horrific thing ever or a myth, depending on which side of the fence you're on. I specifically said let's not get into it.

You're putting words into my mouth.

Originally Posted by Dr Zaius

You're putting words into my mouth.

I'm rather hoping something coherent will come from your mouth, actually.

Originally Posted by Dr Zaius

^^^^

No, no at all. People describe the holocaust as the most horrific thing ever or a myth, depending on which side of the fence you're on. I specifically said let's not get into it.

You're putting words into my mouth.

The same person would not describe it as a myth and something for which there is compelling evidence. Really. This is pretty obvious.

Now - let's hear your theories about climate change.

Dr Bob, that's sound theory but it's blinding with science & I can't see a thing.

My theory on climate change is this - heat from the sun. That is it. I think they call it solar flares, or something.

It might be wrong, but it's as credible as your explaination. Some scientific opinion says this is far more likely as the same kind of temperature rises have been happening on Mars at about the same time as we started measuring them. This lends weight to my theory.

This is what the IPCC (the world's most authoritative body on climate change) had to say on solar forcing in its most recent report

"Continuous monitoring of total solar irradiance now covers the last 28 years. The data show a wellestablished 11-year cycle in irradiance that varies by 0.08&#37; from solar cycle minima to maxima, with no signifi cant long-term trend. New data have more accurately quantifi ed changes in solar spectral fl uxes over a broad range of wavelengths in association with changing solar activity. Improved calibrations using highquality overlapping measurements have also contributed to a better understanding. Current understanding of solar physics and the known sources of irradiance variability suggest comparable irradiance levels during the past two solar cycles, including at solar minima. The primary known cause of contemporary irradiance variability is the presence on the Sun’s disk of sunspots (compact, dark features where radiation is locally depleted) and faculae (extended bright features where radiation is locally enhanced). {2.7}

The estimated direct radiative forcing due to changes in the solar output since 1750 is +0.12 [+0.06 to +0.3] W m–2, which is less than half of the estimate given in the TAR, with a low level of scientific understanding. The reduced radiative forcing estimate comes from a re-evaluation of the long-term change in solar irradiance since 1610 (the Maunder Minimum) based upon: a new reconstruction using a model of solar magnetic fl ux variations that does not invoke geomagnetic, cosmogenic or stellar proxies; improved understanding of recent solar variations and their relationship to physical processes; and re-evaluation of the variations of Sunlike stars. While this leads to an elevation in the level of scientific understanding from very low in the TAR to low in this assessment, uncertainties remain large because of the lack of direct observations and incomplete understanding of solar variability mechanisms over long time scales. "

This graph shows the relative importance of solar forcing when compared to other factors. As you can see, greenhouse gases have a forcing of around 2.5 Wm-2, against the solar forcing of 0.12 Wm-2.

For a debunking of the Mars stuff, see the always fantastic RealClimate at RealClimate &#187; Global warming on Mars?

Originally Posted by Dr Zaius

Credit to Sir Littlejohn for the article.

It seems to me the same people who support this global warming nonsense also find Sir Littlejohn abhorrant, too. This is very telling.

It was said in the beginning that this a class war dressed up as concern for the planet & these guys are proving it to be right with their 'Daily Mail readers, scum they are' attitude. Turns out Sir Littlejohn was right in everything he has said - though they will try & backpedal now when they realise they have been caught out.

I love the way they slate the highest-paid UK journalist off as some sort of idiot who doesn't know what he is talking about, instead relying on a bunch of guys wearing the same clothes for three days on the trot who are too busy fishing for the next research grant into this global warming racket to find time for a shave.

We have seen you coming. We have found out your arguments are bollocks. You declare the end is nigh & when smarter men than those in charge of your propoganda machine - who, thankfully, keep us 'plebs' properly informed - you revert to saying things like "I never said it was 100&#37; likely" as your evidence.

Sir Littlejohn for Prime Minister.

Good Troll Dr Z. You sure know how to get us going, you almost had me believing you.... up til here.

Originally Posted by Dr Zaius

Dr Bob, that's sound theory but it's blinding with science .

"Blinding with science" Translation: "I didn't understand it"

Originally Posted by Dr Zaius

My theory on climate change is this - heat from the sun. That is it. I think they call it solar flares, or something.

Undoubtedly something, IMHO.

Originally Posted by Dr Zaius

It might be wrong, but it's as credible as your explaination.

It is wrong and it's not credible. It might be caused by hot air generated on internet forums though, global warming only really became noticeable about the time 56K modems became affordable. Coincidence? I think not.

Originally Posted by Gerontion

This is what the IPCC (the world's most authoritative body on climate change)

IPCC - most authoritative or embarassing? Guess it depends if you're purveyor of cover rather than substance. Their stats suck!

Originally Posted by DrB0b

It is wrong and it's not credible. It might be caused by hot air generated on internet forums though, global warming only really became noticeable about the time 56K modems became affordable. Coincidence? I think not.

Good observation..me thinks Al Gore is behind it all. He invented the internet after all. He's probably secretly the inventor of java script!

A few discrepancies would already throw doubt on the authority of the institution.

Originally Posted by DrB0b

"Blinding with science" Translation: "I didn't understand it"

When you're throwing spiel at me such as

+0.12 [+0.06 to +0.3] W m–2

no, I don't understand it.

You snob. This is a class war & you know it.

I'm glad you're losing it.