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Re: [OM] (OM) Totally OT - Climate Change

Subject: Re: [OM] (OM) Totally OT - Climate Change
From: Andrew Fildes <afildes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2011 08:23:06 +1000
Nonetheless, I'm just writing a  study guide for a documentary on Kiribati and 
Tuvalu - they don't a bugger about the science out there, just the 
disappearance of their villages and croplands. Two degrees up and they'll cease 
to exist. They are already in serious trouble.
The models are simply attempts to explain what appears to be happening, with 
differing and competing frameworks. All or some of them may be wrong in part or 
entirely. This does not change the observations of a general trend. It is 
'normal science'. The fact that they disagree is unexceptional - there are 
several competing theories of evolution (Gould vs. Dawkins, for example) but 
I'm not about to throw away the general idea because of it.
Climate change scepticism is also a normal social reaction to any major shift. 
Those with a deep conservatism or an agenda will seize on any minor 
inconsistency in the argument and claim that it destroys the entire hypothesis. 
Rarely are their own positions brought under the same blowtorch. It is better 
to adopt a cautious scepticism to specific theories while recognising the 
overall problem.
But then, we're human and prefer utterly polarised arguments where we can shout 
at each other pointlessly, so that's not about to happen.
Andrew Fildes
afildes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx



On 08/08/2011, at 1:03 AM, Chuck Norcutt wrote:

> Not to defend Monckton (who is perfectly capable of defending himself on 
> any climate related technical subject) but rejecting the current climate 
> "consensus" doesn't necessarily require a deep understanding of climate 
> related scientific disciplines.  Just a bit of understanding of chaos 
> theory and maybe some statistics thrown in.
> 
> All of the "bad" consequences of warming are the long range predictions 
> of about 20 major climate models.  None of these models agree between 
> themselves and none has ever been shown to make an accurate hindcast let 
> alone a forecast.  If you believe (as I do) that the earth's climate is 
> a chaotic system then trying to forecast climate 50 or 100 years into 
> the future is a futile exercise.  Also, if you have ever tried to make 
> even a simple forecasting system (as I did in my foolish youth) you soon 
> learn that you can force fit almost anything in the universe with a 
> polynomial having enough degrees of freedom.  The problem is that such 
> fancy fitting is senseless in a chaotic system since such a model's 
> ability to predict anything with any degree of certainty is really 
> non-existent.  Climate models have hundreds or thousands of 
> parameters... all tunable by the model builder... and still very 
> incomplete.  Of course, the model builder doesn't believe that climate 
> is a chaotic system.  If it is chaotic his reason for existence goes 
> away.  And, of course, he doesn't have to stand behind his predictions 
> of 100 years into the future since he won't be here.
> 
> Here's noted Princeton physicist Freeman Dyson on climate modeling:
> <http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/dysonf07/dysonf07_index.html>
> 
> On the subject of statistics, climate science depends very heavily on 
> statistical manipulation of raw data.  The video I pointed out recently 
> from Berkeley physics professor Richard Muller
> <http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/03/18/you%E2%80%99re-not-allowed-to-do-this-in-science/>
>  
> shows that Muller is extremely upset with the "hockey stick" graph by 
> the chicanery employed at the juncture of paleoclimate temperature 
> reconstructions (mostly from tree rings) and the modern thermometer 
> based temperature records. But that is hardly all that's wrong with that 
> graph.  The paleoclimate temperature reconstructions are highly suspect 
> and the statistical methods used to do the analysis (Principal 
> Components) have been declared invalid by several prominent 
> statisticians.  Michael Mann (the author) has never revealed the details 
> of his analysis and has (despite repeated requests over years) never 
> disclosed the correlation values he previously claimed to have computed. 
>  Little wonder because, now that the data is available (like pulling 
> teeth) the correlation values with temperature are shown to be so low 
> that he would have gotten better results by choosing random "red noise" 
> numbers.  If you'd like a detailed analysis you might like to read this. 
> <http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/McKitrick-hockeystick.pdf> 
> This is a 12 page PDF.  A little statistical training would be helpful 
> but not necessary to at least understand the gist of the situation. 
> Muller is also mentioned in this paper since it was studying this data 
> that convinced Muller that he had been deceived.  Unfortunately, it's 
> not only Muller who has been deceived.  This graph has been and 
> continues to be the posterchild of the IPCC's claims of dangerous global 
> warming.  If you value the truth in scientific method you'll take the 
> time to read these 12 pages.

-- 
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