OT: I know how to solve global warming

[Renegade 13]

Here's a couple links you might find interesting Alarikf.

www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=13830&ch=biztech
www.marshall.org/pdf/materials/136.pdf

Particularly the first one is interesting, as it essentially says that the methodology used by Mann et al. was flawed when they created the familiar "hockey stick" graph that shows warming over the past century or so.

I'd also like to mention that a theory can be proven wrong without other theories to take its place.

The major problem with climatology, as I see it, is the uncertainties inherent in the science. If you think about it, trends in climate aren't always distinguishable over a mere millenia, and as I think both you and I agree, anything beyond a thousand years ago has too much uncertainty as to be nearly useless. When talking about climate, 1000 years is but a blink of the eye. Essentially, we don't know if what we're going through is a natural cycle with a period of a few thousand years.

I admit, global warming is currently a theory that has a lot of acceptance in the international climatological community. Yet I find myself to be a skeptic, in nearly all things. I doubt, I question, and until my questions can be answered, I will continue to doubt and question. I guess it's just the kind of person I am.

Note that I'm not saying we should do nothing. The opposite, actually. I think a lot more money should be put into researching better photovoltaics (solar power cells), tidal generating stations, wind power, hydrogen, cleaner coal powered generating stations (sequester the CO2 and other nastiness underground), and yes even on such dreams as fusion which may prove key in another several decades. The reasons to do so go beyond the global warming argument. As it is, we are all at the mercy of the big oil companies. We'll pay what they tell us to pay, because we have no choice in the matter. Reducing our reliance on oil companies will take away a lot of their power, and in my opinion, that alone is a good reason to pursue alternatives to oil. The fact that they're renewable and oil isn't is another good reason to do so. If global warming is indeed a fact, then it's yet another reason to do so. But it's far from the only reason.

Whew. Didn't mean for that to be so long!

[Hunpecked]

Whoa! Nice rants from alarikf. I'm less ambitious, so I'll try to be more brief. (Edit: I failed. )

First, I have no hard feelings over alarikf's admittedly aggressive writing style. He's obviously passionate about the subject, so I'll give him some latitude. Besides, I find it quite amusing to read

"Often, I am literally physically sickened when I see people making important decisions based on their self-interest, ideologies, or dogma, rather than facts and scientific methods."

and then watch alarikf do exactly that.

"Theories are never disproven UNTIL a better theory replaces them."

Actually, as Renegade 13 pointed out, theories are disproven by experiments and observations. A "better theory" may not come along until long after the earlier theory is discredited. Meanwhile, if you still want to apply the known flawed theory, you do so at your own risk. I wouldn't recommend it, however, any more than I recommend spending immense financial resources on the flawed "theory" (actually a hypothesis) of man-made "global warming".

"And that conclusion remains, to wit: 'Presently available proxy evidence indicates that temperatures at many, but not all, individual locations were higher during the past 25 years than during any period of comparable length since A.D. 900.'

Apparently alarikf didn't read his own reference. His Wiki article points to

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempera...Council_Report

which demolishes the so-called "hockey stick" reconstruction. Yes, the original hypothesis is still "plausible", but only in the sense that the data neither support nor refute it. The bit about the last 400 years was never in dispute -- of course it's warmer today than during the height of the Little Ice Age (duuhhhh).

"And that is exactly why they are good scientists..."

BWAHAHAHA! Consider this quote from Phil Jones, co-author of several "hockey stick" papers:

"We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?"

Umm, "good" scientists are willing, if not eager, to have their work reviewed, scrutinized, and either confirmed or refuted.

"That is why said that it was wrong to claim that 'there are no detailed and accurate ways of measuring temperatures beyond a couple hundred years ago.' ie: Today it is 2006 AD. We have detailed and accurate ways of measuring temps up until 1600, and less confidence back to 900 AD."

Is alarikf really that ignorant of temperature reconstruction methodology, or is he just being disingenuous here?

"Reliable" thermometers were available no earlier than roughly mid-19th Century. Temperature "measurements" before then are based on "proxies", i.e. indirect temperature measurements such as tree rings, boreholes, isotope ratios, etc. These are subject to great uncertainty and require elaborate statistical processing to be of any use at all, as Mann et al learned when the National Academy of Sciences broke their beloved "hockey stick".

Even direct measurements of "average global temperature" (whatever that is) are fraught with uncertainty:

"There are concerns about possible uncertainties in the instrumental temperature record including the fraction of the globe covered, the effects of changing thermometer designs and observing practices, and the effects of changing land-use around the observing stations."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Histori...erature_record

I could go on, but Real Life beckons. I'll check back for further posts anon.

BTW, alarikf, I'm not Ann Coulter. If you want to argue with her (good luck), go to her web site.

[AMF]

Both your's and R13's post revolve around a continuing flaw: you both continue to believe that "a theory can be proven wrong without other theories to take its place."

That is simply not scientific (or helpful) because you have presented no serious disconfirming evidence to support your claim. We haven't mentioned at all, for example, the causal mechanisms that link human activity to global warming. We've just been talking about the state of scientific opinion. And I claim that the overwhelming majority of scientists who study it beleive in anthropogenic global warming (AGW).

What you have mentioned is that there are anomalies in the AGW research program. And I fully agree with that. There are anomalies, sure are, darn right. Lots and lots of them.

For example, last year in my hometown it was colder than the year before.

But, again, I say: "so what"? Scientific progress has nothing to do with the presence or absence of anamolies. Instead, it has everything to do with how well research programs stack up against each other in the face of these anomalies.

So, R13 is correct to state that " If a scientific theory can not explain anomalies that are proven to exist, then that theory must be examined very carefully, to determine whether or not it should be considered a valid theory anymore."

BUT, disproving a theory (or 'research program') doesn't happen until a better theory comes along. No theory is disproven, except maybe in political circles, until a better theory comes along.

An analogy would be me telling a child "the sky is blue becuase of X" and he replies: "No it isn't" And I say "well, then what is the reason?" and he says" I dont' know but I do know it's not becuase of X!"

What good does that do? None whatsoever. The kid could keep on like this ad infinitum, and no progress is made.

Another example: Before newton, people believed in the copernican model, or in ether, or that something else kept the planets in their orbits. When did they get proven wrong? NOT when people pointed out strange anamolies in their preedictions - they'd been doing that for centuries - but until people had something better to replace copernicus with, did he get cast aside. And that happened when Newton came along. Ok, so, then when was newton cast aside? Anamolies in his theories built up for almost two hundreds years, IIRC. But did people say he was wrong? No. They simply said his theory wasn't good enough. He was only cast aside when Einstein came along. And what did Einstein do? He said, yeah, ok, Newton is pretty much right, but let me show you this better theory that explains as much as Newton did, and then a bit more. And then Newton was cast aside. And so then in the inter-war era a bunch of physicists studied anomalies in Einsteins' theory, for decades. But at no point was Einstein cast aside until Quantum mechanics was 'discovered'.

In other words, to simply claim a prevailing/commonly accepted or debated theory is "wrong" without putting forth a counter proposition means one is simply being contrary for the sake of argument. A person who argues for no reason other than to argue has a strange motivation. One that is, perhaps, just knee-jerk dogmatic at its' core.

So, to reliably call into question the AGW research program, you have to present another research program, and it must:

1) Explain as much as AGW does
2) Make predictions that can be tested (ie: are falsifiable)
3) Explain at least some current anomalies in the AGW research program

Do I sound like a stuck record yet?

Now, a few posts back, I made an honest proposal. It was "provide me with a testable supposition that would convince you that you were wrong. What criteria would need to be met for you to change your mind? Tell me that, and then I'll go and test it. And answer me this: if I meet your criteria, then will you change your mind? If I take whatever reasonable test you propose, and meet it, then do you think it possible to change your mind?"

If you are not willing to do that, then that is strong evidence that your beliefs are based solely on dogma, habit, ideology, or self-interest, because it indicates that you are unwilling to change them based on testable criteria (ie: facts).

Now, as to your comment about this Jones fella. No scientist worth his salt would be accepted if his work wasn't reproducible. If he actually did say "We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?" then he is not a decent scientist - again, for a scientist to withhold data is just professional suicide. Do you have a reference?

Given the highly politicized nature of the global warming debate, and the proclivity for right-wingers to seize upon a single anomaly and use that to loudly claim that AGW is totally inconcievably mind bogglingly wrong, I suspect that Jones is a bit wary of releasing his data and then having someone make outrageous claims by some non-scientist who take some small portion of the data out of context. I'm sure you know what I mean.

But, more to the point, there you go again: you find a single anomaly, this one person, and based on that single datum claim that the entire body of AGW is therefore disproven.

Where would we be today if that had been done to Newtonian physics or modern chemistry or any other famous research program in the past? I can see it now: "Hey, newton, your theory sounds good, but although you predict 99.99% of the movement out there, you can't predict pluto's orbit, so your theory is obviously TOTALLY WRONG."

Huh? Makes no sense to do that, right? We'd still be in caves if that was the way we "did" science, because every time a new theory came along someone would say "hey, it doesn't prove every single thing, so it's obviously 100% totally completely irrevocably wrong and if our government spends even one penny on this then the terrorists have already won!"

And that is why scientific progress relies upon competing research programs, rather than simply people spending their time looking for anomalies in existing theories.

Again, I eagerly await a better research program than AGW.

Thanks,

AMF

PS: Oh, I totally agree that "Temperature "measurements" before the mid-19th Century are based on "proxies", i.e. indirect temperature measurements such as tree rings, boreholes, isotope ratios, etc. ...Even direct measurements of "average global temperature" (whatever that is) are fraught with uncertainty...etc"...This is all sort of a 'duh' statement to me, and I thought I had addressed this point in my earlier post, so I saw no need to elaborate.

But, in any case, the only thing your statement is doing is saying "Hey, its' hard to measure historical temperatures"

To go from that to "AGW is wrong" is, for the reasons outlined above is erroneous and irrelevant - until it leads to a theory or set of theories that supplant AGW.

And, of course, it will *always* be hard to measure historical temperatures, and we will always have to rely on proxies. But "proxy" does not equal "false". Hell, if we took that attitude, the entire field of astronomy would be thrown out wit the bathwater.

I repeat, again and again, that theories will always have anomalies and some of them are inevitably based on artifacts of the data measurements, such as these. But that is irrelevant to 'disproving' the theory in question.

Again, I eagerly await a better research program than AGW. Until is happens, well, it's all just whistling past the graveyard.

Until you can show me a theory or body of theories that explains global warming better than AGW, then you are simply saying "no, you're wrong" without actually furthering the debate.

[Renegade 13]

That's a rather long post to reply to all in one shot, so I'll divide it up, and respond to each part separately.

Both your's and R13's post revolve around a continuing flaw: you both continue to believe that "a theory can be proven wrong without other theories to take its place."

I must fundamentally disagree with you. A theory most definitely can be proven wrong without another theory to take its place. I'll give you a couple examples to make my point:

Take a look at mathematics. Mathematical theorems are extremely difficult to prove, due to the fact that there are so many permutations to look at, that it is impossible to look at them all and categorically state that the theory has been proven (is a law). However, it is possible to prove a mathematical theorem wrong; to do this, you only have to find one instance where the theorem can not adequately explain the results. There, it's proven wrong. But according to you, that's not good enough. No, first you have to have something to take its place. Think about it for a moment, and you'll realize just how ridiculous it is. Saying that something can't be proven false unless there's something better to take its place is just ridiculous on so many levels.

Lets go for a somewhat simplified example. Lets say that I make a claim; the sky is blue because the ocean is blue. Now, this is obviously wrong. It can be proven wrong very simply, just by showing that the ocean is not actually blue as it appears, but is clear (or very nearly). Yet before humanity knew of nitrogen, before humanity knew of space beyond the atmosphere, before humanity knew the true causes of what makes the sky appear blue, there was no better theory to explain why the sky was blue. Does that mean that my theory shouldn't be thrown out the window? I don't think so. My theory simply isn't satisfactory, since it doesn't fit the data.

Admittedly, my example is simplistic in the extreme, but I hope it gets my point across.

last year in my hometown it was colder than the year before.

But, again, I say: "so what"? Scientific progress has nothing to do with the presence or absence of anamolies. Instead, it has everything to do with how well research programs stack up against each other in the face of these anomalies.

I couldn't disagree more. Science has everything to do with anomalies. I'll restate again what I have said before; if a theory can't explain the anomalies it leaves behind, then that theory is obviously flawed, if not totally incorrect.

Let me give you another example, this one related to math. If I have a theory that says (2x) / (xy) = 2 where "x" and "y" are both variables. My theory can be proven to be correct, in some instances. For example, if x=0.6 and y=1, then my theory is proven correct for those variables. Yet if you make x=0.6 and y=2.5, then my theory obviously is incorrect, it has anomalies.

This is again a simplistic example, yet it illustrates my point. My theory explains the result for some values of x and some values of y. However, anomalies exist. But what if you don't have a better theory, what if someone hasn't thought of something that better explains things? You're saying that we should keep accepting (2x) / (xy) = 2 since there's nothing better, even though it is obviously deeply flawed, and in fact, totally incorrect.

I hope I've shown that even theories that are completely, utterly, undeniably wrong can still yield results that seem to make sense in the "real world". However, just because a theory explains some things, if there are continuing to be anomalies, the veracity of that theory has to be cast into doubt. Just because there's nothing better, doesn't mean it is correct, or should be accepted as correct, even partially.

In other words, to simply claim a prevailing/commonly accepted or debated theory is "wrong" without putting forth a counter proposition means one is simply being contrary for the sake of argument. A person who argues for no reason other than to argue has a strange motivation. One that is, perhaps, just knee-jerk dogmatic at its' core.

No, it means the prevailing theory is not satisfactory.

You seem to be ignoring the fact that there are other theories that explain the current gradual increase in temperature. One such theory is that it is part of a natural cycle; unfortunately, this hypothesis is rather hard to prove or disprove. However, that doesn't mean it is without merit.

Now, a few posts back, I made an honest proposal. It was "provide me with a testable supposition that would convince you that you were wrong. What criteria would need to be met for you to change your mind? Tell me that, and then I'll go and test it. And answer me this: if I meet your criteria, then will you change your mind? If I take whatever reasonable test you propose, and meet it, then do you think it possible to change your mind?"

If you are not willing to do that, then that is strong evidence that your beliefs are based solely on dogma, habit, ideology, or self-interest, because it indicates that you are unwilling to change them based on testable criteria (ie: facts).

I am unable to do so as I am not a climatologist, nor even a scientist in any field. However, I put the same challenge to you. Explain some of the anomalies that exist in the theory of global warming. If you can't "then that is strong evidence that your beliefs are based solely on dogma, habit, ideology, or self-interest", to quote you.

And that is why scientific progress relies upon competing research programs

This is exactly true. Yet it seems that almost everyone is so transfixed by the "threat" that global warming supposedly poses that no one is willing to fund anything that has to do with a competing theory. After all, a bunch of people think global warming is true, so it must be true! Better keep pouring money into it! [/sarcasm]

the only thing your statement is doing is saying "Hey, its' hard to measure historical temperatures"

To go from that to "AGW is wrong" is, for the reasons outlined above is erroneous and irrelevant - until it leads to a theory or set of theories that supplant AGW.

This is so wrong, I can barely believe you have said it. The entire theory of global warming is based upon historical temperature measurements. If the accuracy of those measurements is cast into doubt, then the entire theory must as well be cast into doubt. That seems blatantly obvious.

And, of course, it will *always* be hard to measure historical temperatures, and we will always have to rely on proxies. But "proxy" does not equal "false". Hell, if we took that attitude, the entire field of astronomy would be thrown out wit the bathwater.

I'm not sure where you get the idea that astronomy relies on something other than direct measurement. Astronomy is, for the most part, much more based in science fact rather than science projections than climatology. Astronomy utilizes many direct measurements of things like stellar spectra, direct optical wavelength observation of various stellar formations, observations in pretty much every wavelength that is useful, direct observations of supernovae, planetary nebulae, etc. Astronomy is rooted firmly in the cold, hard, accurately measurable facts, unlike much of climatology.

[Hunpecked]

Ah. I think I understand the fundamental problem here.

"Both your's and R13's post revolve around a continuing flaw: you both continue to believe that "a theory can be proven wrong without other theories to take its place."

There is no flaw. A theory either matches reality or it doesn't. If it doesn't, there's something wrong with it. You don't need a "better theory" to know there's something wrong with the old one. Sorry, but it's as simple as that.

Now alarikf admits there are "lots and lots" of "anomalies" in the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) so-called "theory". What he doesn't seem to understand is that if a system has known flaws, any predictions drawn from it are unreliable, i.e. they may be true but they may not. I consider it the height of stupidity to commit massive resources to solving a "problem" predicted by a system alarikf admits is not a true representation of reality.

"So, to reliably call into question the AGW research program, you have to present another research program..."

Wrong. I (or climate skeptics in general) don't have to do anything but point out "anomalies". AGW fans claim their "theory" predicts a problem and they want to throw money at it. Fine, but it's up to them to prove their case. As alarikf has pointed out, so far they haven't. Sorry again, but that's the way science works.

"An analogy would be me telling a child "the sky is blue becuase of X..."

Good analogy, because if alarikf told a child that, he'd be wrong. And the child wouldn't be objecting for objection's sake; he'd probably point out that at night the sky is mostly black. And more importantly, he doesn't have to know why the sky is black, just that it isn't blue as alarikf predicted. Of course alarikf could modify his claim to "the sky is sometimes blue" but that wasn't the original "theory", was it?

"...provide me with a testable supposition that would convince you that you were wrong..."

What alarikf really means is I should provide him with a test that will prove he is right. Fine. All he (or the AGW advocates) have to do is prove their "theory", i.e. remove the "anomalies", match reality, prove that their apocalyptic predictions are true. They could start by proving that the last 25 years are in fact the warmest in 1000 years.

"Do you have a reference?"

http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=062706E

The quote is at the top of the page; on the referenced PowerPoint it's on slide 4. Jones' colleague Michael Mann said pretty much the same thing to the Wall Street Journal Februay 14, 2005.

With regard to uncertainties in temperature proxies,

"This is all sort of a 'duh' statement to me..."

Unfortunately that statement doesn't agree with his earlier claim:

"We have detailed and accurate ways of measuring temps up until 1600, and less confidence back to 900 AD."

In fact we don't, as alarikf now apparently agrees.

Finally (whew!),

"Again, I eagerly await a better research program than AGW. Until is happens, well, it's all just whistling past the graveyard."

My point exactly. Now can I buy an SUV?

[Hunpecked]

Renegade, my apologies for stomping on your points, some of which (OK, many of which) you made better than I did.

On the bright side, I can always claim "great minds think alike".

[Renegade 13]

Hunpecked said:
Renegade, my apologies for stomping on your points, some of which (OK, many of which) you made better than I did.

On the bright side, I can always claim "great minds think alike".

Don't worry, I didn't feel stomped on at all

[Will]

Hunpecked and Renegade: alarikf is right here. You do not throw out an entire theory as invalid just because some data does not fit the model, but other data fits perfectly well. If you are going to throw out a theory that works in some cases, you need to present another theory that explains the data that fits the existing theory, and also explains some of the data that does not fit the existing theory. Until then, you only add on constraints to the existing model stating under what conditions the model is reasonably accurate, and under what conditions the model fails.

Renegade, your mathematical example is contrived. That is a simple equation, with two unknowns, that can trivially be shown false for values of y not equal to 1. I would propose that this "theorem" remains perfectly valid as long as we are restricting y in this way. It will even predict results with reasonable accuracy as long as y is very close to 1. What alarikf is saying is that it would be preposterous to use the example of x=0.6 and y=2.5 to throw out the entire statement when it works perfectly well with y=1.0. This is the same reasoning behind the Copernican->Newtonian->Einsteinian models for how the planets move the way they do. Children are still started off with a model like the one of Copernicus (minus the ether part) for the solar system. I know I believed that the orbits of the planets (except for Pluto) was perfectly circular. And that's alright for the basic rote learning of small children, who aren't expected to know the dynamics of motion yet. The theory is later supplanted in school by the Newtonian model for physics, where I learned that Pluto wasn't the only odd one, and all the planets had elliptical orbits, and for 99+% of situations, Newton is perfectly adequate. Einstein added more that explained difficult bits like how Mercury's orbit acted the way it did without the influence of another planet, and how things change around black holes, etc. Each iteration of the model came about because we got more data, and the data was more accurate, and the model changed based on this. But if we use Einstein's model of gravity, we will still get results that look a lot like what we would get with Copernicus' model. And if I only use y=1, the equation (2x)/(xy) = 2 will still hold. You can complain all you want about some anomalies, but if a lot of the data still fits, and you don't have a better model, any good scientist MUST use the best existing model, or supplant it with an improved version.

[Atrocities]

To stop global warming everyone needs to simply stop farting. The amount of methane gas released each year by flatulence (sp) is greater than the entire sum or toxins released into the air by all of the self obsorbed air bags of the world.

[Will]

Well, I would say the sulfur dioxide is more worrisome (and smelly), but yes, you may be right