SkepticLance

On the business of climate model accuracy : http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,353844,00.html I quote : "When NASA’s James Hansen sounded the alarm in Congress 20 years ago, he predicted that rising concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide, or CO2, would drive global temperatures higher by 0.34 degrees Celsius during the 1990s. But surface temperatures increased during that decade by only 0.11 degrees Celsius and lower atmosphere temperatures actually decreased." Obviously the temperature decrease is not an issue here. However, the inaccuracy of the prediction is somewhat typical of what we have seen. Ther NZ Herald newspaper this morning has an editorial item which quotes Sir John Houghton. first chair of the IPCC. "Unless we announce disaster, no-one will listen." I don't know if he actually said that or not, or if it is official or unofficial policy. However, if it is any kind of policy for the IPCC, then we have to conclude that the organisation is corrupt.

It is easy to be optimistic. You just need to look at other data. There are four disasters that occur often - detailed traditionally as the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Death, Famine, War and Pestilence. Death is always with us. The death rate is most democratic - 100% for each of us. However, life is on the increase. 200 years ago, the average life span in the western world was under 21 years. Today, in the THIRD world, it is 55. In developed nations it is 80 years plus or minus 5 years. Human life span continues to increase, giving each of us more life than at any other time in history. Famine is decreasing. We only have to go back a few decades to a time when famine would kill 10 million people in one country in one season. India and Pakistan were disaster areas. Today, famine in those countries does not exist. Poverty does, but that is another story. In today's world, if a famine takes 500,000 people, that is excessive. It is still a tragedy, and we need to do better, but famine has dropped massively. War. The worst war in history was WWII with 55 million deaths. The death rate from war has been dropping ever since. It is still too much, with a million dead in Iraq, indirectly killed by the war there. However, in no decade for the past 100 years has the death toll from war been as low as now. Pestilence means plague or disease pandemic. Currently, the only such plague is AIDS. The traditional causes of disease death are diminishing. Smallpox is gone. Malaria kills about a million per year - down from 10 million. TB kills fewer by far than 100 years ago. Infectious ills have dropped massively. While it is true that AIDS will kill 50 million plus people over the next 20 years, that is still only 2.5 million per year - a massive drop from the traditional death rate due to infectious disease. In fact, infectious disease as primary killer has given way as killer to diseases of old age. That should tell you something! Rejoice in the advances of the last 100 years! We live longer. We eat better. We are healthier. Fewer die in wars. And we now have sources of intellectual stimulation as never before. True, some people choose to vegetate before the idiot box watching soap operas. However, they have the choice to access the enormous wealth of knowledge and improve their understanding of the universe. Never before has mankind had this opportunity!

To iNow This line of discussion is getting a bit ridiculous. I used the term 'global warming enthusiast' in order to avoid mentioning names, and just stay general. I am certainly not going to go against that policy and start naming names now. Sadly, this can result in specific people feeling insulted, and lead us into saying things we should not. Let me just say that I am a global warming sceptic (not a global warming denialist), and the opposite of sceptic in this context is enthusiast. Let me also add that, when I mentioned you over-reacting when found to be in error, that was also not meant to be an insult. It was to illustrate a point - that no-one likes to be proven wrong. I do not. You do not. No person on this, or any other thread responds well to be told he/she is wrong, and especially if followed up by strong evidence indicating their error. In this, we are all human. I seem to have insulted you anyway, and I am sorry for that. I am not going to exacerbate the insult by going into details.

To iNow An example of someone without sufficient scientific scepticism? Any person contributing to this thread who argues against the proposition that global circulation models are inaccurate an unreliable. You said : "My primary skepticism right now is directed squarely on your ridiculous and unsupported rhetoric. I welcome the chance for you to prove me wrong with specific examples." Naming of names, and giving example of your errors is a good route to personal attacks and generalised nastiness. I will refrain from that type of response.

iNow said "So, basically you're saying that they cannot win. You would fault them if they over predicted and you would fault them if they under predicted, and only accept what they say if it were dead on balls accurate... Super approach there, champ. Unfortunately, not a very realistic or attainable one." I think you may have missed the point. The point I was making is that their predictions were thrown out by an unknown factor. In this case, oceanic currents that moved warmer water north. This is an ongoing problem. Climate modellers cannot win since there are so many factors that have not been quantified. For this reason, we have to take GCM predictions with a very big pinch of salt. The New Scientist 19 April 2008, Australian printed edition, page 10 has another example, though the article does not specifically relate it to global climate. Oceanographers have just discovered a new set of oceanic currents. Slow moving strips of water moving eastward and westward. Since these cover pretty much all the world's oceans, it is almost certain they have a substantial effect on global climate. Yet till now, they have been unknown. This must throw out computer models even more. I do not suggest that climate modellers lack the ability to do arithmetic, or even highly advanced math, plus sophisticated programming. Their lack lies in another direction. Simply that no-one fully understands all the variables that drive global climate. While so many unknowns are out there and not understood, any attempt to model global climate must fail.

iNow You have quoted me, but I cannot have been clear in my wording, since you do not understand what I meant. When I said global warming enthusiasts were unhappy, I meant they were unhappy at being called wrong. Not because of any perceived improvement. In fact, I seriously doubt they would perceive this paper as an improvement. What is a global warming enthusiast? Someone who swallows the entire global warming dogma without a proper scientific scepticism, and fails to query the parts of global warming dogma that are not based on data. eg. predictions

iNow said "1) Who in their right mind is enthusiastic about global warming? 2) What scientist would not be happy about improvements in their models and data? Come off it already, will you?" Would you please re-read my post. My actual statement was to the effect that the item was controversial because it said that climate modellers were in error. Not that they loved global warming! Or were unhappy about improvements. I have noticed you, on occasion, over-reacting because I have suggested you were in error. No-one likes being told they are wrong. Dr. Frank says that the climate modellers were wrong - hence the strong reaction against his writings, making them 'controversial'.

Re IPCC predictions The New Scientist magazine, 26 April 2008, page 12 (Australian printed version) says this : "Temperatures in the Arctic are rising far faster than in other parts of the world. Climate models produced by the IPCC, which are tuned to reproduce the human made greenhouse effect, predict the region should have warmed by 1.4 Celsius between 1960 and 2000. In fact, the Arctic air temperature rose by 2.2 C." So their predictions were out by 57%!!! The explanation given for this inaccuracy is that there are ocean currents carrying warmer water north, which have increased. Another case where the GCMs fall down due to the simple fact that we just don't bloody know enough to make good predictions! The final sentence of the item says : "That may mean that IPCC climate models have overestimated the speed at which the planet will warm in future.

Re religious faith. I see commonalities between the state of mind that allows faith, and that which permits people to be shafted by con artists. Basically, the willingness to believe something without evidence has to be seen as a negative. I find it quite ironic that certain religions tout this quality as a great virtue. To me it is a great stupidity. There are a great many belief systems that do not involve a god or gods. When they involve things that are accepted by faith, they become, in my opinion, pseudo-religions. Those who dispute the ideas held by faith are regarded with great displeasure by those in the pseudo-religions. For example : Feminists may believe that all men are rapists. I once challenged this by telling a rabid feminist that I was a man who had never raped anyone, and never would. Therefore I had proved that not all men were rapists. You can only guess at the scorn that was received with! An environmentalist may believe that all human activity reduces biodiversity. I know many human activities that increase it. However, that idea would be blasphemy in some circles. Science is the antithesis of faith. In science, beliefs are based on objective empirical evidence. Faith is independent of evidence. Therefore science and faith are incompatible.

To Pangloss I think the reason the paper was called controversial was because it claimed that global circulation models were inaccurate, especially in relation to long term predictions. I suspect that global warming enthusiasts are not happy about that. As to correcting errors. Fine, and thank you. It is much better to notice and correct than to ignore.

Well said, Mr. Skeptic!

The problem here is not the scientific data. Hopefully, we can all accept that as valid. The problem is interpretation. As I have said many times before, humans cannot predict the future, unless it is for a very simple matter. It does not matter whether we use a crystal ball, a uigee board, or a computer model - precognition is beyond us. At least predictions based on such a complex subject with so many unknown factors. The various scenarios put forward by such as the IPCC as to the next 100 years are so inaccurate that they are essentially valueless. I could probably do as well reading the tea leaves. Which I ignore in order to predict what my own very fallible opinion suggests. Which makes me as accurate (or otherwise) as the IPCC. I predict continued warming at a rate similar to the past 30 years, and a 3 mm (or similar) rise in sea level each year, until a couple of decades after humans get carbon emissions in balance. I bet this prediction is closer than most of the IPCC scenarios!

Perhaps so, but nevertheless correct.

To iNow I did not accuse you of failing to understand what a strawman argument is. I accused you of over-doing the strawman accusations. Sometimes we end up with this kind of argument as a result of genuine lousy communication. In fact, I suspect that a large percentage of these arguments are actually a result of misunderstandings rather than genuine disagreement. When a person puts up a 'strawman' argument, it is probably the result of such a misunderstanding. In those cases, we are better applying a little patience and trying harder to understand each others position.

To Aardvark You are not alone. I have been accused of being a global warming denialist by those who cannot be bothered actually reading my posts. I have not been so accused for a while. I suspect this is because, if I say something 1000 times, it finally sinks in! I read a good definition the other day. A genius is someone who only makes the same mistake 7 times. Based on the number of times certain respondents mistake our view points, there are no geniuses here!

Rev There will always be problems. We cannot expect to anticipate everything and solve all problems before they arise. Humans must simply do the best we can, and respond to new challenges with alacrity. As I pointed out, there is a new form of wheat stem rust spreading from Africa to Asia (just reached Pakistan) with the potential to cause catastrophe. The world is not responding with enough research money, and the heroes who develop new breeds and new GM forms of wheat are handicapped. President Bush has decided not to spend too much on this problem. When the disease reaches the USA, he will learn of his folly. We must learn to dedicate funds to such emergencies, and find solutions before the disaster becomes too acute. There is no perfect approach, but humans are capable of performing near-miracles if we so choose.

To foofighter. Nice example! To Pioneer Your theory is not necessary. If agriculture developed by a slow incremental social evolution, then there is no need for any special and dramatic change in human genetics. The hunter/gatherers of pre-agriculture days simply move by slow stages over many generations to a life style that includes growing plants and husbanding animals. Once more food is available, the population will grow, which will make the population totally dependent on agriculture.

Rev said "The world has already seen one potato famine though. It was caused by a monoculture...they only grew one or two types of taters in Ireland. When a fungus attacked those types, there were no strains available that were resistant available, even though resistant taters existed." The world moves on, and we learn from our mistakes. There are literally thousands of types of potatoes, and many are now being introduced as breeding stock. In addition, GM now provides an extra tool to fight potato disease. The Irish potato blight was caused by Phytophthera infestans, a fungus-like micro-organism that can be devastating in its effects. There is already a gene available for insertion into potatoes to give resistance to this disease. http://www.freepatentsonline.com/EP1334979.html Of course, there are a lot more diseases and pests of potatoes than just Phytophthera. A Bt version already exists, resistant to insect pests. Further development will make potatoes much less dependent on sprays. This is the International Year of the Potato. This is a recognition of the future importance of this crop. Potatoes produce more calories for human nutrition per acre than any other crop. This means that the humble spud will become one of the world's most vital crops, and may supplant rice, wheat, and maize as the number one crop. We had better develop it well!

My own number 1 preference is nuclear. A big reason for this is that nuclear is proven technology. We have 50 years of experience and know how to do it, and do it well. It also has an incredible safety record. Total deaths (including Chernobyl) of less than 5000. Hydro-electric has total deaths of more than 20,000 (mainly due to accidents with dams), while coal burning kills hundreds of thousands each year due to respiratory distress. Disposal of nuclear waste is often held up as a major problem, and it is. However, it is a political problem - not a technical one. We know how to dispose of waste safely. It is just that hysterical opponents of nuclear power fight against the sensible disposal options. Drilling deep, whether hot rock or magma, appears to be something with great potential, and that may be true. However, it is highly experimental. We still do not know how to do it properly, what the costs are and what the safety downside might be.

To Bascule For a person who chooses a nom de plume that means balance-bridge, your posts are often seriously out of balance. This lack of balance is demonstrated by an unwillingness to be sceptical of the dogma and political influence in this field. We accept the basics of global warming. ie. warming and human influence. However, there are lots of areas for constructive scepticism. This includes the predictions made by global circulation models. These computer models cannot even simulate cloud formation in an accurate way, as shown in my reference on the other thread, http://www.skeptic.com/the_magazine/featured_articles/v14n01_climate_of_belief.html Yet cloud formation is one of the most potent drivers of warming/cooling. As my reference states, this lack results in predictions at the 100 year mark having an error factor of more than plus or minus 100 Celsius! To Rev I have no argument with your comments. As I said, capitalism is about making money, and they will go about this in what they see as the best way possible. I have my own small business, and I will do what I have to to make money. However, capitalists are normally unwilling to break the law. It is therefore the duty of law makers, and those who police the law, to make sure that environmentally responsible behaviour is involved.

To iNow Aardvark has a point. You do tend to over-use the strawman accusation, including using it where it is not appropriate. In this case Aardvark was being ironic rather than raising a serious argument, and your accusation was definitely not appropriate. A better response would have been to respond to irony with humour.

To dichotomy. GM is currently fuelled mostly by economic pressures, worse luck! There are people who are out to make the world a better place by producing GM crops that are of benefit to everyone. Golden rice was a result of the work of Swiss researchers who wanted to make a gift of it to the world. Sadly, they lack the economic power of the big companies, and cannot resist the pressure of the anti-GM people. Thus, Golden rice is not available to those who need it. Here is a recent report on the use of genetic engineering to the betterment of human health. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18320254 GM potatoes rich in zeaxanthin are beneficial to protecting and improving human eyesight.

To swansont The reason the error bars are not doubled is obvious with just a glance at the graph. Double the error bars and the various lines representing the predictions from different scenarios will overlap. The distinctions will diminish and make them rather closer to meaningless. The use of one standard deviation, rather than the more proper two is obviously the result of a political decision, instead of a scientific decision. I think that the people behind these published model results are trying to pretend the results are more meaningful than they really are, if we analyse them in a proper scientific way.

I have just read an article by William Calvin (author of the book 'Global Fever - How to Treat Climate Change'). http://pressblog.uchicago.edu/2008/04/24/press_release_calvin_global_fe.html He lists the various options for energy production without releasing carbon. His top two are geothermal and nuclear. The geothermal option he favours (bias towards the USA) is what he calls Hot Rock Energy. This is not exactly energy from magma. It is to drill to about 7 kms deep in certain places, such as the US Rocky Mountains, to where hot, and dry granite is found. Temperatures about 200 C. You then pump water down and steam drives turbines. Obvious advantage compared to drilling for magma is that the hot rock is found at much lesser depths. Hence cheaper drilling. The article I read is in Skeptic mag; Vol. 14, no. 1, 2008 page 38 I am not so keen on solar energy, myself. For one thing, it stops producing for 12 hours per day on average. Storing energy always wastes about 50% of the energy (plus or minus a factor). Thus, its efficiency as a supplier of energy at night is rather problematic.

My cause and effect chain was probably over-simplified. I make no apologies. Sometimes simplicity is the key to communication. The development of agriculture was probably more an evolution than revolution. It may have begun long before the dates we normally ascribe. I suspect the first agriculture was something as simple as realising what seeds were for, and developing the habit of planting the seeds from the fruit that is eaten, to ensure that the next time the largely nomadic hunter/gatherer people pass that way there would be new fruit trees or bushes. The whole business of tilling the soil and removing weeds, and selecting for good yielding varieties would have come much later. This evolution may explain the time from the melting of the ice before full blown agriculture took off. What agriculture was able to do was supply lots of food for larger numbers of people from a smaller area of land. This could support larger communities, allowing specialised classes of people - farmers, soldiers, weavers, smiths etc. This must have been the first big step towards civilisation as we know it. Another important step would be the discovery of metal extraction and working. First copper - then bronze - then iron. Copper is occasionally available as natural metal ingots. However, the major first step might have been when a fire was burnt on top of copper oxide ore. The heat and carbon would react with copper oxide to reduce it to copper metal. Some paleolithic genius would have seen this and deduced a method of making copper metal. Very useful!