Paleoconservative movement and global warming

[iNow]

Enough with the invective. The responses you have been receiving are directly aligned with the tone of your posts and comments to others.

 

Or better yet, give an actual verifiable prediction. The IPCC hasn't bothered doing that.

Actually, it has offered projections, which explain clearly the variables used and the reasons those variables were chosen. They have offered multiple scenarios, and transparently describe each.

 

The IPCC reports, both AR4 (see Chapter 10) and TAR, are full of predictions made starting in 2000 for the evolution of surface temperature, precipitation, precipitation intensity, sea ice extent, and on and on. Here are 3 quickies:

 

• Higher surface temperatures and increased evaporation will cause an increase in the average precipitation over the globe.
  
• The stratosphere will continue to cool significantly as CO2 increases. If ozone continues to decrease, the cooling will be magnified.
  
• Continental dryness will increase at middle latitudes in summer in the Northern Hemisphere.
  

 

Your continued suggestion that they have not made "any predictions" also fails to acknowledge that what the IPCC provided were projections, which are not the same thing as predictions. The idea of a "prediction" conjures in my mind images of a crystal ball. Projections is the term you are seeking (or, which more accurately describes that which you are trying to describe), since they cannot know the behavior of humans and societies... so they present multiple potential scenarios, the likely outcomes of each, and openly share explainations for why these scenarios and variables were chosen the way they were. It is transparent.

 

 

It's given a whole range of possibilities for the future, pretty much covering every base.

Like I said, this is because these are projections. They posit "If this, then that." Why is this supposed to be seen as some sort of problem? Their approach is robust enough to cover multiple potentialities, and you are using it to sow seeds of doubt and attempt to dismiss their data blanketly because you put some strange importance into suggestions like "the all mighty IPCC cannot see into the future, so cannot be trusted."

 

 

I simply ask for an independently verifiable prediction, simple enough and the basis of the scientific method.

Your question has been answered repeatedly, and you continue to ignore those answers.

[swansont]

Or better yet, give an actual verifiable prediction. The IPCC hasn't bothered doing that. It's given a whole range of possibilities for the future, pretty much covering every base. A bit like a weather forcast that says the weather could be dry, but it could be wet, it could be warm or else it could be cold.

 

http://www.pik-potsdam.de/~stefan/Publications/Nature/rahmstorf_etal_science_2007.pdf

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/05/hansens-1988-projections/

[SkepticLance]

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.

[iNow]

Another case where the GCMs fall down due to the simple fact that we just don't bloody know enough to make good predictions!

 

 

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 find simultaneous comfort and distress in the fact that they under estimated the change. Comfort in that they were conservative in their attempts, and worked hard not to over represent true issues. Distressed in that things are actually worse than we'd presumed.

 

 

From swansont's link:

Overall, these observational data underscore the concerns about global climate change. Previous projections, as summarized by IPCC, have not exaggerated but may in some respects even have underestimated the change, in particular for sea level.

[Aardvark]

Actually, it has offered pojections, which explain clearly the variables used and the reasons those variables were chosen. They have offered multiple scenarios, and transparently describe each.

 

Offering 'multiple scenarios' is not the same thing as making a prediction. The IPCC has not been able to make any even remotely precise predictions.

 

Your continued suggestion that they have not made "any predictions" also fails to acknowledge that what the IPCC provided were projections, which are not the same thing as predictions. The idea of a "prediction" conjures in my mind images of a crystal ball.

 

Any scientific theory, in order to be validated, needs to be able to make independantly verifable predictions. That's not a matter of crystal ball gazing, it's a matter of science.

 

Projections is the term you are seeking

 

No it isn't, prediciton is the word i am seeking.

 

(or, which more accurately describes that which you are trying to describe), since they cannot know the behavior of humans and societies...

 

Irrelevant.

 

so they present multiple potential scenarios, the likely outcomes of each, and openly share explainations for why these scenarios and variables were chosen the way they were. It is transparent.

 

Wrong.

 

Have you actually looked at their so called 'projections'? They are so vague and broad as to be completely meaningless. If they were as confident of the science as you claim, then it would be an easy matter to make a prediction that if CO2 levels rise by X amount then the global mean temp will rise by Y amount. But they don't.

 

 

 

Like I said, this is because these are projections. They posit "If this, then that." Why is this supposed to be seen as some sort of problem? Their approach is robust enough to cover multiple potentialities, and you are using it to sow seeds of doubt and attempt to dismiss their data blanketly because you put some strange importance into suggestions like "the all mighty IPCC cannot see into the future, so cannot be trusted."

 

The IPCC says that maybe the climate will get a lot warmer, maybe it won't. Maybe their will be a lot more precipitation, maybe there won't. Maybe sea levels will rise by a lot, maybe they won't.

 

If you consider that a 'robust' approach then i think you are being a little bit naive.

 

 

 

Your question has been answered repeatedly, and you continue to ignore those answers.

 

I'm still waiting for a clear, independently verifiable prediction. That's the test of any scientific theory.

 

Let me know when you're ready to give me one. Up until then i'll accept that you can't and that your belief in the Global Warming Hypothesis is an article of faith rather than a scientifically reached conclusion.

[swansont]

There is a car. If someone gets in the car, puts it in "drive" and steps on the gas, it goes forward. If they put it in "reverse" and step on the gas, it goes backward. If they do nothing, it sits still.

 

Since I can't predict what the driver will do, using this logic, I can conclude that I know nothing about how a car works.

 

Somehow, I am not convinced that the logic is valid.

[Aardvark]

There is a car. If someone gets in the car, puts it in "drive" and steps on the gas, it goes forward. If they put it in "reverse" and step on the gas, it goes backward. If they do nothing, it sits still.

 

Since I can't predict what the driver will do, using this logic, I can conclude that I know nothing about how a car works.

 

Somehow, I am not convinced that the logic is valid.

 

If you can't understand that logic then i truly am surprised.

 

It is very easy to use science to predict a cars motion. A simple statement that if the car is in drive and the accelerator is depressed by a certain amount, the car will travel at a certain velocity. Easy.

 

Similarly, if Global Warming is so well understood and proven, then it should be simple enough to state that if CO2 levels rise by X amount then global mean temp will rise by Y amount.

 

What's so hard about that?

[Pangloss]

Well... I think it's a valid point to say that if you put CO2 in the atmosphere then the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere will rise, even if you don't know by how much. I realize it's more complex than that (since CO2 is "consumed" by various means, such as plant life), but the reasoning here is pretty straightforward -- either we've crossed that threshold or we have not (and all the evidence says we have). This strikes me as a completely different issue from the question of predictability.

 

The problem in my mind has always been the complexity (and accounting) of the variables, not the core reasoning. And if complexity is an issue, and you can never remove all potential variables, then that works both for and against the issue -- just as you can't prove beyond any doubt that it is human derived, nor can you prove that it is not.

 

Therefore the core reasoning is more important than the accuracy of a specific prediction.

 

(Wait, did I just reason myself out of a skeptical-about-human-causation position??)

[swansont]

If you can't understand that logic then i truly am surprised.

 

It is very easy to use science to predict a cars motion. A simple statement that if the car is in drive and the accelerator is depressed by a certain amount, the car will travel at a certain velocity. Easy.

 

Similarly, if Global Warming is so well understood and proven, then it should be simple enough to state that if CO2 levels rise by X amount then global mean temp will rise by Y amount.

 

What's so hard about that?

 

It's called climate sensitivity, and it does have a predicted value of around 3 ºC for a doubling of CO2.

[iNow]

No it isn't

 

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Irrelevant.

 

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Wrong.

 

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completely meaningless.

 

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i think you are being a little bit naive.

 

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Up until then i'll accept that you can't and that your belief in the Global Warming Hypothesis is an article of faith rather than a scientifically reached conclusion.

 

Well, who can argue with logic like that? I'm sold. I mean, who cares about the posts which have already addressed your requests. No need to consider them, eh?

[SkepticLance]

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]

They're projections, not predictions, and they are continually refined as new data comes in. I have not seen anyone here arguing that the projections are perfect and represent the end all be all of climate science.

 

You seem to be arguing against a point that nobody is making.