X

What is the theory of global warming? What rubric guides this field of research? What explains (at least tentatively) what we know? What collection of concepts have we found to be useful? Sorry. All that's listed there are models, and models are not theories. "Climate Change" is not a mature science and does not yet have any real comprehensive theories.

Nonsense. You can't create the models without the underlying theories.
source: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/milankovitch.html
source: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/crowley.html

In fact AGW is a theory. (So are sun activity, and planetary attitudinal shift and theones above I linked you to)
The fact that models are required to calculate the various forces considered by the theory of AGW means nothing. The physical properties exist and are testable and verifiable to an extent. Constant retesting of the physical properties continues to refine each of the algorithms in the models.)
And really, the fact that climatology doesn't have a long history means nothing either. Consider what computer scientists were doing in 1950. Consider the enormous developments in the field of medicine. Who knew from DNA ?
Your reading far too much into the history of climatology and the requirement for interdisciplinary cooperation of experts in certain areas.
There are vast advances in all scientific fields and if we looked at the history of most of them, the knowledge demonstrated by experts a few decades ago is dwarfed by the current knowledge base. And by knowledge base I include accepted theories. (Note that accepted theories can be challenged and even redefined, as you have mentioned)
Thanks for the link. But trying to diminish the current knowledge base of climatology based upon what we learn from it is ridiculous X.
There is an established theory that is generally accepted by the best qualiifed field of experts. All of the evidence that can help us understand the possibilities of the competing theories is widely available amongst qualified scientists. And until someone ewither contributes evidence that provides a better theory, its the one we need to go with. Especially since no competing theory for the current warming has gained any traction - there not being any evidence that supports them at this time.

And IMHO models without theories are very weak methodologically when the systems being modeled are chaotic and have emergent properties.

Don't have the time right now, but this is just wrong. Starting with the models without theories..."

rickyp wrote:...trying to diminish the current knowledge base of climatology...

Ricky, when you approach everything I write with an a priori confidence that A) I'm opposing everything you believe, and B) am totally wrong, you will inevitably misinterpret me and miss the point, which is exactly what you've done here.

Minister X wrote:Ricky, when you approach everything I write with an a priori confidence that A) I'm opposing everything you believe, and B) am totally wrong, you will inevitably misinterpret me and miss the point, which is exactly what you've done here.

Indeed. Can we put Ricky and Tom into a different thread so they can misunderstand each other by not reading properly without bothering the rest of us?

Ricky, the models are indeed based on theory, but it's not a simple theory, and the system they are modelling is incredibly complex and chaotic. Newton's Laws of motion are fine for predicting the motions of two colliding balls. Once it goes up to three or more, it's just too crazy. The models are getting 'better' as the resolution improves and more possible factors are included, and they are run many times to compare with past real results.

The varying parameters that affect global warming are indeed complex but not so difficult as the underlying theory. Nor is our understanding of the parameters in any way as primitive as Minister suggests.
He points to models and says "where's the theory"? The models aren't the theory.... they are attempts to arrive at an estimate of a known and well understood physical phenomenon. It may be true that the ability to measure and model all of the effects is only due to the advances in many other fields of endevour. But this doesn't diminish the relative confidence in the estimates which the scientific community that understands what they are looking at when they look at and use the various models... Perhaps that core of understanding is limited to a small speciality that is newly emerged. But so what?
What field of advanced science isn't, at the elite level, the realm of a limited number of practitioners? Often dependent on the contributions of scientists from other fields that may understand only part of the picture....
Because only a handful of people understand all of the complexities, doesn't mean it isn't happening.
The models exist because they are mathmatical expressions of the various known ranges of the physical propoperties known to affect thermal radiation.
How long have we known about this? Since 1824. Thats before Darwin wrote his treatise on the evolution of the species.
From wikipedia:

The greenhouse effect is a process by which thermal radiation from a planetary surface is absorbed by atmospheric greenhouse gases, and is re-radiated in all directions. Since part of this re-radiation is back towards the surface, energy is transferred to the surface and the lower atmosphere. As a result, the temperature there is higher than it would be if direct heating by solar radiation were the only warming mechanism.[1][2]
This mechanism is fundamentally different from that of an actual greenhouse, which works by isolating warm air inside the structure so that heat is not lost by convection.
The greenhouse effect was discovered by Joseph Fourier in 1824, first reliably experimented on by John Tyndall in 1858, and first reported quantitatively by Svante Arrhenius in 1896.[3]
If an ideal thermally conductive blackbody was the same distance from the Sun as the Earth is, it would have a temperature of about 5.3 °C. However, since the Earth reflects about 30%[4] (or 28%[5]) of the incoming sunlight, the planet's effective temperature (the temperature of a blackbody that would emit the same amount of radiation) is about −18 or −19 °C,[6][7] about 33°C below the actual surface temperature of about 14 °C or 15 °C.[8] The mechanism that produces this difference between the actual surface temperature and the effective temperature is due to the atmosphere and is known as the greenhouse effect.
Global warming, a recent warming of the Earth's surface and lower atmosphere,[9] is believed to be the result of a strengthening of the greenhouse effect mostly due to human-produced increases in atmospheric greenhouse gases.[10

]

The idea that one can be sceptical of something, just because it is complex seems particularly wooly headed. What part of that complex "solution" do you have doubt about? (Thats why all of the models are published and available, by the way. To give a wide range of access to sceptics in order to test the models assumptions.) Do you doubt the weight accruing to the albino efect of arctic ice? Do you think the oceans represent a heat sink that simply isn't given the weight it deserves in the models?
Each one of these competing inquiries is testable and based on the evidence scientific specialists bring to the table. Then a consensus is drawn about the possibility of the parameters' range of effect. And finally the hundreds of variants are examined in the models.
No this isn't perfection, but then thats sceince isn't it?. But we don't need perfection to understand that the underlying theory is supportable, and indeed currently the only explanation for the direction of the global surface temperature.
It strikes me that this is an insiduous attack on the credibility of the scientific expertise of this field based soley on the O'Reilly type maxim, "I don't understand how it works so it can't be true .... "

X SAid:
Sorry. All that's listed there are models, and models are not theories. "Climate Change" is not a mature science and does not yet have any real comprehensive theories.

And just so I'm clear....this is the particular sentence that I find ridiculous.
What science is "mature"? How does one know when we've reached "maturity" in the field of genetics?
Until recently anthropologists believed that modern men came to North and South America over the Alaskan land bridges and then migrated south as the ice and water retreated at the end of the last Ice Age. There was always a question about how we populated the entire hemisphere so quickly however.
Recently DNA testing of materials found that South American indigenous peoples had a great similarity to tribes in Siberia. A new theory evolved that the land bridge was accessible earlier than thought, and that a small coastal area on the Pacific was habitable even in the Ice Age and its down that spine that the first migration occurred. Only after that DNA finding did archeologists begin to focus on finding archilogical evidence for this...and have in a few islands off California.
Does this recent contribution from DNA mean that prior to now Archeology was not a mature science? Does this recent discovery somehow impune the whole "theory" of the migration into North America?
No in both cases. It simply means that we continue to refine our understanding of the world.
The wonderful thing about the global warming debate is that as complex as it is...scientists are trying to make it accessible. Unfortunatley the reason they've gone to these unusal lengths is that the cranks and crack pots have been given an audience for their unsupported claims.
When reasonable people like X make unreasonable statements like the one quoted above , it is infuriating because it demonstrates the level of unreasoned doubt created by the efforts of the crackpots. That people bend over backwards to accept more doubt than a careful examination should produce becasue they've been conditioned by the heat of the unknowing sceptics... This is where the "political" nature of this debate erodes real understanding...
I hope this makes me clear Danivon? Fulham will lose next weekend .

rickyp wrote:When reasonable people like X make unreasonable statements like the one quoted above , it is infuriating because it demonstrates the level of unreasoned doubt created by the efforts of the crackpots. That people bend over backwards to accept more doubt than a careful examination should produce becasue they've been conditioned by the heat of the unknowing sceptics... This is where the "political" nature of this debate erodes real understanding...
I hope this makes me clear Danivon? Fulham will lose next weekend .

Sorry, but I tend to agree with X. The science of Climate Change is not 'mature'. That doesn't make it less scientific, but it does mean that there is reasonable doubt about how accurate it is.

On your last point, are you willing to back that up? I think we can win at Wigan, but a draw is more likely. The Latics are pretty weak, and we have now won three of our last four games.

Sorry, but I tend to agree with X. The science of Climate Change is not 'mature'. That doesn't make it less scientific, but it does mean that there is reasonable doubt about how accurate it is.

On your last point, are you willing to back that up? I think we can win at Wigan, but a draw is more likely. The Latics are pretty weak, and we have now won three of our last four games.

Please define how we know when a science is mature. Is it when the scientists all grow beards?

There is indeed much debate about the various models and some of the parmeters that affect the rate of warming. Most notably the affect of the oceans...
However there is no debate within the climate science community of any significance about whether or not warming is occurring. And any debate about mans part in creating a forcng effect is only about the extent.
In the US there is wide spread public doubt about the science period. When the more narrowly focussed debate within the scientific community about the speed and potential outcome are expressed as scepticism in the science as a whole that feeds into the unsupported and hysterical notions about hoaxes and fraud...
And it also feeds into the "we can't do anything till we know all the answers line of stall". Which is bloody silly. We can never be sure we know everything.


But I know this; If Nzogbia is back, and I beleive he has served his suspension, the Latics will win. Regrettably I will be travelling and miss the televised event, even though its tape delay here.

However there is no debate within the climate science community of any significance about whether or not warming is occurring.

This absolute arrogance is part of the problem. We have posted enough dissenting opinions to claim there is "little" debate or claim "near unanimous agreement" or something along those lines but no, this type of posting shows the sheer arrogance and/or ignorance of any who dare oppose their position. So there is "no debate"? then what is this all about? And this is exactly the problem, this is not "settled science" as some propose, it is in fact "consensus science" and to ignore opposition simply flies in the face of good science and starts to smell more and more like a religion.

tom

So there is "no debate"? then what is this all about?

Ignorance mostly. Fueled by a specific campaign of disinformation, misinformation, and out right dishonesty.
Every time you post one of your dissenting opinions Tom it turns out to have zero evidence and often is the oft debunked meanderings of kooks.That isn't debate.
Its accepted as debate in the US because fundamental religion has such a hold. I mean if you believed scientists on the warming thing, you'd have to dismiss creationism too....

X's comments are much subtler. He sees doubt in the idea of AGW and the supposed immaturity of the specialty of climate science. (Still don't know how you know when a science is "mature or not". Is it like cheese gentlemen?) And he points to the uncertainty of the range of prognostications produced by various models.
But this uncertainty in predictive models is not a justification for skepticism of the theory of AGW itself.
Nor are very many of the effects that are causing AGW uncertain. To conflate uncertainty of a range of prediction with uncertainty in the whole principle is wrong.
My reaction to X is simply that he conflates the two.(And I expect more from him.)
My arguement with you is that you don't understand what is credible scientific evidence , and what isn't.
97% of climate scientists have fundamentally agreed upon AGW, there isn't the kind of debate existent that you point toward. That debate exists only in the realm of the Internet and popular media.
Most scientists involved in advancing the knowledge of theory of AGW aren't listening to that debate. Why would they? What information would they gain?
Is that arrogant?

Again, incredible ignorance and arrogance.
When others disagree, it's a matter of them being wrong, as you state "zero evidence" yet we have genuine scientists who disagree, they are simply labeled "Wrong" and dismissed. Yet science would have you listen to their claims and attempt to explain why they are wrong. That has not happened regardless of how much you wish for it to be the case, instead we have some very vague and general ideas why they "might" be wrong and they are instead labeled as herritics and ignored. Again a case of this looking more like a religion.

Your argument is that I "don't understand what is credible scientific evidence , and what isn't" I am not a scientist, and I may not understand all of the details but here's the kicker, neither do YOU yet you act (again) as if you know all. I instead point to genuine scientists who disagree, people who know what they are speaking of. You yourself point this out ..."97% of climate scientists have fundamentally agreed upon AGW" yet you want to claim ZERO evidence, ZERO debate. Ummm, your own claim of 3% is not zero now is it?

Thanks for playing, you make it sooooo very easy

GMTom wrote:So there is "no debate"? then what is this all about? And this is exactly the problem, this is not "settled science" as some propose, it is in fact "consensus science" and to ignore opposition simply flies in the face of good science and starts to smell more and more like a religion.

There is no real debate within the Climate Science community that warming is happening. There's debate from outside the community about whether it's happening, and there's debate within it as to why. You (indeed all of us, as far as I know) are not part of the climate science community. So that you debate it does not make the statement you object to incorrect. Sorry.

As for 'ignoring opposition', I think you have a cheek. You keep posting, but are yet to address the errors I've pointed out in your assertions.

Thanks for playing

So when are you going to address your own arrogance of repeatedly claiming that the last decade was warmer than the one before it, citing no evidence at all, when it's been shown that you are wrong?

Absolute arrogance yet again!
There is ZERO debate? So this is 100% settled and all agree? What the hell have we been posting from other scientists then? You, in your incredible arrogance, simply ignore any who oppose your position. There is zero debate? That sort of opinion shows exactly why we have such a problem, this most certainly shows the ignorance of your position. Science always leaves room for differing opinions, science is always learning and changing, to accept this as settled when we see so many differing opinions and such poor modeling and forecasting just simply shows your irresponsible side to listen to others.

and what of the last decade being warmer? As far as decades go the previous one was warmer than the current one.

tom
What the hell have we been posting from other scientists then?

Garbage. Mostly you've been posted retread Internet postings that were discredited years ago Tom. Find some actual science and you'll have some respect.
You want the most current stuff that talks up the lower ranges of warming - you can find some pretty dense (as in difficult to follow without a masters I suspect) stuff on the dampening effect of the ocean. And if anything is in the category of "little known" , its our oceans.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sc ... al_warming

...have at it (again) to simply deny everyone is on board with your position is beyond arrogant. Go ahead and knock several off this list, you simply can not claim there are ZERO who disagree with your position. We posted many of these people over and over, you can try and have a position that counters what they say but to deny there are ANY who debate your position is incrdible arrogance plain and simple....I can't believe I bothered to post even one who dissents.