AGW Theory - Discussion

Apparently, you do since you took the time to post.

That's the hilarious thing, as a "developing nation" they are pretty much exempt from and and all carbon related agreements.


No they don't. They take data collected by other scientific fields, then run statistical analysis on it and develop models. There are no climatologists constructing atmospheric chambers and testing CO2 forcing coefficients. They aren't building planet sized biospheres and testing how they respond to various inputs. And this is understandable as we simply don't have the ability to create climates, much less entire plants. All they can do is measure whats in the natural world and then try to find a statistical correlation between variables. Because they can't control for all the inputs, they end up with very large error bars that makes teasing out data really difficult.

Take that CO2 coefficient I keep referring to. It's one of those things that is assumed because attempting to prove it empirically would require constructing an entire solar system just like ours, then controlling for local indigenous populations. That's not possible so instead they need to screen temperature readings and check them against a model, note where it's accurate or inaccurate. What we end up instead is they hard core it into the model and just assume it's "true". That is how they got that graph with predictions that the world would be several degree's hotter now, past the "point of no return" unless we stopped producing CO2 last decade. The model was wrong, it also failed to predict the Medieval Warming Period and the Little Ice Age.

To say that climate science isn't grounded in empirical evidence is a complete lie and not even a remotely believable one at that. There have been publications and actual data linked in this same thread that show otherwise. Meanwhile, the other side of the conversation has yet to provide anything other than readily disprovable fabrications presented by people who balk at the idea of supporting any of it (or the select few who obviously have no idea what the hell is going on but insist on participating.

The sharp dichotomy in any discussion on agw here is apparent to pretty much everyone. The denier argument boils down to basically "nu-uh". Any hard evidence gets ignored and the insane reality where the science isnt undeniably in support of the theory is repeated over and over til it becomes truth.

Question to our, ahem, skeptics: if the observed warming is not the result of anthropogenic forces, then what actually is responsible? Climate is a reactive system that responds to changes in its various inputs so what is inducing this change? And nothing vague like "natural cycles". A real hypothesis.

Nitpicking here, but a model doesn't need to explain things it's not designed to explain. If a model is designed to explain one era of time, you can't fault it for providing incorrect results outside of that range. After all, models are concerned with simulation, not emulation. (If they claimed to have a "universal theory of climate change", they'd be wrong)

You can say that's an inherent flaw of mathematical models: predictive power isn't guaranteed. A model can still be useful if it supplies explanatory power instead of predictive power. I don't know enough to comment on the models currently being examined.

But if researchers simply cannot perform empirical simulations, then what else is there to do besides trust in the models?

This is getting off-track, but all I was trying to clarify is that climatology is not a soft science and goes beyond models. There is plenty of empirical evidence from climate studies, and as a field, it is much more than just looking at climate change.

Did you wanna argue specifically that there aren't any empirical experiments?

Doesn't work that way. A reliable model must predict results in all situations, or close enough to be relied upon. If this wasn't true then airplanes would fall out of the sky, bridges would collapse, and power plants would explode.

If the proposed model can not predict the climate of the future, then why are earth would we put our faith in it? This is science not religion.

Now think long and hard about what you just suggested.

Stop putting words in my mouth. I don't think you're understanding what I'm saying. Nobody is suggesting using nonpredictive models for predictive purposes.

Models do not need to be predictive to be useful. Models can be explanatory instead of predictive. A model does not have to be used for predictive purposes. Implicit in a model is a domain, a context.

If a model can explain climate change for the 1920s-1970s, it isn't useless. You just don't use it for predictive purposes.

That's a very basic principle in social and applied sciences.

EDIT: Again, I'm not making reference to climate change.

If they could do that we wouldn't be having this conversation.


The believer argument always boils down to.

But forget Bill Nye only has an honorary doctorate. "Do I have to point out the pun? I think I do. Because you people actually believe the crap people like him say."

You do realize "natural cycles" is a real weather/climate hypothesis right?

Tell Climate Scientist that.

Climatology is a soft science, this is known. A hard science is a science where it's possible (or ethical) to construct experiments that allow for controlling of variables. Basically active study vs passive. Active is not only observation, but controlling the environment such that you can get a clear picture of what you wish to observe. Passive (soft) is when you can't control the environment and instead must rely on the environment showing you what you want to observe.

Actively studying climate would require the ability to construct artificial climates and then experiment with various conditions. Make a planet and change it's atmosphere, watch what happens. Change it to something else, watch what happens, so forth and so on. This isn't possible and thus climatology must instead passively observe our world and try to infer results from those observations. They are not able to actively alter a climate to observe the results of their alteration. See the various human sciences which have to struggle to get good unbiased data and even then can only speak in percentages of likelihood.

Hard vs soft isn't a good or bad thing so stop taking it as a personal insult. The only difference is the amount of data that is needed to come to a conclusion. Soft sciences need a ***ton more information and their conclusions tend to be murkier with larger error bars. Hard sciences you can just actively test to see if something is true or false, soft sciences you gotta sift through natural observations to tease out that info. Astrophysics is another soft science btw, if only because they operate purely on observation without the ability to create solar systems to actively test hypothesis. It's not a bad thing, just something to keep in mind when discussing degrees "certainty".

There's no motivation to predict historical climate periods like the little ice age or medieval period using global climate models because they weren't global phenomenon.
Exactly.

Umm you most certainly are cause that's the purpose of this entire thread.

That was supposed to be *not only referencing climate change

what I was describing applies to all models everywhere

Climate science is basically a combination of physics and chemistry and comes with a mix of experimental and observational evidence, theoretical and applied. Saevel's trying to conflate "soft science" with pseudoscience for obvious reasons.
"Natural cycles" is like saying Jesus did it - vague and untestable. There needs to be some physical factor to which climate responds.

And Bill Nye? Huh? He's not a climate scientist. I can't imagine you being able to name an actual one.

Two things:

1) Hard and soft sciences themselves are loosely defined, but it doesn't change the fact that there is empirical, objective evidence and research in climatology (modeling or otherwise)
2) Only reason I even bothered to make the correction was for DBP's benefit, since he seemed a bit thrown off by something you said

Freeman Dyson

And no, lol. Natural cycles isn't like saying Jesus did it. The only religion we have been talking about is AGW try to stay on topic, please.

So applies to all models except the ones which actually are for prediction?

Kinda like "I'm always right except when I'm wrong".

You really need to read up on current climate change theory because you have the cart before the horse.

A: If we assume X to be 1 then we can predict Y to be 2
B: Since we assumed Y to be 2 we can predict X to be 1


That logic can not be used to prove something since it's correctness is based on assuming it's correct. It's true only because you assumed it to be true not because you proved it to be true. Assumption of existence is not proof of existence.

Models are used to test hypothesis against real data, and if reliable to extrapolate / predict results not of real data. Models of the 20th century are only true because they are assumed to be true, when data not of the 20th century is fed into them they produce incorrect results, which in turn demonstrates the underlying math and assumptions are not correct. Physics doesn't change between centuries, the speed of light wasn't faster or slower 200 years ago. Thermodynamics didn't suddenly change. The universe doesn't rewrite itself every couple of centuries.

Doesn't exist for climatology.

Stating something multiple times doesn't make you right. You can't argue yourself right.

Hard / Soft are most certainly vague categories, they still exist as a way to define how we interpret findings. Measuring the speed of light via experimentation has a whole different level of reliability then surveying 10,000 people or running a statistical analysis on a large dataset. One is empirical, the others aren't.

They sure do try.

Freeman Dyson is not a climate scientist.

"Natural cycles" implies that something in nature has changed and climate has reacted to it. What is it that has changed?

this was supposed to be a minor point

by "all models" I meant they fall under "explanatory" or "predictive" categories

https://www.stat.berkeley.edu/~aldous/157/Papers/shmueli.pdf
http://www.pmrjournal.org/article/S1934-1482(14)01312-4/abstract
http://iew3.technion.ac.il/seminar_files/1197276984_galit-abstract.pdf
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.421.6199&rep=rep1&type=pdf
http://www.mwsug.org/proceedings/2008/stats/MWSUG-2008-S03.pdf

A model which fails to predict can still provide insight into the ways the input variables map onto output

You just have to be careful about how you scope it

We can still learn from explanatory models

EDIT: making models is one of the things I do for a career

Odd, He fits exactly what you claim one to need.


Freeman John Dyson FRS (born 15 December 1923) is an English-born American theoretical physicist and mathematician, known for his work in quantum electrodynamics, solid-state physics, astronomy and nuclear engineering.[5][6] Dyson is a member of the Board of Sponsors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.[7]
At America's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Dyson was looking at the climate system before it became a hot political issue, over 25 years ago.

Hell, he even supports Obama and believes somewhat in AGW. Yet, he say things like.

Guaranteed he has better credentials than all your "Climate Scientists"

Ever since you got back you have made 0 contribution to this thread, all you did was dismiss over 25 pages of discussions with "so you're all wrong" all the while being clueless about the topic.

Pls uninstall.

Isolated experimentation is not always needed as part of empirical evidence. You can empirically prove how albedo affects climate and the atmosphere without needing to build your own planet.

I'll never figure out how you get other people to pay you to make them.... isn't all the fun of models putting it together?

Theoretical physics is not what pleebo was talking about. The physics of climate science are Newtonian or Einsteinian, not quantum.

That's not to say Dyson doesn't know basically everything about those schools, but they are different fields. It's like saying you are an expert on dogs because you kept cattle, for example.

the alanis morrisette irony of this statement nearly killed me....

your "proof" that agw isn't real is two threads on a third party hack website for a dying fourteen year old japanese video game and a blog on a conspiracy theory website?

let's pretend not everyone has time to back read old threads and perhaps you could make an argument that....idk... has some factual data in it? maybe a link to something that isn't a tinfoil hat blog?

any relevant information would do...

freeman dyson believes in agw... I don't want to tell you how to argue... but maybe find someone that agrees with you?

"Dyson agrees that anthropogenic global warming exists, and has written that "[one] of the main causes of warming is the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere resulting from our burning of fossil fuels such as oil and coal and natural gas."

wikipedia

I'm going to an ophthalmologist for knee surgery since all doctors are the same.

Years of false predictions, decades really, and yet the alarmists still tout the "science" card like they've predicted everything correct all along.

Makes me laugh.

Some predictions are made, sometimes they are close, other times they are off. If you know there's a 50/50 chance of flipping a coin and getting heads, that doesn't mean that getting 3 or 4 in a row invalidates that 50/50 chance.