Global Warming

[VillagePlank]

I have no access to the source data or techniques and, like you, are regurgitating points of view derived from those of others.

In my opinion, the jury is still out. If the climatology community cannot agree on what is and what isn't good science then I think I have every right to suspect guises of political, or fiscal gain; which not only does not make for good science, it is, I think, appalling science.

A quick google finds about as many articles for the graph as against it.

The most recent official speech (11th July 2006) from Edward Wegman, chair of the National Academy of Sciences’ Committee on Applied and Theoretical Statistics says:

It is important to note the isolation of the paleoclimate community; even though they rely heavily on statistical methods they do not seem to be interacting with the statistical community. Additionally, we judge that the sharing of research materials, data and results was haphazardly and grudgingly done. In this case we judge that there was too much reliance on peer review, which was not necessarily independent. Moreover, the work has been sufficiently politicized that this community can hardly reassess their public positions without losing credibility. Overall, our committee believes that Dr. Mann’s assessments that the decade of the 1990s was the hottest decade of the millennium and that 1998 was the hottest year of the millennium cannot be supported by his analysis

Furthermore he contends that:

Our committee believes that the assessments that the decade of the 1990s was the hottest decade in a millennium and that 1998 was the hottest year in a millennium cannot be supported by the MBH98/99 analysis. As mentioned earlier in our background section, tree ring proxies are typically calibrated to remove low frequency variations. The cycle of Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age that was widely recognized in 1990 has disappeared from the MBH98/99 analyses, thus making possible the hottest decade/hottest year claim. However, the methodology of MBH98/99 suppresses this low frequency information. The paucity of data in the more remote past makes the hottest-in-a-millennium claims essentially unverifiable.

I have no idea how reliable the committee, nor it's constituents or governing body are. For all I know they are funded by Esso, BP, or worse Exxon

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

If you want (or need) a line of defence then the most logical form is to dismiss the importance of the graph corrected, or otherwise (so, by implication, whether or not Mann's work is good or bad, it will always stand as irrelevant)

The original graph purports to show that the most recent years have a significantly unmatched (in the last millienium) rise in temperature anomaly against the mean. The corrected version shows that it's happened before.

If you consider that this is not a claim that either supports nor disproves GW then you are well on your way. GW claims that the atmosphere is warming regardless of what it has done in the past. The Earth was certainly immensely warm when the Earth was first coagulating, but, I presume you agree, that is entirely, and justifiably irrelevant.

What I think is relevant is the question: is mankinds impact on our biosphere the primary driver for the current warming trend? Effectively, I would argue, that the questions being asked are the wrong ones; or at least a question where the answer you will receive will have no bearing on the outcome you are trying to predict. I am still stuck on finding verifiable data that shows a global warming trend, so all this hockey-stick talk leaves me way out on a limb. I should learn to keep my mouth shut!

(That, unfortunately, is the best line of defence I could dream up as a retort after a few pints of Guinness, sorry , there are holes in it - I'll leave it to the reader to have fun with it )

Edited August 2, 2006 by Wilson

[parmenides3]

Wikipedia has an interesting article on Mann and the 'Hockey stick debate'.

Mann himself responds to the Wegman hearing on his site.

Regardless of Mann's findings, what the majority of the scientific community (as far as I, an amateur, can ascertain)seem to broadly agree on is:

1. We are going through a warming phase.

2. Since the 1950's, the rate of acceleration of the warming is faster than can be attributed to known climate variables and historical or proxy data.

3. Over perhaps a 200 year period, and specifically a 50 year period, there is a close correlation between the rise in level of CO2 in the atmosphere and the rise in temperature.

4. Other forcing mechanisms (e.g. solar irradiance) have yet to be proven to have an effect which matches the known data. (This doesn't mean there aren't any).

5. Observation and analysis in many disciplines, beyond palaeoclimatology, indicate changes to the world/environment which are consistent with GW (think Botany, Marine Biology, Meteorology).

6. The phase of warming is likely to continue beyond our lifetimes, irrespective of other forcing mechanisms or counter-strategies like sulphate aerosol 'seeding' or volcanic eruptions (perhaps a VEI 8/9 might make a difference).

There are other points, but I can't be bothered.

Additionally, as things stand, nobody has (yet) offered a counter-hypothesis to AGW which has been taken seriously by the (scientific) community as a whole, either because of discreditation or lack of evidence.

I don't want to believe in anything in particular, being a philosopher by training, and thus a 'natural' skeptic, but I've already read enough, at a level of discussion which I can comprehend without specialisation, to convince me that the phenomenon (GW) is real, that things aren't likely to change in the foreseeable future, and that we ('society') would be well served by a discussion about what we should be doing to adapt, rather than whether or not there's a problem.

If this all sounds rather gloomy and serious, I apologise. I'm probably wrong, anyway.

[VillagePlank]

Regardless of Mann's findings, what the majority of the scientific community (as far as I, an amateur, can ascertain)seem to broadly agree . . .

This is what I find, generally, objectional.

Science is about finding the truth; if you have the truth, and you can prove that you have the truth, then that is enough. Instead we get words such as 'agreement,' 'consensus' and the such like.

If there's absolute proof, then let's have it out in the open. If there isn't, then admit there isn't.

I often read statements that 'the world is warming - this is a fact' This may, or may not, be true; this may or may not be an established scientific fact. I cannot find any corroberating source data that confirms this, nor will the agencies who, I'm sure, have the data, release it to me for my own personal analysis. Graphs, as I've said (and hopefully justified) elsewhere on this forum, are not a reliable source of data. They can, and often are, skewed beyond all pale to represent a view that cannot be justified, verified, or validated.

Thus, I am forced to conclude, that the majority of debate is based on 'second-hand' opinion; apart from the obvious symbiotic osmosis to current scientific opinion, I can see no way that someone (such as myself) can independently verify any claims that are being made.

This is a (very) unfortunate observation which leads to conclusions that are, at the very very least, unpalatable and disarming, and one is left to muse on what, rather than an apolitical search for truth, stinks of politics, money, and worst of all corruption of the very principles that ensure scientists maintain the search for truth: this is an endeavour that has, by historical induction, proved itself many times over to ensure not only the survival of the species, and the extension of our lifetimes, but increased the possibility of providing a standard of living that one can only dream of.

The mode of inquiry for the justification of either the world is warming, the world is not warming, or the world is cooling, do not, to me, appear to follow any of the sound scientific principles first used in De Magnete and, of course, which have been used consistently well for centuries, regardless of technological aptitude, or aspect.

Edited August 2, 2006 by Wilson

[Anti-Mild]

(perhaps a VEI 8/9 might make a difference).

Not to be pedantic but an 8 is the highest you can get and the last known VEI 8 was Toba about 73,000 years ago. I would suggest a 6 or 7 (Krakatao or Tambora) would impact the climate to some degree.

[Thundery wintry showers]

With regards "the world is warming, this is a fact", one needs to look at sources like the NCDC Climate reports, NASA, and the East Anglia Climate Research Unit's measurements of global temperature. All sources suggest that temperatures have risen by about 0.5C over the past 30 years, averaged globally, albeit with a somewhat greater warming in the Northern Hemisphere than in the Southern.

I did see some research that suggested that up to half of the warming in the Northern Hemisphere could be attributable to changes in synoptic patterns, but that synoptics could not account for any of the Southern Hemisphere warming. However, that, in the case of the Northern Hemisphere, could in itself be a positive feedback mechanism (anomalous synoptics probably connected to the background warming)

As far as anecdotal evidence goes, we are seeing far more high temperature records broken than low temperature ones, and over Europe certainly, it is almost beyond dispute that regional temperatures have risen by in order of 0.5-1.0C over the past 30 years.

So, at least IMHO, we do have proof that the globe has warmed up in the past 30 years. However, I do acknowledge that there is no definite proof that humans are causing, or partly responsible for, the current warming- there is a lot of evidence for, and not much against, but not conclusive.

I actually think that the main problem stems not from how scientists go about proving or disproving "global warming", it's how the media and politicians latch onto it to fulfil other agendas or justify finding new sources of revenue. If a scientist comes up with a reasoned, balanced point of view, chances are it will be twisted to something extreme.

[Methuselah]

But science does not 'prove' anything? It merely sets up an hypothesis along with the means of testing that hypothesis; only when said hypothesis has passed numerous such tests, does it cease to be 'provisional'. Whilst, from a purely logical (and sometimes, therfore, perhaps even vacuous?) standpoint, the success in passing all such tests does not amount to absolute proof...it does however go quite a way towards making the veracity of some claims rather more tenable than the converse, IMO...

I personally don't trust logic: too many innocent people get incarcerated because of the ease with which laywers can exploit it to baboozle jurys for my liking. Unfortunately, what is logical is not always true?

Edited August 2, 2006 by Pete Tattum

[Gray-Wolf]

Not to be pedantic but an 8 is the highest you can get and the last known VEI 8 was Toba about 73,000 years ago. I would suggest a 6 or 7 (Krakatao or Tambora) would impact the climate to some degree.

Genetic records show that Toba left humanity hanging by a thread (a couple of thousand breeding pairs) but may have done humanity a favour by changing the 'Alpha male' way of social organisation.

I find the debate as to AGW vs cyclic warming beside the point, whatever kills the crops kills the crops (so why aportion the blame?) If we are warming we'd better look quick at areas of the planet that could be developed for agriculture (Russian Steppe?) and do some developing quicksharp.

[parmenides3]

Several points here.

'agreement' is my choice of term. Of course it is characteristic of the scientific community to use such terms; language is such a problem in scientific debate that there is a tendency to hedge bets and use terms which allow for interpretation.

Are you looking for 'proof' of Global Warming ? There are many sets of data which are readily available. If you don't trust the data source, it's hard to know what you would accept as 'proof'. More helpfully, I found the scientific report of the Arctic Climate Impacts Assessment (ACIA) (2004) both detailed and convincing. Over 500 scientists contributed. The report is over 1000 pages long (you don't have to read all of it!). It contains a large number of independently produced findings of a variety of research projects. They could all be conspiring, and they could all be wrong. I recommend it to you as a plausibly acceptable selection of 'evidence'.

You are, of course, correct in saying that most of the debate is second-hand, but there are two seperate concerns to deal with. As TWS says, a lot of the 'debate' is media-driven. Personally, I treat all such debate as suspect, not least because there is such a tendency to misrepresent actual findings in search of 'news'. I always read 'media' discussions of GW with caution. But you should also recognise that there are thousands of sincere, rigorous scientists and analysts working very hard to find out the facts; we don't have time to do all the work they do, not in a lifetime. If there work is not successfully peer-reviewed, it will not be published in a reputable reference work, so they have to make sure that their work is at least well-reasoned. I feel it is a mistake to confuse the work done by scientists with the use put to it by politicians, agencies and journalists.

Of course, the max. VEI is an 8. Silly me! Call it a typo. And yes, a VEI 5 or 6 would have an impact, but probably not enough, for long enough (you can dispute this if you wish).

Although you are quite right to distrust logic, Pete, and you are right in saying that 'logic' alone can 'prove' almost anything (Bertrand Russell famously 'proved' using logic alone, that 2+2=5). But that does not dispose of the need to use reason. Reason is the only means we have to test assertions, and logic (or at least Formal Logic) is simply the attempt to systematise reason and eliminate inconsistency or inaccuracy, especially with the way in which language causes confusion. Lawyers don't necessarily use logic, they use the law, which is different; again, it's not the tool, but the use to which the tool is put which creates obfuscation.

As far as trusting 'science' is concerned, whilst I am out of date on current theory, Karl Popper's principle of Falsifiability is a reasonable criterion on which to base the validity of a scientific 'proof'; it requires the openness of data, the production of results, and the rigorous (that word again) demonstration that the conclusion follows from the premiss.

I hope that covers everything.

[Methuselah]

Although you are quite right to distrust logic, Pete, and you are right in saying that 'logic' alone can 'prove' almost anything (Bertrand Russell famously 'proved' using logic alone, that 2+2=5). But that does not dispose of the need to use reason. Reason is the only means we have to test assertions, and logic (or at least Formal Logic) is simply the attempt to systematise reason and eliminate inconsistency or inaccuracy, especially with the way in which language causes confusion. Lawyers don't necessarily use logic, they use the law, which is different; again, it's not the tool, but the use to which the tool is put which creates obfuscation.

As far as trusting 'science' is concerned, whilst I am out of date on current theory, Karl Popper's principle of Falsifiability is a reasonable criterion on which to base the validity of a scientific 'proof'; it requires the openness of data, the production of results, and the rigorous (that word again) demonstration that the conclusion follows from the premiss.

Thanks for that, Parmenides3...It was the bit about Karl Popper's principle that I was getting at. You explain it far more eloquently than can I!

[parmenides3]

[VillagePlank]

Thanks for that, Parmenides3...It was the bit about Karl Popper's principle that I was getting at. You explain it far more eloquently than can I!

Karl Popper also wrote Common sense inclines, on the one hand, to assert that every event is caused by some preceding events, so that every event can be explained or predicted. Do you believe this to be the case regarding the weather on a particular day, 6 months from now, at noon? I'd like to see you try

William Gilbert of Colchester, whom, I believe, deserves pride of place in any account of the scientific method, was the first person to clearly set out in print the essence of the scientific method: In the discovery of hidden causes, stronger reasons are obtained from sure experiments and demonstrated arguments than from probable conjectures and the opinions of philosophical speculators of the common sort . . .De Magnete,1600

Gilbert believed, as the majority of scientists believe today, that good science requires a hypothesis that makes a prediction; the prediction occurs, the science is validated, and then the method is verified (blindly) by peers. The key, of course, is demonstrated arguments of which, with global warming, there are none. We cannot predict the Co2 output of the human race, because we cannot predict what size the population will be; even the IPCC reports accept this: this is, of course, only relevant if you believe that Co2 is the prime forcing mechanism of recent warming.

Can you name one climatological prediction that has ever actually occured that, statistically, justifies the proposition? I can think of many, but none have come true.

I will investigate further the notion that we can measure the earth's temperature, so, as of yet, I cannot comment upon it.

So, are we going to agree, then, that the really important question, that few people in the public arena seems to want to ask, is not 'what's happening?', but 'how are we going to ameliorate the coming problems' . . .

Certainly not! We do not even know whether the human population will love the warmer climate if it occurs at all Edited August 2, 2006 by Wilson

[Methuselah]

Karl Popper also wrote Common sense inclines, on the one hand, to assert that every event is caused by some preceding events, so that every event can be explained or predicted. Do you believe this to be the case regarding the weather on a particular day, 6 months from now, at noon? I'd like to see you try

No, certainly I would NOT try, Wilson! What would be the point?

[Anti-Mild]

Of course, the max. VEI is an 8. Silly me! Call it a typo. And yes, a VEI 5 or 6 would have an impact, but probably not enough, for long enough (you can dispute this if you wish).

I don't believe that a VEI 5 or 6 would impact the climate that much. Even a 7 like Tambora only altered temps by 0.3c.

There is also the fact that a large eruption has to be the 'right kind'. Firstly it has to expel a huge amount of ash or aerosols. It also has to be near the tropics to impact globally.

[parmenides3]

Note, though, that Popper is referring to 'common sense', not reason. I don't think he had a high opinion of 'common sense'. What he is getting at is the tendency to infer from the principle of cause and effect that all effects have explainable causes, and all events have consequences, therefore we can explain everything and predict everything, a belief which is commonplace but ill-founded.

How about this (or am I being cheeky?). Yes; I predict now that February 2nd 2007 will be colder than today, August 2nd 2006. Because it's the middle of Winter.

Thanks for the reference to Gilbert; he's new to me and new material is always welcome. As far as I can see, what he is getting at is that reasoned deductions from observed fact is preferable to conjecture and abstract hypothesis. I've got no argument with that. I'm less clear on your reasoning on the process of verification, but I'll take your word for it.

Your observation on the demonstrated hypothesis of GW is, of course, the nub. Skeptics (nothing wrong with skepticism) argue that, as the hypothesis is not absolutely proven, then it shouldn't be accepted. But it is reasonable to infer that, if the weight of evidence shows that the world is warming, that this is the case. Of course it could be false, but it is reasonable.

I believe, but I'll check, that you can get access to the archived datasets of temperature records from NCEP, as public access material.

[VillagePlank]

Note, though, that Popper is referring to 'common sense', not reason. I don't think he had a high opinion of 'common sense'. What he is getting at is the tendency to infer from the principle of cause and effect that all effects have explainable causes, and all events have consequences, therefore we can explain everything and predict everything, a belief which is commonplace but ill-founded.

I agree.

How about this (or am I being cheeky?). Yes; I predict now that February 2nd 2007 will be colder than today, August 2nd 2006. Because it's the middle of Winter.

Yes, you're being cheeky

Thanks for the reference to Gilbert; he's new to me and new material is always welcome. As far as I can see, what he is getting at is that reasoned deductions from observed fact is preferable to conjecture and abstract hypothesis. I've got no argument with that. I'm less clear on your reasoning on the process of verification, but I'll take your word for it.

He was the first person ever to explain, in writing, about the scientific method. Most people attribute such a thing to Galileo; but they're wrong. Galileo did, of course, use Gilbert's method.

Your observation on the demonstrated hypothesis of GW is, of course, the nub. Skeptics (nothing wrong with skepticism) argue that, as the hypothesis is not absolutely proven, then it shouldn't be accepted.

But the predictions made in the past to not concur with observations made today. On that basis it might be considered reasonable to assume that climatology is incapable of producing, implementing, and testing a working hypothesis. I do not, actually, think that this is true, because there is the clear argument that climatology has moved on a long way in the last 30 years.

But it is reasonable to infer that, if the weight of evidence shows that the world is warming, that this is the case. Of course it could be false, but it is reasonable.

There are, I'm sure, countless examples where the 'weight of scientific evidence' especially when evidence is produced under the guise of consensus, has been proven to be invalid. I'll have a look around, and I'm sure I'll find some. The first example is the American dreamt theory of eugenics . . . scientifically valid under the weight of what we knew at the time, but, I hope, everyone will agree, a complete and utter waste of time. I'll dig out the details.

I believe, but I'll check, that you can get access to the archived datasets of temperature records from NCEP, as public access material.

oooh yes, please Edited August 2, 2006 by Wilson

[parmenides3]

I'll respond to the 'do not concur' assertion when I find the example I've already seen.

Of course, scientific hypotheses are always being disproven, then revised. Arguably, eugenics and other examples could be shown to be based on false assumptions, even at the time they were 'fashionable' (let's not talk about 'magnetism'!). In order to convincingly cast doubt on the 'consensus' that GW is happening, it is simply required that one establishes which assumption(s) are not well-founded; this is the challenge to the skeptics.

It's not what I mentioned earlier, but the NCDC has a free (for online use) dataset called 'Surface data, global summary of day' on http://www4.ncdc.noaa.gov/cgi-win/wwcgi.dll?

Alternatively, I found the complete CET record on the Met's website:

click on 'education' on the top menu, go to 'A level'; historic data; free data; Central England Temperature. http://www.met-office.gov.uk/research/hadl...bsdata/cet.html

By the way, the noaa-derived datasets are delivered in ASCII2 format.

[VillagePlank]

Format's not a problem, I am a programmer by day. almost as bad as being an accountant . . .I've avoided the Met CET series as they've already been processed, and are already a mean which, I think, introduces some flattening of bumps and humps. I've asked them for the data for one station but they claimed that I wanted it for commerical purposes (not true) and wanted to give me a formal business quote. Charming.

The gist of my approach was to strip back to first principles, much in the vein of what you are saying, and actually have a look at what the data, rather than some media outlet, says it means. Make me own mind up, if you will.

I was keeping magnetism in my back pocket for a rainy day

I'll check out the data soon, and report back!!

Many thanks, btw. Cheers

Edited August 2, 2006 by Wilson

[parmenides3]

In response to your earlier comment that 'the predictions made in the past do not concur with observations made today'. I have attached a rather lengthy section from the ACIA scientific report. I hope they don't get too upset.

I note that the report does say that the observations of recent data do concur with the predictions of the CC models based on GHC emissions, BUT that, as far as they are concerned, the evidence is not yet overwhelming. (My words) But it makes for an interesting read, anyway, and might provide either the sources or the type of material which would satisfy your demanding criteria for acceptable evidence. And cheers!

ACIA_Ch02_Final.pdf

[Thundery wintry showers]

As for the debate on the consensus view that humans are probably contributing at least in part to the warming.

I tend not to take a blanket view on consensuses and general agreement- it depends on how the consensus is reached.

A consensus reached by different people thinking about an issue in different ways, taking on board other points of view and looking at different angles, yet generally coming up with the same conclusions, is a consensus view that most likely has a lot of truth in it, and may well be completely correct.

However, a consensus reached by acceptance without question (i.e. "I believe in this consensus view; everyone who also believes it will be accepted, but anyone who even dares to question it, let alone disagree with it, is evil, worthless and deserves to be shot") doesn't carry as much weight. Often, in fact, the more defensive people are about a consensus view, the more likely it is that it is flawed (i.e. people realise that it is flawed, and so resort to personal attacks in order to detract from the flaw in the consensus view)

I get the impression that most hardcore environmentalists fall more into the second category, but there are many scientists out there who fall more into the first category, yet come up with similar (albeit less exaggerated/extreme) conclusions.

[Stratos Ferric]

As I am sure you are aware 98/100 is just as probable as 1/100. A random series always contains 'clusters' that do not describe an infinite series.

[edit]OK, I'm being a touch pedantic[/edit]

That wasn't my point. My point was that the odds against 98 tosses from a thousand landing the same way are so long and against as for any conclusion other than inherent bias to not be worth considering.

My maths has it that there are 4950 ways of permutating just 2 H/T from 100 tosses in an UNBIASED coin. There are also 2^100 possible permutations. All other things being equal, but assuming the 2/100 (or 98/100 viewed from the other tail) permutations occured within 4950 equally sized intervals, and assuming one second per toss of the coin, it would take around 8 x 10^19 years before such a series occurred if one were to start tossing a coin now. If everyone in the world tossed coins (say 5 billion people), and assuming an average lifespan of 80 years, it would still take 202 million generations before such an outcome arose. My maths MIGHT be awry, but such is the improbability of such disproportionate occurrences that I can happily accept these orders of magnitude.

Precisely this sort of improbablistic reasoning is sometimes put forwards by creationists, by the way, to argue against natural evolution; in this latter case, however, the huge number of opportunities multiplied by infathimably long spans of time involved tend to work to drive the probability back towards 1.

[parmenides3]

A consensus reached by different people thinking about an issue in different ways, taking on board other points of view and looking at different angles, yet generally coming up with the same conclusions, is a consensus view that most likely has a lot of truth in it, and may well be completely correct.

Hence my tendency to broadly accept the findings of the ACIA report. Which, incidentally, ascribes 'very probable' to GW and 'probable' to AGW. In scientific community terms, this is a strong consensus.

Sorry, Stratosferric, my 'O' level maths isn't up to it. But surely, the likelihood of any given cluster occuring in any part of the sequence is equal, therefore it might not take so long; it should take that long, but it might not. Am I being dense? Oh, and I lost track of how this fits in to the GW thread; can you remind me?

[VillagePlank]

... it would take around 8 x 10^19 years before such a series occurred if one were to start tossing a coin now.

No! The odds on winning the lottery are 13.9m:1; does a winner exercise each combination to win the lottery? Of course not. Try an experiment; get a coin and flip it 20 times - do you believe the distribution of heads/tails will be equal? Try it 100 times, 1000 times, 10,000 times; the more you approach the limit (tending towards infinity) the closer to the expected distribution you will get. Probability is concerned with an infinite, not restricted, series.

Roll a die. You get a 1. What is the probability of getting a 1 next time? 1/6, not the common misconception that by rolling the 1 you reduce your chances of getting a 1 next time. Each time you roll the die you have a 1/6 chance of getting any of the six numbers. This is the case if you have a 20,000 die: Each number has a 1/20,000 chance of occuring.

On that basis clusters are expected. Take, for example, my coin flip experiment: THHTHHTTTTTTTHTHTTHH. 12 T, 8 H. I'm afraid you'll have to take my word for the accuracy of the reported results (they are, actually, what happened)

What can we say. We can say that there is, if taken in isolation, a statistically significant cluster of T's to the left of the middle. We can say, that there is a (very) slight bias to T given the usage of a 5p (2000 issue) coin.

But we can also say that the frequency of H increase as we head towards the last one. Is this meaningful? In this simple experiment - of course not! What's amusing is the human beings ability to match patterns. My simple series can be extrapolated onto the paleo-record (at many scales) The cluster of T's of course is the Maunder minimum, the greater frequency of H's is AGW, and on we go.

Can we derive any meaningful content from this. No! It's just fun with probabilities; but you can see how, if you do not understand what it means - ie it's semantics - then you can extrapolate, and worse, provide reasoning and logic that supports your claim.

Sorry, Stratosferric, my 'O' level maths isn't up to it. But surely, the likelihood of any given cluster occuring in any part of the sequence is equal, therefore it might not take so long; it should take that long, but it might not. Am I being dense? Oh, and I lost track of how this fits in to the GW thread; can you remind me?

No parmenides, you are right. The possibility of a cluster occuring anywhere in the sequence is equiprobable.

[Anti-Mild]

An interesting article on BBC today:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5236482.stm

More food for thought?

[parmenides3]

An interesting article on BBC today:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5236482.stm

More food for thought?

Absolutely. Why, one asks, would the report choose to use a loaded phrase like 'climate porn' when describing the output of media alarmists? Do we suppose that they might have imagined that such an expression might make their report more newsworthy? Surely not! That would be sensationalist, wouldn't it?

More seriously, the worry about this kind of report, which is probably reasonable in its assessment of the way in which the media report climate change, is the use to which it is put by the nay-sayers. Have a look on 'Junkscience.com', a well known hard-core anti-GW site; they jump on it as further proof that there is no GW. The argument goes; 'the media are producing 'climate porn'; they are exaggerating the GW issue, ergo, there isn't really an issue at all. A classic, but easily misunderstood, non-sequitur. Pots & ketlles on this one, old son.

[Anti-Mild]

The only thing that is going to solve this issue definitively is time. There is no doubt that the world is warming, there is no doubt that man is a factor. Where there is doubt is how much of an influence synoptics have on the warming, how much the sun is affecting the climate, what effect polar melting will have, and so on....

What I cannot fathom is why do 'scientists' trot out extraordinary estimates for the rate of warming over the next century when the data set is nowhere near complete.

For what it is worth, I believe it could go either way; there could be an ongoing warming trend or the reverse could be true, as I said before, time will tell.

AM