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Post by socold on Jul 10, 2009 18:42:28 GMT
A war of models would be science. If the skeptics put up a model that showed low climate sensitivity it would be possible to compare it and narrow down the causes, ie what makes the difference between low and high sensitivity. No it wouldn't work out that way. The people criticizing the modeling approach to climate policy; aren't doing models because they see it as the wrong tool for the job. Most of them believe you need to be able to model the alternatives such as clouds, magnetism, and xray flux. But none of that can be done because of either a lack of understanding of their forcing effects or a lack of understanding of their physical mechanisms. The lack of understanding creates uncertainty rather than complete lack of knowledge and that uncertainty in understanding doesn't cover low sensitivity. So there would have to be something wrong with current understanding of climate in order for high senstivitiy to be wrong. Nothing to do with frauds and conspiracies, it's simply that current understanding of how the climate works does strongly point to high climate sensitivity. And that is why so many people (including me) don't dismiss it.
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Post by socold on Jul 10, 2009 19:01:44 GMT
(1) If sensitivity is low, modeling is pointless. Natural variation would completely overwhelm the CO2 warming and due to the chaotic nature of the natural systems...it cannot be properly modeled anyway (this is actually the same for high sensitivity models but it's just much worse for low sensitivity ones) (2) if there aren't powerful feedbacks there's no need to model at all. There aren't substantial secondary affects just straight forward warming. The simple math (which falls short of course) is about all that's needed. (3) If sensitivity is low...WHO CARES ABOUT CO2? The changes will be trivial, modeling is unnecessary, especially considering answer #1. Climate models would still be useful if they showed low climate sensitivity. If for nothing else, just for showing that result. But they would be useful in many other ways beside, as they are a necessary means of seeing the implications of theory in order to test it against the real world. If there was no AGW, there would still be climate models. In fact there were climate models long before the term "manmade global warming" existed. The models DO NOT WORK THAT WAY! How do you miss this? If they KNOW how it works they don't need to model the damn thing.[/QUOTE] They have an idea of how small components of climate work and can describe equations for their behavior like convection in the atmosphere and ocean, radiation, ice formation, etc. But no human mind can comprehend or visualize the complexity of the interactions between all these components to see what the sum of the parts is. Noone can visualize the impact of a single component of climate on the whole. There are too many interactions. That's why computers are used to get an idea of the sum of the parts. All the models built in such a way find that Earth warms 2-4C in response to a 4wm-2 forcing.
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Post by Ratty on Jul 10, 2009 23:39:55 GMT
Socold: "But no human mind can comprehend or visualize the complexity of the interactions between all these components to see what the sum of the parts is. Noone can visualize the impact of a single component of climate on the whole. There are too many interactions. "
I agree but what design mechanism do you think climate modelers use? I suspect it might be the human mind too.
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Post by magellan on Jul 11, 2009 0:38:34 GMT
Socold: "But no human mind can comprehend or visualize the complexity of the interactions between all these components to see what the sum of the parts is. Noone can visualize the impact of a single component of climate on the whole. There are too many interactions. " I agree but what design mechanism do you think climate modelers use? I suspect it might be the human mind too. Humans aren't responsible for Windoze, or economic models either.
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Post by poitsplace on Jul 11, 2009 5:01:14 GMT
The lack of understanding creates uncertainty rather than complete lack of knowledge and that uncertainty in understanding doesn't cover low sensitivity. So there would have to be something wrong with current understanding of climate in order for high senstivitiy to be wrong. Nothing to do with frauds and conspiracies, it's simply that current understanding of how the climate works does strongly point to high climate sensitivity. And that is why so many people (including me) don't dismiss it. It's like that joke, we're 90% certain it's X but we're only about 70% sure of that. Again the most fundamental flaw is the assumption that the majority of the warming of the warm period is from CO2. Almost all of the CO2 was added since that last warm period yet we've warmed less than .5C since then. There are numerous methods in the hemming and hawing of the AGW camp to explain away this idea but they're all loads of crap. The bottom line is you've fixated on the warming rate of the 80s and 90s. Everything else points to that NOT being the case. You guys LITERALLY confuse and delude yourselves with too much information. Here are a couple of examples. "Well it didn't warm as much during the cooling period because there's a lag". Well if there's a lag, why the hell did temperatures STOP going up? Shouldn't the rate have increased? We've had 10 years without warming...deal with it. Embrace the reality. If there's a lag what the heck is this lack of warming from? "Aerosols are hiding some of the warming." So that's the answer, right away you explain away a LACK of evidence by making the problem more complex. Crazy thought here...aerosols generally warm colder regions (like Siberia for example). There's been warming in the arctic where pollution is more likely and none in the antarctic where there's no industry nearby. Much of the "global" warming is from the arctic region. Crazy thought here, what if the (unnecessary) attempt to explain why it's NOT warming as much as you expected...has inadvertently hidden the source of some of the warming? Again, there's no little ACTUAL evidence that the feedbacks are powerful...there's just conjecture based on a 20 year period of warming. With your AGW blinders on that might be a good correlation but any observation outside that period shows it for what it is...junk science.
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Post by socold on Jul 11, 2009 10:19:34 GMT
The lack of understanding creates uncertainty rather than complete lack of knowledge and that uncertainty in understanding doesn't cover low sensitivity. So there would have to be something wrong with current understanding of climate in order for high senstivitiy to be wrong. Nothing to do with frauds and conspiracies, it's simply that current understanding of how the climate works does strongly point to high climate sensitivity. And that is why so many people (including me) don't dismiss it. It's like that joke, we're 90% certain it's X but we're only about 70% sure of that. Again the most fundamental flaw is the assumption that the majority of the warming of the warm period is from CO2. There is no such assumption. And of course even if there were (and there's not), that wouldn't stop someone building a model that didn't make that assumption. Which is what my entire point is - if it were possible to show low sensitivity simply by changing a value or an "assumuption" why hasn't it been done? More likely that it can't be done than noone will do it. There is no 10 year lag. You are taking the 1998 el nino spike as if it is "on trend" and we should have expected warming since then. But in fact it was way ahead of trend and so it would take time before the trend brought another datapoint that high.
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Post by poitsplace on Jul 11, 2009 11:27:51 GMT
There is no such assumption. And of course even if there were (and there's not), that wouldn't stop someone building a model that didn't make that assumption. Which is what my entire point is - if it were possible to show low sensitivity simply by changing a value or an "assumuption" why hasn't it been done? Yes, certainly...a skeptic is going to put in really long hours to produce and tweak a model showing low sensitivity...when they already admit that until they better understand the system and have SOLID DATA on the ACTUAL values of the feedbacks...that the model is a load of crap. Why not do a lot of things that you already know are pointless? Why don't you try and build a bridge to the moon? Why don't you try to bail water from the deep end of the pool to the shallow end? Why not do something more sensible instead and stop talking about the accuracy of the models until they show some signs of being able to predict and maybe temperatures actually, I dunno, get back into and STAY within the error bars of those models.
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Post by trbixler on Jul 11, 2009 16:00:56 GMT
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Post by tacoman25 on Jul 11, 2009 18:40:34 GMT
The lack of summer heat this year for much of the U.S. has been truly remarkable. The northeast, Midwest, and much of the Rocky Mountain region are seeing the coolest summer in a long time.
Since June 1, Denver (where I live) has seen just three 90+ days, with a max temp of 92. The only summer since 1950 with a greater lack of heat was 1967, which didn't record it's first 90 degree day until July 21.
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Post by sigurdur on Jul 12, 2009 19:16:36 GMT
I don't know where the AGW croud is, but would you please all come to a conference in the upper midwest and blow some hot air to warm us up!
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Post by lamont on Jul 12, 2009 20:32:28 GMT
"Well it didn't warm as much during the cooling period because there's a lag". Well if there's a lag, why the hell did temperatures STOP going up? Shouldn't the rate have increased? We've had 10 years without warming...deal with it. Embrace the reality. If there's a lag what the heck is this lack of warming from? Actually, you're way out of date. We've had 9 years of warming of +0.12C betwen 1999 and 2008, and so far this year we're running +0.17C above 1999, so global warming *IS* accellerating, and its gone up from +0.12C to +0.17C in just the past 5 months of 2009 alone! You're looking at too long of a timeframe, you have look at a shorter timeframe to see what is happening *now* instead of what was happening way back in 1998... The trend for the past 9 years has been up.
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Post by trbixler on Jul 12, 2009 22:15:31 GMT
"Well it didn't warm as much during the cooling period because there's a lag". Well if there's a lag, why the hell did temperatures STOP going up? Shouldn't the rate have increased? We've had 10 years without warming...deal with it. Embrace the reality. If there's a lag what the heck is this lack of warming from? Actually, you're way out of date. We've had 9 years of warming of +0.12C betwen 1999 and 2008, and so far this year we're running +0.17C above 1999, so global warming *IS* accellerating, and its gone up from +0.12C to +0.17C in just the past 5 months of 2009 alone! You're looking at too long of a timeframe, you have look at a shorter timeframe to see what is happening *now* instead of what was happening way back in 1998... The trend for the past 9 years has been up. recitations please as in maybe wattsupwiththat.com/2009/07/10/rss-global-temperature-for-june-09-also-down/
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Post by glc on Jul 12, 2009 23:46:43 GMT
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Post by trbixler on Jul 13, 2009 0:01:58 GMT
glc You are right end points do count, so statistically speaking temperatures are about the same as 30 years ago. Funny how time flies and AGW would like to ignore 30 years as insignificant. But I have heard that the pipeline is chock full of warming just wait until next.... You will see. Like maybe www.climatechangefraud.com/climate-reports/4590-the-us-weather-service-says ;D
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Post by icefisher on Jul 13, 2009 0:36:53 GMT
Actually, you're way out of date. We've had 9 years of warming of +0.12C betwen 1999 and 2008The trend for the past 9 years has been up. Actually the most recent 9 years is not upwards but downwards. July 1, 1999 to June 30, 2009 has a downward trend for the past 10 years. Moving it up to 9 years doesn't change it.
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