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Post by socold on Apr 27, 2010 16:54:44 GMT
So my vote is "I don't care". As long as you don't claim that current understanding of physics shows low climate sensitivity you should be fine.
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Post by icefisher on Apr 27, 2010 17:02:09 GMT
So my vote is "I don't care". As long as you don't claim that current understanding of physics shows low climate sensitivity you should be fine. In fact, thats a good place to be when the understanding of physics regarding climate sensitivity is next to nil.
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Post by socold on Apr 27, 2010 17:38:38 GMT
LOL! Thats total nonsense on so many levels Socold. First of all the only reason a CO2 GCM has any potential value is on the presumption you can estimate future CO2 emissions. Climate sensitivity has nothing to do with presumptions about future co2 emissions. You refer to a "CO2 based GCM" implying that non-co2 GCMs exist or could exist. That is precisely the kind of "argument" that my posts here seek to end. Existing GCMs are not based on some co2 or AGW specific choice subset of modern physics. They are based on current understanding of physics full stop. Putting "co2" in front of them is just a false attempt to partition them off as if they are one of many alternatives. It's not good enough to simply claim GCMs could be made to show low climate sensitivity or to just claim that there's this thing called "co2 GCMs" as if some other legitimate type of GCM could be built. Don't you get that? I am not going to take your word for it, and scientists aren't either. You claim that low climate sensitivity could be demonstrated with a GCM - so then [n]why hasn't it been demonstrated in over 30 years?[/n]. That's the elephant in the room. There is definite value in getting a GCM to exhibit low climate sensitivity, so the 'we don't see the point' angle won't wash. Getting a GCM to show low climate sensitivity would prove such a result is consistant with current understanding of physics. It would disprove the idea that current understanding of physics leads to nothing but high climate sensitivity. It would open up the range of projections in the IPCC reports to very low amounts of warming. All I am trying to do is get you to admit is that current understanding of physics leads to high climate sensitivity, even if that understanding is wrong - and clearly you believe it is wrong. What I am trying to get out of this is an end to the silly claims that scientists are deliberately missing out known factors from GCMs like convection. To end the silly claims that there are "co2 GCMs" as if scientists are only factoring in choice parts of physics into such models. To end the silly claims that "models can be made to say anything", etc. Skeptics seem to want to erect multiple walls between themselves and the science. You could simply argue that current understanding of physics which shows high climate sensitivity is wrong. But no you see the chance of an extra wall, so you also argue the idea that current understanding of physics could also show low climate sensitivity. Something I don't see any evidence for.
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Post by nautonnier on Apr 27, 2010 18:10:20 GMT
" 30 years and it hasn't been demonstrated. Therefore I think it's safe to say that thus far physics as we understand it cannot support low climate sensitivity. That doesn't make low climate sensitivity wrong, but it does go a long way to cutting down on some of the more silly posts about how climate models are neglecting known physics of convection, etc. "Oh but it HAS been demonstrated SoCold - just look out of the window sometime or put a toe in the ocean - things are not happening in line with the IPCC models. Nature is demonstrating things for you. Most scientists and even some modelers (obviously not you) given a mismatch between actual observations and model output would then go back and see what was wrong with the model. You persist in this rather strange notion that as they use 'physical laws' models must be right. If that were the case - why are there so many different models giving different results? Whatever is the use of using ensembles when all models are going to be precisely the same; all accurately predicting/forecasting/interpolating forward the future conditions.? But then you said " physics as we understand it" perhaps 'we' (you) don't understand the correct physics? Chaotic systems where not all inputs are known are not possible to model _even_if_everything_is_known_ precisely about other variables. From the key uncertainties in topic 6: "Models differ considerably in their estimates of the strength of different feedbacks in the climate system, particularly cloud feedbacks, oceanic heat uptake and carbon cycle feedbacks, although progress has been made in these areas" www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/syr/ar4_syr.pdfAs minor changes in cloudiness and ocean heat content and distribution have more effect than CO 2 these 'estimates' (guesses?) are likely to have a significant impact on model results especially when a chaotic system is being modeled.
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Post by icefisher on Apr 27, 2010 19:14:27 GMT
You refer to a "CO2 based GCM" implying that non-co2 GCMs exist or could exist. That is precisely the kind of "argument" that my posts here seek to end.
I love debating such issues as how many angels can dance on the end of a pin with you Socold, but the only help I can provide you is that you are so full of shitt.
Existing GCMs are not based on some co2 or AGW specific choice subset of modern physics. They are based on current understanding of physics full stop. Putting "co2" in front of them is just a false attempt to partition them off as if they are one of many alternatives.
Your statement above is in fact a claim that our atmosphere operates in a slabbed fashion, that cloud density is stable on a centennial scale with no random variation, and who knows how many other claims not established in physics or just plain out and out known to be untrue, uncertain, or not even considered is embedded in the models.
If you are going to actually embed full physics understanding in a model you have to put representations of what you don't know in there also and do your best to actually represent the system.
Instead the models assume stability and then go on a witch hunt for a determinate cause in an identical fashion as the good citizens of Salem, Mass. who went on a search for a place to assign blame for community misfortune.
And I am sure they advanced the same argument as you are here. . . .somebody must have made God angry!!
It's not good enough to simply claim GCMs could be made to show low climate sensitivity or to just claim that there's this thing called "co2 GCMs" as if some other legitimate type of GCM could be built. Don't you get that? I am not going to take your word for it, and scientists aren't either.
You claim that low climate sensitivity could be demonstrated with a GCM - so then [n]why hasn't it been demonstrated in over 30 years?[/n]. That's the elephant in the room.
No that is the Elephant-sized fallacy in the room:
"The argument from ignorance,[1] also known as argumentum ad ignorantiam ("appeal to ignorance"[1][2]), or negative evidence,[1] is a logical fallacy in which it is claimed that a premise is true only because it has not been proven false, or is false only because it has not been proven true."
One would think that part of a doctorate program in Science basic logic was taught would you not?
Skeptics seem to want to erect multiple walls between themselves and the science. You could simply argue that current understanding of physics which shows high climate sensitivity is wrong. But no you see the chance of an extra wall, so you also argue the idea that current understanding of physics could also show low climate sensitivity. Something I don't see any evidence for.
The wall is being erected between skeptics and absurdity.
Your argument is fallacious to begin with so why would anybody want to play your game and give credibility where no credibility is due?
You simply are invoking a variation on the "tended garden argument" that is used to establish the existence of God. The garden appears so well tended it must have a gardener. The climate varies so it must have a determinate cause.
So once we buy that assumption what we really want to do is start comparing gardeners (causes) and allow credibility where no credibility is due because the fallacy is in the fact the tended garden argument rides high on the inability of science to prove there is no gardener (cause). Again if evolution by virtue of chaos can create the rich diversity of life forms on this planet without any determinate cause, certainly the climate that provided the environment for it can too.
But developing an argument against that is the same approach taken by Creationists. My God makes more sense than any God you can dream up.
Its good of you to recognize the utility of the argument Socold but ultimately it is one of those unresolvable debates so why would anybody want to play your game in what has become a political arena?
It seems the approach has been to exclude such science from our school system even though as this debate shows not necessarily universally.
Excluding such discussions from schools is probably over reacting because, gee we are seeing the resurrection of the tended garden argument right here in this thread as a psuedo-science as if nobody was ever taught anything. Again this is basic logic and understanding the fallacy in your argument is important.
Keeping religion out of schools is probably overreacting because there is a social value in understanding religion and the underlying philosophy, the history, the ethics, the accountability and the uncertainty as well. The only threat is in having it then overflow into the political process in a form of my God is greater than your God as you are suggesting in your competing model, negative confirmation argument.
Bottom line is keeping it out of political processes is part of our constitution and in fact is what makes us free. Somewhere somehow we need to better understand its dynamics, its threats, and be aware a bit more of the type and forms the threat can take.
For that I appreciate your argument here.
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Post by sentient on Apr 28, 2010 1:13:36 GMT
So my vote is "I don't care". As long as you don't claim that current understanding of physics shows low climate sensitivity you should be fine. Again, the question of low or high sensitivity is interesting in and of itself, particularly when considered with respect to only itself, but perhaps grows progressively diluted when intermixed with more and more variables. Let's assume for a moment that our best current physics proves beyond the shadow of a doubt that the climate has high sensitivity to CO2. We then develop models to correctly apply this physics to the prediction (IPCC now uses estimation) of future climate. Whatever answers are then generated from even my personal certification that this correct physics is correctly applied, then there would be no logical reason to reject any of the model results. again assuming that both of us have checked the physics, employing outside expertise all along the way to be certain our decisions are valid. So we have now proven high sensitivity. Our model results cannot be denied. We might even build another model to check our model out, and it too returns data suggesting that we have nailed it. The answer is that there is high sensitivity to climate from CO2. We have the proof. End of story. Well, you know, in order to do this properly, we need to include a disclaimer. Something worded to refute the thousands of abrupt climate changes which litter gaia's past, the vast majority of which are not suspected to have been driven by CO2 at all. There is the vast evidence within the past 24 D-O events which strongly suggests it was in no way even an amplifier of the abrupt warmings, but served instead to ameliorate the LAST HALF of the cooling phase back to the glacial state. Would this infer something less than high sensitivity? Not necessarily. All one need do is find just one, or as many more than one that one can, instance where it might have had some effect as a driver or amplifier. Given the recent affirmation of what a majority is, we can win this with just 51% causation from CO2. But that is not even suspected to be the case in 10% of the hundreds of abrupt warmings (terminations and interstadials) since the Mid Pleistocene Transition. and if not there, then we would be looking at cases where the climate cyclicity was much different than it has been, regularly, for the past 800,000 years. The final nail in the low and high sensitivity question is easily seen as follows. Here we will assume CO2 is the heathen devil gas it is claimed to be. Accepted (and in my case, dearly hoped for). We can now proceed to quell our emissions to any level you care to define. Problem solved. Er, ah, not yet. We may have stopped the anthropogenic CO2/temperature excursion(s) of the future, but we still have to contend with those natural ones, such as Dansgaard-Oeschger event 19 which managed a paltry 16C warming over a rather lengthy less than a decade. At this point, the hunt must necessarily be refocused on identifying and quelling the natural CO2 eruptions that can do that! And every 1,500 years (range is 1,000-4,000 years)....... You have your work cut out for you my man. This is bigger than you presently know. Which is the proverbial fly in this ointment.
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Post by socold on Apr 28, 2010 13:01:31 GMT
Existing GCMs are not based on some co2 or AGW specific choice subset of modern physics. They are based on current understanding of physics full stop. Putting "co2" in front of them is just a false attempt to partition them off as if they are one of many alternatives.Your statement above is in fact a claim that our atmosphere operates in a slabbed fashion, that cloud density is stable on a centennial scale with no random variation, and who knows how many other claims not established in physics or just plain out and out known to be untrue, uncertain, or not even considered is embedded in the models. My claim is that GCMs are built upon current understanding of physics, not some co2 subset. I make no claim that current understanding of physics is correct, it certainly isn't. Our disagreement can be summarized as followed: I am saying the things not in current GCMs are things which cannot be added (either due to computational restricitons or lack of knowledge). Wheras you are claiming there are things not in current GCMs which could be added but have been deliberately omitted. Sorry if I haven't got that right, but that's what I gather you are claiming. The reason I don't agree with your view is that the conspiracy necessary to deliberately omit select physics in over 30 years of model development isn't feasible. I don't believe modellers are all so biased to a level to maintain such a conspiracy. I believe that if they could better represent the real climate they would do so. I believe that if scientists could show low climate sensitivity with a GCM, they'd jump at the chance to submit such a groundbreaking and fame-making paper. I also believe that scientists capable of testing GCMs cannot be all a bunch of AGW zealots, that there will be scientists that cannot succum to any form of conspiracy to supress the true range of results. Decades of model development has seen scientists come and go. Different countries, different teams, different models. More importantly, given that skeptics have a high desire to convince the world that climate sensitivity is low (I don't mean that in a bad way), it just makes no sense that known processes could be omitted without skeptics raising a fuss and showing what happens if you add those processes. That's why I ask, if GCMs can be made to exhibit low climate sensitivity, why has noone done so? In my opinion that question has no valid answer and therein lies a fatal problem for the idea that GCMs can be made to exhibit low climate sensitivity. Put simply the observational evidence (the fact noone has done it) strongly suggests that it cannot be done with existing understanding of physics. That doesn't mean climate sensitivity isn't low, it just means if it is low we are currently missing the physics that can explain the mechanism for that. It also means there is no modeller conspiracy going on and that current understanding of physics shows high climate sensitivity and importantly for me it puts an end to claims that people "know" how physics can show low climate sensitivity (eg convection bypassing greenhouse gases, etc etc)
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Post by icefisher on Apr 28, 2010 17:04:08 GMT
My claim is that GCMs are built upon current understanding of physics, not some co2 subset. I make no claim that current understanding of physics is correct, it certainly isn't.
You didn't respond to a single point above. I take that as an admission the GCMs do not represent the physics of the atmosphere as a result no valid claim can be made there is any value to their output without first establishing their output is a reliable approximation of the atmospheric outputs being measured.
Our disagreement can be summarized as followed:
I am saying the things not in current GCMs are things which cannot be added (either due to computational restricitons or lack of knowledge).
Your statement:
"I am saying the things not in current GCMs are things which cannot be added"
is total nonsense!
Boiling down what you are trying to ackwardly say is that if somebody encoded a different sensitivity into a GCM it would conflict with known science.
If you want to prove that you need to provide some evidence and not solely rely on an argument that is a known fallacy.
Wheras you are claiming there are things not in current GCMs which could be added but have been deliberately omitted. Sorry if I haven't got that right, but that's what I gather you are claiming.
The reason I don't agree with your view is that the conspiracy necessary to deliberately omit select physics in over 30 years of model development isn't feasible. I don't believe modellers are all so biased to a level to maintain such a conspiracy. I believe that if they could better represent the real climate they would do so. I believe that if scientists could show low climate sensitivity with a GCM, they'd jump at the chance to submit such a groundbreaking and fame-making paper. I also believe that scientists capable of testing GCMs cannot be all a bunch of AGW zealots, that there will be scientists that cannot succum to any form of conspiracy to supress the true range of results. Decades of model development has seen scientists come and go. Different countries, different teams, different models.
You are creating a strawman Socold. People though can and have committed conspiracies to dupe a lot of people and scientists are not immune to it.
But lets be generous here and say there is no conspiracy and no fraud has been perpetrated to dupe vast numbers of people.
That still does not rule out vast numbers of people and scientists being wrong. The process of science in fact detalis everybody but one or a few scientists being wrong. Thats the process of discovery and how it works. You have developed an unhealthy view of the collective correctness of masses when history is full of examples where that simply has been shown it is not true.
And that is all that is needed.
More importantly, given that skeptics have a high desire to convince the world that climate sensitivity is low (I don't mean that in a bad way), it just makes no sense that known processes could be omitted without skeptics raising a fuss and showing what happens if you add those processes. That's why I ask, if GCMs can be made to exhibit low climate sensitivity, why has noone done so? In my opinion that question has no valid answer and therein lies a fatal problem for the idea that GCMs can be made to exhibit low climate sensitivity. Put simply the observational evidence (the fact noone has done it) strongly suggests that it cannot be done with existing understanding of physics.
You mean demonstrate it by modeling the correct configuration and cause and effect processes of the atmosphere vs hypothesized and known inaccurate ones as poor and possibly wrong-headed substitiutes?
Yeah everybody would love to be able to do that but nobody has done it.
Anybody can make up a dummy atmosphere and manipulate a minor gas and get a high sensitivity out of it and claim that as proof of the theory of high sensitivity.
In fact skeptics if they wanted to throw the scientific method out the window and waste billions on bogus models.
But why throw your credibility on the rocks like so much of climate science is doing? Only a man in a panic that he or his children might die or a mercenary who only responds to quick money do stupid things like that.
That doesn't mean climate sensitivity isn't low
We agree on that.
, it just means if it is low we are currently missing the physics that can explain the mechanism for that.
You are bandying GCMs around like they are proven articles of physics. They aren't.
It also means there is no modeller conspiracy going on and that current understanding of physics shows high climate sensitivity and importantly for me it puts an end to claims that people "know" how physics can show low climate sensitivity (eg convection bypassing greenhouse gases, etc etc)
All your paragraph shows is how far you can go with an argument that is known to be fallacious. Negative confirmation is a fallacy. You need to actually provide evidence your theory is correct. Trying to drill that through your head is like drilling for oil through 9 miles of solid granite.
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Post by socold on Apr 28, 2010 18:45:18 GMT
I take that as an admission the GCMs do not represent the physics of the atmosphere I've said as much. They represent the physics as we currently understand it. I am arguing that noone can encode a low sensitivity into a GCM because physics as it is currently understood cannot be arranged to encode such an outcome. If it was possible to encode such an outcome, I argue it would have been done because the motive is there to do it. Therefore with means and motive and decades of time, it stands to reason that someone would have done it. That they haven't suggests that it cannot be done. I don't consider that generous. I consider it convenient. It means you can imply there might be a conspiracy without having to address the absurdity of the idea. For example how does the secret cabal of scientists worldwide prevent the hidden knowledge from being revealed? How do they coordinate their activities. Do they send each other secret emails? How come we didn't see any of those emails in the CRU email release? How do they indoctrinate new members? How do they prevent people blabbing? Do they kill them? Just how do they prevent "outsiders" from tinkering with the GCMs to show the forbidden results? The conspiracy idea just doesn't make sense. The alternative, which does make sense, is that scientists haven't produced low climate sensitivty from a GCM because they can't do it - not because they choose not to. You seem very opposed to that possibility despite it being the best possibility on show. Why? You claim that GCMs could show low climate sensitivity. If you are aware of this, then surely the experts in the field are aware of it to. Therefore you can't accuse them of simply being wrong, you have to accuse them of deception and of engaging in a conspiracy to supress this forbidden knowledge. To omit processes that would show low climate sensitivity they would have to be deliberately doing so. Not wrong. Conspiracy. But that's implausible as outlined above. Again we are left with the simplest and best explaination - that current understanding of physics leads to high climate sensitivity, not low. No I don't mean demonstrate it perfectly. I mean demonstrate that current physics can be arranged to show low climate sensitivity. ie take what we know about convection, greenhouse gases, etc and demonstrate that low climate sensitivity result can be obtained. It's not about proof, it's about determining what current physics can and cannot show. We have established that "anybody" can get high climate sensitivity out of current understanding of physics. What we haven't established, because noone has done it, is that it's possible to get low climate snesitivity out of current physics. You wouldn't be throwing your credibility on the rocks. You would be demonstrating that the models can be made to low climate sensitivity. As this is what you claim, demonstrating the case would surely increase your credibility not lower it! If you know that convection is handled incorrectly in GCMs for example, and knew that if it was only handled correctly the GCMs would show low climate sensitivity, why aren't you interested in demonstrating that? Just doesn't make sense. You are effectively saying that skeptics know how to get the GCMs to show low climate sensitivity, but they don't want to do it. Makes no sense. Of course they would want to do it. It would prove that the warming estimate of 3C per doubling of co2 from climate models is an overestimate. Why on earth would skeptics not be interested in demonstrating climate sensitivity is overestimated by models? Skeptics don't have to build a model, you only have to point out the variable(s) in an existing GCM that can be tuned to change the result from high to low sensitivity. What evidence have you provided that GCMs could be made to exhibit low climate sensitivity? None.
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Post by icefisher on Apr 28, 2010 20:34:13 GMT
If it was possible to encode such an outcome, I argue it would have been done because the motive is there to do it.
Argument ruled out as a fallacy: Argument from ignorance en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorancewww.fallacyfiles.org/ignorant.htmlwww.logicalfallacies.info/presumption/arguing-from-ignorance/www.skepdic.com/ignorance.htmlTherefore with means and motive and decades of time, it stands to reason that someone would have done it. That they haven't suggests that it cannot be done.
Now compounded by the Invincible Ignorance Fallacy en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invincible_ignorance_fallacySkeptics don't have to build a model, you only have to point out the variable(s) in an existing GCM that can be tuned to change the result from high to low sensitivity.LOL! Do you have the source code for one I can work on? You claim that the models contain the current understanding of physics so you allege I can't do that. But in reality what this all truns on is that what current understanding has been is what Urban VIII told Galileo. Yet despite that Galileo was able to describe his models. Urban VIII had ways of convincing Galileo otherwise that you lack.
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Post by socold on Apr 28, 2010 22:06:20 GMT
If it was possible to encode such an outcome, I argue it would have been done because the motive is there to do it.
Argument ruled out as a fallacy: Argument from ignorance It's not argument from ignorance because I have presented a reasonable basis for expecting the low sensitivity result to have been shown in GCMs by now if it were possible to show it in GCMs. As your second link explains: There are a few types of reasoning which resemble the fallacy of Appeal to Ignorance, and need to be distinguished from it:It then mentions 2 types which don't apply. The third one does apply to the argument I am making: Another type of reasoning is called "auto-epistemic" ("self-knowing") because it involves reasoning from premisses about what one knows and what one would know if something were true.
If p were true, then I would know that p. I don't know that p. Therefore, p is false.
For instance, one might reason:
If I were adopted, then I would know about it by now. I don't know that I'm adopted. Therefore, I wasn't adopted.
Similarly, when extensive investigation has been undertaken, it is often reasonable to infer that something is false based upon a lack of positive evidence for it. For instance, if a drug has been subjected to lengthy testing for harmful effects and none has been discovered, it is then reasonable to conclude that it is safe. Another example is:
If there really were a large and unusual type of animal in Loch Ness, then we would have undeniable evidence of it by now. We don't have undeniable evidence of a large, unfamiliar animal in Loch Ness. Therefore, there is no such animal.
As with reasoning using the closed world assumption, auto-epistemic reasoning does not commit the fallacy of Argument from Ignorance.GISS ModelE source code is downloadable. So is the Community Climate System Model ( www.ccsm.ucar.edu/models/ccsm3.0/). There are probably others too. I don't think you can find a way of getting low climate sensitivity from current physics no. I think to get that result would require a change in understanding of physics. It would require a breakthrough of some kind. That's my entire point.
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Post by scpg02 on Apr 28, 2010 22:15:17 GMT
Ok that is just obnoxious. Couldn't you have chosen a better color? Or learn how to offset and italicize your text for quotes? It's easy.
[ list] [/ list] [ i] [/ i]
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Post by socold on Apr 28, 2010 23:03:44 GMT
sorry, changed it
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Post by scpg02 on Apr 29, 2010 1:14:58 GMT
Thanks that is easier on the eyes. You really should learn to use the codes though. [/i][/ul] Then you go back to regular text for your replies.
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Post by icefisher on Apr 29, 2010 2:41:24 GMT
It's not argument from ignorance because I have presented a reasonable basis for expecting the low sensitivity result to have been shown in GCMs by now if it were possible to show it in GCMs. No you did not provide a reasonable basis. I assume you are just trying to push the "known forcings angle" but that really has nothing to do with feedbacks. Here is a discussion related to an upcoming paper on climate sensitivity for you to mull over: www.drroyspencer.com/2010/04/a-response-to-kevin-trenberth/
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