Climate Science: Is it currently designed to answer questions?

[realpaladin]

I have created my own computer model of Poptech. I predict with 99.99% certainty that he will not be persuaded otherwise.

I take it that the empirical data to corroborate this can be found in the posts made under his name?

 

[technoextreme]

And the introduced uncertainty of a climate model run?

What is it?

The measured temperature. Duh de duh duh.

Please make certain your continued failure to understand the difference between the REAL and Virtual (NOT-REAL) world is pointed out. Computer illiteracy remains strong.

Are you that [rule 10,11,12,13, and 14]? Models have been around long before the invention of the computer. Some of the tools engineers use in modeling predates the personal computer by a hundred years. Computer illiteracy my #$@. More like science illiteracy. And yes before you point out that engineer modeling is not the same thing in this case I know.

 

[Ambrosia]

[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/thum_28149d1e907d3f18.jpg[/qimg]

out of all the evidence I have recently looked at for AGW, this is the graph that nails it for me.

I used to be of the opinion that "I am pretty sure there is significant warming, but I am not sure that humans are completely to blame, but what harm will it do to take action?"

I *still* don't understand the position of the AGW "skeptics".

Even if the scientists are wrong and CO2 isn't badly affecting our climate, then what harm will it do to dramatically reduce our CO2 output, and take steps to try and remove some of the CO2 we put there?

Why do most seem to advocate that we all fiddle while Rome burns?

 

[technoextreme]

Why do most seem to advocate that we all fiddle while Rome burns?

This is going to get me in trouble but I'll answer it anyway. In a lot of cases it seems like they have no basic understanding of science or it has been twisted and warped into an inaccurate portrayal.

 

[mhaze]

out of all the evidence I have recently looked at for AGW, this is the graph that nails it for me.....

Do not hold the nail cupped in your palm(to be sure you don't drop it) and then drive it through your palm by hitting the flesh over the nailhead.

Climate is weather over 3 decades.

You have one data point.

 

[Megalodon]

Climate is weather over 3 decades.

Speaking of climate and weather... did you already find a mechanism by which the changes in ak-index can affect the temperatures ten years earlier?

 

[Megalodon]

out of all the evidence I have recently looked at for AGW, this is the graph that nails it for me.

Thanks, good to see one's work appreciated

I *still* don't understand the position of the AGW "skeptics".

Their position is the one they started with. Only the arguments (and I use that term loosely) changed.

Why do most seem to advocate that we all fiddle while Rome burns?

Because that's what they're doing. Some due to the irrational belief that the "free market" can do no harm. We had idiots here denying AGW, acid rain, CFC's contribution to the damaging of the ozone layer... Nothing bad ever came out of industry, for those zealots.

Others are actually more dangerous. They know what is happening but don't really care, since they know that no consequence will ever affect them, and that there's money to be made in stalling any change. These ones misrepresent, distort and outright lie about the science, the scientists and anything or anyone in the way of their agenda.

 

[MattusMaximus]

There is no such thing as an accurate predictive computer model for the climate or economics. So you cannot plan based on them, sorry to break it to you. People with control problems might go crazy which is why they refuse to accept it.

So now you're back to the accuracy question? Or are you?

Are you once again claiming, as you did originally, that computer models are not trustworthy because they cannot provide 100% accurate predictions? Or are you going to keep going on about the 100% REAL world vs. the virtual world?

Which is it? It would be nice if you actually stuck to an argument without arbitrarily moving the goalposts when the going gets rough.

 

[Megalodon]

Are you once again claiming, as you did originally, that computer models are not trustworthy because they cannot provide 100% accurate predictions?

Unless, of course, if the computer models say that ocean acidification will not be a problem... Then they're proof that it's not a problem.

 

[Belz...]

The computer hardware runs in reality, the simulation is virtual.

And scale models for wind tunnels don't quite match up to reality, but they seem to be good enough for Boeing.

Google Scholar is not the same as Google but you knew that.

Was that supposed to mean something ?

 

[Belz...]

My argument was never about our understanding of the environment but whether the REAL world is 100% REAL or not, it is - virtual reality is not.

And your conclusion is that because it isn't 100% like reality, it is completely useless ?

That's funny because they managed to predict rain in Québec city several days before it happened last weekend.

 

[Belz...]

You only pinned something down in your own confused mind. You are confusing two separate issues, the accuracy of the "laboratory" and the "experiment".

But that's not what you said initially. You said that climate models were not 100% accurate and therefore were not of any use. Here are the quotes:

The models are not a 100% perfect reproduction of the earth and all it contains in real time, therefore they cannot predict anything.

100% accuracy is required for relevant results.

 

[Belz...]

Close enough is not right on a computer it is wrong. 1.5 is not a close enough answer to 1+1, it is wrong.

Your empirical "philosophy" is hopelessly flawed.

 

[BenBurch]

I take it that the empirical data to corroborate this can be found in the posts made under his name?

Here and elsewhere.

 

[BenBurch]

Close enough is not right on a computer it is wrong. 1.5 is not a close enough answer to 1+1, it is wrong.

You make the ridiculous claim to be a computer science grad?

You have never dealt with floating point numbers and how they lose precision even in addition, have you?

Because addition in the real world is associative.

Addition in the world of floating point number representations in a computer is not necessarily associative.

But every aircraft, every weather forecast, every automobile, every building of size you use daily was designed and modeled using computers and floating point number representations.

Ditto multiplication often is not distributive.

Or do they not teach you kids this stuff any more at the community college?

 

[lomiller]

This is going to get me in trouble but I'll answer it anyway. In a lot of cases it seems like they have no basic understanding of science or it has been twisted and warped into an inaccurate portrayal.

I disagree. Understanding of science has little to do with it, the problem is that the science challenges some underlying political or economic belief and they are unable to handle the cognitive dissonance.

The underlying belief in most cases is that the free market is infallible and if you just prevent government from doing anything the invisible hand will fix everything. Situations that demand government action call this fundamental belief into question, so they need for the situation to not exist. Global warming is one example of this, but just about any externality triggers the same response in most of these people.

 

[bobdroege7]

The way I approach and analyze data, measurements of 1 + a measurement of 1 could result in a measurement of 1.5, however the 1.5 needs to be rounded and by the arbitrary rule that I use 1.5 is 2 (period end of sentence)

After all we are not discussing mathematics here are we?

 

[bobdroege7]

Oh, and one more thing,

Anyone discussing science ought to ditch the use of percentages, as they can be entirely too prone to misunderstanding what you are trying to convey.

 

[technoextreme]

I disagree. Understanding of science has little to do with it, the problem is that the science challenges some underlying political or economic belief and they are unable to handle the cognitive dissonance.

The underlying belief in most cases is that the free market is infallible and if you just prevent government from doing anything the invisible hand will fix everything. Situations that demand government action call this fundamental belief into question, so they need for the situation to not exist. Global warming is one example of this, but just about any externality triggers the same response in most of these people.

I guess.... But why provide rationals that are overtly butchering the concept of science.

Or do they not teach you kids this stuff any more at the community college?

Ben its worst than that..... In order for the modeling of airplanes and other complex systems not to become intractable they actually simplify them meaning that the 100% real world versus Virtual world is just ********.

 

[lomiller]

I guess.... But why provide rationals that are overtly butchering the concept of science.

I don’t know, but it certainly isn’t a behavior limited to climate science. Studying the history of this is actually what brought Naomi Oreskes into the climate science debate. For example, she has previously written extensively on the perceptual paradigms that made US geologists were so particularly opposed to the idea of continental drift.