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Global Warming and all that stuff.

The "mighty Murray" has an average discharge of 0.89 cubic metres/sec.

The Colorado has 570 m/3 /sec, during a drought, peaking at 28,000 cm/sec in flood. The Mighty Murray is just pathetic, and it's the biggest river system in the South, and has to support the whole Murray Darling basin food bowl. I can assure you, if we had a Colorado, it would be getting worked on right now.

Our big irrigation project was the Snowy River scheme. It's been just about totally diverted. until recently, all that was left was a little stream. "Enviromental" flows have been restored, which just restore it to 10% of it's natural flow. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowy_River

There is only one major river left that hasn't been damned, and when I say major, that's Australian for a biggish creek that is nothing like the Colorado.
 
rockoon said:
Dave1001 said:
What do you think about claims on the wikipedia global cooling link that most scientists were skeptical of global cooling theories, that institutional reports such as from the National Academy of Science primarily claimed that what was needed was more study, and that the mechanism causing cooling at the time was uncertain, in contrast to what appears to be a much greater scientific consensus today both about global warming and its primary causes.
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I think that the mechanism which caused the cooling is still uncertain, but hey why bother working on that when you can work on data mining for the mechanisms 'causing' the new scare instead? :rolleyes:

They have a 'consensus' do they? That can be argued but its actualy moot to argue it. A consensus isn't science. A hypothesis followed by a series of relevant tests is science. An untested hypothesis isnt even a theory. Tell me, is AGW a hypothesis or a theory?
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The ugly and unfortunate truth is that a consensus of scientific experts in a field on what the data tells them is science. Relativity, quantum mechanics, natural selection and evolution, plate tectonics, etc. -our belief that these are currently our best scientific descriptions of the universe are grounded in the consensus support they have from the scientific experts of their respective fields. Or have you recreated the experiments (for those theories that are experimentally derived) yourself? None of us have the time and energy, and few of us the ability, to do that.

I agree that the best evidence generally comes from a hypothesis followed by a series of relevant tests. But few experiments can be perfect, especially when talking about large phenomena that progress slowly by the standards human attention and lifespan. So it seems more practical and realistic to test experimentally what aspect we can, but other aspects of things such as global climate change are probably going to have to be observed and analyzed using other techniques, (computer modeling, and yes data mining) used as scientifically as possible, and with appropriately greater skepticism and doubt about what the results tell us, in my opinion.
 
Empirical Evidence.

The Ayles Ice Shelf, roughly 66 square kilometers (41 square miles) in area, was one of six major ice shelves remaining in Canada's Arctic.
Scientists say it is the largest event of its kind in Canada in 30 years and point their fingers at climate change as a major contributing factor.
"It is consistent with climate change," Vincent said, adding that the remaining ice shelves are 90 percent smaller than when they were first discovered in 1906.
"We aren't able to connect all of the dots ... but unusually warm temperatures definitely played a major role."
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http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/12/29/canada.arctic.ap/index.html
 
BobK, here is an amazing example of one of the pundits you have quoted, Jennifer Marohasey, on Polar Bears.

There were only about 5,000 polar bears in 1970, numbers depressed by hunting. There are now about 25,000 polar bears. The increase a consequence of agreements to restrict hunting under quota systems.
The biggest threat to discrete populations of polar bears continues to be illegal hunting in places like the Chukchi sea and Greenland's failure to agree to the quota system.

If the extent of sea ice continues to decline in places like Hudson Bay and the Beaufort Sea, these populations of polar bears can move north to where there is more sea ice with ringed seals, or they might simply switch to hunting seals that prefer warmer weather.
As I have previously written, the two polar bears living happily at Sea World, on Queensland's Gold Coast, enjoying watermelons and museli bars, are evidence of the capacity of this big bear to adapt, including to warm weather.
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http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/001816.html

Logic like that is so amazingly bad, I just don't know how to unboggle my mind and address it. Polar bears can live in captivity in a Queensland theme park, therefore Polar Bears will adapt to disappearing sea ice.
 
rockoon said:
Should I do your legwork?

They even suggested a solution to global cooling might be covering the polar caps with black soot in order to melt them!
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Who were these "they"? That's what I'm asking. Were they science-fiction writers? Politicians? The scientific bodies on Varwoche's List? Professional footballers? Who and what were "they"?


The environmentalists were 'skeptical' that world governments would do what was 'necessary' to prevent the recession back into an ice age.
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Is it your contention then that environmentalists wanted to spread soot over the pristine polar wildernesses of the planet? I think that would qualify as an extraordinary claim calling for extraordinary evidence, or at the very least some evidence.

They cried that there will be major food shortages worldwide.
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"They" is so damn' uninformative. Could you be more specific?



Um, they talked about that too.
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And they did something about it, after a great deal of discussion. Some of it, I dare say, conducted in Congress.

They talked about global cooling. They even talked about global cooling in front of the U.S. Congress.
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Whe were these they?

Here is a newsweek article from 1975:

http://denisdutton.com/newsweek_coolingworld.pdf

A time article from 1974:

http://www.junkscience.com/mar06/Time_AnotherIceAge_June241974.pdf

That last one is a classic because it says that the global mean temperature had quickly dropped by an amazing 2.7 degrees fahrenheit and noted this figure was backed up by other 'convincing data' (hello mr proxy)
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That's it? "They" were, in fact, Newsweek and Time journalists? That would mean not the scientific bodies featured on Varwoche's List, then.

Don't you think in retrospect its probably a good thing that we didnt react and pour soot over the ice caps? :rolleyes:
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Do you think there was ever the slightest prospect that any such action was ever planned?

Now we have 'convincing data' about AGW. Maybe in retrospect it will be a good thing that kyoto wasn't invoked? I think thats highly likely.
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Experience will show you to be living in a fool's Paradise.

The trouble with data mining is that you can't tell the difference between cause, effect, coincedence, and noise. Its not science.
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Data mining is not causing glaciers to retreat, ice-caps to break up, permafrost to melt, seasons to shift and global temperatures to rise. Data-mining does not move scientific bodies listed by Varwoche to issue the sort of statements they have done regarding AGW. And such scientific bodies are not less able to recognise science from non-science than you or the people at junkscience. Some of whom may, you know, have an agenda.

Thinking of which, are you getting any further with defining the "agenda" you previously mentioned?
 
Dave1001 said:
The ugly and unfortunate truth is that a consensus of scientific experts in a field on what the data tells them is science. Relativity, quantum mechanics, natural selection and evolution, plate tectonics, etc.
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Relativity?

Hypothesis -> basic tests -> theory -> advanced tests -> consensus

The tests are repeatable.

Quantum mechanics?

Hypothesis -> basic tests -> theory -> advanced tests -> consensus

The tests are repeatable. QED is the most successful theory ever. Anyone who has ever seen a hologram has witnessed a successful test of that subset of QM.

Evolution?

Hypothesis -> basic tests -> theory -> advanced tests -> consensus

Anthropogenic Global Warming?

Hypothesis -> no tests -> no theory -> still no tests -> consensus

There arent any tests which would be repeatable.

Its hardly the same thing. While science might lead to scientists patting themselves on the back, the patting in no way requires actual science.
 
rockoon said:
Relativity?

Hypothesis -> basic tests -> theory -> advanced tests -> consensus

The tests are repeatable.

Quantum mechanics?

Hypothesis -> basic tests -> theory -> advanced tests -> consensus

The tests are repeatable. QED is the most successful theory ever. Anyone who has ever seen a hologram has witnessed a successful test of that subset of QM.

Evolution?

Hypothesis -> basic tests -> theory -> advanced tests -> consensus

Anthropogenic Global Warming?

Hypothesis -> no tests -> no theory -> still no tests -> consensus

There arent any tests which would be repeatable.

Its hardly the same thing. While science might lead to scientists patting themselves on the back, the patting in no way requires actual science.
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Most of these theories are imperfectly tested, although they have been better tested to differing degrees. Science is not dualistically divided into perfectly tests hypothesis and completely untested hypothesis. Elements of global warming have been tested just like elements of evolution, etc. By oversimplifying you're promoting a distorted picture of the scientific process.
 
a_unique_person said:
BobK, here is an amazing example of one of the pundits you have quoted, Jennifer Marohasey, on Polar Bears.




http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/001816.html

Logic like that is so amazingly bad, I just don't know how to unboggle my mind and address it. Polar bears can live in captivity in a Queensland theme park, therefore Polar Bears will adapt to disappearing sea ice.
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And of course there is no possibility that polar bears adapted to ice, snow, and frigid water because of encroaching ice, snow, and frigid water. They must have been created as polar bears.
 
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60hzxtl said:
And of course there is no possibility that polar bears adapted to ice, snow, and frigid water because of encroaching ice, snow, and frigid water. They must have been created as polar bears.
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Polar bears are probably a sub-species of brown bears that moved north to exploit the seal-harvest during an interglacial. Which is to say they did the encroaching, to exploit a new resource. The current situation, where they're been progressively robbed of access to that resource, is quite different. The remnant will probably breed back into the reservoir population further south and there won't be any big white bears anymore - no call for them, you see. A shame, but no big deal in the wider scheme of things. It's not as if the natural world is there for our amusement, or for the discomfiture of seals.
 
60hzxtl said:
And of course there is no possibility that polar bears adapted to ice, snow, and frigid water because of encroaching ice, snow, and frigid water. They must have been created as polar bears.
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The timescale we are talking about, they won't stand a chance trying to move back to the mainland. The existing bear population will have it all over them. If they did adapt, the first thing they would lose would be the white fur coat. They wouldn't be polar bears any more.
 
a_unique_person said:
We only have one planet. You want to go out and build another one and run tests on it, go ahead.
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This is what bugs the living crap out of me with the anti-AGW brigade - they spew forth, unter-like, "where's the evidence?"

By the time we have "evidence", it might well be too late to change. Funny how those old sayings have disappeared: "an ounce of prevention is worth a ton of cure". Or, even more pertinent, "Better to have spent a trillion dollars fixing the environment and finding out it wasn't needed than wait until it is needed and finding out the environment's kaput."

Money is just money. As you say, AUP, this is the only planet any of us will ever have. If AGW is correct, the growth in the economies of China and India might well be the final straw.
 
rockoon said:
Relativity?

Hypothesis -> basic tests -> theory -> advanced tests -> consensus

The tests are repeatable.

Quantum mechanics?

Hypothesis -> basic tests -> theory -> advanced tests -> consensus

The tests are repeatable. QED is the most successful theory ever. Anyone who has ever seen a hologram has witnessed a successful test of that subset of QM.

Evolution?

Hypothesis -> basic tests -> theory -> advanced tests -> consensus

Anthropogenic Global Warming?

Hypothesis -> no tests -> no theory -> still no tests -> consensus

There arent any tests which would be repeatable.

Its hardly the same thing. While science might lead to scientists patting themselves on the back, the patting in no way requires actual science.
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If Athon will forgive me for quoting him here.

Science describes things as models in which we place some confidence will predict some sort of universal phenomena. That's it, end of story. 'Reality' doesn't come into it -- that's a philosophical construct which has no place in science, as it becomes a circular reasoning.

'What does science describe?'
Reality
'What is reality?'
That which science describes

So, we create models which we place confidence in on account of our personal acceptance of a level of evidence. Therefore, it becomes a scale of acceptibility, rather than a defined level of proof which suddenly pops into being. Nothing is suddenly 'real' - we just either are confident that it works, or we're not so confident.

That's why a lot of people don't feel comfortable with science; it offers no certainty. On the other hand, it's the very reason why I am comfortable with it. I am allowed to change my mind when presented with new evidence or a new way of interpreting old evidence.

Athon
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Using the best methods we have, that is models, and, as Athon has pointed out, all our knowledge is based on models in the end, its AGW.

CO2 is a greenhouse gas. It's content in the atmosphere is increasing, due to human activities.
 
What I understand to be so, based on reasonable evidence (from memory):

The climate is warming.

The periods between ice ages are either cooling or warming.

Mt. St. Helens eruption (1980) produced more greenhouse gases than the entire USA industrial and exhaust polution from several decades.

Warming (or cooling) is a natural cycle.

Human contribution is insignificant.

If we stopped producing greenhouse gases completely today, the climate would still be getting warmer (or cooler).

The climate getting warmer (or cooler) is going to cause significant change.

Enviromental scientists think a warming climate is BAD.

Enviromental scientists think a cooling climate is BAD.

There is no evidence that the climate has been stable since ice ages began and no evidence that anything we do can prevent warming or cooling.

I like it warmish.

I don't like smog.

Reduce polution so that I cough a little less and stop pretending it's part of "making a difference" to GW.



.
 
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