OK - then let's see the exposition of your simple climate calculation rather than all your verbiage.
I don't have a climate calculation - I don't even know exactly what you mean by it.
My point remains that there is absolutely nothing simple about it, and the radiation model. {no blackbody is not a gas vs solid matter}.
I do have the simple calculation that, at equilibrium, energy in equals energy out, so the energy change is zero. If they're not equal, energy change is non-zero and there isn't an equilibrium. The energy out does depend on temperature, so eventually a new equilibrium is reached. It's that simple.
Climate isn't terribly complicated. Just by normal observation we can see that winters are cooler than summers, and climate is even further removed from day-to-day variations in weather.
On the issue of many theories that fit the data ....
Nonsense - all models that fit the data are equally 'skillful' (what a nonsense concept).
Not equally skilful at
prediction. For that, models have to reflect real
influences that make the data non-random.
Just because one was proposes prior to the presentation of the most recent data has no bearing on the validity of it's assumptions beyond the fact that it has not been eliminated as invalid/incorrect.
If climate is as complicated as you suggest and a model turns out to predict its behaviour, that's pretty robust support for the model's validity.
This problem is very similar to 'models' that attempt to predict fluctuations in the stock market based on various factors. Success of a short period is not supportive of the model in preference to new models which also match the same data.
The fundamental difference here is that such models, by their existence, influence the system they're modelling. If investment decisions are made based on them, the system now becomes the old system
plus the model - which, of course, is not the system that was modelled.
The same can't be said of climate models. The climate doesn't change its behaviour however well (or badly) we model it.
Same here - but this issue is primarily political, not scientific, as the great vehemence on this forum and elsewhere indicate. Good choice of analogy, as cosmologists and climatologists are almost equally incapable of creating any useful experiment, so the validation of these sciences are equally weak and feeble.
Do you ever just stop and smell the roses?
Here we agree. There is a good bit of know-nothing-ism in climate change denial, but I don't see a lot of denial on this forum or the others I read.
It's not scientific ignorance that's the problem - that's always been widespread. The problem is the imputation of bias, corruption, mendacity and/or careerism to the field of science, and
that you'll see a lot of. Science as "political correctness". Science as an ideology. Science as a gulag ruled by fear and ambition with the IPCC taking the role of the OGPU, and Hansen the role of Stalin. Science as something that
cannot be trusted. A vile parody of what science is - the greatest and purest achievement of mankind.
The question of the cause of the admitted change is instead the primary topic. The AGW side is IMO overly dismissive of the opponents arguments, and overly confident in their weak underpinnings of their conclusions. This does not mean they are ultimately wrong.
I'm certainly dismissive of Diamond's position that AGW is a Marxist ploy. or of any position that depends on Singer, McIntyre, or the tiny crew of the Good Ship Weasel.
The other offense by some on the AGW side is the claim that 'the debate is over'. That is the most anti-science, anti-reason argument that has been made in my lifetime of a topic of fact.
The debate is clearly not over. There were two major debates in the last fortnight, one UN-sponsored and the other Bush-sponsored. The debate as to whether AGW is
real does seem to be over where it matters - in politics and science. And in public perception, despite the continued hostility of much of the media and an understandable desire for it
not to be true.
Actually it is quite difficult to get a good survey of the entire atmosphere and your dismisal stating it was possible to get a good single point reading in a near sea level lab in Western Europe on the late 1800s is not a valid argument that atmospheric CO2 was well known at that time.
It wasn't an argument, it was a statement. Arrhenius addressed the subject because it had been noticed that CO2 measurements were on the up.
My point was that not everyone agrees on the precise level of anthropomorphic CO2 in the atmosphere. I've read recent articles suggesting the current measurements overstate the the anthropomorphic CO2 component by ~25%. I do not necessarily agree with those articles, but there is a question as to the precise figure.
Where's the other stuff coming from? We know we're putting billions of tons of the stuff out there every year and we know that there's more CO2 in the atmosphere and oceans, year-on-year. We also know that some of it's going into sinks we haven't precisely identified because we're putiing out
more CO2 than is appearing in the atmosphere and oceans - the thin fluid skin on Planet Earth. There's no call for any other input.
Yes - it is contested in the detail ...
So it might be, but you didn't include
that little detail at the time. You said a human contribution is
relatively uncontested. As we all know, there are those that blame underwater volcanic activity for the extras CO2 and claim humans have nothing to do with it.
... and no your comparison to heliocentrism is a ridiculous strawman.
It was an
analogy, not an argument, strawman or otherwise.
You're a very combative sort of chap, aren't you?
My point remains that despite niggling about the precise amount it is almost universally admitted that humans have significantly increase atmospheric CO2 levels. The CO2 increase should, due to many separate reasons, have an impact on the biosphere beyond climate, and that we should have some agreement that reducing atmospheric CO2 is a good idea, despite disagreement about the extent of climatic impact.
Whether it's a good idea or not depends on the goal. I don't doubt there are influential Russians arguing that an ice-free Arctic is a damn' good idea. In fact, there's been quite a flurry of flag-planting way up north of late, and the Canadians are seriously militarising their northern coasts for the first time. Canadian policy has also shifted from a "green" stance to a more "lets not be hasty" one over recent times.
You subscribe to a theory of government entirely different from mine.
History is my big thing, not science.
'Leaders' IMO only can lead within limits based on the extent that the 'followers' agree to follow.
Indeed. But to get the real flavour replace "followers" with "following".
The Sopranos can teach a lot about history.
Having an informed public debate on CO2, ozone climate and other issues is ideally a prerequisite to a political solution.
Having an informed public would be a major first. For most people, being informed is an effort without a motive.
We are instead having an uninformed debate ...
Who do you mean by we?
... in which authorities dictate the solution ...
What authorites have dictated what solution
?
... and announce that all discussion is over before the facts have been presented and discussed.
Again, authorities are doing this?
As you may recall 'argument from authority' is an invalid form of argument ...
Indeed. Who are these authorities, and who's arguing from them?
... but it is what most of the sheeple accept these days on any technical topic.
Fortunately the sheeple - or proles, as I generally refer to them - have no more than mob power, and that's usually a broken reed.
My argument goes farther. Will China idle the massive coal power infrastructure and thus destroy the economy they are rapidly creating ?
Of course not. However many Chinese go to bed cold, hungry, and up a tree because of the floods, the prosperous and influential will sigh and send in some charity, but as long as they're OK nothing's going to change.
The cold and hungry die off. A shame, but hey, they were unsustainable.
.
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