OT: I know how to solve global warming

[Hunpecked]

Whoa! Nice rants from alarikf. I'm less ambitious, so I'll try to be more brief. (Edit: I failed. )

First, I have no hard feelings over alarikf's admittedly aggressive writing style. He's obviously passionate about the subject, so I'll give him some latitude. Besides, I find it quite amusing to read

"Often, I am literally physically sickened when I see people making important decisions based on their self-interest, ideologies, or dogma, rather than facts and scientific methods."

and then watch alarikf do exactly that.

"Theories are never disproven UNTIL a better theory replaces them."

Actually, as Renegade 13 pointed out, theories are disproven by experiments and observations. A "better theory" may not come along until long after the earlier theory is discredited. Meanwhile, if you still want to apply the known flawed theory, you do so at your own risk. I wouldn't recommend it, however, any more than I recommend spending immense financial resources on the flawed "theory" (actually a hypothesis) of man-made "global warming".

"And that conclusion remains, to wit: 'Presently available proxy evidence indicates that temperatures at many, but not all, individual locations were higher during the past 25 years than during any period of comparable length since A.D. 900.'

Apparently alarikf didn't read his own reference. His Wiki article points to

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempera...Council_Report

which demolishes the so-called "hockey stick" reconstruction. Yes, the original hypothesis is still "plausible", but only in the sense that the data neither support nor refute it. The bit about the last 400 years was never in dispute -- of course it's warmer today than during the height of the Little Ice Age (duuhhhh).

"And that is exactly why they are good scientists..."

BWAHAHAHA! Consider this quote from Phil Jones, co-author of several "hockey stick" papers:

"We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?"

Umm, "good" scientists are willing, if not eager, to have their work reviewed, scrutinized, and either confirmed or refuted.

"That is why said that it was wrong to claim that 'there are no detailed and accurate ways of measuring temperatures beyond a couple hundred years ago.' ie: Today it is 2006 AD. We have detailed and accurate ways of measuring temps up until 1600, and less confidence back to 900 AD."

Is alarikf really that ignorant of temperature reconstruction methodology, or is he just being disingenuous here?

"Reliable" thermometers were available no earlier than roughly mid-19th Century. Temperature "measurements" before then are based on "proxies", i.e. indirect temperature measurements such as tree rings, boreholes, isotope ratios, etc. These are subject to great uncertainty and require elaborate statistical processing to be of any use at all, as Mann et al learned when the National Academy of Sciences broke their beloved "hockey stick".

Even direct measurements of "average global temperature" (whatever that is) are fraught with uncertainty:

"There are concerns about possible uncertainties in the instrumental temperature record including the fraction of the globe covered, the effects of changing thermometer designs and observing practices, and the effects of changing land-use around the observing stations."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Histori...erature_record

I could go on, but Real Life beckons. I'll check back for further posts anon.

BTW, alarikf, I'm not Ann Coulter. If you want to argue with her (good luck), go to her web site.