OT: I know how to solve global warming

[Will]

I doubt he'd be "physically sickened" by climate skeptics unless he really believed in Doomsday

Doubt away, but I believe the part that "sickened" alarikf (and myself as well) was the part where untrained and uneducated individuals attempt to dominate debate on the issue, on either side. Meaning both the people predicting the end of the world because of global warming, AND the people that are saying it has nothing to do with human impact. Both types of individuals are motivated by some kind of personal gain instead of a desire to reach the truth.

I'm skeptical of the hypothesis because a lot of data don't fit the model.

Good! That's what we have been trying to say. Your and Renegade's earlier posts seemed to imply an outright denial of the hypothesis, which would be wrong. You need more to deny it, but being skeptical is part of the game. As for a lot of data not fitting the models, sounds like you've been listening to a bit too much talk radio; it's fairly common there to take something like the "hockey stick graph" and therefore conclude that all the data in all studies are just like it. That is not the case, since I agree that that particular graph is wrong, but do not agree that it in any way disproves anthropogenic global warming.

We don't. As I pointed out in an earlier post, even direct historical measurements are uncertain due to location, changes in location, lack of coverage (especially the oceans), changes in instrumentation, land use changes, etc. etc. Note also that satellite and balloon measurements show less warming than ground stations.

I'm sorry, but we do. There are countless records dating back to the late 1800s that are very accurate in terms of temperature, specific location, and specific time. Go to any small-town historical society, and you can probably take a look at a general store owner's log book, that will contain things like how many bags of flour Mrs. Wilson bought on a particular day, a letter came in for Mr. Smith, and what the temperature reading off the thermometer on the front porch was. Also, your "confusing precision with accuracy" statement is a non sequitur, since the words are synonyms for the same thing... We have time and location data to go along with the recorded temperatures, over a fairly wide area; what more do you want? Sure, there isn't data for oceans etc, but that is not needed for looking at trends in the data. In this case, having data for a single location over a long period is much more enlightening than having data coverage for all locations at any one particular time.

Correlation is not causation. And as Gozra pointed out, it's an open question whether carbon dioxide changes preceded or actually followed temperature shifts. (All this assumes, of course, that ancient ice bubbles are as pristine as paleoclimatologists like to believe -- more uncertainty.)

Correct, correlated data does not imply causation. It suggests causation, in one direction or the other. And yes, it could be that increased temperatures somehow causes more carbon dioxide to be present in the atmosphere, but the problem is that does not make any sense. The other problem is that carbon dioxide is not the only greenhouse gas identified in the theory, so showing that in some cases the curve of carbon dioxide concentration follows after the curve in temperature is insufficient to show that carbon dioxide has no effect. You must also take into account dihydrogen monoxide gas, methane, fluorocarbons, sulfur compunds, etc. For all you know, there could be a spike in other gasses that resulted in the temperature spike, and as those subsided, CO2 rose up, and your anomaly is debunked.

And you joke about medieval SUVs, presumably as part of the argument of "hey, there have been lots of temperature fluctuations in the past, and we had nothing to do with it". We aren't denying that there are "natural" processes at work here (meaning processes that we do not control). What we are saying is that there appears to be some effect that humans have on these natural processes, and you can be skeptical about the degree of that impact, but you cannot deny it unless you present a viable (and better) alternate explanation.

I mentioned dihydrogen monoxide gas earlier... this site linky is a good example of how scientific data can be mischaracterized in the hands amateurs. I leave it as an exercise to the reader to discover exactly what this dangerous chemical is

[Hunpecked]

From Will:

"Doubt away, but I believe the part that "sickened" alarikf (and myself as well) was the part where untrained and uneducated individuals attempt to dominate debate on the issue, on either side."

Um, the "sickened" bit was the prelude to "There is NO debate on global warming", "You're...helping to doom the planet with shortsighted biases", "the future of the entire planet", and "I can understand why people don't want to pay a bit more in taxes to save the planet". It was pretty obvious that alarikf had bought into the Doomsday scenarios (note "doom the planet" above) and he was specifically irked at climate skeptics. His later posts have been more moderate, but alarikf's first post to this thread made a lasting impression.

"As for a lot of data not fitting the models, sounds like you've been listening to a bit too much talk radio"

No, I've been reading up on science, for example the bit about "dihydrogen monoxide" being the principal infrared-absorbing gas (please, not "greenhouse" gas), and the IR absorption spectrum of carbon dioxide largely overlapping that of water vapor. As a professional programmer I know that computers do exactly what you tell them to do, no more, no less ("Surprise! Our model shows man-made global warming, just like we predicted!"). My brother the geologist and fellow "climate skeptic" has been very helpful with ice core data.

On the other hand alarikf seems to have been listening to Al Gore.

With regard to uncertainty in temperature records, Will's "general store" is a perfect example. What brand of thermometer was it? Was it calibrated? Was it in the shade? Did it get rained on? Was it close enough to the side of the store that it was warmed slightly by the coal stove in winter? Did it have gradations for every degree? Every two degrees? Was it read at the exact same time every day? Was it always read by only the store owner? Was he nearsighted? When the original thermometer was replaced in 1902, how closely did the new thermometer match the old? Was the store in the woods? In town? Surrounded by wheat fields? Near a big lake? When the store was torn down in 1935 and city hall did the temp records, how did that affect the readings? What about when the new airport (30 miles from the old general store) took over in 1962?

Guys, I'm just scratching the surface here!

"Also, your "confusing precision with accuracy" statement is a non sequitur, since the words are synonyms for the same thing"

[counts to ten] No, children, they're not. Example: That state-of-the-art Acme thermometer over there, the one that measures temps to three decimal places? Well, it's in an ice water bath and it reads 5.142 decrees Celsius. It's very precise (three decimal places!), but not accurate (it should read zero).

"...it could be that increased temperatures somehow causes more carbon dioxide to be present in the atmosphere, but the problem is that does not make any sense."

Actually, as Gozra pointed out, it does; melting tundra, bogs, and such.

"...you can be skeptical about the degree of that impact, but you cannot deny it unless you present a viable (and better) alternate explanation."

No, as long AGW enthusiasts fail to demonstrate a causal relationship, climate skeptics only have to point out holes in the hypothesis. And for catastrophic AGW, the bar is even higher. And as for the hypothesis that the earth's climate can be predictably adjusted by "tuning" one variable (i.e. carbon dioxide), the bar is higher yet.

Will, why does your linky point to a dental HMO?

[Renegade 13]

Hunpecked said:
Will, why does your linky point to a dental HMO?

I was just going to ask the same question

Thanks for pointing out the bit about the thermometer in the general store, I was about to say pretty much the same things.

[Will]

o.O

I typed in the address wrong. It should be www.dhmo.org instead of www.dhmo.com

Precise/Accurate: we're going off different definitions then. If you say a thermometer in an ice bath reads 5.335 Celsius, I would say that it is not precise. In fact, I would say it is wrong

But that isn't the point. The purpose of examining the records is not to find that it was X degrees at time Y. The purpose is to find how the temperature changed at a specific location over a long period of time. Even better is if you can get lots of records in a relatively small geographic area, and average them for specific time periods. Multiple measurements leads to better data sets. We're looking for trends here, so inaccuracies in measurement are irrelevant as long as those inaccuracies are consistent. For an example of this, look at graphs of the calculated average global temperature. There will be several data sets graphed usually. They will change in the same manner, but the magnitude will vary between them (or, the graph of their derivatives will match up very closely, so the plots are off by a constant term).

And increased temperature causing increased CO2, I said that does not make sense with the permafrost melting in mind. There have been cycles of warming and cooling in the past, and past warming would presumably cause CO2 release. But when it re-freezes, the permafrost does not magically take it all back. So it does not make sense that CO2 would go back down when temperatures do. Yet that's what the graphs show. A more likely scenario is that increased carbon dioxide along with other factors, results in an increased heat retention; you say it's IR absorption spectra, I say it acts a lot like a greenhouse does, hence greenhouse gas

When you get down to it, the gasses labeled as greenhouse gasses have been shown to be in higher concentrations when temperatures rise. AGW points out that a lot of the increased concentrations are due to human actions. Sure it doesn't prove a causal relationship, but me dropping a pen onto the floor doesn't prove a causal relationship with gravity, either. It does, however, demonstrate that the model fits the data, and that is a necessary and sufficient condition in science. The "opponents" have only taken pot-shots at specific graphs or studies, without demonstrating a better model that explains all the data that the current model explains. So, like I said, you can be skeptical (which is good, so the model can be refined to be even more accurate). But unless you have something better, you can't put forth a denial.