OT: I know how to solve global warming

[Renegade 13]

With that in mind, I can only urge you to not give up on this line of reasoning - I'm not trying to make anyone feel bad or stupid (although, again, I recognize that my manner of speech does sometimes come across like that - again, very sorry for that) - I am just trying to impart that same enlightenment that I felt when I really, finally, after years, understood what scientific progress and the growth of human knowledge was all about.

And let me say "thanks" for allowing me to debate this topic, especially given that I often come across like an arrogant SOB with a bad attidude.

Don't worry, it would take a lot more than this debate to make me feel stupid! And no, you didn't really come across as arrogant (well, maybe a time or two, but I did too), mostly just passionate.

I really would like to understand your reasoning, but from everything you've said, I can only conclude that you haven't had much experience in the hard sciences. It is fine to question theorems to gain a better understanding of them, but to just reject them out of hand you really do need to present an alternative. Otherwise, you are just an admitted novice that is rejecting the claims of experts in a field just because you don't like some of the evidence.

I'm not rejecting the theories out of hand. I have no doubt that the Earth's mean temperature has been rising for the past century or so. What I call into question is why this is happening. What we need is more exhaustive study, so that anomalies can be explained, the theories revised to account for the anomalies, etc. I guess what I'm essentially saying in my usual roundabout and excessively verbose way is that the theories should not be taken to be complete. They aren't until they can explain more of the glaring anomalies. Some people seem to think that the theory of global warming is complete and infallible; it isn't.

I also think that it is entirely possible that there is a better theory to account for the world's climate today, just someone hasn't thought of it yet. Essentially, I'm a skeptic. I require a lot of convincing.

[EvilGenius4ABetterTomorro]

I still like the reverse Dyson Sphere idea. It beats my idea of reversing global warming by immediate implementation of a Nuclear Winter. C'mon folks lets get it over with!

Hey doesn't Dyson make Vacuum cleaners? Man that would suck!

[AMF]

Spoken like a true evil genius 4 a better tomorrow.

[AMF]

Renegade 13 said:
I guess what I'm essentially saying ...is that the theories should not be taken to be complete. They aren't until they can explain more of the glaring anomalies. Some people seem to think that the theory of global warming is complete and infallible; it isn't.

I certainly agree with you here 100%, and I hope I never made the claim that it is an infallible research program - in fact, no research program is infallible, I think, by definition.

I also think that it is entirely possible that there is a better theory to account for the world's climate today, just someone hasn't thought of it yet.

Certainly quite possible as well - although, and this is just my uneducated opinion, I believe that any future research program will accept AGW as it's hard core, and build upon it.

Essentially, I'm a skeptic. I require a lot of convincing.

Yay! Me too. Skepticism is necessary attribute of human progress and civilization. Those who lack skepticism are simply dogmatic zombie horde types who just eat brains. Or something like that.

AMF

[Hunpecked]

From Will:

"The majority of scientists who are studying climate are saying that humans have had an impact on climate, but they don't go saying it's the end of the world either. That's what journalists are for.

And many politicians, like Al Gore. Unfortunately some people, like alarikf, seem to have bought into the alarmist scenarios (I doubt he'd be "physically sickened" by climate skeptics unless he really believed in Doomsday). The current "climate" (ouch) of hysteria has already led to expensive "corrective" action not justified by the actual science.

"You cannot deny the entire hypothesis that human action has increased global temperatures based solely on a few bits of data that does not fit the model."

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

"We have very accurate data from late 1800's to present for temperature..."

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.

"...(to within fractions of a degree)."

We're confusing precision with accuracy here.

"We have fairly accurate data going back several centuries..."

See my earlier posts on climate proxies and the "hockey stick" debacle.

"It [ice cores] shows strong correlations between percentage of atmospheric carbon dioxide and temperature."

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.)

But who knows? Maybe one day the ice drillers will find one of those Viking SUVs that caused the Medieval Warm Period!

[Hunpecked]

From alarikf:

"Useful citations for above referenced philosophers:"

I read the Popper references, and I think I see the source of our confusion. From the Wiki article:

"Logically, no number of positive outcomes at the level of experimental testing can confirm a scientific theory, but a single genuine counterexample is logically decisive: it shows the theory, from which the implication is derived, to be false."

In other words, a theory can be falsified (i.e. shown to be incorrect or at least incomplete) by a single "anomalous" observation, even in the absence of a competing theory. This is essentially what Renegade and I have been arguing.

From the Stanford reference:

"If the conclusion is shown to be false, then this is taken as a signal that the theory cannot be completely correct (logically the theory is falsified), and the scientist begins his quest for a better theory. He does not, however, abandon the present theory until such time as he has a better one to substitute for it."

This is apparently what alarikf (and Will?) has been arguing, i.e. we seem to be arguing related but different topics.

I'm not sure I entirely agree with the "don't abandon until you have an alternative" argument. Presumably if the falsified theory is still useful within its newly demonstrated limits, then we can continue using it for limited applications. If, however, the theory is all wrong or the consequences of misapplication are sufficiently horrific, then perhaps we should abandon the theory entirely and forego its supposed benefits until a better theory is formulated and tested.

Of course, since AGW is a hypothesis (as Will apparently realizes), this whole philosophy of science discussion is just an interesting sidebar to the discussion of AGW.

[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

[Will]

Hunpecked said:
Of course, since AGW is a hypothesis (as Will apparently realizes), this whole philosophy of science discussion is just an interesting sidebar to the discussion of AGW.

Ahhh, cross posting... bleh.

Anyway, there are multiple concepts flying around here, but AGW is a hypothesis, yes, and one that has not been falsified yet (and it will be a hard one to falsify; in logic notation it is ∃x(AGW) and to falsify it, you must show that ∀x(~AGW), where x is some set of conditions, ∃ is the "there exists symbol, ∀ is the "for all" symbol, ~ is the not operator, and AGW is, of course, our hypothesis). The theory or model that we have been talking about is our understanding of how various factors influence temperature throughout the world, including the affects of solar output, surface and atmospheric albedo, greenhouse effects, ocean and atmospheric currents, geothermals, and countless other factors and their interactions. THIS is the theory that must be replaced by a better one, and the AGW hypothesis is an element of this theory. Current opinion says there is not an alternative theory that leaves out the AGW hypothesis that explains the data as well as the current theory with the AGW hypothesis.

--edit: logical symbols fixed? maybe? nope... in your minds, please replace ∀ with an upside-down capital A, and ∃ with a backwards capital E...

[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.