flying_eagle wrote: Yet, you know the first thing many like to do is attack the messenger, or the message.
I'm quite open minded about mysticism, but your comment provoked this opposing thought:
"The first thing many [messengers] like to do is accused people of attacking the messenger"
For no reason in particular, the following come to mind...
+ fact - something you can prove to others
+ belief - something you can prove to yourself
+ faith - something you can't prove
I wasn't referring just to messages that some give from these types of sources. I was speaking in a more general way that unpopular messages and their messengers are often attacked. For example, Dr. James Hansen was attacked for speaking up about CO2 and global warming and he was a scientist, perhaps not originally a climate scientist, but still more credible than say some psi based info. There are many examples of this.
So if the messenger says yes polywell is a good idea, and you like that idea, you might agree. But if you oppose ideas like GW or CO2 induced GW, then if that same messenger tells you a message you don't like, you are more than likely to be extra critical.
Last edited by flying_eagle on Thu Oct 01, 2009 6:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
flying_eagle wrote: Yet, you know the first thing many like to do is attack the messenger, or the message.
I'm quite open minded about mysticism, but your comment provoked this opposing thought:
"The first thing many [messengers] like to do is accused people of attacking the messenger"
For no reason in particular, the following come to mind...
+ fact - something you can prove to others
+ belief - something you can prove to yourself
+ faith - something you can't prove
I wasn't referring just to messages that some give from these types of sources. I was speaking in a more general way that unpopular messages and their messengers are attacked. For example, Dr. James Hansen was attacked for speaking up about CO2 and global warming and he was a scientist, perhaps not originally a climate scientist, but still more credible than say some psi based info. There are many examples of this.
Ah. Hansen. Yes he is a scientist. A political scientist.
The catastrophic GW theories depend on water vapor amplification. However the numbers assumed in the models don't match the numbers observed.
And what is the scientific wisdom re: when theory doesn't match observation? Scrap the theory and get a new one. So far that has not been done. You have to ask yourself why?
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
MSimon wrote:What is unpredictable apriori is the jump from one strange attractor to another. And if you say otherwise then give me a date +/- 20 years when we head for the next ice age.
We should already be in another ice age...
Although the chaotic attractors themselves can be well defined, the flip from one attractor to another is, as you say, extremely sensitive to very small changes.
You have just made my point. Models have no predictive ability.
Every model run with a chaotic (turbulent) system produces a different output depending on initial conditions. The best we can hope for (if the models are correct) is a view of climate sensitivity.
However we know that the models are wrong since the water vapor amplification assumed doesn't match the actual data.
GIGO.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
Msimon, you make a lot of good points but overall that is all they are just a few points.
Well of course. Models that leave out known data (the PDO) and that get fundamental factors (WV amplification) wrong should absolutely be trusted to make multi-trillion dollar decisions. It is in the tradition of the very best engineering.
Better yet forget models and data. We need to listen to the dreams (waking? asleep?) of 13 year old girls. I design all my circuits that way and they use minute amounts of energy (hundredths of a femtowatt) and are noiseless. And my computer programs designed that way can be trusted in aerospace. Why so many people waste their time studying engineering when we have 13 year old girls available is beyond me.
Why just the other day I designed a bridge going from New York to London with that very method. I can sell you a share in the project for a very nominal sum because you can see the truth when so many are blind.
People do not understand the true power of faith based engineering. And of course when applied to science even better results can be expected.
OK enough of the sarcasm.
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I have nothing against faith. I use it frequently to give me clues as to what direction might be profitable for a given project. But then I test my faith against hard reality. I do the math. I observe. I compare. If faith doesn't match observation I give up the faith. I have found that doing it the other way is not viable.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
For some reason (possibly because it feels like a cheap shot) I can't let this pass:
BenTC wrote:+ faith - something you can't prove
That's blind faith. Something else entirely.
C. S. Lewis defined "faith" as the ability to keep believing something you've been intellectually convinced of, despite a desire to disbelieve it (ie: no new evidence, just an emotional shift). You'll note that this is useful in many more spheres than just religion...
What if new evidence does show up? Well, I see MSimon just addressed that...
Any further discussion of this is probably off topic and will become more so very fast...
Every model run with a chaotic (turbulent) system produces a different output depending on initial conditions. The best we can hope for (if the models are correct) is a view of climate sensitivity.
Technically, this is an overstatement.
Different aspects are predictable at different levels, and to different time scales.
The arguments for and against global warming both struggle to engage with this.
Every model run with a chaotic (turbulent) system produces a different output depending on initial conditions. The best we can hope for (if the models are correct) is a view of climate sensitivity.
Technically, this is an overstatement.
Different aspects are predictable at different levels, and to different time scales.
The arguments for and against global warming both struggle to engage with this.
Well sure. But things would be on a sounder footing if known cycles such as the PDO were included in the models. Now of course they are hard to predict being chaotic in and of themselves. But what you can do is include them in hind casting models and so get a better handle on actual sensitivities of various parameters.
Second the "gain" of the climate system as observed is in the range of .4 to .6 . Climate models use 1.5 to 4.0 (for the most part)
This state of affairs is simply unacceptable. It is a sign of rot. Corruption and possibly even fraud.
When I say models have no predictive ability that is certainly true in their current state. Will it improve if the above corrections are made? Time will tell.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
A note of caution about unscientific models and 13 year old girls.
Before the current fashion for scientifically based medicine, several thousand years of observation produced a number of workable systems. If you read up on Ayurveda or Tibetan medicine they are quite strange from a western scientific perspective, and yet they are used quite successfully. Tibetan medicine, in particular, addressed viral infection before western science even had a concept for it.
The predictive power of a theory is surprisingly unconnected to its apparent scientific credibility.
And finally, those who express reasonable doubt about the visions of 13 year old girls should read a little history. The British encountered more than a little local difficulty at the hands of one Jeanne d'Arc...
alexjrgreen wrote:A note of caution about unscientific models and 13 year old girls.
Before the current fashion for scientifically based medicine, several thousand years of observation produced a number of workable systems. If you read up on Ayurveda or Tibetan medicine they are quite strange from a western scientific perspective, and yet they are used quite successfully. Tibetan medicine, in particular, addressed viral infection before western science even had a concept for it.
The predictive power of a theory is surprisingly unconnected to its apparent scientific credibility.
And finally, those who express reasonable doubt about the visions of 13 year old girls should read a little history. The British encountered more than a little local difficulty at the hands of one Jeanne d'Arc...
I have considerable experience in so call alternative medicine. My mate tells me I know exactly where to massage and how to relieve her pain. I can feel exactly where to go. An although I know the general theory of acupressure points I never studied them. I can also feel two separated points in the body necessary to get a desired energy flow.
I have also had a lot of success with using Vitamin C for immune system enhancement vs. antibiotics.
The question for me is: is this the right 13 year old? Is she Jean d'Arc or just another peasant girl with delusions of grandeur or maybe catastrophe.
In any case we know a few things wrong wit the models. Let us fix them. Unless all the modelers have been listening to the same 13 year old and fixing the models would invalidate her predictions. (just think of the logic of that sentence - a lot of recursion there)
But let us get a sanity check if we can. Why not ask her the cause of the current cooling. And why Michael Mann is doing such a bad job.
MSimon wrote:But things would be on a sounder footing if known cycles such as the PDO were included in the models.
The energy balance of the oceans is much more stable over time than that of the atmosphere and is, in any case, the major player.
Well yes. Except that climate is based on 30 year running averages. And - tada - a PDO cycle is in the 60 year range. And 1/2 a cycle is 30 years.
Now just suppose through ignorance or error the temperature change caused by the positive part of the PDO cycle (1980 to 2005 - about) was aliased to CO2. That would mean the CO2 forcing was overestimated. Bad for science to be sure. Good for politicians who want to impose a carbon tax.
Say. Doesn't Al Gore stand to make substantial sums from carbon trading? But he has only your own best interests at heart. Just ask his accountants.
And lest I leave it out: climate scares (cold, hot) have occurred at 30 year intervals since 1900. Probably just a coinky dink.
It would be a lot easier for me to give credence to AGW if all these little errors and frauds didn't keep showing up. And people hiding their data. Or losing their data. Or correcting their data without making the raw source available. It is enough to make a sceptical mind suspicious.
But other than those few minor details it could be true.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
Many of the proven methane clathrate deposits are in the Pacific, so I would expect the PDO to significantly effect the release of methane into the atmosphere.
alexjrgreen wrote:Many of the proven methane clathrate deposits are in the Pacific, so I would expect the PDO to significantly effect the release of methane into the atmosphere.
There should be some data no?
BTW if the PDO is a "surface" phenomenon (1,000 m) why should it affect methane release?
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.