[Yossarian]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PenultimateManStanding', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Yossarian', ' ')if told by their doctors to cut-out smoking, get some exercise and eat a better diet or you're at serious risk of a heartattack, counter with "Well, how severe will this said heartattack be and what will be the exact date and time that it will occur."

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PenultimateManStanding', 'H')ow can you 'play up' the uncertainty?

[PenultimateManStanding]

Good article and I agree with what he is saying. We do have a warming trend going and we do have rising CO2. Without the Greenland Ice core projects and what they reveal, we might be inclined to base our actions on an assumption that there is going to be a likely trend without certainty, just probability. All I'm saying is that now we have strong evidence that CO2 isn't neccessarily the big mover people thought it was. A greenhouse gas of course, but not the only player on the scene and not even the major one if we are to believe the record. Maybe Gary_Malcolm will deign to enlighten us since he fiddles around with mathematical models.

[gary_malcolm]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PenultimateManStanding', ' ')And how about the facts as revealed by the cores taken in Greenland regarding CO2 and its relation to climate change?.

[PenultimateManStanding]

OK Gary. SNOUACIWQTRM (so neither of us are climatologists, I was quoting the Real McCoys) The point wasn't that modeling complex system isn't ever successful, just that the current models aren't doing too well with regards to this recently discovered record. Just a few years ago, it was thought that nothing like what was revealed could have happened. Just a few years ago it was thought that cooling in the Northern Hemisphrere entailed warming in the Southern Hemisphere, etc. Climate Science is an exciting and newly revolutionized field.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')n talking about the difficulties in getting the computer simulations to work right there is this (p.149):

Quote:
Summarizing their work in a 2003 review in Science, the NRC [National Research Council] team described a consistent 'mismatch' between the computer's idea of abrupt climate change and the real record of the last 100,000 years. Across the board, the real record shows changes that were greater and more widespread than the computers reproduce.
These computer simulations use every physical principle known, applied to the computer map of the real world, but they don't work.

Then there is this telling remark:
Quote:
The difficulties of simulating past abrupt climate changes lead some researchers to question whether predicting future climate is even a realistic goal

[gary_malcolm]

PenultimateManStanding,

No, you were quoting J. Cox, a scientific journalist. But that is beside the point.

I want to comment on a few points:

1. Reference to models must be specific. What are the inputs, what are we modelling, what is the correlation between model components and their real world correllaries? There is no point in discussing invalid and antiquated models as we know that new discoveries will often lead to new models. This is why science is good.

2. Modelling whole natural systems is an N-complete problem. You just can't do it. Period. So you pick and choose the inputs , because the computer big enough to run the whole equation is running already and we live on it. What you pick and choose is a limitation and will cause a loss of predictive ability. This is a problem depending on the granularity and aspect of the loss.

3. Some of your quote is more troubling:

"just a few years ago it was thought that cooling in the Northern Hemisphrere entailed warming in the Southern Hemisphere, etc. "

Straw Man! Reinterpreted : A previously discounted model was shown not to be true, therefore current models are false...

Another:

"Across the board, the real record shows changes that were greater and more widespread than the computers reproduce ... but they don't work. "

What?!? We don't know what the models were, what they were predicting and what they were intended to predict, how 'real events' (whatever those are) differed and it what magnitude? How didn't they work? This statement means NOTHING.

G

[rockdoc123]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')hen discussing complex systems we simply CAN NOT delink individual components.

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rockdoc123', '
')Excuse my diatribe.....(quickly climbs down from the soapbox)

[gary_malcolm]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rockdoc123', 'I') was arguing on another thread here as to why the models are currently inadequate.

[PenultimateManStanding]

(just a little aside as the scientists duke it out - I was reading in Discover magazine about this big controversy in Peruvian Archeology. Some husband/wife team from the US was being attacked by a Peruvian Archeologist for stealing her work. Another older Archeologist was asked about his opinion of the controversy and he shrugged his shoulders and said it's too bad, but scientists often have huge egos )

[rockdoc123]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'B')OOM... lost me here. Water vapor is baseline... unless the seas didn't exist in the past. There’s a huge difference between water vapor and other greenhouse gases. Human activities have not been shown to appreciably change the atmospheric concentration of water in any direct way. Water vapor does not accumulate in the atmosphere over the multi-year periods.

[gary_malcolm]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rockdoc123', 'w')ater vapor is beyond a doubt the most important greenhouse gas...

[PenultimateManStanding]

So we've had our showdown of a couple posters who say they are scientists. I have no reason to doubt either of them. But which one actually addressed the issue (the trouble with the climate models which can't be made to match historical events - thus casting doubt on their utility for prognostication) and which one just posted a bunch of arcane jargon without any coherent message except: look at the crap I know! Which one made sense? and which one just quibbled with trivia instead of the main issue? Which one was the down-to-earth dude with a rock hammer and which one was the snobbish obfuscator? etc.

[PenultimateManStanding]

Well, having digested Climate Crash and offered it up for discussion here, I'm ready for the next one: The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution by Richard Dawkins. Anybody read that one? Dawkins is supposed to be one of the very best writers in the field. I hope it's good because its about 700 pages. It's a very satisfying feeling to get started on a huge book and discover that it is very well written and interesting. That means many happy hours ahead. (BTW having had my cataracts removed, its easy to read again. )

[Keith_McClary]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rockdoc123', ' ')CO2 makes up 3% of the overall greenhouse gases and the human portion of that is only 3%.

[rockdoc123]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '?')?? CO2 has quadrupled over 200 years - doesn't that mean the human portion is 75%?

[PenultimateManStanding]

It's a lost cause, rockdoc. This quote says it all:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')Human Carbon Output has upset the balance of life. Your attempts to distract because you wish to believe that humans can screw the world as hard as they want CAUSES DEATH.

[aldente]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('frankthetank', ' ')Now think of the next 80 years (a human lifespan for many) and i don't think you or I can even closely predict what will happen--i doubt it'll be boring. I really wish i had a time machine.

[Keith_McClary]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rockdoc123', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '?')?? CO2 has quadrupled over 200 years - doesn't that mean the human portion is 75%?

[Antimatter]

CO2 is up from about 290ppm in pre-industrial times to 380ppm now...I don't know where both the claims of 3% and the claim of quadripling come from!

rather large image

The ice core data I posted on pg2 shows a pre-industrial CO2 level of about 280-290ppm

[Doly]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Antimatter', 'I') don't know where both the claims of 3% and the claim of quadripling come from!