4 ms·
I'm not a climate-change denier, far from it, but it is worth noting that Svante Arrhenius made conclusions based on assumptions which are seriously flawed [1]
by edejong 10y ago
I'm not a climate-change denier, far from it, but it is worth noting that Svante Arrhenius made conclusions based on assumptions which are seriously flawed [1] [2]. The effects he described are at least four times exaggerated when compared with modern measurements.
[1] http://members.casema.nl/errenwijlens/co2/arrhrev.htm http://members.casema.nl/errenwijlens/co2/arrhrev.htm
[2] http://members.casema.nl/errenwijlens/co2/arrhenius.html http://members.casema.nl/errenwijlens/co2/arrhenius.html
- CalRobert 10y agoOne is reminded of the first calculation of black hole radius which ended up being right-ish due to two errors canceling each other out (See the first paragraph on page 135 at https://books.google.ie/books?id=v_6PbAfapSAC&lpg=PA135&ots=oqsnsZagkC&dq=schwarzschild%20radius%20errors%20cancel&pg=PA135#v=onepage&q=laplace%20&f=false https://books.google.ie/books?id=v_6PbAfapSAC&lpg=PA135&ots=... )
- mirimir 10y agoSure. But that was over a century ago. What's amazing is how good his understanding was.
- edejong 10y agoHindsight is 20/20, selection bias is a thing.
- brudgers 10y ago4x is within an order of magnitude. That's pretty good in technical terms...I mean in computing, we talk about bytes, kilobytes, megabytes, etc. which is a granularity of three orders of magnitude. Even in ordinary life we chunk time time into seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks months, years, decades (kinda), centuries, etc...each approximately an order of magnitude.
- dogma1138 10y agoNearly 150 year old science is not accurate and has been replaced by modern theories, observations and measurements is surprising because...?
- edejong 10y agoVery surprising! Look at the accuracy of the measurements of speed of light [1]. Even Eratosthenes (2nd century BC) approximations on the distance to and diameter of the sun is more accurate. The accuracy of scientific measurements at the time was in the order of parts per thousand. He took some lucky guesses, combined it with the science known at the time and presented it as new facts. [1] http://www.speed-light.info/measure/speed_of_light_history.htm http://www.speed-light.info/measure/speed_of_light_history.h...
- Terr_ 10y agoIsn't that just the survivorship bias of "interestingly close" predictions? How many other predictions for the speed of light from 2000+ years ago do we still know about?
- edejong 10y agoThat's proving my point: the CO2 measurements were 400% besides the mark and shouldn't be categorised as scientific given the time-period. My comment tries to place Arrhenius into perspective.
- GlobalChange 10y agoBecause just like with Malthus' hypothesis, we keep fuelling a wrong and unsustained idea.