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The Science and Pseudoscience of Global Warming

30 points by quoderat 17y ago

milkmandan 17y ago
Freemand Dyson has another objection to climate modelling: it does not take into account the way climate interacts with biomass. Simple calculations show that even small changes in global biomass absorb huge amounts of atmospheric CO2. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/magazine/29Dyson-t.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/magazine/29Dyson-t.html?_r...
- Retric 17y ago
  How does that mesh with the steady increase in atmospheric CO2 over the last 50+ years? I mean it seems like a simple test if the rate of absorption is slower than production then the concentration increases which it has. PS: There is huge and then there is HUGE, once you start talking about millions of tuns of a gas it's hard to get an idea of scale.
- msie 17y ago
  So, planting trees or preventing massive deforestation would be a good idea. :D
radu_floricica 17y ago
Damn, that lost 10 minutes of my life. Not that I don't agree with the article, but I was really reading to get to the part which discusses the concequences of global warming, as suggested in the introduction. But there isn't one. Anyways, it's worth clicking around, he writes some pretty interesting things.
nazgulnarsil 17y ago
I think the bottom line about global warming is that we are deathly afraid of dynamics we don't understand. Our civilization is predicated on a very narrow set of conditions and we don't have the resources to handle major perturbations of those conditions.
- Retric 17y ago
  It's not a question of how well our civilization can withstand significant changes just what level of disruption we are willing to withstand without doing something. Taken to the extream to make a point, a 100 foot increase in sea level over 20 years would distroy an a silly amount of weath. However, a single 1 inch increase in sea level over 20 years would be hard to notice. It's not a question of 1 inch as ~0.1% of that increase = 0.1% of the dammage, rather it's a question of how much it costs to deal with the problem vs. starting over in a new area. PS: Most of the time an inch is meaningless, but a dam that can take 10 feel might not take 10.08 feet. So, it's better to think of it as an increase in the number of local problems vs. a meaningless threat or some large scale doom. Granted, as you scale the increase more areas have larger problems.
electromagnetic 17y ago
Fundamentally there's one problem that plagues global warming research, and that's that we're grasping at a system so huge and complex that we have absolutely no understanding of it. Sure people believe they understand the system, but spend a month in England and watch how weather forecasts pan out. I don't see how, when some of the biggest computer systems are being used to predict weather systems and we get it wrong, how scientists expect us to believe their computer models that follow less variables and use lots less processing power. All evidence so far says global warming is real, however I can't help but feel all the computer models they use are complete bunk. It strikes me as fraud, it's a computer program and everyone here knows you can get a computer program to do whatever you want. I see it as highly susceptible of bias, which makes it very hard to ever believe their predictions. There's a lot of real science used in global warming research, like using ancient sediments and ice cores to extrapolate how much CO2 was in the atmosphere n centuries ago. However, then we get pseudoscience with computer models of systems infinitely more complex than anything we've ever dealt with; it's akin to comparing a stick figure and a full anatomical diagram of a human down to every capillary for modelling the human body. We're at the stick figure when it comes to the global environment and we're trying to predict somethings effect like we have the whole picture.
- LargeWu 17y ago
  I mostly agree with you, except it's dangerous to compare weather models to climate models. I think this statement by the author is a bit disingenuous: "If correlation doesn't prove causation, what does? Taken to its logical conclusion, you could observe the same result in a hundred experiments and dismiss it as merely a strong correlation." The problem here is that there are no actual experiments done on the climate - it's all models, the outputs of which are essentially unverifiable. In other words, nobody is taking a test planet Earth and a control planet Earth and filling the test version's atmosphere up with CO2 and seeing what the difference is, much less repeating this and getting the same results. That is why, despite the fact that these models are based on scientific theory, the models themselves are not, strictly speaking, "science". For the record, I believe global climate change is probably happening, and is probably caused by human activity.
- emmett 17y ago
jerf 17y ago
I have a simple question, in the spirit of "What evidence would it take to prove your beliefs wrong?": How many years of dropping temperatures does it take before global warming is no longer an acceptable hypothesis?
- stevejalim 17y ago
  Are you talking global warming, or climate change? Rising temparatures aren't the only symptom of the latter, after all...
  - jerf 17y ago
    Global warming, obviously. Trying to transition global warming fearmongering into "climate change" fearmongering should be laughed out of politics. Climate science has a long way to go before it proves that "climate changes" are both significantly caused by man, are significantly worse than what would have changed anyhow, can be significantly improved by any particular action we can take, and that such actions would be cost-effective. (When you start to look at the problem like this and see what is really scientifically necessary, you start to realize just how far we are from this, by even the most optimistic estimates.) (The word "fearmongering" in my previous paragraph is not an accident. It's great to research climate change in the spirit of science and look at what's really there; science isn't fearmongering, fearmongering isn't science. There's a lot of very non-scientific stuff occuring in the global warming hysteria field, though. If you want to tell yourself that it's only the non-scientists doing that, I won't argue the point, but it doesn't make the hysteria go away.)
- emmett 17y ago
  Well, never. It's always an acceptable hypothesis, because maybe you haven't considered all the evidence yet. What if CO2 causes global warming exactly as scientists predict, but the Sun is going out? However, if your question is, would several years of falling temperatures make it more likely that global warming due to CO2 doesn't exist, then here is the answer: It depends. There are several other major factors in play determining the temperature of the planet beyond CO2. For example, if average sunlight received dropped for 10 years in a row, a rise in CO2 might not be sufficient to counteract that. However, if you didn't find anything else in play, it would be strong evidence that CO2 does not cause warming, at least not on the time scale you're looking at. This would be an very surprising result though, since we know that CO2 is a "greenhouse gas" - it traps heat. If higher concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere did not cause increases in temperature, it would be weird and shocking.
prewett 17y ago
I'm quite willing to believe that greenhouse gases warm the atmosphere, but I've always wondered how large the effect is compared to the other things that change the climate. Since the earth has been both hotter and colder than it is now, before we even existed, it seems possible that the increase of CO2 from people might not be all that big of a factor. Does anyone have any information along these lines?
- bena 17y ago
  Why aren't you curing cancer right now? If we must take everything in order of most important to least important, then doing anything that doesn't affect this most important thing is a colossal waste of time. If we are affecting the temperature of the planet in a way that will make it uninhabitable to us, it behooves us to do anything and everything we can to make our impact less. Whether or not it is the biggest contribution to the problem. Plus, solving the smaller problem may give us insights to the larger problem.
brc 17y ago
you lost me at correlation == causation

30 points by quoderat 17y ago

Freemand Dyson has another objection to climate modelling: it does not take into account the way climate interacts with biomass. Simple calculations show that even small changes in global biomass absorb huge amounts of atmospheric CO2. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/magazine/29Dyson-t.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/magazine/29Dyson-t.html?_r...

Retric 17y ago
How does that mesh with the steady increase in atmospheric CO2 over the last 50+ years? I mean it seems like a simple test if the rate of absorption is slower than production then the concentration increases which it has. PS: There is huge and then there is HUGE, once you start talking about millions of tuns of a gas it's hard to get an idea of scale.
msie 17y ago
So, planting trees or preventing massive deforestation would be a good idea. :D

radu_floricica 17y ago

Damn, that lost 10 minutes of my life. Not that I don't agree with the article, but I was really reading to get to the part which discusses the concequences of global warming, as suggested in the introduction. But there isn't one. Anyways, it's worth clicking around, he writes some pretty interesting things.

nazgulnarsil 17y ago

I think the bottom line about global warming is that we are deathly afraid of dynamics we don't understand. Our civilization is predicated on a very narrow set of conditions and we don't have the resources to handle major perturbations of those conditions.

Retric 17y ago
It's not a question of how well our civilization can withstand significant changes just what level of disruption we are willing to withstand without doing something. Taken to the extream to make a point, a 100 foot increase in sea level over 20 years would distroy an a silly amount of weath. However, a single 1 inch increase in sea level over 20 years would be hard to notice. It's not a question of 1 inch as ~0.1% of that increase = 0.1% of the dammage, rather it's a question of how much it costs to deal with the problem vs. starting over in a new area. PS: Most of the time an inch is meaningless, but a dam that can take 10 feel might not take 10.08 feet. So, it's better to think of it as an increase in the number of local problems vs. a meaningless threat or some large scale doom. Granted, as you scale the increase more areas have larger problems.

electromagnetic 17y ago

Fundamentally there's one problem that plagues global warming research, and that's that we're grasping at a system so huge and complex that we have absolutely no understanding of it. Sure people believe they understand the system, but spend a month in England and watch how weather forecasts pan out. I don't see how, when some of the biggest computer systems are being used to predict weather systems and we get it wrong, how scientists expect us to believe their computer models that follow less variables and use lots less processing power. All evidence so far says global warming is real, however I can't help but feel all the computer models they use are complete bunk. It strikes me as fraud, it's a computer program and everyone here knows you can get a computer program to do whatever you want. I see it as highly susceptible of bias, which makes it very hard to ever believe their predictions. There's a lot of real science used in global warming research, like using ancient sediments and ice cores to extrapolate how much CO2 was in the atmosphere n centuries ago. However, then we get pseudoscience with computer models of systems infinitely more complex than anything we've ever dealt with; it's akin to comparing a stick figure and a full anatomical diagram of a human down to every capillary for modelling the human body. We're at the stick figure when it comes to the global environment and we're trying to predict somethings effect like we have the whole picture.

LargeWu 17y ago
I mostly agree with you, except it's dangerous to compare weather models to climate models. I think this statement by the author is a bit disingenuous: "If correlation doesn't prove causation, what does? Taken to its logical conclusion, you could observe the same result in a hundred experiments and dismiss it as merely a strong correlation." The problem here is that there are no actual experiments done on the climate - it's all models, the outputs of which are essentially unverifiable. In other words, nobody is taking a test planet Earth and a control planet Earth and filling the test version's atmosphere up with CO2 and seeing what the difference is, much less repeating this and getting the same results. That is why, despite the fact that these models are based on scientific theory, the models themselves are not, strictly speaking, "science". For the record, I believe global climate change is probably happening, and is probably caused by human activity.
emmett 17y ago

jerf 17y ago

I have a simple question, in the spirit of "What evidence would it take to prove your beliefs wrong?": How many years of dropping temperatures does it take before global warming is no longer an acceptable hypothesis?

stevejalim 17y ago
Are you talking global warming, or climate change? Rising temparatures aren't the only symptom of the latter, after all...
- jerf 17y ago
  Global warming, obviously. Trying to transition global warming fearmongering into "climate change" fearmongering should be laughed out of politics. Climate science has a long way to go before it proves that "climate changes" are both significantly caused by man, are significantly worse than what would have changed anyhow, can be significantly improved by any particular action we can take, and that such actions would be cost-effective. (When you start to look at the problem like this and see what is really scientifically necessary, you start to realize just how far we are from this, by even the most optimistic estimates.) (The word "fearmongering" in my previous paragraph is not an accident. It's great to research climate change in the spirit of science and look at what's really there; science isn't fearmongering, fearmongering isn't science. There's a lot of very non-scientific stuff occuring in the global warming hysteria field, though. If you want to tell yourself that it's only the non-scientists doing that, I won't argue the point, but it doesn't make the hysteria go away.)
emmett 17y ago
Well, never. It's always an acceptable hypothesis, because maybe you haven't considered all the evidence yet. What if CO2 causes global warming exactly as scientists predict, but the Sun is going out? However, if your question is, would several years of falling temperatures make it more likely that global warming due to CO2 doesn't exist, then here is the answer: It depends. There are several other major factors in play determining the temperature of the planet beyond CO2. For example, if average sunlight received dropped for 10 years in a row, a rise in CO2 might not be sufficient to counteract that. However, if you didn't find anything else in play, it would be strong evidence that CO2 does not cause warming, at least not on the time scale you're looking at. This would be an very surprising result though, since we know that CO2 is a "greenhouse gas" - it traps heat. If higher concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere did not cause increases in temperature, it would be weird and shocking.

prewett 17y ago

I'm quite willing to believe that greenhouse gases warm the atmosphere, but I've always wondered how large the effect is compared to the other things that change the climate. Since the earth has been both hotter and colder than it is now, before we even existed, it seems possible that the increase of CO2 from people might not be all that big of a factor. Does anyone have any information along these lines?

bena 17y ago
Why aren't you curing cancer right now? If we must take everything in order of most important to least important, then doing anything that doesn't affect this most important thing is a colossal waste of time. If we are affecting the temperature of the planet in a way that will make it uninhabitable to us, it behooves us to do anything and everything we can to make our impact less. Whether or not it is the biggest contribution to the problem. Plus, solving the smaller problem may give us insights to the larger problem.

brc 17y ago

you lost me at correlation == causation