3 ms·

Now, if something as seemingly straightforward as divorce rate is controversial to calculate, how about causes/existence of global warming which is orders of ma

by aleh 12y ago

Now, if something as seemingly straightforward as divorce rate is controversial to calculate, how about causes/existence of global warming which is orders of magnitude more complex and is driven by much more powerful special interest groups.

intopieces 12y ago
The science behind global warming is relatively uncontroversial [0], it's what we should do about that is fraught with peril, special-interests wise. But that's inevitable, really, given that environmentalism is itself a "special interest," albiet one that concerns us all in one way or another. [0]http://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/ http://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/
feinte 12y ago
We have more precise data about global warming. Sensors are good at measuring temperature or sea rising, less at measuring divorce rates.
cowsandmilk 12y ago
The US government stopped tracking divorce rates in 1996, so we have little data. We still have a shitload of weather stations and air monitoring stations that actually give us data.
- aleh 12y ago
  Yep, we have shitload of data and then use complex model of earth climate to extrapolate this data. Being complex the model is extremely sensitive to parameters (Butterfly effect) and gives a lot of freedom in choosing parameters, which in turn makes it easy to tune the model to get the expected result. In itself it would not be too bad, this is how we learn how things work, but add a media looking for sensation and political interests and this whole area of research becomes as scientific as astrology.
  - snowwrestler 12y ago
    Your comment reflects a common misunderstanding, which is that the theory of global warming depends on the use of computerized general circulation models. It does not. The physical basis of the theory is easy to understand, and was discovered in the 19th century: the atmosphere is obviously a heat reservoir, so what is trapping the heat? The answer is that certain atmospheric gases absorb and re-emit infrared light. The obvious hypothesis is that if you increase the amount of those atmospheric gases, you'll trap more heat--just like building a taller dam will trap more water in a reservoir. This hypothesis was first proposed at the end of the 19th century. And today, that is indeed what a wide variety of measurements are showing: the gases are going up, and so is the temperature. The hard part is predicting what exactly will change in a given location. Will New York get warmer or colder? Will Seattle get drier or wetter? Will Tokyo see more of the same storms, or fewer stronger storms? These are the questions that computerized GCMs will help us answer. But we know that something is going to change. You can't dump more energy into a complex system (the climate, in this case) and expect it to keep working exactly the same way.
newuser88273 12y ago
Your comment was funny, duly upvoted, but you seem to be making somewhat of a category error, as we're not talking about divorce rate prediction but divoce rate measurement, while global warming controversy is about prediction, not much about measuring current temperature. (Measurement, I seem to remember, didn't even corrobate older global warming predictions, or some such thing, which is beside the point, because at no point global warning was about high temperatures to be measured "now".)

by aleh 12y ago

intopieces 12y ago

The science behind global warming is relatively uncontroversial [0], it's what we should do about that is fraught with peril, special-interests wise. But that's inevitable, really, given that environmentalism is itself a "special interest," albiet one that concerns us all in one way or another. [0]http://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/ http://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/

feinte 12y ago

We have more precise data about global warming. Sensors are good at measuring temperature or sea rising, less at measuring divorce rates.

cowsandmilk 12y ago

The US government stopped tracking divorce rates in 1996, so we have little data. We still have a shitload of weather stations and air monitoring stations that actually give us data.

aleh 12y ago
Yep, we have shitload of data and then use complex model of earth climate to extrapolate this data. Being complex the model is extremely sensitive to parameters (Butterfly effect) and gives a lot of freedom in choosing parameters, which in turn makes it easy to tune the model to get the expected result. In itself it would not be too bad, this is how we learn how things work, but add a media looking for sensation and political interests and this whole area of research becomes as scientific as astrology.
- snowwrestler 12y ago
  Your comment reflects a common misunderstanding, which is that the theory of global warming depends on the use of computerized general circulation models. It does not. The physical basis of the theory is easy to understand, and was discovered in the 19th century: the atmosphere is obviously a heat reservoir, so what is trapping the heat? The answer is that certain atmospheric gases absorb and re-emit infrared light. The obvious hypothesis is that if you increase the amount of those atmospheric gases, you'll trap more heat--just like building a taller dam will trap more water in a reservoir. This hypothesis was first proposed at the end of the 19th century. And today, that is indeed what a wide variety of measurements are showing: the gases are going up, and so is the temperature. The hard part is predicting what exactly will change in a given location. Will New York get warmer or colder? Will Seattle get drier or wetter? Will Tokyo see more of the same storms, or fewer stronger storms? These are the questions that computerized GCMs will help us answer. But we know that something is going to change. You can't dump more energy into a complex system (the climate, in this case) and expect it to keep working exactly the same way.

newuser88273 12y ago

Your comment was funny, duly upvoted, but you seem to be making somewhat of a category error, as we're not talking about divorce rate prediction but divoce rate measurement, while global warming controversy is about prediction, not much about measuring current temperature. (Measurement, I seem to remember, didn't even corrobate older global warming predictions, or some such thing, which is beside the point, because at no point global warning was about high temperatures to be measured "now".)