You asked several questions in that post. To reread and reply:
“Are you interested in a scientific question here, or are you practicing rhetoric?”
I’m interested in what I believe is a scientific question – arguably the scientific question par excellence.
“In the former case, are you interested in the theory of Global Warming?”
In the theory, yes – and also in how its predictions could hypothetically be falsified by factual evidence.
“the Theory of noisy signals with unknown components?”
Yes – and also in how to design falsification criteria to compensate.
“or in the confusing fact that some probabilistic hypotheses admit no simple falsifiability criteria?”
I’m interested in that as well – and in spelling out the exact ramifications for the claim under discussion.
If you in turn find my question hopelessly ambiguous, help me out by answering a concrete and specific one: imagine someone offered an ambiguous prediction about global cooling; you don’t yet know what drop in temperature he’s predicting over an unspecified span of years; you don’t yet know what margin of error he wants to build in, either; he merely speaks in ambiguous terms about impending cooling, while explaining that it’s irrelevant whether he’s wrong in the “short term” – without, y’know, explaining what constitutes a relevant “long term” – promptly adding that his predictions about cooling may admit of no simple falsifiability criteria. What unambiguous question about falsification would you put to him?
According to the definitions in the article, that would be an “ambiguous record” at best. So at best, we have 6 years without an ambiguous record and 13 years without an unambiguous record. Either way, a new record is overdue.
I disagree. The global warming hypothesis – as commonly understood – rests primarily on computer simulations. If the prominent computer simulations as selected by the IPCC turn out to have been wrong, then where does that leave the hypothesis?
It gets back to Pepper’s point. This isn’t a game where the warmists get to keep moving the goalposts.
I agree, but this is not a situation where the warmists said that there was a 95% chance of X and a 95% chance of Y and a 95% chance of Z. The prediction is confined to temperature records.
Well you have to draw the line somewhere. Where would you draw it? 99%? 99.9%? At some point you are just clinging to a hypothesis.
Waldo’s question seems pretty clear to me. At the end of the day, a scientific hypothesis asserts that something will NOT happen. If the global warming hypothesis doesn’t rule out any possibilities (or at least make those possibilities unlikely), then it’s not a scientific hypothesis.
• Climategate proved that global warming is a hoax.
• Are polar bears extinct? Bears 1, alarmists 0.
• Climatology is junk science. They were all saying we were going into an ice age in the 1970s.
• All these “scientists” have to do is say they believe in global warming and then they can sit back and watch their bank accounts fill up.
• Liberal governments and elitist universities conspire to silence any skeptics of the global warming religion.
• The ice age ended 10,000 years ago. Were cavemen driving SUVs?
• We are still coming out of the ice age today. This is natural warming.
• The sun is getting brighter. Blame the sun, not the SUVs.
• The sun is getting dimmer. The coming cold spell will dwarf global warming.
• Water vapor is a stronger greenhouse gas than CO2.
• CO2 isn’t a greenhouse gas at all.
• There are only a few hundred parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere. That’s nothing.
• We give off CO2 every time we exhale. Should we all kill ourselves?
• Al Gore is an idiot.
• Even if global warming were real we could easily mitigate it.
• Global warming would create new opportunities for plants and animals.
• Being able to sail through the arctic is a good thing.
• The ice caps are growing and ocean levels are falling.
• The Martian ice caps are shrinking. Are Martians driving SUVs?
• I live in a cold climate. Global warming? Bring it on!
• Greenland was warmer when the Vikings were there. Did they have SUVs?
• There was a snowstorm in the south. Where is your global warming now?
• We have no temperature records from before the mid 19th century. This is too little data to make a case for global warming.
• The alarmists want us to destroy our economy just to make the planet a couple of degrees colder.
• We won’t see who is right in this debate until our great, great grandchildren are old.
• There are glaciers that are getting bigger. The alarmists don’t want to admit that!
• Alarmists say global warming will cause both droughts and floods. Make up your minds!
• 30,000 scientists signed a petition saying global warming is bunk. The science is far from settled.
• Global warming isn’t falsifiable and therefore isn’t science.
• If you use the warmest year on record as your starting point, you would see that we are seeing a cooling trend since then.
• Alarmists said Miami would be underwater by now.
• The urban heat island affect accounts for all of this supposed warming.
• So the planet warms up a few degrees, that won’t hurt much of anything.
I think Captain Lance was parroting the points that are stubbornly brought up against AGW no matter how often they are refuted as a sort of satire. Or in a nutshell: whoosh.
I’m having trouble following this debate. I understand 1998 was an outlying hot year, and so it is possible that every year since then could be cooler without proving the upward trend has reversed or never existed. I’m also willing to accept that after some number of years of not exceeding 1998 temperatures, we might be able to conclude that warming isn’t happening. However, weren’t 2005 and 2010 warmer than 1998 anyway? What record of 1998 are Blake, Pepper, and Brazil saying haven’t been beaten yet?
“Data received by the WMO show no statistically significant difference between global temperatures in 2010, 2005 and 1998 … The difference between the three years is less than the margin of uncertainty (± 0.09°C or ± 0.16°F) in comparing the data. These statistics are based on data sets maintained by the UK Meteorological Office Hadley Centre/Climatic Research Unit (HadCRU), the U.S. National Climatic Data Center (NCDC), and the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).”
Take a good look at exactly what Greg Charles asked for, and then consider whether the quote I provided addressed it directly. And then supply your own falsification criteria of choice, and I’ll address that directly as well.
That is why I said “And” I’m not dealing with new records, I’m remarking on the context, the latest records taken together continue to point to warming. It is just saying a clarification that what the UN said was not exactly as you claimed it was.
In fact looking at the latest releases it is even more clearer that it is only in your imagination that they are not reporting a continuing warming trend. Not cooling.
Greg Charles didn’t ask about context; after stating he was that “willing to accept that after some number of years of not exceeding 1998 temperatures, we might be able to conclude that warming isn’t happening”, he merely asked a self-contained question: “However, weren’t 2005 and 2010 warmer than 1998 anyway?”
According to the cite, there was no statistically significant difference between global temperatures in 2010, 2005 and 1998: not warmer, not cooler, not beyond the stated margin of uncertainty in either direction; hence the ± symbol. He went on to ask a second question: What record of 1998 are Blake, Pepper, and Brazil saying haven’t been beaten yet?
According to the cite, the difference between those three years is less than the margin of uncertainty; warming past that margin would’ve made me answer his question differently, but (a) cooling past that margin, or (b) anything inside that margin means “haven’t been beaten yet” remains in effect.
Yes, but Greg Charles didn’t ask whether they were reporting a trend; he merely asked whether '05 and '10 were warmer than the '98 record – because, as he put it, “after some number of years of not exceeding 1998 temperatures, we might be able to conclude that warming isn’t happening.” And, again, if you (a) find his questions unsatisfactory and (b) want to supply what you feel is a better criterion for eventually concluding that warming isn’t happening – why, then, please, do so: name the result you’ll declare significant, on the timetable of your choice, and we can promptly move on to discussing that; don’t, and you’re merely knocking the other guy’s questions without offering better ones.
It’d be bad enough if you kept moving the goalposts on your predictions – but you’re not even setting goalposts to move!
Geez, and I even said “and” (the implication is that I’m not complaining about what you replied to Greg Charles) I was saying that I was not making a point that there was a higher record, only that the UN are overwhelmingly talking about a long term warming trend. Once again, giving context to what you quoted.
There was no goal post to move.
You just hang up to imaginary positions that the UN has on the long term warming (they are not saying “might” they are saying that warming is happening), as it is imaginary that I was dealing with Greg Charles’ point regarding new records here.
Well it would be nice if you addressed something. Back in post 162 I explained that the Volt is introductory new technology and therefore expected to be slow-selling. I explained that prices are too high, and I pointed how entrenched attitudes about cars in the US make the Volt market a difficult one. (and not just the Volt - most electric or hybrid cars do not sell well in the US).
[ol]
[li]The Volt isn’t sold everywhere yet - far from it (check the map)[/li][li]Very few cars have been made[/li][li]Advertising is just now ramping up[/li][li]Buyers are likely to wait until more cars are out there, so they can see how they actually perform[/li][/ol]
From all this you should have gleaned that perhaps I do not view the situation as simplistically as you seem to. It takes time for demand for new technology to build up, and it takes time to prep new markets for new products.
“It is very naive to look at the Volt as a carbon success or failure. The Volt is introductory technology, it is not intended to change the status quo but to test the market and pave the way for the future. Toyota and Honda, with a 15 year head start on GM and much wider distribution even in the US, are obviously faring much better. The purpose of the Volt was never to dominate but to allow GM to enter and learn about the hybrid market while establishing a foothold and industry credentials.”
Finally, there is the time frame to think about: for something that takes several years to bring to (new) market, one really should not issue sweeping declarations without allowing enough time to reach a conclusion:
Bottom line: your insistence that the Volt is already a failure is misinformed and premature. Come back in 6 or maybe 12 months and you may be proved right. You certainly are not at the present.
I will grant this: the *pricing *of the Volt is a serious problem. The car is simply too expensive to appeal to most Americans, whose average GDP is actually under the price of a Volt. But this is quite standard for new technology and it is actually a strong argument in favour of GM making the Volt (see arguments already provided on cost reduction, market development, etc.).
First of all, I did address your claim that there is no emergency. In post 162 I pointed out that “There is an emergency right now and that’s when we consider ONE offending substance”. The relevant cite already provided (and ignored) was this one, in which it is explained very clearly why the emergency is urgent:
Just how much more obvious do the arguments and citations have to be for you to note them?
That last statement is true but it has little to do with the argument, unless you are implying that California is in dire economic straits explicitly because of its investments in renewable energy. Which would be something interesting to analyze, especially with long-term projections (not just the short term vision you seem to be fond of). I have also already provided citations to support the claim that green investment appears to be rather a smart economic move for states and countries, particularly in the long term. I’ve also already argued that going green - “far from depressing the economy or causing difficulties - actually helped the green industry come out of the 2009 economic crisis substantially better off than almost any other sector”. That’s what I already posted in the previous message, the cite is here. You did not address any of this.
Here is more on this matter:
Sure would be nice if there were capacity for a few hundred thousand more green jobs in the US in this difficult time, no?
Patently and absolutely wrong. Like it or not, China is a leader in renewable energy.
Firstly, I already stated unequivocally that virtually all countries have significant improvements to make in this field, and that certainly includes both the US and China, two of the most serious polluters. You are trying to engage in tit-for-tat here, but that’s not what I was going for at all.
Secondly, I simply showed how China, which was willing to take bold steps and invest in green tech, in only a few years began reaping considerable economic benefit and created hundreds of thousands of jobs. Lest it was not clear, these facts again prove that spending money on green technology would not be dangerous and wasteful. Actually, it is dangerous and wasteful not to. More money and more jobs in a sector with a bright future are good.
Thirdly, you may want to pause to consider some deeper facts about China rather than the easy soundbytes that catch your attention. Like this one:
In 2010, just under 80 GW of renewable power capacity were added by all countries. China’s contribution of 37 GW was 46% of all energy added globally. Not too bad, eh? Yes, China is a bad polluter - as is the US - but years ago China had the good sense to begin a transformation into the leading producer of renewable energy to prepare for a reduced carbon future. Far from making an easy buck, even these money-obsessed, cheap-goods-flooding, steal-honest-American-jobs Chinese are concerned about the dangers of energy insecurity and climate change. And that’s why they became leaders in renewable energy.
Ultimately a flawed argument because it fails to take into account the fundamental nature of all investment, which is a present cost calculated to obtain future benefit. Remaining locked in a politically toxic climate with raging climate change denialists, terminal myopia, entrenched carbon interests, and resistance to green transformation is not only incredibly daft from a scientific point of view,* but also from an economic one*. We’ve already seen how green tech has fared better than most other sectors through multiple economic downturns, so the very fact that there is an economic crisis should be a good reason to invest in green.
Ah, the either-or fallacy, binary goodness. In addition to an economic crisis there is **also **an environmental emergency - there can be two or even three or more crises at the same time. As the Chinese (and Warren Buffet and most professional investors) say, every crisis presents an opportunity. In this case we should count ourselves extremely fortunate that the economic and environmental crises can both be addressed to some extent by savvy investment in green industries. But by all means let’s continue denying the environmental emergency, and dedicate our full attention to short-term thinking and politicization of the economic crisis only. That should turn out well!
What simple questions? With all the equivocation being produced here, it seems a stretch to use the word “simple”. I won’t pretend to follow every obscure claim that’s been flung at Gigobuster, but so far what I do glean is a trend of a few people latching on to any argument (including oft-discredited ones) that allows them to repeatedly mistake short-term weather occurrences for long-term climate trends.
So Abe tells s:
Quote:
“Secondly, I simply showed how China, which was willing to take bold steps and invest in green tech, in only a few years began reaping considerable economic benefit and created hundreds of thousands of jobs. Lest it was not clear, these facts again prove that spending money on green technology would not be dangerous and wasteful. Actually, it is dangerous and wasteful not to. More money and more jobs in a sector with a bright future are good.”
Two huge solar panel manufacturers in the USA just went bankrupt-Evergreen Solar (MA)-losing a $56 million investment by the state of Massachusetts, and another firm in California-which lost a $554 million Federal grant.
Sommch for “green” energy technologies and jobs.
It is wrong to say that there has been cooling since 1998. The period 1999 to 2010 was significantly warmer than the period 1987 to 1998 (which was significantly warmer than the period 1976 to 1987), therefore the trend is a warming one not cooling. This would be true even if every single year since 1998 was cooler than that particular year.
Also, 1998 is clearly an outlier in these data. If you are honestly analysing the trend, you should be attempting to minimise its impact on your data, certainly not emphasise it!
I understand Waldo’s point that it’s difficult to say what level of lower temperatures would indicate that global warming was wrong. He asks how what would happen if someone claimed that global cooling should be occurring; how would you disprove that?
The difference is that no-one suddenly suggested that global warming should just magically happen. The theory goes:
CO2 is a greenhouse gas.
CO2 levels are increasing.
Therefore global warming should occur.
Perhaps the global cooling theory would say that CO2 actually reduces the greenhouse effect. Well, in that case, I wouldn’t use the temperature data to test the theory, I’d test that more radiation escaped an atmosphere with an increased CO2 level. If that was not the case, it would suggest the theory was wrong.
Or perhaps global cooling said the cooling was due to CO2 levels decreasing. Again, I could test that directly by monitoring the amount of atmospheric CO2.
So if you want to disprove global warming, surely disproving one of these two points is the easiest starting point?
OK, that report isn’t giving me a lot to be optimistic about. I don’t really understand what it’s showing to you … a reversal of the warming trend? A leveling off? It confirms that the ten hottest years on record have all been since 1998. It says that 2010 was marked by extreme weather events. It also notes that summer arctic ice continues to shrink.
At some point in this thread, it was posited that if 2013 wasn’t warmer than 1998, then science would have to admit that warming … was over? Never happened? I can’t remember the exact point. The thing is, the graphs I’ve seen show 1998 as a huge spike up from anything before it … way outside the claimed warming trend. I hope that 2013 will be cooler, but I’d still be concerned that all the several of the years since 1998 have neared or exceeded its freakish heat, while no year before 1998 even came close. That’s bad right?
Personally, I would need the actual arguments and evidence – not just assertions of conclusions. If the argument is based on a computer simulation, I would need solid evidence that the computer simulation has been tested and validated. i.e. proof that the computer simulation has made actual predictions which later turned out to be accurate and were very unlikely to have been the result of chance.