Oh, and to know if these stock market computer models work, you would need to do something I like to call “testing”
Plenty of people claim to have methods for predicting the stock market. A lot of these claims have been put to the test and have failed.
But what do you think?
I think the evidence for AGW is persuasive. This story just shows it might be happening even faster than we expected.
So what to do about an example that shows New Scientist was correct? Tell everyone to ignore their success. Sure, that works.
Besides, it is clear others do use forecasting tools, it is also clear that it is a tool and they are not supposed to be the only item to use in investment. But they are used in the stock market nevertheless.
Maybe there is no example. Certainly they are not entitled to one. And maybe they are wrong.
So what? A lot of things are used in the stock market.
Does that mean yes or no?
Sarcasm, look it up.
Likewise in climate models. As the information shows, not just historical data is used for testing.
As I mentioned before, it is a big assumption to think that no one is checking or testing, so I’m waiting to see evidence that tests other than V&V were not made. And I think V&V has to be added to the big assumption of “never been done”, V&V is more expensive to do; nevertheless NASA is applying it in many projects, including projects dealing with climate. Like in the AIM mission to explore the effect of clouds in the atmosphere to make climate models even more accurate.
GIGObuster, thanks for your reply. You say:
Perhaps you could post some citations to clothe your naked opinion?
w.
No, this particular story (except for that one quotation from a climatologist specializing in the field, insofar as that can be taken as authoritative) is not proof of the anthropogenic element of AGW.
Not yet, for 2 reasons:
I have no access to the computer that has the search I did right now, will have it later.
I actually assumed you knew already about NASA’s V&V center since you have done a good job of pretending you are up to date on what is going on with V&V.
(my bolding)
I didn’t ask you whether it was proof, I asked you whether it was evidence.
Why do you keep evading my extremely simple question:
Yes or no?
I still have no idea what your point is.
Perhaps, but again . . . so what? Should I be impressed that somebody claims that they make a lot of money with a computer stock market model? Because I’m not.
What impresses me is bona fide testing. And I’d love to see evidence that AGW has been really put to the test.
The terms are synonymous – in my field, the law, and likewise in science AFAIK. If you say otherwise, please provide respective definitions and citations in support of same.
The article in question shows the Earth is warming, and perhaps faster than we expected. There is nothing ambiguous in that statement.
GIGObuster, I know that NASA has a V&V center, which they use for things like the software used to run the space shuttle … I’ve just never been able to find any citation that they have used it for climate models. Since you say it has, I’ve asked for a citation.
w.
To me, the word “proof” connotes that something has been established to a certain degree of certainty.
But I will accept your definition for this thread.
So you believe that the melting described in the news story is not evidence of AGW.
Given that this thread is about AGW and given that most people agree the earth has been in a warming trend lately, I think it’s a bit pointless and misleading to mention that article in this thread.
intention, the idea of sensitive dependence to initial conditions, chaos, turbulence, and such is not a new idea. It has been known since Lorenz first wrote down some very simplified equations to model the weather back in like the 1950s or 60s. And, in fact, modern computer forecasting, particularly on the medium- to long-range scale makes use of ensembles of runs with perturbed initial conditions in order to assess the confidence that the forecasters can have in the model solution. If the ensemble is clustered around one basic solution, they have a lot of confidence in that solution. If the ensembles are all over the map, then they have very little confidence. You can read daily discussions of this applied to the 6-10 and 8-14 day weather forecasts here.
And, with climate models they do similar ensemble runs. What these runs tend to show is that while the year-to-year jiggles vary amongst the ensemble members, the general climate features…and particularly, the basic response of the climate to a perturbation such an increase in the concentrations of greenhouse gases is quite robust.
This whole issue is often summarized a bit simplistically by saying that forecasting weather and climate are two very different things. And, while such sensitivities are important to weather prediction, they are not very important to climate prediction. Intuitively, you know that while you would never trust me to predict what the weather will be 5 months from now here in Rochester, you would trust the climate prediction that the month of February will have a considerably lower average temperature than the current month of September.
V&V and SQA may be well-suited to testing models that have specific well-defined missions to perform but it is not to my knowledge ever used, at least in such a formal way, in testing models in the physical sciences and that is because it is neither useful nor appropriate to do so. Look, what has basically happened is that your side has lost the scientific debate so you are trying to change the rules by which the science is played. It is similar to Michael Crichton’s demand that there be double-blind testing and all this nonsense, which is important and useful in the field he is trained in (medicine) but again is neither necessary nor appropriate in the physical sciences.
It is reasonable for some scientists to disagree with the current general consensus in the field regarding AGW and to work on doing serious scientific work to come up with alternate hypotheses and to find evidence against the AGW theory. However, it is not reasonable for these scientists to demand that the rest of the world sit and wait until every last one of them are all convinced that AGW is correct.
The reason our society has been able to make progress in many areas is because it is accepted that science should inform public policy decisions that they are relevant to and that certain bodies, like the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), will implement processes to do this. The National Academy, along with its analogous bodies has clearly spoken on this issue.
While you are welcome to disagree with their conclusions, it continues to mystify me why you believe that we should take your opinion very seriously and, in particular, not take any prudent actions that the NAS has advised we do because intention doesn’t think the science justifies it. What do you propose as a general plan of action for the U.S. government…that they act not on the advice of the NAS but rather on the advice of intention?
You have never been able to substantiate this claim because it is simply not true of climate models. And, when asked why noone has thus demonstrated that they can produce the warming we have seen in the last 30 years with a climate model that includes only natural forcings, you fall back on some lame excuse that is essentially that all the climate modelers are so wedded to AGW that they won’t tune it this way and none of the skeptics can get their hands on a climate model. This is simply baloney!!
I’m going by the thread title, which is about global warming, anthropogenic or not, and the story is proof/evidence of that.
You can go by whatever you like, but this is from the very first post in the thread:
Clearly the thread is about AGW. Your post was misleading and pointless.
Are you saying it isn’t? What counterhypothesis do you have for what is causing this and why this unknown entity that is causing it is so much greater the known forcing due to greenhouse gases is.
I wasn’t saying anything about it. I’m not the one who brought it up. If you want to claim that the melting described in the article is evidence of AGW, then maybe we can debate it.
By the way, I don’t think that you answered my earlier question.
Why do you think that a climate modeler should disclose the results of all tests, whether good or bad? What’s wrong with just disclosing good results and throwing the bad results down the memory hole?