Dang guys, relax. LHOD is the one who mentioned a century. Bricker was just trying to get a clear answer out of the ‘nuh-uh’/‘yeah-huh’ bickering.
This is based on the time when human CO2 warming overwhelmed the warming effects of the sun.
Here is why it was nonsense to concentrate on 1998 or on just a short cooling trend alone; at the same time one is checking the rising CO2 concentrations, one should also check if the temperatures drop from the current levels to levels that show just the natural forces driving the global temperature, like the levels we had on the 70’s.
The point here is that this could take decades, but if the CO2 continues to increase and the temperature does trend down to levels closer to the 70’s on 2 consecutive decades at least, IMHO that should mean that there is something very wrong with the theory as applied to surface temperatures.
Of course the warming could just be going to a different location, like the oceans, and while we could be OK on the surface the oceans would be screwed. (Acidification and ocean rise would still happen in this scenario) But this is only mentioned to point out that a falsification of the effects of AGW on surface temperatures does not mean that we can exhale a sigh of relief, we only showed that we should not worry on the surface. (out of the coast line that is)
Still seems to me that the question’s origin does point to an effort to simplify this enough to get a simple answer that expects a falsification of the whole thing. It is like if in a discussion of the theory of evolution there is someone demanding a falsification of an specific mechanism of evolution, like natural selection, expecting to falsify the whole theory of evolution. But if you know a little bit of biology you already would notice that the falsification of natural selection does not mean that Evolution is wrong.
Anyhow, the latest review shows that the warming trend is still going up.
As the scientists used real data to check the models your points here are silly.
Funny, I guess then you are telling us that when the scientists are doing that with the models and with no context that what they are doing with the models then must be hunky dory. OK.
I will answer just like you did:
I’m not making your homework, cite an specific example with a quote, and yes, what deniers say should not interest you or me.
OK, then this statement gives rise to the obvious follow-on: what observations would show that the entire AGW model is wrong?
I ask because you still seem to be hedging on answering plainly. Here, you started out by saying something that seemed to be fairly plain: two consecutive decades of temperatures trending down “closer” to the 70s (which I take to mean at or below the 70s averages) would indicate a serious problem with the model. But then you immediately go on to say that even that would not be sufficient, because the warming could still be happening sub-surface… which means that your answer hasn’t really defined a condition that would show AGW model error.
Right – this is evidence that strengthens the model. Continuing temperatures are behaving as the model predicts. That’s even more evidence for its strength. I’m asking for what evidfence would, if it happened, show the model to be wrong.
I’m not a physicist, but maybe I can draw an analogy (in my limited understanding) to the recent flap over the Higgs boson particle. A theoretical particle predicted by the “standard model” of physics, the existence of the Higgs boson was widely believed to be accurate. It explained everything – why W and Z bosons are massive but photons are essentially of zero mass. And early experiments with the large colliders showed energy readings that looked promising to confirm its existence.
But just recently, of course, we learn that those data readings were themselves anomalies, and that new data confirms that there is 95% certainty (at least between 145–466 GeV) that the Higgs boson doesn’t exist.
So if I had asked a physicist last year what future observations might show the Higss boson model was flawed, he would (I assume) have readily replied that if the Large Hadron Collider’s experiments in the 145-466 GeV range failed to reveal the particle, that would be a serious blow to the model.
I’m asking the same thing here. I’m not asking it to trick you. I’m asking to try to understand.
You’re the one who stated – with no context – that 15-20 years with no warming would do it; since there’s been no warming since '98, I count from then. If you’d supplied a better test of falsification, I would’ve answered differently.
The wiggle room that’s part and parcel of basic statistics isn’t the wiggle room you vaguely alluded to when replying to me; don’t play equivocator. You wrote that it has to include “at least a look at” decadal variation and “a reference to” the moving average; that’s entirely too nonspecific.
So long as the first step is “at least a look at” and “a reference to”, then I’d keep objecting loudly and often.
But that was your initial falsification test; you supplied a context-free criterion, and so I responded accordingly. If you want to swap in criteria that take context into account, I’m fine with “wiggle room” that can still yield up a definitive falsification – but the wiggle room of “at least a look at” and “a reference to” is entirely too vague. My “at least a look at” may not be yours. My “a reference to” may not be yours.
At its simplest, the future would show that, besides not warming, it would cool down to levels like on the 70’s as the current evidence shows what the temperature should be with no human made CO2 in the atmosphere.
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See? Was that so hard?
Correct me if I’m wrong: you’re now claiming that if the planet gets no warmer, and maybe cooler, from now until 2018 – or 2028, or 2038, or 2048, or 2058, or 2068, or 2078, or 2088, or 2098, or 2108, or 2118 – then claims about global warming stand; it needs to cool all the way down to the '70s levels to falsify the claims.
I’m provisionally fine with that – given the like of Bricker’s sensible follow-up and your eventual clarification about terms like “the future” and “like on the '70s”. Since you seem capable of answering such questions when he asks 'em, this thread delights me in a way the other didn’t. (And he’s still right to keep asking, since as he puts it “you still seem to be hedging on answering plainly” and “your answer hasn’t really defined a condition that would show AGW model error” – but I’ll stop short of repeating him, since he’s already gotten more out of you than I could and I don’t want to risk sparking a recurrence of reticence on your part.)
Well, yeah; that’s why I ask the question whenever someone offers a prediction, regardless of topic. Climate? Sports? Politics? I’m impartial.
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So … “if we do not curb greenhouse gas emissions over the next fifty years, the climate system (and related localized weather patterns) will show observable changes.” Where does your understanding of the fundamental science differ?
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I merely want to know which observable changes are being predicted; assuming they’ll come to pass, I see no reason to disagree with any of your points about the fundamental science. But if they don’t come to pass, we’ll need to make alterations – and so it’s key to spell out exactly what’s being predicted, complete with a specified amount of “wiggle room”, to see whether the observable changes in question are the ones that result.
(By contrast, there’s entirely too much unspecified wiggle room in “observable changes”. Double the rainfall? That’s an observable change. Halve it? Also an observable change. Heck, observable global cooling would be a change, sure as it’d be a big observable change if average global temperatures remained the same for decades while hurricanes stopped altogether. On predictions, I’m after specifics rather than generalities.)
I’m not making your homework, cite an specific example with a quote. They checked and tweaked to reach the numbers.
I’m not making your homework, cite an specific example with a quote. No, simple humanity, the need for funding. It’s done in every other area of science.
I’m not making your homework, cite an specific example with a quote. You ask for cite and don’t answer them.
No that is what deniers, and as it turns out, the skeptical scientists are doing.
What’s the point?
Your only answer to all cites, quotes, data, fact, questions are two:
“It comes from a known denier (website)”
“No, it isn’t”
My hats off to poor ole’ GIGO.
These people appear to have a vested interest in the topic. If you are interested in something, you read the literature written by the experts, the…um…oh yeah, climate scientists. Oh hell, you don’t even have to wade through all the literature. They have nice, user-friendly websites. But,* no*, they have to read crap spewed by non-experts, many with major corporate conflicts of interest, as though anyone can just do climate science as a hobby. Or they cling to minor points made by the small number of dissenters (who are usually older and no longer on the cutting edge). Sure, just any old geologist, weatherman, stats dude, understands climate science. As we all know, science, especially climate science, is very straight forward…intuitive, even.
Gee, I wish these geniuses can just come on over to my lab and do my research for me. Just read a couple of articles or message boards, grab a pipette and have at it!. I’m sure they’ll be able to design and perform the experiments properly, then provide insightful data interpretation, conclusions and models. No! Even better. They already know the answer. Just tell me what the results should be and let’s just skip over all the boring sciency stuff.
So, this “pipette” of which you speak? Is that like a pipe, only girly? And this bunsen burner? What is a “bunsen”, and why would I want to burn one?
And yet none of that proves that humans are the primary cause of global warming, which is what I asked you to prove. So we release 30B tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere per year. So what? How much non-human caused CO2 is normally released into the atmosphere per year?
(Though this probably hasn’t been done, I’d be interested to see a yearly increases in average temperature compared against the amount of CO2 released into the atmosphere by humans per year.)
I don’t already know the answer. Nor do I want to tell you what the results should be; I merely want you to tell me what the results should be. If those results materialize, I’ll have little problem figuring you properly designed and performed the experiments before providing insightful data interpretation, conclusions and models; if they don’t, I’ll figure you – didn’t.
The non-human sources of CO2 have been in balance for centuries. Even though the human production may be small compared to natural production, the human production since the Industrial Age is indeed what caused the CO2 levels to skyrocket. Yes, CO2 is natural, yes it’s a tiny fraction of the atmosphere but the fraction that is there is rising well beyond that point which is compatible with thermal equilibrium.
Agreed. I tend to stay out of global warming threads because GIGO does such a good job with far more patience.
I do not know this GIGObuster, but based on this thread he seems pretty awesome.
This is the kind of post that really makes me chafe. Let me Google that for you. I copied and pasted the exact question. I didn’t rephrase, refine, or clarify anything, and I got an answer.
These global warming threads take up so much time and space filling up with chaff like this that could be solved with Google and “I’m feeling lucky,” that’s its nigh impossible to have a real discussion of substantive issues.
You know, it doesn’t help your argument to constantly dismiss thing out of hand because you say that “that’s what the deniers say”. It’s a form of an ad hominem, which you know is a fallacy and does not bolster your position. It’s also just plain lazy. I’m not saying that you need to evaluate in detail every item, but you’re doing this an awful lot.
Piffle, you know that I do differentiate from skeptics and deniers, it is an appropriate word to use when the person refuses to consider the evidence, skeptical scientists look at the science (or attempt to twist the science) and stop using retarded arguments, deniers do not.
As Barry Brickmore, conservative, Republican scientist tells it:
I do not mind the whining. 
This question might be missing the point of falsifiability. If you falsify a theory, you don’t normally throw the whole thing out; rather, you modify it just until the last experiment no longer falsifies it, and then you find another way to try to falsify it. If a minor modification to the theory is enough to account for your new data, why make a major modification to the theory?
I think it’s slightly above freezing outside, based on the temperature I’m reading on my classroom thermometer that I can see through my window. Someone successfully falsifies this theory by taking some water outside and watching it freeze. My new theory is that my thermometer is too close to the building and is picking up residual heat from the building, and that the temperature outside is pretty close to the freezing point. I don’t instead theorize that I no longer know anything about the temperature, or that it’s forty below or anything. I make a minimal adjustment to the theory.
The kind of thing that would strike a major blow to the entire AGW theory, as I understand it, would be an observation that ultraviolet light does not pass through carbon dioxide. Or the discovery of the Earth’s Thermostat in an abandoned hotel in Poughkeepsie. The theory is based on so many well-studied phenomena that abandoning the whole thing would require seriously extraordinary evidence that contradicts many basic ideas in physics and meteorology.
Pit another way, what we know about gases, temperature and so on, global waming makes a lot of sense, such that if there were no global warming, we’d be stuck trying to explain why not.