What is happening is that the repeated attempts at falsifying it are coming short.
And there have been many attempts, of course if that was **not **the case one wonder why skeptical scientists know how it can be done and worked or work at it. So it clearly it can be falsified but just like Lindsen the possible mechanisms to do so fall short.
No, as it was pointed out early, so stop denying even the posts that were made before.
I think what the OP is looking for is not “Is GW falsifiable?” but rather “Is AGW falsifiable?” In other words is it possible to design an experiment or collect data to show that human beings post-industrial revolution are NOT causing global warming.
Yeah, you could conduct the same data collection we’re doing now, only have the data not point to AGW. That is to say, we’re doing those collections now, and they aren’t falsifying AGW.
Emphasis added. Note how the deniers sneakily rely on just this blurred distinction between “people” in general saying one thing, and “climate scientists” saying another.
That is, actual climate science researchers have continued all along to stress that climate science models still have a lot of uncertainty and that very few specific predictions can be made with 100% confidence, etc. But of course, popular presentations of the research tend to strip out all the caveats and hugely exaggerate the definiteness of the pronouncements.
And then when some of the exaggerated pronouncements inevitably turn out to be inaccurate, the deniers accuse the scientists of having got it all wrong and not really knowing what they’re doing, or engaging in ideologically-driven hoodoo instead of proper scientific research. Exhibit A: FXMastermind in this thread.
Indeed, that was what the link on post #4 pointed at too:
They point to the “GLOBAL OCEANIC AND LAND CARBON SINKS FROM THE SCRIPPS ATMOSPHERIC OXYGEN FLASK SAMPLING NETWORK”
Simple logic then drives what is needed to falsify that, and you bet that fossil fuel companies would had done so. We need now an study that collects samples that discredits all the previous readings from the Scripps Oceanographic Institute and others have made during the previous decades.
Yeah, me too. But it’s not just conservatives stuck in an argument about the basic science - the pro-AGW side also wants to keep the debate at this low level, because that’s where their arguments are strongest. It’s much easier to argue with a ‘denier’ about whether global warming is happening at all or whether CO2 is a greenhouse gas, because all the science is on your side. It’s much harder to argue that we should make a trillion-dollar expenditure today based on a model that says if we don’t we will suffer 3 trillion dollars in net present value damages 50 years in the future based on a complex series of models that have to predict future GDP growth, the cost of climate mitigation on that future economy, the impact of climate change avoidance on future economies, yada yada.
So both sides are stuck in this stupid binary yes/no argument. We should have moved far beyond that by now, but there is no political incentive for either side to do so. It’s much to the AGW’s side’s benefit to say "All the scientists agree that global warming is happening. Therefore, you must do as we say!’ And therefore the natural response of the side that doesn’t buy into your policy prescriptions is to simply deny that global warming exists at all.
It’s a blurred distinction because the line between climate scientists and political activists is blurry. But it’s not just ‘people’.
For example, Nate Silver’s new site posted an article that called into question the idea that global warming is causing a current increase in costs for extreme weather events. The article didn’t ‘deny’ global warming - it basically just said that global warming is a long-term phenomenon, and any single weather event can not be attributed to it, and the increased cost of extreme weather currently has more to do with increased development in areas sensitive to extreme weather.
The pro-AGW side went ballistic. Michael Mann wrote an article that didn’t challenge any of the science, but called out Nate Silver for allowing the article to be written at all. Nate had to eat crow and promise a rebuttal and more careful vetting of articles in the future. The rebuttal, by climate scientist Kerry Emmanuel, didn’t disagree with any of the science in the original article either except for calling out one statement as being a little too strong based on the evidence.
The same happened to Bjorn Lomborg. Bjorn isn’t a ‘denier’ either. He simply questions whether we know enough about the long-term costs to warrant spending that much money on climate change when there are other ecological and sociological problems that need to be fixed. The result was excoriation from climate scientists, an unheard-of series of bizarre ‘rebuttals’ in Scientific American, a refusal to allow Lomborg to respond to his critics in the same pages, etc.
Not just ‘popular presentations’ - the ‘summary for policymakers’ from the IPCC often goes much farther than the actual science does if you read the technical reports.
Like I said, it’s a muddied area. Some scientists like Michael Mann are also political figures. Some ‘deniers’ are respected scientists, and many are not. Once you get past the basic physics, there’s no consensus among climate scientists as to what the future holds, and there’s no consensus among the opposition as to what’s exactly wrong with climate science.
There is a huge amount of money at stake and both sides have vested interests. There are also huge political impacts, so the politicians and their advisors and enablers construct tendentious arguments on both sides. It’s hard to see through all the chaff, that’s for sure. But both sides are shooting it.
I completely agree with you ‘aldiboronti’.
The most likely effect to come will be the rise of the oceans, best estimates point to close to a meter rise on the recent average by the end of the century, just there the costs will not be small in the efforts to save or modify coastal cities.
And then we have a few Republican leaders even telling their scientists to not report about that because business in the coast will suffer. Never mind that even more costs will happen when the development they are allowing then will had to be saved or scuttled in the coast.
This makes no sense, what I have seen is that whenever there is a discussion outside the science every denier, skeptic or lukewarmer does discuss the science (like the models)
The point here is that even if we understand that to be so, it is nevertheless unnatural.
We need indeed help from people like you to let them know that they need to understand that on this issue delay and repeated debunked points will only lead eventually to have groups like Greenpeace* calling the shots as the usually conservative side will be by then thoroughly discredited so as to make suspect any solution they now claim to support.
*And no, I do not agree with all what Greenpeace suggest we should do.
Excellent educational post. Thanks.
Yes indeed. And if approached in a scientific way, it’s one of the most fascinating things. The biology involved is huge, and new discoveries are abundant.
Nope. The “enhanced greenhouse theory” predicted the most warming would be over land, in winter, in the high latitudes of the NH. If you change the predictions from an enhanced greenhouse effect, you are changing the theory. Colder winters, with much more snow and ice, is 100% the opposite of what the enhanced greenhouse effect theory predicts. To now say the enhanced greenhouse theory of climate change predicts colder winters, is changing the theory.
There isn’t anything wrong with doing so, it’s rare that a new theory is complete and correct, and as Sam Stone explains, even if you know everything about the mechanism of a complex system, it doesn’t mean you can predict what will happen.
But if a theory predicts warming, of a specific kind, based on the primary driver being CO2, and instead there is cooling, saying that now the theory predicts cooling is changing the theory. The real problem is that if you now claim global warming is CAUSING the cooling, then you can’t still claim the past WARMING of the boreal winters was due to CO2 forced warming.
That’s the real big problem. Well, of course you can claim that global warming caused both WARMING BOREAL WINTERS, AND COOLING BOREAL WINTERS, but that strains the credibility of the theory.
The irony is, and this is real irony, in reality it might actually be a result of CO2 forced climate change, that at first a rise in CO2 causes warming of the boreal winters, an end to the glacier period of an ice age, then the high levels of CO2 lead to the glacier period returning. It “could” happen.
After all, the ice core records do show that global glaciation (the really cold part of an ice age) does happen when CO2 levels are high. Nobody actually knows. it’s all hypothesis.
The greenhouse theory of climate change was, after all, a theory to explain why ice ages behave as they do. The enhanced greenhouse theory is to predict that raising the CO2 levels will result in catastrophic warming.
It’s all so interesting.
:dubious: But that “one statement” was essentially the core of Pielke’s claim, as Emmanuel noted:
While I completely agree with you that there is a lot of counterproductive ignorance and hype in popular presentations of the AGW hypothesis and its predictions for climate impacts, I think you are way overstating the extent to which actual climate scientists are responsible for it, as well as the alleged equivalence of “pro-” and "anti-"AGW camps in promoting ignorance and hype.
Yes, you’re absolutely right about this. There’s no doubt that CO2 is increasing, that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, and that all else being equal, adding CO2 to the atmosphere should result in an increased amount of heat trapping.
Let’s stipulate all this, because it’s not very interesting at this point. And aside from a few fringe people, the ‘denier’ side wouldn’t dispute any of this either. The real questions arise when you start to ask what happens next.
More water vapor is absorbed by the warmer atmosphere. Fine. Does that result in more rain in the tropics? Or more snow in cold regions? Is there a scientific consensus on that? Or perhaps it triggers more extreme weather in the tropics, which removes the energy from the system. Or does the ocean absorb the heat? IF it does, does the heat stay near the surface to power hurricanes? Or does it wind up in the deep ocean and have effects we don’t yet understand? Is there concensus on that?
What does that do to the ocean systems that transport heat around the world or sequester CO2? And if the ocean transport systems change, what does that do to ice masses and the Earth’s albedo? In the meantime, the warmer atmosphere expands. How does that affect everything? How does all this affect large sequestration methods like clathrates or algae blooms? Does the wetter weather decrease forest fire activity? Does that result in less natural CO2 being released into the air? Or do more lightning strikes increase forest fires? Does that even matter?
Our understanding of the complex climate system is still in its infancy. It may not even be understandable. It’s one of the hardest complex systems to study, because changes happen on geologic time scales and we can’t run experiments like we can with the brain or an ant colony. Our ability to measure its behavior in the past is limited to a few proxies, but the detailed interactions in the past may be lost to us.
What we have is theories, a limited set of short-term observations of macro effects, and computer models. We’re about where brain research was before the development of functional MRIs and other real-time diagnostic equipment. We can see some big effects, but we can’t see the real-time flow of information and how it affects millions of relationships in the system.
I really don’t understand these particular points. If the catastrophic predictions are correct, surely economic costs are a moot point, as the rendering uninhabitable of the only real estate in the universe will be infinitely more damaging than, say, all the money ever earned by human beings. And rendering part of the planet uninhabitable will still be more economically damaging than gigantic, decades-long depressions – it’s only if you foist the cost off on others that any different argument could be made.
But changing a theory doesn’t necessarily mean that the theory’s unfalsifiable. The crucial question is: Is the modified theory getting better at predicting the observed phenomena, in a self-consistent and theoretically meaningful way? And that needs to be answered with science, not bumper-sticker “skepticism” or meta-analytical gibes.
You are trying to argue (or rather, to sarcastically imply without actually presenting a critical argument) that current modifications to the theory of global warming are no different from unsystematic post-hoc tinkering, and therefore the theory’s unfalsifiable. But to make such an accusation stick you need a serious analysis of the science involved, not just superficial sneers of “ooooooh look, now they’re changing their story!”
And then you go back later to diss the models and completely ignore that your say so about the models in the “climate gate” was not what you claimed and what Gavin Schmidt from NASA/GISS told us.
IIRC yes, it will depend on the region, places that normally get rain will get even more as there is more water vapor in the atmosphere, in places that are already dry the water vapor increase does not help much as the ground gets more dry and the rainy season is reduced.
We are getting here into the weather, not what climate scientists deal usually, but as computer power and more data is being recorded then we are just starting to deal with hurricanes, Kerry Emanuel does not agree, but most climate scientists do think that we are more likely to see less hurricanes as things like wind shear are likely to increase. But thanks to all that water vapor and energy when the less numerous hurricanes come then we can expect more intense ones.
What I do remember is that contrarians claim that the ice increases inland in Antarctica and Greenland that is enough to tell us to not be worried about ocean rise and other whether effects the ice loss could cause. Problem is that the oceans are capturing more heath and therefore the ice around Antarctica and the poles will be less stable and the melting will increase.
As Richard Alley reported, that we are missing a few pieces is not good enough to then drop all the rest that already showed us that we have enough evidence to stop treating the atmosphere as a sewer.
And besides the denialist boiler plate of disparaging models again, you have to include also a basic misunderstanding, climate science got their MRI when Plass was looking to help shot down commie planes. (They had to find the actual heath in the background that different layers in the atmosphere had, and then found the actual absorption wavelengths of CO2)
Once the satellite era came in, even more tools are available and the experts are telling us that it is the current experiment that we are doing is the one that is reckless, we have to control our emissions.
Yes, Pielke said that the evidence shows that “climate change has played no role in the observed increase in damages from natural hazards.”
That’s certainly a debatable point, and probably an overstatement. Pielke said that because he believes the increase can be accounted for in the actuarial data. But I wouldn’t be comfortable with that either - it would have been much better if he had said, “The evidence we have today is inconclusive.” My point was that the response to that was pretty extreme - calls for boycotts of Nate’s site, demands for apologies, Michael Mann penning an Op-Ed calling Silver, etc.
Do you think that would have happened if another climate scientist wrote an article which went a little too far in the opposite direction? Would any other scientists be writing op-eds telling him to tone down the rhetoric? In fact, I understand the U.S. government is about to release a report that attempts to directly link current extreme weather to climate change. If that report is a little too sweeping in its conclusions or draws unwarranted inferences or extrapolations from the data, do you expect many AGW people to come out and say, “Whoa! The consensus doesn’t go that far.”? I expect either concurrence from scientists if the report can be even vaguely justified by the science, even if it goes too far in its conclusions. Or if it’s way out there, I expect silence from the AGW scientific community.
And this is all perfectly understandable from a political viewpoint. We all tend to be a little quieter when people on our own side go a little too far, and we tend to jump on our opponents who do the same thing. That’s human nature. But it’s not what science is supposed to be about. Unfortunately, AGW and politics are now inextricably linked.
Nobody’s talking about destroying the planet. No one serious, anyway. What we’re talking about is human impact - rising oceans flooding coastal populations, extreme weather causing damage to property, etc.
Warmer weather is not a bad thing for the earth. Yes, it will lead to changes in the ecosystem. Some species may go extinct, and others will emerge. Some species will flourish. That’s a process that’s happening all the time, regardless of man’s input. In fact, in the past warmer periods are associated with more diversity and a general flourishing of the ecosystem, even if there are winners and losers in the process.
As for its effect on humanity, there are winners and losers there as well. It will suck to live in the tropics, and particularly in coastal regions in the tropics. But Siberia will be a nicer place to live. Millions of acres of permafrost and tundra in northern Canada will become fertile. The northwest passage will open up, lowering shipping costs. Warmer winter nights in the colder populous regions will reduce energy costs and deaths from cold. The quality of life may improve for millions of people living in cold climates.
It’s due to these positive effects that even the IPCC has admitted that warming in the region of 2-2.5 degrees or less may actually be a net economic benefit for mankind. If that’s the case, one ‘solution’ is simply to use the wealth gained by the wealthier northern countries to pay for the damage caused to the tropical regions.
But if you are of the opinion that the ecosystem has intrinsic value outside of human concerns and that we should spare no expense to avoid changing it, that’s a fair thing for you to believe - but it’s not science. It’s a value judgment. If you want other people to adopt your values and spend their money to maintain them, it’s up to you to win that battle in the court of public opinion. Just don’t mistake it for objective fact or science. And people who don’t agree with your values are not ‘deniers’. They’re just people with other values.
Actually, I’d say it’s extremely interesting. What it amounts to is a consensus that human activities are significantly changing the composition of the atmosphere to a form apparently never previously known in human history, and that we can realistically expect that change to have significant impacts on climate systems. And moreover, human activities are currently on track to keep increasing that change for an indefinite period to an unknown extent.
Sam, while I applaud your thoughtful and concerned scrutiny of the trees, you seem to have rather lost sight of the existence of the forest.
Again, I completely concur that predictions about specific impacts of AGW in particular times or places are by nature very imprecise. Certainly, any attempt to tailor mitigation measures to avoid any particular narrowly defined climate impacts in a particular narrowly defined region and time period is probably doomed to failure.
But that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t do anything in the way of mitigation until we’ve got all the possible consequences figured out. This kind of insistence on discussing only currently unknowable outcomes smacks at best of paralyzed helplessness and at worst of deliberate attempts at stalling.
The basic facts are that we are drastically altering our atmosphere to a condition radically different from all known norms, and continuing to do so with no end in sight. We have very little reason to think that the impacts on climate will be negligible, and a whole lot of evidence suggesting that on the contrary they will be quite significant and damaging to most human societies as presently constituted.
I do get your point that it’s very difficult to know exactly what specific actions would be the best to take in this situation. But I think it’s reasonable to acknowledge that on balance, it definitely looks as though slowing, stopping or reversing our present process of radical atmospheric modification would be a good thing. We should debate policies with that acknowledgement in mind.
Only that if you base that judgement on what your sources say that is not helpful, besides Siberia not reaching the nice levels so quickly I have seen reports that unstable weather is to be expected in many areas there.
The point stands that the value you are dealing there is penny wise, pound foolish.
Sorry, but when the livelihood of many depends on not ignoring what science is telling us, it is cleat that in the long run you are attempting to justify people that are no different or worse than the Anti-Vaccine Movement.
Huh? I didn’t ‘diss’ the models - I said that we have to understand their limitations. I said that similar models in other fields are very valuable - as tools for understanding the system. It’s their long-term predictive capability that is in question.
I strongly recommend Nate Silver’s book, btw. He discusses a number of places where similar claims have been made about the predictive capability of models of other complex systems - despite evidence that their capability is almost nil.
I wasn’t intending to open a debate about all these. I was trying to point out that the first effects lead to secondary effects, which lead to tertiary effects, etc. And in these effects feed back into each other and magnify or cancel themselves. This causes such systems to be extremely hard to predict and very sensitive to initial conditions.
Leaving the climate debate aside, complexity theory is extremely interesting and has potentially wide ranging impact on all of us. It’s well worth learning about.
The type of ‘MRI’ I’m talking about is being able to watch changes in the system ripple back and forth so we can understand the relationships between the parts better. We can’t do this with climate because the processes are too slow and many of them are very opaque to us. I’m not talking about initial evidence for CO2 buildup or anything like that.
‘Reckless’ is a value judgment. Certainly you can use the same argument I’m making for your side - if climate is truly a complex system we can’t hope to understand, then we shouldn’t go mucking about with it by injecting all that CO2 into the atmosphere. That’s a fine conclusion for you to make - a variation on the precautionary principle, which itself is based on the complexity argument about the ecosystem. It’s also the same argument used by conservative economists regarding us trying to centrally manage the economy.
It’s funny how we’re all willing to accept virtually the same argument in an area that aligns with our own prejudices, while utterly rejecting it in another area.
But accepting it begs the question of what is or isn’t ‘reckless’. How much CO2 is acceptable before we cross the ‘reckless’ threshold? Is that even an answerable question? If the answer is ‘zero’, is THAT possible? Probably not, so then we’re back to having to do risk analysis and decide how much risk we’re willing to accept for economic growth.