Locked thread on Global Warming (response to Sandman)

[someoneisatthedoor]

@Sandman

I doubt you are in any way qualified to analyze scientific data, unless you of course are an educated scientist (which doesn’t seem likely). In a scientific discourse your interpretation are just wrong - everybody can look at a chart and make it look like something they’d like, but this is not science.

Attacking my qualifications and status is ad hominem, and insulting.

And not scientific. Try again.

@someoneisatthedoor

Scientists are beholden to the conventions, assumptions and institutions of their craft.

So science creates false ideas about the world?

Yes.

Imagine a person saying the same thing for physics: “Gravity isn’t real, it’s just an orthodox convention”.

That’s precisely what I am saying. Gravity is a theory of how bodies in motion relate to one another. It is expressed in language, an orthodox, conventional means of expression. We lack the mental capacity to get to the thing in itself, and the semiotic means to explain it.

What we do have the capacity for is to form habits on the basis of assumptions and then act like these habits are the be-all and end-all of any discussion into the matter. As scientists do. As priests do. As many others do.

@someoneisatthedoor

No, that’s how science makes shit up that it can’t prove and then acts like it’s all confirmed and everyone has to accept it. It’s religious, not scientific.

This must be the worst methodological critique that can be made. Science don’t make up the data from the past, it’s rather accurately measured by various methods.

You miss the point - we weren’t there to record those temperatures first hand, so we have literally NO IDEA how accurate our speculations are from measurements we make in the present. Why do you think such measurements are referred to as ‘proxy measurements’ in the scientific literature?

So, we speculate (make shit up we can’t prove) and then speculate that the original speculations are accurate, and then insist that other people it. How does this differ from religious dogma?

The data is not perfect, but to a certain degree - which of course is reported. And there’s definitely limits to what the temperature was.

The limits are in your imagination.

This is the trick pulled off by creationism; questioning the results of science through a dubious methodological perspective.

So now I’m a creationist? Terrific. Instead of trying to label and insult my argument, you could, just could, try dealing with it logically. This is, y’know, a philosophy forum.

@someoneisatthedoor

I would question that, given some of your statements. Nonetheless, you take leaps of faith at the beginning of your believing in this, and throughout it. Like it or not, they are there.

Again: I doubt you’re in any way qualified to apply your ‘logic and reason’ to scientific data. And your results are, most likely, therefore unscientific and uninteresting.

Again: rather than trying to label and insult my argument, you could try dealing with it logically. Or you could try dealing with it as any person with a dogmatic belief does - by getting defensive, by misrepresenting the argument against it, by insulting the argument and trying to label it pejoratively, by pursuing red herrings and other fallacies of irrelevance, and by insisting that the person (who hasn’t claimed any expert status) isn’t an expert in the relevant field.

As to all scientists agreeing that warming is man made, as you claimed in the locked thread - even in the most political documents the IPCC produces, they don’t express this with the same certainty as you do:

Most of the observed increase in globally-averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic GHG concentrations… Spatial agreement between regions of significant warming across the globe and locations of significant observed changes in many systems consistent with warming is very unlikely to be due solely to natural variability.

(from their ‘Summary for policymakers’ in their 2007 Assessment Report)
ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-repor … yr_spm.pdf

And if you want something a bit more tangible, how about Dr Vincent Gray, who has written numerous critiques of the IPCC’s reports?
john-daly.com/tar-2000/summary.htm
warwickhughes.com/gray04/

Now, I could mention others, but you only asked for one, so you must (by your own standards) admit your argument has failed on that particular point. To do anything else (including trying to insult or label my criticism, or point out yet again that I’m not an expert on climate science, or any of those other fallacious diversionary tactics) would be profoundly unscientific. Your choice.

[Carleas]

The way scientist measure past temperature variations is by correlating known temperature changes with some long-term record, like ice cores and tree rings. They can use thousands of years of recorded history to callibrate the measurements, and then project those measurements beyond recorded history. So, we do have some idea of how accurate our measurements are, because we know that they are accurate back x years, and that accuracy decreases gradually as we go back farther than x.

A few responses to Vincent Gray’s claims:

@Vincent Gray

-(1)There is no credible evidence that the earth is currently warming. . .
-(2)Sea level measurements are even more biased than weather stations. They are mainly near Northern Hemisphere ports. . .
-(3)The earth’s temperature is warmer because of its atmosphere, and by the influence of greenhouse gases which partly prevent heat loss. . .
-(4)Computer climate models are based on the incorrect belief that changes in the greenhouse effect are the only influences on the climate. . .
-(5)There are huge uncertainties in the model outputs which are unrecognised and unmeasured. . .
-(6)No model has ever successfully predicted any future climate sequence. Despite this, future “projections” for as far ahead as several hundred years have been presented by the IPCC as plausible future trends, based on largely distorted “storylines”, combined with untested models. . .(numbering added)

1)I don’t know where he gets this claim. There is a clear and well documented trend in global surface temperatures, over both land and water, over the northern and southern hemispheres. I tried to locate his source, but the link to NASA was broken. I did find this article there, which states that “an 18- year record (1981-1998) of global land surface temperatures. . . provides additional proof that Earth’s snow-free land surfaces have, on average, warmed during this time period.” Same source, direct contradication.
2). . . If the sea level increases in one place, either that place is sinking (in which case global sea levels will rise), or they are somehow more gravitationally active, or global sea levels are increasing. The ocean is one big thing; you can’t have more water in one place without having more water elsewhere.
3) This seems to run counter to point 1. He’s both claiming that there is no warming, and trying to explain that warming away. Perhaps I misunderstood this point?
4) This is not true. The Wikipedia article states: “Parametrizations are used to include the effects of various processes. All modern AGCMs include parameterizations for: convection; land surface processes, albedo and hydrology; cloud cover.” Albedo and hydrology are clearly not greehouse gasses, but they are included because they are understood to be influences on the climare.
5) Model uncertainties are recognized and measured. And published! Graphs of global temperature average, which are models of a single dimension of climate change, do include uncertainty calculations. Recongnition and measurement.
6) Model accuracy measurements involve plugging in data from past years, and seeing how well the model predicts modern climates. If the prediction is good, there is reason to believe that inserting the equivalent data from modern climate measurements will provide reasonably accurate predictions for future climate changes. There is, of course, uncertainty, but that uncertainty is recognized and measured.

So, taking a step back, what is the general principle we should use to evalutate sources? I can provide sources that almost every scientist that studies the climate agrees with the assessment made by the IPCC report. You can provide sources that say there are credible experts that disagree. What principle should we use to decide which authority to believe? I would say that a large concensus is better than the outlyers, meaning that both the doomsday prophets and those who reject global warming altogether are likely to be less accurate than the center of the bell curve which predicts slow and steady rise in global temperature. You would, I am guessing, say that because these people are risking their careers to voice the skeptical position, they are more trustworthy than the concensus who rests safely in the accepted conclusion. How do we decide between them?

[someoneisatthedoor]

@Carleas

The way scientist measure past temperature variations is by correlating known temperature changes with some long-term record, like ice cores and tree rings. They can use thousands of years of recorded history to callibrate the measurements, and then project those measurements beyond recorded history.

We don’t have thousands of years of recorded history of tree rings and ice cores. We have things we’ve dug up in the present, or at least in recent history, and speculated about. That’s it.

So, we do have some idea of how accurate our measurements are, because we know that they are accurate back x years, and that accuracy decreases gradually as we go back farther than x.

How do you know that it decreases gradually? It could be entirely accurate, to the last datum, but we wouldn’t know because they are proxy measurements.

A few responses to Vincent Gray’s claims:

You aren’t an expert, so all that is irrelevant.

So, taking a step back, what is the general principle we should use to evalutate sources? I can provide sources that almost every scientist that studies the climate agrees with the assessment made by the IPCC report.

Gray is, apparently, an expert reviewer of the IPCC’s reports.

You can provide sources that say there are credible experts that disagree. What principle should we use to decide which authority to believe?

The principle of their authority meaning nothing, and their arguments meaning everything.

I would say that a large concensus is better than the outlyers, meaning that both the doomsday prophets and those who reject global warming altogether are likely to be less accurate than the center of the bell curve which predicts slow and steady rise in global temperature.

He’s not an outlyer, or a fringe crackpot, or any other derogatory label you are desperate to use to try to discredit him. He’s part of the IPCC process.

You would, I am guessing, say that because these people are risking their careers to voice the skeptical position, they are more trustworthy than the concensus who rests safely in the accepted conclusion. How do we decide between them?

We ignore the ‘them’ and get on to the ‘what they say and why’.

[Carleas]

I’m not an expert, but I provided sources. Maybe you could respond to them?