Paper; Global Warming "The Biggest Science Scandal Ever"

AUDub · Oct 7, 2015

NationalTitles15 said:
Audub, who you are right. It's impossible to make a good case to someone whose mind is made up already. I don't feel bad about that. It is what it is. You have your arguments and counter arguments neatly lined up and citations organized (probably by category). I get it. You are obsessed.

I go where the evidence takes me. If a thoroughly researched and methodologically sound article came out tomorrow stating, "hey turns out we may have been wrong. The source of the warming is probably geothermal," you bet your bottom dollar I would consider it.

I am not going to lie, I do keep a cheatsheet file on my iPad. Not neatly organized, but it works. I am also an excellent Google jockey. I understand you're trying to insult me (obsessed?), but there's nothing wrong with actually attempting to understand what you're arguing before wading in.

NationalTitles15 said:
Ok. I'm sure you know better than the scientists who were there.

No. I do not.

We both made claims. I said there was a consensus on warming, you said there was a widespread consensus on cooling.

Unlike you, what I do have is evidence to support my claim in the form of a comprehensive analysis of scholarly publications that broached the subject from that era. You know, the place that these debates actually take place and the best possible indicator of what they were thinking at the time.

You have the words of a few scientists and 7 scholarly articles on the subject. I have the words of a few scientists and 44 scholarly article on the subject. And even if all of the neutral articles skewed your way, the warming position still has more.

If I still had access to the journals I might do my own analysis. Maybe I'll have it again in the future. Could be an interesting project.

Tide1986 · Oct 7, 2015

AUDub said:
Not too many. To the extent that it exists, it's an extremist position not really worthy of consideration.

EDIT: But we should find ways within reason to minimize their use, and the eventual goal should be to end our dependence on them.

Efficiency improvements to the best of our abilities. We waste a metric crap ton of energy as it is.

Moves toward cleaner energy like nuclear, which is actually very safe. Hopefully advancements torward newer, cleaner energy production means. I've mentioned Lockheed-Martin's supposed fusion breakthrough. Hope they're not blowing smoke up our butts.

It is an excellent article. I'd recommend bookmarking the site. They have some very interesting stuff on there.

Anyway, on the government aspect, I certainly agree. There were deeply entrenched special interests in government that hindered any sort of progress, and that is still the case today.

I think most would agree that we should find ways not to be overly reliant on any one energy source. But ending any level of reliance shouldn't be based on taxing or regulating certain sources into oblivion in my opinion.

Bamaro · Oct 7, 2015

TideEngineer08 said:
Of course you do.

You don't get to have this thing both ways. You don't get America's wealth, standard of living, prosperity, all of that, without fossil fuels. Disrupting that process, right now with no suitable alternative, and you jeopardize all of that. Seriously. So comparing all of this to the whole debate over cigarettes is rather ludicrous.

No, it dealt only with the similarities between a past denier scenario and the current one from the denier side, not the effect side.

CajunCrimson · Oct 7, 2015

What I find amusing about the argument about fossil fuels is that nearly everything manufactured in the entire world is made with or created using them.

By definition fossil fuels are naturally created from the planet. The planet itself warms and cools itself by releasing these fuels naturally.

The argument 30 years ago was that we needed alternate fuels, not to protect the planet, but because we were going to run out. The anti big business folks pushed their agenda suggesting we needed to conserve energy because it will run out.

Yet, we keep finding more and more oil, gas, coal, then we ever dreamed possible. So the argument had to change. Which it did.

I equate it more to the overfishing the ocean argument some years back. We were emptying the ocean. But then we discovered that there are 30x more fish in the oceans than we ever imagined. So, that argument will have to change as well.

To not consider the possibility that the majority of this cause is political, regardless of the science is short-sighted.

The problem isn't fossil fuels....it's the fact that whoever controls them, controls society that's the real issue for them.

AUDub · Oct 7, 2015

Tide1986 said:
I think most would agree that we should find ways not to be overly reliant on any one energy source. But ending any level of reliance shouldn't be based on taxing or regulating certain sources into oblivion in my opinion.

Agreed. My chief fear on the matter, though, is one that was echoed in the article I shared earlier.

Some historians have argued that Midgley’s tetra-ethyl lead was a necessary evil; one which hastened the progress of efficient engines, thereby advancing the economy and contributing to victory in World War II. It is worth noting, however, that in the early years of Ethyl’s availability, basic refinery advances boosted the base octane of fuel by 20-30 points, whereas Ethyl additive only boosted it by about nine points. In retrospect, Ethyl’s octane improvements were somewhat overstated, and the product owed most of its success to crafty marketing, misleading research (Dub: mostly commissioned by the Ethyl corporation), and chronic government incompetence.

If we do develop a suitable substitute that is safer, cleaner and every bit as effective for providing the energy required to maintain our way of life, how long will it take to overcome the folks within and without our government with their fingers deep in the pockets of the status quo? Unfortunately, a regulatory push may be necessary.

mittman · Oct 7, 2015

Funny thing about nuclear energy is some of the very people (the continual "we gotta change" crowd) are the very people who put and keep the brakes on nuclear. I will never forget when the movie China Syndrome came out. It was the next year after I had to write that stupid paper on cooling and the bandwagon made a huge left turn toward nuclear energy evils. Being on a nuclear powered submarine a couple of years later there were always a few protesters hanging out around the Navy bases where I was stationed. Went out with a particularly good looking one a few times until she said some things that made me worry about my security clearance.

Many of those that are jaded about global warming understand how quickly people get on these bandwagons, and how tempting it is to skew data to ensure they keep going. When you've experienced it a few times it can't help but jade you to the next thing we get told that we have to spend a lot of money to change. They see an example as before, and just think here we go again. Overcoming that is not going to be easy, and it shouldn't be. Ignoring experience is just as dangerous as ignoring data.

TideEngineer08 · Oct 7, 2015

Bamaro said:
No, it dealt only with the similarities between a past denier scenario and the current one from the denier side, not the effect side.

Yes I understand. And from a debate standpoint, I lose because of that.

But I think the effect side is so important, that the comparison isn't worth making.

AUDub · Oct 7, 2015

mittman said:
Funny thing about nuclear energy is some of the very people (the continual "we gotta change" crowd) are the very people who put and keep the brakes on nuclear. I will never forget when the movie China Syndrome came out. It was the next year after I had to write that stupid paper on cooling and the bandwagon made a huge left turn toward nuclear energy evils. Being on a nuclear powered submarine a couple of years later there were always a few protesters hanging out around the Navy bases where I was stationed. Went out with a particularly good looking one a few times until she said some things that made me worry about my security clearance.

Many of those that are jaded about global warming understand how quickly people get on these bandwagons, and how tempting it is to skew data to ensure they keep going. When you've experienced it a few times it can't help but jade you to the next thing we get told that we have to spend a lot of money to change. They see an example as before, and just think here we go again. Overcoming that is not going to be easy, and it shouldn't be. Ignoring experience is just as dangerous as ignoring data.

This.

Nuclear power is one of the areas where the far left can be every bit as anti-science as the far right.

It's bothersome. Among current energy production means, we pretty much have nothing safer than nuclear.

For comparison, coal releases a large quantity of radioactive material every year. Fly ash produced by coal fired plants contains just as much radioactivity as your average nuclear plant because of the presence of thorium and uranium in the ash, and the regulations for it are laughable. EDIT: By comparison.

Bodhisattva · Oct 7, 2015

Of course, with nuclear power you have people like Homer Simpson at the controls. So, you know, tradeoffs and whatnot ...

AUDub · Oct 7, 2015

Bodhisattva said:
Of course, with nuclear power you have people like Homer Simpson at the controls. So, you know, tradeoffs and whatnot ...

Too bad he cast nuclear safety inspection in a bad light and not, you know, cooking or something.

PacadermaTideUs · Oct 7, 2015

Related story out of Australia. Link

A former climate modeller for the Government’s Australian Greenhouse Office, with six degrees in applied mathematics, Dr Evans has unpacked the architecture of the basic climate model which underpins all climate science.

He has found that, while the underlying physics of the model is correct, it had been applied incorrectly.

He has fixed two errors and the new corrected model finds the climate’s sensitivity to carbon dioxide (CO2) is much lower than was thought.

Looking forward to his papers and their peer-review.

AUDub · Oct 7, 2015

CajunCrimson said:
What I find amusing about the argument about fossil fuels is that nearly everything manufactured in the entire world is made with or created using them.

Yeah. And?

CajunCrimson said:
By definition fossil fuels are naturally created from the planet. The planet itself warms and cools itself by releasing these fuels naturally.

This is an appeal to nature.

You're anthropomorphic characterization of the earth here is pretty silly. That's not how things work. The planet does not "warm and cool itself." It reacts to whatever forcings are acting upon it at the time. There are periods of equilibrium, some quite long.

And Carbon sequestered in a mineral form like coal is actually quite stable and does not readily leave that form. In some cases we're talking about Carbon that has been sequestered since the Proterozoic eon, close to 650 millions years ago, likely predating land plants, and definitely predating kingdom Animalia by around 100 million years or so.

CajunCrimson said:
The argument 30 years ago was that we needed alternate fuels, not to protect the planet, but because we were going to run out. The anti big business folks pushed their agenda suggesting we needed to conserve energy because it will run out.

Yet, we keep finding more and more oil, gas, coal, then we ever dreamed possible. So the argument had to change. Which it did.

Actually, that is still an argument. Even though predicting possible remaining fossil fuel reserves is an inexact science they are essentially a finite resource. Even the lowest quality coals require several million years to form naturally before it can properly utilized, and crude requires thousands.

CajunCrimson said:
I equate it more to the overfishing the ocean argument some years back. We were emptying the ocean. But then we discovered that there are 30x more fish in the oceans than we ever imagined. So, that argument will have to change as well.

Would you mind sourcing this claim? Overfishing is still a concern today.

CajunCrimson said:
To not consider the possibility that the majority of this cause is political, regardless of the science is short-sighted. The problem isn't fossil fuels....it's the fact that whoever controls them, controls society that's the real issue for them.

Thwacka Thwacka Thwacka

TideEngineer08 · Oct 7, 2015

PacadermaTideUs said:
Related story out of Australia. Link

Looking forward to his papers and their peer-review.

Six applied mathematics degrees???

AUDub · Oct 7, 2015

TideEngineer08 said:
Six applied mathematics degrees???

His "pedigree:"

Ph.D. Electrical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California.
M.S. Electrical Engineering, Stanford University.
M.S. Statistics, Stanford University.
M.A. Applied Mathematics, University Of Sydney.
B.E. Electrical Engineering, University Of Sydney, Sydney Australia, University Medal (1983).
B.Sc. Applied Mathematics and Physics, University Of Sydney.

AUDub · Oct 7, 2015

PacadermaTideUs said:
Related story out of Australia. Link

Looking forward to his papers and their peer-review.

I don't believe even he claims to have been a climate modeler.

Apologies for the argument from authority here:

Reference

Unfortunately dated though. Shows he's a bit of a known quantity for some tim.

I do not believe there is much in the way of peer reviewed research forthcoming. We'll see.

AUDub · Oct 7, 2015

BamainBoston said:
I believe the proper Latin term is verum vulnero.

Oh yeah. Double down. :cheers2:

Tide1986 · Oct 7, 2015

AUDub said:
Oh yeah. Double down. :cheers2:

I believe the proper Latin term is descendit primum duplices.

PacadermaTideUs · Oct 7, 2015

AUDub said:
I do not believe there is much in the way of peer reviewed research forthcoming. We'll see.

Indeed: we shall see.

The two papers which he claims are in fact currently in peer review focus on two topics: (1) flaws in the application of the basic climate model (as laid out by the Charney Report, and upon which general circulation models depend) to CO2-induced climate forcing, and (2) how variability in solar input is the primary driver of earth's climate via fluxuations in earth's albedo.

The rough ideas of paper one are outlined in a series of 10 blog posts here: link. I won't pretend to have the ability to endorse or refute his ideas - his posts get a bit mathy, certainly more so than I am able to follow without a great deal of research. So I'll leave that to the qualified peers that are supposedly reviewing his material. But I also won't judge his ideas based on ad hominem arguments or on whether or not I like his conclusions. As we know, real science doesn't work like that... or at least it shouldn't, even if in actual practice, it often does.

AUDub · Oct 7, 2015

PacadermaTideUs said:
Indeed: we shall see.

The two papers which he claims are in fact currently in peer review focus on two topics: (1) flaws in the application of the basic climate model (as laid out by the Charney Report, and upon which general circulation models depend) to CO2-induced climate forcing, and (2) how variability in solar input is the primary driver of earth's climate via fluxuations in earth's albedo.

The rough ideas of paper one are outlined in a series of 10 blog posts here: link. I won't pretend to have the ability to endorse or refute his ideas - his posts get a bit mathy, certainly more so than I am able to follow without a great deal of research. So I'll leave that to the qualified peers that are supposedly reviewing his material. But I also won't judge his ideas based on ad hominem arguments or on whether or not I like his conclusions. As we know, real science doesn't work like that... or at least it shouldn't, even if in actual practice, it often does.

Right.

For what it's worth, Ken Rice wrote a post over at ...And Then There's Physics directly addressing your article and pointing out what he sees as the flaws in Dr. Evans' analysis:

Not even partially correct

David Evans has a whole series of posts on Jo Nova’s blog where he discusses his discovery. I’ll just comment on the aspect that I was discussing with him and which he discusses in this post. He says

"The basic model relies heavily on partial derivatives. A partial derivative is the ratio of the changes in two variables, when everything apart from those two variables is held constant. When applied to the climate, this means everything about the climate must be held constant while we imagine how much one variable would change if the other was altered."

As far as I’m aware, this is simply untrue. A complex GCM certainly solves a set of partial differential equations, but these are the standard Navier Stokes equations which are evolved in time and space; it doesn’t, however, require holding everything constant while we check how one variable changes if another is altered. The model simply evolves all the different variables with respect to

$t, x, y$
and

$z$
.

The most basic climate model, on the other hand, doesn’t use partial differential equations at all; it normally simply evolves the change in temperature on the basis of a forcing time series and a feedback response that is typically assumed to depend linearly on temperature. You can introduce non-linearities and make them more complex, but even basic climate models don’t solve the partial differential equations that David is claiming that they use.

What David Evans appears to be referring to is how one might determine – for example – the feedback response from a climate model. One may indeed do so by holding everything constant, bar one thing, and then determining how the system responds to a change in another variable, such as temperature. However this does not mean that a climate model is evolving this type of partial differential equation; it simply means that this type of equation is used to analyse the output from a climate model. I encountered a similar issue when I had a discussion with Monckton a while back; confusing how one might analyse the results from a climate model, with how a climate model is actually run. Could there be a link?
So, as far as I can tell, David Evans’s startling discovery is simply him being confused about how climate models actually work.

Apologies for my second appeal to authority.

CajunCrimson · Oct 7, 2015

. New research by an international team of marine scientists suggests that the global biomass of fish is 30 times more than the accepted estimate, contradicting previous beliefs about the biomass of fish in the world's oceans.

The team investigated mesopelagic fish that tend to dominate the world total fish biomass. Mesopelagic fish are open-sea species that occupy the mid-depth of the oceans from 200 metres to 1,000 metres below the surface.

They are small, often migrate to the surface at night, and have remarkable senses - in vision and in sensing pressure and motion - which enables them to avoid nets and fishing gear.

In a report in Nature Communications, the scientists say they had not been able to accurately estimate the biomass of fish in the past because of the difficulties in sampling and the fact that available estimates were based on false premises.

Here you go

Don't you hate it when scientists fail because their estimates are based on false premises?

http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20140309160026308

Paper; Global Warming "The Biggest Science Scandal Ever"

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