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from the climate-change-simply-happens dept.
Papas Fritas writes "Patrick Michaels writes in Forbes that atmospheric physicist Garth Paltridge has laid out several well-known uncertainties in climate forecasting including our inability to properly simulate clouds that are anything like what we see in the real world, the embarrassing lack of average surface warming now in its 17th year, and the fumbling (and contradictory) attempts to explain it away. According to Paltridge, an emeritus professor at the University of Tasmania and a fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, virtually all scientists directly involved in climate prediction are aware of the enormous uncertainties associated with their product. How then is it that those of them involved in the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) can put their hands on their hearts and maintain there is a 95 per cent probability that human emissions of carbon dioxide have caused most of the global warming that has occurred over the last several decades? In short, there is more than enough uncertainty about the forecasting of climate to allow normal human beings to be at least reasonably hopeful that global warming might not be nearly as bad as is currently touted.
Climate scientists, and indeed scientists in general, are not so lucky. They have a lot to lose if time should prove them wrong. "In the light of all this, we have at least to consider the possibility that the scientific establishment behind the global warming issue has been drawn into the trap of seriously overstating the climate problem-or, what is much the same thing, of seriously understating the uncertainties associated with the climate problem-in its effort to promote the cause," writes Paltridge. "It is a particularly nasty trap in the context of science, because it risks destroying, perhaps for centuries to come, the unique and hard-won reputation for honesty which is the basis of society's respect for scientific endeavor.""
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Vanderhoth on Thursday February 20 2014, @01:49PM
You're confusing weather with climate.
Climate - "the weather conditions prevailing in an area in general or over a long period."
Weather - "the state of the atmosphere at a place and time as regards heat, dryness, sunshine, wind, rain, etc"
Weather is a data point for a small area, Climate is the collection of data for larger regions. Maybe we're getting a lot of snow here in the North East, but Australia has been having an extreme heat wave [theguardian.com]
Climate predictions, like weather predictions, can and may be wrong, but there's quite a bit of evidence and a decent trend indicating it probably isn't.
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 2, Informative) by lajos on Thursday February 20 2014, @02:25PM
I'm not debating or denying GW. All I'm saying is, at least where I live, we can't even get reliable prediction on local weather. The models required to predict global changes are many orders of magnitude more complicated, even if done by different scientists.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Vanderhoth on Thursday February 20 2014, @02:53PM
Might as well say some mechanic are unreliable so how can we expect engineers at Ford or GM to design cars?
Forecasting the weather and predicting climate are completely different things. Yeah, it's a complex thing to do, but it doesn't mean it shouldn't be done. The worse that could happen is the prediction is wrong and is used to refine future predictions.
The media on the other hand is what this whole climate debate is about. Journalist unqualified to understand the science take, "We expect see level to rise by between 90 and 160mm over the next 100 years." as "OMFG!!! we're all going to drown! Quick someone build an ark! WE'RE DOOOOOOMMMMMEEEEEDDDD!!!!!!". Then a bunch of yokles jump on the bandwagon calling scientists every name under the sun because they're worried we're going to to what? Switch from sweet life giving oil to bird cooking solar.
Yes I realize I'm being hypocritical in my hyperbole, but it's for comedic effect. Admittedly I'm not a very funny person.
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 1) by hubie on Thursday February 20 2014, @05:38PM
You're talking about different issues. Short-term forecasting is trying to capture the current state of the atmosphere and propagating that forward in time to produce a reasonably accurate local forecast. That suffers from the problem of not knowing the initial state sufficiently well that your errors propagate out until they are large enough in about 5 days or so to not be reliable. Climate models are not trying to tell you what the weather will be like on Monday, May 5th, 2080, but what the overall average state of the system will be. I can very quickly construct a model that will tell you, within about 10 degrees or so, what the temperature will be on a month-to-month basis (hotter in July and colder in December in the Northern Hemisphere), but my model won't be of much use to you if you want to know what the weather will be on your birthday.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 20 2014, @02:46PM
So we can build a good model of general things on a basis of thousands of bad things? Did not realize you could do that in science. I usually would call that a flawed hypothesis and of the ilk of the idea of rings and spheres.
It is a good point. You however, have failed to prove it wrong other than whipping out the dictionary and a vague 'seems to be trending'.
So much for my hope that this site wouldn't be the same people arguing about something as silly as the weather. It is one of the reasons I moved to this site. The hope it would be about tech and not something as boring as politics.
I have to ask you why do you argue about it? Does it *really* bother you that much someone is posting something 'wrong'? Here is a hint people are wrong all the time. Some will even be loud about it. What do you care? Is it your personal mission to purge the internet of 'bad things'? If so what do you think about censorship? Do you see it as a 'good idea' when it is something you do not like?
Or are you like this strip?
https://xkcd.com/386/ [xkcd.com]
(Score: 5, Informative) by Vanderhoth on Thursday February 20 2014, @03:07PM
So we build a good or bad models of general things on a basis of thousands of observations (things that have already happened so we know they're correct). Then we can compare the model to what actually takes place and refine it to make it better? Wow, Science is so awesome!!
Fixed that for you.
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 20 2014, @03:12PM
Please, for the sake of all of us, go back to the other site.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 22 2014, @09:09AM
Except that the people predicting climate variations are not very good at it either. The Farmers Almanac is more likely to tell you what the correct rainfall will be Summer next year then the NOAA.
One of the most ( if not the most accurate ) predictions in science is that of the anamolous magnetic monet of the electron. 11 digits accuracy. Can you name one prediction from climate science, that is done to 3 digits accuracy?