GLOBAL WARMING alert - Britain facing one of the coldest winters in 100 years

[Ghent12]

Re: GLOBAL WARMING alert - Britain facing one of the coldest winters in 100 years

That map seems pretty clear to me... perhaps Ghent12 only saw the first map at that link (which indeed doesn't have much data). Interesting point about the Mercator map; I hadn't even thought of that.

The lack of data is evident in the largest color available on the map--white, meaning no data. Saying that "most of the world" is warming based on that graphic is like saying "most Americans voted for Barrack Obama." It is a subtle but significant untruth.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: GLOBAL WARMING alert - Britain facing one of the coldest winters in 100 years

Essentially, it's a secular version of Pascal's Wager. The consequences of reducing emissions destroying the modern economy if it turns out we don't do have to are significant in terms of missed (or delayed) opportunity. The consequences of not reducing emissions destroying the modern economy if it turns out we do don't have to are likely to be much more significant in terms of starvation, loss of biodiversity, and possibly a limited ability to recover as a result of already depleted resources. Neither of those risks is desirable, but the risk of catastrophic climate change economic destruction is the more undesirable of the two.

There - fixed.

In other words, anytime one can reduce these debates to a version of Pascal's Wager, then the "winner" is whoever can determine what we're wagering over.

[Frozen]

Re: GLOBAL WARMING alert - Britain facing one of the coldest winters in 100 years

Gulf Stream Conveyor is failing.

[D-Mack]

Re: GLOBAL WARMING alert - Britain facing one of the coldest winters in 100 years

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programme...cs/8443687.stm

Met Office head asked about his performance bonus

[flintlock]

Re: GLOBAL WARMING alert - Britain facing one of the coldest winters in 100 years

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programme...cs/8443687.stm

Met Office head asked about his performance bonus

Ha, good one. Does the Met use the same "science" the climate change Scientists do?

[Chris]

Re: GLOBAL WARMING alert - Britain facing one of the coldest winters in 100 years

i'm sorry, I think I missed this one. What is the reason for modelling the climate again (other than to scare the bejesus' out of half the globe)?

[Chris]

Re: GLOBAL WARMING alert - Britain facing one of the coldest winters in 100 years

Ha, good one. Does the Met use the same "science" the climate change Scientists do?

This sort of thing makes me want to bite my arm off and put vinegar in the wound...

Quoting the head of the UK's Met office on national television defending his failures on long term forecasting: "Long term forecasting is still a developmental science."

So why are forming some very expensive and liberty restricting policies around it?! Gah! :mad:

[renewable]

Re: GLOBAL WARMING alert - Britain facing one of the coldest winters in 100 years

Climate Models Irreducibly Imprecise

http://www.theresilientearth.com/?q=...ibly-imprecise

What a silly article. Of course the models are imprecise; computer models are by their nature imprecise - especially climate models, which are among the most complex in the world.

Shock horror - the climatic system is really complex :rolleyes:

[Techdread]

Re: GLOBAL WARMING alert - Britain facing one of the coldest winters in 100 years

This sort of thing makes me want to bite my arm off and put vinegar in the wound...

Quoting the head of the UK's Met office on national television defending his failures on long term forecasting: "Long term forecasting is still a developmental science."

So why are forming some very expensive and liberty restricting policies around it?! Gah! :mad:

Because its the right and sensible thing to do. No-One knows 100% what the effects of dumping green house gases into atmosphere are, but I think it can be argued they are not all to the benefit of our EcoSystem :rolleyes:

We should err on the side of caution IMO and reduce our emissions as it we will have to do it anyway. Liberty those not come in to it, Americans should lead the way as their profligate use of energy is causing foreign policy mistakes

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: GLOBAL WARMING alert - Britain facing one of the coldest winters in 100 years

What a silly article. Of course the models are imprecise;

The point was that the models are irreducibly imprecise.That is not a silly point, in my view. The article is trying to explain that the climate system we're trying to model is a massive, complex, turbulent, chaotic, dynamical system. Computer models of such cannot even reliably approximate them to some reasonable degree in proportion to how much genius, cpu cycles and memory is thrown at them. We're not just saying that the models are wrong; we're saying they must be wrong by some irreducible margin on which no amount of improved compute resources or better algorithms can improve.

Read again, for example, the following (copied with working links this time):

A number of the equations found in climate models come from studies of fluid flow. Where things become really dicey is when the flow becomes turbulent—chaotic in the mathematical sense. This touches on work by Edward Lorenz in the early 1960s, some of which was discussed in The Resilient Earth. Again, to understand the math presented in these papers some background in fluid flow and chaos theory is needed. There is a fairly accessible paper that presents useful background information by Matthew Carriuolo, “The Lorenz Attractor,Chaos, And Fluid Flow,” available on the web. It was his undergraduate-level thesis at Brown University, done in 2005.

[renewable]

Re: GLOBAL WARMING alert - Britain facing one of the coldest winters in 100 years

The point was that the models are irreducibly imprecise.That is not a silly point, in my view. The article is trying to explain that the climate system we're trying to model is a massive, complex, turbulent, chaotic, dynamical system. Computer models of such cannot even reliably approximate them to some reasonable degree in proportion to how much genius, cpu cycles and memory is thrown at them. We're not just saying that the models are wrong; we're saying they must be wrong by some irreducible margin on which no amount of improved compute resources or better algorithms can improve.

Read again, for example, the following (copied with working links this time):

I can't see how the word 'irreducibly' makes any difference. It's completely obvious that real world computer models cannot accurately represent all components of many relatively simple systems, let alone the entire planet's climate system.

All they can do is attempt to get closer to reality over time.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: GLOBAL WARMING alert - Britain facing one of the coldest winters in 100 years

I can't see how the word 'irreducibly' makes any difference. ...

All they can do is attempt to get closer to reality over time.

I'll try one more time. The word "irreducible" means that the cannot get closer than that irreducible margin over time. The mathematics of chaotic systems is not like the mathematics of classic physics.

Not only are they going to miss; they are going to miss by a mile and cannot get one foot closer than that mile with all the compute resources in the universe.

[renewable]

Re: GLOBAL WARMING alert - Britain facing one of the coldest winters in 100 years

I'll try one more time. The word "irreducible" means that the cannot get closer than that irreducible margin over time. The mathematics of chaotic systems is not like the mathematics of classic physics.

Not only are they going to miss; they are going to miss by a mile and cannot get one foot closer than that mile with all the compute resources in the universe.

We're saying the same thing; the climatic system is too complex to model all components accurately. This is not news.

All the models can do is get closer to reality over time.

The layer of CO2 (and methane) around the planet keeps it warmer than it would otherwise be. Few dispute the Greenhouse Effect. It seems logical to expect that putting more CO2 up there, as we have, will mean it will get warmer. This is a simple model.

We need more advanced and continually improving models to attach some probabilities as to whether there are, for example, negative feedbacks that could possibly reverse this simple model.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: GLOBAL WARMING alert - Britain facing one of the coldest winters in 100 years

All the models can do is get closer to reality over time.

No! We are not saying the same thing.

That is exactly what cannot be done. That is exactly what I said cannot be done in my previous post. That is exactly what "irreducible" refers to.

Past some substantial point, they cannot get closer.

[neoken]

Re: GLOBAL WARMING alert - Britain facing one of the coldest winters in 100 years

No! We are not saying the same thing.

That is exactly what cannot be done. That is exactly what I said cannot be done in my previous post. That is exactly what "irreducible" refers to.

Past some substantial point, they cannot get closer.

What a negative defeatist viewpoint.

Like I said earlier TV meteorologists were a joke in the 70's. 30 years later with improved models/computing power and no ones laughing. I'm sure someone can pick out some choice quotes from 30-40 years back denouncing the possibility of better forecasting as "irreducible"

Of course they are not perfect, that's the point. You improve and tweak, that's what science does.

In the late 90's I claimed to friends that computer mice/keyboard would not be the main interfaces in the near future. They could not even imagine the possibility of something different. Would never cross their minds. Gesture based interfaces are growing exponentially now.

I don't claim to know what the future will be, but at least I can see the possibilities.

One example technology that will improve information input.
A Central Nervous System for Earth: HP's Ambitious Sensor Network


stay positive


k