[scrapemedic]

Chris Lloyd, on 09 February 2012 - 15:02, said:

I believe Drake was a very clever man who put inton context the probability of there being life on other planets. You might argue that we are the only beings in the known Universe. That may or may not be your view. I would not criticise you for asking the question though and to doubt it. In the same way Drake was not the authority because it can never be proved.

It's not about whether or not I have any confidence in the science - it is about what we can measurably confirm by actual evidence.

Actually, its about you arguing semantics about the word "authority". If its about arguing that the only authority is someone who not only completely understands their respective field but can prove it without doubt, you are barking up the wrong tree. Science is by its nature, a consensus. A theory is put forward, it is tested, the results are peer reviewed, a consensus is agreed; but thats never the end of the story, it is challenged, retested, and even then there will some that disagree. Some would argue that medicine is not even close to being a science; for every drug, you will always find the exception, for every condition, there will be a wide variation of outcomes. What we know about biology changes from person to person due in no small fact to the variation of DNA in their cells.

But as has been pointed out, who would you go to for medical advise, someone who is a specialist in their field yes? Of course. When it comes to climate science, measuring may take millenia, and may never be proved, at least not to your high standards. You have to allow that others are willing to set the bar lower than you have in terms of "proof of concept" and that they may well be more open minded to the ideas.

Arguing semantics about the word authority proves nothing,

[scrapemedic]

Chris Lloyd, on 09 February 2012 - 18:28, said:

I accept your point John and I know what you are saying. But if I go to the cardiologist he knows in black and white terms what to do, as does the dentist. AGW is a theory based on a belief that a+b should = c. There are no definites about it. It is the inference that it is black and white that I take issue with.

Analogy. I don't believe in religion, therefore I do not believe in God. I could also say that I question the existence of God, but that does not mean that God exists just because I question his existence.

Did you not read what I wrote, there is nothing so un-black and white as medicine, yet the general population are happy to rely on what our local gp says despite that some haven't updated themsleves since leaving medical school forty years ago! I think that is the problem, looking for black and white where there isn't any, and applying black and white where its impossible for it to exist.

[Uskys]

It is a shame that Andre's topic is not being discussed, but the replies made to discredit it are.

I would have thought, In laymans terms that the topic of an ice sheet supposedly being 4000m deep x years ago and at the same time 'x' years ago it supported mammels is an important one. Henry Davenport referenced that somebody involved in this 'expose' was also involved in shale which I would like to hear more about or a link, and maybe some response from Andre or Nilequeen.

It would be nice if we could keep it on topic. There is so much for us all to learn , more so if we are polite. If you can't reply on topic or h'have heard it all before' theres no need to shoot it down by trying to discredit using old arguements... leave the topic alone for those who are interested.

[scrapemedic]

Okay, can I put it like this.

Chris you pay national insurance based on uncertainty. Its uncertain that you will ever need to benefit from the national health service. But, especially as a stay at home dad, (I am making the assumption that this involves children) you are happy to pay, or let your wife pay for the possibility that if your children ever needs it, there is a health service available, free at the point of entry, to rely upon in an emergency.

There is no emergency right at this point in time, and scientifically you can't prove that there will ever be a point in time when there will be an emergency. And if the worst happens you rely on that service being available, even though right now you can't prove that any help they might offer will be the right help, will benefit you, and won't cause you harm.

But yet you are still happy to pay.

So why is it you balk at paying taxes to try and prevent a possibility one of a number of possible outcomes that may cause you harm. See this is why I don't understand the anti lobby (I still haven't made up my mind), I can't see the harm in trying to prevent the possible outcome that may or may not involve our contribution to it.

In a lot of ways, its not about the science, its about taking the common sense approach, the one that says, until we know enough to say one way or the other, lets do what we can now to mitigate any further contributions we may be making to it.

[andre]

What a thread again. It started off with the news that the supreme German environmentalist got aggravated with the errors in the IPCC documents that he decided to jump of the bandwagon. Ignoring the fallacy war, David doubted lack of quality of IPCC documents, to which I reacted with an example of a blatantly wrong official peer reviewed study, that is likely to be included in the next AR5 Chap 1 against another study about the reality of the Yukon territory during the last glacial stadium 110-15 Ka. But of course we keep returning to CO2 and the precautionary principle (no, not a small insurance fee - your whole economy has to be sacrificed for the insurance fee)

Anyway, the issue of the thread was intended to show that people like Professor Dr. Fritz Vahrenholt, green activist, can still do his own thinking, doesn't buy authority and be sceptical and make his own decision.

Talking about the "authority", who is the authority on the Late Pleistocene Yukon Territory? The climatologic computer programmers or the paleontologists like Harington and Zazula?

[ldavidcooke]

Hey Chris,

Did you mean that Climate researchers add nothing to the "REMEDY" of the problem rather then the cause of the problem? As a rule control of population growth cannot be defined by someone else, the individual is responsible for that. That is similar to the issue of pollution, whatever, you define that as, whether it be contributors to AGW or mid-ocean plastic islands of trash.

As to the science, so far Andre's evidence is spotty as is the basis of the manufactured conflict. Place organic material in a water infusion and drop the temperture to within 1deg. C and 40ky samples can look like 10kya samples. That is all part and parcel of things not said or false conclusions drawn based on incomplete addressing of the noted evidence. This just goes to emphasize the difference between measureable science and derived science.

[ldavidcooke]

Hey Chris,

As a follow up wrt pollution and personal responsbility, economics appears to play the greatest role in resolving or providing less polluting choices. The problem there is with governments. The idea that a solution must be more expensive is simply a ploy. Fuel systems and transportation or HVAC industry devices have had subsidies for years. The UN program of trade in pollutants was intended to either preserve resources or allow the adoption of less polluting technologies of growing economies. The point is money or the cost of an alternative is only as "Free Market" as provided for by governments and national banking systems.

Wth the greatest civil users of these products bearing a large portion of the cost of change, the real cost causers were the very industries receiving the subsidies, if not the base industry, then the distributors or the advertisers. (A higher cost reaps a greater cash flow, greater cash flow reaps both greater investment and bank loan amounts. When the cash flow diminishes the investment no longer attracts investers and the banks no longer lend money. Deflation, the great corrector, is always the fear of governments as profits on cash flow provides their tax base.)

As economic houses of cards collapse under their own weight, so can governments. This has not always been true, under old fashioned economics or small economic engines such as local or regional businesses, none could grow so large that they could not fail. Hence, it is not greed alone; but, also basic economic survival that motivates much of the actions taken and manipulation of free markets. So before we go too far in redefining personal responsibility, I believe it may be better that we review all aspects of our economic systems, before assigning "signs".

As to Andre's thread and going off topic that is my fault, I likely should have moved the thread to Discuss and Analysis of Climate Science. I was hoping that either questions or ideas could have been dscussed by all members, rather then the intended subject be ignored. Next time...

[G Henry Davenport]

andre, on 09 February 2012 - 21:14, said:

What a thread again. It started off with the news that the supreme German environmentalist got aggravated with the errors in the IPCC documents that he decided to jump of the bandwagon.

He's jumped *on* one.

andre, on 09 February 2012 - 21:14, said:

Anyway, the issue of the thread was intended to show that people like Professor Dr. Fritz Vahrenholt, green activist, can still do his own thinking, doesn't buy authority and be sceptical and make his own decision.

I'm sure it was not your intention to imply that those on the other side of the debate do not think for themselves and don't also make their own decisions...

[andre]

G Henry Davenport, on 10 February 2012 - 13:37, said:

I'm sure it was not your intention to imply that those on the other side of the debate do not think for themselves and don't also make their own decisions...

I'm sure it was not your intention to launch a straw man on me.

Nevertheless, I might refer to the adagio If "If everybody’s thinking alike, somebody isn’t thinking"

[John Mason]

andre, on 10 February 2012 - 14:58, said:

I'm sure it was not your intention to launch a straw man on me.

Nevertheless, I might refer to the adagio If "If everybody’s thinking alike, somebody isn’t thinking"

On that basis, if everyone thought AGW to be a hoax, the chances would be that it was real

Cheers - John

[skanky]

Two points about the Yukon studies:

1) It's well known that parts of the Yukon did not experience glaciation, and were part of Berinigia: http://www.beringia.com/index.html

2) It might be a good idea to read the S. Bonelli et al paper linked above. Page 7 discusses how their results show glaciation of Berinigia, despite the observations showing that this was not the case. They then go on to discuss the reasons why, including local conditions, model resolution and dust parameterisation. They also discuss other areas where their model shows discrepancies with obs or other studies, including the Rockies, and the Canadian Archipelago.

Quote

The model also produces a glacial onset over Alaska, in disagreement with
observations (Boulton and Clark, 1990). This is a common
problem for coupled climate-ISM simulations (Deblonde and
Peltier, 1991; Peltier and Marshall, 1995). Previous stud-
ies conducted with GCMs suggest that a more realistic mod-
elling of vegetation over Beringia has a strong impact on lo-
cal albedo and atmospheric circulation patterns (Wyputta and
McAvaney., 2001). Refined vegetation indirectly leads to cir-
culation changes that generate a warm anomaly over Alaska
and Eastern Siberia, which, in turn, reduces the accumulation
of grounded ice. Furthermore, previous works argue that the
lack of a simulated Kuroshio Current may be also responsible
for colder climatic conditions in these regions, thus fostering
snow accumulation (Peltier and Marshall, 1995). Simulated
ice inception and growth over Alaska and Beringia in the
present study results from the combination of both coarse cli-
mate model resolution and from these regional and important
features of the climate system, poorly represented in our cou-
pled model. However, by using the CLIMBER-SICOPOLIS
model, Calov et al. (2005a,b ) suggest another possible ex-
planation: they performed a transient simulation of the first
phase of the glacial inception, from 126 kyr BP to 100 kyr BP,
with an approach similar to the one adopted here, with the
exception of the dust parameterization and the atmospheric
CO2 forcing inferred from Barnola et al. (1987). Their results
do not show any ice build-up over North-western Alaska,
whereas ice is produced in Eastern Siberia. On the contrary,
when no dust is accounted for, Alaska is completely ice-
covered at 115 kyr BP (Calov et al., 2005b).

This post has been edited by skanky: 10 February 2012 - 15:29

[Nigel Bolton]

An interesting thread with some powerful arguements.

A good read.

N.

[G Henry Davenport]

andre, on 10 February 2012 - 14:58, said:

I'm sure it was not your intention to launch a straw man on me.

It's kind of you to provide a link but I'm well aware of what a straw man is, thanks, and my statement was not one.

andre, on 10 February 2012 - 14:58, said:

Nevertheless, I might refer to the adagio If "If everybody’s thinking alike, somebody isn’t thinking"

Did you mean "adage"? I like the idea of that statement being read at a slow tempo, though. However, I prefer to think of it as a meaningless hackneyed phrase that, funnily enough, might again make people wonder who it is implied is not thinking.

Anyway, fun though it is to trade semantics it's nothing to do with the science so I'll call it a day.

John Mason, on 10 February 2012 - 14:59, said:

On that basis, if everyone thought AGW to be a hoax, the chances would be that it was real

Indeed. Therein lies the weakness of that cliché.

[NileQueen]

In view of a new climate sceptic, I would like to draw your attention to a new paper (2012) that might make us
all think about climate in a different way.

Geophysical Research Letters, Vol 39.

Abrupt onset of the Little Ice Age triggered by volcanism and sustained by sea-ice/ocean feedbacks,
by Gifford H. Miller, Aslaug Geirsdottir, Yafang Zhong, Darren Larsen, Bette Otto-Bliesner, Marika Holland, David Bailey, Kurt Refsnider,
Scott Lehman, John Southon, Chance Anderson, Helgi Bjornsson, and Thorvaldur Thordarson.

By acquiring a collection of radiocarbon dates on plants that were overrun by glaciers during the LIA, it was determined
that ice growth began abruptly between 1275 and 1300 AD, followed by a substantial intensification 1430 to 1455 AD.
These intervals of sudden ice growth coincide with two of the most volcanically perturbed half centuries of the past 1000 years.

It seems that a series of large explosive volcanic events can set up feedbacks that cause sea ice to persist. This in
turns shuts down the NA ocean heat conveyor.

Just consider if we have another series of volcanic events, how that would affect climate. The question is, what triggered that volcanism?

NQ

[Bazmundo]

NileQueen, on 11 February 2012 - 15:37, said:

In view of a new climate sceptic, I would like to draw your attention to a new paper (2012) that might make us
all think about climate in a different way.

Geophysical Research Letters, Vol 39.

Abrupt onset of the Little Ice Age triggered by volcanism and sustained by sea-ice/ocean feedbacks,
by Gifford H. Miller, Aslaug Geirsdottir, Yafang Zhong, Darren Larsen, Bette Otto-Bliesner, Marika Holland, David Bailey, Kurt Refsnider,
Scott Lehman, John Southon, Chance Anderson, Helgi Bjornsson, and Thorvaldur Thordarson.

Already being discussed here

[NileQueen]

Bazmundo, on 11 February 2012 - 15:51, said:

Already being discussed here

Thanks Bazmundo.