Posted on 04/07/2006 11:52:35 AM PDT by cogitator
ROFLOL!
This is, I believe, the very rallying cry of the fear-monger, out in the open for all to see!
There's a term for this in the computer industry, because corporations such as Intel and IBM have used it so successfully in their marketing over the years.
It's called FUD. That's an acronym which stands for Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt.
One famous use of FUD was IBM's marketing campaign: "Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM." I'm sure you can think of dozens of variations on the theme.
Global WarmingTM true believers have made this style of disinformation the very centerpiece of their strategy. "We have everything to fear, especially fear itself!"
When someone comes to me, claiming to bring legitimate science, and says, "...it's certainly the things that we don't know that are most worrying." then his credibility is truly laughable. This issue is a fear campaign of large proportion, nothing more, nothing less. It is most revealing that the urgently promoted solution is so plainly in keeping with core left-wing political goals of demonizing industry and increasing governmental control.
Every day, it seems, there are more reports underscoring how little scientists understand about the complexities of the global weather system. To demand that a particular action must be taken to avert unknown damage from very uncertain causes is, indeed, the definition of foolishness.
Mars "warming" has to be placed in context, i.e., in the Martian climate system:
However, he's quite on-point when he says:
"They've gone through at least three stages of denial: first that climate change doesn't exist; then that it does exist but it's not human caused; then that we are causing it, but it's too expensive to fix."
Because I come from a perspective that global warming IS happening and IS human-caused, I evalute the "too expensive to fix" as if I had a car with significant and abnormal engine noise. I would at least spend the money to find out definitively what's causing the noise. If it's not too expensive, I'd get it fixed. If it is too expensive, I'd get a new car.
A single drop of water falling from the faucet of a bathtub once every ten seconds would eventually fill the bathtub (provided the bathtub doesn't leak), right?
So would you be surprised that slow incremental changes to one of the factors influencing Earth's climate would eventually have a noticeable effect?
Considering most of the water arrived on this planet through meteors, NO!
There is no man made global warming. It's the planet going through what is it's weather cycle.
It is not a fair statement to say "since we can't predict the weather, we can't predict climate". I wish people wouldn't say it so you would stop jumping on it. The fact is, we predict the weather quite well although timing and placement can be off particularly the timing of vortex intensification and decay. But as you have pointed out many times, we don't need to model the weather accurately in any area to use weather models for a broader purpose such as climate prediction. It simply doesn't matter if the timing and placements are off, only that they are modeled.
Unfortunately, smaller scale features are not modeled. Convective systems are not modeled and their effects of throwing uneven moisture into the top of the troposphere is not at all adequately described by a single parameter as they have done in the first paper. The question that I have not seen the answer for so far (but I'll read some more) is what effect these smaller scale phenomena have on climate and more importantly, what effect the hypothesized climate (i.e. increased water vapor) has on weather.
Actually that's just his red herring (and yours now too). Most climate scientists who he claims are denial have always consistently said that climate change exists and that it is not human caused. There might have been backpedelling on CO2, but never on the link from CO2 to water vapor and from there to warming. That stalking horse, the "forcing", is not accepted science no matter what the alarmists say. It is simply a theory and your papers show what an inadequate theory it is. Clear sky water vapor indeed!
For a long time, the argument [has been] that [warming] wasn't being caused by man.
'Warming' exists, and it's a normal part of earths cycle, and it is extremely doubtful that we could 'fix it', even if we knew how.
cogitator wrote:
-- one of the main things that I have attempted to do is to make sure that the scientific basis of the "global warming" (climate change) issue is presented accurately.
Yet your author ignores the overwhelming evidence of cyclical climate change. Why do you?
--he's quite on-point when he says:
"They've gone through at least three stages of denial: first that climate change doesn't exist; then that it does exist but it's not human caused; then that we are causing it, but it's too expensive to fix."
Simply not true if "they" are his scientific colleagues.
Because I come from a perspective that global warming IS happening and IS human-caused,
You ignore millions of years of cyclical ice ages interspersed with warm spells. Why is that?
I evalute the "too expensive to fix" as if I had a car with significant and abnormal engine noise. I would at least spend the money to find out definitively what's causing the noise. If it's not too expensive, I'd get it fixed. If it is too expensive, I'd get a new car.
How weird. You compare a simple car to the earth/solar system. There is no 'new earth', even if we knew how to fix it.
"A single drop of water falling from the faucet of a bathtub once every ten seconds would eventually fill the bathtub (provided the bathtub doesn't leak), right?
So would you be surprised that slow incremental changes to one of the factors influencing Earth's climate would eventually have a noticeable effect?"
Yes, I would be extremely surprised if that were the case because there a more dynamic influences interacting in the atmosphere than we can model with even our most powerful and sophisticated computers and programs.
On the other hand, we can easily predict the rate of water input and evaporation interacting on said bathtub and drops of water to conclude with extreme accuracy when and if the bathtub will fill using only a pencil and piece of paper.
That's one of the most idiotic analogies I've ever heard. I say one of the most idiotic because it's typical of the feeble minded BS that comes from most global warmers.
I truly wish that you were right. But there is no current cyclical influence of the required magnitude to cause the observed trends. The trends are following what is expected from greenhouse gas-forced warming.
Weather models are fundamentally different from climate prediction models. Weather models are based on fluid dynamics. Climate models are based on general circulation, which is not the same as fluid dynamics. They do different things, and the results of one don't feed into the other. I say that as a non-modeler quoting what I've read about models, but when it's said, it's consistently said.
Sorry to drop off the thread for spring break activities the next two days, but I'll be back Thursday if you want to reply.
It would take a little time, but it would be very interesting to look at the statements of Roy Spencer, John Christy, and Patrick Michaels over time, starting in the late 1980s until now. I think you would detect a moderation of viewpoint similar to that described.
I absoLUTELY do not ignore that. Here's why: we are in the middle of a stable interglacial period right now. The main factors that cause glacial/interglacial shifts are simply too slow to be operative factors now; they could not cause the observed trends, and their effect is measured over several centuries (at a minimum!) rather than a period of less than 200 years.
How weird. You compare a simple car to the earth/solar system. There is no 'new earth', even if we knew how to fix it.
I was very aware of that when I made the analogy, and I think you detected the irony.
Actually they do. The GCM models often use local results from weather models to add parameters for clouds, typically turned into percentages of types of clouds. These estimates are the only way to get semi-realistic estimates of clouds and the effect of clouds. What is lacking unfortunately, is a feedback from the GCM models and their extra water vapor back to the weather models to see what effect the extra water vapor has on weather.
Oh sure there is, it's a planet and the weather goes by it and not our lives. We had a mini-ice age between 1400 and the early 1700s, so for hundreds of years, those humans thought that crummy weather earth.
I think the earth's climatic weather cycles (which are also effected by the moon and sun) are much longer in duration that humans can even comprehend. Maybe we have 20 thousand year cycles we are clueless about.
Man lives such a short time, but somehow manages to think all life somehow revolves around them and that we are so influential to a WHOLE PLANET.
Granted we can pollute the water table, but beyond that I think we are fairly limited regarding long term possible damage or effects.
We are also good here in the USA with our manufacturing and cars. We require filters that do good jobs and our air is much cleaner than time past.
If you want to point a finger at the ones blowing unfiltered smoke everywhere, look to China as #1, many European nations and so forth.
The United States would be the jewel on this planet IMO and we sure don't need Al Gore to use nature as a way to set his leftist politics forward.
I'm sure you could find plenty of anthropogenicity advocates who have changed their tunes too. More is known of warming trends now than in the 80's, but that it is not human caused has been consistently maintained from then until now.
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