Topic: Map Makers Admit Mistake in Showing Ice Cap Loss in Greenland - page 15. (Read 20356 times)

Its the upper bound for the A1FI scenario in AR4.
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch10s10-es-1-mean-temperature.html

Ok, a little on the philosophy (even though I think it is getting off topic):
Yes, I am doing that for myself. It is a subjective, heuristic process that involves integrating all the information you have. It is called assigning a prior probability to each of the alternative possibilities, which then tells you how much credibility to give the evidence. I have been suggesting throughout this thread that people filter out the narrative given to them by the media and scientists with political motivations. It appears to me they are trying to manipulate each of us into assigning an unreasonably high prior to the possibility of catastrophic events so that we accept weak evidence.

Higher quality background info can be found by searching out where the uncertainty lies in climate science, and try to learn enough to estimate how much is really known for sure. If you aren't willing to go through that effort, the most rational thing is probably to just assign it 50/50 odds or just go with the scientific consensus (NOT THE MEDIA CONSENSUS). But honestly I learned pretty much all I know about this since last sunday while procrastinating. My background in research may make it easier for me personally, but I can't imagine it is that difficult for people to go through the IPCC report, visit some pro-AGW sites, and then visit some "denier" sites. Especially if this is something you feel strongly about.

I am not discarding climate science and its predictions, that is a strawman argument. If you were deciding between those two possibilities for whatever reason it would be unwise to give equal probability to both "climate scientists know nothing", and "global warming may lead to an anoxic event". The most obvious reason this would be dumb is the climate scientists are the ones who told you about anoxic events. You will quickly go down the rabbit hole with this type of thinking. You are not using any evidence and arbitrarily assigning equal priors.

Back to the evidence:
What is you source for the 6.4C number? It does not match any of the models I am looking at.

I only dug deeper in to  this one, as its arguably the most important, and it seems you are correct. Here is a good rebuttal as well as explanation for the misrepresentation of the IPCC numbers by some scientists and media:

http://www.climate.unibe.ch/~joos/papers/manning10natg.pdf

My bad for relying a news site.

That said, my basic point still stands. If one feels compelled to question current climate science because we do not know enough,  one has to take in to account the possibility of gross underestimation of the risks and effects by science too. Even as it stands, current scenarios predict a global temperature rise of up to 6.4C by next century, and from what Ive read, that would put the planet roughly at the same temperature as during the anoxic events.

My point is not that we are triggering one, but that it would seem at least as likely as the notion we can just discard climate science and its predictions.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6179409.stm

Well I'm not really able to assess the virtues of these different ways of measuring temperature. But I would say that this is just talking about what a model has predicted if you plug in different parameters, it is not about actual measurements. So nothing has been proven wrong. In fact it looks like the trend of .25 cm/yr (so a rise of 25 cm in 100 years) has been breaking since that article. The model may be more complex than simply extrapolating a trendline though.



The second article is about emissions, not atmospheric concentration. Just to convert to GtC from metric tons, lets use this link:
http://co2now.org/Current-CO2/CO2-Now/global-carbon-emissions.html

IPCC predictions from 2000:

http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/special-reports/spm/sres-en.pdf

It appears the current level of emissions is at the low end of all the projections from 2000.

From the third article:

I will leave it up to you to find out what has happened since 2007, looking at the data I saw a consistent rise +2 ppm of CO2 each year for the last decade. So I'm not sure what surge they are talking about. Maybe it is measured in different ways? I can't tell because that article doesn't provide sources. I didn't bother with the ice cap and glacier loss because everything else was overestimated rather than underestimated and I have no source to follow. I would suggest you find the data to support your claim.

You'll forgive me for linking news sites, feel free to look up the scientific papers they reference:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6179409.stm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/nov/04/greenhouse-gases-rise-record-levels
http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/1696/ipcc-report-already-out-date

Agreed on the error, not so much on the equal plausibility. But, plausibility is subjective so whatever...


Do you have a source for this? The only good one I could find goes up to 2005 and the "temperature anomaly" has flattened out since then at about .4 C. Note that I may be confused as to the different baselines and temp records (global average, surface temp) so I am not positive if I am comparing correctly to get that flattening at .4 value.



http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter1.pdf (page 98)

FAR=1990   -> Overestimate
SAR= 1996  -> Underestimate (or correct?)
TAR= 2001  -> Overestimate (or within range)

If one assumes climate scientists can be dead wrong with their current predictions, it stands to reason they could err both ways, agreed?

Moreover, IPCC predictions are relatively short term (up to the year 2100 I believe), while the build up to previous anoxic events happened over 10s of 1000s of years. We could accomplish the same now in less than a century, but  Im not saying its very likely you and I would live to witness this.

Lastly, IPCC projections are if anything, by its very nature and due to the consensus model, very  conservative. Its one of the greatest criticism that the IPCC only reports "lowest common denominator" findings. Personally I find that  a completely reasonable approach as it greatly increases its credibility, but one shouldnt assume IPCC projections to be the worst possible case, because it definitely isnt.  FWIW, so far most of the earlier IPCC predictions relating to temperature rise, ice melting that have been proven to be wrong, is in the sense that they were too conservative.

BTW, I should check, but I believe previous anoxic events were triggered by a 6C temperature rise. I dont even think thats outside of IPCCs scenarios, but like I said, I should check both of those statements.

Is it? Look at the temperatures and CO2 levels involved and compare those to the most drastic IPCC predictions.

Can you state what my argument is? You don't seem to be arguing against it.

Actually, I haven't even begun to look at the modeling or data but so far the introductions to the IPCC documents seem pretty much in line with what I've been saying:

The AGW theory is plausible, but far from proven:
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/technical-papers/climate-change-water-en.pdf (page 15)

There is historical evidence of climate changes much more extreme and abrupt than what we have witness so far:
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter1.pdf (page 106)

Clouds remain an important unknown parameter:
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter1.pdf (page 114)

The other thing is that I realized I have been stupidly creating a false dichotomy between adapting to and mitigating climate change. Obviously both strategies can be used at the same time.

Just curious, how do you expect to "adapt" to an anoxic event?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anoxic_event

Its entirely plausible we are triggering one.

I know all about punctuated equilibrium. It's irrelevant. The reason why it's irrelevant is because using it as a defense of your arguments is like saying the Chernobyl meltdown is fine because it forces adaptation.

But there's nothing fine about forcing adaptation when it simultaneously causes a near term apocalyptic scenario and is harmful to the current majority of residents of the planet, and is furthermore, unintentionally the result of a single species' activities.

An apocalyptic scenario is indeed beneficial to future surviving species far in the future after the planet regains its productive natural systems. But that doesn't mean it's desirable.

I am right about the biodiversity thing. You are free to wear blinders regarding it if you choose. But I don't know why you would choose to do so unless you think it might hinder your current views. Read some papers on wolves and riparian zones, or water quality programs in the state of New York, or agricultural studies of multi-plant crop productivity, or methods of pollination, etc., etc., etc.

I really want to emphasize that in the end it is likely I come to the same conclusion as the climatologists (not the media portrayal). Once I looked a tiny bit into it, it was obvious that the media's narrative has been way overblown, a lot of people "believe in" AGW without knowing what they are talking about, and many people studying the climate think this is true as well. It is probably like Natchwind said and there are a few noise-makers in the bunch getting all the attention.

And also you have entirely skipped over the possibility that it is not human CO2 emissions that is causing it, and therefore our efforts to curtail the temp rise will be worthless.

First of all look up punctuated equilibrium. Rapid environmental change has probably been THE DRIVER of adaptation throughout the history of life on earth, it is not unprecedented at all. I am not saying it would not cause humanity trouble though. We benefit from a consistent climate.

Please provide historical data indicating that a 1 K average change in temperature is indeed much more rapid than normal and causes extinction. This may be true, and I will come across it in my own good time if you don't do it.

I'm not positive you a right about the biodiversity thing, but it makes sense. What is the evidence? See above if you don't provide it.

CO2 is plant food. There are other factors at play, it is not as simple as Rise in Temperature = Bad for life. Why do you think the current CO2 and temp levels are ideal?

I, and about 7 billion others would benefit if you and others like you would drop this viewpoint. Let's review adaptation:

The rapid rate of heating (100 years) is far too fast for adaptation to occur the way you think of adaptation. Species are being forced to migrate northward in the Northern Hemisphere at the rate of a couple of feet a day due to increased temperatures. As they migrate northward at such astonishing speeds, they run into barriers, such as suburbs, mountains, etc. As a result, they become extinct.

Such mass extinctions reduce the productivity of the biosphere. It has been shown time and again that increased biodiversity, from the microscopic organisms in the soil to wolves which allow riparian environments to flourish (due to herds not grazing near creeks and rivers when wolves are present because of limited escape routes), allow the landscape to be more productive. What does that mean? It means that more biodiversity allows for greater production of food, greater cleansing of the atmosphere, and greater recycling of the elements within the soil. It means a healthier Earth.

Adaptation, like you imagine it, is really massive unprecedented extinction due to a rapid rise in global temperature, and a massive reduction in the natural productivity of our planet.

If that's what you want, keep on tooting your horn like you are.

Don´t worry about that. I am vaccinated against it.  

The difference of weather and climate is well known to me. But both plus stock exchange have something in common.
The best prediction known is: Same as yesterday. Which works even better if you call it scenario.
Rereading the stuff i guess you got me all wrong.

Look what I wrote beneath:

p.s.
I must admit being sometimes rather obfuscating than explaining my reasoning.

The current models take more parameters into account, but what does that mean when there are literally infinite parameters? We are talking about nature.

AS i said, climate reflects large scale cycles and not so much irregularities or pseudo random events if you take a reasonable timescale. Weather is pure "randomness" - as are the stockmarkets.
Also noone is predicting future climate, noone sane would ever try to. Our current models cant even simulate the known past well enough to be considered good for predicting. But with the error margin known for remodeling the past scenarious can be created for the future. Sorry if it sounds like talking down on you - i really dont want to do that, but you must be sure you know your vocabulary. Weather is not climate and predictions are not scenarios. We can predict weather to a certain degree, but as you know with a high error for more than three days - simulating climate or creating scenarios is totally different. Noone tells you it will be 3K warmer in 100years, scenarios tell you it MIGHT be between 2K and 5K warmer in roughly 100years IF certain parameters wont change or worsen. Also the models for climate modelling are changed every few years at the moment, each time they get better or at least higher in resolution and take more parameters into account, but normally they show quite the same results which is NOT a result of cheating or tampering with parameters to make them fit..

Our "human" impact on this earth can be reduced to almost 0 if we all did what we were supposed to do..

Unfortunately we have people carrying their own blind political agendas (ironically claiming we're the blind ones), who stifle progress every step of the way with their quasi-scientific theories, and poorly thought out methodologies...

Unfortunately, this is completely true.