>> Today, >> using much of the same data, >No way. Even where the same climate records are used, new ways of >crunching them and of correlating them with each other, with other >evidence and with huge amounts of new data have produced new and much >improved information from the old records. An early 70s mainframe had >16kb of RAM. NASA's new climate-change supercomputer has 1024 CPUs. >Other areas have seen similar advances, from ground-level studies to >satellites. Hundreds of major institutes all over the world are >involved in this work.
Phooey. More memory and faster processors just make bad code execute faster. The principles of data reduction are not new, and are not processor-dependent. The rule is still garbage in, garbage out - and the "garbage in" can be either bad data or flawed concepts embodied in bad data-reduction code, or both. My favorite story concerns the other eco-catastrophe hoodoo, the destruction of the ozone layer. When the first Antarctic surface ultraviolet flux measurements were made during the 1957 International Geophysical Year, the data reduction code was written to arbitrarily exclude data showing a flux above a certain value, which was considered "impossible." Readings above that value would thus be indicative of instrument failure or an error in recording the data. When the code was rewritten years later, that bias was not included, and the Antarctic ozone hole suddenly "appeared." It had of course been there - seasonally - all along, but you still find that error propagating today, and the sudden appearance of the hole used as proof of rapid decay of the ozone layer - which of COURSE is caused by chlorofluorocarbons, as all right-thinking people know. Marc de Piolenc Iligan, Philippines -- Remember September 11, 2001 but don't forget July 4, 1776 They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. - Benjamin Franklin ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Free $5 Love Reading Risk Free! http://us.click.yahoo.com/3PCXaC/PfREAA/Ey.GAA/FGYolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send "unsubscribe" messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
