Of course there will be many predictions of these programs that at least temporally come true. I recall the time after Katrina when it was stated that they indicated that there would be many more dangerous hurricanes to hit the USA, but that turned out to be wrong. I guess that if we wait long enough this will happen some day.
If you want to be considered a profit, make a million predictions and then forget about the 990,000 that do not happen while you concentrate upon the few that do. This is what I see as happening with regard to these programs. And, in any case, a curve fit projection has a modest amount of future accuracy. I predict that the world is on a warming path and that there will a major earthquake within the next 20 years. A volcano will erupt that caused air traffic problems in the next 10 years. I could go on, but I think you can see my point. For many years the guys running the programs did not even consider ocean currents as important. How many additional major processes of nature are left out due to lack of knowledge? I suspect that a lot of the damage done by "Climategate" was due to the rest of us being able to see the dirty laundry of the climatologists. They are human but pretend to be among the Gods which is beyond their abilities. The statements of Gore and others that the science is settled truly angers me. They have an economic or political agenda and do not want the real facts to emerge. As a science minded person, I find such a statement appalling. I could go on for a long time exposing pseudoscience of this nature, but enough for now. It ceases to be real science as soon as it refuses to be challenged. Dave -----Original Message----- From: Axil Axil <janap...@gmail.com> To: vortex-l <vortex-l@eskimo.com> Sent: Wed, Aug 1, 2012 2:29 am Subject: Re: [Vo]:Koch founded climate skeptic changes sides http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_monsoon-2012-is-it-the-worst-in-six-decades_1722413 Monsoon 2012: Is it the worst in six decades? This is a predicted result of globalwarming. Then this is a secondary consequence of global warming… 10% of the world’s populations lose power, water, and transportation fordays. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/01/world/asia/power-outages-hit-600-million-in-india.html?_r=1&hp 2ndDay of Power Failures Cripples Wide Swath of India Cheers: Axil On Tue, Jul 31, 2012 at 2:18 PM, David Roberson <dlrober...@aol.com> wrote: Good post Mark. I have heard that the global climate models have a multitude of variables that are not defined by real life processes or that assume clearly inaccurate initial values when tied to know processes. Most of us have used curve fitting programs in the past and know that you can get a perfect fit with enough variables to work with. We can then brag about how well our curve matches the data. The problem occurs when we attempt to project this perfect curve fitted function into the future. It is not uncommon at all for the inaccuracies to build up exponentially with time since our model is not based correctly. It is my understanding that this is what occurs when the climate models are projected. I read somewhere that they intentionally limit the time frames and rerun the models after a moderately short time lapse to keep its projections within reason. Apparently we have been experiencing a modest cooling period worldwide (relative to expectations) that could not be explained by the models but the guys running them tend to keep that quiet. Also, the effect of clouds has been a dog for them to incorporate into the models in a way that makes sense. Further complicate this by the results of the Cloud experiment performed by CERN and you realize that these models are toys. We need to think long and hard about our response to the warming trend before we condemn many of the worlds poor to harsh conditions and prevent them from achieving an acceptable life stile. I am not ready to accept the verdict of scientists that depend upon government funds for support without far stronger proof. The statement that the science is settled should ruffle everyone's feathers. This is total nonsense and any scientist that makes such a statement is ignorant. Just consider how many of the laws of physics have been modified and over turned over the years. Dave -----Original Message----- From: MarkI-ZeroPoint <zeropo...@charter.net> To: vortex-l <vortex-l@eskimo.com> Sent: Tue, Jul 31, 2012 4:36 am Subject: RE: [Vo]:Koch founded climate skeptic changes sides I tend to agree with Bruno’s statement: “… how do climatologists do this, bearing in mind that the results should take thousands of years to appear? They test their hypothesis in computer models, which are not quite the same thing as the reality yet.” During grad school I worked at the Atmospheric Sciences Center of the University of Nevada System under Dr. James W Telford, http://scholar.google.com/scholar?as_q=&as_sauthors=Telford,+James+W His expertise was cloud microphysics and atmospheric instrumentation; although most of his papers were theoretical in nature, he also made contributions to instrumentation. And the reason for his work on instrumentation goes to the point of Bruno’s statement. Dr. Telford’s main complaint about GCMs (global climate models) is that they were way too simplistic, and did not have enough real-world data about some key elements at work in the atmosphere with cloud and surface albedo. There are numerous GCMs, and many are prone to a very wide range of outcomes depending on very small ‘adjustments’ in the variables. Just how good the current models are is definitely a debatable issue… Telford designed, built and then flew his instrumentation on aircraft thru clouds to get real-world data to help him validate his theoretical models for cumulus clouds. He always was skeptical of trying to model things on a global scale. Current science is still working on understanding enough of what happens in the atmosphere to generate accurate models… but one is still faced with the fact that Bruno brought up… that all the models in the world are at best only a guideline when we don’t have enough detailed historical data, AND accurate details of all the processes at work which affect the atmosphere, AND secondary and tertiary effects which have not been anticipated, AND accurate data over the relevant timeframe of hundreds or even thousands of years with which to test the models. Perhaps scientists will discover ways to tease out some of those details by creative means, like looking at CO2 levels in ice cores, but there are still very significant unknowns which make it difficult to build accurate global models. Point… I just read a recent paper on this topic and nearly every sentence of the quoted scientists’ had at least one variety of weasel-word (like the word ‘could’, or ‘might’). As I have said in a previous post today, and a number of times over the years, a good scientist is VERY careful about the words they use… and there’s a reason for that. -Mark From: Bruno Santos [mailto:besantos1...@gmail.com] Sent: Monday, July 30, 2012 7:46 PM To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Subject: Re: [Vo]:Koch founded climate skeptic changes sides I read the literature. That is why I know that what you state is wrong. And for two reasons: 1 - Insurance companies and epidemiologists have good, reliable data. Climatologists don't. It is not their fault, is it just impossible to have good data on the large periods of time required to study planets climates. You see, just a few decades of reliable data isn't enough when we know that the climate changes in scale of thousands of years. 2 - When an insurance company gathers all information, they can test their hypothesis with what happens in the real world and see if it works. That is how you know that smoking makes a difference in people's lifespans, but other things don't. Epidemiologists can test on actual living beings how diseases spread. Now, tell me, how do climatologists do this, bearing in mind that the results should take thousands of years to appear? They test their hypothesis in computer models, which are not quite the same thing as the reality yet. Large, complex phenomena are easier to study when it is based on the law of the large numbers. That is precisely what happens with insurance and epidemiology, but not with climate. There is no reality check in climate. Those predictions based on large number of (bad) data are tested on scenarios that are in a computer. I am an economist, and we have the same problem. We do have good prediction models, they are quite sophisticated, but not totally reliable. Otherwise, one would not see economic crisis, economic downturns nor unemployment. And I am pretty sure that economic data is far more accurate than climate ones. Economists cannot test hypothesis in a lab. Neither can climatologists. But that was not even my point. I believe that anthropic global warming is possible, even probable. I just don't care, because the alternative, poverty, is far worse. 2012/7/30 Jed Rothwell <jedrothw...@gmail.com> Bruno Santos <besantos1...@gmail.com> wrote: Do we have a climatologist here? That would help the debate. It would help if people would first read a credible, expert account of global warming theory! However, I have to say that I have my doubts when it comes to predictions by these experts. You see, we do not have any credible scientific model for weather prediction that works for periods longer than a week . . . I do not like to be harsh, but that is a prime example of a mistake made by an amateur critic who has not read the literature. You completely misunderstand the technical issue. What you are saying is similar to this assertion: "Life insurance companies have actuarial tables predicting how long a person is likely to live, based on present age, sex, the person's weight, whether he or she smokes and other factors. However, a life insurance agent cannot tell me whether I will live another 20 years. I might be run over by a bus tomorrow. I might die of cancer next year. Therefore, life insurance is a scam. They pretend they can predict the future, but they cannot." Needless to say, that is nonsense. You can predict the remaining lifespan of a large group of people, even though it is impossible to predict the lifespan of any given individual. Large scale complex events involving many elements are sometimes more predictable than individual events with fewer causes and less complex causes. That is counter-intuitive but it happens with many natural phenomena, including climate, epidemiology and so on. - Jed
