Posts by NomNomNom

Re: Not so much stoners but thieves

Machetes on civilized streets says it all. Just goes to prove how out of touch the pro-drug lobby is. These drugs warp user's minds and cause them to carry around weapons like machetes on the street, partly to protect themselves from other users. The problem is it often only takes one inhale of cannibis to turn an otherwise normal person into a violent rage.

Re: Mr Chirgwin misses the point

By focusing on individual models you are forgetting (somehow) that there ARE lots of different models. Not just running on different hardware, but even with different source code, written by different teams. Even the modules are different, some including biology, some not. Especially when you consider these models have been build up over many generations.

So your point is pretty much void. Numerical instabilities are obviously not a huge problem because if they were all the models would wildly disagree with each other on the subject of warming in a way they don't..

Re: In this case ElReg is being even handed on the debate.

"What this interesting analysis has revealed, is that even if the models are totally correct, the science is settled etc. etc. It is *still of no use whatsoever* in accurately predicting climate change."

I disagree. Only if the analysis showed that climate models running on different machines or with different initial state produced wildly different amounts of warming due to human emissions then would that be true. But the analysis doesn't touch on that.

"I have a real problem with that statement - if a difference in initial conditions leads to (significant) differences in weather forcasts... then how can you classify those initial differences as "trivial""

Are you serious? The word trivial was obviously referring to how tiny the differences were in the initial conditions.

"So if these weather/climate guys don't even understand what is trivial and what is not... and can't write+test code that works accurately on different hardware platforms"

Oh please, get off your high horse. Floating point operations on machines will never be "accurate". You aren't even on the same page as those weather/climate guys. Back to school with you.

Real Time Strategy game developers typically have the same problem but on steroids.

It is not feasible because of bandwidth for a server machine to calculate and stream the movement data of 1000s of tanks to all the player machines. Instead the player machines only communicate player inputs and each player machine must run the simulation themselves based on those inputs.

The problem then is that all the machines need to calculate the battle simulation identically given the same inputs. Any slight difference in calculation between machines and it will create a tiny tiny little difference in the simulation at first, but over time left unchecked such tiny differences grow into game changing differences. Eg you have one player seeing a tank being blown up by a rocket while another player sees the rocket miss the tank.

It's even possible, if not done correctly, to reach a point where if you record a game on one machine, and then try to replay it on a different machine, the entire battle outcome is different and a different player wins, just because of tiny, usually irrelevant, differences in floating point calculations between the two machines.

Re: Read a textbook..

"I don't have a reference but have read in the last week or so that the increase in CO2 is much less than the 5% that we're contributing to the atmosphere."

Your reference is wrong anyway, it's confusing contribution to a flow with the cause of increase. The CO2 rise is due to man and it's accelerating.

Re: @NomNomNom

"Most _sceptics_ will answer yes to these two questions (depending on your definition of significant), so to use this as proof that "97% of climate scientists agree with AGW" is en effing joke. (Sorry to be rude but it calls for it)."

Yes even most sceptics agree with AGW (when they *have* to)

But the public are led to believe that AGW is some hypothesis that doesn't have consensus support.

That's why polls such as the 97% study are necessary. Of course skeptics whine about it because they don't want to admit there is such support for AGW. If skeptics really thought the figure was wrong they would do their own study and prove what the figure actually is.

Re: @NomNomNom

"And of course of >10,000 of about 3,500 respondents only 77 were qualified as top (75 having the 'right' answer)."

Of the full 3500, 82% agreed. Many of those scientists however were not active publishers (eg retired) and were not climatologists.

Of the subset that are were either climatologists or actively published research, 90% agreed.

The 77 is the elite subset who are both climatologists and who actively publish on climate change. 97% of them agreed.

It's surely hard to deny from such polls that there is a consensus among the experts.

Re: Read a textbook..

"Congrats you have spoken about the lab proven effects of co2. Still bugger all on climate change."

So you think a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere doesn't cause any warming?

Lets list some scientists who disagree with you:

Dr Roy Spencer

Dr Richard Lindzen

Dr Judith Curry

Have I made my point?

Re: @NomNomNom

"And thats why the invite went to over 10,000. So they could get the 75 who agreed. Or even out of the respondents of 3500 responses they only wanted the 75 who agreed. Hmmm."

You clearly don't understand the study you criticize. The study polled people with various levels of expertise in climate to see how opinion on AGW changed with expertise. So your complaint that they should have just polled the top experts exposes that you don't understand what the study was looking at.

The study found that as expertise increased so does the level of consensus on AGW. The 77 were the most expert group and it had 97% consensus. I don't blame you for not knowing that, your climate denier sources no doubt made sure to hide from you what the 77 represented and the true nature of the study.

So yeah good luck putting together a poll of geologists and finding belief that the world sits on the back of a turtle increasing with expertise. Good luck getting 97% of the most active researchers saying the world sits on the back of a turtle.

We've now had various polls of climate experts all finding there is a high majority consensus on AGW. You climate deniers even ADMIT there is a consensus now and again. But then you regress and start complaining that no consensus exists. Is there a consensus or not in your opinion? Simple question. If you admit there is, then why are you attacking a study that shows there is one?

Re: Read a textbook..

Everything I said is based on facts. Observations, measurements and physical laws. Here are some more facts.

CO2 is increasing.

The increase is caused by man.

The increase is accelerating.

CO2 is a greenhouse gas.

CO2 levels are now the highest they've been for at least hundreds of thousands of years.

The rate of CO2 rise means the net change in global temperature over the 21st century will be driven by man.

You can deny facts of course. Young earth creationists do it all the time. I can back all these facts up with hard evidence.

"What he's saying is that for a long time the 'consensus' was that the sun orbited the earth and the tiny majority who understood reality had to endure years of torment before they were believed."

What he's arguing is a logical fallacy. It's the same fallacy as saying because a weather forecaster gets it wrong once therefore the forecaster is never useful.

You can pick a few examples where the consensus was wrong, but the vast majority of the time the consensus turns out right. So it remains a good guide.

There's a consensus that HIV causes AIDs. Are you saying I shouldn't trust that? I sure don't have any medical knowledge to understand the evidence myself. But I believe it's true because I know there is a consensus and find it highly unlikely such a consensus will turn out wrong. If an AIDS denier challenged me I would say "hey, convince the experts first, I am not going to be convinced until THEY change their minds"

And the same is true of climate. Until the majority of climate experts are convinced that AGW is a myth I am sure not going to believe it (especially as I understand the evidence that shows it's a fact).

Why do you think people even solicit the opinion of experts if according to you we can't utilize what they think? If we cannot draw anything from the conclusion that a whole group of experts has reached then what's the point of experts?

Do you ever go to the doctor? Why? They are just ONE expert. If as you say we should not trust a consensus of experts then what use is a a single expert's opinion?

The line you and the other commenter are pushing - the attack on consensus - is a new age fallacy.

"I forgot to say, the original '97%' was 75 out of 77 selected responses from ~3,500 replies to a survey that > 10,000 were invited to respond to."

77 of the top experts, 75 agreed. Even stepping down to the next level of experts the agreement was something like 95%.

We have half of you jokers claiming the consensus does exist but "science is not a democracy" while the other half of you jokers are denying a consensus exists.

There's a consensus about AGW. The majority of experts on climate accept AGW. Get over it.

Re: Read a textbook..

When you say blame a gas what I am doing is looking at how fast CO2 is increasing in the atmosphere. It's not some already happened event, it's an ongoing accumulation and it's accelerating. The climate hasn't yet reacted to the level today, let alone the far higher level CO2 is heading to. In Earth's long history what is happening to the atmosphere today is a noteworthy event, especially given CO2 isn't an inert substance, being a strong component of the greenhouse effect, plant fertilization and affects upper ocean pH. We could be switching our planet to a completely different climate state in a matter of centuries whereas such changes usually take millions of years.

Re: Read a textbook..

"The theoretical problem that any food or drink might give you some disease or cancer is irrelevant to the fact that you would die without food and drink"

Food and drink is sufficiently tested. People have been eating potatoes and pies for years. A better analogy would be something newish like GM foods. In that case plenty of people demand that GM foods are properly tested before being introduced into the market.

But for some reason when it comes to experimenting on our planet's climate there are no such demands that it is properly tested. In fact the opposite occurs - we see people using the fact it hasn't been properly tested as an excuse for it being fine!

You do this yourself. You say "The only proof we have is that we dont know enough about climate to understand it. That is required before we can blame things as pollution in regards to climate"

It's like a tire company arguing that because their tires haven't been tested, therefore no fault is known. No known fault = safe.

Or a drug company. A new drug. They know it's safe because no fault has been found. Why not? Because they haven't tested it. The burden of proof is on any worried consumers to find a fault. Until then they are just alarmists.

Arguing that we need the drug, or need the tires is one thing. But to pretend that the danger doesn't exist by equating caution with religion is ridiculous. Especially considering that a experiment on our very climate is particularly bigger more existential issue than any of the others mentioned above.

Re: Read a textbook..

wow that's three responses in a row to my suggestion of cutting carbon emissions.

One saying we'd have to stop breathing. Another saying we'd have to stop eating and drinking. Another saying we'd all have to live off the land.

Who is really being alarmist?

Looks like fossil fuel industry has done a good job in shaping people's minds as to our dependence on fossil fuels.

The GM Food industry, Pharmaceutical industry and Pesticide industries must test their products thoroughly for effect before they are allowed to go to market. Fossil fuel industry has no such burden because we NEED fossil fuels.

No it's more on the same level of analysis as "jumping in a river wearing platemail will cause you to sink"

And your response is akin to claiming "we don't know that because sometimes metal can float".

Re: Read a textbook..

"That way you realise we know almost nothing of what is going on. We cant predict, we cant model, we are still learnin"

All the more reason to cut carbon pollution then until we fully understand what impact it will have.

If we can later prove that rising CO2 is safe then we can resume burning the coal and oil.

Re: Quake, iD, Doom.

problem is it's become too much of an industry

Re: The usual weather hype dressed up as climate evidence

"Yes it is and it's all directed at funding. They deny it, but I work in tech support for them. I've been in the office when they discuss these things. (IT help desk workers are to the current age what slaves were to colonial times - always there yet invisible to the powers that be.) They don't say it in so many words, but the bottom line is that they see climate change as a way to get that funding. If they can claim "non-partisan scientists" back them it makes it easier to roll the funding agencies.

Anon for obvious reasons."

Obvious reasons are you are lying.

You work at an IT help desk and overhear scientists talking about conspiracies? What are they working in the IT help desk too?

Or do they regularly come in groups to the IT help desk to discuss their own work (because that's why ANYONE would go to the IT help desk right?)

Pull the other one. I bet you don't even work in IT, if you did surely you wouldn't imagine anyone could find that story remotely plausible.

Re: The usual weather hype dressed up as climate evidence

"This weather-records-being-broken thing really has got out of hand. If you want to show there's some sort of unprecedented trend from the mere fact of a record being broken then:"

Do you also complain about Olympic records because we don't know how fast people were running in 15,000BC?

Talk about irrelevant nitpicking.

"Additionally, the earth has been warming since the end of the Little Ice Age in the 1850s, each decade SHOULD be warmer than the last"!

What, forever?

Some skeptics argue "It is SUPPOSED to be warming!"

Some argue "It ISNT warming!"

Some argue "We can't tell if it's warming the records are too flawed"

Any possible argument to deny what's happening it seems.

Re: Overdramatising?

They could have worded it as the 2nd wettest decade since 1901. Either way it provides more information.

You are complaining that they've given you more information!

WMO, give us less detail please!

Re: Numbers?

"The graph shows the combined land-sea temperature decade in question at 14.47, compared to 14.26 for the previous one, ie 0.21 degrees. How can both the northern and southern hemispheres have warming above the average?"

The 0.6C and 0.33C figures given are not the difference between 1990-2000 and 2000-2010, but the difference of 2000-2010 relative to 1970-2000.