Re: More Gore

On May 28, 9:06 pm, John Larkin
<jjlar...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Tue, 27 May 2008 06:59:49 -0700 (PDT), "J.A. Legris"

<jaleg...@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On May 27, 9:05 am, John Larkin
<jjSNIPlar...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Tue, 27 May 2008 05:55:48 -0700 (PDT), "J.A. Legris"

And this is the crux of the matter. The only way to estimate the
effects of CO2 is through scientific investigation, and that is what's
being done, with some alarming results.

What's alarming is not scientific investigations, it's simulations,
and not very good ones. A bad simulation of a wildly chaotic system,
with unknown factors, and no experimental confirmation, is nonsense.
But it can be self-serving.

The simulations are already far better than that. You may wish to
believe something else for political reasons.

And even if humans are causing GW, it's not necessarily an unmitigated
disaster, and we're not going to do much about it. So relax.

John

Then why don't you impugn the rest of science and its methods?

Real science, with solid mathematical theory and experimental
verification, can't be impugned.

Err. Yes it can. Real science gets revised every time someone does an
experiment that refutes the established theories of the day. That is
how we make progress. Science describes what nature does and attempts
to make predictions about what it will do. So long as the predictions
match the experiments the theory holds, but the object of any
practicing scientist is to find an experiment that breaks the
prevailing wisdom.

The last time it happened in anger to cause major shifts in physics
was when quantum mechanics and relativity were discovered
experimentally. All the nice classical physics that looked so close to
being solved got more complicated. Finding the residual radiation from
the Big Bang was a pretty good show stopper too.

GW sure can, because it's based on
unsupported simulations that, I've been told, don't even include the
effects of clouds.

Who told you that? You are misinformed - this is from the IPCC
guidance notes for AR4.

Not only does it include clouds it also models the partitioning of
clouds between various types and of the water in them against the ice
component. The scattering model used is better than I had expected
too.

From the detailed model reports at:
http://www.cnrm.meteo.fr/ensembles/public/results/model/EGMAM_model_description_AR4.5.html

I quote:
{
IV. Component model characteristics (of current IPCC model
version):


A. Atmosphere (Roeckner et al., 1996; Manzini and McFarlane,
1998)

1. resolution: T30 L39

2. numerical scheme/grid (advective and time-stepping schemes;
model top; vertical coordinate and number of layers above 200 hPa and
below 850 hPa): spectral; semi-implicit/leap-frog time stepping; top
level at 0,01 hPa (ca. 80 km); hybrid sigma-pressure coordinate
(Simmons and Strüfing, 1981); 26 layers above 200 hPa, 5 layers below
850 hPa; transport of water vapor, cloud water, and (optionally)
tracers by a semi-lagrangian scheme (Williamson and Rasch, 1994);

3. list of prognostic variables: vorticity, divergence,
temperature, log surface pressure, water vapor, mixing ratio of total
cloud water (liquid and ice phase together);

4. major parameterizations:

a. clouds: Sundquist (1978) type prognostic scheme for
stratiform fractional clouds; optical cloud properties determined by
Mie theory (Rockel et al., 1991; Roeckner, 1995);

b. convection: shallow, mid-level, and deep cumulus convection
with Tiedke (1989) mass flux scheme and adjustment closure for deep
convection as described by Nordeng (1996);

c. boundary layer: surface fluxes of momentum, heat, water
vapor, and cloud water calculated with Monin-Obukhov theory (Luis,
1979), with eddy diffusivity coefficients depending on roughness
length and Richardson No.; above the surface layer, the coefficients
depend on wind shear, thermal stability, and mixing length;

d. SW radiation: Fouquart and Bonnel(1980), LW radiation:
Morcrette et al. (1986) modified to include methane, nitrous oxide,
and 16 CFC species, ozone (14.6 µm), and various types of aerosols
(optional) effects; revised water vapor continuum (Giorgetta and Wild,
1995);

} end quote

Clouds still remain the biggest uncertainty in what will happen when
we have doubled the atmospheric CO2 concentration, but that
uncertainty is smaller than the result of the additional CO2 forcing.


Computer simulation is ubiquitous. Chaotic systems are everywhere.
What's so special about climate change?

Nothing special. Climate change simulation is just as chaotic as any
other poorly specified, energetic, strongly nonlinear system. Why
would it be special?

Because you don't want to believe the results.

The scientific community seems to be much more worried about GW that
you are. Who should we trust: a disorganized, more-or-less ignorant
subculture with various political axes to grind or a scientific
community that is professionally committed to scholarship, objectivity
and open discourse? Of course they're only human, and individually may
be as weak and corruptible as anyone else, but collectively they're
our best shot at getting to the truth.

There's too much money, too much power, and too much politics, and far
too little science, for the GW predictions not to be suspect.

The political thing is mainly in the USA. Right wingers believe it
their patriotic duty to trash the environment at every opportunity. In
the UK it was the Tory party leader Margaret Thatcher that first put
AGW high up on the agenda. There is a broad political consensus over
here.

Since, with uncooked data, there's been no warming for the last 10
years, and since now there's some prediction of a shift in ocean
currents causing more cooling in the next 10 years, we'll just have to
wait a while longer for the GW apocalypse. I suspect that the public
and political attention span will be exhausted long before then, and
some new cash cow will take over.

We need a few major problems linked to AGW to directly affect the USA
and then maybe, just maybe you will get the message. About optimum
would be a few more hurricane Katrina type cat 5 storms smashing into
Houston and the oil refinery coast, but dust bowl conditions on the
grainbelt would work about as well.

It's not necessarily an unmitigated disaster?? Forgive me if I'm not
necessarily mollified. This inspires a variation on Pascal's wager -
instead of believing in God because the possibility of eternal
punishment in hell outweighs any advantage of believing otherwise,
let's believe that GW is a lie because if we're right we can continue
trashing the environment without significant consequences and if we're
wrong there will be no one around to regret it.

Have you ever seen a single predicted consequence of GW that isn't a
disaster? They are extremely rare. So, why?

It predicts that with a bit of luck we will soon be able to grow
champagne grapes in the S UK and that parts of the French Champagne
regions will soon be too warm to grow them. And on the viticulture
front dittohead science sites make big of the Romans having vineyards
as far north as York.

Well I have news for you. The most northerly commercial vineyard in
Europe is now just W of York at Leeds (53.8N and they are making high
quality stuff for sale to enthusiasts not cheap plonk for homesick
Centurions).

http://www.englishwineproducers.com/leventhorpe.htm

Prior to that it was at Edith Sitwells Renishaw Hall estate in
Derbyshire a few tens of miles to the south (53.3 N).
http://www.sitwell.co.uk/renishaw_vineyard.htm

Regards,
Martin Brown
.

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