Re: Question re. Global Warming
- From: hhc314@xxxxxxxxx
- Date: 29 Apr 2006 09:36:09 -0700
Bob, no disrespect intended, but a great scientists (whose name
currently escapes me) declared that science requires numbers, and if
you don't have the numbers to analyze, you are left with mere
speculation. In this case, nobody claiming gobal warming seems to have
the experimental data to support their conclusions, else they would
have published it. Perhaps they have, but so far I have not been able
to locate even one published paper on the subject (although there are
many) that support their conclusions with actual empirical
measurements.
Given that meteorology is a child of physics, I would expect that the
same standards for journal publication would exist, but evidently that
is not the case. In fact, most of the conclusions on global waming are
based on the computer silulations, which are of course only as good as
the sotware model on which these programs are based. To validate the
correctness of these models, you need some valid benchmarks with which
to compare their predictions -- and perform what engineers and physical
scientists often term "sanity checks".
You can say that what I am doing is to try and collect sanity checks of
my own, to which I can compare the computer model's preductions
against.
As you correctly point out, the current global warming conclusions are
based upon a very complex model that integrates any number of different
things, weighting them all together bases on opinion and theory. This
may or may not yield a correct conclusion, since much of these
weighting factors are based on correlation theory and analysis. The
problem here is that you can correlate pretty much anything, often
reaching rather bizarre and incorrect conclusions. The classic example
to students is that you can produce a correlation function that
associated the population of Presbyterian ministers in South America
with the Rum consumption in Vermont that is, at least mathematically,
correct and accurate for past data, but has no validity whatsover for
making future predictions. This type of error is frequently present in
work done in the soft sciences because, only in the soft sciences are
conclusions reached based on theory alone without experimental
validation or the so called "sanity checks".
I believe that it is fair to say that most engineers and physical
scientists place far more relians on the "Keep it Simple Stupid, or
"KISS" principle. The more complex a situation is made, the far more
likely a mistake or error may be made. In the case of global warming,
extremely complex weather modeling software is heavily relied upon,
models that are promising but so far incompletely validated. Note that
such models were incapable of predicticting this years very unusuall
hurricane seasons, which was rationalized by a great deal of hand
waving which after-the-fact was concluded as a result of global warming
for want of anything better on which to fix the blames.
You may disagree with my hypothesis that if global warming actually
exists, if will be reflected by a positive slope of the same direction
and of a similar magnitude for every similarly situated location on the
planet. In my case, rather stable locations far removed from the
localized effects of oceans and unusual wind conditions. (I tend to
avoid use of the word "gradient" for "slope", since in the physical
sciences the terms have considerably different meanings. (e.g., You
have the gradient of a vector, but here I am speaking of scalar
quantities, so for a line you have a slope or tangent function
dependent on the coordinate system you are employing. Note that here
physic makes a distinction in terminology from that of general
mathermatics.)
Not also that while a global warming could produce vastly different
effect (localized heating or cooling at uniquely situated locations),
by selecting fixed locations far removed from unique localized effects,
(i.e., inland locations far removed from localized permutions), the
slope of the temperature curves should be consistent, and if global
warming is taking place, all of the slopes should be positive.
Please note that I am in no way refuting the concept of global warming,
simply because of the enormous stakes involved that the concept would
be far better validated than it is today. This is because during my
lifetime I have seen far too many well accepted theories in the earth
sciences that have been completely overturned when hard science entered
the scene and demanded numbers. (Tectonic Plates are an obvious
example.)
Kindest regards, Harry C.
.
- References:
- Question re. Global Warming
- From: hhc314
- Re: Question re. Global Warming
- From: Bob Eld
- Re: Question re. Global Warming
- From: Bill Ward
- Re: Question re. Global Warming
- From: Bob Eld
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