Australian Politics Forum - The 'assumptions' of climate science

Soren

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Re: The 'assumptions' of climate science
Reply #15 - Nov 12^th, 2010 at 10:39pm

muso wrote on Nov 12^th, 2010 at 9:02pm:

Soren wrote on Nov 12^th, 2010 at 7:25pm:

In other words, weather is what is actually happening while climate is statistics of what has happened.

Define what you mean by statistics. We use statistics for both weather and climate. For example , we could say that there is a 90% probability of rainfall in a certain place on a certain day - or we can say that the average temperature in October was say 19.5 degrees C - that's still weather.

I see you have been to muslim rhetoric school (couldn't resists).

'Define what you mean by statitics' - what silliness. We may use stats for both weather and climate but stats does not cover all of the weather while it covers all of the climate. You don't take an umbrella in the morning on the basis of the average annual rainfall.

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muso

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Re: The 'assumptions' of climate science
Reply #16 - Nov 13^th, 2010 at 7:49am

Soren wrote on Nov 12^th, 2010 at 10:39pm:

muso wrote on Nov 12^th, 2010 at 9:02pm:

Soren wrote on Nov 12^th, 2010 at 7:25pm:

In other words, weather is what is actually happening while climate is statistics of what has happened.

Define what you mean by statistics. We use statistics for both weather and climate. For example , we could say that there is a 90% probability of rainfall in a certain place on a certain day - or we can say that the average temperature in October was say 19.5 degrees C - that's still weather.

I see you have been to muslim rhetoric school (couldn't resists).

'Define what you mean by statitics' - what silliness. We may use stats for both weather and climate but stats does not cover all of the weather while it covers all of the climate. You don't take an umbrella in the morning on the basis of the average annual rainfall.

What was the temperature yesterday where you live? Was that a minimum a maximum or a mean temperature?

Everything is statistical about weather and climate. If you are saying that weather is somehow the instantaneous weather, then you're barking up the wrong tree. Weather is short term (high resolution), climate is long term(low resolution), and both have to be qualified in some way before they make sense. What was the barometric pressure in Queensland yesterday? What was the wind speed in Sydney yesterday. You might qualify those answers by giving a range. Apart from the past weather, you can provide a weather forecast. These are usually very accurate these days, but you can never say something like "There will be a sudden gust of wind in Paramatta tomorrow at 1:38"

The reason I asked you to define what you meant by statistics was not rhetorical. I wanted to know what you were really trying to say - that is if it's your original idea in the first place. Maybe you need to refer back somewhere to find out what it says your opinion is.

Didn't you understand the analogy I gave of the paper boat?

Quote:

Weather is what we actually experince. We do not experience climate.

The main population of Inuits in Alaska would take you to task if you tell them that they didn't experience the changing climate of the last 50 years.

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« Last Edit: Nov 13^th, 2010 at 8:02am by muso »

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Soren

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Re: The 'assumptions' of climate science
Reply #17 - Nov 13^th, 2010 at 8:16am

muso wrote on Nov 13^th, 2010 at 7:49am:

Soren wrote on Nov 12^th, 2010 at 10:39pm:

muso wrote on Nov 12^th, 2010 at 9:02pm:

Soren wrote on Nov 12^th, 2010 at 7:25pm:

In other words, weather is what is actually happening while climate is statistics of what has happened.

Define what you mean by statistics. We use statistics for both weather and climate. For example , we could say that there is a 90% probability of rainfall in a certain place on a certain day - or we can say that the average temperature in October was say 19.5 degrees C - that's still weather.

I see you have been to muslim rhetoric school (couldn't resists).

'Define what you mean by statitics' - what silliness. We may use stats for both weather and climate but stats does not cover all of the weather while it covers all of the climate. You don't take an umbrella in the morning on the basis of the average annual rainfall.

What was the temperature yesterday where you live? Was that a minimum a maximum or a mean temperature?

Everything is statistical about weather and climate. If you are saying that weather is somehow the instantaneous weather, then you're barking up the wrong tree. Weather is short term, climate is long term, and both have to be qualified in some way.

Whether you take an umbrella or an extra jumper in the morning is not statistical in the least. It is a response to the weather. You do not take an umbrell because of mean or average annual rainfall - you are taking an umbrella because it is raining.

Get off the computer and get ou of the lab, muso, and smell the wet grass.

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Didn't you understand the analogy I gave of the paper boat?

'Don't you understand...?" - you speak as if your analogies were illuminating and if anyone doesn't find them so is somehow defficient in higher order thinking. As a matter of fact I find your paper boat analogy astonishingly simplistic or completly misplaced -one or the other. I am afraid it is no improvement on your ususal ratty analogies.

Unless of course you take away the paper boat and just tell us that there is a river that goes from here to there (climate) and has all sorts of eddies and rapids and whatnot along the way (weather). Then you would have an analogy of sorts. But as all AGW groupies, you have to go and add a totally superflous (!) toy paper boat!

The waxed paper boat is dropped in the water for no reason except to signify your urge to apply statistics to something. But it has now drawn our attention to itself, away from the mightiness of the river, and so the conjurer's tasks is completed - we are neither concerned with the river, nor its eddies but with a silly boat that is there only to give us soemthing to play with.

On seconds thought - I have understood your analogy, it's just that I think it is a better analogy for AGW propaganda than for anything else.

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muso

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Re: The 'assumptions' of climate science
Reply #18 - Nov 13^th, 2010 at 9:04am

Soren wrote on Nov 13^th, 2010 at 8:16am:

Whether you take an umbrella or an extra jumper in the morning is not statistical in the least. It is a response to the weather. You do not take an umbrell because of mean or average annual rainfall - you are taking an umbrella because it is raining.

In order to make sense out of anything, you need to apply some kind of statistical technique, even if it's just a total.

Quote:

Unless of course you take away the paper boat and just tell us that there is a river that goes from here to there (climate) and has all sorts of eddies and rapids and whatnot along the way (weather). Then you would have an analogy of sorts. But as all AGW groupies, you have to go and add a totally superflous (!) toy paper boat!

The waxed paper boat is dropped in the water for no reason except to signify your urge to apply statistics to something. But it has now drawn our attention to itself, away from the mightiness of the river, and so the conjurer's tasks is completed - we are neither concerned with the river, nor its eddies but with a silly boat that is there only to give us soemthing to play with.

On seconds thought - I have understood your analogy, it's just that I think it is a better analogy for AGW propaganda than for anything else.

The paper boat - It's a point of reference. That's all. It is impossible to describe position in that example without a point of reference, but I see that you understand the inference.

In terms of the groupies, the eccentrics, that's a hat that fits your own point of view.

In terms of the people who actually practice this science, I'm not telling you anything any more controversial than atmospheric physics. That's a pretty dry subject and physicists tend to be the most conservative of all scientists.
http://www.abelard.org/briefings/global_warming_atmospheric_chemistry_physics.ph...

There is a pretty useful spectrum on that site which I'll reproduce here. It clearly shows how Greenhouse gases absorb LW IR radiation. Which common atmospheric gases are absent from that diagram, and why?

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« Last Edit: Nov 13^th, 2010 at 2:14pm by muso »

absporpt_by_gas_all_plus.jpg (84 KB | 62 )

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Soren

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Re: The 'assumptions' of climate science
Reply #19 - Nov 14^th, 2010 at 3:55pm

muso wrote on Nov 13^th, 2010 at 9:04am:

In order to make sense out of anything, you need to apply some kind of statistical technique, even if it's just a total.

The paper boat - It's a point of reference. That's all. [/quote]

A point of reference for what? It's completely irrelevant to illustrating the difference between big poicture (river, climate) and detail (rapids, weather). How long the paper boat takes from here to there is utterly, utterly irrelevant to this illustration. You need absolutely no statistical point of reference to demonstrate the difference between seeing only a tree or the whole wood.

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muso

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Re: The 'assumptions' of climate science
Reply #20 - Nov 14^th, 2010 at 4:55pm

Soren wrote on Nov 14^th, 2010 at 3:55pm:

A point of reference for what? It's completely irrelevant to illustrating the difference between big poicture (river, climate) and detail (rapids, weather). How long the paper boat takes from here to there is utterly, utterly irrelevant to this illustration. You need absolutely no statistical point of reference to demonstrate the difference between seeing only a tree or the whole wood.

It's an analogy. The position if the boat represents where we are at any given time. We can get a broad picture of where the boat is located at any given time quite easily by using some fairly simple calculations.

Once you narrow in on the position of the boat a higher resolution, the mathematics becomes more difficult - ok?

Let's drop it, because you clearly understand the difference.

Most climatic data is averaged over at least a 20 year period. If we take the temperature maps for Australia, you'll find very little difference over the last 50-100 years. For example:

and

As you can see - not much difference. Maybe a bit of an increase in most areas. So blind Freddy can see that it's relatively easy to predict reasonably accurately what that chart will look like in another 20 years given a relatively steady state scenario.

No complex models needed.

However, if you try to predict what the precipitation in in Bankstown next Sunday, it's a far more difficult thing to do.

Given that we're talking about average global temperatures and precipitations, the argument that it's incredibly complex becomes silly.

Another analogy is predicting the shape of an baby elephant when it grows to adulthood. I think we agree that we could make a reasonably good prediction of that, however predicting the shape of the wrinkles in its skin would be extremely difficult by comparison.

High resolution= weather; low resolution = climate.

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« Last Edit: Nov 14^th, 2010 at 5:04pm by muso »

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Soren Gold Member Offline Posts: 25654 Gender:	Re: The 'assumptions' of climate science Reply #21 - Nov 14^th, 2010 at 9:35pm muso wrote on Nov 14^th, 2010 at 4:55pm: High resolution= weather; low resolution = climate. And it took you 3 pages and 5 graphs and 3 promptings to say that, like the good scientific advocate that you are. No wonder AGW is a bloody turn off for people. They can't bloody stay awake.
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muso

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Re: The 'assumptions' of climate science
Reply #22 - Nov 15^th, 2010 at 7:58am

Soren wrote on Nov 14^th, 2010 at 9:35pm:

muso wrote on Nov 14^th, 2010 at 4:55pm:

High resolution= weather; low resolution = climate.

And it took you 3 pages and 5 graphs and 3 promptings to say that, like the good scientific advocate that you are.

No wonder AGW is a bloody turn off for people. They can't bloody stay awake.

It's possibly a dry subject to those who can't follow scientific principles.

Now do we agree that CO2 is a greenhouse gas? Certainly without CO2 the planet would be much cooler, so it follows that it is a greenhouse gas. If we reduce the amount of CO2, the planet gets cooler (and I already brought up the mechanism - LW radiation etc).

If we increase the CO2, the planet gets warmer. The relationship is logarithmic.

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gizmo_2655

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Re: The 'assumptions' of climate science
Reply #23 - Nov 15^th, 2010 at 11:18am

In a slightly different vein, I'd like to ask your opinions about this Geoengineering idea that's being talked about...

Injecting Sulphur Dioxide into the upper Atmosphere to try and replicate the cooling that took place after Mount Pinatubo erupted...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204771304574181522575503150.html

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"I just get sick of people who place a label on someone else with their own definition.

It's similar to a strawman fallacy"
Bobbythebat

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muso

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Re: The 'assumptions' of climate science
Reply #24 - Nov 15^th, 2010 at 12:00pm

The one that's usually proposed is injecting sulphates into the upper atmosphere using commercial jets.

My own perspectives on this are:

1. It would certainly result in a cooling effect, but would probably be more expensive than transitioning to carbon neutral technologies - and that's something we'll be forced to do anyway (in the case of oil) as demand for oil exceeds supply. Maybe we'll need to do that as a last resort.

2. It would do nothing for Ocean acidification. We'll still be faced with decreasing calcification in many economically important marine organisms.

In terms of using oil for fuel, we're in great danger of depleting supplies of coal and oil for the manufacturing of petrochemicals, including plastics. Oil should be used for that purpose while we still can, so there is a great advantage in maintaining coal and oil reserves.

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gizmo_2655

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Re: The 'assumptions' of climate science
Reply #25 - Nov 15^th, 2010 at 12:15pm

muso wrote on Nov 15^th, 2010 at 12:00pm:

The one that's usually proposed is injecting sulphates into the upper atmosphere using commercial jets.

My own perspectives on this are:

1. It would certainly result in a cooling effect, but would probably be more expensive than transitioning to carbon neutral technologies - and that's something we'll be forced to do anyway (in the case of oil) as demand for oil exceeds supply. Maybe we'll need to do that as a last resort.

2. It would do nothing for Ocean acidification. We'll still be faced with decreasing calcification in many economically important marine organisms.

In terms of using oil for fuel, we're in great danger of depleting supplies of coal and oil for the manufacturing of petrochemicals, including plastics. Oil should be used for that purpose while we still can, so there is a great advantage in maintaining coal and oil reserves.

Sulphates I could understand (well some sulphates anyway), but Sulphur Dioxide would have a detrimental effect on the ozone layer, not to mention acid rain and damage to the food chain.

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"I just get sick of people who place a label on someone else with their own definition.

It's similar to a strawman fallacy"
Bobbythebat

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