[onoway]

 FM75, on 2013-October-21, 15:34, said:

Maybe you should spend some time with wikipedia when you find topics of interest. I remember learning about cloud seeding back in the 1960s - probably 4th - 6th grade science class. It works. It makes it rain. Does it make it rain more than it would have otherwise? Seems that might still be an open question. But perhaps one can change where and when it rains.

http://en.wikipedia....er_modification - been done since the 50's - Is governed in some cases legally.


Drop ABC news and similar media as your source for science. All you will get is what someone with no science education worth mentioning could do with some abstract or for-press quotes - dumbed down to a sound bite or a few dopey paragraphs.

BTW. We already know your opinion about Monsanto. Does it apply to all large companies, or only chemical companies, or just Monsanto? (You don't need to answer that since it is as off-topic as my question...)

The link was just a quick reference for background for people who may not wish to read abstracts for what is after all a simple thing for anyone to look up. You must have a very empty life if you have to look that hard for things to quibble about. It must also be comforting to know that all is right with the world and there's absolutely nothing to be concerned about in any area whatsoever.

[blackshoe]

 onoway, on 2013-October-21, 15:42, said:

You must have a very empty life if …

Do you really need this ad hominem attack to bolster your position, or do you make it for some other reason?

[hrothgar]

 blackshoe, on 2013-October-21, 16:07, said:

Do you really need this ad hominem attack to bolster your position, or do you make it for some other reason?

You really need to learn what the expression "ad hominem attack" means...

[Al_U_Card]

 Zelandakh, on 2013-October-21, 15:42, said:

Could you please point out the sections of the AR5 report that provide the above conclusions. I skimmed through Part 1 (at Fox "News" of all places!) and could not find the correct passages. I did find some other sections that directly contradicted some of these assertions though.

Dr. Richard Tol provided the analysis viz:

[Zelandakh]

 Al_U_Card, on 2013-October-22, 06:20, said:

Dr. Richard Tol provided the analysis viz:

Could you tell me which page of the AR5 that appears on please so that I can check out the accompanying text that gives the 3 conclusions from my previous post. Or you can give the figure number if you prefer and I will work it out.

[PassedOut]

Just noticed this in the Washington Post: Making Republicans pay a price for climate science denialism

Quote

Is it possible to make GOP lawmakers pay a political price for throwing in with the climate science deniers? The League of Conservation Voters is engaged in an interesting experiment designed to answer that question, running ads targeting GOP Senator Ron Johnson and a handful of House GOP lawmakers over their climate denialism.

The group’s operating theory: Denying what science says about threats to the fate of the planet should perhaps be, you know, a tiny bit politically problematic. GOP lawmakers pay a steep price for outsized claims about abortion or immigration. Why not about something as consequential as climate change?

Why not indeed?

Even more interesting to me was this earlier article that I had missed in August: Why isn’t climate denialism politically toxic?

Quote

The League of Conservation Voters’ current campaign is also targeting three GOP Congressmen: Reps. Dan Benishek of Michigan, Rodney Davis of Illinois, and Mike Coffman of Colorado. In the last cycle, the group spent another $3 million on electoral ads targeting what it called the “Flat Earth Five” — a group of Republican Members of Congress who also deny climate change.

Benishek is my congressman and took a pretty good pounding for his vote to shut down the government earlier this month. He did vote to reopen the government in the final vote -- unlike 144 republican idiots -- so maybe he can be nudged away from the "whacko-birds" (to use John McCain's term) on climate issues also.

[Al_U_Card]

 Zelandakh, on 2013-October-22, 06:28, said:

Could you tell me which page of the AR5 that appears on please so that I can check out the accompanying text that gives the 3 conclusions from my previous post. Or you can give the figure number if you prefer and I will work it out.

Matt Ridley's article is the reference used.

[Zelandakh]

 Al_U_Card, on 2013-October-22, 09:24, said:

Matt Ridley's article is the reference used.

But you stated that this was the conclusion of the AR5, not a newspaper article or the opinion of some guy who posts online. So I ask again, can you please point out where these three assertions appear in the AR5.

[Al_U_Card]

 Al_U_Card, on 2013-October-20, 10:14, said:

the current best estimates (AR5) indicate that the modeled effects of "human influence" are somewhat disconnected and likely only slightly relevant to how the planet changes its temperature and weather.

The basic conclusion is that a couple of degrees of warming will be GOOD for us (at least no worse) and that this rise is expected, now, to take centuries and to be similar to previously experienced halcyon days of human development. In the mean time, global sea-ice continues to rise and the mean planetary temperature appears to be in a "hiatus"

The 3 underlined items in italics?

[Zelandakh]

The three I quoted from your previous post, re-quoted below:-

1. As far as having an effect on climate change, the current best estimates (AR5) indicate that the modeled effects of "human influence" are likely only slightly relevant to how the planet changes its temperature and weather.

2. The basic conclusion is that a couple of degrees of warming will be GOOD for us (at least no worse) and that this rise is expected, now, to take centuries and to be similar to previously experienced halcyon days of human development.

3. In the mean time, global sea-ice continues to rise.


I am interested in where these things are written in the AR5, since that was the basic premise of your post. I have only skimmed through the report up to now and saw nothing about 2. The only parts relevant to 1 and 3 appeared to suggest the reverse of the above. Therefore I wanted to check back and confirm your assertions and try to see why the conclusions have changed from the previous report (and why I got the wrong idea from the quick look).

[Al_U_Card]

Those would be my conclusions. (Based on other sources as well as the AR5 information before it gets "corrected" by the Summary for Policymakers.
When I refer to their conclusions, I would include citations as well.

Sorry for the confusion.

Interesting points to discuss, however.

The modeled effects diverging substantially from observed values. (Definitely in the WGI before it got "modified" by the SPM)

Econometric analyses of just what effect climate change can have with increasing temperatures.

The most recent return of Arctic sea-ice (notwithstanding its currently highly variable state) as well as the continuing increases in Antarctic sea-ice.

While trying not to fight agenda with agenda, I find enough contradictory and refutatory information relative to conclusions from the AR5 (and ESPECIALLY the SPM) that I can draw my own conclusions. Not surprising that the IPCC tries to suppress or modify information that does not support their premise and reason for existing.

[Zelandakh]

 Al_U_Card, on 2013-October-23, 06:45, said:

Those would be my conclusions. (Based on other sources as well as the AR5 information before it gets "corrected" by the Summary for Policymakers.
When I refer to their conclusions, I would include citations as well.

Sorry for the confusion.

The confusion comes from the way you wrote your post. When you write a sentence with a main clause that begins "the current best estimates (AR5) indicate" it would be reasonable for readers to believe that what follows is a summarised form of part of the AR5. Similarly for a sentence beginning "The basic conclusion is" where the subject has not been changed from the AR5 - again what follows should be a description of the actual conclusion of the AR5. To write in this way but substitute instead personal opinion is little more than deceit. You really need to stop doing this as it simply makes the position of those who hold genuine skepticism and concerns for the current models more difficult.

If you look back at my posts you will see that I have posted on both sides in this thread, occasionally gathering some negative comments from those on the opposite side to you. So you are not speaking with a "fanboi" or whatever here. I do understand that you have an extreme position and want to provide evidence to support that; but please try to stick to evidence and not to misrepresent the position of others, particularly a document such as the AR5. There are some real questions to be asked of the AR5, such as why the confidence level has gone up at a time when observations sometimes fall outside of the new confidence level when compared with the hypothesis of the previous report. I am hoping the answer to that comes out at some point over the next months. But the parts of the AR5 itself that I found relating to human influence and sea ice contradict strongly your conclusions. Argue whether those conclusions are robust, but do not state that they are different from what is written please.

[Al_U_Card]

Under the circumstances, a reasonable request and, in future, I will endeavor to be more precise regarding statements that relate to actual citations and references.

The entire IPCC methodology perverts the work of those scientists that contribute (in my opinion as well as that of others better placed to appreciate it such as Richard Lindzen, Chris Landsea and others that have left the "fold" specifically because of the type of shenanigans that we are seeing in the SPM of the AR5).

Despite the growing appearance of skepticism in this thread and elsewhere, there is a huge problem with the mass of funds and efforts that are being directed (and mis-directed in my opinion) away from practical and practicable ways of improving humanity's lot and towards maintaining and expanding the IPCC-style of bureaucratic finagling. Like we needed more of that...

That we can explore and discuss these aspects of the process, in a civil and coherent manner, is to be welcomed.

[hrothgar]

 Al_U_Card, on 2013-October-23, 10:16, said:

Under the circumstances, a reasonable request and, in future, I will endeavor to be more precise regarding statements that relate to actual citations and references.

Why bother? Earlier in this thread you acknowledge that you lie outright and claim that you are justified in doing so...

[Daniel1960]

 hrothgar, on 2013-October-23, 11:30, said:

Why bother? Earlier in this thread you acknowledge that you lie outright and claim that you are justified in doing so...

Whether you call it an outright lie or an exaggeration, there appears to be a push from those on the extremes of the global warming debate to emphasize that data which best supports their viewpoint, while simultaneously suppressing that which does not (i.e. Arctic sea ice hit a record low last year, Antarctic sea ice hit a record high this year). I applaud Zelandakh for trying to reign in both ends. From my experience, this is a diificult task, as both extremes seem to think that their side alone has all the answers, while their oppostion is full of deceit. I do not pretend to know all the answers, but have spent a significant amount of work trying to uncover some of them. In realty, there is a rather large uncertainty in the observed measurements and an even greater one in the predictions - the shorter the time frame, the larger the uncertainty.

I know that some people prefer to link to political or activist posts. When you do so, please be aware that they are more opinion, than science. That does not mean that they are inaccurate (I have read many editorials that appear to be spot on), but that they lack the rigor attached to scientific data.

[Al_U_Card]

Certainly, in the range from:

skeptic - advocate - activist - polemicist - zealot

there is some wiggle room at the skeptical position. The more of the extreme there is, the more obvious the position and the harder it becomes to take a step back and reconsider.

Many things are said (found, developed etc.) but their veracity can be questioned and what they mean and how they can be used are more speculative in nature, especially in this particular field. What is "in-play" includes global disaster and individual financial subjugation. This is why the polarization is so evident and vehement.

As we proceed, the observational evidence is all headed towards discounting the most strident of the catastrophic interpretations and revealing the actual doubtful state of that which was initially presented as proof of concept. (Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming)

[FM75]

It is true. There is a wide range in beliefs - especially among the most non-scientific. The "true-believers" quote percentages of scientist believers zealously - as though science is something that is voted on. These are the folks that forget that the most profound discoveries in science were the most radical and most widely disbelieved.

Even Einstein was never happy with quantum mechanics. He got a Nobel Prize for - nope - not special relativity, nope - not general relativity, that came after he got the prize.

But everyone remembers that he said that "God does not play dice".

On the other hand, Enrico Fermi, certainly the preeminent Italian physicist got awarded a Nobel Prize in 1938, for work that was proved to be wrong. Not only was it wrong, but he was apprised of his error after his initial publication by a German female chemist and before he was awarded the prize. He never retracted his publication.

But in the climate change arena, perhaps the person who has made the most accurate statement on the subject is Yogi Berra - a Yankee Hall of Famer.

Prediction is hard, especially about the future. Ok, Yogi was not talking about climate change, but just about predictions. I can't think of a statement that describes this better. The laws of gravitation are known to incredible precision. Yet the amount of error in predicting the position and speed of an asteroid 40 years into the future are incredibly imprecise. By hundreds of miles, etc.

If we are to believe all of the predictions that are publish about climate change, we must believe things that are FAR less well known and further into the future. For example, the population of the planet, the economic developments that will occur, not to mention the predictions of scientific change. What probabilities were assigned to nuclear war? An epic plague, with 2020 proportions equivalent to the world's previous worst? Any reason why it should not be far worse with far higher global mobility?

BTW. Does anybody know how many significant digits there are in the most precise measurements of temperature, the speed of light, the gravitational constant, Planck's constant?

Who got the Nobel prize in physics this year? How many years ago did he make the prediction? (49). Did someone who should have had similar credit die before 2013?

[gwnn]

Nobel prize nitpick: Einstein published three papers in 1905 (on Brownian motion, on the photoelectric effect and on Special Relativity) and got the prize in 1921 especially for the second one. Relativity probably was also a factor. He published General Relativity in 1916.

[mike777]

agree nobel prize gets silly:
`1) write paper 50 years ago
2) award prize
3) if you dead...no prize

[Daniel1960]

Excellent post FM. Accompanied by some of my favorite quotes.