

Climate scientists: it's time for 'Plan B' - parenthesis
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/climate-scientists-its-time-for-plan-b-1221092.html

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pmorici
This strikes me as border line crackpot. Regardless I'd rather take my chances
with nature than put my fate in the hands of the people who think this is a
good idea.

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celoyd
What's so crackpot? We're already running huge, poorly understood eco-
engineering projects. Coal power generation, for example. The idea here is
that for the first time some big projects will be aimed at restoring
equilibrium.

Taking our chances with nature is hardly an option, if it ever was. Nature's
solution to excess CO_2 is mass die-offs.

Worrying about these projects after what we've been doing to the atmosphere
seems like eating week-old junk food until you hurt and then refusing to take
an aspirin because it might be tainted.

(That's not to say they're all great ideas. Some of them will probably turn
out to be foolish. But I don't see anything wrong with the principle behind
them.)

~~~
pmorici
Because we have examples of when man tries to mess with nature for the sake of
nature and they usually end up going awry. For example when ecologists
introduce natural predators to control populations of nuance animals. Nature's
solution to excess Co2 is to grow more plants.

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jerf
Can we hold off on the whole "cooling the globe" thing until it's not
happening on its own, please?

One thing lost in all the global warming hype is that if you ignore the
screeching and look at the situation with open eyes, an Ice Age is, quite
simply, the _worst case scenario_ , with no feasible amount of warming ever,
_ever_ coming close to how bad an Ice Age is. It's not even close. I would be
very, very, very, very leery of people engaging in large-scale cooling
efforts.

~~~
dejb
Of course no one is suggesting that efforts be made to cool the globe before
significant heating has already occured and the climate models are 99.9%
percent confirmed (as opposed to the current 80-95%). But if we get to the
stage where temperatures are say 5C hotter then we'll want to have some
options available and that research will take time.

I'm sure all those 'stupid' scientists with their 'screeching and hype' aren't
completely blind.

~~~
jerf
I judge climate models by how well they predict the future, and no other
standard. (Because there is none of any scientific value.) They are nowhere
near 80-95% right now. None of them predicted the past 10 years correctly, and
if we continue to cool, an entirely rational prediction at the moment, none of
them predicted that either. By their _own standards_ , by their own confidence
intervals, the models from several years ago are at 5%-ish and dropping.
(That's what a confidence interval _is_.)

No amount of, yes, _hype_ can change this fact. It is unscientific babble that
has you convinced they are at 80-95%. The massive-warming models are _by their
own predictions_ on their last legs, not on the verge of being vindicated.

~~~
dejb
The climate models do not pretend to be able to predict the climate in an
individual year but the medium and long term trends.

> By their own standards, by their own confidence intervals, the models from
> several years ago are at 5%-ish and dropping.

I'm not sure which models you are speaking of. Would you care to provide a
reference. It would surprise me if any well respected model from a few years
ago had such a tight confidence interval as to be demonstrably wrong already.

You keep saying things like 'unscientific babble' and 'hype' but you don't
even seem to dispute that most scientists do in fact hold global warming to be
a fact. When most of the worlds experts agree on something then it is up to
the deniers to come up with actual scientific evidence and not to throw around
unsubstantiable insults. You could also refer to evolution or quantum physics
as unscientific babble but what does that achieve.

Frankly if any group should be accused of unscientific babble or hype it is
many of the climate change deniers.

~~~
jerf
I'm talking about graphs like this one:

<http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/slides/05.24.htm>

Which just show temperatures going up and up and up, with error bars that just
go up and up and up even on the low end. _Every_ climate prediction I've seen
from global warming alarmists looks like that, that is, I've never seen one
that does not have that characteristic, and I'd like to see the one that does.
(Which I know we have not had, I'm saying I've never seen a chart that permits
it.) Those error bars _are_ the fudge factor you're talking about in your
first paragraph.

In order for you to be able to use that argument, it should have been built
into the graph, with big fat error bars over the first ten years that
inexplicably got narrower as time went on. (Which is obviously gibberish when
you actually put it that way.) To account for weather, the error bars should
be drawn so it fits in there. It's no good using the argument in English but
leaving it out of the actual model being proposed.

Not being able to predict the weather tomorrow may not mean you can't predict
the climate 50 years from now, but not being able to predict the climate 5
years from certainly does. 5 or 10 years is not "weather", and if it is, so is
100.

No amount of song and dance from any scientist can change this. No model
predicted cooling on any time scale. No model that failed to do (by excluding
the possibility) so is correct. Period. _That_ is the scientific answer,
regardless of how many "scientists" line up against it.

~~~
dejb
Glad to see you are actually prepared to refer to something to back up your
arguments. It looks like you are interpreting those grey bands to be a maximum
error margin. I can't see that actually mentioned anywere on the graph and
since there is no accompanying article it is difficult to be certain that is
the correct interpretation or of course when the predictions were made. Those
grey bands also go back in time which sheds some additional uncertainty on the
matter.

The graph isn't quite large enough to gauge the precise expectations but it
seems that if you believe that the climate has cooled in the last 10 years it
would disagree with that graph. However this is not necessarily the case as is
argued in the following article

<http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14527>

I'm sure that as you are reading the article the words 'babble' and 'hype'
will be crossing your mind. But the fact is that science involves a great many
complexities and a often this invloves a great deal of thought, consideration
and - yes - 'words'.

> Not being able to predict the weather tomorrow may not mean you can't
> predict the climate 50 years from now, but not being able to predict the
> climate 5 years from certainly does.

It is quite easy to come up with a function that defies this explanation. Try
this

T = N*2 + 5R

Where R = random number between -1 and 1 (different for each year)

and N = the number of years from the start

For N < 5 the effects of the random factor 'R' can predominate. However as N
rises the true nature of the relationship with Y will become aparent. 'Signal
plus noise' situations like this are very common in science.

It is a good thing that there are those who disagree with the majority view on
issues. However without solid scientific arguments it is easy to see how those
views are disregarded.

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tptacek
Montgomery Burns was right! And we shot him for it!

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netcan
Crazy as these sound, I think we may see some of these come into play.

I am having a hard time separating fact from fiction. But if some combination
of what seem to be relatively mainstream predictions are correct, this is
probably a real choice. A way of buying an extra 10-20 years.

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albertcardona
Someone ought to remind the 'Plan B' executors about the toads and snakes
introduced in Australia ...

