There are some interesting questions being posed at the Which Climate Change Consensus? (Part 2) thread. Following are two questions from Graham Young that interests me. They seems to have been lost amongst the more general policy and economic discussion about Kyoto.
David,
Your quotation from the MIT piece illustrates the problem that you have with your models. You say "a projected 18 percent increase [in CO2] resulting from fossil fuel combustion to the year 2000 (320 ppm to 379 ppm) might increase the surface temperature of the earth 0.5C". Now CO2 is at 380 ppm and you are claiming a rise in surface temperature of 0.5 degrees.
So far, so good, but as we know that temperature of the earth can and does vary independently of CO2 concentrations, how do you know that the rise was due to CO2 alone? And if it wasn't, then in fact you may have overshot or undershot by more than the 0.5 degrees. If you overshot, your modelling was completely unsuccessful, and if you undershot, then things are a lot worse than you thought.
The IPCC graph at http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/figspm-4.htm is interesting.
It shows general trends between model and observations reaching more or less the same end point, but with significant divergences along the way. You'd probably get a better feel for this by graphing a rolling average.
But you might well be getting this result by massaging the factors that are programmed in until you get a reasonably good fit, but without those factors necessarily being the right ones if you are missing some ingredients.
I've gleaned some of my information from the graphs that Jennifer put up on the site on the 28th November. While you're explaining your models, could you please tell me what the mechanism is that makes temperature dive just after the peaks in CO2 shown in those graphs?
Graham Young
How did you come to be here?
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How did you come to be here?
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Here it is possible to have a rest very well.
Can I file online?
On Arctic/Antarctica differences - yes experts do expect different behaviour intially and the Arctic to warm faster. Southern Ocean is the key. Also the circumpolar vortex seems to have intensified walling the continent off somewhat. I know everyone will groan saying - oh so warmer now = colder blah blah.
I could also say, we see only what we want to see and that’s sad too
The above post was a rough attempt to outline some problems in integrating many ideas from various disciplines and experiences. If we are ever bound by an agreement it is most likely to come from an accident where everything was scrambled.
To get a revolution in our collective practice we need an explosion under the controls
This time I’m aiming at the economists. How flexible are we at the top?
It’s sad that only two people picked up on my simple model. No one tried it? That’s so disappointing to say the least.
Some where in the many threads on climate change, I asked our experts here if the mass of ice parked on land in the Antarctic initially behaved differently to the Arctic which is shown as a red hot anomaly in one of the recent graphs, due to its isolation from the sea.
Given that I have forgotten more physics than most here, a prompt elsewhere on Polar Amplification makes it necessary for me to stress the ice bucket test again.
The ice/water barrier is a pretty big hurdle in physics. Another is turbulence, then there is disrupted system feedback, lag and so on .
In my work with many real systems using water, sludge, webs, gas, fire etc, I developed practical shortcuts based on any local knowledge of a process rather than theory to prove errors and anomalies. I could pick up more clues directly from our plant operators than I could from our designers. Commissioning these monsters was always an art not a science.
We have our differences built in. There is no language to describe my methods because I switched off that part of my brain ages ago particularly for understanding the physical. As I got deeper into my practice the conflict between the verbal and the visual became intense. For me spatial analysis was instinctive. I can navigate round a large bushfire in rugged country in the dark without a torch or compass. Those who relied solely on their OH&S training could not follow.
But we can each be what we want to be by determining how our brain develops it connections. Thinking in the right directions does just that. How? By neurones and dendrites building a web. I could watch my late wife grow them in a Petri dish for some scientist every day.
That’s modelling!
Graham - "The complexity of the climate modelling probably detracts from serious debate on this issue rather than illuminating it."
You are probably correct however some people use the uncertainly of models as proof that scientists have AGW wrong as if the ONLY proof of gloabl warming is the GCMs.
Again the distinction needs to be made about AGW and climate change. AGW is pretty well proven science however climate change prediction does depend on somewhat inprecise models. The best anyone can do is give ranges of possible changes and scenerios. This is what most responsible scientists do.