Eocene and Global Warming

[Arrian]

Additionally... the very uncertainty is one of the good reasons for caution. We know we can have some impact on the earth's climate. We're not totally sure exactly how much impact, and what the result of the impact will be. That right there is major cause for concern. As Che points out, there is the ice age theory regarding the ocean currents. I think it's obvious that an ice age is far, far worse than a slightly hotter planet. We don't really know wtf we're doing to the world. I'm glad we're studying it. As far as I'm concerned, there is enough data out there to warrant a cautious reduction in emissions. Within reason here, ok? I'm not talking about going back to the 18th century.

-Arrian

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Felch
Which brings us back to the WMDs. Since when did you ever believe the Pentagon, Che?

When the Pentagon's statements embarrass the White House, I'm inclined to believe the Pentagon.

The desertification puzzles me. Wouldn't hotter air carry more moisture than cooler air? Antarctica is a massive frozen desert, while the equatorial regions are predominantly tropical rain forest. Warming leading to deserts seems counter-intuitive, although I imagine that the changes in ocean currents could have unpredictable effects.

It all depends on the way the wind blows, doesn't it? I live at the same latitude as North Africa, yet I'm in a tropical swamp, while North Africa and the Middle East are deserts. A little north, and further West, Mexico and the American South West are deserts, despite proximity to the Pacific.

I'd say that the effects of continental drift are too complex to understand and model accurately. It's not possible to figure out what will happen until we actually see how it turns out.

Continental drift isn't a major concern, since that takes place on the scale of eons. I doubt any humans will be left to know when the Earth looks different from its current configuration (at least not humans on Earth).

This is what really bothers me about the whole debate. Nobody seems to know what will happen, but everybody is sure it will be bad.

Well, some of it will be good. Plants will grow better overall. But for the most part, CO2 driven global warming isn't good. First off, the current climate is the one in which we created modern civilization. While we seem all mighty and powerful, in reality, civilization hangs from a delicate thread. Most likely, any change will break the thread, not make it stronger, but that's just a metaphor.

One of the side effects of increasing CO2 is the acidification of the oceans. That's very bad, as plankton also live in a very narrow range. Almost the entire oceanic food chain is dependent on plankton.

We are an amazingly adaptive species, and we will survive despite whatever catastrophes we wreak upon ourselves. How many people, though, have to die because of changes that don't need to be made.

In another thread you bring up Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot, some of the biggest butchers of the 20th Century. They killed largely through ineptitude and stubbornness. The millions they killed were because of famines brought about by their policies (the numbers executed pale in comparison). When you say, oh well, so climate change will be disruptive, it would be too expensive to stop it, you put yourself in the company of those mass murderers. You agree to murder millions because it is too inconvenient or would be too unprofitable, to do things differently. I'm not sure that's a place you want to be.

[Ramo]

I guess my big problem is that this whole debate seems like a bandwagon. Every scientist agrees that global warming is the number one threat to our society. But remember five years ago when every intelligence agency agreed that Iraq had WMDs.

I wasn't aware the CIA published their findings in peer-reviewed academic journals...

I'm sorry if I seem flippant, or overly skeptical, but when you can't trust a five-day weather forcast, why should you believe a bunch of contradictory climactic models? Why should we base trillion dollar policies on guesses and fear mongering?

Climate is an average of weather. It's much, much easier to model large averages than local behavior. As for "contradictory" models, there is consensus in the general behavior.

[Felch]

Originally posted by Ramo
I wasn't aware the CIA published their findings in peer-reviewed academic journals...

No just the traditional media outlets. I haven't read any of the scholarly journal articles on this subject, but I've seen plenty in Time and Newsweek. How does one peer review a computer model anyway?

The point I was making was that people hear something from an expert, and forget that maybe the expert is wrong. Enough people listen to the same handful of possibly incorrect experts, and you suddenly have a consensus, but one that's wrong.

I brought up Iraq because it's a perfect example. All the talking heads were listening to the same sources of incorrect information. It becomes essentially incestuous.

Climate is an average of weather. It's much, much easier to model large averages than local behavior. As for "contradictory" models, there is consensus in the general behavior.

Of course it's easier to model averages than local behavior. But is it more accurate? Is it accurate to a tenth of a degree fifty years out in the future? Is it accurate to the point that you want to spend trillions of dollars on it?

[Dinner]

You peer review a computer model the same way you peer review anything else.

[rah]

In another thread you bring up Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot, some of the biggest butchers of the 20th Century. They killed largely through ineptitude and stubbornness. The millions they killed were because of famines brought about by their policies (the numbers executed pale in comparison). When you say, oh well, so climate change will be disruptive, it would be too expensive to stop it, you put yourself in the company of those mass murderers. You agree to murder millions because it is too inconvenient or would be too unprofitable, to do things differently. I'm not sure that's a place you want to be.

Man, what a stretch.

Just more fear mongering.

Let's look at it another way. What if it isn't going to be a devestating change, (no one truely knows for sure)
and we spent trillions and trillions of dollars trying to fix it. Or we spend the money and it still doesn't help. Those dollars spent could translate to many different countries' economies devestated. There is human cost there that could be equally bad. If you don't think people would suffer and many die due to economic catastrophy, you're foolish.
I think people that might want to protect the planet against that shouldn't automatically be called the most evil humans that ever existed.

[Felch]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
When the Pentagon's statements embarrass the White House, I'm inclined to believe the Pentagon.

I guess you got a point there.

It all depends on the way the wind blows, doesn't it? I live at the same latitude as North Africa, yet I'm in a tropical swamp, while North Africa and the Middle East are deserts. A little north, and further West, Mexico and the American South West are deserts, despite proximity to the Pacific.

Those are (I forget the exact term) mountain related deserts, right? Like how one side of a mountain is wet, while the other is dry. Basically related more to topography that temperature. I might be wrong on that though.

Well, some of it will be good. Plants will grow better overall. But for the most part, CO2 driven global warming isn't good. First off, the current climate is the one in which we created modern civilization. While we seem all mighty and powerful, in reality, civilization hangs from a delicate thread. Most likely, any change will break the thread, not make it stronger, but that's just a metaphor.

Ah yes, the decline of organized society and the rise of Mad Max style post-apocalyptic libertarianism. You discovered my hidden agenda.

One of the side effects of increasing CO2 is the acidification of the oceans. That's very bad, as plankton also live in a very narrow range. Almost the entire oceanic food chain is dependent on plankton.

I'll admit this is worrisome. I think the article pointed to a similar catastrophe in the early Eocene.

We are an amazingly adaptive species, and we will survive despite whatever catastrophes we wreak upon ourselves. How many people, though, have to die because of changes that don't need to be made.

In another thread you bring up Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot, some of the biggest butchers of the 20th Century. They killed largely through ineptitude and stubbornness. The millions they killed were because of famines brought about by their policies (the numbers executed pale in comparison). When you say, oh well, so climate change will be disruptive, it would be too expensive to stop it, you put yourself in the company of those mass murderers. You agree to murder millions because it is too inconvenient or would be too unprofitable, to do things differently. I'm not sure that's a place you want to be.

Fair enough. Millions may die from failing to prevent global warming. But millions die all the time from a failure to provide basic services. For the price of one Prius battery, you could devlier Oral Rehydration Therapy to what, a thousand children easily, right? Is fighting global warming what we want to do with limited resources? There are opportunity costs to consider, and it seems like people are ignoring them here. If it costs $1000 to save a life from the effects of global warming, or $100 to save a life from malnutrition or diarrhea, then focusing on global warming would be mass murder.

I just get concerned when it seems like everybody agrees. It's got kind of a Twilight Zone feel. I would feel a lot better if scientists were actively backstabbing and poking holes in each others findings, instead of patting each other on the back and reaching consensus. Science isn't about consensus, it's about contesting dearly held notions. Observe the world around you, hypothesize and explanation for your observations, and then try to see if your hypothesis is wrong. That's the basis for science.

[chequita guevara]

Well, we've got some global warming now, and we can pretty well see the results aren't all that great. The number of droughts in Africa have increased in the last couple of decades, the desert is expanding, etc. We can certainly spend money to mitigate the effects of capitalism's externalities, but given past behavior, I see no indications that's going to happen.

[Ramo]

No just the traditional media outlets. I haven't read any of the scholarly journal articles on this subject, but I've seen plenty in Time and Newsweek.

The point is that they don't publish in peer reviewed academic journals because they have to keep their methodology secret. That makes it inherently nontransparent (and therefore subject to political meddling and exaggerations) in a way that science cannot be due to its transparency. Comparing science and intelligence is completely ludicrous.

How does one peer review a computer model anyway?

Pretty easily. First of all, you look at the validity of the assumptions that the model makes - which is the biggie. After that, you look at the accuracy of the code (some sort of finite element partial differential equation solver) they use. You want to make sure that locally, energy, mass, and momentum are conserved, the code can accurately solve end members that you can analytically solve (i.e. no convection), the code matches up well with other codes, etc.

Of course it's easier to model averages than local behavior. But is it more accurate? Is it accurate to a tenth of a degree fifty years out in the future? Is it accurate to the point that you want to spend trillions of dollars on it?

Of course it's more accurate. That's what I mean by it being easier. I don't know what the margin of error is (you can look it up in google scholar), but, again, there is scientific consensus. It's not certain that the consensus is accurate, but it seems like a sufficiently high probability that I'd rather not take the risk.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Felch
I just get concerned when it seems like everybody agrees. It's got kind of a Twilight Zone feel. I would feel a lot better if scientists were actively backstabbing and poking holes in each others findings, instead of patting each other on the back and reaching consensus. Science isn't about consensus, it's about contesting dearly held notions. Observe the world around you, hypothesize and explanation for your observations, and then try to see if your hypothesis is wrong. That's the basis for science.

So, are you concerned about the universal acceptance of Einstein's theories? Or evolution? Or is climate change the only area, where the overwhelming amount of evidence has forced scientists to agree, that you find near unanimity of opinion disturbing?

I would also point out that when the vast majority of scientists didn't agree, folks like you said, "Well there's no scientific unanimity! How can we make a decision on that?" You can't have it both ways.

[Felch]

Originally posted by Oerdin
You peer review a computer model the same way you peer review anything else.

Maybe I just misunderstand peer review.

Here's an example of how I imagine a study would be reviewed:

Drug X is said to help fix broken bones. A double blind study compares X to a placebo, finds that X heals fractures 20% faster.

I would check to make sure that the members of each group were randomly assigned, that the groups had similar average ages, similar gender make-up, etc. I would make sure that the data hadn't been falsified (There are patterns you can look for in that case). Basically I would make sure that the study examined what it was supposed to examine, and minimized confounding variables.

How do you do that, when somebody is making their own simulation? These are simple, back of the envelope models. These are massive programs, that deal with huge amounts of data. It makes me worry that the peer reviewers would have been out of their depth.

Again though, I'm a college drop-out and have no direct experience with the process. Does anybody know how one goes about peer-reviewing a climate model?

[chequita guevara]

One of the points that ought to be brought up with computer models is that Chaos Theory means that even the same model won't agree with itself when run more than once. That's because it's impossible to know all the factors going in to a system, and so there's a certain randomness (from a human standpoint) that we can't correct. What we do, then, is run the models hundreds and thousands of times, and come up with probabilities.

Largely, the models mirror each other in probabilities, but there are outliers which get mentioned also. Global warming causing a new ice age is one of those outliers. It's not probable, but it is possible. That's mostly what these models show, what is possible and what the probabilities of occurrence are.

[rah]

The bulls getting the #1 pick in the NBA draft was an outlier that happened. So I guess I should go out and get those super thermals.

[Felch]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
So, are you concerned about the universal acceptance of Einstein's theories? Or evolution? Or is climate change the only area, where the overwhelming amount of evidence has forced scientists to agree, that you find near unanimity of opinion disturbing?

I would also point out that when the vast majority of scientists didn't agree, folks like you said, "Well there's no scientific unanimity! How can we make a decision on that?" You can't have it both ways.

Evolution is contested, mostly by bible thumpers, and holds up well to criticism.

Einstein was fixing a model (Newton's) which was universally accepted but proved to be flawed. Newton of course, grew up when Aristotle was universally accepted and proved flawed. Of course, even Einstein was wrong when it came to quantum mechanics.

My problem with the agreement here is that it seems to be backed by a religious zealotry, and the desire to divert trillions of dollars into dubious schemes.

[Felch]

Originally posted by Ramo
The point is that they don't publish in peer reviewed academic journals because they have to keep their methodology secret. That makes it inherently nontransparent (and therefore subject to political meddling and exaggerations) in a way that science cannot be due to its transparency. Comparing science and intelligence is completely ludicrous.

Fair enough. My point wasn't about that aspect, but rather the fallacy of consensus.

Pretty easily. First of all, you look at the validity of the assumptions that the model makes - which is the biggie. After that, you look at the accuracy of the code (some sort of finite element partial differential equation solver) they use. You want to make sure that locally, energy, mass, and momentum are conserved, the code can accurately solve end members that you can analytically solve (i.e. no convection), the code matches up well with other codes, etc.

Doesn't sound easy at all now that you describe it. Could two model with wildly different conclusions pass this review though? I mean, let's say one model breaks the world into square cells, and the other into hexagons or something. Equally valid, but a change like that could have a major impact on the eventual output.

Of course it's more accurate. That's what I mean by it being easier. I don't know what the margin of error is (you can look it up in google scholar), but, again, there is scientific consensus. It's not certain that the consensus is accurate, but it seems like a sufficiently high probability that I'd rather not take the risk.

If you say this is true, I'll respect that. It just doesn't feel right to me is all.