Thread: Climate Change Info from an IPCC Scientist

Thank goodness for (and this is something that I would have usually been skeptical to hear much less say) what certainly looks like an honest and open-minded astrophysicist from Harvard (pronounced -Hahvuhd) University who is not towing the party line, from what I have seen he is treading on thin ice as they say, I do admire his stand. Astrophysicist Dr.Willie Soon not only points out, what the common man would think is something that would naturally be considered, that solar activity correlates to climate change but says that the CO2 level pushers need to 'take notice' and that 'thinking needs to change'. Of course he is bashed and put in question by some who are by others considered 'flat earthers'.
Harvard astrophysicist: Sunspot activity correlates to global climate change

In contrast to Dr.Soon, here is an article where the similarity in climate change is noticed on Mars yet there is only straw-grasping speculation as to what is causing it, there is no mention of the obvious possibility of 'the big fire ball in the sky' being the source which you would think would be obvious and considered even by a fairly smart child. This appears an excellent example of the intellectual handicapping caused when people are only taught 'WHAT' to think.
Climate change hits Mars - Times Online

Originally Posted by gugi

the proof is in the scientific research, you'll have to do the work to get to it though.
actually, i doubt that you are able to prove something as mundane as 2+2=4, and by proof i mean in strict mathematical sense starting with a basic axiom. feel free to prove my doubts wrong if you dare.

2+2=4 is a good place to start with some of the problems in the scientific research.

Data points range from numbers like 2000000000 to
0.0000000002 and what we so often miss is that
0.0000000002+2000000000 on a computer is 2000000000
not 2000000000.0000000002 (hasty generalization of IEEE floating point
arithmetic).

With large numbers of computations and large numbers of data points the loss of the small bits to rounding do add up and do keep the models from returning good numbers without "tricks".

Rounding involving very small and very large numbers can often result in division by zero. While division by zero is undefined by mathematics zero is often rounded up to some smallest floating point number to keep the program from blowing out.

In almost all of these climate models the numerical modeling depends on the quality of input and the numerical method. When was the last time you read the thermometer to six significant figures or even three for that matter.

Any machinist that has worked with stacked errors knows that the +/- a thousandth of an inch can add up and keep the end product from fitting. Mechanical engineers and machinists have tricks and checks to ensure that parts fit within specified tolerances.

As hard as proving 2+2=4 is, it is harder in many ways to do arithmetic on measurements of natural processes because the precision and accuracy of the input data is never good enough.

Originally Posted by 59caddy

HEIRKB,
you rather long post just makes my point again...you reference legitimate climate science..ok, what is legitimate and what is not....you also have a lot of "ifs" and so forth in your argument. again i read and do not see specific proof, just "theory" and "models"...who is telling the truth?...again i say follow the money.

If you'd really like me to link the research that supports why my "ifs" are valid, I will get off my lazy ass and find it again. That may be a good thing to do actually, and I like that you are asking for the research at least. I do have access to a ton of databases that non-college students wouldn't, so perhaps I should take this up. If I find the time and motivation, I will find articles and download them as PDF's and figure out how I may make them available (without huge copyright issues).
And like others have said, you will need to look at the research and data instead of what someone with a degree that doesn't do research says.
I don't care what someone's degree is. If they are contradicting a position, I want evidence. I want research. I don't want just their word.
One good place to start is to actually google the IPCC AR4 and look at the many articles they are citing. Science makes mistakes like not knowing about Cosmic Background Radiation, but it's not like there were thousands of articles that were wrong and claimed it didn't exist. These tons of articles are also unlikely to be wrong considering the scrutiny that goes into the process of peer-reviewed research. You could be a nihilist about it, but the everyday evidence (science's positive impacts and correct conclusions for example) really do show that to disbelieve all science and the scientific process is silly. That's not to say that you can assume that all scientific articles are perfect and true; just saying that the scientific process has been shown, just based on common everyday facts, to be rigorous and it gives good results, so it's unlikely that it's all gonna be wrong. Hope those jumbled sentences make some sense

What's that old saying about being so sure those opinions are facts I'm not going to let some stupid truth get in my way.