Hmm, doesn’t that open a possibility for “underexaggeration?” How would you go about defining that?
Comment on Week in review 12/15/12 by Duster
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Comment on Certainly not! by WebHubTelescope (@whut)
SpringyBoy,
Nice narrative for what we use to call a story problem. You would find these story problems at the end of chapters in scientific textbooks. The problem is that some math has to be applied to solve these story problems. If you don’t provide the math, you don’t get credit for a solution. Scientific education is harsh in that way.
Not surprising that you are such a fan of Intelligent Design, where instead of providing math, you can simply say that “a miracle occurs”.
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Comment on Why farmers don’t believe in anthropogenic global warming by curryja
yes, the article and my comments remark on this being a U.S. phenomena
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Comment on Certainly not! by manacker
Jim Cripwell
Your debate with Steven Mosher concerning the difference between the words “measurement” and “estimate” goes back to a more basic difference between empirical versus theoretical data.
Wiki tells us:
<blockquote><strong>Empirical evidence</strong> (also <strong>empirical data, sense experience, empirical knowledge</strong>, or the a posteriori) is a source of knowledge acquired by means of observation or experimentation. Empirical evidence is information that justifies a belief in the truth or falsity of an empirical claim. In the empiricist view, one can only claim to have knowledge when one has a true belief based on empirical evidence. This stands in contrast to the rationalist view under which reason or reflection alone is considered to be evidence for the truth or falsity of some propositions. </blockquote>
Wiki goes on to describe empirical evidence in science:
<blockquote>In science, empirical evidence is required for a hypothesis to gain acceptance in the scientific community. Normally, this validation is achieved by the scientific method of hypothesis commitment, experimental design, peer review, adversarial review, reproduction of results, conference presentation and journal publication. This requires rigorous communication of hypothesis (usually expressed in mathematics), experimental constraints and controls (expressed necessarily in terms of standard experimental apparatus), and a common understanding of measurement.</blockquote>
IMO Steven falls into the logic trap of confusing “measurement” (empirical evidence, based on observation or reproducible experimentation) with “estimate” (hypothetical reflection based on theoretical reasoning, model studies, etc.).
Both obviously have a place in the scientific method.
But I would agree with you that the two are basically different.
Max
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Comment on Certainly not! by WebHubTelescope (@whut)
TimG
That data is all part of an online knowledgebase hosted by a semantic web server
Thanks for your interest in long term statistical analysis not encumbered by anecdotal data
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Comment on Certainly not! by manacker
Bob Droege
You write:
We can’t double the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere and expect nothing bad will happen.
Why not?
Please elaborate.
Max
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Comment on Certainly not! by John Carpenter
“When you make a measurement, you automatically get the value of the uncertainty; the +/-.”
No Jim, it’s not ‘automatic’, it is better understood and therefore more reliable.
“When you only have an estimate, you have no measurement of accuracy. None whatsoever.”
That is wrong Jim. The accuracy of an estimate is less well understood and less reliable, but you can put practical upper and lower bounds on estimates which is an accuracy.
I can measure a board with a measuring tape and find it is 96 inches long (8 ft) +/- 1/32″ of an inch. I can estimate the same piece of wood to be about as high as the ceiling of the room I am sitting in. I know my ceilings are 7.5 ft tall in the old part of our home and 8.5 ft tall in the rooms where we put on an addition. I know the board will stand up all the way in the taller ceiling rooms but not in the lower ceiling rooms. I can bound my estimate between those two knowns and estimate the board to be 8 ft +/- 6 inches.
I could give you examples all day long like this where I can measure with a more reliable, smaller error and estimate the same with a less reliable, large error. But I can always give an estimate a practical upper and lower bound.
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Comment on Certainly not! by Myrrh
“What are safe levels of Carbon Dioxide?
“Source: http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/pns/faq_othr.html Levels of carbon dioxide (CO2), a colorless, odorless gas, have been known to reach 3,000 parts per million (ppm) in homes, schools, and offices with no ill effects. The maximum recommended by the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) for an 8-hour occupation is 5,000 ppm (13 times the current level of 380 ppm). The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) also use 5,000 ppm as their threshold for occupational safety.
“But 5,000 ppm appears to be a very conservative estimate of safe levels because other sources claim we can tolerate up to 1.5% of it in air, 15,000 parts per million.
“Consider: people with respiratory problems are given medical gas typically consisting of 95 percent oxygen and 50,000 ppm (5 percent) carbon dioxide. This gas can also be obtained with CO2 ranging from 1% to as high as 10% for treating people who have been asphyxiated.
“Also consider: we would die if we did not breathe in such a way as to retain very close to 65,000 ppm (6.5%) of CO2 in the alveoli (tiny air sacs) of our lungs.
“And finally, the American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA) reports that 100,000 ppm (10%) of CO2 is the atmospheric concentration immediately dangerous to life.”
http://theroadtoemmaus.org/RdLb/11Phl/Sci/CO2&Health.html
Re the 6.5% – this is what we produce out of our own carbon for every lungful of atmosphere we breathe in. That is the optimum level for our bodies to be able to use oxygen, if it falls to 4.5% we’re in trouble.
“Conclusion
“Over the last 350 million years CO2 has varied by 10 fold, approximately 250 ppm to 2,500 ppm with an average level of 1,500 ppm. This average level happens to be the optimum level for plants, it seems by evolutionary design, and is the reason that this level of CO2 is used in greenhouses Since plants and animals evolved together it’s likely that humans also evolved to function best at some higher level.
“However, at 380 ppm we are not far from the lower end of that 10-fold range. Because so many people benefit from enhanced levels of CO2, it appears that our present atmosphere is already lower than the minimum to which some people can adapt. Scientific studies and established medical practices leave no doubt that increased levels of CO2 help people with respiratory problems and, some time in our lives, that will include nearly every one of us.”
http://theroadtoemmaus.org/RdLb/11Phl/Sci/CO2&Health.html
“
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Comment on Certainly not! by John Carpenter
Climate sensitivity to CO2 does not have to be measured by using a model only. It can also be derived from proxy data, which is empirical, measureable data of the type Mr Cripwell is so fond of. It can then be compared with model calculations. I’m not saying the right answers have been determined either way yet, but likely ranges can be determined and have. Those are also debatable. It’s better to debate the likely ranges than whether a value like climate sensitivity can be measured at all IMO.
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Comment on Certainly not! by manacker
willis
I’d agree with you that Firestein “lost it” when he started the silly tobacco comparison and wrote about climate change.
Up to that point his essay made sense.
Was the sensible part just a “lead-in” for the rubbish part?
That’s up to everyone to decide for themselves.
Max
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Comment on Why farmers don’t believe in anthropogenic global warming by Why Judith Curry and others don’t believe in farmers | The Drinking Water Advisor
[…] now it’s the farmers that are the problem, says Judith Curry and others (click here)……those uneducated idiots that have to actually face the REAL challenges of weather and […]
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Comment on Why farmers don’t believe in anthropogenic global warming by Chief Hydrologist
‘Mr Posselt, who is delivering a message about the impact of climate change to rural communities on his nine-month adventure, said yesterday the strong anti-climate change beliefs might in part explain the lethargy of conservative politicians to the issue.
“About 98 per cent of adults I’ve met along the river say there’s no such thing,” Mr Posselt said.
“They think it’s just a short-term cycle and everything will soon be back to the way it used to be.”
http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/up-the-creek-over-climate/story-e6freoof-1111114287377
Steve Posselt was suggesting that the drought was climate change. Naw mate – it just cycles.
They are certainly more right than Posselt. There is a bit of a history of cycles in Australia as well. Inigo Jones linked the orbits of the outer planets with rainfall in the first half of the last century – premonitions of Scafetta. Inigo Owen Jones (1 December 1872 – 14 November 1954) was a meteorologist and farmer – and a self publicist of some note. A lot of attention came from his rain making activities. Hard to ignore cannons going off in the back paddock.
Rainfall regimes are a lot more accepted these days – indeed are the cornerstone of hydrological theory globally. No doubt at all. Thus calculating variability from the 1950′s is a statistical nonsense. Nor is there any doubt that paleoclimatic variability of rainfall far exceeds what we have seen in the instrumental record.
More recently – at least since the 80′s – regime is the preferred terminology because they lack the regularity implied by cycle. Much more recently we have put together five plus five to get?
A hand is five
Another is five
So what do you get
- add five plus five?
A butterfly.
The Earth system is complex, coupled and nonlinear and shifts abruptly between regimes as a result of changes in controls and multiple feedbacks.
BTW – the idea for the poem came from the tiniest little girl.
Here’s an Auslan poem about butterfly hands – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhvQz7W0c5Q
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Comment on Why farmers don’t believe in anthropogenic global warming by RobertInAz
Farmers (and weather forecasters) know there is nothing unusual about the recent warming, Google dust bowl.
Why US and not international? Google dust bowl. NCDC may lack a certain credibility as the dust bowl years get steadily cooler and less extreme.
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Comment on Why farmers don’t believe in anthropogenic global warming by Rud Istvan
Speaking as someone who owns a genuine US farm (dairy, 350 head total, 1.1 million pounds of grade A milk per year, plus or minus, plus veal, beef, a few hogs, and carryover corn and beans…), I can suggest another important reason for farmer scepticism. They are conservative (and have to be, since there are enough risks without willfully adding additional risks from ‘hair brained’ new fangled schemes). But they are also intensely empirical realists, therefore scientific in a profound sense. You try something, or your neighbor does, and if it works you adopt it. Anything that improves yields or productivity and conserves the land. Tractors instead of horses, Rotation contours, Round balers, GMO crops enabling no till with Roundup herbicide), milking parlors, spot precision pesticide and fertilizer application based on micro environments and GPS coordinates, … All such ‘good practices’ spread remarkably rapidly because they ‘work’ empirically.
AGW and climate change are theoretical uncertain rounding error by comparison, as the article points out. No farmer would change anything based on the CAGW ‘field trials’ to date.
May we all return to being farmers, at least philosphically. The world would be a far better place.
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Comment on Why farmers don’t believe in anthropogenic global warming by Kent Draper
Are there any studies to show this? Or should I say, what percentage of Australia’s farmers believe “they” are causing global warming. Sorry, I’m uncomfortable using “climate change” as climate has always been changing.
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Comment on Why farmers don’t believe in anthropogenic global warming by Kent Draper
+100 Having milked the old fashioned way as a youth I kinda like some of the new fangled farming methods :)…. but the character of most farmers in my experience is correctly stated.
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Comment on Why farmers don’t believe in anthropogenic global warming by WebHubTelescope (@whut)
Farmers have not necessarily been taught that without greenhouse gases in our atmosphere at the level they are at, the world would be 33C cooler than it is. Translate that for American farmers and that is about 59 degrees F cooler.
Then explain that one of the GHGs is in the process of being doubled and the concern is that things will get hotter. Ignoring the value judgements implicit in this statement, they can at least try to relate to the science behind the phenomenon.
Same thing with many broadcast weathermen, as they typically get training at a VoTech school. They wouldn’t be expected to understand atmospheric physics, but should at least know to how to frame the issue for their viewers and listeners.
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Comment on Why farmers don’t believe in anthropogenic global warming by Chief Hydrologist
Max should try to answer the question if he thinks it at all relevant. It is otherwise just a lazy and shallow distraction.
This might help – go for it.
http://www.soc.iastate.edu/staff/arbuckle.html
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Comment on U.S. Senate Hearing “Climate Change: It’s Happening Now” by climatereason
America must be stuffed full of historical climatologists. Wouldn’t it be nice if one of them was invited to one of these hearings in order to bring some historical context to these often painfully short term examinations of climate?
tell you what I will offer to contribute the tea and biscuits for these little soirees if one is invited. Mosomoso will you contribute the orange squash?
tonyb
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Comment on Why farmers don’t believe in anthropogenic global warming by Max_OK
Chief, I suspect the only thing you have in common with most American farmers is advanced age. But old age alone doesn’t make one an authority on farming or anything else.
On second thought, aging could give one much experience with flatulence, halitosis, impotence, and other things no one wants.
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