Definitely consider that that you said. Your favourite reason appeared to be on the internet the easiest factor to take into account of. I say to you, I definitely get annoyed at the same time as people think about issues that they plainly don’t recognise about. You managed to hit the nail upon the highest and defined out the entire thing without having side-effects , other folks can take a signal. Will likely be back to get more. Thank you
Comment on Discussion with Rich Muller by cheap tyres glasgow
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Comment on Not 100% sure? by TomFP
Max, good post, but I was puzzled by your statement that risks ““perceived directly”, and those ”perceived through science” were essentially the same category.
Surely the first category includes all sorts of risks that are scarcely, if at all, informed by science. Like the risk of war, or the risk of being caught in bed with your neighbour’s wife. Surely this is an important distinction.
But your post raised another issue that I see pertinent to the CAGW craze, and its predecessors, like Y2K, BSE, etc. That is, I suspect that humans are adapted to a certain level of circumstantial risk, and that for about half a century much of the western world has been experiencing considerably lower level of “perceived risk” than it finds comfortable. This shortfall of “perceived risk” leads to a condition of angst (rather like Durkheim’s anomie), which manifests as a compulsive guilt/penitence complex. In the long run western man has made good the shortfall in “perceived risk” from “virtual risk”, and has if necessary, manufactured it. This is a gloomy analysis, since it suggests that once CAGW belief collapses under the weight of its own absurdity, it will either need to be replaced by some other “virtual” risk, of equally dubious probity to warmism, or by an elevation of the perceived risk level, by something like warfare – or being shot by your enraged neighbour.
Of course, in this analysis the well-known propensity for people’s concern for “virtual risk” to evaporate when, say the economy turns sour, is not merely a case of people fickly discarding long-term safety for short-term comfort. All that has happened is that now they have something real to worry about, people’s “risk account” is no longer in deficit, and no longer needs to be stuffed with hokum from the druidical classes. But the catastrophists can take heart – as soon as the good times return, so will the risk deficit, and following it the guilt and the need to repent, and they’ll be back in business.
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Comment on 2 perspectives on communicating climate science by WebHubTelescope
Thank you for attempting to police your own. You mention clowns, I can’t even put cwon on the clown list because his is empty rhetoric and doesn’t have what it takes to present an alternative model. Just another person from the peanut gallery who only adds FUD to the important goal of evaluating an objective uncertainty.
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Comment on Not 100% sure? by cwon14
Max,
I’ve heard all this before. The science nuances are beaten to death here, they are interesting at times but we are talking about very small variations in a real world where it could always be something else, you never get to “all else equal” reality. We have been in the circle for 25 + years about what we really don’t know or can prove. There are no linear rules with proofs to build on at all. I don’t fault her position except there really is no co2 evidence or fingerprint at all. It’s all opinion and that leads to the bigger problem about those with opinions and who gets market a consensus of opinion as “SCIENCE”.
You don’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to notice how the “advocates” all or many to share a rather noticable political cultures and spectrum that for whatever the reason seems completely taboo for our host to acknowledge other than abstractly and remotely. How is this fair, honest or truthful in a debate where huge social stakes are involved??
Why would people who engage in this level of obfuscation of the political demographics of their own peer groups garner “trust” as a starting or finishing point????
It’s both relevant and required if people wish to be taken seriously to acknowledge what is obvious about who is involved in the debate and what their general world view is politically. As too how political enclaves start and finish socially is interesting to talk about. That they can’t be identified in this case or can only be acknowledged as unaffiliated “advocates” is preposterous in scale and distortion.
Sorry Max, if the place is open for discussion and we are talking about “uncertainty” of climate impacts and UN projections this topic isn’t a special case or decorum violation when it’s rather obvious who and what the political nature is of Dr. Curry’s peers and that of the greater eco-pro-AGW wing. They share a very identifiable political culture. There would be of course a huge consequence within Dr. Curry’s peer group if she stated the obvious. That’s the nature of political correctness, in the long run it fails. You were either for or against the Berlin Wall, sadly that was a topic that could never be discussed openly for many years in within another politically correct protocal. If a party refuses to admit directly and specifically, political associations, cultures and trends in a very narrow “consensus” area of science study how is that crediable? It isn’t.
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Comment on Not 100% sure? by Michael
Hmmm…..projection much?
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Comment on Not 100% sure? by Martha
The content of the post raises questions about contemporary modes of power influencing the harmful polarization of many issues.
Unfortunately, the domination of this thread by Cwonism is not value added.
Cwonism and quasi-Cwonism frames the issues as if there is one world to defend, with ‘enemies’ who believe there is a world to win. That view is a fiction. So is the related facile conception of ‘left’ and ‘right’.
In reality, social and historical change is often relatively unpredictable and there are many potential challenges to the organization of power and knowledge, as well as many oppressive contexts for continued polarization.
While nothing speaks for everyone, it is also the case that individual consent is not needed for social or historical change. Please someone tell Cwon14, but let him down easy. 
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Comment on Nonequilibrium thermodynamics and maximum entropy production in the Earth system by Pekka Pirilä
I know perfectly well that it appears useless to argue with your views on the net. There isn’t slightist hope that either one of us would tell openly that he has changed his mind to the least, but I always have a tiny hope that something gets through and starts to have it’s effect.
I’ve not written anything about AGW theory, neither is the book of Pierrehumbert about AGW theory. We both discuss physics and it’s application in understanding atmosphere. The empirical evidence that I refer to is all the empirical evidence that proves about the validity of understanding of physics. That’s the huge and powerful evidence, whose value is dismissed by all those who promote theories that contrdict with well known physics.
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Comment on Nonequilibrium thermodynamics and maximum entropy production in the Earth system by WebHubTelescope
the need is in the ability to use any theory in accurate understanding of a very complex system. The system is complex, because it’s large, consists of very many processes, is influenced by complex topography, etc., etc. This complexity is something that cannot be removed by any theory.
Yes, that is indeed our view of the situation, that of a a very complex system. Yet, the reason statistical mechanics and the coarse-grained thermodynamic concept got invented was to convert complexity into a more simple concept. This is part of Murray Gell-Mann’s Holy Grail of plectics, and part of the rationale for his starting the Sante Fe Institute. Too many people think that Gell-Mann and company intended to study complexity for complexity’s sake, and don’t realize that Gell-Mann’s real interest lies in extracting simplicity from the complex.
Consider that besides statistical mechanics and maximum entropy, physicists also rely on concepts of symmetry and group theory to model the essence of a behavior. Yet, should we expect that someone like Juan Ramon Gonzalez to cry foul at the use of symmetry or group theory to model a system, just because it is not real physics? Nothing of the sort, and we should try whatever technique that is in our arsenal to divide and conquer the beast. Sorry, but that was just the way I was educated by my physics professors and thesis advisors.
Pekka also mentions the role of complex topography in the system. Coincidentally, that is something I have studied as well through maximum entropy principles. I have actually gone through number crunching the terrain profile of the entire USA down to the 100 meter post level and analyzed that in terms of maximum entropy at different scales. The superstatistics of the distribution is quite interesting.
And incidentally, I just discovered that this approach is justified by invoking the Giry monad from category theory, which you can read more about from visiting the Azimuth blog, which is continuing a parallel discussion of the topic of thermodynamics, but at a much deeper and more fundamental level than we are having here:
http://johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com/2012/01/19/classical-mechanics-versus-thermodynamics-part-1/
Again this all goes into the hopper of scientific analysis in the hope that we can put this all together and reduce the complexity of the climate system. Some people may consider this hopeless but obviously I and many others do not.
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Comment on Not 100% sure? by Bad Andrew
“I’d give her the benefit of the doubt – as I think she can do more good for exposing the real truth as a questioning insider than as a challenging outsider.”
There is no evidence to support this belief. It’s just wishful thinking. The status quo remains and Dr Curry is still the same and the AGW Machine rolls on.
Andrew
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Comment on Not 100% sure? by cwon14
These must be “advocates” Martha, what kind are they?;
Christian Science “advocates”? No, I don’t think so.
Animal rights “advocates”? No, I don’t think so.
States rights “advocates”? No, I don’t think so Martha.
Eco-left, radical pro-warming advocates Martha? Is it really that hard to admit? You’ve buried yourself in the most sort of denial and one that is made for a distorting purpose. Take your EU socialist blathering to another post, we can expect no contribution or logical admissions from you. You live in a fantasy world and your distraction is an admission of your bias and embarressment which should really be shame. Your worse than a Gaianist Martha by a long shot, you’re a hardcore Greenshirt with nothing to say. The lowest on my list of social sterotypes found here;
A. Gaianist- think smoking pot at an Earth day rally listening to the Grateful Dead and babbling about going back to nature before they drive their Subaru back to home they inherited.
B. Zombies- The working tools who accept the party line on most anything including warming propaganda with little thought. Often with willful little thought but they know doctrine and can actually be naive in real life.
C. Greenshirts- Know better (sometimes, I’m talking about how phony their own talking points really are), meaner and far more corrupted. Crave money and or authority in large quantities. The lowest on my list. It’s from this pool that will require jail sentences and social vilification.
You are a definate type “C” Martha.
No need to whine for reinforcements Martha, speak for yourself. Inane as that may be.
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Comment on Climate Classroom by markus
That took me exactly 176 secs to read that tome and 1 second to say.
“The latter implies that certain general principles that are almost universally accepted by the knowledgeable scientific community are in doubt – in particular, the concept that human anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions have significant climate impact that must be evaluated for its potential consequences”.
Subjective argument on the invalid premise of an appeal to authority. I do not want children to be taught incorrect paths of reasoning. It has left you without the ability to criticize.
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Comment on Nonequilibrium thermodynamics and maximum entropy production in the Earth system by markus
Rah. Rah. Rah.
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Comment on Climate Classroom by manacker
Cap’n, you’re right – the numbers are screwy.
World gasoline consumption in 1986 was 15.4 million bbl/day (in 2007 it was 21.8 million bbl/day).
http://www.indexmundi.com/energy.aspx?product=gasoline&graph=consumption
Average sulfur content of gasoline in those days was 50 to 300 ppm, say 175 ppm on average
http://www.meca.org/galleries/default-file/sulfur.pdf
Equals 323 metric tons sulfur per day or ~650 mt SO2 per day or 237,000 mt SO2 per year
Mount St. Helens emitted around 500,000 mt SO2 over period 1980-1988 with a maximum annual emission of 222,000 mt in 1980
http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/activity/methods/gas/msh1980-88.php
So the world’s gasoline consumption emitted about as much SO2 as MSH in its maximum year and around four times as much over the 9 years 1980-1988.
The Gipper got it right that there was a whole bunch of SO2 emitted, but his advisors at the time gave him some screwy numbers (today there are a helluva lot more of them and they call them “czars”, but isn’t that what they do these days, as well?)
Max
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Comment on Nonequilibrium thermodynamics and maximum entropy production in the Earth system by markus
Interesting, that you would probably insist climategate emails would be taken out of context, but you have fully conceptualized my separate posts into one.
Something does not square with those two inferences.
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Comment on Climate Classroom by Michael
Thoughtful and worthwhile……as ever Fred.
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Comment on Questions on research integrity and scientific responsibility by stefanthedenier
Eli Rabbet no, no, no, you are the confused one; because this time you got the carrot, from the other end. Ridiculing me is easy, because of my limited English vocabulary. But ridiculing me is; ridiculing the truth. I don’t go on maybe, it’s possible; but 100% proofs. Eli Rabbet, I’m an open target. You must have being on my website looking for dirt – instead you have found 24 carats PROOFS that: GLOBAL warming is 100% lie. 2] human can change the climate, for better or for worse. Because H2O changes the climate, on many different ways; not CO2
Warmist / Skeptics believing that GLOBAL warming is possible – they don’t know all the proofs I have. People believing that; human cannot change the climate are ”the common sense deficient people” I call them ”the Ian Plimer’s Smarties” Al Gore will give his kingdom for a packet of those Smarties. Therefore, unless one can understand that the phony GLOBAL warming and the constant climatic changes are two COMPLETELY unrelated, that person is wasting his life consuming only B/S. in his diet
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Comment on Nonequilibrium thermodynamics and maximum entropy production in the Earth system by markus
“Yes, that sentence parses, and the grammar is correct, so I understand that it is a statement of some sort”
Excepting, he knows that the predictive relevance of my syntax is false.
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Comment on Nonequilibrium thermodynamics and maximum entropy production in the Earth system by WebHubTelescope
Pekka, I do agree that it will break down at the most coarse-grained level — as you say the handful of oceans and continents do create that last bit of determinism that cannot be modeled stochastically.
So there is bad news and there is good news. The bad news is that the probabilistic view breaks down, but the good news is that there are not many oceans to deal with.
Here is an old but interesting article on modeling the ocean’s thermocline at a gross level.
http://www-pord.ucsd.edu/~rsalmon/salmon.1982b.pdf
I think this was published after Paltridge’s work but he does not reference Paltridge.
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Comment on Climate Classroom by Anteros
markus/Fred -
I was struck by the same sentence -
<blockquote>“The latter implies that certain general principles that are <b>almost universally accepted</b> by the knowledgeable scientific community are in doubt – in particular, the concept that human anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions have <b>significant</b> climate impact that <b>must</b> be evaluated for its potential consequences”.</blockquote>
I've added emphasis to show where I think Fred is claiming something unsupportable. Those three things put together basically misrepresent the reality of the science, and its community.
Fred - you often make great play of the cautious nature of the scientific enterprise. What you have done here is claim something that is not true. There is no evidence for what you say. You have reached a personal conclusion (which is not "almost universally accepted") and then simply made up a statement that the "knowledgeable" community agree with you.
I think it would serve you well to accept that advocacy creeps into the pronouncements of all of us. Also, and perhaps more importantly, an argument from authority, weak as it is, only has weight if the authority agrees with the argument.
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Comment on Climate Classroom by Fred Moolten
Anteros – thank you for specifying where you disagree with the principles I described. That will allow intelligent readers to make a judgment on those principles. I will be happy to see that happen.
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