humanities.philosophy.objectivism

TC wrote:
>
> What parameters do you think have larger effect than those shown?
> Independent parameters, that is.
> The five are solar, ozone, volcanic, sulfate, and greenhouse gases.

Independent parameters? You're kidding, right?

Let's take a look at the five "independent" parameters listed.
Sulfate & volcanic: I'm not sure about sulfates, but volcanism has a
cooling effect. Both of these show a distinct downward trend during an
upward temperature trend which would lead us to believe we should be
trying to stir up some industrial-strength eruptions.

Solar & ozone: Eh, these aren't clearly trending anywhere -- level to
slightly higher. Why is ozone even listed? How much of an effect does
ozone have on GW? Solar on the other hand, is the King Kong of GW. The
sun is where all that heat comes from in the first place. Any slight
deviation there will have a significant effect on Earth.

That leaves greenhouse gases: Listening to the TC and his crowd, people
will be excused if they believe the heavy hitter of this group is CO2.
But not so fast. CO2 may be /a/ greenhouse gas, but it is far, far from
being /the/ greenhouse gas. A good 95% of of the greenhouse effect
caused by greenhouse gases is cause by water vapor. And what causes
water vapor? Heat!

Wait a minute. Do I hear the dying screams of "independent parameters"
fading away? Water vapor (and CO2, for that matter) are quite dependent
on the effect that you are trying to measure.

> You must have a very peculiar definition of "model".

I accept the standard definition. I don't apply the term to any function
that can duplicate any past trend. There are too many ways to do that. A
model is only useful in so much that it can extend (to a reasonable
amount of accuracy) the past trend into the future.

Until it can do that, you don't have a model.

> I don't claim the model is a perfect match. But I think it is
> pretty good. Good enough to identify trends.

It hasn't done anything of the sort. Any one of us can look at a graph
and identity trends. We don't need any model to do that.

> See the IPCC etc for outputs of various models several decades
> into the future. Details of predictions depend on actual future
> greenhouse gas emissions and unpredictable events like
> volcanoes of course.

You've just destroyed your own claim. Your model "predicted" the
temperature to a close degree throughout the 20th century and, as can be
clearly seen, all those factors and events varied widely. So, having
gone back in time and "reproduced" the warming trend, the model cannot
reliably predict into the actual future because we don't know the future
factors that may effect the outcome.

By what definition is this called a model?

>> I wasn't postdicting (is that even a word?) -- I was predicting. And
>> yes, it is a bit safer to do when you look back far enough to detect
>> cycles. Examining only a century's worth of data is essentially trying
>> to plot a trend from a single data point.
>
> Considering the issue is a "single data point" of 200 years of
> industrial perturbation to the atmosphere, a short-time method
> seems rather appropriate.

No, no, no! I don't care how concerned you may be about "industrial
perturbations," a single century (or even two or three) is too short a
time period to identify long-term trends. Global warming is a concern
only if it's a long-term trend. There are many examples of centuries
increasing in temperature during a long-term cooling trend and
decreasing in temperature during a long-term warming trend. You can tell
/nothing/ just by looking at the past century.

>> Right. And we have another 2 to 4 degrees to go, no matter what the co2
>> levels are or will be.
>
> The rise depends on CO2 level. See predictions above.

And round and round your argument goes.

>> And this means what to you?
>
> That arguments based on repetition of past cycle patterns are
> suspect.

How are any more suspect than "models" that can only predict the past?

>> By no possible stretch of anthropomorphic
>> imagination can Man have affected climate over the last 10 000 years.
>
> Actually there are advocates of influence via methane from rice
> paddies etc.

Great! Now we're destroying the Earth by raising crops. Some centuries,
you just can't win!

>> But you don't actually
>> believe what you just wrote because, judging from your posts, you have
>> completely bought into the whole "human produced co2 is harmful" idea.
>
> I reallly do think that human produced CO2 continued on same
> basis will increase temperatures and melt ice and raise sea-level
> and cause shifts in weather of unknown nature. Since I am part
> owner of some property six feet above sea level I think it would
> be a bad thing for me if I were still around..... my property would
> become non-existent or I would have to pay somehow for dikes
> etc or ....

Ah, now finally we get to the crux of your concern. You want everyone on
Earth to alter their way of life just on the extremely slight off-chance
that it may relieve you of having to build dikes (or move).

I don't think I have an opprobrium vile enough to do you justice.
Indeed, it may not exist.

TommCatt
--
You give superficial a bad name. - Byron Alley