Re: [asa] Bacterial Gene May Affect Climate And Weather

Good points, we see quite a bit of evidence of the effects of global
warming already. The melting of ice in the antarctic (Wedell) comes to
mind but even for the ski industry, global warming is coming with a
significant cost.
Remember that this is a global increase in average temperature and
while a few tenths of degrees may not sound impressive to the
layperson, its effects certainly should be.

The next century brings a 2-5 degree warming which will have even more
catastrophic effects. Perhaps Janice can explain the source of her
'only 0.8 in the next 100 years'?

Or is Janice merely quoting the lower range of the predictions?
Perhaps Janice is not familiar with the proper way of quoting means
and variation?

On 2/28/07, Rich Blinne <rich.blinne@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> On Feb 27, 2007, at 10:02 PM, Janice Matchett wrote:
>
> At 03:32 PM 2/26/2007, Rich Blinne wrote:
>
>
>
> On 2/26/07, Janice Matchett <janmatch@earthlink.net > wrote: @ That's
> fine - if you actually "believe" that it's possible computers to accurately
> "model" a chaotic system like climate.
> http://www.calvin.edu/archive/asa/200702/0480.html
>
> To test their "prophecies" let their 100-year computer models run out for
> 10 years and see if actual events match the 10-year predictions. If they
> do, then we can start thinking about making major policy decisions. Until
> then - forget it. ~ Janice Been there, done that, got the tee-shirt. The
> average temperatures matched the predictions over the period from 1850 to
> present but only if you include anthropogenic effects. ~ Rich B.
> @@ Sorry - that was after the fact. No catastrophes were prophesied ahead
> of time so that tells us nothing. The climate only warmed 6 or 7/10 degrees
> over 100 years. It is expected to only warm 8/10 of a degree in the next
> 100 years - yet we have alarmists (the same hysteric 60's enviro-radicals)
> claiming that we only have 10 years to save ourselves from their prophesied
> global apocalypse.
>
> On December 19, 2006, National Weather Service computers were doing what
> they and climate computers do best, doing numerical solutions to Napier
> Stokes equations while not reading Michael Crichton novels. For the previous
> three weeks, these computers predicted uneventful weather with above-average
> temperatures for the Front Range but then they over and over predicted
> unprecedented December blizzard. Accu-weather computers were doing the same
> while not listening to Rush Limbaugh. Weather Channel computers the same
> while not reading the Daily Telegraph. Some poor hysteric 60's
> enviro-radical at the NWS saw this and issued a blizzard warning before any
> snow fell.
>
> At the same time, the superintendent of the Poudre School District went out
> on the streets of Fort Collins at 4:00 A.M. the morning of the 20th. He saw
> nothing unusual. Perhaps he was listening to Devo on KISS-FM because he took
> them to heart and concluded "same as it ever was". While everybody else was
> canceling work and classes he alone in the state of Colorado kept the school
> district open. No dope smoking, plastic banana, good time rock and roll FM
> type from Boulder was going to keep his district closed.
>
> As it turned out those weather/climate models are fulling capable of turning
> on a dime from not catastrophic to catastrophic. They accurately predict
> both types of events. It is a novice's error to think that something
> catastrophic is somehow less predictable because of chaos. This is because
> of observer bias. We notice when catastrophic predictions are slightly off
> and wrongly think that these are somehow less predictable because of it.
> Scientific analysis of models compare the prediction with the data and look
> for a correlation or lack thereof. Again we need those computers that don't
> read Crichton novels.
>
> As Paul Harvey would say, you know the rrrrrest of the story. The Front
> Range was hit with the third largest snow event in its history. I risked
> mine and my children's lives trying to pick them up at the end of the day.
> School buses were stuck and got into traffic accidents trying to return the
> kids. Even though they finally cancelled classes one hour early teachers
> were forced to remain in "meetings" until the end of the day. The
> superintendent's apology made national news.
>
>
>
> The difference between climate models and weather models is not the
> underlying physics or the structure of the model which is the same but that
> which is being predicted. In the case of climate models, the predictions is
> global average temperature which is not as chaotic as whether it will rain
> tomorrow in Des Moines. ~ Rich B.
> @@ To repeat:
>
> IPCC: . Our knowledge about the processes, and feedback mechanisms
> determining them, must be significantly improved in order to extract early
> signs of such changes from model simulations and observations." [End IPCC
> quote]
>
>
> Our knowledge has improved in ten years (e.g. we can predict three times
> farther out with the same accuracy as we did a decade ago and we have much
> bigger computers to be able to lower the grid size and time steps that takes
> the "chaos" out of the calculations). Quite frankly we were shocked that we
> have been able to directly observe the changes already. That IPCC
> predication, that we needed significant improvement to directly observe
> climate change in ten years, was completely blown. We now far too easily
> directly observe it all over the place. Where the computer predictions were
> inaccurate was because they underestimated some of the positive feedbacks,
> e.g. the computer models are underestimating the observed polar ice melt.
> The difference between the climate situation and my example above is the
> snow is already falling. Superintendent Janice has fewer excuses than the
> PSD superintendent. And before you start, don't make the positively stupid
> argument that snow storms disprove global warming. There is a truism, it's
> too cold to snow. That's because warmer air can hold more moisture. The
> same models that correctly predicted the blizzard predict the warming trend
> which is greater than your made up 0.8 C in the next century answer.
>
>
>
>
> "...So, according to your test we can start making major policy decisions
> because we can and have made accurate predictions using these models. ..
> @@ Ahhhhh... not quite. See above.
>
> Remind me not to send my kids to your school district.
>

:-)
>

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Received on Wed Feb 28 12:09:58 2007