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pottyprof

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Posted
  • Location: Swallownest, Sheffield 83m ASL
  • Location: Swallownest, Sheffield 83m ASL

So what exactly makes up the the big picture that is climate change?

How can one element of climate science have an effect on another?

What do we know and what don't we know?

As always, please respect everyone else's views and stay on topic. General chitchat can be done elsewhere on the forum. Most of all, please stick to the code of conduct.

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Posted
  • Location: Kingdom of Fife: 56.2º N, 3.2º W
  • Location: Kingdom of Fife: 56.2º N, 3.2º W

So many variables. Could one butterfly affect the next ice age or period of desertification? Are we in for gradual change that we can adapt to or will there be a switching point during a generation that so disrupts agriculture, social and ecconomic structures that we can no longer survive without a massive decrease in the population.

It seems fairly certain the climate will change; when, how and why is much less certain, even less certain is if we can do anything about it.

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Posted
  • Location: Taasinge, Denmark
  • Location: Taasinge, Denmark

So what exactly makes up the the big picture that is climate change?

How can one element of climate science have an effect on another?

What do we know and what don't we know?

I am just an interested amateur, but it seems to me the science of climate is an enormously complex affair that touches upon

  • oceanography
  • geography
  • atmospheric studies
  • the sun
  • volcanic activity and tectonics

That list in not exhaustive, and furthermore, each is a specialist subject in its own right. Just what sort of specialist is required to bring all these together into a unified are of study is beyond me, but I suspect - unfortunately - it requires someone with people skills.

It also seems to me that while science understands fully a number of principles, there is still an awful lot it doesn't understand. The problem science has is a little related to peak oil, in that all the easy stuff has been discovered and is now being utilised by technology, and what remains to be discovered is difficult to get at and expensive to utilise. This explains what I consider the diminishing level of technological and scientific innovation in recent decades.

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Posted
  • Location: Cheddar Valley, 20mtrs asl
  • Weather Preferences: Snow and lots of it or warm and sunny, no mediocre dross
  • Location: Cheddar Valley, 20mtrs asl

Coincidentally I came across this earlier, not too sure what to make of it as it's not something I've ever studied but thought it might be of interest to some here.

http://tallbloke.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/shaviv-n-the-milky-waygalaxys-spiral-arms-and-ice-age-epochs-and-the-cosmic-rayconnection.pdf

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Posted
  • Location: Taasinge, Denmark
  • Location: Taasinge, Denmark

frogesque..........."even less certain is if we can do anything about it." Very well put Sir or Madam.

Interesting reading jethro, not least because the author explains to a certain extent what he believes to be happening. I find that refreshing, as it indicates the person has advanced from the point of observing possible links, to considering whether or not they are plausible, unlike so much else we read in the common media.

Given the case of Henrik Svensmark, it is fair to say that science is divided about global warming. I recall seeing a video clip from a conference where a certain prestigious scientist - British incidentally - vehemently tore into Svensmark, and told him in a most rude manner to "read the books". Now I should know better than to expect all scientists to work loyally together in the cause of science - take Isaac Newton and John Flamsteed for example - and we should be clear that scientists are people like the rest of us, with all our human weaknesses. Nonetheless, if everyone could agree and get together, what would it take to investigate and properly test this cosmic ray / solar wind hypothesis? Obviously, most experimentation and data collection would have to be conducted in space. Who is going to fund such work? Given the most thorough program was carried out, and we discovered that the solar wind and cosmic rays are in fact very significant factors in deciding Earth's climate, how would that benefit us? Wouldn't we also have to carry out most extensive research of the oceans too, in order to combine the various components of the climate? This is an immense task that few, if anyone is about to pay for given that the dividends are dubious at best.

It seems to me that avant-garde physics is largely metaphysical, speculating on issues that - as far as we can tell today - we are unlikely to gain clarity over. Perhaps this is latter-day logical positivism, but why not instead approach the immensely demanding issue of climate by asking what would we do if we actually understood what is going on? If we could confirm that the solar wind and cosmic rays have a significant combined effect on our climate, what would we do about it? Maybe here we already have the answer to the difficulties with climate science. Unless we can see the utility of knowing something, then why bother looking into it.

Of course, there will always be people that, for various reasons, will put forward their ideas. It has always been so. Ever since Pericles made his magnificent funeral oration in Athens, philosophers have fed us with a load of metaphysical tripe, leading in the end to science going one way, and philosophy the other. With the exception of Socrates and Diogenes, and maybe a few other lesser-known thinkers, philosophy has been an activity for a few wealthy, priveleged people. Even Kant had the patronage of the local clergy who helped him mix with the nearest town's gentry, rather than stay at home and help his father make saddles. Philosphy, after 2500 years, has done little to change the lives of ordinary people. Science risks going the same way too. Why is so much funding going to, for example, the Large Hadron Collider, and why are we developing a European GPS system?

Until the lion's share of humanity get together and beat out for themselves a shared vision for the future, there is little prospect of us obtaining a genuine, unifying theory of climate.My long-range forecast for the science of climate is for more of the same.

Edited by Alan Robinson
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Posted
  • Location: Cheddar Valley, 20mtrs asl
  • Weather Preferences: Snow and lots of it or warm and sunny, no mediocre dross
  • Location: Cheddar Valley, 20mtrs asl

You talk a lot of sense Alan, I too see little prospect of real advance in climate science; I think what lays ahead is a sea of piecemeal knowledge with little effort to link it all together into a whole.

Hopefully it won't be too much longer before we see the results from CERN, the press release and publicity so far give tantalising glimpses that Svensmark may have been more accurate than some sources have previously claimed.

Of course, even if Svensmark is right, we still don't understand the workings of the Sun nor can we accurately predict the way it behaves; we'd still be left with the reality of adapting to any climate change as it was happening rather than pre-empting or planning for the future.

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Posted
  • Location: Beccles, Suffolk.
  • Weather Preferences: Thunder, snow, heat, sunshine...
  • Location: Beccles, Suffolk.

You talk a lot of sense Alan, I too see little prospect of real advance in climate science; I think what lays ahead is a sea of piecemeal knowledge with little effort to link it all together into a whole.

Hopefully it won't be too much longer before we see the results from CERN, the press release and publicity so far give tantalising glimpses that Svensmark may have been more accurate than some sources have previously claimed.

Of course, even if Svensmark is right, we still don't understand the workings of the Sun nor can we accurately predict the way it behaves; we'd still be left with the reality of adapting to any climate change as it was happening rather than pre-empting or planning for the future.

Let's hope so, Dawn. Because something (that's got nothing whatsoever to do with mankind) has caused major climate-swings in the past, and will continue so to do in the future.

Personally I'm pleased that some scientists opt not to simply 'read the books'. If humanity never got its head out of books, we'd all be creationist antediluvians...

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Posted
  • Location: Taasinge, Denmark
  • Location: Taasinge, Denmark

Has anyone here come across this before? Jaworowsky, Segelstad and Hisdal of the Norwegian Polar Institute, a paper from 1991.

http://www.co2web.info/np-m-119.pdf

Clearly, developments since this paper was written signify its content is disputed, but I wondered, has it been refuted? I cannot conceive that a body such as the Norwegian Polar Intitute could publish such a document as this, and at the same time be completely wrong. If it turns out they were wrong, on just parts of their findings, then I conclude modern science is all at sea.

Nonetheless, the Norwegian Polar Institute continues with ice core work, and on its web page about climate research, states that (my translation) Isen med sine luftbobler er et klimaarkiv som «fanger» atmosfærens gasser og gir oss kunnskap som går 900 000 år tilbake i tid.............namely............air bubbles in the ice constitute a climate archive that captures atmospheric gases, providing information going back in time 900,000 years. Was it F Scott Fitzgerald that said "I have one standpoint until I take another" ? Perhaps not.

Edited by Alan Robinson
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Posted
  • Location: Cheddar Valley, 20mtrs asl
  • Weather Preferences: Snow and lots of it or warm and sunny, no mediocre dross
  • Location: Cheddar Valley, 20mtrs asl

As far as I'm aware Alan, that paper still stands. I've had a brief look through Google and cannot find any refutation listed; I would imagine, given the way that climate change blogs are, finding someone slating the paper or scientist would be fairly easy.

I've only scanned through your link but from what I read, I think most of those uncertainties are still valid. One of the troubles with this subject is that the publicity heavy reports of the IPCC have super-ceded some of the basic science; general views seem to be that if it isn't covered by the IPCC, then it's irrelevant and not valid. Folk seem to miss the point that the IPCC, (by their own admission) carefully selected what science to include in their reports, they've never claimed to include all the science.

You may find this interesting, also from Jarowowski : http://www.warwickhughes.com/icecore/zjmar07.pdf

He's certainly more than qualified to make his criticisms : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zbigniew_Jaworowski

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Posted
  • Location: Taasinge, Denmark
  • Location: Taasinge, Denmark

You may find this interesting, also from Jarowowski : http://www.warwickhu...ore/zjmar07.pdf

He's certainly more than qualified to make his criticisms : http://en.wikipedia....niew_Jaworowski

Well I was becoming increasingly comfortable reading Jaworowsky until the very end, when he pushed the wrong button with me by mentioning Landscheidt. I cannot take seriously anyone that would pay astrological beliefs credit when they cannot otherwise explain things. Why would Jaworowsky bring Landscheidt into the discussion at the very end, even if only by passing mention? If I do not understand something, or concerning that of which I am ignorant, I simply say "I don't know". This is why since childhood, concerning religion, I have declared myself an agnostic, and not atheist. Landscheit, as far as I can tell, continued a centuries-old line of rather extreme thought in German culture that can be traced through the likes of Guido von List all the way back to the Teutonic Knights. Rudolf Steiner (I apologize for bringing him up once more) was - I'd say - another manifestation of Germanic mysticism. Landscheidt rant over.

Anyway, having read in this forum that climate science is "settled" and beyond dispute, I found this.

http://en.wikipedia...._global_warming.

Clearly, climate science is anything but settled, and Jaworowsky's numerous and damning criticisms of the ice core evidence has, as far as I can see, not been refuted. Moreover, Jaworowsky's comments strengthen my own suspicions about financing research and the influence of politicians. According to Jaworowsky, the IPCCs work is instigated politically, and he is indignant that certain people in publishing have lost their employment due to their insistance on publishing scientific papers (Soon among others) that state contary views to the IPCC. I was aghast to read the comments made by Tim Wirth and Richard Benedick, both men with positions of great influence in US politics, namely

"even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic policy and environmental policy", and

"a global warming treaty must be implemented even if there is no scientific evidence to back the (enhanced) greenhouse effect".

The more I read of this whole business, the more I feel that many scientists have virtually prostituted themselves. As with engineering, if science has a somewhat contemptible reputation, it cannot surprise that interest among young people for science has dwindled for decades, and they'd rather appear on Britain's Got Talent.

Edited by Alan Robinson
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Posted
  • Location: Cheddar Valley, 20mtrs asl
  • Weather Preferences: Snow and lots of it or warm and sunny, no mediocre dross
  • Location: Cheddar Valley, 20mtrs asl

I understand your concerns about Landscheidt but I feel it only fair to offer a few thoughts which may make you re-consider. Firstly, there's a world of difference between astrology and astronomy; one is hocus the other is a science discipline. Secondly, thus far, Landscheidt's predictions for the Solar cycle have been more accurate than the greatest Solar physicists and the NASA consensus prediction for cycle 24. Thirdly, it is more than possible for disciplined science and ethereal ideas to exist in the one mind; I've yet to meet a single faceted person, I doubt they exist.

As for climate change, I approached this subject long ago from a "need to know more" perspective - the theory was already impacting upon my working life and it had the potential to impact a great deal more. I didn't approach it from a believer or disbeliever point of view, merely eager to learn. What I've learnt is that the more you dig and the more you learn, the more questions there appear to be; the popular "the science is settled" perspective makes as much sense as me claiming there are fairies living at the end of my garden.

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Posted
  • Location: Taasinge, Denmark
  • Location: Taasinge, Denmark

I understand your concerns about Landscheidt but I feel it only fair to offer a few thoughts which may make you re-consider. Firstly, there's a world of difference between astrology and astronomy; one is hocus ...........makes as much sense as me claiming there are fairies living at the end of my garden.

Thanks jethro. You actually put down what it is that concerns me. Perhaps Landscheidt's solar predictions are the most successful - for the time being - but it is the atsrology, Maria Thun moon planting calendar, Steineresque bio-dynamic mumbo-jumbo thing that links with Landscheidt, and you might be surprised just how prevalent mysticism is in Germanic culture. Each to his or her own, but I pay no credence to those that entertain groundless ideas handed down to them from antiquity.

Just out of interest and maybe off topic, is this http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8008167.stm Well, it just goes to show we cannot trust all we read, even on the BBC. Steiner did NOT pioneer bio-dynamic horticulture at all. He knew nothing about growing plants, and yet the whole Demeter thing uses a few days of Steiner pontificating on cosmic rays, antlers, and earth spirits (fairies at the end of the garden as you put it). It is a cult, just as astrology is a cult belief. Shame for Landscheidt, but I don't consider his dabbling in mysticism the same thing as Issac Newton's alchemy.

Edited by Alan Robinson
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Posted
  • Location: Cheddar Valley, 20mtrs asl
  • Weather Preferences: Snow and lots of it or warm and sunny, no mediocre dross
  • Location: Cheddar Valley, 20mtrs asl

Slight editing and misquote there Alan, the fairies comment was directed towards the "settled science" view of climate change.

I think your views on mysticism may be colouring your judgement on Landscheidt, like I said, multi-faceted is the norm for people. There are countless reputable scientists who believe in God and are practising Christians, there are many who believe in Intelligent Design - does this make their science disreputable or instantly dismiss-able? IMO, discounting a scientists work based on their personal belief systems is nothing more than a variation of confirmation bias.

The natural state of mind for most with an interest in science is curiosity, I see no reason why curiosity should be limited to proven facts; all those proven facts began life as an unexplained entity. Some things can be scientifically proven, some things currently can't, it is curiosity in the unknown and often bizarre which has helped us all have a greater understanding of the universe. At some point in time, most science can be traced back to a crackpot idea which interested someone, just imagine if the people who said the world was round had been instantly and forever dismissed.

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Posted
  • Location: Beccles, Suffolk.
  • Weather Preferences: Thunder, snow, heat, sunshine...
  • Location: Beccles, Suffolk.

We do, of course, need to be careful before we dismiss things a priori on grounds of individuals' belief-systems. But, if someone can entertain (for example) the idea that dinosaurs and people inhabited the planet at the same time, I will be very sceptical of their reasoning and their motivations regarding other claims where science is claimed...

And, as for Landscheidt? Well he may have hit on something profound or, equally, he may merely have been lucky. I'll keep an open mind... But even stoped clocks are right twice a day...

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Posted
  • Location: Taasinge, Denmark
  • Location: Taasinge, Denmark

Well no matter how hard I try, I cannot satisfactorily address this issue of beliefs and multi-faceted individuals in science without becoming excessively prolix.

In my view, science needs an ethos similar to The Royal Marines, namely, it is not who we are that counts, it is what we do and how we do it.

Thanks to the likes of Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler and Newton, modern science left behind repressive belief systems, mumbo-jumbo such as Pythagorean number lore, and the pre-conditioned thinking of people like Thomas Aquinas. I thought that in science today, a hypothesis is an unsubstantiated product of human imagination. A scientific theory is a broader set of proven empirical laws that come together in a larger scenario than most hypotheses cover. Regarding climate science, it seems to me that there is a certain dogma about various hypotheses, which is due to the difficulty, if not impossibility of verification.

In these circumstances there is much to be said for logical positivism. Faced with certain hypotheses, perhaps bordering on the metaphysical, why not ask how these various ideas could be acceptibly verified, supposing they happen to be true? What is the point of insisting something is the case, when it cannot be demonstrated to be factual?

Perhaps this is why science has made great leaps and bounds in, for example, medicine. Engineering is also physical proof of much scientific postulation. When it comes to the likes of cosmology and relativity, it is far more difficult to present adequate evidence. Einstein - I believe - took his starting point in the Michelson Morley experiment, which was conducted down here on earth, and educationalists have since tried to teach students the principals of special relativity using "thought experiments" which, given the lack of perfect vaccum, do not coincide with the facts. Thought experiments, surely, are speculative, and what climate science needs is observable phemonena that verify hypotheses. Sadly, I think the task is too great for us within the foreseeable future.

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Posted
  • Location: Cheddar Valley, 20mtrs asl
  • Weather Preferences: Snow and lots of it or warm and sunny, no mediocre dross
  • Location: Cheddar Valley, 20mtrs asl

We do, of course, need to be careful before we dismiss things a priori on grounds of individuals' belief-systems. But, if someone can entertain (for example) the idea that dinosaurs and people inhabited the planet at the same time, I will be very sceptical of their reasoning and their motivations regarding other claims where science is claimed...

And, as for Landscheidt? Well he may have hit on something profound or, equally, he may merely have been lucky. I'll keep an open mind... But even stoped clocks are right twice a day...

But that's just a time issue, not a science based judgement. We now know that evolution is a proven fact and that people and dinosaurs didn't co-exist; put yourself back in time say , 300 years ago and you wouldn't have been able to make that statement. It is the progress of science and passage of time which makes your statement accurate, the starting point of the research into the science, and sifting of fact from fallacy to reach that conclusion, started with a crackpot idea which ran counter to all known facts and ideas.

Well no matter how hard I try, I cannot satisfactorily address this issue of beliefs and multi-faceted individuals in science without becoming excessively prolix.

In my view, science needs an ethos similar to The Royal Marines, namely, it is not who we are that counts, it is what we do and how we do it.

Thanks to the likes of Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler and Newton, modern science left behind repressive belief systems, mumbo-jumbo such as Pythagorean number lore, and the pre-conditioned thinking of people like Thomas Aquinas. I thought that in science today, a hypothesis is an unsubstantiated product of human imagination. A scientific theory is a broader set of proven empirical laws that come together in a larger scenario than most hypotheses cover. Regarding climate science, it seems to me that there is a certain dogma about various hypotheses, which is due to the difficulty, if not impossibility of verification.

In these circumstances there is much to be said for logical positivism. Faced with certain hypotheses, perhaps bordering on the metaphysical, why not ask how these various ideas could be acceptibly verified, supposing they happen to be true? What is the point of insisting something is the case, when it cannot be demonstrated to be factual?

Perhaps this is why science has made great leaps and bounds in, for example, medicine. Engineering is also physical proof of much scientific postulation. When it comes to the likes of cosmology and relativity, it is far more difficult to present adequate evidence. Einstein - I believe - took his starting point in the Michelson Morley experiment, which was conducted down here on earth, and educationalists have since tried to teach students the principals of special relativity using "thought experiments" which, given the lack of perfect vaccum, do not coincide with the facts. Thought experiments, surely, are speculative, and what climate science needs is observable phemonena that verify hypotheses. Sadly, I think the task is too great for us within the foreseeable future.

But surely without the speculation, there would be no progress? It is the germ of an idea, however bizarre, which is needed to unravel a puzzle.

What we currently know about climate and how it all fits together doesn't provide an accurate picture of what has happened in the past, nor can it throw any light on the future. I agree we need empirical data and observation but the trouble with that is it merely shows what is happening after the event - it doesn't and cannot demonstrate why or how. We can measure the temperature of the atmosphere, the oceans, sea level rises, observe ocean currents, ice loss etc etc etc but with the best will in the world, even with all that knowledge, we still don't know how it all fits together.

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But that's just a time issue, not a science based judgement. We now know that evolution is a proven fact and that people and dinosaurs didn't co-exist; put yourself back in time say , 300 years ago and you wouldn't have been able to make that statement.

Well, yes. But how's that relevant? The point is that since we "now know that evolution is a proven fact", I cannot trust the scientific judgement of anyone that disputes that. This applies to creationism, astrology and homeopathy alike.

Edited by songster
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Posted
  • Location: Cheddar Valley, 20mtrs asl
  • Weather Preferences: Snow and lots of it or warm and sunny, no mediocre dross
  • Location: Cheddar Valley, 20mtrs asl

Well, yes. But how's that relevant? The point is that since we "now know that evolution is a proven fact", I cannot trust the scientific judgement of anyone that disputes that. This applies to creationism, astrology and homeopathy alike.

So what happens if someone is a practising Christian but also a climate scientist? If the belief system influences the science, ie looking for a God based cause for climate change it is a problem, but if you believe in God but look to science and provable, observable facts to explain climate change, it isn't.

Belief in anything whimsical isn't an issue with science, unless you try to use whimsy to demonstrate and explain science. Evolution started with an idea, at the time the idea that we descended from Monkeys was not only whimsical but nonsensical too, the whimsy idea, over time was demonstrated to be fact - it is the time and further studies to demonstrate the accuracy of the theory that is important, not how irrational the original idea was.

We're not blessed with time machines and the accuracy of crystal balls is notoriously sketchy, that being the case, all we can do with off-beat science ideas is to let them run, investigate further and see what pans out. I mean, who would have thought back in 1921 that us burning fossil fuels could cause climate to change - it is time and further study which gives us the clearer theory that we now have.

Whether anyone chooses to give credence to an idea or not, whether anyone trusts the judgement of someone who has off-beat ideas about some things, or not, is a personal choice. That personal choice is irrelevant and just confirmation bias, what matters is whether an off-beat idea turns into something with scientifically valid facts. The Livingston&Penn off-beat idea that sunspots will slowly fade from view in the near future was seen by some to be a wacky idea, so far their theory is showing remarkable accuracy. Would it matter if they also believed in fairies at the end of the garden? Their fresh approach and non conformist ideas thus far, show every chance of being right. The accepted, conformist views of numerous solar physicists have proven to be wrong.

Seems to me that sticking with conformist views and ideas in science does very little to advance our knowledge.

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Posted
  • Location: Napton on the Hill Warwickshire 500ft
  • Weather Preferences: Snow and heatwave
  • Location: Napton on the Hill Warwickshire 500ft

But that's just a time issue, not a science based judgement. We now know that evolution is a proven fact and that people and dinosaurs didn't co-exist; put yourself back in time say , 300 years ago and you wouldn't have been able to make that statement. It is the progress of science and passage of time which makes your statement accurate, the starting point of the research into the science, and sifting of fact from fallacy to reach that conclusion, started with a crackpot idea which ran counter to all known facts and ideas.

Yes in 2011 (200 years ago) people were saying Astrology was hocus pocus. Like 500 years before people suggest the world was round , we knew it was flat.

There has been many 'crackpot ideas' e.g someone suggested the Earth wasn't the centre of the universe a few centuries back.

Science feeds on 'ideas' so if you say this universe is just one of a infinite number its idea like the big bang that people believe in just an idea.

I always remember the chicken that knew everything

Every time a bell rang he got food, this happen hundreds of time

Bell = Food

One day the bell rang and he got his head cut off, know chicken could 'explain' this by any 'theory' it went against all known 'knowledge'

At a higher level we would call it Christmas.

Maybe the sun will disappear on 23 June 2023, we won't be able to 'explain it' at a 'higher level' maybe someone could.

Basically keep an open mind , if someone proves climate change is driven by more Baloon flights in the USA so be it

Edited by stewfox
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So what happens if someone is a practising Christian but also a climate scientist? If the belief system influences the science, ie looking for a God based cause for climate change it is a problem, but if you believe in God but look to science and provable, observable facts to explain climate change, it isn't.

Quite so, but then I'd refer to the former as "cultural Christians". I don't think you get "cultural astrologers" in quite the same way. What would it even mean to say "I believe in astrology, but I don't believe it affects the real world in a way that can be scientifically measured": which is what cultural Christians do with their belief in God?

Edited by songster
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Posted
  • Location: Taasinge, Denmark
  • Location: Taasinge, Denmark

I have never held the view that imagination has no part in science, for it is of course vital, and yet it must be disciplined. Idiosyncracy must not be allowed to colour scientific investigation.

If climate was amenable to scientific investigation, I should have thought that there would be by now a number of well established theories about various aspects of climate, and - one would hope - signs of their convergence towards some grand unifying theory of climate. At the risk of repeating myself, I am no expert on these issues, but what I can say is this; in fluid dynamics, viscosity plays a very complex role in the transition from laminar to turbulent flow. This is probably why weather forecasters these days use the methods they do. Equations of motion may be written for small elements of fluid, resulting in the so-called Navier Stokes equations (partial differential equations), but these have no known general solution, or at least they didn't when I was a student. The transition of laminar to turbulent flow cannot be investigated analytically. Our understanding of it is empirical.

If climate science too is not generally amenable to mathematical analysis - which I suspect is the case - we have to ask how we may obtain empirical knowledge of climate's causes. Clearly, such investigations are extremely expensive and fraught with difficulty. Our empirical knowledge of what causes climate is patchy at best, and so we are left speculating on a topic that possibly like laminar / turbulent flow transitions cannot be addressed analytically. If this is the case, it would become those involved to simply say "we don't know yet, and we can't say when we might know".

Edited by Alan Robinson
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Posted
  • Location: Beccles, Suffolk.
  • Weather Preferences: Thunder, snow, heat, sunshine...
  • Location: Beccles, Suffolk.

But that's just a time issue, not a science based judgement. We now know that evolution is a proven fact and that people and dinosaurs didn't co-exist; put yourself back in time say , 300 years ago and you wouldn't have been able to make that statement. It is the progress of science and passage of time which makes your statement accurate, the starting point of the research into the science, and sifting of fact from fallacy to reach that conclusion, started with a crackpot idea which ran counter to all known facts and ideas.

I'm not sure I understand you, with that one, J?

But surely without the speculation, there would be no progress? It is the germ of an idea, however bizarre, which is needed to unravel a puzzle.

But, in general, I absolutely agree with you there...

What we currently know about climate and how it all fits together doesn't provide an accurate picture of what has happened in the past, nor can it throw any light on the future. I agree we need empirical data and observation but the trouble with that is it merely shows what is happening after the event - it doesn't and cannot demonstrate why or how. We can measure the temperature of the atmosphere, the oceans, sea level rises, observe ocean currents, ice loss etc etc etc but with the best will in the world, even with all that knowledge, we still don't know how it all fits together.

I agree absolutely with that, J. But I'm still a tad perplexed when folks who (whilst invariably claiming scientific credentials) claim a 6,000 year-old Earth, go on to pontificate about changes that occur (or don't occur) over infinitely longer time-periods than they themselves will admit to having ever existed...Likewise (as someone-else suggested above), how can a homoeopathist's 'scientific' claims ever be trusted?

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Posted
  • Location: Rochester, Kent
  • Location: Rochester, Kent

The transition of laminar to turbulent flow cannot be investigated analytically. Our understanding of it is empirical. If climate science too is not generally amenable to mathematical analysis - which I suspect is the case - we have to ask how we may obtain empirical knowledge of climate's causes.

One has to be very careful not to go down the line of "There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now, All that remains is more and more precise measurement" (Lord Kelvin)

We know something's are not computable. Perhaps the most famous problem is the travelling salesman problem. This can be solved, exactly, if there are relatively few cities for the salesman to visit. In this case we can solve (and prove) an exact solution if there are five cities, but if one increased the problem, the exact solution requires ((19!)/2)*10^16 which is pretty much non-computable in any sort of useful time.

And so it is with climate science. If one considered each component of the climate problem as a city - and each part of the climate to also be a city - thus providing non-linear dynamics - and then attempted to solve it it would certainly take more than the expected lifetime of the universe to get a solution for even the smallest fraction of time in the future. It is unsolvable. Incidentally, these problems are well-known and studied, and are called NP-Hard.

One can digress and simply say that climate scientists do not know what they are doing. I think that that is not right. At all. Climate scientists use statistics to abbreviate the problem and make it malleable to analysis. In much the same way that the travelling salesman problem can be processed to give a good (but non-optimal, and not-provable) solution, so we can do that with climate through the extensive use of statistics. The TSP uses a branch of statistics called heuristics.

And that is where empiricism fails. We can kind of do this stuff, but it's not exact, it's using techniques that are known to interfere with initial condition sensitivity.

Fortunately, we can combine techniques that are known, but are not widely applied - we can combine probabilities using Baye's theorem, we can measure how much computation has affected the result using interval arithmetic.

We don't - and perhaps we can't, because the scientific method is about decomposition of the problem. Most NP-hard problems are easy to decompose but once you put the parts back together again (statistically, heuristically, or otherwise) the problem becomes non-computable.

That's my view, anyway.

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The argument from chaos / unpredictability always seems to me to be missing the point. Yes, the vast majority of what goes on is unpredictable - that's the bit we call "weather". Climate is the predictable bits. Just because details are unpredictable, that does not mean the "big picture" is unpredictable. I'm a molecular geneticist, and I don't have the first clue how the 25,000 or so genes in the human genome interact with maternal effects, nutritional effects and random environmental perturbations to control how long someone's nose is. I do however know that it will be attached to his head rather than his backside, that it will have airways running through it connected to the lungs, that there will be nerves running to and from it carrying information, and that if I hit it with a hammer it will get shorter and wider.

I'd kind of like us to stop hitting our climate with hammers, because while I don't exactly know how it maintains its current "shape", we can predict quite well that on our current course it's likely to adopt a much less aesthetic one.

Edited by songster
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  • Location: Rochester, Kent
  • Location: Rochester, Kent

Chaotic systems are not necessarily unpredictable nor non-computable. The pendulum is the perfect example - if it were unpredictable we wouldn't be able to use a pendulum to tell the time!

The weather for a point in time and space might be described as a function of the three variables: temperature, pressure, and humidity - ie for any given state of weather there is a unique set of these variables. But what of climate? How many more variables are required to describe the climate for a point in space and time? You only need to peruse a few climate sites to realise that there are a huge number of variables - and that the function of these variables interacting is not at all well known.

We can't compute climate from weather for the same reasons as the travelling salesman problem - it is NP-hard (not that it is chaotic - we can't compute weather because it exhibits high sensitivity to initial conditions - a property of chaotic systems) and as we abstract to climate - after all the climate, essentially, is the average of weather over time for a point in space - the quantity of variables increase so the problem is harder

Unlike many other systems we study climate seems reasonably unique in that as the abstraction increases from weather to climate so does the complexity.

Edited by Sparticle
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