EPTIt's not that difficult to predict the weather tomorrow. Weathermen do so pretty well. But as you go further into the distance it becomes impossible. You know Seattle is going to be rainy because you study historic trends, not because you have any special insight into the weather.
TL vs. Climate Change (Denial) - Page 43
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TerribleNoobling
Azerbaijan179 Posts
It's not that difficult to predict the weather tomorrow. Weathermen do so pretty well. But as you go further into the distance it becomes impossible. You know Seattle is going to be rainy because you study historic trends, not because you have any special insight into the weather. | ||
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
On January 24 2013 03:22 TerribleNoobling wrote: It's not that difficult to predict the weather tomorrow. How about the weather on wednesday two weeks from now? Ok, now predict me the weather more or less for this time next year. Which one was easier. edit: you're right that it's a hard problem. But if you're honest with yourself, you'll have to admit that you don't personally know the first thing about it. This can be an exercise in humility! | ||
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TerribleNoobling
Azerbaijan179 Posts
An instructive text for this discussion is Kuhn's the Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Kuhn's thesis is that no scientist ever changes their mind, they are locked into the outdated models. He brings up the example of the guy who discovered oxygen. He never actually believed in his own discovery, because he was locked into the old model and maintained to his death he had discovered dephlogisticated air. Just like how when Chandrasekhar discovered the Chandrasekhar limit he was opposed by the scientific establishment and not given the credit he was due. Just because the majority of scientists believe something doesn't make it true, in fact once scientists - or anyone else - gets locked into a model they will never accept that they were wrong, they will go on fighting for this belief until they die. That's why if you want to convince people of something, you have to target the new thinkers, not the people who are emotionally and intellectually invested in an outdated model. | ||
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
here is some interesting reading http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory | ||
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TerribleNoobling
Azerbaijan179 Posts
Thus sensitive dependency upon initial conditions (the butterfly effect) was born! | ||
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TerribleNoobling
Azerbaijan179 Posts
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
edit: On January 24 2013 03:26 TerribleNoobling wrote: That's why if you want to convince people of something, you have to target the new thinkers, not the people who are emotionally and intellectually invested in an outdated model. If I didn't understand this, I wouldn't be here. edit: @below - you obviously don't know the first thing about me. What courage it takes to just decide you're right and never try to learn about anything! I admire you! | ||
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TerribleNoobling
Azerbaijan179 Posts
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imallinson
United Kingdom3482 Posts
On January 24 2013 03:26 TerribleNoobling wrote: It is more difficult to predict the weather the farther into the future you forecast. I also said exactly as much in my last two posts. That's why these climate change models are ridiculous. They're politically driven and have little relation to actual science. You are mixing together weather and climate. Weather is a short term phenomenon that is basically impossible to predict very far into the future. Climate is long term trends in the weather and thus doesn't require a the precision of a weather model. This is why it is possible to predict the climate much further into the future than weather. | ||
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RoyGBiv_13
United States1275 Posts
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
On January 24 2013 03:40 RoyGBiv_13 wrote: the FAA has accurate forecasts for wind speeds and temperature for every 2000 ft up to 5 days in advance. Having planned flights and flown them using these predictions, I'd say we're pretty good at forecasting. Yes, a thirty-day forecast of this precision would be difficult, but we can lose precision and still get good readings, such as only worrying about conditions on the ground, or just the temperature. Right, so you can predict maybe five days. That's the point. You don't just extend these sorts of calculations into the future linearly in order to study longer term trends, that's computationally intractable. edit; it's not like dragging your excel spreadsheet downwards into infinity, although of course you've been trained to think in this paradigm. | ||
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TerribleNoobling
Azerbaijan179 Posts
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
On January 24 2013 03:43 TerribleNoobling wrote: lucrative research grants. You're an idiot. Why don't you turn your conspiracy brain against the people are ACTUALLY profiting by actively working against the interests of humanity? you know, like, bankers. | ||
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TerribleNoobling
Azerbaijan179 Posts
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
edit: you have any idea what goes on, say, in food research science funded by capitalists? | ||
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TerribleNoobling
Azerbaijan179 Posts
On January 24 2013 03:45 sam!zdat wrote: You're an idiot. Why don't you turn your conspiracy brain against the people are ACTUALLY profiting by actively working against the interests of humanity? you know, like, bankers. Actually I'm quite critical of the present banking system. The problem is that the two functions of banking, that of warehousing money and that of investing have been mixed. What we need is a system of free banking, without government intervention, wherein any bank which practiced fractional reserves would go broke. But that's not really under the purview of this thread. I find it interesting that you have to call me names though - I guess you're so emotionally invested into this argument that any time someone challenges your viewpoint you feel the need to belittle them. | ||
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
Yes, I think people who deny climate change should be called names and not taken seriously. I think the way to fight this battle is just pure social disdain and ostracism, since rational discourse obviously doesn't work and | ||
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1Dhalism
862 Posts
the choice is to reduce emission of poisonous gasses that are derived from a resource that will eventually expire and ensure transition to a (virtually) endless supply of clean energy and maybe save the world from a global catastrophe in the process versus risk a potential global warming catastrophe and ensure a man made global catastrophe when we do run out of oil? Why are we talking about the weather models again? How are they relevant in any way other then make people bicker instead of focusing on quite obvious conclusions? | ||
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radiatoren
Denmark1907 Posts
On January 24 2013 02:56 TerribleNoobling wrote: First of all, the use of "denier" as in "hollocaust denier" is flatly Orwellian. Secondly, the idea that there is a ton of money funding us deniers is hilarious, because there is a hundred times as much money funding the global warming side. Oh wait. It's not man made global warming any more. Because that was bunk. Now it's "climate change". And we're not supposed to raise an eyebrow as the scientific establishment switches seamlessly (without acknowledging their defeat, of course) from global warming to climate change. I'll tell you what - when scientists can predict the weather a week from now, then you can work on predicting the weather one hundred years from now. There is a reason that the climate change denyers are getting so little funding: The amount of hoops they have to jump to rationalise their position makes for less good science in most cases! Global warming is not bunk. It was changed to climate change because it encompasses more areas than just temperature. Global warming is still there as a subset of climate change!. If anything you could critizise the escallation of language used. Just raging on the seeming disappearing of glabal warming is a bit less thought through. As for the rationalisation in the end, you are not even close to reality with this. I take it that you haven't done much scientific research yourself? You should understand that there is absolutely no loss in how well you can model on most upscaling of temporal steps or lenght of time series. And please keep weather and climate separate. | ||
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Ropid
Germany3557 Posts
On January 24 2013 03:36 TerribleNoobling wrote: oh what a brilliant scientific genius you are, walking in locksteep with the entire scientific establishment. what intellectual courage it takes to agree with people! (Note: I do believe in man-made global warming because of CO2 from fossil fuels) What's the possible harm in agreeing with the "scientific establishment"? If there could be a consensus that would lead to world-wide reduced use of fossil fuels, what would be bad about that? If we save fossil fuel now, it does not disappear. Our grandchildren could still start again with the fossil fuel use, if they want to. The only downside is for the people invested into the oil, gas and coal industry, and those are the guys trying to deny man-made global warming. That said, if there's no world-wide agreement, I'd vote for going ahead and using the currently cheapest energy available in Europe and the US, disregarding the future for now, even if that will perhaps eventually mean having to shoot hungry people trying to cross various international borders. | ||
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