So, I do get it, that there are arguments that can be made about how climate change is either not happening or it's just part of the passing parade of weather, don't worry about it.
Let me give an example, the conditions or processes that can change climate are called 'forcings' and forcing can have feedback which either amplifies or attenuates the impact of the forcing. Turns out there are a lot of forcings and a lot of feedbacks.. In the recent report from the Artic council about the state of the Artic cryosphere, we find this - "Of those feedbacks expected to have strong effects, eight lead to further and/or accelerated warming, and just one leads to cooling."
Now, I could go to two different web sites and find one which used as it's 'evidence' that world is in imminent danger one or more of the positive feedbacks and another one which used the negative feedbacks as evidence that everything will be ok.
It's nice having these plausible physical explanations which can be incorporated into predictive models, but more important to me are these two facts, also embedded within the same report:
1) The intensity of feedbacks between
the cryosphere and climate are not yet
well quantified, either within the Arctic
or globally. This lends considerable
uncertainty to predictions of how much
and how fast the cryosphere and the
Arctic environment will change.
2) Model projections reported by
the Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change (IPCC) in
2007 underestimated the rates of
change now observed in sea ice.
Ok, so there is uncertainty and the models are wrong, but what's the trend? Things are happening faster and we don't know how fast they will go or if they will slow down.
Seems like that is a pretty big question and we better find out soon. Prudent risk management behavior would be taking mitigation steps for what we do know is happening with a plan to either ramp mitigation up or close it down depending on the outcome of more research and observations.
Friday, June 17, 2011
Follow up on the IPCC blogo-mania
I re-read my post from yesterday (that means at least one person has read my entries :) and realize that it could give the wrong impression. What I meant to say is that the content of the blogosphere reactions is political not scientific, although it claims to be about science...
The level of cross-linking and commentary triggered by Mark Lynas's single post creates a hyper-storm of content. This massive increase in information contains absolutely no increase in knowledge. From this kind of behavior, it's easy to see that after enough of these hyper-storms, finding knowledge in the sea of information get's harder. Already google searches return so much information that one has to be selective in what one chooses to follow-up on, and if you are trying to discern what is actually happening, then good luck.
Let me give a good example. Yesterday I found a youtube video of what looks to be steam release from fukushima reactor 4 that took place on June 14th. Some people called it an explosion, but I can't tell from that video what is happening. Searching the web for an explanation is nearly hopeless, the majority of links are dire warnings for which this 'explosion' is yet more proof for the point of view of the author with a link back to the youtube video.
It's easy to say that no one bothers to check facts anymore, but when it's this difficult, it's hard to see any other outcome but increased paranoia among the people who routinely plug into this stream of self-referential links. It's also easy to see how one can get the impression that the evidence for whatever you are talking about, in this case the 'explosion', is overwhelming, why I found 25 links talking about it!
The level of cross-linking and commentary triggered by Mark Lynas's single post creates a hyper-storm of content. This massive increase in information contains absolutely no increase in knowledge. From this kind of behavior, it's easy to see that after enough of these hyper-storms, finding knowledge in the sea of information get's harder. Already google searches return so much information that one has to be selective in what one chooses to follow-up on, and if you are trying to discern what is actually happening, then good luck.
Let me give a good example. Yesterday I found a youtube video of what looks to be steam release from fukushima reactor 4 that took place on June 14th. Some people called it an explosion, but I can't tell from that video what is happening. Searching the web for an explanation is nearly hopeless, the majority of links are dire warnings for which this 'explosion' is yet more proof for the point of view of the author with a link back to the youtube video.
It's easy to say that no one bothers to check facts anymore, but when it's this difficult, it's hard to see any other outcome but increased paranoia among the people who routinely plug into this stream of self-referential links. It's also easy to see how one can get the impression that the evidence for whatever you are talking about, in this case the 'explosion', is overwhelming, why I found 25 links talking about it!
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
IPCC shoot's itself in foot again.
Will the IPCC loose credibility with this event described by Mark Lynas: http://www.marklynas.org/2011/06/new-ipcc-error-renewables-report-conclusion-was-dictated-by-greenpeace/ ?
I suspect so, at least among non-scientists.
You can feel the frustration in Mark Lynas's response. You see, science needs to be 100% perfect in it's communications and on the Internet. It can't make mistakes or have people associated with it that have other, non-scientific, purposes.
The majority of critics get to play by different rules than science. James Hansen has noted that policy discussions and most public discussions take place using rules of Law. Climate Change is treated as the prosecutions case and all that is needed is to create reasonable doubt in at least one of twelve juror's. In other words, critics behave as lawyers and look for flaws.
Scientists look for flaws too and often discuss all possibilities. That is why the legal approach to science criticism is so effective, your 'opponent' provides more than enough 'evidence' to create doubt and spread the impression of confusion and malfeasance in the scientists.
Mark is right about the IPCC 'blowing' this. From a scientific perspective throwing out the possibility that renewable energy can reach 80% is ok, especially if it sparks examination about that goal. But that is not what is happening, because this was not science, it was a press release. Different rules are at play here. Climate Change, for the public, is a propaganda war now, not a scientific exercise.
I suspect so, at least among non-scientists.
You can feel the frustration in Mark Lynas's response. You see, science needs to be 100% perfect in it's communications and on the Internet. It can't make mistakes or have people associated with it that have other, non-scientific, purposes.
The majority of critics get to play by different rules than science. James Hansen has noted that policy discussions and most public discussions take place using rules of Law. Climate Change is treated as the prosecutions case and all that is needed is to create reasonable doubt in at least one of twelve juror's. In other words, critics behave as lawyers and look for flaws.
Scientists look for flaws too and often discuss all possibilities. That is why the legal approach to science criticism is so effective, your 'opponent' provides more than enough 'evidence' to create doubt and spread the impression of confusion and malfeasance in the scientists.
Mark is right about the IPCC 'blowing' this. From a scientific perspective throwing out the possibility that renewable energy can reach 80% is ok, especially if it sparks examination about that goal. But that is not what is happening, because this was not science, it was a press release. Different rules are at play here. Climate Change, for the public, is a propaganda war now, not a scientific exercise.
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