An issue has been made about facts and data in this thread. However, GW is a prediction of future calamity and
there are no facts or data from the future, unless somebody has a flux capacitor handy. Thus, it all boils down to this; do you trust the climate model makers? And if so, why?
These quotes are from the Nobel prize winning IPCC report:
"One source of confidence (in the models) comes from the fact that model fundamentals are based on established physical laws, such as the conservation of mass, energy and momentum..." The report assures us that "powerful computers" were used (and these quotes are from the scientific report, not the dumbed down version for policy makers).
OK, swell. How sophomoric is it to assure us that the models use accepted physics and big computers? Can you imagine a molecular biology paper assuring us that its conclusions were valid because the authors accepted the laws of biology and used really, really good lab equipment?
"Some climate models, or closely related variants, have also been tested by using them to predict weather and make seasonal forecasts."
I'm sorry, I thought weather predicting and climate forecasting were separate things. I was chastised for this by a medical researcher/climatologist in a prior post. Again, the monumental success of predicting short term hurricane frequency really inspires my confidence.
The report argues that models have been respectively studied against past trends with good success. I'll buy that, but the trends have been over thousands of years and the report concedes that small scale predictions of decades or even centuries is much more problematic. The report also admits:
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Nevertheless, models still show significant errors." Say it isn't so!!!
"...deficiencies remain in the prediction of tropical precipitation, the El Nino southern oscillation and the Madden-Julien oscillation. The ultimate source of such errors is that many important small scale processes cannot be represented explicitly in models..." Considering that El Nino alone can have significant impact on climate, this isn't a minor flaw. Remember, policy makers are believing this models to be accurate in time scales of 100 years or less, where short term oscillations can't be ignored (although, curiously, the UN committee seems somewhat hesitant to claim accuracy over such short time scales in the body of the report).
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Significant uncertainties in particular are associated with the representation of clouds and the resulting cloud responses to climates change." Hmmm, another minor glitch...after all, what effect could "significant uncertainties" in such trivial weather entitites as freaking CLOUDS have?
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Models used to date do not include uncertainties in climate carbon cycle feedback nor do they include the full effects of changes in ice sheet flow because a basis in published literature is lacking." Eh, what's another uncertainty or two among friends?
Finally, my own observation: the different models vary from one another by up to 100%. In oher words, there is wide discrepancy among the predictions of different simulations. Thus, most of them HAVE to be wrong (since they disagree)...why not ALL of them?
My position is that these models of our future doom may be right, but they are probably wrong (as such computer simulations are). I don't understand them, but then neither does anyone else in this thread. But the track record of such models in other realms (stock predicting, a less complex task) is quite miserable.
The position of some, however, even though they have no personal knowledge of these models, is that they ARE right without question, so right that we have to drastically alter our lifestyles to suit their predictions. These believers trust these models, even though the IPCC report itself admits uncertainties in them.
My question is: WHY? If you don't know these models personally, why oh why do you have such religious zeal in trusting them, even when the modelers themselves admit flaws?
Is that because climate modelers are, as a class, beyond reproach?
Or is it because they say something that fits nicely with what certain people WANT to believe: America is bad, rich consumers are bad, oil companies are bad, and so on?
OH, and in response to my challenge that SB members who believe in GW give up recreational diving that involves dive boats or jet travel (why should people give up their SUVs if others can't give up dive boats) as a show of their REAL concern for the planet?
Insert cricket noises here
