The Analysis of Sea Levels.

[Hotel26]

So the Holocene began 11,700 years ago?  And record-keeping for temperatures began in 1880?

                                                                          

I am more concerned about the Reverse Flynn Effect, I have to say.

 

Edited August 12, 2023 by Hotel26

[Superfluous J]

3 hours ago, Hotel26 said:

I am more concerned about the Reverse Flynn Effect, I have to say.

Wow that article used a lot of words to say "kids these days amirite?"

[Hotel26]

15 minutes ago, Superfluous J said:

Wow that article used a lot of words to say "kids these days amirite?"

I believe they used computer models to come up with the numbers.

Edited August 11, 2023 by Hotel26

[tater]

5 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

I think @JNSQFan is confusing “heatwaves” with global average temperature, which is indeed the hottest on record (in the Holocene, since record keeping began).

I'd say since satellite records.

Every era going farther back in time has more and more uncertainty,  and they always seem to forget to propagate error and uncertainty. Individual measurement error, and systematic error as well.

Look at sea temperatures. Go back to when the best data might be from the Royal Navy pulling water up. Cloth or wooden buckets on a rope, dangled off the side of a moving vessel, measured with a mercury thermometer. Depth? Counted by how much rope, unsure, did they also log true speed through the water, so the slant angle of the rope is accounted for? Actual water mixed near surface with warmer water? And they will claim they have this data to some fraction of a degree, and over thousands of measurements? I'd expect that even those measurements aggregated (every ship did it a different way, and every single measurement by a different midshipman (or whoever got stuck with the duty). Even the time measurements that were made had uncertainty. Oh, and the locations, literally ±many nautical miles. Did they calibrate their thermometers on board whichever sailing ship each measurement (go to galley, submerge in boiling water, and check for proper temp (luckily always at sea level, at least!))?

Anyway, if the current temperature anomaly is a degree above 1800 (pulling a number out of my posterior), but the 1800 temp had a ±2°F uncertainty—we can't say anything useful.

That it has warmed continuously since the last ice age seems pretty likely as an assumption, the trick (IMHO) is characterizing it to fractional degrees per year with data that is nothing like that accurate. Old school thermometers alone are ±0.5° or so, after all, and we're paying attention to 0.1° signals. Get farther back in the Holocene and there are no actual measurements at all, just calculations to try and estimate temperatures based on secondary measurements (those should have huge uncertainties, maybe grossly above anomaly value).

WRT the temp in say, Albuquerque, the official temp, like many in the US is taken at the airport. Our airport, ABQ, has changed quite a lot since I have moved here, with more concrete, and 1 runway removed, another added, and 1 extended. The removed runway was removed from service, but still exists as a surface, it's not dirt. Facilities all around the airport (and AF base, and Sandia National Labs) have all grown, as well as the extent of the city itself to some degree in that direction (the base has prevented much direct S growth to the benefit of consistent temp measurements). Still, the urban heat island must have changed as the city grew far larger in a few decades, an at best the official temp at ABQ is taken in a space between taxiways, under 50m from tarmac. NOAA best practice for weather stations is to be 100m from any man made object at all, so ~40m from tarmac, where the wings of active jets overhang the tarmac shortening the range seems... less than ideal. When the airport was young, it was literally dirt to the horizon, nothing much nearby (say WW2). Course I dunno how they measured temp even in ww2 at the airport officially (important reading at all airports, but particularly in hot NM, at decently high altitude where the density alt can be really high in the right (wrong?) conditions).

 

[SunlitZelkova]

16 hours ago, Hotel26 said:

So the Holocene began 11,700 years ago?  And record-keeping for temperatures began in 1880?

I mentioned the Holocene because average global temperatures have been way hotter than now in the past.

Average global temperature in the 20th century was 57 degrees F, during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, it was 73 degrees F.

Therefore the statement that the average global temperature is “the hottest ever” would be incorrect.

16 hours ago, Hotel26 said:

I am more concerned about the Reverse Flynn Effect, I have to say.

That article says that data isn’t even necessarily an accurate indicator of the average intelligence of Americans.

From the article-

“It doesn’t mean their mental ability is lower or higher; it’s just a difference in scores that are favoring older or newer samples,” she said in a press release. “It could just be that they’re getting worse at taking tests or specifically worse at taking these kinds of tests.” 
 

I find it funny the emphasis on STEM may have decreased abstract reasoning though.

10 hours ago, tater said:

I'd say since satellite records.

Every era going farther back in time has more and more uncertainty,  and they always seem to forget to propagate error and uncertainty. Individual measurement error, and systematic error as well.

NASA has a system that does this called GISTEMP. It takes into account heat islands too.

https://climate.nasa.gov/explore/ask-nasa-climate/3071/the-raw-truth-on-global-temperature-records/

https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/history/

In the second link we see that even as inaccurate readings have been weeded out, the trend remains the same.

Whether this is translating into more extreme weather events or not may be up for debate, but the fact that the world is warming is not.

Edited August 12, 2023 by SunlitZelkova

[tater]

32 minutes ago, SunlitZelkova said:

In the second link we see that even as inaccurate readings have been weeded out, the trend remains the same.

Anything before global satellite coverage (and even early sat data) is hot garbage. That mean temp change is -0.5 to +1.0 degree C. There is no possible way 100 year old temperate estimates are ± even 1°C. The father back, the larger the uncertainty.

32 minutes ago, SunlitZelkova said:

Average global temperature in the 20th century was 57 degrees F, during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, it was 73 degrees F.

73°F? Who was flying the satellite constellation measuring this at the Paleocene-Eocene boundary? Ancient astronauts? So Sure, it was 73°F, ± some large number (by large I mean the uncertainty very likely contained impossible extremes.

The actual answer to many questions is "we don't know." Characterizing temps from 55M years ago to ± a fraction of a degree is absurd IMO. Any global average is also not in fact observed, but calculated since they have to integrate over the surface of the Earth with very few data points (more in modern sat era, obviously, far, far fewer as we go back in time). Anything at all based on a model? Meh.

[SunlitZelkova]

3 hours ago, tater said:

Anything before global satellite coverage (and even early sat data) is hot garbage. That mean temp change is -0.5 to +1.0 degree C. There is no possible way 100 year old temperate estimates are ± even 1°C. The father back, the larger the uncertainty.

73°F? Who was flying the satellite constellation measuring this at the Paleocene-Eocene boundary? Ancient astronauts? So Sure, it was 73°F, ± some large number (by large I mean the uncertainty very likely contained impossible extremes.

The actual answer to many questions is "we don't know." Characterizing temps from 55M years ago to ± a fraction of a degree is absurd IMO. Any global average is also not in fact observed, but calculated since they have to integrate over the surface of the Earth with very few data points (more in modern sat era, obviously, far, far fewer as we go back in time). Anything at all based on a model? Meh.

Do you have any sources from climatologists (real climatologists, not the likes of William Happer) who raise these concerns about the way we gather data?

[tater]

1 hour ago, SunlitZelkova said:

Do you have any sources from climatologists (real climatologists, not the likes of William Happer) who raise these concerns about the way we gather data?

There is no data about temperature at all from before thermometers.

There are only proxies that they assume—with models that are not falsifiable—can generate some sort of temp value. Models are not observation. Models are not experiment. Data is the result of observation.

So you can measure some tree rings, then come up with a model you claim maps to temperature. That's not observation, and the model would reasonably contain a huge uncertainty since you cannot possibly test it. Same thing with assumptions about layer thickness in ice core samples, etc. They all rely on someone's opinion about some constants in the model—how fast would a tree have grown? Does it change based on where the tree was in the ancient forest (which we can't know)? Any confounding factors? Ice cores, layer thickness assumes X amount of snow per year? Why, when we see snowfall vary hugely year to year. Compression then depends on the snow on top (also highly variable), etc.

All ancient guesses as to temperature should have huge uncertainty—not having that is simply hubris.

I don't like definitive statements that cannot be made with that level of certainty.

 

Edited August 12, 2023 by tater

[Delay]

@tater So what can we possibly determine about the distant past, preceeding humans (much less accurate scientific equipment) by hundreds of thousands or millions of years?

[tater]

5 minutes ago, Delay said:

@tater So what can we possibly determine about the distant past, preceeding humans (much less accurate scientific equipment) by hundreds of thousands or millions of years?

We can certainly get a general sense of things, it's making temperature graphs to 0.1°C that bugs me. A given sat system now can absolutely be compared to the same system X years ago. Any change in measurement technique means trying to account for the differences in the systems (plus the somewhat subjective modeling to integrate over areas not actually measured (most of the Earth)).

Royal Navy sea temperatures were maybe sorta useful in a broad sense for the RN, but I find it hard it imagine they are reliable measurement to measurement and ship to ship to try and detect climate changes that are observable at the 0.1 degree level (with devices that are themselves at best ±0.5°)

I think the climate science people for some reason think more measurements in the past is less uncertain—but each measurement (old thermometer data) is in fact unique, and with a lot of uncertainty. Pre-thermometer? Yeah, that's terra incognito. I'd take species alive (based on fossil record) as a better measurement—the critters look subtropical? OK, it was subtropical. What temp is that? Dunno, what temp range does "subtropical" mean? It's probably a ~20 degree C range.

What's a hyper-accurate proxy for "average temperature" at the scale of months/years?

[Delay]

1 minute ago, tater said:

We can certainly get a general sense of things, it's making temperature graphs to 0.1°C that bugs me.

So you don't want to answer the question at all beyond this?

[tater]

10 hours ago, Delay said:

So you don't want to answer the question at all beyond this?

We can't possibly know about the past at the fidelity we know current temperature data.

We don't know, and we can't know are completely reasonable answers.

It's possible to say "we think the temperature was probably in this range" where the range is pretty broad (like a decent ± range of  integer °C) assuming your question only pertains to "average temperature"—a nonphysical concept in itself there is no "average temperature," it's never observed, it's only calculated, and not calculated in a simple way where anyone could reproduce the value by taking data.

I would say for the distant past, we can broadly talk about climate in terms of what grew or was grown (the latter during recorded history regarding agriculture) in given regions. Really far we might have ideas about the range of habitat where different animals—say dinosaurs—could live, and that could inform us about the probable climate at that time (though much would be assumption regarding dino physiology).

Bottom line is if someone shows you a graph of temperature that claims to be accurate to fractions of a degree before the very recent past, they're blowing smoke up your (this is a family forum ).

All I want is some epistemic humility.

 

Edited August 12, 2023 by tater

[SunlitZelkova]

So it’s a no then.

I did a little googling to try and find some voices similar to yours, but all I found was an answer on Stack Exchange, very similar in wording, with three downvotes and people asking for evidence of his claims. The one above it had 16 upvotes and talked about how the use of multiple sources of data (tree rings, ice cores, etc.) makes it accurate.

14 hours ago, tater said:

All ancient guesses as to temperature should have huge uncertainty—not having that is simply hubris.

I have found no sources saying ancient temperatures have any uncertainty to the extent it would make them useless in studying climate change (I.e. the uncertainty is so bad the Paleocene-Eocene Maximum may not exist).

14 hours ago, tater said:

I'd take species alive (based on fossil record) as a better measurement—the critters look subtropical? OK, it was subtropical. What temp is that? Dunno, what temp range does "subtropical" mean? It's probably a ~20 degree C range.

This is the climatology version of Exoscientist proposing his SLS single launch architecture to replace Starship HLS.

This wouldn’t work btw. A species called palaeeudyptes klekowskii lived in Antarctica during the Eocene, and was similar to an Emperor Penguin- except it was 2 meters tall. But Antarctica didn’t look like it did today at that time. It had lush green forests and was similar to the Pacific Northwest in the summer.

Unless we have this hyper arbitrary “ignore that species, the climate must have been for the types of animals like these” we are never going to have an accurate climate reading under your proposal.

5 hours ago, tater said:

All I want is some epistemic humility.

This comes off as very similar to the SpaceX naysayers. You are assuming paleoclimatology is inaccurate, but not providing any evidence that it is beyond conjecture.

Just as I trust SpaceX is designing a functioning rocket and not something with a fatal design flaw described by Exoscientist, I think I will stick with the work being done by actual climate scientists.

If you can produce a reputable source that shares your concerns, I’ll reconsider, of course.

Do you think the paleoclimatologists would actually release their findings without mentioning any uncertainties, despite being trained scientists and having a responsibility to do so?

Or would climatologists use it in models without checking for such uncertainties? Every single climatologist on Earth would do the same thing, but with no one raising any concern at all?

A reputable source sharing your concerns would eliminate the need for these two questions, and I could take your claim more seriously.

[tater]

13 minutes ago, SunlitZelkova said:

So it’s a no then.

I don't care about credentialism at all. I'm arguing from first principles.

We have actual data on temperature from multiple sources NOW. And at high level.

There is no possibility of accurate temperature data in the distant past at all. It's not a thing, just proxies—which are turned into temp by "models."

13 minutes ago, SunlitZelkova said:

This is the climatology version of Exoscientist proposing his SLS single launch architecture to replace Starship HLS.

Not really, since the error bars I would put on such a "measure" would be huge. I would argue that suggesting past "average temp" in terms more precise than "cold," "moderate," or "warm" would be pointless.

13 minutes ago, SunlitZelkova said:

Unless we have this hyper arbitrary “ignore that species, the climate must have been for the types of animals like these” we are never going to have an accurate climate reading under your proposal.

I already said that it's literally impossible to have an "accurate" read on past climate assuming accuracy is measured in small ±°C, or even fractional °C.

Anything past, "it seems like it might have been warmer during the Jurassic" (no idea if that is true, just an example) is guesswork. Anything that uses a NUMBER, like "ave temp was 73°F 55,523,450 years ago" is nonsense.

13 minutes ago, SunlitZelkova said:

This comes off as very similar to the SpaceX naysayers. You are assuming paleoclimatology is inaccurate, but not providing any evidence that it is beyond conjecture.

I don't have to. They have the burden of proof.

How would a paleoclimatologist demonstrate that the Earth was in fact at a specific temp they claim 10,500 years ago, or 10M years ago?

I say, "we don't actually know" or, "we can't actually know."

 

 

Edited August 12, 2023 by tater

[tater]

It is precisely overconfident claims that make people think that it's impossible that humans can impact climate at all when it's in fact entirely plausible. Why would it make people think the opposite? Because it's self-evident nonsense to cite precise values for something that cannot in fact be observed. It can only be inferred through a lot of confounding data. That's fine, and it's even fine to assign it a numerical value—as long as it has appropriate uncertainty. Minus the uncertainty, people will assume they are lying.

Conditional language in scientific discourse is incredibly important.

Edited August 12, 2023 by tater

[SunlitZelkova]

23 minutes ago, tater said:

I don't care about credentialism at all. I'm arguing from first principles.

We have actual data on temperature from multiple sources NOW. And at high level.

There is no possibility of accurate temperature data in the distant past at all. It;s not a thing, just proxies—which are turned into temp by "models."

But can you see how a source would help you?

Exoscientist vs. SpaceX and NASA, tater vs. actual paleoclimatologists.

18 minutes ago, tater said:

Not really, since the error bars I would put on such a "measure" would be huge. I would argue that suggesting past "average temp" in terms more precise than "cold," "moderate," or "warm" would be pointless.

29 minutes ago, SunlitZelkova said:

I’d say it is like Exoscientist.

SpaceX and NASA say HLS can get humans to the Moon fast. They have presented their reasons for this and they are sound.

Exoscientist says it would be faster to use a single launch SLS based architecture. He has no evidence this is true.

Paleoclimatologists say it was 73 degrees F during the PETM. They have presented their reasons for this and they are sound.

You say they are inaccurate and we will never know the actual temperature. You have no evidence this is true (so far, I’m still waiting on a link if you can find one).

16 minutes ago, tater said:

Anything past, "it seems like it might have been warmer during the Jurassic" (no idea if that is true, just an example) is guesswork. Anything that uses a NUMBER, like "ave temp was 73°F 55,523,450 years ago" is nonsense.

27 minutes ago, SunlitZelkova said:

So what you are saying is that the paleoclimatologists are shams, and pulled that 73 degree temp out of nowhere because they are trolls?

Without evidence that exact numbers are nonsense, that is kind of what it seems like you are saying.

15 minutes ago, tater said:

I don't have to. They have the burden of proof.

They have already presented their evidence… it’s what their job is all about.

4 minutes ago, tater said:

How would a paleoclimatologist demonstrate that the Earth was in fact at a specific temp they claim 10,500 years ago, or 10M years ago?

By doing paleoclimatology?

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/Paleoclimatology_Evidence

https://www.climate-policy-watcher.org/ecological-footprints/ice-cores.html

https://www.climate-policy-watcher.org/ecological-footprints/dendrochronology.html

https://www.climate-policy-watcher.org/ecological-footprints/proxy-data-geomorphic-landforms.html

https://www.climate-policy-watcher.org/ecological-footprints/olimate-proxies.html

5 minutes ago, tater said:

It is precisely overconfident claims that make people think that it's impossible that humans can impact climate at all when it's in fact entirely plausible. Why would it make people think the opposite? Because it's self-evident nonsense to cite precise values for something that cannot in fact be observed. It can only be inferred through a lot of confounding data. That's fine, and it's even fine to assign it a numerical value—as long as it has appropriate uncertainty.

I think it is a symptom of broader science denialism rather than “overconfident” claims.

Saying “we’re only 99% sure the Earth is round” is not going to make flat earthers go away. It will just reinforce their claims. Same for climate.

[tater]

11 minutes ago, SunlitZelkova said:

Paleoclimatologists say it was 73 degrees F during the PETM. They have presented their reasons for this and they are sound.

Unfalsifiable.

It cannot be tested.

11 minutes ago, SunlitZelkova said:

They have already presented their evidence… it’s what their job is all about.

Models != evidence.

Evidence would be temperature measurements—which are self-evidently impossible.

Their model is fine, but there is no reason to believe it is accurate to fractional °C. I can simply look for error bars or reasonable confidence intervals—if they are not there, I don't take it seriously.

It's easy to set tight confidence intervals on things you know no one can actually ever measure.

13 minutes ago, SunlitZelkova said:

I think it is a symptom of broader science denialism rather than “overconfident” claims.

Saying “we’re only 99% sure the Earth is round” is not going to make flat earthers go away. It will just reinforce their claims. Same for climate.

Nonsense.

They make overconfident public claims precisely because they think the rubes in the public like hearing confidence and don't understand conditional language. If the job was science communication, the language would be conditional—the lack of that is political language, not scientific language.

 

[SunlitZelkova]

3 hours ago, tater said:

Unfalsifiable.

It cannot be tested.

So we’re supposed to leave history blank because we don’t have the same level of accuracy as today?

Even if the PETM temperature is an estimate, it is an informed estimate, not something they pulled out of nowhere.

But anyways, amidst my research for this discussion there is something I have realized. The accuracy of paleoclimatology does not really impact my original statement- the Earth is warming, and that is an undeniable fact.

Whether now is the hottest ever or the PETM is, is just something nice to know, but not vital in knowing that the Earth is warming now.

So I retract my statement about the Holocene. This may very well be the hottest year ever on Earth.

3 hours ago, tater said:

Nonsense.

They make overconfident public claims precisely because they think the rubes in the public like hearing confidence and don't understand conditional language. If the job was science communication, the language would be conditional—the lack of that is political language, not scientific language.

They have reason to be confident, and they are not “overconfident”- in fact, for the most part they have pretty much been right.

https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2943/study-confirms-climate-models-are-getting-future-warming-projections-right.amp

The paper mentioned in the NASA article if you want to see the direct source- https://eps.harvard.edu/files/eps/files/hausfather_2020_evaluating_historical_gmst_projections.pdf

I’ll say it again- climate change denial is a symptom of broader science denial, not anything pertaining to climate change itself.

[FleshJeb]

On 8/12/2023 at 6:38 PM, SunlitZelkova said:

So we’re supposed to leave history blank because we don’t have the same level of accuracy as today?....

Notice you're doing all the real work in the thread here, and the response is the equivalent of, "bad vibes, man."

"Please define 'vibes'."

"I dunno dude, just feels wrong"

"I've computed a Fast Fourier Transform of the vibes. Please point to the spot on the graph where the vibes touched you."

"Man, it's just all bumpy; I don't like it."

"Uhhh, that's just how waves work..."

"Well why don't you knock it off with them negative waves."

"Forget this, I quit."

Part of my profession is recovering and retracing historical measurements. Data collected with varying methodologies and accuracies. Guess what? We look at the methods and equipment they used and take that into account when assessing the data. We look at the manuals that were followed at the time, as well as contemporaneous field notes, and even accounts of the professional reputations of the data gatherers.

As it happens, I've read an analysis of the Royal Navy data. Yes, the climate scientists are aware that the error bars are large, and the analysis discusses causes, effects, and magnitudes at length. The notion that the sailors were just randomly throwing buckets over the side is also nonsense--They had rigorous procedures to follow, and for the most part, they did.

The interesting thing about having lots of noisy imprecise data rife with systematic errors is that you CAN pull meaningful trend lines out of it. Doing this is a whole branch of hard science. Hell, that's how GPS positioning works--If it weren't for all the modeling and corrections thrown in, it would be terrifyingly inaccurate.

To the "it's just a model" critique: I still remember the first week of high school science where we discussed that ALL science is about making models and approximations, but doing so in a rigorous way--It's foundational to the discipline. To blithely dismiss the validity of modeling as a whole is a very shallow, incurious argument.

I need to start posting as a Plate Tectonics skeptic, using the same argumentation.  IIRC there was considerable resistance at the  time the theory was introduced, and the two phenomena should follow broadly similar evidentiary methods.

EDIT: I have to throw this in to clarify something that stood out on re-reading:

The specific complaint was "unverifiable models". Yes, that's a bit more reasonable take. However what's being done is taking a bunch of models from examining different phenomena and cross-corroborating them. That's a much more rigorous approach. Is it possible to over-adjust models to make the corroborations work better? Yes, but that's a much more difficult prospect, and flaws would be more readily apparent. I'd have to see several explicit, detailed, GOOD FAITH critiques to completely invalidate the conclusion that climate change is occurring and that it's anthropogenic.

The whole climate change skepticism thing hinges on one or two assertions--That scientists are either pushing an agenda, or they're too stupid to see difficulties that non-subject matter experts readily identify. As someone who has met a bunch of field scientists in various disciplines, here's my "vibes-based" take: Those of us who go out and get muddy and bloody to collect data are obsessed with being provably correct, not an agenda. Whatever conclusions are drawn are not particularly important, it's that we arrived at the conclusion with EVIDENCE. The perfectionism and desire for certainty is downright neurotic.
As to "missing relevant factors": Of course it happens, but it's usually highly technical and non-obvious. The simple, boneheaded mistakes get called out by our co-workers. I've been on both ends of that, and boy do we get smug about it--Because being right is everything.

Edited August 15, 2023 by FleshJeb
Tojours clarity and more vibes

[kerbiloid]

On 8/12/2023 at 3:05 AM, SunlitZelkova said:

That article says that data isn’t even necessarily an accurate indicator of the average intelligence of Americans.

Isn't?!

This article is even too kind for them!

Just watch any Holy Wood postapocalyptic series, say, the Walking Dead, or others, and not be jumping on your seat and crying "Idiots! What are they doing?!"

On 8/12/2023 at 11:51 PM, SunlitZelkova said:

I have found no sources saying ancient temperatures have any uncertainty to the extent it would make them useless in studying climate change

by the hired climatologists, whose job is to study the ancient climate for money. 

There is no such thing as "20°C" or "57°F" temperature.
There is 293 K, and every measuring tool has its officially defined "class of accuracy", i.e. precision in percents.
Even 5% error means 15 K of absolute error.
And any "0.1 K" for the ~300 K value is what a student gets a "fail" on Metrology exams, unless the climate archaeologists use mercury thermometers from far past. They can't have enough large sampling to get this accuracy from average. Even the aviation meteorological network doesn't provide such precide values.

On 8/12/2023 at 11:51 PM, SunlitZelkova said:

Do you think the paleoclimatologists would actually release their findings without mentioning any uncertainties, despite being trained scientists and having a responsibility to do so?

The whole history of science is based on trained specialist studies, having responsibilities, and a decade later disproved by the other such scientists.
For example, because every scientists follows his school models and ideas, until they get too obviously erroneous.

Every scientist adds new bricks to his school tower, finding an appropriate place for them.
Until the tower falls down.

On 8/13/2023 at 12:02 AM, tater said:

How would a paleoclimatologist demonstrate that the Earth was in fact at a specific temp they claim 10,500 years ago, or 10M years ago?

I say, "we don't actually know" or, "we can't actually know."

They can't. They can only say what it definitely could not be. And the range is wide.

On 8/13/2023 at 12:55 AM, tater said:

Unfalsifiable.

A question about any specialist: a climatologist, a historian, an archaeologist, an astronomer, etc.

If an archaeologist has found an artifact, which looks absolutely matching a specific historical culture, definitely not fake or dug for fun, what will he do:
1. Presume, that they were making artifacts from later epochs? (And be a freak).
2. Presume, that the famous culture is not so ancient, and belongs to the artifact epoch? (And be a freak)?
3. Throw the artifact away and forget it, telling to nobody?
As probably most of specialist aren't ready to flush down their reputation, diploma, career, and life in toilet just for a stupid artifact, this makes any such study unfalsifiable, and thus non-scientific.
Say, in physics it's much harder to do so, and in mathematics is almost impossible.

On 8/13/2023 at 12:29 AM, SunlitZelkova said:

They have already presented their evidence…

They have presented their interpretation based on widely accepted models of their community.

On 8/13/2023 at 12:55 AM, tater said:

Their model is fine, but there is no reason to believe it is accurate to fractional °C

is the most obvious symptom of false.

"Our cream protects your skin by 55.685% better than others!"

Edited August 15, 2023 by kerbiloid

[RevanX_LSR]

what war did i start?

[SunlitZelkova]

9 hours ago, FleshJeb said:

Notice you're doing all the real work in the thread here, and the response is the equivalent of, "bad vibes, man."

"Please define 'vibes'."

"I dunno dude, just feels wrong"

"I've computed a Fast Fourier Transform of the vibes. Please point to the spot on the graph where the vibes touched you."

"Man, it's just all bumpy; I don't like it."

"Uhhh, that's just how waves work..."

"Well why don't you knock it off with them negative waves."

"Forget this, I quit."

Part of my profession is recovering and retracing historical measurements. Data collected with varying methodologies and accuracies. Guess what? We look at the methods and equipment they used and take that into account when assessing the data. We look at the manuals that were followed at the time, as well as contemporaneous field notes, and even accounts of the professional reputations of the data gatherers.

As it happens, I've read an analysis of the Royal Navy data. Yes, the climate scientists are aware that the error bars are large, and the analysis discusses causes, effects, and magnitudes at length. The notion that the sailors were just randomly throwing buckets over the side is also nonsense--They had rigorous procedures to follow, and for the most part, they did.

The interesting thing about having lots of noisy imprecise data rife with systematic errors is that you CAN pull meaningful trend lines out of it. Doing this is a whole branch of hard science. Hell, that's how GPS positioning works--If it weren't for all the modeling and corrections thrown in, it would be terrifyingly inaccurate.

To the "it's just a model" critique: I still remember the first week of high school science where we discussed that ALL science is about making models and approximations, but doing so in a rigorous way--It's foundational to the discipline. To blithely dismiss the validity of modeling as a whole is a very shallow, incurious argument.

I need to start posting as a Plate Tectonics skeptic, using the same argumentation.  IIRC there was considerable resistance at the  time the theory was introduced, and the two phenomena should follow broadly similar evidentiary methods.

EDIT: I have to throw this in to clarify something that stood out on re-reading:

The specific complaint was "unverifiable models". Yes, that's a bit more reasonable take. However what's being done is taking a bunch of models from examining different phenomena and cross-corroborating them. That's a much more rigorous approach. Is it possible to over-adjust models to make the corroborations work better? Yes, but that's a much more difficult prospect, and flaws would be more readily apparent. I'd have to see several explicit, detailed, GOOD FAITH critiques to completely invalidate the conclusion that climate change is occurring and that it's anthropogenic.

The whole climate change skepticism thing hinges on one or two assertions--That scientists are either pushing an agenda, or they're too stupid to see difficulties that non-subject matter experts readily identify. As someone who has met a bunch of field scientists in various disciplines, here's my "vibes-based" take: Those of us who go out and get muddy and bloody to collect data are obsessed with being provably correct, not an agenda. Whatever conclusions are drawn are not particularly important, it's that we arrived at the conclusion with EVIDENCE. The perfectionism and desire for certainty is downright neurotic.
As to "missing relevant factors": Of course it happens, but it's usually highly technical and non-obvious. The simple, boneheaded mistakes get called out by our co-workers. I've been on both ends of that, and boy do we get smug about it--Because being right is everything.

Thank you!

8 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

by the hired climatologists, whose job is to study the ancient climate for money. 

There is no such thing as "20°C" or "57°F" temperature.
There is 293 K, and every measuring tool has its officially defined "class of accuracy", i.e. precision in percents.
Even 5% error means 15 K of absolute error.
And any "0.1 K" for the ~300 K value is what a student gets a "fail" on Metrology exams, unless the climate archaeologists use mercury thermometers from far past. The can't have enough large sampling to get this accuracy from average. Even the aviation meteorological network doesn't provide such precide values.

This is bordering on a conspiracy theory. It’s like saying the whole of astronomy, physics, and cosmology is false because these people get payed to research and therefore would just make up stuff as they go along in order to make money.

Black holes can’t exist, the scientists just want money!!!11!!1!!

11 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

The whole history of science is based of trained specialist studies, having responsibilities, and a decade later disproved by the other such scientists.
For example, because every scientists follows his school models and ideas, until they get too obviously erroneous.

Every scientist adds new bricks to his school tower, finding an appropriate place for them.
Until the tower falls down.

So unless someone disproves Mendelian genetics, it is a fraud?

What your saying is climate science is automatically fishy because climate scientists reject theories that say there is no warming, right?

So by extension, people who refused to accept Lysenkoism when it questioned Mendelian genetics are in on some conspiracy to control genetic science.

15 minutes ago, RevanX_LSR said:

what war did i start?

This happens every time someone brings up climate science, because for some reason faked Moon landing conspiracies are banned but other categories of science denialism are allowed…

[Hotel26]

25 minutes ago, RevanX_LSR said:

what war did i start?

No one in polite society mentions religion, politics, sex -- or the weather.  [But I repeat myself.]

Edited August 15, 2023 by Hotel26

[Superfluous J]

1 hour ago, RevanX_LSR said:

what war did i start?

"How to fight about politics without fighting about politics"

Edited August 15, 2023 by Superfluous J

[kerbiloid]

4 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

It’s like saying the whole of astronomy, physics, and cosmology is false because these people get payed to research and therefore would just make up stuff as they go along in order to make money.

The people live in real world, where nobody will publish or hire a person with a reputation of scientific freak, except in a freak show.

Remember Boltzmann, Wegener, many others...

So, it's important to follow the mainstream and not deviate too radically.

Btw, the blackholes are just a hypothesis. There are other... marginal... explanations of the phenomenon.

4 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

So unless someone disproves Mendelian genetics, it is a fraud?

The Mendelian genetics was obsolete long ago, but its basic theses are a pure arithmetics, and they stay.

Also it doesn't take into account, say, mithochondrial DNA, genetic exchange between bacteria, crossingover, etc.

It's a primitive basis.

4 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

What your saying is climate science is automatically fishy because climate scientists reject theories that say there is no warming, right?

No, because they demonstrate excessive confidence in a highly stochastic process prediction, even without possibility of direct measurements (they can measure only depleted traces).

And because they say that several more centimeters will mean a global catastrophe, when just 10k years ago the ocean level had raised by 100 meters, and no global hurricanes happened.

4 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

Lysenkoism

Another sample of a disproved school of science. Lysenko was not alone.

Another sample is Marr, in linguistics.

4 hours ago, Hotel26 said:

or the weather

In school, they were teaching us that weather is the most neutral theme, and the British always discuss it at five o'clock.

The problem which stayed unclear, how can the British drink tea at five o'clock, when they work till six.