Um, the geese are migrating kinda early

[stormdog74]

Here's one of my favorite sayings from when I was in college...

Q. What's the difference between a scientist (or mathematician) & an engineer.

A. Engineers have judgement.

Yes, and I suppose this is why that bridge in Minnesota collapsed, or the one in Tacoma (here is some good engineering for you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mclp9QmCGs), or why the Hubble was screwed up, or why the Space Shuttle blew up (by the way, from a very simple mathematical mistake - they used very poor judgement in probabilities), or.... these mistakes were all made by engineers.

People tend to forget that mathematicians played a significant role in winning WWII - British mathematicians broke the German code and American mathematicians broke the Japanese code, which put our military in excellent position for the victory at Midway. And wasn't it physicists that developed the nuclear bomb that saved so many Americans from dying trying to invade Japan?

Mathematicians and Scientists tend to be much more precise than engineers. When I was in school, all the people who couldn't hack mathematics or physics changed their degrees to engineering.

Reminds me of another joke from college:

Engineer's proof that all odds are prime: 3 is prime...oh, that's enough for me!

I don't understand all the reference to what's in the news - that is the last source we should be turning to for science. Newspapers and TV news live off of hype, so they will quote any "scientific" study even if it is only a preliminary study and has, as of yet, no backing. This just creates mistrust in science. There were a lot of people who thought smoking was healthy, but as the evidence has mounted, you won't find too many people who believe that today - that was good science.

I find it so odd that people are quick to dismiss scientists, who by and large seek to find the truth (yes, there are quacks out there too), and in contrast buy into the arguments made by politicians (forget both Gore and Bush and just read the science and then make up your mind).

My point being if you want to be truly informed, then read the science (this does not mean the talking heads yelling at each other on Fox News or CNN), look at the source, and seriously think about the points made. That Scientific American is a good place to start. If, after all this, you disagree, like Slik Geek, then that is fine. But I don't understand this attack on Global Warming based on...I don't really know - because there was some shaky study somewhere funded by people who had a direct interest in the result. Come on, of course you shouldn't buy into that.

[Black wallnut]

Whether weather patterns and trends are changing is sadly not the issue. The issue seems to be the cause. IMHO there are two ways to look at it; we are either exiting an ice age or heading into one. Climates change from time to time that is simply their nature. If indeed it is warming and we are the cause then we should be able to stop the change, yet the scientists say we are too late to fix it. I doubt we are the cause. I greatly doubt we can prevent whatever change may be taking place. We should however strive to recycle and reduce emissions and look for alternative energy sources.

If the geese are migrating early we should build more golf courses to provide them with habitat and then liberalize the hunting seasons and bag limits! They are mighty tasty once roased after removing the skin! Even though it would hurt my counties housing boom I'm wishfull for a few more long harsh winters to drive some of the new comers back to where they came from. That alone could help greatly in slowing our encroachement of elk and mule deer habitat!

[gwyneth]

Even though it would hurt my counties housing boom I'm wishfull for a few more long harsh winters to drive some of the new comers back to where they came from.

An example of climate change, colder or warmer, affecting the habitation, migration, and feeding patterns of all species...

[ironhat]

Err, ah, our geese are still here (cough) um, ah, that's all I have to say.

[jking]

stormdog74,

It seems a nerve has been struck with you. I'm sorry you took my intended humor the wrong way.

As to the Space Shuttle, I'm not sure if you're referring to Challenger or Columbia. If you're referring to Challenger, you seem to be misinformed.

I'm not going to continue the conversation beyond this point. I would encourage you to consider that someone (government, industry, special interest groups) pays for the research scientists do.

(Yes, I just ended a sentence with a preposition. What do you expect, I'm an engineer)

[Anna]

When it's hot, the blame is global warming. When it's cold, the blame is global warming. When it's flooding, the blame is global warming. When it's a drought, the blame is global warming.

We used to call it weather.

[Anna]

Mathematicians and Scientists tend to be much more precise than engineers. When I was in school, all the people who couldn't hack mathematics or physics changed their degrees to engineering.

Old joke from college:

Question: If you are standing 3 feet from your girlfriend, and every step you take covers precisely half the distance to her, how many steps does it take to kiss the girl?

Answers:
Math major: Infinity.
Engineering major: Three steps.


Well, we made fun of the chemistry, biology and physics majors, too.

As for global warming, the debate is really on whether it is anthropogenic or not. There is some warming over the last century, but much of it could be perfectly attributable to natural causes, if not outright measurement errors.

Look up the surface stations project, where volunteers around the country try to document the state of our surface temperature measuring stations. The results will astound you. And here's Anthony Watts' blog (the guy who started the surface stations project). Look up the entries under "How Not To Measure Temperature" to see how badly maintained the sensor stations are.

Just a couple weeks ago, a bug was found in the program that was used to calculate the annual average temperatures. And guess what? 1998 is not the warmest year on record anymore.

And, after the much touted grand "consensus" of experts about the causes of global warming, a more recent study shows that less than half explicitly touts global warming as being anthropogenic at all.

It doesn't say that humans are not causing global warming, but that the debate continues. The science is far from established. Does anyone even remember how in the '70s, we were all being scared about global cooling and how it was going to cause hunger and famine?

Back in the '30s, the New York Times had a story about how the glaciers were melting and that fish will be swimming in Buckingham Palace.

And here's a headline by the Washington Post, ca. November 2, 1922: "Arctic Ocean Getting Warm; Seals Vanish and Icebergs Melt."

The thing that really bothers me about the whole debate is how it's become an emotional, almost religious issue. We have people advocating destroying our very way of life because they believe it's for the best for everyone. Excuse me, but we fought two World Wars just so that some yahoo doesn't get to tell us what to do with our lives.

[steve-norrell]

This morning's newspaper reported that the gray whales are too skinny and blamed it on global warming. I guess they had to blame it on something other than normal natural cycles.

Gray whales are skin and bones
GAUNT: Scientists fear warming Arctic waters are reducing their food supply.

By DAN JOLING, The Associated Press
Published: September 5, 2007

Researchers off Mexico's Pacific
coast have observed what might be a case of global warming's
effects in the far north: gray whales returning to calving
grounds malnourished.

Where layers of fat should have covered whales' spines last
winter, researchers saw vertebrae sticking out. They spotted
other signs of malnutrition -- depressions around the blowholes
and head, and protruding shoulder blades -- that may indicate
declining health.

At least 10 percent of gray whales returning to Laguna San
Ignacio, one of four main calving and breeding lagoons off
Baja California, Mexico, showed signs of being underfed,
said Steve Swartz, a National Marine Fisheries Service whale
expert based in Silver Spring, Md.

You can read the full story online at:
http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/wildl...-9192987c.html


Didn't say anything about the goosey Vs, though.
Regards, Steve

[cgallery]

My point being if you want to be truly informed, then read the science (this does not mean the talking heads yelling at each other on Fox News or CNN), look at the source, and seriously think about the points made. That Scientific American is a good place to start. If, after all this, you disagree, like Slik Geek, then that is fine. But I don't understand this attack on Global Warming based on...I don't really know - because there was some shaky study somewhere funded by people who had a direct interest in the result. Come on, of course you shouldn't buy into that.

Like perhaps many people reading this discussion, I get much of my information about GW from sources other than primary ones. I honestly leave it to newspapers, magazines, television programs, friends, etc., to distill the data and feed it to me. I understand and am willing to accept the compromises involved in doing so.

The reason I've taken this route is simple: I'm unwilling to spend the time to hunt-down and read the primary sources regarding GW myself.

I'm unwilling to do so because of an inborn instinct that I think we all have about such matters. It is the same reason I don't devote time to reading books that guarantee gigantic casino winnings, or order pills that promise to enhance male proportions (if you know what I mean).

I've gotta believe that the earth's climate is as complex and chaotic as it gets. That some scientists are willing to draw as dire a conclusion as they seem to have just tells me that there are very few degrees of separation between their science and that of, say, the esteemed Dr. Boener of the Norwegian University of Male Sexuality.

Someone here mentioned we can't trust climatologists because meteorologists can't get their three day predictions correct. They were told that there is a world of difference between making a three day prediction and spotting a 100-year trend.

That may be true. But an engineer would perhaps put the 100 year trend in perspective of a 4.8 billion year old planet.

Someone check my math. 100 goes into 4.8 billion 48 million times. If the average human lives 80 years (42048000 seconds), then that trend would equate to .876 seconds of the average human's life.

Do I have that right? I can't. Either I'm wrong, or scientists are drawing conclusions based upon trends that are shorter (relatively so) than many of my dog's farts.

[JTimmons]

Okay, I read this earlier and came back to it as I had something to add, nothing about geese or global warming (wow gonna have to read it later, looks pretty juicy)

Anyway the doctor told me today that allergies they normally see later during the fall season are appearing a tad early this year, she commented that it was going to be rough winter. I guess it kind of adds to the flying Vs appearing early.

[Slik Geek]

There is actually a very strong consensus.

It's the science that will convince me. Consensus won't. The "global warming due to human influences" climatologists in effect say, "trust us, we mostly agree, so it must be true".

The hysteria was created by the media - global cooling was just a conjecture that had very little scientific backing and quickly was discarded...

The media picked up statements made by scientists.

I know the article and it makes a very strong case for Global Warming...

The authors make an impassioned appeal to accept the claim that humans are affecting the climate. The article has a "you must believe us" tone. What it lacks is unemotional hard facts that both demonstrate the causal link between mankind and climate change, as well as prove that natural causes can't explain the trends in the data.

I wouldn't call Life magazine a scientific source...

I didn't claim it was. They were reporting on the reality of the weather in much of the northern hemisphere. They also were reporting on theories put forth by scientists to explain the weather.

Good scientists always look for evidence against their theories...

That's exactly what I found conspicuously lacking in the cited article.

Don't confuse meteorologists with scientists...again, please don't confuse meteorologists with scientists!

Don't act like there is such a large gulf between these disciplines. Your statement is an insult to the science of meteorology. Meterology is every bit as much of a science as climatology. (In fact, meteorology is tested on a daily basis). Your local weatherman may be more of a technician than scientist, but his tools were created by real scientists of meteorology.

The difference between the two sciences is largely time and space. Meterology is concerned with relatively small areas and time spans measured in days. Climatology is concerned with the whole earth and much longer time spans.

These people are idiots, and are clearly not scientists...

Scientific American, August, 2007, page 70: "Human influence is discernible also in some extreme events such as unusually hot and cold nights and the incidence of heat waves".

I wasn't going to be quite so harsh in my judgement of the authors of the article. The point is that the media isn't coming up with these "blame human-induced global warming for the latest weather anomoly" on their own, it is these very same scientists who make these statements.

This is different, and the 90% is a probability. All that means is that they believe there is a 10% chance they are wrong - they do admit, as I do, that they may be wrong.

I suggest you read the article that I cited again. They don't indicate any doubt in their conclusions. Page 65: "...the unavoidable conclusion that human activity is driving it" (climate change). They have lost their objectivity, which perverts their science.

and yes, I know I have said enough

On the contrary, I have found this discussion rather stimulating (others apparently as well). I have appreciated your civility.

[Slik Geek]

But I don't understand this attack on Global Warming based on...I don't really know - because there was some shaky study somewhere funded by people who had a direct interest in the result. Come on, of course you shouldn't buy into that.

Perhaps the reason you don't understand is because you have assumed that people have been swayed by some shaky study. In my case, you would be completely wrong. Many people haven't accepted the human-induced global warming theories because they are thinking for themselves and can see the flaws or weaknesses in the supposed science.

If you consider that the dissenters may have a valid point, you'll have a fresh perspective on this matter and you might find that your confidence level in the human-induced global warming theories will decrease.

[stormdog74]

stormdog74,

It seems a nerve has been struck with you. I'm sorry you took my intended humor the wrong way.

As to the Space Shuttle, I'm not sure if you're referring to Challenger or Columbia. If you're referring to Challenger, you seem to be misinformed.

I'm not going to continue the conversation beyond this point. I would encourage you to consider that someone (government, industry, special interest groups) pays for the research scientists do.

(Yes, I just ended a sentence with a preposition. What do you expect, I'm an engineer)

I am back for more abuse...

I apologize if I took your humor the wrong way - I am feeling a bit isolated and it was just a defensive move on my part.

Yes, I am referring to the Challenger and I don't believe I am misinformed. The issue I am pointing out has to do with the assumption of independence of the o-rings. A common engineering trick is to add components assuming that they are independent. Adding another o-ring was thought to lower the probability of a failure even more (I believe there was another error in the calculation of the probability of the first failing as well, but I don't recall - something to do with the field joints); however, this assumes independence. This was a catastrophic assumption as they were not independent - what caused the first one to fail, caused the second to fail. In all likelihood, they could have added a few more with the same tragic result.

Well, I suppose a nerve has been struck, but not the one most seem to believe. I am not a Global Warming zealot - as I have said I have my doubts and still do, although I am inclined, based on the many scientific articles I have read, to believe that there is something going on. This does not mean I believe it will be catastrophic - again, just that there is something going on and it is worth investigating.

I guess what really gets to me, and I suppose I am not making myself clear here - my fault - is that most people dismiss the whole idea without even trying to read the science behind it. I would think that if this is such a hot issue, that more would look into it seriously. And I don't expect everyone to hunt down scientific journals - start with that Scientific American article or something similar. Slik Geek and I both read it and came to different conclusions, which is fine.

It seems that as long as someone finds something that doesn't fit with GW, then it must all be wrong (sorta of a gotcha moment). Anna brings up the global cooling thing again - as I said earlier this was a conjecture and never had any serious backing. She also brings up the error in 1998 being the hottest on record, but ignores that this error has little to do with the overall issue. Yes, they made a mistake (gotcha!), but one year makes little difference and the error has little effect on the overall trend, which is much more important. No one said 1998 was really cool, and even if it was, who cares - one year in the stock market means nothing; it's the long term trend that we care about. Not to pick on you Anna (really!), but most of your references are blogs and old newspaper stories. As I said earlier, newpapers are in the sensationalizing business.

I don't like that this has become such an emotional issue myself (believe me, I am not usually the rabble rouser type). And I am not trying to tell anyone how to live their lives - I am not about to give up my air conditioning (couldn't imagine a Sacramento summer without it) or my car, but I think there is something significant going on - how bad, I don't know. Probably not as bad as some say and probably not nothing as others say.

[stormdog74]

The media picked up statements made by scientists.

By some scientists - it could just be one for all we know. Isn't there some pervert somewhere with a website telling others where to hunt for little girls (it was in the news recently)? Would it be fair for someone in another country to read that and assume all Americans are perverts?

The authors make an impassioned appeal to accept the claim that humans are affecting the climate. The article has a "you must believe us" tone. What it lacks is unemotional hard facts that both demonstrate the causal link between mankind and climate change, as well as prove that natural causes can't explain the trends in the data.

I don't pick up the tone you do - as I said, it is a bit doom and gloom, but there is also a lot of good information there. We see it differently.

Don't act like there is such a large gulf between these disciplines. Your statement is an insult to the science of meteorology. Meterology is every bit as much of a science as climatology. (In fact, meteorology is tested on a daily basis). Your local weatherman may be more of a technician than scientist, but his tools were created by real scientists of meteorology.

I didn't mean to insult meteorologists (and I apologize as that was not my intent) - I believe I was responding to the statement regarding predicting weather for three days, so I was using meteorologist when I meant weather person (as on TV), and my dismay is for those seven day forecasts, which any true meteorologist should know are of very little use due to the chaotic nature of day to day weather.

Scientific American, August, 2007, page 70: "Human influence is discernible also in some extreme events such as unusually hot and cold nights and the incidence of heat waves".

I wasn't going to be quite so harsh in my judgement of the authors of the article. The point is that the media isn't coming up with these "blame human-induced global warming for the latest weather anomoly" on their own, it is these very same scientists who make these statements.

No, the media isn't coming up with these statements, but they are naturally drawn to those who make outlandish statements. I shudder to think the opinion of my profession is based on how some of my colleagues act.

Again, these statements are irrelevant - so, someone predicts something that doesn't come true; does that automatically mean there is nothing to the whole idea?

I suggest you read the article that I cited again. They don't indicate any doubt in their conclusions. Page 65: "...the unavoidable conclusion that human activity is driving it" (climate change). They have lost their objectivity, which perverts their science.

I guess we read this differently as well - I read it again last night when you first referred to it. This is their conclusion, and I don't necessary buy all of it, but I respect their conclusion as I do yours. Also, I guess I see 90% confidence as not that strong of a statement, so I don't see it as badly as you do. I like to see 95% confidence myself, if not 99%, but that doesn't mean I don't buy any of it. Sure, the proof is lacking - it has to be. This is not something you can prove in the mathematical sense - the cigarette companies lived off of the statement that there was no proof that smoking caused cancer. Some people smoke and don't get cancer, so how could it cause cancer?

Well, that's all for now - let the bashing begin! (I am not referring to anyone specific with this comment, and I mean it in a humorous way - although I fully expect to be bashed...)

[Anna]

It seems that as long as someone finds something that doesn't fit with GW, then it must all be wrong (sorta of a gotcha moment). Anna brings up the global cooling thing again - as I said earlier this was a conjecture and never had any serious backing. She also brings up the error in 1998 being the hottest on record, but ignores that this error has little to do with the overall issue. Yes, they made a mistake (gotcha!), but one year makes little difference and the error has little effect on the overall trend, which is much more important. No one said 1998 was really cool, and even if it was, who cares - one year in the stock market means nothing; it's the long term trend that we care about. Not to pick on you Anna (really!), but most of your references are blogs and old newspaper stories. As I said earlier, newpapers are in the sensationalizing business.

I quoted the news articles over the last century because I am under the impression that this particular climate scare is also sensationalized. The throw-away word is "consensus." Whenever I see that, it convinces me that a) the person doing the reporting knows nothing about science, and b) his story has no basis in good science.

[If we're going into science credentials, I have a science background, too. I have a BS in chemical engineering and a PhD in biochemical engineering. My PhD was heavily into research, including bioreactor engineering and protein production and purification, and a lot of math modeling. I have a passing knowledge of process control theory because I had to write the program that controlled several variables in my bioreactors (temperature, pH and feed rate). I also taught engineering thermodynamics, reaction engineering and classical physics, plus engineering science (dynamics and statics), calculus and differential equations.]

I read the Scientific American article you guys are talking about. I thought about writing a longer response, but I'll want my sources and citations in order, and that will take too much of my time. I do have a few comments.

1. The IPCC is composed of policy-makers, not scientists.
2. There are claims that the report released in February this year, parts of which the SciAm article is based, has little basis on actual science. The policy-makers who wrote the earlier report are claimed to have an incentive to promote climate fears as a way to justify carbon-based restrictions. Either way, it is not "science."
3. Scientists are asked to review parts of the IPCC report (not "write" them as claimed in the article), but not necessarily the entire report. When asked for a list of the names of these scientists earlier this year, the IPCC said that they'll release the names when the full report comes out (it hasn't, as far as I know).
4. The SciAm article keeps referring to the 2001 IPCC report because that report was much more dire in its projections. For example, in 2001, its prediction of sea level rise was 3 feet. In the 2007 report, it's down to 17 inches.
5. We only started systematic temperature measurements in the mid-1800s, just as we were coming out of an ice age.
6. The computer programs predicting dire climate change relies on a positive feedback mechanism for the CO2 effects. It's too long to get into, but a) nature abhors positive feedback effects, b) CO2 is a miniscule part of the atmosphere (0.0378%, up from an estimated 0.028% from the industrial revolution), c) absorption spectra for CO2 shows a diminishing effect, i.e. as the CO2 increases, the amount of heat absorption does not increase proportionately. That means if the CO2 concentration doubles, the amount of heat that is retained because of the CO2 does not double, it'll be a smaller percentage than that.
7. I'm wary of computer modeling. One of the jokes in research is that if you have the data, you can always create an equation to fit it. It also means that you can create any graph to fit the data. It says nothing about its predictive abilities, though. Case in point, the infamous Mann hockey stick. It was used in Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth because it showed the temperature increase as a function of time (flat line in the first 1000 years, then increasing dramatically during the last two hundred years). It turns out that any random numbers fed into the data will give the same graph. Another more recent example is Hansen's calculations of temperatures that turned out to have a bug in it, making 1934 the hottest year in the last century instead of 1998. It's an honest mistake, I suppose, but when these "scientists" claim that the science is settled, then things like this put their assertion into question.
8. There is evidence (can't remember the citation) that historically, temperature increase precedes CO2 increase.
9. There is mention in the article of the mismatch between surface temperature readings and atmospheric records. Hansen's calculations (NASA) relies on surface temperature readings. If you look at Watt's blog that I mentioned in my last post, you'll see the state of these sensor stations and why data gathered from them are at best dubious.
10. The numbers from these temperature sensors are "fudged." Okay, I guess the proper term is "corrected." One of the corrections used is to account for the changes in the environment over the last hundred years. Unbelievably, though, they assume that the sensors have become more "rural" rather than accounting for heat island effects, thus adding to the temperature reading rather than subtracting from it. The overall effect is that the corrections tend to have a value greater than the value of the differences in measurements being compared (for example, the corrections are in the order of 0.5 degrees; the change in temperature over the last century? In the order of 0.5 degrees).

This does not prove that global warming is not caused by people, but I have yet to see clear evidence that anthropogenic global warming is real. In fact, there is mounting evidence that we might actually start to see global cooling again.

I am not a climate scientist, and I do not make it my business to learn everything about climate change. I'd be happy to watch the debate go on, as long as it is factual and based on sound science. Some of my statements above could just as well be wrong, or prove to be wrong. I'd be happy to change my mind as long as I'm convinced.

My favorite quote is by Richard Feynman: "It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, you're wrong." From what I've seen, many of the climate computer models have little predictive value in the short term. In fact, some of them have been proven to be plainly wrong. Why would I trust them in the long term?