Why I decided not to enter the $100k global warming time-series challenge | Hacker News Reader

Why I decided not to enter the $100k global warming time-series challenge

andrewgelman.com

117 pointsaaronchall80 comments

The first lesson in any experiment is to understand the question you're answering. This is a great example of that.

Those who believe in climate change should just reframe the argument in the face of skeptics.

Just say, "you're right, we don't know the science is true but just like people/companies take out insurance in situations of risk so should we." Because when the problem is reframed as an exercise in risk mitigation then it is very hard to argue against. Especially when said activities have not been shown to have a measurable impact on the world's economic activity. In fact huge benefits will come if we invent largely free energy.

Saying that climate scientists should qualify their findings using risk & mitigation models is like telling an olympic athlete that they should train if they want to win gold. Not only do they know, not only have they been doing it all along, but they have invested such monumental effort in doing an extraordinarily good job of it all along that the fact that you aren't aware is depressing. Doubly so because, in contrast to athletics, the point of the exercise wasn't to win a contest but rather to achieve the very public awareness that, evidently, they haven't.

https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/

I don't think the commenter is saying that climate scientists should rephrase their findings using risk & mitigation models.. at least not the way I understand that comment.

To me the comment says "Shift the argument from 'Are we sure climate change will happen?' to 'How much insurance against climate change should we buy?'"

However much expertise has been invested in risk analysis, I don't see the public debate being framed in terms of risk analysis.

Maybe this is an example of the level of skill in the PR campaign for denialism -- no need to win the argument if you can just get it framed the way you want.

> to 'How much insurance against climate change should we buy?'

What does it mean? To buy insurance from whom?

If you're asking about what is by many scientists considered to be a long-term safe CO2 level, then the answer is 350 ppm. Which we already blew through.

'Said activities' are having & will have an enormous impact on the world's poor. This is not necessarily a conclusive argument against undertaking them (if survival is at stake) but a balanced view of the kind we don't get is needed.

The language used is that of religious fervour with talk of 'denial', and 'sceptics' - as if reasoned scepticism isn't the basis of how science progresses. ("Conjecture and refutation- Karl Popper" anyone?)

My point is not to argue against CAGW but to bemoan the lack of any calm appraisal of pros and cons. A response to risk mitigation is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zw5Lda06iK0 where the thesis is based on figures accepted by the IPCC and Lord Stern. I've not seen a sensible rebuttal. No one discusses the massive increase in the utterly predictable 'greening of the planet' that has and is taking place as a result of the CO2 increase. This translates to $billions in crop production. We only hear of negative effects. Estimates of the lowering of temperature supposedly linked to lowering of emissions after 50-100 years, cite decreases imperceptible to a human and hedged with uncertainties as to their origin and statistical treatment. And so on.

Finally, you don’t have to be a climate scientist to note that 1/3 of all emissions of CO2 have occurred since 1970 with no significant increase in global temperature. What do we deduce from this about CAGW? This is a question not a slanted conclusion.

> Finally, you don’t have to be a climate scientist to note that 1/3 of all emissions of CO2 have occurred since 1970 with no significant increase in global temperature.

http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/File:Instrumental_Tempe...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temperature_record#/media/File...

http://wattsupwiththat.com/global-temperature/ All linked back to sources.

E-mail messages obtained by a Freedom of Information Act request reveal that NASA concluded that its own climate findings were inferior to those maintained by both the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) — the scandalized source of the leaked Climate-gate e-mails — and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Climatic Data Center.

The e-mails from 2007 reveal that when a USA Today reporter asked if NASA’s data “was more accurate” than other climate-change data sets, NASA’s Dr. Reto A. Ruedy replied with an unequivocal no. He said “the National Climatic Data Center’s procedure of only using the best stations is more accurate,” admitting that some of his own procedures led to less accurate readings.

“My recommendation to you is to continue using NCDC’s data for the U.S. means and [East Anglia] data for the global means,” Ruedy told the reporter.

I don't understand what temperature anomaly means, could you please explain?

It's a euphemism meaning "unexpected, outside normal variation, temperature change."

Huh, so the data in that link actually seems to agree with climate change

http://mediamatters.org/research/2010/03/31/ceis-horner-enli...

What has to do your post with the OP's one?

By the way, still talking about "climate gate". Doesn't have the people at whatsupp anything better to try to deny things?

> I've not seen a sensible rebuttal. No one discusses the massive increase in the utterly predictable 'greening of the planet' that has and is taking place as a result of the CO2 increase. This translates to $billions in crop production. We only hear of negative effects. Estimates of the lowering of temperature supposedly linked to lowering of emissions after 50-100 years, cite decreases imperceptible to a human and hedged with uncertainties as to their origin and statistical treatment. And so on.

We have discussed it. You're the one that hasn't heard about the effects.

"We can't count on plants to slow down global warming" http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-...

"Research published in Science today found that increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere cause soil microbes to produce more carbon dioxide, accelerating climate change." http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-04/nau-sfa042414...

We not only understand that plan CO2 absorbtion does not increase after a certain threshold, but that the effect is much worse on phitoplakton, which is the big recycler of atmospheric CO2.

"Plankton are showing the effects of a warming climate as marine populations worldwide experience a regime shift caused by climate change. In northern oceans, biogeographical boundaries are shifting northward as warm-water species displace cold-water species, causing trophic cascades. Ocean acidification is accelerating and threatening the long-term survival of many marine species." http://bioscience.oxfordjournals.org/content/56/8/642.full

"Tropical rainforests are becoming less able to cope with rising global temperatures according to a study that has looked back over the way they have responded to variations in temperature in the past half a century.

For each 1C rise in temperature, tropical regions now release about 2 billion extra tonnes of carbon-containing gases – such as carbon dioxide and methane – into the atmosphere, compared to the same amount of tropical warming in the 1960s and 1970s, the study found." http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/climate-change-rai...

Multiple papers have cited that the ecosystem shift (which is objectively observable) produced by current temperature trends goes far beyond what species can adapt to rapidly, cause a severe, irrecoverable loss in biodiversity. You talk about "no significant increase in global temperature", and yet all serious credible models by independent agencies not only indicate the contrary, but are supported by actual, empirical evidence beyond mere temperature readings, which include the observation that glacier melt is increasing.

"The World Glacier Monitoring Service, based at the University of Zurich in Switzerland and with partners in 30 countries, has been compiling data on changes in glaciers over the last 120 years. And it has just compared all known 21st century observations with data from site measurements, aerial photography and satellite observations and evidence from pictorial and written sources. Altogether, the service has collected 5,000 measurements of glacier volume and changes in mass since 1850, and 42,000 records of variations in glacier fronts from records dating back to the 16th century.

And the evidence is clear: the glaciers are in retreat, worldwide, and the retreat is accelerating." http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/aug/04/speed-gla...

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Now that I've presented and abundant pile - yet only a fraction of the available - evidence, I'm going to rant on the subject:

You seem a like a smart fellow in being able to ask the questions about it, but as a layperson who has been following the latest research on climate science and glaciology, you're severly underestimating the extent of your ignorance on the matter and the considerations of what is settled science.

* It has been understood for quite a while already that the projected temperature increases will result in a significant global reduction of crop yield and arable land. If you had been sufficiently informed to be a climate skeptic with useful questions to contribute to a "debate", this would not even be a point of contention. You cannot equate your personal ignorance on the matter with your assumption of what climate scientists currently undersand

* The evidence of glacial melt in response to temperature increase is so massively overwhelming that whatever questioning a very tiny minority of less-than-credible climate scientists and geologists have over collection methods for temperature data is crushed by the preponderance of good records of glaciers across the world, with photographic evidence to boot.

* The effects of rising temperatures, by themselves, are only a small fraction of the total effects of changing climate, which are far, far riskier. Atmospheric temperature increases are a walk in the park considering the totally catastrophic effects of ocean acidification and the increase of the ocean's heat mass and its effect in changing ocean currents.

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Finally, I'm going to talk about whatyou say is a "calm apprasial of pros and cons":

Once again, the overwhelming evidence that we currently have is that we continue under the "business as usual" scenario, there is one, and only one path that we are taking: that of an accelerated mass extinction event with a cost of human life that we cannot begin to understand.

The consequences of a loss of 25% of arable land in the world are incalculable. The loss of phitoplankton, the base of the entire food chain, implies a global change in available energy in all ecosystems. The change of atmospheric CO2 concentrations implies a reduction of nutrients in the plants that we consume.

Above all, once ecosystems degrade beyond a certain point, they are gone for good; they do not recover. We are only beginning to understand the immense cost of trying to recover collapsed fish stocks. Once the real effects of ocean acidifycation kick in, you can say goodbye to the formation of healthy hard-shelled ocean organisms, because they simply cannot adapt rapidly enough (this we know experimentally and through obsevation of affected ecosystems).

And the more we keep poking these known feedback loops, the greater the chance of permanent destabilization. I wonder if you're aware of the methane clathrates in the Siberian permafrost and how a lot of glaciologists consider that this may be a ticking time bomb that, if breached, can lead to an extinction event of the level of the Permian-Triassic event.

People that matter have been very calmly, against all odds, been discussing this year after year in the IPCC reunions and international meetings for all sorts of global treaties. They also understand that there is a non-trivial probability that we are, for all intents and purposes, already fucked and heading towards the worst predicted scenarios.

What do you consider to be an acceptable level of risk to play around with mass extinction? 1%? 2%? 5%? I personally think that if this is the behavior that we're taking towards the environment every time some essential component is in play, even if we go through this one effectively, civilization won't last even 500 years at its exponential pace of growth.

The maturity of humanity will depend on its ability to recognize that its destinity is not separate from the environment that supports it. You complain about poverty? Well, I'd say that supporting life on the planet concerns the poor about a million times more.

You're using big words, but you're citing the Telegraph and Guardian?

The claim was that these things were not being discussed. Citing the telegraph and grauniad shows that these things have been discussed, in general media, and in newspapers that are ideologically opposed to each other.

If you're genuinely looking for good citations, I would look at the http://skepticalscience.com site.

The climate is changing, but how significant is the role of human in it should be the subject of debate. Many scientists have observed that the changes taking place in climate is cyclical and anthropomorphic cause is very limited. FUrther it's observed that these changes aren't only visible on Earth but on other planets of the solar system and are largely caused by activities of Sun.

I don't have all the references handy as of now but you can start here: The coming ice age: http://harpers.org/archive/1958/09/the-coming-ice-age/

If you want to learn about computer programming, I think you would find this FORTRAN manual from 1960s useful..

> FUrther it's observed that these changes aren't only visible on Earth but on other planets of the solar system and are largely caused by activities of Sun.

Citation needed

I'm sorry, but the idea that the "anthpomorphic cause is very limited" can only be held by people who consider that the duplication of CO2 concentrations in the atmospher matters little.

People who understand the physics of CO2 radiative forcing have shown that it has a very significant effect in capturing more energy. This is shown in many ways:

* experimentally, by filling a chamber with CO2 and quantifying the gas's effects on holding thermal energy

* by models which capture those assumptions within a range of uncertainty and apply them globally. These models have been extremely good at making predictions that are coming true. Glacial melt, like I mentioned, is one of them. The collapse of Antarctic ice shelves is another. The change in distribution of precipitation is another biggie.

* through geological records which have shown that CO2 concentrations correlated extremely well with global average temperature increases

So first, without even getting rigorous, let's apply some common sense:

If you're seeing a pattern through experiments, models, current reality and geological records, it is a retarded idea to dismiss it or to claim that the degree of uncertainty for the knowledge is high. It isn't. You don't get many opportunities in life to see an understanding of physical phenomena which reflects so well across all these factors.

Climatology being an experimental science, if you're claiming that this isn't true then this would dispute many other findings of our current understanding of many other factors, which is something that just isn't happening. The models work pretty well across a range of other phenomena and they're the exact same models. Why don't people then complain about the models' ability to predict seasonal weather, or the year's effects on El Niño, or in modeling ocean currents?

They don't, because once again, to the available knowledge and inherent uncertainty in these models, they work, and they correlate with observed reality far better than anything else we have.

In science people worked based on hypotheses. The null hypothesis that we have reached through scientific consensus is that CO2 is a driver for increased energy absorbtion with consequences across the board.

Let me ask you this: what are the alternative hypotheses? How are they proven?

Some fringe scientists will tell you that temperature records are wrong and that temperatures have not actually been increasing. I'll tell you from the start that it's a feeble-minded, retarded assumption because that's not what physical reality is telling us.

Some people will cite volcanic activity as the main driver for climate change. Well, it turns out that the effects of volcanism reflect in the pretty much the same ways that humans are affecting the atmosphere, except that we're doing it hundreds of times faster.

And really, I have not seen anything close to a physical model that provides not only useful predictions for climate based on other explanatory factors. Worse of all, "denialists" don't even have generally useful models for climate, which would be the main proof that they actually know something the rest of scientists don't.

When a denialist present a global model that has even a fraction of the effectiveness that established models by NOAA and other organizations around the world have, maybe they'll be worth a listen.

Climate change is always the wrong argument. Every piece of legislation that's come up doesn't help solve the actual problem. The problem is pollution, consumerism and planned obsolence. You don't need a new phone every year. Phone should be upgradable, every American city should have trams, intercity rail is much more efficient that cars out buses. Not everyone needs to own a car! Electric cars produce a massive amount of mercury waste in battery production.

Reducing carbon emissions is useless if it just means we move to other forms of pollution or out source environmental devastation to China.

We need to consume less. Our currently capitalistic world is not sustainable.

Its human nature to always want more. Calls for people to conserve more wont work because of this. We have to start taxing pollution so that the external costs are included in the products and services we consume. Then only the few filthy rich will be able to afford a polluting lifestyle.

Do you mean to argue that those who don't want more are not human? Or that a recluse who rejects consumer society, or a practitioner of a minimalist, spartan lifestyle, are still somehow "wanting more"?

What would be an example of not wanting more? In a basic sense, everyone wants more food, and water, in order to live, but that's true of all life and not limited to human nature.

But if the price of that insurance is to reorganize our entire economy or abandon capitalism altogether, as I hear claimed all the time, that would make it the most expensive insurance product ever offered, by several orders of magnitude.

In order to justify that kind of price, it falls on whoever is selling the insurance to demonstrate that this risk is proportionally greater than any of the other risks we typically insure against.

Or actually, here's another way to think about it. Due to the global nature of the risk, this insurance is unique in that it requires collective action from everyone. Very different from a typical insurance pool that can work with a smaller group of contributors.

When an organization is improving processes, they usually look to the most costly inputs first. This is often people or physical equipment but is energy in many industrial processes.

If energy becomes "free" there is no economic reason to improve or optimize that input. In fact, there's a good motivation to use more of it - even inefficiently - because it's all multiplied by zero.

Therefore, we might end up with systems with great inefficiencies and negative external consequences that are not included in the "free" part.. which leads us exactly back to where we are.

That's a great point. Harry Saunders et al. showed this effect clearly a few years ago with their work on economics of lighting. The thing that screws up green economics is the indirect energy that goes into products like efficient LEDs. [1]

(Which I installed in abundance in my house, incidentally. It decreased our electric bills as theory predicted but we also bought more lights and replaced a number of switches and transformers.)

[1] http://thebreakthrough.org/archive/why_energy_efficiency_doe...

I think they feel that the science is true, and to say they don't know it's true but let's not take the chance is basically lying, and once you've been rumbled as lying to try to get people to do what you want, you've got zero credibility whether you're talking about the science or risk models or anything.

Not a bad way to put it. I've always wondered why framing things this way doesn't work: the things people claim cause global warming, whether or not they have anything to do with global warming, are on their own not sustainable, and will likely lead to long term suffering for humanity, so we should find ways to reduce them and find more sustainable ways of living.

The odd thing is that what we're doing has been "sustainable" since the Industrial Revolution. I am honestly interested in what "sustainable" actually means. It would seem that nothing is truly sustainable. I should like to see evidence of what actually is and isn't sustainable because from my chair, "sustainable" isn't wel defined. Dinosaurs lived in a sustainable environment and yet, here we are.

My feeling is that the sense of emergent disaster is manufactured by those with vested political and financial interests.

Progress in things like energy, manufacturing, etc., is welcome and naturally occurs as a function of a free market and a desire to achieve a competitive advantage. However, this 'end is near' cult that would have us believe the ice caps would have been gone by now and island nations would have disappeared. We've had a grand total of .36 degrees warming over the past 100 years. The climate is changing -- but not that much: not enough to warrant 50,000 people jetting off to Paris to talk about it on the taxpayers' dime.

Let's improve industrial processes to eliminate toxic pollution (you know, real pollution -- things like Benzene and Mercury and 2.5 particulates,) and stop wasting everyone's collective time with Chicken Little exploitations of the politically active, but stupid masses of people that seem to think their kids will become scrambled eggs on the sidewalk if they don't recycle that plastic bottle immediately.

There are people that actually believe Chinese smog is from CO2! It's depressing how incredibly wrong public opinion often is due to well placed agitators with a PhD after their name and a bank account full of grant funds.

> However, this 'end is near' cult that would have us believe the ice caps would have been gone by now and island nations would have disappeared.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_sea_ice_decline

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Current_sea_level_rise

How about you just ignore the cult and look at what actual scientists have to say? You are mostly displaying complete lack of clue, just as some of the cultists.

> There are people that actually believe Chinese smog is from CO2!

Yes, the world is full of idiots, big deal. That doesn't mean that there aren't some quite good scientists who have some pretty convincing measurements of what is happening right now to offer, and who certainly don't expect CO2 to form a fog or whatever in our atmosphere.

Isn't it weird how justified people who are sure they are right right feel to label almost anyone else as idiots?

Read me out here and get some good ideas for a campaign: There are literally 1000s of good reasons for people who aren't scientists to be sceptical, feel free to start with the 1400 or 1600 private jets that landed in Davos to discuss CO2 and AGW.

If someone is serious about this that would be a mighty good place to start, not because the emissions from 1500 planes matter but because they show, loud and clear, that those who claim to care really doesn't care at all

> feel free to start with the 1400 or 1600 private jets that landed in Davos to discuss CO2 and AGW

That's a really stupid reason why be skeptical. First of all, these people are mostly the governing elites, not scientists (actually all of them, I don't think there is a climate scientist with a private jet). If anything, the fact they are discussing it means it exists!

But OK, maybe you believe there is a conspiracy of those 1000 private planes owners going on, whatever that is. This is still not a reason to distrust scientists, just like existence of huge profits of pharmaceutical companies is not a reason to a priori distrust modern medicine. In fact, it may as well be a symptom of the thing being true.

  First of all, these people 
  are mostly the governing 
  elites, not scientists...

It's still evidence of massive hypocrisy by many of those who claim to care very much.

Note: not blaming the scientists here, just saying that if someone wants to help people believe then they should probably start here by education the politicians about hypocrisy and the importance of being a good example.

  But OK, maybe you believe 
  there is a conspiracy of 
  those 1000 private planes 
  owners going on, whatever 
  that is.

I don't claim there is a conspiracy, I show evidence that a lot of people who claim to care in practice do not.

Another "reality check": how many of these rich warming enthusiasts are buying property in Canada, or 6m (or whatever implausible sea level rise they claim to expect) above current ports? How many are selling their nice beach houses?

Why I have to listen to some "wealthy warmings" and not real scientists?

Why you make your argument not taking into account the actual science?

> Why you make your argument not taking into account the actual science?

Why make this about me?

Personally I really don't get AGW but I very much want to reduce oil consumption which I feel we should anyway, I reuse and recycle quite a bit etc.

> Why I have to listen to some "wealthy warmings" and not real scientists?

Still there is a massive problem where anyone who cares enough to read the news but doesn't have time or possibility to read the reports will see massive support from celebrities who then go on to travel by private jet to climate conferences. This does something to people.

Why is it that everyone feel they are doing the environment a service by downvoting and patronizing everyone that asks, telling that we are all either stupid or shills.

> Why make this about me?

Because you're the one making arguments against GW using celebrities and not the actual science

Trying to help you guys with a massive perception problem here and this is what I get back.

I'm not anti AGW. I cannot say I am convinced myself although I work in renewables(need to find and sit down with the numbers some day I fear, none of the AGW proponents seem to care about sharing those though although many care to rubber stamp and label.) But just because I am not convinced myself I hope that doesn't prevent me from pointing out obvious problems that is seen by anyone but that nobody in the party seems to care about?

BTW : just came back and upvoted you since I de no reason why you should be below zero either.

That said I fail to understand the voting on both sides here :-/

Of course, when these "rich warming enthusiasts" do that, they will be blamed for supporting the cause so that their properties in Canada can have higher value.

Damned if you do, damned if...

In fact, some of them do: https://twitter.com/bouckap/status/675226198704848898/photo/...

(There are serious reasons to believe that AGW is one of the causes of the Syrian conflict.)

Is that guy a wealthy warming enthusiast? Has he sold his beach properties? The tweet seems to be about something else.

EDIT: are you a GWB apologist? It's difficult to believe that Daesh would have arisen without the Lesser Bush's misadventures in Iraq. In fact, if there had been two degrees cooling since 2003 and everything else had gone the same, it seems a pretty good bet that Daesh would still be with us.

> Is that guy a wealthy warming enthusiast?

No, the point was, when the s* (like drought) hits the fan, the refugees will be the ones trying to get properties in Canada. Rich people with money savings can do that anytime; they're no better than other humans, also discount the future pretty aggressively.

Discounting is rational behavior. No one lives forever. However, the predictions we hear seem pretty certain about events of the next few decades. Plenty of people will live that long. If they're certain, why don't they act like it?

How is attributing any particular human calamity to the climate different than attributing any particular storm to the climate? Pinker has argued persuasively that war and similar disasters have decreased significantly over recent periods. In that context one might think that the fortunes of Syrian refugees have more to do with politics and the media than with the climate. After all there were millions of refugees from violence within Africa during any decade of the twentieth century. They just weren't wealthy enough to make it to Europe. And in relative terms they were still fewer than refugees in earlier times, say 250 or 1000 years ago. How many fewer refugees would there have to be, for the changing climate to be credited for the decrease, rather than blamed for journalists' coverage of refugees?

First of all, wealthy people typically have multiple properties, in different places. So it's not like they are going to be homeless if they lose their villa in Florida. Second, they probably already risk hurricanes and tsunamis. Third, the predicted sea level rise is about 1 meter (if we don't count the land ice, which is unpredictable), so you can probably deal with that on one house (but much harder on city or nation scale). In short - if you're rich, you're still better off than others in case of global catastrophe, so there is little you can make in preparations. But I am an expert in habits of wealthy people, this is just a guess.

I agree with Steve Pinker, but if you actually read the book, it's not without caveats. Regarding attribution, we can somewhat attribute the drought to climate change (because we know from models that there is expected to be more of it) and so the conflict; it's not the sole cause, but it's a factor. I have no doubts there are going to be more mass migrations due to climate change.

> The odd thing is that what we're doing has been "sustainable" since the Industrial Revolution.

You then go on to set out how you're not sure what sustainable means. So let me see if I can help.

A simple guide would be that resource is being used in a sustainable way if the resource isn't being used up faster than it is replenished, or in other words 'If we keep doing this, can we keep doing this for a long time?'

So by that measure, solar power, wind, geo-thermal are sustainable - the fact that we use them, doesn't diminish the amount available. To an extent cutting down a tree and burning is sustainable, if you can grow trees fast enough. Fossil fuels aren't sustainable.

Firstly, there is a finite amount in the ground, and the speed at which we extract it far, far outweighs the speed at which new deposits are being laid down.

Secondly, we need to use the atmosphere as the dumping ground for fossil fuels' waste products - including CO2. The atmosphere isn't infinite and we can measure that CO2 concentrations are rising in line with our output.

Clearly, this is a simplified explanation, but I hope it is helpful. It does illustrate that no, we haven't being using resources in a sustainable fashion since the industrial revolution. Just because something hasn't run out yet, doesn't mean than it has been used sustainably.

Finally - sustainable resource use isn't a magic get out of jail free card. Yes, the dinosaur ecosystem was sustainable. That doesn't mean that they were immune from meteor strikes.

> My feeling is that the sense of emergent disaster is manufactured by those with vested political and financial interests.

My feeling is that if you looked into the actual science a bit, your feeling may change.

> There are people that actually believe Chinese smog is from CO2! It's depressing how incredibly wrong public opinion often is due to well placed agitators with a PhD after their name and a bank account full of grant funds.

Care to give just one example of this PhD agitation.

But the comment about "bank account full of grant funds" says a lot about all of your post.

> We've had a grand total of .36 degrees warming over the past 100 years. The climate is changing -- but not that much:

Apart that we're reaching 1 C above the pre industrial mean, 0.36 or 1 C is a LOT of change for 100-150 years.

I am against climate change people because they invariably suggest that the governments should do something. Often this is a good opportunity for the governments to grab more power and take away our freedoms. In my opinion this can bring more misery to humanity than the climate change.

For example Indian government is pushing Solar power without must thought. Billions of taxpayer money is being spend on solar panels which we are not sure if they will work. Same amount of money could have produced more energy through conventional means, supported more industry and helped few more million people get out of poverty, I am not sure that by using Solar panels Indian government has saved million people in future.

I think a small invention like a floppy disk might have saved more trees that all government efforts put together. Environment might be changing but I would bet on people like Elon Musk any day than the government.

I'm in Delhi right now, a city almost literally choking to death thanks in part to the coal-fired thermal power plants in/near the city. Every time I hear concerns that the environment should come second to development I have to wonder whether being able to breathe is even a "development" factor in these people's minds.

> I am against climate change people because they invariably suggest that the governments should do something.

I'm not sure that you are aware of just how ludicrous, this sounds. Do you have the same complaint when someone's house is burning down and people suggest that firefighters 'should do something'?

This is a bad counterargument: if someones house are burning we can all see it.

In the case of global warming and specially AGW you have to trust scientists and politicians and news, which is often smart, but not always.

Someone care to help me spell out my wrongness here.

I don't care about stupid points so no need to upvote but I do care about if I am wrong without realizing.

(I didn't downvote)

You don't have to trust politicians, and with AGW it's probably a good idea to ingore politicians. You also don't have to trust news and media outlets. All science reporting sucks, and this is mostly true of reporting around AGW.

That leaves the scientists.

One one side you have a very small number of scientists who don't believe that climate change is happening and that climate change is a result of human activity. And when you look at those scientists you see people who were previously employed (ie, paid for work) by tobacco companies to spread fear and doubt about tobacco (and those techniques were so successful that even today, when we know most lung cancer is caused by smoking, we have people who don't understand what the actual risks of smoking are) or who are paid to do similar activity. That's not real science, that's not testing the data and testing the claims.

There's a very much larger group of scientists who believe climate change is happening, and who believe that human activity is probably a cause. There's some discussion in this group about the science, but that's good, it's how science works, and that debate should not be misused to say that AGW isn't real or that climate change is not happening. (And sadly, honest scientific debate is often misused to claim that climate change isn't happening.)

Thanks, I was trying to make a point about the example not being analogous but in hindsight I guess I should have dropped that piece of pedantry.

You don't have trust some party (like scientists) to be able to determine the truth. Truth manifests in simple way - it is consistent.

People who are really interested in truth and people who are not (either because they delude themselves or want to con someone) have very different thought patterns, which are pretty well visible in the way they write (the skill to recognize these patterns is called critical thinking).

The consistency of the truth plays a big role - it usually means that people who are genuinely interested in truth try to build a consistent model, while con men are interested in criticism of the model on the fringes.

So one basic way to understand who is right, look if they have a consistent (and also refutable) model that explains the evidence.

Now for AGW theory in particular, there is no serious contender for a model that doesn't show warming due to greenhouse gases. People interested in truth would love to have an alternative model, that explains the evidence, but the fact is, no one successfully came up with one. So perhaps one should accept that we have is correct.

You can also look at critics of the theory and see how they are inconsistent. Some critics admit there is warming, but disagree humans cause it. Some critics think that warming is due to the Sun. Some critics think that it's too late to do anything about it. Some critics think that current warming is natural based on some cycles. And so on.. now all these opposing viewpoints are inconsistent with each other. Why they are inconsistent? Because again, the people raising the criticism don't have a good model, that properly accounts for the evidence.

I suggest you actually go and learn a bit more what AGW theory (current best model explaining the data) is saying. Good way to do that is also to look at history of the model, because it also gives insight whether or not it is a con (the truthful models have complicated history of getting some things wrong at times, while bad models have no or very cartoonish history). I really recommend this resource: https://www.aip.org/history/climate/index.htm

Why the condescending tone?

I'm not particularly stupid (north of 130 last time I measured), I'm not in the pocket of big oil (works with solar power, the more solar, the more chance I get a fat bonus).

Some things just doesn't feel right about the AGW debate and I try to debate it and leave a few, friendly pointers here and at AT about the things that sticks out (private jets to climate conferences etc) but it feels quite a few people sits ready to rubber stamps anyone who isn't zealous enough about supporting every aspect of every part and every proponent of the AGW.

I am not trying to be condescending, I am just trying to explain things that perhaps should be obvious. You said you have to trust the scientists, I don't think it's true, and I explained why.

But then you say:

"I try to debate it and leave a few, friendly pointers here"

So perhaps what I just said is not obvious to you! Instead of understanding what the actual scientists' model of AGW is, you're looking for ridiculous reasons why it's not true. Exactly what you shouldn't be doing if you agree with what I wrote above. And I left you a "friendly pointer" of what you should be reading.

You should also be charitable to other people. Yes, we are all aware of the irony of these climate conferences. But what do you want to do? James Hansen is a good example (his short talk from the conference is probably the best one, by the way). He decided to leave the politics in mid-90s, and focus back to science, only to recently return, because he's just p* off by inaction. So yeah, people tried not to use planes, but to what effect?

Unfortunately, pointing out things like private jets to climate conference just makes you sound like you are taking cheap potshots. You have the leaders from 195 countries attending a meeting. Yes. Heads of State sometimes use private jets. Other than symbolism, it is entirely unimportant.

Is the purpose of a government to do something about climate change in the same way that the purpose of a firefighter is to do something about a burning house? Why?

Citizens assign functions to governments that are impractical for individuals or markets to handle. It doesn't make sense for everyone to buy a fire truck and there isn't a good business to be made from putting out fires.

A classic case where individuals may band together to invoke government is is where a 'tragedy of the commons' situation is threatened.

Left to its own devices, it is perfectly rational in the short term for an individual or business to continue polluting, over-fishing, deforesting or using the atmosphere/oceans as an infinite waste removal resource. In the medium and long term it isn't such a good idea and governments provide the least worst mechanism that we have for citizens to collectively enforce actions that can protect people, society or the environment.

>there isn't a good business to be made from putting out fires. //

This used to be how it worked, at least in the UK. It's probably quite a good business; there I'd a question of mutual destruction for the rich if they just let poor people's houses burn but also I feel there's a factor of social morality at play too. It is socialism, at least in part, that has brought democratised healthcare and schooling, firefighting and policing. Profit motive thankfully isn't there only social driver.

If government has any "useful" purpose, then it's coordination. In the two examples given, it's coordination to avoid negative effects of economic externalities.

In the case of firefighting, the negative externality is that burning house may present danger to other houses nearby it. In the case of global warming, the negative externality is CO2 pollution from burning of fossil fuels.

Cool, I am against climate change people too - pretty much all the people who release too much CO2 from fossil fuels. I am not sure however how are we going to prevent them doing that without collective action, any suggestions?

Andrew Gelman is a wizard

I think that the best way to go about this would be to home in on the "random" natural variation and really analyze the noise. Random noise should have very different spectral characteristics than real temperature data, which may have ~decadal periodicity (from the Pacific Decadal Oscillation) or similar non homogeneous frequency content. But with highly down sampled data like this a lot could be lost.

That being said this is basically a Turing test with snippets of conversation selected by an antagonistic mediator. As Gelman has shown, the expected ROI is very low and any climate scientist worth her salt is better off using that effort in the grant proposal contest instead; more money and better odds.

Reminds me of http://www.patrickcraig.co.uk/other/compression.php

I'd like to see a graph of the histogram with the three Gaussians superimposed. In this cases, sigma is bigger than the difference of mu, so the overlap of the Gaussians would be big and the series in the middle would be difficult to classify.

This is not as detailed as the analysis in the article, and it doesn´t provide an estimation of the difficulty of the challenge, but it's a nice visual representation of the problem.

You could say that the above all demonstrates Keenan's point, that you can't identify a trend in a time series of this length.

You could, indeed.

You could, but you would be wrong, as the remainder of the paragraph you started quoting argues quite convincingly. Fiddle with the free parameters of the contest and it "demonstrates" whatever you want it to.

That's a fair synopsis of the paragraph, but that understanding only supports "Keenan's point". If "parameter fiddling" is out of bounds, we're back to the drawing board for more climate models.

Conflating "climate model" with "parameter fiddling" seems like the more significant logical failure.

The first link when one googles "climate model parameter":

https://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch8s8-1...

Nice non-sequitur.

It turns out the fellow who posted the challenge is a crank. Not surprising that it is negative expected value.

Non sequitur! Most lotteries and similar contests have negative expected values. The house always wins!

What language is that in the code snippet?

Most of them are R, with some Stan mixed in later.

Thanks. Stan looks interesting! Seems this guy is a major figure in its development too.

Link: http://mc-stan.org/ ("Stan is a probabilistic programming language implementing full Bayesian statistical inference ")

HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10244771

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