UN's climate link to hurricanes in doubt
timesonline.co.uk
timesonline.co.uk
AFAIK the fundamental cause of hurricanes is the evaporation and condensation of water. Higher temperatures cause more evaporation, so it seems pretty obvious that it would cause more opportunities for hurricanes to form.
The fundamental cause of hurricanes is the difference between water and air temperatures. If both go up together nothing changes.
The difference is measured from absolute zero, so if both go up 1 degree there is actually even less of a difference than there was before.
Since the water is warm, and the air cold, and every model shows water temperature rise lagging air temperature rise, global warming should cause less hurricanes.
The higher intensity might be because the water would become warmer, and air temperature is not a constant. If a hurricane should happen to form when it's cold out, it'll be somewhat more powerful.
Do you mean lesser, or fewer, hurricanes?
Aside, this exact same story from a different news outlet already flooded through here last week and got no play. Why submit it again?
It was GW -> More Storms, now it's GW -> Less Storms.
Now of course this is just science being done, there's nothing wrong with that. The problem is that Climate Scientists claim to have a much better understanding than they do. As Feynman said, it is the duty of the scientist to bend over backwards to inform you of all the ways they might be wrong. In Climate Science, you hear this is the consensus, not that we have data for 30 years of 10000 year cycle and we think that this will happen. In my opinion it's not honest.
I don't know how much more honest an admission that a prediction was wrong by respected scientist can be. What do you want? This AGW issue is so politically charged that we want the scientists to be constantly going over the data and trying to reproduce it.
It's not like the IPCC was trying to hide this. If anything, the entire way this scenario played out should be a reassurance that the IPCC and cooperating scientists are acting in good faith. They're not trying to "cover up" failures; they're acting on the established scientific process.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. (I heard that one from an environmentalist, ironically enough.)
Extraordinary calls to action, such as rewiring the global economy, require ironclad proof.
Actually, the linked research came from a survey commissioned by the WMO, not the IPCC...the IPCC fabricated the original claims that there would be more and more severe hurricanes due to global warming, according to the original article, with "no science so [sic] substantiate them."
One of the authors of this research, who resigned from the IPCC in protest over the original hurricane claim, indicated in 2005, "All previous and current research in the area of hurricane variability has shown no reliable, long-term trend up in the frequency or intensity of tropical cyclones." It has taken the past several years to compile data to change this stance, and the results contra-indicate the IPCC's original claims.
There are, undoubtedly, scientists who act largely in good faith based upon the existing climate data; the limited amount of data that I have seen indicates that there are aspects of global climate change that are quite real. The IPCC, however, is a political organization that appears transparently to be acting (or, at least, to have acted) in bad faith--between its baseless claims regarding hurricanes, its inaccurate estimates and later denial of the rate of melt of glaciers in the Himalayas, and various dubious data practices (failure of some members to comply with freedom of information requests, "lost" data and storing only reduced results of data, and selectively ignoring the tree ring data, to name just a few examples).
This is not the story of a claim being well-founded, but being corrected by advances in data or theory. This is the result of a political claim based on little or no evidence being examined by an outside body and found inaccurate.
It was just a guess, and guess by an institution that supposedly is based on science. So they loose some credibility now.
'Tis clever how you manage to insult the "deniers" by beating them with the truth of one of their key points. Maybe you're a "denier" too.
As a parallel example, consider the ongoing argument about evolution. The science is still ongoing about the specifics of evolution, but the general theory would be incredibly hard to overturn at this point.
Take it from this "denier", the vast bulk of my "denialism" comes from what you're saying. Where there should have been humility in the face of chaos, there was claims of certainty, and where there should have been more research, there was a push to rewrite the foundation of the global economy in the service of dubious truths.
Lecturing the "deniers" on the nature of science is a waste, you need to be aiming it at the "warmists".
The science of climate is indeed changing and refining, but you don't get to just ignore those changes and refinements and hold on to the interpretation you started with so many decades ago, nor do you get to be sanctimonious at those who are refining their views. The fundamental problem of AGW as "science" is that it's changing and refining itself away from AGW-as-a-problem and potentially right away from AGW-as-a-detectable-signal. "Deniers" are the ones who are actually willing to follow the science as the most-likely-correct interpretation is changing. The ones who are sticking to AGW-as-a-world-shattering-problem should probably be called "clingers", if we're going to toss labels around.
(Actually, I don't intrinsically have a problem with the idea of AGW, I just think the evidence is that it's utterly swamped by other signals, rather than the dominant signal as the whole last 20 years of propaganda has been claiming.)
I actually find it amazing the number of people trying to pull this feat off, to both admit that the science has been wanting and there's a lot more to learn about this chaotic system and indeed the very data itself shows strong signs of having been corrupted but handwave handwave therefore I am justified in continuing to hold the beliefs that I formed on the basis of this bad science and corrupted data and I am justified in calling you names if you don't. I'm having some trouble with the handwave step.
This is a classic example of the flaw in so many GWD's reasoning. You deliberately choose not to base your opinion on a scientific matter on actually reading studies, listening to experts, observing evidence and learning about the underlying physics.
Instead you write 3 paragraphs that reduce, "I don't like YOU or how YOU are saying it." You reduce a complex and ongoing field of study down to a personality judgement. Does my personality or personal failings in any way change the science? Of course not. But somehow that's so relevant to the issue at hand that it's the majority of your post.
All I can do—as someone who's expertise and education lies in computer science and math—is understand some of the underlying physics, read some of the less dense papers, and listen to the experts. I don't like all the experts, but they're experts. I don't have to like them for their opinion to be right.
But, if you're trying to suggest I'm committing a specific logical fallacy, please name and explain it. Otherwise, your character judgements don't really bear relevance in this conversation save as a mean-spirited attack.
I have neither the time nor the expertise to do that. Instead, I rely on the counsel of those who do it for a living. When the predictions made by those people consistently fail to reflect reality, at what point is it OK for me to show signs of skepticism?
I'm curious... What events got you into an extremely skeptical frame of mind? Please be specific.
Most of the overturned predictions were years out before they'd have very direct and visible effects on most westerner's lives. Right now we're just in the beginning-of-climate-instability part of it.
But to answer your question specifically: I've been skeptical since day 1, and I encourage you to be the same. But part of being skeptical is "being convinced by the research and evidence" and "making an honest attempt to learn about the subject."
The hurricane business is a perfect example. It was only a couple of days ago that Al Gore beat that particular drum in his NYT editorial.
And there really is a HUGE amount of data on the subject. The current state of climate research has moved past the argument about "is there warming?" Because there is, we've found a ton of data to validate it. We're up to a very high degree of certainty that this is not purely cyclical (although more data obviously improves this confidence).
Where the research continues to grind is on specific effects of warming (such as this hurricane issue) and specific feedbacks in the system that can either slow or speed the rate of climate change. You see a lot of things about that now in the news now, but you may notice that there is much less discussion of "if the hockey stick really exists."
I'd also like to ask why you care what Al Gore says? He's a poster child and a ideologue for a specific political group. I certainly don't care what he says. He's not making scientific claims that are worth addressing. How he got a Nobel I will never know.
For example, one specific point made by the pro-AGW camp is that global warming will be harmful if it occurs. There is a list of purported harms and apparently the case for some of these harms (melting Himalayan glaciers, increased hurricane frequency) is not so well settled.
At some point, we need to see a few correct predictions made by the models. Otherwise, your "science" looks more like Creationism.
The AGW "settled science" claim was for significantly more devastating storms. Now we find that the AGW hypothesis leads to something significantly less.
The AGW argument is based on horrible consequences. If the consequences aren't actually horrible....
> Aside, this exact same story from a different news outlet already flooded through here last week and got no play. Why submit it again?
Actually, it's not. Last week's story was an "unpublishable" paper with basically the same conclusions. This week's is peer-reviewed and published. It was written by someone whose research KirinDave agreed with when it supported KirinDave's position but now that additional data has changed the author's position....
Perhaps KirinDave will tell us what would change his mind.
I used to believe in AGW but I now think that it is significantly overblown. I note that the "I used to be" argument is considered convincing by AGW advocates when followed by "a skeptic", so surely the other form deserves equal consideration.