Sorry Phillipe, I don't understand your response relative to what I have
written. Yes, *we* have a temperature and no, I have not chosen to
break any of the very many thermometers. But I have chosen not to take
the medicine for the presumed illness since the medicine is extremely
expensive and will not cure the temperature problem since the diagnosis
of the ailment is, IMHO, probably wrong. The current global temperature
is no higher than it was during the medieval warm period. In fact, it's
probably less. But the medieval warming got where it was without
benefit of significant anthropogenic CO2. If you assume that current
temperatures are not unprecedented (and they're not) the only other
indication of a problem is about 20-something global climate models that
predict something like 2-6C warming by the end of the century.
But, a climate model is something like having a polynomial in a massive
number of terms where all of the (often poorly understood) terms are
fully tunable by the modeler but with no guarantees that the terms are
either complete or correct. As Freeman Dyson once quoted Enrico Fermi:
"In desperation I asked Fermi whether he was not impressed by the
agreement between our calculated numbers and his measured numbers. He
replied, "How many arbitrary parameters did you use for your
calculations?" I thought for a moment about our cut-off procedures and
said, "Four." He said, "I remember my friend Johnny von Neumann used to
say, with four parameters I can fit an elephant, and with five I can
make him wiggle his trunk." With that, the conversation was over."
Change 5 parameters to hundreds and you can see that a climate model can
predict anything the modeler desires. And even the IPCC agrees that
climate is chaotic. From the executive summary of the IPCC's fourth
assessment report: "The climate system is a coupled non-linear chaotic
system, and therefore ***the long-term prediction of future climate
states is not possible***. Rather the focus must be upon the prediction
of the probability distribution of the system's future possible states
by the generation of ensembles of model solutions. Addressing adequately
the statistical nature of climate is computationally intensive and
requires the application of new methods of model diagnosis, but such
statistical information is essential." In other, simpler words: "Ummm,
it's not really possible to do this... more research is required".
Unfortunately, it's upon this that we base the future allocation of
perhaps trillions of dollars and also likely deliver the world's poor to
even more desperate conditions if they do not have access to low cost
energy.
Yes, most resources are scarce and their allocation should be determined
by the market (with government interceding only as necessary for the
poor rather than Solyndra). I see that appears to be partially working
in your own case based on your interest in the cost and performance of a
heat pump. Ken and Iowa are also participating in wind power but may
not like the price when (not if) the rest of us stop paying the
government subsidy. That's required since the technology is 3 times the
cost of alternatives yet still requires full backup with conventional
power plants when the wind doesn't blow. The technology may yet prove
to be useful but only after someone invents the necessary "battery"
technology to store surplus power in times of wind a-plenty. But we
aren't anywhere near that yet.
Sorry if I have a rather sharp response here but I have been investing
1-2 hours/day for the past several years trying to understand this
problem. That's because I used to be very concerned about it. Today
I'm much more concerned about the small possibility of significant
cooling over the next 30 years. Significant cooling is much more
dangerous than warming. Some believe that the current state of the
solar cycle may indicate a return to cooling as severe as during the
"Maunder Minimum" (1645-1715) otherwise known as the "Little Ice Age".
From a 2011 paper in Geophysical Research Letters see:
<http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2011/2011GL049811.shtml> Yes, I know
that correlation is not causation and it's true that total solar
irradiance (alone) is inadequate to explain the mechanism but the
correlation of the solar cycle with temperature is far better than that
of the output of any climate model.
How did I become such a flaming skeptic? Early on in my studies I
accidentally ran into this post by Steve McIntyre (a retired Canadian
mining engineer and expert statistician) who had been invited to be an
"expert reviewer" for the IPCC's AR4 report. When you read Steve's post
you'll see that no one really wanted any real review of data and code
which makes you wonder what IPCC reviewers actually do. Unfortunately,
this is all too common in climate science. The scientific method is
supposed to foster independent review of data and methods to verify the
science. But climate "science" seems almost unique in science in it's
refusal to release data and code for independent rather than "pal"
review. Steve has forced the release of much data and some code over
the years and often finds the reasons why the authors won't release it.
The data is often cherry picked and the methods often statistically
inadequate or just wrong. Now you may understand the name of his
blog... Climate Audit.
This is the original post that I read years ago which has since had some
updates with confirmations taken from "Climategate" emails of things he
had only suspected when he originally wrote this post in 2007.
<http://climateaudit.org/2007/03/28/accessing-hegerl-data/>
Steve doesn't post much anymore since it was consuming his life but,
when he does, what he has to say is usually not very pretty and rarely
complimentary to the practitioners of climate "science". Continue here
if you can stomach the real world of what masquerades as climate
"science". But be sure to bring your statistics hat. It's sometimes
tough sledding for me and I've been at it for a while.
<http://climateaudit.org/>
Finally, much of what you will discover in the history of this blog
(slowly over years of posts) is well summarized and the statistics
simplified in this book. A recommended read if you're truly concerned
about the state of climate science.
<http://www.amazon.com/Hockey-Stick-Illusion-Climategate-Independent/dp/1906768358/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1354285985&sr=1-1&keywords=the+hockey+stick+illusion>
And this one is a continuation of the story. So new that I've only just
realized this morning that it can be ordered which I intend to do today.
<http://www.amazon.com/Hiding-Decline-W-Montford/dp/1475293364/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1354286464&sr=1-1&keywords=hiding+the+decline>
Chuck Norcutt
On 11/30/2012 4:14 AM, philippe.amard wrote:
> If you have a temperature break the thermometer?
>
> Global warming or not resource is scarce, period?
>
> Amitiés
> Philippe in a rush and yet curious to know the outcome on the heat
> pump as he's thinking of having one installed at Mutz. Keep us posted
> svp :-)
>
>
> Le 30 nov. 12 à 00:11, Chuck Norcutt a écrit :
>
>> Unfortunately then you'll have to take much more than your fair
>> share of
>> the "misery" because I (and as many others as I can convince) won't be
>> doing our fair share. First I don't believe that the current warming
>> (actually there hasn't been any statistically significant warming for
>> about 15 years) is anything but natural along with a small
>> anthropogenic
>> component. Secondly, even if I did believe that you and I are
>> responsible, an 80% total worldwide energy reduction within 50 years
>> or
>> so just isn't going to happen even if we all have the best of
>> intentions. Do you have any idea how you could actually achieve this?
>> If your contribution is something like running a heat pump you've
>> got a
>> long, long, long way to go. Thirdly, even if the computer models are
>> correct and temperature does actually rise 4-6C by the end of the
>> century it is much less expensive to embrace mitigation rather than
>> prevention.
>> <http://www.ted.com/talks/bjorn_lomborg_sets_global_priorities.html>
>>
>> I've never seen or studied a complete computer climate model but I
>> have
>> studied some of the code written by the academics as the Climatic
>> Research Unit at the University of East Anglia. As a former IBM
>> Systems
>> Test manager of many years I have to say I've been appalled at what
>> I've
>> seen. How anyone could trust the output of such a jumbled mess is
>> beyond me. I doubt that any of them completely understand their own
>> work and doubt that any of it has or even can be tested. But I don't
>> worry about climate models anyhow. I believe climate is a chaotic
>> system just like the weather. Climate modelers have no more hope of
>> predicting the climate of 2100 than they do of predicting the Dow
>> Jones
>> Industrial Average of 2100. In fact, no climate model predicted the
>> warming hiatus since 1998. I'm not surprised.
>>
>> Sorry, but to make up for me you'll not even be allowed a small fire
>> in
>> the fireplace. :-)
>>
>> Chuck Norcutt
>>
>>
>> On 11/29/2012 3:17 PM, CyberSimian wrote:
>>> Chuck Norcutt wrote:
>>>> But, denyer or worrier, the fact that Britain produces only a small
>>>> fraction of the earth's anthropogenically produced CO2 while the
>>>> US (and
>>>> especially now China) produce the bulk of it makes me call you
>>>> financially impractical. Even if all of Britain did what you're
>>>> doing
>>>> it wouldn't make the slightest bit of difference. The entire
>>>> world will
>>>> have to reduce total energy consumption by about 80% in order to
>>>> make a
>>>> dent in the (assumed) temperature
>>>
>>> This is to miss the point, which is this:
>>>
>>> The misery of curtailing runaway global warming must be equally
>>> distributed
>>> around the world.
>>>
>>> We in Britain cannot expect the populations of China and India to
>>> embrace
>>> the misery of curtailing runaway global warming if we in Britain
>>> say "But
>>> our contribution is so small that we do not need to do anything".
>>> We need
>>> to embrace the misery even though our contribution will make no
>>> practical
>>> difference to the end result.
>>>
>>> The misery must be equally distributed.
>>>
>>> -- from CyberSimian in the UK
>>>
>> --
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