Dev.SN ♥ developers
Sections
Dev.SN
from the climate-change-simply-happens dept.
Papas Fritas writes "Patrick Michaels writes in Forbes that atmospheric physicist Garth Paltridge has laid out several well-known uncertainties in climate forecasting including our inability to properly simulate clouds that are anything like what we see in the real world, the embarrassing lack of average surface warming now in its 17th year, and the fumbling (and contradictory) attempts to explain it away. According to Paltridge, an emeritus professor at the University of Tasmania and a fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, virtually all scientists directly involved in climate prediction are aware of the enormous uncertainties associated with their product. How then is it that those of them involved in the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) can put their hands on their hearts and maintain there is a 95 per cent probability that human emissions of carbon dioxide have caused most of the global warming that has occurred over the last several decades? In short, there is more than enough uncertainty about the forecasting of climate to allow normal human beings to be at least reasonably hopeful that global warming might not be nearly as bad as is currently touted.
Climate scientists, and indeed scientists in general, are not so lucky. They have a lot to lose if time should prove them wrong. "In the light of all this, we have at least to consider the possibility that the scientific establishment behind the global warming issue has been drawn into the trap of seriously overstating the climate problem-or, what is much the same thing, of seriously understating the uncertainties associated with the climate problem-in its effort to promote the cause," writes Paltridge. "It is a particularly nasty trap in the context of science, because it risks destroying, perhaps for centuries to come, the unique and hard-won reputation for honesty which is the basis of society's respect for scientific endeavor.""
(Score: 2, Informative) by theluggage on Thursday February 20 2014, @03:03PM
Pretty sure that "changes of state [noaa.gov]" play a role in the climate. Not to mention exchanges of heat and mechanical energy, or deep dark places that can warm up without affecting average surface temperatures... Just don't expect to fine one single, neat answer.
Anyway, I didn't claim any sort of climate model - it was just an example showing that "heat" is not "temperature" and that even a system as simple as a pan full of ice water doesn't increase in temperature in direct proportion to the heat put in. The climate is a hell of a lot more complex than a pan full of water, and chaotic to boot: even if the alleged "pause" in increasing average temperatures is real (and not a result of cherry-picking which temperatures to average) it's perfectly plausible that any temperature rise will be an uneven process.
(Score: 2, Informative) by weeds on Thursday February 20 2014, @03:35PM
Good explanation. The article you reference seems to say the ice is melting owing to higher temperatures, not that the ice is melting and there is no change of temperature. Didn't mean to sound hostile. "I'm not sure" really meant "I'm not sure."
Get the strategic plan going! [dev.soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by theluggage on Friday February 21 2014, @01:12PM
...obviously the local temperatures will need to be higher to melt the ice. Heat energy doesn't move without a temperature difference. However, because heat energy has been taken out of the air or water by the melting ice, somewhere else is going to be cooler than it would otherwise have been.
Point a fancy thermal imaging camera at your pan of ice water and you'll see columns of warm water rising up, and columns of cold water going down. There will be hot spots and cold spots. Stick a thermometer in and give it a stir, though, and you'll see that the average temperature is fairly static while the ice is melting.
Sticking a giant thermometer into the arctic ocean and giving it a stir is not recommended.
(Score: 1) by weeds on Friday February 21 2014, @04:01PM
Get the strategic plan going! [dev.soylentnews.org]