Global warming or not?

[GeoffC]

Originally Posted by Sparrow

Isn't the Higgs Boson a hypothesis awaiting verification?

and when they find it, how will they know it's a Higgs Boson ?

will it have a convenient label on it - manufactured 6000million years BC. ?

[Sparrow]

Originally Posted by GeoffC

and when they find it, how will they know it's a Higgs Boson ?

will it have a convenient label on it - manufactured 6000million years BC. ?

Ah, but if they find it, it'll be because they've just created it brand, spanking new from the energy of the colliding particles; e=mc2 in reverse (to turn huge amounts of energy into matter), it won't have existed beforehand.
They'll know if it's a Higgs Boson because they're predicting what properties it'll have (if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck it's a boson).

[GeoffC]

Originally Posted by Sparrow

Ah, but if they find it, it'll be because they've just created it brand, spanking new from the energy of the colliding particles; e=mc2 in reverse (to turn huge amounts of energy into matter), it won't have existed beforehand.
They'll know if it's a Higgs Boson because they're predicting what properties it'll have (if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck it's a boson).

mis-print - bison ?

[Icarusbop]

Originally Posted by GeoffC

BBC web-site link

Agreed CO2 is higher these days, but consider the following.
According to this graph - at aourd 3.3 hundred thousand years ago there is a spike. so at that time you could have said.

'For 470,000 years carbon dioxide levels have been below this line, until the present day.....'

Add to that, the information that CO2 is (according to some sources) not the main contributing factor to climate change (They claim it could be water vapour) anyway, makes this graph and it's implications un-important (depending on which data you chose to believe).

[GeoffC]

statistics, statistics and damn lies .....

you could use the graphs to correlate the increase in CO2 with that of the world's population ....

the spike at 470,000 years could have been the increase in a particular species that died off shortly afterwards and hence the following reduction ....

[rireed3]

Originally Posted by Sparrow

Isn't the Higgs Boson a hypothesis awaiting verification?

The point is that verification never stops. To back up a little, Quantum Mechanics had several hypotheses being explored in the 1920's. All of them grew out of experimental results that had already been repeated at some expense, and different mathematical models developed, first from classical dynamics, then finally from a combination of dynamical and statistical methods.

By the 1950's, the Schrodinger equation was the clear winner, and the field fairly exploded with successful mathematical predictions of ever smaller sub-atomic structures followed by expansions of that model. Some of these researchers said that this period was even boring with the onslaught of successful verifications of so many chemical and electrical details.

Higgs Boson investigation follows another generation of this kind of research. So many universities and governments have piled so many resources there because the whole world of subatomic physicists has already 'verified' for decades agreement of evidence with mathematics down to a level that requires immense power and precision to go beyond. Higgs Boson can't be verified or rejected without this effort.

Everyone in that community knows that the existence or non-existence of Higgs Boson depends on a future result. There are sides to the debate, and these are inferences based on 'verified', meaning repeated, evidence, but no one is claiming more knowledge than they have.

Richard

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Sparrow

Isn't the Higgs Boson a hypothesis awaiting verification?

I'm far from an expert, but do try to keep an eye on the physics world for a number of reasons. I believe you are right in that there has been no actual observation of the Higgs Boson, but it fits well into the quantum mechanics model which is what 'predicts' it (or hypothesizes it if you will). The LHC I believe is intended to try and observe it. Again, if I'm not mistaken.

[RedHeadPeter]

Well its nice to see that it isn't only the 'beleivers' who can get up to a bit of jiggery-pokery. Those 'good souls' at the Global Warming Policy Foundation - which despite its name is actually a bunch of deniers - has been caught out using some very dodgy numbers to create the graph for their logo (see http://www.thegwpf.org/) by excluding the numbers for 2000 they conveniently lose the big jump frrom 2000 to 2001. But it looks like the 2009 figures are going to knock a hole in the 'cooling not warming' argument.

Personally I'm surprised this thread is still running. It's obvious there is no reasoning with these people and one can only shake your head and wonder what their motives might be, beyond talking up the price of their oil company shares.

I'm tempted (oh - go on I just gave in to temptation) to wonder what crossover there might be between Climate Change deniers and HIV-Aids deniers. And the presence in the latter group of Thebo Mbeki could have cost South Africa in excess of 300,000 unnecessary deaths.

[XNN]

Originally Posted by Sparrow

What is your view of the level of debate in the general public arena?
Can people who don't work in this field aquire enough knowledge and information to make an informed opinion (without having to get PhDs)?

The level of debate is all over the place, which is one of the problems. Separating the wheat from the chaff would be extremely difficult for someone without a fair bit of knowledge. As an analogy, I wouldn't contribute to a similar debate on, say, the use of DDT for malaria control in developing countries. I am not a medical researcher and wouldn't feel comfortable contributing to the discourse.

Would you recommend any books aimed at the ordinary reader which stand out from the rest??

This isn't necessarily aimed at the general reader, but should be accessible to someone with an undergraduate education in the sciences:

Goosse H., P.Y. Barriat, W. Lefebvre, M.F. Loutre and V. Zunz,. Introduction to climate dynamics and climate modeling. Online textbook available at http://www.climate.be/textbook

Plus, it is freely available, which is nice. Actually, even if you are new to climate science, there are some interesting bits, particularly on climate modeling, that might be useful.

[kennyc]

Thank you for your reasoned input to this discussion XNN!

[Dulin's Books]

Originally Posted by RedHeadPeter

. It's obvious there is no reasoning with these people and one can only shake your head and wonder what their motives might be, beyond talking up the price of their oil company shares.

I'm tempted (oh - go on I just gave in to temptation) to wonder what crossover there might be between Climate Change deniers and HIV-Aids deniers.

take note that in this thread the people throwing out accusations,name calling(deniers is a perjorative) and wondering about the motives of those involved are the believers.

For future reference my only motive is that I don't believe much of the AGW science i have seen and read over the last 20 years. Especially that of those that say its settled and then ridicule or ignore others who provide quite well researched evidence to the contrary. I have never owned oil shares and believe in HIV/aids as I have seen people die of it.

This release of info from the CRU's database has thrown all of that "settled" science into even further doubt. It shows that(among other problems) the peer review process was circumvented by many climate researches connected or working with CRU because they were "anonymously" reviewing each others work and that of critics.

As for that BBC chart earlier- look at the attributions for the temperature data. Mann from Penn State and Hadly and CRU. If thats been put up since Mann's work on temperature reconstructions has been shown to be incorrect than the BBC has made an egregious error. If its been put up since the CRU data came out then it juts ridiculously pushing an agenda.

OF course the BBC's coverage of Climate change has been shown to quite prone to errors and bias in the past. Many on both sides have been saying not to bother reading what they put out.

The Times is a worse offender. They write alarming stories that on their face are not true and hardly any media bother to correct them. In fact much of the media just Parrots their stories.

Latest incident would probably be the story involving the "Opening of the NE Passage" for which they not only wrote the columns but plastered subway stations with alarming posters.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/10/0...ssage-transit/

Of course you could call that a "deniers blog" and scoff and question his motives OR you could use it as starting point to research the claims and find that he's correct.

[GeoffC]

If you can watch the whole of this - a 50 minute program Human Power
It's an experiment to show how/if 80 cyclists could provide enough electricity for a family of four on a 'normal' Sunday.

There is a short clip of just over 3 minutes, otherwise BBC iPlayer (depending on where in the World you may be) may allow you to watch an excellent eye-opener.

[PKFFW]

Something interesting to consider.....

I will preface by saying(as I have before) I don't know much about the science of climate change. However, it has been mentioned time and again in this thread that "all the models show" or "computer models indicate" etc etc. Not sure how much is computer modelling and how much is other stuff but anyway.

My brother went to Princeton Uni and studied aerospace engineering, worked for NASA for a while, then onto Texas Uni for his PhD and now works in Germany. He is published and considered a leader in his field. Not real sure about what he does but it has to do with fluid and gas dynamics in rockets. I mention all that only to show that he sort of knows his field.

So..........

He was recently published because some very expensive, physical experiments he did dis-proved the current theory that had been accepted "fact" for over 40 years. The accepted "fact" just sort of made sense and fit what they knew of the data at the time. No one saw the point in doing physical experiments because they were very expensive and time consuming and they already "knew" how this particular thing worked or whatever because the accepted "fact" fit. For over 40 years they had been running simulations and computer modelling and "experiments" and building rockets and such on the data reported back from these models. Now he has shown the models were all wrong.

So my point(yes I do have one).........

A computer basically does what you tell it to. In other words, the computer will work within the programming set for it. What that programming is, is based on your knowledge and assumptions at the time you program it. If those assumptions are wrong, then the model will be wrong. There is no getting around that.

So whilst these models can be very informative and helpful they really can't be seen as empirical evidence and used as "proof" of AGW. Any proof that is discussed should be confined to empirical data and not computer models in my humble opinion.

Cheers,
PKFFW

[Dulin's Books]

i'm a aerospace/rocket nut for 40 years and my father-in-law has worked on some amazing projects while inthe AF and at Lockheed Martin (MMU program for one)

If you have a link to your brothers work i'd love to read it and i'm sure my FIL would too.

[fugazied]

Originally Posted by Icarusbop

Not so I'm afraid:
Look up the
'Oregon Petition' 19,700 against and
'The Global Warming Petition Project' 31,486 againt

I have a masters degree and a basic knowledge of science, that is all that is required to sign the 'The Global Warming Petition Project'. I am not a specialist in the field of climatology yet I could both of those petitions. You need to look at the numbers of publishing climatologists who are actively researching the climate change. Anything else is just willful ignorance.

I am sorry, I don't CARE what a Veterinarian, Medical doctors, weatherman, mechanical engineer says about climate change. I want to hear publishing climatologists who research the subject.

It is just madness to even consider those petitions as proof of a massive number of climate change 'scientists' disagreeing with the premise of global warming. Look at the real peer reviewed published science for a change, the stuff climatologists publish, not the Fox news weatherman's blog.