Climate Change

[gepr]

No.  I was truly asking.  Sorry if I came off like I know something you don't.  I did try to keep up with the open sourced climate models I knew about, but never managed to do it.  This might be a good resource:

  https://climate.apache.org/

On 12/29/2017 11:45 AM, Pieter Steenekamp wrote:
> Maybe I do not appreciate fully how the models have evolved since 1990. I have studied the reports and even for me it's it'd very complicated. Do you mind giving me a simple explanation of what you are referring to?

--
☣ uǝlƃ

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

[Marcus G. Daniels]

And of course, the errors can be in either direction.  Large organizations tend to avoid controversy, not seek it out.

Other alternative views can be quite terrifying...

http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/15/20059/2015/acpd-15-20059-2015.pdf

How about boulders like below being tossed around in storms near Miami, Shanghai, etc.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0033589497919268

---

From: Friam <[hidden email]> on behalf of Marcus Daniels <[hidden email]>
Sent: Friday, December 29, 2017 12:46:13 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Climate Change

 

"In 1990 the IPCC predicted a temperature increase of 0.3 degrees centigrade per decade. In 2014 they reported an actual increase of 0.05 degrees centigrade for the previous 15 years."

The second plot gives an idea of how these estimates, based on observation, could go wrong.  However, the first plot in the first image shows a trend over a larger interval, which is consistent with matching the observational & simulation outputs for longer periods. 

---

From: Friam <[hidden email]> on behalf of Pieter Steenekamp <[hidden email]>
Sent: Friday, December 29, 2017 12:16:38 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Climate Change

 

Thank you, I do appreciate.

Let me start with my background. I have done modeling for predictions in engineering applications as a major part of my professional career of 40 years. I am now doing deep learning for making predictions. (Not necessarily relevant to this discussion, but I do combine ABM to get the emerging properties of the system as part of the deep learning exercise - a very exciting endeavor).

In my career, I have made many technical mistakes. I guess this is part of making predictions based on models. I do not have any climate modeling expertise, but I do measure their success in the accuracy of the model's predictions.

In 1990 the IPCC predicted a temperature increase of 0.3 degrees centigrade per decade. In 2014 they reported an actual increase of 0.05 degrees centigrade for the previous 15 years. 

Maybe they are right in their new disaster predictions? IMO it would give them some credibility if they admit the uncertainties.

On 29 December 2017 at 20:44, uǝlƃ ☣ <[hidden email]> wrote:

Yes, I think so.  The trick, I think, is to demonstrate respect for those with whom we disagree.  If someone posts, without rancor, an argument (preferably with data) arguing that the models are wrong in a crucial way, I know *I* would be interested.

I've posted tons of contrarian and stubborn, perhaps even stupid, opinions and have been treated with respect.


On 12/29/2017 10:34 AM, Pieter Steenekamp wrote:
> Is it possible to have, in this group, a civil discussion where the accepted view of the IPCC that unless we reduce CO2 emissions we are heading for disaster is challenged?

--
☣ uǝlƃ

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

[Frank Wimberly-2]

My problem is that I fear that we have passed the point of no possible remedy.  There was a meme which was a graph of global mean temperature for the last several centuries.  There was a sharp transient to the high side in recent decades.

Frank

On Dec 29, 2017 12:59 PM, "Marcus Daniels" <[hidden email]> wrote:

And of course, the errors can be in either direction.  Large organizations tend to avoid controversy, not seek it out.

Other alternative views can be quite terrifying...

http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/15/20059/2015/acpd-15-20059-2015.pdf

How about boulders like below being tossed around in storms near Miami, Shanghai, etc.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0033589497919268

---

From: Friam <[hidden email]> on behalf of Marcus Daniels <[hidden email]>
Sent: Friday, December 29, 2017 12:46:13 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Climate Change

 

"In 1990 the IPCC predicted a temperature increase of 0.3 degrees centigrade per decade. In 2014 they reported an actual increase of 0.05 degrees centigrade for the previous 15 years."

The second plot gives an idea of how these estimates, based on observation, could go wrong.  However, the first plot in the first image shows a trend over a larger interval, which is consistent with matching the observational & simulation outputs for longer periods. 

---

From: Friam <[hidden email]> on behalf of Pieter Steenekamp <[hidden email]>
Sent: Friday, December 29, 2017 12:16:38 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Climate Change

 

Thank you, I do appreciate.

Let me start with my background. I have done modeling for predictions in engineering applications as a major part of my professional career of 40 years. I am now doing deep learning for making predictions. (Not necessarily relevant to this discussion, but I do combine ABM to get the emerging properties of the system as part of the deep learning exercise - a very exciting endeavor).

In my career, I have made many technical mistakes. I guess this is part of making predictions based on models. I do not have any climate modeling expertise, but I do measure their success in the accuracy of the model's predictions.

In 1990 the IPCC predicted a temperature increase of 0.3 degrees centigrade per decade. In 2014 they reported an actual increase of 0.05 degrees centigrade for the previous 15 years. 

Maybe they are right in their new disaster predictions? IMO it would give them some credibility if they admit the uncertainties.

On 29 December 2017 at 20:44, uǝlƃ ☣ <[hidden email]> wrote:

Yes, I think so.  The trick, I think, is to demonstrate respect for those with whom we disagree.  If someone posts, without rancor, an argument (preferably with data) arguing that the models are wrong in a crucial way, I know *I* would be interested.

I've posted tons of contrarian and stubborn, perhaps even stupid, opinions and have been treated with respect.


On 12/29/2017 10:34 AM, Pieter Steenekamp wrote:
> Is it possible to have, in this group, a civil discussion where the accepted view of the IPCC that unless we reduce CO2 emissions we are heading for disaster is challenged?

--
☣ uǝlƃ

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

[Pieter Steenekamp]

Marcus,

I do think we are not on the same page.

I compare predictions against actuals.

In 1990 their predictions proved to be wrong. You are showing me their current predictions. If they were wrong with their confident predictions in 1990, how come they are right now?

I am not over the moon enthusiastic about people having made wrong predictions and then come up with new of the same predictions. Show me where your predictions proved to be right.

On 29 December 2017 at 21:46, Marcus Daniels <[hidden email]> wrote:

"In 1990 the IPCC predicted a temperature increase of 0.3 degrees centigrade per decade. In 2014 they reported an actual increase of 0.05 degrees centigrade for the previous 15 years."

The second plot gives an idea of how these estimates, based on observation, could go wrong.  However, the first plot in the first image shows a trend over a larger interval, which is consistent with matching the observational & simulation outputs for longer periods. 

---

From: Friam <[hidden email]> on behalf of Pieter Steenekamp <[hidden email]>
Sent: Friday, December 29, 2017 12:16:38 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Climate Change

 

Thank you, I do appreciate.

Let me start with my background. I have done modeling for predictions in engineering applications as a major part of my professional career of 40 years. I am now doing deep learning for making predictions. (Not necessarily relevant to this discussion, but I do combine ABM to get the emerging properties of the system as part of the deep learning exercise - a very exciting endeavor).

In my career, I have made many technical mistakes. I guess this is part of making predictions based on models. I do not have any climate modeling expertise, but I do measure their success in the accuracy of the model's predictions.

In 1990 the IPCC predicted a temperature increase of 0.3 degrees centigrade per decade. In 2014 they reported an actual increase of 0.05 degrees centigrade for the previous 15 years. 

Maybe they are right in their new disaster predictions? IMO it would give them some credibility if they admit the uncertainties.

On 29 December 2017 at 20:44, uǝlƃ ☣ <[hidden email]> wrote:

Yes, I think so.  The trick, I think, is to demonstrate respect for those with whom we disagree.  If someone posts, without rancor, an argument (preferably with data) arguing that the models are wrong in a crucial way, I know *I* would be interested.

I've posted tons of contrarian and stubborn, perhaps even stupid, opinions and have been treated with respect.


On 12/29/2017 10:34 AM, Pieter Steenekamp wrote:
> Is it possible to have, in this group, a civil discussion where the accepted view of the IPCC that unless we reduce CO2 emissions we are heading for disaster is challenged?

--
☣ uǝlƃ

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

[Marcus G. Daniels]

"My problem is that I fear that we have passed the point of no possible remedy.  There was a meme which was a graph of global mean temperature for the last several centuries.  There was a sharp transient to the high side in recent decades."

Hippopatumus in Cologne could be fun.

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

---

From: Friam <[hidden email]> on behalf of Frank Wimberly <[hidden email]>
Sent: Friday, December 29, 2017 1:04:39 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Climate Change

 

My problem is that I fear that we have passed the point of no possible remedy.  There was a meme which was a graph of global mean temperature for the last several centuries.  There was a sharp transient to the high side in recent decades.

Frank

----
Frank Wimberly
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_Wimberly2
Phone [phone]

On Dec 29, 2017 12:59 PM, "Marcus Daniels" <[hidden email]> wrote:

And of course, the errors can be in either direction.  Large organizations tend to avoid controversy, not seek it out.

Other alternative views can be quite terrifying...

http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/15/20059/2015/acpd-15-20059-2015.pdf

How about boulders like below being tossed around in storms near Miami, Shanghai, etc.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0033589497919268

---

From: Friam <[hidden email]> on behalf of Marcus Daniels <[hidden email]>
Sent: Friday, December 29, 2017 12:46:13 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Climate Change

 

"In 1990 the IPCC predicted a temperature increase of 0.3 degrees centigrade per decade. In 2014 they reported an actual increase of 0.05 degrees centigrade for the previous 15 years."

The second plot gives an idea of how these estimates, based on observation, could go wrong.  However, the first plot in the first image shows a trend over a larger interval, which is consistent with matching the observational & simulation outputs for longer periods. 

---

From: Friam <[hidden email]> on behalf of Pieter Steenekamp <[hidden email]>
Sent: Friday, December 29, 2017 12:16:38 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Climate Change

 

Thank you, I do appreciate.

Let me start with my background. I have done modeling for predictions in engineering applications as a major part of my professional career of 40 years. I am now doing deep learning for making predictions. (Not necessarily relevant to this discussion, but I do combine ABM to get the emerging properties of the system as part of the deep learning exercise - a very exciting endeavor).

In my career, I have made many technical mistakes. I guess this is part of making predictions based on models. I do not have any climate modeling expertise, but I do measure their success in the accuracy of the model's predictions.

In 1990 the IPCC predicted a temperature increase of 0.3 degrees centigrade per decade. In 2014 they reported an actual increase of 0.05 degrees centigrade for the previous 15 years. 

Maybe they are right in their new disaster predictions? IMO it would give them some credibility if they admit the uncertainties.

On 29 December 2017 at 20:44, uǝlƃ ☣ <[hidden email]> wrote:

Yes, I think so.  The trick, I think, is to demonstrate respect for those with whom we disagree.  If someone posts, without rancor, an argument (preferably with data) arguing that the models are wrong in a crucial way, I know *I* would be interested.

I've posted tons of contrarian and stubborn, perhaps even stupid, opinions and have been treated with respect.


On 12/29/2017 10:34 AM, Pieter Steenekamp wrote:
> Is it possible to have, in this group, a civil discussion where the accepted view of the IPCC that unless we reduce CO2 emissions we are heading for disaster is challenged?

--
☣ uǝlƃ

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

[Pieter Steenekamp]

Climate change is very interesting. There is evidence (as per the graphs in the 1990 IPCC report) that the climate has changed significantly in the past. We had a mini ice age that ended about 1850 and since then we had the industrial revolution with the accomponing rise in CO2.

Show me the climate models that are consistent with the roman warm period, the medieval warm period, the mini ice age and the modern warm period, then we talk again.

The IPCC model takes the temperatures since the end of the mini ice age (1850) till now where the natural climate change would probably have resulted in an increase in temperatures in any case? (Maybe not, but it's definitely not inconsistent with previous temperatures).

Now they develop models to prove that the increase in temperatures since  1850 was caused by an increase in CO2 levels? And they admit that the increase the 15 years prior to the latest report has flattened out significantly.

I don't disagree with the basic science that CO2 equilibrium climate sensitivity is about 1 degree centigrade per doubling of atmospheric CO2 levels. But that is probably insignificant compared to natural climate variability? I don't know? (But neither has the IPCC convinced me that they have a clue)

On 29 December 2017 at 22:11, Marcus Daniels <[hidden email]> wrote:

"My problem is that I fear that we have passed the point of no possible remedy.  There was a meme which was a graph of global mean temperature for the last several centuries.  There was a sharp transient to the high side in recent decades."

Hippopatumus in Cologne could be fun.

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

---

From: Friam <[hidden email]> on behalf of Frank Wimberly <[hidden email]>
Sent: Friday, December 29, 2017 1:04:39 PM

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Climate Change

 

My problem is that I fear that we have passed the point of no possible remedy.  There was a meme which was a graph of global mean temperature for the last several centuries.  There was a sharp transient to the high side in recent decades.

Frank

----
Frank Wimberly
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_Wimberly2
Phone <a href="tel:(505)%20670-9918" value="[phone]" target="_blank">[phone]

On Dec 29, 2017 12:59 PM, "Marcus Daniels" <[hidden email]> wrote:

And of course, the errors can be in either direction.  Large organizations tend to avoid controversy, not seek it out.

Other alternative views can be quite terrifying...

http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/15/20059/2015/acpd-15-20059-2015.pdf

How about boulders like below being tossed around in storms near Miami, Shanghai, etc.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0033589497919268

---

From: Friam <[hidden email]> on behalf of Marcus Daniels <[hidden email]>
Sent: Friday, December 29, 2017 12:46:13 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Climate Change

 

"In 1990 the IPCC predicted a temperature increase of 0.3 degrees centigrade per decade. In 2014 they reported an actual increase of 0.05 degrees centigrade for the previous 15 years."

The second plot gives an idea of how these estimates, based on observation, could go wrong.  However, the first plot in the first image shows a trend over a larger interval, which is consistent with matching the observational & simulation outputs for longer periods. 

---

From: Friam <[hidden email]> on behalf of Pieter Steenekamp <[hidden email]>
Sent: Friday, December 29, 2017 12:16:38 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Climate Change

 

Thank you, I do appreciate.

Let me start with my background. I have done modeling for predictions in engineering applications as a major part of my professional career of 40 years. I am now doing deep learning for making predictions. (Not necessarily relevant to this discussion, but I do combine ABM to get the emerging properties of the system as part of the deep learning exercise - a very exciting endeavor).

In my career, I have made many technical mistakes. I guess this is part of making predictions based on models. I do not have any climate modeling expertise, but I do measure their success in the accuracy of the model's predictions.

In 1990 the IPCC predicted a temperature increase of 0.3 degrees centigrade per decade. In 2014 they reported an actual increase of 0.05 degrees centigrade for the previous 15 years. 

Maybe they are right in their new disaster predictions? IMO it would give them some credibility if they admit the uncertainties.

On 29 December 2017 at 20:44, uǝlƃ ☣ <[hidden email]> wrote:

Yes, I think so.  The trick, I think, is to demonstrate respect for those with whom we disagree.  If someone posts, without rancor, an argument (preferably with data) arguing that the models are wrong in a crucial way, I know *I* would be interested.

I've posted tons of contrarian and stubborn, perhaps even stupid, opinions and have been treated with respect.


On 12/29/2017 10:34 AM, Pieter Steenekamp wrote:
> Is it possible to have, in this group, a civil discussion where the accepted view of the IPCC that unless we reduce CO2 emissions we are heading for disaster is challenged?

--
☣ uǝlƃ

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

[Jochen Fromm-5]

Hippos in Cologne? Well... Some countries like Russia may think climate change is good because it is too cold there anyway. But the effects would be devastating on a global scale. 

IMO it is not about models. Models are complicated and controversial. Climate change in the artic is a fact, melting arctic ice is a fact, melting glaciers is a fact. In the arctic regions we can oberve the rising temperatures most clearly.

-J.

-------- Original message --------

From: Marcus Daniels <[hidden email]>

Date: 12/29/17 21:11 (GMT+01:00)

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Climate Change

"My problem is that I fear that we have passed the point of no possible remedy.  There was a meme which was a graph of global mean temperature for the last several centuries.  There was a sharp transient to the high side in recent decades."

Hippopatumus in Cologne could be fun.

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

---

From: Friam <[hidden email]> on behalf of Frank Wimberly <[hidden email]>
Sent: Friday, December 29, 2017 1:04:39 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Climate Change

 

My problem is that I fear that we have passed the point of no possible remedy.  There was a meme which was a graph of global mean temperature for the last several centuries.  There was a sharp transient to the high side in recent decades.

Frank

----
Frank Wimberly
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_Wimberly2
Phone [phone]

On Dec 29, 2017 12:59 PM, "Marcus Daniels" <[hidden email]> wrote:

And of course, the errors can be in either direction.  Large organizations tend to avoid controversy, not seek it out.

Other alternative views can be quite terrifying...

http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/15/20059/2015/acpd-15-20059-2015.pdf

How about boulders like below being tossed around in storms near Miami, Shanghai, etc.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0033589497919268

---

From: Friam <[hidden email]> on behalf of Marcus Daniels <[hidden email]>
Sent: Friday, December 29, 2017 12:46:13 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Climate Change

 

"In 1990 the IPCC predicted a temperature increase of 0.3 degrees centigrade per decade. In 2014 they reported an actual increase of 0.05 degrees centigrade for the previous 15 years."

The second plot gives an idea of how these estimates, based on observation, could go wrong.  However, the first plot in the first image shows a trend over a larger interval, which is consistent with matching the observational & simulation outputs for longer periods. 

<img size="0" id="x_m_3114979777383522627x_img758103" style="max-width:99.9%" src="content://com.samsung.android.email.attachmentprovider/2/4765/RAW" onmouseover="imageMousePointerUpdate(true)" onmouseout="imageMousePointerUpdate(false)">

<img size="0" id="x_m_3114979777383522627x_img581500" style="max-width:99.9%" src="content://com.samsung.android.email.attachmentprovider/2/4764/RAW" onmouseover="imageMousePointerUpdate(true)" onmouseout="imageMousePointerUpdate(false)">

---

From: Friam <[hidden email]> on behalf of Pieter Steenekamp <[hidden email]>
Sent: Friday, December 29, 2017 12:16:38 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Climate Change

 

Thank you, I do appreciate.

Let me start with my background. I have done modeling for predictions in engineering applications as a major part of my professional career of 40 years. I am now doing deep learning for making predictions. (Not necessarily relevant to this discussion, but I do combine ABM to get the emerging properties of the system as part of the deep learning exercise - a very exciting endeavor).

In my career, I have made many technical mistakes. I guess this is part of making predictions based on models. I do not have any climate modeling expertise, but I do measure their success in the accuracy of the model's predictions.

In 1990 the IPCC predicted a temperature increase of 0.3 degrees centigrade per decade. In 2014 they reported an actual increase of 0.05 degrees centigrade for the previous 15 years. 

Maybe they are right in their new disaster predictions? IMO it would give them some credibility if they admit the uncertainties.

On 29 December 2017 at 20:44, uǝlƃ ☣ <[hidden email]> wrote:

Yes, I think so.  The trick, I think, is to demonstrate respect for those with whom we disagree.  If someone posts, without rancor, an argument (preferably with data) arguing that the models are wrong in a crucial way, I know *I* would be interested.

I've posted tons of contrarian and stubborn, perhaps even stupid, opinions and have been treated with respect.


On 12/29/2017 10:34 AM, Pieter Steenekamp wrote:
> Is it possible to have, in this group, a civil discussion where the accepted view of the IPCC that unless we reduce CO2 emissions we are heading for disaster is challenged?

--
☣ uǝlƃ

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

[Frank Wimberly-2]

Well, I live at 7000 feet ASL so at least flooding won't be a problem.  Drought might be, however.

On Dec 29, 2017 1:11 PM, "Marcus Daniels" <[hidden email]> wrote:

"My problem is that I fear that we have passed the point of no possible remedy.  There was a meme which was a graph of global mean temperature for the last several centuries.  There was a sharp transient to the high side in recent decades."

Hippopatumus in Cologne could be fun.

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

---

From: Friam <[hidden email]> on behalf of Frank Wimberly <[hidden email]>
Sent: Friday, December 29, 2017 1:04:39 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Climate Change

 

My problem is that I fear that we have passed the point of no possible remedy.  There was a meme which was a graph of global mean temperature for the last several centuries.  There was a sharp transient to the high side in recent decades.

Frank

----
Frank Wimberly
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_Wimberly2
Phone <a href="tel:(505)%20670-9918" value="[phone]" target="_blank">[phone]

On Dec 29, 2017 12:59 PM, "Marcus Daniels" <[hidden email]> wrote:

And of course, the errors can be in either direction.  Large organizations tend to avoid controversy, not seek it out.

Other alternative views can be quite terrifying...

http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/15/20059/2015/acpd-15-20059-2015.pdf

How about boulders like below being tossed around in storms near Miami, Shanghai, etc.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0033589497919268

---

From: Friam <[hidden email]> on behalf of Marcus Daniels <[hidden email]>
Sent: Friday, December 29, 2017 12:46:13 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Climate Change

 

"In 1990 the IPCC predicted a temperature increase of 0.3 degrees centigrade per decade. In 2014 they reported an actual increase of 0.05 degrees centigrade for the previous 15 years."

The second plot gives an idea of how these estimates, based on observation, could go wrong.  However, the first plot in the first image shows a trend over a larger interval, which is consistent with matching the observational & simulation outputs for longer periods. 

---

From: Friam <[hidden email]> on behalf of Pieter Steenekamp <[hidden email]>
Sent: Friday, December 29, 2017 12:16:38 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Climate Change

 

Thank you, I do appreciate.

Let me start with my background. I have done modeling for predictions in engineering applications as a major part of my professional career of 40 years. I am now doing deep learning for making predictions. (Not necessarily relevant to this discussion, but I do combine ABM to get the emerging properties of the system as part of the deep learning exercise - a very exciting endeavor).

In my career, I have made many technical mistakes. I guess this is part of making predictions based on models. I do not have any climate modeling expertise, but I do measure their success in the accuracy of the model's predictions.

In 1990 the IPCC predicted a temperature increase of 0.3 degrees centigrade per decade. In 2014 they reported an actual increase of 0.05 degrees centigrade for the previous 15 years. 

Maybe they are right in their new disaster predictions? IMO it would give them some credibility if they admit the uncertainties.

On 29 December 2017 at 20:44, uǝlƃ ☣ <[hidden email]> wrote:

Yes, I think so.  The trick, I think, is to demonstrate respect for those with whom we disagree.  If someone posts, without rancor, an argument (preferably with data) arguing that the models are wrong in a crucial way, I know *I* would be interested.

I've posted tons of contrarian and stubborn, perhaps even stupid, opinions and have been treated with respect.


On 12/29/2017 10:34 AM, Pieter Steenekamp wrote:
> Is it possible to have, in this group, a civil discussion where the accepted view of the IPCC that unless we reduce CO2 emissions we are heading for disaster is challenged?

--
☣ uǝlƃ

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

[Marcus G. Daniels]

"Show me the climate models that are consistent with the roman warm period, the medieval warm period, the mini ice age and the modern warm period, then we talk again."

I guess we can count on Trump's administration to fund these very advanced multi-scale, multi-epoch models and the planet-sized supercomputers that will be needed to run them.  Or maybe we should just rely on his common sense and his buddies in industry to tell us what to do.

Marcus

---

From: Friam <[hidden email]> on behalf of Pieter Steenekamp <[hidden email]>
Sent: Friday, December 29, 2017 1:37:32 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Climate Change

 

Climate change is very interesting. There is evidence (as per the graphs in the 1990 IPCC report) that the climate has changed significantly in the past. We had a mini ice age that ended about 1850 and since then we had the industrial revolution with the accomponing rise in CO2.

Show me the climate models that are consistent with the roman warm period, the medieval warm period, the mini ice age and the modern warm period, then we talk again.

The IPCC model takes the temperatures since the end of the mini ice age (1850) till now where the natural climate change would probably have resulted in an increase in temperatures in any case? (Maybe not, but it's definitely not inconsistent with previous temperatures).

Now they develop models to prove that the increase in temperatures since  1850 was caused by an increase in CO2 levels? And they admit that the increase the 15 years prior to the latest report has flattened out significantly.

I don't disagree with the basic science that CO2 equilibrium climate sensitivity is about 1 degree centigrade per doubling of atmospheric CO2 levels. But that is probably insignificant compared to natural climate variability? I don't know? (But neither has the IPCC convinced me that they have a clue)

On 29 December 2017 at 22:11, Marcus Daniels <[hidden email]> wrote:

"My problem is that I fear that we have passed the point of no possible remedy.  There was a meme which was a graph of global mean temperature for the last several centuries.  There was a sharp transient to the high side in recent decades."

Hippopatumus in Cologne could be fun.

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

---

From: Friam <[hidden email]> on behalf of Frank Wimberly <[hidden email]>
Sent: Friday, December 29, 2017 1:04:39 PM

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Climate Change

 

My problem is that I fear that we have passed the point of no possible remedy.  There was a meme which was a graph of global mean temperature for the last several centuries.  There was a sharp transient to the high side in recent decades.

Frank

----
Frank Wimberly
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_Wimberly2
Phone <a href="tel:(505)%20670-9918" value="&#43;15056709918" target="_blank">[phone]

On Dec 29, 2017 12:59 PM, "Marcus Daniels" <[hidden email]> wrote:

And of course, the errors can be in either direction.  Large organizations tend to avoid controversy, not seek it out.

Other alternative views can be quite terrifying...

http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/15/20059/2015/acpd-15-20059-2015.pdf

How about boulders like below being tossed around in storms near Miami, Shanghai, etc.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0033589497919268

---

From: Friam <[hidden email]> on behalf of Marcus Daniels <[hidden email]>
Sent: Friday, December 29, 2017 12:46:13 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Climate Change

 

"In 1990 the IPCC predicted a temperature increase of 0.3 degrees centigrade per decade. In 2014 they reported an actual increase of 0.05 degrees centigrade for the previous 15 years."

The second plot gives an idea of how these estimates, based on observation, could go wrong.  However, the first plot in the first image shows a trend over a larger interval, which is consistent with matching the observational & simulation outputs for longer periods. 

---

From: Friam <[hidden email]> on behalf of Pieter Steenekamp <[hidden email]>
Sent: Friday, December 29, 2017 12:16:38 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Climate Change

 

Thank you, I do appreciate.

Let me start with my background. I have done modeling for predictions in engineering applications as a major part of my professional career of 40 years. I am now doing deep learning for making predictions. (Not necessarily relevant to this discussion, but I do combine ABM to get the emerging properties of the system as part of the deep learning exercise - a very exciting endeavor).

In my career, I have made many technical mistakes. I guess this is part of making predictions based on models. I do not have any climate modeling expertise, but I do measure their success in the accuracy of the model's predictions.

In 1990 the IPCC predicted a temperature increase of 0.3 degrees centigrade per decade. In 2014 they reported an actual increase of 0.05 degrees centigrade for the previous 15 years. 

Maybe they are right in their new disaster predictions? IMO it would give them some credibility if they admit the uncertainties.

On 29 December 2017 at 20:44, uǝlƃ ☣ <[hidden email]> wrote:

Yes, I think so.  The trick, I think, is to demonstrate respect for those with whom we disagree.  If someone posts, without rancor, an argument (preferably with data) arguing that the models are wrong in a crucial way, I know *I* would be interested.

I've posted tons of contrarian and stubborn, perhaps even stupid, opinions and have been treated with respect.


On 12/29/2017 10:34 AM, Pieter Steenekamp wrote:
> Is it possible to have, in this group, a civil discussion where the accepted view of the IPCC that unless we reduce CO2 emissions we are heading for disaster is challenged?

--
☣ uǝlƃ

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

[Pieter Steenekamp]

Marcus,

I totally agree with you. I don't put any value on what Donald Trump has to say about climate change either.

Independent of Trump I'm still asking "Show me the climate models that are consistent with the roman warm period, the medieval warm period, the mini ice age and the modern warm period, then we talk again."  The IPCC models do not comply; they use the time period where a warming would probably have happened in any case. 

I'm in Johannesburg, South Africa. It's 11pm Friday here and tomorrow morning 8am I participate in 5km walk/run event, so I'm off to bed now. I'll check in tomorrow again. 

In the meantime, thanks for the very civil exchange of opinions.

On 29 December 2017 at 22:55, Marcus Daniels <[hidden email]> wrote:

"Show me the climate models that are consistent with the roman warm period, the medieval warm period, the mini ice age and the modern warm period, then we talk again."

I guess we can count on Trump's administration to fund these very advanced multi-scale, multi-epoch models and the planet-sized supercomputers that will be needed to run them.  Or maybe we should just rely on his common sense and his buddies in industry to tell us what to do.

Marcus

---

From: Friam <[hidden email]> on behalf of Pieter Steenekamp <[hidden email]>
Sent: Friday, December 29, 2017 1:37:32 PM

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Climate Change

 

Climate change is very interesting. There is evidence (as per the graphs in the 1990 IPCC report) that the climate has changed significantly in the past. We had a mini ice age that ended about 1850 and since then we had the industrial revolution with the accomponing rise in CO2.

Show me the climate models that are consistent with the roman warm period, the medieval warm period, the mini ice age and the modern warm period, then we talk again.

The IPCC model takes the temperatures since the end of the mini ice age (1850) till now where the natural climate change would probably have resulted in an increase in temperatures in any case? (Maybe not, but it's definitely not inconsistent with previous temperatures).

Now they develop models to prove that the increase in temperatures since  1850 was caused by an increase in CO2 levels? And they admit that the increase the 15 years prior to the latest report has flattened out significantly.

I don't disagree with the basic science that CO2 equilibrium climate sensitivity is about 1 degree centigrade per doubling of atmospheric CO2 levels. But that is probably insignificant compared to natural climate variability? I don't know? (But neither has the IPCC convinced me that they have a clue)

On 29 December 2017 at 22:11, Marcus Daniels <[hidden email]> wrote:

"My problem is that I fear that we have passed the point of no possible remedy.  There was a meme which was a graph of global mean temperature for the last several centuries.  There was a sharp transient to the high side in recent decades."

Hippopatumus in Cologne could be fun.

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

---

From: Friam <[hidden email]> on behalf of Frank Wimberly <[hidden email]>
Sent: Friday, December 29, 2017 1:04:39 PM

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Climate Change

 

My problem is that I fear that we have passed the point of no possible remedy.  There was a meme which was a graph of global mean temperature for the last several centuries.  There was a sharp transient to the high side in recent decades.

Frank

----
Frank Wimberly
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_Wimberly2
Phone <a href="tel:(505)%20670-9918" value="[phone]" target="_blank">[phone]

On Dec 29, 2017 12:59 PM, "Marcus Daniels" <[hidden email]> wrote:

And of course, the errors can be in either direction.  Large organizations tend to avoid controversy, not seek it out.

Other alternative views can be quite terrifying...

http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/15/20059/2015/acpd-15-20059-2015.pdf

How about boulders like below being tossed around in storms near Miami, Shanghai, etc.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0033589497919268

---

From: Friam <[hidden email]> on behalf of Marcus Daniels <[hidden email]>
Sent: Friday, December 29, 2017 12:46:13 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Climate Change

 

"In 1990 the IPCC predicted a temperature increase of 0.3 degrees centigrade per decade. In 2014 they reported an actual increase of 0.05 degrees centigrade for the previous 15 years."

The second plot gives an idea of how these estimates, based on observation, could go wrong.  However, the first plot in the first image shows a trend over a larger interval, which is consistent with matching the observational & simulation outputs for longer periods. 

---

From: Friam <[hidden email]> on behalf of Pieter Steenekamp <[hidden email]>
Sent: Friday, December 29, 2017 12:16:38 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Climate Change

 

Thank you, I do appreciate.

Let me start with my background. I have done modeling for predictions in engineering applications as a major part of my professional career of 40 years. I am now doing deep learning for making predictions. (Not necessarily relevant to this discussion, but I do combine ABM to get the emerging properties of the system as part of the deep learning exercise - a very exciting endeavor).

In my career, I have made many technical mistakes. I guess this is part of making predictions based on models. I do not have any climate modeling expertise, but I do measure their success in the accuracy of the model's predictions.

In 1990 the IPCC predicted a temperature increase of 0.3 degrees centigrade per decade. In 2014 they reported an actual increase of 0.05 degrees centigrade for the previous 15 years. 

Maybe they are right in their new disaster predictions? IMO it would give them some credibility if they admit the uncertainties.

On 29 December 2017 at 20:44, uǝlƃ ☣ <[hidden email]> wrote:

Yes, I think so.  The trick, I think, is to demonstrate respect for those with whom we disagree.  If someone posts, without rancor, an argument (preferably with data) arguing that the models are wrong in a crucial way, I know *I* would be interested.

I've posted tons of contrarian and stubborn, perhaps even stupid, opinions and have been treated with respect.


On 12/29/2017 10:34 AM, Pieter Steenekamp wrote:
> Is it possible to have, in this group, a civil discussion where the accepted view of the IPCC that unless we reduce CO2 emissions we are heading for disaster is challenged?

--
☣ uǝlƃ

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

[Steve Smith]

Pieter -

I think Eric responded extremely well to the actual gist of the (bent)
thread on Climate Change as it was elaborating.  

The (thread's subject) question of whether there is significant
anthropogenic climate changes underway, the extent of them, how bad the
consequences are likely to be (or already are) to the biosphere, humans,
more vulnerable (coastal,  limited access to technology, etc.)
populations, and whether "we" care are not are all somewhat different
(if related) questions.  

It doesn't surprise me at all that a very low order (linear) model
(average global (surface?) temperatures) might be this far off... the
fact that the sense (if not the magnitude) bore out is not insignificant. 

When I worked with LANL scientists (oceonographers, atmospheric
scientists, biologists) in the mid 90's who were trying to build,
couple, resolve disparate models from these domains to the data (and one
another), there was very little willingness among them to make any
strong statement suggesting climate change (much less warming in
particular).   It was simply too new of a discipline and the data and
models still seemed way too scant to say as much as *most* of them.  
The inflection (see Marcus' post) in greenhouse gas concentrations began
about WWII, just 50 years after internal combustion engines were
invented and had only just begun to have widespread use (especially
outside of the first world) and i 1990, that trend was a mere 40 years
old... it is now 70.... quite a bit more data to work with?  
Computational science was not new in 1990, but computing power/scale and
the general science of predictive modeling has made some very
significant advances in this last 30 years.  

Since you work in predictive modeling, you know how hard it is to get
meaningful results.   In Engineering, we have a *LOT* more control over
the variables...  so are more able to make meaningful/useful
predictions.   The evolving global scale biosphere is about as open and
difficult to establish controlled experiments with as I can imagine...  

I worked with another (multi-institutional)group of Scientists who were
studying Climate Change around 2009.   There was no longer much
(expressed) doubt among them or their colleagues as to whether data
supported a strong positive correlation between climate change and
greenhouse gas concentrations.  If anything, they seemed to have much
more sophisticated notions of *where* all that might take the climate,
which included the possibility of tipping into another (mini?) ice age. 
We were studying THIS group to try to understand how new fields emerged
in Science (NSF grant) and in this case, the opportunities for synergy
where scientists from one subdomain had useful understandings that
scientists in other domains could use.   As since each domain had to
*explain itself* to the others to be effective, they provided a certain
kind of peer review that is often criticized in canalized, possibly
insular fields.   While the group was not in any way antagonist with one
another, they (for their own understanding reasons) questioned one
another's data, models and assumptions to a strong degree.   This
interdisciplinary nature of Climate Studies is not a guarantee of
academic honesty but as (I suspect) with SFI and other Complex Systems
groups, it does provide some useful checks and balances.

Until the mid 2000s I wanted strongly to believe that a change as
significant as throwing the entire biosphere/climate into a new dynamic
balance was beyond human scale... but I came to believe otherwise
through any number of personal explorations and experiences.  If my
career or ego-identity depended more on climate change being a hoax or a
conspiracy, I might still be resisting myself.

- Steve




On 12/29/17 12:18 PM, Eric Smith wrote:

> Hi Peter,
>
> By all means.  I do not intend either aggression or even disrespect toward anybody who will argue any position honestly and in good faith.
>
> The thing that I was attacking below, and which I think needs to be regarded as an existential threat, is what I interpret as coordinated acting in bad faith.  By that I mean a sort of dishonesty of motive, where the real motive is not at all the wellbeing of anybody on the receiving end.  Many tactics go into that: deception, bullying, impoverishment, and more overt things.
>
> We have a crisis of bad faith in many dimensions, certainly in this country with which I am most familiar, but perhaps more widely.  There is no statement that only means what it claims to be about.  Any statement, with a dishonest motive, can be used for a purpose that isn’t what it claims to be about.  That is on the sending end.  On the receiving end, when there is a belief that all senders act in bad faith (whether or not that blame is earned), the receiver can choose to reject any statement, no matter how good its content is capable of being.  
>
> We are in a bad downward spiral in that exchange.  There is enough usage in bad faith that in some cases it justifies the cynicism of listeners, and in many more cases, it gives their cynicism a convenient rationalization.  On the other side, when people give up thinking they have agency, but remain alive, cynicism and rejection and a general destructiveness can be a recourse to sinking just into frustration.  I think those choices are mistakes, but I don’t think they necessarily deserve blame, and they certainly warrant an attitude of helpfulness and committed caring.
>
> Anybody who picks up a tool with the intention of genuinely helping others, and having the humility to understand that it is hard to know how to do that, but necessary to keep trying, is eligible to be a comrade of mine.
>
> All best,
>
> Eric
>
>
>> On Dec 29, 2017, at 11:34 AM, Pieter Steenekamp <[hidden email]> wrote:
>>
>> Is it possible to have, in this group, a civil discussion where the accepted view of the IPCC that unless we reduce CO2 emissions we are heading for disaster is challenged?
>>
>> On 29 December 2017 at 20:25, Eric Smith <[hidden email]> wrote:
>> I agree with both Glen and Jillian,
>>
>> this is more on the right tack.  It’s not about stupidity.  It’s about a kind of character degeneracy further down, and a certain kind of vileness that becomes possible at that level.
>>
>> I would add one thing to Jill’s and Glen’s emphasis (attention trolling), which is that this is about thugs.  That goes beyond the executive to an increasingly purified right wing since Gingrich’s tactics in (the 80s?).  It is not that they don’t know “the truth” of a matter; it is an active war on the existence of truth as a public good, or of anything else that impedes the exercise of thug power.  Nick has articulated this cleanly in several emails, over the past months.
>>
>> But again, anger and outrage are for people.  Or for something close enough to people that there is anything redeemable about it.  Disinfectants and vaccines are for public health problems.  No less commitment, but a different kind, and hopefully a more focused mind.
>>
>> Eric
>>
>>
>>> On Dec 29, 2017, at 10:49 AM, uǝlƃ ☣ <[hidden email]> wrote:
>>>
>>> You called it, Gillian.  Trump and his ilk (Milo, Spencer, etc.) thrive on their ability to invoke.  Beliefs and knowledge take a back seat, which is why they are so capable of munging the facts and changing their tune when confronted.
>>>
>>> So I have to disagree fundamentally with Nick, Merle, Tom, Frank, and Pamela.  He's not "that stupid".  In fact, that question is irrelevant.  He simply knows how to push the buttons, especially of the well-intentioned people who care about beliefs and knowledge.
>>>
>>> On 12/29/2017 09:40 AM, Gillian Densmore wrote:
>>>> He is one of these:
>>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_troll
>>> --
>>> ☣ uǝlƃ
>>>
>>> ============================================================
>>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
>>> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
>>> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
>>
>> ============================================================
>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
>> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
>> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
>>
>> ============================================================
>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
>> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
>> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
>

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

[Marcus G. Daniels]

"Independent of Trump I'm still asking "Show me the climate models that are consistent with the roman warm period, the medieval warm period, the mini ice age and the modern warm period, then we talk again."  The IPCC models do not comply; they use the time period where a warming would probably have happened in any case."

The USA's stockpile stewardship systems (weapons) are about three times bigger than NOAA's fastest supercomputer Luna.  Even short term weather prediction can miss the mark, and with longer timescales and more approximations climate prediction will be even sketchier.  And either will only be as good as the data you put into them.   

Apparently $25 million for Luna came from the Disaster Relief Appropriations Act of 2013 related to the consequences of Hurricane Sandy.   Wouldn't it be better to get out in front of possible disasters rather than a bunch of panic buying after they occur?  That is, invest in the whole set of things that experts believe is needed to make good predictions?  The administrations instincts, of course, are the slash funding not to bolster it.

https://www.aip.org/fyi/2017/trump-budget-cuts-noaa-16-slashes-research-funding-even-deeper

So, no, I'm not going to show you climate models that predict everything indefinitely back in time.  For one thing, I'm not a climate expert.  The many people that contribute work to IPCC are climate experts.   Unless there is evidence of widespread manipulation of evidence by them or the scientists that synthesize their research, that there exists predictions that turn out to be wrong is not of great concern to me.  That's how science goes.  Make a better model and try again, and try to be as clear as possible on known unknowns so that policymakers can make decisions based on the best available evidence.   For our leaders to refuse to consider information because it is incomplete or imperfect or inconvenient is not acceptable.  Of course Trump does that too w.r.t. to consensus recommendations from the intelligence community too  (Hmm, seems to be a pattern.)

Marcus

---

From: Friam <[hidden email]> on behalf of Pieter Steenekamp <[hidden email]>
Sent: Friday, December 29, 2017 2:24:04 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Climate Change

 

Marcus,

I totally agree with you. I don't put any value on what Donald Trump has to say about climate change either.

Independent of Trump I'm still asking "Show me the climate models that are consistent with the roman warm period, the medieval warm period, the mini ice age and the modern warm period, then we talk again."  The IPCC models do not comply; they use the time period where a warming would probably have happened in any case. 

I'm in Johannesburg, South Africa. It's 11pm Friday here and tomorrow morning 8am I participate in 5km walk/run event, so I'm off to bed now. I'll check in tomorrow again. 

In the meantime, thanks for the very civil exchange of opinions.

On 29 December 2017 at 22:55, Marcus Daniels <[hidden email]> wrote:

"Show me the climate models that are consistent with the roman warm period, the medieval warm period, the mini ice age and the modern warm period, then we talk again."

I guess we can count on Trump's administration to fund these very advanced multi-scale, multi-epoch models and the planet-sized supercomputers that will be needed to run them.  Or maybe we should just rely on his common sense and his buddies in industry to tell us what to do.

Marcus

---

From: Friam <[hidden email]> on behalf of Pieter Steenekamp <[hidden email]>
Sent: Friday, December 29, 2017 1:37:32 PM

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Climate Change

 

Climate change is very interesting. There is evidence (as per the graphs in the 1990 IPCC report) that the climate has changed significantly in the past. We had a mini ice age that ended about 1850 and since then we had the industrial revolution with the accomponing rise in CO2.

Show me the climate models that are consistent with the roman warm period, the medieval warm period, the mini ice age and the modern warm period, then we talk again.

The IPCC model takes the temperatures since the end of the mini ice age (1850) till now where the natural climate change would probably have resulted in an increase in temperatures in any case? (Maybe not, but it's definitely not inconsistent with previous temperatures).

Now they develop models to prove that the increase in temperatures since  1850 was caused by an increase in CO2 levels? And they admit that the increase the 15 years prior to the latest report has flattened out significantly.

I don't disagree with the basic science that CO2 equilibrium climate sensitivity is about 1 degree centigrade per doubling of atmospheric CO2 levels. But that is probably insignificant compared to natural climate variability? I don't know? (But neither has the IPCC convinced me that they have a clue)

On 29 December 2017 at 22:11, Marcus Daniels <[hidden email]> wrote:

"My problem is that I fear that we have passed the point of no possible remedy.  There was a meme which was a graph of global mean temperature for the last several centuries.  There was a sharp transient to the high side in recent decades."

Hippopatumus in Cologne could be fun.

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

---

From: Friam <[hidden email]> on behalf of Frank Wimberly <[hidden email]>
Sent: Friday, December 29, 2017 1:04:39 PM

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Climate Change

 

My problem is that I fear that we have passed the point of no possible remedy.  There was a meme which was a graph of global mean temperature for the last several centuries.  There was a sharp transient to the high side in recent decades.

Frank

----
Frank Wimberly
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_Wimberly2
Phone <a href="tel:(505)%20670-9918" value="&#43;15056709918" target="_blank">[phone]

On Dec 29, 2017 12:59 PM, "Marcus Daniels" <[hidden email]> wrote:

And of course, the errors can be in either direction.  Large organizations tend to avoid controversy, not seek it out.

Other alternative views can be quite terrifying...

http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/15/20059/2015/acpd-15-20059-2015.pdf

How about boulders like below being tossed around in storms near Miami, Shanghai, etc.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0033589497919268

---

From: Friam <[hidden email]> on behalf of Marcus Daniels <[hidden email]>
Sent: Friday, December 29, 2017 12:46:13 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Climate Change

 

"In 1990 the IPCC predicted a temperature increase of 0.3 degrees centigrade per decade. In 2014 they reported an actual increase of 0.05 degrees centigrade for the previous 15 years."

The second plot gives an idea of how these estimates, based on observation, could go wrong.  However, the first plot in the first image shows a trend over a larger interval, which is consistent with matching the observational & simulation outputs for longer periods. 

---

From: Friam <[hidden email]> on behalf of Pieter Steenekamp <[hidden email]>
Sent: Friday, December 29, 2017 12:16:38 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Climate Change

 

Thank you, I do appreciate.

Let me start with my background. I have done modeling for predictions in engineering applications as a major part of my professional career of 40 years. I am now doing deep learning for making predictions. (Not necessarily relevant to this discussion, but I do combine ABM to get the emerging properties of the system as part of the deep learning exercise - a very exciting endeavor).

In my career, I have made many technical mistakes. I guess this is part of making predictions based on models. I do not have any climate modeling expertise, but I do measure their success in the accuracy of the model's predictions.

In 1990 the IPCC predicted a temperature increase of 0.3 degrees centigrade per decade. In 2014 they reported an actual increase of 0.05 degrees centigrade for the previous 15 years. 

Maybe they are right in their new disaster predictions? IMO it would give them some credibility if they admit the uncertainties.

On 29 December 2017 at 20:44, uǝlƃ ☣ <[hidden email]> wrote:

Yes, I think so.  The trick, I think, is to demonstrate respect for those with whom we disagree.  If someone posts, without rancor, an argument (preferably with data) arguing that the models are wrong in a crucial way, I know *I* would be interested.

I've posted tons of contrarian and stubborn, perhaps even stupid, opinions and have been treated with respect.


On 12/29/2017 10:34 AM, Pieter Steenekamp wrote:
> Is it possible to have, in this group, a civil discussion where the accepted view of the IPCC that unless we reduce CO2 emissions we are heading for disaster is challenged?

--
☣ uǝlƃ

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

[gepr]

Well, I mean "models" writ large.  Even when gathering and reducing observational data, there's a workflow for doing that. That workflow relies on a model of a sort.  And integrating different data sets so that they're commensurate also requires models.  E.g. correlating tree ring based with other climate data.

But you're ultimately right.  It's not so much about the models as it is the whole inferential apparatus one *might* use to drive policy decisions, including huge populations of expert climatologists.  There's probably a correlation to be drawn between people who distrust government and those who distrust the "scientific establishment" and/or the "deep state".  People tend to obey/trust whoever they regard as authority figures (e.g. greater shocks to another if a person in a lab coat tells you to do it).  Those of us who inherently distrust authority figures have a particular psychological bent and our impulse can go the other way.  It could be because we know how groups can succumb to bias, or how errors get propagated (e.g. peer review), or whatever.

*That* is why I think focusing on the workflows (modeling) is important.  Those of us who distrust the experts bear the burden of proof.  Hence, we have to really dig in and find the flaw in the experts' thinking.  To do otherwise is irrational.

Those of us who can delegate and tend to trust experts only need to dig in when/if a skeptic produces a defensible counter-argument.  If all a skeptic has to offer are blanket generalizations about human error or whatnot, then it seems rational to ignore that doubt and go with the conclusions of the experts.

If Pieter knows of a specific flaw in the way the experts do their work, then it would be a valuable contribution.

On 12/29/2017 12:41 PM, Jochen Fromm wrote:
> IMO it is not about models. Models are complicated and controversial. Climate change in the artic is a fact, melting arctic ice is a fact, melting glaciers is a fact. In the arctic regions we can oberve the rising temperatures most clearly.


--
☣ uǝlƃ

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

[Nick Thompson]

I dunno, I thought Pietr's point was kind of interesting.  IF (and I don't know if the condition is met) ... IF climate models cannot "predict" past anomalies, why should we trust them now?   Or did somebody already answer that.  



Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of u?l? ?
Sent: Friday, December 29, 2017 5:40 PM
To: FriAM <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Climate Change

Well, I mean "models" writ large.  Even when gathering and reducing observational data, there's a workflow for doing that. That workflow relies on a model of a sort.  And integrating different data sets so that they're commensurate also requires models.  E.g. correlating tree ring based with other climate data.

But you're ultimately right.  It's not so much about the models as it is the whole inferential apparatus one *might* use to drive policy decisions, including huge populations of expert climatologists.  There's probably a correlation to be drawn between people who distrust government and those who distrust the "scientific establishment" and/or the "deep state".  People tend to obey/trust whoever they regard as authority figures (e.g. greater shocks to another if a person in a lab coat tells you to do it).  Those of us who inherently distrust authority figures have a particular psychological bent and our impulse can go the other way.  It could be because we know how groups can succumb to bias, or how errors get propagated (e.g. peer review), or whatever.

*That* is why I think focusing on the workflows (modeling) is important.  Those of us who distrust the experts bear the burden of proof.  Hence, we have to really dig in and find the flaw in the experts' thinking.  To do otherwise is irrational.

Those of us who can delegate and tend to trust experts only need to dig in when/if a skeptic produces a defensible counter-argument.  If all a skeptic has to offer are blanket generalizations about human error or whatnot, then it seems rational to ignore that doubt and go with the conclusions of the experts.

If Pieter knows of a specific flaw in the way the experts do their work, then it would be a valuable contribution.

On 12/29/2017 12:41 PM, Jochen Fromm wrote:
> IMO it is not about models. Models are complicated and controversial. Climate change in the artic is a fact, melting arctic ice is a fact, melting glaciers is a fact. In the arctic regions we can oberve the rising temperatures most clearly.


--
☣ uǝlƃ

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove


============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

[Merle Lefkoff-2]

Steve, I had hoped for awhile that climate change studies would yield the possibility of a truly transdisciplinary breakthrough in complex systems modeling, rather than the interdisciplinary effort you recall that provided "useful checks and balances" on academic honestly.  I take it from the thread that my hope has not yet been realized.  Big sigh.

On Fri, Dec 29, 2017 at 2:32 PM, Steven A Smith <[hidden email]> wrote:

Pieter -

I think Eric responded extremely well to the actual gist of the (bent)
thread on Climate Change as it was elaborating.  

The (thread's subject) question of whether there is significant
anthropogenic climate changes underway, the extent of them, how bad the
consequences are likely to be (or already are) to the biosphere, humans,
more vulnerable (coastal,  limited access to technology, etc.)
populations, and whether "we" care are not are all somewhat different
(if related) questions.  

It doesn't surprise me at all that a very low order (linear) model
(average global (surface?) temperatures) might be this far off... the
fact that the sense (if not the magnitude) bore out is not insignificant. 

When I worked with LANL scientists (oceonographers, atmospheric
scientists, biologists) in the mid 90's who were trying to build,
couple, resolve disparate models from these domains to the data (and one
another), there was very little willingness among them to make any
strong statement suggesting climate change (much less warming in
particular).   It was simply too new of a discipline and the data and
models still seemed way too scant to say as much as *most* of them.  
The inflection (see Marcus' post) in greenhouse gas concentrations began
about WWII, just 50 years after internal combustion engines were
invented and had only just begun to have widespread use (especially
outside of the first world) and i 1990, that trend was a mere 40 years
old... it is now 70.... quite a bit more data to work with?  
Computational science was not new in 1990, but computing power/scale and
the general science of predictive modeling has made some very
significant advances in this last 30 years.  

Since you work in predictive modeling, you know how hard it is to get
meaningful results.   In Engineering, we have a *LOT* more control over
the variables...  so are more able to make meaningful/useful
predictions.   The evolving global scale biosphere is about as open and
difficult to establish controlled experiments with as I can imagine...  

I worked with another (multi-institutional)group of Scientists who were
studying Climate Change around 2009.   There was no longer much
(expressed) doubt among them or their colleagues as to whether data
supported a strong positive correlation between climate change and
greenhouse gas concentrations.  If anything, they seemed to have much
more sophisticated notions of *where* all that might take the climate,
which included the possibility of tipping into another (mini?) ice age. 
We were studying THIS group to try to understand how new fields emerged
in Science (NSF grant) and in this case, the opportunities for synergy
where scientists from one subdomain had useful understandings that
scientists in other domains could use.   As since each domain had to
*explain itself* to the others to be effective, they provided a certain
kind of peer review that is often criticized in canalized, possibly
insular fields.   While the group was not in any way antagonist with one
another, they (for their own understanding reasons) questioned one
another's data, models and assumptions to a strong degree.   This
interdisciplinary nature of Climate Studies is not a guarantee of
academic honesty but as (I suspect) with SFI and other Complex Systems
groups, it does provide some useful checks and balances.

Until the mid 2000s I wanted strongly to believe that a change as
significant as throwing the entire biosphere/climate into a new dynamic
balance was beyond human scale... but I came to believe otherwise
through any number of personal explorations and experiences.  If my
career or ego-identity depended more on climate change being a hoax or a
conspiracy, I might still be resisting myself.

- Steve

On 12/29/17 12:18 PM, Eric Smith wrote:
> Hi Peter,
>
> By all means.  I do not intend either aggression or even disrespect toward anybody who will argue any position honestly and in good faith.
>
> The thing that I was attacking below, and which I think needs to be regarded as an existential threat, is what I interpret as coordinated acting in bad faith.  By that I mean a sort of dishonesty of motive, where the real motive is not at all the wellbeing of anybody on the receiving end.  Many tactics go into that: deception, bullying, impoverishment, and more overt things.
>
> We have a crisis of bad faith in many dimensions, certainly in this country with which I am most familiar, but perhaps more widely.  There is no statement that only means what it claims to be about.  Any statement, with a dishonest motive, can be used for a purpose that isn’t what it claims to be about.  That is on the sending end.  On the receiving end, when there is a belief that all senders act in bad faith (whether or not that blame is earned), the receiver can choose to reject any statement, no matter how good its content is capable of being.
>
> We are in a bad downward spiral in that exchange.  There is enough usage in bad faith that in some cases it justifies the cynicism of listeners, and in many more cases, it gives their cynicism a convenient rationalization.  On the other side, when people give up thinking they have agency, but remain alive, cynicism and rejection and a general destructiveness can be a recourse to sinking just into frustration.  I think those choices are mistakes, but I don’t think they necessarily deserve blame, and they certainly warrant an attitude of helpfulness and committed caring.
>
> Anybody who picks up a tool with the intention of genuinely helping others, and having the humility to understand that it is hard to know how to do that, but necessary to keep trying, is eligible to be a comrade of mine.
>
> All best,
>
> Eric
>
>
>> On Dec 29, 2017, at 11:34 AM, Pieter Steenekamp <[hidden email]> wrote:
>>
>> Is it possible to have, in this group, a civil discussion where the accepted view of the IPCC that unless we reduce CO2 emissions we are heading for disaster is challenged?
>>
>> On 29 December 2017 at 20:25, Eric Smith <[hidden email]> wrote:
>> I agree with both Glen and Jillian,
>>
>> this is more on the right tack.  It’s not about stupidity.  It’s about a kind of character degeneracy further down, and a certain kind of vileness that becomes possible at that level.
>>
>> I would add one thing to Jill’s and Glen’s emphasis (attention trolling), which is that this is about thugs.  That goes beyond the executive to an increasingly purified right wing since Gingrich’s tactics in (the 80s?).  It is not that they don’t know “the truth” of a matter; it is an active war on the existence of truth as a public good, or of anything else that impedes the exercise of thug power.  Nick has articulated this cleanly in several emails, over the past months.
>>
>> But again, anger and outrage are for people.  Or for something close enough to people that there is anything redeemable about it.  Disinfectants and vaccines are for public health problems.  No less commitment, but a different kind, and hopefully a more focused mind.
>>
>> Eric
>>
>>
>>> On Dec 29, 2017, at 10:49 AM, uǝlƃ ☣ <[hidden email]> wrote:
>>>
>>> You called it, Gillian.  Trump and his ilk (Milo, Spencer, etc.) thrive on their ability to invoke.  Beliefs and knowledge take a back seat, which is why they are so capable of munging the facts and changing their tune when confronted.
>>>
>>> So I have to disagree fundamentally with Nick, Merle, Tom, Frank, and Pamela.  He's not "that stupid".  In fact, that question is irrelevant.  He simply knows how to push the buttons, especially of the well-intentioned people who care about beliefs and knowledge.
>>>
>>> On 12/29/2017 09:40 AM, Gillian Densmore wrote:
>>>> He is one of these:
>>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_troll
>>> --
>>> ☣ uǝlƃ
>>>
>>> ============================================================
>>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
>>> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
>>> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
>>
>> ============================================================
>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
>> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
>> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
>>
>> ============================================================
>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
>> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
>> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
>



============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

--

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

[Marcus G. Daniels]

Nick writes:

< IF climate models cannot "predict" past anomalies, why should we trust them now? >

The European weather model assimilates 50+ types of measurements in space and time, including satellite data.   Obviously, these measurements were not possible except in the last few decades, never mind in the middle ages or before humans.   So whether or not there were even particular kinds of climate anomalies is a subject of some debate.    For example, were those periods wet or were they warm?  Were they uniform across the global or localized to certain regions?

Marcus

---

From: Friam <[hidden email]> on behalf of Nick Thompson <[hidden email]>
Sent: Friday, December 29, 2017 8:27:21 PM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Climate Change

 

I dunno, I thought Pietr's point was kind of interesting.  IF (and I don't know if the condition is met) ... IF climate models cannot "predict" past anomalies, why should we trust them now?   Or did somebody already answer that. 



Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of u?l? ?
Sent: Friday, December 29, 2017 5:40 PM
To: FriAM <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Climate Change

Well, I mean "models" writ large.  Even when gathering and reducing observational data, there's a workflow for doing that. That workflow relies on a model of a sort.  And integrating different data sets so that they're commensurate also requires models.  E.g. correlating tree ring based with other climate data.

But you're ultimately right.  It's not so much about the models as it is the whole inferential apparatus one *might* use to drive policy decisions, including huge populations of expert climatologists.  There's probably a correlation to be drawn between people who distrust government and those who distrust the "scientific establishment" and/or the "deep state".  People tend to obey/trust whoever they regard as authority figures (e.g. greater shocks to another if a person in a lab coat tells you to do it).  Those of us who inherently distrust authority figures have a particular psychological bent and our impulse can go the other way.  It could be because we know how groups can succumb to bias, or how errors get propagated (e.g. peer review), or whatever.

*That* is why I think focusing on the workflows (modeling) is important.  Those of us who distrust the experts bear the burden of proof.  Hence, we have to really dig in and find the flaw in the experts' thinking.  To do otherwise is irrational.

Those of us who can delegate and tend to trust experts only need to dig in when/if a skeptic produces a defensible counter-argument.  If all a skeptic has to offer are blanket generalizations about human error or whatnot, then it seems rational to ignore that doubt and go with the conclusions of the experts.

If Pieter knows of a specific flaw in the way the experts do their work, then it would be a valuable contribution.

On 12/29/2017 12:41 PM, Jochen Fromm wrote:
> IMO it is not about models. Models are complicated and controversial. Climate change in the artic is a fact, melting arctic ice is a fact, melting glaciers is a fact. In the arctic regions we can oberve the rising temperatures most clearly.


--
☣ uǝlƃ

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove


============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

[Carl Tollander]

I would rather,

 than worry directly about the predictability of the climate models we currently have vs the population/variety/intitial conclusions of researchers from decades ago, 

 that we instead consider a range of climate risks, their consequences,  our responses/adaptations, and their consequences.

The latter may prepare us, and it moves that portion of the science along in any case, and may yet eventually show up any deficiencies in the former, but let's get underway.

Personally, I'm with Lovelock on the large grain future: the window of action gets progressively smaller the longer we delay, and that the world will likely experience

a "massive reduction in carrying capacity" (that's a euphemism) over the next century.    Looking at older cultures and how they survive, mutate, die or flourish in analogous upheavals (e.g. mid-8th-century China or black-death eras in  Europe) might be worthwhile at this point. Start by assuming the fan/speed/blades and what/who hits it; what can/should we DO?  We should at least perhaps understand when we are waiting too long to begin adaptations that are cheap, safe, economic or politically acceptable, for Nature bats last.

Hope y'all like mosquitoes. 

カール

On Fri, Dec 29, 2017 at 8:59 PM, Marcus Daniels <[hidden email]> wrote:

Nick writes:

< IF climate models cannot "predict" past anomalies, why should we trust them now? >

The European weather model assimilates 50+ types of measurements in space and time, including satellite data.   Obviously, these measurements were not possible except in the last few decades, never mind in the middle ages or before humans.   So whether or not there were even particular kinds of climate anomalies is a subject of some debate.    For example, were those periods wet or were they warm?  Were they uniform across the global or localized to certain regions?

Marcus

---

From: Friam <[hidden email]> on behalf of Nick Thompson <[hidden email]>
Sent: Friday, December 29, 2017 8:27:21 PM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Climate Change

 

I dunno, I thought Pietr's point was kind of interesting.  IF (and I don't know if the condition is met) ... IF climate models cannot "predict" past anomalies, why should we trust them now?   Or did somebody already answer that. 



Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of u?l? ?
Sent: Friday, December 29, 2017 5:40 PM
To: FriAM <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Climate Change

Well, I mean "models" writ large.  Even when gathering and reducing observational data, there's a workflow for doing that. That workflow relies on a model of a sort.  And integrating different data sets so that they're commensurate also requires models.  E.g. correlating tree ring based with other climate data.

But you're ultimately right.  It's not so much about the models as it is the whole inferential apparatus one *might* use to drive policy decisions, including huge populations of expert climatologists.  There's probably a correlation to be drawn between people who distrust government and those who distrust the "scientific establishment" and/or the "deep state".  People tend to obey/trust whoever they regard as authority figures (e.g. greater shocks to another if a person in a lab coat tells you to do it).  Those of us who inherently distrust authority figures have a particular psychological bent and our impulse can go the other way.  It could be because we know how groups can succumb to bias, or how errors get propagated (e.g. peer review), or whatever.

*That* is why I think focusing on the workflows (modeling) is important.  Those of us who distrust the experts bear the burden of proof.  Hence, we have to really dig in and find the flaw in the experts' thinking.  To do otherwise is irrational.

Those of us who can delegate and tend to trust experts only need to dig in when/if a skeptic produces a defensible counter-argument.  If all a skeptic has to offer are blanket generalizations about human error or whatnot, then it seems rational to ignore that doubt and go with the conclusions of the experts.

If Pieter knows of a specific flaw in the way the experts do their work, then it would be a valuable contribution.

On 12/29/2017 12:41 PM, Jochen Fromm wrote:
> IMO it is not about models. Models are complicated and controversial. Climate change in the artic is a fact, melting arctic ice is a fact, melting glaciers is a fact. In the arctic regions we can oberve the rising temperatures most clearly.


--
☣ uǝlƃ

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove


============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

[Pieter Steenekamp]

I'm also a big fan of James Lovelock. Interesting that he changed his views on climate change dramatically. I refer to an interview The Guardian newspaper had with him recently (www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/sep/30/james-lovelock-interview-by-end-of-century-robots-will-have-taken-over). I quote:

"What has changed dramatically, however, is his position on climate change. He now says: “Anyone who tries to predict more than five to 10 years is a bit of an idiot, because so many things can change unexpectedly.” "

On 30 December 2017 at 07:25, Carl Tollander <[hidden email]> wrote:

I would rather,

 than worry directly about the predictability of the climate models we currently have vs the population/variety/intitial conclusions of researchers from decades ago, 

 that we instead consider a range of climate risks, their consequences,  our responses/adaptations, and their consequences.

The latter may prepare us, and it moves that portion of the science along in any case, and may yet eventually show up any deficiencies in the former, but let's get underway.

Personally, I'm with Lovelock on the large grain future: the window of action gets progressively smaller the longer we delay, and that the world will likely experience

a "massive reduction in carrying capacity" (that's a euphemism) over the next century.    Looking at older cultures and how they survive, mutate, die or flourish in analogous upheavals (e.g. mid-8th-century China or black-death eras in  Europe) might be worthwhile at this point. Start by assuming the fan/speed/blades and what/who hits it; what can/should we DO?  We should at least perhaps understand when we are waiting too long to begin adaptations that are cheap, safe, economic or politically acceptable, for Nature bats last.

Hope y'all like mosquitoes. 

カール

On Fri, Dec 29, 2017 at 8:59 PM, Marcus Daniels <[hidden email]> wrote:

Nick writes:

< IF climate models cannot "predict" past anomalies, why should we trust them now? >

The European weather model assimilates 50+ types of measurements in space and time, including satellite data.   Obviously, these measurements were not possible except in the last few decades, never mind in the middle ages or before humans.   So whether or not there were even particular kinds of climate anomalies is a subject of some debate.    For example, were those periods wet or were they warm?  Were they uniform across the global or localized to certain regions?

Marcus

---

From: Friam <[hidden email]> on behalf of Nick Thompson <[hidden email]>
Sent: Friday, December 29, 2017 8:27:21 PM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Climate Change

 

I dunno, I thought Pietr's point was kind of interesting.  IF (and I don't know if the condition is met) ... IF climate models cannot "predict" past anomalies, why should we trust them now?   Or did somebody already answer that. 



Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of u?l? ?
Sent: Friday, December 29, 2017 5:40 PM
To: FriAM <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Climate Change

Well, I mean "models" writ large.  Even when gathering and reducing observational data, there's a workflow for doing that. That workflow relies on a model of a sort.  And integrating different data sets so that they're commensurate also requires models.  E.g. correlating tree ring based with other climate data.

But you're ultimately right.  It's not so much about the models as it is the whole inferential apparatus one *might* use to drive policy decisions, including huge populations of expert climatologists.  There's probably a correlation to be drawn between people who distrust government and those who distrust the "scientific establishment" and/or the "deep state".  People tend to obey/trust whoever they regard as authority figures (e.g. greater shocks to another if a person in a lab coat tells you to do it).  Those of us who inherently distrust authority figures have a particular psychological bent and our impulse can go the other way.  It could be because we know how groups can succumb to bias, or how errors get propagated (e.g. peer review), or whatever.

*That* is why I think focusing on the workflows (modeling) is important.  Those of us who distrust the experts bear the burden of proof.  Hence, we have to really dig in and find the flaw in the experts' thinking.  To do otherwise is irrational.

Those of us who can delegate and tend to trust experts only need to dig in when/if a skeptic produces a defensible counter-argument.  If all a skeptic has to offer are blanket generalizations about human error or whatnot, then it seems rational to ignore that doubt and go with the conclusions of the experts.

If Pieter knows of a specific flaw in the way the experts do their work, then it would be a valuable contribution.

On 12/29/2017 12:41 PM, Jochen Fromm wrote:
> IMO it is not about models. Models are complicated and controversial. Climate change in the artic is a fact, melting arctic ice is a fact, melting glaciers is a fact. In the arctic regions we can oberve the rising temperatures most clearly.


--
☣ uǝlƃ

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove


============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

[Pieter Steenekamp]

Glen, 

I'd like to comment on your comment a few posts earlier:

"*That* is why I think focusing on the workflows (modeling) is important.  Those of us who distrust the experts bear the burden of proof.  Hence, we have to really dig in and find the flaw in the experts' thinking.  To do otherwise is irrational.

Those of us who can delegate and tend to trust experts only need to dig in when/if a skeptic produces a defensible counter-argument.  If all a skeptic has to offer are blanket generalizations about human error or whatnot, then it seems rational to ignore that doubt and go with the conclusions of the experts.

If Pieter knows of a specific flaw in the way the experts do their work, then it would be a valuable contribution."

My first reply is that I consider evidence to be much more valuable than expert's opinions. The IPCC is rich in expert's opinions and very light on evidence. 

The second reply is that I certainly do not claim any explicit fraud in climate science. But there is evidence of bias in climate science and "soft punishment" of scientists who disagree with the main narrative. For example, refer to Judith Curry's experience when she started to challenge the main climate science narrative. She is a former Chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Tech and blogs at www.judithcurry.com.

My point is that although there is no evidence of explicit fraud, there is evidence of an environment that promotes groupthink. 

Combining the two points, with evidence of less temperature increase than what the models predict and evidence of an environment in climate science promoting "fitting in" and the absence of healthy challenging of climate science, my conclusion is to be skeptical towards main climate science and the IPCC's conclusions. 

On 30 December 2017 at 10:30, Pieter Steenekamp <[hidden email]> wrote:

I'm also a big fan of James Lovelock. Interesting that he changed his views on climate change dramatically. I refer to an interview The Guardian newspaper had with him recently (www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/sep/30/james-lovelock-interview-by-end-of-century-robots-will-have-taken-over). I quote:

"What has changed dramatically, however, is his position on climate change. He now says: “Anyone who tries to predict more than five to 10 years is a bit of an idiot, because so many things can change unexpectedly.” "

On 30 December 2017 at 07:25, Carl Tollander <[hidden email]> wrote:

I would rather,

 than worry directly about the predictability of the climate models we currently have vs the population/variety/intitial conclusions of researchers from decades ago, 

 that we instead consider a range of climate risks, their consequences,  our responses/adaptations, and their consequences.

The latter may prepare us, and it moves that portion of the science along in any case, and may yet eventually show up any deficiencies in the former, but let's get underway.

Personally, I'm with Lovelock on the large grain future: the window of action gets progressively smaller the longer we delay, and that the world will likely experience

a "massive reduction in carrying capacity" (that's a euphemism) over the next century.    Looking at older cultures and how they survive, mutate, die or flourish in analogous upheavals (e.g. mid-8th-century China or black-death eras in  Europe) might be worthwhile at this point. Start by assuming the fan/speed/blades and what/who hits it; what can/should we DO?  We should at least perhaps understand when we are waiting too long to begin adaptations that are cheap, safe, economic or politically acceptable, for Nature bats last.

Hope y'all like mosquitoes. 

カール

On Fri, Dec 29, 2017 at 8:59 PM, Marcus Daniels <[hidden email]> wrote:

Nick writes:

< IF climate models cannot "predict" past anomalies, why should we trust them now? >

The European weather model assimilates 50+ types of measurements in space and time, including satellite data.   Obviously, these measurements were not possible except in the last few decades, never mind in the middle ages or before humans.   So whether or not there were even particular kinds of climate anomalies is a subject of some debate.    For example, were those periods wet or were they warm?  Were they uniform across the global or localized to certain regions?

Marcus

---

From: Friam <[hidden email]> on behalf of Nick Thompson <[hidden email]>
Sent: Friday, December 29, 2017 8:27:21 PM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Climate Change

 

I dunno, I thought Pietr's point was kind of interesting.  IF (and I don't know if the condition is met) ... IF climate models cannot "predict" past anomalies, why should we trust them now?   Or did somebody already answer that. 



Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of u?l? ?
Sent: Friday, December 29, 2017 5:40 PM
To: FriAM <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Climate Change

Well, I mean "models" writ large.  Even when gathering and reducing observational data, there's a workflow for doing that. That workflow relies on a model of a sort.  And integrating different data sets so that they're commensurate also requires models.  E.g. correlating tree ring based with other climate data.

But you're ultimately right.  It's not so much about the models as it is the whole inferential apparatus one *might* use to drive policy decisions, including huge populations of expert climatologists.  There's probably a correlation to be drawn between people who distrust government and those who distrust the "scientific establishment" and/or the "deep state".  People tend to obey/trust whoever they regard as authority figures (e.g. greater shocks to another if a person in a lab coat tells you to do it).  Those of us who inherently distrust authority figures have a particular psychological bent and our impulse can go the other way.  It could be because we know how groups can succumb to bias, or how errors get propagated (e.g. peer review), or whatever.

*That* is why I think focusing on the workflows (modeling) is important.  Those of us who distrust the experts bear the burden of proof.  Hence, we have to really dig in and find the flaw in the experts' thinking.  To do otherwise is irrational.

Those of us who can delegate and tend to trust experts only need to dig in when/if a skeptic produces a defensible counter-argument.  If all a skeptic has to offer are blanket generalizations about human error or whatnot, then it seems rational to ignore that doubt and go with the conclusions of the experts.

If Pieter knows of a specific flaw in the way the experts do their work, then it would be a valuable contribution.

On 12/29/2017 12:41 PM, Jochen Fromm wrote:
> IMO it is not about models. Models are complicated and controversial. Climate change in the artic is a fact, melting arctic ice is a fact, melting glaciers is a fact. In the arctic regions we can oberve the rising temperatures most clearly.


--
☣ uǝlƃ

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove


============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

[Nick Thompson]

Pieter, 

 

Some months back, at the Friday Meeting of the FRIAM Mother Church at St. Johns, we had a long discussion about the degree to which ANY of us ever made judgements in such matters on the basis of EVIDENCE.  I think, just for fun, we spent some time trying to PROVE to one another, on the basis of raw experience, that New Mexico is not flat.  Harder going than one might suppose.   So, I think we concluded that most of our judgements are based on circles of trust.  So then, the question becomes, what sorts of circles of trust are evidency.  The point is that, whatever one takes to be raw evidence always comes baled with a set of inferences and assumptions that are themselves not evidenced but which come by authority and seem trustworthy. 

 

Your pointing to historical climate anomalies seemed evidency to me in that it was plausible,  I had vaguely heard of those things and it seemed logically plausible to me that we should be able to POSTDICT these anomalies from present conditions, if our models are strong.  Thus, in the context of that particular network of trusted (plausible) propositions, I momentarily joined you in your skepticism.  But none of that is EVIDENCE in the sense that we all like to use that term. 

 

In short, what is the relation between evidence and trust?  Aren’t we all guilty of group think?  Isn’t all science (following Peirce) a kind of organized groupthink?  Isn’t the point NOT that some of us think independently and some of us are victims of Groupthink, but rather that some groups think better than others?  And if so, why?  What are the properties of GroupThought that is likely to survive experience into the deep future?

 

Nick

 

 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Pieter Steenekamp
Sent: Saturday, December 30, 2017 5:27 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Climate Change

 

Glen, 

 

I'd like to comment on your comment a few posts earlier:

"*That* is why I think focusing on the workflows (modeling) is important.  Those of us who distrust the experts bear the burden of proof.  Hence, we have to really dig in and find the flaw in the experts' thinking.  To do otherwise is irrational.

Those of us who can delegate and tend to trust experts only need to dig in when/if a skeptic produces a defensible counter-argument.  If all a skeptic has to offer are blanket generalizations about human error or whatnot, then it seems rational to ignore that doubt and go with the conclusions of the experts.

If Pieter knows of a specific flaw in the way the experts do their work, then it would be a valuable contribution."

 

My first reply is that I consider evidence to be much more valuable than expert's opinions. The IPCC is rich in expert's opinions and very light on evidence. 

 

The second reply is that I certainly do not claim any explicit fraud in climate science. But there is evidence of bias in climate science and "soft punishment" of scientists who disagree with the main narrative. For example, refer to Judith Curry's experience when she started to challenge the main climate science narrative. She is a former Chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Tech and blogs at www.judithcurry.com.

My point is that although there is no evidence of explicit fraud, there is evidence of an environment that promotes groupthink. 

 

Combining the two points, with evidence of less temperature increase than what the models predict and evidence of an environment in climate science promoting "fitting in" and the absence of healthy challenging of climate science, my conclusion is to be skeptical towards main climate science and the IPCC's conclusions. 

 

 

On 30 December 2017 at 10:30, Pieter Steenekamp <[hidden email]> wrote:

I'm also a big fan of James Lovelock. Interesting that he changed his views on climate change dramatically. I refer to an interview The Guardian newspaper had with him recently (www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/sep/30/james-lovelock-interview-by-end-of-century-robots-will-have-taken-over). I quote:

"What has changed dramatically, however, is his position on climate change. He now says: “Anyone who tries to predict more than five to 10 years is a bit of an idiot, because so many things can change unexpectedly.” "

 

 

On 30 December 2017 at 07:25, Carl Tollander <[hidden email]> wrote:

I would rather,

 than worry directly about the predictability of the climate models we currently have vs the population/variety/intitial conclusions of researchers from decades ago, 

 that we instead consider a range of climate risks, their consequences,  our responses/adaptations, and their consequences.

The latter may prepare us, and it moves that portion of the science along in any case, and may yet eventually show up any deficiencies in the former, but let's get underway.

 

Personally, I'm with Lovelock on the large grain future: the window of action gets progressively smaller the longer we delay, and that the world will likely experience

a "massive reduction in carrying capacity" (that's a euphemism) over the next century.    Looking at older cultures and how they survive, mutate, die or flourish in analogous upheavals (e.g. mid-8th-century China or black-death eras in  Europe) might be worthwhile at this point. Start by assuming the fan/speed/blades and what/who hits it; what can/should we DO?  We should at least perhaps understand when we are waiting too long to begin adaptations that are cheap, safe, economic or politically acceptable, for Nature bats last.

 

Hope y'all like mosquitoes. 

 

カール

 

On Fri, Dec 29, 2017 at 8:59 PM, Marcus Daniels <[hidden email]> wrote:

Nick writes:

 

< IF climate models cannot "predict" past anomalies, why should we trust them now? >

 

The European weather model assimilates 50+ types of measurements in space and time, including satellite data.   Obviously, these measurements were not possible except in the last few decades, never mind in the middle ages or before humans.   So whether or not there were even particular kinds of climate anomalies is a subject of some debate.    For example, were those periods wet or were they warm?  Were they uniform across the global or localized to certain regions?

 

Marcus

---

From: Friam <[hidden email]> on behalf of Nick Thompson <[hidden email]>
Sent: Friday, December 29, 2017 8:27:21 PM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Climate Change

 

I dunno, I thought Pietr's point was kind of interesting.  IF (and I don't know if the condition is met) ... IF climate models cannot "predict" past anomalies, why should we trust them now?   Or did somebody already answer that. 



Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of u?l? ?
Sent: Friday, December 29, 2017 5:40 PM
To: FriAM <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Climate Change

Well, I mean "models" writ large.  Even when gathering and reducing observational data, there's a workflow for doing that. That workflow relies on a model of a sort.  And integrating different data sets so that they're commensurate also requires models.  E.g. correlating tree ring based with other climate data.

But you're ultimately right.  It's not so much about the models as it is the whole inferential apparatus one *might* use to drive policy decisions, including huge populations of expert climatologists.  There's probably a correlation to be drawn between people who distrust government and those who distrust the "scientific establishment" and/or the "deep state".  People tend to obey/trust whoever they regard as authority figures (e.g. greater shocks to another if a person in a lab coat tells you to do it).  Those of us who inherently distrust authority figures have a particular psychological bent and our impulse can go the other way.  It could be because we know how groups can succumb to bias, or how errors get propagated (e.g. peer review), or whatever.

*That* is why I think focusing on the workflows (modeling) is important.  Those of us who distrust the experts bear the burden of proof.  Hence, we have to really dig in and find the flaw in the experts' thinking.  To do otherwise is irrational.

Those of us who can delegate and tend to trust experts only need to dig in when/if a skeptic produces a defensible counter-argument.  If all a skeptic has to offer are blanket generalizations about human error or whatnot, then it seems rational to ignore that doubt and go with the conclusions of the experts.

If Pieter knows of a specific flaw in the way the experts do their work, then it would be a valuable contribution.

On 12/29/2017 12:41 PM, Jochen Fromm wrote:
> IMO it is not about models. Models are complicated and controversial. Climate change in the artic is a fact, melting arctic ice is a fact, melting glaciers is a fact. In the arctic regions we can oberve the rising temperatures most clearly.


--
☣ uǝlƃ

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove


============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

 

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

 

 

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove