Model Forum / General / Railroads / January 2010

The problem with that theory is that the North pole, Greenland,
Alaskan permafrost and Antarctic ice are all melting.
Pacific Atolls that were a decade ago thought to be sinking
have been found to be stable and that the problem is the rise in
sealevel. Something is happening!

Greg.P.
NZ
(In the Pacific)

[...]

Quite. I used FFT because everyone who uses current electronic
entertainment and communication devices is using FFT, so I figured it
was an easy to digest example of "data manipulation."

OTOH, as I understand it, if we had really fine-grained, long-term data
sets for the climate, we might find FFT useful to tease out various
climatic cycles, which are apparently caused by towards strong and weak
couplings of climate-changing parameters. It's because we can't do that
that we don't really know how fast the climate is changing, nor whether
it's simply a short-range cyclic variation on the present regime, or a
flip into another regime. (I agree with L Dosser's comment that there
are other uncertainties, too.)

The problem IMO isn't data manipulation as such. It's knowing the how,
why, and wherefore. The most blatant manipulation occurs in sports
headlines. Somehow when the home team loses 1-nil it's a close call
after a heroic battle, but when the visitors lose, they've been crushed. ;-)

In any case, when we see a CO2 concentration that as far as we know is
unprecedented in "recent" geological history, it seems reasonable to
conclude that the current shifts in the weather patterns are probably
not mere blips. Even if it turns out that it was all merely a blip, the
shift in energy production/consumption will have mostly good effects.

That there will be waste and inefficiencies along the way to a new
energy economy, as well as chicanery and fraud, is to be expected. This
always happens when there's a major shift in technology. For on-topic
examples, study the history of railways. We modellers have a far too
rosy an image of railways as economic and social endeavours, if we think
about them that way at all. In the nineteenth century, there were many
people who claimed we couldn't afford to build railways, that the
effects would be 'orrible in the extreme, and so on. There's no question
that many lines were built that according to "generally accepted
accounting principles" would never return their investment, or merely to
siphon money from naive (but greedy) investors, and so forth. So what?
Companies went bankrupt, the debts were expunged, and the lines operated
usefully and usually profitably for decades. (FWIW, there have been a
few economists who've argued that cancelling debt should a be a regular
feature of financing. Debt acts like sand in the gears.)

cheers,
wolf k.

Not really, its more a problem with "vast and vastly complex multivariable
system " with explained and unexplained cycles. Temperature estimates from
the past that are debatable but not debated. Our scientists are just
beginning to measure and understand what has been happening but it is being
taken as a done deal. The politicians and others have picked it up and are
trying to appear to do something about it. As usual theyre making a mess as
each country and interest group tries to get fame or fortune out of it. So
we get these wind farms put up and no allowance as to what problems they
cause or real understanding of cost vs benefit. Carbon trading going on
where a major steel companty will make millions (or billions) because they
cut back production due to the recession. Power companies sending out vast
numbers of free low energy bulbs to sit in cupboards but paid for by higher
energy bills. Then as Paul says, more taxes to pay for other ill thought out
schemes, and of course more civil servants to administer them.

Which part is the disaster as the fools rush in - oh no we are the fools as
we are paying for nothing useful.

Cheers,
Simon

Nope. Plenty of precedent, even during the last 20,000 years.

Lots of credible explanations. Variation in solar output, to name just one.

You owe it to yourself to read more than what the IPCC puts out. The IPCC
and all of the scientists associated with their findings have a monetary
interest in convincing all of us that they and only they are right - they
keep their jobs. Some of them get tenure which gives even more job security.

But that doesn't negate my point that historically we've had ice ages where
significant parts of the globe have cooled substantially and then laster the
world has warmed up again.

It's just cyclical and in goodness knows how many tens, hundreds or even
thousands of years that cooling process will start again.  We just happen to
be going through a warming stage, and who knows, we might be able to grow
grape vines here again.

John.