Climate Change - convince me that this is really a big Net negative

[Read the Footnotes]

Anyone who doesn't believe that humans are having a massive impact on the environment is a little nuts or just has some self-interested reason to deny the obvious, in my opinion.

 

Forecasting the results of that impact is very difficult though. In this respect the challenges of accurate forecasting are very similar to investing. Any climate change event would obviously be a low frequency event, and low frequency events are particularly hard to forecast accurately. Plus with low frequency events, just because the outcome was not what you forecast does not mean that your methodology was wrong or even that your forecast was inaccurate. In that respect it's also similar to derivatives or insurance. Just because the outcome was such that the insurance did not pay out or the option expired worthless does not mean you made a mistake in buying insurance or an option.

 

These systems are also so complex and there can be unexpected factors. An externality can take what was a good forecast and make it inaccurate. Two good examples are forecasts for power supply needs in the 1970s and peak oil forecasts from the 2000s. Given the information available at the time both forecasts were probably the best that could be done and it likely would have been prudent to build power infrastructure and to reduce oil consumption based on those forecasts. The problem is that energy efficiency increased well beyond expectation which meant that we ended up with excess generative capacity rather than a deficit and fracking technology delayed peak oil by decades. The problem is whether you want to bet on some deus ex machine externality saving you, or whether you want to try to plot some prudent course based on the best information available.

 

What I don't get though is how we have gotten to the point that we have nutcases who think the world is going to end tomorrow, or in five years or ten years. That part just seems crazy. I fear someone has set out to manipulate them.

 

It's also interesting that a major ecological issue is just having too many people. Some countries population control policy is to just export people. If you wanted to combat a population explosion, one thing you would want to do is strictly enforce borders to make it difficult for countries to deal with their population problems by exporting people. It's strange to me that these climate activists also seem to favor open borders. Yet another reason it would logically make sense for the US democrats to steal back the immigration control platform from the Republicans. I guess they are more concerned about demographics and polling rather than logic. It seems they have prioritized building a coalition instead of building a logical platform, and those efforts haven't been that successful either.

 

Finally, another issue that doesn't make much sense is that so much worry is being put in to the end of the world while people are being killed by pollution on a daily basis. This a problem with attentional issues and cognitive biases. Americans put so much energy in to worrying about things like protesting the gulf wars while estimates were that simply by driving SUV's vs cars we were killing more people every year than all American that were killed in the gulf wars. That is an attentional issue, we are like asteroid fearing frogs in the pan, we get used to the water rising in our pan around us and instead we worry about the asteroid that might get us some day.

[Castanza]

Last message I will post here... Per Wikipedia:

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superseded_theories_in_science)

 

"Scientific theories are testable and make falsifiable predictions.[1] Thus, it is a mark of good science if a discipline has a growing list of superseded theories, and conversely, a lack of superseded theories can indicate problems in following the use of the scientific method."

 

Considering the stance taken by today's climate scientists (and their supporters), one could conclude that their discipline is based on horrible science.

 

So you are telling me because every physicist agrees that gravity is a fundamental force that invalidates it? The reason no one is challenging CO2 = global warming is that no explanation makes more sense.  It's important to know that, climate models are continually improving, so while they all generally agree that carbon causes global warming, they have taken into account more factors like the melting ice caps, Siberia, gulf stream etc (this is not my area of expertise so I don't pretend to know these things well), so they are improving.  At some point attempts to falsify climate change caused by carbon have failed and so the refinements all take that as given.  That is also how science progresses.  Once given enough evidence, some things are taken as given and further theories build upon these facts to model even more nuanced phenomena. 

 

The existence of gravity and its theory are not just based on scientific consensus/agreement, but they can be objectively confirmed (or refuted) using empirical evidence. The model (law) of gravity can predict forces/motions of objects with 99% accuracy (e.g., we get rockets on the Moon). The climate change theories and models (horribly inaccurate), as of now, are mostly based on subjective consensus and insufficient data; therefore, inferences made based on them should not be taken as scientific facts.

 

Global warming is also confirmed and could have been disconfirmed by empircal evidence.  Global tempratures have been getting warmer since the industrial revolution.  Even if we can't get the exact magnitude of some hidden phenonenom, doesnt mean we can't say with high certainty what the direction is.  For example demand is downward sloping ie when price goes up quantity, goes down.  The elasticity of demand with respect to price cannot be accurately measured, but economist are sure to the point that it has become axiomatic that, generally, demand is downward sloping. 

 

Someone commented about how when politics effects science, science can't be trusted.  I think many of these models were developed before there was such political controversy in these topics.  Keep in mind it wascthe scieintist who first pushed this movement.  What changed is the former tobacco lobbiest who told you not to believe what basically every climate scietlntist will tell you is true.  Academics have liberal biases generally yes, but if you can demonstrate that a theory such as man made climate change is false, this would get you fame in the academic community equivalent to something like a Nobel.  Thus there is hige incentive for people to challenge the prevailing wisdom. The fact that no one can do this, means that scientists are all in agreement and the fact is likely true.

 

- Global Warming is confirmed. The cause is not.

 

- Going against the grain in science typically leaves you jobless and unfunded. No fresh grad just entering the field is going to waste one year of (lucky they even got it)funding on a revolutionary idea that challenges the scientific church and their 80 year old theories. Especially if they want to make a career out of it.  You really think the scientific community where people spend entire careers on single topics, writing books, giving speeches etc are gleefully willing to just have their theory abandoned by some non-consensus theory from an unknown scientist trying to make a name for themselves? Then you don't know humans...Take a look back through history at all the inventions and inventors that have been completely stonewalled out of the scientific community. Tesla himself comes to mind.

[Cardboard]

"The fact that no one can do this, means that scientists are all in agreement and the fact is likely true."

 

That statement is false as there are scientists who disagree with urgency and cause/effect. Those who dare to bring these are rapidly dismissed and marginalized. Exact opposite of proper science or to examine data that may change your theory/model.

 

 

[LongHaul]

I think the climate is warming so that make sense to me.

 

But - what I still don't understand is what is there to fear in 50 or 100 years? Is is the unknown? What is the unknown - it could be nothing or something very bad?  Perhaps the unknown is good or perhaps keeping CO2 as it was 100 years ago is a worse unknown?

I am just challenging assumptions because I still don't understand much of it and it is complicated and confusing.  Perhaps the combination of the unknown plus change from here really scares people. 

 

I also think that if it does turn into a big problem, future generations will be able to solve it - probably more efficiently than we can.  The greatest resource that we have on this planet is the human capacity for innovation.

 

I don't just go along with the masses on things as history has shown many, many times that crowd psychology has made utter fools of the masses.  Think of the witchhunts, nutty wars, genocides, financial bubbles, communist ideologies, etc.  Best to try and remain independent.

 

And I do think it is great idea for everyone to drive smaller cars, live in smaller homes, have less waste, etc.  Good for the pocketbook and the environment.

 

I thank everyone for their comments they have expanded my horizon.  The mass extinctions were fascinating to read about FYI.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[SharperDingaan]

The investment dynamics around climate change are pretty straight-forward.

 

The 'science' does NOT dispute that climate change exists; it just disputes that humans are the material cause of it. Per the geologic record, climate change has persisted for billions of years, and was present well before humans arrived. We really don't need to agree the cause; we just need to recognize that our current climate is changing more rapidly, and mitigate accordingly.

 

From the Investment POV, mitigation means disruption; business NOT continuing as 'normal'. Opportunity.

Big industry (tobacco, sugar, oil) fights against the 'cause', and the 'public interest' fights for it. Contemporary history to date evidences running, ugly, fights - continuing for years; that are ultimately lost by 'big' industry. The time is used to 'asset strip' the industry, and re-deploy the capital elsewhere; and the more 'controversy' - the more time to 'asset strip'. Smart.

 

Ultimately, the 'people' win, and flow (pollution charges, carbon tax, etc.) becomes the dominant investment theme. Flow, than in turn, affects the stock of future investments. The only 'certainties' are that it will take some time, and company level future outcomes are very uncertain. Future projections must be PV'd at high discount rates, typically producing negative NPV's.

 

Dogma says don't invest in negative NPV's; hence very 'solid', future businesses, don't get invested in.

We use subsidies to prove concept, until the discount rate declines (de-risks) enough to produce a competitive NPV. Opportunity.

 

Investors are short-term, NOT long-term, focused.

So ... there is a very cheap, and very deep, fishing hole; being 'hidden' by 'noise'.

And .... WEB has apparently noticed. https://edmonton.ctvnews.ca/berkshire-hathaway-firm-announces-launch-of-200-million-alberta-wind-power-farm-1.4639066?cache=yes

 

Different strokes.

 

SD

 

 

 

[rukawa]

Academics have liberal biases generally yes, but if you can demonstrate that a theory such as man made climate change is false, this would get you fame in the academic community equivalent to something like a Nobel.  Thus there is hige incentive for people to challenge the prevailing wisdom. The fact that no one can do this, means that scientists are all in agreement and the fact is likely true.

 

That isn't the way science currently works. If you go against the prevailing consensus you will not get published PERIOD. And most likely you will be black-listed from future publication especially in the case of sensitive areas like climate change or nutrition. There is also no way to "prove" anything regarding climate since the theory is in such a poor state that no one can demonstrate either that something is true or that it is false. The fundamental problems in climate are related to the understand of clouds which can't be modelled and fluid dynamics which also can't be modelled. Here is Richard Feynma's quote on the Navier-Stokes equation which governs climate and is in fact what most climate models spend all their time trying to solve:

 

“there is a physical problem that is common to many fields, that is very old, and that has not been solved. It is not the problem of finding new fundamental particles, but something left over from a long time ago—over a hundred years. Nobody in physics has really been able to analyze it mathematically satisfactorily in spite of its importance to the sister sciences. It is the analysis of circulating or turbulent fluids.”

 

In GCM's typical cell sizes are 100kmx100km. They discretize equations of physics on the grid cells...meaning that they convert a differential equation into a difference equation. In essence think of it as something like the pixels of a television where there is only one color for each pixel. In GCMs the "pixels" are the 100kmx100km cells where there is only a single value along the whole cell for the direction and speed of the wind. Thus the assumption of a GCM is that in a 100km x 100km cell the wind blows in only one direction at a specific speed. A tornado, for instance, can't be modeled the air changes direction and speed very dramatically over a distance of 10's of meters in this situation.

 

The question is whether a grid size of 100km x 100km is sufficient for climate predictions. Nobody knows...because no one really understands the equations of fluid dynamics. One thing that is known though is that the equations are highly non-linear. There is coupling between low and high frequency modes. Think of a low frequency mode as something that changes very slowly over long distances and a high frequency mode as something that changes rapidly over short distances. This means that you can't simulate the low frequency modes independently of the high frequency modes. Of course its impossible to simulate high frequency modes if your grid size is 100km x 100km...there is no way to model them. But this implies the low frequency modes can be modeled properly either since there is no way to simulate low frequency independently of high frequency modes.

 

So than how do climate models work...well I would say they can't work and they don't work. Separating out low and high frequency modes is a bit like a surgeon splitting a baby in half. You might have some ambitious surgeon tasked with splitting a baby in two (not talking about Siamese...just normal baby). He might find artificial ways to support one half a baby...maybe he uses a pacemaker for the heart and he simulates the circulatory system using a complicated apparatus. Does the "half" a baby act and behave like the real thing...its freaking absurd and ridiculous to think it would.

 

Climate models are basically like half a baby...they cut a baby in half and now they are trying to artificially simulate the other half and pretend they have a real baby...What the actually have is a monstrosity. The way they simulate the other half the baby is the dark arts known as sub-grid scale parameterized models....which aren't real physics...they are essentially some curve-fitted statistical garbage. Christopher Essex (a skeptic) and Tim Palmer (a believer) both provide good descriptions of the problems in climate models:

 

Essex:

Palmer:

[John Hjorth]

Cigarbutt,

 

Thank you for reminding me about the Montreal Protocol, ref. your post #46. I had totally forgotten about that. [Whoa, - hot topic! [ : - ) ]]

[mccole72]

From a geological perspective, climate has always changed - there have been periods of "snowball earth" and periods when the planet would have resembled a greenhouse. 50 million years ago the global avg temp was some 15C warmer than today. At this scale, warming the planet a few degrees is hardly noticeable. As a planet, earth will no doubt be just fine.

 

Of course, these timescales are irrelevant to humans. Homo sapiens have only been around a few hundred thousand years and all of recorded history has occurred in the last few thousand. Everything we have done and built has been during a very stable period in terms of climate, sometimes called the Holocene climatic optimum. Since industrialization, we have increased the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere from ~280 to 410 ppm, and temperature has subsequently increased ~1 deg C.

 

The original question was: Is this really a big net negative? That is hard to say and depends a lot on your perspective. Like everything these days, the polarization on this issue is insane and the real answer will probably be somewhere between the extremes. Sea levels are certain to rise a foot or two by 2100 (maybe 3, 6, or 10 ft) - so if you are Miami this is a big net negative. If you are concerned about environmental conservation it is a big net negative (It will be much harder to show my grandkids a glacier or a coral reef). For Canadians it might be a net positive - more pleasant temperatures and longer growing seasons. The biggest concerns I have are the indirect effects on humans (e.g. droughts in the mid east or lower crop yields in Africa), and potential unforeseen consequences related to obscure biological interactions that I don't understand.

 

I think the simplest and most effective solution to all of this is a basic carbon tax. From Economics 101, CO2 is an externality, it's just invisible and doesn't smell bad so we've allowed ourselves to believe that it's not. Now we know that CO2 has a cost, even if it's impossible to quantify. When I burn a gallon of gas that cost me $3, the overall cost to society is certainly not $3 - it might be $3.01 or $13 - I have no idea. Why not start with a $.01 tax and scale up as the impacts become more clear over time, and cut taxes by an equal amount somewhere else - say payroll taxes. Otherwise we might end up getting a Green New Deal funded by MMT :/

 

 

[Rod]

Libertarian Science

 

The belief that any scientific finding that suggests the need for government regulation cannot be true.

[rkbabang]

Libertarian Science

 

The belief that any scientific finding that suggests the need for government regulation cannot be true.

 

No.  It is just that: "Is the Earth warming?",  "Are humans the cause of the Earth warming?",  "Is it bad if the Earth warms?",  and especially,  "Are the governments of the world the best entities to deal with the Earth warming?"  are all very different questions.  Libertarians answer "No" to the last one, even if they answer "Yes" to one or more of the first 3.

 

Liberals go directly from "Is the Earth warming?" to "OK great! Governments need more power, money, and control!".

 

[Castanza]

Libertarian Science

 

The belief that any scientific finding that suggests the need for government regulation cannot be true.

 

Let me correct that for you.

 

Libertarian Science

 

The belief that government intervention can put science in a box and limit progress.

 

 

 

 

[John Hjorth]

... The original question was: Is this really a big net negative? That is hard to say and depends a lot on your perspective. Like everything these days, the polarization on this issue is insane and the real answer will probably be somewhere between the extremes. Sea levels are certain to rise a foot or two by 2100 (maybe 3, 6, or 10 ft) - so if you are Miami this is a big net negative. If you are concerned about environmental conservation it is a big net negative (It will be much harder to show my grandkids a glacier or a coral reef). For Canadians it might be a net positive - more pleasant temperatures and longer growing seasons. The biggest concerns I have are the indirect effects on humans (e.g. droughts in the mid east or lower crop yields in Africa), and potential unforeseen consequences related to obscure biological interactions that I don't understand.

 

From my limited understanding of physics, all kind of energy production & -consumption basically eventually ends up as kinetic energy in molecules, which equals heating. The sun is delivering energy by the mean of embedded energy in photons every day to the earth, and then there is added released energy from energy sources by human activity. So it's perhaps not only about pollution [non-desired side effects of human activity related to production and consumption of energy], but more like the whole energy equation for the planet?

[Cardboard]

"Liberals go directly from "Is the Earth warming?" to "OK great! Governments need more power, money, and control!"."

 

Yeah, raise taxes on carbon then spend it on whatever they please with zero carbon reduction. LOL!

[cameronfen]

Academics have liberal biases generally yes, but if you can demonstrate that a theory such as man made climate change is false, this would get you fame in the academic community equivalent to something like a Nobel.  Thus there is hige incentive for people to challenge the prevailing wisdom. The fact that no one can do this, means that scientists are all in agreement and the fact is likely true.

 

That isn't the way science currently works. If you go against the prevailing consensus you will not get published PERIOD. And most likely you will be black-listed from future publication especially in the case of sensitive areas like climate change or nutrition. There is also no way to "prove" anything regarding climate since the theory is in such a poor state that no one can demonstrate either that something is true or that it is false. The fundamental problems in climate are related to the understand of clouds which can't be modelled and fluid dynamics which also can't be modelled. Here is Richard Feynma's quote on the Navier-Stokes equation which governs climate and is in fact what most climate models spend all their time trying to solve:

 

“there is a physical problem that is common to many fields, that is very old, and that has not been solved. It is not the problem of finding new fundamental particles, but something left over from a long time ago—over a hundred years. Nobody in physics has really been able to analyze it mathematically satisfactorily in spite of its importance to the sister sciences. It is the analysis of circulating or turbulent fluids.”

 

In GCM's typical cell sizes are 100kmx100km. They discretize equations of physics on the grid cells...meaning that they convert a differential equation into a difference equation. In essence think of it as something like the pixels of a television where there is only one color for each pixel. In GCMs the "pixels" are the 100kmx100km cells where there is only a single value along the whole cell for the direction and speed of the wind. Thus the assumption of a GCM is that in a 100km x 100km cell the wind blows in only one direction at a specific speed. A tornado, for instance, can't be modeled the air changes direction and speed very dramatically over a distance of 10's of meters in this situation.

 

The question is whether a grid size of 100km x 100km is sufficient for climate predictions. Nobody knows...because no one really understands the equations of fluid dynamics. One thing that is known though is that the equations are highly non-linear. There is coupling between low and high frequency modes. Think of a low frequency mode as something that changes very slowly over long distances and a high frequency mode as something that changes rapidly over short distances. This means that you can't simulate the low frequency modes independently of the high frequency modes. Of course its impossible to simulate high frequency modes if your grid size is 100km x 100km...there is no way to model them. But this implies the low frequency modes can be modeled properly either since there is no way to simulate low frequency independently of high frequency modes.

 

So than how do climate models work...well I would say they can't work and they don't work. Separating out low and high frequency modes is a bit like a surgeon splitting a baby in half. You might have some ambitious surgeon tasked with splitting a baby in two (not talking about Siamese...just normal baby). He might find artificial ways to support one half a baby...maybe he uses a pacemaker for the heart and he simulates the circulatory system using a complicated apparatus. Does the "half" a baby act and behave like the real thing...its freaking absurd and ridiculous to think it would.

 

Climate models are basically like half a baby...they cut a baby in half and now they are trying to artificially simulate the other half and pretend they have a real baby...What the actually have is a monstrosity. The way they simulate the other half the baby is the dark arts known as sub-grid scale parameterized models....which aren't real physics...they are essentially some curve-fitted statistical garbage. Christopher Essex (a skeptic) and Tim Palmer (a believer) both provide good descriptions of the problems in climate models:

 

Essex:

Palmer:

I don't mean to be critical (as I am guilty of this all the time with stocks) but I am reminded of the quote about using the light post for support rather than illumination.  I also wonder if you are in academia, as I currently am, and find your characterization off.  While I do agree that if you going against the prevailing wisdom it is harder to get published, ultimately journals and conferences want papers that will be highly cited.  I do think it is harder to get published in climate change journals if you think that the effects are less rather than more, however, at this point no one disagrees that climate change is not only happening but is man-made.  Why?  Because literally people tried to disprove it, could have gotten probably a Nobel Prize if they succeeded, and weren't able to.  That being said, journals publish papers critical of the methodology of climate change all the time.  Here is one by William Nordhaus who recently won the Nobel Prize in Economics: http://piketty.pse.ens.fr/files/Nordhaus2007b.pdf.  It's got 1.9k citations.  So even if you want to publish something critical, you not only can, but it can still be highly cited.  What a surprise: the scientific method as we use it now might be flawed, but it's not broken.  It's the people telling you the flaws are lethal that are lying to you and trying to confuse you. 

 

Now even though Nordhaus is critical of these modeling assumptions, he does believe that climate change is man-made.  The reason no one in academia can get away with not assuming that, is because it has basically been verified beyond a reasonable doubt and at some point, you just have to accept proven facts so that science can progress and build upon settled fact. 

 

So regarding your modeling example, I will go back to my example of demand and supply.  It's easy to prove without a reasonable doubt that when you increase price demand goes down.  It is much harder to predict by how much.  Climate models still do an inadequate job on how much, but that doesn't mean they can't be extremely confident in the direction. 

 

Your analogy regarding Navier-Stokes is faulty.  Namely, because we have very good algorithms that can solve the equations numerically up to arbitrary precision,  see for example this paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/1806.03095 .  What Feynman is actually referring to (likely because I don't know the actual context), is that we still don't have existence and uniqueness proofs as well as stability proofs.  What this means is that while we can calculate a path for the fluid given any parameter setting, we don't know why solutions do exist, why the are (or are not) unique, and why solutions don't blow up (i.e. go to infinity).  For someone modeling the atmosphere, they give 0 shits about existence and uniqueness.  They can model the flow of fluid using standard techniques to solve differential equations.  Why does a solution not blow up?  Well, the current solution you solved for doesn't so who cares. 

 

I don't understand how climate models actually work, so I'm not going to lecture you on why its like half a baby or whatnot <-- (I thought that comment was clever and wrote it for that reason, am sorry if that seemed a little harsh).  Rather I think the simplest explanation that explains the data is most often the right one.  That is humans are causing global warming.  Scientists are in agreement because they can't find any alternative explanation.  Their models are faulty and in some cases, people are catastrophizing or provided false certainty, but that doesn't change the consensus. 

[clutch]

Libertarian Science

 

The belief that any scientific finding that suggests the need for government regulation cannot be true.

 

Let me correct that for you.

 

Libertarian Science

 

The belief that government intervention can put science in a box and limit progress.

 

Nice one. :) Not only that, remember it's the government that mainly funds science so they can certainly bias its direction as well.

[Cigarbutt]

Libertarian Science

 

The belief that any scientific finding that suggests the need for government regulation cannot be true.

 

Let me correct that for you.

 

Libertarian Science

 

The belief that government intervention can put science in a box and limit progress.

 

Nice one. :) Not only that, remember it's the government that mainly funds science so they can certainly bias its direction as well.

So, if the issue is for the government to control, direct and introduce bias as a primary driving force, how do you reconcile with the following: 1-federal funding of R/D per GDP has been decreasing, 2-federal funding versus corporate funding ratio has been going down and 3-federal funding to environmental science has not increased despite the dogmatic and alarmist take described above?

https://www.aaas.org/sites/default/files/2019-06/RDGDP.png

https://www.aaas.org/sites/default/files/2019-06/USFund1.jpg

https://www.aaas.org/sites/default/files/2019-06/Disc-1.jpg

 

Disclosure: I think a balance between corporate and public funding allows to find a compromise between basic research which is necessary for long-term outcomes and also produces constructive surprises, and more applied research with potential short-term applications and profitability. A constructive discussion may help to help define that balance, governance and incentives but I don't understand how undermining a model that has worked so well can not result in less progress or even regression.

[rukawa]

Your analogy regarding Navier-Stokes is faulty.  Namely, because we have very good algorithms that can solve the equations numerically up to arbitrary precision,  see for example this paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/1806.03095 . 

 

No we don't have these algorithms. Your wrong and the paper you demonstrated doesn't show this. It shows that significant progress has been made on particular problems with particular numerical schemes. They have taken a relatively simple and easy benchmark problem with close to laminar (smooth) flow for an incompresible fluid because their purpose to compare the efficiency of numerical schemes. They are really saying "Hey guys isn't it crazy that our discretization of the compressible Navier-Stokes works better on incompressible fluid problems than the discetization of the incompressible Navier-Stokes". Its like saying isn't it crazy that this guy who trained in basketball is actually better in volleyball than guys who trained specifically for volleyball.

 

But there is no ability to deal with the general problem for arbitrary geometries and flows and there probably won't be for a very long time.  The paper discusses performance on a particular reference problem where Reynold number is 1600...atmospheric Reynold numbers can go up to 1 billion. Their purpose is to compare performance on incompressible fluids...the air is not an incompresssible fluid.  None of this will work for Reynolds number of lets say 100,000. Here is a diagram showing where the smooth regime ends and the turbulent regime begins (note that cumulous cloud formation occurs at Reynolds numbers of 250 million!):

 

https://physics.info/turbulence/

 

If what you are saying is true why can't climate models predict when and where a hurricane will happen with this perfect accuracy you spoke of? Not even climatologists believe what you are saying. The IPCC itself states:

 

The climate system is a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore the long-term prediction of future exact climate states is not possible. Rather the focus must be upon the prediction of the probability distribution of the system’s future possible states by the generation of ensembles of model solutions.

 

The IPCC proposes that though they can't predict climate states, they can obtain probability distributions for climate states using an ensemble of models/model runs. The analogy they are implicitly invoking is thermodynamics where its possible to obtain very accurate predictions of statistical averages using ensemble methods even though you have no clue about the actual specific motions of the particles. This works in thermodynamics...its doesn't mean it works for a climate system. 

 

What Feynman is actually referring to (likely because I don't know the actual context), is that we still don't have existence and uniqueness proofs as well as stability proofs.]What Feynman is actually referring to (likely because I don't know the actual context), is that we still don't have existence and uniqueness proofs as well as stability proofs.

 

Feynman wasn't interested in talking about stability and uniqueness proofs. He didn't care because he didn't value mathematical proofs (a bias of his). He was talking about solving the Navier-Stokes equation in a practical manner that was actually useful for real world predictions.

 

Here is a fuller context:

Finally, there is a physical problem that is common to many fields, that is very old, and that has not been solved. [..] Nobody in physics has really been able to analyze it mathematically satisfactorily in spite of its importance to the sister sciences. It is the analysis of circulating or turbulent fluids.

 

If we watch the evolution of a star, there comes a point where we can deduce that it is going to start convection, and thereafter we can no longer deduce what should happen. A few million years later the star explodes, but we cannot figure out the reason.

 

We cannot analyze the weather.

 

We do not know the patterns of motions that there should be inside the earth [which cause earthquakes].

 

The simplest form on the problem is to take a pipe that is very long and push water through it at high speed. We ask: to push a given amount of water through that pipe, how much pressure is needed? No one can analyze it from first principles and the properties of water. If the water flows very slowly, or if we use a thick goo like honey, then we can do it nicely. you will find that in your textbook. What we really cannot do is deal with actual, wet water running through a pipe. That is the central problem which we ought to solve some day, and we have not.

 

You can read this thread whether they talk about this more:

https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/15738/have-we-figured-out-how-to-analyze-turbulent-fluids

 

I also wonder if you are in academia, as I currently am, and find your characterization off....It's the people telling you the flaws are lethal that are lying to you and trying to confuse you

 

I was in academia more than a decade ago. When I was in grad school, a friends paper was being presented at a conference. A plagiarized paper with the same idea as my friends' paper was presented just before my friends by a graduate student working for a relatively powerful professor. We knew it wasn't a coincidence because my friend had a specifically chosen resistor value (e.g. 6.23k) and the plagiarized paper used exactly the same value. Naturally my friend could not present. We knew there were certain places we could not publish because they were controlled by our plagarizing competitor. You would often get situations where a two page paper would get ridiculous unrealistic reviewer comments designed to be impossible to satisfy in order to spike the paper. We complained about the plagarism through back-channels but my professor was very careful because he knew the competing professor was extremely powerful and had many powerful friends.

 

I followed up on the field years later after I graduated and I found out that there were these older professor very critical of the fad field we were working in (meta-materials) and they pointed out that all the stuff we had done had been done years earlier under other names (filter theory). These guys could never get published. So finally one of them wrote a book that was published after he died, where he basically tore into the whole meta-material field and complained about how peer review was used to prevent his papers from being published. Mostly he was right.

 

As far as I'm concerned Academia is a cesspool filled with shit. You said your experience was not like my experience. Every single time I meet someone in Academia I ask them about their experience. I ALWAYS get a bunch of stories like mine which are completely unsolicited (plagarism, peer review spikes, peer reviewers forcing you to cite their papers etc). My cousin parrots the same line as yours about climate change and when I asked him about his research experience I was shocked at how bad his stories were. I found that online I always encounter people like you that I never encounter in person. People who have experience that run completely counter to anything I've seen in the real world. I'm not saying you are lying but I am saying nothing in my experience relates to yours. We are living in very different worlds.

[cameronfen]

Your analogy regarding Navier-Stokes is faulty.  Namely, because we have very good algorithms that can solve the equations numerically up to arbitrary precision,  see for example this paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/1806.03095 . 

 

No we don't have these algorithms. Your wrong and the paper you demonstrated doesn't show this. It shows that significant progress has been made on particular problems with particular numerical schemes. They have taken a relatively simple and easy benchmark problem with close to laminar (smooth) flow for an incompresible fluid because their purpose to compare the efficiency of numerical schemes. They are really saying "Hey guys isn't it crazy that our discretization of the compressible Navier-Stokes works better on incompressible fluid problems than the discetization of the incompressible Navier-Stokes". Its like saying isn't it crazy that this guy who trained in basketball is actually better in volleyball than guys who trained specifically for volleyball.

 

But there is no ability to deal with the general problem for arbitrary geometries and flows and there probably won't be for a very long time.  The paper discusses performance on a particular reference problem where Reynold number is 1600...atmospheric Reynold numbers can go up to 1 billion. Their purpose is to compare performance on incompressible fluids...the air is not an incompresssible fluid.  None of this will work for Reynolds number of lets say 100,000. Here is a diagram showing where the smooth regime ends and the turbulent regime begins (note that cumulous cloud formation occurs at Reynolds numbers of 250 million!):

 

https://physics.info/turbulence/

 

Finally none of what you have said makes any sense. If what you are saying is true why can't climate models predict when and where a hurricane will happen with this perfect accuracy you spoke of? Not even climatologists believe what you are saying. The IPCC itself states: The climate system is a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore the long-term prediction of future exact climate states is not possible. The IPCC proposes that though they can't predict climate states, they can obtain probability distributions for climate states using an ensemble of models/model runs. The analogy they are implicitly invoking is thermodynamics where its possible to obtain very accurate predictions of statistical averages using ensemble methods even though you have no clue about the actual specific motions of the particles. This works in thermodynamics...its doesn't mean it works for a climate system. 

 

What Feynman is actually referring to (likely because I don't know the actual context), is that we still don't have existence and uniqueness proofs as well as stability proofs.]What Feynman is actually referring to (likely because I don't know the actual context), is that we still don't have existence and uniqueness proofs as well as stability proofs.

 

Feynman wasn't interested in talking about stability and uniqueness proofs. He didn't care because he didn't value mathematical proofs (a bias of his). He was talking about solving the Navier-Stokes equation in a practical manner that was actually useful for real world predictions.

 

Here is a fuller context:

Finally, there is a physical problem that is common to many fields, that is very old, and that has not been solved. [..] Nobody in physics has really been able to analyze it mathematically satisfactorily in spite of its importance to the sister sciences. It is the analysis of circulating or turbulent fluids.

 

If we watch the evolution of a star, there comes a point where we can deduce that it is going to start convection, and thereafter we can no longer deduce what should happen. A few million years later the star explodes, but we cannot figure out the reason.

 

We cannot analyze the weather.

 

We do not know the patterns of motions that there should be inside the earth [which cause earthquakes].

 

The simplest form on the problem is to take a pipe that is very long and push water through it at high speed. We ask: to push a given amount of water through that pipe, how much pressure is needed? No one can analyze it from first principles and the properties of water. If the water flows very slowly, or if we use a thick goo like honey, then we can do it nicely. you will find that in your textbook. What we really cannot do is deal with actual, wet water running through a pipe. That is the central problem which we ought to solve some day, and we have not.

 

You can read this thread whether they talk about this more:

https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/15738/have-we-figured-out-how-to-analyze-turbulent-fluids

 

I also wonder if you are in academia, as I currently am, and find your characterization off....It's the people telling you the flaws are lethal that are lying to you and trying to confuse you

 

I was in academia more than a decade ago. When I was in grad school, a friends paper was being presented at a conference. A plagiarized paper with the same idea as my friends' paper was presented just before my friends by a graduate student working for a relatively powerful professor. We knew it wasn't a coincidence because my friend had a specifically chosen resistor value (e.g. 6.23k) and the plagiarized paper used exactly the same value. Naturally my friend could not present. We knew there were certain places we could not publish because they were controlled by our plagarizing competitor. You would often get situations where a two page paper would get ridiculous unrealistic reviewer comments designed to be impossible to satisfy in order to spike the paper. We complained about the plagarism through back-channels but my professor was very careful because he knew the competing professor was extremely powerful and had many powerful friends.

 

I followed up on the field years later after I graduated and I found out that there were these older professor very critical of the fad field we were working in (meta-materials) and they pointed out that all the stuff we had done had been done years earlier under other names (filter theory). These guys could never get published. So finally one of them wrote a book that was published after he died, where he basically tore into the whole meta-material field and complained about how peer review was used to prevent his papers from being published. Mostly he was right.

 

As far as I'm concerned Academia is a cesspool filled with shit. You said your experience was not like my experience. Every single time I meet someone in Academia I ask them about their experience. I ALWAYS get a bunch of stories like mine which are completely unsolicited (plagarism, peer review spikes, peer reviewers forcing you to cite their papers etc). My cousin parrots the same line as yours about climate change and when I asked him about his research experience I was shocked at how bad his stories were. I found that online I always encounter people like you that I never encounter in person. People who have experience that run completely counter to anything I've seen in the real world. I'm not saying you are lying but I am saying nothing in my experience relates to yours. We are living in very different worlds.

 

I just randomly searched for one paper to show you.  I should have spent more time finding the right one.  I know little about it, but from what knowledge I have I am pretty sure (not entirely sure though...) you don't really know what you are talking about.  It might be hypocritical of me because maybe sometimes I do this, but I hate when people don't know what they are talking clearly double down when there caught.  There is no shame in not being a climate scientist, the world needs investors or whatever it is you do.  Just fess up when you make a mistake.  I realize I'm doubling down on this, and I could be wrong, but I don't really think so. 

 

First you say we don't have the algorithms to approximate NS to arbitrary precision.  This is wrong, see here:  https://berkeleysciencereview.com/article/toolbox-global-climate-models/

In particular note this line:

The state of the entire system at the next “timestep” can be calculated by considering the current state of all grid points and updating them according to the underlying physical equations. However, these equations are calculated exactly only when grid spacing approaches zero.

The reason we can't calculate these models to arbitrary precision is that we need more computing power to get the numerical approximation better and better, at some point we run out.  However, if we had infinite computing power we could.  There are indeed issues with complex systems and strange attractors which puts some upper bound on climate models performance, however, the only thing that is stopping the NS part of the model from being better than they currently are is more compute.  Climate models like the one you get for your weather report already are extremely effective, but again I am not even sure those short term meteorological models are the workhouse element in climate change models that forecast global temperatures 20 years out. 

 

I appreciate you providing context for the Feynman quote, unfortunately you again misunderstood his point and using what was written in your own source (https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/15738/have-we-figured-out-how-to-analyze-turbulent-fluids)verifies that Feynman was indeed talking about stability/existence and uniqueness.  From the answer that the OP selected as the best:

The problem of showing that the limit as the grid goes to zero is everywhere sensible and smooth is far from trivial. It is one of the Clay institute million dollar prize problems...If I were writing the Clay problem, I would not have asked for existence/uniqueness.

Again from the context it is clear the reader, who is much more knowledgable about this than me, is saying the central problem is the Clay Institute problem, namely of "showing that the limit as the grid goes to zero is everywhere sensible and smooth".  Note he is not saying how to calculate such a solution, but that a solution always exists.  He later follows up by explaining the Clay problem more precisely, "If I were writing the Clay problem, I would not have asked for existence/uniqueness."

 

If you are curious about the Clay Institute problem here is a description of the problems: https://www.claymath.org/millennium-problems

Notice it says:

Navier-Stokes Equation

This is the equation which governs the flow of fluids such as water and air. However, there is no proof for the most basic questions one can ask: do solutions exist, and are they unique? Why ask for a proof? Because a proof gives not only certitude, but also understanding.

The above quote even implies that some would consider a existence/uniqueness proof to not matter.  Why do some people hold that view?  Because we have algorithms that can calculate solutions to arbitrary precision. 

 

Sorry I feel like I'm coming off as a douche, but you have gotten under my skin a bit, which is partly because of your boldness, but also, to your credit, partially because you do come across as knowledgeable, even if you are somewhat out of your element and not able to admit it. 

 

As far as academic experiences go, it is clear ours have differed.  I have no doubt there are lots bad eggs who could be really powerful and the rent seek and I could also share a few minor stories, but if a paper is excellent, ultimately the person who discovered it may not get credit, but eventually, people will know about it, because someone will publish. 

[RichardGibbons]

"Liberals go directly from "Is the Earth warming?" to "OK great! Governments need more power, money, and control!"."

 

Yeah, raise taxes on carbon then spend it on whatever they please with zero carbon reduction. LOL!

 

This is my favorite thing about climate change arguments. The minute a carbon tax is mentioned, passionate free-market capitalists somehow believe that demand for goods is completely independent of the prices of those goods. It's fascinating.

 

Cardboard, you should buy a bunch of KO, then suggest that they increase the price of a serving of Coke to $1000. The company sells 1.8 billion servings a year, so that's $1.8 trillion at over 99% margin! You'll be massively wealthy overnight!

 

Also worthwhile mentioning is that in Canada, the Liberal's carbon tax is being returned to Canadians.  I think this is quite elegant, since it's increasing the price of CO2 to impact price signals without actually taking away much money from people (essentially only losing a bit to friction).

[Sunrider]

Uh - what's not clear to me is why we (and anyone really) is debating whether the earth is warming? That is just basic physics:

 

1. You have a system which receives heat at a fairly constant rate (= our planet, from the sun, and no controversy about that input rate being constant enough).

2. That heat has to go somewhere by the laws of thermodynamics, which I think are not open to politics. It can either go into heating 'stuff', or it can be re-radiated off the object into cold, dark space (most of that by being reflected before it heats things).

 

That's pretty much it.

 

Since we don't (as yet) have any influence over how much energy arrives on earth, we only need to concern ourselves with how much is radiated back out vs. retained.  Again, here it seems clear (=proven?), or at least not open to debate that nothing which we have come up with and/or put into the atmosphere actually increases the rate at which energy is reflected back into space. (Yes, airplane contrails and clouds formed around ship exhaust plumes reflect light, but all models on this show that this is a minor effect compared to the increased heat retention potential of 'greenhouse' gases.)

 

CO2 (and other di- or tri- atomic molecules) are really great at absorbing heat - no scientific debate about this.

 

Ergo, if you put more CO2 into the atmosphere, there is more opportunity for it to heat up and retain the heat (vs. radiating it back out), thus the system overall gains in heat.

 

It's really just 'input to retention vs. loss' math. We are messing with the loss bit by giving radiation (light spectrum) more things to hit and heat up along its path. You can simulate this at any high school with a lamp, a glass box, a thermometer and some suitable gas.

-----

 

All that said - the question on whether it's good or bad seems to be hard for people to wrap their head around because there is so much variability. Much of the heat the planet has gained through increased CO2 levels appears to have been stored away in the oceans, and some people just think 'we'll if we can grow crops in northern Manitoba for another 2 months of the year, what's so bad about that?'.

 

That's a localised view and ignores the complexity of the system as a whole. Tweak one bit and things can change in very unexpected places. If the planet heats, we know that, on average, ice will melt and oceans expand (because pretty much all materials expand as they warm);so oceans rise; if oceans rise, expensive Miami condos have an issue, and hurricanes gain in force because of higher average temperatures, so that means more damage; if ice melts, the salinity balance of the oceans changes, which messes with the flow of water from the arctic to the equator and back up again - that heat re-distribution drives much of the northern hemisphere climate, if it stops, much of the northern hemisphere may well turn colder, not warmer, as most people expect. Etc.

 

Are you happy to just prod it a bit and see what happens?

[LongHaul]

This is really a HOT button topic.

 

After much deep thinking here is the solution to climate change: Tax cows $1 for each fart.

 

[wachtwoord]

Using images and simple language so even the lazy confirmist collectivists can follow:

 

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/global-warming-fraud-exposed-pictures

[Spekulatius]

Using images and simple language so even the lazy confirmist collectivists can follow:

 

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/global-warming-fraud-exposed-pictures

 

Zerohedge and Mike Sherlock - you need better sources.

[Cigarbutt]

Using images and simple language so even the lazy confirmist collectivists can follow:

 

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/global-warming-fraud-exposed-pictures

Zerohedge and Mike Sherlock - you need better sources.

I would say all sources are welcome but one needs to come up with some kind of a weighting factor for the quality of the evidence which requires to look at the raw data and methodology and also, perhaps after the fundamental check, to assess for potential biases and poor incentives.

The Zerohedge link raises several interesting questions which have been reproduced many times by the skeptic side. For the wildfires 'real' data over the twentieth century, the data, as presented, suggests that present climate trends are perhaps irrelevant but raises also the possibility that fire suppression efforts have been too strong and have allowed for a build up of 'fuel', suggesting that the present rising trend may be more ominous, at least for a while. However, when assessing the value of the 'real' data, one finds out that the pre-1960 data used a different methodology and included an unusual amount of incendiary fires. The peak in acreage burned seen earlier in the 20th century also involved a different region of the US (southeastern) which suggests that perhaps apples are compared to oranges.

I assume wachtwoord meant conformist (a person who conforms to accepted behavior or established practice) which refers to the authority bias that the author of the post wants to protect (the lazy collectivist) 'us' from but the misspelling suggests the possibility of a confirmation bias (the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that affirms one's prior beliefs or hypotheses). :)

[Castanza]

Libertarian Science

 

The belief that any scientific finding that suggests the need for government regulation cannot be true.

 

Let me correct that for you.

 

Libertarian Science

 

The belief that government intervention can put science in a box and limit progress.

 

Nice one. :) Not only that, remember it's the government that mainly funds science so they can certainly bias its direction as well.

So, if the issue is for the government to control, direct and introduce bias as a primary driving force, how do you reconcile with the following: 1-federal funding of R/D per GDP has been decreasing, 2-federal funding versus corporate funding ratio has been going down and 3-federal funding to environmental science has not increased despite the dogmatic and alarmist take described above?

https://www.aaas.org/sites/default/files/2019-06/RDGDP.png

https://www.aaas.org/sites/default/files/2019-06/USFund1.jpg

https://www.aaas.org/sites/default/files/2019-06/Disc-1.jpg

 

Disclosure: I think a balance between corporate and public funding allows to find a compromise between basic research which is necessary for long-term outcomes and also produces constructive surprises, and more applied research with potential short-term applications and profitability. A constructive discussion may help to help define that balance, governance and incentives but I don't understand how undermining a model that has worked so well can not result in less progress or even regression.

 

I’m not saying govt shouldn’t be involved in research. It certainly has benefited the average citizen in the past. But too much govt dictates the direction of research. Especially when you take the government as a consumer and add in the political agenda. Wind and solar are a good example of this nonsense. The govt is not pursuing the path of the best tech (nuclear) and instead letting politics lead the way. I mean look at the Wright Brothers. The govt basically laughed them out of the building and said flight wasn’t possible. Then two guys in a bike shop proved them wrong with 2k.

 

But we also have good examples of a meshing between govt funded and public sector funding (eg. spacex)

 

The issue is trust. Can we trust the govt to choose the best path forward for R&D? Could we trust the top scientists to choose the best path forward using tax payer dollars? Not sure, because anytime humans are involved we have poor decisions being made. But, personally I would rather let a guy like Musk off the chain than allow Nancy Pelosi or Mitch determine what tech is the best moving forward.