Putting Sir Isaac Newton on the right path
Short story by Christopher Bowring
When lay global warming skeptics point out to alarmists that the recent seventeen year period of steady global temperatures invalidates their climate models which predicted runaway global warming, there is often a standard response.
‘How can you, global warming (or climate change) denier, who have no experience of climatology, dare to argue with me, a renowned expert in my field of science?’ Let us return to the England of the seventeenth century to see what is wrong with this rebuttal.
I am in Grantham in Lincolnshire. It is a sunny day. A respectable looking man in a wig is sitting under an apple tree. It is Sir Isaac Newton. I greet him. He smiles back, but looks agitated. ‘What is wrong?’ I ask. ‘I have made a wonderful discovery,’ he replies. ‘I call is my Law of Gravitation’. ‘What does it say?’ I enquire.
‘It says that any two bodies in the universe repel each other with a force proportional to their masses and inversely proportional to the square of their distance apart’. ‘Really?’ I respond. ‘But that is nonsense!’ ‘Nonsense?’ explodes the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge. ‘Nonsense? How can you, a nobody, a nonentity, dare to question the mind of the greatest living scientist in the world?’
‘Sir, I refute your law quite simply’. And with that I take an apple from the tree and drop it on Sir Isaac’s head.
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The point is not about being a lay climatologist or not it is about dealing with the results of computer simulations.
It is very paradoxical on one hand , some say simulations can be trusted, on the other hand it is said that discrepancy between models and data are irrelevant …
so it is said one must trust simulation because they can hindcast some patterns of the past climate….
I used to believe the opposite, hindcast ability is a weak evidence compare to prediction skills to test a model…especially when some unknown parameters of models have been adjusted first to fit the data!
How can McIntyre a mere statistician refute Michael Mann’s hokey stick? I don’t know but he did.
Does it take a child to point out that the Emperor has now clothes?
If it’s your money (taxes) they want to defraud then you MUST look at what they are saying and dissent if you want. If they leave your pockets and energy infrastructure alone then they can say that pink elephants can fly and I wouldn’t give a crap.
They often refute themselves by claiming many silly things. 🙂
Fight these con artists with every last breath, they are attempting the biggest defraud ever perpetrated on the planet. How do we know the ozone hole hasn’t always been there?
Correction:
Does it take a child to point out that the Emperor has NO clothes?
Wonder if Sir Isaac Newton ever observed hail stones as big as apples?
Heard on the radio driving home to-day (not word for word):
BBC LONDON – We love to talk about the weather but over in South Africa they have just experienced a massive hailstorm that has hit Johannesburg and created all sorts of chaos on the roads and damage. Tell us all about it Joe Bloggs in Joburg.
JOE BLOGGS IN JOBURG – Yes it was terrible, it was awful, it was chaotic, etc etc, we have had heavy storms before but never seen anything like this etc etc:
http://www.sabc.co.za/news/a/c4fd220041fe7af9b5e5bd1c2eddf908/Massive-hailstorm-showers-Joburg
BBC LONDON – And tell me Joe Bloggs in Joburg do you think that global warming is to blame?
JOE BLOGGS IN JOBURG – Well it must have something to do with it because we have NEVER EVER seen anything like it etc etc.
What a shame the BBC does not bother to check history:
Although 26 natives are known to have been killed in Sunday’s [Feb. 2 1936] terrific hailstorm near Settlers, Transvaal, the full death-toll, it is believed, will be greater. The storm was one of the worst and most remarkable within living memory. It approached as a black cloud. Then, with a roar like gun-fire, it seemed that a gigantic iceberg in the sky had shattered. Fragments of ice, as big as coconuts, rained down for half an hour, piling to a height of three feet. Natives endeavored to rescue stricken neighbors, relatives and womenfolk, but all who were unable to gain shelter were killed.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/04/opinion/04iht-oldfeb04.html?_r=1&
Check also Pretoria 17 Nov 1949 and 1 November 1985.
I am sure that Sir Isaac Newton would have been suitably repelled by the BBC report.
Aristotle claimed objects fall with a speed proportional to their weight. This was accepted for a thousand years until Galeileo disproved it with a simple experiment. Anyone could do the experiment, so why did the world believe Aristotle for do long? I assume it’s the “taboo” of arguing with the authority. Even Galileo got himself into trouble with the authority of the Catholic Church, and it took them 500 years to admit Galileo was right.
As a layperson what am I to make of this? Should I listen to what climate scientists tell me? OK I will. If I were a politician I will start formulating policy based on the following piece of horseshit.
If I were a politician formulating policy how much confidence should I place on the models?
Should I be concerned? You betcha.
I am just a layperson so I will avert my eyes from the literature and listen to what the Calamastrologists are telling me. I will believe and act now, like a lamb to the slaughter.
Here is a timely lesson about experts and those who are not.
@strike
Your “opinion” needs to be defined before any rebuttal.
What, in your “opinion”(snicker) is the “global temperature” exactly?
Snicker=laughing at you
[Snip. persona non grata. ~mod
[Snip. PNG. — mod.]
Jean Meeus says: “That’s the reason why we consider, instead, the temperature “anomaly”. For example, we can compare the mean temperature of November 2013 AT A GIVEN PLACE to the mean temperature of December of the years 1980-2010 at the same place.”
No! Climate scietivists like the ‘anomaly’ because it masks the real temperature changes which don’t sound very scary. Also if you compare November 2013 to December of earlier years you will certainly see warming – is that how it’s done?
@Jeff Alberts says:
“That phrase really irks me. There is no “global temperature” ”
I always ask ‘what is the average temperature of your house, including oven, hot plates, refrigerator, heater ?’ I agree that such averages are meaningless, however the current climate does not seem warmer than that which was described as the Little Ice Age.
Sorry, I made a mistake.
“For example, we can compare the mean temperature of November 2013 AT A GIVEN PLACE to the mean temperature of December of the years 1980-2010 at the same place.”
Of course, it should be “to the mean temperature of NOVEMBER of the years…”.
” but there actually is a ‘global temperature’. It’s an average of all locations, all times of day, and all days of the year.” How can you calculate the average of the temperature at London and that on the Mount Everest? Makes not much sense, IMO.
95% certainty, means nothing at all. A Bonobo ape is 99% human in his DNA, I would not like him to be my lawyer, doctor, teacher… he can of course graduate with honors as climatologist and work for the IPCC. From Belgium with love.
Jean Meeus says: “That’s the reason why we consider, instead, the temperature “anomaly”. For example, we can compare the mean temperature of November 2013 AT A GIVEN PLACE to the mean temperature of December of the years 1980-2010 at the same place.”
And if you fail to publish the average of the years 1980-2010 (something that is almost always omitted) as well as the anomaly from that average then you make it impossible to reconstruct the actual temperatures you are dealing with.
Like showing all of your working out, not just part of it.
I always liked Tim Allen’s line in “Galaxy Quest”: “You don’t have to be a great actor to spot a bad one.”
Same with science and scientists.
Lumping climate scientists in a single class of political climate scientists is a bit of a glittering generalization. We need to separate the real climate scientists from the political types. The trouble is the latter seem to be making the most noise and serving totally political ends. If it weren’t for the lofty goal of saving the planet, the left would have to find some other reason to try to control all.
I hate to argue with one of the better responders here.
Geoff Sherrington says
“That said, I do not argue that passage of IR light though a gas mixture containing CO2 will produce heat. It will.”
That statement is a given. The argument is that a minor change in the atmosphere composition of gases will result in a measurable change in the heat production,
Maybe if the scientific climate scientists pushed back against the political ones once in a while we’d be able to differentiate. At present it seems that 97% of climate scientists are corrupt, self-serving liars.
Jean Meeus, you CAN average out global temperature. Sorry to labour the point, but you can do it in much the same way as an average wealth is arrived at for a nation. You would have extremely rich people who are worth billions, and others worth virtually nothing. It’s still possible to say that the ‘average person has a wealth of…’. The fact is that you could travel much of the world in just a pair of trousers (pants in the US!), a shirt, and a jacket. You could be very comfortable throughout much of the world, withstand the heat in the tropics, and the cold in Scandanavia. Of course, there a few places where you would fry or freeze, but these locations don’t take up an enormous part of the globe. Despite very cold temps in Antarctica, you could walk around in your jacket as far south as the Falkland Islands and as far north as Sweden. So it follows that much of the world (by latitude) has a temperature that varies only a few degrees either way.
I should point out (and I’m sure most here know already) I am very much a climate sceptic, but the FACT is that there CAN be a globally averaged temperature – which I believe is 14.5 to 15 C. I really don’t think that we should start denying that there isn’t an averaged temperature. Let’s stick to what is true – it’s the other side, the warmists, that lie and deny.
How many scientists were amateurs? If we consider Alfred Wegener, he was an “untrained” geologist. Who were scientific peers to Newton and Faraday?
We all know the issue with “climate science” is computer models, oh and funding. It is far too easy creating a “scary” model of “climate” in a computer program designed to do just that.
“The Ghost Of Big Jim Cooley says:
November 30, 2013 at 5:01 am
Jean Meeus, you CAN average out global temperature.”
Yes, we know we CAN do that. But doing that is completely meaningless because it is made up.
I have been interested in the Polar Bear pop. around Churchill Manitoba, so yesterday I down loaded all the daily temperatures for the month of November from 1943 to 2013 using weather underground as a source. I then averaged the daily November temps for each year, thinking it would probably correlate well with early ice formation. Below is the data. Linear trend line is Zero.Some of the years data was Missing.
Hi Mean Lo
2013 12.5 5.2 -2.2
2012 12.1 5.8 -0.6
2011 20.3 15.5 10.6
2010 22.6 17.7 12.9
2009 24.5 19.1 13.4
2008 20.5 15.2 9.7
2007 13.2 6.3 -0.4
2006 16.7 9.6 2.1
2005 20.1 14.7 9.3
2004 17.6 10.2 3.0
2003 16.6 9.8 3.2
2002 14.2 6.6 -1.3
2001 19.3 12.5 5.6
2000 17.3 12.2 6.8
1999 21.7 15.1 8.2
1998 24.4 18.6 14.1
1997 14.9 8.9 2.9
1996 14.6 8.2 2.0
1995 7.4 2.2 -2.9
1994 20.2 14.3 8.4
1993 12.3 4.7 -3.2
1992 19.4 13.2 6.8
1991 9.2 2.2 -5.0
1990 15.9 9.5 2.9
1989 5.9 0.7 -4.7
1988 16.5 9.5 2.1
1987 18.0 11.6 4.8
1986 3.0 -2.1 -6.8
1985 7.9 1.9 -4.3
1984 15.4 9.1 2.8
1983 24.6 20.2 16.1
1982 6.5 0.5 -5.4
1981 23.6 18.6 13.4
1980 15.1 8.0 0.3
1979 15.6 11.2 6.7
1978 10.0 3.8 -2.4
1977 16.0 11.4 6.3
1976 16.5 10.7 4.4
1975 17.5 12.1 6.6
1974 22.7 17.1 11.4
1973 19.5 13.6 7.7
1972
1971
1970
1969
1968
1967
1966 4.3 -2.5 -9.5
1965 13.8 6.6 -0.6
1964 15.6 10.6 5.6
1963 18.3 13.9 9.5
1962 15.2 8.2 0.9
1961 19.4 11.9 3.9
1960 13.7 7.2 0.2
1959 10.5 4.5 -1.6
1958 18.4 12.9 7.2
1957 13.7 6.9 0.1
1956 15.1 8.3 1.3
1955 20.0 14.1 8.2
1954 20.5 14.2 7.8
1953 27.7 22.7 17.6
1952 15.5 9.6 3.7
1951 13.1 7.4 1.4
1950 14.2 8.1 2.0
1949
1948
1947
1946
1945
1944 19.6 13.8 7.7
1943 20.7 14.7 9.0
Geoff Sherrington November 30 1.05am
There is still no single, quantitative, replicated paper that links GHG concentration with a temperature change in the atmosphere.
That’s the crunch, Geoff, isn’t it?
We all know (or think we know) what CO2 is capable of in theory and in the laboratory. And even some sceptics get a bit short with you if you try to suggest that extrapolating that into the real world doesn’t work.
But it doesn’t work. Nobody has yet produced any empirical evidence that CO2 does what they claim for it and when you hear the likes of Lord May talking about the “greenhouse gas blanket” being made thicker by increased CO2 you wonder just what sort of science these guys have been studying (or possibly what they’ve been smoking!).
I failed to point out the temps are Hi, Mean, and Lo