CERN Finds “Significant” Cosmic Ray Cloud Effect

Ah, the perspective of a crank. It's so nice to get a break from our resident cranks to read the rantings of a professional crank.

Before he starts whining about his own brilliance not being properly recognized, he does make some useful points about NSF. Anytime there are humans involved, there are going to be human failures. There's no way to get around that until we are replaced by robots. But his persecution complex causes him to make mountains out of molehills.

barfo

 

The USA is a rich and prosperous nation. I don't ascribe any one reason as to why any particular group wants to see us be less successful. We're too strong militarily to invade and take our wealth. But we can be duped into giving it all up through treaties, they go for it. A political solution to "the great Satan."

Irene wasn't predicted accurately, but they were close on it's path. The news the following day was about how wrong they were about it's intensity, and how (typical!) it was way overhyped.

I've built a number of computer models and simulations. I am not speaking as a layman about them. I can build an NBA simulation that produces seemingly realistic results using only a few simple formulae. But Derek Rose would shoot a high % and score easily against the Heat. I can continue to refine the model to "fix" those kinds of outcomes, but tomorrow Rose may play the Heat and perform well above his averages and my model would still predict a wrong result. He might do so the next 100 times.

There is a lot if chaos involved that my model might not consider at all. Like Haslem's current injury status is that he's feeling particularly good today - enough to play and play out of his mind. Or that Rose got a bad night's sleep last night. Or a ballboy spills a cup of water on the court, slightly warping the floor in that spot, causing an odd bounce of the ball and a turnover. Or a meteor hitting the stadium canceling the game altogether.

To be something anyone should consider as proof, the model must predict tomorrow's results, next week's results, and so on. Not just the score, but the exact second that a substitution is made for each player, how many touches each gets, how long they have the ball each time, how many dribbles, the angle of the bounce each time, ad infinitum.

Basketball is many many many orders of magnitude easier to model and simulate than the climate. There, you have to literally simulate a butterfly flapping it's wings in China affecting the air molecules around the globe each time, let alone chaotic factors like an asteroid hitting the earth, odd solar activity, and things we cannot conceive of. Like on November 19, the city council in Bend approves widening 100ft of road by 3 inches and the effect of the added warmth caused by that little bit of extra asphalt.

I can make a simple model proving CO2 causes global warming:

Delta T = CO2 * X

As long as X is positive, my model "proves" what I want it to!

Get it?

 

Since you are talking about proof, you are indeed speaking as a layman.

barfo

 

Proof, justification, reason to believe, whatever.

 

An NBA simulation is good fun for all. It's a different thing to claim it predicts the future, and I wouldn't bet in Vegas based on the program's results.

Like I wrote a number of times, if models were so good, obama's economic advisors wouldn't gave been so wrong, recovery summer would be a reality, and there'd be no need for crash dummies in Detroit.

 

Which no one has done, so you are arguing against a strawman.

barfo

 

Wrong.

 

You're the one who thinks there must be some conspiracy.

I see it as a form of piling on, once someone saw a "good thing."

 

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/globalwarming.html

11. What about the future?

Due to the enormous complexity of the atmosphere, the most useful tools for gauging future changes are 'climate models'. These are computer-based mathematical models which simulate, in three dimensions, the climate's behavior, its components and their interactions. Climate models are constantly improving based on both our understanding and the increase in computer power, though by definition, a computer model is a simplification and simulation of reality, meaning that it is an approximation of the climate system. The first step in any modeled projection of climate change is to first simulate the present climate and compare it to observations. If the model is considered to do a good job at representing modern climate, then certain parameters can be changed, such as the concentration of greenhouse gases, which helps us understand how the climate would change in response. Projections of future climate change therefore depend on how well the computer climate model simulates the climate and on our understanding of how forcing functions will change in the future.

The IPCC Special Report on Emission Scenarios determines the range of future possible greenhouse gas concentrations (and other forcings) based on considerations such as population growth, economic growth, energy efficiency and a host of other factors. This leads a wide range of possible forcing scenarios, and consequently a wide range of possible future climates.

 

Do you not see the difference between saying something is 'the most useful tool for gauging future changes' and saying something 'predicts the future'?

barfo

 

Read the sentence starting with the word "projections."

 

Oh, the part you didn't bold was what you wanted me to pay attention to?

What's your point? Do you not know the difference between projection and prediction?

barfo