"Our greatest responsibility is to be good ancestors."

-Jonas Salk

Monday, August 17, 2009

Tamino Rocks!

I rant a lot but so far I only think about producing compelling, precise, accessible expositions like this. Tamino does it.
Denialists love to denigrate computer models of earth’s climate. In my opinion they only do this because they’re in denial of the result, not because of any valid evidence. They also love to make the false claim that without computer models there’s no reason to believe that global warming is real, and is going to get worse.
...
Many of you have seen the graphs (included in the IPCC reports) showing that using computer models, we can reproduce temperature history if we include human factors, but not if we omit them. That’s such powerful evidence that we’re the cause of global warming, it’s no wonder denialists have tried so hard to slander computer models and to insist that without them there’s no solid evidence of man-made global warming. The truth is that you don’t need computer models to show this. Even with very simple mathematical models (and these models are indeed simple) the result is the same. Without human causation, there’s no explanation for the global warming we’ve already observed. With human causation, there’s no explanation for a lack of global warming.
PLEASE if you follow one link of mine this year follow this one. It's an easy read for the scientist, and accessible to almost everyone who can read a graph. Pass it around to people who need to see it.

Update: Or maybe not. See comments. What seems clear to those of us in the field may be obscure to others.

5 comments:

VicDiesel said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Michael Tobis said...

Random spam?

The Batman theme was composed, if you can call it that, by Neal Hefti.

Perhaps Tamino has multiple aliases?

VicDiesel said...

We apologize for the noise. My browser delete my insightful comment, and substituted a previous version of the text field.

Anyway, I tried reading that Tamino post, but there are too many undefined or ill-defined terms. The first graph (too small to be readable) has a bunch of forcings. A term unkown to me, but the text says that so-and-so "constitute climate forcings". Does that mean "this is the definition of a climate forcing" or "these are examples of climate forcings" leaving the concept undefined? Next there seems to be an implicit assumption, going to the second graph, that forcings are strictly additive, that is, that there is no feedback through any mechanism. That is entirely not clear to me.

And it goes on. If I really try to understand that post, and be convinced by it, then there are too many unanswered questions it calls up.

Anonymous said...

VicDiesel has a point. You do need a know the basic outlines of climate science and statistics to "get" Tamino.

The RC primers are good I think.

But, yeah, Tamino rocks.

Douglas Watts said...

Thanks, Mr. Tobis.

Mr. Tamino has a very good touch for explaining basic scientific principles and approaches.