No, there's no reason to treat error bars differently in climate science compared to any other branch of science.
At least if climate science aspires to be a science. If it doesn't - then by all means pretend that measurement errors don't affect the reliability of the calculations.
We have air samples of ocean pH levels?
The correct answer is no, you cannot infer anything about rapid changes from low resolution proxies. It's quite unphysical (and anti-science) to claim otherwise.
If you know of high resolution proxies, please let us know.
How?
I'm less concerned about the number and more concerned about the rate. normally these kinds changes take several magnitudes longer.
We have no idea whether the rate is unusual. There are no proxies with that resolution available.
(But why let science stand in the way of a good scare story?)
I understand the climate models very well. How do you think the input parameters to the models are derived?
The parametrizations also involve numerical parameters that must be specified as input. Some of these parameters can be measured, at least in principle, while others cannot.
- IPCC AR4 WG1
The values used for parametrization are based on research that begins with measurements. Those measurements have errors - as in any other branch of science - yet those errors are not propagated through the calculations.
Science thus says that climate models cannot do projections more than a few years out, until the combined error exceeds the projection range.
There's no scientific support - whatsoever - for claiming that there's an expectation of weather to keep within 95% of the "confidence intervals". A model is only as good as its inputs - and measurements (en masse) are what those inputs are created from.
This is well known in all other fields of science, where claims of "confidence intervals" based on model runs would rightly get laughed out of all journals. The error bars of your measurements, inherit in all equipment, must be carried forward in all calculations.
For some reason that's not done in climate science. I don't understand why - there's no difference between "climate equipment" and other forms of equipment.
No, it's actually much much worse. Climate scientists create error bars on their projections by running models with different input parameters. They're not using the actual error variables from measurements and propagating the compounded error forwards in the calculations - which is how it's done in every other branch of science.
If you do that, the projections become meaningless just a few years out. The climate system is absolutely nothing like the single variable coin flip.
I'm very worried about the anti-science stance taken in climate discussions just because it doesn't lead to the preconceived result some hope to show (or even effect).
California is experiencing the worst drought (ever, perhaps)
Not according to science.
Through studies of tree rings, sediment and other natural evidence, researchers have documented multiple droughts in California that lasted 10 or 20 years in a row during the past 1,000 years -- compared to the mere three-year duration of the current dry spell. The two most severe megadroughts make the Dust Bowl of the 1930s look tame: a 240-year-long drought that started in 850 and, 50 years after the conclusion of that one, another that stretched at least 180 years.
http://www.mercurynews.com/sci...
Which of course makes me wonder why so many people feel it's important to claim otherwise.
Yes, the concept of "tipping points" validate the report I linked and refute the original post that all climate effects before have been slow and gradual.
It doesn't in itself mean that anyone is screwed though - it just means that humans throughout the Holocene have already lived through major changes due to such perturbations of the climate.
There's also plenty of written records of this - a collection can be found here: http://www.breadandbutterscien...
No, the events described aren't just cooling events. Please re-read the report.
All effects from global warming are regional, and different in different places. Please see the IPCC reports for more information, they go through this in great detail.
Your comment has nothing to do with the original claim, that rapid changes does not happen. They do - and the cause is completely irrelevant when it comes to how those changes affect vegetation, animal life or humans. Neither is the paper limited to volcanic cooling events, which you claim, which makes me wonder if you've read it. If you didn't read it - then what is the point in writing a reply?
Additionally, if you claim that there's newer research the last 20 years which disproves the paper then please cite that research.
The current temperate change is between 0.01 and 0.02 degrees/year, two orders of magnitude greater than when the ice age ended. The problem isn't so much that temperature is changing but that it's changing so fast. The greater the rate of temperature change the harder adaption will be for both human and natural systems.
I've never been able to figure out the original of those claims - do you know? I can't find any scientific sources for it - on the contrary:
Until a few decades ago it was generally thought that all large-scale global and regional climate changes occurred gradually over a timescale of many centuries or millennia, scarcely perceptible during a human lifetime. The tendency of climate to change relatively suddenly has been one of the most suprising outcomes of the study of earth history, specifically the last 150,000 years (e.g., Taylor et al., 1993). Some and possibly most large climate changes (involving, for example, a regional change in mean annual temperature of several degrees celsius) occurred at most on a timescale of a few centuries, sometimes decades, and perhaps even just a few years. The decadal-timescale transitions would presumably have been quite noticeable to humans living at such times, and may have created difficulties or opportunities (e.g., the possibility of crossing exposed land bridges, before sea level could rise)
Through studies of tree rings, sediment and other natural evidence, researchers have documented multiple droughts in California that lasted 10 or 20 years in a row during the past 1,000 years -- compared to the mere three-year duration of the current dry spell. The two most severe megadroughts make the Dust Bowl of the 1930s look tame: a 240-year-long drought that started in 850 and, 50 years after the conclusion of that one, another that stretched at least 180 years.
http://www.mercurynews.com/sci...
(The source seems to be E.R Cook et.al, Earth-Science reviews)
This restaurant was advertising breakfast any time. So I ordered french toast in the renaissance. - Steven Wright, comedian
