Laura Cereta
07-25-2009, 01:17 PM
Ezra Klein, Kevin Drum, and Ryan Avent all have posts up that attack George Will’s statement that “If you’re 29, there has been no global warming for your entire adult life.” Kevin Drum describes this as “idiotic,” Ryan as “moronic,” and Ezra responds, of course, with a chart. So does the always-numerate Kevin Drum, and I’ll use his version of the chart:
http://theamericanscene.com/images/132.gif
The funny thing is that if you zoom in on about the last ten years, you see this:
http://theamericanscene.com/images/133.gif
There has not been a lot of measured warming for the last ten years.
It’s hard to dispute this. What Ezra, Kevin, and Ryan are arguing is the idiotic, moronic, or whatever notion that the past ten years of data disproves the theory of AGW. Their basic argument is “sure, but look at the long-term trend.” I agree with them about the conclusion that the last ten years of raw data don’t falsify the theory (and have argued this at many times in many places), but I’m not sure any of them have thought through this question fully.
If I observe that it is cooler in New York today than yesterday, no reasonable person would take that as proof that AGW theory is wrong. On the other hand, if we had rapid growth of human population and rapid fossil-fuel-dependent economic development for the next 1,000 years with no increase in surface temperatures, no reasonable person would claim that AGW in anything like its current form had not been disproven. The question is at what point between 1 day and 1,000 years do I have enough evidence that I can reasonably reject the theory? It seems to me that you need a rational standard to answer this question before you simply call ten years “moronic” a priori.
In fact, it’s more complicated than that. If we had no warming over the past ten years (true) and lots more CO2 in the air (true) but also a huge increase in volcanic activity (not true, but posited as an illustration), this would not be evidence that AGW theory was untrue, because the models used to predict warming would have called for no warming because all the particulate matter thrown up by the volcanoes should offset the effect of the CO2. So what we are really looking for is the degree of divergence between the predictions of the models used as the basis for long-run warming predictions versus actual temperatures, in order to falsify or corroborate the operational theory that we can predict future long-run temperature impacts attributable to CO2 emissions. The rigorous version of the question then is: What is a valid falsification period for AGW models?
[/quote]
Read more @
http://www2.nationalreview.com/images/logo_weekend.jpg (http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MmRiOGVkM2UwNjk1MTlkNzllMjZiMzViMTI0ODI4OWY=)
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MmRiOGVkM2UwNjk1MTlkNzllMjZiMzViMTI0ODI4OWY=
http://theamericanscene.com/images/132.gif
The funny thing is that if you zoom in on about the last ten years, you see this:
http://theamericanscene.com/images/133.gif
There has not been a lot of measured warming for the last ten years.
It’s hard to dispute this. What Ezra, Kevin, and Ryan are arguing is the idiotic, moronic, or whatever notion that the past ten years of data disproves the theory of AGW. Their basic argument is “sure, but look at the long-term trend.” I agree with them about the conclusion that the last ten years of raw data don’t falsify the theory (and have argued this at many times in many places), but I’m not sure any of them have thought through this question fully.
If I observe that it is cooler in New York today than yesterday, no reasonable person would take that as proof that AGW theory is wrong. On the other hand, if we had rapid growth of human population and rapid fossil-fuel-dependent economic development for the next 1,000 years with no increase in surface temperatures, no reasonable person would claim that AGW in anything like its current form had not been disproven. The question is at what point between 1 day and 1,000 years do I have enough evidence that I can reasonably reject the theory? It seems to me that you need a rational standard to answer this question before you simply call ten years “moronic” a priori.
In fact, it’s more complicated than that. If we had no warming over the past ten years (true) and lots more CO2 in the air (true) but also a huge increase in volcanic activity (not true, but posited as an illustration), this would not be evidence that AGW theory was untrue, because the models used to predict warming would have called for no warming because all the particulate matter thrown up by the volcanoes should offset the effect of the CO2. So what we are really looking for is the degree of divergence between the predictions of the models used as the basis for long-run warming predictions versus actual temperatures, in order to falsify or corroborate the operational theory that we can predict future long-run temperature impacts attributable to CO2 emissions. The rigorous version of the question then is: What is a valid falsification period for AGW models?
[/quote]
Read more @
http://www2.nationalreview.com/images/logo_weekend.jpg (http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MmRiOGVkM2UwNjk1MTlkNzllMjZiMzViMTI0ODI4OWY=)
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MmRiOGVkM2UwNjk1MTlkNzllMjZiMzViMTI0ODI4OWY=