Quote:
Originally Posted by Takeda Shingen
An interesting take on these so-called facts:
http://articles.philly.com/2012-07-1...climate-change
In other words, every time the weather warms, or there is a drought, or an ice storm, or a wildfire, or a blizzard, or a heat wave, people start talking about it being global warming. This is why those numbers seem to be in constant flux. This 'paper' only gives a snapshot of this opinion at a high point, and does so to make a political statement, making it disingenuous at best.
Back when we were having those nasty winters a few years ago, no one was talking about that. Of course, we are also in an El Nino cycle, which gives us warmer, dryer weather in my part of the country. I imagine that this would not be the first time that people got hysterical about things, and I know that it is not the first time that Skybird has been caught up in it. |
Too kind, thank you. You might find it interesting that I found myself in need to alter my opinions a bit, and in some thread I indicated that, three or four moths ago. I had to realise that the money-interest by the third world plays an important role in painting the picture as dramatic as possible, so to get more money transfers from the North, and that sun cycle effects maybe play a greater role than previously taken into account. But I also think that this earlier ignoring of sun cycles is coming from the so-called sceptics' propaganda having been so abusive in misquoting, quoting out of context, constructing totally different material into one strawman argument, that in this noise the solid part of the sun cycle argument got lost and ignored, since it appeared to be just the sceptics' propaganda for too long, and thus was discredited. I still think the planet is warming up, but I realise that the sun causes more prominent microfluctuations in global climate trends and maybe buys some time for us, than previously assumed. Last summer was cold and wet over here, this one is as well, but on a global scale, the weather extremes have increased in frequency and intensity, which is pretty much according to the predictions of global warming models. Greenland is unfreezing quicker than ever, the oceans warm up as well, and warmth-related chemical changes are to be observed, too.
However, the Philly article is way too short and superficial as if I would make it a basis of questioning the results alltogether. The argument of that article would need to become object of empirical examination itself.
We may have won some time in which we can adapt, but I think what it all means is that at the end the final rise in temperature will come even sharper and more drastic, if we do not get ready to cope with that.
On surveys, what is being done if they should fulfill the criterion of
being representative for a population, is to make sure that the sample offers demographic represenation, and is big enough in size to minimise the margin of error (= that sample's findings are not meaning anything, but are by pure chance, by randomness, by luck) is not exceeding a certain level, which usually is set at 5%, 3% or 1%. In experimental settings, these error margins often are set even lower, for example 0.5, 0.25 or 0.05%. This is what separates a poll from a representative survey: the poll is just a random snapshot that can but must not be representative at all, since one does not care for the structure of the sample. The representative survey uses statistical calculations to determine how big a sample must be
at minimum to bring down the margin error to this or that wanted level. This gets calculated by formulas, it is no random or arbitrary process. You cannot do a representative survey with too small a sample, therefore. The trustworthiness becomes the bigger the greater the sample is, but beyond a certain level, the additonal gain slows down, and from some point on it is not economic to increase the sample size anymore.
On the Philly article, they may have a point. It'S not that I studied those 60 pages so much in depth that I have every detail on my mind. A relation between weather at the time of the questioning, and given answers, would not be that surprising. We know according links between psychic state and mood, and season/light/weather.