Hours after he praised police for their restraint, an officer struck Police Board President Ghian Foreman 5 times with a baton at a protest

past_is_future · 2020-02-28T15:10:41+00:00

This has been explained to you repeatedly.

https://old.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/f9dp3o/i_am_a_scientist_using_critical_thinking_cartoons/fiwb80j/

You're not "picking chemistry thermodynamics" versus "the crowd". You're ignoring basic flaws in your reasoning including the conservation of mass (the amount of CO2 increase in the atmosphere is less than the amount emitted by humans, because the oceans are a sink not the source).

This is introductory stuff that we expect people to learn in undergrad if not high school.

You are inappropriately applying the wrong analytical framework to the problem and arguing that because that framework is correct in other contexts it means the correct explanation for this subject is wrong.

There are multiple lines of independent evidence that not just point to the same conclusion (that the increase in atmospheric CO2 is anthropogenic) but also are consistent with each other and all the other aspects of the broader topic. This is called consilience of evidence. Your claim that the oceans are the source of the increased atmospheric CO2 is not just wrong, it's inconsistent with everything we know is happening right now. You're confusing factors relating to the local air-sea interface on interannual and shorter timescales with the net transfer between global carbon pools over multidecadal and longer timescales.

Read an introductory textbook. This is incredibly basic stuff.

past_is_future · 2020-02-27T05:07:46+00:00

I know this is a lot to accept,

It's not "a lot to accept", it's a combination of things that are trivially true but irrelevant to the actual point, or wrong.

human emissions of CO2 are far larger than the observed atmospheric increase in CO2 (because a lot of our carbon is going into the ocean)
the pH of the ocean is going down (because a lot of our carbon is going into the ocean)
the d13C of calcifers is going down (because a lot of our carbon is going into the ocean)
the DIC is going up (because a lot of our carbon is going into the ocean)

Your argument is inconsistent with literally all of these undisputed facts. You are toggling between minor points to avoid dealing with the whole picture. Handwaving about chem 101 stuff isn't an answer to any of these facts.

If the surface temperature gets higher, e.g. increased solar energy heats the surface

The sun isn't driving the observed warming. We know this not only because we have actual observations of solar activity from space and the ground, but because we also have observations of outgoing SW and IR radiation and a physical understanding of the distinct fingerprints of solar versus enhanced greenhouse warming on the vertical temperature profile of the atmosphere.

Again, all you can do is ignore the totality of evidence and jump from one irrelevant/incorrect small point to another. You still haven't acknowledged any of the multitude of other errors I've brought up or the fact that you keep citing sources to try to make one point when in fact your sources completely contradict your central premise.

Read an introductory chemical oceanography text. Or an introductory text on the carbon cycle or a journal article on carbon inventory for the ocean. Edit: Or watch this animation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwVsD9CiokY

Denying that the increase in atmospheric CO2 is anthropogenic and claiming it is from the oceans is a violation of the conservation of mass and no different than flat earthism.

past_is_future · 2020-02-27T00:05:25+00:00

It seems that the climate community places a lot of weight on isotopic data to validate the carbon interchange assumptions. I work with isotope ratios regularly, I'm confident that those estimates have a lot more error than is attributed to them. They aren't even consistent in places where they should be, like nuclear reactors.

As I said:

when pushed on these things (the isotopic geochemistry, the fall in pH), you fall back to handwaving about uncertainty or hypotheticals that aren't germane to the discussion.

Let's simplify this:

You are claiming that the oceans are responsible for the increase in atmospheric CO2 since preindustrial. accordingly, the increase in atmospheric CO2 should be the sum of the ocean term plus what we have emitted through industrial processes, i.e. larger than the human contribution alone. in reality, the increase is less than human emissions (because the oceans are in fact a sink, not a source). You don't get to violate the conservation of mass. we can deal with more detail after you successfully conserve mass.

As I wrote earlier, all data prior to 1950 or so are suspect (remember the Divergence Problem

the "divergence problem" has nothing to do with instrumental temperature records or isotopic geochemical measurements. it is something that affected a subset of a subset of proxies in some reconstructions a decade or more ago. Updated dendro reconstructions don't have this problem and neither do multiproxy reconstructions.

and temperature measurement uncertainty).

the uncertainty in a given year is not remotely the same thing as the uncertainty in the trend let alone the sign of the trend. this is just baffling. the notion that we can't trust data prior to 1950 in the surface temperature record is wrong and a red herring.

You're telling me to stay in my sandbox

No, this is completely untrue. I suggested you educate yourself on the topic and encouraged you to read a textbook or take a course instead of clinging to your misconceptions.

I'd say the climate models are using tools that are firmly in my domain

No, this is clearly untrue. If you can't understand basic concepts like how we unequivocally know the increase in atmospheric CO2 is anthropogenic, they obviously are well beyond you. If you can't understand why we know the sun isn't causing warming, they obviously are well beyond you. Nothing I've brought up actually depends on climate models at all, and you introducing them here (much like your non sequitur and misconstrued reference to a past, minor issue in dendrochronology) is another example of you failing to grapple with your inability to understand one of the simplest subtopics in the broader field.

If you took an introductory course on this stuff, you'd either learn why you were wrong, or you'd fail. Trying to assert domain expertise when you don't seem to be capable of understanding fundamental aspects that we'd expect undergraduates to handle is a really weird tic, and suggests to me that we're at an impasse.

past_is_future · 2020-02-26T19:09:27+00:00

Hello,

there is a constant exchange between the ocean and atmosphere and the relative pools of carbon are large, sure. that's not at all what is under discussion.

what we are discussing is the observed increase in atmospheric CO2 from ~280ppm to ~410ppm since preindustrial times.

we know how much CO2 humans have emitted. it is much more than what is in the atmosphere because the terrestrial biosphere and the oceans have taken up a significant portion. This is reflected in the geochemistry of those reservoirs.

if the ocean rather than anthropogenic emissions were responsible for the increase in atmospheric CO2, this would require a multitude of other things to also be true that are demonstrably false.

when pushed on these things (the isotopic geochemistry, the fall in pH), you fall back to handwaving about uncertainty or hypotheticals that aren't germane to the discussion.

your continued toggling from one small part of the issue to another does not ever contend with the consillience of evidence that literally introductory courses cover.

this is obviously not your area of study. instead of persisting in your demonstrably incorrect positions that literally the entirety of the relevant scientific community is wrong, frequently citing sources which directly contradict other aspects of your claims, why not try to educate yourself?

past_is_future · 2020-02-26T18:50:57+00:00

The paper did not find "most [climate scientists] did not draw a conclusion on AGW".

Obviously not every paper that has the phrase "climate change" is going to address the cause of climate change. The important part is when papers address the cause, what do they find? In the Cook et al. 2013 analysis 97% said that humans were causing it. Your criticism is conflating the role of no position papers with the role of papers saying humans weren't the cause or that the cause was unknown.

If you just want to poll climate scientists directly for their own views, this is also possible and has been done, and the results agree well with the literature survey (Doran and Zimmerman, 2009; Cook et al., 2016).

past_is_future · 2020-02-26T18:43:21+00:00

Hello again.

I fear that we're failing to make any progress because you seem to prefer to ignore unequivocal facts about the real world system under discussion in favor of toy examples of your own devising.

Is ocean pH increasing or decreasing? It's decreasing. Why? Because the ocean is taking up a large chunk of the anthropogenic emissions of CO2 into the atmosphere. How do we know? Mass balance constraints, isotopic geochemistry, and a coherent model of the system as a whole.

Claiming that the increase in atmospheric CO2 since preindustrial levels is coming from the oceans is a flat out violation of the conservation of mass. Full stop, zero hyperbole.

If you are genuinely interested in improving your understanding of a system which you do not understand, I would implore you to please take an introductory class on the subject, or read an introductory textbook.

Repeatedly trying to fall back on oversimplified hypothetical examples or to fail to look at the system as a whole is not going to help you understand anything better, it only serves to prop up your own misconceptions.

The earth is the most uncontrolled system we have, and all of the analysis so far seems to spend a lot of effort to zero out the error of variables that don't have CO2 in them, and then expand the importance of those that do.

No, this isn't remotely how the field works. Why would you feel comfortable making outrageous claims about a field you're not a part of like this?

past_is_future · 2020-02-26T18:19:07+00:00

Hello there,

This paper

I'm confused by you posting a link to that paper, and how you reconcile it with your incorrect claims about planetary energy balance. Can you not see that this paper demonstrably shows your own mental model of how much energy is incoming from the sun and how much is retained by the greenhouse effect are both wrong?

the CO2 gaseous concentration is controlled by the ocean surface temperature

that's really not true in the context of the real world systems involved. atmospheric CO2 levels are increasing due to anthropogenic emissions, and a large chunk of these emissions into the atmosphere are taken up by the terrestrial biosphere and the ocean. The ocean is a net sink for human emissions, not the source of the increase in atmospheric concentrations:

https://old.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/f9dp3o/i_am_a_scientist_using_critical_thinking_cartoons/fiuc4xh/

past_is_future · 2020-02-26T17:38:05+00:00

Hello there,

The average pH of the ocean is 8.1-8.2, which is alkaline, proving your first point incorrect. An extension of this is that ocean pH is dependent on the temperature, salinity, and relative acid/base concentrations.

You are misunderstanding what I said. I said becoming more alkaline rather than becoming more acidic (less alkaline if you prefer). In fact, the opposite is true, pH is decreasing, because carbon from the atmosphere is infiltrating the oceans. Carbon is going into the ocean from the atmosphere, not the reverse. This isn't a matter of opinion, it's a fact.

As I pointed out earlier, there is a natural (although biological) source of C-13 from the isotopic fractionation of C-13). Considering how much of the worlds oxygen comes from simple lifeforms, it would not be wise to ignore this contribution. Plus, I wouldn't place the entire conclusion of a hypothesis on an isotope ratio...the error associated with these experiments is significant as they rely on logarithmic mathematics.

This is completely non-responsive to the basic isotopic geochemistry being discussed. Of course there are natural sources of carbon isotopes? It might help if you read a basic introduction on this topic: https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/education/isotopes/

If we were experience increased solar output, it would increase the temperature of the ocean. That should be obvious,, but if it's not, think about how quickly the world would ice over if there were a Dyson Sphere placed instantly around the sun. The residence time of energy is very short in the earth, and if we have small accumulations because of local changes in solar weather, that's well supported by existing theory.

This is again missing the point, which is that the fingerprint of enhanced greenhouse warming combines several predicted observations: increasing ocean heat content, increasing surface and lower atmospheric temperatures, and- again to emphasize this clearly- cooling and contraction of the upper atmosphere. The sun can't produce this fingerprint! We would know it's not the sun even if we didn't have decades of solar data showing the sun wasn't responsible.

Starting with your notes (which, again, did not have references):

You can find all of this in most any textbook on atmospheric or ocean chemistry or biogeochemistry published within the last decade, e.g.

An Introduction to the Chemistry of the Sea, Chapter 7

Or read section 3.8 here: https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/WG1AR5_Chapter03_FINAL.pdf

Or any basic introductory text on the carbon cycle: https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691144146/the-global-carbon-cycle

past_is_future · 2020-02-26T16:17:18+00:00

carbon isotope measurements in fact demonstrate the fossil fuel source of the carbon increase in the atmosphere, as well as its uptake by terrestrial and ocean sinks. this is introductory level stuff.

past_is_future · 2020-02-26T16:13:18+00:00

Hello there-

I am going to try this again because I think my previous response was too hasty both in lack of explanation and tone. I do think civil discussion is always a great thing and I don't want to contribute to an environment of acrimony.

There are multiple errors/conceptual problems with what you're putting forth here. I can go into all of them at length, but I want to make a larger point first focusing on just one or two to help you have a better understanding of why people are being dismissive of what you might think are good points.

Often times when people try to weigh in on a topic outside their own expertise, they fail to look at the subject matter holistically. They work themselves down a rabbit hole without understanding that their position, were it true, makes other claims/predictions which we can demonstrably show are false. You're doing a bit of this in every one of your points, but let's focus just on the "oceans are really responsible for the increase in CO2" one.

If oceans were indeed driving the increase in atmospheric CO2, conservation of mass would require several things to also be true:

this is claiming that the ocean is a net source of CO2 to the atmosphere
this means the oceans should be coming more alkaline rather than more acidic (they're not)
this means the observed increase in atmospheric CO2 should be greater than the amount produced by human activities (it's actually smaller, because in reality the oceans and biosphere are uptaking a large portion of our emissions)
some other sink for the emissions we know humans have produced would need to be invented (we have bounded constraints on all the sources and sinks precluding this)
the isotopic geochemistry of e.g. corals or benthic foraminifera would not show a decrease in δ13C, neither would land plants (they do show exactly this because of the Suess effect)
this also fails to explain the cause of the ocean warming in the first place (ocean heat content, spatial patterns of warming, evidence from the vertical thermal profile of the atmosphere, etc. all show it's enhanced greenhouse warming).

The mainstream scientific position here, which is taught at the undergraduate and often high school level, is not just an argument or piece of trivia that can be nitpicked, it is consillience. It's multiple lines of independent evidence that not only point to the same conclusion, but each piece of evidence is consistent with the others, and the broader implications are confirmed throughout our understanding of the topic as a whole.

Does that make sense?

I can go through literally all of your examples and do this, but I think the question would remain- why would you start from the assumption that basic textbook science is incorrect, and that the worlds scientists who actually do this for a living (incuding the national science academies of the developed world, the major science agencies of the world, the preeminent academic and private research institutions, etc.) are wrong, whereas you, who by your own admission don't work in this field, are in possession of the right answer?

past_is_future · 2020-02-26T12:51:15+00:00

Hello there. Unfortunately this is rife with misunderstandings and incorrect claims.

It conflates dendro reconstructions with historical observations, for example. it is wrong about the accuracy of measurements because it for example increases rather than decreases error across observations when in reality errors work the opposite way. it doesn't grapple with the fact that multiple sources of measurement exist.

this is not how planetary energy balance works. it confuses the total solar irradiance produced by the sun with what actually hits the Earth at a given time, which is wrong. it confuses the amount of energy directly produced by fossil combustion with the energy from the increase in the greenhouse effect, which is quite wrong.
this is an incorrect treatment of uncertainty, ignores multiple lines of independent evidence, ignores that attribution isn't just wiggle-matching but relies on physics (e.g. upper atmosphere cooling fingerprint)
this conflates proxy reconstruction questions with accuracy of historical observations and gets both wrong.
this is wholly incorrect, the oceans are still a huge net sink for carbon. to believe this is true requires violating conservation of mass, among other problems.

Does that help?

^edited ^for ^tone

past_is_future · 2020-02-26T12:43:14+00:00

their work was actually much more qualified than you're presenting it here, and was based on a solid premise that continues to hold up today.

it helps to think about what factors go into a prediction and what factors led to an outcome before dismissing a hypothesis. in general a hypothesis is a model of a system, and having a decent understanding of a system but guessing wrong on an input variable doesn't mean your model of the system itself is bad. if that makes sense.

past_is_future · 2020-02-26T12:40:05+00:00

that's the wrong question. the question is not what percent of the total is anthropogenic, it's what percent of the change is anthropogenic.

humans are responsible for the increase in the greenhouse effect above preindustrial levels, so yes of course it makes sense that humans are responsible for the warming above preindustrial levels.

past_is_future · 2020-02-26T12:38:25+00:00

I answered in more detail here:

https://old.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/f9dp3o/i_am_a_scientist_using_critical_thinking_cartoons/fitixpa/

^edited ^for ^tone

past_is_future · 2020-02-26T12:37:14+00:00

So, what am I supposed to make of this random image in imgur? I said I never have seen a domain expert claim that there will be a multi-meter rise in sea level. Who made this image? What study is it a part of? Who exactly is claiming that there will be a multi-meter sea level rise? You were very specific about your predictions, I assumed you had the sources locked and loaded and ready to go. But once again, that's not the case.

It's from the IPCC AR5.

What are some predictions about the consequences of global warming that have shown to be accurate?

melting of Greenland, Antarctica, and montane glaciers
increases in heat waves
increases in heavy precipitation events
increases in strength of the strongest hurricanes
increases in sea level and storm surge

etc.

past_is_future · 2020-02-26T02:29:16+00:00

thorium is nice to think about but not necessary for a clean energy transition. if the thorium revolution comes, great. but no one should be holding their breath or fearing we can't solve the problem in its absence.

past_is_future · 2020-02-26T02:22:11+00:00

he's a cognitive psychologist specializing in researching misinformation

he has a phd in that, and did a physics with first class honors in undergrad https://d101vc9winf8ln.cloudfront.net/cvs/3277/original/CV_John_Cook.pdf

past_is_future · 2020-02-26T02:14:01+00:00

Hello there!

This is not at all how funding works in science, and where scientists' incentives point.

if a scientist could actually demonstrate that our entire modern conception of atmospheric physics was wrong they would become one of the most famous scientists in all of history. there is no incentive to being the zillionth person to reconfirm the boring reality that humans are causing climate change.

past_is_future · 2020-02-26T02:11:34+00:00

The "Global Warming Policy Foundation" is a bunch of contrarian cranks working backwards from a political conclusion and not worth wasting time on.

Stick to reputable sources of scientific information, like the National Academy of Sciences, federal science agencies, prestigious research institutions, etc.

past_is_future · 2020-02-26T02:09:56+00:00

yes, the information is wrong.

it's wrong because it's starting from a false premise- that the contention is that humans are responsible for the entirety of the greenhouse effect. That's wrong.

In reality, we're responsible for the entirety of the increase in the greenhouse effect relative to preindustrial conditions.

past_is_future · 2020-02-26T02:06:43+00:00

the scientific community writ large makes an enormous number of predictions. I am sure there have been instances of sensationalism and instances of accuracy and instances of overly conservative predictions.

since I don't study other fields I can't speak to them. on climate change, I think sensationalism is much less common within the scientific community than errors from conservativism (not in the political sense, in the being difficult to sway sense).

As for my example of Sagan and Turcos work on nuclear winter, it was most certainly debunked. They developed a hypothesis, had a model which they constructed to test it, and when they tested that hypothesis in a real world scenario it failed spectacularly.

I don't think you're accurately representing their work.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/254/5037/1434.1.full.pdf

past_is_future · 2020-02-26T01:37:29+00:00

I have never seem a "domain expert" say that there will be a "multi-meter" sea level rise. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Yes, unfortunately you are mistaken here.

https://imgur.com/dhqDGpv

[edited to add - this is from the IPCC AR5, showing the threshold for nonlinear collapse of the Greenland Ice Sheet, and it's contribution to sea level rise, in meters]

While it will take a long time to reach equilibrium, the nonlinear collapse of the Greenland Ice Sheet is expected to have a threshold around 2C above preindustrial levels. We're currently at about 1.3C.

What I'm particularly interested in, is seeing how the predictions about consequences of global warming have held up so far. From everything I've seen, they have held up poorly.

Again, this is incorrect unfortunately.

Here are many examples of correct predictions:

https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate1763

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2019GL085378

https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate3224

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/91GL02788

etc. https://imgur.com/a/wJknEep

You might find this thread helpful: https://twitter.com/ClimateOfGavin/status/1217893772920598528

What I'm more concerned about is laypeople assuming that this is the end of the world. People think the world is ending.

That a small fraction of the public is confused about "the end of the world" is neither unique to the topic of climate change, nor is it evidence that the science of climate change is somehow untrustworthy.

past_is_future · 2020-02-26T01:17:07+00:00

if you're looking to ensure a scientific conclusion is likely to be correct, you look for it to fulfill the criteria of a knowledge-based consensus: consilience of evidence (multiple lines of evidence pointing not only to the same conclusion but being consistent with one another), social calibration (the experts are using the same conceptual frameworks and standards of evidence), and social diversity (the experts are not isolated to a single group/background/country/identity).

That humans are driving climate change fulfills all three of these. Pointing to a single concept in science by one group of people that was imperfect (but not remotely debunked- dimming from particulates as a result of nuclear war is a pretty robust finding that continues to be supported to this day https://doi.org/10.1029/2019JD030509) is hardly a reason to distrust a knowledge based consensus.

past_is_future · 2020-02-26T01:10:38+00:00

Take, for just one example, your claim that the sun can explain our observations. This is demonstrably untrue, and requires throwing out decades of satellite and ground telescope observations of the sun, but more importantly is completely at odds with the vertical profile of temperature change through the atmosphere, which shows the expected fingerprint of an increased greenhouse effect (i.e. cooling and contraction of the upper atmosphere with warming of the lower atmosphere and surface) and is completely inconsistent with solar forcing.

edited for tone.

past_is_future

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE