Back when I was a wee lad, I learned that my birthplace, Long Island, NY, was created when the glaciers receded at the end of the Ice Age. Somehow, since then, I haven't been worried much about global warming.

Oh and what I said MUST be true because Wiki says so.

What did cause the extreme warming 20,000 years ago?

When humans are deemed to be primarily responsible and the Sun is not given credit for the current warming trend, I see the "science" as political activism and "junk" science.

The "agreement" (Kyoto) to lower greenhouse gasses by allowing huge increases by some countries, countered by huge decreases by other countries seems to me to say that the current levels are fine - the only bad thing about them is who gets to make the emissions. Again, "junk" science.

What caused the warming that brought us so far out of the last ice age? Until it can be proven that it was primarily due to human activity, I will believe that the trend is caused more by nature than by man.

I guess that Pathfinder, Spirit & Opportunity are responsible for global warming... on Mars.
http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=17977

What would you accept as proof that it is actually occurring? Is there any set of facts/evidence/studies which would convince you? Or do you simply believe that human caused global warming is not possible?

What would you accept as proof that it is actually occurring?

Ummm, he's not disputing that its occurring you freaking retard. He's disputing what is causing it.

What caused the ice age 20,000 years ago to end? I'm fairly certain it wasn't all the SUV's the cavemen were tooling around in.

Ummm, he's not disputing that its occurring you freaking retard. He's disputing what is causing it.

Why the namecalling? I see that I constructed my sentences poorly there. I was talking about 'human-caused' warming as I stated in the last sentence. I should have said it that way in the first sentence, also.

I just want to know what it would take to convince a skeptic? It seems that there is no amount of science that would convince them.

"what it would take to convince a skeptic?"

How about a significant increase, say 10 degrees, not .10 or 1.0, in decadal average global temperatures since 1900? Otherwise, all we're seeing is natural variability.

The work that has been done with proxy records before 1850 is divination, not science, and certainly not acceptable or credible in the math or statistics professions.

Yes, it's getting warmer, it's natural, something to do with that burning ball of gas that lights up the sky every day. Yes, humans are generating carbon dioxide in several different ways. But for those who missed 5th grade science class, plant matter absorbs carbon dioxide.

It's not a closed system, several variables are involved. Proximation is not causation!

I just want to know what it would take to convince a skeptic? It seems that there is no amount of science that would convince them.

Hey, if people want to propose it as a theory and test it in the real world, no problem. But I think if you are going to ask some countries to act against the economic welfare of its citizens while others get a pass, the proof would have to be at least clear and convincing, not merely "sounds good to me."

When I was in school, the same "experts" were predicting imminent global cooling and catastrophic overpopulation, so you can put me in the skeptic column if all we have are "expert opinions."

You may want to consider reading a science book or going down to the science department at your local university and asking members of the faculty for their opinions. Being educated helps when you want to comment on a process as complex as thermodynamics within the earth's atmosphere.

Your statistic that you quote in reference to Al Gore, is completely erroneous. Global warming potential does not factor in water vapor since it is a reflex to the warming and not a forcing upon it. It is the anthropogenic greenhouses gases that allow for more water vapor in the atmosphere. If you simply added water vapor, it would return to its equilibrium.

And yes, while 100% certainty on this issue, and indeed the majority of science, is rarely attained, human activity has been demonstrated to be the likeliest explanation to the sharp modern increase in average global temperature.

It seems that there is no amount of science that would convince them.

Models are NOT "science", they are speculation based on incomplete data of poorly understood phenomenon.

Cosmic epicycles were a model. They were wrong.

Mars, Pluto etc are all warming too. Some dramatically more than earth. Pluto is up like 15 or 20 degrees recently.

The mars polar ice caps are vanishing.

And you want me to believe that whatever is causing THAT stuff, is NOT having any major effects on earth?

Right.

Let me expand on what my skepticism is based upon. I'm an engineer with an advanced degree - I'm not a moron.

I'm also INTIMATELY familiar with the IEEE 754 floating point standard and ALL its intricacies. Rounding, chop, precision control, denormalization, all that gory technical stuff that can cause results to vary.

I've also worked on the guts of the floating point libraries and display formatting code for a major compiler vendor(Borland) so I'm also intimately familiar with how floating point results get formatted - and how print formatted results can vary from actual data.

Want to convince me? Show me the source for the models and let me convince myself that they are doing what they claim and not making some silent error that gets propagated through all the results because floating point exceptions were masked(the default behavior on almost all compilers), or chop mode was used when a rounding mode should have been used, etc etc.

Programs are full of bugs. I have no reason to believe these models would be any different.

Scientists are not hardware geeks intimately familiar with the guts of floating point implementations. They use that stuff like a kitchen appliance most of the time and just trust that the tool's results are correct. Engineers know better - we know that stuff has its limitations.

That's good stuff, Purple Avenger. You know about floating point calculations and feel that for some reason that somehow imparts expertise in a field you know nothing about. Classic enginerdery.

Long before al Gore invented the Internet, way back in 1989-90

Cool, using a gibe that's long since been debunked, and misunderstanding it to boot, unless you think that 1989-1990 was "long before" the High Performance Computing and Communication Act of 1991.

"Models are NOT "science""

Actually, all scientific accounts are models of natural processes. If you don't understand that, we have a problem.

Let's take an example: the Ptolemic model you speak of was supplanted by a more accurate (but still incomplete) Copernican *model*. Our current accounts of the operations of the solar system, including orbits, are also composed of models.

You may want to consider reading a science book or going down to the science department at your local university and asking members of the faculty for their opinions. Being educated helps when you want to comment on a process as complex as thermodynamics within the earth's atmosphere.

...

And yes, while 100% certainty on this issue, and indeed the majority of science, is rarely attained, human activity has been demonstrated to be the likeliest explanation to the sharp modern increase in average global temperature.

Some of us scientists are educated enough to realize the difference between a correlation and a cause-effect relationship. Data of such a small change over 150 years says very, very little about what causes global warming, especially when you consider the much, much longer history of the world. While it is possible humans are making matters worse, there is no evidence we are anywhere near the major factor in the current warming.

Someone asked what it takes to convince a skeptic. If you are asking about a skeptical scientist, it takes evidence. On the other hand, if you just want them to shut up, I think he ever popular totalitarian tactics (e.g., the current media blitz and the demonization of anyone who disagrees with the party line) holds promise for possible short term success. Historically it has worked for short periods of time.

Actually, all scientific accounts are models of natural processes.

There's a difference between a model and the science that makes it a valid scientific model. Just because I can make a model of something does not mean I have done any science. As you say, "If you don't understand that, we have a problem."

That's good stuff, Purple Avenger. You know about floating point calculations and feel that for some reason that somehow imparts expertise in a field you know nothing about. Classic enginerdery.

Purple avenger claims expertise in computer models. While I think his credentials are not the most impressive, they are at least relevant to the rest of his post.

Monte Hieb and Harrison Hieb.

Who the hell are these guys that created the website you cite as expertise, and what is their credibility? I mean, you're basing your claims on global warming on a site that depends on some random website hosting starting at $14/month. Seriously?

Here was my question: What would you accept as proof that it is actually occurring? Is there any set of facts/evidence/studies which would convince you?

So far here are the responses which at least sorta kinda answer the question:

How about a significant increase, say 10 degrees, not .10 or 1.0, in decadal average global temperatures since 1900? Otherwise, all we're seeing is natural variability.

How did you decide on 10 degrees as the threshold of significance? It seems to me that it there were a 10 degree increase it would be already be a global catastrophe. I believe the difference between today and an ice age is like 5 degrees C, as seen here: http://vathena.arc.nasa.gov/curric/land/global/tchga1.gif

Want to convince me? Show me the source for the models and let me convince myself that they are doing what they claim and not making some silent error that gets propagated through all the results because floating point exceptions were masked(the default behavior on almost all compilers), or chop mode was used when a rounding mode should have been used, etc etc.

Great! Get yourself some scientific journals and get reading. With your expertise you may help to sharpen the quality of climate science. Let us know what you find.

But I have a question. If the models are routinely flawed by a masked floating point exceptions, would they all err in the same direction? It seems to me that such errors would be more or less random and would cause some models to overstate warming and others to understate it, but it seems that most models agree. Also, I would expect that the people who run the world's largest supercomputers (which are used to calculate the climate models) would also be intimately familiar with floating point exceptions, etc.

Someone asked what it takes to convince a skeptic. If you are asking about a skeptical scientist, it takes evidence.

What evidence do you want? That's what I'm trying to find out.

I think what skeptics of global warming are saying is tha modeling, while useful, should not be the primary support of a theory as it overwhelmingly is in global warming hysteria, especially as the data being used to make these models has not been scientifically proven to be relevant.

Perhaps I am guilty of showing my biases towards the branch of science I understand best, but the geological record certainly seems to point to global warming and cooling to be very natural, and even roughly predictable in both time and duration. Cycles of global warming and cooling have been occurring for hundreds of millions of years...when humans weren't around.

Now the same alarmists that 20 years ago were shrieking about humans causing global cooling using junk science to feed research grants, have now reversed themselves 180-degrees to say oops, we got it completely wrong--the opposite in fact--but we're going to use similar methods to reach opposite conclusions, so trust us this time, okay?

Sorry.

We've heard this con before.

As for the web site linked to above, I've got a simple channels for the Global Warming Evangelicals: don't gripe about who put up the site, or how much it costs to host, find valid evidence to show where specific claims made there are scientifically invalid. I'll be very impressed if you can do it.

But I have a question. If the models are routinely flawed by a masked floating point exceptions, would they all err in the same direction? It seems to me that such errors would be more or less random and would cause some models to overstate warming and others to understate it, but it seems that most models agree.

Or do all the models that disagree get thrown out as "invalid data"? I have no proof that this is the case, but it has happened before in various scientific research, and since human nature hasn't changed, it can happen again. Particularly with all the money that is involved.

Or do all the models that disagree get thrown out as "invalid data"?

So you agree that the errors would be random, but then say they must be throwing away 'invalid data'? In that case you are saying that maybe half of all such modelling data is thrown out because the scientists call it invalid?

Even if that was true, the studies would state clearly that they had discarded certain data and the justification for that action. Otherwise, it would be scientific fraud.

I have no proof that this is the case, but it has happened before in various scientific research,

Care to link to some examples for me?

You know about floating point calculations and feel that for some reason that somehow imparts expertise in a field you know nothing about.

Unless those models are made of clay and string, how the calculations are performed is kinda relevant.

I've never written a significant program that didn't have some sort of bug(s) in it somewhere.

Show me the code. That they keep these supposed models largely secret is very telling. Either the code is so wretchedly designed and full of bugs they'd be embarrassed showing it, or its so obviously rigged they'd be accused of fraud if they did.

Which is it?

Actually, all scientific accounts are models of natural processes. If you don't understand that, we have a problem.

Oh, I understand this very well. What you're really saying is that this whole affair is essentially "faith based". You have faith that these models are the last, final, definitive, be all end all - and you're willing to have to world spend TRILLIONS of dollars based on that "faith".

Suppose they turn out to be 100% dead wrong like epicycles were? There will be no mulligans here. You can't un-spend trillions of bucks spent on a snipe hunt. What then? Does the rest of the world get to pelt you with rotten fruit? Seize all your assets as compensation? A piper will be paid if all this is badly wrong.

Why not get it right? Drop the faith crap.

Here's one.

http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/~fms/

You can download the code and everything. Go check it out and tell us how the evil liberals are using rounding errors to take away your SUV.

Show me the code. That they keep these supposed models largely secret is very telling.

I found these with a quick google for 'climate modelling source code'. There are many other examples.

Download 4x3 Atmosphere-Ocean Model Code and Input Files
http://aom.giss.nasa.gov/code4x3.html

Los Alamos Climate Ocean and Sea Ice Modeling “POP” (parallel oceans program)
Website here: http://climate.lanl.gov/Models/POP/
Download here: http://climate.lanl.gov/Models/POP/POP_2.0.1.tar.Z

FMS (flexible modeling system)
http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/~fms/

GDFL source code respository:
https://fms.gfdl.noaa.gov/

I don't own an SUV. I drive a VW diesel that get over 50mpg

The following software packages are limited access. You may request access, but this does not guarantee approval. In order to request access, you must be register and be logged in.

Heh, very "open" process they got there. What are they hiding?

I have now had my fill of a$$holes who think they understand science.

I've had my fill of jackasses who think computers always deliver the results people expect from them.

Had I not spent a significant part of my career working around all sorts of hardware and software errata I might have believed it too.

I'm not a computer code geek but I use computational fluid dynamics and finite element stress analysis pretty regular.

These engineering tools have come a long way but at best, it's an approximate solution to give insight, not exact answers. All these models spit out results based on user-input boundary conditions and simplifying assumptions. That's a big key - how accurate is the user-input. The other big key is the accuracy of the math behind the model.

Trying to model the whole freaking planet is incredibly complex. It's fantasy, in my opinion, to expect results that predict a tiny temp rise over 100 yrs. to be accurate. But fantasy is all the politicians require to push an agenda and gain power. That's all this is about. It's not about science.

Someone asked what it takes to convince a skeptic. If you are asking about a skeptical scientist, it takes evidence.

What evidence do you want? That's what I'm trying to find out.

Posted by anonymous at February 3, 2007 10:09 AM

Clearly explain to me what caused the global warming that ended the last ice age. Then clearly explain to me why the current warming trend doesn't have the same cause and how humans are the significant cause of this warming trend.

Scientists tell us that the area I live in was once under a couple thousand feet of ice. They tell us that many of the lakes we have were carved by the glaciers when they retreated.

That was one heck of a warming trend and I am pretty sure that humans had zero contribution to it. In the current trend, why is increased radiation from the sun not the most significant factor?

What do our observation posts outside the atmosphere tell us about increased solar radiation?

Also, during the days of dinosaurs, weren't the CO2 levels higher than today? Weren't worldwide temperatures higher than today? Why would a return to some of those conditions be "catastrophic"?

This whole global warming "debate" is like constant Hollywood disaster movie trailers. Why the hype? Is "disaster hype" a component of the scientific method? Is speculation reported as fact a component of the scientific method? Are the computer models used for global warming the same ones that incorrectly predicted 2006's hurricane season? Are they similar to the ones that we use to predict our local weather two weeks in advance so accurately?

Is the scientific method a process that requires stifling of contradictory ideas?

I just pulled down the POP_2.0.1 program and scoped it out.

All Fortran-90, which is OK, but as I suspected, there is no attempt whatsoever to do any rounding/chop control/compensation on results to limit rounding errors between passes of the sim. The thing takes compiler defaults for all floating point settings which can allow rounding errors to grow unchecked.

Is this significant? I don't know. It is however a fundamental design flaw in the sim that could cause results to drift as the sim generations progress.

I had this argument not too long ago. A survey of the scientific literature over the last couple of years found 900+ papers supporting man-made global warming and zero against. The typical reply is that they academics are biased or what have you. Out of the scientists that wrote these papers there have to be some mavericks who are honest with themselves with the evidence. You all are supporting a case that is completely unfounded in the scientific literature.

I've worked on compilers (.NET) and other aspects of computers. I don't see how that gives me the slightest insight into global warming.

Clearly explain to me what caused the global warming that ended the last ice age. Then clearly explain to me why the current warming trend doesn't have the same cause and how humans are the significant cause of this warming trend.
...
That was one heck of a warming trend and I am pretty sure that humans had zero contribution to it. In the current trend, why is increased radiation from the sun not the most significant factor?

If you read the science, there are plenty of explanations about this. Your remarks suggest that you have never done any reading on this.

Initially, it is nice to see that people are finally accepting that global warming is occurring, and focusing on the secondary issue of the extent to which human activity is causing it, and what might be done about it.

To return to your questions, here is a link to a good article summarizing the science as to a lot of these questions. First note that ice age epochs (like the last two million years of ice ebbing and flowing many times) are believed to be rare in earth history. No one knows for sure why we are currently in such an era. The last one is believed to be 300,000,000 years ago. One guess (and that is all it is) is an increase in galactic dust and gas that partially diminshes the amount of solar radiation that earth receives -- the solar system is passing through a greater density in recent times. This would explain the randomness of ice age epochs separated by long periods without them.

Second, the variations over the last million years are believed to be primarily explained by the Milankovitch theory -- variations in earth's climate induced by subtle variations in its orbit (and the differing impact of these changes in sunlight between northern hemisphere and southern hemisphere due to skewed distributions of landmasses in the two hemispheres). That ended the last ice age. That same cycle says that we should be headed into an era of greater cooling -- the current warm trend runs against the evidence of known natural causes in climate fluctuations in recent times.

Sun radiation has been carefully measured for enough time to eliminate it as a likely cause -- read the articles. It is believed to vary over time and have some role in climate change, but this is uncertain. Some attribute the little ice age to a variation in sun output, but this is still just speculation (but based on an observed oddity of sunspots basically disappearing for a long time). No really knows why there was a cold snap for few hundred years -- some say that the cold is actually more of the norm, and what has to be explained is the warming trends on each end of the little ice age. No one can define "normal."

The science that links CO2 to a likely increase in global temperatures is pretty straight forward. And CO2 is higher now than at any time for the last 120,000, with a very rapid increase over the last 200 years. Coincidentally, there is a spike in temperatures in the same time period.

There is no other observed natural phenomena that explains the temperature spike as readily as the CO2 spike, and there is no non-human phenomena that explains the CO2 spike. Scientists therefore draw the conclusion that human activity is the best explanantion for ongoing global warming.

You can deny it, but science does not support your position. It does not absolutely prove that it is human caused, but there is no competing theory with much credibility.

And yes, scientists believe that CO2 concentrations were much much higher in the time of dinosaurs (like 3 or 4 times higher) and the climate much warmer. Which may explain why dinosaur remains are found in strata believed to be in polar regions. And why most of the present day Mississippi Valley region of the North American continent was under water -- yes, North Dakota had beach front property.

So, skeptics, what is your hypothesis for explaining the undisputed fact that the entire field of professional climatologists, with virtually no exceptions, either supports the IPCC or finnds it too cautious? Are they ALL a) anticapitalist Luddites trying to destroy the economy, or b) just trying to hustle up more grant money (they could get a lot more from Exxon-Mobil, by the way)?

Gimme a break!

"How about a significant increase, say 10 degrees, not .10 or 1.0, in decadal average global temperatures since 1900? Otherwise, all we're seeing is natural variability."

"How did you decide on 10 degrees as the threshold of significance? It seems to me that it there were a 10 degree increase it would be already be a global catastrophe."

While I'd like to say it was a random choice, sort of like the warmists using tree rings from only one tree on the entire planet as their data source for a few years of their "historical" temperature record, but no, there actually was some thought behind the choice.

The temperature records prior to 1970 simply aren't accurate to within one degree. And terrestrial measurements since then aren't much better.

By virtually all accounts, all we've seen since industrialization is one degree per century, well within the proven range of natural variability. Also, given the accuracy of the source data, one degree means nothing.

So, while the change attributed to industrialization may not need to be an entire order of magnitude (10 degrees vs. 1 degree) higher, it absolutely must stand out above the uncertainty of the data, and also must stand out above natural variability to support the claim that industrialization is even partly responsible for current temperature levels.

Several debunkings of the "hockey stick" have shown that recent changes are neither sudden nor dramatic, nor unprecedented.

Lacking any evidence that even suggests past causation, all the warmists are left with are their models.

In real life, the best of these models can't make an accurate forecast to within 5 degrees, for a localized region, over a period of maybe 72 hours.

So what would cause a reasonable person to believe these models can accurately predict average global temperature to within 2-3 degrees for 100 years into the future?

b) just trying to hustle up more grant money.

No warming = no grants = no food. Sounds like the ultimate motivation to me. "Professional" climatologists gotta eat, don't they?

P.S. I hereby dispute the claim that all climatologists support the IPCC. So much for undisputed.

Please supply a complete list of all of the world's climatologists along with their sworn support of the IPCC if you're claiming that as a fact.

It doesn't take a computer / math geek to figure out that without the proper floating point calculations the whole thing will be wrong. Especially when we're talking fractions of a percent be significant.

For those you are having trouble grasping what Purple is saying here's a very simplified example.

Lets say they're only rounding out two decimal places. If the degree shift calculation requires several steps then there's potential for significant number shifting:

.0145 = .015 when rounded: 100 * .015 = 1.50.
.013444445 = .014 when rounded * 100 = 1.40.
Added together = 2.90.

Whereas with no rounding:
.0145 * 100 = 1.45
.013444445 * 100 = 1.3444445
Added together = 2.7944445

Which gives you a variance of: 3.6398%

When you're looking at a scientific approach that type of variance is huge. Which is why the floating point computation is extremely important. Which from what I gather is what Purple was saying.

The sample size, as anyone whose taken a entry level statistics class could tell you, is way too small if they're only going back 100 or even 1,000 years. Again an example for those who can't see it.

Lets say they pull the last 100 years and compute a temperature increase of 1 degree or a 1% increase. But when we look back at 101 - 110 years ago it was 1.1 Degrees cooler than normal. This would cancel out the 1 degree / percent increase, thereby negating the theory.

What C.Y. s explaining in his post is that geographical evidence shows that over time the earth has gone through many increases and decreases of average temperature, without the influence of man.

In closing I'd like to ask the global warming and environmental experts where my record breaking Hurricane season was last year? The oceans were almost boiling and the increased temperature was going to cause storms that would wipe out the east coast.

Now if you'll excuse me it's kind of chilly out side, I'm going to go burn some dead dinosaurs in my SUV with hopes that I'll raise the temperature a bit.

Not all scientists agree with the human induced global warming via carbon emmisions "theory". And again I emphasize the extreme difficulty in developing an accurate mathematical model of the earth's climate. There's a hugh number of complex input variables and many, many simplifying assumptions that must be made. Scientists aren't near as smart as some think they are.

Then there's the practical side. We generate power and travel swiftly because of carbon emmissions. It's the foundation of our modern society. Who's going to volunteer first to give up the good life in order to keep sea level from rising a few inches in 100 years? I sure as hell ain't interested.

So we turn back to nukes for electricity. Does anybody remember 3-mile island? What about rad-waste storage? That has to be isolated for 100,000 years. What about decommisioning the nukes? They turn into high-level radioactive concrete tombs after about 50 years.

What do we do about freight hauling? You wouldn't be eating much or getting much of anything if it wasn't for all those trucks hauling goods.

The worst part about all the hype is that even those scientists that believe in carbon-induced global warming know that we can't fix it, no matter how much carbon reduction we achieve. So what's the point, on a practical level? It's only about political power and money for politicians and scientists that toe the official propaganda line.

We're all fixin to get screwed unless common sense prevails.

You're all a bunch of waco no-nothings. It was Fred Flintstone's car that caused the last Ice Age to end.

Yabba Dabba Do!!!!!!!!

I've worked on compilers (.NET) and other aspects of computers. I don't see how that gives me the slightest insight into global warming.

That's not what I'm discussing and you damned well know it, particularly if you've ever doen anything with floating point. Incorrectly applied tools or poorly designed algorithms can give bad results.

Address that one example I looked at genius, the POP_2.0.1 program and its complete lack of any attempts at doing rounding control.

There's a damned good reason why Borland put _control87() and _status87() functions in Turbo C RTL. They ain't there to take up space, they're there so people could do SERIOUS math with the product and control the results and behavior of the math unit very precisely, putting compensations in exactly where they were needed to keep the math valid.

Anything that lacks this sort of fine control is not a serious tool for serious numerical calculation.

I don't need to know shit about the science of global warming to know if the tools are adequate or being applied correctly.

You say you've worked on .NET guts - excellent! Anders is at Microsoft now - go ask him about what I'm talking about. He wrote a big chunk of the Borland x87 emulator and is intimately familiar with the guts of floating point stuff himself.

If this shit doesn't matter, then a lot of people have been doing a lot of work over the past 27 years for nothing, and the IEEE 754 spec includes a lot of worthless features.

"I don't need to know shit about the science of global warming to know if the tools are adequate or being applied correctly."

Jackass.

You don't know shit about numerical computation. You would have done well to take some lessons from Tanj. He's another one who knows the limitations of what floating point can and can't do, and how you can go badly wrong applying it naively.

I looked at the POP code. Its simply not doing what one expects to see in a serious numerical modeling application with iterative generations. I'm sorry you have a problem handling that "inconvenient truth", but I'm not going to lose any sleep over your technical ignorance of the guts of the tools either.

PA -- "You would have done well to take some lessons from Tanj"

Dollars to donuts he's not a man-made global warming skeptic.

It's ludicrous that you think your experience with floating point numbers gives you a leg up on people that have actually, you know, studied the climate.

Hey who deleted my last post??

It's ludicrous that you think your experience with floating point numbers gives you a leg up on people that have actually, you know, studied the climate.

I presume no such thing.

I do presume to know what the limitations of the tools those people are using is though, because I am one of the tool builders who created some of that stuff.

I also know enough about what serious numerical computations look like to know when source code is flat out missing some of the operations I expect to see. I also took enough Operations Research to know that omitting seemingly insignificant factor can have a major impact on results.

Rounding control, denormalization and loss of precision exceptions exist for damn good reasons Ted. We don't build that crap into floating point units and the ability to control it into compilers for nothing.

Apparently you believe decades of design work and tools development on implementing these features was wasted right? That's fine. You can have your opinion about that.

If you believe these models are valid as they exists, then lets spend a few billion dollars more producing the proof of correctness before we spend trillions wrecking economies around the world.

The public is owed these correctness proofs when such vast sums are about to be spent.

PA: So you don't know more about the climate than the professionals, but you know more about their *models* than they do. Twice you've asserted that you aren't saying that you know better than the pros, but actually that is precisely what you are saying.

News flash: all computer savvy people know that computer numbers are imprecise.

What's poignant about your argument is that many people believe in man-made gw just based on the charts that show co2 and average temperature skyrocketing in tandem. It's a compelling argument and involves no floats at all.

Your expertise with floating point numbers is just that. Your position would be derided by any competent climatologist, and rightfully so.

What I dread most is how global warming is going to be used as a moral baseball bat by liberals. Every time the weather is weird it's going to be blamed on global warming caused mostly by us ugly and selfish Americans. Of course, it's the conservative repubulicans and big business faults. If only we would have followed the lead of liberal dems. They are the saviors. Watching Gore beat his chest will be especially vomit-inducing.

The knee jerk moralizing led by Europe is already happening. Boxer has said the debate is over (what an idiot). Global warming is now an official religion (not science) of the left and cannot be questioned. Pathetic.

all computer savvy people know that computer numbers are imprecise.

Well duh!

What the vast majority of "computer savvy" people do NOT understand is the nature of that imprecision or how the tools provide mechanisms for compensating for it's cumulative distortive effects.

I guess the person who wrote POP isn't "computer savy" because there's nothing in it that attempts to compensate for this "imprecission" you admit exists.

Why should we trust models programmed by people who aren't computer savvy?

You've proved my point.

Who melted the glaciers 10,000 years ago Ted?

George W. Bush, of course. :-)

PA: "What the vast majority of 'computer savvy' people do NOT understand is the nature of that imprecision or how the tools provide mechanisms for compensating for it's cumulative distortive effects."

You know more about climate models than the PhD's who built them. Will you say it a fourth time as a special favor to me? Keep digging! Here, I'll spruce it up for you:

"My understanding of floating point implementations gives me unique insight into global warming. The PhD's who designed these models did not in fact consider that floating points are imprecise and -- here's the kicker -- that this imprecision is *cumulative*."

Please, please, don't hoard this trove of knowledge! Write it up and submit it for inclusion in a conference! Your name will be in lights. Maybe Harvard will name a building in your honor.

POP routinely fails me. I see now that what's happening is that it's trying to divide the bits and bytes from my emails into fractional portions, thus occasionally I'll see a 'b' imprecisely downloaded to my computer as a 'c' or what have you.

"Who melted the glaciers 10,000 years ago Ted?"

The glaciers melted 10,000 years ago, before mankind produced substantial CO2, therefore global warming is not caused by man. It's beyond my modest powers to add any ridicule here.

T. Nixon, et. al.: if indeed you are searching for climatologists who do not agree with the hysterical posturing of Al Gore, may I refer you to the following?

Article entitled: "Sixty scientists call on Harper to revisit the science of global warming" (Financial Post, 2006)

"...It was only 30 years ago that many of today's global-warming alarmists were telling us that the world was in the midst of a global-cooling catastrophe. But the science continued to evolve, and still does, even though so many choose to ignore it when it does not fit with predetermined political agendas.

We hope that you will examine our proposal carefully and we stand willing and able to furnish you with more information on this crucially important topic."

Dr. Ian D. Clark, professor, isotope hydrogeology and paleoclimatology, Dept. of Earth Sciences, University of Ottawa

Dr. Tad Murty, former senior research scientist, Dept. of Fisheries and Oceans, former director of Australia's National Tidal Facility and professor of earth sciences, Flinders University, Adelaide; currently adjunct professor, Departments of Civil Engineering and Earth Sciences, University of Ottawa

Dr. R. Timothy Patterson, professor, Dept. of Earth Sciences (paleoclimatology), Carleton University, Ottawa

Dr. Fred Michel, director, Institute of Environmental Science and associate professor, Dept. of Earth Sciences, Carleton University, Ottawa

Dr. Madhav Khandekar, former research scientist, Environment Canada. Member of editorial board of Climate Research and Natural Hazards

Dr. Paul Copper, FRSC, professor emeritus, Dept. of Earth Sciences, Laurentian University, Sudbury, Ont.

Dr. Ross McKitrick, associate professor, Dept. of Economics, University of Guelph, Ont.

Dr. Tim Ball, former professor of climatology, University of Winnipeg; environmental consultant

Dr. Andreas Prokocon, adjunct professor of earth sciences, University of Ottawa; consultant in statistics and geology

Mr. David Nowell, M.Sc. (Meteorology), fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society, Canadian member and past chairman of the NATO Meteorological Group, Ottawa

Dr. Christopher Essex, professor of applied mathematics and associate director of the Program in Theoretical Physics, University of Western Ontario, London, Ont.

Dr. Gordon E. Swaters, professor of applied mathematics, Dept. of Mathematical Sciences, and member, Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Research Group, University of Alberta

Dr. L. Graham Smith, associate professor, Dept. of Geography, University of Western Ontario, London, Ont.

Dr. G. Cornelis van Kooten, professor and Canada Research Chair in environmental studies and climate change, Dept. of Economics, University of Victoria

Dr. Petr Chylek, adjunct professor, Dept. of Physics and Atmospheric Science, Dalhousie University, Halifax

Dr./Cdr. M. R. Morgan, FRMS, climate consultant, former meteorology advisor to the World Meteorological Organization. Previously research scientist in climatology at University of Exeter, U.K.

Dr. Keith D. Hage, climate consultant and professor emeritus of Meteorology, University of Alberta

Dr. David E. Wojick, P.Eng., energy consultant, Star Tannery, Va., and Sioux Lookout, Ont.

Rob Scagel, M.Sc., forest microclimate specialist, principal consultant, Pacific Phytometric Consultants, Surrey, B.C.

Dr. Douglas Leahey, meteorologist and air-quality consultant, Calgary

Paavo Siitam, M.Sc., agronomist, chemist, Cobourg, Ont.

Dr. Chris de Freitas, climate scientist, associate professor, The University of Auckland, N.Z.

Dr. Richard S. Lindzen, Alfred P. Sloan professor of meteorology, Dept. of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Dr. Freeman J. Dyson, emeritus professor of physics, Institute for Advanced Studies, Princeton, N.J.

Mr. George Taylor, Dept. of Meteorology, Oregon State University; Oregon State climatologist; past president, American Association of State Climatologists

Dr. Ian Plimer, professor of geology, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Adelaide; emeritus professor of earth sciences, University of Melbourne, Australia

Dr. R.M. Carter, professor, Marine Geophysical Laboratory, James Cook University, Townsville, Australia

Mr. William Kininmonth, Australasian Climate Research, former Head National Climate Centre, Australian Bureau of Meteorology; former Australian delegate to World Meteorological Organization Commission for Climatology, Scientific and Technical Review

Dr. Hendrik Tennekes, former director of research, Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute

Dr. Gerrit J. van der Lingen, geologist/paleoclimatologist, Climate Change Consultant, Geoscience Research and Investigations, New Zealand

Dr. Patrick J. Michaels, professor of environmental sciences, University of Virginia

Dr. Nils-Axel Morner, emeritus professor of paleogeophysics & geodynamics, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden

Dr. Gary D. Sharp, Center for Climate/Ocean Resources Study, Salinas, Calif.

Dr. Roy W. Spencer, principal research scientist, Earth System Science Center, The University of Alabama, Huntsville

Dr. Al Pekarek, associate professor of geology, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Dept., St. Cloud State University, St. Cloud, Minn.

Dr. Marcel Leroux, professor emeritus of climatology, University of Lyon, France; former director of Laboratory of Climatology, Risks and Environment, CNRS

Dr. Paul Reiter, professor, Institut Pasteur, Unit of Insects and Infectious Diseases, Paris, France. Expert reviewer, IPCC Working group II, chapter 8 (human health)

Dr. Zbigniew Jaworowski, physicist and chairman, Scientific Council of Central Laboratory for Radiological Protection, Warsaw, Poland

Dr. Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen, reader, Dept. of Geography, University of Hull, U.K.; editor, Energy & Environment

Dr. Hans H.J. Labohm, former advisor to the executive board, Clingendael Institute (The Netherlands Institute of International Relations) and an economist who has focused on climate change

Dr. Lee C. Gerhard, senior scientist emeritus, University of Kansas, past director and state geologist, Kansas Geological Survey

Dr. Asmunn Moene, past head of the Forecasting Centre, Meteorological Institute, Norway

Dr. August H. Auer, past professor of atmospheric science, University of Wyoming; previously chief meteorologist, Meteorological Service (MetService) of New Zealand

Dr. Vincent Gray, expert reviewer for the IPCC and author of The Greenhouse Delusion: A Critique of 'Climate Change 2001,' Wellington, N.Z.

Dr. Howard Hayden, emeritus professor of physics, University of Connecticut

Dr Benny Peiser, professor of social anthropology, Faculty of Science, Liverpool John Moores University, U.K.

Dr. Jack Barrett, chemist and spectroscopist, formerly with Imperial College London, U.K.

Dr. William J.R. Alexander, professor emeritus, Dept. of Civil and Biosystems Engineering, University of Pretoria, South Africa. Member, United Nations Scientific and Technical Committee on Natural Disasters, 1994-2000

Dr. S. Fred Singer, professor emeritus of environmental sciences, University of Virginia; former director, U.S. Weather Satellite Service

Dr. Harry N.A. Priem, emeritus professor of planetary geology and isotope geophysics, Utrecht University; former director of the Netherlands Institute for Isotope Geosciences; past president of the Royal Netherlands Geological & Mining Society

Dr. Robert H. Essenhigh, E.G. Bailey professor of energy conversion, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, The Ohio State University

Dr. Sallie Baliunas, astrophysicist and climate researcher, Boston, Mass.

Douglas Hoyt, senior scientist at Raytheon (retired) and co-author of the book The Role of the Sun in Climate Change; previously with NCAR, NOAA, and the World Radiation Center, Davos, Switzerland

Dipl.-Ing. Peter Dietze, independent energy advisor and scientific climate and carbon modeller, official IPCC reviewer, Bavaria, Germany

Dr. Boris Winterhalter, senior marine researcher (retired), Geological Survey of Finland, former professor in marine geology, University of Helsinki, Finland

Dr. Wibjorn Karlen, emeritus professor, Dept. of Physical Geography and Quaternary Geology, Stockholm University, Sweden

Dr. Hugh W. Ellsaesser, physicist/meteorologist, previously with the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Calif.; atmospheric consultant.

Dr. Art Robinson, founder, Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, Cave Junction, Ore.

Dr. Arthur Rorsch, emeritus professor of molecular genetics, Leiden University, The Netherlands; past board member, Netherlands organization for applied research (TNO) in environmental, food and public health

Dr. Alister McFarquhar, Downing College, Cambridge, U.K.; international economist

Dr. Richard S. Courtney, climate and atmospheric science consultant, IPCC expert reviewer, U.K.

What I dread most is how global warming is going to be used as a moral baseball bat by liberals. Every time the weather is weird it's going to be blamed on global warming caused mostly by us ugly and selfish Americans.

Ya, those sicko's. That be like saying 911 or Hurricane Katrina was brought on by the actions and personal choices of Americans...and who would be crazy enough to say that? Certainly no one on the Right.

By the way, when I publish a paper I submit to journals that I believe I have a chance of getting published. Sometimes it might be a funky little publication, like the Proceedings of Supercomputing 98. If I am a skeptic of human caused global warming I am going to publish in journals that do not have a policy on the subject, like Phys. Rev. E. SO if I survey those journals that have a policy I can write assinine things like 900 believe it and none are against it. Interestingly enough they must not have surveyed Nature, who are supporters of human caused warming but are willing to publish contrarian papers.

Debunking all this nonsense isn't worth my time. Let us just mention one of Confederate Yankee's obvious inaccuracies for the time being:

If millions of years of history can be our guide—and it should— we are within a few hundred years of entering a new ice age.

What utter rubbish. Anyone familiar with the history of ice ages knows that they don't come and go like a perfectly set watch. Saying that something occurs an "average" of every-so-often is different from saying when that something will occur the next time around. There is no evidence we are "within few hundred years" from the next ice age.

According to cited sources in Wikipedia:

The Earth is in an interglacial period now, the last retreat ending about 10,000 years ago. There appears to be a conventional wisdom that "the typical interglacial period lasts ~12,000 years" but this is hard to substantiate from the evidence of ice core records. For example, an article in Nature[3] argues that the current interglacial might be most analogous to a previous interglacial that lasted 28,000 years.

Based on predicted changes in orbital forcing, in the absence of human influence, the current interglacial may be expected to last 50,000 years: see Milankovitch cycles. However anthropogenic forcing from increased "greenhouse gases" probably outweighs orbital forcing and the prediction for the next few hundred years is for temperature rises: see global warming

David -- "If I am a skeptic of human caused global warming I am going to publish in journals that do not have a policy on the subject, like Phys. Rev. E. SO if I survey those journals that have a policy I can write assinine [sic] things like 900 believe it and none are against it."

Ah, so scientific journal policies are the culprit. These journals have formed a cabal to mislead the world. Probably the communists have infiltrated this facet of our society too. The spineless climatologists won't speak out to save us from our communist fate.

I don't know what it is about the psychology of your side, but you discount evidence. Me, I see an eminently undistinguished man and figure he won't make a good president. You all valued his 'moral compass' for six years until even you all won't claim him anymore.

We see co2 levels and temperature spike in tandem, and figure that it's probably not a good idea to ignore this. You all are convinced that The Lord is looking out for our well being, or that communists are hijacking a natural phenomenon to tear down our capitalist system or whatever. It's wearying to share a nation with your kind.

Doug Ross -- watch this space. I'll find 60 professors who think the moon is made out of cheese. Won't that be an impressive display?

PA: Your position is that the overwhelming number of climatologists are wrong because they don't understand floating point numbers like you do, and therefore you do not fall into the same trap that all of them do. You are right about gw, they are completely wrong. So you are in fact saying that you understand global warming better than they do. They are misguided due to their poor grasp of floating point numbers. You know gw to be unrelated to man, whereas they do not. They are deluded whereas you stand alone in a world of truth.

Can you pretend like you don't understand this and restate your position a sixth time? Please?

Your position is that the overwhelming number of climatologists are wrong...

Nope.

Again you misrepresent my position entirely. Are you retarded or just being willfully ignorant because of political bias? I have no political bias here. My only bias is towards correct code that can be proven to produce accurate results.

Look at the POP model, as a programmer (you are a programmer right?), then come back and tell us all we should trust its results. Why do you resist performing this little exercise? Are you afraid of what you may find within?

If you don't have a good grasp of numerical computing and the details of how it can go wrong that's no crime either. 99% of the programmers on this planet aren't equipped to understand what I'm talking about either.

1. An "overwhelming number" of the warmists purporting to be climate scientists have no such training.

2. The warmist minority in the science profession are almost all working with the same faulty proxy data, hence their "consensus."

3. Once you get past the basic physics and organic chemistry involved in climatic observations, about 90% of the anthropogenic warming question is math and statistics, so the rational person is going to trust the math, statistics and numerical computing experts, not the "climatologists."

I don't know a damn thing about the intricacies of computer models. I do know that some scientists have repeatedly said that all this overwrought hand wringing about what will happen in the next hundred years, is based on a hypothesis that went LOOKING for a connection...and voila!...they found one.

(I guess I would trust all these climatologists a bit more on what will happen 100 years from now, if they could accurately tell me what will happen...TOMORROW ...a little better)

Is it possible to have a little civility here? Maybe a good healthy debate. Most agree that the temperatures have increased in the last 100-150 years, although not greatly. The cause of that increase is still being debated throughout the scientific community, in spite of some consensus claims. Yes, both carbon dioxide and sunspots increased over that time (as best as we can measure). Now, if the suns output decreases in the near future, and the temperatures decrease, then we have a better cauase and effect relationship. We must also factor El Nino/La Nino effects and ocean decadal oscillations out of the equation. A short-term (10-30 year)temperature decrease based on oceanic changes should be expected. Which of these, or other, factors have the greatest climate influence may become apparent in the coming years.

Is it possible to have a little civility here?

No. That is not possible without technical honesty integrity.

Some clown, I think, Ted Nixon, wrote that 900 pro-man made GW papers were written, but 0 against man-made GW. Sir, you are a moron of the highest order.

Here's a link to a book written by the chief climatologist of the US.

http://www.amazon.com/Unstoppable-Global-Warming-Every-Years/dp/0742551172

Timothy Ball has a solid scientific pedigree:

...I was the first Canadian Ph.D. in Climatology and I have an extensive background in climatology, especially the reconstruction of past climates and the impact of climate change on human history and the human condition. ...I have a Ph.D, (Doctor of Science) from the University of London, England and that for 32 years I was a Professor of Climatology at the University of Winnipeg.

Waht does he say about Global Warming?

Believe it or not, Global Warming is not due to human contribution of Carbon Dioxide (CO2). This in fact is the greatest deception in the history of science. We are wasting time, energy and trillions of dollars while creating unnecessary fear and consternation over an issue with no scientific justification

Doesn't sound like "the debate is over" to me.

Hmmm... seems Purple Avenger was on to something questioning those models:

U.N. scientists have relied heavily on computer models to predict future climate change, and these crystal balls are notoriously inaccurate. According to the models, for instance, global temperatures were supposed to have risen in recent years. Yet according to the U.S. National Climate Data Center, the world in 2006 was only 0.03 degrees Celsius warmer than it was in 2001--in the range of measurement error and thus not statistically significant.

The models also predicted that sea levels would rise much faster than they actually have. The models didn't predict the significant cooling the oceans have undergone since 2003--which is the opposite of what you'd expect with global warming. Cooler oceans have also put a damper on claims that global warming is the cause of more frequent or intense hurricanes. The models also failed to predict falling concentrations of methane in the atmosphere, another surprise.

Somebody alluded to it earlier, but it is worth noting again: are the same people building the global warming models the same people who built the models telling us this past hurricane season would be the most active ever?

'cause you know, they blew that, too.

I'm arguing low level implementation details - which are very important to have a correct model. My argument presumes structurally sound and complete models that simply need to be tuned to give accurate results.

If the overall model itself structurally incomplete or based on false assumptions, then the low level implementation details won't matter at all ;->

Ted, don't be a doofus if you can all help your self. Many journals have opinions on various subjects, and I have no problem with that, as long as on average every voice is heard. You are not going to see an article on ID in Nature, because the peer readers don't believe in it. Similarly if you have a journal whose readers have a vested interest in a theory they will rarely if ever let an article get in the journal that is contrary. I have been a peer reader and as such I know I have biases, but that is just how it works. If we have space for 18 articles and get 50 submitted, the 18 we publish will be the ones the peer readers were interested in. Many of them I wouldn't care what was said as long as it was supported, well argued , and comports with the editorial needs of the journal (end notes, etc). If you are a climate change contrarian you will publish with AAS, ASP, AIP, etc as you will at least get a hearing.