Longest Running Thread EVER

[L. Marcus]

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

 

And the D Word!

[lemming]

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

 

And they both had I!

[L. Marcus]

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

 

He said it! Aargh!

[Cancer]

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

 

Well, he typed it. Unless you've hacked into his audio pick-up, you don't know if he actually said it.

[archermoo]

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

 

Well' date=' he typed it. Unless you've hacked into his audio pick-up, you don't know if he actually said it.[/quote']

 

You mean you can type things without saying them too?

 

 

*tests this out*

 

 

Wow. That'll make my office mates happy...

 

[Cancer]

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

 

You mean you can type things without saying them too?

 

 

*tests this out*

 

 

Wow. That'll make my office mates happy...

 

Yeah. Oh, and it's called "semicolon", not "half the winky smiley", just so you know.

 

[archermoo]

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

 

Yeah. Oh, and it's called "semicolon", not "half the winky smiley", just so you know.

 

 

Dang. You are just FULL OF useful advIce Today.

 

 

Edit: One of these days I'm going to remember to use my Rep more often.

[Cancer]

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

 

Do you believe in Humans having an effect on natural global warming ?

 

In practicle terms' date=' no, I don't belive that. From what I can tell the human contribution to global warming is next to nill when compared to what goes on in nature.[/quote']

 

I'm much more pessimistic in that regard. The change in CO2 content of the atmosphere (see NOAA) can be compared to world fossil fuel production over the same era, and with reasonable assumptions (all the coal is burned, and at least half of the petroleum is burned) that change is CO2 content is identical to the human-produced CO2 production in the same interval. That's just about bulletproof evidence that it's our fault. There must be extra greenhouse warming because of that increase in CO2 ... the physical effect is so simple that it is unavoidable. That's not to say that's the only process operating (it clearly isn't) but there aren't any which work so unambiguously and inevitably in the opposite direction. I'm inclined to believe the climate modeling guys are correct in this regard.

 

Those arguing against anthropogenic warming are either taking money from Big Oil or are parroting comments from those who are. It is following the same distortive pattern carried out by Big Tobacco against the clear link between cigarette smoking and lung cancer during the second half of the Twentieth Century. No industry has ever sat still against suggestions (let alone release data supporting or making such suggestions) that its product is actively harmful to people.

 

At the very least, it seems like a rather imprudent experiment to run for a species with no large-scale interplanetary travel technology.

[SteveZilla]

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

 

There must be extra greenhouse warming because of that increase in CO2.

 

CO2 is neither the most powerful nor most abundant greenhouse gas in the air -- water vapor is. Which Humans have contributed a trivial amount of. To ignore this fact cannot help but introduce a large bias in the resulting conclusions.

 

Those arguing against anthropogenic warming are either taking money from Big Oil or are parroting comments from those who are.

 

Gee, we aren't biased, are we?

 

It is following the same distortive pattern carried out by Big Tobacco against the clear link between cigarette smoking and lung cancer during the second half of the Twentieth Century. No industry has ever sat still against suggestions (let alone release data supporting or making such suggestions) that its product is actively harmful to people.

 

If an industry defends itself the only possible reason why is that they are already guilty of causing harm and they are trying to distort that?

[Cancer]

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

 

Well, we (as in, these boards, not you & me in particular) have had something like this conversation before, and I don't see a need to replay it. It'd be nice if I was proven wrong and I (and others) are foolish alarmists, but I sincerely believe there's enough data to bear out the climate model predictions that the planet is already warming measurably.

 

And frankly, I cannot overstate the utter moral bankruptcy of corporate operations, and that there is literally no crime a corporation would not do (and do on an assembly-line basis) if the risk-benefit analysis is favorable, and the profit motive overrides any consideration of decency or value of human life. I recognize that I have extremist views on this sort of thing, however, and to say what I really think would get me banned almost instantly.

[Cancer]

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

 

Whew. One of the two exams I gave last week is graded. This is the one some students described as "brutal". They didn't do badly. Now to record the scores and make a curve.

[archermoo]

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

 

Whew. One of the two exams I gave last week is graded. This is the one some students described as "brutal". They didn't do badly. Now to record the scores and make a curve.

 

Out of curiosity: How do you do the curve? I've seen a variety of methods both brutal (top 10% are A's, bottom 10% are F's, regardless of how "well" they actually did) and useful (add # of points to the top score to make it a perfect score, then give grades on standard percentages).

[Cancer]

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

 

I do an idiosyncratic curve, aiming to give most classes an overall GPA of 2.8 or so. IME only very small classes will have that be inappropriate, and this class is substantial (48). I look for gaps in the score distribution to place the breakpoints, and go round and round until I'm satisfied it's equitable and the numbers feel right.

[SteveZilla]

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

 

I do an idiosyncratic curve' date=' aiming to give most classes an overall GPA of 2.8 or so. IME only very small classes will have that be inappropriate, and this class is substantial (48). I look for gaps in the score distribution to place the breakpoints, and go round and round until I'm satisfied it's equitable and the numbers feel right.[/quote']

 

Why not just give the score that is equal to what they actually got? If there's 25 questions and someone got 4 wrong, wouldn't that be an 84?

[SteveZilla]

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

 

Well, we (as in, these boards, not you & me in particular) have had something like this conversation before, and I don't see a need to replay it. It'd be nice if I was proven wrong and I (and others) are foolish alarmists, but I sincerely believe there's enough data to bear out the climate model predictions that the planet is already warming measurably.

 

And frankly, I cannot overstate the utter moral bankruptcy of corporate operations, and that there is literally no crime a corporation would not do (and do on an assembly-line basis) if the risk-benefit analysis is favorable, and the profit motive overrides any consideration of decency or value of human life. I recognize that I have extremist views on this sort of thing, however, and to say what I really think would get me banned almost instantly.

 

Just for the record, I do think that large corporations have a tendency to view things in terms of bottom-line values regardless of morality. But I don't think that is necessarily true of all corporations.

 

I also think that some political interests see a path to power, money, and prestige by distorting things to create a problem that they are in a position to do something about -- if only they just had more money/power to do it (what a surprise, Al Gore).

 

While we are daily adding more data from terrestrial sources about the past climate, there is (AFAIK) no accurate record of past solar output prior to satellite-based measuring equipment. This is a big hole in the data, IMO.

[Cancer]

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

 

Why not just give the score that is equal to what they actually got? If there's 25 questions and someone got 4 wrong' date=' wouldn't that be an 84?[/quote']

 

Not that simple, because on this exam, for instance, the mean was 63 out of 100, and the high score was 92. The grades I have to be posted on the usual 4-point scale. Applying the simplest linear transformation isn't going to work well. I've always had this situation: I have never been able to write an exam with a simple scaling of that sort. Obviously I've never learned how to do that.

 

FWIW, this was a physics exam, with four large multipart questions with varying weights. It's been years since I gave a multiple-choice exam.

[Cancer]

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

 

I also think that some political interests see a path to power' date=' money, and prestige by distorting things to create a problem that they are in a position to do something about -- if only they just had more money/power to do it (what a surprise, Al Gore).[/quote']

I've never seen the Gore film, and I have profound doubts about most public figures like that. That doesn't necessarily invalidate the message, but the message tends to get messed up (perhaps deservedly, perhaps irrecoverably) with the personality issues.

 

While we are daily adding more data from terrestrial sources about the past climate, there is (AFAIK) no accurate record of past solar output prior to satellite-based measuring equipment. This is a big hole in the data, IMO.

Reliable direct groundbased data extend, I think, back to and perhaps a bit before WW2. Yes, that directly monitors only the wavelengths that make it to the ground (so the UV short of about 3300 A and the IR past about 1.1 microns isn't there, for the most part). Chromospheric line data, which is visible in spectrophotometric images as far back as that era and even a bit before, can serve as a decent proxy for the UV flux (the UV lines pump the optical chromospheric lines in a now-known way, and the latter are monitored from the ground effectively). The mid-IR is more problematic in this regard, but it's less important in terms of overall energy flux. Not zero importance, I admit.

 

Pre-20th Century solar flux data are, as you point out, much harder to get. OTOH, there isn't a lot of evidence that old solar-type stars show a lot of long-term variability, and good photoelectric photometry stretches back to the 1930s now, so on 75-year baselines or so there's no good evidence for variability ... other than the 11-year cycle (analogs of which are seen in other stars) and the Maunder Minimum puzzle.

 

However that shakes out, I think the last 50 years of data is pretty good. The longer-term solar variability -- which is, I think, the stuff you're talking about, hundreds and thousands of years, the long handle of the "hockey stick" -- is a far more difficult problem. You are limited to proxies there, and that sort of thing is out of my expertise. That's why I tend to focus on data & models for the last 50-60 years. The longer-term stuff is interesting and suggestive but I don't understand the limits of the data, and for me to weigh on that ... I might as well be just another blogger .

[AliceTheOwl]

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

 

Honestly, though, I think the carbon dioxide evidence is much more compelling, and that's nicely preserved in arctic ice for us to find and study at leisure.

[SteveZilla]

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

 

H2O is not only a more "powerful" greenhouse gas than C02, it is immensely more abundant in the air as well. There is also serious contention that the "hockey stick" is based on bad math.

 

What is the Hockey Stick Debate About? (pdf)

 

Global Warming Bombshell

 

I do believe that the Earth is getting warmer -- I just don't think Humans are a significant factor in that.

[Cancer]

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

 

I leave that "hockey stick" thing out of my assessment almost entirely. The data from the last 50-60 years is enough for me.

 

Anyway, we disagree on this, and I doubt either can convince the other, so I offer a handshake on it and suggest we drop this debate. I don't have much more to say at this point that doesn't require much more library research than I'm willing to do. Frankly, I sincerely hope you are right and I am wrong, but my physical intuition and training won't let me hold that belief.

[SteveZilla]

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

 

I can agree to disagree with a smile.

[Cancer]

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

 

Good stuff. I've repped you too recently.

[Tim]

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

 

The record temperatures in all 50 states. Here

 

Only a couple of states have had record high temperatures in the last 10 years. About the same number have had their record lows in the same time.

[Cancer]

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

 

... More silly things to take out of context from Physics 101 Lab:

 

"I'm gonna try to do the little green one."

[lemming]

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

 

Whoah. That was a long pause in the thread.