2 Responses to “Interesting.”

1. Doug Blocksma says:

   Hey Sean,

   Thought I would drop a line on this post. (I’m Doug, btw. We met years ago, when I was at MSU (probably 2003ish? to 2004) and attended Riverview, did a little plunking around with the worship bands that existed at the time, house church stuff. It was a while ago, but I keep your site in my reader and try to keep on how my old home of EL is doing. anywhoo..)

   I live out in Fort Collins now, and am familiar with a number of the folks in the atmospheric science department at CSU. One of my friends getting her doctorate had the following comments after reading that article:

   “This is pretty common denier logic. It goes like this: 1 – we can’t tell if the climate is warming. 2 – The climate is warming, but it’s caused by natural release of CO2. 3 – The climate is warming because of CO2, but that is a good thing.

   If you acknowledge that CO2 is rising, and that the planet is warming, that is global warming. Why should CO2 from the ocean behave any differently than all of the CO2 released from burning coal and oil (and there is A LOT MORE OF THAT)? Actually, most geophysicists and oceanographers agree that the oceans are a net sink of CO2. This is why surfaces of the oceans are becoming more acidic (dissolved CO2 is acidic) and killing off coral reefs and disrupting fisheries.

   I think it’s great that a physicists thinks we should have one model. That fits in well with every stereotype for physics. Their science is done in a frictionless vacuum where energy is conserved, etc (http://xkcd.com/669/). We’re dealing with an incredibly chaotic system, and trying to predict one very sensitive aspect of it. Which you can’t really do. We don’t know enough about how EVERYTHING on the planet works together to get it all exactly right. So, we look for independent validation from many many sources. If you can’t prove your result deductively, then you must prove it empirically. Which is what we do and have been doing for 30 years.

   Oh, and there is no “modern cooling trend.” http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/

   Back to now….

   This morning I got a giggle out of the idea that we should have a single model. Like the single unified model in physics? That needs particles which we have never seen or detected before in order to work? Bah.

   There are lots of sciences out there that can’t settle on a single model, and in fact would rather not. There is no single model to predict the evolution of stars, does that mean that we can’t predict the lifecycle stars based on their mass and energy consumption rate? (Actually, we can do that very well). There is no single model for proteins or biochemical reactions, does that mean that we should avoid pharmaceuticals because those “scientists” are just “alarmists” trying to convince us to give them money?

   I keep coming back to the question of Why? Why would this physicist, who is obviously a well researched and intelligent guy, look at the data, the equations, the theory and the results, and sit there and say it’s not even close to right. I don’t know why some scientists do that, I really don’t.

   If your friend Sean has any questions for me, feel free to send him my email.

   -Kate”

   (this was long. apologies.) Don’t read this as a referendum on you or that I take your post as you agreeing with the article. I found it interesting as you did, and thought you would enjoy the comments of someone studying the field, as I did. Tis all.

   Hope all is well in the mitten! Stay warm!

   -db-

   December 11th, 2009 at 1:29 pm

2. sean says:

   More interesting stuff.

   Thanks!

   December 11th, 2009 at 5:55 pm

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