�Global Temperature� � Why Should We Trust A Statistic That Might Not Even Exist?

[Sparko]

I guess it seemed more sarcasm to me because no one would ever try to calculate an average surface temperature in such a haphazard way. I just didnt think you could possiblybe serious. It sounds like you actually were serious and so I apologize. But sparko as much sarcasm as you use against me, and as much as you put me down, how exactly do you expect me to be able to

1 tell the difference
2 not sometimes get fristrated and annoyed enough not to check every single time.

Your expectations are just ridiculous. I am not perfect. And if you treat me like cow dung most of the time, then dont be surprised if you get burned the one time you aren't

Jim

You accused me of insults, derogatory comments and sarcasm, NONE of which where in my post and I have taken great efforts to avoid setting you off. I have never "treated you like cow dung" - the most I have done is pointed out to you your own insults to me and to others. You said you wanted a normal conversation and I was trying to do so. In response, you mocked and attacked me. And when I explained that to you, your response above was basically more insults. Thanks.

Maybe you need to look in the mirror a bit before accusing others all the time of attacking you.

I will return to ignoring your posts and any replies to my posts. It seems the only way to "keep the peace"

[Sparko]

Just FYI, there's a subtle difference between an ad hominem and an ad hominem fallacy. All insults are ad hominem. For example, you'll sometimes hear "Please move away from the ad hominems" in a formal setting after the bounds of civility have been breached.

It is only when an ad hominem is used to argue against a position that it can be considered a fallacy. But then again, neither are all ad hominem arguments fallacies. Trump, for instance (in relation to the linked thread), is an inveterate liar. Yes, that's ad hominem. But it's also a true statement that's relevant to the weight that should be afforded to his denials. Hence an ad hominem argument that is not a fallacy.

True. I should have been more clear. He was using the ad hominem fallacy by calling me stupid so he could handwave away my argument.

[Sparko]

Again FYI, global averages, by definition, avoid "picking and choosing" to suit a particular position. If the average global surface temperature of the moon showed a marked trend over time, it would be significant. Mut. mut., the trend in average global surface temperatures on the Earth are significant.

And they've been studied. Similarly the "forcings" that are driving the trend have been measured and tabulated, and are currently in use by every industrialized nation other than our own to inform global climate policy.

What I meant was that when looking for the official highs and lows for the moon, I got different answers. Therefore, depending on which official answer I used, the average temperature varied quite a bit.

+260 degrees Fahrenheit (127 degrees Celsius) to -280 F (minus 173 C)
https://www.space.com/18175-moon-temperature.html

+224F to -298F
http://coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu/a...e-on-the-Moon-


and so on.

[One Bad Pig]

I'm kinda Lutheran on that. I want to believe for the right reasons.

More directly, I didn't want to believe. My political leanings were conservative (in exile from the voodoo eeks and young earth creaks thundering over the shiny new welcome mats), bordering on libertarianism. I don't want a bigger government.

But if we're going to address global warming, as a people, or, let's face it, as a species, we have to do it by organizing, with an organization big enough to touch the world, and libertarianism was never going to hoe that row.

The alternative was to deny the science.

Or give up libertarianism.

I won't give up arguing that accepting AGW is conservative, though, because it is. AGW is what the data show. Conservatives don't hide from facts. They leave that for the googoos.

I want to help the environment. On the other hand, I am skeptical of politically driven science highly dependent on wildly incomplete models and data which is continually being massaged for this or that reason by those with a motive toward showing a particular result. It's not conservative to accept junk science. It's conservative to take a careful look before implementing cures to make sure that the cure isn't worse than the disease; much "green" energy is not so green once the environmental impact of its manufacturing and disposal process is factored in, for example. It feels nice and virtuous to drive an electric car, though.

[One Bad Pig]

And they've been studied. Similarly the "forcings" that are driving the trend have been measured and tabulated, and are currently in use by every industrialized nation other than our own to inform global climate policy.

Oh, good. Argument by consensus. I'm convinced.

[Joel]

Scale factors work on linear systems, but most complex systems are not linear. The biosphere is definitely not linear; e.g. ice melts. In some ways, the average and how it will change, is the only thing that is certain.

Averages (especially weighted averages) involve scaling. Does that call into question the meaningfulness of averaging diverse data-points in a non-linear system?

[Joel]

Please note this is a thread for displaying your climate change crank credentials. It'd probably be better to display your economic crank addiction elsewhere.

Also, when asking whether state coercion would be justified and beneficial (and the burden of proof would be on the one advocating coercion), we should also keep in mind the various ways in which governments incentivize the use of fossil fuels and restrain the development of nuclear power.

[Juvenal]

What I meant was that when looking for the official highs and lows for the moon, I got different answers. Therefore, depending on which official answer I used, the average temperature varied quite a bit.

+260 degrees Fahrenheit (127 degrees Celsius) to -280 F (minus 173 C)
https://www.space.com/18175-moon-temperature.html

+224F to -298F
http://coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu/a...e-on-the-Moon-


and so on.

It looks to me like you're averaging extreme values at particular points. That's not a global average. A global average is the average for the entire globe, including both light and dark sides at a particular time. A series of these global averages would be needed to spot trends.

Please understand a global average is what you get from area-weighted data points geographically spread out across to represent a single, definitive value.

At the extreme case, to achieve maximum accuracy, you could cover the entire surface with thermometers, but for the moon, with no atmosphere, and hence no meaningful altitude effects ... a couple dozen would do, I'd imagine.

[Sparko]

It looks to me like you're averaging extreme values at particular points. That's not a global average. A global average is the average for the entire globe, including both light and dark sides at a particular time. A series of these global averages would be needed to spot trends.

Please understand a global average is what you get from area-weighted data points geographically spread out across to represent a single, definitive value.

At the extreme case, to achieve maximum accuracy, you could cover the entire surface with thermometers, but for the moon, with no atmosphere, and hence no meaningful altitude effects ... a couple dozen would do, I'd imagine.

Well thanks for taking the time to correct me instead of insulting me. I appreciate it.

I was thinking that since the moon has no atmosphere, that the temperature variations across it's surface during the day and night would not be that much so I could just use the max and min, then divide by two. No?

[Juvenal]

I want to help the environment.

Good for you, I guess. My principal interest is in more than checking the facts to know what's true.

On the other hand, I am skeptical of politically driven science highly dependent on wildly incomplete models and data which is continually being massaged for this or that reason by those with a motive toward showing a particular result.

Stay away from that, then.

But be sure, first, that what you're calling "politically driven science highly yada yada ..." is actually politically driven science, and not just the work product of professionals just doing their jobs. Seriously, who told you it was politically driven ... a partisan website ... politically driven? Why do you trust them?

Freedom of speech is important. It's also important to know when the information you're spreading is libelous.

It's not conservative to accept junk science.

Then don't.

It's conservative to take a careful look ...

Then do.

... before implementing cures to make sure that the cure isn't worse than the disease; much "green" energy is not so green once the environmental impact of its manufacturing and disposal process is factored in, for example. It feels nice and virtuous to drive an electric car, though.

What have you done in the way of checking out the science, piglet? (Reading up on "deep state" conspiracies in the Patriot Post is diametrically opposite.) Even well-intentioned popular press authors get the science wrong consistently. There is no better source than the IPCC, with all of the results linked back to articles you can check.

That's what I did back when I didn't want to believe it. And now I do.

My hybrid gets 45 mpg. An electric can get twice that, easily. I save beaucoup bucks filling this thing up. This isn't a virtue thing. It's a conservative thing. It turns out that being environmentally virtuous conserves my money.

Effect climate policy will, in the end, be driven by economics, both by making bad behavior more expensive and making good behavior less so. (Don't tell Joel. He gets kinda riled when anybody suggests Keynesian economics works.) Some of the bad behavior stems from economics that neglects external costs. If a business model requires wrecking public property, we can make them fix that business model.

[Sparko]

What have you done in the way of checking out the science, piglet? (Reading up on "deep state" conspiracies in the Patriot Post is diametrically opposite.) Even well-intentioned popular press authors get the science wrong consistently. There is no better source than the IPCC, with all of the results linked back to articles you can check.

IIRC Piggie was a nuclear scientist and used to work on reactors in the Navy.

[Juvenal]

IIRC Piggie was a nuclear scientist and used to work on reactors in the Navy.

I'll let the piglet smack you down on that one.

[Juvenal]

Well thanks for taking the time to correct me instead of insulting me. I appreciate it.

Assuming good faith is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

There's a lot of misinformation out there, and not a lot of expertise willing to tamp it down. Even the 'right" side often gets the explanations wrong. But here's the thing: Nobody ever got tenure in a science department for debunking non-scientists' bad science. They got it for creating good science of their own (while occasionally tossing cold water on their colleagues' excessive exuberance.)

If I were an active researcher, "wasting time" here posting corrections would be career suicide.

But as a semi-retired, part-time professor, posting a slow-moving site with opposing views gives me a chance to organize my thoughts and a reason to check them carefully.

I've said this before, though. The arguments I'm seeing now, here, are the same arguments we were debunking, here, ten years ago. We meaning the old crew, including sylas, and bandecoot et al. While the opposing arguments then were mostly from Glenn, better known for pique than anyone today, his arguments were also better quality than what I'm seeing now. Cherry picked or whatever, at the very least he presented data and analysis.

I can understand Jim's frustration, though I also have concerns he's "right for the wrong reasons."

The last half dozen opposition posts (not yours) boil down to "this is too hard." For me, those go in the same file helpfully labeled, "Excuses I don't accept from my students." How do they know until they've tried? How could they know?

I was thinking that since the moon has no atmosphere, that the temperature variations across it's surface during the day and night would not be that much so I could just use the max and min, then divide by two. No?

That's an actual measure used by statisticians. It's the average of the range. But it's also a statistic that privileges outliers that should rightfully be discarded. It's highly unstable, but still, because even the outliers will average out over time, it's remarkably resilient. I wouldn't be surprised to find a trend line was significant.

In any case, it's not a global average.

But in related news, the increase in global average temperatures here on Earth is disproportionately due to increases in the night-time lows, consistent with a decreased ability to radiate heat out of the troposphere, the lowest region of the atmosphere, which includes at its lowest boundary the surface temperatures that make up our habitat.

[Juvenal]

Oh, good. Argument by consensus. I'm convinced.

"Everybody reading their thermometers and getting the same temperatures" can't be reduced to "argument by consensus." And again, facts don't care who they convince. Facts don't care at all, about anything. We're the ones who put value on them.

[JimL]

"Everybody reading their thermometers and getting the same temperatures" can't be reduced to "argument by consensus." And again, facts don't care who they convince. Facts don't care at all, about anything. We're the ones who put value on them.

But then there are of course "alternative facts." to which deniers subscribe.