jobobtwc’s Recent Comments

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  I Stand Corrected

  With some embarrasment, I find that I was a bit hasty in choosing my example and that your statement was not a blatent misrepresentation...I just read it quickly and incorrectly.  I beleive you are right, nobody is trying to deny that there is a warming trend, it is just the cause and implications that are in dispute.

  Sorry about that.On 'There is no evidence' -- Yes, there is posted 2 years, 11 months ago 59 Responses

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  Extremely Confident

  Yea, I noticed that only 40 glaciers have data going back to the sixties when I read that arcticle too.  While 40 is a large enough sample to demonstrate a statistically significant correlation, it doesn't break the large sample size barrier by much, so it is not enough to be "extremely confident" about anything.  The confidence also depends on the samples being a random distribution (i.e. not just the ones that were easiest to acess from existing weather stations for example).  79 would be a much better number to use depending on how far back the records go.  I don't know what the distribution of glaciers looks like (i.e. elevation, location etc.) because that web site didn't go into that kind of detail.  I'm not trying to say the glaciers aren't melting...I think the are...I was just hoping someone else could quantify that with more references because I like to be as thorough as possible in my own research.

  In Crichton's defense, I cited him as the source for my numbers, but I didn't actually quote him in context.  If memory serves, the arguement was not that the glaciers are not melting, it was that it is highly publisised as fact that they are melting when it is reasonable to say that there are a lot of unknowns.  It is a dynamic arguement in which one character is trying to convince another not to jump to conclusions too rapidly and the numbers were used to support that concept.  In this light, I would say that Crichton is not so much praying on people's ignorance and being intellectually dishonest rather he is encouraging education and the abolition of ignorance so that an informed decision can be made.  Along these same lines, I have never heard or read anything from Crichton it which he states that AGW is not occuring; his main beef seems to be the political turn science has taken.  It would seem to be that his motive in throwing out antithesis arguements is to bring doubt into the politics so that science can remain objective.  For those who are interested, he gave a lecture on the subject which doesn't go into specific issues and isn't veiled novel form.  If you really want to know what Crichton thinks I suggest you spend ten minuets here.On 'Glaciers have always grown and receded'--A few glaciers melting does not mean global warming posted 2 years, 11 months ago 14 Responses

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  updated link

  Coby,
  It took me a while to find the correct page for your "NSIDC" link.  Maybe you should update it with this adress:

  http://nsidc.org/sotc/glacier_balance.htmlOn 'Glaciers have always grown and receded'--A few glaciers melting does not mean global warming posted 2 years, 11 months ago 14 Responses

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  Can anyone answer this Question?

  I have read both Micheal Crichton's book State of Fear as well as many websites refuting the book and the data contained therin.  For the most part the arguements keep coming back to a few key points that the book got wrong or over exagerated but he mentions one thing about glaciers which I havn't seen addressed anywhere else.  He claimes that of the 160,000 glaciers worldwide, only 67,000 have even been catalogued and less than 200 have ever been studied in detail.  I don't remember the exact number, but somewhere around 79 have ice mass records going back five years or more.  I would be interested to know if anyone has seen any evidence for or against this claim because if it is true, it would seem that it is a point well made...we don't really have enough information at hand to quantify what is happening to the glaciers worldwide.  How many are melting and at what rate compared to how many are growing and at what rate.  Undoubtably glaciers are receding in many parts of the globe and it stands to reason that with higher global temperature, the overall trend would be glacial melt, but I am curious anyway.

  On a different note, I ran across This website pertaining to glacial melt.  This is the kind of research report I like (one that objectively gives evidence for both sides of the issue without taking a stand on which one is right (it is just a report of science after all, not written by the scientists themselves)).  I normally play the role of the skeptic, but maybe(?) the skeptics can no longer use swiss glaciers as evidence against AGW now...we now have contradicting evidence, so more research is in order.On 'Glaciers have always grown and receded'--A few glaciers melting does not mean global warming posted 2 years, 11 months ago 14 Responses

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  "just for kicks"

  Actually I don't write anything on this site "just for kicks," my comment was intended to stimulate free thought.  As previously mentioned, I have no desire to discuss logical fallacies because I think that discussion is off topic and counterproductive.  However, generally speaking, the most common fallacy I have seen is "false cause"  also known as the "therefore because of" fallacy.  There are also blatent misrepresentations of truth such as this statement from the post above "There is simply no room for doubt: the Earth is undergoing a rapid and large warming trend."  If this were true, there wouldn't be so many intelligent resaerchers out there with legitimate and intelligent doubt.  My comment above was very generalized because this seemed to be the place for general commentary.  If you want to discuss specific issues, I am more than happy to do so, but not here.  I will continue to follow and comment on the specific pages pertinant to those issues.
  On 'There is no evidence' -- Yes, there is posted 2 years, 11 months ago 59 Responses