Himalayan Glaciers Are Melting at Furious Rate, New Study Shows (wsj.com) 129
Glaciers across the Himalayas are melting at an extraordinary rate, with new research showing that the vast ice sheets there shrank 10 times faster in the past 40 years than during the previous seven centuries. From a report: Avalanches, flooding and other effects of the accelerating loss of ice imperil residents in India, Nepal and Bhutan and threaten to disrupt agriculture for hundreds of millions of people across South Asia, according to the researchers. And since water from melting glaciers contributes to sea-level rise, glacial ice loss in the Himalayas also adds to the threat of inundation and related problems faced by coastal communities around the world. "This part of the world is changing faster than perhaps anybody realized," said Jonathan Carrivick, a University of Leeds glaciologist and the co-author of a paper detailing the research published Monday in the journal Scientific Reports. "It's not just that the Himalayas are changing really fast, it's that they're changing ever faster."
Scientists have long observed ice loss from large glaciers in New Zealand, Greenland, Patagonia and other parts of the world. But ice loss in the Himalayas is especially rapid, the new study found. The researchers didn't pinpoint a reason but noted that regional climate factors, such as shifts in the South Asian monsoon, may play a role. The new finding comes as there is scientific consensus that ice loss from glaciers and polar ice sheets results from rising global temperatures caused by greenhouse-gas emissions from the burning of fossil fuels. Many peer-reviewed scientific studies have identified human activity as a cause of rising global temperatures. So did a report issued in August by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which said "human influence is very likely the main driver of the global retreat of glaciers since the 1990s." For the new study, Dr. Carrivick and his colleagues scanned satellite photos of almost 15,000 glaciers in the region for signs of the large ridges of rock and debris that glaciers leave behind as they slowly grind their way through the valleys. Using the locations of these ancient glacial tracks, the scientists estimated the span of ice sheet coverage in previous centuries.
Scientists have long observed ice loss from large glaciers in New Zealand, Greenland, Patagonia and other parts of the world. But ice loss in the Himalayas is especially rapid, the new study found. The researchers didn't pinpoint a reason but noted that regional climate factors, such as shifts in the South Asian monsoon, may play a role. The new finding comes as there is scientific consensus that ice loss from glaciers and polar ice sheets results from rising global temperatures caused by greenhouse-gas emissions from the burning of fossil fuels. Many peer-reviewed scientific studies have identified human activity as a cause of rising global temperatures. So did a report issued in August by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which said "human influence is very likely the main driver of the global retreat of glaciers since the 1990s." For the new study, Dr. Carrivick and his colleagues scanned satellite photos of almost 15,000 glaciers in the region for signs of the large ridges of rock and debris that glaciers leave behind as they slowly grind their way through the valleys. Using the locations of these ancient glacial tracks, the scientists estimated the span of ice sheet coverage in previous centuries.
A perfect illustration (Score:3, Insightful)
of the inability of models to accurately predict the effects of climate change. Even the most pessimistic of scientific projections in this field seem naive a year or two after they come out. 'We don't know what we don't know' comes into play - there are simply too many inter-dependencies for us to figure out and keep track of.
When estimating the cost of a job or a project it's common practice to add in a fudge factor to cover unforeseen developments. Unscientific though it may be, perhaps this procedure should be applied to AGW projections.
Re:A perfect illustration (Score:5, Insightful)
of the inability of models to accurately predict the effects of climate change. Even the most pessimistic of scientific projections in this field seem naive a year or two after they come out.
Yep. Nobody should lift a finger until there's a model that can predict it all to 0.1% over a 50 year period.
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I can't say for sure what the GP's intent was, but it seemed to me like they understand that things can actually be worse than projections (they are) and that when this can be the case (as always) you plan ahead to account for this eventuality. It's not an argument for ignoring the models, but for making plans to handle the situation in which the models don't project the full extent of the situation.
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I'm pretty sure the GGP is a clever troll and his malicious intent was recognized by the GP. You [drinkypoo] are being generous, but some of the trolls seem to evolving towards deeper cunning these days. Not just on Slashdot.
I still think a MEPR system with several time-based dimensions would be an easy way to ignore them. However I've also started theorizing about how constructive dialog can generate better reasons. I can't remember the Latin expression for the ultimate miracle, but is it possible I'm on t
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I'm pretty sure the GGP is a clever troll and his malicious intent was recognized by the GP.
I honestly wasn't trolling - it's not something I do, at least not consciously. And drinkypoo was right - but perhaps I could have stated my case more clearly.
I'm not advocating the abandonment or dismissal of climate modelling, and I'm aware that those who come up with the models are doing their best in a very complex situation. I'm simply saying that it seems people in general, and politicians in particular, tend to accept the projections as accurate; or worse, they think they're exaggerated. And since th
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One way of doing that might be to - openly and transparently - 'fudge' the modeling results based on historical performance.
Yes fudge the numbers for the outcome you want.
The deniers would love that if they found out. Oh you want to do it transparently. That will never come back to bite anyone in the ass.
Re:A perfect illustration (Score:4, Insightful)
General is easy. Specific is hard [Re:A perfect... (Score:2)
As far as I'm aware, so far, AGW projections have been generally within error bars. [realclimate.org] But if you're asking for predictions for extremely specific places, you may be out of luck.
Exactly. The overall predictions have been quite accurate. The finer regional detail you ask for, the more uncertainty there is.
It's easy to predict, for example, the average precipitation in North America over a given year, with reasonable error bars. It's hard, though, to predict "how much rainfall will there be on March 12 in Easton, PA at 1:20pm?".
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It's easy to predict, for example, the average precipitation in North America over a given year, with reasonable error bars. It's hard, though, to predict "how much rainfall will there be on March 12 in Easton, PA at 1:20pm?".
Even if you could predict droughts you could be rich.
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That's incredibly easy to do when you use very generous error bars. That's part of the issue. They're making very directed and specific statements and then leaving wide margins of error. So they can make
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Being shocked at seeing it play out doesn't automatically mean it's a mismatch to the earlier predictive models.
Re: A perfect illustration (Score:2)
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The evidence is, Earth was already heading back into another ice-age. Except we, humans, broke it. And the risk is we've broken it so badly that the tipping points will be horrifically severe.
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As in the atmosphere/oceans end up poisoned for everything that relies on oxygen for respiration.
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Rather, we're heading into another glaciation of the Ice Age that we've been living in for the last few million years.
Yes, we've been living in an Ice Age throughout human history and long before that. AGW is pushing us out of the glaciation we've been in, to rather more "normal" temperatures for the planet.
Which is not to suggest that AGW is a good thing. It is happening relatively quickly, for one thing. And it MAY (stress on the "may") be pushing us out of the glaciation that we'd normally expect i
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The first part of your statement is true, but the second isn't.
We have already (±15,000 years ago) exited a glacial maximum. We have been in an ice age for 2 or 3 million years. Extrapolating from the history of this ice age, we would be due to start a downward temperature trend in sometime in the next several thousand years and reach another glacial maximum in many 10s of thousands of years.\
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> it is well established that we are exiting an ice age
Seems evanh's comment is right :
A 420,000 year deuterium excess record from East Antarctica : Information on past changes in the origin of precipitation at Vostok https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.... [wiley.com]
A simplified graph can be found here : https://static.skepticalscienc... [skepticalscience.com] - That graph was taken from here : https://skepticalscience.com/h... [skepticalscience.com]
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Unfortunately, all the models seem to be too conservative, and might focus on the wrong metrics for change management. Average temperature rise might be far too course of a measurement to avoid chaos-inducing change, and the rate of change might be much faster than we had predicted when looking at things like sea level rise.
The pessimist in me worries about our civilization in my lifetime.
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Damnit I could have sworn coarse was there can I blame auto-correct on that one or do I have to chalk it up to the downfall of civilization? Or, are they one in the same?
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I think the best we can say is that James Lovelock's worst-case scenario hasn't come to pass yet but that he looks to be more accurate than the IPCC for his longer term forecast for 2028.
https://www.theguardian.com/th... [theguardian.com]
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Yeah a quick analysis of entropy kind of gives the end of the story away. I might not be as pessimistic as Lovelock, but I do agree that at some point you are going to need a dramatic technological solution to buy time.
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of the inability of models to accurately predict the effects of climate change.
Depends on what you mean by "inability". On a global scale, the overall models have been pretty much spot on. The further down you get into regional predictions, the more uncertainty there is. When you get to extremely fine details, like rate of precipitation on a very small portion of the world (the Himalayan glaciers total about 0.004% of the Earth's surface area), the predictions are, indeed, very uncertain.
...
When estimating the cost of a job or a project it's common practice to add in a fudge factor to cover unforeseen developments. Unscientific though it may be, perhaps this procedure should be applied to AGW projections.
Not unscientific at all. In science we account for this in the form of "error bars," and if y
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One look at a photo from Delhi will tell you what it is - IT IS F*CKING SOOT!!! Himalayas are downwind from the place with the most polluted air on the planet. It is a miracle of biblical proportions they have any glaciers left. What do you want? Glaciers to survive if you spray paint them black? With the amount of sunshine near the equator? Come on get real, stop singing Holy Greta chants and use some brain and hig
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Re: A perfect illustration (Score:2)
Re: A perfect illustration (Score:2)
They are in the news that educated people read.
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The *rate* may be faster than predicted. The fact has been known, and is one of the reasons for various clashes between India and China. They're manuvering for a good position in the up-coming (when?) water wars. I think that China is far in the lead in this manuvering, partially due to their take-over of Tibet.
Non Paywall link (Score:2)
Unusual situation (Score:3)
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A potential problem is that they're going to be dumping tons of water vapor into a part of the atmosphere that currently has zero humidity, with water vapor being a much more stronger greenhouse gas.
I have no idea if that will turn out to be a problem and whether anyone is modeling it but the potential is there and we as a species have a long habit of doing stuff and then considering any negative results.
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That's true for the lower atmosphere, here we're talking much higher up. What will happen to the water vapor is molecular disassociation under the strong UV radiation, which is why there is currently about zero water vapor up there. What the half life of water vapor is up there, I have no idea. It's is something that should be considered and hopefully doesn't have any affect. Unluckily we have a habit of dumping stuff in various places with no thought about future affects.
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The aviation industry services millions (billions?) each year. Spacex will service around 3K if they achieve their 1K goal.
First, I'm not really sure that SpaceX has a "1K goal", but I'm quite certain that 1K flights would not "service around 3K". That would sound more like a Soyuz to me.
while us mere mortals are allowed a small ration of co2
You're already allowed to crap all over the atmosphere in an airplane, so...not sure what's the difference.
Even the aviation industry does not drill its own wells.
If they ran on methane, they probably would. But they don't, so *why* would they?
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If they were musk, they would drill their own oil wells and refineries.
Debatable. Processing of oil is much more complicated than processing of natural gas. After all, Musk *is* Musk and he doesn't drill his own oil and refine his own RP-1, so why would 'they' be doing something Musk isn't doing if 'they' were like him?
And no us mere mortals do not have the money to charter jets.
That's a much different claim that someone being "not allowed" to do something.
Regular commercial airlines crap on the atmosphere at about the same rate as a car.
Well, not really. Apparently the average US vehicle emits something like 250 grams of CO2 per kilometer. That's much more than the average emissions per passenger per km in aviation.
Now remind me, does musk have a private jet?
Y
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Re:Unusual situation (Score:4, Insightful)
US Policy is anything but schizo - The policy of the DNC and the McConnel/Ryan/Bush wing of the GOP is really very strait forward.
If you are a billionaire you either are not to be asked to sacrifice a thing or if you are required to change in some way you will be made whole through some goofy combination of tax incentives, direct subsidy, and crazy offset trading scheme, and engineered carbon accounting schemes that allow green washing your activity by assigning it all to others who are induced if not outright coerced by your actions.
If you earn regular w2 wages on the other hand and are just trying to keep you small family warm in the winter and drive to you 8-5 YOU get to shoulder the entire burden! Lucky you!
Seriously that is what these polices ALWAYS boil down to, John Kerry and Al Gore fly around in their private jets with their entourage of security and people their to take notes, to their destinations where they enjoy the most carbon intensive opulence imaginable and discuss why you need to pay more for gas!
Re:Unusual situation (Score:5, Insightful)
Cobalt phasing out, improvements on other fronts (Score:2)
And refine our rare earths and mine for lithium and cobalt and ...
Cobalt is already being phased out in new generation lithium batteries for vehicles. For example: Tesla's new 4680 cell (for its next generation of cars and also its electric semitrucks) doen't use any.
(The two major lithium chemistries currently used for stationary batteries, along with the main developing lithiu
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Delta T makes a difference (Score:5, Informative)
The further above zero C you get, the faster things melt.
Even just a few tenths makes a big difference in rate.
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The further above zero C you get, the faster strings melt
I'm not sure it's entirely wrong, though.
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Temerature gradient heat transfer coeificient (can’t recall the correct acronym) is an important part of the equation, but I think we are seeing some effects that are less dependent on the delta-T and more on step-functions. A very small increase in temperature can conceivably have a much bigger impact than the gradient, especially when you are talking about the freezing point of water and extremely large surface areas and thermal mass.
No sh*t, sherlock. (Score:2)
They've been melting for decades and the rate has been accelerating for decades. What did people think would happen? That temperatures go above zero and ice only melts a bit and then stops, like "ok, this is enough meltage for +2C" or what?!??
Freezing is no more. Water it is. Ice melts. Until it's gone. If it get's warmer it just melts faster. If you want to stop it, you have to get below zero C again. If that doesn't happen, ice melts away. So says Captain Obvious.
This isn't news. I just wish people in gen
Climate change is not all bad (Score:2)
I find it interesting that everything about climate change is bad, bad, bad. One brief exception was an article a couple of days ago about how melting glaciers are increasing salmon habitat.
Glaciers are dead zones. Nothing lives there. Once a glacier melts, you get vegetation, and eventually (altitude permitting) forests. This is a good thing.
I'm not saying that a warming climate is an unalloyed good. That's obviously not the case. However, contrary to popular belief, it is also not an unalloyed evil.
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Yetti (Score:3)
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Assuming... (Score:4, Insightful)
Assuming there is a functioning currency, and you can hold on to the land when people with more guns and fewer scruples than you are intent on taking it.
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I have been purchasing waterfront property along the Great Lakes and it is going to be worth a ton of money in about 15-20 years.
No you haven't, and no it isn't
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Indeed either he is lying or he going to be really surprised when he finds out how limited his property rights are beyond the waters edge.
The Great Lakes Compact parties can probably pump the lake dry and not even give him a dime in compensation.
Re: It will be soon.... (Score:2)
All purchased with BTC I'm sure.
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The act of getting to peak oil has caused AGW and promoted bee colony collapse while microplastic pollution is probably causing problems inside of our bodies and nuclear is still a boondoggle.
We are actually doing stuff to solve all of these problems except oil consumption and AGW, granted we are doing a little there but not nearly enough. But we did stuff about the ozone hole and mostly fixed it (except for that plant in China which was releasing a shitload of CFCs there for a while) and we did a lot of st
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Well, haven't yea heard about peak oil leading to a global ozone hole warming and causing total bee colony collapse right after microplastic pollution resulting in us running out of fresh water causing nuclear markets collapse everywhere!
Nope. He was hiding under his bed from the covids.
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So more meltwater in the rivers. Indian farmers will be able to grow more crops maybe even crawl out of poverty? No we cant have that
Great idea! They just need to find a suitable gorge, build a dam and store that glacier meltwater before it goes to waste. But I bet they are too lazy for that, and that all the meltwater will have spilled into the sea before they decide to build a dam. Well, then at least it's not our problem. They had their chance. It's their glaciers and if they let them melt without using the water, shame on them. /sarcasm
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Once those glaciers are gone, even if you build a dam, there won't be any more. The Himalayan glaciers basically act as a water storage complex. When the monsoons hit the Himalayas they form snow pack on the glaciers, renewing the glaciers, which in turn flow and melt and feed the rivers. Once those glaciers are gone, so is the water. The monsoons will probably still hit, but once the water outflows then you're left with hot dry summers. As so many hydrological models show in many "bread basket" areas, it's
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Afghanistan's next water crisis is being dri
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Re: Great for agriculture (Score:2)
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Only if it melts at a constant rate, especially when the water is needed. Long term, it means that the glaciers will not provide [as much] water as they are smaller, and an important buffer to the system disappears. Instead, you end up with massive storms with massive runoff buffered only by a few days as opposed to months.
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It'll be terrible for agriculture. The water table will rise. Land that is difficult to farm because there's too much water content will become unusable. Topsoil will be washed away. Nutrients once brought to fields via rivers will now be swept away. Mosquito populations will skyrocket. Disease will stalk the land. And that's the good news. The bad news is that plants prefer a very narrow range of conditions and most of India will move far outside of that.
The even worse news is that parts of Europe will loo
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Not just in Europe. There are serious consequences to altered precipitation patterns in the Canadian Prairies and the American Midwest. These are all major bread basket areas growing a fair portion of the world's grain. Colder wetter winters and extremely dry summers are simply not something that most of the grain crops that civilization is built on flourish.
People don't seem to realize that the core technologies of civilization, the cereal crops, first bred probably in Central Asia (in the case of wheat an
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That's ok...
I'm gluten free and Keto.
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That's not how glaciers work. They store water like energy. During the warm season, they melt and this feels the rivers and in the cold season they built up. This slow release of the water is what fills most of the significant rivers in the world with I think prime counter-examples being the Mississippi and the Nile which aren't felt by melt waters. However, if the glaciers go away, then the snow melt will likely fill the river only during one season. The glaciers are the largest reason these rivers can be
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Not particularly great for agriculture (Score:4, Informative)
So more meltwater in the rivers. Indian farmers will be able to grow more crops maybe even crawl out of poverty? No we cant have that
I regret that you seem to know little or nothing about agriculture in India.
Yes, glacial meltwater is an important water source in northern India. No, more glaical melthing won't be useful for agriculture. The Ganges (which is the river fed by glacial melt) already has plenty of meltwater flow that could be pumped out if you wanted to use it for agriculture (but typically it's not; it's the monsoon rains that irrigates crops, not river water). Glacial melt is not a steady flow of water, the meltwater flow is a huge flood peaking in August [researchgate.net], and almost nothing the rest of the year; increasing the summer meltwater flow won't increase crop production.
Try here for a quick summary: https://www.oav.de/fileadmin/u... [www.oav.de]
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Aside from the problems others have pointed out with currently arable land turning into swampland, etc. What exactly do you think happens when you have a sudden boost in available water, followed by it suddenly stopping. Not just the glacier water, by the way, but all the spring meltwater vanishes along with it, so the rivers are even less full than they were before and more at the mercy of recent rainfall. I'm sure that will be great for agriculture.
Re: Occam's Razor vs Einstein (Score:2)
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In the context of jumpers I initially read deniers in a different sense [wikipedia.org].
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What the hell is a "jumper"?
Re: Occam's Razor vs Einstein (Score:2)
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The more detailed model is the one James Lovelock came up with. His model factors in not just the atmospheric contents and surface albeo but the biosphere and geology as well. If you want something guaranteed not to be too simple, it would be his. He was right about extreme weather by 2020 and if he turns out to be correct about 2040, then frankly civilization doesn't have a hope. The miniscule efforts being put in now are far too little and thirty years too late.
https://www.theguardian.com/th... [theguardian.com]
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"You're never going to get enough energy from wind to run a society such as ours," he says. "Windmills! Oh no. No way of doing it. You can cover the whole country with the blasted things, millions of them. Waste of time."
That...didn't age well since 2008, now did it?
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From what I understand, wind farms are still horribly inefficient.
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That model has a lot of handwaving in it, and some of the predictions don't seem to hold up.
It's a pointer in the correct direction, but it's not a good guide. The system does, indeed, have lots of incompletely examined positive and negative feedback relationships, but details are significant.
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You tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is never try.
If you are going to butcher these concepts so superfluously, then your logic should itself be more simple. You need not debate global warming but instead debate the conclusion. This is a much simpler approach and using your own logic, this is the route you should of chosen.
But you don't care about logic, you use it like a whore and thus are a whoremonger of knowledge -- which if indeed the pen is mightier, than you have shown you are wea
Re: Occam's Razor vs Einstein (Score:2)
Those are useful when exploring a theory or model without a lot of physical evidence. in the case where you want to model elementary particles or space-time itself. K.I.S.S.
if you already have a lot of observed physical facts. Then you are burdened with creating a model that can handle all past data and be tested with predicting future data.
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That's what he meant by "But no simpler". Somehow people tend to ignore that part.
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So if Occam's Razor says that all things being equal, the simplest explanation is the most likely the right one and Einstein said to make everything as simple as possible but no simpler, then how do we know if global warming isn't too simple an explanation especially when people like simple explanations because it makes them feel smart?
The problem with Ockham's Razor is that it's actually quite hard in many problems to figure out what the simplest answer actually is. What's the "simplest" design for a mechanical system? The one with the fewest parts, or the one that breaks down the least? What's the simplest algorithm, the one that can be expressed in the fewest lines of code, or the one that can execute with the fewest actual steps? What's the simplest cure for disease? A difficult to produce synthetic antibiotic/antiviral or baking some
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Do you accept that thermodynamics is a thing?
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What does thermodynamics have to do with connecting a scientific study on one thing, with a bunch of other things NOT explicitly nor implicitly part of that study, but simply according to one's personal beliefs?
Are you saying it would be journalistically honest for me to say, talk about about a scientific study about melting glaciers and then fold in a discussion about the reduction in the number of ninjas over time imply causality simply because the data shows congruence?
This is about the JOURNALISM of pre
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Seriously, the Daily Mail?
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Re: Faster than anybody realized? (Score:2)