quote:"A considerable change of climate, inexplicable at present to us, must have taken place in the Circumpolar Regions, by which the severity of the cold that has for centuries past enclosed the seas in the high northern latitudes in an impenetrable barrier of ice has been, during the last two years, greatly abated . . . 2000 square leagues of ice with which the Greenland Seas between the latitudes of 74o and 80o N have been hitherto covered, has in the last two years, entirely disappeared . . . The floods, which have the whole summer inundated all those parts of Germany where rivers have their sources in snowy mountains, afford ample proof that new sources of warmth have been opened . . ."
Extracts from a letter by the President of the Royal Society to the British Admiralty, recommending they send a ship to the Arctic to investigate the dramatic ice reduction -- in 1817. (Ref; Royal Society, London. Nov. 20, 1817. Minutes of Council, Vol. 8. pp.149-153.)
(Taken from James P. Hogan's webpage.)
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Sounds like a bunch of hogwash, drummed up by the liberal smarty-pants establishment to support their global warming myth.
Posts: 1314 | Registered: Jan 2006
| IP: Logged |
After all, everyone knows that those icebergs aren't actually melting, and are in fact getting larger. /sarcasm
Posts: 1577 | Registered: Sep 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
What IS the context? Did they send an expedition? What did they find? What did they conclude? What were the results of peer-evaluation of the data?
Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
I thought "national quote from the minutes of the early 19th century Royal Society" day was next Wednesday. Is James P. Hogan jumping the gun or does my calenday have a misprint?
I've got a real corker from Sir Humphry Davy's lecture "On the reaction of things upon being stuck with a pin.".
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Mucus: What IS the context? Did they send an expedition? What did they find? What did they conclude? What were the results of peer-evaluation of the data?
The context was that this happened long before advocates of global warming claim human activities were melting the icecaps. It suggests that periodic growth and shrinking of icecaps, even very quickly, is natural.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged |
I was asking about the context, that is "the parts of a written or spoken statement that precede or follow a specific word or passage, usually influencing its meaning or effect," which would include the stuff that proceeds this passage, hidden by ellipses or after the passage.
How about my following questions about the facts that surround the case? What happened to the expedition? Was there an expedition and so forth?
Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Mucus: What IS the context? Did they send an expedition? What did they find? What did they conclude? What were the results of peer-evaluation of the data?
The context was that this happened long before advocates of global warming claim human activities were melting the icecaps. It suggests that periodic growth and shrinking of icecaps, even very quickly, is natural.
Let's say that's true.
So what? What does that change? I don't think it is, but going with that assumption, I don't think it changes anything.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Hogan is relying on the ignorance of his fans to pull another fast one.
"The GreenlandSea is an area...between Greenland, Svalbard, Jan Mayen and Iceland, spanning some 465,000 square miles (1,205,000 square km)" or 39,000 square leagues in current measurement, of which 2000 square leagues is only a bit over 5%.
Thing is there have been changes in English*measurement since 1817. Ignoring those changes, Hogan fails to define what the report means by league. A land league is 3miles, whereas a nautical league is 3 nautical miles or 3.45miles. So a square league could mean several different areas between 9 square miles and ~11.9 square miles when one considers changes in the English measurement system. And "2000 square leagues" could easily fit within a conversion error between the Admiralty and the RoyalSociety similar to the miscommunication between NASA and JPL which crashed the Mars mission.
Then there is the LARGE margin of error in navigational positions before 1825, when the BritishNavy began supplying chronometers to its ships. This is an especially acute problem nearer the Poles because the lines of longitude are closer together than at the Equator. Any small error in timekeeping is magnified into a large error in sea position, and in area measurements. eg DavidHumphrey found an extra 3000 square miles / a sixth of 2000 square leagues of Greenland in 1970 because of a better watch. Considering improvements in timekeeping since 1817, it's highly possible that the "2000 square leagues of ice" was entirely due to navigational errors.
Whether 18,000 square miles or 23,800 square miles or pure navigational error, 2000 square leagues is smaller than the area of WestVirginia. And sea ice attached to eastern Greenland regularly undergoes variations in area which are greater than the size of WestVirginia.
* The British imposed the ImperialSystem in 1824, which made a noticeable difference in measurements. eg The newer British pint is equal to 1.2 US pints derived from the older QueenAnne system. And there would have been compensation made upon the nautical mile to reflect the more accurate survey of Earth's meridian to establish the MetricSystem.
posted
To be fair, I'm not sure if Hogan is the originator of this for lack of a better word, meme.
When I (unsuccessfully) searched for the information that I was asking about before, I noticed that this particular set of quotes has been making the rounds on particular anti-global warming sites around the Internet.
Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
The thing I missing from the quote is any indication that this ice ever actually melted. The quote has someone speculating that it must have melted based on the observed effects and the whole thing is described as part of an effort to get people to send a ship there to check it out.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
"The long-term average minimum, based on averaging data from 1979 to 2000, is 6.74 million square kilometers (2.60 million square miles) and occurs on September 12. Compared to this average, five-day mean ice extent for September 16, 2007, was lower by 2.61 million square kilometers (one million square miles), an area approximately equal to the size of Alaska and Texascombined, or the size of ten United Kingdoms.
The minimum for 2007 shatters the previous five-day minimum set on September 20–21, 2005, by 1.19 million square kilometers (460,000 square miles), roughly the size of Texas andCaliforniacombined, or nearly five United Kingdoms" (or the size of the entire GreenlandSea).
"Gray areas within the Arctic Ocean indicate where sea ice was present every day of every year from 1979 through spring 2007. Yesterday[9September2007]'s sea ice is in white, and the overlap areas are in light gray. The dark gray color represents the region...ice-free for the first time...this year...is...roughly the size of...California."
Posts: 8501 | Registered: Jul 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
The fact that this quote is making the rounds among the anti-global warming set illustrates several key fallacies in anti-global warming thinking.
Fallacy 1. Scientists were wrong before so there is no reason to believe it's any different now.
Wrong. The problem with this interpretation of this quote is that it's comparing apples and oranges. This is a report based on one or two ships making a very small number of observation on the artic sea ice. The guy is looking at 2 data points immediately following the Volcanic winter of 1816 (sometime known as the year without a summer).
The current alarm over the reduction of artic sea ice is based on over thirty years of satelite data combined with reports made by ships over the past two centuries and has been reviewed by thousands of scientists.
Fallacy 2. We've identified something that all those scientists and the entire IPCC missed.
Wrong. If you had read any of the scientific summaries on the subject you would know that scientists have been making an enormous effort to collect reports made by whaling ships and artic expeditions over the past several decades in order to improve our understanding of artic sea ice in the era before satelite images.
Fallacy 3. This proves that climate change is a natural phenomenon that has happened all the time for no apparent reason.
Wrong. Climate change has occurred naturally in the past. Everyone knows this. It has, however, not occured for no apparent reason. We know about numerous factors that have influenced past climate change including changes in the solar flux, volcanoes, changes in the earths orbit and axis tilt and so on. The only known phenomenon which can explain the current climate change, is the green house effect.
Fallacy 4. This guys story disproves decades of scientific research.
Wrong, One anecdote taken out of context means nothing. I just skimmed through some research on the history of Sea Ice and the evidence suggests that sea ice was at a record high in 1816 (year without a summer). Durring the first half of the 19th century, sea ice was generally more severe and more seasonably variable than it was during the second half of the 19th century. For all we know, this president of the British Admiralty was lying in order to get funding for another arctic sea expedition. Heck, for all I know, Hogan could have faked the whole thing. Science relies on verification and reproduction. Before we should place any meaning on this quote whatsoever we need to verify its legitimacy and then sea whether its conclusions can be reproduced using other sources. They can't.
Fallacy 5. Science can't be trusted because scientists are constantly revising their story.
Wrong. Revision is what makes science such a powerful tool for understanding nature. Scientists observe the natural world, build hypotheses, test them with more experiments and observations and then revise their hypotheses. By using this process our hypotheses and our understanding of the natural world get better and better. The fact that old scientific hypotheses get thrown out when new data is collect is proof the scientific process is working.
[ October 25, 2007, 02:32 AM: Message edited by: The Rabbit ]
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
The letter was* from the President of the RoyalSociety to the BritishAdmiralty. While the RoyalSociety was founded by a pirate, it's pretty much always enjoyed a good reputation. I'm not sure whether the term 'science' existed in 1817, let alone enjoyed widespread use in today's manner. However, I am sure that the RoyalSociety was instrumental in establishing the principles of science.
And as I stated before, there were LARGE navigational errors -- especially in the polar regions -- before 1825 due to a lack of accurate shipboard clocks. And the sea ice edge varies from season to season. So JosephBanks would scarcely have had to lie to recommend an investigation to the Admiralty, even if that were his bent. Not that it would have been: science had just started -- eg the chronometer was invented during Banks' watch, the spectroscope in 1802; calculus had yet to be proven as mathematically rigorous; germ theory didn't exist; geological studies leading to gradualism leading to evolutionary theory were all in the future, as was Mendeleev's Periodic Table of Elements; etc ad (near)infinitum -- and everything reported was a far more INTERESTING object of investigation than anything he could have made up.
Besides, it would be FAR more surprising if there hadn't been noticeable/considerable variations in reported ship positions at the sea ice edges. Kinda like if a highschool science student's data points too closely follow what the results should be by theory, ya can be pretty certain that s/he's recorded the results of calculations instead of the data generated by experiment. More than a couple of scientists engaging in fakery have been similarly tripped up by reporting data too-good-to-be-true for the margin-of-error intrinsic within their equipment.
* Or at least purported to be. I tend to believe that the document exists simply because the proceedings of the RoyalSociety and the BritishAdmiralty are simple to find. Admittedly I also gave "WMDs in Iraq" the benefit of the doubt.
quote:Originally posted by Lisa: [QUOTE]Originally posted by Mucus: [qb] The context was that this happened long before advocates of global warming claim human activities were melting the icecaps. It suggests that periodic growth and shrinking of icecaps, even very quickly, is natural.
Please see fallacies #3 and #4 in my earlier post.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
aspectre, I did not mean to say I believed this guy was lying or that I believed Hogan had made the whole think. I was simply trying to list the many reasons why an anicdote like this should never be confused with scientific evididence.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
I'm sorry I can't address all your stated fallacies at this time but you cited #3 and #4.
quote:Wrong. Climate change has occurred naturally in the past. Everyone knows this. It has, however, not occured for no apparent reason. We know about numerous factors that have influenced past climate change including changes in the solar flux, volcanoes, changes in the earths orbit and axis tilt and so on. The only known phenomenon which can explain the current climate change, is the green house effect.
We know about many factors, and yet even if we operate within that group, to say nothing of the factors we do NOT know about, we still do not understand how these functions operate completely. If we did we'd be able to accurately predict climate patterns down the road. In a Newsweek article I read interviewing the doctor who won the nobel prize with Al Gore he stated that scientists estimate that sea levels will rise anywhere between 3-18 cm in the next 50 years. Thats a variability of 80%. If I were going to make a financial investment on an 80% variability people would call me crazy. It makes climatologists look like the psychics you see in the classifieds.
quote:Wrong, One anecdote taken out of context means nothing. I just skimmed through some research on the history of Sea Ice and the evidence suggests that sea ice was at a record high in 1816 (year without a summer). Durring the first half of the 19th century, sea ice was generally more severe and more seasonably variable than it was during the second half of the 19th century. For all we know, this president of the British Admiralty was lying in order to get funding for another arctic sea expedition. Heck, for all I know, Hogan could have faked the whole thing. Science relies on verification and reproduction. Before we should place any meaning on this quote whatsoever we need to verify its legitimacy and then sea whether its conclusions can be reproduced using other sources. They can't.
Well I agree with everything you said here. Well accept at the end, I don't know per se that there was any follow up work done as a result of this man's warnings. Our records of the climate in 1817 were laughable compared to now.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:If I were going to make a financial investment on an 80% variability people would call me crazy.
Oh really? Do you have home owners insurance? Do you have collision coverage? Do you have life insurace? What about medical insurance? Do you save for retirement? All of those are investments you make that have a far greater uncertainty than the predictions of climate change? The chances of you having a home fire in any given year are less than 1/3 of 1 percent and yet most people consider it prudent to invest some of their resource every year to protect againt that small chance of catastrophe.
I think you don't appreciate what a prediction that sea level will rise 3 - 18 cm actually means. I haven't looked at the resources on this bracket, but typically they represent probabily limits. So there is something like 95% probability that sea level will rise at least 3 cm and only 5% probability that sea level will rise more than 18 cm. That large uncertainty arises from many factors but even with that uncertainty, the potential consequences of sea level rise (like the consequences of a home fire) are severe enough that most rational people would consider it prudent to invest in ways to midigate such a disaster.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
| IP: Logged |
quote:n a Newsweek article I read interviewing the doctor who won the nobel prize with Al Gore he stated that scientists estimate that sea levels will rise anywhere between 3-18 cm in the next 50 years. Thats a variability of 80%. If I were going to make a financial investment on an 80% variability people would call me crazy. It makes climatologists look like the psychics you see in the classifieds.
I still don't really get your point. If you were offered a mutual fund and the fund manager said, over the past 10 years returns on this mutual fund have varied from 3% to 18%, would you call people crazy to invest in it. If so, we should all abandon our retirement plans because every one of them is more variable than that.
What's more, you are back to the fallacy of confusing apples with oranges. There are two key issues in climate change.
First, is the climate change we have experienced over the past 10 - 20 years the result of green house emissions or some natural phenomena?
Second, if we continue to add greenhouse gases to the atmosphere at a given rate, how will the climate change in the future?
Although the questions are clearly related, they aren't the same They can't be addressed with identical scientific methods and they science associated with each has different sources of and levels of uncertainty.
Your comments addressed the second question and yet you seem to feel that they some how refute my comments referring to the first question. Call that logical fallacy #6.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
| IP: Logged |
quote:I still don't really get your point. If you were offered a mutual fund and the fund manager said, over the past 10 years returns on this mutual fund have varied from 3% to 18%, would you call people crazy to invest in it. If so, we should all abandon our retirement plans because every one of them is more variable than that.
That's true it would be silly to pass on a guaranteed chance at 3%-18% increase in your initial investment. But would you agree that in a world of 80% variability it's pretty stupid to talk with any certainty about specifics? Honestly what would 1-10cm of sea level increase do to anyone? Assuming that in 50 years we make no shift at all towards alternative fuel sources? We stand a greater chance of running out of oil then we do of flooding ourselves to death at that rate.
quote:Your comments addressed the second question and yet you seem to feel that they some how refute my comments referring to the first question. Call that logical fallacy #6.
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Thats a variability of 80%. If I were going to make a financial investment on an 80% variability people would call me crazy.
I wouldn't mind 80% variability. You should have seen my hypothetical US investments in the wake of the credit crisis and the USD/CAD slide. Thank goodness I put my money in Chinese A/H shares, no variability there Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
