A nice analogy. And part of what makes the matter so hard to prove even to those who are still open to being convinced.
Reshared post from +George Wiman
LOADING THE DICE
You test some dice, and they produce a nice random output. Then you weight them so they preferentially come up sixes. Other numbers still come up, and the percentage of sixes is only raised a little, so you can't say your weighting caused any particular six. I mean, they came up six sometimes before, yes? But now the totals are coming up differently – and it's the fault of you and your little drill and weights.
The next time someone says; "You can't say this storm or that storm was caused by climate change" think about those dice and those weights. How do you assess responsibility? The one thing you wouldn't do is shrug and go on with business as usual.
Google+: View post on Google+
This is FUD – Fear, Uncertainty & Doubt & already muchly discussed & hotly debated within Climate Change community. Some fair voices on the doubt/uncertainty side are Judith Curry, Roger Pielke Jr, Roger Pielk Sr, John Christie, Roy Spencer.
Note, even if you won't or can't go on with Business as Usual, what can you actually do, how much will it cost & what, if any at all, impact will it have.
The scientific evidence is IN, and has been for quite some time. And what you can do about it isn't that complicated. You start with conservation, which is something that needs to be done anyway. And you start exploring green energy, which is something that needs to be done anyway. And you stop subsidizing carbon energy, and you go from there. You fix your grid, which is something that needs to be done anyway, so you can use environmentally-available energy. You improve city planning and stop subsidizing suburbs.
The unproven assertion based upon what (many arguments & debate even on this alone) is IN ??
Mind you, that wasn't my point, your point was essentially one of the very questionable claim of Attribution of localised (ie non-Global) Weather events to Anthropogenic causes & that these events are unnatural & increasing in occurrence.
As I said above already, all This is FUD – Fear, Uncertainty & Doubt & already muchly discussed & hotly debated within Climate Change community.
You chant a mantra which is based on unresearched hearsay from others – one wonders if you can meet the challenge of actually researching it? As indicated already a small number of reputable scientists to start with are Judith Curry, Roger Pielke Jr, Roger Pielk Sr, John Christie, Roy Spencer ..
Unresearched hearsay? OK, we're done. Have fun with your handful of people who say what you want to hear. The rest of us have serious business to attend.
The dice & reality are far removed from the uncertainty that the Science is disputing and even the pro supporters of your assertions are even contimuing to dispute it among themselves and cannot settle even after at least 22-24 years of the supposed settled IN science ..
You've read the Scientists I've referred you to I assume to make these strong assertions, the mantra you chant??
The Climate Scientists that is –
the chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology, a Professor in the Environmental Studies Program and a Fellow of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES),
a Senior Research Scientist, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), University of Colorado in Boulder & Professor Emeritus of the Department of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University,
along with a Principal Research Scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, and the U.S. Science Team leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSR-E) on NASA's Aqua satellite.[1][2] He has served as Senior Scientist for Climate Studies at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center
+ a Professor and Director
Earth System Science Center, NSSTC
University of Alabama in Huntsville, a climate scientist whose chief interests are satellite remote sensing of global climate and global climate change ..
One of the best lessons I ever learnt, from scientists is that it doesn't hurt to more than occasionally read some stuff that you don't necessarily agree with – you'll be surprised what you can discover & what it can lead you to.
So far all you've done is make very vocal assertions with some weak appeal to some 'what if' & 'just in case' because 'you never can know' .. I'm going along with just that, no, we don't know & we don't know a lot about large portions of the science, what it influence, what influences it, what is natural & what is contributed to it by mankind. Worse still for me is that all this focus on this is distracting us from any number of other humankind impacted ecosystem & environmental issues that as a result are NOT being attended to..
Regards those dice, likewise gambling addicts at casinos cannot face the reality that despite the chances that the dice may fall a particular way, the house rules favor good prifits for the house & poor returns for the casino patrons..
NB the unresearched hearsay comment was specifically addressed at you, not the actual science, of which I've read quite a lot of over the last few or more years (since '96-'98?)
Yes scientists do argue about details, but there is a strong consensus about the basic idea. Yet in all your reading, you seem to have settled upon the handful rather than the climate science community. Interesting, that.
I've done a spot of reading myself. And while scientific questions are not decided by majority, if you posit an outcome that doesn't line up with long-standing science you better have a darn good explanation why. The few "skeptics" I've read (both Pielkies and "Lord" Monkton") don't do that for me. And their followers never seem to notice the climate community's replies to them. So why would I waste my time?
The one observation I can make about anthropogenic climate change is that it aligns with how I understand the world works: you change the composition of a system, the outputs change. This is backed up by reduction in shelf ice and glacial mass. It is an experimental confirmation that aggregates physical reality and cares not a whit for your highly selective reading of the scientific literature.
http://www.wunderground.com/resources/climate/928.asp
Note that I'm not denying climate change nor some anthropogenic contribution a la "the basic idea",
just the extent of it,
some of the science itself,
your assertion that recent weather events are abnormal and linked directly or indirectly to recent climate change & thus linked directly/indirectly to man-made contributions to it, politicisation of the 'science' among a few other things.
Your error, which btw is at odds with majority climate science, is linking the "consensus" to the disputed & unproven link between recent weather & current Climate Change.
Hmmm – "Highly Selective reading of the Scientific Literature" – here's some more snippets of such then…
U.S. Govt Scientist & Meteorologist Hoerling of NOAA: 'The immediate cause is most likely little more than the coincidental alignment of a tropical storm with an extratropical storm. Both frequent W. Atlantic in Oct….nothing unusual with that' .. 'Nor have there been indications of a change in their statistical behavior over this region in recent decades'
Prof. Pielke Jr.: 'We've done long-term trends with respect to hurricane damage in the United States, and it's very safe to say that regardless of how [Sandy] plays out, there's a century-long time series with no trend in it — and that's in damage, the number of landfalls, or the intensity of storms at landfall. So, if you are looking for signals of long-term climate change, focusing in on any one storm is the wrong way to go about it to begin with'
'Remarkably, the U.S. is currently experiencing the longest-ever recorded period with no strikes of a Category 3 or stronger hurricane'
Prof. Pielke Jr. on damage estimates: 'The current estimates of $20 billion would place Sandy at #17 all time out of 242 loss-producing storms 1900 to present (in the top 10%)' — 'If the damage gets to $30 billion it would crack the top 10 and (top 5%). Right now it seems unlikely that Sandy will climb any higher on the table'
Houston Chronicle's Science guy Eric Berger: '…it is a big stretch to go from there to blaming Sandy on climate change. It's a stretch that is just not supported by science at this time'
Dr. Patrick Michaels on Sandy: 'It's also consistent with a planet with colder temperatures as well as one with warmer ones' — 'More important, events like this are inevitable on a planet that has an ocean with the geography of the Atlantic (meaning a Gulf Stream-like feature), a large north-south continent on its western margin without a transverse mountain range to inhibit the merger of tropical warmth with polar cold, and four seasons in the temperate latitudes'
Hurricane Expert Chris Landsea: Any connection between AGW & hurricanes is 'almost certainly undetectable' — '…and that this view is not particularly controversial among tropical cyclone climatologists. He concluded that hurricanes should not be the 'poster' representing a human influence on climate…Chris responded that asserting such a connection can be easily shown to be incorrect and thus risks some of the trust that the public has in scientists to play things straight'
German Meteorological Expert Says: 'No Evidence Showing Link Between Storms And Global Warming' — Meteorologist Dr. Karsten Brandt: 'Brandt said that by looking back at the global data available over the last decades, there's 'no indication or evidence showing there's been an increase in storm activity. The data don't show it.' He added: 'Luckily we don't need to worry much about increasing storms in the future'
Prof. Judith Curry on Sandy: 'Kevin Trenberth frequently says that global warming is affecting all of weather' — Curry: 'Trenberth s probably right, but apart from the relative magnitude of the effect, this begs the question as to whether the effect is good or bad; arguably in terms of Atlantic hurricanes, the warming is resulting in fewer U.S. landfalls'
'Blaming Sandy on greedy & industrious is just as mad as blaming it on gays' — 'It's about doing that very Medieval thing of finding someone or something to blame for scary natural occurrences' — Brendan O'Neill in UK Telegraph: 'After every natural disaster that occurs these days, we do two things. First, we guffaw or shake our heads in stern disapproval at those religious freaks who blame said disaster on mankind's sin. And second, we nod in vigorous agreement with those eco-experts who blame said disaster on man-made climate change'
U.S. sees 2,232nd consecutive days without being hit by major hurricane – 'shatters' previous streak set in 1906 – Prof. Pielke Jr.: 'Since there won't be any intense hurricanes before next summer, the record will be shattered, with the days between intense hurricane landfalls likely to exceed 2,500 days'
The Decline In Major Hurricanes: 'The most active period for major hurricanes in the US was 1931-1960' — 'The frequency of major hurricanes is now about half what it was 60 years ago. The most intense hurricane to ever hit the US occurred in 1935'
Third Quietest Hurricane Period On Record In The US: 'US hurricane strikes have been on the decline since NOAA started measuring them before the Civil War' — 'Over the last six years, there have been officially six hurricane strikes in the US, the third quietest period on record. Six out of the seven quietest periods have been since 1975'