Global Warming Prediction Tracker

I've felt for some time that it would be refreshing, not to mention enlightening, for the 'talking heads' to be held accountable for their predictions so future trustworthiness could be placed appropriately.

Unfortunately, we depend largely on the media to do that job. To expect those that have difficulty remembering what they themselves said last Tuesday much less what some talking head said in the last decade is too much to ask.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7700387.stm

See? There is always another study that shows how much warmer it gets.

So why look at previous predictions and how they failed?

I wish somebody would tell Michigan that there's global warming.  The Upper Penninsula is seeing record snowfalls so far this year...as in almost 4 feet prior to December.

That's one of the reasons why supporters of "Global Warming" have switched to "Climate Change" so now they are covered whether it gets hot or cold.

The wonders of the Internet - over time, the Global warming movement will continue to lose credibility.

I'm a global warming skeptic. That doesn't mean I don't believe it's happening. It doesn't mean that I don't think humans could possibly cause it.

It just means I'm skeptical. I am not convinced that there is a significant human factor.

Being a skeptic is a fine thing, there's much pseudoscience in our culture to be skeptical about. A skeptic must first consider the source of various claims and whether or not the claimers have anything to gain from its promotion as the beginning of any skeptical analysis. Then a thorough examination of the claim itself along with consideration given to possible motivations of why someone would want to deny said claims. Also is this claim being made by an individual or a group? If you new how hard it was to get scientist to agree on anything this would be a big consideration.

The scientific method is the most efficient way to get to the truth ever devised by man. Scientist do a far better job of policing themselves than any other section of society, however they're still far from beyond corruption and agenda driven methods but these will always be weeded out eventually. What you call "grossly exaggerated" was simply the margin of error freely admitted by the scientist who compiled the predictive model. Scientist make these predictions all the time with the information they have however it's in the reporting of these predictions that sometimes their uncertainty gets understated or ommited by others that may have an agenda. 

A skeptic basing their skepticism of new predictions based on past predictions is illogical. A prediction is only as good as its last one. The more information we they have the less margin of error there is in the model. At some point that margin of error becomes so low as the prediction is considered statistically true.

Lets say sometime soon physicist at the LHC announce that they have found the higgs boson particle. Do you accept their claim or are you skeptical saying that because they feared the bad economy would cause a funding cut they got together and decided to perpetrate a hoax knowing full well that eventually they would be found out but in the meantime they'd still have a job? No probably not, but it would still be possible that an error was made that no one caught but an organized conspiracie would be highly unlikely. Unless of course you had your own reasoning for not wanting this particle to be found then any good skeptic would have to be skeptical of their own motivations.

Does losing credibility mean anything when something is more based on faith? 

I would add that the actual data should play a significant factor in making a decision on the validity of any claim. Too many 'claims' are taken as gospel with no corresponding data or preponderance of validity based on a viewer's analysis of said data ... assuming it exists.

The link supplied in reply #2 is a good example. Nowhere, that I could see, was there a link to the actual data which may or may not support the claims being made.

Although this may be more an indictment of the type of shoddy reporting, otherwise known as sensationalism, that we the public are generally subjected to and, incidently, manipulated with to achieve the particular goals of the reporting agency.

I thought pattern recognition was an integral part of induction?

They long ago lost that credibility.  They are the cherry pickers who only report facts that support their preconceived conclusions, and ignore all else.  Goebels would be proud of them - but few intelligent savvy people hold them in much regard.

Funny thing about all this is that Michigan used to get a lot of snow when I was a kid.  When I was growing up, it wouldn't be unusual to get up in the morning and hardly be able to tell where the cars in the driveway were due to it snowing so hard the night before.  Then, that slowly changed.  Now it's looking like we're getting the snow back....about 25 years later.  To me, it just looks like we have natural changes in weather.  The climate has always changed and it always will change even if humans cease to exist. 

The irony in that belief is that I'm more eco-conscious than just about anyone I know.  We recycle as much as possible, we grow a garden, we compost, we use low energy lighting and heat our house with corn.  I throw out about 1/2 bag of waste a week and my electric bill is usually around $60 a month.  But, just because I don't think we should pollute the world we live in doesn't mean that I believe in global warming.  Hell, if we were that concerned about global warming we would quit raising cows and figure out how to stop volcanoes from erupting

So far the so called scientist that have been supporter of global warming or the new version, Climate change all have one thing in common, their parents must have been Mr. and Mrs. Chicken Little.

In many cases, you can't qualify what they report as fact. Without any supporting evidence to verify the claims made in the news storys, what they are reporting are merely just that ... 'claims' ...  in the context of that report.

Patterns in data not the predictions. It is possible because of the margin for error and assumptions made that a prediction based on less or less accurate data could turn out to be more accurate, however predictions made using the latest most accurate data always supplant previous predictions.

The way various climatologist findings are reported can certainly be manipulated it's often unintentional and can work both ways. For instance the media in an effort to give equal time to both sides would give the false impression that climatologist were split evenly over the issue when in fact only a very small minority do not subscribe to humans having an effect on the climate.

Nice straw man, but 2 problems with that.  First that they even attempt to give equal time, and second the part about the small minority.

From what you claim, it sounds as if the 'Fairness Doctrine' being proposed by many in Congress would do even more to distort an already manipulated news reporting mechanism.

Actually I don't really really care if the position is being overstated or not. So far everything that has been done or is seriously being proposed has been very positive. Now if the government starts demanding I grow my own food, ride a bike and live without electricity then I'll get concerned but I think we all know that's not going to happen and I think those that do not are just matching the extremist hyperbole coming from a marginalizes few on the other side. 

A human causation to "climate change" is not something we're going to prove beyond a doubt any time soon so we'll be dancing on the middle ground for a long time.

Oh and the reason it's now called "climate change" was not to cover themselves, it's because they discovered that an increase in temperatures at the poles could cause cooler temperatures elsewhere.  

I know this debate from all sides and I'm not interested in getting into it again. Like I said I just don't care either way. I just wanted to point out the absurdity of referring to a 20 year old prediction as evidence of I don't know what, that scientist don't know everything. The majority of data we have has been accumulated in the last 20 years, it's a process. This sounded like a page from the creationist playbook to me.

"First they came for the Jews......"

I would not bet on it not happening.  I have already seen it happening.  Not here yet (as they have not gotten the first toehold) but in everything else that has come down the pike by the so called "do gooders".

It is not a question of if, but when.

I would like to see even a credible hypothesis with supporting data.  I am not worried about beyond a doubt.  However, we have not even got to the postulation stage (scientifically speaking) yet.  Just hysteria born out of supreme ignorance.

I don't care if they do, in fact I hope they don't. I don't want them to be right because if they are it doesn't matter we're not going to be able to do anything in time anyhow and if they come up with stronger evidence and they're still wrong we're more likely to go overboard trying to stop something we didn't cause and can't change.

I like where we're at right now, enough motivation to keep slow and steady progress toward a neutral impact on the environment without panicky over reaching actions potentially making things worse, or at least more painful than need be.