Monday, February 15, 2010

Global Warming's Procrustean Bed: Snow caused by Global Warming

Procrustes was a legendary Greek robber who, after robbing is victims, took them to his lair, and placed them in a bed. If they were too short for it, he would stretch them to fit it. If they were too tall, he would hack of their limbs.

Last week I blamed the fact that 49 states have snow on the ground on Global Warming. When I did it, I had tongue firmly implanted in cheek. And of course I got the customary lecture on how "weather is not climate," a lecture which is given only to those who cite cold weather as possible evidence against Global Warming and not to those who use warm weather events as evidence for it.

In other words, Warmers already have the advantage that they can consider all warm weather events as evidence for their theory and can dismiss all cold weather events as irrelevant to it. But it gets better (or worse, depending on whether you share their ideology): Warmers not only have the debate set up so that the only evidence admitted can be confirming evidence, they have it set up so that disconfirming evidence can be considered confirming evidence.

Check this out, from NPR today:

For scientists who study the climate, it's all a bit much. They're trying to dig out.

Most don't see a contradiction between a warming world and lots of snow. That includes Kevin Trenberth, a prominent climate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado.

"The fact that the oceans are warmer now than they were, say, 30 years ago means there's about on average 4 percent more water vapor lurking around over the oceans than there was, say, in the 1970s," he says.

Warmer water means more water vapor rises up into the air, and what goes up must come down.

"So one of the consequences of a warming ocean near a coastline like the East Coast and Washington, D.C., for instance, is that you can get dumped on with more snow partly as a consequence of global warming," he says.

So in other words, not only are cold weather events not evidence against Global Warming, but they are actually evidence for it! The evidence must be forced into the Procrustean bed of the theory, whether it actually fits or not.

You gotta hand it to these people: they know how to frame a debate.

7 comments:

Art said...

So, snow is not water.

Um, OK, Martin, anything you say ....

Lee said...

Not enough snow? Global warming!

Too much snow? Global warming!

Dog barks? Global warming!

Sun rises? Global warming!

Life is good when anything that happens, and anything that doesn't happen, is evidence for global warming.

Art said...

So in other words, not only are cold weather events not evidence against Global Warming, but they are actually evidence for it!

Um,that's not what the snippet from NPR said. Not even close.

Martin, is this an example of the logic you teach in your classes? Just wondering.

Martin Cothran said...

Art,

So if Global Warming causes more snowfall, more snowfall is not evidence for Global Warming?

I guess then that if Global Warming causes weather stations to record higher average temperatures, then the finding of higher average temperatures is not evidence for Global Warming either.

Huh.

I learn so much from these exchanges.

Art said...

So if Global Warming causes more snowfall, more snowfall is not evidence for Global Warming?

Right. You need to learn the difference between a phenomenon being consistent with a theory, and observations actually constituting evidence for a theory.

(I realize that I may be asking a lot, especially of someone whose school teaches that the earth is 6000 years old.)

I guess then that if Global Warming causes weather stations to record higher average temperatures, then the finding of higher average temperatures is not evidence for Global Warming either.

Lessee if I understand this, Martin - you think higher temperatures are not really higher temperatures, but that higher precipitation rates are higher temperatures.

I'm guessing that a "Classical Education" doesn't include the concept of a dimension (as in dimensional analysis). This would explain (at least in part) why you are so confused, and your logic so tortured.

Martin Cothran said...

Art,

Lessee, you think temperature instrument readings ARE higher temperatures and not the effect of higher temperatures?

Now this is a novel interpretation of things: the instrument of measure is the thing being measured.

You scientist are indeed inventive people.

Martin Cothran said...

Art,

And by the way, you being so concerned with accuracy and all, you might want to avoid asserting that Highlands Latin School teaches that the earth is 6,000 years old, since it isn't, like, true.