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Re:Sea Change – The Pacific's Perilous Turn by indefatigable on Friday September 13, 2013 @08:07PM (#6384032)
What situation would falsify the theory of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming? Or the theory of catastrophic anthropogenic ocean acidification?
Re:Sea Change – The Pacific's Perilous Turn by snowwrestler on Friday September 13, 2013 @08:19PM (#6384071)
Those are not two theories; they are more like complimentary consequences.

The ocean absorbs excess CO2 from the atmosphere. If it absorbs it as fast as we produce it, there will not be any warming, but a lot of acidification.

If it absorbs it much more slowly, then there will be a lot of warming but little acidification. The truth is somewhere in between.

Re:Sea Change – The Pacific's Perilous Turn by waps on Friday September 13, 2013 @10:55PM (#6384473)
What I don't get is the other part of this statement. Acids, by definition, contain chemical energy that can be harvested by life.

What is the basis for the assumption that any ocean acidification won't suddenly disappear, because some algae species decided it is now sufficiently widespread and easy to acquire to use it for lunch ?

Re:Sea Change – The Pacific's Perilous Turn by plorkyeran on Friday September 13, 2013 @11:26PM (#6384536)
That is not necessarily any less catastrophic.
Re:Sea Change – The Pacific's Perilous Turn by waps on Saturday September 14, 2013 @09:12PM (#6387785)
The whole reason to do anything about the acidification is that it's "not natural". Nature adapting to changing circumstances is the very definition of what nature is. You can't have it both ways.

Plus it won't be catastrophic at all. Some very low-level species, like algae, will adapt by changing their internal chemistry. And because we eat them (through intermediaries) we will have effectively adapted too.

And don't you believe in evolution ? If this doesn't happen, then we die, and in that case we should die. The whole point of creation is that it adapts to these sort of things. Adapt or die. Works on a large scale as well as a small one.

Re:Sea Change – The Pacific's Perilous Turn by snowwrestler on Sunday September 15, 2013 @12:54AM (#6388157)
That is not the reason to worry about acidification. The reason is that we like coral reefs, and don't want them to die out. Not only are they beautiful, they are great sources of biodiversity (good for research), and they protect many sea-level human installations like shipping harbors and city waterfronts.
Re:Sea Change – The Pacific's Perilous Turn by Steko on Friday September 13, 2013 @09:51PM (#6384306)
"What situation would falsify the theory of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming"

A rapid unexplained significant decline in global temperatures over a decade despite increasing carbon use would clearly falsify the idea of AGW.

edit: or just a theory that explains global temperature trends better than the current climate models that use anthropogenic carbon emissions. Or data that conclusively overturns the record of recent warming.

Re:Sea Change – The Pacific's Perilous Turn by 001sky on Friday September 13, 2013 @10:08PM (#6384344)
...didnt that just happen? check the data post 98

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/natu...

Re:Sea Change – The Pacific's Perilous Turn by Steko on Friday September 13, 2013 @10:26PM (#6384397)
"didnt that just happen?"

No. The claim that AGW implies that mean global temperature will increase every single year is a naked straw man.

http://ete.cet.edu/gcc/style/images/uploads/GlobalSurfaceTem...

Re:Sea Change – The Pacific's Perilous Turn by refurb on Friday September 13, 2013 @11:48PM (#6384578)
Ok, but what would need to happen to demonstrate that global warming is not happening? If the warming stopped or reversed over a 5 year period? 10? 20? 50? Never?
Re:Sea Change – The Pacific's Perilous Turn by Steko on Saturday September 14, 2013 @12:36AM (#6384676)
"to demonstrate that global warming is not happening? If the warming stopped or reversed"

You can't stop/reverse something that's not happening, that's not even coherent.

If it's not happening you need better data showing it isn't happening or reasons why the current data is being massively misread.

If, all else being equal[1], global warming is happening and then stopped/reversed without anthropogenic carbon emissions going down then the case for rejecting AGW gets stronger. You'll need a replacement theory/model though. At what point does the new model become more convincing then the current one? Scientific consensus might be a good starting point.

[1] obviously if a bunch of volcanos or nuclear winter are responsible for the cooling that's not going to falsify the ideas behind AGW. For example, cooling in the 1940's.

"5 year period? 10? 20? 50?"

How much reversing are we talking about? We have 100+ years of warming to reverse. The fact that it's hard to easily falsify AGW isn't because AGW is unfalsifiable, it's because the science and data supporting AGW is enormous.

Re:Sea Change – The Pacific's Perilous Turn by refurb on Saturday September 14, 2013 @05:17PM (#6387101)
* You can't stop/reverse something that's not happening, that's not even coherent. *

No need to get hostile. I was referring to two possible outcomes: (1) global warming was never occurring (2) global warming was happening, but for what ever reason stopped or even reversed.

Make sense now?

Re:Sea Change – The Pacific's Perilous Turn by 001sky on Saturday September 14, 2013 @12:49AM (#6384697)
You can't stop/reverse something that's not happening, that's not even coherent.

You'll need a replacement theory/model though.

Wait, what??

Re:Sea Change – The Pacific's Perilous Turn by Steko on Saturday September 14, 2013 @02:10AM (#6384843)
What follows is a brief outline of my post above:

I. points out incoherence. {first he says show it isn't happening, then he assumes it's happening but it stops or reverses}

II. you could show warming is not happening this way (data)

III. if it was warming and then started reversing falsification might happen this way (new theory/model)

IV. additional considerations about falsification

Re:Sea Change – The Pacific's Perilous Turn by graeme on Friday September 13, 2013 @08:30PM (#6384107)
I could equally ask, how do you falsify the theory of 'things continue to be fairly ok'. I'm not trying to be facetious.

I'm not sure absolute falsification is meaningful with this kind of prediction. We only have one system, very hard to falsify.

We can falsify elements of evidence which suggest one planetary state over another. That's about it.

Re:Sea Change – The Pacific's Perilous Turn by indefatigable on Friday September 13, 2013 @09:19PM (#6384230)
I'm not sure absolute falsification is meaningful with this kind of prediction.

Then it's not science.

Re:Sea Change – The Pacific's Perilous Turn by msellout on Friday September 13, 2013 @11:01PM (#6384487)
Whether or not an activity is science does not affect the need to take action.
Re:Sea Change – The Pacific's Perilous Turn by CamperBob2 on Saturday September 14, 2013 @12:08AM (#6384614)
Well, yes, it does, or we'll lurch from one imaginary crisis to the next.