Quote:
Originally Posted by flip
So I guess all that ice melting in the arctic is bogus too? With the current data available the NW passage will likely be open in the next 10-15 years.
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Sorry, but this post is just absurd. Current data shows nothing about what will happen in 10-15 years, it is entirely limited to telling us what the arctic ice extent is at the present time. Anything beyond right now is a forecast. Now, when a forecast is made, it is necessarily based on a set of assumptions. When the time-frame of a forecast grows, the probability of it being inaccurate greatly increases, because the assumptions that the forecast is based upon are more likely to be wrong.
Since we're on a hockey board, I will illustrate with a hockey example: at the start of the season Ovechkin scored 9 points in 3 games. Based upon this data, it would have been possible to forecast that he would end the season with 246 points - the available data (at the time) does nothing to show that this forecast is invalid. However, we all know that it would have been silly to expect Ovechkin to do this, because the assumptions that it is based upon are highly unlikely (i.e. no injuries or slumps, or that his production through the first 3 games was not an anomaly).
Back to the discussion about these leaked files, some of them would indicate that the assumptions made both in treating the existing data and producing forecasts were done in a way that would produce the desired results. To anyone with any scientific background (including performing a lab or two in junior high) this is simply unacceptable. The scientific process is all about trying to disprove a given hypothesis, if the hypothesis stands up through test after test, then it is considered a theory or law. Many of the scientists involved with 'proving' global warming seem to have forgotten this.