Where did the monsoon go?

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Rollie Free
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Re: Where did the monsoon go?

Post by Rollie Free »

DeTour wrote: Thu Aug 22, 2019 11:47 am I wish all you geniuses would stop arguing climate change and religion, and just tell me if it’s going to rain next week when I’m in Kilpacker Basin.
You're right. I personally apologize. It really isn't the purpose of this forum.
"Quicker than I can tell it, my hands failed to hold, my feet slipped, and down I went with almost an arrow’s rapidity. An eternity of thought, of life, of death, wife, and home concentrated on my mind in those two seconds. Fortunately for me, I threw my right arm around a projecting boulder which stood above the icy plain some two or three feet." Rev. Elijah Lamb
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Re: Where did the monsoon go?

Post by Dayute »

mcmanusj wrote: Thu Aug 22, 2019 11:40 am
12ersRule wrote: Thu Aug 22, 2019 11:27 am
nunns wrote: Thu Aug 22, 2019 11:21 am Just to take the other side of the argument:
There is a book written in the 1970s (?) by Thomas Kuhn called The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. This book basically says that in any era in a field of science, there is a predominant paradigm. Scientists who are instructed in that paradigm usually adopt it, and then spend their entire careers finding data to fit that paradigm. Paradigm shifts occur not when those scientists change paradigms, but rather when they die and new scientists ascend to power that have a different paradigm.
Very interesting way to look at science.

Sean Nunn
So the infrastructure of the scientific community is identical to that of a church then?

:-k
Probably not - the scientific community never covered up the systematic molestation of hundreds of young children.
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Burkart
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Re: Where did the monsoon go?

Post by Burkart »

TomPierce wrote: Thu Aug 22, 2019 1:02 pm
nunns wrote: Thu Aug 22, 2019 11:21 am
shelly+ wrote: Thu Aug 22, 2019 8:09 am

the problem for scientists is that there are a lot of people who don't accept the paradigm in which they are experts. so, in the minds of those who do not accept science as a means to understand the world, the collective agreement of experts is pointless. scientists might want to find a different avenue to convince.
Just to take the other side of the argument:
There is a book written in the 1970s (?) by Thomas Kuhn called The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. This book basically says that in any era in a field of science, there is a predominant paradigm. Scientists who are instructed in that paradigm usually adopt it, and then spend their entire careers finding data to fit that paradigm. Paradigm shifts occur not when those scientists change paradigms, but rather when they die and new scientists ascend to power that have a different paradigm.
Very interesting way to look at science.

Sean Nunn
Hmm...Sean, I respectfully believe you might be misstating the premise of Kuhn's work (and yes, I've read the book). The classic example of a Kuhnian paradigm shift is the Earth-centric model of the cosmos. That paradigm shifted, in large part, due to the work of Kepler and Copernicus, who came forward and presented new evidence to the contrary, evidence based on the improvement of telescope technology pioneered by the Dutch (Huygens, specifically). Another more recent example of a paradigm shift is Einstein's work on cosmology, e.g. the bendable nature of light by gravity, etc. His work was eventually supported by physical, observable evidence. To suggest that scientists follow an existing paradigm by rote, with no critical analysis, and that such paradigms change only when the adherents die off, well...I respectfully dissent.

PS: Is anyone going to rebut the evidence in the link posted by rijaca? 800,000 years of physical data (ice cores). Seems like some people are ignoring the most compelling evidence (and not directing that at you, Sean). Just my opinion.
Right on. It's important to remember that seeing science through the lens of paradigm shifts is not an inherently relativist position; paradigm shifts may be helped along by generational change, but they are primarily affected by the new paradigm's ability to explain phenomena that couldn't be explained by the old paradigm while still retaining the greater part of the knowledge accumulated under that old paradigm. In other words, the paradigm that prevails is always superior to the paradigm that fails, even if the process of its adoption was not entirely rational.

It is true, however, that there will always be a certain amount of rote acceptance by scientists under the new paradigm, because you can't continue making incremental advances if you are constantly questioning the ground you stand on. Some of this rote acceptance will inevitably be counterproductive (see the many biology papers that attribute every anomalous observation to climate change without seriously considering any alternatives). That being said, modern climate theory is bolstered, not diminished, by the idea of paradigm shifts. When Svante Arrhenius first hypothesized that human CO2 emissions could influence the global climate, the idea was not well received at all; only through almost a century of debate did the theory finally gain acceptance among the critical scientific community. Scientists were skeptical of anthropogenic climate change long before Rollie Free or any of us ever heard of the concept - but they were convinced by the evidence.
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Re: Where did the monsoon go?

Post by nunns »

TomPierce wrote: Thu Aug 22, 2019 1:02 pm
Hmm...Sean, I respectfully believe you might be misstating the premise of Kuhn's work (and yes, I've read the book). The classic example of a Kuhnian paradigm shift is the Earth-centric model of the cosmos. That paradigm shifted, in large part, due to the work of Kepler and Copernicus, who came forward and presented new evidence to the contrary, evidence based on the improvement of telescope technology pioneered by the Dutch (Huygens, specifically). Another more recent example of a paradigm shift is Einstein's work on cosmology, e.g. the bendable nature of light by gravity, etc. His work was eventually supported by physical, observable evidence. To suggest that scientists follow an existing paradigm by rote, with no critical analysis, and that such paradigms change only when the adherents die off, well...I respectfully dissent.

PS: Is anyone going to rebut the evidence in the link posted by rijaca? 800,000 years of physical data (ice cores). Seems like some people are ignoring the most compelling evidence (and not directing that at you, Sean). Just my opinion.
I hear what you are saying. I probably simplified Kuhn's ideas. It has been a decade or more since I read that book.
Good to know I am not the only person in history who has been Thomas Kuhn.

Sean Nunn
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Re: Where did the monsoon go?

Post by SchralpTheGnar »

When were you Thomas Kuhn?
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Re: Where did the monsoon go?

Post by Scott P »

Back to the original post, I climbed Snowmass Sunday/Monday. In the afternoon, we ate lunch at the summit with completely blue skies. No signs of thunderstorms were in sight. People backpacking the Four Pass Loop said they had only days of sunshine.
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Re: Where did the monsoon go?

Post by Dave B »

Scott P wrote: Tue Aug 27, 2019 2:36 pm Back to the original post, I climbed Snowmass Sunday/Monday. In the afternoon, we ate lunch at the summit with completely blue skies. No signs of thunderstorms were in sight. People backpacking the Four Pass Loop said they had only days of sunshine.
One of the sites I do some research at (near Ault) just had the driest July in the 18 years we've been keeping records. August was on track to be the same, but one storm about ten days ago dropped 1.5" and pushed it past the second lowest.
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Re: Where did the monsoon go?

Post by Dave B »

One last revival of this thread to celebrate those lying bastards at NOAA getting caught red handed in their propaganda.

Image
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Re: Where did the monsoon go?

Post by nunns »

Yeah, because hurricanes didn't exist until recently.

Sean Nunn
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Re: Where did the monsoon go?

Post by timisimaginary »

guess that answers that question: the monsoon retired and went to FL with the other retirees.
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Re: Where did the monsoon go?

Post by Scott P »

Now that September is here, it appears that we may actually get some monsoon action. It looks like widespread t-storms are forecasted over much of Colorado this weekend.
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Re: Where did the monsoon go?

Post by ECF55 »

With the chance that this conversation quickly goes off the rails (not my intent)...I'm an East Coaster and the West is obviously in the middle of a significant drought, but it appears from news headlines that the Colorado Monsoon has resurfaced and afternoon thunderstorm activity is occurring in earnest. Is it all hype, or is Colorado finally getting some summertime precipitation this year?
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