“How would one determine all variables have been identified? Do you mean all known variables?”
Yes, self-evidently, if you want to stand up an make a definitive statement like, “Factor X1 is causing the phenomenon”, then if you want to be taken seriously from a scientific rigour standpoint, it is incumbent upon you to be able to demonstrate that causality, and that the causal relationship isn’t also to be found to exist in Factors X2, X3, Xi… Xn.
That’s universally accepted sound scientifically practice.
“what time scale are variables determined whether they should be included in a calculation”
There should sufficient quantum of time-stamped data to be statistically significant.
Problem is, that requisite time extent can only be known on an ex-post basis, which further highlights the flaw in your definitive single determinant premise.
“I can only really give a good example of this with my field of study - biology. Say for example I was looking at explaining why certain birds inhabit a certain area, I would probably look at variables like habitat, food source etc etc, but there could be thousands of variables that I could potentially look at. How many humans frequent the area with dogs, what the salinity of the local water source is like, how frequently does it rain and the list goes on. So if I was asked, "did I look at all influencing variables ?" Well, no, because sometimes the influence would be so minor its not worth including.”
That’s not a good example; it is a terrible example. A churlish one, even.
For a number of reasons, starting with the egregious difference in observability constraints: Being able to physically observe and understand birds and measure and record their characteristics is a totally different proposition to understanding a geologically complex, terrestrial planet positioned at a certain position in a dynamic cosmos.
Biologists will know an infinitely greater proportion of the sum total of what there is to know about birds, compared to the infinitesimally small fraction of total knowledge that astronomers and astrophysicists will have about the many physical and chemical dynamics that influence the Earth… factors such as conservation of tectonic energy, volcanism, organic chemistry, geology, geothermal gradients, dynamism of the outer core, mobility of magnetic dipoles, the magnetopause, capacitance of the Allens belts, rotational and orbital angular momentum, solar and interplanetary tidal forces, axial tilt, orbital eccentricity… and then umpteen things I’ve omitted to mention or I don’t even know about.
While we are on the subject of the Sun, we haven’t even started to scratch the surface of what the Sun does and doesn’t do.
NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory has been in service for a little over a mere decade.
Astrophysicists only a mere few years ago figured out what coronal mass ejections and coronal holes are, that the Sun’s rapid changes in magnetic fields is a function of its differential rotation causing variations in the rate of convection through the chromosphere, and that helioseismology is a real thing, which they think explains solar flare intensity.
Who is to say that none of these factors, or some others like them, are causing the Sun’s luminosity to increase?
And it needn’t take much change in the Sun’s powerhouse energy output of 3.9x 10^26 Watts per second, to be impactful on Earth; just a few basis points of change in luminosity at the margin would do it.
So, to summarily dismiss this sort of alternative possibility either reflects wholesale ignorance or it borders on duplicitous argument.
I can go on if you like, but suffice to say that scientifically, our understanding our planet itself and the Solar System which influences it, amounts to a mere sprinkle of what there is to know.
So, with this novice understanding, how would one be able to make a determination as to what factors are going to be minor enough to be not worth including?
“I have said before that there are 2 established long term drivers of climate. The Sun & CO2. (I provided a source showing the correlation when you combine those two variables to the earths temperature and it matches very well might have to check the previous page)"
Totally flawed premise.
How can it be known for certain that it is only the Sun and CO2, and no other factor(s)?
Because in Nature correlation isn’t causation (any adequately trained biologist would know that).
By way of just one example, the position of the north pole – which can in fact be measured accurately - has been changing at an accelerating rate over the past the last few decades, caused – scientists think – by two massive blobs of magma that are on the move somewhere under the Arctic circle.
Nature cites studies suggesting it could be due to geomagnetic pulses from hydromagnetic waves in the core or a high-speed jet of liquid iron beneath Canada.
This change in the magnetic field of the Earth also happens to coincide with increased temperatures, just like CO2.
[Before you try to ensnare me in some kind of red herring gotcha trap, I’m not for a moment arguing that it is the acceleration in the changes of the magnetic field is the cause of the rise in temperatures. I’m not suggesting that (because if I was, I would be committing the same flawed argument you present). I am merely using this case as just oneexample of the sort of coincident factor that we don’t really understand, which could be having an impact.]
“So when you say "the sole impacting variable", no, its not the sole impacting variable. If you want to use the term human activity, sure, go ahead, but its the addition of CO2 to our atmosphere.”
Just because type words on your keyboard, doesn’t make them true.
Correlation isn’t causation. There could be other factors at work.
I mean, we know the Sun is the Earth’s heater, and yet we know almost nothing about the Sun and its characteristics; not just presently, but over the past few hundred years.
So, on what basis do you unilaterally eliminate the role of some aspect of the Sun that could very easily be a major contributor to the warming planet?
We keep going in circles as a result of your inability (or unwillingness) to confine the discussion to proper scientific due process.
(20min delay)
