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Old School Data Mining, Maritime Style?
jason0000042 writes "The BBC is reporting on Cliwoc, the Climatological Database for the World's Oceans, which pulls data about climate change from 18th and 19th Century sailing ships' logbooks. It's like a window in time that could help us better understand global climate change, if they can decipher the olde timey language of the 1750's. Personally, I can't wait to know if we're going to melt down, or alternatively, have an ice age."
Nowe we canne fynde oute about the Dragons and mighty Sea-Serpents alsoe. I, for Onne, can't Waite to fynde oute if they melted down, or what.
for great justice
Did anyone read that as "Old School Data Mining, MARTIAN Style?"
I pictured rovers being smashed into a database.
welcomm our new antique spelling overlords. I have muche to learne.
Infuriate left and right
Ye landlubbers will never find me gold, no matter how hard ye search me logs!
I'll keel-haul ye varmits!
-Blackbeard
Free your ecomony and enact the FairTax
Personally, I can't wait to know if we're going to melt down, or alternatively, have an ice age.
Unfortunatelly the data sample being studied is insufficient to give you an answer for two main reasons:
1. The data is more complete for the Atlantic Ocean. A big chunk of the Pacific Ocean is left out simply because the most interesting travel routes were concentrated on the South Pacific.
2. 100 years of weather records are insufficient to make accurate predictions of global climate patterns.
I, for once, would be grateful if /. editors and contributors refrained of making comments like these in the stories.
R.if they can decipher the olde timey language of the 1750's.
I'll help bridge the language gap in words all slashdotters can understand
Yar! Shiver me timbers matey, there be a seaman on the poop deck = first post, nautical style!
Avast me scurvys = why the hell didn't we bring any women on this 12 week voyage? My nuts feel like cannonballs!
Could just be a normal cycle in the earth long term weather. We are still technically in an ice age after all. The world has been much hotter than it is today and warming over the past couple of centuries does not necessarily mean the end of the world.
Let's do both!
I want a new world. I think this one is broken.
Expedition to Tanzania seeks clues about ancient climate
http://www.smu.edu/newsinfo/releases/99355a.html
Hunt is on for ancient 'global warming' documents
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_787743.html
Actually, current models look like we're going to get both.
The basic gyst is that the warming melts Greenland. This diverts the gulf stream; plunging Europe into an Ice Age. [It also cools the NE of North America, but Europe really gets it.]
The average temperature is rising, that doesn't mean it's getting warmer everywhere.
This is not a political statement. This is not legal advice. It's a frick'n Slasdot post. However: I'm Running For
...the current data being collected by Volunteer Observing Ships today. See: http://www.etl.noaa.gov/programs/oceanobs/ for details. Basically the program combines physical data with old fashioned observation.
Januarye 17, 1787
Anchored at Shanghai bye night, traded opium for much filver, failing for Hong Kong on the tide. Temperature 65.
Januarye 21, 1787
Anchored at Hong Kong, but were vifited by cuftomef officialf. Snuck up a river by night to fell more opium to chinefe for silver. Got very nice candelabra for the wife. Temperature 61.
January 24, 1787
Macau not welcoming our bufineff, but fnuck up a river by night and fold laft of opium for more filver. Blimey, what racket, time to head back to Tonkin. Temperature 62.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
If they are worried about the Great Ocean Conveyor giving out in the Labrador Seas due to an increase in freshwater runnoff, (there is evidence to suppor that this happened during one of the last ice ages, when a ice dam broke and billions of gallons of fresh water dumped into the North Atlantic, shutting down the Gulf Stream, and turinng a gradual thaw into a deep freeze,) there is a simple solution, should this be found to be the problem.
Dump lots of dense, salty crud in the North Atlantic!
This will help keep the water sinking, drawing more warm water up from the Gulf, and incedentally keep Europe warm. Where to get this water densification material? Why good old fashion pollution, of course.
Heavy metal salts, and any industrial ionic or polar goop that readily disolves in water can be spread by the tanker load accross the Labrador and Greenland Seas, increasing the density of water, and compensating for the freshwater runnoff that is occuring as a result of global warming.
The normal quote in industry is "The solution to pollution is dilution" Well, in this case, "The solution to dilution is pollution!"
Is a couple of centuries sufficient to spot trends in climate change? Given that the ice age was over a period of thousands of years, it seems difficult to imagine that the climate fluctuations of a few hundred years is of sufficient length to form an accurate view of long term change. My confidence still lies in the drilled cores of Antartica (and i readily admit i have limited knowledge about the subject to make any reasonable judgement, and was too lazy to google enough information to pretend i do).
There must be some trick to reading logs that I haven't figured out yet. For example, I just read my log and it said that the climate is going to be long, brown, smelly, squishy, and somewhat moist. Followed by a localized cyclonic oceanic disturbance, and a short trip down a narrow pipe.
Get your stinking paws off me you damn dirty ape
So what you are asking are what effect human activities (air/sea pollution, cutting down rain forests) have on current climate, and on the climate in the next few decades. Most scientists, except Bush croonies paid by the oil industry, agrees that pollution has increased temperature.
Most likely, it'll be your grandchildren that will see the worst of the effect. Except, of course, countries that is very flat on just above sea level, like Bangladesh, are already hit. But then again, poor people in the third world does not matter, eh?
People have this "The Sky is Falling" mentality of current weather, what with the ozone and pollution, my God, all the ice caps will melt! But did you know that there is a natural cycle with global warming, and every now and then the ice caps DO melt? Did you know that in fact we are in that part of the natural cycle? The next thing you know, German cockroaches will be declared an endangered species!
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
The weather has been demonstrated conclusively to be a chaotic system. One feature common in chaotic systems, easily seen in the Lorenz simulation (e.g. in your screen saver) is that when the system's oscillations get increasingly large (a little moreso each cycle), this is prelude to a change in mode to a different attractor, where all recent history has no predictive value at all.
Imagine what would happen if the Gulf Stream decided to flow on a different path, e.g. because of the massive salinity decrease around the north pole. The end of agriculture in northwestern Europe is just a beginning. Anybody who thinks that ocean currents can only flow the way they do now is very silly indeed.
Funny, lots of shipping company executives are excited about the prospect of driving across the north pole.
if they can decipher the olde timey language of the 1750's
;)
Isnt the fact we cant even decipher 1750's English a testament to our inferiority at predicting the weather.... not to speak of the fact Ive never known a single weather reporter to give a accurate forcast of the weather.. well now thats where I slip up
Gotta love this weather thing.
moo
we need to at least *prepare* for it if we cannot do anything else.
The thing that the "we're all going to die!" extremists miss, is that the changes will happen over a very long period of time. e.g. In 5 years, the shore may creep up 10 inches. If it starts becoming a problem, you'll find that governments will start building dykes, or digging shoreline trenches to keep the water at bay.
To anyone who thinks this sort of terraforming is a big deal, you need to take a trip to visit Superior-Deluth on the border of Wisconsin and Michigan. You can see quite a few Army Core of Engineers' trawlers on the water. These are used to regularly dig out deposits of dirt and soot to keep the harbor deep enough for the thousand footers to sail and dock.
As you said, humans are quite adept at adjusting the environment to meet our needs. The Earth will be fine. Worry more about poisoning ourselves or blowing ourselves to kingdom-come.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Actually, they kept very complete records, as was required to establish best times of year to sail and what to expect. 100+ years of that information can help indicate if there's a trend or we are simply seeing spikes.
El Nino has been considered as evidence of global warming, however, there are records of extreme rainfalls along the west coast of California back in the late 1800's over a period of years. Examine what was known about volcanic activity or anything else which might alter the general global climate and you get a better picture.
Interesting reading this morning was a study of the 1811-1812 New Madrid earthquakes. Based upon newspaper accounts the character of the three great quakes could be assumed to a fairly accurate degree.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Seriously... this is the title of the Caltech Michelen Lecture, 1/17/2003 by Michael Crichton.
...and...
Since this discussion will lead to the inevitable global warming flap, this paper offers a good viewpoint on the issue (although I disagree with his assertion that SETI is a religion - it isn't - it's an experiment).
A few quotes:
Regarding Sagan's claims of nuclear winter:
Although Richard Feynman was characteristically blunt, saying, "I really don't think these guys know what they're talking about,"
In my book, if Feynam said it, it was almost certianly true. I used to go to his lectures at Hughes Malibu Research Center and it was an amazing experience.
I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had.
The only good weather is bad weather.
on the history channel had a special kinda relating to this. The episode What sank the armada? had a scientist researching why the spanish were not prepared for a naval battle (defeat of the spanish armada). The scientist was researching the log books and trying to recalculate areas of low and high pressure. pretty interesting.
Watch out for thunderstorms and hurricanes in future decades
I think this is a weather forecast we can't go wrong with! Would it be safe to say that there is a 100% chance of hail at some time during these future decades as well?
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
r stop to think that maybe we shouldn't play god everytime. We screwed it up and you think we can fix it just as easily. The real problem is that we humans seem to be good at only one thing... breeding like rabbits. There are over 6 Billion people and in many parts of the world we can't adiquately feed ourselves.
*cough*bullshit*cough*
You do realize that the overpopulation fears of the 1970's never materialized? The population was supposed to grow to over 7 billion during the 80's. It didn't. In fact, many countries are depopulating due to the modern attitudes toward having children.
Most of the people out there who are starving are in countries where no economy has been imposed to foster the supply of goods. We have more than enough food here in the U.S. to feed most of Africa, but there's no economic incentive to do so. Throwing monetary "aid" at the problem only makes those people dependent on our kindness instead of improving their life-style.
I should probably also point out the tremendous amount of undeveloped land in Russia and China. Russia has two major cities: Moscow and St. Petersburg. Most people living outside of those areas are poor farmers that perform their duties with the equivalent of 1850's technology. Many of the tractors and combines they do have, are built to double as war vehicles! (Gotta love the thinking the Communists had.) Thus, everyone wants to live in Moscow. They only go to St. Petersburg if they can't get to Moscow.
China isn't much better. Everyone is crowded into the cities while hundreds of thousands of acres of land are left to be tended by townsfolk who haven't seen much technological progress in 400+ years.
If you look at U.S. history (as a comparison), land development has been fostered by capitalism. The government's grant of homesteads encouraged individuals to develop land for profit. Thus very little usable land has been allowed to sit like it has elsewhere.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
I'm not an expert but...
The tools that they used were briliantly simple and delivered reasonable accuracy as long as they were well treated. Even today, the sextent is used to confirm the locations of bouys and etc because it can independantly confirm the GPS reading. Windspeed was guaged with a spinning cup or a paddle. The spinning cup method depends on the accuracy of the count and time, and the paddle method depends on the accuracy of the paddle's measurements and it's precise weight. Since the ships were moving too, the ship's speed had to be known (which was calculated by latitude and longitude and time).
By the 1700's all these measurements were reasonably accurate. Maps made back then were already quite accurate and mariners were able to sail to pretty small islands because they knew exactly where to look. Their Navigation was a real science and required accurate time keeping and accurate measurments.
I have been watching Star Trek Since I was a kid, starting with the Original Series through the latest "Enterprise".
It seems that Star Trek inventions become real inventions 20 to 30 years after the original broadcast date. This is not hard-tested theory, but something I am researching.
By my reconning, the weather control systems mentioned in TNG (circa 1995) will be implimented sometime between 2015 and 2025. So as long as we can keep global warming from getting out of hand until them, we should be cool. I mean cool as in "rad" or "ok", not temperature-wise.
Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds. - Albert Einstein
According to the guy this causes one of the biggest uncertainties in todays climate models! They try to compensate this by fudging with the so called bucket correction factor.
karma police: arrest this man, he talks in maths; he buzzes like a fridge, he's like a detuned radio. [radiohead]
You can believe all you want that we can always just sprawl out more and more, but think of the consequences, deforestation, extinction of species, contamination of water sources, etc...
Oh, cry me a river. We change the environment just by existing. The primary difference between the way we change it and animals change it, is animals find their niche for adding balance, and stop there. Humans continue to change their environments more and more, but as a price must learn to complete the cycle.
Thus "deforestation" has become a scientific process of cutting down older trees and encouraging the growth of young ones. Nature would have eventually wiped a whole area out with a forest fire instead.
Extinction of species sucks. It's also a natural process. When the balance that an animal brings to nature is superseded, they are no longer to change the environment to meet their own needs. By preserving them, we are actually changing our environment more. Is preserving them then a bad thing? I don't think so. You never know when another change in our environment would foster the reintroduction of a species.
Contamination of water sources is an age old problem. Fresh water in its natural state would never have been able to support the number of humans alive today. As a process of changing our environment, we've build damns, pumps and water purification centers to provide enough fresh water wherever it's needed. (Except California, where people seem to enjoy polluting and eco-freaks get in the way of actual solutions. Don't even get me started on how every technology to them is the wrong one.)
The way we do things in the US will not always work in other parts of the world.
This is true. I used the U.S. as an example, because it worked. Very few other countries with undeveloped land have tried much of anything.
Secondly it's not just a matter of food it's also waste.
Guess what? It came out of the Earth in the first place. There's no reason why it can't go back. The bigger picture is that we're learning to better deal with our waste. Recycling is a good step, but cheap energy could bring down the costs of waste processing. In fact, if energy were cheap enough, we could break everything down to its base components and either resell it or reintroduce it to our environment in its original state.
Not that any of that will happen as long as nuclear technology is seen as "EEEEVIL".
Thirdly while the rate of growth has slowed it has not stopped. The world's population is still rising and we are running out of places to go.
Got numbers? I'll bet I can show that the rate of growth has slowed considerably and that projections could be made for when a worldwide depopulation would start.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Any even passing knowledge of history, just little old human history, will show you the sorts of catastrophic social changes that occur as a result of serious climate change. The Mfecane in SE Africa was a massive migration caused by climate change there: Shaka Zulu was the end result. Krakatoa erupting around 535 A.D., affecting the global climate for a handful of years, may have indirectly caused "plague, famine, death, great migration, the fall of the great Mexican city of Teotihuacan, the Anglo-Saxon victory over the Celts, and may even have played a role in the rise of Islam."
Global climate change will make the world a much more volatile place, and that doesn't just mean floods and tornados. Would we like to have a nuclear power like Russia, or the United States, go through catastrophic climate change? No, that would be a bad thing. It doesn't take any imagination at all to see what the potential effects might be -- it just takes the barest respect for history.
This ain't something we can hide our heads in the sand over. But as long as a facile argument will soothe us back to sleep, we'll try to ignore it, best we can.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Your comparisions overlook a lot of critical details. For example:
You define deforestation as cutting of old trees and encouraging growth of new ones, then imply this is little different than the whole area being wiped out by a forest fire. There are many misconceptions in that opinion.
1) This is the US model of "deforestation", whereas most deforestation happens in rainforests where the forest is clear cut and burned to ash, and the ash then provides nutrients for crops to grow. If this is just a small patch in the middle of a thriving rainforest, no problem -- when the ash is exhausted and the nutrient poor soil won't grow crops, it is abandoned and the rainforest regrows quickly. But most of the time it is massive deforestation instead.
2) Forest fires in nature don't "wipe out a whole area" because they naturally happen frequently enough that you don't get the enormous quantities of brush and dead matter that you find in out managed forests. This is the stuff that burns much more quickly and easily than an old growth tree. Mature trees typically survive forest fires, whereas saplings and brush are consumed. So cutting down the old trees to encourage growth of young ones is just the opposite of what you need to prevent unnaturally intense forest fires.
3) In most cases, when a national or old-growth forest is logged, the variety of species that grow there are replaced by a much smaller number, so the genetic diversity of that forest is reduced, increasing the likelihood that a parasite or pest can inflict irreversable damage on that forest.
Next, you also argue that extinction of species has been happening for a long time and that makes it normal, natural and okay. This overlooks the key issues of rates of extinction. Until the 1900s, extinction happened at a very low rate. A lot of extinction even before then is blamed on human activity (fosil evidence suggests the Polynesians caused extinction of about 50 of the 98 species of birds in Hawaii in the 1200 years before European contact in 1778, for example). Nevertheless, the rates of extinction today are far greater. 34 species went extinct in the US alone over the past decade, for example.
Finally, there's your delightful argument that [waste] "came out of the Earth in the first place. There's no reason why it can't just go back". This completely ignores the fact that one of the major results of industrialization is the concentration of wastes and the creation of entirely new forms of waste. Examples:
1) Mercury is a neurotoxin that has been known to cause damage through skin contact and inhalation of fumes (the phrase "mad as a hatter" refers to the effects of long term use of mercury for producing felt. Mercury is not found in concentrated liquid form ever in nature, it is extracted from cinnabar, a red rock.
2) Petroleum products. Plastic is made from oil extracted from far underground, yet much of it ends up in shallow landfills. Gasoline doesn't occur in nature and it's combustion produces things such as ozone that are otherwise found in much lower concentrations in the lower atmosphere.
3) Fusion by-products. Enriched uranium and it's ilk are not found in nature.
This are just obvious examples of things that aren't just "put back", and can't be.
I do agree though that we are learning more about dealing with our wastes. Unfortunately, we aren't applying that learning in most cases. And of course, we shout down as "eco-freaks" those who have the temerity to suggest that technologies that produce less wastes are better than technologies to clean up waste.
If this is just a small patch in the middle of a thriving rainforest, no problem -- when the ash is exhausted and the nutrient poor soil won't grow crops, it is abandoned and the rainforest regrows quickly. But most of the time it is massive deforestation instead.
Interestingly, there was an article a while back that suggested that the reason the South American rain forests grow as well as they do is because early indians cultivated the soil for farming. A similar situation is believed to be true for North America as well.
So cutting down the old trees to encourage growth of young ones is just the opposite of what you need to prevent unnaturally intense forest fires.
I'm not so sure about that. While younger trees are often consumed (and nature obviously reseeds), my understanding was that it was the dead wood that provided the fuel. By logging an area, we tend to remove the dead wood before it ignites.
Next, you also argue that extinction of species has been happening for a long time and that makes it normal, natural and okay. This overlooks the key issues of rates of extinction.
I'm hardly arguing that we aren't indirectly causing the extinctions. I'm arguing that we are changing the environment to meet our needs, and as a result, we are taking over the processes that used to be provided by various wildlife. As we take over those natural processes, the wildlife that depended on that place in the eco-system no longer has a home and goes extinct. But as I said, we are further changing our environment by preserving those animals which would otherwise disappear.
Finally, there's your delightful argument that [waste] "came out of the Earth in the first place. There's no reason why it can't just go back". This completely ignores the fact that one of the major results of industrialization is the concentration of wastes and the creation of entirely new forms of waste.
With enough energy, we can restore anything we use back to a natural state. That includes "Enriched" Uranium byproducts, which can either be reused, or reprocessed back into stable elements. (Processes exist to degrade radioisotopes into isotopes with a half-life of minutes. These expend a great deal of energy, then become an inert chemical.) BTW, that's FISSION, not Fusion. Fusion is still a Pie-in-the-Sky energy source. Even if fusion is finally accomplished, it still won't be as "clean" as everyone makes it out to be.
And of course, we shout down as "eco-freaks" those who have the temerity to suggest that technologies that produce less wastes are better than technologies to clean up waste.
You can only squeeze so much water out of a rock. Energy efficiency is the goal of any engine producer. However, there are hard ceilings on how efficient a given process can be. Interestingly enough, extremely high energy density processes (such as fission) tend to be cleaner than less efficient processes. However, the more energy you have, the more cautious you have to be with it. I label "Eco-freaks" as annoying anti-progressives, because they tend to hate any and all technology. They keep saying, "make the existing stuff 100% clean!" Sorry, it isn't going to happen. We have to move to processes such as Fission which produce bountiful energy, but are seen as "evil" by eco-freaks because of how dangerous they are.
Our choices boil down to:
1. Improve our technology and continue to improve the "eco-loop" we took over as a species.
2. Live like wildlife and be subject to the whims of the environment.
As a minor comment, the dinosaurs were in the second category.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
No, he wasn't. Amsterdam Vallon is a famous troll (is he ekrout or $$$$$exyGal?). Was he working for the NWS at the same time he was "a consultant for the Israelis"? And try clicking on the link he's got for Slauhgter College. There's no such server, no such college.
"I'm so moist I'm sticking to the leather." -Kermit the Frog on The Late Late Show