Simulate "The Day After Tomorrow" On Your PC

kpearson writes "climateprediction.net, a distributed computing project to predict Earth's climate 50 years from now, has a new add-on project to study THC slowdown (how climate might change as CO2 changes in the event of a decrease in the strength of the thermohaline circulation). This kind of rapid, extreme climate change is shown in the movie The Day After Tomorrow, in which New York City is treated to a 10,000-year-long ski season. Anyone can download the project's client software and participate in the simulation. climateprediction.net was previously mentioned in the September 13, 2003 article Distributed Computing and Climate Change." Clients are available for various varieties of Microsoft Windows, but none are listed for other OSes.

Comments

THC slowdown

[quigonn]

I always experience THC slowdown after I smoked some good pot. No need for a simulation here, absolutely not.

Re:THC slowdown

[Anonymous Coward]

Now we can improve it using the simulations!

Re:THC Slowdown

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean first pot, right? :D

Re:THC slowdown

[Brendan Byrd]

Same thoughts here. In fact, everybody's thoughts. One would think that the planet would benefit from increased levels of THC :)

Re:THC slowdown

[Anonymous Coward]

How come everyone is so obsessed with female plants -- you can even get "100% female seeds" {obtained from a hermaphrodite plant} in most outlets -- when the almost-undisputed best form of dope is pollen? Am I missing something? Is this a conspiracy to keep us from getting our hands on pollen? Or is what the hashman calls "pollen" not really pollen?

Re:THC slowdown

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes my friend, you're missing something. The "pollen" that your friendly hashman refers to is most likely polm. The finest morrocan hashes are polm. I am unsure as to the genesis of the word, but it could be related to palm, or else is an indigenous north african word.

There are varieties of hash called pollen I believe, but they are "brand names" much like "northern lights" or "silver pearl" are to skunk herb.

Your dealer is either using the name in this way, or has bastardised polm. It seems to be a commonish error. But, now you know...

The reason why 100% female plants are preferred to males is that they are much stronger and more productive. The ladies give us concentrated trichomes containing high levels of THC/CBD, whereas the males contain little of the active ingredients and give us a headache and a weak buzz.

So, spread the word brother.! No more pollen. Polm!

Re:THC slowdown

[Haydn Fenton]

These guys are a little late with the THC slowdown project, us stoners had one years ago (Download Here), yet they all call us the slow ones, pffft!

And remember, 420 is ten times better than the meaning of life :-p

Re:THC slowdown

[Anonymous Coward]

So what is this "polm" of which you speak?

My own experimentation suggests that the male plant does seem to contain some THC, and not much difference in levels before maturity {though I have the dual problems of insufficient data points and lack of a truly reliable assay to contend with, on top of the inherent uncertainty in any experimentation involving psychedelic phenomena}.

Re:THC slowdown

[rastamutz]

Let the climate get a little bit hotter, and my plants will grown in the winter... great yikes (altitude = 50 metres,.... ehrr... shittt)

Re:THC slowdown

[Anonymous Coward]

I was going to moderate, but I'll respond. Basically, male plants don't produce 'buds', they just have the reproductive organs which will pollinate a female plant thereby destroying what are called buds... (because they turn into fruits.) If you can get unisex seeds, you still need to check the sexes of the plants once they get old enough. There are tons of pictures out there if you need more info.

I only know this from my 3 visits to the Netherlands, as I have never seen any marijuana in the US. Ever.

THC Slowdown

[Anonymous Coward]

I would have had first post, if it wasn't for THC Slowdown!

I you have to wonder that

[Ckwop]

.. if back at the time of the dinosaurs all this carbon was in the air.. then how can be releasing it be the end of "life as we know it".. The Dinosaurs did quite well :)

Personally, It's my opinion that the earth is a pretty robust system and our climate models will be rather wrong.

Simon.

Re:I you have to wonder that

[loyalsonofrutgers]

Yes, those dinosaurs did great... which is why they are... extinct... and all. Yeah.

Re:I you have to wonder that

[richie2000]

"life as we know it".. The Dinosaurs did quite well :)

I for one welcome our new/old dinosaur overlords!

Joking aside, the argument that the earth has been experiencing major differences in temperatures in the past and that this is normal and all is very fascinating except for one small fact: We're humans. We don't like having volcanoes in our back yards, ferns all over our lawns, hurricanes ripping our houses to shreds and brontosaurs trampling our offspring. We're kinda picky that way.

Re:I you have to wonder that

[NickeB]

Indeed, after a few measly million years on earth.

Re:I you have to wonder that

[nmoog]

I agree that the earth has a pretty robust system. Once it can kill off all those pesky humans it will take no time to bring itself back to good health, and enjoy the good life for another few million years.

Re:I you have to wonder that

[Theresa1]

I completely agree. The truth is - we don't understand shit about climate. So why do we assume the worst?

Re:I you have to wonder that

[kd4evr]

Hmm...

Earth may have a self-regulating system we do not yet (fully) understand. When you say its a robust system, you are right. Our climate models may well be worth squat, right again.

Dinosaurs did quite well for quite a long time, until they could...

However, the issue is not whether human interventions can fully derail earth's climate or only tackle the parameters a bit.
The point is, that the changes in the weather we as a civilisation started will most certainly affect our way of life as we know it. Human is considered the most adaptable species, present in all kinds of environments. I cannot argue whether we are going to drive ourselves into extinction or not by what we did to the climate, but surely life (and survival) in either dry deserts, frozen glaciers or stormy swamps has little to do with the current trends in economy. There is a vast difference between a habitable and comfortable climate, you see...

Dont start the IPO on that dino-breeding company just yet ;-)

Re:I you have to wonder that

[hey!]

The new form of anthropocentrism displaces the paternal role of God into systems: whether it be the Market or the Biosphere or Climate. If so, these are blind, impersonal gods that follow their own agenda: they even aware of our existence, much less are they working for our benefit.

Systems do have negative feedback behavior, which create short term stability, but they also have positive feedback behavior which can create rapid shifts and oscillations. We should be aware of this and act accordingly. While its fairly clear that people are sufficiently adaptible that they will survive practicaly anything, our culture, economic systems and populations can in fact go extinct very easily.

Inevitably, climate will shift without anthropogenic help. The real question is whether anthropogenic factors can tip it earlier than it would otherwise? If so, then it would be wise to buy time. If not, then we should make hay while the sun shines and store it away to carry us in lean times.

Re:I you have to wonder that

[Decaff]

The earth and life are robust, but we aren't. Most of human civilisation has occurred within a 10,000 year period since the last glaciation in which ice sheets covered much of the Northern hemisphere. The climate has been particularly and unusually stable for the past millenium. This is not going to last. If (as is very likely) the ice returns, or if global warming stirs up the climate, millions could die and many more will be forced to migrate. In terms of life as a whole on our planet, what we do matters little in the long term, but we could, and probably will, make things very unpleasant for ourselves.

Re:I you have to wonder that

[Epistax]

What I'd like to know is which animal on this planet will (would have) evolve into the next "Big Thing"? If it weren't for our timely sentience, many species we've killed over the years would still be around (mammoth, anyone?). My point is: is this planet at an evolutionary dead end until a disaster strikes, or is there a contender to be top eater? Could humanity be considered the natural disaster that they need?

Re:I you have to wonder that

[ch-chuck]

As they say, everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it (I think that saying must be over 100 years old, before worries over CO2 became fashionable). I have magazines from 1927 where nutcases write in, sure that the unusually wet weather we're having is due to all these newfangled radio transmitting stations going up - you can't pump all those kilowatts into the aether w/o some damage to the earth!

Anyway, as someone who has had a hurricane in his back yard and lived to talk about it, what I'm afraid of is what primitive superstitious corrective actions you are going to take to 'fix' the human/earth balance and restore reality to the garden of eden state. If history is any guide it will probably involve pagen sacrifices of virgins into the co2 spewing volcano, much wailing and weeping begging to sun not to go further south than the winter equinox and other such idiotic nonsense - except it will be federally and UN mandated upon otherwise rational beings who know better, all to appease an angry militant band of vegatable chomping gaia worshippers.

The ultimate goal of all this kookiness is impeding US industry and prosperity, pure and simple - a propagande attack from the former Soviet Union couldn't have been better that todays enviros and is behind the same moving of industrial production to better climes offshore that the same folks decry. For some reason a plant in the US is singled out as the sole source of earth's destruction, while the exact same plant in Mexico, China or India is just A-OK with even less pollution controls. For example, production and use of Freon in Mexico goes on unchecked, but now that the US consumer has been hamstrung and pays more for less, suddenly the ozone hole is getting better all the time! Bullocks. Utter bullocks.

Re:I you have to wonder that

[Anonymous Coward]

"...and brontosaurs trampling our offspring. We're kinda picky that way...."

Actually, the proper name for the dinosaur known as Brontosaurus is Apatosaurus. Sorry, but I'm "kinda picky that way". Let it also be argued I'm an anal asshole (is that a redundant description?).

http://www.dinoworld.net/apato.htm

Re:I you have to wonder that

[richie2000]

The ultimate goal of all this kookiness is impeding US industry and prosperity

Why so narrow-minded? It impedes ALL industry and prosperity. No one targets the US specifically. Oh, I totally agree that the current set of narrow regulations are counter-productive (to put it mildly). One such example local to me is Swedish energy industry buying coal-generated electricity from Poland to make up for the lower emission standards imposed on the Swedish (much cleaner) power plants. That's why we need a level playing field and the EU-wide emission rights market is a step in the right direction (properly implemented, that is).

However, looking at eco-friendlyness in the industry as an inherently bad thing is also counter-productive. Instead, it should be seen as an opportunity to modernize the industry - using the technical advantage that the 3rd world countries do not have. Work smarter to keep ahead. Digging for coal and burning it is going to be cheaper in Poland, Belarus, Mexico, Nicarague or where ever anyway and the trick is to not compete with that. Compete with high-tech instead. They can't keep up with that. Look at the major oil companies, they are shifting from simply pumping oil to being diversified energy producers. They are going with the flow in ways that Joe Q. Public hasn't yet realized they even could. They've been taught, time and time again, that they have to be quick or be dead. The governments of the world have to realize that, too.

It's like when Star Wars broke the Soviet Union - for years the US military tried to out-perform the Red Army and Strategic Rocket Forces on their home turf and failing miserably. Not until they turned the tables on the Reds and went in a different direction where the Soviets couldn't follow did they win the Cold War. The basic economic realities of the brewing eco-war are the same.

The facts are that the amount of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere are way higher now than they were a hundred years ago. The atmosphere is also warming at a rate unheard of since we started measuring these things and at a rate not found in any ice samples from the last several hundred thousand years. Large chunks of very old ice is melting in Antarctica and there are island nations that will soon cease to exist due to rising ocean waters.

Can we afford to ignore the possibility of a causal link? I believe we can't.

I'm not saying we should go back to dwelling in caves in Eden, that's a pathetic strawman argument. I'm just saying that we should put some thought into fixing emissions in a smart way, a way that will keep our scientists at the forefront of innovation, that will keep our industries competitive and that will preserve our way of life and preferably enable more people to share it.

Re:I you have to wonder that

[richie2000]

Roaches. They're hardy, breed easily and eats almost anything. When we're gone, they'll take over. Single-cells, fish, dinos, mammals, insects. I dunno what comes after the insects, though. Bacteria, maybe. Or MS Blaster. ;-)

Re:I you have to wonder that

[justforaday]

. if back at the time of the dinosaurs all this carbon was in the air.. then how can be releasing it be the end of "life as we know it".. The Dinosaurs did quite well :)

You must remember, to a whole lot of people "life as we know it" means the end of humankind, not really the end of all life. What a silly solipsistic bunch we are...

Re:I you have to wonder that

[haggar]

What most people like to forget or not know is, the possible phenomenon of global warming will be a runaway (positive-feedback) process, just like the runaway global cooling that happened a few hundred million years ago. With increase of temperature, already now many white areas have disappeared. Not only at the poles but also on mountains like the Alps. This decrease of albedo will cause further warming, as more energy is absorbed, hence increasing the rate of warming.
There is another positive feedback: with the increase of temperature, many of the plancton that is responsible for the conversion of CO2 into oxygen is not able to survive, causing a higher percentage of CO2 in the air, hence further increasing the rate of warming. Similar to this is the effect of warming on disappearance of forests (you got that in even in the US). So, the Earth may be stable, but there is a tipping point after which it will start to resamble Venus for a while.

After that, things wil come back to normal, but not many of the existing multicellular organisms will survive. It will be much worse than the runaway glaciation of the Earth.

Re:I you have to wonder that

[Anonymous Coward]

Insects like the cockroach won't "take over" (any more than they already have; most species of land animal are beetles) because you can't get much bigger than a beetle without your exoskeleton collapsing under its own weight. Insects like the cockroach lived alongside the dinosaurs and didn't "take over" their ecological niches when they died the way the mammals did for this reason. "Bacteria" is an even sillier answer because bacteria have been around for even longer than insects.

Re:I you have to wonder that

[cluckshot]

Every day when I drive to work, I look at the beautiful slope of the west side of the Cumberland Plateau. That beautiful cliff line that I see was cut by a Glacier 2000 feet thick. It was long gone before mankind had any influence on the environment

Is the climate changing? Yes! Does mankind have much to do with it? Probably little or nothing! Will the Glacier return. Possibly some day.

Where I live has been under the ocean and a desert and glaciated and been tropical and is currently sub tropical. All of this happened before some ECO-NUT showed up and had a panic attack about change. Maybe if the place warms up a bit, the orange trees will again be grown in South Alabama. If it cools down, maybe fir trees will grow there.

If the ECO-NUTS actually believe that the place is going to get cold, one would think that they would quit caring about Nuclear Power Plants and their waste heat.

Honestly the whole bunch of their predictions is best illustrated by The One Hoss Shay Logic is logic that is all I can say...

Re:I you have to wonder that

[paitre]

The atmosphere is also warming at a rate unheard of since we started measuring these things and at a rate not found in any ice samples from the last several hundred thousand years

Source? Thanks :)

Re:I you have to wonder that

[EvilAlien]

Not necessarily. Roaches have little selection forces at play, same with humans. Perhaps we're both at an evolutionary dead end?

I think the prime candidates for evolutionary leaps will be the species under great environmental or ecosystem pressure. They have the greatest opportunity for random beneficial traits to become dominant.

Re:I you have to wonder that

[SEWilco]

There are several indicators that Earth did not have a massive carbon dioxide atmosphere, as well as that oil and natural gas are from virgin carbon and not recycled.

• There were not increasingly greater deposits of carbonate rocks created further back in time.
• Carbon isotope ratios have not become altered due to recycling.
• Carbon is being removed from the atmosphere at a rate which would remove all carbon dioxide in 500,000 years. Plants haven't all died off over millions of years, so either new carbon is being released or we are quite unlucky to be on a planet soon dead.
• Natural gas, oil, and coal are found together with the thicker materials usually being closer to the surface. If coal and oil are from separate origins they should be likely to appear in isolated deposits and at any depth.

The Origin of Methane (and Oil) in the Crust of the Earth

And that our climate models are wrong is a given. If our models are right, why are these researchers adding, and trying, new factors? Because we don't understand climate well enough to have good models.

Re:I you have to wonder that

[mark-t]

As they say, everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it (I think that saying must be over 100 years old...

Right you are.

The saying has commonly been attributed to Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), but it may have been originated by a collaborator of his on one of books, Charles Warner.

Either way... yes. Over a hundred years old.

Re:I you have to wonder that

[flab007]

Simple, we evolve into the next species.. the Borg .. it's already happening: read http://www.baja-beachclub.com/bajaes/asp/zonavip.a spx. It's in Spanish but do a simple Bablefish-translation and you're in.

Re:I you have to wonder that

[SEWilco]

The facts are that the amount of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere are way higher now than they were a hundred years ago.
Which greenhouse gases increased, and by how much? Has the major greenhouse gas (it's not CO2) increased? Does CO2 affect temperature, or does temperature affect CO2 levels? (For example, warmth encourages fermentation in swamps rather than burial of carbon)

The atmosphere is also warming at a rate unheard of since we started measuring these things
That would be the warming during the past 100 years, the period when we've had thermometers. Look at that graph and how much warming happened before 1945, when we had little fossil fuels in use. After 1945...cooling for 30 years while we burned more fuels. How much has the rate of increase changed during warming periods?

and at a rate not found in any ice samples from the last several hundred thousand years.
Look again. Start around 15,000 years ago and see if there was a rapid change back then.

Large chunks of very old ice is melting in Antarctica
Check when that began melting, and compare the ages of ice. Melting is not new.

and there are island nations that will soon cease to exist due to rising ocean waters.
Those reports have been studied in several ways, look at them again. Also check their tectonic base, such as whether they're in the large area west of Australia which is sinking.

Can we afford to ignore the possibility of a causal link? I believe we can't.
Spend your money how you wish. Can you afford to ignore the possibility of a warmer Sun, secret misuse of alien technology, or a meteor destroying your ISP? Better prepare...better safe than sorry.

Re:I you have to wonder that

[SEWilco]

Go look at the factors some more.

Start with a simple factor which you haven't mentioned involving the Earth's major greenhouse gas: water vapor.
Increased temperature obviously encourages evaporation of water. Will that water stay as a gas, or will it cause greater cloud formation? Will those clouds be flat or tall? Look at today's weather satellite pictures -- are clouds an unusual event? What will cloud changes do to climate?

Re:I you have to wonder that

[b-baggins]

Awesome! I had no idea that controlling greenhouse gas emissions would protect us from a meteor strike!

Re:I you have to wonder that

[gfxguy]

Well, I'd rather like having ferns (as opposed to all the weeds) on my lawn.

Moreover, I don't think global warming will reincarnate the Brontosaur, although I think that would be cool... but maybe that's the THC talking.

Re:I you have to wonder that

[gfxguy]

Because "Global Warming to Destroy Life as We Know it!" sells more than "Everything's Fine and Dandy."

Re:I you have to wonder that

[gfxguy]

The difference is that now we have the technology to live more comfortably in those climates. We have better clothing, better buildings, better methods of heating and cooling...

We haven't just been able to adapt physically, we've been able to adapt technologically as well.

I'm not saying millions won't die, I'm saying that if change is coming, it's coming, and we will survive as a species, and we will adapt.

Re:I you have to wonder that

[Anonymous Coward]

The truth is - we don't understand shit about climate. So why do we assume the worst?

When you don't know anything, whatever you assume is likely to be wrong. If you assume the best, you'll be caught with your pants down. If you assume the worst, you'll be pleasantly surprised. If you assume something in between, there's still a good chance that you'll be screwed.

Put it this way: Suppose you find a mushroom in the forest. Do you assume that it's poisonous or that it's safe to eat it?

Re:I you have to wonder that

[dave_frame]

Start with a simple factor which you haven't mentioned involving the Earth's major greenhouse gas: water vapor. Increased temperature obviously encourages evaporation of water. Will that water stay as a gas, or will it cause greater cloud formation? Will those clouds be flat or tall? Look at today's weather satellite pictures -- are clouds an unusual event? What will cloud changes do to climate?

Which is exactly why the first half dozen or so parameters we checked out were cloud-related. Most climate change modellers acknowledge that there are large uncertainties around cloud-climate feedbacks, and these form a central focus of the experimental design.

Dave Frame

climateprediction.net coordinator

University of Oxford

Re:I you have to wonder that

[admiralh]

But by the same token, why do we assume the best? Doesn't it seem more reasonable to avoid making major changes to the atmophere's chemistry until we understand more of what the effects are?

Although after Peak Oil hits, the question will be moot.

Re:I you have to wonder that

[admiralh]

It depends on which market you're selling to.

"Global Warming to Destroy Life as We Know it!" sells to those who who are unhappy with the status quo or who are concerned about what the future holds, and are afraid we are making unrecoverable mistakes.

"Everything's Fine and Dandy." sells to those who currently have wealth and power or who aspire to acquire wealth and power in the current environment, where any changes might harm their positions.

Which group is currently in control right now?

Re:I you have to wonder that

[Hatta]

What I'd like to know is which animal on this planet will (would have) evolve into the next "Big Thing"? If it weren't for our timely sentience, many species we've killed over the years would still be around (mammoth, anyone?).

Why yes thank you. And would you pass the anchovies?

Re:I you have to wonder that

[gfxguy]

I disagree. Even the wealthy are more likely to pick up a paper at the newstand with the former headline, as opposed to the latter.

Re:I you have to wonder that

[squidfood]

I'm not saying millions won't die, I'm saying that if change is coming, it's coming, and we will survive as a species, and we will adapt.

[Ground to pilot] "Steer away!"

[Pilot to ground] "If the plane is coming, it's coming. When it hits, you will survive and adapt."

Re:I you have to wonder that

[Psymunn]

CO2 is the primary green house gas that has been rasing. And it is in fact a major greenhouse gas. You see teh majority of greenhouse gases blanketing teh earth are infact O3 (Ozone) however a C02 molecule is much more effective (~200times as effective, can't link to my course notes unfortunatly) as Ozone at turning visible light into infrared (heat). Thus, a change in C02 levels can lead to tempreature change. Of course earth is a dynamic system and adjusts to chaneg, so the effects won't be that noticable until a critical level is reached and a cascading effect takes place (much like adding enough energy to a process to allow a reaction to occur).
as for fossil fuels in 1945, we have been burning coal far longer then that in far greater abundence. During the industrial age, europe experienced adverse climate conditions that many attribute to the blankets of fumes pouring out of the smoke stacks
also, we have looked at ice samples of teh past couple of hundred thousand years (far further then 15,000). what's more, one can determine the carbon levels of the atmosphere based on ratios of carbon isotopes in planets. this allows us to ascertain that the highest levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere inthe past 300 million years where during the time of the dinosaurs, where (during teh triassic and cretaceous at least) they lived in an ice free world (no frozen poles) with considerably less land mass above water. it is true that ice melting isn't new in the poles, after all the earth naturally shifts between warm and cold and we are currently on an up swing, with or with out our best efforts to pour greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. i think it's safe to say we can ignore the possiblity of a warmer sun, seeing as our sun is in fact cooling. contrary to what i have just said, i'm not a doomsayer at all and i don't think that we will experience drammatic change in our life time but it is hard to despute the fact that, up until humanity, the biosphere has inadvertantly swen carbon into the soul, reducint C02 levels (animals and plants are made up of carbon, and then degrade). Humans are the first species to activly pump carbon back into the atmosphere. truth be told this might nto even be a bad thing, but it will most probably be bad for humans and, while we will keep on living (if we can live in saskatchawan, we can live anywhere), it won't be ideal by any means

Re:I you have to wonder that

[Gauchito]

They're hardy, breed easily and eats almost anything

Hmmm. Then it sounds like whatever eats roaches will have no trouble inventing "agriculture", the precursor to civlization. Assuming they have at least one thumb, of course.

Re:I you have to wonder that

[Brandybuck]

So basically, if we're picky humans, we should be trying to ALTER our environment.

Re:I you have to wonder that

[Lodragandraoidh]

Instead, it should be seen as an opportunity to modernize the industry...

Sadly, most industries (and I put the few that are not on a very short list that is tatamount to statistical error) are too short sighted to care about their actions over long periods of time beyond their annual profits. They always end up being pulled, kicking and screaming, into improvements - and as a result never put the level of creativity and productivity used for their primary 'business' into it.

Shouldn't our 'business' be about leaving our children a better world than we inherited? In almost every case significant standard of living improvements have been the result of people demanding the improvements after long periods of neglect. Unless there is a buck to be made, or a direct threat to its survival, industry turns a blind eye.

Re:I you have to wonder that

[Brandybuck]

Speaking of sinking landscapes, about ten years ago I was having a conversation with a woman. She was trying to convince me that global warming was causing the ocean level to rise. She said she knew it because scientists were using lasers to measure the ocean level near her home. She claimed that near her home the ocean was rising one centimeter per year.

Holy deluge, Batman! If the oceans were rising that fast there wouldn't be any controversy on the issue, but universal panic instead. Then I remembered where she lived. Right on top of the San Andreas fault...

Re:I you have to wonder that

[richie2000]

we should be trying to ALTER our environment.

Nah, I'm kinda happy the way we are. :-)

Re:I you have to wonder that

[Anonymous Coward]

Well... you could also argue that mitochondria is the key survivor of evolution, and that we are just hosts for its survival.

Mitochondria has managed to survive _all_ disasaters to date. Not even roaches, nor amoeba can claim that.

It's just a matter of perspective.

Re:I you have to wonder that

[benna]

Funny you should mention roaches are what will be left after the "THC slowdown."

Re:I you have to wonder that

[Anonymous Coward]

You stupid fuck, You can't even fucking type properly. It's unfathomable that you even have the slighest clue of what the hell you're talking about.

Take 2 dicks and call your gay lover in the morning.

Re:I you have to wonder that

[richie2000]

I present
The Warming
starring CO2, the Earth and the Humans

since we started measuring (~100 years)

last thousand years (p.4)

On geological timescales

420,000 years BP
Particularly interesting is perhaps this bit:

The recent completion of drilling at Vostok station in East Antarctica has allowed the extension of the ice record of atmospheric composition and climate to the past four glacial-interglacial cycles. The succession of changes through each climate cycle and termination was similar, and atmospheric and climate properties oscillated between stable bounds. Interglacial periods differed in temporal evolution and duration. Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane correlate well with Antarctic air-temperature throughout the record. Present-day atmospheric burdens of these two important greenhouse gases seem to have been unprecedented during the past 420,000 years.

Emphasis mine.

Nature has published a lot of interesting reports on the subject over the years and they have an excellent search engine. Give it a shot.

Bonus info on the recession of the world's glaciers. Just because you asked nicely. :-)

And I leave you with this:

These ice cores show a 20th century isotopic enrichment that suggests a large scale warming is underway at low latitudes. The rate of this isotopically inferred warming is amplified at higher elevations over the Tibetan Plateau while amplification in the Andes is latitude dependent with enrichment (warming) increasing equatorward. In concert with this apparent warming, in situ observations reveal that tropical glaciers are currently disappearing.
Tropical glacier and ice core evidence of climate change on annual to millennial time scales..

Re:I you have to wonder that

[kd4evr]

I used to ignore eco-nuts and still avoid'em wherever I can.

Sapienti sat - my point was not panicking about planetary disaster; what pisses me of are the facts that:

- we've had too many 'excellent vintages' in our vineyards, followed by a few disastrous seasons;
- I've experienced a variety of odd skiing conditions during the season, mostly interrupted by lacks of snow and too high temperatures, leaving man-made snow as the last chance to get any skiing at all;
- fruit doesn't grow the way is should, the grassess bloom like crazy causing (me) extensive hayfever, insects spreading...

Ten years ago I could say, too, heck, it's all within the statistical curve; nowdays, I know some serious s**t must be going down - and nobody's to know exactly what!

Re:I you have to wonder that

[Anonymous Coward]

you have to remember, humans are responsible for a tiny, dare i say insiginificant, number of the species wiped off the face of the earth.

Re:I you have to wonder that

[SEWilco]

• CO2 is the primary green house gas that has been rising. And it is in fact a major greenhouse gas. You see the majority of greenhouse gases blanketing the earth are in fact O3 (Ozone), however a C02 molecule is much more effective, ~200 times as effective (can't link to my course notes unfortunately) as Ozone at turning visible light into infrared (heat).

  Nope, most of the Earth's greenhouse effect is not caused by CO2 or O3. Check your sources, or find new sources because they're not telling you the whole story. The major greenhouse gas causes 65-95 percent of the heating, so you're apparently missing something.

• Thus, a change in C02 levels can lead to temperature change. Of course earth is a dynamic system and adjusts to change, so the effects won't be that noticeable until a critical level is reached and a cascading effect takes place (much like adding enough energy to a process to allow a reaction to occur).

  Oh, it's more complex than a simple linear system where things happen at increasing levels as a single factor increases. We know how some factors behave, we know of some factors with unknown effects, and some effects imply unknown factors. There are many thresholds.

• As for fossil fuels in 1945, we have been burning coal far longer then that in far greater abundance. During the industrial age, Europe experienced adverse climate conditions that many attribute to the blankets of fumes pouring out of the smoke stacks.

  Early coal use? Let's see.. First page of one Google search, two clicks.. Global Carbon Emissions. Human carbon emissions are 7 times greater than in 1900. If human CO2 is the major greenhouse gas, the Earth's greenhouse warming of 33C (60F) should have increased by a significant fraction of 7 times. It seems a tad cooler than 270C (420F). Your information suggests we're at the limit of your knowledge, but perhaps you can see there's something missing.

• Also, we have looked at ice samples of the past couple of hundred thousand years (far further then 15,000).

  Yup. See any temperature changes, or have we had a constant temperature for a couple of hundred thousand years?

• What's more, one can determine the carbon levels of the atmosphere based on ratios of carbon isotopes in plants. This allows us to ascertain that the highest levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in the past 300 million years where during the time of the dinosaurs, where (during the triassic and cretaceous at least) they lived in an ice free world (no frozen poles) with considerably less land mass above water.

  Well, no. Carbon 14 dating can measure plant age only for the recent tens of thousands of years. Atmospheric gas estimates over millions of years tends to be based upon estimated temperature limits of various plants and creatures.

  And why do you think there was more carbon dioxide in the air during the Triassic and Cretaceous? Because the temperature was warm, there must have been more CO2? That's circular logic, probably required by assumptions that everything was like it is now, and air temperature changes are based only upon what is in the air.
  Well, there wasn't ice covering Antarctica, but Antarctica wasn't how it now is. Things were different. A "Paleogeography" search will help you see where the continents were. There presently is cold water circulating around Antarctica, but that couldn't happen while other land masses were connected. Antarctica is smaller than the southern land mass back then. Even the recent climate of Antarctica

• It is true that ice melting isn't new in the poles, after all the earth naturally shifts between warm and cold and we are currently on an up swing, with or with out our best efforts to pour greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

  Ah, so we are currently on a natural upswing. So how much of current

Re:I you have to wonder that

[SEWilco]

Yes, I know this study is examining many factors. My comment was directed at the ancestor article with its simplistic concepts. He mentioned albedo without mentioning water or clouds, so I used an example related to that -- particularly because most people know that usually higher temperatures increase water evaporation.

Re:I you have to wonder that

[goatan]

Speak for yourself I'd love it.

But seriously we are a tough and tenacious animal we'll survive -probably with a heavily reduced global population- except for the volcano in the back garden i think most people would have to move away from that one.

Re:I you have to wonder that

[Anonymous Coward]

First, i didn't say that C02 is the primary greenhouse gas at all. It is just the one that is rising the fastest and it does contribute significantly in transforming visible light to heat.

Also, i'm having a hard time seeing how you decided that humans emmitting 7 times the amount of carbon would equal an increase in global tempreature by 7 times. Even in an actual, physical, greenhouse, the tempreature does not rise to 7 times the current tempreatuer (which, by the way, is about 700 C. to multiply tempreature you have to use Kalvin). You see, Carbon Dioxide does not, infact, generate heat. The sun does that. All that happens is carbon dioxide is reactive to certain wave lengths of light. Whats more, despite the fact that we are putting C02 into our atmosphere, there already is quite a bit there. The fact is earths' mean tempreature has only risen 1 C in the past 100 years (from 14 to 15). At the time of the dinosaurs it was 19. The mean tempreature has very little effecet on teh equatorial region but a slight raise in teh center is offset by a large raise at the poles

Also, when i said comparative ratios of carbon, i did not infact mean carbon 14 at all. sure, the rare isotope carbon 14 gets all teh media attention due to it's presence in most life and the abiliity to acuratly age things that are a few thousand years old. This was a problem with my own weak explanation. One can determine the amount of carbon in teh atmosphere at a time by comparing carbon 12 and carbon 13 ratios. Neitehr of these atoms are radioactive and, so, will not deteriarate over time. You see, plants, whereever possible, are more likely to absorb carbon 12 then carbon 13. carbon 13 is relativly rare. The theory is that, if a plant has very little carbon 13 in it, it grew up in a carbon rich atmosphere. Thus, using this ratio in plants, it is generally believed that one can determine the concentration of CO2. CO2 concentration and mean global tempreature during the mesazoic where determined independently.

There where other factors in teh tempreature of the dinosaur earth. When pangea split, an equatorial sea way opened which created a warm global current. These currents play, prehaps, a bigger part in determining global tempreature then the atmospher. Now, with a sizeable bridge blocking the pacific, atlantic, and indian ocean from each other, we have far more north/south current flow resulting in colder waters and a greater tempreature gradient between teh equator and the poles.

Also, we are on a current upswing. If there where no people, tempreature would still rise regardless. But the current rise is far faster then the one normally seen.

And yes, cows put a lot of methane and carbon back into the atmosphere. Many people, infact, see this as a realistic concern adn think that it's a bad idae for people to have so much cattle.

Lastly, I said that atmospheric change probably wouldn't be bad. But humans are fairly aclimatised to the climates we have now. But humans are very adaptable adn we will be the least upset by large scale climate change. But many things (including what we eat) aren't as adaptable.

At the end of teh day, atmospheric CO2 can potentially only raise the tempreature a small amount. And I'm still goign to eat my steak and drive my car. But i'm not goign to say that these thigns won't have an impact eventualyl

consider...

[hutkey]

...WWIII in the simulation

Re:consider...

[Anonymous Coward]

I did.

We lose.

Oh crap....

I need sleep.

[DrEldarion]

I missed the first word and thought this was going to be an article about Suprnova.

Re:I need sleep.

[flab007]

Which would've been a fine subject in its own right! :)

Here's how the simulation works:

[Anonymous Coward]

We all leave our computers on
- running this software,
- thereby using more electricity,
- creating more greenhouse gases and the like,
- increasing global warming...
and therefore getting a very accurate answer much sooner.

Re:Here's how the simulation works:

[hutkey]

i am not so sure about this, coz

MS OS hangs repeatedly...
you get bored using the software...
and will turn off the computer... ...and the day will never come

Re:Here's how the simulation works:

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually there's currently a 'bug' in the update system. A security patch for MSIE means that completed results cannot be sent back to the central servers. (This affects you whether or not you us IE as your primary browser)

Unfortunately neither the project team nor MS have fixed this, meaning they're waiting for at least one result: mine.

I hope the new modelling system doesn't have this flaw as well...

Re:Here's how the simulation works:

[ciderpunk]

You may want to consider using green electricity from 100% renewable sources? In the UK try these guys

THC Slowdown?

[kevinvee]

Fond memories of high school, but I think THC Slowdown goes better with a 10,000 year snowboarding season. Or 10,000 years of marshmallow creme and funyuns.

Attempting to model the real world on this scale

[sanermind]

Foolish. Current advanced computer modelling isn't even capable of predicting the weather next week with any great accuracy.

Concerning the movie "The Day after Tomorrow"

[Peden]

That movie is expected to draw furhter focus on the environment and specifically global warming. This is both good and bad, as too much focus on the environment can draw focus from other points of interesets. Danish Scientist "Bjorn Lomborg" (one of Time Magazines top 100 important persons) has been warning politicians to not forget other points of importance, such as healthcare and clean water. I hope this does not distort the vision of politicians around the globe, lets not forget how er priotitize.

Re:Concerning the movie "The Day after Tomorrow"

[Hektor_Troy]

Danish Scientist "Bjorn Lomborg"

You placed the "" the wrong place. It should be

Danish "Scientist" Bjørn Lomborg

He's in statistics, and judging by some of the critisism he's gotten from other people in that area, not a very good one either.

Re:Concerning the movie "The Day after Tomorrow"

[nacturation]

That movie is expected to draw furhter focus on the environment and specifically global warming.

And what we learn from the movie is that this global warming you speak of causes a 10,000 year winter. Or, the warmer it gets, the more snow falls on New York ... or something like that.

Re:Concerning the movie "The Day after Tomorrow"

[Threni]

Don't forget to visit:

http://www.stopesso.org/
and
http://www.theday aftertomorrow.org/#

Re:Concerning the movie "The Day after Tomorrow"

[JasonAWallwork]

The Abrupt Climate Change FAQ from the Union of Concerned Scientists, has a lot to say on the subject and the movie:

Can what happens in The Day After Tomorrow happen in real life?

No. The dramatic, virtually instantaneous and widespread cooling envisioned in the film is fiction. But like all good science fiction, the film is premised on several important scientific facts. We know with great certainty that the Earth is already warming, largely because as we burn fossil fuels and clear forests we are releasing carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere. This warming is expected to continue in the coming decades, accompanied by changes in rainfall patterns and rising sea levels. The possibility of an abrupt shift in the climate system is only one feature of a changing climate that is expected to become more erratic, with extreme weather events like droughts, torrential rainfall, and extreme heat becoming more common. We can slow down global warming and reduce the likelihood of future abrupt climate changes by reducing our emissions of heat-trapping gases.

The other interesting thing it mentions is that Abrupt Climage Change refers to changes that happen over years to decades as opposed to climate change that is happening now over decades and centuries. Make no mistake, we have changed our climate more in the last hundred years than in the previous thousand years.

Re:Concerning the movie "The Day after Tomorrow"

[Anonymous Coward]

That movie is expected to draw furhter focus on the environment and specifically global warming.

But I thought Papa George said that global warming doesn't exist...I'm sooooo confused...

Re:Concerning the movie "The Day after Tomorrow"

[BRSQUIRRL]

I don't think anyone should forget that this "environmentally focused" movie is based in part on the book The Coming Global Superstorm, written by Whitley Strieber and Art Bell, not exactly the paragons of scientific objectivity.

Re:Concerning the movie "The Day after Tomorrow"

[Jeremy Erwin]

No wonder NASA was reluctant to provide official support and advice.

Re:Concerning the movie "The Day after Tomorrow"

[grnwrnch]

The problem with the global warming issue is precisely it's lack of visibility. I don't think this is a problem at all: it's easy to see the need for healthcare and the need for clean water. Incidentally, there's a way better book out that I think is going to have more of an impact than the movie. The problem with the movie is that they overdo it and don't really offer any philosophy as to what to do about it. You can get the book here: http:\\www.risingglobalwarming.com.

Re:Concerning the movie "The Day after Tomorrow"

[Anonymous Coward]

To the people who are linking global warming to this film, nice fucking meme work. If you are not a believer in global warming, you are devious and clever, I salute you. If you do belive in global warming, you just made an own goal. Well done, idiot! Now we are going to see lots of people who belive that by disproving this sci-fi movie, they are disproving global warming.

With regards to Lomborg: In my opinion, he is a fraud and a self promoting piece of shit.

Some relevant links for those who are too lazy to Google:
Debunking Pseudo-Scholarship: Things a journalist should know about The Skeptical Environmentalist

UCS examines The Skeptical Environmentalist by Bjørn Lomborg

A great quote from one of the articles, "Nine things journalists should know about the Sceptical Environmentalist":

In assessing the validity of Lomborg's work, journalists should proceed with caution. Here are some points to keep in mind:

1. Pseudo-scholarship.

The Skeptical Environmentalist contains nearly 3,000 footnotes, implying careful research.

In fact these footnotes reveal numerous instances of highly selective quotation and often inaccurate sourcing that distort, directly contradict the original author or otherwise fail to provide support for Lomborg's claims.[3]
2. Confusing the issue.

The subtitle to Lomborg's book is "Measuring the Real State of the World," a lead-in to the author's premise that the state of the world is improving, not deteriorating as environmentalists claim.

In support, Lomborg presents evidence that humans are living longer and healthier lives, with rising levels of income and growing amounts of leisure time worldwide, and he dismisses evidence of global environmental degradation.

But the environmental issue facing society is not whether we are increasing our material wellbeing -- we are -- but whether we are prospering in ways that damage the natural environment.

Lomborg's book equates -- and confuses -- these two fundamentally different issues.
3. Statistical fallacies.

Lomborg furthers this confusion by mistaking association for causation, an unlikely error in a statistician.

Throughout the book, he attributes environmental improvements to increases in standard of living rather than to improved scientific understanding research or to firm environmental policy.

It was scientific research on ozone depletion that led to phasing out CFCs, stricter air pollution regulations that improved air quality in industrial countries, and the introduction of SO2 emissions trading that reduced the causes of acid rain in the United States.

Good science and political will, as well as wealth, led to these environmental improvements.

But Professor Lomborg asserts that, in heavily polluted developing countries, rising incomes will automatically lead to similar environmental improvements, and he implies that additional research or environmental policy efforts are therefore not needed.
4. The oceans.

Lomborg claims that "marine productivity has almost doubled since 1970"[4] -- a surprising statement given the well-documented declines of many commercial fish stocks.

What Lomborg actually means appears later in the book as a figure depicting an increase in total fish catch, plus production from fish farms.[5] Capture of wild fish from the sea has increased by 20 percent, not 100 percent since 1970.

And what humans are taking from the oceans and what the oceans are producing are of course fundamentally different matters.

Lomborg's equating of the two exemplifies how his book is fundamentally misleading.

By focusing on total production, Lomborg's graph conceals that stocks of cod, haddock, hake, flounder, swordfish, sardines, halibut, Atlantic Ocean perch, and many others have crashed.
5. The forests.

Lo

Re:Concerning the movie "The Day after Tomorrow"

[Abcd1234]

Actually, global warming could absolutely lead to an ice age. You see, when the polar ice caps melt, the sudden deluge of fresh water into the ocean will have dramatic effects on ocean currents. For those unaware, these currents form an integral part of the global heat transfer system. In particular, the Gulf Stream is responsible for moving massive amounts of warm water north, and is a prime factor in the weather of the UK and western Europe. If this stream were to shut down (say, by massive amounts of fresh water getting dumped into the arctic ocean), the northern hemisphere would suddenly lose an important source of heat. This could result in a sudden temperature drop in the northern hemisphere, followed by a subsequent expansion of the ice caps. This would increase the amount of ice in the northern hemisphere, which would cause more sunlight to be reflected (due to the relatively high libido of ice). This would cause further cooling, creating more ice, etc, etc. Aren't positive feedback systems fun? The end result could be a new ice age. Maybe. :)

Re:Concerning the movie "The Day after Tomorrow"

[nacturation]

You've turned a tongue-in-cheek response into something quite informative. Except, that is, for this part:

This would increase the amount of ice in the northern hemisphere, which would cause more sunlight to be reflected (due to the relatively high libido of ice).

I assume you mean "albedo", unless there's some funky property of ice of which I'm unaware. :)

Re:Concerning the movie "The Day after Tomorrow"

[Brandybuck]

This is a FAQ from concerned "scientists"? Can you spot the logical fallacy in the following sentence?

"We know with great certainty that the Earth is already warming, largely because as we burn fossil fuels and clear forests we are releasing carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere."

Re:Concerning the movie "The Day after Tomorrow"

[Abcd1234]

Son of a...! I knew there was something wrong (and rather hilarious) with that sentence. *sigh* :)

Re:Concerning the movie "The Day after Tomorrow"

[beforewisdom]

That movie is expected to draw furhter focus on the environment and specifically global warming. This is both good and bad, as too much focus on the environment can draw focus from other points of interesets. Danish Scientist "Bjorn Lomborg" (one of Time Magazines top 100 important persons) has been warning politicians to not forget other points of importance, such as healthcare and clean water. I hope this does not distort the vision of politicians around the globe, lets not forget how er priotitize.

Isn't focusing on clean water an environmental issue?

What could be of a higher priority then the environment?

Nothing else would matter much if we rendered our globe into an unlivable poisoned slag heep.

Steve

One question...

[beacher]

Does it come with media fearmongering "THE WORLD ENDS TOMORROW. DETAILS AT 8" addons? Seriously. Every single damn weather event is a showstopper. If my team blew everything out of proportion like the media did, I'd sack em. Also speaking of weather... They can't even get the 3 days forecast even close much less years out.

Interested in weather, love/hate to watch tornados and hurricanes.. trouble is the news makes it out like "The Perfect Storm" is about to happen ..
-B

Re:One question...

[Maeve77]

And one more question. Previous ice ages have onset over the course of hundreds years, giving plant and animal life time to adapt to the new climate or migrate to slightly warmer areas. Wouldn't the insta-freeze depicted in this movie kill all flora and fauna in its path? Who wants to survive in a world where they won't be able to find anything to eat but a bit of lichen or some hundred-year-old Twinkies after the snows go away?

Or maybe I think too much. It's just a movie after all.

Re:One question...

[Anonymous Coward]

Also speaking of weather... They can't even get the 3 days forecast even close much less years out.

CLIMATE IS NOT WEATHER.

If you roll a dice 60000 times, how many 6's will you get?

Next time you roll a dice, what will the result be?

See?

Re:One question...

[jafuser]

They can't even get the 3 days forecast even close much less years out.

I predict that weather in the northern hemisphere will continue getting warmer for the next 3-4 months, and then it will cool off for a few months; this cycle will probably continue for some time.

simulation not required

[hutkey]

i already live in a city with that kinda atmosphere created in the simulation.

Re:simulation not required

[NickeB]

Houston? I'm not that much into US cities, but I do belive that's the most polluted one?

Re:simulation not required

[hutkey]

i think you conviniently assumed i live in US

Re:simulation not required

[NickeB]

I did indeed, most slashdotters tend to afaik.

Re:simulation not required

[hutkey]

that's sad.

don't u think it's not fair for all the non-US citizens?

Re:simulation not required

[NickeB]

Neither am I a US citizen, I merely took a guess and missed. No need to make a hen out of a feather.

Re:simulation not required

[Urkki]

• don't u think it's not fair for all the non-US citizens?

Generally non-US citizens tend to have the courtesy of telling which part of the world they live in, if they talk about their living environment. And if somebody is arrogant enough to not tell anything about it, it's automatically assumed that he must be an American... ;-)

Re:simulation not required

[gfxguy]

No, I don't think "it's not fair" that you decline to mention where you are from on a website created by Americans, in America, with a vast majority of participants living in America.

If I were to participate in a forum in Spain, created and operated by Spaniards, in Spanish, and I posted in Spanish, I wouldn't criticize people who assumed I was in or from Spain, and if they had that misconception I'd come right out and tell them instead of insuating they were bunch of narrowminded jerks for being "spain-centric."

The responses so far.

[cjellibebi]

The first four responses to this article about climate change were responses to the bit about 'THC slowdown' and not responses to anything else in the article (even the 'first-post' people are hiding behind the woodwork). So when we've completely wrecked the planet, is the plan to just get completely stoned and ignore the dire situation?

Re:The responses so far.

[RangerFish]

Sounds like a good plan...

Re:The responses so far.

[Anonymous Coward]

> So when we've completely wrecked the planet, is the plan to just get completely stoned and
> ignore the dire situation?

If you weren't so stoned you would realize this already happened.

Re:The responses so far.

[Anonymous Coward]

The party starts on 4/20.
We'll "forget" to send you an invitation.
Probably due to that THC Slowdown Effect.

Simulating a fiction...?

[ZaMoose]

Considering that most serious climatologists think the very premise of Day After Tomorrow is bunk, what does that say for the utility of us wasting CPU cycles on it?

Or is the association with the upcoming movie merely some editorial license on the part of the /. crew?

Re:Simulating a fiction...?

[phusg]

Sort your link out please I'm interested :-)

Re:Simulating a fiction...?

[ZaMoose]

Bah! Stupid me, not checking the results of middle-clicking....

Heh. Was setting up a new Linux recruit with Macromedia Flash and I guess the URL was still hanging around in my cut buffer.

The real link is at the Washington Post. (You may have to log in to see the story, but just use BugMeNot to find a free login.

Shazbot! Preview [should have been] my friend!

Re:Simulating a fiction...?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Danish Meteorological Instistute has made a webpagewhere they describe and compare the phenomenea in the movie to those found in the real world, with the eyes of a real meteorologist.

Link is in danish only, translation: movie looks nice but is totally unrealistic.

-AC

Re:Simulating a fiction...?

[sparrow_hawk]

This is quite interesting, and I'll freely admit that the jury is still out on exactly what is going on in our atmosphere. At the same time, the author of the article talks a lot about science actually contradicting global warming, even though the title of his book blames scientists for overstating their case, so I'm a little unsure just *how* *much* science was actually involved. The article didn't, to me, seem to acknowledge the reality of the (very real!) scientific debate over global warming, viz. whether it occurs, how much warming may happen, and how big a problem that will be.

In addition, the Cato Institute has as its slogan "Individual Liberty, Limited Government, Free Markets, and Peace" and Rupert Murdoch on its board of directors, so I'm not sure I consider them an unbiased source. I'd be more interested in hearing a *scientist* (perhaps a climatologist instead of a "senior fellow in environmental studies," whatever that is) critique the science of The Day After Tomorrow.

I for one ...

[torpor]

... welcome our THC overlords, and would like to remind them that as a qualified potsmoker, I've done my fair share of THC propagation in the world ... ;)

GIGO?

[pesc]

So if the computer is big enough, the garbage-in, garbage-out problem disappears?

We can't predict the weather for the next week, but doing it for the next 50 years might work if we only can get a computer big enough?

Re:GIGO?

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone else has already answered this. We can't tell whether it will rain on your house reliably a week in avance, but we can tell it will be 5 degrees warmer 15 years from now in your state. We can then tell how string winds will likely be in your state, and how much moisture (i.e. rain) will be in the air that your state lies under. All this allows better prediction of when your state gets hit by force-12 hurricanes every week or every year...

Re:GIGO?

[pe1rxq]

The input is totally different if you are doing climate predictions than for weather.....
For predicting the climate in 50 years it is not necessarry to known for each day if it rained in your back yard.

Jeroen

Re:GIGO?

[Anonymous Coward]

Climatology begins where Numerical Weather Predictional models temporally end (I.e., usually 16 days from the model initialization time). Instead of all this needless conjecture, how about inquring of a world authority -- the World Meteorological Organization (a special agency of the United Nations)?

Re:GIGO?

[justforaday]

"... if we only can get a computer big enough?"

I thought this had already happened. And the answer was 42.

Re:GIGO?

[Dun Malg]

The input is totally different if you are doing climate predictions than for weather.....

"Climate" is an aggregate form of "weather". The input may not look the same, but the two are inextricably linked.

Re:GIGO?

[Brandybuck]

We cannot predict the weather because weather is a chaotic system. Likewise, we cannot predict the climate, because climate (being comprised of weather) is also a chaotic system.

We can "model" the climate in an attempt to understand it, but the model remains useless for prediction.

Southern Africa in Peril.

[Anonymous Coward]

Although the effects of global warming and specifically the increase in temperature associated iwith rising CO2 levels are often highlighted, the western media seems oblivious to another impending climate disaster which will affect much of southern Africa.

Because the moon is gradually moving close to the earth, tides are gradually increasing. In most places in the World this effect is negligable, a few centimetres a year at most, however the eccientricity of the moon's orbit added to the factor of the Marianas Trench mean that the effect in Southern Africa is set to be devestating, with tides increasing by up to 20 metres within the next 100 years.

The countries involved have little or no resources to guard against this and almost no scientific research is being carried out as most climate budget goes towards greenhouse effect studies. Indded the president of Botswana, the country most likely to be affected, recently called on the UN to do more.

Re:Southern Africa in Peril.

[JasonAWallwork]

Do you have a source that suggests the moon is getting closer? According to this article, (and many others) it's been moving further away. The water levels will rise drastically in the next few years probably but it will be due to global warming, not the moon.

Re:Southern Africa in Peril.

[Tristandh]

Set aside the question wether the moon is moving closer to Earth, of further away, all this raises an eyebrow....
The Mariana's Trench? What does a trench in the northern pacific has to do with a country with no coastline ? I know in climatology, events can have an effect on the other side of the world, but come on, if you make claims like these you should at least back them up with some scientific reports.
I'd say you are trolling.

Foolishness

[Yonkeltron]

Lorenze proved that weather was non-deterministic about 40 years ago. It seems foolish to believe we can predict weather to such a degree even with today's technology. I'll be saving my cycles for Seti@Home

Re:Foolishness

[Anonymous Coward]

Might one suggest folding@home may be of more use to your DNA propagation in the medium term sir?

Seti will surely only bring doom to mankind?

Re:Foolishness

[gowen]

Lorenz proved that weather was non-deterministic about 40 years ago.

But Lorenz, being much, much, much smarter than you, appreciated that weather is not climate.

Re:Foolishness

[Eivind]

There's a difference between weather and climate.

A bit simplified, climate is average weather.

It's a bit like while it is impossible to predict which days will get rain in Bergen, Norway this november, it's pretty easy to predict the average temperature, the annual rainfall and how many days it'll rain.

Re:Foolishness

[flyingdisc]

lorenz said "climate is what you expect, weather is what you get" so forget weather this is dealing with climate!

This is the idea - weather forecasts will never show skill out beyond 12 to 14 days because uncertainty in the exact state of the weather now will always propogate upwards until the errors in representing the state overwelm the forecast.

Climate forecast on the other had look at the mean state - how many rainy days do you expect in New york summers? This is a predictable quantity. Models can see how these mean states change with time.

Re:Foolishness

[ballpoint]

which days will get rain in Bergen

All of them ?

First time I was in Bergen I joked about the big gutters (that aren't really _that_ big anyway). But it didn't rain during the 3 days I was there...

Re:Foolishness

[Dun Malg]

A bit simplified, climate is average weather.

The problem there is that you cannot get rid of small errors just by averaging. This was the crux of Lorenz' discovery-- that minor inaccuracies turn into major inaccuracies after a certain number of iterations, no matter how you scale it.

Re:Foolishness

[Eivind]

Sorry. You are still wrong. Well, you're rigth, in a way, but it doesn't mean what you think you mean.

Weather is chaotic. You are correct that this means that predicting it more than a few days in advance is impossible. This is so because chaotic in means "sensitive dependence on initial conditions", the well-known butterfly-effect is an attempt at popularising this idea; that without *perfect* information (which you'll never have, for many reasons, including Heisenberg) you cannot predict what state the system will be in after a certain point.

So far you're rigth. What you are still missing out on is the distinction between weather and climate.

Like I said, climate is sort of the average weather. Climate does *not* fluctuate wildly from day to day or from week to week like weather does.

Especially not global climate, which is what we're talking here. Instead, it's a function of a few things wich though to some degree incompletely understood does *not* typically behave chaotic.

For example, the average temperature on the earths surface is a function of;

• Amount of solar-energy hitting the earth (varying by a few percent according to sunspot-activity, but fairly constant)
• percentage of that energy that gets reflected in the atmosphere.
• percentage of the remaining energy that gets reflected off land/water/icecaps
• heat seeping trough from the earths core. (for all practical purposes constant)
• Percent of heat-energy that gets reflected in the atmosphere.

None of these, are particularily chaotic. You migth say "clouds are", and that's true if you're counting one individual day. But if you where to ask "what percentage of the earth is covered in clouds averaged over one year", a fairly accurate answer could be given.

Furthermore, short-time variations will be evened out by the enormous heat-storage that is our oceans.

In the end it comes down to this:

How much energy do we get from the sun ? How much energy does the earth send back into space in the form of heat-radiation ?

If the balance between those two change, as for example trough a more pronounce greenhouse-effect, then the average climate on earth *will* be warmer. It's simple physics, nothing chaotic about *that*. Send more energy into a system than goes back out, and that system will become warmer.

Re:Foolishness

[Eivind]

If it had rained, you'd have seen the sense of the gutters. Sometimes it rains a lot.

No seriously, Bergen is nowhere near any kind of records (neither for Norway, nor for Europe, much less for the world) in rainfall, but it does have about twice the rainfall of drier cities like Oslo or Berlin.

You had luck, on the average I think that about half of the days in a year will see 1mm of rainfall or more. Most rainfall is in autumn, and apr-jun is frequently the nicest time.

Strange

[Roland Piquepaille]

Clients are available for various varieties of Microsoft Windows, but none are listed for other OSes.

If I was to make a program that basically asks of people to give me something for free (in this case, CPU time, and a little aggravation to install the client), I'd make the Linux/*BSD client a priority, since those OSes have been made almost entirely by people on their own time for free.

At least I'd know I'd be likely to find a sympathetic hear to whatever cause my client serves in that community.

Re:Strange

[Xilman]

If I was to make a program that basically asks of people to give me something for free ...

... my highest priority would be to see where the greatest numbers of clients are likely to run and build the program for that platform.

But then, I'm a pragmatist and like to get as big a bang for my buck as possible.

Paul

Re:Strange

[Anonymous Coward]

Absurd comment in today's world of mult-platform languages such as Numerical Python which can run on any platform. The fact that the developers created the app specifically for Windows is an indication that they are flawed in their social modeling.

Re:Strange

[JessLeah]

Python is interpreted, and hence SLOW. They would have to AT LEAST use a language with a good JIT (that would be Java, but Java is also, remarkably, STILL slow!) to get any real performance out of interpreted stuff.

Re:Strange

[flyingdisc]

It's all done in fortran - speed is a necessity and these kind of programs can not be easily translated into cross platform languages like numercial python.

There is a port in the process for both OS X and linux but this wont be released until the project moves over to the BOINC platform. Which according the website will happen sometime in the next month or two.

Re:Strange

[flyingdisc]

The original port of this model from the cray super computer was to linux. Most of the early developement was in linux. The windows port was, as I understand it, just past of the history of the project. The company which developed the client software worked in visual c++ - the model was got to a stage where it was stable (on window - the hardest part of the process) and then there was a huge pressure to release to the public.

A OS X port and potentially a linux port are both immenent with the release of the BOINC client. Not every project can release with all ports on all plateforms with a limited number of project workers.

Re:Strange

[joib]

Considering that Numerical Python is largely implemented in C, and uses LAPACK/BLAS for linear algebra, it's not that bad. As long as you use array expressions, meaning that loops are done in C, performance is quite good, often something like only 2 times slower than Fortran/C program using the same LAPACK/BLAS library. Which, just for the record, is a lot faster than a C program using some roll-your-own untuned linear algebra.

Re:Strange

[GreenLynxSpider]

The CPDN developers are concentrating on converting to BOINC (Berkley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing), which will allow a wide variety of OSes, multi-processor support and other goodies.

Looks like it will be a bad film

[QuasiRob]

Just from watching the trailers it looks like it will be another contender for inclusion on various bad movie websites.

How much of the public will be mislead into thinking thats how it really happens? I still cringe whenever Armageddon is on.

Re:Looks like it will be a bad film

[Ilgaz]

If I told you the director is the same guy who directed "Independence Day", would you even check trailer? ;)

Besides, we are currently betting with friends if there will be 2 or more religious guys in movie :P

Oh, well, World is gone? I will watch the movie

Re:Looks like it will be a bad film

[Mad Man]

re: Looks like it will be a bad film

How much of the public will be mislead into thinking thats how it really happens?

Maybe that's the purpose of the movie?

The first couple of paragraphs in the following column are political commentary, so feel free to skip them and get straight to the scientific criticism of the movie.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A28338-20 04May14?language=printer

Apocalypse Soon?
No, But This Movie (and Democrats) Hope You'll Think So

By Patrick J. Michaels
Sunday, May 16, 2004; Page B01
Washington Post

On March 13, the Guardian newspaper of London, beating the American networks by nearly eight months, called the U.S. presidential election -- for Sen. John F. Kerry. The Democrat would win, the paper declared, not because of his plan for Iraq, or his proposals for the economy, but because of . . . a movie.

Specifically, a movie about global warming. It's called "The Day After Tomorrow." And if it doesn't actually unseat George Bush, it won't be for lack of trying. It opens on May 28, but this movie is already being vocally touted by none other than former vice president Al Gore, on behalf of MoveOn.org, a liberal Internet advocacy group backed in part by billionaire George Soros that appears to be dedicated to defeating Bush.

At least that's the take-home message from the MoveOn Web site, which ominously calls "The Day After Tomorrow" "the movie the White House doesn't want you to see" -- because it will supposedly ignite a backlash against Bush's global warming policies, which favor slow technological evolution over immediate (and expensive) reductions in carbon dioxide emissions. As a climatologist, I'm concerned that this putative backlash could be caused by scientific nonsense.

Let's not forget that the planet is warmer than it was when the Little Ice Age ended in the 19th century, and that people have had something (not everything) to do with that. But what Gore and the movie do is to exaggerate this largely benign truth into a fictional apocalypse.

Gore last sounded the alarm on global warming at a rally hosted by MoveOn.org in New York on Jan. 15, which happened to be the coldest day of the past decade in the Northeast. That was fitting, because the thesis of "The Day After Tomorrow" is that global warming causes a new ice age. And not just any old glaciation, either, but one that builds up in only three days.

Here's the plot. In the middle of a Northern Hemisphere summer, the temperature of the high-latitude Atlantic and Pacific suddenly drops 15 degrees. This is caused by the shutdown of the Gulf Stream, which keeps Europe from being the icebox it should be at its northerly latitude.

Since the Gulf Stream is no longer transporting warm water to Europe, the tropics get hotter and hotter, and the poles colder and colder. In a series of massive thunderstorms, the atmosphere flips over, and increasingly cold stratospheric air is drawn down to the earth's surface, creating a low-pressure system that produces hundreds of feet of snow. Temperatures in Canada drop 100 degrees in an hour. Just about everyone north of Washington, D.C., dies. The following summer, the ice melts and a continental flood ensues.

Hurricanes hit Belfast. San Francisco Bay freezes. Hailstones the size of canned hams bomb Tokyo. According to the movie's Web page, Madras, India, becomes the "New Venice of the South."

The movie makers maintain that much of this has already started. Disaster is heading our way pronto. The picture's Web site reminds us, for instance, that just last May, we had a record number of tornados for one month, and that more than half of the deaths that occur in hurricanes now are due to

Re:Attempting to model the real world on this scal

[Anonymous Coward]

climate != weather, fool

Wine / CrossOver?

[cerberusss]

Has anyone gotten the client running with Wine or CodeWeaver'sCrossOver? It installs and starts alright, but on the console, a bunch of warnings is printed:
CLOSE: WARNING: Unit 60 Not Opened
CLOSE: WARNING: Unit 62 Not Opened
CLOSE: WARNING: Unit 63 Not Opened
CLOSE: WARNING: Unit 64 Not Opened
CLOSE: WARNING: Unit 65 Not Opened
CLOSE: WARNING: Unit 66 Not Opened
CLOSE: WARNING: Unit 67 Not Opened
It doesn't seem to continue further...

Re:Wine / CrossOver?

[Anonymous Coward]

Must be working on Unit 61...

Re:Wine / CrossOver?

[Ilgaz]

Why you try to run a software which doesn't respect your OS?

I have a G5 Mac, running OS X, I hate my computer idling so searched what could work here, found folding@home has a good,native client for Mac, running it for weeks...

I hope I won't be misunderstood...

Re:Wine / CrossOver?

[Anonymous Coward]

Unit 60-67 are typically output units. The model uses them to output the diagnostic files (the *.pa* files for example). Maybe the model is have trouble creating files?

The warning should not be fatal, you often get warnings like these, followed by the Model creating the file to write to.

CLOSE: WARNING: Unit 60 Not Opened
PPCTL: Opening new file *.pa* on unit 60
OPEN: File *.pa* to be Opened on Unit 60 does not Exist
OPEN: File *.pa* Created on Unit 60

I don't know why it might fail under Wine though.

Wish I could remember my password

Re:Wine / CrossOver?

[cerberusss]

Why you try to run a software which doesn't respect your OS?

I'm not saying I'll run it very long, I'm just always trying out which software works and doesn't work. Wine/CrossOver rocks!!

Re:Attempting to model the real world on this scal

[zopu]

True, but isn't that a different problem?

I admit I'm a bit clueless here, but AFAIK climate modelling deals with overall changes at a high level e.g. "It's going to be colder in the north atlantic by about 2 degrees on average in a few decades" and the like.
As opposed to weather prediction which says "It will rain in this spot on this day"

Just because we can't predict the 'noise' in the short term doesn't mean we can't determine overall changes long term.

On global warming.

[ForestGrump]

"There is nothing wrong with the planet. The planet is fine . . . been
here 4 1/2 billion years. We've been here, what, a 100,000 years, maybe
200,000. And we've only been engaged in heavy industry a little over 200
years. 200 years versus 4 1/2 billion. And we have the conceit to think
that somehow we're a threat? The planet isn't going away. We are."
-George Carlin

Re:On global warming.

[Anonymous Coward]

In Soviet Russia, the Planet destroys YOU!
followed by
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of greenhouse-causing things...oh wait...
followed by
I don't belong to the Milky Way, you insensitive CLOD!
followed by
Well I for one welcome our greenhouse-gas spewing overlords...oh wait...DOH!

Re:On global warming.

[Anonymous Coward]

Carlin's joke about the "hippie dippie weatherman" is well known!

Re:On global warming.

[Paulrothrock]

The planet isn't going away. We are.
Do disrespect to Mr. Carlin, but I don't want to go away. I realize the planet will be fine without us, but I also realize I don't want us to die out.

Re:On global warming.

[SEWilco]

If you don't want us to die out, get us off this planet. All our eggs are in this one basket, at the bottom of a gravity well.

Re:On global warming.

[Anonymous Coward]

And we have the conceit to think that somehow we're a threat?

Nuclear weapons. We could take off some sizeable chunks of this planet and make much of it uninhabitable except by cockroaches if we wanted to. No other species in the history of this planet could claim that.

My point? Earth'd better not fuck with us.

Re:On global warming.

[Paulrothrock]

I'm working on that, too.

Re:On global warming.

[Anonymous Coward]

All our eggs are in this one basket, at the bottom of a gravity well.

So they'd be safer at the top of a long pointy stick at the top of the gravity well?

Re:On global warming.

[SEWilco]

Greatly humorous imagery.

The pointy stick is a temporary risk. The hard part is having new nests...and aiming the pointy stick near but not at the nest.

Life is dangerous. But the obvious initial need to to have self-sufficent nests on the Moon and several asteroids, so a disaster local to Earth (such as a big rock) won't wipe us out.

Practical benefits, such as supplying cheap metals and energy to everyone, are a side effect of having distributed locations (in this solar system, distributed locations implies living among asteroids because there aren't many usable planets, thus asteroid technologies and mining are assumed).

Unfortunately being scattered in the Solar System only protects against occasional disasters to individual nests. Earth's magnetic field provides some protection from interstellar radiation bursts (although similar protection is likely to be built elsewhere). But events such as the entire system passing through a cloud of rocks or a sterilizing radiation blast require further protection. But such problems can be solved after getting out of the nest, as staying in the nest does not increase protection against the death of the species (or loss of this civilization).

"Simulate "The Day After Tomorrow" On Your PC"

[NineteenSixtyNine]

Windows ME?

wrong!

[QuasiRob]

The moons orbit is expanding.

Where did you get all that from, tarot cards?

Re:wrong!

[RobertHooke]

The moon's orbit is not expanding. The moon is gradually falling to earth, becuase it is gradually losing energy to tidal forces. This is the point made in the grandparent post.

Re:wrong!

[QuasiRob]

Good grief, dont you people know how to use a search engine to do a little research before you post?

Freemars - Gravitational interaction (tides on the Earth caused by the Moon) transfers kinetic energy from Earth to the Moon, slowing Earth's rotation and raising the Moon's orbit, currently at a rate of 3.8 centimeters per year.

another page

and another

and another

Re:wrong!

[Stridar]

Other way around.

Windows to the Universe

or

PhysLink

Re:wrong!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the Earth that's losing energy to tides - more specifically the gravitational torque exerted by the Moon on the tidal bulges is slowing Earth's rotation down. No such force is exerted on the Moon because it is already tidally locked facing Earth. (see http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/physics/TidalTorqu e.html for details).

Therefore to conserve angular momentum in the Earth-Moon system, the Moon is moving further away. We have observed this using laser ranging on reflectors placed by the Apollo astronauts on the Moon's surface - the current rate is about 38mm per year.

This means that in maybe a billion years' time, total eclipses will not be possible. Ultimately, the Earth will be tidally locked to the Moon as well. The Moon will be stationary in Earth's sky - assuming they don't get swallowed by the Sun's red giant phase.

Re:wrong!

[Evan Meakyl]

Botswana: lowest point: junction of the Limpopo and Shashe Rivers 513 m highest point: Tsodilo Hills 1,489 m So I think 20m-waves are not really dangerous for this country. And as others said, the moon is going away from us, not coming closer... So please mod the parent down!!!

Ski in NY

[Roland Piquepaille]

in which New York City is treated to a 10,000-year-long ski season If this is to happen, I hope there's a massive earthquake crust movement to tilt the city a bit...

Re:Attempting to model the real world on this scal

[hutkey]

may be this would help...

ieee

computing the weather

Re:Attempting to model the real world on this scal

[freshtonic]

I always thought that predicting specific weather at a specific time was supposed to be extremely difficult due to the chaotic nature of the weather systems, but on a larger more fuzzy timescale you can predict more general trends. Are there any climatologists on /. that can back be up on this?

Who Cares?

[essreenim]

I'm sick of these movies focusing as if its the greatest city in the world or something. They expect ppl of the world to flock to the cinema to see a post apoalyptic New York which is actually primarily being caused by Americans ..! I would have more emotion in my heart if it were London or Paris or somewhere. ps. I'm Irish

Re:Who Cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're noticing that the film was made as if it were for an American audience. Perhaps it was.

It's an "Election Year" in the USA, and perhaps the movie is part of an attempt to create a media frenzy surrounding an issue (the environment) on which our sitting president is politically very vulnerable. It may all just be a bunch of propaganda.

At least one billionaire (George Soros) has positively committed himself toward the goal of unseating President Bush in the upcoming election. Expect things to get very wierd in the coming months.

Re:Who Cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's an "Election Year" in the USA, and perhaps the movie is part of an attempt to create a media frenzy surrounding an issue (the environment) on which our sitting president is politically very vulnerable.

Yes, it's all an evil liberal media plot by that well known bunch of anti-Republicans ... er ... 20th Century Fox.

Re:Who Cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

I love disaster movies. They show me that if there is ever going to be any real trouble in the world, it is going to happen to America :)

Re:Who Cares?

[jocknerd]

If the Democrats actually had a candidate that had a pulse, this election would have been over by now. I would love to see Bill Clinton announce at the Democratic Convention this summer that he is running for President again. He would win in a landslide. I think people have realized that his "evil doings" really aren's so bad compared to the current administration.

Re:Who Cares?

[CrimsonAvenger]

I would love to see Bill Clinton announce at the Democratic Convention this summer that he is running for President again. He would win in a landslide.

Well, no. 22nd Amendment, remember? "No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice" is the relevant part.

Re:Who Cares?

[wwest4]

> I think people have realized that his "evil doings" really aren's so bad
> compared to the current administration.

You mean like lobbing cruise missiles into Afghanistan or regime change in Yugoslavia?

I would love to see Democrats stop acting like Republicans with regard to foreign policy (at least). Then at least the candidates would at least be distinguishable.

Re:Who Cares?

[benna]

Yeah fox news is totally part of the liberal media conspiracy.

Re:Who Cares?

[benna]

Kerry could pick him as vice president and then promise to resign. That would not violate the constitution.

Dont know but..

[idsCypher]

Since that 50 years from now i dont know if i'm arround. Why dont predict something like the lotery. just an ideia :)

Not gonna work

[bigHairyDog]

I did a climate modeling project for my dissertation at university. These guys have a good idea - throw massive computing power at it - but it's not that simple. Compared to SETI or protein folding, climate modeling is not as highly parallelisable. Plus what's holding back the state of the art right now is the quality of the algorithms we're using - they loose accuracy pretty fast as the result of feedback between multiple iterations of a process that introduces quantisation noise each time.

IMHO this project will produce the same quantisation noise-ruined results we have now, just more finely ovesampled

Still, they might get some useful insights into how to tackle the problems of parallel dynamic system simulation

Re:Not gonna work

[dave_frame]

We're not running a parallelised model across lots of computers, we're farming out a run to each of several thousand machines. And the purpose of the experiment is precisely to look into the feedback processes that govern how climate changes. You say: "what's holding back the state of the art right now is the quality of the algorithms we're using" and this - on climate timescales - is what we're looking to explore. Basically, the models that we have these days (IPCC TAR, for instance) lack any sort of quantitative measure of uncertainty. We're looking to find "error bars" for these sorts of predictions. See http://www.climateprediction.net/science/strategy_ adv.php for details of the experimental strategy. [We (& friends overseas) have submitted bids in recent EU Framework 6 and NSF rounds, to try to do something similar with very different models. This will help us conduct a convergence/verification process.] We have recently submitted a "first results" paper and are awaiting the reviewers' comments. So far, things seem to be going pretty well (though we'd love some more participants!). Cheers, Dave Frame climateprediction.net coordinator

Re:Not gonna work

[bloosqr]

That is very cool actually. Pande's whole "trick" w/ folding at home is using stat. mech. to examine certain dynamic properties of folding by using statistics. Basically the "mode" switching may be chaotic in the sense that any simulation may hop from one mode to the other its because most of the time a simulation is sitting in an entropic well waiting for its degrees of freedom to line up such that it can hop over an effective barrier. Even if that typical time scale for switching modes is much longer than computer simulations you can use statistics to make concrete predictions of barrier hopping rates (w/ a slew of assumptions hiding underneath) I dont know if weather does this but there is some super long time scale and the idea of a effective transition between modes (i.e. like in the day after movie w/ a "cool planet" mode) maybe you could make predictions of the transition rate w/ out doing the full simulation!
-avi

Re:Not gonna work

[SengirV]

Plus what's holding back the state of the art right now is the quality of the algorithms we're using

I'm sure there is no pressure to tweek these to get the desired "Imminent global calamity!!! make the US stop all commerce" outcome that is desired in this Anti-US world we live in today. I'm sure your dissertation's algorithms were fine, but once you start playing with the big boy politics where Meryl Strep has more pull in congress than actual scientists, then I have little faith in how accurate and reliable these algorithms are.

Re:Not gonna work

[Anonymous Coward]

though we'd love some more participants!

Never underestimate the importance of eye candy in your client. You'll get a bigger turnout if the screensaver shows what's it's doing as it's computing. Even if it slows down the processing a bit, the loss will be made up for in participation.

Re:Attempting to model the real world on this scal

[will_die]

However none of theses computer models have been able to predicte current overall changes, using previous data, without a bunch of fudges and changes to specificly handle how the climate is in reality.

Re:Attempting to model the planet trajectories

[gowen]

Foolish. Theres no way that computer simulations could possibly predict the motions of the planets. We can't even predict the quantum fluctuation of individual molecules!

Re:Attempting to model the real world on this scal

[Anonymous Coward]

Since long term climate change depends heavily on how active the sun is, any climate model that does not take into account the solar cycle isn't worth the electrons it's written on.

mods: MOD DOWN YOU SHOULD!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Mods, please check the site he references before modding up.... thank you.

Re:Attempting to model the real world on this scal

[gowen]

Yes and no. Interannual trends are captured fairly well, seasonal forecasts tend to be off (worse, as you get down to the scale of weather) See here, for more information than you'd possibly want.

Robust, with a large latency.

[Vellmont]

You refer to the lie that some of the eco-freaks like to believe in. That is that we're "saving the planet". As George Carlin put it, "That planet is fine, the people are fucked".

You're right that the earths eco-system is very robust. It's survived meteor collisions, massive climate changes, etc. Human society isn't particularly robust though. While you may be fine with the eco-system taking a few thousand years to adjust to a new climate, most people aren't. I think mass famine because of crop failure and flooding of the coasts is a Bad Thing (for us humans that is). That's the real reason people should be concerned about climate change, and not this altruistic bull that a small minority wants to shove down our throats.

it's funny

[Anonymous Coward]

its the ones with the most to lose who always seem to disagree with the science, not suprising when the people from the highest polluting countries have been conditioned to think that you can pump as much shit in the air as you like and it will have 0 enviromental impact, but who cares right ? i get to drive a SUV and have air conditioning right NOW, who gives a shit about our childrens future lets ruin today while we can !

stupiditity knows no bounds

Re:it's funny

[Anonymous Coward]

its the ones who have the most to gain that seem to agree with the science, not surprising when the people from the highest polluting countries have been conditioned to think that you can pump as much shit in the air as you like and it will have 0 environmental impact because pollution from a developing country doesn't count, but who cares right ? i get to have a hot economy and development righ NOW, who gives a shit about our childrens future lest ruin today while we can !

stupiditity knows no bounds

Re:Attempting to model the planet trajectories

[Anonymous Coward]

Motions of planets -- isn't that astronomy?

Motions of the atmosphere can be predicted using differental equations that approximate real-world fluid and non-hydrostatic motions of scale.

Re:Attempting to model the real world on this scal

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly.

Here's a question.
(1) The solar activity and solar flares has been increasing.
(2) The more solar activity there is, the bigger the hole in the ozone layer is.
(3) The hotter the sun is, the more global warming there is.
(4) The Sun affects the world *a lot* more than we affect the world.

So why do environmentalists conclude that the ozone hole is due mostly to man made CFCs and global warming to man made CO2?

Funny but..

[Hewhosaysni]

"The Day After Tomorrow" (dagen efter) means hangover in swedish .

Re:Funny but..

[stud9920]

In French, "le lendemain de la veille" (the day after the day before)

Re:Funny but..

[WormholeFiend]

and if you drink hard enough, it's "le surlendemain"?

Re:Funny but..

[Anonymous Coward]

No it doesn't - "The Day After" means hangover in Swedish, "The Day After Tomorrow" means the day after tomorrow.

What good are all the computers in the world...

[Walkiry]

when you don't know all the variables involved?

Re:What good are all the computers in the world...

[TeknoHog]

when you don't know all the variables involved?

The same applies to all scientific projects, yet we somehow manage with proper use of approximations.

Re:What good are all the computers in the world...

[iggymanz]

it is a wonderful means to push political agendas on the populace by deluded misfits who would otherwise have no access to mainstream society

Re:What good are all the computers in the world...

[winwar]

I don't think it applies to ALL scientific projects. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try to find the answer even if we don't have all the variables of course. The problem is, the models are very sensitive to certain assumptions (or approximations). So, if the models say there is a 95% chance of a few degrees warming in the next century, is that good enough?
Hell, what does that mean, really? Some places will warm more, some places may actually cool (or warm less). Is that the average temperature? The high? The low? These things really matter, and the models aren't very good at predicting the specifics (what will this mean to Ohio, Germany, Ukraine, blah, blah). You need much better information, computing power is secondary.
It is likely that some places will benefit (so why do they want to prevent it...), others will lose. Oh yeah, and we're only 95% certain, for instance, of a given temperature increase, say 2 degrees warming. The EFFECTS are what are important, NOT the warming. IF 2 deg. are bad, and we are 95% certain, and to combat this we have to reduce emissions to oh, say, early 20th century levels, are you willing to do this? To take that chance, considering it WILL severely impact the economy (if we are lucky). I sure as heck am not.

Mod down, that's all made up

[SmilingBoy]

I don't know whether I have ever read as much bullshit in 3 paragraphs. Mod down parent, all he says is made up.

thats great

[Anonymous Coward]

corrupt a genuine (or was) science projects reputation to promote a fly-by-night film, shows how low Advertising can get really when they get this desperate, but then again we are used to watching "Making of ____ movie" on TV which are really 25min commercials thinly disguised as a "documentary" so i guess we can look at science in the same light now,

is it science or is it an advert ?, you decide !

@home

[dpilot]

My daughter and I are folding@home, I started her on it a week or two back. IMHO, she's a born scientist - she likes to write her observations and how she does things. She took quite an interest in biological sciences after reading "The Hot Zone" in middle school, and recently in freshman biology they were talking about prions being misfolded proteins responsible for Mad Cow. All stuff well-known to /.ers, but new to her.

So I pounced on her new exposure to protein folding, and we signed up for folding@home. I figure this will amplify her interest in biological sciences, either upward or down. It's worth the electricity to let her learn more about her own interests.

Incidentally, folding@home has quite a bit more information on their web site, that I'm deliberately avoiding. I hope that after school's out, she'll lead on this - or not. At a strategic time, I may well mention climate@home.

Re:Attempting to model the real world on this scal

[dave_frame]

Exactly. Although in a chaotic system predictability due to initial conditions washes out over time (in the atmosphere initial condition predictability washes out over about 2 weeks) predictability due to changes in the boundary conditions of the system emerges over time. Imagine a choppy and complicated lake which is fed by a river. The river's flow is getting bigger and bigger (perhaps due to some earthworks in the upstream catchment area). You take a snapshot of the lake, and use your model + initial conditions to predict the surface in thirty second's time. You do okay. But (say) you do a lousy job of predicting the surface in a day's time. BUT, you might do an okay job of predicting the *average level* of the surface in a month's time, not by knowing the initial conditions very well, but by knowing the rate of change of the river's flow. So though we can't predict the exact state (the weather) on longer timescales, we can (we hope, models and data permitting) do a reasonable job of predicting the average state (the climate) of the system on longer timescales. Dave Frame climateprediction.net coordinator

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Of course The Day after tomorrow is wrong

[Snaller]

... and totally unbelieveable according to Bjørn Lomborg (Whom you should know if you pay any kind of attention to world affairs)

Re:Of course The Day after tomorrow is wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

And of course Bjørn Lomborg is wrong and totally unbelieveable according to the overwhelming majority of scientists from a multiplicity of disciplines, ass you should know if you pay any kind of attention to valid scientific debate (as opposed to articles in the Torygraph).

Re:Of course The Day after tomorrow is wrong

[pilkul]

Bjorn Lomborg is known to be biased against all environmental disaster scenarios. Of course he'll try to discredit the movie.

There are much better sources you can look to if you want to attack this film. E.g. look at this New Republic article from a believer in global warming, who worries that the film is so exaggerated that it will only serve to discredit the global warming cause:

By trivializing the greenhouse effect into a subject as ludicrous as the premise of a scientifically illiterate disaster movie, The Day After Tomorrow may serve mainly to convince audiences the prospect of global warming is just another Hollywood gimmick. Unfortunately, it may not be. The real science behind the need for greenhouse gas reform is plenty troubling without preposterous exaggeration.

Re:Of course The Day after tomorrow is wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

He has the support of the CATO Institute, a neutral, non-profit organisation fighting against the spread of junk science such as "global warming" (a single volcano belches out more SO2 than humanity has in its entire history) and "acid rain" (last time I checked, "evil" CO2 was not acidic), not to mention the hysteria about DDT, dioxins, asbestos and lead in fuel, none of which have any scientific backing but all of which are supported by eco-fascists and pro-statist left-wing biased news "sources" who want to stop the growth of the US economy becuase they're jealous and they hate our freedom.

Re:Of course The Day after tomorrow is wrong

[Snaller]

Bjorn Lomborg is known to be biased against all environmental disaster scenarios.

Bjorn Lomborg is known to have a scientifically based opinion different from yours.

Re:Of course The Day after tomorrow is wrong

[pilkul]

Wrong, in fact I agree with Lomborg on most things (though not all --- I think he is far too sanguine on biodiversity for instance). That doesn't change the fact that he's strongly biased against this movie's claims. Surely another expert's argument would be more persuasive, especially since there is no shortage of people lining up to trash this film.

As for "scientifically based": everyone except crackpots tries to base their environmental opinions on scientific facts. Bias comes in when you interpret them.

Have you been following this debate? Few people, even his supporters, would claim that Bjorn Lomborg is a model, unbiased, expert scientist. He strongly believes that environmental concerns are diverting resources from more important projects like the reduction of poverty, and argues forcefully that they must be taken less seriously. Lomborg has an axe to grind.

Re:Of course The Day after tomorrow is wrong

[Snaller]

By your choice of words you failed to convince me.

I have noticed several potshots at him, and each time they were rebuffed by others in the scientific community.

MODS: THIS IS _NOT_ OFF-TOPIC

[JessLeah]

This person wants to participate in this project. S/he just so happens to want to do so without using Windows. That is NOT off-topic.

Re:MODS: THIS IS _NOT_ OFF-TOPIC

[dave_frame]

We're in the process of moving the software to BOINC, which will make us much more platform neutral. We reckon this ought to be done in a few weeks (it's been quite a big job). We'll be having a public beta test, so if you want to get involved (on your Mac or linux box) keep an eye on http://www.climateprediction.net

Cheers

Dave Frame

climateprediction.net coordinator

Re:MODS: THIS IS _NOT_ OFF-TOPIC

[cerberusss]

Thanks, and by the way, everyone: it DOES seem to do something. At first this is not obvious since the counter increments very slowly. It's now (an hour later) close to one percent.

Using Crossover Office 2.1 for this.

ugh

[Anonymous Coward]

im having a hard enough time trying to simulate "the day after yesterday" on my ReallifeOS, now I have to try to get this simulator running in WINE?

*hangs self*

What about SimEarth?

[OneDeeTenTee]

I've already done this.

Amazing!

[catdevnull]

I was able to simulate hell freezing over! (Damn, I'm such a troll today)

Re:Amazing!

[Prowl]

that happened yesterday when safari got hit by that remote code exploit...

For anyone not getting the "THC" jokes

[Anonymous Coward]

i.e. those that don't use drugs or know much about them, like yours truly who had to go to wikipedia, THC also stands for "tetrahydrocannibinol", the major psychoactive drug in marijuana/cannabis.

Re:For anyone not getting the "THC" jokes

[ktulu1115]

Actually the full name of the chemical commonly referred to as THC is Delta-9-Tetrahydrocannabinol, known to some as C21 H30 O2.

My personal favorite is [C12 H17 N2 O4 P] but such things will remain nameless here. :)

Re:For anyone not getting the "THC" jokes

[benna]

I prefer C20H25N3O my self. Its better than the active chemical in mushrooms, Psilocybin.

Re:For anyone not getting the "THC" jokes

[ktulu1115]

I was thinking of commenting on that as well, however I havn't (yet) had experience with said chemical so I figured I'd go with that. 12 hours does sound like a lot of fun though. :)

I've read enough to know that Psilocybin works as a serotonin inhibitor, I'm assuming the same for our lysergic friend over there.

Re:For anyone not getting the "THC" jokes

[benna]

While LSD does have that affect it is not what causes its psychedelic effects. Its inventor, Albert Hofmann, found that he could make other versions of LSD (not LSD-25, the psychedlic one) that would have an even greater sarotonin inhibitor effect than LSD-25 but they didn't have the other effects of LSD-25. This means that can't possibly be what causes its effects. Nobody is really sure what does. I would assume the same goes for psilocybin.

Re:For anyone not getting the "THC" jokes

[goatan]

Morning glory seed or salvia divinorium both legal (in UK) both trippy (the salvia is a lot more intense) there both similar to Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.

Also it's mushroom season soon Liberty caps galore.

There are drug users and drug Abusers don't be an abuser (that goes for anything not just drugs)

Slashdot news for nerd stuff that..... Hey man every turned into a kaleidoscope

A REALLY interesting distributed computing project

[Art_XIV]

I think that a really interesting distributed computing project would be one that simulates the growth, spread, and interaction between memes.

It would have to be MS-based, though, or possibly done w/ Java. ;)

FYI

[BinLadenMyHero]

i checked with ClamAV (freshened virus db), it's ok.
but didn't run in my winex3.

Who wrote the script?

[randomErr]

Um guys.... the movie was written by Art Bell. The guy who had a late night radio show for decades where he talked about aliens, astro projection, and psychic pets. For that reason alone I can't take this movie too seriously.

Re:Who wrote the script?

[Mc_Anthony]

Art Bell and Hollywood, a match made in hell.

What a load...

Re:Who wrote the script?

[Brandybuck]

Perhaps that's why he keeps hyping it as one of the most important movies of our time...

I actually remember when Art Bell was an ordinary conservative talk show host. He was the slightly to the right counterpart of the slightly to the left Larry King. No discussions of aliens or psychics anywhere.

I have no idea what happened to change Art Bell so much. I somehow suspect that he had a kook author on one early AM, and was amazed to see his rating skyrocket.

Re:Attempting to model the real world on this scal

[will_die]

Not really, but lets use that link as an example.
In that article they start giving information for 2030 to 2060 in 10 year increments. For a test of the system they should enter data upto 1960 and thier system should beable to give an accurate release of what is in existance today and for the past decade.
So far I have yet to hear of any system where this works, and they have not fudged with the system.

Re:Attempting to model the real world on this scal

[SEWilco]

However, if we can determine overall changes long term...then this new research would not be needed.

Take a look at one small section of the IPCC Third Assessment Report (TAR). Note the uncertainties and many "improvements" since the previous report, the SAR upon which the Kyoto protocol is based. Browse the report further for more uncertainties and recent discoveries.

We simply don't know enough about climate yet. For example, water causes most of the planet's greenhouse effect. Increased temperatures will obviously put more water in the atmosphere. But how much will stay as water vapor, and how much will condense into clouds? And will greater cloud cover be as a thin horizontal layer (which might cool the planet if it reflects more sunlight, or might warm the planet as a blanket which traps heat), or will the increased water appear as vertical rain-producing clouds?

Global Warming has debunked

[Anonymous Coward]

Global Warming has been debunked.
http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/resear ch/trc.html

Scary...

[TheConfusedOne]

Can you even fathom the size of the bag of Dorito's we'd need for Gaia?

I'm confused about CO2 and the environment...

[Loco3KGT]

Clinton's administration said if our atmosphere became almost entirely CO2 the temperature would still be less than 25C :

"Scientists have been concerned with the greenhouse effect regarding not only the quality of life on Earth, but also its effect on other planets. Twenty-six million miles from Earth, in an orbit much closer to the Sun, Venus spins through space with a furnace-like surface temperature of more than 800o Fahrenheit (F) (426.5o Celsius [C]), which is much hotter than its proximity to the Sun would explain. Scientists used to believe that Venus fell victim to the greenhouse effect because 96 percent of its atmosphere is carbon dioxide, with nitrogen accounting for almost all the remainder [26]. It is now generally agreed within the planetary atmospheres community that carbon dioxide alone would lead to an average temperature of less than 25oC. The primary reason that Venus is warmer than this is the presence of sulfuric acid cloud cover over the entire planet, extending from about 50 kilometers to 70 kilometers from the surface."

from : http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/pubs_html/attf94_v2/c hap2.html

So doesn't that mean the only harm CO2 presents is that we can't breathe it? ... but CO2 is processed by plants so doesn't increased CO2 mean increased plant life which means reduced CO2 and increased O2? (assuming we stop destroying rain forests, etc)

Re:I'm confused about CO2 and the environment...

[uncadonna]

Sure enough, the referenced document says exactly as quoted. (The document is not a document about climate, though, so it isn't a primary source. It's about transportation policy. I'm inclined to suspect it isn't a very good document about transportation policy, either, but that being as it may...)

This assertion has absolutely nothing to do with what science believes about Venus.

The current idea (dating back to the late '80s) of the history of Venus is that it once had an ocean, got hot enough thanks to proximity to the sun and presence of CO2 that a "runaway greenhouse effect" kicked in. So originally the catastrophic warming was a combination of CO2 and water vapor. Since the ocean vanished, there has been no hydrological cycle to chemically scrub CO2 from the atmosphere, so it has gotten hotter and hotter as the infrared opacity of the atmosphere increases. Most of the enormous heat at the surface is due to the CO2 contribution to the radiative balance.

I've been fishing around for a good URL to back this up. So far the best I can do is this undergrad lecture. It's not formatted very well, but the relevant points toward the end are clear enough.

So Venus is much more opaque to IR radiation, due mostly to CO2. Why does Venus have so much CO2 in its atmosphere? On the Earth, CO2 is mostly bound up in limestone deposits. Only a tiny fraction is in the atmosphere. Most of it has reacted with surface rocks (silicates) and is washed out to sea by running water. There it is dissolved and precipitates out into sediments. These sediments are eventually subducted and the CO2 is spewed out again as volcanoes, but the sediment (limestone) deposits represent the most significant source of carbon on the Earth. This is the carbonate-silicate geochemical cycle. There is approximately as much carbon in the Earth's crust and atmosphere as in Venus' atmosphere. The reason all the carbon is in Venus' atmosphere is that there is no water to facilitate the reactions and no plate tectonics to close the cycle.

Venus has little water in its atmosphere because most of it was photodissociated by the strong UV of the early Sun, and the hydrogen lost to space. This may be due to the fact that Venus is a little closer to the Sun, but it may also be due to subtler differences between the two planets early in the Solar System's history.

There is still a little water in Venus' atmosphere (recall that some of it goes into making the clouds), and it is very important in Venus' efficient greenhouse effect. Water IR absorption occurs in different parts of the IR spectrum than CO2's, effectively blocking almost all the outgoing radiation.

Now, regarding the referenced page, the main thing it illustrates is that government is made up of fallible humans. I don't think a single utterance in a single report can be taken as policy for a whole administration. That said, it is odd to note that the page, from a 1994 report, displays a "last edit" date of 2002. Hopefully this recent update didn't introduce any substantive changes.

Latest Patch Fixes MSIE Bug

[Anonymous Coward]

The latest version (2.2.28) fixes the MSIE Security Path problem with server connectivity. They moved away from M$ libraries to libcurl.

Re:Attempting to model the real world on this scal

[gowen]

Not really

Read more closely -- they run from 1959-1990 and compare with the NCAR observations. The future stuff is just an add on.

G5/AMD64?

[Ilgaz]

I hope your software, when ported will use 64 bit instructions provided by those cpus. It should be easy, as Apple claims its only "-fast" argument passed to Apple gcc.

Not a coder but I heard 64bit is specially good for such applications... I tried it with beta distributed.net 64bit client, got amazing results with 1600 mhz G5. (just wanted to check a real life benchmark)

Bjorn Lomborg

[Mad Man]

was Re:Concerning the movie "The Day after Tomorrow"

He's in statistics, and judging by some of the critisism he's gotten from other people in that area, not a very good one either.

Actually, it turns out many of his critics aren't very good scientists.
from http://www.reason.com/hitandrun/004625.shtml

Case Against Scientifically Honest Bjorn Lomborg Dismissed

The Danish Committee on Scientific Dishonesty abetted a vicious ideological environmentalist smear campaign against Bjorn Lomborg by declaring two years ago that his excellent book The Skeptical Environmentalist , was "objectively dishonest." Naturally this accusation hit the headlines. However, in December, 2003, the Danish Ministry of Science and Technology overturned the DCSD kangaroo court's decision and sent it back to them. On futher reflection the DCSD members have now decided that perhaps they'd been a bit hasty and have completely dropped the matter (see press release below).

Press Release
March 12, 2004

Scientific Dishonesty Committee Withdraws Lomborg Case

The Danish Committee on Scientific Dishonesty (DCSD) today announced it would not reopen the case concerning Bjørn Lomborg's book, "The Skeptical Environmentalist".

In December 2003 The Danish Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation completely rejected the DCSD finding that "The Skeptical Environmentalist" was "objectively dishonest" or "clearly contrary to the standards of good scientific practice".

The Ministry, which is responsible for the DCSD, found that the committee's judgment was not backed up by documentation and was "completely void of argumentation" for the claims of dishonesty and lack of good scientific practice.

The Ministry invalidated the original finding and sent the case back to DCSD, where it was up to the committee to decide whether to reopen the case for a new trial.

"The committee decision is as one would expect," Environmental Assessment Institute director Bjørn Lomborg said today. "More than two years have passed since the case against my book was started. In that time every possible stone has been turned over, yet DCSD has been unable to find a single point of criticism that withstands further investigation."

"DCSD have reached the only logical conclusion. The committee has acknowledged that the former verdict of my book was invalid. I am happy that this will spell an end to what has been a very distasteful course of events," Bjørn Lomborg said.

The DCSD translated their first judgment into English. Today's announcement is only available in Danish.

No word of an apology nor headlines declaring Lomborg vindicated.

Posted by Ronald Bailey at March 12, 2004 03:27 PM

Re:Bjorn Lomborg

[Hektor_Troy]

Yeah, I read about that as well - and reading between the lines of the media take, they were forced to drop the issue by the government. Apparently the Prime Minister who don't like "so called" experts telling people what to think, don't really like it, when people take issues with his own handpicked experts.

Since I have not read the (now withdrawn) findings by the Committee, I choose not to base my judgements on their findings.

By the way - I wasn't even thinking of that Committee, but was thinking of a smallish 5 page (I think) dissection (page 12 to 17 of that pdf) of a just a small part of his book - by Inge Henningsen, who is an associate professor at the Statistic Department of the Institute for Mathematical Sciences at Copenhagen University.

She also notes in her piece, that he's not actually a statistician like they know them at her department, as he has a M.A in Political Science from Århus Universitet and teaches "Methods" there as well. He is (as is noted) "an associate professor of statistics in the Department of Politital Science".

As to who has the better credentials when it comes to statistics - well, my oppinion is fairly obvious, but I've given you plenty of venues to explore yourself and leave you to draw your own conclusions.

In song...

[Theaetetus]

I was gonna get first post, but then I got high.
Now my karma's toast, because I got high.
All my posts are zeroes, and I know why... hey, hey,
Because I got high, because I got high, because I got hiiiigh.

;)

Ski NY

[Ba3r]

Hah, i alwasy thought skiing in NY sucked.. but the day after tomorrow i heard we are gonna get dumped on! Screw Gore and Hunter, Central Park here i come!

Junk Science

[ericlp]

Gee, a computer setup that simulates junk science. Great.

Re:Junk Science

[maduro55]

I believe that would be called Windows.

linux client?

[joeldg]

Well, if they would provide a linux client I could toss this on an OpenMosix cluster I run.
but..
still no linux client..
guess they just want the regular 'joe' home machines and not people with a lot of number crunching power?

*sigh*

Re:Already done?

[gfxguy]

I think you're absolutely right, even the names of the films go together:

The Day After (1983)

The Day After Tomorrow (2004)

The next movie will be called the "The Day After the Day After Tomorrow", and it'll be about how we're destroying the moon or Martian environments.

Wait a second...

[DarwinDan]

What is this story doing on /. if there is no Linux or UNIX client?!?

Re:Already done?

[gfxguy]

You know, I'd like to add that these are just movies. Perhaps the authors were trying to make a point, perhaps not. They certainly aren't isolated occurences and people ought to take these movies for what they are: entertainment.

I remember when the China Syndrome came out, and my parents took me to see it - protesters standing outside handing out propoganda about the dangers of nuclear power, or the real idiots equating the dangers of nuclear power to nuclear weapons.

Then I went and saw the movie and was entertained - if anything it was more about corporate greed than political corruptness. But people see what they want to see and idiots take movies like these as fact. These are the same people who blame Columbine on Doom, and believe that the DaVinci Code is something other than fiction.

Can't get it working

[gnalre]

Tried it, but my PC froze

big ass bugs

[Psymunn]

actually, not entirely true
while it is true that the insect frame can only support it's self up to a certain size, this has, in the past, been much greater then insects now (dragonflys 1 - 2 ft. long during the time of the dinosaurs). it seems that in a warmer environment, with higher CO2 levls, insects can in fact grow.
of course, as you said, cockroaches haevn't evolved for a very long time and probably won't in the future because they fill their niche far to well and so don't really need to change

Look on the bright side

[The MESMERIC]

UK residents won't complain of not having a white-Xmas ever again.

Re:Attempting to model the real world on this scal

[winwar]

Luckily, most, (probably all) of the climate models take into account sun activity, either directly or indirectly. The real trick is to determine the value. From the scientific talks I have listened to, overestimating the sun activity is the easiest way to overestimate warming.

Re:Attempting to model the real world on this scal

[winwar]

But isn't what we really want to know in the end the weather in a certain area in the future? I have little doubt that the models are improving, incorporating better and more data, etc. (I study geology). But the output is climate. How useful is it really to know that the average temperature increase is X degrees? The effects of that change is important. Does that mean winter gets warmer, summer, both, daily highs, daily lows, daily temp ranges, etc. All of these can really moderate or exagerate a change of a few degrees. How much increase is too much, can we tell? A couple of bad weeks of weather can destroy crops, or save them, but the models can't predict this.

What is the confidence level of this data? If we have to radically change our way of life to prevent further warming I would suggest that 95% confidence of somewhat vague results is not nearly good enough. Can these models realistically get better? I don't think so. Heck, I don't even know if they can get that good considering some of the data sources.

Earth will resemble Venus????

[Decaff]

With increase of temperature, already now many white areas have disappeared. Not only at the poles but also on mountains like the Alps. This decrease of albedo will cause further warming, as more energy is absorbed, hence increasing the rate of warming.

And increased temperature leads to increased evaporation of water, so increased clouds and desert areas, both of which increase albedo and reflect heat. Its not necessarily a runaway system.

There is another positive feedback: with the increase of temperature, many of the plancton that is responsible for the conversion of CO2 into oxygen is not able to survive, causing a higher percentage of CO2 in the air, hence further increasing the rate of warming.

There is no evidence that warming will destroy plankton.

So, the Earth may be stable, but there is a tipping point after which it will start to resamble Venus for a while.

No - the Earth will not resemble Venus at all. The surface of the Earth will not get up to several hundred degrees C, and we will not be swamped by clouds of sulphuric acid.

After that, things wil come back to normal, but not many of the existing multicellular organisms will survive. It will be much worse than the runaway glaciation of the Earth.

Not at all. For life on Earth as a whole, global warming will have little long-term effect. A different range of animals and plants may prefer the changed conditions, but that is all.

What matters is that it will make things pretty bad for us!

Re:Earth will resemble Venus????

[haggar]

There is no evidence that warming will destroy plankton.

No need to use future tense: it's happening now, and evidence exists.

No - the Earth will not resemble Venus at all. The surface of the Earth will not get up to several hundred degrees C, and we will not be swamped by clouds of sulphuric acid.

True, but what I was trying to say is that it will resemble Venus moree than it does now.

You mentioned effects that would cause negative feedback, but unfortunately the greeat majority of scientists agree that the positive feedback seems to be more significant.

Re:Earth will resemble Venus????

[Decaff]

No need to use future tense: it's happening now, and evidence exists.

There is evidence that in some areas, plankton is thriving due to increased warmth (as in the Artic. Global warming (and cooling) has happened very frequently. Life adapts and thrives.

True, but what I was trying to say is that it will resemble Venus moree than it does now.

You might as well say that a few degrees of temperature rise makes the Earth more like the surface of the Sun. Its technically correct, but not a useful comparison.

You mentioned effects that would cause negative feedback, but unfortunately the great majority of scientists agree that the positive feedback seems to be more significant.

Yes, but my point is that its not all positive feedback - its certainly not a huge runaway process that will destroy all multicellular life on Earth - that's crazy talk. Complex life has survived vast meteor impacts and the effect of continent-wide million-year-long lava flows. Global warming by humankind is feeble and totally insignificant by comparison.

There is an arrogant, and mistaken, attitude that humankind can 'destroy the world', or 'wipe out all life'. What we can do is make the Earth a very unpleasant place for ourselves.

Re:Earth will resemble Venus????

[haggar]

You might as well say that a few degrees of temperature rise makes the Earth more like the surface of the Sun. Its technically correct, but not a useful comparison.
Look, you probably know that there is a reason why the earth is not cold and barren like Mars or a f* hell like Venus. It is because of it's distance to the Sun in the first place, but also due to the presence of photosynthesis-capable organisms, that have significantly reduced the concentration of CO2. PÅrior to the appearance of these, the Earth was almost unbearable for anything but those bacteria that you can still find nowadays living near underwater volcanic vents (these guys survive at 120+ celsius). Consider that the age of the Earth is estimated at 4.5 Billion years, of which only a very tiny fraction was multicellular organisms, and chiefly thanks to photosynthesis. The appearance of this pheonmenon has stabilized the climate on Earth, and the process IS reversible. The carbon that has been slowly but steadily captured and stored away (in the form of coal and mineral oil) is now bein quickly and steadily released into the atmosphere.

There is an arrogant, and mistaken, attitude that humankind can 'destroy the world', or 'wipe out all life'. What we can do is make the Earth a very unpleasant place for ourselves.
Arrogant is rather the attitude that we can do whatever we want to the place where we live, with disregard to it's other inhabitants and, duh, with disregard to our children and their children, who will inherit the crap we do today.

Re:Earth will resemble Venus????

[Decaff]

The appearance of this pheonmenon has stabilized the climate on Earth, and the process IS reversible.

No its not. You would have to kill off all photosynthesis. Photosynthesis was at first nothing at all to do with multi-cellular organisms - it was blue-green algae (bacteria). Some of these can live in close-to-boiling water. Even if the whole damn ocean was heated to 90 degrees C, you would still get carbon fixing and oxygen production. Certain photosynthetic bacteria would consider this to be ideal conditions.

The carbon that has been slowly but steadily captured and stored away (in the form of coal and mineral oil) is now bein quickly and steadily released into the atmosphere.

Yes, and we should stop this, but in terms of pollution its absolutely nothing compared to what was pumped out into the atmosphere by the lava flows of the Deccan Traps and the vaporisation of sulphur-containing strata by the
Chicxulub meteor 65 million years ago. The sky went dark for years, the seas were acidified, and (note this) virtually all phytoplankton died. What happened? Was this an irreversible disaster? No, of course not. Rich and complex life survived and adapted.

Arrogant is rather the attitude that we can do whatever we want to the place where we live, with disregard to it's other inhabitants and, duh, with disregard to our children and their children, who will inherit the crap we do today.

I totally agree with you. I think we should do everything we can to help prevent global warming and cut pollution. But misleading scare stories about 'Earth like Venus' don't help, in my view.

Re:Earth will resemble Venus????

[haggar]

Photosynthesis was at first nothing at all to do with multi-cellular organisms - it was blue-green algae (bacteria).
Indeed, what I stated that multicellular life was enabled by the lowering of temperature, due to these organisms you mention.

Some of these can live in close-to-boiling water.
Do you mean that such cyanobacteria (the "ruggedized" type) still exists? Genuine quiestion here.

I tend to drop this arguing, as, in my mind, it's irrelevant whether we completely wipe out life or just most of the living species that exist today. Either way, the process that leads there will suck, and we agree on that. And to be honest, that's what matters most to me.

(but if the Earth turns out to be like Venus, I'll be promptly contacting you with a "I told you so!" :o))))

Re:Earth will resemble Venus????

[Decaff]

Do you mean that such cyanobacteria (the "ruggedized" type) still exists? Genuine quiestion here.

Absolutely - they exist as colourful slime in hot springs, especially in Yellowstone National Park.

There is even a species of fly that lays eggs in some of these hot springs, and its larvae live in what is basically a warm sulphuric acid solution, and eat some of the algae.

(but if the Earth turns out to be like Venus, I'll be promptly contacting you with a "I told you so!" :o))))

Heh, OK.

Re:Earth will resemble Venus????

[SEWilco]

You mentioned effects that would cause negative feedback, but unfortunately the greeat majority of scientists agree that the positive feedback seems to be more significant.

A number of studies which show increasing temperatures are based on strong positive feedbacks. Just because you hear about those studies a lot does not mean that a majority of scientists agree with them, nor does it mean that the real world is like that.

Also when reading a study which involves feedbacks, you should examine what is being studied. If behavior of known processes is being studied, feedback loops will have factors which are measurable in a laboratory.

Such studies can not be compared to the real world because there are many unknown factors, so often some magic processes are added which produce realistic results. These magic processes do not explain what is unknown, but their values help estimate the significance of the unknown factors: if the magic values must be 10 times your known factors you can suspect something major is missing. The magic values do have problems, such as not knowing and dealing with several unknown factors which vary a lot but happen to have a stable average. A study designed to find magic numbers which produce realistic results is useful in designing such simulations, but might not be useful for forecasting. A study which is intended for forecasting should be labeled as such.

Another problem is if a study is examining how significant changes in factors might be, then things such as feedbacks are altered simply to see the effects. Such a study has uses such as in examining the mathematics, but may not be reliable for forecasting. A weather man can examine what might happen to today's thunderstorm if it hits the jet stream, but that might not be useful as a forecast (for example, if it is known that the jet stream happens to be far away today).

Yet another variation is when a suspected effect is the starting point: "What might have caused drying of the Sahara?" or "What might cause rainfall over the Sahara to increase ten times and happen at least three times a month?" The factors might then get drastic adjustments in order to get the desired result. But this is not a forecast, as what is being studied are the adjustments.

Life as we know it

[Decaff]

Well... as people survive in both desert and arctic conditions, massive climate change certainly won't mean the end of humankind.

Maybe we should define "life as we know it" as "lifestyle as we know it"......

Thank God no ones...

[Anonymous Coward]

patented "THC" otherwise there would be someone trying to sue them :)
I actually think I coined the phrase, but I am presently searching for evidence of its existance from before my time. i.e. my dads stash.

Climate Prediction...

[KingRobot]

I'm rather surprised no one has pointed this out yet, but doesn't it seem just a little odd they expect to be able to predict the climate in 50 years.... ... when they can't even predict tomorrow's weather properly yet?

The can't predict next week's weather accurately..

[Banner]

So I'm supposed to believe that they got it right for 50 years from now?

Oh please...

And I thought that the 'flash freezes' had been already explained away by extreme volcanic eruptions in the area? (As were seen on one of Jupiter's moons)

Moderators on THC

[Anonymous Coward]

That crap was considered "insightful" by idiots moderating today? There was nothing of sorts -- the person writing the drivel could actually have studied articles that actual real life scientist (climatologist etc) have written about the subject. They include extensive set of data, WRT Co2 concentrations amongst other things. And thermometers have been with us for well over 100 years; oldest archives are from 1800s, not from early 1900s. And these are but first obvious mistakes in the post.

All in all, ignorant "how about aliens heat our planet" nonsense. I know I'm feeding a troll, but it's frustrating when people claim feces smells like roses.

Re:Moderators on THC

[SEWilco]

My parent article had rhetorical questions related to the grandparent article. Some real science should be used as a source rather than echoing an activism industry pamphlet.

Personally, I have read quite a few scientific climate studies as well as quite a few unscientific ones. I am quite aware of CO2 measurements (off the top of my head I know there are several referenced in the TAR - IPCC.ch, and Mauna Loa is a major site), and my rhetorical question was about the major greenhouse gas, which is not CO2. Reliable temperature records are considered to have begun around 1850, which is not long enough in climate timescales, thus the numerous efforts to use temperature proxies.

The day after tommorrow

[Applepuppy]

This movie, "The day after tommorrow" is too hard to remember / say. Why didnt they just call the movie "Two days from now"?

I laughed, I cried, I kissed $12.772 bucks goodbye

[dexter riley]

I ran "The Day After Tomorrow" simulation on my PC. According to the simulation, the movie will be number 1 at the box office for 1.0012 weeks, with a 99.7% chance of being knocked off by the new "Harry Potter" movie.

There's also a 37.1% chance that the previews are better than the movie itself, and a 89.9% chance that the guy at the concession stand didn't wash his hands after using the bathroom.

THC slowdown is due to reduced intake!

[Anonymous Coward]

Immediately I understood this phenomena.... and had to share it with y'all....

If I stop smoking weed for a few hours, I mean, I feel this really strong THC slowdown man .....

I want my THC

[GrassyNoel]

I thought THC slowdown was the result of smoking too much wacky baccy.