Slashdot Mirror
2005 Was the Hottest Year on Record
Gulthek writes "As predicted, 2005 was the hottest year since accurate temperature recording began in the late 1800s.
This news is all the more interesting because 2005 was not an "El Niño" year like 1998, the previous record holder."
and continue to pollute?
Conservatism: The fear that somewhere, somehow, someone you think is your inferior is being treated as your equal.
This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone... we're obviously dealing with the direct effects of global warming that have been talked about forever. Over the past few years, we've had more severe weather (hurricanes), higher average temperature, melting ice (Ross ice shelf). Perhaps the most telling sign is the slump in SUV sales (Ford cuts jobs)... are people finally getting the point? I hope so!
stuff |
I am sure the Russians wish a little global warming would go their way considering they have reached record lows as of late.
Scientists didn't know, so they got more data and analysed the data they had
more carefully so that they got closer to knowing. While a few "respected scientists" can be found to hold out against just about anything,
virtually any competent authority will now agree that there is accelerating warming over the last 100-200 years
which does not look like part of any of the cycles we can see in the climatic record.
This srticle is not old. Journals would not publish it if there were. There is new data, and more careful analysis, and yes, it still supports the view that anomalous warming is occurring.
Those who are "hardcore" about not believing in Global Warming will continue to do so long after Manhattan is underwater. (They'll say "it's part of a natural cycle! Nothing we did!")
With spending like this, exactly what are "conservatives" conserving?
Seriously, take the time to do some real reading.
Are you a troll or just ignorant (I bet the former)? Global warming does have the word warm in it, but the idea is not that everywhere is going to get hotter; weather is going to get weird. That kind of weather is not normal in that part of India - it adds to the picture of the global climate in crisis, not detracts from it.
"There is no time, sir, at which ties do not matter," Jeeves, (Jeeves and the Impending Doom)
Also, even more than temperature averages, I'd like to see what the standard deviation of temperatures over history is, and how we compare to that. That is the real measure of what's going on, not if we're "higher than average" or whatever.
Of course, I don't at all think that the climate isn't changing, and I don't think that human activity doesn't affect it. I think, though, panic or zealotry is not an appropriate response to the change. I don't even think huge global programs are the proper response: I think the correct thing is a proper response from everyone on the smallest level possible and the large problems will sort themselves out.
Remember, the problem isn't so much the change in temperature, but the resulting change in geographic distribution of certain things like arable land, habitable land, disease, etc. Basically we will need some combination of migration, new construction, etc. to mitigate the changing environment. I don't think any one of those things is necessarily bad. The problem is, humans typically don't handle change well and will just end up fighting each other.
"There are a dozen opinions on a matter until you know the truth. Then there is only one." - CS Lewis (paraprhase)
Melting at an unstoppable rate? Change very rapidly into something uninhabitable? Exaggerate much?
The planet's climate has shifted drastically over the course of time without our interference. While there's no question the greenhouse effect is something we'd be better off without, there's no way to isolate its effect or assert conclusively we'd be immune from climactic changes if it had never happened. There are a handful of events which could conclude in our extinction; melting permafrost is far down on the list of things to worry about.
After reading this poster's tag-line I did wonder, but then I re-read what he's saying and it does seem he wants this comment taken at face value.
Is it possible that he could have overlooked that climate change in our planet's history did not involve quite the same situation as we have today with the human levels of interference in the natural eco-systems ?
Leaving aside the tendency for the media to over-state, over-dramatise and over-simplify all issues surely when large numbers of far more sobre, intelligent and conscientious members of the global scientific community consider a problem is serious enough for research, debate and recommendations for global action, surely we should listen to them ?
Perhaps the poster has already studied the scientific data and drawn his own conclusions but since science is built on small advances in knowledge (with occasional larger ones) it is surely naive to totally dismiss a field of study that is still so active ?
I could hazard a guess that the poster is from the US, which would be based on a suspicion that information circulating in mainstream media in that part of the world might be unduly influenced by interested parties in energy or government, but I don't want to personalise this in any way. I just think it is naive, dangerous and frankly irresponsible to dismiss this debate while we're still collecting scientific data
At the same time, the fact that many people can use absolutely any piece of climatological data (like record cold, as you just did) to point to global warming doesn't really help the case.
Anthropogenic Climate Change is an accepted truth.
... are modifying the concentration of atmospheric constituents ... that absorb or scatter radiant energy. ... [M]ost of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations"
/. is probably going to become very heated with lots of trolls like yours. There is not a debate in scientific circles.
reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Created in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environmental Programme, IPCC's purpose is to evaluate the state of climate science as a basis for informed policy action, primarily on the basis of peer-reviewed and published scientific literature (3). In its most recent assessment, IPCC states unequivocally that the consensus of scientific opinion is that Earth's climate is being affected by human activities: "Human activities
It may delight you to try and slander those who accept ACC as valid. Hell, this "debate" on
The ID "situation" on the other hand, is not a debate either. In both cases, the Theocratic and Plutocratic right are sowing FUD to influence the masses and solidify their positions. This idea is probably far outside your worldview, and will cause you to deride and mock me. Im no longer willing to expend the energy to try and convince "your type" nor am I going to apologize for not using language that coddles you.
Here are two facts:
There is no God. Sorry, you'll have to accept death.
Humanity is changing the atmosphere and climate. Sorry, you'll have to accept your actions.
Now, bring on the wacky lunatic insults.
That's true, but if the overall average weather isn't changing, we should also expect new records to become increasingly rare with time, and the frequency of record cold years to be about the same as the frequency of record hot years.
I remember the coldest years of the century back in the 1970s. Record low temps, record snowfall. No wonder it was so easy back then to agree with the idea of Global Cooling.
I just wish there would be more science in the discussion rather than "Global Warming is happening, we need to act NOW!!!"
I am defenseless. Use your button. Mod me down with all of your hatred.
The problem (mostly sulfur in fossil fuels) was reduced significantly, either by removing the stuff in the first place (for example from gasoline), or by using appropriate filters (in coal-fired power plants, for example).
Guess what: The same thing happened to other "scares", like the lead scare. These problems can be reduced or eliminated, after people stop ignoring them.
I just think it is naive, dangerous and frankly irresponsible to dismiss this debate while we're still collecting scientific data.
I agree with your comment. The problem here is that the side that says global warming is real and is caused by mankind's actions state that it is a fact that mankind caused it. They don't need any more data. Anyone who says we're not sure that it is caused by mankind are tagged as flamebait or trolls. The sun is at the height of a twenty year cycle. Data has shown that Mars is also experiencing global warming. The Earth has undergone normal rises and falls in global temperatures throughout history. No, we shouldn't dismiss global warming as not real or as not caused by man. We also shouldn't say that we know for a fact that it IS caused by man. We don't know. My own opinion on this is that Yes, global warming is happening. I also believe that it is a natural phenomenon wherein man plays a very minor role. I believe that there is nothing mankind can do to stop it but I believe it will reverse itself on a relatively short (on a geologic scale) period of time. Those who can't adapt to the changing world will die off. Those who can will thrive. Evolution in action.
Two things to note. One is my use of "I believe". I could be wrong. It seems most people out there on both sides refuse to use "I believe". They act as if their side knows all the facts on the matter. They don't. Second, queue all those people saying "Data shows the temperature is increasing more rapidly than at any time in history." My only reply is just how accurate are your temperature readings in the past? I'd bet no where near as accurate as those currently in use. Can you PROVE that there wasn't a 200-year blip with a fast increase in temperatures over 40,000 (or millions of) years ago?
But why is the rum gone?
I'm not so sure I would call the Goddard Institute for Space Sciences a liberal media source. Unless of course you think that ALL media except Fox News is liberal, Fox is moderate, and only a handful of fringe blogs are actually conservative.
= TSA&date=20060124205219
.DISCUSSION...
You point out the problem in your own statement, you are using just three sampling points. Where I live (Fayetteville, AR), if the forecast for the remainder of the month holds up, this will end up being the warmest January ever recorded. This same trend applies to most of Arkansas, Oklahoma, and north Texas (see source). Again, a very small sample of the world's climate, but a demonstration that at least some places in the world ARE getting warmer. Still though, this sort of science doesn't look at extremes like this, it looks at the average temps for huge numbers of places. Show me a scientific article that uses actual data to say that 2005 was the coldest year on record (for the Earth, not a localized place) and I'll take a look at it. The only sources that I've seen say anything like that at all are just journalists take on something, not an actual article with data to back them up.
http://www.srh.noaa.gov/printable.php?pil=AFD&sid
FXUS64 KTSA 242052
AFDTSA
AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE TULSA OK
252 PM CST TUE JAN 24 2006
TRULY AN INCREDIBLE MID WINTER DAY. 100
PERCENT SUN...LIGHT WIND...TEMPERATURES
IN THE LOW AND MID 60S. FORECAST TEMPS
THROUGH JAN 31ST...ADDED TO PREVIOUS 24
DAYS THIS MONTH..SET AN ALL TIME RECORD
FOR WARMEST JANUARY ON RECORD IN TULSA.
(THAT COMES WITH THE MEP GUARANTEE).
The worst story I have heard about global warming was on NPR and some research group claimed that we are past the point of no return meaning that it doesn't matter what we do at this point, the permafrost is melting at an unstoppable rate and our world is going to change very rapidly into something uninhabitable.
This is just fear mongering. The world might very well have shifted its weather equilibrium. We might see some drastic weather changes. Populations might be displaced and poor nations might experience famines and other natural disasters. Is the world going to become "uninhabitable"? No.
Nature doesn't give a shit what we do. We don't have it in our capacity to make this world uninhabitable. Even if we put our entire collective effort into killing every last creature alive, we would fail. Nature is far too resilient and our powers are far too minuscule to do anything more then weed out the least adaptable species in the most fragile environments. Yes, we might have it in our power to kill off all the cute Koalas. We don't have the power to kill off all the cockroaches, rats, rabbits, or begin to even make a dent in most insect populations. We would kill off ourselves long before killing them.
Outside of pseudo religious environmentalism, we worry about global warming for the effects it has on humanity. Global warming can not kludge the Earth into a position where it is no longer habitable for humans. Even in our most primitive hunter and gatherer state, we are too adaptable and able to handle to wide of a range of temperatures and climates. Throw technology into the mix, and the thought of exterminating humans through global warming is laughable.
The real danger of global warming are the economic dangers, especially economic dangers that can translate directly into lost lives. When the climate suddenly shifts over a poor African nation, people die. They can't change their farming techniques quick enough. Environmental problems compound to give deforestation and soil erosion. Natural disasters can kill in the hundreds of thousands when ravaging an area with poor building, poor warning systems, and few resources to pick up the pieces.
First world nations should worry about global warming if for no other then reason then the selfish reason that they are expensive. Katrinas can't make a dent in the population by killing people. They are however very costly to pick up afterwards. They force us to build more weather resistant structures which in turn cost more. Farmers are forced to change what they grow in an potentially expensive proposition. First world nations are not going to starve, but they are going to feel more then an economic prick if the climate changes drastically. Perhaps even more worrisome for first world nations is the economic and political instability that can spread in the poorer nations of the world. The world doesn't need more dictators, suicidal religious fanatics, and other such monstrosities, but the political and economic stability that climate change can bring is a perfect spawning grown for such dangers.
My point? People need to take climate change seriously without frothing at the mouth and declaring humanity doomed. Humanity isn't doomed, but it does have challenges facing it. While failure to meet these challenges might not spell doom, they can spell lost life and server economic consequences. We need to look at climate change with a calm and objective view of the real dangers and risks.
Well, there might be some kind of very long cycle we are unaware of, but we do have a pretty good map of global temperature variations for most of the last million years (from antarctic ice cores) and it doesn't show anything like this as part of any of the natural cycles that show up in it.
It may be cheaper to reduce the speed or extent of climate change than to let it happen and adapt to it.
The Earth's climate is a chaotic system that strives to achieve balance. Continually modifying the atmosphere so that it has properties that cause it to hold more heat means that as balance is being achieved, things will likely be out of sync. Record highs in cold places and record lows in warm places makes so much more sense when thinking about it that way. As does record number of hurricanes.
Energy is neither created nor destroyed. By modifying the atmosphere to hold more heat, it HAS to go somewhere. Will it cause an 80 degree day in Siberia in the dead of winter or cause a record number of hurricanes in the gulf? Nobody knows, but as more and more heat gets added to the equation, you can bet that the AVERAGE temperature will indeed go up as we see it doing.
Shall we devote our resources to stopping that ?
The answer is, of course not.
Energy waste is bad for one simple reason, it is wasteful.
Let's devote our energy to reducing energy waste. Let's tighten up the efficiency regulations of automobiles so that SUV's aren't a 'loop-hole' (http://www.cfif.org/htdocs/freedomline/current/gu est_commentary/lynch-cafe-standard-insanity.htm) in the CAFE standards. Let's stop producing so much light pollution (url:httpwwwdarkskyorg>)that I can no longer make out the Milky Way from my back garden in a surburb of a small mid-western city . Let's insist that fuck-brains who choose to buy Harley Davidson motorcycles aren't buying them because they make A LOT OF NOISE (http://www.noisefree.org/motorcycles/loudpipes.ht ml), and really only want to look macho http://www.havasy.net/images/bike/chapsleather01_t humbnail.jpg!
Call me a skeptic, it doesn't bother me.
I'm open to believing in _human caused_ global warming. But I want to see what the year to year output of the Sun has been.
Remember that story last year about the ice caps on Mars shrinking? It was on slashdot. Output from stars is not static.
Just humor me before we start pronouncing doom and gloom.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
I was wondering how long it would take someone to confuse the issue with ozone holes, and it only took the first post.
Even if you're kidding, there are still too many knumbnills out there that think the ozone layer depletion from CFC use is contributing to global warming, when it's a buildup of greenhouse gasses that does it.
Ozone depletion is a different atmospheric problem, people.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Eh? Most of the respected scientists and rational thinkers do believe that there is climate change being caused by human activity. I mean, it's logical. How do you pump billions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere - without causing some atmospheric effects?
The religious thinkers and propagandists are the ones who say we shouldn't be thinking about this. Usually they are driven by massive money interests, like the oil companies. It's hard to find someone who doesn't take climate change seriously who is not a shill or misinformed.
... and then they built the supercollider.
A few points that are always ignored by the global warming will kill us all crowd:
There are abnormal patterns in today's patterns (not a single one of which has never been recorded before, I might add) and this causes lots and lots of people to suddenly know and understand exactly what the cause is, and who to blame. India is getting abnormally cold temperatures - as CNN puts it, the current temperatures are the coldest in 70 years. If, as you claim, today's really cold temperatures are the blame of "global warming", then what caused the cold temperatures 70 years ago? Or are the climate boogeymen SO horrible that they are setting up kind of a resonant wave of evil that travels back in time and makes the land of the elephants go brrrr?
If greenhouse gas and ONLY greenhouse gas causes India to go brrrrr, what caused the cold snap 70 years ago? If something ELSE caused the cold back then, then how do you KNOW that the same mechanism (which has yet to be identified other than 'sometimes weather does stuff') isn't doing it again today?
The global warming crowd warns that Europe is going to get cold because (and ONLY because) of the greenhouse gasses, yet can't explain all of those old paintings of ice skaters.
Weather fluxuates. Always has. Always will. To claim that every -previous- shift in climate was completely natural but THIS one is caused by humans... well, I'm probably just wasting my breath.
If the g'vt kept the data on you that google does you'd better believe you'd be calling it "doing evil"
While there among researchers, that has spent years working in the field, are close to a consensus on the existence of global warming and the man made causes of it, the supreme slashdoters can without reading any peer reviewed journals on the subject at all, judge the results as bogus, the data as flawed and the hypotheses as false.
Rather like Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis' attitude towards the impeccable peer-reviewed wisdom of his time? Science is no different than any other human endeavor - it's subject to the human failing of pride too.
The facts seem pretty clear to me:
1. We know CO2 levels are rising (and we know human activities add CO2 to the atmosphere)
2. We know CO2 is a greenhouse gas. (However, water vapor is actually the number one greenhouse gas, followed by CO2.)
3. We know the greenhouse effect warms our planet. (Without it the average temperature would be -18C http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_Effect)
So how can we not be concerned about global warming? You may be able to argue that the effects won't be that bad or that humans simply aren't creating enough CO2 to cause problems (not sure if I'd agree with you on either point) but it just doesn't seem logical to assert we're having no affect on the environment.
Climate change is so much fun to argue about, because people have already concluded everything, so now they just look to support their positions. Anything contradictory is greeted in Pee Wee Herman fashion - fingers in ears, screaming "La la la" over and over.
I have no point, though. I'll post this just to add to the noise.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
What about providing a source for the insight that "among researchers, that has spent years working in the field, are close to a consensus on the existence of global warming and the man made causes of it"?
> So even though the average temp is increasing, the amplitude is increasing even faster.
Global warming ==> more thermal energy in the atmosphere ==> more stuff like that.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Weather fluxuates. Always has. Always will. To claim that every -previous- shift in climate was completely natural but THIS one is caused by humans...
Atmospheric composition fluctuates, too. Always has, and always will (a lot of it has to do with continental drift, for one). But claiming that every previous shift in CO2 levels is natural, but this one is anthropogenic... makes sense. The spike occurs within the period of anthropogenic CO2 emissions. The amount is consistent with levels of human CO2 production. If you look at ice core data, the last 150 years isn't just an anomaly. It's off the charts. By a lot. (And yes, CO2 levels have been higher in the past, but unless continents have been moving around half the planet while I wasn't looking, that probably isn't the problem).
So now we know we've got an anthropogenic CO2 spike. And now we're seeing a temperature spike. We've got a theory which connects CO2 to temperature which is really, really well founded (by many, many years of agriculture). Unless someone is proposing a theory which explains the temperature spike via other methods while simultaneously explaining why the CO2 spike doesn't cause it, and predicting something the other one doesn't, Occam's Razor says to choose the first one - it's simpler. One cause, two effects. Saying "it's natural fluctuations, that's simpler" isn't right because you're ignoring data - you have to explain why the CO2 rise isn't causing a temperature spike, while simultaneously a different process is.
It's simply bad science to claim that the climate change we're seeing isn't likely to be anthropogenic. Is it anthropogenic? I don't know. Could be that the Martians simply turned up their remote Earth thermostat. Got me. But until a better explanation comes along, this one's the most likely to be true.
Do we understand everything about climate? No. That doesn't mean that the intelligent course of action isn't prudence.
I don't know how I'm going to die, but that doesn't mean that I shouldn't exercise and eat healthy. I could still be hit by a car tomorrow, making all of my work pointless, but it was still the right action to take.
What's more, volcanos are one of the processes that set the natural equilibrium, while human emissions are a new component.
Comparing human emissions to volcanic emissions is not even the right question.
mt
It boggles my mind how absolutely wrong this discussion is. Please, take about 10 minutes to study global warming. You'll find these facts:
Carbon dioxide is one of the most important greenhouse gases.
Carbon dioxide has risen by about 30% it the last 100 years. This is caused by humans. 30% is substantial. The rise is accelerating (look up: Keeling curve).
Global temperatures are rising dramatically, in the order of 0.5 C in the last 20 years.
The northern icecap is melting and is expected to be gone this century. Glaciers are retreating.
Now, all of these things are FACTS which are not being disputed by anybody. Now there is a theory, called global warming, which connects all these facts in a quantitative way. The first calculation on this was done already in 1896 by Svante Arrhenius, and the predicted temperature rise has not changed significantly since then. WHY DO PEOPLE THINK WE NEED MORE INFORMATION BEFORE WE ACT?
There are reasons other than catastrophic global warming to reduce our pollution. Like having breathable air that does not cause children and the elderly to have respiratory difficulty. Or clean water that has fish that we can eat and water we can easily process into drinking water. It's also nice to go outside on a summer's night and hear frogs, rather than silence.
A collapsed ecosystem is a more near term and serious threat to civilization than theoretical global warming. Because it has been proven that pollution does impact the environment. And like it or not, there are many industries who are either directly or indirectly dependent on the quality of the environment. Ecological damage can and does have a serious economic impact.
Anytime we have a cold stamp the anti global warming people jump up and say "See this proves there is no global warming". Bad science on both sides. The problem is nobody has a definitive answer to the issue yet. But it's a political issue, and the impatience of the politically motivated has resulted in rushed science (or outright fabrications)
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
What's more, volcanos are one of the processes that set the natural equilibrium, while human emissions are a new component.
What makes volcanic emissions, which intermitently create global catastrophy, part of the "natural equilibrium"? What on Earth is the "natural equilibrium" anyway?
Of all the stupid red herrings in the global warming debate, the idea that there is any distinction between human and non-human sources of greenhouse gasses is the reddest. Terrestrial homeostatis does not care where the gasses are coming from. It only cares how much and on what timescale, and when it happens relative to various other semi-periodic phenomena. The claim that the current human emissions of greenhouses gasses are somehow out of range compared to past non-human greenhouse events is nothing but a transparent attempt to introduce an element of hysteria into a debate that already has far too much of it on both sides.
This claim about human emissions being somehow different from non-human ones seems to me to be an attempt to pre-empt all of the wacko arguments from the other side that deal with non-human greenhouse emmissions. I think a far better approach is to acknowledge all of those sources as important, and agree firmly with our opponents that such sources have been very important in the Earth's history. Then when we are all in agreement we can remind them that such non-human emissions are very strong candidates for a variety of extinction events and large climate swings
We know perfectly well that non-human greenhouse gas and other emissions have had dramatic effects on the Earth's climate. We know perfectly well that such events have had terrible economic consquences at times. Only a fool or a Republican--but I repeat myself--would deny these facts, and if we practice a little argumentative judo we can perhaps move past these red herrings and get to the meat of the debate, which is what we should do in the next few years and decades to respond to the current situation.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.