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Study Finds World Warmth Edging to Ancient Levels
Krishna Dagli writes to mention a decades-long study by NASA scientists. According to the research, global temperatures are reaching highs not seen in thousands of years. From the article: "One of the findings from this collaboration is that the Western Equatorial Pacific and Indian Oceans are now as warm as, or warmer than, at any prior time in the Holocene. The Holocene is the relatively warm period that has existed for almost 12,000 years, since the end of the last major ice age. The Western Pacific and Indian Oceans are important because, as these researchers show, temperature change there is indicative of global temperature change. Therefore, by inference, the world as a whole is now as warm as, or warmer than, at any time in the Holocene. According to Lea, 'The Western Pacific is important for another reason, too: it is a major source of heat for the world's oceans and for the global atmosphere.'"
If you haven't seen An Inconvenient Truth, yet, do try. Like Al Gore, it's a bit clunky, but there's a lot of truth in there and shouldn't be discounted just because you may not like the presenter.
My belief is, we'll keep right on going in this direction until we feel sufficient pain* to stop. Famine and flooding will certainly increase the likelihood of conflict. Darfur as depicted in the film was an eye opener, the severe drought which may be caused by warming now appears more likely the root of conflict as people scrabble for remaining water and land.
It may become the view that USA and Europe, have had it good long enough and they should cut down on emissions first. It will come to a head when cities like Shanghai are under water and each country is blaming the other for the fine mess things are in. Those who have dipped deepest and longest into the carbon fuels trough the will have an uncomfortable time of it.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temperature_record_of _the_past_1000_years#General_techniques
It probably took you longer to post that question than it took me to find that answer.
=Smidge=
The article only actually mentions climate change within the past million years. Measuring temperatures over ththis period is relatively easily done by measuring the makeup of dissolved gas within ice deposits from the period. The gas composition is affected by the temperature at the time the ice freezes so by compiling many samples an extremely accurate climate chart can be put together.
To some extent it is also possible to measure even longer trends of several millions years using a few methods which have varying degrees (haha) of accuracy. Studying the geological effects on rock (i.e. calculating sea level height by erosion caused on rocks which were on the surface at a known point in time) is one of the most common.
No, I'm just so disillusioned by society that I don't think anything is done honestly anymore.
Assuming you're right, that means you're probably lying since you're part of society. Assuming you're wrong, means you're mistaken. Thus, your opinion kind of defines itself as irrelevant, huh?
People who keep repeating that climate change is a conspiracy remind me of someone who has just been told they have a cancer and are in denial. WAKE UP! Ugh.
And another thing, how have we come to such a situation where these anti-evolutionist climate change deniers congregate to /.?
Not only do their numbers seem to be increasing, but I see people after all this time still engaging their mindless trolls!
This is the 21st century, we are a global society and as such I am personally confident that it is not a forgone conclusion that the human race is destined for a 'Bladerunner' future dystopia. However, the first step in avoiding such a fate is to acknowledge the true state of our reality. (...cue the trolls to say I'm somehow advocating the downfall of western civilization) ugh...
More data equals more confidence. If you dredge up thousands and thousands of ice cores, mud cores or what have you, take all the data and plot a histogram of it, you usually get a nice bell shaped curve. If you've got lots and lots and lots and lots of data, which these guys do, you can safely say that the middle of the bell curve is the mean of your data.
Of course, as you mention, there is a margin of error. However, by a happy chance of mathematics, the more data you get, the more confident you become that the temperature was within so many standard deviations of the mean. The bell curve won't change shape, in fact you want it to stay the same. And if it does, that means, on average, the temperature or whatever was in and around the mean value.
Basically if you get enough data, i.e. do enough experiments, you can tell the doubters to stick their unsubstanciated opinion where the maths don't shine.
May the Maths Be with you!
This is true... there have been hot periods and cold periods in Earth's past. However, what many of these new findings are suggesting is that the current rate of change exceeds what happened previously. It's that things are heating up *really fast* that is being blamed on human intervention. Further, TFA notes that we are reaching the warmest Holocene temperatures... and we're *not slowing down* yet. That's a bit frightening.
And whether any of this is due to human action or not is, to a large extent, irrelevant. If you're sitting around the house with some friends and one of them points out that the drapes in the living room just caught fire, you don't sit there and argue over whether they caught fire because of faulty electrical, errant ashes from the fireplace, or the cat knocking over a candle. You do what you can to put out the #$(*#& fire! If valid science is suggesting serious problems ahead because of global warming, let's stop arguing and do something, anything, to try and stop it.
http://www.grist.org/pdf/AbruptClimateChange2003.
"There is substantial evidence to indicate that significant global warming will occur during the 21st century. Because changes have been gradual so far, and are projected to be similarly gradual in the future, the effects of global warming have the potential to be manageable for most nations...
1) Food shortages due to decreases in net global agricultural production
2) Decreased availability and quality of fresh water in key regions due to shifted precipitation patters, causing more frequent floods and droughts
3) Disrupted access to energy supplies due to extensive sea ice and storminess
As global and local carrying capacities are reduced, tensions could mount around the world, leading to two fundamental strategies: defensive and offensive. Nations with the resources to do so may build virtual fortresses around their countries, preserving resources for themselves. Less fortunate nations especially those with ancient enmities with their neighbors, may initiate in struggles for access to food, clean water, or energy. Unlikely alliances could be formed as defense priorities shift and the goal is resources for survival rather than religion, ideology, or national honor.
This scenario poses new challenges for the United States, and suggests several steps to be taken:
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The worst part of global warming is the impact that climate change is having on sensitive species such as the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus. http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/ Get involved and help protect this rare species!
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Therefore, the idea that "I don't see an obvious motivation to lie, so why are y'all so skeptical?" is perilously useless.
Well, compare that to the opposite view (that climate change is not happening). Here there is a quite understandable incentive to lie, since many of the corporations whose use of fossil fuels is the alleged cause of climate change are extremely valuable funding sources.
Both groups make claims, more or less, to scientific credibility and objective truth: one is claiming X and the other not X. (I should say that many of the claims are only qualified support: "studies support X" rather than "X is true", etc.)
One then has to make a choice. One view, the absolutist one, is that no conclusions are trustworthy for the reasons you stated and I expanded on.
Another (potentially error-prone) approach requires making a choice and determining who is more likely to be correct. With this in mind, choosing the group that has the least motivation to lie (rather than no motivation) seems like a plausible strategy.
Scientists can lie just like anybody else. The key lies in the level of punishment that results from lying:
When a politician lies, they get elected. And *maybe* impeached later on. (Bill Clinton)
When a corporation lies, they lose a tiny fraction of the income generated by the lie. (Enron, Big Tobacco, Microsoft)
When a scientist lies, they get about a year or two before they're caught. At which point they lose all standing among fellow scientists, get barred from all reputable journals, and often lose their university/institute jobs.
Summarized: when a scientist gets caught in a lie, their life is over. When a corporation is caught in a lie, they lose a small part of their illegitimate gains. Who has more incentive to lie?
I don't actually believe there is any evidence of England's wine production threatening France. English wine has a long history, with the historical peak of English wine production occuring with the arrival of the wine loving Normans during the medieval warm period. The Domesday book, a census taken at that time, recorded 42 vineyards in England, all restricted to southern England, and mostly coastal southern England. It can hardly have been a threat to French wine production given that vast amounts of imported wine were available in England during that time. Wine production in England declined after that, possibly due to some climatic cooling, and possibly also due to changing cultural factors (such as an increasing taste for beer and ale), and was practically non-existent through to about the 19th century. Since then there have been various flirtations with wine growing in England, and a flowering since about 1950. There are currently far more vineyards in England than at any time in history, currently over 400 - about 10 times the number of medieval England - and extending further north than at any previous time. From this we can, at best, conclude that the medieval warm period was probably warmer than the 13th to 20th century, but then we knew that, and historical temperature reconstructions clearly show that anyway. If you're going to consider volume of production and location of vineyards as a good proxy data source for climate, however, then you would have to conclude, given the vastly increased volume and more northerly extent of modern wine production in England, that it is warmer today than it was in the medieval warm period - again, as historical temperature reconstructions show. And let's be honest, wine growing is hardly a clear sign of a warm climate in the area the wine is grown. Canada has a large wine industry, and there are even vineyards in Alaska!
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